Amy Lake (15 page)

* * * *

The remainder of the trip need not be detailed.  We stayed at the town of Newbury for the night, that place being well-known—as I read at some length to Lucy—for the two battles fought there between Charles I and the rebel forces of Parliament.

His Majesty commanding at both in person,
  I read to Lucy, which amazed us both.

The next morning we were under way at a good hour, and as the day wore on, and Bath came ever closer, I became truly nervous for the first time.

What was Aunt Sophie like?  Should I tell her the reasons for my removal from London?

The length of my stay in Bath had not been mentioned.  A month was not uncommon for such a visit in those days, and a month—so I thought—would be sufficient to convince the earl that I was quite serious about my refusal of a forced marriage.

I had thought no further.  ’Twould have to do, for now.

Chapter 26:  Bath

Coming from London, one enters Bath from the northeast, without yet crossing the river Avon.  We passed one broad avenue after another, and the houses seemed very fine, and yet the whole small and quaint compared to London.

I felt reassured, somehow.  How much trouble could one find in Bath?

Perry knew, of course, where my aunt’s house was located, and had given instructions to the coachman.  We proceeded without delay to an address, as I later learned, at Sydney Place, a pleasant terrace on the opposite side of the river from the central part of town.  ’Twas only late afternoon, and still light, and I am sure I was looking out of the windows of the coach as we approached, but I was so occupied in my own thoughts that I could not tell you a single thing about Sydney Place from what I observed that day; the details would have to come later.

What had I done? 

“Wait here, milady,” said Lucy, who was out the door in a trice the moment we came to a stop.  Sir Reginald, or Cassandra, had evidently given the maid instructions, and she marched up to the front door of the house without hesitation, with Perry at her side.  The door was opened—I could not see inside—and after a few minutes Lucy returned, smiling broadly.

“Your aunt bids you enter, milady,” said the maid.  “She’s ever so nice.”

And so I exited the coach—which in that moment seemed a safe refuge against the unknown—and met my Aunt Sophie, for the first time in some nine or ten years.

* * * *

She looks exactly the same, was my first thought.  I had the memories, of course, only of a ten year old girl, but Aunt Sophie seemed a decade younger than the earl, although she was indeed the elder of the two.  She was tall and slender as I, with hair only touched by grey.  Her clothing drew my attention for its informality, and I guessed—correctly, as it turned out—that she had been working in the garden.

“My dear Regina,” said Aunt Sophie, hugging me with a surprising strength.  “Welcome to Bath!”

I extricated myself and attempted to apologize for my letter, and my sudden arrival.

“Nonsense.  I’ve been expecting you for years, you know.”

I did not know.

“Well, let’s get you a bit of tea, what do you say?  Two days in a carriage is rather dreadful, I’m sure.”

* * * *

And so began my sojourn in Bath.  Lucy, Perry and the coachman were all conducted ‘downstairs’ for their own tea—there was no downstairs in Aunt Sophie’s house, really, but an area to the back with a snug kitchen and the cook’s quarters—and ’twas only later that I discovered this was for my benefit, to give me a bit of time alone with my aunt.  Her servants were accustomed to having tea wherever they liked, sometimes with their mistress and sometimes not.

Aunt Sophie showed me to a small parlour and then disappeared for several minutes, bidding me to take my ease.  I could not, of course, as any weariness from the journey was banished in the newness of the situation.  I looked around the parlour, my overall impression being of a house well-lived in and comfortable.  ’Twas faultlessly clean, but a jumble of knick-knacks and books covered every surface; I saw several volumes of Dryden’s poetry, for one, and a large tome which seemed, against all expectation, to be a text-book of medicine.  

“Here we are, here we are!”

Aunt Sophie had returned, carrying the tea service herself.  I hurried to assist her.

“Oh, no, Regina, I’m quite fine.”
We sat on the sofa and she poured tea into two cups of a design which I thought unusual. 

“They’re from Italy, my dear, aren’t they lovely?”

I murmured an assent and sipped the tea, bemused by the offered assortment of oddly shaped sweets and slices of bread.  I tried one of the smaller items, a plump biscuit of uncertain character, which was apparently stuffed with currant jam.

’Twas delicious.

My aunt and I had gone several minutes without speaking.  She seemed perfectly content with this, making good headway on the breads and greeting a series of large dogs of sundry breed who had pushed their way, without invitation, into the room.  Aunt Sophie introduced them, and I was amused to discover she had named each one after an ancient Greek playwright. 

“Aeschylus,  Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Lysimachus—”

Euripides, an enormous mastiff, was particularly friendly.  He padded over at the sound of his name and collapsed at my feet, drooling onto the carpet.  Aunt Sophie tossed a biscuit in his direction, and for one moment I tried to imagine the countess doing anything similar in the salon at Roselay.

The other animals gave me a careful sniff, all wagging amiably, and went to take their seat, as it were, by the fireplace. 

I had added nothing to the conversation as yet.  I was not usually tongue-tied, but the unusual nature of my situation was suddenly at the front of my mind, and I began to think sadly of all I had left behind in London, of my friends and entertainments, dances and—

Oh, stop it, I told myself.  You left behind a forced marriage to a man who does not love you.

I ate another biscuit, this time without currant, and I’m sure I would have managed a pleasantry very soon, when Aunt Sophie turned to me with a mild expression, and spoke.

“So, Regina,” said my aunt.  “What is this utterly
dreadful
pickle that you have gotten yourself into, in London?”

* * * *

Indeed.

I supposed I should have realized that my sudden interest in a visit to Bath had not fooled Aunt Sophie, and faced with that pair of intelligent blue eyes it never even occurred to me to dissemble.  I told her most everything, start to finish, drinking cup after cup of tea.  I did not leave out Freddie’s quest for the Duke of Wenrich’s daughter, nor my own arguments with Lord Davies.  I omitted only my innermost feelings for that gentleman, attempting to speak of him with reasonable dispassion.

“So, my brother has been an idiot,” said Aunt Sophie, when the story was finally complete.  “As usual.”

I laughed, in surprise.

“I’m sure he is only thinking of my best interests,” I said, but the commonplace sounded false in my own ears.

“I’m sure he thinks no such thing,” she replied, tartly.  “Dear Graham has only his own countenance in mind, from first to last.”

I’d never before heard my father referred to by his Christian name; for a confused moment I did not understand of whom she spoke.

“You’ve shown great fortitude, and I believe you’ve made your position clear,” said Aunt Sophie.  “So, then.  There is certainly to be no marriage with that upstart viscount.” 

Perhaps my face fell.  Perhaps she noticed it.  I am not sure.

* * * *

In one of my last conversations that day with Aunt Sophie, I discovered that she
had
received my letters, all those years ago, but chose not to reply. 

“Yes, I must apologize, Regina, it seemed best at the time.”

This was the only explanation given at the time; rather later I learned the rest.

Chapter 27: An Unexpected Household

“Miss?”

I did not wake up at my usual early hour that next morning.  I suppose it was exhaustion from the journey, or the result of a decision finally made and carried through.  Or perhaps it was the dream.

This time, perversely, I was not in Bath.  I was back in London, but the viscount was again at my side.  I leaned my head against his shoulder and his arm came around my waist. 
Talfryn
, I murmured, the name sounding strange in my own voice. 
Regina
, he said, very softly, and for several minutes we stood together, and it seemed we were both at peace.  Then he walked away.

Why does he always leave? I wondered, in the dream.

But I did not call him back.

“Miss?”

I am embarrassed to admit that I initially dismissed this voice as having nothing to do with me.  I am not used to being called ‘miss’.  In the earl’s domiciles it is always ‘milady’, and perhaps it was for that reason that the maid had so much difficulty in awakening me that morning, the first after my arrival at Sydney Place. 

“Miss?”

“Ah . . . yes?”

The bed was blissfully comfortable.  I turned over to see a young woman standing at my door with what appeared to be a cup of coffee.  Only when she sipped it did I realize—the coffee was not for me.  Aeschylus, nearly the largest of my aunt’s dogs, albeit of uncertain breed, bounded in.  Barking excitedly, he skittered on the floor and launched himself in my direction.  I sat up quickly. 

“Yes miss, Sophie says that breakfast will be done with if you don’t hurry.”

It took me a few moments before I understood, and Aeschylus regarded me impatiently. 

Sophie?  My aunt was a lady, the daughter of an earl as much as I.  But the few hours I had spent thus far in Bath suggested that my aunt’s home was not run along the same lines as Roselay, and I did not make the mistake of riding my high horse.

“Oh.  Yes.  Thank you . . . uh—”

“Janie, miss.”

“Thank you, Janie,” I said, and as soon as she closed the door—dragging Aeschylus out with her—I popped out of bed.  I dressed myself and nearly ran down the stairs.

* * * *

“Good morning,” said Aunt Sophie, waving a hand in my direction.

I blinked, looking around.  Janie was helping herself to eggs and meat of some kind from the sideboard.  And already gathered at the morning table were not only my aunt, but several other individuals—a young man and two women—whom I did not yet recognize, but who must also be servants.  Although they were not precisely dressed as such. 

“I believe you’ve already been introduced to Janie,” said Aunt Sophie.

I nodded.

“And this is Mrs Baxter, Regina,” said Aunt Sophie, introducing me to an older woman.

“Isn’t she a pretty thing?” said Mrs Baxter.  “I’m delighted to meet you, my dear.”

Who was Mrs Baxter?  I was at sea.  In my world introductions were performed according to a prescribed set of rules, which had just been overturned in my face.  These rules were some of the most rigid in the
ton
, which might seem odd, except that one’s first meeting with another person established
everything
.  Rank, precedence, address, ’twas all determined within a few words.  How did you form your first reply?  Did you curtsey, or were you curtseyed to?

No-one was curtseying here, that much was clear.

“I take care of the bedrooms and such,” said Mrs Baxter, cheerfully.  “Tried to do the cooking, you know, but—”

“No head for it at all,” said Janie, who was just sitting down. 

“Fortunately, Edward is a quick learner, and ever so good.”

“Indeed,” said a young man, and they all laughed.

Lucy and Perry were already on their way back to London in Sir Reginald’s carriage, Aunt Sophie told me.  I would miss them, as they had been the only faces familiar to me in all of Bath.

* * * *

I suppose I should stop this instant and say a few words about the household.  There were, indeed, servants in my aunt’s residence, and they performed the usual tasks.  These tasks, however, were rarely assigned by Aunt Sophie, but more often by the servants themselves, who—as it happened—had independent ideas of their station.  The whole was most extraordinary.  Households existed in London that ran on more liberal grounds than Roselay, to be sure—the Barre home was one of them—but I had never known of any like my aunt’s establishment.

The cook, for example, was a young man.

I cannot tell you how surprised I was to discover this.  Cooks were older females with rosy cheeks from the warmth of the kitchen; usually a bit plump, in which case they smiled widely and gave one scones and bits of left over pie crust dusted with sugar and cinnamon, or—for one unfortunate season at Roselay—thin and pinched, in which case they did not smile, and shooed one away with floured hands. 

Edward Baxter—Mrs Baxter’s son—was neither plump nor thin and pinched.  He was tall, and rather handsome, and Janie had a
tendre
for him, which meant that she could on all occasions be relied upon to fetch one tea and biscuits.  He was also an excellent cook, if you discounted his tendency to make pastry in odd shapes, and his absolute refusal to serve mutton.

Which was all for the better, as far as I was concerned.

Mrs Baxter herself might have been called the housekeeper, although she was not the imperious individual of my experience, someone who kept the other servants in line with the help of the butler, a personage Aunt Sophie admittedly did not have.  Whoever was closest to the door opened it, when a knock came, and occasionally one heard cries of “Alice, be a dear and get that, would you?” or “Sophie!  It’s Edwina!” echoing throughout the halls. 

What Mrs Baxter really did, and fairly well, was to organize Aunt Sophie.  My aunt was forever losing a book, or her glasses, or an important letter in some out-of-the way corner of the house.  Mrs Baxter found them all.  She also could be relied upon to pay each tradesman, and on time, and I cannot tell you how endearing I found it.

Alice was the other maid, of sorts.  She and Janie cleaned and fetched and made themselves useful.  Usually.  Heavier work was done by Stephen and William, two young men who lived in town and came by when needed.