Cousin Cecilia (8 page)

“That one won’t see her table,” Cecilia said, when a mongrel grabbed one in its jaws and ran off. Lord Wickham entered the cobbler’s shop and came out with a long box.

“He is buying a new pair of top boots,” Mrs. Meacham conjectured. Cecilia was more interested to notice that he had good reason to drive his phaeton. It wasn’t deference to his call on her that caused it.

Their conversation was broken off by the entrance of the girls, back from the vicarage, and eager to hear all about Wickham’s visit. They had news of their own to relate as well. Andy Sproule had been at the vicarage. He had seen the Spanish dancer again and was looking forward to the new performer slated for that evening. The gentlemen, including Lord Wickham, planned to return to Jack Duck’s again that night. Any good Wickham’s visit had done was undone by this disclosure.

“We shall send out the invitations for our rout next Saturday evening,” Cecilia said, to keep their spirits up. Her own mood was one of grim determination.

It seemed no less than treachery that Wickham had come to see her, buttering up Mrs. Meacham and slyly arranging to return the next day. Why had he done it? The answer was clear to a six-year-old. He wanted to enjoy a ‘trifling’ friendship with her, and that would require her hostess’s cooperation. He was deceiving Mrs. Meacham into thinking his intentions were honorable, but between themselves, she was to understand it was not to be taken seriously.

Such conniving was hardly a new thing in the world. But it annoyed Cecilia that her best efforts, and she had put forth at least a very good effort, had produced so little effect. Wickham should be a little smitten with her by now. He was a cold, heartless man. She would not make any effort to hand him to Martha. That poor innocent lamb would be torn to shreds by him. He had very likely driven his wife to fleeing. He must be stopped, before he ruined Dallan and Wideman and Sproule. This case was proving to be her most difficult yet. It was because she had three young couples to manage, she told herself. But she knew it was not so. The spoke in her wheel was always Lord Wickham.

Chapter Seven

Once Lord Wickham’s visit was over, Saturday was but an indifferent day, and the evening was dismal. The knowledge that the gentlemen were enjoying themselves at Jack Duck’s did nothing to dissipate the gloom. Cecilia spoke bracingly of next Saturday, but no one save herself felt any certainty that next Saturday would be any better than this one.

There was a feeling afoot, not actually stated but inferred, that Cecilia was making more progress in securing a suitor for herself than for her cousins.
She
would be riding with Lord Wickham tomorrow, but if they so much as got walked home from church by their beaux it would be a wonder.

“You forget,” Cecilia pointed out, “tomorrow afternoon Lord Wickham will not be leading your fellows astray. If their customary pastime is to traipse about after him, they will be at loose ends. I cannot believe Wickham means to bring such a retinue on our ride.”

This gave sufficient encouragement that Mrs. Meacham sent out for a green goose, to be prepared in case of company.

Cecilia said, “You will be seeing the gentlemen at church tomorrow, I trust?” This was confirmed.

“Then you must encourage them to escort you home.”

“Henley does bring me home—when he is there, I mean,” Martha said, with an air of complaisance.

“Kind of him,” Cecilia replied, trying to control a sneer. “As he is a fan of Wickham’s, be sure to tell him that Wickham will be calling for me later in the day. If you can convince him I meant no slur on his tailoring, that might induce him to remain.”

“He will very likely stay if Lord Wickham is coming. Nothing is more likely to make him stay,” Martha said.

For the remainder of the evening they discussed arrangements for next Saturday’s rout. There were to be ten couples in all, and six sets of parents. Enough to allow dancing and cards respectively. Melancholy was kept at bay by this planning, and at eleven they retired.

At church on Sunday there was a surprise in store for the village. Who should go striding down the aisle to his family pew but Lord Wickham. Every head in the place turned, and every eye stared, as though he had been a tiger on the loose. It occurred to Cecilia that his coming might have something to do with herself, but really attending church was not necessary to lend their flirtation an air of respectability.

Soon her mind wandered down a different path. The Abbey was five miles from Laycombe. If he meant to call for her at three, he would have to move quickly to get home, take lunch, change, and return to the village. This was putting himself to more bother than merely dropping in while he was making a call to his solicitor!

A chat with Kate Daugherty after the service enlightened Cecilia as to how matters really stood. Lord Wickham had met her papa yesterday in the village. The vicar had done some strong hinting for a new organ, and Wickham had promised to attend a service to judge for himself whether one was required. The Daughertys had invited Wickham to take his mutton with them. He had brought his riding clothes with him and would call on Cecilia after lunch, bringing Lady with him.

While the ladies stood chatting together outside the old stone church, their gentlemen came up to join them, one by one. First came Sproule, a tall, thin, tow-haired young man. His interest in Mohammadanism never kept him from church. His own brother was in Holy Orders, and his whole family was religious. Next came Wideman. Dallan hung back a moment, perhaps because Miss Cummings was of the group. But when Lord Wickham headed toward the same party, he fell in with him and they came together to give their greetings.

Dallan bowed stiffly to Cecilia and said, “Good morning, ma’am,” with only the remnants of a sneer.

The sneer soon faded when Wickham said to her, “A fine day for our ride, Miss Cummings.” Dallan looked nonplussed, and turned aside to speak to Martha. He was soon complimenting Cecilia on her bonnet in a much warmer tone, and when she returned a compliment on his jacket, he began to find her a pretty good sort of woman.

“Daresay Stultz made my jacket a trifle tight about the waist,” he admitted to Martha. “Mama can let it out.”

A regular caravan set out for Meacham’s house three blocks away. Sally Gardener took the ill-advised idea of trying to crash the charmed circle, but Mrs. Meacham diverted her to warn her she had best get a good grip on her reticule, in case she should drop it. This jibe was softened by an offer of a drive home, which Mrs. Gardener accepted on behalf of herself and her daughter. At Meacham’s, the group divided, with Sproule, Kate, and Wickham continuing to the vicarage. They would all return after lunch.

Dallan and Wideman accepted an offer to remain to lunch with the Meachams, and as Wickham was lost to them for a few hours, they arranged to drive out with the girls. Sproule and Kate, they were sure, would want to be of the party as well. They would all drive halfway to Tunbridge Wells and back. It sounded a flat enough outing to Cecilia, but her cousins considered it a treat of the highest order. There was much dashing talk between the gentlemen of their bits o’ blood, sixteen miles an hour, and a mention of a race which would likely come to nothing, but made them feel bang up to the mark in front of Cecilia, whom Dallan now permitted to be top o’ the trees.

They could not set out till Wickham had come, but as he did no more than stand at the door bowing and offering Cecilia his arm, they were soon off on their jaunt halfway to Tunbridge Wells. Mrs. Meacham whispered aside to Cecilia that she must feel free to invite Wickham back to dinner if she wished. Cecilia decided to wait till they had returned and see if the others were remaining.

Lady was a frisky, silk-mouthed filly. As there was no mounting post, Wickham had to lift her into the saddle. It was a lady’s saddle, brown with blue trim. She wondered if it had belonged to his wife. “You were to alert me to her tricks,” Cecilia reminded him.

She made a pretty picture, looking down on him from the horse’s back, with the sun lighting her youthful face. There was health as well as beauty in her countenance and a general air of charm in her fashionable outfit. A feeling of well-being came over him, as if life might be worth living after all. Some elemental emotion had already assaulted him when he sat in the old stone church, where he had sat so many times in happier days. But that had been more nostalgic. Out in sunny nature with a pretty young escort, it felt like a new beginning. He must tread softly or he’d find himself in danger. “You must know a lady uses no tricks, ma’am,” he replied lightly.

“You leave me to deduce that a gentleman does, then, as your pretext for escorting me on my first ride was to introduce me to Lady’s quirks.”

“Ah, a gentleman, that is another matter. We are all full of tricks,” he laughed. “That is a very becoming riding habit, by the by,” he added, skimming his eyes over her lithe body, that sat with natural grace on horseback.

“Thank you. Am I to assume flattery is one of the tricks I must be on guard against?”

“An Incomparable—do they still use the word?” She nodded. “An Incomparable like yourself must have received enough compliments and flattery to distinguish between them. You notice I did not compliment your bonnet. I don’t care for it. It is too severe. That glowing face deserves to be surrounded by flowers.”

“That is plain speaking to be sure, but for riding, flowers and feathers are a nuisance. In what direction do you mean to ride?”

Compliments and complaints, both rolled off her like water. Her obvious indifference to his opinions intrigued him. He didn’t want her undying devotion, but she should be at least a little interested in his feelings. “Toward the Abbey, if you have no objection.”

They cantered out through the west end of the village into a countryside brimming with golden sunlight, burgeoning with leaves and blossoms in early spring. The fresh greenery spoke of rebirth after a long, dark winter. Above them, birds soared in the azure arc of sky and chirped their mating call from every branch.

They exchanged remarks on the beauty of the day, and after a mile, Wickham asked if she had yet determined the length of her stay.

With her mind half on nature, Cecilia said heedlessly, “There is no saying how long it will take—that is,” she added, flustered, “I am not sure how long, as yet.”

“On what does it depend, if it is not presumptuous of me to inquire?”

“Different things,” she said vaguely. “I am visiting about here and there till the Season opens.”

“But the Season opens next week.”

“I shall not go at once if I am enjoying myself here,” she said, and chatted on to distract him. “I have just come from a delightful visit with relatives in Kent. Their daughter married only last month. Before that I was with a school friend up north. She, too, married before I left.”

“Marriage appears to follow hard on your heels. I wonder it has not caught up such a lovely lady before now.”

A smile curved her lips, to hear the old familiar refrain. “One never knows. Marriages, they say, come in threes.” Kate, Alice, and Martha, they would all have a husband soon. Lord Wickham wondered about that smile. It was not the smile of gratification at his implied compliment. What was the mystery about her visit? “How long it will take...” That sounded as if there was one particular reason she was here. “I don’t count myself quite an old cat yet, you know,” she added.

“A mere kitten,” he assured her. “One never implies a single lady is anything but a girl, whatever her age, unless she chooses to put on her caps and set up as an acknowledged quiz. I have a chit of an aunt in her forties who never misses a ball and still wears pink ribbons in her hair.”

“Compared to your aunt, I am a mere infant. I wonder you mention her at all in connection with my case,” she teased.

“Age cannot be a subject for avoidance with one so young,” he assured her, but he noticed she was tender on the subject all the same. How old was she? Not a deb, certainly. “You cannot be more than twenty,” he said leadingly.

“Oh until she is married, a young lady never goes past twenty,” Cecilia replied lightly. “But if I were married, I would be two and twenty. Shocking, is it not?”

“Shocking,” he agreed. “And you still ride and dance. I expect you have a Bath chair on order, awaiting your next birthday.”

“It is not nice to tease an ape leader, sir.” Cecilia smiled and rode on. “Oh, what is that beautiful place there on the left?” she asked later.

Below them in an emerald green valley nestled a gray stone building—old, low, rambling. Vines climbed up the left facade, encroaching on the leaded windows that sparkled in the sunlight. To the left, a porte cochere arched in a graceful curve, terminating in columns. On the right, set back some distance from the main building, the relics of a ruined chapel stood erect, with blue sky visible through the unglazed lancet windows. A flock of pigeons, disturbed by some domestic emergency, suddenly fluttered in a silver rustle from the roofline, swooping and soaring about in the air at random before returning to their perch.

“How lovely!” she sighed. “That is what is so particularly enjoyable about riding in an unknown district. One occasionally comes across these marvelous views. What is the place called?”

“St. Martin’s Abbey,” he said simply, but with a trace of pride in his voice. “My place.”

“I thought it was five miles away! We have not come more than three.”

“It is five miles by the main road. We’ve taken a short cut. We can leave the road here and ride through the meadow. There’s a fence ahead. Lady can take it—can you?”

With her eyes and mind full of the sight before her, Cecilia found no slight in the question, though she counted herself an excellent horsewoman. “Lead on,” she said, and cantered along beside him.

“The Abbey is very old,” he said. “Four hundred years old. Outside of necessary repairs and some small additions, it is not much changed from the original. Some walls had to be knocked down inside to enlarge the rooms in one wing. The monks’ rooms were hardly more than closets, just space for a pallet and a prie-dieu, but that was done long before my time. From here it looks as it must have looked long ago.” He reined in and they stopped to admire it.