Gypsy Heiress (12 page)

“I fell asleep by the ruin on the hill,” I ventured, “and when I awoke, there was some kind of animal hiding in the underbrush.”

“Badger, probably,” said Robert from behind his bowl of artichoke soup.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Caesar attacked it, and as it ran off, I could hear it crashing through the brush. The sound of its progress was loud, as loud as Caesar’s.”

I had half-expected Brockhaven to treat my whole story as the nervous exaggerations of a hysterical girl. Instead, he set down his wineglass with a snap that must have placed a severe strain on its fragile stem and looked at me with hard, angry eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me this at once?” he snapped. Without giving me time to answer, he asked, “You’ve grown up sleeping in wagons in the forest. What do
you
think it was?”

“I saw tracks,” I said softly, “as big as a breadplate.”

“Where?” asked Brockhaven sharply.

“Inside the woods, where I fol—”

Brockhaven’s expression was black enough to frighten the words from my lips. But he merely said tersely, “Pray, continue.”

“… followed it,” I continued. How queer it sounded in the telling. “I came to a shelf of rock and the beast’s feet seemed to—to become those of a man.”

Not unnaturally, my announcement caused something of a sensation. Lady Gwendolyn dropped her spoon, which speared into the soup dish and ricocheted into the middle of the table with a clatter. Robert gave a sharp whoop of laughter, and the footman standing behind him very nearly let slide to the floor an entire platter of baked minced beef.

“My dear child, what precisely are you suggesting?” said Lady Gwen.

I thought a moment before I made my answer. Then I told her seriously. “My grandmother would have said it was one of the Demon People, a man doomed by the evils of his life to rise from the grave and walk the land as a wolf.”

Robert put up an eyebrow. “Liza, child, surely you don’t believe in werewolves.”

“N-no, of course she doesn’t,” managed Ellen. “B-b-but what w-was it then?”

“Lord knows. Maybe it was Caesar’s tracks, several days old,” said Robert.

“I don’t think so,” Brockhaven said. “I’ve been keeping Caesar close to home since the big rain last month. You remember, Robert, when David Cooper claimed a large animal attacked his sheep and carried off three of them.” He stared moodily into space. “There hasn’t been a wolf sighted in England for more than half a century.”

“That’s true,” said Robert. “But what else has tracks that size? Unless… My God—do you think this could have any connection with whatever tore Freddy to pieces?” He grinned. “Hungry again after three years!”

There was an edge of alarm in Gwen’s voice. “Robert!” The rosy patches over her cheekbones grew pale. “When I think that Liza might have been exposed to such danger…”

Brockhaven directed a quelling frown at his younger brother, and turned back to Lady Gwen. “I doubt there’s a connection. The hillside near the old villa is sandy, which probably exaggerated the size of the tracks. And don’t forget—two weeks before Frederick was killed, there was the report of a circus in Epping having lost an African hyena; knowing Freddy, he probably came upon it in the woods and teased it until the thing turned on him. If it was the hyena, there isn’t much chance that an animal that had been raised in captivity could survive this long in the wild—and without anyone catching a glimpse of it. What Caesar more than likely fought was only a big fox or a stray dog.”

Though she looked much reassured, Lady Gwendolyn said, “Will you ride out tomorrow morning and look at the spot?”

“Of course,” he assured her. “I’ll have a patrol put on the area for a month. As for tomorrow, though, the tracks will likely be obliterated by the rain, and I doubt that we’ll find anything.”

“I doubt you will either,” I said, irritated by his skepticism. “It’s difficult to milk a running cow.”

Brockhaven gave me a cold look, but said nothing, and the subject was dropped.

During dessert, over the orange Isinglass jelly, Lady Gwendolyn announced that she was sending out cards for a small soirée on Saturday next if it suited Lord Brockhaven.

“No date is suitable for a soirée as far as I’m concerned,” said Brockhaven, his expression in keeping with the sentiment he expressed. “Cards to whom?”

“The Perscoughs. of course; the Aldgates…”

Robert interrupted, looking no more enthusiastic than his brother. “Specify on that invitation that they leave their widgeon of a daughter home.”

“Certainly not!” said Lady Gwen. “We’ll want to invite all the young people so Liza can begin to make friends. The sooner she is introduced, the sooner the gossip and speculation about her will die down. I know you won’t care for this, Alex, but I’ve invited Vincent and Isabella also. It’s for Liza’s sake, my dear.”

Brockhaven pushed back his chair and stood up. I realized then with an inward tremble that he was looking into my eyes. I was powerless to avert my own. At length, he shrugged and said, “Why not? For Liza’s sake.”

Saturday was to be an emotional day for me. In the morning there was the meeting with Lord Brockhaven and a man who I learned to my apprehension was my lawyer, Mr. Cadal.

He was a younger man than I would have thought, no older than thirty-two, with small, clever eyes, a wide mouth with grayish-pink lips that were cut up-slant toward the corners, and an old white wig that he kept pushing the end of his pen under to scratch at his scalp. Wide-shouldered, short, and hard-muscled in build, he resembled a mule driver, but his manner was firm, businesslike, and not without humor. For an hour he talked to me about the land which was legally mine, until my head was aswim with words like grazing rights, and leaseholder, and subordinate clauses, and reciprocal arrangements. He showed me papers concerning a quarry he claimed was mine, full of statistics about stones moved per annum, and wound up with a complex report about two mills in my hapless possession. The Upper was a cornmill and the Lower mill made paper, and the income and operation was divided between Isabella and me in a manner of which Mr. Cadal heartily disapproved. The mill statistics proved worse than those of the quarry; how many shillings duty per cwt on scaleboard, price per bushel of tar ropes and coarse rags for making pasteboard. When at last he finished, I felt as though I had aged ten years.

“Well,” said Mr. Cadal, with undimmed vigor, “I’m sure there are a thousand things that you’d like to ask me. Never hesitate to barrage me until your curiosity is completely satisfied! Please, ask your questions!”

I hadn’t a single one, which I felt very guilty about. In an attempt to comply with his expectant look, I said, “Do you think I might have some tea, sir?”

Mr. Cadal stared at me as if I’d just been sick on the carpet.

“I told you, Mark,” said Lord Brockhaven in a voice filled with lazy humor. “She doesn’t understand. No matter what you say to her, she doesn’t comprehend the idea of herself owning property. Liza, tell Mark what you said to me this morning when I tried to outline for you the purpose of Mark’s visit.”

Nervously, I said, “I only said that—that man never
owns
anything, he only borrows from God.” I could see that Mr. Cadal was still looking at me dazedly, so I tried again. “Why do we need to own?”

“Why do we need to—? My dear young woman!”

“Does the caterpillar own the leaf on which it nibbles? Does the jay own the bush it nests in?” I asked earnestly.

“There you have it,” said Brockhaven. “The concept is philosophically alien. But I’m sure you’ll be able to make it clear for her, Mark.”

Mr. Cadal certainly did his best. For two endless hours he did his best, though to his credit it must be put that he was kind enough to see that I had tea first.

Afterward, as I reached my bedroom, drained and weary, Goudette appeared with scissors in hand and announced her intention of cutting my hair. I wish I could say to you that I behaved with a pride that would have pleased my grandmother, and a tolerance that would have pleased my father, but instead I flew into Lady Gwendolyn’s room, fluttering wildly as an overwrought sparrow, and told her that on no account was Goudette going to take an inch off my hair. The fight that followed was long and vigorous. I did my best to explain to her that a gypsy maid would never willingly submit to having her hair cut, while she did her best to explain to me that the society in which I was to be introduced would view such unfashionably long hair as an uncomfortable reminder of our differences. It seems incredible, as well as a great pity, that two people who were both trying so hard to respectfully communicate their sincere beliefs could fail so miserably in making inroads in the other’s resolutions. The argument ended with us both in tears.

It made matters worse that Ellen wasn’t there to mediate the clash of cultures. She had ridden out to the cottage of Madame Nefare, an emigrée from France who gave Ellen her weekly language lesson. There was no one to whom I could turn. I crept miserably off to the reading room and curled up in the hard wingchair that faced into the fire, and then cried until my eyes were empty.

When I had finished, I felt warm and wet and a little drowsy. Idly I picked out a two-month-old copy of the
Lady’s Monthly Museum
and thumbed through a list of paintings to be seen at the National Gallery, read “Anecdotes of Distinguished Females No. 162,” and glanced through “On Domesticity.” A paragraph caught my eye. It read: “The blessed bond of matrimony lifts the fair hand of affection and wipes away the tear of sensibility, exalts the mind, and solaces sorrow by a heavenly mingle of congenial souls. Oh happy state! Avaunt ye scoffers!”

The door opened and Isabella’s voice came floating over the back of my chair like a hovering wasp.

“Vincent,” she was saying, “I’ve listened to you counseling patience until I could scream!”

“Isabella, my beloved.” There was an edge in Vincent’s voice. “He’s within his rights. If you scream, it will only succeed in making us both look foolish.”

The door closed behind them. The last thing I wanted to do was stand up and make my presence known.

“We already look foolish!” she snapped. “By heaven, if you were half the man Alex is, you wouldn’t be sitting there telling me to lower my voice and mind my needle! If only I’d married Brockhaven, he’d know how to protect what was rightfully his. He’d know what to do about that gypsy brat. If I had followed my heart…”

The fire waved into a sheet of blue flame as the opening door sent a cool draft swirling around the room. Someone else had entered my sanctuary, and I hadn’t long to wait before I learned who it was.

“I could hear your dulcet tones in the hallway, Isabella, though I confess at first I thought one of the peacocks had flown in the window,” said Lord Brockhaven. “How fast you are! Cadal’s barely left to call on you, and here you are already. I suppose he’s told you about the mill?”

“Yes, he has,” ground out Isabella. “You plan to deliberately and unconscionably destroy the mill as a profitable business venture. How dare you! Grandfather’s will specifies that the mill’s profit is to go to me!”

“Specifically,” quoted Brockhaven, “ ‘Be there profit from the mill, it should go to my granddaughter, Isabella.’ Since your grandfather placed the management of the mill in the hands of Liza’s guardian, we can assume that your grandfather had the impression that you were better at spending money than making it. What the will doesn’t say is that the mill must be run at a profit. Furthermore, I’m not destroying the mill—I’m modernizing. Eventually the improvements will pay for themselves.”

“No one is arguing against your improvements, Alex,” said Vincent in a quietly angry voice. “It just needn’t be done in one lump. Enlarging the pond, replacing the stone wheel with iron, leveling the road—these are all things that could be done gradually.”

“That would be neither safe nor efficient,” retorted Brockhaven with succinct finality.

At last I began to understand some of the things Mr. Cadal had been trying to tell me about the paper mill. He had been describing to me the changes that Lord Brockhaven had undertaken in its management.

Vincent’s voice cut into my thoughts. “And what are the mill workers going to do for a livelihood while the mill is closed?” he said. “They live hand to mouth as it is!”

“They live hand to mouth, do they? How iniquitous!” said Brockhaven with acid amusement. “And who was it that authorized their miserable wage? Yourself, Vincent. But as you’re so concerned about the mill workers, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve tripled their pay.”

“You can’t
triple
pay!” bleated Isabella, as though she was sure that such a thing must be prohibited by law. “How can you do it?”

“Easily, if the original begins low enough,” Brockhaven informed her.

“You—you revolutionary! That’s how the French Revolution began, with indulgences like this! Give the rabble a finger and soon they’ll want the whole hand!” Isabella’s voice began to rise and the warm hardwood floor echoed with the stamp of her soft-soled shoes. “It’s sacrilegious too. Yes, it is! The poor are wretched because they’re sinful and lazy, and God punishes them with ill fortune.”

“That’s it, rave like a maniac,” endorsed Brockhaven affably.

There was an indignant rustle of skirts, and when Isabella spoke again, her voice shook as though she were trying to bring it under control.

“I know what you think. That I am horrid and mean and bad-tempered! But I can’t help it, Alex. It’s not in my nature to be good and quiet! When I want something, I must have it! No one ever understands! Truly, Alex, this time I am not being willful. I must have the mill’s profit now! You know how you always say I am too extravagant? Well, I’m trying very hard to be more frugal and that’s why I must have the mill money. If I don’t have it, all the money I’ve spent last August on my summer house will go to waste. That wouldn’t be good, would it?”

“No doubt I’ll regret asking—but why will the money you’ve spent on the summer house be wasted?” Alex asked.

“Because I can’t bear to use it. You know how I planned to have teas there on warm days so I could enjoy the view from the hillock. But I hadn’t properly considered. King Road runs right below, and how can one enjoy one’s tea while looking at farmer boys herding their filthy, sloppy cows not thirty yards away? I’ve talked to our architect in London, and he says it would be perfectly feasible to cut a fifty foot tunnel through the hill underneath the present lay of the road and with a few clever plantings of trees we need never be troubled with the traffic again. It’s terribly expensive to do such a thing—hundreds of guineas per foot—and without the mill profits…”

There was a pregnant silence, and then Brockhaven began to laugh. You could tell from the way he laughed that he was genuinely amused. As a matter of fact, I found it rather funny myself. She had said it just as if she had not a suspicion in the world of the frivolity of her idea. I was so caught up in what I was hearing that I made an inattentive move in my chair which accidentally sent
The Lady’s Monthly Museum
sliding to the floor with a papery crash.

I stood immediately. Better to come forward myself than to be dragged in ignominity from my hiding.

Brockhaven was standing beside Isabella, his eyes still bright with laughter and his lips tilted up at the edges. His long fingers had been cupped on Isabella’s chin, as though in a caress. She turned to face me as he took away his hand, her soft white gown floating around her like spun sugar. White ribbons wound angelically through her golden curls, but the expression on her lovely face was far other than heavenly. Vincent was exactly as I remembered him—tall, gray-eyed, and graceful, with regular, well-schooled features.

“Good afternoon,” I said, despising myself for sounding so timid. “I was in the room before you entered—I couldn’t seem to find a moment to announce my presence.”

“I’ll bet you couldn’t, you little sneak,” sniffed Isabella. “So you’ve heard it all! Well, then. I hope you intend to tell Brockhaven that he hasn’t your consent for his ridiculous scheme to
ruin
a perfectly well-managed business.”

“According to what I understand from Mr. Cadal,” I said seriously, “Lord Brockhaven doesn’t have to get my consent for any of his actions. I do think, though, that renovating the mill will be a good thing. The incoming road, Mr. Cadal told me, is quite steep, and when there is rain the horses slip dreadfully as they pull heavy wagons in and out. If a gentler grade is put in…”

Isabella’s furious look killed my words. She strode toward me, raising her hand. I feared that she was going to strike me, but she only snapped her fingers angrily in my face.

“I care
that
for your opinion,” she hammered out. “Ignorant chippy! So Alex has made you his puppet already, has he? The least he could have done for you is seen that someone gave you a haircut. You’ve got more wool on your scalp than a yak.”

Of course it was the worse thing she could have said to me, after the argument I’d just had with Lady Gwen.

“And yet, I wouldn’t trade what I have for yours,” I said, with a voice contemptuous as any my grandmother had ever used. “Beauty without a heart is like an empty gourd, worth a glance in passing, but a bane to the stew.”

It didn’t help matters that I set Brockhaven off to laughing again. In the scene that followed, I think I might have hid my head under a seat pillow, if the wing chair had possessed a detachable one. Clearly, Isabella was not a believer in tit for tat, particularly from an upstart like myself. It was amazing how pretty she looked, even yelling at me at the top of her lungs.

I began to feel sorry I had made her so angry. She was my cousin. I had never known any other, and it would have been so comfortable, if only we could get along. And I remember how she cared for Brockhaven, and it stirred my pity because I understood what a sad fate it was to be barred from his arms.

Gathering my courage, I walked to her, put my arms around her, and said, “I’m sorry, cousin,” which shocked everyone into silence long enough to allow Brockhaven to whisk me from the room and down the corridor.

When we were out of earshot, Lord Brockhaven said, “Good thing you took her by surprise or you’d have left the room with Bella’s fingernails imbedded in your cheeks.”

I stopped and looked up at him. “Does that mean you don’t think she’ll want to be friends with me?”

Brockhaven studied my face before he spoke. After lunch I had braided my hair in two thick plaits, and my guardian lifted one that had fallen forward and hefted it gently over to my back. At last, he said, “That’s what I mean. Why have you been crying?”

“You can tell?”

“Your eyes show it. Did Cadal’s visit distress you so much?”

I shook my head, and then explained despondently about my argument with Lady Gwen, and how ashamed I was of causing her to be upset. He listened in silence until I was finished, and said, “I’ll talk to her.”

“Oh, no, no! She’ll think I’ve been complaining to you. Imagine how mortified she would be!”

“No she won’t. I’ll handle it. Go to your room and wait for her there. No, don’t argue. Go now. And don’t worry.”