Jennie Kissed Me (17 page)

“This compass must not be working. The moss on the trees appears to be on the south side instead of the north. We’ll follow the moss on the trees.” I was beginning to feel a tremble of apprehension, though of course I did not let her see it.

After another ten minutes Jennie said, “There is moss on both sides of these trees, Jennie. What can account for it?”

“This must be a particularly damp spot.”

“But how are we to know north from south?” she asked. Her eyes were large, and her face pale with anxiety.

“Now you must not panic,” I said in a strained voice. “We’ll shout for Hubbard. As we spent so long walking in circles, we cannot be far from Mrs. Irvine. He would be back by now.” I raised my hands to my lips and shouted “Halloo!” four or five times. No answering call came to us but only the dead echo of my own shout.

“We are lost!” Victoria exclaimed, and burst into tears.

“Nonsense. I’ll just give this compass a tap. The needle is probably sticking in the dampness.” I tapped it and took the needle’s word that our new direction was southwest. Victoria decided she felt safer holding onto my hand, which slowed our progress. It hardly mattered, as we were soon back at the dismembered wild flowers.

“We’ll tie a ribbon on a tree every so often to alert us that we have passed that way before,” I decided.

“Oh, you are so clever! I would never have thought of that.”

I blushed at her praise. I felt like an utter incompetent as I ripped strips from my petticoat. Marking the trees had the effect of keeping us from going in circles, but alas, it did not lead us to our camp. It was growing dark under the spreading canopy of leaves. It was not the shadowy darkness of a cloudy sky but the denser darkness of the falling sun.

“We’ll never get home!” Victoria said, her lower lip trembling.

“What nonsense!” I laughed gaily. “Your papa would eventually send out a search party if we failed to show up.”

“Yes, but would they find us if it was nighttime?”

“We’d build a fire to show the way.”

“I hope your flint box is dry.”

I hadn’t the heart to tell her I didn’t have one. Before we were both reduced to tears there was a bellow in the distance. “Are you there, ladies?” It was Hubbard’s raucous voice, and I was never so happy to hear a sound in my life. Celestial choirs of angels were nothing to the music of his uncouth bellow. I called back, and soon he came stampeding through the bush like a mad elephant. “Are you lost?” he grinned.

“Lost?” I laughed, as though I hadn’t a notion what he was talking about. “Certainly not. We were just on our way back. How was the hunting, Hubbard?”

He was easily diverted to boast of his plunder. A brace of hare, three partridges, and a badger, which he told me Meg made into a dandy stew. I heartily wished she had made it at our camp, for I was ravenous for some hot food. We followed Hubbard for ten or fifteen minutes and eventually came out into the clearing where the others awaited us.

Mrs. Irvine was quiet, which alerted me to danger. She ought to have been ripping up at me for being away so long. “Let me have a look at that ankle,” I said, lifting her skirt. It had puffed up like an adder. An angry red hue showed through her silk stocking.

“You’ve sprained this. Shall I rip a strip from my petticoat and bandage it up?”

“I’ll sacrifice mine. It serves me right for being fool enough to come along on this outing.”

I let her do it, as I wasn’t eager to reveal the condition of my own petticoat to Hubbard. She lifted her skirt and found the seam to get the rip started. She tore a strip six inches wide from it, and I bandaged her ankle. “I’m afraid we must cut this expedition short, Victoria,” I said, with an air of reluctance. “This ankle requires a doctor’s attention.”

Victoria bore up uncommonly well to her disappointment. “Oh, yes, we must not take any chances,” she agreed eagerly.

“Bring the mount here for Mrs. Irvine, Hubbard,” I called, and he went to fetch the horse from where it was tethered, chewing the grass.

My heart fell to my feet when I noticed the poor animal was limping. “Oh dear! She’s lamed,” I said weakly.

A groan issued from Mrs. Irvine. “We’ll never get home!”

“Aye, she’s pulled a tendon. She might be able to hobble home herself, but she can’t bear such a weight as Mrs. Irvine. No matter if we don’t get home tonight,” Hubbard said cheerfully. “The air’s dried up. We have a bag full of flesh and fowl. The old malkin won’t die of a little sprain, and a night under the open sky will be a rare treat, eh Miss Robsjohn?”

“Charming,” I said, pinning him with a cold eye.

Chapter Fourteen

“Meg, pluck the partridges whilst I make us a fire,” Hubbard ordered.

I went to help Mrs. Irvine, and under my breath I hissed, “I’ll soon trim his wings. He is the sort of upstart who thirsts for authority.”

“It takes one to know one,” she shot back. Pain and discomfort were wearing her nerves thin.

Hubbard continued on in his upstart way. “I’ll build our blaze alongside of where we had the fire at noon. Not the exact spot, for we dowsed it with water. Do you think you can handle things here till I get back, Miss Robsjohn? Now don’t go wandering off, for I’m too busy to set off in search of you again.”

I turned my steeliest schoolteacher’s gaze on him. “You overreach your authority, Hubbard. You will do as I say, and I do not wish to have any birds plucked or cleaned in my presence.” There was a deal more I wished to say to that creature. I wished to countermand every order he had given, but a fire did seem an excellent idea, and we could not build one here with the leaves practically touching our heads, nor could we walk far with a lame lady and mare.

He glanced warily at Lady Victoria. Seeing she did not support his rebellion, he reverted to the demeanor of a proper servant. “What do you suggest then, miss?” he asked.

“I suggest you build a fire and have a cup of tea before you return to Wycherly for assistance. There will be no need to bother Lord Marndale,” I added hastily. “He is entertaining guests this evening. Just bring us a fresh mount for Mrs. Irvine and perhaps some food that we can eat as we walk home. Some fruit or buns.”

“What about this here lame mount?” he asked. The mount whinnied piteously.

“I’ll bandage Belle’s ankle. She can make it home as long as she doesn’t have to carry a load.”

Afraid to take out his ill-humor on me, Hubbard said roughly to his wife, “What are you waiting for then? Gather up some twigs. I’ll go fetch fresh water for the tea.”

“I was just going to do that, Hubbard,” she said meekly, and darted off.

After the Hubbards left I busied myself with Belle’s ankle. Bandaging it required the entire remains of my petticoat, so I removed that article and set about tearing it into strips. Belle’s ankle felt hot and was slightly swollen. I wet the bandages at the stream in hopes that the drying cotton would cool the sprain. Victoria helped me apply the bindings.

Now that our deliverance was in progress, I turned my fears to the future. What would Marndale say when he heard from Victoria—and worse, Hubbard—of this disastrous trip? To gauge Victoria’s attitude, I said, “Well, I daresay this little outing was different from what you thought, eh Victoria?”

Her smile was uncertain. “I expected there would be a few mishaps. It would have been very dull if nothing had happened, would it not? A pity we did not work in a lesson on the raft. But I think the trip has tested my mettle. Would you say I stood up to adversity as well as your former pupils, Jennie?”

Incredible as it seemed, she was still looking to me for approval. I was humbled by her anxious face waiting for my verdict. “You were splendid!” I said enthusiastically.

She gave a shy smile and held a fresh strip of cotton out to me. “When this job is done, I shall cut us some bread and butter it. You will want to help Mrs. Irvine hobble to the fire. She is a little out of curl, is she not? At her age she is probably not enjoying our outing as much as we are, but I think it was wonderful.”

Tears stung my eyes so that I could not look at her for a moment. When I had blinked them away, I looked and saw that under her tousled curls and dirty face, she looked as happy as a cow in clover. I felt a perfect hypocrite to let her think I knew the first thing about roughing it in the bush, but with the meeting with Marndale still to come, I had no intention of declaring myself a dissembler.

“Do you really have to go to London, Jennie?” she asked.

“It is all arranged. I really must.”

“Will you ask Papa to let me go to London with him? We could go on meeting there.”

“I doubt he will heed my request.”

“Oh, he will. He thinks very highly of you. What do you think of him?” she asked, and studied me with her big, bright eyes.

I cleared my throat nervously. “He seems a very good sort of father.”

“Oh yes, the very best, but I didn’t mean as a father. I meant as a husband. Now don’t take a pet. I know you disapprove of his affair with Lady Pogue, but if he married you, that would soon come to an end.”

“Good lord, Victoria. Where did you get the idea? Did he say something to you?”

“He told me to find myself a stepmother, and he would marry her and give me a brother. Well, I have found the stepmama I want. I know Papa must marry again because of needing an heir, and I want him to marry you.”

I felt nearly as elated as if Marndale himself had offered for me. The idea pleased me greatly, but any marriage between us would be a marriage of convenience, and that was so utterly impossible that I could not encourage her in her hopes. The notion of a marriage of convenience itself did not repel me, but a marriage in which one party was very much in love and the other a philanderer promised no convenience to either party.

“There is nothing like that between us,” I said firmly. “Your father will marry some great lady, Victoria. Someone from his own class. I am only a schoolmistress who had the good fortune to inherit a little money. A very little, in comparison with your father’s fortune.”

“Only a schoolmistress!” she laughed. “If you are only a schoolmistress, Wellington is only a soldier. Papa might marry a great lady, but on the other hand, he might marry someone like Rita Pogue. Do you think you could care for him? In time, I mean.”

“He has many good qualities,” I said vaguely.

Her satisfied little smile told me that she took it for approval in principle. Victoria went to cut the bread, and while I helped Mrs. Irvine toward the fire, my thoughts ventured into the future. Marndale’s only interest in me was to provide his daughter a mother and himself a son. His first good impression of my mothering abilities would be sadly cured by this excursion. The trip revealed my lack of judgment. Then I thought of Lady Pogue, and my spirits sank. If he was to marry a nobody, it would at least be a beautiful nobody like Lady Pogue.

When a fire was raging and the kettle hanging on the makeshift hob, Hubbard, with great ceremony, handed his gun over to Meg to protect us and left at a trot for Wycherly. He disdained having his cup of tea before leaving. The civility with which he treated me suggested that he was as fearful of my report to Marndale on his behavior as I was of his. All was courteousness and tugging of the forelock and “Yes, Miss Robsjohn. Certainly, ma’am.”

A sense of ease came over the party as we sat around the blazing fire with a hot mug of tea between our fingers and twilight turning the sky to a deep indigo blue. Birds left the trees in flocks for their final dizzying day’s flight, filling the air with their sweet warble. As Hubbard was not there to correct me, I ventured an identification of a few of them. We watched and ate our bread and drank our tea as the birds went to their roost. The sky gradually darkened to black pierced with glittering stars, and silence fell.

When our rescuers arrived it seemed an intrusion. I could hardly believe Hubbard had had time to reach Wycherly yet, let alone return. Hubbard’s head appeared first, with his misshapen hat pulled firmly over his brow. He was astride Silver Star. Before there was time to rise and greet our rescuer, another head and another horse appeared behind him.

“Papa!” Victoria squealed, and jumped up to greet him. “We didn’t expect you to come. Jennie told you not to disturb Papa, Hubbard,” she scolded.

“He insisted, miss. He was already at the stable saddling up to come after you.”

Marndale just looked with his mouth ajar in shock. “Good God, you all look as if you’ve been mauled by tigers!” he exclaimed when he found his tongue.

A glance around the assembled company made me acutely aware of our appearance. I knew that I looked every bit as ragged as the others, with their hair all askew, their clothing in filthy tatters, and their faces dirty. Marndale had dismounted to pull Victoria into his arms. Over her head his eyes turned to me in a long, measuring gaze that took note of all my deshabille. The glow in those dark eyes did not suggest disapproval. Quite the contrary. A small smile hovered on his lips.

He detached himself from Victoria and came toward the fire. “I am sorry Hubbard took you from your party.”

“I wasn’t at the party. As he said, I was at the stable, saddling up. I expected you would have returned long ago when the rain continued for so long. I feared something had happened. It was half a relief when Hubbard came pelting in.”

“It was not the rain that defeated us but Mrs. Irvine’s accident. You are just in time for tea, Marndale,” I said.

The leaping flames bathed him in a flickering, orange glow. The bizarre circumstances, the black night, and the gypsy fire, enhanced his appearance to something out of
Arabian Nights.
His face looked swarthy and romantic above his sparkling white shirt and evening jacket. He might have been a Gypsy prince surrounded by his tribe. Our gaze held for a long moment, then he turned to Mrs. Irvine.

“Are you in much pain, ma’am?” he asked.

“I feel as if I’ve done ten rounds with Gentleman Jackson. I might add that curst Belle of yours is no gentleman, Marndale. She dumped me into the bog.”