Sweet and Twenty (21 page)

“Just so,”
Hudson agreed quietly.

“Which reminds me, old chap, we must nip in and say au revoir to the Ratchetts.”

“Yes, you will want to take your leave of Miss Hatchett,”
Hudson said, risking a glance at Miss Watters.

“Ha ha, I’ve done you out on her, true enough. But I daresay it is my being an M.P. that gives me the preference, for it was pretty warm with you two for a while there.”

“Perhaps I ought to have a few words with
Mr.
Ratchett,”
Hudson said, and got the M.P. out the door before Lillian quite threw a fit.

“Well, they’re gone,”
Martha said, and everyone looked to her for elaboration, for she was not one to waste words on the obvious.

“I’m certainly glad it isn’t Mr. Alistair who must go to London,”
Sara said with a shiver at the close escape.

“The two of them got away without a single offer. I hope you can manage to bring Mr. Alistair up to scratch, Sara, for you’ve lost Mr. Fellows,”
Martha continued. “That Miss Ratchett will not be so backward when they call on her. And you, Lillian, must get back home and attach Mr. Thorstein. Mr. Hudson won’t be back.”

“He said he would come back!”

“They always
say
they will come back to effect a graceful exit. He won’t be back.”

“Why should he say so if he doesn’t mean it?”
Melanie inquired.

“Because he didn’t want to make Lillian look a fool and himself a jilt, which is what he is. He’ll drop a note claiming business that has delayed him—the necessity for going on all the way to London or some such thing. Then it will be a postscript on one of Fellows’s letters describing more delays, and that’ll be the end of it. Next thing we’ll hear of that one will be of his engagement to some fine lady. He would have made a fine
partie,
Cecilford’s heir, but there is some little quirk in him I cannot quite trust. A man who will countenance bribery and trickery as he did is not to be depended on. It is the way of men’s world. Now don’t mope, Lillian. He’s had a dozen chances to offer for you if it was his intention. Haven’t you driven with him twice and been at balls and parties and meetings a dozen times? No, he was amusing himself, and I believe he has left Miss Ratchett with her heart on her sleeve as well, but she will settle for Mr. Fellows, and he is plenty good enough for her too. Too good. We shan’t let you be made a laughingstock by him. Back to Yorkshire, and you’ll be engaged to Mr. Thorstein before we read of Mr. Hudson’s marriage.”

Martha spoke thus to prepare Lillian for the worst, but actually she had no notion of leaving before the day which should see Mr. Hudson return—with a few days’
grace thrown in on account of his being Cecilford’s heir. If he came back, so much the better; if he didn’t, she had prepared the girl for it. What more could she do? She was hoping as hard as Lillian herself that he would come, and decided to count on it sufficiently to allow her to begin considering alternative brides for Mr. Thorstein. There was Cousin Philmont’s middle daughter, elbowing her way past twenty and no one in sight... she would be a congenial replacement for Lillian. Still, just enough uncertainty clung about Hudson that she didn’t write to Mrs. Philmont yet.

The next two days passed quickly for three of the four ladies at New Moon. Mr. Alistair came and had private words with Lady Monteith. As well ask a cat or a dog as Lady Monteith what he had said, but when she muttered something about a house his father was giving him, and two thousand pounds a year—or maybe it was two thousand acres—Martha assumed he had asked permission to pay his addresses to Sara, and gave her own permission as soon as he returned.

The family was later informed in no uncertain terms by her that it was a very fine estate (with two thousand acres, not pounds), and the income was twenty-five hundred a year. The marriage would be before Christmas, and Martha wouldn’t be able to come all the way from Yorkshire for it, so she would take Sara shopping and buy
her trousseau for a wedding gift before she left. No furs or feathers, mind, but a half-dozen good, dark, sober matron’s gowns for the youthful bride. She thought privately that it was a pity she couldn’t be in touch with Mr. Thorstein for the acquisition of the woolens.

Sara’s little mouth turned down, but Lillian whispered to her that Aunt Martha wasn’t such a dragon as she let on, and she could have any color gowns she wanted.

“It’s feathers I wanted,”
she said, a tear trembling in her lucid blue eye.

“Buy them yourself, goose! They only cost a shilling.”

This ingenious idea brought back her smiles. “You’re so clever,”
she said admiringly. “I hope Mr. Hudson comes back and marries you.”

“So do I,”
Lillian replied, and was surprised at herself for admitting it to a single soul.

“He’s clever too. My, what a hard time you will have understanding each other.”

* * * *

Two days had never seemed so long to Mr. Hudson. Tony Fellows had been hard enough to endure, but a condescending elected Member of Parliament was utterly insupportable. Hudson finally gave him a couple of sharp dressing-downs, after which Fellows addressed him again as Matt. At Devizes, Hudson unloaded the member on to Mr. Henderson with a vast sigh of relief.

“The election was an upset,”
Henderson said. “Very good for party morale. It must have been an interesting campaign.”

“A regular one,”
Hudson answered indifferently.

“How about our new member?”
Fellows had gone to the desk at the inn to make himself known in all his glory, and thus the other gentlemen were free to discuss him.

“He’ll look well enough on the back bench, as long as we keep his mouth closed.”

“A dud, is he? Why did they run him? Is he rich?”

“Fairly, but I had to wrestle him to the ground and squeeze every pound out of him. He has an heiress in his eye, however, whose Papa is much more generous. Name of Ratchett. They’ll come down heavy if it is a match.”

“I’ll prod him along then.”

“I’d appreciate it if Brougham would see him for a few minutes. He has the idea they’re to be bosom beaux, and it would be nice if he at least got to shake hands with the boss.”

“I’ll see to it. We’ll get notices in the
Gazette
and the
Observer.
Something about some new kind of a bridge, isn’t there?”

“Yes, mention that. I’ve already sent in one piece, but the more coverage we can get out of it the better.”

“No excitement at all in the campaign?”

“Not much, but there was an interesting sidelight.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve found myself a wife.”

“Have you, by God! I hope she’ll make us a good Whig hostess?”

“She could if she would, but I’m not sure she will.”

“Much chance she’ll have not to!”
Henderson laughed.

“I’ll take care to keep you away from her. A fine idea she’ll have of me if she hears you talk like that.”

“Somebody should warn her,”
Henderson roasted him, and asked him a few pertinent questions regarding the lady’s background. He was a little surprised to hear that Hudson hadn’t looked higher for a wife than an unknown Miss Watters from Yorkshire, but was naturally too polite to say so and assumed the lady must have some exceptional degree of beauty to have snared the elusive Hudson.

Alistair rapidly became a fixture at New Moon. With all the spare time fallen on his hands since the campaign was over, he didn’t know what to do with himself, and as his reception there was as royal as three delighted ladies could make it, he stayed from morning till dark, with occasional excursions to the Fellows Bridge. Sara was coming to learn that it was a pretty good sort of bridge after all. William had told her all about it, and drawn her a picture that rested in her treasure box with her pamphlet from the campaign as testimonials to William’s worth.

He was there when Mr. Hudson returned, on the very day promised, and that little quirk Martha could not quite like dropped away from him like magic. It was not only Lillian’s heart that leapt when he walked into the room, for Martha had also been on tenterhooks wondering if he would come.

Almost before anyone had
asked him about the trip and how Tony was liking being an M.P., Sara gave him her news. “We are getting married too, me and William, Mr. Hudson. He asked me right after you left.”

“Congratulations! I’m very happy to hear it. It doesn’t come as a complete surprise to me,”
Hudson said, then added, “Did you say you are getting married too
?
Is someone else getting married?”

There was an awkward pause. Both Martha and Lillian feared—were virtually certain in fact—that she referred to her cousin and Cecilford’s heir, with never an offer from him! Sara blinked her big blue eyes. “Aren’t you—
that is—”
She stopped dead for a time. “William and I are to be married before Christmas. I’m getting six new gowns from Aunt Martha,”
she finally got out, and the bad moment was over.

Martha promptly chided her for being a peagoose, and her mama
said boldly that indeed she was not. She had got quite short with Martha now that she had Sara’s groom to defend her.

Still there lingered an uneasiness, a feeling that Hudson was there to claim a bride, and that Sara might any moment break out with more embarrassing statements. All the ladies except Lillian kept looking at Hudson expectantly, as though waiting for him to go down on bended knee and say his piece, or at least pull a diamond out of his pocket. Lillian felt all the lively discomfort of being unasked, made tolerable only by the sure feeling that she would be asked as soon as that private spot could be reached.

But how could it be done? It was nearly five o’clock when Hudson arrived, an inconvenient hour. He could not ask her out for a drive, for besides the time there was a howling wind blowing and considerable rain falling. To arise and suddenly ask to see her alone seemed a gauche thing, so the group chatted on, while Melanie began to get fidgety and wonder if she should invite Mr. Hudson to stay to dinner. Odd Martha had not attended to it. She rather disliked to usurp her place.

Martha’s mind was tending in a different direction from dinner. Hudson was not to be allowed to get away again without coming up to scratch, and she felt that all that was lacking was the opportunity.

“Well, Lillian,”
she said, taking the bit in her teeth, “why don’t you and Mr. Hudson go out for a little drive? You have time before dinner. I hope you will stay to dinner, Mr. Hudson?”

“It’s five to five!”
Lady Monteith proclaimed in dismay. Did this mean dinner would be put off? She was starved.

“It’s pouring rain!”
Sara put in in her usual helpful fashion.

“Mr. Hudson has just got here from driving all day,”
Mr. Alistair contributed.

“Nonsense, it’s just a shower,”
Martha said. “Lillian doesn’t mind a little rain. It’s a fine day.”

This had a Fellows-ish sound to it, and the frustrated lovers exchanged a secret smile. Sara caught them out in it and clapped her hands in glee. “I see what it is!”
she fairly shouted. “Yes, indeed—Lillian
loves
the rain and wet!”

Before she could say more, Hudson cut in. “Let’s go, shall we, Miss Watters?”

“What about dinner?”
Melanie demanded petulantly.

Martha still had enough authority to silence her with a glance. Lillian went for her pelisse, Hudson to order his carriage, and Martha ran for an umbrella, for going out in the rain was really a thing she disliked very much, for herself or her nieces.

Once they were safely out of the house, Hudson said, “Now where do we go? It seems there is no such a thing as a private place for us in the whole town.”

“The grave’s a fine and private place,”
Lillian suggested, laughing in relief at getting away.

“But none, I think, do there embrace,”
he added. “That wouldn’t do for us, my coy mistress. You see what evil design I have in mind. We’ll have to make do with the carriage. Or would you
prefer to walk, as you like the rain so much?”

With the wind lashing at her coat and the rain streaking her face, she took this for a joke, and they entered the carriage.

“What a hard girl you are to see alone for a minute,”
he said, and even as he spoke their privacy was invaded. A dark form huddled into a coat was coming up the drive, his head bent into the wind. “That’s Armstrong, isn’t it?”
Hudson asked.

It was indeed Armstrong, wending his way home from the newspaper office and seeking shelter from the storm till the rain should let up.

“You’ll catch your death of cold, Mr. Armstrong,”
Lillian said. “Mr. Hudson, could we not bring him home?”

Hudson frowned at her heavily, but Isaac answered for him. “No, it is too far out of your way. I only meant to stop for shelter till 5:30, when Mr. Hicks will be going my way; he always takes me up. I meant to be back at the roadside in time to meet him.”

“Do you mean to say you
walk
to work in the village?”
Hudson asked.

“The horse is needed on the farm,”
Isaac explained, looking guilty about the whole thing.

“Fellows has his stable full of nags. Take one; he won’t be here to need them.”

“I couldn’t take his horse without asking him.”

“He asked me to tell you that he wouldn’t want his secretary going about on foot,”
Hudson lied. This was the way Fellows would be talked into agreeing with it. It would detract from his own consequence to have a secretary too poor to ride.

Isaac had got into the carriage, and it was decided he would be driven to the village to meet Mr. Hicks there. Never one to waste a minute, Hudson used the time to give him all the instructions Fellows had failed to give him regarding his duties, urging him to be in touch with Allingham if any crisis arose and not to go to Basingstoke.

“I’m very glad you told me, sir
,
for to tell the truth, Mr. Fellows didn’t make my duties very clear.”

“He was pretty busy,”
Hudson said dryly. Before long Armstrong was being let off at the stable-yard to join Mr. Hicks. Hudson turned to Lillian with an intent light in his eyes, and about his lips a quiet smile of anticipation about to be fulfilled.