The Merry Month of May (17 page)

Haldiman felt a keen reluctance to go. Not that he wanted to avoid Sara’s company, but to avoid it with Betsy, who had a way of stirring up mischief. “Why don’t you go?” he suggested to Peter.

“I have half a dozen men working at the Poplars this afternoon. I dare not leave them unattended or they’ll sit twiddling their thumbs.”

“You’ll have to go, Rufus,” Lady Haldiman decreed. “There is a platter of raised pies Cook has been trying to keep from perishing in the larder. Let them be your excuse. It is only fair we help feed Deverel, for he was originally our guest, but I swear he takes two out of three meals at Whitehern, thank God.”

Haldiman used that slim excuse as a reason to go to Whitehern. He found Betsy there as she had claimed. And as his mama had prophesied, she was already on the verge of leaving. Betsy cast a bold, knowing look at him.

Sara, already astonished that Betsy had come with Moore, had a new idea to conjure with when Haldiman came pouncing in. She heard him ask the butler in anxious accents if Miss Harvey was here. She observed Betsy’s taunting smiles, and Haldiman’s heavy frown. Betsy had refused him! Incredible as it seemed, she could find no other explanation for their peculiar behavior. Both Betsy’s secretive, teasing comments and Haldiman’s embarrassed disavowals told the same story. She had jilted him for Moore, and he was so perturbed he was hounding after her in a most ungentlemanly way.

“Why Rufus,” Betsy smiled when he was shown in. “You did not tell me you were calling on Sara today.” Her knowing tone and laughing eye made mockery of that “Sara.”

Haldiman colored up and mentioned the raised pies left with the butler.

“Ah, so it is raised pies that have brought you, is it?” Betsy laughed. “You must not go taking that for too great a compliment, Sara. Speaking for myself, I would call it an insult. When a beau calls on me, I do not expect him to bring pies, but flowers, or poetry. But then Haldiman is not at all romantic.”

Haldiman flushed. Sara colored up angrily, and Mrs. Wood said. “Pies may not be romantic, but they are certainly welcome. Thank your mama for me, Haldiman. How is your mother, after the commotion of her ball?”

“She is holding up tolerably well,” he replied, happy to steer the conversation to calmer waters. “Most of the guests have left, and we are returning to normal.”

“Ho ho!” Betsy jumped in. “You see what he is about, gentlemen! He is hinting you away, Richard. Or is it
Kevin
you mean, Rufus?” Again that conscious look passed between them. “Fear not, Rufus, you will soon be rid of
all
your guests.”

Haldiman gave a visible start at her words. Good God, was she contemplating a runaway match with Moore?

Moore gave her a heavy frown and said at once, “It is time we were leaving, Betsy.”

“Sure you won’t come with
us,
Mary?” Betsy asked, as she gathered her belongings to depart. Moore stood smiling at her side.

“I am going to show Mr. Deverel the church,” Mary said.

“Lud, that won’t take two minutes. What is there to see? A crumbling old heap outside, a rickety pulpit that is as old as Adam, and three stained glass windows inside. It is scarcely worth the trip, I promise you, Mr. Deverel. Why do we not have a good gallop instead, and perhaps stop somewhere for tea?”

“Mr. Deverel is interested in old architecture,” Mary insisted. A beau had accomplished what neither parent nor sister could, in Mary’s case. She began to observe Betsy through Deverel’s eyes and saw what the rest of the world saw: a good-natured hoyden.

“I have to post into the village,” Haldiman said, as though on impulse. “I might as well go along with you.”

“You?” Betsy looked at him as though he were a heathen. “Now why the devil would you want to ride with us? You will have more enjoyment staying to chat with Sara.” Again that knowing smile lifted her lips. Sara observed that Haldiman’s surveillance put Betsy in a temper. He must have been pestering her to death.

“I did not come here to see Sara,” he objected, then cast an apologetic glance at Sara, who had turned into a perfect statue.

“In any case, we are not going to the village,” Betsy said. “That is too tame for us, isn’t it, Kevin? It was only to please Mary I suggested it.”

“Where are you going then?” Haldiman demanded, turning his question to Moore.

Moore smiled blandly. “That is up to the lady, Lord Haldiman.”

“And the lady has not made up her mind,” Betsy said pertly. She was not pleased that it was Haldiman who was haring after her. Why had not Peter come? “Come along, Kevin,” she said, and waved her fingers to the company.

Mr. Moore made a great business of bowing all around and thanking Mrs. Wood for her hospitality, which had consisted of a small glass of sherry.

Haldiman paced the salon a moment. He wanted to give Sara some indication why he was following Betsy, but could not say what he wished in front of others. “I don’t like this. She is spending too much time alone with Moore. While she is residing under my roof, I am responsible for her” is all he said.

“She would have no idea how a bounder like that could take advantage of her,” Deverel said. “Though Miss Harvey strikes me as a lady who can take care of herself,” he added.

“If you are truly worried,” Mary said, “Richard and I will go out with them tomorrow. You won’t mind, Richard?” He expressed lukewarm agreement. “We’ll drive down to the ocean and have a picnic. You can tell her this evening, Lord Haldiman.”

“I will, thank you, Mary. Perhaps I’d best jaunter along behind them and see which route they are taking.”

Sara looked like a pillar of salt. She managed to incline her head slightly when Haldiman said goodbye, but she could not trust her voice to speak. It caused an ache deep within her to see him sunk so low. Trailing at the heels of Betsy Harvey, enduring her slings and jibes. Whoever would have thought he would settle for so little and have to try so hard to gain even that unworthy female?

Despite Betsy’s boast, it was to the village they headed. In fact, they even stopped at the church, from whence they dawdled along, looking in the shops and finally entering the tea parlor. Haldiman figured that not even Moore could get into much mischief in Mrs. Weston’s tea parlor and rode home.

Miss Harvey and Mr. Moore were home not half an hour after him. The crafty Betsy had seen him skulking along behind them. The only thing that made Moore’s company even tolerable was that it angered the Haldimans so, and she could do that as well in the comfort of the Hall as on the streets. When Peter returned that evening, Haldiman told him of the picnic, and Peter used it as an excuse to seek Betsy out after dinner. He beat Moore to the music room, where Betsy had gone to be private for whatever gentleman wished to entertain her.

“It sounds divine,” Betsy sighed. “And will you be at the party, Peter, or do you and Sara have other plans?” Poor Sara was used indiscriminately to badger both Haldiman and Peter.

“I shall take the boys to the picnic. I have no plans of any sort involving Sara Wood,” he said comprehensively.

She examined him with her sharp brown eyes. “Then it might be a good idea to stop meeting her in the meadow, or you’ll be giving the poor girl ideas.”

“I only met her there once, by accident. I never call on her. I plan to spend the evening with my sons. I have promised to teach Charlie and Rufus how to play all fours. Perhaps you would like to join us?”

Betsy fluffed her fingers through her hair and said, “Another time, perhaps. Kevin is teaching me how to play faro this evening. All the crack in London,” she added, with a meaningful look. “I really must see London before I leave England. Kevin says the shops alone are worth the trip. And, of course, the theaters and parks.” She spoke on for some minutes, repeating Moore’s description of London.

Somewhere along the way she managed to impart the idea that Mr. Moore himself would be her guide when she finally reached London. Lord Peter drew the line at openly slandering his cousin, but he wanted to give her a hint of the man’s ineligibility.

“Ladies aren’t allowed as much freedom in England as you have enjoyed in Canada, Betsy. Unless you plan to marry Moore, you had best limit your running around unchaperoned with him.”

She lifted her chin and gave him a bold look. “Perhaps I do plan to marry him.”

“But does he plan to marry you?”

“He could do worse than a dot of twenty-five thousand, I fancy.”

“And you could do a deal better—if you behaved yourself. It is your dowry that attracts him, I fear.”

The angry undertone to this conversation made it the wrong moment for a proposal. Peter went up to the nursery, and Betsy remained behind to await Mr. Moore. She spent a very boring evening playing the pianoforte while Mr. Moore sang. Lady Haldiman and her son listened to the concert from the distance of the salon. There were no pauses in the music long enough to indicate peril, though plenty of the proper length to suggest flirtation.

Mr. Moore, perfectly aware that he was watched and unwanted, returned to the salon at a respectable hour. Instead of going with him, Betsy went to the kitchen to oversee the preparing of the picnic lunch.

“I expect you will soon be running off to London, Mr. Moore,” Lady Haldiman said hopefully.

“In a day or two. I cannot like to miss that picnic,” he said heartily. God! Nasty, wet breezes, the stench of seaweed, sand, and ants, and Lord Peter’s boys whooping like Indians.

“The day after tomorrow then,” she said, still hopeful.

“London is so expensive I am in no hurry to return there.”

Haldiman took the idea the man’s pockets were to let and suggested a hand of cards. He was careful to lose five pounds, which ought to be enough to get him to London.

* * * *

Sir Swithin was at loose ends and went to Whitehern that evening to discuss his water party with the ladies. He brought with him a sample of his invitation. It was lovely, done in a romantic mode, with a female silhouette drawn in India ink against a mauve waterfall.

“It is beautiful!” Mary exclaimed. “I shall frame mine when the party is over.”

“That is the general idea, my pet. These objets d’art are not destined for the dustbin.”

“Have you set the date?” she demanded eagerly.

“It will take me two weeks hard labor to complete the invitations. Perhaps—a month’s time.”

“That long! We’ll all help with the invitations,” Mary said. “But not tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going on a picnic to the beach.”

“Excellent! I have managed to avoid that particular torment for two decades now. I shall go with you and commune atavistically with my origins. One always feels that consanguinity with the sea,
n’est-ce pas?”

“You don’t look at all like a fish to me,” Mary laughed. “More like a bird, I always thought.”

“A bird of paradise, do you mean, or a peacock? I have heard both comparisons before.”

Examining his meager frame, she said, “Actually it was a canary I had in mind.”

“There is that delicacy of bone structure, and a thertain thweet melodiousness of voice.” The lisp on this occasion was deliberate. When Idle was railed at, he did not pull in his horns but pushed them farther forward. “But really, you know, we are whistling into the wind to seek a comparison. I am sui generis. I alone constitute my class.”

“Thank God for that!” Mary laughed.

Mr. Deverel called his beloved to order, and Sir Swithin turned his attention to Sara. “We are noticeably wan and lifeless this evening, Sara. What portends?”

She felt the need to confide in someone, and chose Idle as her confidant. “The Sauvage would never in a million years have said no, had Haldiman offered,” Idle assured her. “Ergo, he did not offer. At the picnic tomorrow we shall observe the trio. Lord Peter, too, is involved. Tomorrow evening, I shall explain how the situation stands, and we shall lay plans. I do not accept failure when I set about something, and I have decided you shall have Haldiman—if you are quite sure you want him.” He looked at her expectantly. “Well, do you?”

Sara gave an angry look. “Yes, I want him,” she said, and was amazed at her own temerity. She had never before admitted publicly to such a private thing.

He patted her hand. “There now, it was not so difficult, was it?”

Sara laughed at her own foolishness. “You are a tyrant, Swithin, but I like you very much.”

Richard Deverel watched them, amused. It was hard not to watch Sir Swithin. When Deverel returned to the Hall, his hostess had retired. Haldiman sat alone, waiting to hear what had transpired at Whitehern.

“Sir Swithin dropped around to visit Miss Wood,” Deverel mentioned. Haldiman stiffened perceptibly. “I take it he runs quite tame there. Hard to imagine what Miss Wood sees in him, but she was mighty amused at his ranting.”

“What had he to say?”

“Nothing of any account. We all had to decide what kind of bird he was. A peacock or a bird of paradise. I felt like telling him he was a popinjay, but managed to keep my tongue between my teeth. I doubt I shall keep up such good manners if he marries Miss Wood, and I have to see much of him.”

“Is it settled between them?” Haldiman demanded sharply.

“They did not say so, but surely that is the way the wind blows. They sit tête-à-tête in the corner, whispering and smiling as lovers do. Mary speaks of it as quite settled. He invited himself to the picnic. Will you be coming with us, Haldiman?”

It was the last thing Haldiman wanted, but he said, “Yes, it was my intention,” while his breast swelled in anger. He felt in some vague way that Peter was to blame for all his troubles. If he had not brought that wretched Betsy Harvey down on their heads, none of this would have happened. The least he could do was marry her, take her off to the Poplars, and have done with it. In his present mood, Haldiman would not have balked even at the couple’s remove to Canada.

His only small consolation was that the sky was overcast, and with luck they might all be reprieved from the picnic by rain.

The day of the picnic dawned bright and clear. Messages flew back and forth between Haldiman Hall, Whitehern, and Heron Hall as to what food, servants, and vehicles would be required. All the details were eventually settled, and at eleven, Sara and Mary set out with Sir Swithin in his carriage. They met up with the remainder of the party at the Hall, where Mary immediately removed to Richard’s carriage. Peter took his sons in his rig, and after much clamorous debate, Betsy and Moore joined Haldiman.