The Waltzing Widow/Smith (20 page)

“No, indeed,” he replied and turned his eyes to Avedon. He beheld a noble gentleman of impeccable grooming and beautiful if slightly stiff manners. It never so much as touched his mind that this stately lord had anything to do with a ruffian brawling in front of the cathedral.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance at last, milord,” the bishop said. “Your sister is forever singing your praises. She tells me you have some original Donne manuscripts in your library. I would give a monkey to see them.”

“I will be happy to put them at your disposal at any time. I have been thinking I ought to give them to the Bodleian, for no one at home really appreciates them.”

Lady Sara looked alarmed, whether through the danger of losing valuable documents or the insinuation that she did not live with her head in sermons, he was not sure. “Why, Adrian, John peruses them every chance he gets. Only he so seldom leaves the parish,” she added dutifully.

“I’ll drop by tomorrow, if that suits you?” the bishop suggested.

“You must come to lunch,” Lady Sara said at once. “I have been waiting so long to show you all over my ancestral home, milord.”

She slid onto the sofa beside the bishop and monopolized him while the others took up seats and accepted glasses of sherry. When the bishop took a glass, she said, “Perhaps just a tiny one, as this is such a special occasion.” She lifted a glass, no less full than its fellows, and sipped daintily.

Lord Avedon quickly surveyed the room and went to sit near Lucy. Unfortunately Tony was hot at his heels. He looked warily around the room and said to his uncle in a stage whisper, “Morton says we ain’t to mention Canterbury yesterday. Thought I might slip you the clue. We wouldn’t want”—he tossed his head toward the bishop—“to know anything about it. Makes it look as if Lucy is a bit of a high flyer, you see.”

Avedon gave a mental groan and thanked Divine Providence that Morton had thought to speak to Tony. “Right,” he said, and continued to take up a chair beside Lucy.

As nine-tenths of the room was in on the conspiracy, they were left alone for a few moments, in hopes that the romance would come to the boil. “Lucy,” he said in a low voice, “it was kind of you to invite me, after the way I behaved. You must have thought me mad. It was unforgivable of me.”

She turned a sparkling eye on him. “I don’t know what you are apologizing for, Lord Avedon.” He smiled in relief. “Is it your calling me a liar, or a lightskirt, or is it only your beating Mr. Carlton at Canterbury? Surely you are not reverting to the tiling of your meadow? That is ancient history by now.”

His spirits sank to hear his history recalled so vividly. “All of the above,” he said, and fell silent.

Lucy rose briskly and went to sit with Lady Bigelow and Morton. When dinner was called, Lady Sara grabbed the bishop’s arm and led the way to the table. Avedon offered his arm to Mrs. Percy. Lucy was not tardy to latch on to Morton, which left Tony to accompany his mother, and the vicar his wife. The conversation, led by Lady Sara, took an ecclesiastical turn over dinner. She inquired for news of the conference but showed no real interest in the archbishop’s views on modernism in the church.

“I daresay the filling of our poor departed Dr. Nivens’s shoes came up?” she asked artlessly.

“Not at the conference,” the bishop told her. “That will be for the prime minister to decide.”

She had often heard Avedon say the same thing but didn’t believe a word of it. “But surely they will listen to your advice, milord,” she said, and went on to drown him in butter. “You, so wise and experienced, will know better than anyone whom you wish to have working under you. The archdeacon must work closely with his bishop. Surely it is not just for the prime minister to say.”

“There is a deal of politics mixed up in it,” he told her. “And with our Tory government—” He hunched his shoulders. This was as good as saying John, an outspoken Whig, hadn’t a chance.

Lady Sara gasped, and quickly filled her mouth with turbot, before it should betray her into some unladylike utterance.

Mr. Carlton adroitly turned the talk to other matters. In his haste he unthinkingly mentioned the visit to Canterbury. “I always seize every opportunity to take the tour,” he said piously. “Personally, I find its architecture more interesting than St. Paul’s. Certainly its history is.”

“Yes, shocking how few people appreciate its history. Why, do you know,” the bishop said, turning to include the entire table, “an ugly big fellow actually engaged Mr. Carlton in a fight there yesterday after lunch. Shocking. A great, uncouth lout he was, twice the size of Mr. Carlton. He looked as if he had been raised by wolves and acted it, too.” A deadly hush descended over the table. “Shocking,” he repeated again.

Into the silence Bigelow said, “By Jove, wouldn’t I like to have seen that!” Carlton, sitting across from him, gave a killing stare. “If I’d been there, I mean, in Canterbury. Which, of course, I wasn’t. And besides, I didn’t go anywhere near the cathedral. Nor Avedon, either. We didn’t go anywhere near it, did we, Uncle? I never left the High Street. Of our own village, that is to say. Heh, heh. Though now I think of it, Cousin, it must have been just about the time you—you—”

“Avedon never left Chenely yesterday,” Lady Sara stated firmly.

Lady Bigelow, who hadn’t added a word to the conversation to that point, said, “Never left Chenely? I was sure I saw your mount at Milhaven early yesterday morning, Avedon.”

“It was his groom,” Lady Sara said. “Avedon’s mount needed exercise, and as Adrian was unable to leave Chenely all day, I asked the groom to exercise it.”

“A likely story!” Tony scoffed. “As if Avedon would let anyone get within a yard of his mount.”

Mrs. Percy picked up the pickles and shoved them at Tony. “Do try these pickles, Tony,” she said. At the same moment Morton said, “Would you mind passing the butter, Tony?” Bigelow stared from one to the other, taking the pickles, reaching for the butter. “Dash it, I only have two hands,” he said. “And you need not all rush at me as if I was going to say something I shouldn’t. I was only going to let on it was
your
mount Mama saw at Milhaven, Aunt Sally.”

Lady Sara skewered him with a killing smile. “How could it be, when I never left Chenely all day, dear? I was home with Adrian, discussing new carpets for the village church.”

The vicar looked up hopefully, but before he could urge on this scheme, the bishop intervened. Norris had already pegged Bigelow for a witless rattle and paid no heed to his ramblings. “I wouldn’t mind more of those pickles,” he said. “I haven’t had any so good since my mama passed away.”

“I’ll give your cook the receipt,” Lady Sara said swiftly, though they were not her pickles he was enjoying. “Better yet, you must take a few bottles home with you.”

The conversation passed on to other matters, and the uneasy diners breathed a temporary sigh of relief. By sharp listening and fast talking and very little eating, a few other conversational perils were avoided, and eventually the hectic meal was finished without disaster. The ladies retired to the parlor, which was close enough to the dining room that they could hear the gentlemen’s conversation without benefit of seeing them. Straining their ears toward the dining room left them very little time for conversation of their own. Lady Bigelow rested her head on a pillow and fell into a short doze.

After taking their port, the gentlemen joined the ladies. Lady Sara, who knew the bishop was a keen card player, suggested a hand of whist. “You will partner Mrs. Percy, Morton,” she said, “and I shall partner the bishop.” As the card table was being set up in the corner of the parlor, she said to Morton, “And make sure you don’t win. We want him in a good mood.”

“A good idea, but you aren’t using all your wits, Sal,” he replied. “Set up another table with the vicar and his wife against Tony and his mama, and you will leave Avedon free to pursue the heiress.”

“Do you think I hadn’t thought of that? Isabel doesn’t play whist.”

“Let ‘em play Pope Joan, then.”

Lady Bigelow was quite an adept at this childish  game. She overheard two of her favorite words and came to attention. “Pope Joan, did you say? Here, I have a deck in my reticule with the eight of diamonds already removed. Any number can play, so we will not have to leave two odd men sitting on the sidelines. Pope Joan, anyone?” She smiled invitingly at Avedon and Lucy.

Lucy saw the tentative smile on Avedon’s face. She remembered all the iniquities she had suffered at his hands and was annoyed. Between him and Lady Sara, they had shamelessly turned this party into a vehicle to foster Dr. Rutledge’s career. She and Mrs. Percy had gone along with it, helping them. And after all that he didn’t even sit beside her when he came to the parlor. If Avedon thought he could now deliver his apologies quietly in a corner, where she must behave because of the audience, he was out in his reckoning. Oh, no, she would hear his apologies in complete privacy, and Lord Avedon would hear a few things about himself, too.

“Lovely, Lady Bigelow,” she said, and rose to help set up another table. “I should be happy to play Pope Joan.”

The look of shock on Avedon’s face was well worth the ensuing hour of boredom. At nine-thirty the ladies had tea, the gentlemen had glasses of wine, and at ten the guests left.

The bishop expressed himself flattered at the attention of the noble guests. “I doubt Lady Sara would have been so charming if it were not for this appointment hanging fire,” he said, laughing.

Lucy listened with interest. “What are Dr. Rutledge’s chances, Uncle?” she asked.

“He and Collier are neck and neck. I personally prefer Rutledge, despite his wife, but of course Collier will get it. He has friends in the government.”

“It doesn’t seem right that a church appointment should hang on politics,” Mrs. Percy said.

“They’re hand in glove,” he assured her.

The evening was only half over for the guests when they departed from Rose Cottage. Except for the vicar and his wife, the party repaired to Chenely to discuss the evening over a fresh pot of tea.

“That was a demmed dull scald, playing Pope Joan for pennies. We carried the thing off pretty slick, though,” Tony congratulated himself. “The old boy never twigged to it that we thought Lucy had gone haring off with Morton. Mind you, I don’t see that it would have made any difference if he had caught on. I mean to say, it’s not as though we had done anything wrong. I do wish I had seen that row outside the cathedral. Who was it, Morton?”

“No one you know, Tony. A chap I met in London.”

“Why was he beating you? Was it about horses, or money, or women?”

“Cards. And speaking of cards, Sal. You owe me three shillings. That is what I let Norris win from me.”

Lady Sara never heard any conversation that was likely to cost her money. “I fear John’s chances are very slim, with this business of a Tory government,” she said to Avedon. “It seems so unfair.”

“What you ought to do is make a stink about it,” Tony said. “I mean to say, it ain’t right, is it, the Tories giving all the plums to their own true blues? You’d think we was back in the days of Henry the Eighth, raping the monasteries.”

“Watch your language, dear,” his mother said. About the only meaningful word in the conversation for her was “rape.”

“It still happens all the time,” Lady Sara said sadly.

“Surely not around here!” Lady Bigelow exclaimed.

“We are speaking of nepotism, Isabel,” Lady Sara explained.

Lady Bigelow shook her head in consternation. “What next?”

Lady Sara smiled her patient smile. “John was complaining before I left that Sir Alfred Harrison was made governor of some outlandish province in India over Mr. Seeton’s head, when Seeton had more experience. But, of course, Seeton is a Whig, so his twenty years faithful service counted for naught. I was happy to see the
Times
made a fuss over the issue.”

Avedon and Mr. Carlton exchanged a sharp, questioning look. “Indeed they did,” Avedon said. “It was Pritchards who wrote the series of articles. He was at Christ Church with me.”

Carlton said, “The idea can’t come from us directly. We’ll have to get someone else to approach Pritchards.”

“And do it immediately, before the appointment is made,” Avedon added.

There was excitement in the air. Lady Sara felt it before she quite figured out its cause. As sharp as a tack, she soon divined their meaning. “Cause a public ruckus in the press and the House, and shame the government into making a Whig appointment, you mean?” she asked.

“Exactly.” Her brother smiled. “If we can get a few prestigious gents breathing flames down their necks, they won’t dare hand another plum to one of their own.”

“We’d better make a dart to London tomorrow and get working on it,” Mr. Carlton said. He saw the quick frown that flitted across Avedon’s face. “Love-making can wait, Cousin. A man may marry anytime, but if John doesn’t get this appointment now, he will wait many a long year for another opportunity.”

“He’s right, dear,” Lady Sara said urgently. “And meanwhile, I shall see that dear Lucy is kept safe for you.”

“It won’t take more than a day, two at the most,” Avedon decided, and agreed to go to London.

“What are they talking about?” Lady Isabel asked her son. “If it is preventing all these horrid rapes, you ought to go with them, Tony.”

“Of course I shall go,” he said, throwing consternation into the rest of the group.

A note from Lady Sara was received early at Rose Cottage the next morning, reminding the bishop of his luncheon invitation to Chenely and inviting Lucy and Mrs. Percy to accompany him. As nothing was said of Avedon’s having gone to London, Lucy was excited at the visit. Thus far the ladies had not gotten farther than the grounds of the estate at the garden party, and there was some eagerness to see the glories of the interior.

Bishop Norris was tempted out at an early hour by the lure of John Donne’s manuscripts and drove over in his own carriage to spend the morning in the library, where he was so pestered by visits from a solicitous Lady Sara that he scarcely got to read a word. He did, however, enjoy not less than three cups of coffee, a plate of Cook’s excellent macaroons, one of Avedon’s specially imported cheroots, and a detailed account of the family’s history, going back to its Norman roots.