Page 10 of The Road to Cavan Town
“Are ya working here, Alice?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“I get to carry heavy things about tonight. Just like a regular footman, I’ll be.”
“Won’t ya be a fancy servant, then.” Alice smiled at his eagerness. Just like a little boy anticipating a game of imagining things.
Billy set down his burden. “Da says I’m to wear m’ fine Sunday clothes so I’ll look respectable.”
“Ye’ll look fine, Billy. Right fine.” She squeezed his arm.
His pout grew by the moment. “Fine clothes aren’t very comfortable.”
“No, they’re not.Necessary, but not comfortable.”
He nodded slowly and with great emphasis.
“You are not being paid to stand about talking.”
Alice nearly jumped at the sudden voice, too refined to be any of the staff. She glanced toward the doorway. Mrs. Kilchrest stood, looking at them with obvious disapproval.
“Yes’m.” Alice gave a quick curtsey. To Billy’s look of confusion, she added under her breath, “Best get back to work, Billy, and keep yer mind on yer chores.”
Mrs. Kilchrest watched every step Billy took as he made his way from the room. Alice pretended not to notice, but set to her polishing again. Mrs. Kilchrest made a slow circle of the room, brushing a finger over chairs and tables, inspecting themfor dust. Alice didn’t voice her protest despite not having had a chance to polish anything in the room yet but the one chair.
No scolding was made. Either Mrs. Kilchrest realized things hadn’t been attended to yet, or she was too distracted by the arrival of her daughter.
“Must we do this every year, Mother? It is such a great deal of bother.” Miss Kilchrest leaned unladylike against the window frame, looking out over the street below with such an expression of dissatisfaction as one might see on a petulant child.
“It is expected of us, Sophia. And you will behave.”
Miss Kilchrest gave a dainty shrug of her shoulder, pulling back on the white lace curtain for the briefest of moments, before letting it fall back into place.
“Do not give me that dismissive face, young lady. This is the most sought after invitation of the season and I will not have you ruin it.”
Miss Kilchrest crossed to a gilded mirror, turning her head about as she spoke. “We could serve them cold tea and stale cakes and the entire county would still come in droves.”
Mrs. Kilchrest tipped her chin upward, eying her daughter with reproof. Alice watched the exchange out of the corner of her eye, making a convincing display of polishing another chair.
“One too many servings of your sharp tongue have driven away all your most promising suitors.” Mrs. Kilchrest speared her daughter with a scolding look. “Where have the wealthy suitors gone? What of those with influence and standing? They’ve seen your temper one too many times and have flown like birds before the winter. And what have you left now? Farmers and tradesmen.”
Alice bristled at the distasteful tone with which Mrs. Kilchrest spoke of those “farmers.” Isaac was among their number, after all. He didn’t deserve to be spoken of so dismissively.
Miss Kilchrest smiled vaguely at her mother as she flitted toward the door. “They’ll be back, Mother. They always come back.”
Mrs. Kilchrest watched her daughter leave. ’Twas not an adoring look she wore.
And this is the family Isaac hopes to be part of?Alice shook her head.He could do vastly better for himself.
“Those chairs will not polish themselves.” Mrs. Kilchrest’s words snapped.
Alice rubbed harder at the legs of the chair and muttered a quick. “Yes’m.”
She spent the afternoon bringing a collection of mismatched chairs to polished perfection, her thoughts full of Isaac, drat the man. His empty-headed, single-minded pursuit of Sophia Kilchrest frustrated her to no end. That he’d not been by to see her fully broke her heart. She ought to be mad at him, ought to be leaving him to his stubbornness. But she could not,could not, leave him to certain misery in such an unhappy household.
How, then, could she help him see what a mistake he was making?
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