Page 15 of The Lady's Companion
Cora’s dress hung many times too large on her slender frame, so she stepped out of it, and tried to shake out the worst of the wrinkles from her traveling dress. The material had the virtue of being well cut, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, not after trudging through mud and snow at midnight. She resigned herself to Cora’s dress. The sash Cora brought helped, but couldn’t shrink it four sizes. She tucked and pleated the extra fabric under the sash, her hands lingering for a moment at her waist. So you think you could span my waist with your hands, Mr. Wiggins, she considered. I’d like to see you try.
She couldn’t find her boots, so she went downstairs in her stockinged feet, treading quietly on the stairs and lookingaround her with some pleasure. I wonder how old this house is, she thought, pleased to see it in daylight. The ceilings were low and the walls wainscoted, the oak mellowing and darkening through the years. Mullioned windows on the first floor sparkled with the snow’s reflection, each little pane rubbed and cleaned and soberly outlined in its lead frame: She looked up at the open beams and decided that Queen Elizabeth would have been quite at home here. Two hundred and more years of wind, storm, and winter, she marveled, and hopes and dreams. “What is it you hope for, Lady Bushnell?” she whispered as she glided down the hall, following her nose. “Or are all your dreams done?” She stood still a moment, hugging her arms about her. “Mine are,” she said. “Now I must please others.”
The kitchen was at the back of the house, instead of belowstairs, and unaccountably, her spirits began to rise. It was a small matter, but a fact that cheered her, all out of proportion to its relative importance. She opened the door and breathed deep of kitchen smells that must have been trapped in the overhead beams for at least two centuries. Bunches of dried spices hung in orderly clumps from ceiling hooks, conveniently at hand. Her eyes went to the huge fireplace at the end of the kitchen, then she smiled to see that it had been bricked over and replaced by a modern Rumford stove.
And there were her boots, polished to a shine that reflected the lamplight overhead. Everything gleamed of order, well-being, and stability, and it was balm to Susan’s soul. Cora, she thought, I believe your mother is a force to be reckoned with.
The force to be reckoned with was watching her from the depths of an overstuffed chair, a cat in her lap, and a cup of tea close to her hand. She was on her feet as soon as Susan looked her way, pouring the cat down her dress, and holding out her hand. There was no disguising the look of surprise on her face.
“Lord love us, and I thought Davey Wiggins was joking, exceptthat he seldom jokes,” she said as she came closer to Susan. “You are scarcely more than a babe! But welcome and let us clap hands. I am Kate Skerlong, the housekeeper. Susan Hampton?”
Susan stepped forward gladly and shook hands. “Yes, ma’am, and thank you for letting me sleep.”
Mrs. Skerlong nodded. “Davey insisted. He said he hauled you up and down hills and through snow half the night, and it wouldn’t do to send you back to London in a box.” She went to the stove and lifted a saucepan from the warming shelf. “That’s the one thing that hasn’t happened to our lady’s companions yet.”
Susan smiled at her, fascinated. “I’m sure it’s not because some have not wished it!” she said.
Mrs. Skerlong only smiled. “Come now, sit and have some porridge.” She chuckled behind her hand. “You’ll have to eat a prodigious amount to fill out that dress!”
They laughed together, and Susan tucked into the porridge, marveling as she ate and tried not to exclaim like an idiot over the tastiness of it, just how it was that something familiar should taste better in these surroundings.
“That was so good I must have some more,” she said when she finished, and held out her bowl.
“You’ll still never fill out that dress, no matter how much you eat.”
Susan glanced around. David Wiggins stood in the doorway, blinking his eyes after the amazing brightness of the snow outside. He nodded to Mrs. Skerlong, who reached for another bowl. He shook the snow off his coat, and tossed it expertly over the coat tree. He sat down at the table across from her and watched her face in silence until Susan wanted to look away.
“What, sir?” she asked finally, hoping the exasperation didn’t show in her voice, but half hoping that it would. For all that he was across the table from her, he seemed uncomfortably close.
“Thank you, Mrs. Skerlong,” he said as she set a bowl of porridge already thick with cream in front of him. “You look a little fragile in the morning light, Miss Hampton. I was just wondering what I would have done if you had pegged out last night during our walk.”
Silly man, she thought as she smiled at Mrs. Skerlong, and picked up her spoon again. “Well, if I had broken my leg, you could have shot me,” she said, her tone conversational.
He grinned down into his bowl, but didn’t say anything.
“Looks are sometimes deceiving, sir,” she continual after a few mouthfuls more of porridge. “I could probably eat you under the table and outlast you on any march.”
“We’ll try it sometime,” he said when he finished, and he reached for the coffee cup that Mrs. Skerlong handed him. “Coffee, Miss Hampton?” he offered.
She indicated her cup. “I prefer tea.”
“Aye, certainly you do. Coffee’s for old campaigners.” He regarded her another moment, then turned his attention to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Skerlong, there’s yet another new calf in the byre and another threatening. Tell me what possesses cows to drop their calves when it’s colder than a well digger’s arse outside?”
Susan choked over her tea and resisted the urge to laugh. I must have left the land of well-bred, boring conversationalists, she thought. The bailiff is a genuine article.
She regarded Wiggins with more interest, admiring his face in profile as he looked at the housekeeper. Nose a trifle long, she thought, but straight. Chins like that usually mean stubbornness. Aunt Louisa’s modiste would say that cheekbones so prominent show character, but that can’t be, because he’s a dark Welshman. I wonder how he came by a name like Wiggins? Isn’t it English?
Mrs. Skerlong was obviously no stranger to the bailiff’s kitchenchat. “It’s the same logic that compels women to reach their confinement in the middle of the night,” she said. “All my babies came at night.”
“I call it damned inconsiderate,” he said frankly. He leaned back in the chair and exhaustion seemed to ooze off him. He pushed the coffee cup toward the housekeeper. “Another of those, if you please, and I might stay awake for a few hours longer.” He directed his attention to Susan again. “Well, now that you’ve scrutinized me, are there any questions about myself that need answers?”
“My, but you’re blunt,” Susan said before she thought. “How on earth does your wife manage?”
He did laugh then, with a sidelong glance at Mrs. Skerlong. “That’s easy, Miss Hampton. I’m not married. Wives take time and money; I have neither.”
She blushed and returned her attention to her teacup.
“Reading the leaves?” he inquired, amusement showing in his dark eyes.
