Page 19 of The Lady's Companion
She looked back at Wiggins, who still regarded her over the railing. “I will have to crawl back to my aunt and my father and give up any hopes I had of a future of my own.” She spoke softly, but she knew he heard her.
“Then my offer still stands, if you ever need it, Miss Hampton. I know what it’s like to be in bondage,” he said just as quietly, then squatted on his heels again, facing the cow.
Such a day this has been, and it is not yet afternoon, Susan thought as she left the cattle byre. I’ve been turned off a job, offered marriage, then forced to swallow huge lumps of pride. I suppose I can swallow more and return to Aunt Louisa. She turned her face up to the sun and smiled. And if things get too onerous in London, I can nourish myself with the knowledge that someone in the Cotswolds will always come to my rescue, even if it’s just a bailiff. At least I’ve been asked.
She ate a quiet lunch in the kitchen with Cora and Mrs. Skerlong, accepting their condolences over the briefness of her employment with a degree of equanimity that surprised her. Perhaps I do long for the safety of Aunt Louisa’s tyranny, where everything will be done for me, if I surrender my personality, she admitted to herself as she drank the last of her tea. And according to these hardworking people, what is so terrible about a fashionable roof over my head, food cooked by a French chef, and warm surroundings? In time, I might believe them, too.
Mrs. Skerlong warned her that Lady Bushnell had taken up her usual afternoon haunt in the south-facing sitting room, so Susan did not slow her steps as she passed that room. She went thoughtfully up the stairs, ready to compose a letter to Joel Steinman that she could send to him, once she was back in London. By the time I am back in London, she reasoned, I should have so little pride left that I can throw myself on his mercy without a qualm. It is a theory I shall likely have to test, at any rate.
She went into her room and admired its compact, comforting utility, sorry that she would be leaving it so soon. She stopped and frowned at the bed. There was another dress, this one of blue so deep at first she mistook it for black. She picked it up, admiring the mother-of-pearl buttons and rows of little tucks all across the bodice, and the deep flounce from knee to ankle that spoke of another decade. She held the dress up to her, knowing that it couldn’t ever have belonged to Cora Skerlong. She laid the dress back onto the bed and picked up the shawl of Norwich silk lying next to it. A note fell out of the rich blue and yellow folds.
It was one sentence only: “In the interest of fairness, I will give you a probationary period, as I gave all the others.” Clutching the note, Susan spread out her arms and flopped back on the bed. “Yes!” she told the ceiling with fierce exultation. “Will anyone want to work so hard for thirty pounds a year as I shall?” sheasked. “Surely not my father!”
She made herself comfortable on the bed, thinking of the bailiff again. He seemed to rub along well enough with Lady Bushnell. He will have to tell me something about her, Susan told herself. I will bother him until he gives me some idea of how to please her.
She knew she should devote her mind to the matter at hand, but the mutton stew and brown bread from lunch was nicely muddling up her insides and making her drowsy. She was still tired from last night’s trip through the snow, for all that the bailiff had declared that she was tougher than she looked. She undid the sash and let Cora’s big dress sprawl around her. I could turn over inside this dress, she thought, and closed her eyes. I wonder if Mr. Wiggins is still sitting on his heels beside that cow. He is a patient man. I wonder why it is that I always seem to think of him before I go to sleep? I will not think of him first when I wake up.
Susan knew she wouldn’t have thought of Mr. Wiggins first when she opened her eyes, except that she had the oddest dream of trudging behind him as they climbed up and down hills, balancing her trunk on the back of a cow. I must not eat so much luncheon, she told herself as she lay in bed, her hands pressed to her middle. The softness of the light outside told her that afternoon had already turned into evening.
She exchanged Cora’s dress for Lady’s Bushnell’s, exclaiming over the excellence of its fit as she viewed herself in the mirror. This dress looks better than I do at the moment, Susan decided, as she pulled from her hair the few remaining pins that had survived her nap. She brushed her hair and soon had it tamed into submission and wound neatly about her head again. I will do, she told herself as Cora tapped on the door to announce that dinner was ready. She was still in her stockinged feet, but the dress was long enough to cover that minor deficiency.
Susan dined in the kitchen with the Skerlongs, content to letthe cat curl up at her toes as she ate oyster soup and fricassee and wondered where Mr. Wiggins was. She must have looked toward the door once too often, because Mrs. Skeriong smiled at her. “He’s with the cows, Miss Hampton,” she said.
“I was afraid he might have gone to Quilling for my trunk this evening,” Susan explained.
The housekeeper shook her head. “I did take the liberty of telling him your good news when he came in to eat before milking.” She laughed and began to gather up the dishes. “He said he’d get your trunk tomorrow, and put it on rollers, in case he had to take it back in a few days!”
“No, Mama,” Cora said decisively, shaking her head. “Miss Hampton told me that she is to be the final lady’s companion. You’re here to stay, aren’t you, Miss Hampton?”
“I do hope so,” Susan said. “I wish that you would please call me Susan.”
“We couldn’t possibly,” the housekeeper declared. “None of the other lady’s companions went so far.”
“And they’re not here, are they?” Susan countered. “Please call me Susan, and give me some good advice on Lady’s Bushnell’s likes and dislikes.”
Mrs. Skerlong went to her chair by the stove, and Susan followed, sitting on her footstool. The cat leaped onto her lap and nudged her fingers to remind her of her duty. Absently, she rubbed the animal behind the ears.
“You want to talk to David Wiggins, my dear,” said the housekeeper as she threaded her darning needle. “Cora and I only came here this last year ourselves, when the old housekeeper died. What I learned, I learned from David. The bailiff’s known her for years, from back when they soldiered together on the Peninsula.”
“Oh, surely not,” Susan said, picking up a skein of yam at Mrs. Skerlong’s indication and starting to roll it into a ball. “Ladiesdon’t soldier.”
“I guess they do if they want something more exciting from their husbands than letters, my dear!” said the housekeeper, smiling as Susan blushed. “Old Lord Bushnell was quite a man, from every indication. Lady B stuck to his side like a burr up hill and down dale through all of Spain and Portugal.” She shook her head. “And when the old man and their daughter died in that last trip over the mountains to France ...”
“I’m wearing her daughter’s dress?” she whispered, her eyes big.
“You are—and don’t think it doesn’t surprise me!” The housekeeper focused her attention on the sock in her lap for a moment “Lady B took the bodies home, and gave up following the drum. The new Lord Bushnell had served in another regiment. He took over the family title and the Fifth Foot.” Mrs. Skerlong rested the darning egg and sock in her lap. “He insisted that she stay in England with her daughter-in-law at the family estate about twenty miles from here, towards Bath. And there it stood. I don’t think there was a battlefield in Spain or Portugal that Lady Bushnell didn’t know.”
“I wouldn’t have imagined it,” Susan murmured, putting down the ball of yam. “She looks so refined and elegant.”
“And probably did on the back of a donkey, too,” Mrs. Skerlong said. “The aristocracy ain’t like the rest of us. Begging your pardon, Miss Hampton ...”
“Never mind,” Susan said. “I’m certainly not in Lady Bushnell’s class. But to travel like that...”
“You wouldn’t follow your husband from bivouac to bivouac?”
Susan looked around, startled. “You are much too quiet, sir,” she protested to the bailiff as he stood behind her, milk pails in hand. She regarded him, wondering if she should feel disconcerted, especially since she had turned down his amazing proposal only hours ago. There was nothing in his face ofembarrassment, so obviously his impulsive offer was not a concern to him now. I will take a light tone, she decided. “How can we gossip, if you sneak up like a Mohican?”
“Quite easily, I think,” he replied, handing the pails to Emma, who apparently had been waiting for them. The girl took them to the room off the kitchen, and Susan heard the sound of milk being poured into a larger container. “I could have rolled a cannonball in here, and you wouldn’t have heard me, the two of you sitting there like conspirators!”
