Page 26 of The Lady's Companion
“What is it that you wish of me, Miss Hampton?” she asked, and there was resignation in her tones. “What do you propose to do?”
“Why, earn my salary, ma’am,” Susan said, unable to keep all the surprise from her voice.
There was another brief flicker of amusement in Lady Bushnell’s eyes. Green eyes, Susan observed, and such a wonderful, unfaded green.
“Then you will be the first one.” Lady B said, with just a touch of asperity.
“I have already told Cora that I am to be the last one, Lady Bushnell,” Susan said with a firmness she did not feel.
Lady Bushnell directed her gaze out the window again. Susan’s heart sank, and she mentally kicked herself. Why can I not just say “Yes, my lady,” or “No, my lady” and leave the windy treatises to others? She waited to be dismissed again.
“How do you propose to do this?” came the question. Lady Bushnell continued to regard the view beyond the window. “If you plan to cheer me up, it’s already been tried. If it is to be a needlework project, don’t bother. I have a drawer full of unfinished doilies and china paintings. If you wish to chat, I doubt we have much in common.”
“Mr. Wiggins allows that we do,” Susan said suddenly, then hesitated. “Although I cannot see it, either,’’ she concluded in a rush when Lady Bushnell turned quickly to look at her.
“I have never questioned my bailiff’s skills of observation,” Lady Bushnell commented, “but I do not think he is overacquainted with the gentry. We share this room and we are women, but I do not think our similarities extend much beyond that. What do you propose to do with me?” she asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“I intend to read to you.”
“Read to me?” the widow repeated, and her voice rose for the first time. “Read to me like a bedridden pensioner whose wits are too twaddled for anything else?”
Susan winced but did not falter. “No! I do not see it that way.” Without an invitation, she sat in the chair opposite the dowager. ‘David ... Mr. Wiggins asked me what I used to like to have doneto me, and the second thing was to have someone read to me. It’s a pleasure.”
Again there was that twitch of the lip and slight flicker of the eye that lasted no more than a millisecond. “Do enlighten me what the first thing was on your list?” she asked, but it sounded more like a command.
“Mama brushed my hair. I liked the way it felt,” she said simply. Lady Bushnell was not someone to bamboozle with an elaborate answer. “I did not think you wanted me to brush your hair.”
“No. I’m quite capable of that; always have been. You do not think I have the wits left to read to myself?” she asked, indicating the open book on her lap.
“You misunderstand me, my lady,” Susan said in earnest. “I always thought it the height of comfort to have someone read to me. I could close my eyes and just let the words wander through my mind. I...” She paused. I am making a fool of myself, she thought miserably. Please, Lady Bushnell.
“If you must, you must,” the woman said finally. “I suppose if I do not allow you to read to me, then I will be forced into needlework, or some other project for my own good.”
Susan smiled. “Never that! I’m an indifferent needlewoman myself, so you need not fear that I will trap you in a daisy chain, or force a French knot on you.”
Lady Bushnell put her hand to her mouth and coughed, or at least it sounded like a cough to Susan. “What a relief to know that I am safe from the dreaded feather stitch. Now, set my mind at rest and assure me that I will not be forced to tat against my will.”
“Never!” Susan replied, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. “And I will never inflict crewel punishment.”
Lady Bushnell coughed again. Susan wondered if she should suggest a seat farther from the window, then decided that hercourage did not extend that far. The widow closed the book in her lap, not even marking the page, and set it aside. Perhaps David right, Susan thought. Perhaps she would like to read, but can’t anymore. You are a proud old thing, Lady Bushnell, and I hope am just like you when I reach sixty-five. I doubt I will have any more family around me than you do, she considered. She took heart and opened the book.
“I would like to readEmma, my lady,” she said. “It’s rather modern, but it makes me laugh.” She leaned forward. “Emma is not exactly a pattern card of perfection, such as one finds in some novels, my lady.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Lady Bushnell cut in. “I never read novels.”
“Oh, I do!” Susan said, choosing not to accept the rebuff. “Sometimes nothing is better than a romance where events resolve themselves to everyone’s satisfaction.” She noticed the set look return to the widow’s eyes. “I know it seldom happens in real life, but there is nothing wrong with the occasional happy ending,” Susan added gently.
“I wouldn’t know,” the widow repeated, but her voice was softer this time.
There was nothing in Lady Bushnell’s demeanor that encouraged it, but Susan leaned forward impulsively and touched the woman’s knee. She regretted the gesture almost the moment she made it, but Lady Bushnell did not draw away. Instead, she sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “Well, then, if you must read, let us get on with it,” she said, as though humoring a puppy leaping about and growling at the hem of her dress.
This is one fool you are forced to suffer, Lady Bushnell, Susan thought, at least until I have failed whatever probation you permit me. I fear it will not be long.
She turned to the first chapter and cleared her throat. ‘“Volume One, Chapter One. Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, andrich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence, and had lived nearly twenty-one years it the world with very little to vex or distress her.’”
The afternoon sun had changed the look of the sitting room when Cora Skerlong came in with a tea tray. Susan looked up from the book with a quick glance at Lady Bushnell, one of a series of darting glances she had made all afternoon. Early in the first chapter, Lady Bushnell had closed her eyes, which made Susan open her own eyes wider and wonder if she was listening at all, or merely suffering her presence until some interruption like a tea tray could relieve her.
Susan marked her place and put aside the book. I wonder if I should have chosen something more serious, likeThe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, orFox’s Book of Martyrs, she thought, then shook her head. ThenIwould have trouble staying awake. She smiled at the thought of falling asleep until the book tumbled from her hands and she pitched forward to lie snoring in Lady Bushell’s lap. No, she decided, noBook of Martyrsfor me.
