Page 32 of The Lady's Companion
Susan blushed and stared at her hands as though they were someone else’s picked up by mistake. “It was late last night, my lady,” she mumbled, “and some of it must surely be silver polish.”
“Miss Hampton, you are a ragamuffin! I wonder that Hamptons ever had any pretensions to society, if you are a representative sample! Begin at the top, Miss Hampton, andtake it more slowly this time. David, busy yourself!”
Two hours later, Susan was still beginning at the top. I will remember these two lines when I am old and gumming my porridge, she thought as perspiration trickled down her back in the cool room. But she was playing those two lines better, she knew she was, even if the tempo was as lugubrious as Lady Bushnell’s demeanor was glacial. She sighed and stopped at the end of the second line when the widow began the ominous tapping of her cane on the floor, the signal to pause and face the music. She looked at her employer.
You are so impeccable, she thought in grudging admiration, knowing that the pins were coming out of her own hair as she nodded in time with the music. Of course, I am doing the work here, Susan considered as she dragged her eyes to the top of the page again and poised her fingers—nicely arched now, thanks to Lady B’s admonition—over the keys.
“That will do for now. Miss Hampton,” Lady Bushnell said.
Susan winced at the “for now,” but closed the music book with relief. She glanced at the furniture polish on the windowsill and wondered why she had ever thought polishing silver in the kitchen was a chore. Her stomach growled and she blushed.
“I will release you now, Miss Hampton,” Lady Bushnell said as she began to rise from the chair.
Susan leaped to her feet to assist her, marveling at the lightness of the old woman’s bones. “You have taught me a great deal this morning, my lady,” she said as she stood with her hands at the widow’s elbow.
“It is only the beginning, Miss Hampton,” came the reply, and Susan tried not to make a face.
“Lady Bushnell, I do not mean to take up so much of your time! Surely you have oodles of things more valuable...” she began, and was silenced by an emphatic tap of the cane as the widow stopped her stately progression to the door and turned to stareat her current lady’s companion.
“Don’t babble, child! My dear Miss Hampton, it is I who should thank you!” she said, and Susan dreaded the glitter in her magnificent green eyes.
“Wh... whatever for, my lady?” Susan stammered.
“Of all that endless parade of lady’s companions, you and you alone have given me something to do!” she continued in triumph. “When you are not helping David in the succession house—although why he needs such assistance I cannot imagine. He’s managed well enough alone before—I expect you to be in here, practicing diligently.”
“Y... yes, ma’am,” Susan replied.
They continued to the door, where Lady Bushnell stopped when Susan opened it. ‘Tell Mrs. Skerlong to bring my luncheon into the breakfast room this time, instead of my room. I feel positively energized, Miss Hampton. And I expect you in my room for another four or five chapters this afternoon. Emma Woodhouse is such a flibbertigibbet, that I wonder what Jane Austen was thinking! Spare me from maiden ladies in parsonages! Modem writers are such a trial.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Susan said. She dropped a curtsy and stepped into the hall. I have been sentenced to hard labor at the piano, she thought. Joel Steinman, perhaps I will consider your latest offer.
“Oh, and Miss Hampton...”
“Yes, Lady Bushnell?”
“That rose pink becomes you better than it did my daughter.”
My goodness, Susan thought as she smiled at Lady Bushnell and escaped to the safety of the kitchen. The Skerlongs and David looked up from the table, where they were eating. She delivered Lady Bushnell’s luncheon request, and the housekeeper’s eyes widened in surprise.
“She never eats in the breakfast room anymore,” Mrs. Skerlongsaid, getting up to prepare Lady Bushnell’s luncheon.
Susan sank down at the table, leaning on her elbows in a way that would have sent Aunt Louisa up into the boughs. “She says I have positively energized her,” she confided in a mournful tone. “We are to practice every morning.” She remembered herself then and straightened up, smoothing her hair back into its customary lines and replacing the pins. “David, Lady Bushnell has made me her project!” she wailed.
He laughed and pushed a bowl of stew in front of her. “Whatever possessed you to start playing in the first place?” he asked, handing her a spoon.
“The silliest thing!” she admitted. “My letter from Mr. Steinman told me of a possible opening as a governess to young girls that he thought I might be suited for, if it should develop. I thought to practice to see if I had enough proficiency to teach children.” She ate a few bites then put down the spoon. “I am an idiot.”
“No, you’re not,” David disagreed, his smile replaced by a frown. “A new position, eh?”
She nodded. “He said it may come to nothing, but he wanted to see if I was interested. And I am, of course, considering how little headway I have been making with Lady Bushnell. Until now!” She sighed and began to eat again.
“You’ve written him?” David asked after Mrs. Skerlong left with the luncheon tray and Cora followed with a teapot. His tone was casual, with just enough of an edge to it to make her look at him in surprise, and then hope he hadn’t noticed.
“Actually, no, I haven’t,” she replied, surprised at herself all over again. “And I really don’t know why not. Perhaps I would miss the Waterloo strain too much, and dirt under my nails.” Impulsively, she reached out to touch his arm as it lay on the table, but stopped herself in time. “I think your succession house is the sanest place in England.”
He nodded, his eyes bright. “It is. I sit there at the drafting table and dream about covering England with the Waterloo strain, and other seed improvements of my engineering.” He looked embarrassed. “Pretty ambitious for a lying Welsh sneak thief.”
She thought of her own moments at the drafting table, watching the wheat in parallel rows in front of her. “Anything’s possible, I think, if one sits at that table long enough,” she said mildly, then frowned at him. “See here, sir, you are not a sneak thief! Those days are long over.”
