Page 38 of The Lady's Companion
Lady Bushnell sat next to the piano. She motioned Susan closer and indicated the piano stool. “Make sure it is at the right height for you,” she said. “You will be spending much of your time perched upon it, and while I will have you learn discipline, I will not have you uncomfortable. Ready, Miss Hampton? Of course you are. Let us begin with a C-major scale. What could be simpler?”
Susan adjusted the stool, then squared her shoulders and positioned her hands over the keys. She played the scale once, twice, three times and then realized the futility of keeping count as Lady Bushnell tapped her ankles with the cane each time she faltered or abandoned the rhythm. Papa, you would perish if you ever worked so hard for thirty pounds, she thought in desperation each time she neared the end of the scale and the widow took a tighter grip on her cane.
I will still be playing this C-major scale when I am old and arthritic and unable to eat without drooling, Susan thought anhour later. She paused and tried to shift her legs out of the range of Lady Bushnell’s relentless cane. I have played this silly scale in triplets, quarter notes, sixteenths, dotted eighths and sixteenths, and still she hammers at my ankles.
“I don’t seem to be much improved,” she said dubiously to Lady Bushnell, leaning down to rub the ankle closest to the cane.
The widow sat with her eyes closed. “How excellent that we have plenty of mornings to correct your deficiencies,” she murmured.
“I doubt I will ever be much good,” Susan temporized.
Lady Bushnell opened her eyes and glared at Susan. “And that is the trouble with Hamptons! You flit from undertaking to undertaking, and as a result, never accomplish anything.” She raised her cane to point it at Susan. “I intend for you to improve.”
Susan paused, her hands in her lap. I suppose I could take great offense at what this woman is saying about the Hamptons, she considered. I could be like Papa, and pout and frown, or Aunt Louisa, and gobble and snarl. She smiled at Lady Bushnell instead. Or I could grit my teeth and practice and learn from what she is trying to teach me, whatever her motives (indeed, I do not trust my own!). I am trying to run away from the Hamptons, but rather, perhaps I should make the name an honorable one in these parts.
“And so I shall, Lady Bushnell,” she replied. “From the top again?”
Without even looking at the widow, she could tell that her response had startled her. There was a sharp intake of breath, and then a chuckle so low as to be almost unheard. It might have been imagined; it probably was, in fact, as her own stomach was beginning to growl. Take that and that, Lady B, she thought grimly as she slowly crawled up the scale, and then down again. She felt so good about it that she played a C-major chord with allthe aplomb of a pianist finishing a concerto. She looked at Lady Bushnell and could not resist the laughter inside her. To her amazement, the widow began to laugh, too. It did not last long, but at least she did not attempt to hide her amusement this time.
“You are a scamp. Miss Hampton! I would say that you have done everything that could possibly be done to a C-major scale except turn the page sideways and dump the notes on the floor. Tomorrow it will be G-major. Now, wipe that smirk off your face and go away for a while!”
Only a day ago, Susan would have cringed at her words. Instead, she smiled at her employer, and realized, with a twinge close to pleasure, that she was beginning to understand Lady Bushnell. “Very well, Lady Bushnell. I will hobble off and soak my ankles,” she said. She paused and leaned against the open door. “You won’t object if I practice in here again right after lunch?”
“I recommend it!” she replied. “However, you should practice on the harpsichord instead. Our good vicar Mr. Hepworth wrote me that he is making an afternoon call. I will, of course, receive him in the best sitting room, but the piano, I fear, would be too noisy, even this far away. We cannot have him thinking that I am doing injury to caged wildlife or recalcitrant servants! He is less likely to hear the pain you might inflict upon a harpsichord.”
It was all said with a faint twinkle in Lady Bushnell’s green eyes, one that invited comment. “He will never know I am there, punishing piano or harpsichord, my lady,” Susan agreed.
“Then we understand each other,” Lady Bushnell replied. “I must admit I wonder why he is coming. He already knows what I think about God, and I rather thought that would discourage him.” She seemed to be almost speaking to herself as she rose and went to the window. She turned back to glare at Susan. “I informed Mr. Hepworth several years ago that God is an untidy ditherer who leaves too many loose ends, and he has notbothered me since. Neither Mr. Hepworth nor the Lord.”
“My lady, you didn’t!” Susan burst out, her eyes wide.
“I did!” she said, coming toward Susan now. “I also told him that if Regent and Parliament oversaw the realm the way God looks after the universe, Napoleon would be scratching his ass in the House of Lords right now.”
She spoke with conviction and a firmness of spirit that belied her years, a fearless woman completely sure of herself. I could see you leaping off your horse and throwing yourself in front of a whip and a dying man, Susan thought as she watched her employer’s slow but graceful passage to the door. You were meant for a much wider stage than this.
Lady Bushnell stood close to Susan now, and from her height advantage looked down on her. “Correct me if I am wrong, but do I have you to blame for this sudden clerical interest in Quilling Manor, Miss Hampton?”
“Oh, surely no ..... Well, perhaps,” Susan amended, deeply aware of the silliness of attempting to argue with Lady Bushnell. “The bailiff did introduce us yesterday. But I am sure it is you he is interested in, my lady.”
They regarded each other, eye to eye, and neither looked away. “That may be the largest pile of verbal horse manure you have ever uttered, Miss Hampton,” Lady Bushnell said finally. “Who will be next? Our bachelor landowners? The physician? The constable? Every widower between here and the Bristol Channel?”
“I haven’t met them yet!” Susan protested, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. “It is only the vicar.”
Lady Bushnell nodded, her eyes still bright. “Lord Bushnell always said I was prone to vast exaggeration, but wouldn’t you agree, Miss Hampton, that the vicar looks rather like a marsh bird?”
My thoughts precisely, Susan reflected as she nodded. “Hedoes appear to be all elbows and angles, my lady.”
“We are agreed upon that, then,” Lady Bushnell said as she stood aside for Susan to open the door wider. “I should think a young woman would prefer a man with more substance to him. Miss Hampton, do you have an opinion on the subject?”
“No, my lady,” she said and blushed.
“Then why do you blush?” Lady Bushnell demanded. “I should hope a woman your age would have some opinion on what pleases her in a man!”
“It’s not really a subject that ladies today speak about, Lady Bushnell,” she said, mentally kicking herself for her condescension. But I am thinking about it, and it is making me decidedly warm again. I am wondering quite a lot what the bailiff would be likely to attempt after such a kiss. I am wondering how it would feel, and whether I would like it. And I stand here, the world’s biggest hypocrite, and assure you that I have no interest in such things.
“And that is one of the reasons I was happy to incarcerate myself here, Miss Hampton,” Lady Bushnell continued. “After-dinner conversation among women is not nearly so entertaining as it used to be.” She banged her cane on the parquet floor for emphasis. “Now we speak of dresses, colic, and mustard plasters. Would it embarrass you to know that fifty-five years ago my sisters and I used to listen at our parent’s bedchamber door when they thought we were asleep? Miss Hampton, ladies live in a dull world today!”
As she watched Lady Bushnell make her stately way down the hall toward the stairs, it suddenly occurred to her that here was someone who could talk to her about the bailiff. If only I dared, she thought. And I do not.
