Page 41 of The Lady's Companion
“If you do,” Susan continued, “I am close by. Good night Lady Bushnell.”
She washed the dishes in the kitchen, feeling heavy as the solitude of the manor descended on her shoulders. At home I would be playing whist with Aunt Louisa and my cousins, she thought. And perhaps Papa would return from a successful turn at the tables and favor me with idle chat about his plans. She set her lips firmly together. But I am not homesick, and Papa’s plans are my ruination.
With a sigh of exasperation, she took Mrs. Skerlong’s shawl from the peg by the door and swung it around her shoulders. I will weed strawberries in the succession house, she told herself with an impatient twitch of her shoulders. It ought to remind me that there is no going back to London and Aunt Louisa’s house.
Tim the cowman must have lit the lamps and stoked the furnaces, because the room was bright and warm enough for moisture to condense on the glass. She sniffed the air, appreciating the fragrance of leaves and loam when all outside was still patchy with snow and suspicious of more. “This is more like it,” she announced, sitting at the drafting table to admire the wheat.
She soaked in the sight before her and was acutely mindful of its calming effect. I wonder if it is the wheat, or the man who tends it so faithfully, she thought, feeling at peace with herself again. I should leave him a little note and tell him that Lady B asked me to take tea today, she thought as she looked about on the ledge under the table for paper.
She pulled out a letter instead, which she would have returnedwithout reading, except that the title in bold lettering caught her attention. “Waterloo Seed Farm,” she read. I like that better than Quilling Seed Farm, David.” She read the letter to herself, noting the misspellings and shaky grammar, but impressed with the message. “So you would volunteer some of your wheat to others for trial, sir?” she murmured. “That is a good idea.” She folded her hands on the drafting table, looking at the list of names running down one side of the letter. “And I suppose these are all local landowners within easy riding distance, so you can check on your experimental wheat.”
She put away the letter and got down off the stool, curious to know if the bailiff would allow her to help him with the spelling and grammar. I hope he will not be too proud, she reflected. I would be, she thought honestly. Let us hope that the bailiff is a better person than I am.
The strawberries claimed her notice then. She weeded them and ate a few that interested her, thinking of berries sugared and fed to attentive gentlemen sharing alfresco luncheons. At least, her cousin Fanny had embellished that tale after one event of her London Season and passed it on to a cousin chafing at home. Susan tried to imagine feeding a sugared strawberry to David Wiggins, and could only laugh, shake her head, and weed a little faster.
Even the succession house felt lonely, and she looked about for the cat, who should have been shamelessly toadying about her ankles and nudging her for pets and ear rubs. Kittens, is it? she thought. She wiped her hands on some burlap sacking and walked around the succession house, peering into dark comers where David had pointed out beds he had made of toweling in the hope that the cat would pick a comfortable spot for “the blessed event,” as he put it. No luck. Of course, reasoned Susan as she made another circuit, what cat ever did the convenient thing?
She found the cat and kitten on the third circuit, lying on the bailiff’s uniform jacket, which had been rolled up and stuffed inside a box next to the bags of seed wheat. The cat was vigorously licking the slimy, unfinished-looking kitten curled up beside her, mouth open in a soundless meow. Then as Susan watched, the cat stopped, and with inward preoccupation, purred louder and expelled a second kitten in a gush of fluid onto Wiggins’ jacket.
“I hope your master had no plans for that coat,” Susan murmured as she watched in fascination. She was still sitting there an hour later, watching the last of four kittens arrive, when the bailiff returned. At least she assumed it was the bailiff. Seated on the floor between the aisles, she could not see him. She stayed where she was, comfortably seated with her legs crossed Indian style and the scrap of a blanket tucked around her. She knew better than to touch the kittens, but she continued to admire them, tiny, hairless, utterly dependent. It’s not that I am shy about getting up, she rationalized. It’s just that I do not wish to startle Mama Cat.
“All right, Susan, someone else is breathing in here besides me, and I don’t think Tim the cowman dabs ... lily of the valley is it... behind his ears. Although he should.”
Susan smiled but did not get up. “Your cat had kittens, and I have been observing.”
After lighting another lamp, he came toward the sound of her voice. “You really shouldn’t sit there on the cold floor,” he scolded mildly as he draped his coat around her shoulders and sat down beside her, leaning his back against the counter. He tickled the cat under her chin, smiling as she stretched her neck up. “And good job to you, my dear. You managed to miss all my clever birthing locations and wedge yourself onto my jacket. Why am I not surprised?”
“I hope the coat wasn’t a valuable memento,” Susan said whenthe silence threatened to extend beyond her comfort.
“No. I’m not one to gather memories that way.” He took up a corner of the coat that he had put around her shoulders and pulled it behind his back, drawing them closer together. “Thanks for weeding the strawberries,” he said. “Now, where are the ones you should have picked?”
They weren’t exactly touching shoulders, but Aunt Louisa would not have approved. “I ate them,” she said, feeling not even slightly repentant. “They were excellent.”
“I’m so glad,” he replied dryly. “Now suppose Lady B asks for strawberries tomorrow morning, and I have to tell her that her lady’s companion ate them?”
Susan couldn’t help herself. She nudged his shoulder with her own. “Oh, you know she will not!”
The bailiff chuckled and settled himself a little closer. “I know,” he agreed, and was silent then.
She could think of nothing to say. I have babbled enough today in front of the vicar, she thought. I feel just as uncomfortable as I did then in Lady Bushnell’s sitting room, but I refuse to blather on this time. Someone else can fill the gap.
But the bailiff did not. He sat close beside her, their hips touching now, with his legs drawn up. He watched the kittens through the space in his legs, every now and then reaching out to touch the cat. In a few more moments, Mama had organized the little morsels of life beside her and they were nursing. The cat heaved a sigh of her own and rested her head on the coat’s hatch marks.
“That’s a good use for an old relic,” Wiggins commented finally. “Five years ago I wrapped Lord Bushnell in it after he was hit. Ah, well.”
There wasn’t anything in his tone of voice to indicate that he needed comfort, but Susan had to resist the urge to move even closer and rest her head on his shoulder. She had heard storiesabout men and battle, and how some dreamed and suffered for years, but the bailiff did not appear to be one of them.
“It was just one more incident in your life, wasn’t it?” she asked. He nodded, understanding her perfectly. “It was,” he agreed. “Of course, Waterloo was Waterloo, and nothing will ever compare to it, but I suppose you’re right. It was just one more thing. I suppose nothing really had the capacity to surprise me, after Lady B retrieved me from death.”
She turned a little to look at him then, impressed with his solidity and the calmness of his nature. Someday, if I am very lucky, I will be so wise, she thought.
He looked at her, a question in his eyes. “What is it you want to say, Susan?” he asked.
“I don’t think I could put it into words,” she said frankly.
‘Try.”
She looked at the cat then, and the kittens kneading to suck at her belly. “You impress me with your courage. I... I suppose I wish I were that brave.”
