Page 58 of The Lady's Companion
“That won’t be necessary,” the bailiff said. “Susan and I are leaving.”
“It can’t be soon enough!” Aunt Louisa snapped, turning on her heel.
In another moment, Susan heard her moving quickly up the stairs. Sir Rodney cocked his head to one side and listened, alert for trouble from the look of apprehension in his eyes. He sighed with the relief of a child when a door slammed, and then regarded them again, his expression perplexed, as if wondering what to do.
The bailiff nodded to Sir Rodney. “Grand to meet you, sir. For my part, you may keep the pearls, if you ever get them again. Your need sounds greater than ours. Come, Susan, or we’ll be late for dinner.” He held out his hand to her, and she took it gladly, even if she was unable to meet his eyes. “Excuse us, please.”
He tugged her into the hall, then stopped suddenly as he took her face in his hands. “Save your tears for outside, Susan,” he said softly and kissed her forehead.
By great force of will, she made it to the steps outside, thenburst into tears. David kissed her again and stood there a moment with his arm tight around her shoulders.
“Let’s go, my dear,” he said finally as she rummaged for a handkerchief in her reticule. “At least they can never accuse us of not telling them.”
She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and was about to speak when the second-story window above them opened. She looked up instinctively at the sound and saw Aunt Louisa lean out, a dress box in her hands.
“Don’t leave without all your clothes, Susan,” she said. “You’ll need something in sarcenet and satin for mucking out stables and paying calls on milkmaids!”
“Oh, Aunt, no!” Susan exclaimed as the woman dumped out the evening dresses she had carefully packed away, and her mother’s wedding dress. She stood in dumbfounded, amazed misery as the beautiful fabric rained around her, some impaled and torn on the iron railings by the sidewalk, and others to catch the breeze, to drift and sink into the standing water of the gutter.
Caught by a particularly malicious gust of wind, Maria Hampton’s wedding dress sailed into the street and fell under a carter’s muddy-wheeled wagon. The fabric caught in the spokes, ripped, and dragged behind the wagon as it rumbled down the street.
She felt David tense beside her, and despite her own shame, and the deepest pain she had ever felt, she looked at him. His face was a study in rage, a mirror of the greatest fury she had ever seen before. Her terror increased as he grabbed a silk shawl that drifted past him, twisted it into a rope and turned to go back into the house.
“No!” she shrieked, grabbing his arm and throwing all her weight against him. The window slammed shut, even as she heard the click of the lock on the front door. “No, David,” she repeated, her voice low now, pleading. “No.”
The bailiff looked down at the shawl in his hands and threw it away from him as if it had a disgusting smell. Without a word he took her hand and pulled her down the steps and away from the house. He released her hand and started off at a fast pace. She hurried to keep up with him, heedless of the pedestrians who stepped aside for them, startled by the cold rage on his face.
He stopped finally to catch his breath, sitting on the stoop of a darkened house. She stood a little away from him, not fearful of him, but in such agony over her relatives that if the Lord had seen fit to advertise the opening of a chasm, she would have been the first in line for the drop. The bailiff had the good grace not to look at her, which did more for her immediate peace of mind than anything else could have. Like the man before her, she hardly knew what to think.
“Susan, come here,” he said finally. “Oh, come on, I won’t bite.” He held out his hand.
In another moment she was sitting beside him, his arm around her again. “Forgive me, Susan,” he apologized. “I sent a man to hospital once for less provocation than that woman provided.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “It is I who should ask your pardon, David. I’m sorry my relatives are so appalling.”
He chuckled, and drew her closer. “I’ll say this only once, Suzie: I was raised better in a workhouse.” He kissed her cheek. “How in God’s name did you turn out so well?”
She thought she was too numb to cry, but she surprised herself.
When the tears ended, she straightened her bonnet and smoothed her skirts about her. I wonder if I will dream about Mama’s dress dragged behind that cart, she thought as she stared into the street, then blew her nose vigorously. “I hope that you have not changed your mind about marrying me,” she said, putting the image of the dress from her mind, even though she knew it was etched on her heart forever.
The bailiff was silent so long that she reached for herhandkerchief again, stopping her hand only when he put his cheek against hers. “Your relatives would probably say I have few virtues, Suzie my love,” he said finally, “but I am constant and I know my mind.” He stood up and tugged her to her feet after him, then smiled at her. “And haven’t we just assured Colonel March and Lady Bushnell how dependable we are?”
She nodded, suddenly shy, thinking of tomorrow.
“Then depend upon me, Susan.”
Chapter Seventeen
She spent a perfectly sleepless night, moving from the bed to the chair, to the window seat, and back to the chair again. She had never been in love before, but knew she loved the bailiff. She knew she would never be comfortable until she was married to him, but the initial effort of making love to a man gave her room for thought and some misgivings.
Mrs. Steinman had taken away her traveling dress to give it a good brushing and pressing, and she had indulged herself with a good soak in the tin tub, contemplating her bare knees and wishing that everyone in the world would go away except the bailiff. As the water turned cold, she decided that while she was not precisely frightened by the prospect of acquiring a husband, she wished there had been better sources of information than Professor Fowler’s profoundly silly book, and Aunt Louisa’s admonitions. There has to be considerable pleasure in the married state, or people wouldn’t have been indulging in the practice since Adam and Eve, she decided as she dried off, got in her nightgown, and waited for sleep to come.
That it did not came as no surprise. First she indulged in a hearty round of castigating her relatives and wishing them all to hell or Australia—whichever was worse—and followed that with a few more tears and a fervent desire to remember the Hamptons no more. She devoted the remainder of the night to the bailiff. She considered all his virtues, and found herself quite unable to recall any defects, beyond a certain single-mindedness regarding wheat, and a regrettable tendency to forget about washing when he got really busy.
She knew she could deal promptly with the latter, so it was not an issue. I will even volunteer to scrub his back, she thought,then quickly put the idea from her mind as she felt herself growing uncomfortably warm, for March. As for the wheat, she found it almost as fascinating as he did, so it could not be a defect.
I have lived much of my life around idle fritterers, which David is not, she told herself. If he likes to spend his spare time rearranging the characteristics of grain, at least I will always know where I can find him. Grain—at least in this form—does not drive men to distraction, or ruin them, or spend their money, or make their wives and children weep and mourn.
