Page 35 of His Lordship's True Lady
“You’re kind to pay a call on me, miss,” Tippy said, “but you needn’t bother. Mr. Leggett sends my funds regularly, and I have all I need.”
An odd thought occurred to Lily. “Do you have friends, Tippy?” She always seemed so brisk, so confident and self-sufficient.
Tippy’s little parlor was a riot of cabbage roses—even her porcelain tea service was adorned with cabbage roses—dried bouquets, cutwork, and other evidence of a woman’s pastimes, but Lily had never once come upon another caller here.
“Chelsea is growing so fast these days,” Tippy said. “I hardly know who my neighbors are anymore.”
Chelsea had the dubious fortune to lie close to London, and in a direction the city seemed determined to sprawl. Beyond the village, fields and pastures clung to the rural past, but every year, more houses and streets sprang up, and the fields receded, acre by acre.
“Does the vicar look in on you?” Did anybody take notice of a woman who’d spent her life devoted to a family to whom she wasn’t related?
“I don’t always get to services,” Tippy said, opening her workbasket. “The weather can be so nasty, and my hip does pain me.”
She took out an embroidery hoop, one she’d likely owned since before Lily’s birth. The needle moved more slowly now, but the stitches were as neat as ever.
“Tippy, if I asked you to, would you move back to Uncle Walter’s house?”
Tippy bent very close to her hoop. “Himself wouldn’t want an old woman like me about. Creates awkwardness among the help to have a pensioner at the table.”
Something about Tippy’s posture, hunched over, getting in her own light, sent a chill through Lily. “You’re afraid of him.”
“You are too,” Tippy retorted, “because we’re both sensible creatures who know what he’s capable of. You be careful, Miss Lilith Ann.”
“You’re not to call me that.” Though Lily was glad she had.
“He’s not here to chide me for it, though you’re right. I ought not. How’s that Oscar getting on?”
Why ask about him?“He’s harmless and bored, drunk more often than he’s sober. If he’s to take over the family fortune, he has much to learn, and he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to learn it.”
Tippy’s needle moved in a patient rhythm. “Or his father isn’t in a hurry to teach him.”
Walter spun a web of influence and money, money and influence. He’d never turn over control of the finances to Oscar willingly, but if Oscar made himself useful, he’d at least be prepared when the transition became inevitable.
“Tippy, do you recall meeting the Earl of Grampion’s heir?”
Tippy gazed off into the middle distance, sunlight gleaming on her poised needle. “Tall boy, blond, quiet? Odd name, something German. He was named for where his mother’s people came from.”
Increasingly, Tippy’s recollections were like this—a mosaic of useless detail, speculation, and the occasional relevant fact. She still gave off the vibrant intelligence she’d had earlier in life, suggesting to Lily that Tippy simply disliked the memories of Lily’s childhood.
“His given name is Hessian,” Lily said, “and he informed me that, as a girl, I detested bugs.”
Tippy’s hands fell to her lap, hoop, needle, and all. “Oh dear.”
Lily waited while Tippy frowned at the cabbage rose carpet.
“Children are invisible,” Tippy said, smoothing a finger over the French knots in her embroidery. “They don’t attend social functions, often don’t use courtesy titles, and are mostly relegated to nurseries and schoolrooms.”
Daisy was not invisible to Grampion, which was good. Lily was not invisible to him either, which was not good, however useful it might be for Uncle Walter.
“Outings to the park were very frequent,” Tippy said. “Headstrong little girls benefit from fresh air and a chance to move about. Other children played in the park, some with nannies, some at that awkward age, boys not quite ready for university, impossible to occupy with studies all day. You could have met him on any number of occasions, possibly met the spare as well.”
Tippy scooted about on her cushions and produced a small flask from some hidden pocket. She tipped a dollop of amber liquid into her tea.
“For my hip.”
“Tippy, Grampion says we did meet.”
Another dollop. “Then you explain to him that you’re not right in the brainbox, you took a bad fall in Switzerland, and you can’t recollect as well as other people. It happens.”
