Page 26 of Miss Determined
Phillip paused at the stile and offered Lissa his left hand. “We should have a closer look at Pearl.”
Lissa did not need Phillip’s assistance to navigate the steps of a stile, but neither did she resent the courtesy. Phillip was a neighbor and a friend. He’d been at Lark’s Nest as long as Lissa could recall, intensely shy, bookish, a few years her senior. He was happiest out of doors and happiest of all in his sprawling home wood.
By London standards, Phillip was probably eccentric, sticking so close to home and burying himself in books and birdsong, but to Lissa he was just Phillip. Dear, reliable, steady—when not distracted by some flower or bug—Phillip.
“Pearl looks the same to me,” Lissa said as they crossed one of the best pastures in the whole Crosspatch neighborhood. The fenced area belonged half to Lark’s Nest and half to Twidboro, and the whole ran parallel to the river. Good bottom soil with plenty of shade near the water and full sun on the upward slope.
“Her eye is different,” Phillip replied, stopping a few feet from an elegant gray mare with a notably drooping belly. “She’s bagged up, but she’s still keeping company with her friends.” He walked around behind her, gently lifting her tail. “No changes back here.”
Lissa took a closer look at the mare’s udder. “She hasn’t waxed up. No signs of dripping. We have a few days at least. Let’s have a look at your Dove.”
Dove, a dapple gray draft cross, was in the same state. Getting closer, but not close enough to move either mare into a foaling stall. The other expectant mothers had some time to go yet.
“You worry for them,” Phillip said as he and Lissa returned the way they’d come.
“I want to be here, Phillip. I do well with foaling, even Dabney admits as much, but instead I’ll be parading around London, trying to catch the notice of some fellow who hasn’t heard that my morals are questionable, my antecedents are questionable, my brother’s whereabouts are questionable…”
Phillip again offered Lissa his left hand at the stile. “People make life so complicated. You are kind and honest. You care for your family. Any man should be able to see that. Your banker tallies your coin, a figure any man ought to be able to read.”
He’d failed to note the involvement of the solicitors, bless him.
“There speaks a fellow who has avoided Mayfair Society.” Phillip had also avoided having any family. As far back as Lissa could recall, Phillip had dwelled alone at Lark’s Nest. He’d had tutors and governors, and now he had staff, but he was the king of his private fiefdom and accepted by his neighbors as such. He paid his tithes, though he seldom went to services, and he cooperated with neighboring properties at planting, shearing, haying, and harvest.
He was friendly in casual encounters, but those encounters were always brief, unless somebody sought to tap Phillip’s knowledge about fertilizing peas or building a fruit wall.
To a very great extent, Phillip Heyward went his own way.
“If you don’t want to spend spring in London, you shouldn’t go,” he said. “I have some money, and you are welcome to it.”
“You will need that money someday,” Lissa said, “for your experiments.”
He was forever importing seeds and plants, crossing this breed of sheep with that. Dove was a result of one of his experiments, a horse comfortable under saddle and tireless in the traces, though she wasn’t as refined as a saddle horse ought to be or quite up to the heaviest demands of the plow.
“You like Mr. Dorning,” Phillip said. “You complain about all the others, but you say nice things about Dorning.”
Mrs. Dabney claimedour Mr. Heywardwas a touch slow-witted, but Mrs. Raybourne contended that Phillip was instead a careful thinker. He’d been raised without siblings, without schoolroom politics, without public school pecking orders and competitiveness. He felt no compulsion to be hasty in his thoughts or movements, though he was without doubt socially backward.
“Mr. Dorning is ambitious, Phillip. He isn’t waiting for some heiress to rescue his finances so he can continue to waste his days and nights in dissipation. He wants to build something.”
“Build a house? I thought you said he sought a rental property.”
“Build a business, as my grandfather did. Build a life. I can’t always tell what he’s thinking, and he doesn’t laugh much—the man has a certain irksome dignity foreign to Crosspatch Corners—but he isn’t a fop.”
“Gavin isn’t a fop.”
That Phillip spoke easily of Gavin, whom he’d regarded as a somewhat bothersome younger brother, was a comfort. The rest of the village had politely dropped Gavin from conversation, though Lissa was certain they kept him in their prayers.
“Gavin is stylish,” Lissa said. “Also given to dramatics, and that vexed me past all bearing, but now I hope he’s simply involved in a grand tantrum rather than lying in some pauper’s grave.”
They walked up the bridle path toward Lark’s Nest, the day trying for spring and falling short. In bright sunshine, when the breeze was still, a hint of mildness touched the air. Two hours hence, that warmth would flee as the sun inched lower.
“You have not described Mr. Dorning’s appearance,” Phillip said, “other than to note his height. Describe him for me.”
This was a game Lissa and Phillip had played for years. Grandmama had taken her to Bath the summer before Papa’s death, and on Lissa’s return, Phillip had quizzed her for weeks. What did the air in Bath smell of? Why did the spa waters taste of rotten eggs? Were the seagulls larger? Did they use the same cries as the seagulls who occasionally visited Crosspatch?
His curiosity had subsided only when Lissa had hit on the notion of sketching her memories for him, and then she’d found a handsome bound book full of drawings of Bath and its surrounds. Phillip had pored over the book for hours at a time.
“Mr. Dorning’s appearance is not that remarkable,” Lissa said. “He wears standard Bond Street attire, and it fits him exquisitely. A bit more lace than the usual squire, less than a fribble prefers. Sober colors, nary a wrinkle or stain to be seen. I’d say the clothes are new, but he wears them so comfortably that they likely aren’t new, but rather, well cared for.”
