Tuesday morning Emily Pellering and Miss Prydd, together with one of the maids and an enormous pile of bandboxes and trunks, were loaded into one of the Teeve traveling chaises (“Imagine having more than one!” Emily had whispered) and the party set off toward the North Road, Cumberland, and Teeve. Jenny had slept badly the night before—indeed, every night since her last interview with Teverley. Emily had teased to know what was bothering her dearest Jenny, but Miss Prydd remained stubbornly silent, and at last Emily gave up. Now the two of them sat watching the city disappear, and the fields begin to take the view; Emily bubbled with an excitement that, despite her fatigue and her misgivings, Jenny could not but find somewhat infectious. Even the little maid, a dab of a child in a fresh dress and shiny new pelisse, glowed with importance at her adventure with the two Young Misses. Jenny began to think that perhaps, despite her pessimism and Peter Teverley’s, Emily and Domenic were right, and the excursion to Teeve would be merely a week’s pleasure and excitement in the country. Aside from which, there would be no end to the stories such a week would furnish for the nursery at Winchell. She had written her aunt to tell of this latest invitation, and had received back a letter full of praise for Lady Teeve and her family, and counseling that her Dearest Jenny must not fail to be one of the party.
“I begin to think that we shall come aright after all,” she murmured to herself.
Some hours later, stiff and chilled to the bone with traveling, she could not summon up quite the same enthusiasm. She had twice requested that the driver stop at a posting house to permit them to refresh themselves, but the man had insisted that his orders were to make no stops. Jenny tried not to regard this as a sinister omen, and when, finally, the carriage began the long mile to the main house at Teeve, she was so relieved and happy to have at last arrived that she abandoned all misgivings at once and was as ready to be delighted as Emily herself.
They were shown to their rooms by a very superior servant and told that, when they had refreshed themselves, Lady Teeve would greet them in the green room below—they had only to ask a maid for the direction. A fire had been laid in her room and water was poured and steaming in the basin. Jenny removed her bonnet and set about repairing the ravages of travel to hair, face, and hands; after a moment she decided to change her dress as well, for the gown she had worn was hopelessly travel-stained and wrinkled. She chose one of the new gowns that were Lady Graybarr’s gift—a gray muslin over blue, trimmed sparingly with blue ribbon and touches of lace. Meeting Emily in the hall, the two gathered their courage and descended into the green room.
Lady Teeve was certainly awaiting them—with six or seven other people. The fragile, sweet-appearing old lady, charmingly dressed as usual, rose to greet her guests and was smoothly, sweetly, and a little unconvincingly welcoming to Emily. Her welcome to Jenny was just as smooth and genteel—with a hint of condescension that indicated that she, her household, and her family were doing a great favor to this poor, plain nobody, and that proper appreciation of this fact was expected. Then she forgot Jenny entirely and made a great point of introducing Emily to her other guests.
The portly, red-faced man in the sky-blue, old-fashioned coat, creaking a little (could he be wearing stays, as the prince was said to do?) was Lord Teeve. His welcome of both girls—for he made a point of including Jenny as sincerely as his wife had excluded her—was courtly. He ignored the look of irritation with which he was favored by his wife. A little behind him sat a pretty girl, poorly dressed and with a nervous, discontented look, who was introduced as Miss Mary Quare, companion to Lady Teeve. She obviously understood the lay of the land, for her greeting to Emily was all that was charming, while she ignored Jenny with a positive gleam of pleasure. Lady Teeve went on to say that she knew—and here she tittered slightly—that there was no need to introduce her son Domenic to Miss Pellering. Dom smiled and made his bow to both ladies, but said nothing, obviously overpowered by his mother’s presence. The last three of the party were introduced wholesale as the Brickerhams: Sir John and his sisters, Joanna and Sarah. Sir John appeared the picture of a young squire—plump, somnolent, indolent—until he opened his mouth. His speech was a total contradiction, brisk and cordial. Like Lord Teeve, he included both women in his smile and acknowledgment. His sisters were dark, pretty girls in identical dresses, which made it, at first, quite difficult to tell them apart. The elder, Miss Joanna Brickerham, followed her hostess’s lead and welcomed Emily but somehow forgot to include Jenny; Miss Sarah Brickerham smiled tremulously at both newcomers and said nothing.
After assuring her guests that dinner would be served shortly, Lady Teeve drew Emily aside to speak with her, “for I have had no chance to become acquainted with this dear child,” she announced to the room at large. Dom gave his mother a resentful look for preempting his privilege, but a wise look from his father, and a request from his mother that he show dear Miss Brickerham (meaning Miss Joanna) the new books that had only arrived that day from London, kept him silent. For herself, Jenny was content to sit quietly and observe the others in the room. Lord Teeve had begun an animated conversation with Sir John about a tenant farmer he was having trouble with, and Miss Quare tried to interest Miss Sarah Brickerham in comparing embroidery patterns.
When the door opened and Jenny looked up, expecting a servant announcing dinner, it was Peter Teverley. As their eyes met and he smiled a smile that resolved the quarrel that had darkened their last meeting, Jenny felt the familiar, startling jolt in her stomach.
“Peter, my dear, do come and talk with us,” Lady Teeve commanded from the other end of the room, in a voice that brooked no refusal. He did, on his way past her chair, stop to offer a few words to Jenny.
“Courage, my Prydd,” he murmured. “Aunt won’t let us talk together—she thinks we are in league.” He smiled for the general company and went to join his aunt and Emily.
Jenny pondered this cryptic, ridiculously cheering message for a few minutes, until a footman appeared to announce that it was, indeed, time for dinner to be served. Lady Teeve rose, offered her arm to Peter Teverley, and then requested that Domenic take Emily in. “Teeve, please take Dear Joanna in to dinner, and Sir John, if you will favor your sister?” She swept from the room leaving Jenny and Miss Quare to make their own way into the dining hall. Miss Quare favored Jenny with a particularly disdainful and unpleasant look but said nothing, bundling her embroidery away and following after the party.
The dining room was smaller than Jenny had expected for the size of Teeve, but Sir John Brickerham, seated next to Jenny, explained that there was still another dining room, considerably larger than this one, used only for dinners of state. Jenny professed herself suitably impressed, but Sir John only laughed and told her that she needn’t be. “They rarely use it, you know, since Teeve don’t care for large gatherings the way Lady Teeve does.” Grateful for even this small show of friendliness, Jenny smiled at him and then felt Peter Teverley’s eye fall on her from above her at table.
He needn’t look so dour, she thought. And forgot about it in her amazement at the size and extravagance of the dinner, which would have impressed her even in London. “Lady T dined at Carlton House some months back, and spends her time trying to compete where any sensible mortal would gladly fall behind,” Sir John whispered, as a baron of beef, pheasant pies, a soufflé of mushrooms and cheese, a sautéed sole, and peas in sauce béchamel, and several dishes of vegetables were removed with a leg of venison, currant tarts, ragout of veal parisienne, and potatoes and onions in a casserole. Lady Teeve, at the head of the table, glowered at Sir John, but whether it was for his friendliness to Miss Prydd or his derision of her table, Jenny could not tell. The frown lasted only a moment, for when Sir John resumed a conversation with Emily, on his left, Lady Teeve appeared satisfied again, and except for an occasional, timid smile from Sarah Brickerham, and the black looks with which she was favored by Miss Quare, Jenny finished her meal in undistinguished silence.
Emily, for her part, seated between Domenic and Sir John, was seeing Dom in a new, slightly unfavorable light. While he had been her hero, she had overlooked his lack of years and his devotion to herself (Teverley’s indifference, while more frustrating, was generally more intriguing) and his occasional lapse into schoolboy cant. But under his mother’s eye Domenic was a different person altogether: someone’s Son. Emily watched as Lady Teeve reminded Domenic several times not to spill his wine, or to cut his fowl into such large pieces; she encouraged him to eat a soufflé of spinach by promising him that he might have apple tart afterward, and each time she spoke to him her voice acquired a peculiar, cloying sweetness. No matter to Emily that Domenic, with masterful forbearance, put up with his mother’s misbehavior and politely ignored her whenever possible; she saw him reduced to the category of Boy, one who was instructed as to which vegetables to eat, and who might at any moment be banished to the schoolroom to learn his manners. Disgusted by this new aspect of her hero, Emily turned to begin a conversation with Sir John, who was pleasant enough, and even had a certain wry turn of conversation that baffled Emily completely, and thus reminded her of Teverley. But every few minutes her eyes would wander to Teverley as he sat conversing with Joanna Brickerham.
Sir John, who had taken little notice of Miss Pellering on her arrival except to note that she was a pretty child and in favor with Lady Teeve, began to be agreeably surprised by her. Emily, no matter that her eyes turned every now and again in Teverley’s uninterested direction, kept up a flow of delightful small talk, interspersed with questions that Sir John had no chance to answer, and flutterings of her long lashes. He made no comments on Lady Teeve’s dinner to her, and proposed himself, after a particularly charming remark, entirely her slave. Emily, who in truth thought him a rather old gentleman, and fat—although he was three years Teverley’s junior—moved the conversation on with little thought. She listened to Teverley talk to Miss Brickerham with half attention, and to Lady Teeve’s honeyed badgering of her son. The girl’s color was high, her eyes sparkled, and Jenny was afraid, from these signs, that Emily was growing more and more distraught.
At last, after what seemed like an interminable time, Lady Teeve rose to lead the ladies into the drawing room to wait for the gentlemen. Once away from Domenic and Peter Teverley, Emily calmed herself perceptibly, although Jenny watched her still with some uneasiness. Lady Teeve again drew the girl aside to ask her questions, in her mellifluous, soft, inexorable voice; Jenny, seeing there was nothing she could do to help her friend, conversed with Miss Sarah Brickerham on country life.
Miss Brickerham had begun to discuss her church work (for she was far more devoted than Jenny had ever been to “the dear parson and his work”), when the gentlemen returned from the dining room, carrying the rich scent of tobacco and port with them. Lady Teeve announced herself altogether unable to part with Emily’s company, and Jenny, with only one backward look to assure herself that the girl was faring well enough, acceded to Lord Teeve’s request that she come and play backgammon with him. He was a skilled player, far better than she, but a lucky roll of the dice and her own small talents brought her tally almost even with him. When the tea tray was brought in, she had won three games and was about, it appeared, to win yet another in a complete backgammon. Lord Teeve announced that, since it seemed such a sure thing that she would win, he would concede the game to her, but Jenny replied that there was always the chance of a lucky roll, and begged that they finish the play. When she had removed her stones entirely from the board Lord Teeve congratulated her on a fine win, and they went to tea much in charity with each other, to Lady Teeve’s ill-disguised disgust.
Miss Quare sat behind the pot, and Jenny imagined that this was one of her duties. Examining the woman as she moved about, dispensing tea with an air which plainly indicated she felt herself above such tasks, Jenny thought to herself that such might have been her life, and thanked heaven for her aunt and uncle Winchell and her welcome, however qualified, into their house. Lady Teeve was served first, then Miss Pellering and the Misses Brickerham. As Miss Quare filled the next cup, Lady Teeve gave her a look of quiet significance, and the cup was passed along to Lord Teeve. Sir John, Peter Teverley, and Domenic received their cups, and finally Miss Quare filled a cup for herself and settled, with a grateful sigh, into her chair. Left without a cup of tea, Jenny smiled a rueful smile and would, herself, have forgone the pleasure of the beverage, but Lord Teeve had seen all.
“But my dear Mary,” he addressed Miss Quare, “you have forgotten one of our guests.” At the mutinous look the companion gave him, Lord Teeve remarked, “You need not stir yourself, my dear. You have done quite enough.” And with a creaking of stays he rose from his seat and made for the tea tray.
“No, my lord, please, I can serve myself—” Jenny began.
“And deprive me of the chance to play the gallant?” He smiled at her. “Call it payment for those games you won of me—and damme if you ain’t a fine player, too. D’you play at home?”
“Indeed, sir, with my uncle I do. My aunt has no taste for the game, so I learnt it for his sake.” Jenny received her tea from the viscount’s hands and favored the old gentleman with a grateful smile. But Lady Teeve was not to be so easily crossed, and made it obvious that someone would have to be made uncomfortable to pay for her vexation.
“I cannot think,” she began with a loud sigh, “how Mary came to forget Miss Prydd’s tea.” She frowned at her companion, ruthlessly sacrificing her. “Pray remember, in future, Mary, and do not do it again.”
“Yes, m’lady,” Mary Quare muttered. “Excuse me, indeed.” And with an agitated flutter she rose and left the room, sparing only a look of bleak dislike for Miss Prydd.
Oh, dear, Jenny thought, and sipped the controversial cup. Now I do have an enemy, and where I meant none, too. From across the room Peter Teverley smiled at her, one brow raised quizzically, and Jenny found herself almost hating his look for the attention she was sure it must draw upon her.
Emily was unaware of any of this. Lady Teeve had asked that she talk of herself, and there are few things a girl of seventeen would rather do. She rattled on, unaware that she was giving details of her life—and Jenny’s as well—to a woman who was almost a complete stranger. Jenny could only hope that Emily would remember not to tell this woman, of all the leaders of the ton, how and where she had met Peter and Domenic. But since her chair was placed too distant to hear what was said, she decided there was nothing to be gained by fretting, and began again her conversation with Lord Teeve.
At last, tea finished, Lady Teeve rose to retire, taking the ladies with her. Lord Teeve was punctilious in thanking Jenny for the games of backgammon, and she promised him his revenge on the next evening; Domenic managed to distract his mother to Miss Brickerham, and paused at Emily’s side to tell her, with a look of tender meaning which she ignored, that he would see her in the morning. Dom watched Emily leave the room with a backward glance to Teverley, who was entirely oblivious of the whole, wondering why, all of a sudden, Emily had grown so cool. In sum, the good-evenings were so fraught with looks, meaning, and portents on the parts of Lady Teeve, Miss Pellering, and Miss Brickerham—who was also, obviously, interested in Peter Teverley’s oblique, unreadable smile—that Jenny was unable to restrain a gusty smile of relief when at last she attained her room.
“I was right, and Teverley was right, and I ought never to have come; Emily ought not to have come,” she sighed, brushing out her hair. “But here I am, rain or shine, and we must make the best of it. If only I could vanish.” She examined her all-too-solid self in the mirror. “No chance of that. So I’d do well to stay far from Lady Teeve’s notice when I can, and out of Miss Quare’s as well—poor thing! And if I can keep Emily from making a complete cake of herself I can return to London—I can return to Dumsford, indeed!—in good faith. Which is probably what I had better do, and quickly, before I forget how to be happy with my lot, and think”—she smiled irrepressibly— “of what I had not ought. But at least he is not angry with me anymore.” She settled herself in the large bed, realizing that she was exhausted, not so much from the journey as from the dinner. “Hi-ho, I shall be entirely done up by Sunday,” she murmured, and was asleep before she could think further.