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The next day dawned bright and extremely early, since the sun rose at around five o’clock this far north. Pat was woken by the dawn chorus, made a perfunctory effort to get back to sleep, then lay in bed, thinking about the previous night.
The men had joined the ladies after half an hour or so, and instantly ruined the comfortable atmosphere they’d developed. Jimmy had given every impression of being made of wood, barely speaking either to his fiancée or to his old friend. Bill had seemed preoccupied to the point of rudeness; Pat hoped he wasn’t thinking about work. Miss Singh had relapsed into silence as soon as the men were present; by contrast Lady Anna had dropped her cold, brittle anger in favour of smiling flirtation with Jack Bouvier-Lynes as her husband looked on, smiling too. It had been a relief when Mr. Bouvier-Lynes had proposed a round of cards and taken himself, Haworth, Jimmy, and Mr. Keynes off. Bill had gone to bed.
This ill-assorted gathering was not at all what Pat had expected or wanted and she gave some serious thought to making her excuses and leaving. It would be rude to Jimmy, but frankly, he deserved it after his inexplicable silence at Haworth’s astonishing behaviour. The man might be his brother-in-law but that was no excuse for tolerating such poor manners.
Especially to Miss Carruth. Pat could quite understand that Jimmy had found her irresistible: the laughing eyes, the generous mouth, the soft and very lush curves. Not an intellectual, perhaps, but very pleasant, and Jimmy was hardly over-burdened with brains himself.
Only, Jimmy did not seem to find her irresistible. He’d barely spoken to her, and he’d apparently given no thought to her entertainment. Pat wondered how long her sparkling humour would last if she were left with Miss Singh and Lady Anna for three endless weeks of thumb-twiddling. It seemed a rash way to treat a fiancée upon whom one was depending for financial rescue, especially one with a history of bolting.
Maybe Jimmy was hoping she’d bolt, since he didn’t seem charmed by her chatter. Pat wasn’t a lover of empty nonsense either, but it was hardly the worst characteristic one could expect in an advantageous marriage. It seemed greedy to demand perfect compatibility if one’s prospective spouse also had a kind heart, overflowing coffers, and that bosom. Not that it was any of Pat’s business, because the woman was marrying Jimmy. Lucky bloody Jimmy.
She stared up at the ceiling, slightly startled at herself. She ought to be thinking Lucky Miss Carruth. Jimmy was a decent fellow who would one day be an earl, and whose estates might be suffering financially—there were notably fewer staff on view than Pat would expect for a house this size—but were not to be sneezed at. He was steady, too, the sort of man who would probably be a good father and a faithful, or at least discreet, husband. In fact, he was an excellent match, and Pat couldn’t for the life of her see why Miss Carruth would want any of it. The thrice-engaged Miss Carruth who jilted men ought to have a husband who danced with her at balls, or covered her in jewels, or...or took her to Monte Carlo, possibly? This was outside Pat’s experience. In any case, a man who’d kiss her hand and adore her, much as Jonty adored Olivia, patting her hand and telling her, inaccurately, that he’d take care of everything.
Pat would have loathed that, but she wasn’t soft or helpless or delicious. She was plain in looks and manner, and had never regretted that because she had never particularly wanted to attract a husband. And yet, Miss Carruth undeniably made her think about soft curves and lushness and pretty, frivolous primping, and why those things were so very desirable to see, or to have.
Pat been looking forward to the shooting party precisely because she could be as mannish as she pleased with Jimmy and Bill. She hadn’t expected to feel undermined by her lack of feminine graces because another woman was there, being different. And it wasn’t just “another woman”, either, because she was unconcerned by the sylphlike, fashionable Lady Anna or the poised, elegant Miss Singh. It was Miss Carruth’s presence that bothered her, and Pat’s irrational nonsense was hardly the girl’s fault.
The longer she lay in bed and thought, the worse she was making herself feel, so she got up and dressed. Pat did not corset. She had had no mother to train her waist to a span of eighteen inches or so; her father thought wasp-waists were for insects and preferred his daughter able to walk, climb trees, shoot, and run around the house. She had never learned to be laced, although she had eventually and reluctantly obtained a loose pair of stays for evening wear. It was one of many things about which she had rarely thought in her life at Stoke St. Milborough, and might have to consider when she moved to live elsewhere; she didn’t wish to be perceived as an eccentric. Or perhaps that would happen anyway, so she’d do as she pleased.
As an adherent of Rational Dress, she was able to clothe herself without a maid’s assistance. She simply donned combinations, drawers, camisole, stockings, undershirt, petticoat, walking dress, and boots, and was ready to face the day.
It was not yet seven o’clock; breakfast would doubtless not be served for an hour or more since they weren’t shooting today. She came downstairs anyway, deciding to find a servant who would point her to a quiet back door, and came across Jimmy Yoxall sipping a cup of coffee.
“Goodness, you’re up early.”
“You too,” Jimmy returned. “Sleep well?”
“Very. You?”
Jimmy shrugged. “Up rather late.”
“Playing cards with your chums.”
“Well, with Maurice, Jack, and Preston,” Jimmy said. “Bill was wise to go to bed. Jack’s a devil with a pack of cards; he cleaned Preston out. Are you off for a walk?”
“I thought I would. How do I get out without waking the house?”
“Give me a moment to put on my things and I’ll come with you. There’s a pot of coffee here. I usually wake early these days.”
Pat gulped down the coffee—from the temperature it seemed that Jimmy had been up a while—and strode out with him into a very pleasant day. It was bright, sunny, and breezy, the wind rolling over the long open curves of the land.
“It’s lovely here,” Pat remarked.
“It is. Would you find it too remote? If you were called upon to live here, I mean?”
“I wouldn’t,” Pat said cautiously, “but I’m not much of one for society, or cities. Or towns, even. I’d be perfectly happy not seeing other people for days on end, going to dinner three times a year and visiting a tailor twice, but that wouldn’t suit everyone.”
“No,” Jimmy said. “It is rather a way to the nearest town, and that’s not awfully big. Fen remarked on it when she arrived.”
“Presumably Miss Carruth has been here before?”
“No. No. Our engagement was a—what do they call it when one proposes in a spur-of-the-moment sort of way? Not to say I didn’t consider matters, of course, just that it was terribly quick. All in London. This is the first time she’s seen the house, or the area.”
“Does she like it?”
“She’s awfully enthusiastic. Marvellous girl. I’m not sure she’s grasped what the winters are like up here.”
“Shan’t you live in London when you’re married?”
Jimmy made a face. “We have a house there, but it’s a terrible expense and I wanted to persuade the parents to get rid of it. But Anna and Maurice live there, you know, and it’s not as though one can ask them to move.”
“Do they not have a place of their own?”
“Not any more. Maurice lost his job and their money in the crash.”
“What crash was that?”
“Stockbroker’s firm. Overextended, fell to pieces. They’re living in the family house now.”
“I see. But he and Lady Anna surely won’t carry on living there when you and Miss Carruth move in.”
“Oh yes they blasted will,” Jimmy said, with suppressed vehemence. “Maurice hasn’t anything of his own, and he’s spent every penny of Anna’s that he can get his hands on. That pair live entirely off the Aged Parents. If it wasn’t for him— Well. And of course one couldn’t ask Anna to move to some ghastly hovel while Fen and I take the London house, but you’ve met Maurice. Would you want to live with him?”
“No,” Pat said frankly.
“No. And if he can’t live in London, he and Anna will come here, and you’ve already seen how he is when he can’t get his cocktails, or his cocktail waitresses. I don’t know if my parents could put up with it.”
“I’m awfully sorry.”
Jimmy exhaled. “It’s a sorry business. Anna won’t leave him, I don’t know why the devil not. Well, there’s the child.”
“Is there a child?” Pat hadn’t seen or heard any evidence of one.
“My nephew. He’s three years old. They’ve left him with a nanny for the entire summer because Maurice doesn’t like the noise. Mother asked them to bring him, since she hasn’t seen him since February, but Maurice prefers to grant her the sight of her grandson strictly on his own terms, and when he can take the boy away at any time.”
“Good heavens,” Pat said. “Oh, Jimmy. This is rotten.”
“Anna made her own bed when she insisted on marrying the blighter, and now we all have to lie in it. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t both so determined to make everyone around them miserable, but you’ve seen how he is, and Anna is just making it worse with her extraordinary behaviour with Jack. I don’t know what she’s playing at.”
“It doesn’t sound like Haworth is much of a husband,” Pat pointed out. “What’s sauce for the goose is surely sauce for the gander.”
“I dare say, but the sauce gets ladled out on the rest of us with a lavish hand. You heard how he spoke to Victoria, and to Fen.”
“I heard the deafening ring of your silence as he insulted your fiancée, yes. What was that about?”
“Oh, Lord, don’t.” Jimmy took off his hat, swiping it through the air at insects Pat couldn’t see. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand what I’d think in her shoes.”
“Yes, well, you might, but the fact is— Look, it’s complicated. And I can’t go into it, but you can take my word for it that one day, when I have a chance, I’m going to break his bloody neck. I wouldn’t have sat there listening to him speak like that to my father’s guests at my father’s table if I didn’t have to.”
“That doesn’t sound awfully good, Jimmy.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Why on earth did you invite a houseful of people under these circumstances?”
“I didn’t,” Jimmy said explosively. “I wanted a bit of peace and quiet with a few decent human beings—you, Preston, Bill—while I still could. Fen invited herself, Victoria was meant to have left before Maurice arrived, and Jack Bouvier bloody Lynes wasn’t invited at all except that Anna asked him to pop along without telling anyone until it was too late!” He made a strangled noise of frustration. “Sorry, Pat. You came here for partridge and I’m piling my family troubles on you.”
“That’s all right.” Pat hesitated, but Jimmy was clearly in need. “This engagement of yours—”
“Fen is a lovely girl. Any man would be lucky to have her.”
“She is lovely.”
“Beautiful, rich, awfully jolly. I’m terribly fortunate she accepted me, though I can’t imagine why she did.”
“Er—”
“Well, you’ve met her. She’s quite the butterfly, and I’m not interested in Society parties and so on. Her last two fiancés were both men-about-town.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s picked a countryman,” Pat said. “If the modern man-about-town is anything like Mr. Haworth, I don’t blame her.”
“He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work and I’m sorry to bring you into his orbit but, frankly, we had no choice but to shut the London house over summer. Couldn’t afford to keep it running, couldn’t afford to send Maurice and Anna off to Brighton or Bath or Baden-Baden, and since Maurice has run out of hosts willing to tolerate him, here they are.”
“Are the finances that bad?”
Jimmy made a face. “The agricultural depression has hit rents hard across the board, of course, but on top of that Father was the biggest investor in Maurice’s firm and we lost rather a lot in the crash. We need to take drastic action to repair matters, sell some land and invest in other industries, but the old man is set in his ways. He won’t accept that things have to change, or hand the reins to me. It’s not marvellous, honestly.”
“But when you marry...”
“Oh, yes, my future father-in-law has proposed a very generous settlement.” Jimmy looked less excited about this than one might have expected. “Which means Father won’t have to make any decisions like selling land, or asking Maurice to get a blasted job.”
“Some people would call you lucky,” Pat observed.
“Yes,” Jimmy said. “I am lucky. Jolly lucky. Fen’s a very nice girl, and I dare say it’s about time I was married. Let’s not bore on about me.”
“All right then.” Pat watched the heat haze over the grass as they walked, the great sweep of the land. “What about Miss Singh?”
“What about her?”
“Only that she doesn’t seem entirely the right fit for a shooting party. Very pleasant, but, well—a vegetarian?”
“Oh, Victoria’s not one of those cranks. She’s Mother’s goddaughter, you know. She came up for a week’s stay, and then asked if it would be possible to extend her visit for another week—I believe she was going on to people who found they had scarlet fever in the house, though frankly if I were her I should have risked the contagion rather than Maurice. He’s a racialist, of course. She knew what she was letting herself in for, but I cannot imagine why she would.”
“I expect she knows what she’s about. She seemed a very intelligent woman to me.”
“I thought you’d like her,” Jimmy said. “She’s serious, but I don’t see why women shouldn’t be serious. It’s all very well to talk nonsense and do nothing all day, constantly dressing for breakfast and lunch and afternoon tea and dinner and going out and meeting people in order to talk about other people one met yesterday, but what is the point? Why do women want to waste their time on that? Are you really going to teach Fen to use a gun?”
“If she wants me to.”
“I wish you would. I dare say it might take some time, if you don’t mind that. You’ll have to be awfully patient, I warn you. She’s not the, uh, the brightest—she’s not like you, old thing. Not competent.”
“Perhaps not, but men don’t tend to marry for competence, do they?”
She meant it lightly, but Jimmy pulled a face. “I don’t know why not. It’s all very well being bubbly and charming in drawing rooms but unless one has the wherewithal to live without shouldering responsibilities—”
“Now hold on,” Pat said, suddenly roused on Miss Carruth’s behalf. “If a woman is brought up to do nothing except get married and mix in society, it’s hardly fair to blame her for carrying out the job she was given. If you didn’t want that sort of woman you shouldn’t have proposed to one, and having done so, it’s hardly fair to criticise her for it.”
Jimmy’s mouth dropped open. “How—that is, I’m not doing that. I don’t blame her. I just— Well, it would be a lot easier if about half the people at this accursed party weren’t here, that’s all.”
“I dare say.”
“Ugh. I’m sorry, Pat, I sound like an ungrateful cad. Look, you’d really do me a service if you’d give Fen a few lessons. She’s going to be desperately bored for the next couple of weeks and I have certain things to do. I’m not asking you to miss out on the shooting, of course, but if you found yourself at a loose end, I would appreciate it.”
Pat knew she should encourage him to put some effort into his engagement. She didn’t. “I’ll have a crack. Shall we get back for breakfast?”
“Yes,” Jimmy said. “Yes, I suppose we should.”