Alternative bride 18

 

Chapter 18

 

“His Lordship is not in residence... gawdstrewth! Milord!” said the lordly butler. “Your face!” Gerard had taken off his mask.

Jane was taking in the house, which to her standards was larger than the term ‘hunting box’ should indicate. It was mostly of red brick, with a black diaper pattern, and Caen stone surrounds to the oriel windows; but it was not approached in the centre as was common, but to a grand doorway on the right hand side, where the building was all stone, and did not exactly mismatch the rest of the house, but was certainly of a different period. Though the long windows down the central seemed more modern than their setting. Jane knew immediately that this house would suit her very well.

“Milton, permit me to make you known to my lady wife, who has been nursing my burns from a footpad’s careless discharge of his pistol by my face,” said Gerard.

“I... I beg your pardon, my lord, I was taken aback,” said Milton.

“I was a trifle startled myself when it happened,” said Gerard. “Where’s Christopher?”

“In the study, my lord.”

“I’ll find my way. Show her ladyship the usual offices, and introduce her to Mrs. Jevvins.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Milton.  “If you wish to leave your outer clothes and make yourself comfortable, the cloakroom is under the staircase and you will find a discreet door off it. May I take your cloak and pelisse to hang up? I cannot think what his lordship is doing driving you in a curricle at this time of year.”

“Thank you, Milton, how delicately you put that,” said Jane. “As to the curricle, it involves a wager.”

“I see, my lady,” said Milton.

Jane made herself comfortable in the surprisingly spacious ladies’ room, there having been a gentleman’s room as well, seemingly extending back into the body of the house. Hearing another flush, she supposed these offices to back onto, and share drains with, those for the use of the servants. She washed her face, and was gratified to have running water in a sink in which to do so, and emerged refreshed. Milton had summoned a middle-aged woman, who was presumably Mrs. Jevvins. Jane smiled and went towards her.

“Mrs. Jevvins I assume?  I am Jane, Lady Wintergreen. His lordship has waxed most complimentary on your raised pies, having complimented one we found in an inn on the way as being almost as good as yours.”

Mrs. Jevvins flushed in pleasure.

“Well, that’s good of his lordship to say so, he’s always liked my pies.  I don’t let the cook do baking, you understand, only cookery.”

“Everyone has their specialities,” said Jane, gravely.  “I ran my stepfather’s household, and I know that one can leave a cook alone most of the time, but there are things that require supervising. I am sure my stepfather will find money going shorter as his cook would never think to use the meat from a Hessian soup as a ragoo, for example, or to make Davenport fowl at the same time as Salamagundy so that the yolks of eggs discarded from Salamagundy are used in the Davenport fowl.”

“Oh, my lady! There was an awful scandal in the newspaper, but if you’re the wrong sister, I am glad he married you, not that other little butterfly!”

“Poor Madelaine, she’s a bit of a lightweight, and so is her mother,” said Jane, able now to bring it down to that. “May I have a grand tour of the house whilst Gerard is discussing buying in extra grain?”

“Of course, my lady.  The staircase is Jacobean, though of no great virtue; no strap-and-jewel work at all, most of that is in the study, the only room which hasn’t been pulled about a bit and made over. Caen stone and brick throughout, you can see it was Elizabethan originally by the chimneys, but the fourth viscount threw up a ceiling in what was the great hall, through here,which is now a ballroom, and high enough, but not as high as it was.  And he opened a door to the staircase and closed the one in here, taking down the little gatehouse, and putting long windows onto the front drive all the way along.  He added the study and library the other side of the stairs as well, that wing being seventeenth century. The cloakroom and closets were originally a priest’s hole with a tunnel leading out, and the tunnel used now for the drainpipes.”

“What a sensible use of the space,” said Jane. “Was that my lord’s doing, or his father?”

“It was something his father started, but his lordship had the work completed,” said Mrs. Jevvins. “The left wing used to house the usual offices of running the house, but that’s now all in the modern wing,” she went on. “Now the housekeeper’s rooms are a boudoir and sewing room for my lady, the butler’s pantry is a reading room for his lordship, and the servants’ dining hall is a games room with a billiard table. The old kitchen has been made into a dining room, and the new kitchen built on at the back with all the modern conveniences, making a little courtyard, fully enclosed, behind the salons which open off the ballroom. When there is company, they are commonly used for card-playing.”

“I am glad the kitchen is at the back not in the right-hand wing, I had visions of food cooling after having been brought on a long tramp of half a mile or so,” said Jane.

“Bless you, my lady, no!”  said Mrs. Jevvins. “And the old scullery now used to keep things warm with chafing dishes for when they’re wanted.”

“I would like to see the servants’ quarters and assure myself that you have everything you need,” said Jane.

“Certainly; would you like to see the boudoir rooms on the way?”

“Oh, yes; this house is inviting me in and it would be unfriendly not to let it show me what is to be my domain,” said Jane.

“Oh, my lady, I am glad you feel that way. It is a friendly house.”

 

The boudoir and sewing room were cosy without being too small, and there was a wicker day bed as well as a window seat, well padded, in one of the large oriel windows, overlooking the drive and formal gardens at the front.

“Here I shall doubtless bring sewing to perch and dream,” said Jane, happily.

“The window off the sewing room looks over the rose garden,” volunteered Mrs. Jevvins. “Not much to see at this time of year, but it’s a picture in summer, and the smell is lovely.”

“Oh, how splendid,” said Jane. “What an absolute honey of a pair of rooms; I feel almost guilty that the remodelling robbed you of them.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about me, my lady, I have a couple of nice rooms down from the kitchen which overlook the central courtyard with its herb garden, and my own door onto it too.”

“Oh, lovely! I am glad,” said Jane. “Oh, what’s in here...” she opened a door. “A secret staircase!” she declared in delight.

“Yes, upstairs is the mistress bedroom, and another boudoir and the master takes most of the rest of the wing, with dressing-rooms for maids and valets.”

“Poor Alice and Minnie!  They will be glad to be settled somewhere,” said Jane. “I fancy Jelves is used to his lordship being peripatetic.”

“Him!” said Mrs. Jevvins. “Well, I don’t say as but Jelves knows how to care for his lordship, for he does. My brother, he is, but I lived it down by marrying.”

“I would have been lost without Jelves when his lordship was shot at and wounded,” said Jane. “Oh! You did not know; he has horrid scarring to his face, which shocked Mr. Milton, but it will heal. A flash in the pan in his face, but at least no ball to take out.”

“Dear me, you have been tried in fire and no mistake!” said Mrs. Jevvins. She followed Jane up to the bedroom and its adjacent sitting room over the lady’s rooms downstairs, and Jane poked around, finding the master bedroom, at which she blushed; it had the faintest tang of Gerard’s scent, and was undoubtedly his room. Back down she glanced in the games room and in Gerard’s sitting room, a masculine room with dull red leather chairs, a few book shelves, brandy, a writing desk, and a heavy pouf for putting the feet on if dozing in the big armchair by the fire. There was a windowseat here which also looked out on the rose garden.

The old kitchen had plainly once had a huge open fireplace, largely filled in and covered in wooden panelling to make a grand mantel and overmantel, with a large, but not excessive, fireplace within it. The rest of the walls were plastered with mouldings, and decorated in celadon green with white swags of plasterwork, and white profile bas relief portraits.

“Thats’s his lordship’s father and mother, and his sisters, who died,” said Mrs. Jevvins. “He wanted them to be part of family dinner, which sounds a bit pagan to me.”

“It’s a reminder at a family occasion, and keeps their memories in his heart,” said Jane. “Now, do we go through the scullery to the servants’ quarters?”

“It’s one way, yes,” said Mrs. Jevvins. She led Jane through into a big, modern kitchen, with two closed stoves, a big central table, and polished utensils hung on the walls.

There was a sudden silence.

“Good morning, I am Jane, Lady Wintergreen,” said Jane. “We are hoping to spend a protracted length of time here, though at the moment, we are travelling through, as you might say. His lordship and I would be grateful if something can be rustled up for a nuncheon however. He has a nasty burn on his face, but it will heal. We met with a highwayman. There is no big story surrounding it, and other than being painful, it causes him no trouble.  Now I hope everything is to your satisfaction here, and I will be happy to hear any complaints, but we will be on our way again before nightfall; it is a matter of a wager and an obligation. I see you have the very latest of closed stoves, which must be the envy of many.”

“Except the sweep,” muttered one of the male staff.

“Well, it is good to force them to use a sweeping machine, and not small children,” said Jane, firmly. “We can progress to the new wing through here? Thank you,” as one of the men held the door for her.

“Men sleep above the kitchen, women in the attics,” said Mrs. Jevvins. “My quarters here, and Mr. Milton over there. And here we are behind the stairs, with the offices for the servants; through this baize-covered door, and back to the vestibule, the library there, the muniment room or study here, and here’s his lordship and Mr. Eastby.”

“Ah, Mrs. Jevvins, giving my lady the grand tour?” asked Gerard. “Jane, my dear, my cousin, Christopher Eastby, who is my steward.”

“Delighted to meet you,” said Jane. “I trust all is in order?”

“It is, Chris is very efficient,” said Gerard. “The extra wheat will be bought in, if necessary with the massive tax on it to import from abroad. The peasantry will not go hungry.”

“We laid down the lands to Swedish turnip and oats, principally,” said Eastby. “Oatmeal might not make much in the way of fine bread, but it makes bread, as well as gruel, and is good sustenance, and grows in colder climes more readily.”

“We shall doubtless thank G-d for any bread we can have if the winter is bad,” said Jane.

“Amen,” said Eastby, Gerard nodding.  “What do you think of the house?”

“I love it, what I’ve seen of it,” said Jane. “There are odd doors and passages which I have yet to explore. And Mrs. Jevvins told me about the former priests’ hole, and the use of the underground passage for drains, I am much impressed.”

“We have Bramah closets upstairs as well,” said Gerard. “Opening off the head of the stairs. Not entirely convenient, but more convenient for the servants to empty chamber pots than having to go outside.”

“Indeed,” said Jane. “I will look forward to returning soon to explore more thoroughly.”

“Yes, we will leave when we have had a bite to eat, if you can manage that, Jevvy.”

“Away with you, Master Gerard! When have I failed to find you a bite to eat?”

“We may have to be frugal this winter,” said Gerard.

“I know a good way to serve liver and bacon stew,” said Jane, brightly.  “I told my stepfather and stepmother that it was venison and they congratulated the cook.  They’d never had venison and knew no different. I knew they wouldn’t eat it if they knew what it really was. So we don’t have to tell Gerard, do we?” she beamed at Mrs. Jevvins, who laughed.

“Oh, he’s a good boy, and will try anything,” she said.

“Well, they use liver in pate,” said Gerard. “I look forward to learning how to eat like a king in a frugal manner.”

“And even my stepfather would eat Swedish turnip mashed with potato, onion, and the leaves of the Swedish turnip cooked like cabbage mashed and fried as bubble and squeak,” said Jane. “And he is a man who calls turnip of all kinds fit only for animal feed.”

“Wife, you are manipulating me,” said Gerard, laughing.

“Why, yes, my husband, I think I am,” said Jane.

 

Mrs. Jevvins produced cold meats of all kinds, with a hot pea soup to warm them before getting back on the road, bread-and-butter, pickles and chutneys, and a rapidly-made curry of chicken to be something else warming.

“I have much to learn from you, Mrs. Jevvins,” said Jane, happily.

“I think I am looking forward to working with you, my lady,” said Mrs. Jevvins. She did not say that she had not been looking forward to working with Madelaine, of whom she had heard.

 

oOoOo

 

Back on the road, Jane sighed contentedly.

“What, not happy to be travelling again?” laughed Gerard.

“Oh! I am happy enough to travel with you, but it is a big hurdle to be over to find I get on well with someone I suspect is your favourite housekeeper. It’s a beautiful house, and it felt more like coming home than I have ever felt in my life.”

“Truly? It’s where I grew up much of my life. Papa was the heir until I was twelve, and then when grandpapa died we moved to the main seat in Wiltshire, which is large, modern, impersonal, and I hate it. Christopher, however, loves it, having grown up there as the son of a younger daughter whose husband was the local vicar. If you prefer Wintergreen House to Winter Hall, I’ll send Christopher to administer the Hall. He’d love it.”

“Oh! If you would not mind...”

“We shall have to be in London for me to speak in parliament, but unless there is anything which catches my interest, I would as soon be a country gentleman. We can put in an appearance in the Season if you want?”

“Do we have to?”

“Next year? Yes. I do need to show you off. But thereafter? Only if you feel like it.”

“I should like to be a country mouse.”

“Yes, but I would like your irritating family to see you roar.”

“Oh! Yes, I suppose I should like that too, because Helen and Madelaine are sure to try to be patronising at me. To put me in my place and show me that you did not choose me, only that I was there, and you were in a flaming temper.”

Gerard flushed.

“Sadly, I cannot dispute that; but may I say that if I had realised your age, and had got to know both sisters, there is no question but that I should have chosen you.”

Jane flushed, and looked pleased. Even if it was not entirely true, since his reasons for marrying were originally purely for the succession, and Madelaine had been ‘suitable,’ it was nice of him to say so.

And Jane knew that Gerard had come to love her, as she loved him.

And they had the rest of their lives together, doing crazy things like pretend to elope, or sensible things like take care of his peasants.

The only flies in the ointment were Mr. Frith, and, if they should encounter him again, Mr. Whittington.

But they were flies who were at a distance.  For now.