The Heart of Winter 1

sorry, I meant to post this earlier, but our Morrison's delivery was early and I got sidetracked by the logistics of packing fish fingers. 

Sheridan Winter’s bride, Fanny, died in a freak snowstorm on her way to marry him, and his heart has been frozen ever since. Fanny’s little sister, Lucy, would like to melt the heart of Winter, in which she is aided and abetted by Sherry’s sister, Marjorie. Sherry looks as though he might be ready to emerge from his frozen state, but unfortunately, two young people who love each other very much, and know each other fairly well, but not well enough, can hurt each other very badly in any attempt to drag romance into the relationship.

Fortunately, Sherry’s mother is ready to come to the rescue of a romance she would like to promote, with calm good sense and an understanding of both young people.

Chapter 1

 

Winter Hall,

Oxenbridge,

Wiltshire,

7^th February 1787

My dearest Marjorie,

You will remind Sherry that poor dear Lucy finishes school at Easter, won’t you? He promised Fanny that he would care for her little sister if anything happened to her, and it’s four years now since poor Fanny died. Is there no sign of him recovering? Really, one has to admire his loyalty, but he should think of the family name as well. I expect he will foist poor Lucy onto you, my love, but at least Babbington is an easy-going husband to you, and will not make a fuss. But do make sure Sherry is polite to her, and pays, for having promised, he should keep his  promise, and ignoring the child in case she has grown to look painfully like her sister is the height of bad manners. And she looks nothing like poor Fanny, poor child, being shamefully skinny, and quite red in aspect, where Fanny was ethereally blonde. 

Can you ask in town if there is any preparation to deal with moles? I have had mole catcher after mole catcher, and the little beasts are, I swear, laughing at me.  Another hill has popped up within sight of the window as I write. It is fortunate that Sherry has never had any desire to flatten the lawn, for it would be fighting a losing battle. I just object to the unsightly effect the moles have. If they would only leave small hills, I should mind less. But Sherry cares for nothing but keeping himself occupied, and, I suspect, tipsy. It is high time he got over it, and married. I wager half his grief is bad habit, and would improve if  he would only take a course of liver pills and find a girl compliant enough to learn to sport in the bedroom.

Your loving mother.

 

8 Harley Street

London

12^th February 1787

Dearest Mama,

I have reminded Sherry of his duty to pick up Lucy from the academy in Bath, and offered to have her to stay. Babbington does not, as you surmised, mind, he is very good natured, which is why I married him. Sometimes he is too good natured and  I have to work to irritate him enough not to just agree with me, but he is getting to know when I expect him to be a prop and stay, and disagree with me tactically. You trained Papa well enough, so I am sure Babbington will learn. And he does care enough to put his foot down  if he really minds. I had to wheedle to get him to agree to let me wear a robe a la reine. But he has agreed that they are not immodest and that I look very nice in one. He likes being able to embrace me without panniers or bum-roll! So I expect my summer wardrobe will include more of the same. And I will outfit Lucy in such, for the heat in town in summer can be prodigious.

You are right about Sherry, I fear; he is always at some gathering or other, looking like the soul of sobriety and never less than half cut. He has not moved out of blacks, and though it is a coup for any society hostess to get him to come to her event, if you ask me, his presence is enough to cast a blight anywhere. He is sarcastic and almost rude when he does speak to anyone, he does dance now, but only with married women or gazetted flirts, whose name he then forgets next time he meets them. He is downright disagreeable these days. I hope he may fall in love with Lucy and be spurned by her, for he deserves it, but he will not.

Mama, on no account buy any patent preparations for moles. It is all a hum, and some of them are dangerous. Just resign yourself to the little perishers until they move on and then have the men roll the lawn.

Your loving daughter, Marjorie.

 

Mrs. Godings School

4 Laura Place

Bath

14^th February, 1787

 

Dear Sherry,

Mrs. Godings says I ought not to be so free with a diminutive of your given name, but I remember you telling me I should get used to you being family. And when you write to me you sign yourself ‘Sherry’ not ‘Sheridan Winter’ so I will use it unless you tell me not to do so.

Marjorie said she would remind you that term ends on March 23^rd, which is the end of my schooling, so I will have considerably more luggage than can be squeezed into a curricle. Which is a shame, because there is nothing like driving in your curricle at prodigious speed. You will collect me, won’t you, not urge me to hire a chaise? We don’t have maids at school, and we are not allowed much in the way of an allowance, as you know, being my trustee, and I would feel somewhat intimidated stopping for comfort breaks in inns without someone with me. I do not think anyone could mistake me for a woman of easy virtue, though I am not precisely sure what a woman of easy virtue might be, or why it is undesirable, since I would love to find it easy to be virtuous, as I have to pray very hard to want to repent of my numerous catalogue of misdeeds [Miss Godings’s description] and not to want to giggle at them again.  I ask you, Sherry! When a poor little duckling has been separated from its mama and the rest of the gaggle [do ducks come in gaggles?] what else is one to do but pick it up and arrange a temporary pond in a bath tub? I wasn’t even trying to be naughty over that, nor do I consider it wrong. I know I was bad to put lye soap in Amabel’s comb so it made her hair icky and stung her scalp, but people who boast of their golden curls and make disparaging remarks about red hair and sneer so are almost asking for retribution. I opened my eyes wide and said that I had set the comb to soak because of the huge amounts of scurf jammed in it [a calumny but she deserves it] and must have  failed to rinse it properly. So I got away with that, which is my worst actual misdeed this term. I was whipped for firing paper pellets at the back of Amabel’s neck with an elder stem pipe I made but it was well worth it for the shriek she put up about being stung by bees. In January? Honestly!  And it wasn’t me who ground sugar to put in the salt-cellar. I don’t know who did, but I do not approve of Mrs. Godings not believing me, for I either have an excuse or I own up to my misdeeds.

Anyway, if you get a report on me, I didn’t do that, but they didn’t find out that I slipped Amabel some senna for accusing me.  I bet she did it to get me into trouble.

Love,  Lucy Laughton.

 

Sheridan Winter chuckled at the letter. What a harum scarum child Lucy was! Surely she could not be leaving school? He counted on his fingers. She had been fourteen when Fanny had been caught in that snowdrift on the way to marry him, and froze to death, freezing his heart with it. She must be eighteen now... well, she was old enough to come out, and his sister was willing to bring her out. Marjorie was always a good sport.  He had asked her more than once why she had married a dry stick like Frank Babbington, and Marjorie had told him, ‘Bab is reliable, Sherry!” as if that explained it all.

He had better write back to Lucy that he would be there to pick her up.

 

11 Upper Wimpole St.

London

17^th February

 

Dear Lucy,

Yes, I did invite you to call me Sherry, in anticipation of becoming your brother; we are both bereaved, but I still count you as a little sister, or possibly my favourite pest. You don’t seem to have grown out of being a pest; don’t think I have forgotten you filling my boots with frogspawn to test my temper to see if I was suitable for Fanny. I was impressed by your fearless and unapologetic owning up to the deed, and explaining why. Your loyalty to your sister earned more approval from me than disapprobation. I was also pleased that you were desirous of returning the frog spawn to its pond, in the hopes that some would survive; and I remember you checking it out until it hatched.

However, I am mostly writing to tell you that I will be picking you up in the morning of the 23^rd March, and I will bring a maid engaged by Marjorie for your countenance as the road to Bath cannot readily be traversed to London in one day. I have heard that the mail can do it in 13 hours nowadays, but you do not want to be rattled like a pea in a frying pan, and moreover I have too much respect for my nags. Consequently we shall stay overnight somewhere sufficiently respectable. I expect Marjorie will know which is the best hostelry.

No, you may not dress as a boy to be either my tiger or sit on the driver’s seat. I may teach you to drive in London, but only in a curricle and only in the park. I may let you sit up beside me if it is fine on quiet stretches, if you promise to behave yourself.

You see, I know you too well.

Sherry Winter.

 

“He does know me too well,” said Lucy to herself.

 

Mrs. Godings School

4 Laura Place

Bath

21^st February

Dear Sherry,

I look forward to your arrival.  I have mostly enjoyed school, but I am finding it boring now. I did study some of your school books which I filched from the attic when I was staying with your Mama last year, which were more interesting. It’s not fair, boys have more fun than girls. However, I now know more about Arithmetic than we are taught, and I want to try out the theories of Fermat and Pascal when I am on the town.  But I also understand acids and bases and I shall add tartaric acid to the toothpowders of all the preceptresses for the last morning, so I can watch them froth at the mouth as most toothpowders are based on soda ash. It should be a really good show! Then I can put aside such pranks in order to become a young lady, which is not going to be easy, but at least will have the novelty of being different.

Your pest, Lucy.

 

“She is a pest,” murmured Sherry.

“Who is?” asked his friend, Bernard Underwood. Bernard was heir to a viscounty, and had been through school and university with Sherry.

“Fanny’s little sister; she’s leaving school. They are probably glad to be rid of her. But that’s what you get when a young girl with a lively, enquiring mind is trammelled into the things girls learn at school. Well, she has money, so she doesn’t have to marry straight away. She can afford to wait for someone who appreciates her.”

“Just as well; if I recall correctly, she’s a carroty little thing with freckles and skinned knees,” said Bernard.

“I’m sure she’s grown out of having skinned knees,” said Sherry, who was not actually sure, but had a vague feeling that Lucy was his pest and he needed to defend her.

“Well, if she ain’t, it’d be peculiar,” said Bernard. “Cured of skinned knees, I mean. You don’t have young ladies with skinned knees.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever looked,” said Sherry. “Never mind my pest’s knees! I’m supposed to be a brother to her, and I’m glad she doesn’t look like Fanny. It would be too cruel.”

 

 

8 Harley Street

London

March 12^th.

 

Dear Lucy,

I have engaged a maid for you, who is the younger sister of my personal maid. Her name is Molly, and she is a little rough around the edges, being used to helping around her father’s farm and not having gone into service before. However, I am sure she will oblige in every way, as she seems keen and eager. Sherry will divert to see Mama and pick Molly up on his way to collect you. Try not to plague him too much.

Marjorie.

 

2, The Cottages,

Winteringham estate

Wiltshire

13^th March

 

Dearest Maggie,

Cor, who’d of thought I’d be in service to a fashionable young lady! I’ll reelly have to mind my P’s and Q’s, speshully in front of Mr. Winter who is wot they call ‘orse-tear’ or in other words a Friday-faced curmudgeon. I suppose it is called ‘orse-tear’ because it’s enough to make a nag weep. 

I hopes my lady ain’t as managing as yours.

Molly.

 

8 Harley Street,

London,

18^th March

Molly, you little fool, I am having to waste my Sunday off writing to you so you behave. The word is ‘Austere’ and has nothing to do with horses. It means of serious mien, and not demonstrative. And don’t you dare talk to him or ask about it! He was engaged to marry your new lady’s older sister, who died, and he is bereaved.  Now you behave yourself and don’t you cause me mortification for asking questions all the time.

Your sister, Margaret.

 

“Oh, that is romantic, I should think he will fall in love with Miss Lucy now she’s all grown up, shouldn’t you?” said Molly to her brother, Jack.

“Now you do as you’re told, behave yourself, and never mind romance, Molly Meadowes,”

“You have no soul,” said Molly.

“Well, some on us has to grow out o’ that nonsense to make a way in life,” said Jack. “And I know you, your tongue is hung in the middle. You’d think at fifteen you’d of grown out of such nonsense, but we can do with you getting a wage so we can get another cow.”

Molly stuck a tongue out at her brother’s back, and took her bandbox to await being taken up by Mr. Winter on his way to Bath.

 

Milord High Toby chapter 1

 Toby King is the son of a viscount, and also a soldier, doing duty to his king and country during the second Jacobite uprising. Searching for deserters he and his family fall victim to an ambush targeted specifically at his family. Toby survives thanks to a love-token, and in his state of officially missing, believed dead, acts the part of a highwayman attacking other bandits to garner proof of the assassination of his father and twin brother. 

Chapter 1; 1746, the Scottish Borders in the aftermath of the ’45 rebellion

 

It was a routine mission, tracking down a group of deserters and bringing them back to Stirling Castle for justice.  It was also, for Toby, a chance to get out in the thin, autumnal sunshine with his father and his brother, Thomas, and their companions, George Deering and Mark Hynes.

“It’d be nice weather to go out after a deer or two, wouldn’t it, Toby?” remarked Thomas.

“Aye, if we were not constrained by duty,” said Toby.

Thomas laughed.

“I wager when these renegades are rounded up, the colonel might see his way to giving us leave to do so.”

Toby chuckled.  As the colonel was their father, Colonel Lord Lorrington King, Viscount of Fairniehope, this was a standing joke.  Lord King was known to his men as ‘The Auger’, for eyes which could look right, it was said, into a man’s soul.  Though the Kings were originally a sept of Clan Gregor, Toby’s family had long held lands in the lowlands and had sided with the English king against the Stuart pretenders.

“There are few enough rebels about since Culloden,” he said.  “The greatest threat is those who have turned to crime, their hands against all.”

“And those deserters who have no king nor God but greed,” said Thomas, dryly.

 

The crack of a musket came from a point of concealment, and Toby watched in horror as a black mark appeared on his father’s forehead, and then red blood blossomed around it like some obscene flower. And then, slowly, so awfully slowly, his father slid backwards from his horse and fell with a horribly boneless crunch to the earth of the road below. Then it was George, blood spurting out of his neck.  Toby fired in the direction of the muzzle-flashes, as did Thomas and Mark. And then pain burned like fire across Toby’s side, and he swayed on his mount. And somehow he knew that the only way he might survive would be to let himself come off the mare, and lie with the other, horribly still bodies.

He was the last man down, more for luck than judgement. And he listened, tears in his eyes from pain and grief as he heard the crunch of boots.

“Got the three of them that count,” said a satisfied voice. Toby was furious, it was a voice he knew, the voice of one of  the deserters, a man named Daniel Hart.

“Sure they’re dead?”

“This one might take longer to bleed out, but he’s getting there,” said their leader, kicking Toby in the ribs where the bullet had taken him. Toby swallowed the cry of pain and managed to convert it into a harsh breath as if he had trouble breathing. “Yes, got him in the lungs,” added his assailant. “Come on; I want my monkey of gold from Charles King for clearing the succession for him.  And such a nice natural way to do it,” he laughed a harsh laugh, and the sounds of the boots departed, and then the sounds of galloping hoofs.

Toby pulled himself to his knees, wondering why he wasn’t hit in the lungs.

His dented snuffbox, driven hard into his ribs, bruising them, seemed to be the reason, the ball diverted and merely scoring his side well enough to bleed convincingly. In truth, the bruise hurt worse!  He checked his father and brother for any signs of life; but there was none. Nor yet any life in the sightless staring eyes of George, the dandy, his fine mechlin neck-cloth dyed red with the outflow of his life’s blood from his neck. Mark, the merry jokesmith, would crack no more jokes, the agonised rictus of his mouth a cruel travesty of its living, laughing  smiles.

Toby groaned; and dizziness overcame him and he lay swooning, still clinging to his beloved snuffbox, its top featuring a painting of his true love’s eye, surrounded by pearls.

 

He came to, having his wound bathed.

“Dinnae ye gae undoin’ me handywork forebye, Maister Toby,” said a voice with a soft, highland lilt with a touch of the Fifer.

“I know your voice,” gasped Toby.

“Aye, iphm, an’ ye shuid, for ye saved ma life.”

“Camsron Dubh!” said Toby. “Papa was looking for an excuse not to hang you; he hates... hated... hanging men.”

“And ye made a guid plea for me,” said the Dubh.  “Ye’ll be laird now himself an’ yer brother are gone. Here; I fetched off his signet for ye.”

Toby slipped the ring onto his finger, almost unthinking, nodding to the weather-beaten man, perhaps ten years his senior, with hair the colour of a fox’s pelt, and eyes like the unfathomable brown depths of a peat bog.

“Thanks, Dubh, but it’s not as easy as that,” he said, grimly. “The deserters we came to round up were paid by my cousin, Charles, to make sure of inheriting. I fear that if I go back to Stirling, he will lay false witness to say I killed my father, brother, and friends, and then I shall be hanged. If only there was a way to identify a musket ball!”

“Aye, weel, a spiteful, cunning wee bawsack is the sort o’ fandan as wuid dae that,” agreed the Dubh. “Wit’s yer plan, laird?”

“I... I want to bury my brother, father, and friends, and a fifth grave to hide that I am alive,” said Toby. He swallowed. “I’ll need to take their linen, so I’ve spare clothes, then I’ll need a countryman’s clothes. I’ll... I’ll bring them to justice somehow, and have them testify against my cousin. I’ll wear a mask and pretend to be a highwayman, but I’ll hunt such men down, for Daniel Hart and his men will be likely to join such.” He laughed, a slightly forced laugh. “Toby on the High Toby, as I understand the vernacular term is for highwaymen.”

The Dubh spat                          

“Aye, iphm,” he agreed, “Ye’ll want a new horse; yours has been taken, and ye’d no want tae be reckernised. And ye’ll no’ want me tae ca’ ye laird, forebye.”

Toby blinked.

“You intended to stay with me?” he asked.

The Dubh shrugged.

“Och, weel, someone has tae dae so; yer a puir shilpit wee bairn as has need o’ tak’in’ care o’ himself.”

Toby reflected that at least the  Dubh was a Campbell, and was officially named Camsron Andrew Beathan Campbell, or Cambuill in his own idiom, and so a clan loyal to the British. And it would be nice to have a companion in his endeavours. 

He sighed for thought of fair Aillie Campbell, a rather better-born member of the clan, whom he was to have wed; and got out his snuff-box again.

He caressed the eye-painting set into its top, glad that it was undamaged.

“Aye, iphm, the fair lady saved ye,” said the Dubh.

“She will grieve, thinking me dead, and will maybe love again, but better that than that she give me away ere I have the proofs I need,” said Toby, numbly, his thumb caressing the painting.

“Deid! Dinnae be a wee naif,” said the Dubh. “I’ll see she kens fine weel that ye live, and that ye’ll find the man wha’s behind this, and she’s a braw lassie and will no’ shoot off her puss.”

“Do you think....” worried Toby.

“Losh! It’s no’ thinkin’, ah ken she’ll be ready tae dae a’ she micht.”

 

 

Ensconced in a gamekeeper’s bothy, and with the Dubh gone to town for supplies, Toby had the opportunity to reflect upon the probable folly of his actions. . It was more a but’n’ben than a bothy, having an outer room and an inner one, though plainly enlarged from the simple one-roomed bothy it had once been, and it was comfortable enough.

Well, it was wise to let Charles think he was dead; that was undoubted.  He would dress well enough... he needed money.

“Dubh, are you up to breaking into King’s Keep?” he asked, when that individual returned.

“Weel, ye ken ony problems we’re likely to encounter, laird, and better to dae it the noo than when Mr. Charles is in residence,” said the Dubh. “What are we looking for?”

“The strong box,” said Toby. “You took my father’s keys, and I have my keys,  it should be easy as falling off a log.”

“Och, weel, that’s as maybe,” said the Dubh.. “But ye’ll no’ treat it ony way but cautiously, forebye.”

“No, Dubh,” said Toby, chastened. . “I’ve my father’s looks, though, so likely any servant who catches a glimpse of me will think I’m the laird’s ghost.”

“Aye, weel, yon hawk-nose is seen only on your kin, and yon shilpit usurper nae blessed with nose nor auger-een o’ blue steel in sich dark features; he’s a ruddy face, forbye, and hair like dirty tow aneath his wig, no’ a crop o’ black furze like yours,” said the Dubh.

“I hate wearing a wig, my hair won’t lay down under it, and I hate shaving it,” said Toby.

“Losh, man, grow it. Ye can a’ways pooder it white as a doo’s breast syne ye want.”

“I think I will,” said Toby, familiar with the word ‘doo’ for dove.

 

 

Two precious villains crept up to King’s Keep,  which was more of a defensible country house than a castle. Toby had a key to the back door, to use when returning from riding, but it had been bolted.  He shrugged, and went searching in the stable for a large knife, which he used to finagle the latch on a pantry window.

“I always got in this way if I got locked out,” he told the Dubh.

The Dubh sniffed. It was a speaking sniff.

In stockinged feet they padded into the laird’s library, and Toby unlocked the strongbox.

“Papa keeps this for emergencies,” said Toby, in an undertone. “This is an emergency.”

“Losh, are we takkin’ the lot?” said the Dubh, startled, but retaining a quiet voice.

“Yes, we are, and we’ll cache most of it,” said Toby. “And anything else of value worth taking including firearms, and good steel. Plenty of ammunition, too. We’ll be busy most of the night.”

“You’re sair trusting of a poacher.”

“We’re comrades,” said Toby.

“Och, weel, ye’re the laird,” said the Dubh. The gold and silver filled a number of sacks, then there were sacks of firearms and shot. Toby wandered off and came back with another sack filled with silver plate.

“Hideous service, it was a wedding present, so Papa had to use it, it’s more use to us melted down and sold,” he said, showing the Dubh.

“Melt it with bits of rock in it, and we’ll claim to have found a vein,” said the Dubh.

“Splendid!” said Toby.

“How are we going to get this all away afore daylight, laird?” asked the Dubh.

“We aren’t,” said Toby. “We’re going to bury it in the midden, wrapped in oilcloth for now, and take a sack each away every night until it’s all gone.”

The Dubh shrugged.

It seemed as good an idea as any.

 

Rumour travelled as always on rapid feet, that Colonel King and his sons and their friends had fallen in with trouble and were dead. The bandits had left the distinctive horses to return on their own; the laird and his sons must be presumed and declared dead for Charles King to inherit.

And Aillie Campbell was sobbing her pretty green eyes out for the sweet man she had been going to wed, a friend since childhood.

She kept mostly to her chamber, refusing to answer knocks on the door from her mother or father.

The knock on the window had her run to the casement, and then drawing back in shock at the visage of a strange man with wild red-brown hair. She drew in her breath to scream.

“Hoots, wumman! Haud yer whisht syne ye want news o’ Laird Toby,” said the man, scrambling agilely over her sill.

“Toby? He isnae deid?” Aillie did not usually have much of an accent, but the strong emotion made it stronger.

“He’s in hiding, frae that bawsack cousin o’ his wha’ arranged tae hae the auld laird and baith sons killt, forebye,” said the Dubh. “And ye cannae let on that ye ken; but he wanted ye tae ken ‘twas yer snuffbox wha’ saved him from a ba’ in the bellows. And that when he can prove it, he’ll be bye tae court ye agin.”

“Oh, thank you!” whispered Aillie, her eyes like stars at this news, shining even brighter for her recent tears. “And praise be to the Good Lord that ‘twas ma giftie as saved him!”

“Aye, iphm, but ye ken, ye mustnae seem tae tak’ it weel whiles yet,” said the Dubh. “But thinkin’ ye’d hae some appetite back, syne ye kennt the news, here’s some vittles tae keep yer belly frae scrapin’ yer backbone, whiles ye baw yer heid off in yer room f’ the luiks of it.”

“How very clever you are!”

“Weel, lassie, Ah’m a Campbell, too, forebye, and the best breed in a’ Bonnie Scotland,” said the Dubh.

Aillie made a full and satisfying meal of raised game pie – the Dubh was an excellent cook as well as a good shot – with bread and cheese, and she had a pump in her own room for washing as well as for drinking. She thought it the best banquet she had ever had.

And for the first time since the news had come, she sat in front of her mirror, and brushed the tangled mass of her auburn  hair, braiding it neatly, for if Toby lived, her appearance suddenly mattered to her again. She sighed at the ravages her tears had wrought to her normally creamy complexion, spattered with freckles over her small, straight nose, the same colour as the highlights in her hair, smiling that Toby used to say that he must count them to know how many kisses she needed to appease the fairies. Well, it did not matter that she looked ravaged, for she must act grief-stricken for her Toby’s safety.

 

 

Toby and the Dubh transferred all the treasure from the midden to a cave used at times by poachers, where they buried it under scree to look like a rockfall. It was a fallback headquarters.

“We need to rid the area of lawlessness generally,” said Toby.

“Aye, iphm, Ah’m no’ discontentit tae be lawless,” said the Dubh.

“There’s poaching which hurts nobody, and then there’s armed bands who set on innocent folks,” said Toby.

The Dubh chuckled.

“Takkin’ tae the High Toby,  which is wha’ they ca’ highway robbery, tae stop highway robbers,” he said, deriving much lively amusement in this idea of  word play.

“I thought we might prey on those who hold up coaches by falling upon them when they attack,” said Toby.

“Aye, iphm, syne we can get news, it’ll work, forebye,” said the Dubh. “And I’ve word of some guid horseflesh too.”

A few days later, Toby had a black stallion which was half wild still, black smallclothes and stockings, bucket-topped boots, a black frieze coat, and tied his dark brown hair back with a black bow, a black mask on his face, and a black tricorne to throw its contours into shadow.

He was ready.

 

The Gardener Earl 1

 So, I now have 7 chapters of this so I will try to keep ahead of posting. Challenged by his friends to hold down a real job, Felix is not expecting to meet a girl who bowls him over, nor for her to have such idiotic parents that they are more interested in their concept of getting her married respectably than they are in his earldom. Chapter 1 upgraded since last post of it.

Chapter 1

 

 

“Your problem, Felix, is that you would have spurned a mere silver spoon in your mouth when you were born, and have had it easy ever since,” said the Honourable Peregrine Leger.

Felix Halenhurst, Earl Holmshaw, smiled his ridiculously sweet smile.

“Honestly, Perry, you make me sound like some totally mercenary fellow.”

“You are generous, Felix, but it don’t mean anything to you,” said Andrew, Viscount Glenduve.   “You are wealthy, so good looking you are almost pretty, a born horseman, solid cricketer, can stand up to box against any prize fighter, and you are even-tempered and a pleasant companion.  If the pair of us didn’t love you like a brother, we’d be forced to hate you for being such a revolting paragon.”

“I love you too, Drew, but I am taken aback at being called a paragon.”

“It’s a fault,” said Drew.  “And one all the women love; you are the most eligible bachelor in London.”

“And don’t I know it!” groaned Felix.  “I would retire to my estates save that I owe it to my family to marry and produce an heir.”

The three young men had been through Eton and Oxford together, and were firm cronies. Felix had been teased by them since they had first met up at the age of eleven about his curly blond hair and outrageously long eyelashes.  And yet, he managed not to look at all like a girl, for his chin was square and determined, and his shoulders broad. Peregrine was as dark as his friend was blonde, and would have looked the sportsman he was, were it not for his devotion to high fashion; and Drew had the reddish brown hair of his Celtic origins, a wiry strength  to his slender frame, and a visage which was more politely described as ‘amiable’ rather than handsome.

“Your problem is,” said Perry, “That you’ve never turned an honest day’s toil in your life.”

“I resent that,” said Felix.  “I run my own estate, and I do a lot of my own gardening, it being an avocation of mine.”

“Yes, but when you have a problem, you throw money at it,” said Andrew.  “And it won’t fadge, for you cannot hire someone to choose a wife for you.”

“I know that,” said Felix.

“You know it in your head, but not in your heart,” said Perry.  “You ain’t spoilt but it’s only by the best of good luck. And I wager that if you took an honest job as Mr. Blank of Nowhere, and had to live on your income, you’d learn a lot more about what really matters in life.”

“You’re on,” said Felix.  “I accept the wager.”

“So, you’ll take on doing an honest job of toil as a gardener, for, what, three months?” demanded Perry.

“Yes,” said Felix.  “It will serve as a repairing lease during the season to disappear from society and get away from the rapacious clutches of those who fall in love with my title, and find my looks not intolerable as well.”

“I think most of them fall in love with a pretty doll and are pleased he is well-blunted and a nobleman into the bargain,” said Drew.

“Whichever it is, they are superficial,” said Felix, “Though I would prefer it was that way round than the other.”

“We’ll arrange you a job then,” said Perry.

 

Felix reflected on the words of his friends.  He had been an earl for as long as he could remember, his parents having died in a coach accident before he was breeched, and he had had a series of governesses, tutors and instructors in etiquette, deportment, dancing and the sword, who treated him like a little prince.  Felix was glad that he had been sent to Eton, even if not as young as some boys were, in time to knock his corners off.  He could have become quite insufferable, growing up in an atmosphere of deference.  No, Mr. Hume would not have permitted it.  Felix had retained the services of one of his tutors, who were engaged by his trustees to keep up his lessons in the holidays, as his secretary.  Mr. Hume had bear-led him on the Grand Tour, and had made sure that Felix saw important cultural sites, as well as enjoying foreign cuisine and the sort of culture most young men enjoyed, This was to say ballet in France, concerts in Germany, and the one bordello he managed to visit in Italy before foreswearing women of easy virtue when Mr. Hume took him to see those in the final stages of syphilis in a mad house.  It had been an excellent lesson in fastidiousness, but had left him rather diffident around women. 

Of course, it would not matter how shy Felix might feel with women, he was still lionised by parents of daughters for his wealth and title, and would probably continue to be so, he thought cynically, if he had been a hunchback with a squint.  That he was also good looking meant that the girls he was introduced to were not trying to escape him, though none of them ever seemed able to find anything to say.  He thought them all insipid and boring.  In this, Felix did most of the young ladies to whom he had been introduced an injustice; having been adjured by their anxious mothers to make a good impression on the earl, most of them were afraid to say anything which would give him a bad impression, even if they were not struck dumb by his physical beauty.  Felix was cynical about his physical beauty. It was true that his hair was long, golden and curly, when allowed out of its strict and powdered queue; and his eyes were large and smoky blue with outrageously long eyelashes.  However, his jaw was, in his own words, as square as a peasant farmer’s, and his nose wandered past the aristocratic into a hint of the aquiline.  His lips were too large, and Felix thought them coarse.  He had no idea how singularly sweet his smile was when he was genuinely happy, and how his mouth echoed his every mood; or how many women wished they had such well-developed lips as he.  He was blissfully unaware of how many of his ‘insipid’ dance partners became quite hot and bothered in the privacy of their own beds at imagining being kissed by those mobile lips.

 

 

“I have it all fixed up for you, Felix,” said Peregrine Leger.  “I wrote to my godmother, Lady Staines.  She’s a widow, reclusive and has never heard of you, I am certain.  I told her I had a gardener to find work for, a head gardener, mind, so you’re being spoilt in having the ordering of other men.  I didn’t think you would last the course being told what to do by someone you would doubtless disagree with.”

“I appreciate that, Perry,” said Felix, who had been thinking much the same thing.

“Yes, well, my Aunt Emily, as she likes me to call her, has a need for a chief gardener, so she can pension off the current one, who has let the place go to seed.  She says you will have a fair budget to improve it, so long as you steer clear of wholesale landscaping.  She likes her geometric parterres and topiary in front of the house the way they are, and a knot garden of roses behind it, and no follies, ruins, Chinese pagodas, rock gardens, wildernesses or distant aspects, thank you very much.”

“She sounds very set in her ways.”

“She is, but I wager you will enjoy both the kitchen garden and the apothecary garden, which are walled gardens either side of the knot garden. It’s more by way of being a maze than a knot garden;  she designed it herself when she was first married.  There’s a central circular meeting of the ways, with a pond, and a bench to watch it, and curved benches under arches between each of the four paths out. The paths have  trellises periodically for climbing roses, and traveller’s joy, clematis she calls it, and woodbine, and lilac as well, and the scent is incredible.  She will tell you she built it herself, and believe what she says, but of course the trellises were constructed by her gardeners, and the slabs in the pathways as well, and I doubt she dug the pond or installed the fountain.”

“It is unusual for one of our estate to take on such things personally,” said Felix, who had dug an ornamental pond alongside his gardeners.  “It sounds delightful, if not entirely in the modern style.”

“Oh, it’s a splendid place to take a lady for a quick bit of dalliance, or it would be if Aunt Emily entertained as much as she ought to,” said Perry.  “Her ambition is to have a fragrant scent at all times of year, which is a bit insane if you ask me, because if you dallied in a garden sniffing the scents in midwinter, you’d end up with a headcold and unable to smell any scents.”

“Perhaps she hopes to have such plants brought inside to brighten up the worst weather,” said Felix.  “It sounds an interesting challenge; I will try to rise to it.”

“You know what makes my heart sink?” said Drew. “It’s the thought that you probably will enjoy rising to the challenge and then people will accuse me of being a Jacobite for having a Scots name and title.  I will be accused of having done away with you because you can’t be bothered to come home after the three months is up, because you will be having a torrid affair with some shrub.”

Felix laughed.

“Somehow I doubt that I will find a nymph named Daphne amidst the laurels,” he said.

 

oOoOo

 

Felix appreciated the grounds he was walking through, with just one valise, an outsize and antique grip he had discovered in the attic, and appropriate to his supposed situation in life. The lady needed no artificial far vistas; she already had an excellent set of views provided by nature. The late summer was lush with growth, but he could imagine it, too, as the colours changed to those of autumnal hue; and also under snow.

He remembered to go to the rear entrance and took off his hat when he was taken indoors to see Lady Staines.

He stood, cap in hand, in the Presence.

“So you’re Shaw,” said the lady. “You look rather delicate for a gardener.”

“Delicate?” Felix was moved to expostulate. “I assure your ladyship that I am quite hardy.”

“Your hands are white and look well cared for,” said Lady Staines.

“I have been using a patent cream for gardening hands,” said Felix, who used the recipe his housekeeper made, with almond and hempseed oil, honey, comfrey, and lemon balm.  “As I have been doing as much directing as gardening of late, I have fewer problems.”

“Learned to speak nicely, too,” said the lady.

“I’m an orphan, ma’am, and I was taught to speak well,” said Felix. It had the advantage of being true.

“Well! I’ve never known my nevvy to take an interest in my gardens before, so if this is a wager, you’ll be working hard for it.”

“My lady....”

“I don’t want to know.” She held up a hand. “Just don’t ruin my garden with modern fancy landscaping.”

“It would ruin it,” agreed Felix, castigating himself for a Johnny Raw to have his lay bubbled at the outset. “Your lands are charming, with delightful natural views which could not be improved upon.”

“Well, I am glad you recognise that,” said Lady Staines. “My main drive is for beautiful scents through the year as well as flowers for the house; I have Masariane[1] for February, and Wood Sweet, but mostly the winter must be served by fragrant leaves, like myrtle and various herbs.”

“I assume you have a hot-house? I did not catch sight of it on my approach, my lady,” asked Felix.

“I do; myrtle and masariane do need overwintering.”

“Do you have Guernsey Lily, or Nerine, for autumn and winter colour?”

“A whole heap of them,” said Lady Staines. “And you’re responsible for preparing the flowers for me every Saturday; and I’ll call on you if they wilt in the meantime. You know how to keep flowers nice of course, when cut?”

“Dip rose stems in boiling water after de-thorning, and add some sugar and cider vinegar to the water to keep any flowers looking nice,” said Felix. “And have the water changed every other day. A housemaid’s job,” he added, dismissively.

“Well, well, you might do,” said Lady Staines. “I’ll be overseeing your work. You’ve a room next to the flower room, where I arrange the flowers, and next, too, to the conservatory. You’re not responsible for keeping the furnace going but if I was you, I’d keep an eye on the boys whose job it is. They are no angels.  It keeps your room warmed nicely, anywise.  Any questions?”

“Not at the moment, ma’am, thank you,” said Felix.

He was dismissed under the auspices of the old gardener, who was to retire, and who showed him about. If Felix was not entirely disoriented, it was not the fault of his guide, who made it clear what he didn’t hold with the idea of being pensioned off. Felix found himself meekly agreeing to ask old Pettiman.

And then he was head gardener.

 

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[1] Daphne Mezereum