On Bended Knee, page 19
part #6 of Wicked Worthingtons Series
AT SOME POINT AFTER feeding the seemingly thousands of chickens and tending the ever-popular Mrs. Apples, who now had Icarus mooning over her fluttering eyelashes, Lysander found himself with nothing to do. He curried Bad Pony, to the wonderment of Bing, Mrs. Apples and Bad Pony himself. Bing promptly handed Lysander a crate of shears, sharpened and stuck deep into oiled sand for storage to be taken up to the shearing shed. As it turned out, the shed stood far up the slope from the house and stable.
"Can't miss it," Bing told him. "See that little square box away up there? Get on with it then."
Lysander hefted the crate to his shoulder and stretched his stride to make the uphill trek. He didn't mind the chore. He liked to walk and he needed to think.
Icarus still had a bit of swelling in that right forefoot. The horse would soon recover, but not if Lysander rode him three days straight back to London.
Lysander would only get stuck again on the way and possibly injure Icarus permanently.
Torn between his responsibility to his family and his desire to stay and prove to Gemma that he was worth — what? Worth waiting for? That he was a suitable fiancé who, one day, would manage to spit out his wedding vows in a sensible manner?
Was he even sure he could become that man?
AFTER DELIVERING THE CRATE of shears to the strange lean-to cobbled onto the back of the exposed stone shed. Lysander stood in the open front of the shearing shed and gazed out at the dale. It seemed that no matter where he stood every view of the valley was uniquely and perfectly beautiful. A brisk breeze herded white puffy clouds across the sky while their shadows scurried over the grassy slopes below. Lysander braced one hand against the center post and breathed deep of the day.
The scent of green grass and wildflowers helped to wash away the lingering smell of sheep within the shed. When he opened his eyes, Lysander's gaze rested on the stone post beneath his hand.
It was a great pity that the pavilion had not been built so well.
Lysander tilted his head, staring at the post.
The fresh air must be good for his mind, for he had an idea — something he had avoided with great diligence whilst tucked into the bosom of his family. They had far too many ideas as it was.
Yes. He turned around and faced away from the valley, gazing into the shady confines of the shearing shed. Oh, yes.
It took a few hours, but eventually Bing came looking for him. The old man huffed and puffed as he limped up the slope.
"What's all this, then? I didn't tell you to muck out the shed!"
Lysander glanced up and nodded at Bing respectfully, but continued with his task. He had cobbled together a fairly decent rake using a the lid of the crate and a splintery shepherd's crook, banded together with a strap of cracked leather, all contents of the lean-to toolshed.
The earthen floor within the building had been strewn with filthy straw, which Lysander realized was nothing but grass hewn from the hillside, tossed down to protect the shorn wool from being soiled. Lysander had been raking it out and heaping it onto an empty sack that was longer than he was tall, and then dragging the old smelly straw a good distance away.
Bing was waiting for him when he strode back into the now well raked shed.
Bing shook his head. "This is right kind of you, lad, but I've a few more compellin' tasks for you in the stable. If you're done here, that is."
Lysander looked at Bing. "I've just begun." He looked around and this time his gaze went to the stone walls on three sides. Clearly this shearing shed had been in use for a very long time, for there was a wainscoting of mud and felted wool running hip high around all the walls. Lysander contemplated it for a long moment. He should ask Bing. Bing would no doubt have some excellent advice on how to clean those stones.
Questions came hard. Then Lysander remembered Gemma's oblique method of questioning him. Lysander folded his arms and kept his gaze on the problem walls. "Mrs. Philpot cleans with vinegar. She says vinegar will cut through anything."
Then he glanced at Bing. Bing's face, always craggy and weathered, now wrinkled into an expression of appalled confusion. "You don't scrub the shearing' shed, lad. It'll just get manky again next shearin'. Is no point to it, is what I'm saying."
Lysander leaned his shoulder against the comfortable solidity of the central post. "I have to. Otherwise their dresses will get dirty."
"Dresses? Sheep dresses?" Bing looked as if he was seriously beginning to doubt Lysander's sanity. Doubt even more, that is. "Sheep don't mind a bit of dirt."
Lysander just nodded. "Ladies do. They'll wear their best. Manky walls simply won't do."
Bing opened his mouth, no doubt to say something scornful, and then slowly closed it again. His eyes began to twinkle. "Oh my lad. You're a smart one." But he began to look doubtful again almost immediately. "It's a massive job, lad. I'll help you as I can but —"
"It must be nice to stand about all day, whilst real men get to workin'."
Lysander and Bing turned. The comment had come from a burly man who leaned across the stone wall abutting the nearest pasture. Shepherd Orren nodded easily at Lysander. “London man.” Then he looked to Bing. "Now then, Bing. How's tha been?"
Bing nodded sourly. "Orren. Nobbut middlin', to me vast regret."
The flock Shepherd Orren was moving milled behind him while his working dog went up on back legs to dangle white-tipped paws over the top of the wall while his nose identified the two men in the shed. The dog yipped. An answering yip came from the tall grass beyond the shed. Topknot lurched out of hiding to tear across the path to greet the other dog.
Lysander straightened, concerned. Bing clucked at him, the same noise he used to bring Topknot down from high alert. "Don't worry so. And why shouldn't she run to greet her own cousin, then?"
Lysander was beginning to understand the complex interrelated family structures of the dale, and it seemed that the pedigrees of the best working dogs were as much common knowledge as the boundary lines themselves.
Bing stepped forward to address their visitor. "You'll be glad enough when this young fellow is done with his task, Orren! I happen to know that there is a lady in your house who is still spittin' mad about getting all fitted up in her finery for nothing." Bing rocked on his heels, enjoying Shepherd Orren's confused expression, although Lysander would've preferred not to remind the gigantic fellow of the loss of a certain pavilion and therefore the sacrifice of a cheerful country dance event.
Bing went on. "We was just deliberatin' the best method of scrubbing down these walls. Unless you think your missus be wantin' sheep shit smeared on her best skirts?"
Orren's jaw dropped as he stared at them. "It's a shearing shed! It's nowt but a filthy —" The man's gaze focused on the shadowy space beyond Lysander and Bing. Lysander could almost hear the heavy tumblers dropping into place in the fellow's mind.
"Oh, aye! I've got a few worn-out scrub brushes from the dairy that'll do the job, right and proper." Orren straightened and whistled a complex melody to his dog. His dog took off to run a lightning circle around the flock, hemming it in as thoroughly as any fence. "I'll send one of the lads up with the brushes."
"Vinegar!" Lysander hadn't meant to bark it as an order. It'd been a very long time since he had commanded anyone. However, Orren only nodded. "Aye and a bucket of good clean sand from the riverbank for scrubbing."
Orren not only sent up the brushes, river sand and vinegar, but two of his older sons and a farmhand as well.
Bing was tartly elated at the prospect of others to do all the work. "Sam up, lads! The lasses will be a'kissin' the lot of you when we turn this place about!"
Orren's lanky, half-grown sons were hard workers once convinced that the shearing shed could be turned into a proper assembly hall.
"We'll be needing lanterns," one of them offered.
"Aye, and benches as well."
They sent the farmhand down to the village proper to beg spare lanterns. "Tell all the wives and daughters," Bing snickered. "That'll light a fire under the lads."
Something did indeed light a fire under the lads, for over the next hours more than a dozen men stomped up the path to the shearing shed. They brought lanterns and roughhewn benches and a brusque, eager energy for the task.
Lysander couldn't imagine why, but to a man they all looked to him for direction. At first, he nodded and gestured. Soon however, he was forced to give proper orders in actual sentences. It wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. After all, giving orders was nothing like carrying on conversation. With that realization, the tightness in his throat eased and he found himself using six or seven words in a row. That had to be some sort of new personal best.
Bing had no problem giving orders. The moment the first bench was set just outside the roof line. Bing enthroned himself upon it, puffing his ever present pipe, and sniped constantly on the speed and quality of work being performed. "When I was your age I'd've had this done already!"
It seemed astonishingly quick to Lysander. In very little time the walls were a respectable limestone gray from floor to ceiling and clean sand had been spread to level the gouged earthen floors. Someone had been out in the pasture scything giant armloads of fresh summer grass to carpet the newly leveled floor.
Bing sat upon his bench throne and passed judgment. "Aye, it's clean. It ain't so much pretty as it orta be."
Lysander realized Bing was quite correct. The village pavilion had been bedecked in colorful bunting and flower garlands woven into willow boughs.
Lysander turned on his heel and stalked away from the shearing shed. "Where is he off to, then?" Orren's eldest son protested.
"He's off to t' river to get thee some willow, ain't he?" Bing announced scornfully.
"Me mam still has a bit of bunting left from doin' up the pavilion. I'll fetch it."
The voices faded behind Lysander until he could hear his own stride crunching on the path, Topknot panting at his heels and the clean Yorkshire breeze calling in his ears.
Willow branches would do all right but he needed something else. Something better. Something worthy.
He reached far back into his memory and found a grand entrance, the doorway to a ballroom, where each couple's arrival would be announced by an impeccably clad butler. All around the ballroom, the dresses would swirl like flowers opening and closing while above them glittered chandeliers of crystal.
He should make the entrance more beautiful. What would Iris do? His mother always made things beautiful, daubing paint on things, strewing lace and roses about.
Roses.
Lysander picked up his pace, thinking of the long arching canes of Gemma's overgrown roses, of the mad profusion of white and pink — and his willow doorway wound round with sweet smelling blooms.
A bower of roses.
Iris would swoon at the very notion.
Chapter 20
IN THE STILLROOM OF Yew Manor, Gemma unwrapped the stiff linen binding she'd used to stabilize her wrist. Examining the joint critically, she tested her range of motion.
Really, it was better than she expected. She still felt a twinge, but she'd been fortunate to have Mr. Worthington's assistance over the past several days or she would surely have over-exerted it.
She settled on a simpler wrapping, more of a cuff around the smallest part of her wrist than an actual bandage. This would free her fingers up for all the work that needed doing in the stillroom and yet serve as a reminder to take care.
A brisk tap came on the back door. Even as Gemma left the stillroom she heard the door open.
"Hello?"
Gemma quickened her step. "Jennie!"
Jennie Gosling was already inside and seated at the rustic table, fanning her flushed face with the copy of Shakespeare's sonnets.
"It's that warm out, I couldn't bear it. Don't be telling Shepherd Gosling about this, mind. The man worries over much as it is." With her other hand, Jennie patted her vast belly. "Fifth one and all, you would think he'd trust me to know what I'm about by now!"
Gemma nodded. It was likely that Jennie knew more about childbearing than Gemma did, for all her books. "Tea? Or a cool glass of spring water? I've had a pitcher chilling in the cellar all morning."
Jennie gave a wave of assent as she dabbed at her puffy cheeks and brow with a man-sized handkerchief. "Cool water, dear. That'll do me just right, thank you."
Gemma fetched a cooling glass for Jennie. For herself, not being advanced in pregnancy and prone to hot flushes, she put the kettle on.
"How are you feeling otherwise, Jennie?"
"Oh pish. Don't you lay into me as well. I'm as big as a barn and feeling every lump in my old mattress, that's all. Aye then, this one's a kicker!" She pressed her palm high on her right side. Nowt to do but see it through. Not that I wouldn't make Shepherd Gosling take his turn about it, it being his doing and all!"
Gemma giggled. She enjoyed Jennie's easy familiarity immensely. Her friend was outspoken and full of strong Yorkshire opinions — and endlessly kind and generous to all she knew.
It was then that she looked past Jennie's flushed features and ballooning belly to notice that Jennie wore her best dress and her grandmother's coral brooch. Gemma knew perfectly well that treasure was kept back for significant occasions such as weddings, christenings, and funerals. "My, don't you look fine today!"
Jennie set down her half-empty glass and smiled at Gemma with a twinkle of friendly mischief in her eyes. "Well, you're dressed to muck out that evil pony's stall. Best be changin' or we'll both be late!"
Gemma drew back. "I was working. Wait, what shall we be late for?"
Jennie waved a hand. "That's no matter now. All you need to do is change that gown and do up your hair and you'll be the prettiest lass there."
"Where?" Gemma narrowed her gaze at her friend. "Jennie, you can order me about all afternoon and it will get you nowhere if you do not disclose the facts of the matter."
"Don't be a stick in the mud. For once, won't you let folks give you a surprise?" Jennie gulped from her glass, and pointed up the stairs with one finger.
Gemma pursed her lips. "Fine. I will be but a moment."
Upstairs, she wasn't sure whether to don her black silk (funerals), or the less fine but more cheerful ocher dotted-Swiss muslin (weddings and christenings).
Since she was certain she would've heard if there was a passing in the village, she quickly stripped and put on the muslin, which had the added advantage of being easier to clean.
A yellow ribbon pinned around the severe bun she created would do. Thinking of Jennie's proudly worn coral, Gemma fished in her meager jewelry collection for her mother's pearls. They were small but very fine, and she doubled the strand about her throat instead of letting it dangle.
A quick glance in the tall mirror declared her fit enough for any Yorkshire occasion, no matter that everyone in the village had seen her ocher muslin a hundred times and again. It was hardly mended at all, just the hem turned a few times.
As she ran lightly down the stairs, she could not deny the eagerness bubbling up inside her. She'd once loved surprises, a fact she'd forgotten in a life where unexpected events were invariably tragic ones.
ON THE ROAD NORTH…
OVER THE COURSE OF the two day journey — which would've been longer but they'd kept both carriages light with two occupants each and minimal luggage (even Button!) — the very excellent borrowed horses had made superior time. Attie had abruptly and for no apparent reason decided to speak to Poll as if nothing had happened.
Now she rode half outside the carriage, with her knees on the seat and her elbows on the window ledge, lifting her face to the breeze like a pet.
Poll had gauged the slimness of his sister against the narrow window and decided that since he had a high possibility of catching her sash if she tumbled out, there was no point in starting another argument over it.
Besides, if the past was anything to go by, Atalanta Worthington was well-nigh indestructible. Fearlessly acrobatic and agile as a cat underfoot in a stable, Attie had already wriggled out of more dangerous situations than anyone in the Worthington household really wanted to think about.
Poll made sure not to nap in any case.
"She's old." Attie declared suddenly. She slithered backwards through the window opening and sprawled across her seat on her back. With her long skinny arms and legs, she looked as artlessly natural as a fawn.
Poll waited.
"Old and kindly and … maternal." She chewed the end of one long braid meditatively. "She's a widow, in black, with gray hair all twisted up tight on her head." She looked at Poll. "She likes cats."
"I like cats." Anyone who knew his youngest sister had better like cats, in all their capricious moods and elegant disregard for opinion. If they weren't game enough for cats, they wouldn't last an hour in Attie's wildly unpredictable company.
Poll felt a pang. He'd missed her so. The world would be a terribly unexciting place without Atalanta Worthington in it.
Just to goad her, he shook his head. "She's young and lovely. I'll wager her nice words about Lysander weren't maternal at all."
Attie cut her green eyes at him. "Bite your tongue."
All the Worthingtons together had concluded the mysterious, letter-writing Mrs. Gemma Oakes had to be a widow.
"He has proved to be of immeasurable help to me."
"Me", not "us."
"Her penmanship is awful," Attie pointed out. "Shaky, like Mrs. Philpot's. Old, I tell you."
"Injured," Poll countered. "She said so in the letter."
"If she's young and beautiful, she wouldn't be alone out in the middle of — " Attie swept an arm grandly, trying desperately to scorn the heavenly Yorkshire countryside, but Poll wasn't fooled. Attie was dizzy with joy at the wild, open beauty of the place. She was even fascinated by the mines.
"I could be a miner," she'd declared. "I don't care about getting dirty."
Poll had rolled his eyes at that, for it had been a rather recent development for Attie to go willingly to her bath. As if fully aware of her own future devastating beauty and entirely alarmed by it, Attie practiced ignoring all things to do with vanity or glamour.
