Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind Read online

  “Miss Milton, it is worse,” the footman had continued, taking her arm with no apology, so intent was he to convey the whole distress of the situation. “You will own that Lord and Lady Canfield did marry in some haste and that ….” He paused and blushed some more. “Well, she quickly found herself … you know.”

  “I do know,” she had told him, blushing herself, but relieving him of the necessity of spelling out how quickly—and with what shy delight—Blair had announced that his bride was increasing.

  “And you know, of course, that Lady Canfield’s family was much under the hatches until Lord Canfield married her and relieved their anxieties with a spot of ready cash.”

  “These things happen, Stanton,” she had reminded him.

  “I know, but, Miss Milton, she had had an earlier suitor whom she much favored. You remember?”

  Of course she did, even though all anyone at Stover Hall knew was that he was the scoundrel who had caused Blair endless frets. “Why must my dear Lucinda allow that vagabond to pursue her?” he had protested to her one evening, when his own wooing appeared to be going nowhere.

  She had been at Dame Chaffee’s School as a teacher during Blair’s courtship and only heard the anguished details in bits and pieces during holidays home, but she remembered well the day that Blair had written her to announce that Lucinda had consented to be wed. “Constancy appears to have won out over profligacy,” he had announced in one of his infrequent letters to her. “Lucinda will not allow even a month to pass now before we are married.”

  She stopped again, remembering her conversation with the footman, how he had informed her, with more blushes and stammerings, that the rumor circulating about Blair’s late wife included an unlooked-for pregnancy with the scoundrel, who had immediately disappeared, and how the family had rushed her into marriage with Blair to avoid scandal.

  “That is preposterous,” she had assured the footman, who could only nod his head in sad agreement. “I agree of course, Miss Milton, but that is the rumor. The upshot is that Lady Canfield was so overcome with shame at having duped her husband that she stepped in front of the mailcoach to put a period to her existence.” He had finally turned mournful eyes upon her. “According to gossip then, the child is certainly not a son of Lord Canfield.”

  It was too astounding to believe, and in her own naïveté—she blushed even now to remember it—she had been quick to assure the worried footman that the whole evil-minded tale was so ridiculous that it would sink under its own weight. “You’re good to tell me, Stanton, but do believe me when I say that in a fortnight, it will have been forgotten.”

  The bell in the church rang and Jane started walking again, intent on a moment in private with the vicar before duties at Evensong called him away. “I was so certain that no one could possibly be so small-souled as to believe such a taradiddle,” she said out loud as she hurried toward the vicarage.

  To her dismay, the rumor had only thickened like some evil pudding, wrapped in cheesecloth and allowed to steam until it was fully ripe. Blair was often away with the army, but when she took Andrew to church, Jane could not overlook how intently everyone gazed at the child. To her further dismay, Andrew did not appear to resemble Blair.

  “And that is how a story starts,” she told the vicar a half hour later over tea. “Since you are fairly new to this district, I wanted you to know why I have avoided placing Andrew in your charge for Latin School. They are only rumors, and not to be believed.”

  “Oh, I would never ….” In a nervous rush, the vicar poured his tea. “And yet, Miss Milton, it is common knowledge in the village that Lord Denby himself treats his grandson with indifference, and that his sister’s son goes about preening himself to become Lord Denby, when Andrew’s claims are brushed aside.”

  “I know,” Jane said, unable to finish her tea. “How sad it is that people who should know better have doubts.”

  “And you have none?” he asked, with all the tone of the confessional.

  “None, sir,” she said firmly. “Lord and Lady Canfield were quite happy with each other. Her death was just a horrible accident.”

  He waited a long moment to comment, and her heart sank. “It must be as you say then,” he replied finally. “Still, the other boys only repeat what they hear.” He looked at the clock then, and to Jane’s critical eye, seemed relieved that Evensong was upon them and he had an excuse to hurry her along. “I can promise you that he will be treated equally and fairly in my classroom, but I cannot vouch for what boys will do, when the lessons are done.”

  “I suppose you cannot,” she said, resisting an urge to grab him by his neckcloth and shake him until his prominent Adam’s apple rattled.

  “Miss Milton, I have a duty to everyone in my parish.”

  And that is the best I can get from that thin-livered vicar, she thought, cross with herself as she hurried home. “And even if every dreadful part of that odious rumor were true, why would anyone want to gloat over it and injure the heart of a little boy? I do not understand Christians!”

  “Nor I, Miss Milton, but then neither did Nero!”

  She stopped, turned around in embarrassment, and then smiled with relief. “Oh, thank the Lord it is you, Mr. Butterworth!” she exclaimed. “At least you will not tell the world that the old maid at Stover Hall talks to herself.”

  Whatever am I saying? she thought, surprised at herself. And here was Mr. Butterworth, slightly out of breath, carrying an umbrella that was now extended over her, as well. She looked at him in surprise, wondering why he stood there in the rain in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat.

  She knew him well. His Christian name was general knowledge in the regions about because it was such an amusing one: Scipio Africanus. When she thought about it, she wondered what someone with a name like that would actually be called. Andrew had suggested “Sippy” once, and that had sent them both into such a fit of the giggles that Lady Carruthers had scolded her for an entire day on why women in charge of children should not be so silly.

  Unlike some of the district’s gentler folk, she never regretted his arrival in the neighborhood. When someone had purchased the Mott estate after old Lord Mott had been gone from it for a decade, Lady Carruthers had taken it upon herself to find out the origins of the new owner. The unwelcome tidings that he was a mill owner from Huddersfield—that most inelegant of towns—launched her into a month of spasms. Jane doubted even now, ten years after the event, that Lady Carruthers had entirely recovered. As it was, she certainly never extended an invitation to Mr. Butterworth to take his mutton with them.

  “Miss Milton, won’t you come inside until the rain lets up?” She had a ready excuse on her lips—it was late, she was expected at Stover Hall—and she would have delivered it, if she had not looked down at Mr. Butterworth’s feet.

  He was wearing house slippers of such a virulent shade of lime green yarn that the colors almost spoke to her. “Sir, what on earth are you doing out here worrying about me, when your feet are … my goodness, Mr. Butterworth, but that is an … an exceptional color.”

  He merely smiled and offered her his arm, and for some unaccountable reason, she took it. He will catch his death if I make him stand outside in the rain and argue about whether I should come inside, she rationalized as she let him hurry her along the lane toward the house. Heaven knows he is not a young man, even if he is not precisely old, either.

  He did pause for a moment to raise up one slipper from the wet gravel of the lane. “My dear niece made these for me last Christmas. My sister teases me that they were only just Amanda’s practice piece, but I think them quite acceptable.”

  “They are, indeed,” she replied, as she allowed herself to be led where she had never gone before. “Am I to assume that you saw me from your window and thought I needed rescuing so badly that you would risk a present from a niece?”

  She had never thought herself a witty person, but Mr. Butterworth threw back his head and laughed, which meant that the umbrella went
, too, and the rain pelted on her forehead again.

  “Oh, I am a poor Sir Galahad, indeed, Miss Milton,” he said, when he straightened the umbrella. “But yes, that is it entirely.” She smiled at him, thinking that no one in England looked less like Sir Galahad than Scipio Africanus Butterworth. She thought he might have over forty years to his credit, but she could not be sure. She was not tall, but standing this close to Mr. Butterworth, she felt even shorter than usual. He was taller even than Lord Denby, and massive without being fat. He could have been intimidating, had his general demeanor been less kind. Years ago over dinner at Stover Hall, Blair had declared that the Almighty had obviously broken the mold with the mill owner. She thought that unfair, and so informed her cousin with a vehemence that surprised her.

  She thought of that now, as she found herself being led up the Butterworth lane to the front door. He was directing some pleasantry to her, but all she could see was what she always saw about him: the brownest of eyes with their glance of utter enthusiasm belonging to a far younger man. He also looked so benign, a trait she had never much associated with the district’s general opinion of mill owners.

  This perpetual air of good feeling had always amazed her about him and nothing had intervened in the ten years of their acquaintance to change that. Although Lady Carruthers had sniffed that their new neighbor “smelled of the shop” and that he would never be permitted to pollute the Stover environs, their equals in the village of Denby had not been so scrupulous.

  Lady Carruthers had always blamed Blair for seeing that Mr. Butterworth was named to the board of directors of the town’s charity hospital. “But, Aunt, he donates far more than anyone else, and twice as much as we do,” Blair had pointed out, on one of his infrequent furloughs home from the army. “I’m too far away most of the time to do my duty, and do you know, I think that someone with management skills would be a welcome addition. Besides, he had added. “He isn’t the sort of man I would like to argue with, for all that he is so pleasant.”

  That Mr. Butterworth proved to be a tremendous asset to the board only increased Lady Carruthers’ determination never to allow him to set one foot over the threshold of Stover. Their equals made up for her stricture, allowing the mill owner entrance into Denby society, or at least enough of it to suit themselves, and flatter the prevailing mood of equality that sometimes surfaced, even so far removed as they were from actual London politics. He came to christenings, kissed babies, donated generously to the parish at Christmas, let fox hunters ride over his extensive acres, and sponsored the annual hunt dinner.

  She smiled, thinking of the innumerable times at those dinners and assemblies where Lord Denby would take Mr. Butterworth aside and argue that the lake on Mr. Butterworth’s estate had been surveyed improperly and really belonged to Denby. It would do him good to argue with Mr. Butterworth again, she thought.

  The lane was not long, and she wished it were longer, as she relished every step of the way to the door. For years she had admired the pleasant overhang of leaf and tree which was far more elegant than Stover Hall’s approach, even if much shorter. The leaves were turning color now, and the whole picture lifted her heart. “I could never tire of this,” she said simply, as she walked beside Mr. Butterworth. She could not help noticing that he had shortened his rather daunting stride to match her steps. “Do you know, sir, that Blair used to get so impatient with me when I had to skip to keep up with him?”

  “Silly chuff,” he said, with his usual air of complacency. “Why on earth would a man want to hurry along a woman of good sense? Savor the moment, I say.”

  She smiled at him, but he only sighed and tucked her arm deeper within the crook of his own. “Was a time, Miss Milton, that you would have laughed at a statement like that,” he admonished.

  “Nothing seems so funny anymore,” she said finally, as she walked up the steps with him, comfortable in the thought that he would not scold her for melancholy, or command her to buck up and think of others. Thank goodness you saw me from the window, she thought.

  And now Jane stood in front of his door, which was opened magically, as she had known somehow it would be, by a butler who must have had hearing acuity exceeding that of gossips or Springer spaniels. “Excellent, excellent, Marsh,” Mr. Butterworth was saying. “We’ll be having tea, if you will be so kind.”

  She sighed and pulled her cloak tighter around her. “… I had tea at the vicar’s, and ….”

  “… and then you have not had tea … he interrupted. “Tea and cakes, Miss Milton, the gooier the better, and you can tell me why you were pacing in front of my property ….”

  “… Oh, I couldn't have been actually pacing,” she interrupted, exasperated with herself.

  “You were,” he said firmly, “… talking only to yourself, when surely you must have some inkling that I have always shown myself willing to listen.”

  She stood there in the doorway, neither in nor out, struck by the truth of what he had just said. While he took her arm and encouraged her over the threshold, and then lifted her sopping cloak from her shoulders and handed it to the butler, she thought about all the times he had approached her at one village gathering or another. He was always willing to let her chat about Andrew, and never seemed bored by what Lady Carruthers sniffed at as her totally inadequate social sense. And always there were his wonderful brown eyes, and the excitement that seemed to jump from him like little sparks.

  I have been missing you, she thought suddenly as she took his proffered arm again and let him lead her toward the sitting room. All the months of Blair’s illness, then mourning, came to her now in a rush of feeling that brought unexpected tears to her eyes. She looked away in embarrassment.

  “You may find a dry place in the laundry for Miss Milton’s cloak,” he was saying smoothly, as though she had turned away to admire his wallpaper.

  “I’m not staying long,” she told the butler, who only smiled and nodded and bore off her cloak anyway. “Even the butler does not listen to me,” she said as Mr. Butterworth showed her upstairs and into the sitting room that overlooked the front entrance. She went directly to the window, hoping to give herself a moment to regain her composure. It would be dark soon, she thought, but with only a little sadness. Another year has turned. She heard someone open the door. “And when I turn around, I will see the footman bearing irresistibles. Ah, yes. Not a moment too soon.”

  With a smile, she allowed Mr. Butterworth to direct her to a chair and preside over the pouring of the tea, as though the house were hers. She knew his sugar requirements from the long practice of watching him at other gatherings, and added three lumps before handing over the cup and saucer. “Lovely china, Mr. Butterworth,” she commented.

  He accepted the cup from her. “It is nice, isn’t it?” he agreed, then smiled at her. “Those of us who smell of the shop are conspicuous consumers.”

  It was their little joke through the years. She sipped her tea, savoring it before she even tasted it, because she knew from the servants that Mr. Butterworth only bought the best. She thought of Andrew, who, when he was five and introduced to Mr. Butterworth for the first time, sniffed the air around the man and announced to his astounded aunt, “He smells just fine. Far better than Lord Marchant.”

  “You’re thinking of Andrew,” Mr. Butterworth said, offering her a plateful of pastries which she had no intention of refusing.

  “I am,” she agreed, slipping off her wet shoes, which the footman promptly placed before the fireplace. She looked at her friend, admiring the tapestry of his waistcoat, and for the millionth time the wonderful scent of the lavender-noted cologne he wore. She had never imagined another man could have carried off that fragrance, but it never failed with Mr. Butterworth. She doubted he had ever smelled of the shop. “I suppose I always am thinking of Andrew, am I not, sir? Does this make me boring?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Only think how many times I have been diverted at Denby’s social events by your breathless tales of teeth
falling out, and limbs abused by tumbles from trees!” He leaned toward her, and she was struck all over again by his grace, despite his size. “If I were to have a wish, Miss Milton, it would be that you thought a little more of yourself, oh, just every now and then.”

  “That has never been a habit of mine,” she reminded him. “You are kind to give me tea, Mr. Butterworth.”

  She was sure she would not have said anything more than that, if he had not looked at her in that interested way of his. If there was a kindlier expression on the planet, she did not know of it. His spectacles were slightly askew, as usual, and his eyes behind them invited disclosure. She had seen that expression at any number of gatherings, but there was something about it this time that was taxing her to her heart’s limit.

  She set down her cup, and thought of all the times she had almost told him everything in her heart. Eat something, Jane, she thought in desperation. It is what you always do at gatherings when you invariably find him at your elbow, and then have to pry yourself away after an hour’s conversation, before Lady Carruthers notices, and you know you have a scolding in store.

  She reached for a pastry, determined to keep her own counsel, as she always did. Instead, she clasped her hands in her lap and took a deep breath, even as the more reluctant side of her nature tugged at her to stop. She cleared her throat.

  “Mr. Butterworth, why must things be so difficult?” she asked, and then the words seemed to tumble out. “Blair is six months dead and Lord Denby is hovering on the brink of … of … I have no idea what! We’re trying to arrange a simple reunion of his brother officers, and Lady Carruthers is making things so hard. She insists that if I am to actually win a point for a change and hold this reunion—which she is opposed to because it sounds like exertion—then I must give up something else, which, in this case, happens to be Andrew.”