Mary Balogh: The constant heart

"We thought you were never coming home, Rebecca," Harriet was saying crossly. "I met Julian while out riding and invited him back for tea, and we have both been waiting here for half an hour. Maude insisted that we wait for you, though I do not see why. You know when teatime is, and even if you are not here on time, you will not starve. You can eat when you come."

"The walk is too long, Rebecca, my dear," the baron added, looking at his niece with disapproval. "You would not be late for tea, you know, if you would just take the gig as I have advised you to do. Your cheeks are positively red, my dear. You will be fortunate if you do not do permanent damage to your complexion, or-worse-take a chill. Perhaps I should summon Dr. Gamble to look at you just in case?"

"But it is a good thing we did wait, Harriet," Lady Holmes said calmly. "Now we can have tea with the Misses Sinclair too."

"The rosy cheeks are vastly becoming to my mind," Mr. Bartlett said with a dazzling smile and an elegant bow in Rebecca's direction.

Rebecca smiled at everyone. "I am certainly ready for a cup of tea," she said. "And Miss Sinclair has brought some news that will be of interest to everyone."

She sat down as everyone's attention turned to the elder Miss Sinclair.

Ellen was no more able than her sister had been to play with her audience and enjoy their attention for as long as possible before divulging the core of the matter. "Christopher is coming home!" she said, beaming first at Harriet, then at Maude, and finally at Lord Holmes. "In two days' time he should be here."

"Splendid!" the baron said, showing a flattering degree of interest in the youthful Miss Sinclair. "Shocking affair, that of his wife. Still in mourning, is he? A fine figure of a man he was when I saw him last. Fashionable. Top of the trees, you know. Liked to risk his health rather too much, perhaps-riding and boxing, you know. It is ironic that Mrs. Sinclair should be the one to pass on. One can never be too careful." He sighed deeply. "He should have chosen his physician more carefully. One can never be too careful I always say. One should choose one's physician with as much care as one chooses one's tailor." He paused a moment. "Perhaps even more carefully."

Harriet waited impatiently for her father to finish his monologue. "Christopher Sinclair is coming here?" she said. "Papa and I met him several times when we were in town a few years ago. I hardly remembered him from before he left here. But there he was a spendidly handsome man. We would have entertained him more often if it had not been for his wife. She was the daughter of a cit," she added, the explanation directed toward Mr. Bartlett. "Rather a vulgar creature, I am afraid." She seemed suddenly to realize that she was in the presence of the brother-in-law and sisters-in-law of the late Mrs. Sinclair and had the grace to flush. "Of course," she added, "one must not speak ill of the departed."

Fortunately two events occurred to cover her confusion. The tea tray arrived and was carried over to Lady Holmes, who proceeded to pour. And Mr. Bartlett took up the conversation.

"Mr. Christopher Sinclair is your brother?" he asked Ellen, his eyebrows raised, one hand toying with the handle of his quizzing glass. "I had no idea."

"You know him?" she said, all eager smiles and dimples.

"Why, yes, Miss Sinclair," he replied, "I am acquainted with him. And was with his wife." He turned with a reassuring smile to a still-flushed Harriet. "It is true that she did not share his breeding or his education, but she did have other qualities that perhaps saved her from being truly vulgar." He turned back to Ellen. "I might have known, of course, had I given the matter thought, that he is of your family. He shares a remarkable handsomeness with his brother and sisters."

Ellen blushed and giggled, and even Primrose looked gratified.

"Do you know my brother too, Lady Holmes?" Julian asked.

Maude looked up at him as she put down the teapot. "I am afraid not," she said. "I spent only a short time in London before my marriage. Stanley knows a vastly larger number of people than I do."

She turned her attention to Rebecca as the younger people continued to talk about the expected arrival and all the extra activities that the event was bound to bring.

"How was the school today, Rebecca?" she asked.

Rebecca shrugged and smiled rather ruefully. "There were only fourteen boys there," she said, "the fewest so far. But the weather is exceptionally good. I am sure there must be much work for them to do with their fathers."

"The Reverend Everett must be disappointed," Maude said sympathetically. "He sets great store by the success of the school, does he not?"

"Yes," Rebecca replied, "I am afraid he does. Poor Philip is so otherworldly himself and puts so much effort into all he does, that he expects an equal dedication from everyone. He cannot be contented with letting the school develop gradually. I keep telling him that it is a totally new idea for the people of the village and farms to be able to have their sons educated. They must be given time to get accustomed to the idea-a few years, perhaps."

"The Reverend Everett deserves success," Maude commented. "The welfare 6f others is always so much more important than his own well-being. I noticed last Sunday as I shook hands with him on leaving church that there was a patch on the hem of his surplice. I do admire him so."

"I call that affectatious," the baron added, having swung his attention from one conversation to the other. "The fellow does not need to walk around with a patched surplice. This is the richest living for miles around. It don't do for a clergyman to go around in rags. He makes the gentry look miserly. My brother never did that, Rebecca, dear, even though he had some peculiar notions.''

Rebecca smiled. "I am sure Philip will never be reduced to wearing rags, Uncle Humphrey," she said. "But I do know that he cares little for personal vanity."

"It is a kind of vanity to wear patched clothes," the baron added sagely. "He likes other people to notice how godly he is. I still believe that the niece of Lord Holmes could have made a better match, Rebecca."

She smiled affectionately at him but did not reply. They had exhausted all there was to say on that topic long ago.

"May I come with you one day, Rebecca?" Maude asked, looking almost beseechingly at the niece who was three years older than she. "I should like to see your school when the boys are there. I would not get in the way at all. In fact, I could perhaps be useful. You are by far more knowledgeable than I am. Yet you said yourself but last week that my French is better than yours. Perhaps I could teach a little?"

Rebecca opened her mouth to explain as tactfully as she could that she and Philip had decided not to include any language other than English in their school curriculum-at first, anyway. Not even Latin was to be taught. They had both agreed that the boys had a great deal to learn merely to read and write their own language correctly. However, the baron spoke before she did.

"There is no call for you to do any such thing, my love," he said to his wife. "It is bad enough to have my niece involved in such low pursuits. It would not do at all for Lady Holmes of Limeglade to involve herself in the running of a school for the vulgar. Such behavior would tarnish both your image and mine."

"But, my lord," Maude said, raising large eyes timidly to his, "it would give me something to do. Sometimes I feel so useless. The household runs so smoothly, and dear Harriet likes to do her part as she did before I came here. It is surely becoming for your wife to involve herself in charitable activities."

"I shall take you to visit the school one afternoon," the baron said, "and the boys can recite their lessons for us. That is charitable enough. But you will not teach. You have enough to do, my love, keeping yourself looking beautiful. You mustn't exert yourself doing much else. Work ruins the health and the complexion."