Margaret Moore - The Wastrel

“Visiting the House of Correction, ma’am,” the woman replied cheerfully.

Aunt Aurora was horrified. “A jail? Dear me! A jail! Aren’t you afraid to sleep in your bed at night?”

Clara gave her aunt a fierce look. Supposing the woman was — it didn’t do to remind her.

“Oh, no. It’s not that kind of jail, really. Mostly vagrants, disorderlies.” The woman lifted her chin with a touch of pride. “Takes them from all of Kesteven, they does.”

“I suppose the building keeps them warm and dry,” Clara offered doubtfully.

Uncle Byron shielded his eyes with his hand and sighed loudly. “Deprived of the open air, shut up in a dungeon! It is monstrous! It is cruel!”

“Don’t upset yourself, my own!” Aunt Aurora cried, putting her arms around him and laying her forehead on his shoulder.

The driver and innkeeper’s wife exchanged looks over Aunt Aurora and Uncle Byron’s heads. “I believe I heard his lordship’s going to wait tea for you,” the driver murmured.

“There, you see!” Clara said with some desperation. “We had best be on our way.”

“Very well, my good man,” Uncle Byron said, suddenly brisk. “You will find our baggage on the coach, clearly marked.”

Clara thought of the trunks her aunt had decorated in her own inimitable way one afternoon and decided the driver would have no trouble deciding which articles of baggage were theirs. Not many traveling bags would have pictures of scenes from the Arabian Nights on them. Nevertheless, Clara thought being outside would be preferable to staying inside the inn, so she said, “I will show you which ones they are. There is also an easel and a large package of canvases.”

The driver nodded and led the way outside. The coachman was seeing to the changing of the horses, and some of the passengers milled about in the yard. Clara ignored their speculative looks as she showed the driver the appropriate baggage, then followed him to Lord Mulholland’s gleaming black landau that was at the far side of the yard. A pair of very fine horses had their noses in feed bags.

The driver glanced at her as he loaded the largest piece of baggage. “Quite a pair, those two, miss.”

“My aunt is an artist and my uncle is a poet,” Clara explained matter-of-factly. “They are both very... emotional.”

The driver chuckled companionably. “Oh, we’ve had lots of emotional people at Mulholland House,” he said. “And some were just plain crazy, if you ask me.”

Clara wondered peevishly which category the driver thought Aunt Aurora and Uncle Byron would occupy. Perhaps Lord Mulholland didn’t invite people to his country home only for his own amusement; perhaps he tried to keep his servants laughing, too. She should have refused the invitation, and let Aunt Aurora complain....

“Our dear mistress, the late Lady Mulholland, that was, liked lots o’ different sorts of people,” the driver continued, chuckling. “Her son’s just the same. Why, one time, this Italian count we had a’ stayin’ here — walked about in somethin’ looked like a baby’s nappy most o’ the time. Been to India or some such.” The driver reached down for the canvases. “’Nother time, these singers came. Sounded like a bunch of cats in a bag, we all thought.” He sighed for happy days gone by. “There, all stowed. We can go now.”

At least Aunt Aurora and Uncle Byron wouldn’t be the most unusual people to stay at Mulholland House, Clara thought as she nodded absently. Nevertheless, her dread was not lessened by that notion. If anything, the closer she got to Mulholland House, the tenser she became.

She reminded herself that she would simply evade the sleek and seductive Lord Mulholland. The painting would be done soon, and then they would be gone. “I shall fetch my aunt and uncle,” she said.

As she made her way toward the inn, the coach, with its passengers restored, rattled on its way. Clara was not sorry to see it, or its noisy passengers, leave.

Uncle Byron spotted Clara in the doorway and sprang to his feet. “Come, my dear!” he called to his wife. “Our chariot awaits!”

Chapter Five

Paris sat in his study in a large, comfortable wing chair, with his dog, Jupiter, at his feet. The yellow-haired beast of dubious parentage lay as still as one of the statues in the garden as he slumbered. His master was likewise motionless as he deciphered two letters, one from Tommy Taddington and the other from Reverend Jonas Clark, both of whom had been Paris’s friends at Oxford. Tommy’s letter informed Paris that Tommy was once again experiencing familial troubles, and unless he heard otherwise from Paris, would arrive sooner than planned. Jonas, to whom Paris was gladly giving the living in one of the nearby parishes, was expected to arrive at Mulholland House shortly, there to stay until the vicarage of St. Andrew’s had been repaired and prepared for the new pastor.

Paris’s attention was drawn from the letters by Jupiter, who lumbered to his feet just as the study door opened to reveal the presence of the butler, Witherspoon. At present, the white-haired Witherspoon looked decidedly icy.

“Yes?” Paris asked.

“My lord, the Wells have arrived.” By a process that Paris had yet to figure out, even though Witherspoon had been butler at Mulholland House for twenty years, Witherspoon managed to convey the impression that it would have been better if the Wells had never been born.

“Oh, come now, Witherspoon!” Paris chided. “They’re not as bad as all that! Granted, the niece is rather severe, but the aunt is delightful and her husband most amusing.” Grinning, Paris rose and tugged down his waistcoat. “I thought we needed some livening up around here, Witherspoon. I shall die of ennui otherwise.”

“Indeed, my lord.” The butler’s eyebrow rose a fraction and Paris saw a telltale twinkle of amusement in the man’s dark eyes. “That cause of death would at least be tasteful, my lord, unlike your guest’s bonnet.”

Paris chuckled amicably as he clapped a familiar hand on the retainer’s narrow shoulder. “Mrs. Wells is an artist,” he explained patiently. “She’s going to paint my portrait.”

“If you say so, my lord.”

Paris drew back and examined Witherspoon suspiciously. “You look as if I were up to no good, Witherspoon!” he exclaimed.

Witherspoon thawed a little, as he always did.

“I assure you, I will treat them royally,” Paris continued. “Speaking of which, where have you put them?”

“Since the hour is so close to tea,” Witherspoon said, miraculously conveying the impression that the late arrival of the Wells was somehow their fault, “I told Mrs. Dibble to escort them to their rooms.” He nearly smiled. “I must say the older lady was most fulsome in her praise of Mulholland House.”

Paris grinned. “I daresay she was. I believe Mrs. Dibble, our jewel among housekeepers, may finally —”

He was going to say that Mrs. Dibble may finally have encountered someone even more vivacious than herself, when there was a loud crash from the vicinity of the kitchen, followed by the sight of a black shape streaking past the study door as a lamenting female voice wailed, “Zeus, come back!”

With a bark and a bound, Jupiter shoved his way past the butler and his master and was out the door, his progress impeded by the freshly waxed floor. His huge paws slipped on the polished surface as he tried to give chase toward the foyer. After a moment of desperate scrambling, he found his footing and bounded away.

“Call off your dog!” Miss Wells cried, appearing in the corridor with a very flushed face and attired in the most ugly brown traveling dress Paris had ever seen. “Call him off!”

“Zounds and gadzooks,” Byron Wells cried from somewhere nearby, “what’s afoot? Tallyho!”