Chapter Five
As Ariana listened to Mr. O’Brien’s tales of his parish, she felt a great heartache. Had not she herself wanted to turn her hand to helping London’s poor?
She and Phillip had been so happy raising their own little family that thoughts of the plight of the city’s poor had utterly fled her mind. Phillip had agreed to support many a city institution, and they had been faithfully contributing their help since; but still she felt far removed from it all. Suddenly it did not seem enough. A cheque or banknote, sent by their man of business, was nothing like being there firsthand as Mr. O’Brien was. And there was no sacrifice in it, as it was easily affordable for them.
What a good thing it was that God had sent Mr. O’Brien! It was reawakening her heart to reacquaint herself with the efforts of the latest societies and organizations which toiled on behalf of the poor. A trip to London should do the trick; there was nothing like visiting personally to know whether an institute or school was worthy of their funds, for instance. Someday she hoped to be involved in a practical way. Knitting blankets was too antiseptic; she wished for hands-on involvement in the work.
Like most women whose husbands owned large estates, she had nothing to do with the financial running of it. Other than informing their man of business when she wanted to support a charity (who, in turn, would clear it with Phillip) she did not even have the pleasure of seeing what their help accomplished.
She turned her mind back to Mr. O’Brien, who was saying, “The devil of it is, if I were as wealthy as, well, as you are, sir, (to Mr. Mornay) it would only help for a short period of time! These people are not trained to look after themselves; they do not know the least thing about homesteading, or simple gardening—those who have a small plot of land, that is. Most do not. But it is appallingly—mad, their manner of life!” He stopped, catching himself giving way to helpless anger.
The women eyed him sorrowfully. Mr. O’Brien collected himself; he knew he had made his point, and now felt almost apologetic.
“Mr. O’Brien,” said Ariana, preventing that apology from coming. Her large pretty eyes, somewhat watery at the moment, peered over at him. “I pray you will take your dinner with us. You have nothing prepared elsewhere, I hope?”
“I passed a respectable looking inn some miles back, and was going to return to it for my meal, ma’am.”
“Oh, do not think of it!” she replied. “You must eat with us.”
“I am obliged, ma’am,” he said, with utter sincerity. He had received a more agreeable reception than he’d hoped for. He was still wary of his host, but pleased, nonetheless.
The maids began cleaning up the dishes, and Ariana said, “Mamma, why do not you and Beatrice accompany Mr. O’Brien for a walk about the house while Mrs. Perler and I see to the children?”
“The children?” asked the cleric. His eyes had come alight. “I beg your pardon, I had completely forgotten! Allow me to offer my deepest congratulations. I understand you have just recently welcomed a new little miss into the household.” Even now, news of the Mornay family found its way into the London Gazette.
“Yes, our baby Miranda, I thank you,” said Ariana, smiling with pleasure. Even Mr. Mornay looked pleased, for he, like his wife, was inordinately proud of his offspring.
“Our little boy, Nigel, is four; and Miranda, is just two months,” Ariana continued.”
“Two months! My word, you are just out of your confinement!” He paused and added, “I hope I shall have the pleasure of an introduction,” he said, in a droll tone.
All the women smiled. “But of course!” Ariana said. “You could hardly avoid it in this household, sir, for we allow our children a great deal of time with us.”
The following day, Tristan and Miss Barton sat across from each other in the morning room of the Manor House while he finished his coffee and toast. Miss Barton was morosely stirring her chocolate, evidently in a brown study.
“Now we are settled,” he said, “I shall call upon Mr. Mornay. It’s deuces there’s naught else to do in the country, in any case,” he added with derision. “However can anyone prefer it?”
Miss Barton raised her head enough to cast a glance out a window of the room, which overlooked the frontage of the estate. “I think it’s lovely country,” she said. “And not even that far from Town.”
“Half a day’s driving, you mean!” he returned. “Quite far enough. In any case, I’ll have to take the carriage, but I do not imagine you were planning on using it. You look ill, in fact. Are you unwell?” His eyes narrowed upon really seeing her face.
“I am fine,” she answered, looking down for a second.
When she looked up again he said, “But you are certainly not in your looks. I want you to rest while I am out.” Anne’s eyes indeed had darkish circles.
“Tristan?” Her voice was low, and she paused, looking flustered.
“Yes?”
“You—you shan’t forget to tell them your sister is with you?”
He grimaced. “As we should not need to stay here long, I mean to introduce you. Though I planned for you to start your confinement, I’ve decided you can be of use. You will keep Mrs. Mornay in company, so that I may hope to get more of the mister to myself. I am determined to do my service for the prince as speedily as possible. It may be that I can procure some good for us from this before...before anyone is the wiser as to your condition, or a detrimental report may reach the ears of His Royal Highness.”
He stood up and brushed off his coat. “How do I look, eh?”
She glanced over him. “Breeches are formal for a morning call.”
“This is Mornay I’m seeing, Anne! Can anything be too formal for such a man?”
“When meeting him with the prince, or at an affair, I suppose not; but here in the country?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he keeps to London styles, country or no; I mean to be prepared.”
“You will seem to be striving for their approval.”
“But I am. I must have their approval, or my chances of doing anything for the prince are dashed.”
“But do you not want to seem more confident? As though you have no reason not to be approved of? You should allow your good manners to speak for you, not your attire.”
He went to her and stroked her cheek. Miss Barton was surprised, but pleased. He looked at her almost pityingly, however, and said, “Anne, Anne. If you knew how to dress properly for the right company, I might even now be addressing you as ‘my lady.’ You failed to impress his lordship’s family, do you not see?”
“You do not know the least thing about it!” she cried, taking his hand and throwing it from her. She was abruptly in tears. He stopped, a little taken aback by her passionate rebuttal.
“Do you think it is only the right clothing these people look for? Do not try and tell me anything about a matter you are entirely ignorant of!” she cried.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “What am I ignorant of?”
She turned and glared silently at him for a moment. “It was your decision to sell our family home that first made them question our respectability!”
“Oh? But—what of Brummell? He sold his estate, and no one questioned his dashed respectability!”
“Brummell was an Original! And I daresay that the same people who paid him court would shrink from giving him a daughter in marriage! He was good ton, but not respectable in the marrying sense, I assure you! No one questions whether you are fashionable, or agreeable—but you sold our family house! You threw away our ties to the land! You must know that a family estate means the world to these people! How can you have failed to understand that?” Her voice cracked; she could no longer keep herself from sobbing. She rushed from the room.
That afternoon, Mr. Mornay asked his wife to take tea with him and the children in the nursery—a startling request, but Ariana was delighted to comply. They liked to be together for bohea and biscuits, but lately the children joined them in the drawing room since the guests were there as well. It would be cozier upstairs, just the four of them and Mrs. Perler.
Thirty-five minutes later, Miranda had been fed with all the attentions due to an infant (meaning she was burped, nursed on the other breast, burped yet again, and thoroughly adored, all while maintaining a complete oblivion to the squeals of delight and laughter from Nigel, who played upon the floor with his papa.). Ariana asked her husband, “Do you wish to hold your daughter?” Coat removed, he had been letting his son climb all over him and giving him rides upon his back.
“By all means,” he said, with a little smile, patting Nigel on the head before getting up to come and take the baby. Unlike the manner of his roughhousing with their son, Phillip took his littlest girl gingerly into his arms, and without the great air of confidence that usually accompanied his actions. He sat down and studied her face, touched her with his finger, and let her little fingers clamp around one of his. Ariana came and sat beside them, after giving Nigel some tea and letting him pick what he wanted from the tray, which usually amounted to naught but biscuits.
“Isn’t she lovely?” Ariana said, for the thousandth time.
“She certainly is,” he murmured; “Just like her mother.”
Miranda had been born with a beautiful silky layer of dark black hair, but at two months, it was already beginning to fall out, and, to his delight, was being replaced with the same light golden strands he loved on Ariana. He may not have been in his element holding an infant, but the miracle of this child being flesh of his flesh still astounded him, and he relished her.
At Nigel’s birth, he’d felt awestruck that he had taken part in giving life; and that the life was part of him, part of Ariana, and something that, once here, he would never want to live without. Until his children were born, he’d had a sense of needing an heir, but to actually have a child of his own in his arms was unexpectedly satisfying. He had to conclude that it was a God-given desire, hidden within some people more than others, perhaps, but there just the same. He hadn’t known he could feel so much love, to be fiercely protective of others the way he felt for his family. What was life without them? How had he ever thought he was at all enjoying himself? God was so merciful to have given him what amounted to a new life with his wonderful, precious family.
After holding the baby until she slept, (and Ariana never grew tired of the sight of her strong, handsome husband cuddling a baby against his chest) he motioned to Mrs. Perler to take the child, but his wife said, “I’ll take her.”
“I need to speak with you,” he said, as Mrs. Perler took the child from him. She held out a hand for Nigel also, but he cried, with a mouth full of crumbs, “I haven’t done, papa!”
His parents’ visits were the highlight of his days, even more so than just having tea every early afternoon. Mr. Mornay’s eyes softened at his son’s words, and he sat down beside the boy. Meanwhile, a maid refilled cups for the adults, including Mrs. Perler, who was always allowed to partake with the family, though she sat aside in a corner of the room unless she was needed. Ariana often had her tell any stories of things the children did, or what new smart thing Nigel had said or accomplished in her absence.
Ariana would have transformed a parlour into a nursery so she could have the children always near her; but Mr. Mornay insisted she needed time apart, to rest for one thing; and to be available to him, for another. Thus the upstairs nursery, which was a small suite of rooms, was in great use, and filled with the latest toys and furniture.
Nigel crawled upon his father’s lap, a biscuit in one hand; Ariana retrieved her infant, knowing Phillip wouldn’t deny his son a few more minutes. She snuggled the blanketed Miranda against her shoulder, grateful for this family time. Phillip was kept so busy with the estate or visiting his holdings, or engaging in sport such as hunting or shooting with London gentlemen who came to visit, that she savored moments like this.
Early in their marriage she had been amazed to see how much of her husband’s time was, in fact, spoken for. Especially after having her impressions of him formed in London, where he seemed like a typical upperclassman, with time on his hands. She had not expected to find an involved landlord. Had he been often shooting or hunting to dogs, or riding, it had been no surprise; but he paid attention to the tenants, knew most of the men in each family by name, even asked about their wives. He oversaw the accounts of the estate to the extent of regularly spending a few hours with his man of business, his steward and housekeeper, each by turn, going over accounts. As if Ariana hadn’t already been starry-eyed about her new husband, this side of him only deepened her admiration. The Mornay estate would never fall prey to poor management or disrepair while Phillip was its owner.
Unlike the properties of much of the nobility, nay, much of the landed gentry, his was neither entailed nor mortgaged. She began to understand why the prince should want him for his government. He was superb with the management of his affairs.
She took a sip of tea while continuing to watch the two males she loved most in the world. Mr. Mornay was breaking a biscuit up and handing pieces to the child, who watched his father with rapt eyes, smiling while he ate. After the child finished the treat, Mr. Mornay’s eyes met those of his wife. Oh, yes—he wanted to speak with her.
“Mrs. Perler,” she said, “bring the children to their grandmother and aunt in the drawing room. We will be there shortly.”
“Huzzah!” Nigel shouted. “The drawing room! Will there be more tea and biscuits, Mamma?”
When she and Phillip were alone, she looked at him expectantly. He patted the space on his lap where their son had been only minutes earlier, and with a smile she got up and claimed it. He drew her toward him and they kissed.
Afterwards, he regarded her face, turned up at him. “You are enormously pretty,” he said, making her smile.
“But you did not arrange tea with me to tell me that,” she returned. “What is it? You have got me so curious!”
He moved a stray lock of hair from her face, curling it around one of her ears. “We need to discuss Glendover. I know that yesterday you thought it might be granted to Mr. O’Brien—and”—He held up a finger, to silence her—“I need to be certain you understand that such a hope is impossible.”
Ariana said, studying his eyes, “Impossible? Or not to your liking?”
He smirked. “In this case, one is equal to the other. If I do not like a man for the living, he does not get it. Surely you could not expect me to seriously consider O’Brien.”
“You once said yourself that if we could improve a man’s life, that was good enough reason to grant him the living.”
“That was presupposing the man to have met my full approval. I am responsible to the parish to make the best choice of vicar that I am capable of. Mr. O’Brien is not that man.”
“But what are you basing this conclusion upon? The past, I daresay, for you have spent no time with him alone. You have given him no interview, nor seen him fulfilling his office. Let him preside for us this coming Sunday at Glendover, and base your decision upon his performance. Nothing of your history with him should prevent giving him the chance to prove himself now.”
“Nothing of my history with him?” he asked. “Then let it be his history with you that concerns me. Either way, he still fails to get the living.” He smiled lazily at her frown.
“Why did you allow him to come only to disappoint his hopes?”
He explained about the delayed letter.
Ariana sighed. “Poor man! Only promise me that you will not interview another man until you have given Mr. O’Brien every chance that he deserves to win this situation.”
“I will speak to him” He looked at her squarely. “Mr. O’Brien will dig his own grave, I assure you. And you cannot expect him to stay in the neighbourhood past one Sunday. He has his own parish to attend to.”
“I understand. But I think our curate has improved a great deal in his character. I believe he will not, as you say, dig his own grave.”
“I give him until Sunday to prove himself, and then he goes back to St. Pancras.”
“Sir, might I have a few words with you?” Mr. O’Brien’s bold gaze met and held that of his host, Mr. Mornay, who had returned with his wife to the drawing room only minutes earlier.
“Certainly,” replied Phillip. “Let us remove to an office.”
“I would be obliged, thank you.”
Mr. Mornay began to lead Mr. O’Brien from the drawing room, thinking to himself, Here it comes. He will ask me outright for the living.
Mrs. Forsythe saw them leaving. “Mr. O’Brien,” she called. “You do still wish to accompany my daughter and me for a walk upon the grounds, I hope?” For yesterday they had shown the man about the large house, giving him a brief tour of the public rooms, which both women were still enjoying taking in themselves.
“In this weather?” asked Ariana, for the late February air was bracingly cold with relentless winds, making all the chamber maids extra busy filling up coal bins and stoking fires, and removing ashes. They were forever scuttling into and out of the drawing room to maintain the heat of the fires.
“I beg your pardon,” Mr. O’Brien said, sincerely. “I mean to keep my word, to be sure; but I shall join you afterwards if that will be agreeable.”
But Mr. Mornay said, “Please the ladies, first, by all means. If they insist upon walking out in this cold, I would prefer they do so in the company of a gentleman.”
Mr. O’Brien looked at him curiously. He seemed in no hurry to send him packing. He said, “Very well; I am obliged, sir.”
Soon the three of them, cloaked in coats and mufflers and hats and gloves, had set out from the large front door, choosing to take the walk that led around the long house.
“We’ll stay close to the house this time, and see if we can circle it before getting too cold,” said Mrs. Forsythe. Beatrice was curious as to why her mother suddenly was in want of outdoor exercise; as well as why she had said, “this time,” as if there were certain to be more such outings; But she merely nodded and drew her muffler about her tighter.
They followed a paved stone walk, remarking about the beauty of the house and grounds, as well as the prospect. When they reached one end of the structure, they turned and were out of sight.
About thirty minutes later, Mr. Barton whistled to himself as his carriage came to a stop in front of the stately dwelling of the Paragon and his wife. The country house was impressive with its Georgian columns and Venetian-style windows. The sheer size and neatness of its formal grounds, beginning with a mile-long, tree-lined drive—or so it seemed—had confirmed to his mind his reason for being there. Aspindon House was indeed impressive enough to be the abode of a viscount; or most any title, he thought.
It did his heart good to see this firsthand evidence of prosperity in the world; it reminded him that there was always a great deal of money somewhere, and that playing one’s cards rightly—literally as well as figuratively—might result in ending up with a greater share of it. If he could succeed in influencing Mornay for the prince, he might become part of the prince’s set; and hanging around the rich could only result in adding to his fortune, he was sure. Even if the prince did not reward him with money, he would have the pleasure of a continued welcome into the circles of the upper class—and enjoy the bounty of others.
Mr. Barton did have a modest fortune, but it wasn’t endless, whereas his gaming habit was. He had discovered, moreover, that fortune alone did not always ensure acceptance in the bon ton. His sister was apparently wiser than he, for she had known that selling their family home was a grave mistake, whereas he had thought only of the assets it would give him—enough to maintain his lifestyle in Mayfair. Looking at Aspindon looming stately and elegant before him, he hoped better things were to come.
The groom finally appeared, allowing him to hand over the ribbons and head toward the great front door. His pulse quickened; the Paragon was bound to be a challenge. And Tristan hoped to gain favour with him—a much trickier thing to procure than a mere audience with him. Anne might indeed be useful in that matter, however, for he expected that Mrs. Mornay was short enough of genteel company to be delighted to learn of her new neighbours.
He straightened his coat, ran his hands over his cravat, and reached up for the knocker. The next hour would no doubt be most illuminating as to whether his hopes had any chance ofsucceeding. He took a breath, and rapped firmly on the door.