Byron's Child (7 page)

She saw little of Giles that day. He went riding with Lord Thorncrest while Roland was busy about some urgent estate business, and Jodie went with Emily to visit a local farm. Later, after changing for dinner, she ran Giles to earth in the usual place.

“I hope you did not shoot anything,” she said severely.

Giles looked up from his papers and said with forced cheerfulness, “No, one does not shoot while riding, and in any case I prefer target shooting. Was your expedition successful?”

“Excessively successful. The farm people were celebrating a christening—Emily took the baby a silver mug—and I have a vast quantity of information about partying down on the farm. I believe I shall narrow my topic to leisure activities in town and country. Emily is a great help to me. She is such a dear, and highly intelligent. Do you not think that Thorncrest might come to realize what a treasure she is?”

“I’d like to think so, but I’m afraid he was telling me only this afternoon that all he is looking for is a complaisant wife. His father died eighteen months ago and he is prepared to do his duty by marrying and begetting an heir but his wife means so little to him that he doesn’t care if she is a bluestocking—his words, not mine! There’s no need to look daggers at me. He doesn’t believe Emily actually understands what she’s reading anyway.”

“Are you serious? Okay, if you ever decide to do some shooting, you have my permission to use the earl as a target. I’m surprised he told you all this.”

“I have gone up vastly in his estimation since he saw me on horseback. I’m quite a good rider.”

“Knowing your talent for understatement, I assume that means you’re a champion steeplechaser. I hope this means that he will stop treating you in that odiously mocking way. How can you let him get away with it?” Jodie was indignant at the memory.

Giles reached for her hand. “Calm down. Would you rather I reacted to every jibe by trying to prove my worth? I don’t need to, Jodie. His opinion of me is unimportant. Wasn’t it your home state, California, that set up a commission on self-esteem?” He smiled teasingly. “Well, my self-esteem is in very good shape, thank you.”

She clung to his hand, suddenly grateful for his assurance, his belief in himself. Depending on him absolutely, she needed his confidence in his own dependability. Her faith was not shaken even when he laughed ruefully and admitted that he had reached point non plus in his calculations.

“At the moment I’m working on reinventing the slide rule. I can’t do much more without a more advanced version. It’s going to take a while.”

“You’ll do it. And besides, I am enjoying myself prodigiously and I’m in no hurry to go home.”

“Beware, you’re going native. I wonder if that’s what happened to Dr. Brown. I would not have come here deliberately without bringing all the calculations necessary to return home, and a calculator for last minute adjustments.”

“She might not be here at all, or she might have come by accident like us, or she might have got into some sort of trouble here, not having obliging relatives waiting.”

“Or she might have chosen to stay. How long does the postal service take these days?”

“Better than in our time. Kent’s the other side of London, isn’t it? Two days max to get there, allowing for sorting in London, and two days back. Of course, she might not be at Font House or she might decide not to answer.”

“I think she would answer. I only met her once and I can’t say I know her well, but though she was rather reserved she didn’t strike me as the sort to refuse to help us. Keep your fingers crossed, Jodie. We badly need her help.”

Chapter Six

“There’s a letter for you, Miss Judith.” Potter proffered a silver salver as Jodie and Emily entered the hall.

Jodie was tempted to leave it until later. They had been into Thame, to the Tuesday market. Her head was full of the bustling little town, its broad main street lined with houses and shops and inns, thatched, half-timbered, brick, stone, and stucco. Though the business of the day was the buying and selling of cattle and agricultural products, the weekly gathering served as an excuse for merrymaking. Jodie wanted to capture on paper the puppet show, the ballad singer, the boys with hoops, and the gossiping women.

But the letter could only be from one person. It was too important to be postponed.

“Is Mr. Faringdale in the library?”

“No, miss, I believe he went riding.”

“Drat. Thank you, Potter. Come on, Emily, let’s see what she has to say.” Jodie led the way into the drawing room.

“Who is it from?” Emily was puzzled. “I did not know you were acquainted with anyone else in England. In this time, I mean.”

Jodie explained about Dr. Brown as she pulled off her gloves. Picking up the letter again, she noticed that it had been franked by Lord Font. Her heart sank.

“We wrote to her at Font House,” she said. “This is probably just a note from Lord Font saying she’s never been heard of. How do I open this without ripping the whole thing?”

Emily fetched a paperknife and carefully slit the seal. Unfolding the sheet, Jodie looked at once at the signature.

“Cassandra Brown! Thank heaven.” She sank into a chair. “She is living in London with a Lady Bestor, and will be happy to receive us there whenever convenient. Her letter’s as cautious as ours was. Oh, she has signed it ‘Mrs.’—but if she had married here she would not still be ‘Brown’.”

“Perhaps she is passing as a widow. That would make it much easier for a female on her own. I wonder who Lady Bestor is.”

“Who knows.” Jodie shrugged. “I wish Giles was here. We shall have to go to London.”

“Let us go and tell Charlotte. I expect she is taking her enforced rest. Roland is so solicitous, it makes her feel horridly guilty.” Emily had been let into the secret of Charlotte’s supposed pregnancy, since Jodie hadn’t the least regard for the impropriety of discussing such matters with an unmarried young lady.

Charlotte was reclining upon a daybed in her dressing room. She was delighted to see them and set down her book,
Mansfield Park
, without regret.

“It is very odd,” she confided. “Why, the hero is a sadly ordinary clergyman, and Fanny is a poor little dab of a girl. All the characters might well be one’s neighbours. There is nothing half so exciting in it as having Jodie and Giles appear from the future.”

“The author is very much admired in the future,” Jodie assured her.

“Oh, then I shall try to finish it. Did you enjoy seeing the market?”

“Very much, but we have come to tell you about this letter.” Once again she explained about Cassandra Brown. “So you see, we must go to London.”

“Perhaps Giles will want to go on his own.”

“Let him just try! I need to research the amusements of the city. I suppose I shan’t be able to gatecrash the ton parties, but there are plenty of other things to see.”

Charlotte sat bolt upright. “I have a simply splendid notion! We shall all go. Then I shall be able to sponsor you to balls and routs and Emily can have a proper Season before she is married.”

“Roland will never agree to it,” said Emily wistfully.

“Yes, he will, for I mean to tell him that I want to consult a London doctor, and that only the best furnishings from the best shops are good enough for his heir’s nursery. I am sorry to deceive him further, but sooner or later I shall really have a baby so it will not all be for nothing.”

Jodie was struck by an unpleasant possibility. Suppose Charlotte never had the child she so confidently expected? Suppose she had died young and Roland remarried, making some unknown woman Giles’s ancestor? Giles was as vague about his family tree as Roland had shown himself to be in accepting his unknown cousins. He was certain only that the direct line from father to son was unbroken. Where inheritance was concerned, mothers counted for nothing.

It did not bear thinking about. Jodie joined Emily in smothering Charlotte with hugs and kisses and congratulations on her brilliant plan, until she squeaked for mercy.

Emily’s hopes flourished. “Perhaps I shall meet someone else Roland would consider a suitable husband.”

“You know, Charlotte,” said Jodie, “it could be a way out of your own problem too. You can tell Roland the doctor says you were mistaken about the pregnancy. But how are we going to explain Cassandra?”

“That is easy,” Charlotte assured her. “You said she is American. Nothing could be more likely than that you have a letter of introduction to an American lady living in London. In fact, if Roland were suspicious of you, which he is not, that would be enough to abate his mistrust.”

“Great. All right, you tackle Roland and I’ll tell Giles. Boy, I can’t wait to see the big city.”

Giles was equally enthusiastic, though his reasons were quite different. Apart from his desire to return home and his concern over the dangers of their lengthening stay, he was eager to discuss the theory of time travel with someone who must know more about it than he did.

Used to more scintillating company, Lord Thorncrest also welcomed the suggestion that they should all go up to town. Vastly outnumbered, Roland conceded and sent a groom up to London with instructions to the staff of his town house to prepare for their arrival.

~ ~ ~

Three days later they were off. After the first few miles, Jodie found the journey excruciatingly tedious. She envied Giles, riding alongside. He looked splendid on horseback, sitting tall and straight yet relaxed, in contrast to Roland who somehow managed to appear pompous even in the saddle. Lord Thorncrest had driven ahead in his curricle, promising to call on them the next day as he had his own house in London. Jodie wished she could have gone with him, covering the fifty miles in four hours instead of the six or more Roland’s travelling carriage would take.

“Oh no,” said Charlotte when she mentioned this wish, “not on the post road. It is unexceptionable to drive with a gentleman in an open carriage about the country lanes, or in town, of course. Indeed, it is every young lady’s desire to be driven in the park by an eligible gentleman.”

“Then I shall have to coax Roland or Thorncrest to take me, as Giles does not drive. All in the way of research, you understand.”

They stopped to take luncheon at the Saracen’s Head in Beaconsfield. Jodie found the coaching inn fascinating. She tried to take notes when they set out again but the carriage, though comfortable and well-sprung, rocked too much. She had to acknowledge that it was almost equally impossible to write in a car on a freeway. Nonetheless, when at last they stiffly emerged from the vehicle onto the Mayfair sidewalk, she murmured, “Three cheers for Henry Ford.”

The Faringdale townhouse was on Grosvenor Street, one of a row of Georgian brick façades joined in a terrace. Pilasters framed the front door, and the ground floor windows had curved pediments that reminded Jodie of Lord Thorncrest’s raised eyebrows. On either side of the steps up to the entrance, ornamental ironwork separated the sidewalk—no, the pavement—from the sunken “area”. The kitchen and “domestic offices” would be down there in the basement. Jodie glanced down the steep stairway and was glad to see that at least the servants had plenty of light and air from large windows.

Whatever his faults, Roland treated his servants well. To her relief, she soon discovered that the family was equally well taken care of; like Waterstock Manor, the house had Burmah water closets.

A half hour later the travellers were comfortably ensconced in the back parlour, with a fire blazing against the chill of early March and a tea tray on the way. Roland fussed over Charlotte, placed a footstool for her, asked anxiously was she quite comfortable. Giles was restless. Walking slightly stiffly after a day in the saddle, he went over to the window and looked out into the dusk.

“I suppose it’s too late to go and see Mrs. Brown today,” he said regretfully.

Roland looked round. “You are excessively eager to meet the lady. A beautiful young widow, is she?” He chuckled to show he was roasting Giles.

“Quite attractive as I remember. I’ve only met her once.”

So Cassandra Brown was young and attractive, was she? Jodie thought. Somehow she had pictured the physicist as middle-aged, dumpy, and most certainly bespectacled. Of course Giles was only keen to see her again because of her knowledge—but keen he undoubtedly was.

“How do I go about sending her a message that we would like to call tomorrow morning?” he was asking.

“Write a note and send one of the footmen with it,” Charlotte advised. “Tell him to wait for an answer.”

“Is nine o’clock all right, Jodie?” Giles asked.

Charlotte shook her head. “It is not proper to pay morning calls before eleven. Mrs. Brown may be dancing half the night away tonight, for all we know.”

Giles looked startled at the idea. Jodie found his incredulity consoling. At least his image of Cassandra was not of a beautiful young woman enjoying the amusements of London.

A sudden thought struck Jodie. “Dancing! Charlotte, if you are to chaperone me to balls, I must learn your dances. I refuse to be a wallflower.”

“Unthinkable,” said Roland gallantly.

“I shall teach you,” Emily promised, her brown eyes sparkling. “We shall start tomorrow. Roland, will you help me demonstrate the steps? And then partner Jodie while she practises? Oh, it will be such fun going to balls with Jodie, will it not, Charlotte?”

Charlotte agreed, unoffended by the implication that going to balls without Jodie had been less than fun.

Later that evening she confided to Jodie that when they were in London in the autumn she had been too unsure of herself to give her sister-in-law the support she needed. “Emily is right,” she said. “We shall go on much better with you to show us the way. You may not be conversant with all our odd customs, but you are so—so intrepid.”

Jodie’s supply of intrepidity ran low that night. Lying wakeful in her bed, her feet on a hot brick wrapped in flannel, she felt very far from home.

She listened to the watch calling the hours, the occasional clop of hooves and rumble of wheels as a carriage passed in the street: sounds more alien than any she had heard at night at Waterstock. Besides, she had known Waterstock Manor, however briefly, in her own time. The very house itself had been a link with the future. Here in the great city Giles was more than ever her only lifeline, and Giles cared for nothing but his theories and Cassandra Brown.