‘I am sure my brother will survive my absence, ma’am, but be kind to him, and make sure he does not pine,’ pleaded Mr Kempsey, with a grin.
‘You are very wicked, Mr Kempsey,’ murmured Mary, with a slight, wry smile.
‘So I am told, most frequently by my older brother. I bring, incidentally, a message from Rowland. He asks if you would be so good as to accept a couple of barrels of apples. The crop is proving very good this year and—’
‘We are not a charity case,’ interrupted Mary, a little stiffly.
‘No ma’am, you are not, but this is the dower house to Tapley End, and I note there are no apple trees in the gardens. This cannot be chance. The dower house is linked to the main house, and it must always have been that apples from the orchard came here. Besides, it would be you being charitable. There are only so many ways one may eat an apple, and even though some will be used below stairs, I think my brother will be unable to face another fruit if he has weeks of baked apples, apple pie, apple fritters, apple cakes and … apples. Be merciful.’
‘Is it not irritating that one longs for a good crop of fruit and yet when one is blessed, then it is suddenly a burden?’ remarked Lady Damerham. ‘It was the same with raspberries the year before last. I confess that I saw so much raspberry preserve that year I could have253thrown it at Atlow, and last year it was the plums. I never thought they were as versatile.’
‘For throwing, ma’am? Surely, they would have been better.’ Tom Kempsey grinned.
‘Oh, Mr Kempsey, you are too droll. I declare one would have to rise very early in the morning to outwit you.’
‘Well, the Greeks and Romans outwit me week upon week, so I make no claim to swiftness of mind. It is mostly for that reason that I am going up a whole week before the beginning of term.’
‘Yes, but those people lived centuries ago.’ Lady Damerham beamed at him, and he blinked. He was not at all used to her thought processes.
‘Er, yes, they did.’
Mary might usually have been amused at his confusion, but this day she gave but the briefest of small smiles.
‘If we are doing Sir Rowland a service, then please tell him he may send his surplus apples to us, for we can find good use for them. Thank you, Mr Kempsey. You will be returning at the end of term, for Christmastide, yes?’
‘Yes indeed, Miss Lound. I am rather looking forward to our first Christmas at Tapley End.’ She winced, and he cursed himself for his lack of tact. ‘I … I am sorry. That was inconsiderate, ma’am.’
‘No. It was honest, and what should I answer, that I hope you are not happy in the house? That would be more254than inconsiderate, it would be vindictive. I – we – have simply to accept the reality, and since we cannot be there, I am glad it is you, Mr Kempsey, and … your brother. You at least wish to be “part” of it.’
‘We do, ma’am, very much.’ He paused for a moment. ‘With regard to Christmas, I – Miss Lound, do you think it would be impudent of me to purchase some music for Miss Banham as a Christmas gift? Just as a neighbourly thing, of course. You see, she played the piano when she and her parents paid a visit to us, and we sang a song together. I asked her about her tastes in music and she mentioned a couple of pieces which she did not possess but had heard and liked.’
Mary froze and paled. He had said ‘… and we sang a song together’. It was not Rowland Kempsey’s voice she had heard. He had denied it being him and in her shock and ire she had not believed him. She had ruined everything.
‘You think it would be wrong?’ Tom, seeing her face, thought she was shocked at his suggestion.
‘No, oh no, Mr Kempsey. I am sorry. It is a very thoughtful idea. I was just taken aback at the thought of the pianoforte at Tapley End being played, for I was no pianist.’ It was a weak lie, but since Mr Kempsey was relieved that he might make Miss Banham smile, he did not scrutinise it.
Mary’s responses thereafter were a little mechanical, for her mind was in a whirl, and she was quite glad that Mr Kempsey did not remain for long. When he left, she found an excuse to leave her mother, who was full of255how kind a boy he was, and went to her bedchamber, where she sat for some time, her hands clasped tightly together, going over her intemperate behaviour and how she had both ruined all her hopes of the future and also lost a friend. It was all her own fault.
It was a thoughtful Tom who returned across the park, where the changing leaves were bringing tints of gold and copper to the trees, and reported to his brother that Miss Lound did not seem in high spirits and was more distant than usual. Sir Rowland did not know whether this was a good or bad sign.
Whatever was open to conjecture, the date was not, and with the last day of the trout fishing season looming, a day with light wind and soft white clouds was very tempting. In both Tapley End and the dower house there was thought of fishing, tempered by other thoughts.
Sir Rowland wondered, looking at the weather, if Miss Lound might be tempted, even if she was avoiding him, for it did look a perfect day. He himself felt the urge to try his hand one last time for a fish.
‘And why should I not, for it is my lake, and they are my fish, and I cannot hide away in case my presence should frighten off the lady.’
‘I beg your pardon, Roly?’ Tom looked up from gathering the books he must pack for the Michaelmas term.
‘I was talking to myself. You know, I think I will go fishing this afternoon.’256
‘Hoping to catch a lady?’
‘That, I fear, would take a far better angler than I, Tom. No, I simply want the chance to cast before the last day of the season, and for all we know it might be wet or very windy over the next few days and leave no opportunity for fishing.’
Therefore, mid-afternoon, Sir Rowland took rod and line and went, not to the spot where he had fished with Miss Lound, but upon the further side of the lake. He surveyed the surface for some time, and, very tidily, made his first cast. After the first few he relaxed, even to the point where his mind was not upon the fishing at all, but full of a woman who was stepping ever further back from him just as he wished to be closer. He had been fishing for an hour when, rather to his own surprise, his line became suddenly taut. It was not a huge trout, but it put up a decent struggle which took his concentration, and as he landed it, and looked down at it in his net, he sighed.
‘Are you a portent, trout, that the best way to succeed is not to try too hard, and just let things happen? I wonder if she would be pleased with me for this, at least. I dare not send you to her kitchen, lest she take it as some insult, me saying “look what I can do without you”. The trouble is, I do not want to do without her.’
