Something glinted, reflecting the sunlight. Wait. Did whoever was out there watching the house have a telescope of their own? How strange.
His interest aroused, he stepped back from the window, letting the curtains hide him from whoever was out there, but still watching.
And he waited.
Five long minutes passed and nothing moved.
He was about to give up and return to his unpacking when the shadows changed, coalescing into three separate figures, two taller, one quite small, and a medium sized dog. Good heavens. Were they children? Girls, by the look of their long skirts. They appeared to have grown bored and given up their observations of the house. Of him, perhaps? As he watched, they suddenly ran off across the stubble field beyond the trees, the dog bounding at their heels, and were soon hidden from view.
Now, who could they have been? Farm children? With a telescope?No doubt a naval telescope like his father’s. He shook his head. He’d best get back to his unpacking or he’d not be ready in time for dinner, and he didn’t want to offend Mrs. Barnes on his first day. Cooks could be so temperamental and no doubt one who’d cooked for the first time for her new master would be even more so.
He was struggling with his neck cloth when someone knocked on the door. “Sir Henry,” a tentative voice called. “Mr. Crawford sent me up to inform you dinner is served.”
Running his fingers through his hair, Harry hurried to the door.
Thomas was standing in the corridor, a slightly worried expression on his face. “I’m very sorry to have disturbed you, Sir Henry. Mr. Crawford thought you might have forgotten…or gone to sleep seeing as you was so tired.”
Harry shook his head. “It’s my fault.” He gave a rueful smile that was not returned. “I was having trouble with my neck cloth.” He gestured at it. At least with the widow gone there’d be no one to turn an aristocratic nose up at his rough and ready appearance. No one except the servants, that was.
Thomas’s face lit up. “I can do that for you, Sir Henry. If you’d like me to, that is.”
Harry shrugged. It seemed he was going to be getting a valet whether he wanted to or not. “That would be most kind.”
Thomas obliged, managing a far better job than Harry could have, and then led the way downstairs to the dining room.
Once their cousinhad retreated from the window of what had once been Papa’s bedroom, Lissy, Mims, and Megs, who’d all been behind the low wall spying on him, scrambled to their feet. Megs held out her hand for the telescope, which by rights was hers as she’d been left it by an old seadog she’d befriended who used to live in the village. “I’ll have that back, now you’ve finished with it.”
Lissy sighed and handed it over. “You know we’ve made a pact toshare everything now we’re poor, and as I’m the oldest you have to do as I say. I’m in charge.”
She watched Megs stow the telescope she was so proud of back in the canvas satchel she liked to carry around with her. Goodness knew what else she had stuffed in there.
Nelson, the white bulldog who Megs insisted was a cross with a terrier as he was such a good ratter, looked expectantly at the bag, but Megs shook her head. “No biscuits today, Nelson.” He, also, had been inherited from the old seadog, as Megs had taken it upon herself to walk him for the old man who’d become too infirm towards the end of his life to do so.
To Lissy’s disgust, Megs doted on the ugly, scarred dog whose black eyepatch had gained him his name. And Nelson, acutely aware of having landed on his feet, now resided peaceably with the other five Madeley dogs, in direct contradiction to his past as a fighter.
“He’s not as old as I thought he would be,” Mims remarked, brushing dead leaves from her dress.
Lissy nodded. “Very thin. Mama said he’d been wounded at Waterloo. I suppose that might have made him ill and that could be why he’s so thin now.”
“Mrs. Barnes will soon fatten him up.” Megs wagged a finger at Nelson who was trying to jump up at her. “On all that cake.” She rubbed her stomach as though reflecting on her own lack of immediate nutrition.
“I could do with some of her cake right now,” Mims agreed. “It must be nearly dinner time.”
Lissy frowned at her two sisters, who, whatever time of day it was, always seemed to be thinking about the next thing they could eat. Although she was quite hungry herself. But first things first. “Now we’ve seen him, we need to go home and report back to Mama.”
“And eat,” Mims put in.
“She should’ve come with us.” Megs rubbed her stomach again. “Idon’t know why she didn’t.”
Lissy sighed. Sometimes the weight of being the oldest and having to be the sensible one rested heavily on her shoulders. “Because she’s a lady. That’s why. And none of us are ever going to be ladies, as we’ve vowed, so it doesn’t matter if we do unladylike things, like spying on our newly discovered cousin. We’re all just going to be equestriennes and ride horses for the rest of our lives. Remember.”
Mims picked some grass seeds out of her long hair. “I’d like to suggest spying on our cousin could be construed as a useful occupation rather than an unladylike one.”
Lissy shook her head. “Spying on anyone is unladylike. You know it is. But, like I said, it doesn’t matter for us. Come on. Let’s get home and tell Mama all we’ve discovered about Cousin Henry.”
Eschewing the track, they set off at a run across the fields in the evening sunshine, Nelson bounding behind them.
Miranda and Betseywere in the kitchen when the girls arrived back. Betsey had been showing Miranda how to make a stew, a process that had turned out to be far more complicated than Miranda had been hoping. But, with Betsey’s help, it was now smelling sufficiently delicious for her to feel proud of the first culinary achievement of her new life.
