“Not yet, but I can only feel that something is in the offing,” he said. “When Lady Cordelia returned home last night, she had been crying. Crying, Mrs. Huffson. What could have caused her to cry at Almack’s? It is an esteemed institution.”
Mrs. Huffson was thoughtful. “Naturally, I cannot know, but I must think it had to do with a gentleman.”
“A gentleman? What has caused you to think it?” Tattleton asked.
“It is always because of a gentleman.”
That was very true. Itwasalways about a gentleman.
“I expect,” Mrs. Huffson said, “that whatever has occurred, it will blow over.”
“Blow over? Blow over, Mrs. Huffson? When did they ever allow a thing to blow over?”
It really astounded him at times how Mrs. Huffson seemed to never remember the past.
“Oh my, you do not think…they would not…surely not…”
Now it was occurring to her.
“That’s right,” he said, “they will devise a plan. And what do we know about their plans, Mrs. Huffson?”
“They are always bad. Very bad,” Mrs. Huffson said sadly.
Tattleton nodded gravely. They were always very bad.
“And what do you think Lynette told me before she retired for the night?” Tattleton asked.
Mrs. Huffson was now looking very alarmed, which calmed him. If he were to be alarmed, it was soothing to have somebody else alarmed with him.
“What did Lynette say?” Mrs. Huffson asked in a whisper.
“They require use of the library on the morrow. They are going to study.”
“Theyare? Study what?”
“Lynette was not altogether clear, she said it was something about judges.Judges, Mrs. Huffson! Are they planning to involve us in the courts now?”
“I do not see how they would.”
“No, we never do see how it will be. It is always a shock, Mrs. Huffson. Always a terrible shock.”
*
Cordelia, Juliet, andMiss Mayton had been in the earl’s library for over an hour. At the breakfast table, Cordelia’s father had been most surprised that they planned to spend their morning in that location. He’d been even more taken aback that they intended to embark on a serious study of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Darden had joked that Oxford would shudder to hear of it, but the earl had frowned at him and he said no more.
The earl had been so good as to pull all the books from his shelves that would be of interest to them, and it was quite a few books, all of them unusually heavy.
The first half hour had been grueling, each one of them squinting at the dense text and struggling through the first few pages of the book they’d picked up.
They’d speedily come to the conclusion that they could not go on in such a manner and did several things to remedy the situation. They had Tattleton send in a tray of tea and biscuits to sustain them, then brought Lord Darling in to entertain them while they worked.
The second half hour had been far more pleasant, but Cordelia did not think they made much headway in their quest to understand Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.
“The problem, as I see it,” Miss Mayton said, “is that these fellows write in circles.”
“Yes!” Juliet said. “Can they not simply say what they mean?”
