Page 27 of The Summer Country

Mary Anne drew back her head and looked narrowly at Jenny. “You know him so well?”

“I listen. As you instructed me.”

“He can be as romantic as he likes. That doesn’t change the fact that the roof at Peverills needs repairing.”

“You can’t stand in the road and see the leak in somebody else’s house,” said Jenny softly. It was a proverb she’d heard in the quarters. Not in speech with her, of course. No one ever stopped and gossiped with her. It was all yes and no and averted eyes, as befitted her station as the voice of her mistress, the foreign by-blow of the master.

Mary Anne was not impressed. “You can when it’s Peverills. They’ve lost half their leading. One hurricane and the house will come crashing down about them. I’ll wear the diamonds.”

“Yes, Miss Mary,” said Jenny, and took the letter and her counsel away.

“Away so soon?” said Mrs. Tremaine, bustling over to Charles. Diamonds bounced in the deep V of her bosom. “If you find yourself in want of a partner . . .”

“Only of lemonade. The heat, after London . . .”

“It’s very cool of an evening,” said Mrs. Tremaine defensively, admitting no defect to her island. “Now, if you need a partner for the quadrille, my Becky—”

Charles wasn’t sure which one of the Tremaine daughters Becky might be, but he was entirely sure he didn’t want to dance the quadrille with any of them. The room was watching and waiting for him to choose a bride and sire an heir, preferably within the evening.

“I believe Colonel Lyons is looking for you,” said Charles.

He took advantage of his hostess’s distraction to escape, not toward refreshments, but onto the balcony, where he took several deep breaths of the warm evening air. The combination of hothouse flowers, candle smoke, and French scent was beginning to make his head ache.

But not the punch. Charles wasn’t making that mistake again. He’d silently abandoned the many glasses pressed upon him, pretending to drink when necessary, trying not to choke on the fumes. From the smell of it, the punch was nine-tenths rum, with a hint of lemon and a generous scoop of sugar, fruits of the local bounty in their headiest form. Everyone expected him to toast and be toasted. He was the guest of honor. This party was, ostensibly, to welcome him home.

Nostos. That was the Greek word for it. Homecoming.

Had Odysseus felt thus when he sighted Ithaca after all those many years away? The pinch of expectation, like a suit of clothes tailored for another man, too heavy, too tight, choking him. This was his home, that place turned half myth by memory, and yet he had never felt more out of place or more alone.

It wasn’t that people had been unwelcoming. Quite the contrary. He was overwhelmed with invitations and advice. He should join the militia, join the council, hire a new bookkeeper, try this or that with his crops. It seemed that every unmarried young lady in the district had been conscripted to play on the pianoforte or the harp for him; their mothers shared reminiscences of Charles’s mother and demanded news of the latest fashions from London. Everyone wanted the pleasure of his company; he need never dine alone unless he so chose.

And yet. He was a novelty, an outsider. Charles didn’t miss the way his neighbors’ voices changed when they spoke to him, the rolling rhythms of the local accent clipped and strangled into something more like his own diction. Even Mary Anne Beckles, so forthright in her way, adopted what she fondly believed to be ladylike airs in his presence, never knowing that he preferred her as she was when she forgot herself, blunt and businesslike.

Everyone was kind, everyone had advice to give, but they weren’t at ease with him as they were with Robert. Conversations stopped when Charles entered a room; fans were retrieved and cravats straightened.

The best thing he could do for everyone would be to depart, forthwith. Or would it? Robert might know more than he about practical management, but he would never further their father’s schemes or keep his promises.

He had pledged his father. Not just his father but all the souls in his care, the men and women of Peverills. He couldn’t shrug off that burden just because he found it didn’t suit him to shoulder it.

But duty was poor company of an evening, and very lonely after the fellowship he had left behind in London.

“Master Charles?” A woman stood at the far end of the veranda, her white apron ghostlike in the darkness. She approached him warily, as one might a dangerous animal. “Are you ill?”

“No, not ill.” Not in any way that might be physicked. Charles shook his head, feeling thoroughly sick of himself. He squinted at the figure in the shadows. “It’s . . . Jenny, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.” She held herself very still, as if poised for flight.

Don’t, Charles wanted to tell her. You have nothing to fear from me. But didn’t she? He couldn’t blame her for shying from him.

“Shouldn’t you be enjoying the festivities?” said Charles, with false bonhomie. “My brother tells me the servants have their own dance.”

Charles winced at himself. Servants. Not servants; slaves. It was too easy to fall into the local custom, mincing about with euphemisms, sidling past uncomfortable realities with half-truths.

“They do.” The silence stretched between them. Charles could hear the scrape of the violin, the whine of the flute, the thumping tread of the dance, as she weighed her answer. “I wasn’t invited.”

“Whyever not?”

“I’m a foreigner.”