Page 61 of The Summer Country

I assume I’ll have the honor of walking you down the aisle . . .

Emily ignored the gold earrings Katy had set out for her. She wouldn’t be decked like a hog for the feast. She wasn’t going to the slaughter, thank you very much, whatever Adam might say. Or to the altar.

But it was curious that Mrs. Davenant hadn’t once said a word to her about selling Peverills.

“There you are.” Mrs. Davenant was already ensconced in her favorite chair in the great room, beneath the portrait of her younger self. Another chair, notably shorter in the seat, was occupied by a woman of late middle age in a truly alarming cap. “Bertha, this is our guest, the new owner of Peverills. Miss Dawson, make your curtsy to my cousin Mrs. Poole. Miss Dawson, you’ll pour.”

Emily made her curtsy as directed and took up her place beside the tea table. She knew the contours of the teapot by now, the shape of the sugar tongs in her hand. Mrs. Davenant had made a practice of asking her to pour.

Emily wasn’t unaccustomed to it; Aunt Millicent liked her to pour at parties, a task given to the least important. But here, in this intimate setting, it was the sort of task that might be taken by the daughter of the house.

Or the granddaughter.

Oh, bother Adam. Emily leaned forward, twitching the lace on her sleeves out of the way. “Do you take sugar, Mrs. Poole?”

Mrs. Poole tittered. “That’s not a question you want to ask here, Miss Dawson! We all live by sugar.”

“We live by it. That doesn’t mean we need to be preserved in it,” retorted Mrs. Davenant. “Plenty of sugar for Mrs. Poole. She can’t abide anything that isn’t sweet as sin.”

“Don’t be silly, Mary Anne,” said Mrs. Poole with dignity. “Just a tiny bit. Well—a tiny bit more than that. So. You’re the mistress of Peverills.”

She stared at Emily as though trying to read her heritage in her face. Her own was as wrinkled as a windfall apple, and alive with frank curiosity.

“My grandfather left it to me,” said Emily, as she had said a dozen times before. “Perhaps you knew him? His name was Jonathan Fenty.”

Mrs. Poole didn’t seem the least bit surprised. Emily had no doubt everyone in the vicinity knew not only her parentage but the width of her bust and the mole on her left shoulder.

Mrs. Poole nodded vigorously, setting her ribbons bobbing. “Oh yes, I remember your grandfather. It was the talk of the parish when he married that widow.”

“My grandmother,” Emily reminded her.

“Yes, yes. She’d been married to an Irishman. Not a papist. Goodness, but that man could talk. Old, though. When she took up with—well.” Mrs. Poole took refuge in a coughing fit as Mrs. Davenant delivered a sharp kick to her ankle.

“Really, Bertha,” said Mrs. Davenant. “Haven’t you more recent scandals to savor?”

“Was it a scandal, then?” asked Emily doubtfully. Her grandfather she could see having a wild past; her grandmother . . . no.

“Not a scandal precisely,” admitted Mrs. Poole reluctantly. “But there was such a short time between the old man dying and their marriage.”

“Three years. Mr. Boland died just before my Edward was born. They were with us that Christmas before Mr. Boland died. . . .” Mrs. Davenant’s diamond earrings swayed as she set her cup down abruptly. “They hardly married over the funeral meats.”

Mrs. Poole took a gulp of her tea. “But weren’t they married during the hurricane in the summer of thirteen?”

“No,” said Mrs. Davenant with exaggerated patience. “That was that Weekes boy.”

“Goodness, it was, wasn’t it? Such a horror, the windows smashing during the ceremony. We all thought the roof was going to come off right over our heads.” Mrs. Poole shivered with delighted horror. “But it was something dramatic. . . . I remember now. Fenty was wed right after the troubles. Sixteen. That was it.”

“Eighteen sixteen?” Emily paused with her teacup halfway to her lips.

“What a year that was,” said Mrs. Poole reminiscently. “Who knew when we sat down to supper that we would be fearing for our lives before the sun was down?”

“It must have been someone else you’re thinking of,” said Emily, looking to Mrs. Davenant. “My grandparents were married sooner than that, I think.”

“You’re confused again, Bertha,” said Mrs. Davenant with grim satisfaction. “Fenty was married from Antigua.”

“I know that,” said Mrs. Poole comfortably. “Did I say otherwise? It was in the midst of the troubles that he left. That’s a time none of us will easily forget, eh, Mary Anne? We lost most of our crop. The house was spared, but, heavens, I’ll never forget the stench of that sugar burning and my Horace running out with his uniform only half on. That our own people could do that to us! Base ingratitude, that’s what I say.”

“Not everyone’s people,” said Mrs. Davenant with a tight smile. “There’s no call to bring up unpleasant memories, Bertha. It’s all over and done with long ago.”