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The men left in haste, and Angie giggled. “What a to-do! Whatever is she thinking, coming here like this? Does she think to force Will to make an honest woman of her?”
“Hush, Angie.Pas devant les enfants,” Aunt Madge said sharply, with a lift of her eyebrows towards Bella, sitting quietly in a corner, watching them. She had been poring over a fashion journal with Dorothea, but now her face was solemn.
“I understand French perfectly well, and I am not a child,” Bella said.
“Nevertheless there are subjects unfit for your ears,” Aunt Madge said sharply. “Unfit for any lady’s ears, in fact. You will none of you say another word. Bella, I shall take you back to the nursery. You will eat with Miss Crabtree tonight.”
Bella’s face fell. “Must I? Dorothea wants to meet Camilla.”
“Another time, perhaps. You don’t eat with us when we have visitors. Come along, and you can help me look for my green thread, for it is not in my work bag. I cannot imagine what has happened to it, for I am certain I placed it there this morning, knowing I would need it. Come, Bella.”
Pulling a face, Bella rose, but as she crossed the room she whispered to Julia, “Tell me everything later.”
Julia nodded, laughing.
“Andespeciallywhy she has straw in her hair.”
That evening was the strangest Julia could remember in many a month. Camilla, washed, dressed in an only slightly rumpled gown and coiffed by Hathaway, Mama’s very grand lady’s maid, smiled prodigiously, simpered at Will and brought them up to date with all the Sagborough gossip. All, that is, except the one subject at the forefront of all their minds. Mama was too ladylike to raise the subject, naturally, but Julia burned to know all the details, such as how on earth Camilla had made her way south, with only her maid and a couple of small bags. As towhy, no one was in any doubt — she hoped to cajole or browbeat or trick Will into marrying her. For his part, no one could fault his courtesy towards her, but there was no warmth in it, and nothing at all to give her hope.
A little while later, when the Fletcher sisters were sitting in bed, cosily swathed in woollen wraps, sharing the gossip with Bella, there was a quiet knock on the door. Mama’s head peeked in, a pretty little lace confection covering her hair.
“Julia, dear, will you come along to our bedroom for a moment. Your Papa and I would like a word.” A frown crossed her face. “Bella, dear, do go to bed at once. Come, Julia.”
Bella grinned, and scuttled out, as the sisters exchanged surprised glances. Whatever could it mean? Julia’s first thought, as she lit a candle and followed her mama across the landing, was that this was related to her unfortunate encounter with the hunt, for why else would she be singled out, and at such a late hour? Perhaps Sir Hector had written to Pa, or even come himself to rail at her behaviour.
She had never before entered the bedroom that Mama and Pa shared at Chadwell Park. She had been familiar with every room at Sagborough, and knew intimately every quirk of the house, down to the cracked pane where Will had once thrown a book, and the burn mark in the rug in the nursery, where only Ted’s quick thinking had stamped out the flames and saved the house from burning down. But here, so much was new to her.
The room was huge. Sitting directly above the dining room, it had the same oval shape and length, dominated by the vast canopied bed which loomed out of the darkness. Pale hangings at the head surrounded a mound of crisp white pillows, and a silk bedspread was turned back, ready for the occupants to take their places for the night.
Julia had a sudden image of Pa and Mama lying side by side in that huge bed. What would it be like to climb into a bed like that… with a man? Julia had rarely slept alone in her life, but curling up beside a sister was a cosy and comforting experience. Surely sharing a bed with a man would be not be like that, for men were strange, alien creatures. A little frightening, in some ways, with their starched cravats and broad shoulders and their liking for fast horses… but perhaps that was only Will and Johnny. Pa wasn’t like that, and nor was James Plummer. Now, why had she thought of him?
“Ah, come in, puss,” Pa said. He and Will were standing beside the fire, Pa in an exotic banyan and a fearsomely large cap, and Will still fully dressed. “Come and sit down. We need your help.”
“My help?” Julia said, startled.
“With the Camilla problem,” Will said tersely.
“Precisely,” Pa said. “Julia, sit here. Lizzie, do you sit here, close to the fire. You must not take a chill, my dear. You see, Julia, the last thing we wish to do at this precise moment is to create any sort of scandal, not even the least hint of one, with our first season in London on the horizon and such high hopes as we have for Rosie. Camilla’s arrival is not best timed, to put it mildly. In Sagborough, everyone knows us and knows Camilla, too, but here…”
He trailed off helplessly, and it was Mama who intervened, pulling her wrap closely about her. “Camilla must becontained,”she said meaningfully.
“Why not send her home?” Julia said.
“Because that would create exactly the sort of speculation we are trying to avoid,” Mama said. “A girl arrives unexpectedly, and not respectably in a carriage—”
“Howdidshe get here?” Julia said.
“By the common stage and a farm cart,” Mama said, visibly shuddering. “If we send her away again at once, people will wonder why.”
“Then Will must go away,” Julia said, in reasonable tones. “If he isn’t here, Camilla will soon lose interest and take herself away again.”
“That was my thought, too,” Will said, with a rueful lift of one eyebrow. “I could easily pay Johnny a visit.”
“The last thing you must do is to run away!” Mama said sharply. “What could be better designed to raise the most intense speculation? Apart from which, the girl is quite likely to follow you, and that could be disastrous. No, she must be contained here.”
“How are you going to do that — lock her in the cellar?” Julia said.
“Really, Julia, your whimsy is sadly misplaced, sometimes,” Mama said, although Will and Pa both chuckled. “Not physical containment, obviously. What we have decided is that Camilla’s visit must be seen as planned. We can say that she impulsively travelled here before she was expected, but that we hoped she would visit us at some time.”
