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“Even when your family object?”
He frowned a little. “It is a strange thing, but I feel as light as air. I know I should be downhearted by the breach with my family but it is oddly freeing. I cannot quite account for it. It is as if I have been carrying a great weight on my shoulders all these years, so that everything I wanted to do — life itself, even — seemed like too great an effort. I could never be bothered to break away, and now that I have… now that you have all unwittingly inspired me to do it, I am fired with enthusiasm. I want to strip out the wretched interior of the rectory and make it into a home worthy of you, my dearest.Iwant to be worthy of you. It is time I started to take an interest in my parish, would you not say? Time I devoted myself to my responsibilities. I am ashamed to think of how indolent I have been. I am a disgrace to my profession, and it is my earnest intention to do better from now on. Will you help me, darling Julia? Help me to be a better man?”
“Only if you will help me to be better, too.”
“As if you need any improvement,” he whispered into her hair, and then he was kissing her again and that was the end of any rational conversation, until Aunt Madge’s heavy footsteps drew them back into the mundane world.
James stayed for some time, for the usual rules for morning calls could not apply to a betrothed couple. Abandoning the gallery very soon after Aunt Madge’s appearance, they retreated to the parlour, where he talked at length about all the improvements he intended to put in hand for the rectory, now that it was to have a mistress after so many years of bachelor existence. Aunt Madge scoffed at most of his ideas, but he answered her with lightness and commendable patience. Rosie and Angie, their music practice finished, joined in the discussion with enthusiasm, but Mama, unusually for her, had nothing to say to these plans.
“Are you quite well, Mama?” Julia said, eventually.
“Of course I am,” she said.
“You seem a little out of sorts.”
“Nonsense, Julia. How you do go on, sometimes. I am perfectly well, not in the least out of sorts.”
James jumped to his feet. “It would not be at all surprising if you were, for here I am overstaying my welcome. You must have long wished me gone, I dare say, Mrs Fletcher.”
“Oh, no, not at all. Not in the least, Mr Plummer. You must stay as long as you wish, but if you must go, at least come for dinner.”
“You are very kind. But now I see how it is that I have stayed so long, for you have taken away the little clock that sat on the mantelpiece. It had a very pretty chime, and would have reminded me to leave a little sooner.”
“Clock?” she said, frowning.
“A little porcelain affair with a shepherdess on either side. It was always above the fire in this room.”
“I remember it,” she said. “But why is it not there? I declare, it is too bad, the way things simply vanish in this house. No doubt it will turn up in the library or one of the saloons or even in a bedroom. But I will not have it! The servants make a May game of us, moving things from place to place like this. I will not stand for such underhanded dealings. Rosie, ring the bell for Keeble.”
“Mrs Fletcher,” James said, sounding surprised, “I am sure the servants would not do such a thing.”
“But they do! Who else can it be? They do it to annoy us, or perhaps they think we are too stupid to notice, but I will not have it! They will do as they are bid or else— There you are, Keeble. Where is the clock that used to sit on the mantelpiece?”
“I have no idea, madam. I assumed that you had moved it.”
“Perhaps Mrs Graham took it away to be cleaned,” James put in. “No one would move it without a good reason.”
“Keeble, fetch Mrs Graham,” Mama said. She was fairly quivering with indignation now.
“Mama, does it matter so much?” Angie said. “There are plenty of other clocks, after all.”
“Plenty of other clocks?So you have plenty of jewels, I suppose, so it hardly matters if a few disappear? We have plenty of horses in the stables, so we will not miss one or two? Is that it? Foolish child! Mrs Graham, where is the clock that lives on the mantel?”
“Oh! It’s gone!” the housekeeper said.
“We can all see that! But where is it?”
“I don’t know, madam.”
“Perhaps one of the housemaids—“
“None of them would move a valuable item like that without my knowing it,” Mrs Graham said sharply. “No more would one of the footmen move it without Mr Keeble knowing. If it’s been moved, it could only have been one of the family.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” Mama hissed. “Howdareyou! No one in the family would move anything without asking me first. It could only have been one of the servants, and I suggest you set about finding out who it was, because if that clock is not back in its rightful place by dinner time, you willallbe turned off without a reference. I will not tolerate thievery. Is that clearly understood?”
White-faced, Keeble nodded. Mrs Graham burst into tears.
26: Reconciliations
