A Lady Never Tells(83)
No matter how much the girls argued, the chaperone was adamant, and this time Sir Royce came down firmly on her side.
“I’m sorry, ladies, but Miss Dalrymple is right. I shall write Charlotte and tell her to have riding habits made up as well. Don’t fret. The horses won’t go anywhere.”
“No, but I shall die of boredom,” Camellia grumbled as they left the small ballroom and made their way upstairs.
They had finished their dance lesson and the rest of the afternoon was their own, for Miss Dalrymple was fond of taking a daily nap. The first few days they had spent their spare time exploring the sprawling house and its grounds.
“Now what will we do?” Lily asked. “We’ve gone all over the house. And Royce said we can’t go to the maze. It scarcely seems fair that you got to see it.”
“I know.” Mary schooled her face to show nothing, though at mention of the maze she felt a twinge of warmth steal through her. “I have an idea. Remember what Cousin Oliver said about looking through Mama’s things?”
Her sisters brightened at this thought, and they went in search of one of the maids to show them the entrance to the attic. The maid’s reaction to such a request was an astonished stare, and she scurried away, quickly returning with the housekeeper, Mrs. Merriwether.#p#分页标题#e#
“That would be the north attic, my lady,” Mrs. Merriwether said. “The more recent things are stored there. I’ll have a footman go up and find whatever you wish.”
“Oh, no, we want to go ourselves,” Mary assured her. “If you could just direct us to the right place?”
“But, my lady …” The older woman looked doubtful. “There’s little ventilation and light in the attic. And though we clean it regularly, it tends to be dusty. Your clothes will suffer. It will be much easier to have the trunks brought down.”
“That’s quite all right.” Mary was becoming more adept at fending off the servants’ efforts to arrange their lives. “We’d like to explore the attics. It will be fun.”
If the housekeeper thought this an odd bit of fun, she was too well trained to express it. She simply smiled politely and instructed the maid to take Mary and her sisters to the attic.
Following the maid, they climbed the back stairs to the top floor, where the servants lived. Another narrow staircase led to a small door. Opening the door, the maid, Junie, led them into the attic and held up a kerosene lamp to give them a better look at their surroundings. The attic was an enormous room that must have covered most of the north wing of the house. A few windows running along the east wall provided light, revealing a collection of boxes, trunks, and furniture interspersed with a number of odd objects including a dress form, a sled, and even a grotesque umbrella stand made out of an elephant’s foot. The place was as dusty as the housekeeper had warned. Mary could understand why; the room was so large that even Willowmere’s staff would be hard-pressed to keep it clean.
“The newest things start here and go back that way,” Junie told them, pointing. “Mrs. Merriwether said Lady Flora’s things would be back a little ways. A lot of this is old stuff belonging to ‘the boys,’ as she calls his lordship and the others. She was working here when they were just lads, you see.” The girl looked around the room, then gamely asked, “Would you like me to pull out anything for you, miss?”
“No, we’ll manage,” Mary assured her, and received a smile of relief in return.
The maid offered her the lamp and left, and the girls began to explore. Mary didn’t mind the dust or even the occasional cobweb. Sifting through the jumbled castoffs of many years was the most enjoyable thing they had done since they’d arrived.
“This is so much fun!” Lily exclaimed, opening a trunk and pulling out a military-style jacket, cut along small lines. “Who do you suppose this belonged to?”
“One of ‘the boys,’ I’d warrant,” Rose said, coming over to examine it. “Can you imagine the earl wearing this?”
“Only if it’s a general’s uniform,” Mary responded dryly. “Look, there’s a toy musket!”
They dug down through the trunk, pulling out and replacing balls and cricket bats and sacks of marbles, along with a collection case of butterflies.
“I wonder whose trunk this is,” Rose mused. “Maybe these things belonged to all three.”
Mary lifted the lid of a smaller brown trunk beside it. Clothes belonging to an older, larger male were packed away in it. Mingling with the scent of camphor was a faint trace of men’s cologne. It teased at Mary’s nose, reminding her of Royce—not exactly the cologne he wore now, but somehow similar. She wondered if the trunk belonged to him, and it occurred to her that it was impolite to snoop through his things. Still, she could not resist pulling out a bundle of folded papers stuck down beside the clothes. The pale blue paper carried a more feminine scent, and the stack was tied with a dark blue ribbon. Mary turned over the bundle and there on the front of the folded paper was written “Royce” in a looping feminine hand.#p#分页标题#e#