A Lady Never Tells(96)

The girls assured her that they were happy to relieve her boredom, especially since she was relieving theirs.

“My purposes were not entirely selfish,” Sabrina went on. “It will be easier for you to meet the vicar’s wife with someone else along to ease the way. She is a good woman, of course, and quite intelligent. Her father was also a clergyman, you see, and a well-known scholar, so she is very well educated. She speaks three languages—aside from ancient Latin and Greek, of course, and she is able to converse with the earl and Lord Humphrey on all the philosophers. I vow, sometimes I think I am back in the schoolroom when she and Mr. Martin begin to lecture.”

“My goodness,” Lily said inadequately.

“You must not let her intimidate you. She is not unkind, but she does not always realize that the rest of us have not had the grounding in the classics that she has. That is why I thought it might be easier to meet her with me along to smooth the path, so to speak. I am accustomed enough to her now that she does not frighten me.”

“What about the other lady, the squire’s wife?” Rose asked in a subdued voice.

“Ah, yes, Mrs. Bagnold.” Sabrina’s eyes twinkled. “She feels, perhaps, that she is a bit above the simple country folk. Her grandfather, as she is fond of saying, was an earl, and even though her father was only the youngest of five sons, she is very conscious of her noble bloodlines. She can be … well, a trifle stuffy. Of course, she is always quite agreeable to me, since Lord Humphrey’s brother is a duke, but Mrs. Martin is as low down the social scale as she cares to associate. Since you are the earl’s cousins, that will be no problem.”

Mary cast a look at Rose. It seemed they were going to be faced with another pair like their aunts. “I’m glad that you will be there, my lady.”

“Please, call me Sabrina. We are going to be great friends, I can tell. Don’t worry. I promise we shan’t stay long. Remember, don’t be nervous. They cannot bite, after all—and I shall be there to help you if they do.”

Mary’s enthusiasm for the trip had been dampened considerably, and the girls were uncharacteristically silent when they pulled up in front of the vicarage, a two-story brown brick building next to the square-towered Norman church. The house itself had a gloomy air, Mary thought, dark and overgrown by ivy and shrubbery. She suspected that Lily was probably already making up some scary tale about it.

A maid showed them into the parlor of the vicarage, where two middle-aged women sat. One was as tall and spare as the other was short and plump. Mrs. Martin turned out to be the almost gaunt woman, slightly stoop-shouldered, with sandy hair streaked by gray. Her face was long and thin, and her forehead seemed creased in a perpetual frown. She wore metal-rimmed spectacles, and the light glinting off the glass concealed her eyes, which made it difficult to read her expression. Squire Bagnold’s wife looked to be the older of the two, for her hair was almost entirely iron-gray beneath her matronly cap. Her face was round, with a short nose and large round eyes, giving her an incongruously babyish air.

Both women offered the barest of smiles, and it seemed to Mary that Mrs. Bagnold’s gaze bordered on wary. Lady Sabrina introduced the Bascombes, saying, “They are Lady Flora’s daughters. Perhaps you remember her. She was the present earl’s aunt.”

“Yes, I remember.” Mrs. Bagnold did not appear pleased by the memory. “Pert young thing. Lord Reginald was quite fond of her, as I recall—a fine man, the late earl. Reminded me of my own grandfather, the Earl of Penstone.”

Sabrina cast a laughing glance at Mary, and Mary had to press her lips together not to smile. Obviously, Sabrina knew her neighbors well.#p#分页标题#e#

“Not that Lord Oliver isn’t a good man,” Mrs. Bagnold continued. “But not the same as the old earl and my grandfather. Their like will never be seen again.”

“Indeed.” Sabrina put on a pleasant expression.

The conversation continued in a halting manner, for neither Mrs. Martin nor the Bascombe sisters contributed much to it. Most of the time, the discussion was about people and places that Mary and her sisters did not know, though Lady Sabrina gamely pulled it back time and again, saying with an apologetic smile, “But we are forgetting our guests from America. They have never met Lord Kelton… .” Or Mrs. Hargreaves. Or the Countess of Brackstone.

Mrs. Martin sent the maid for tea and cakes. It was a relief, in a way, for it gave Mary something to do with her hands and an excuse not to speak when some chance remark was directed her way. However, she worried that she would commit some ghastly faux pas, such as spilling her tea on the rug or taking too large a bite of one of the little cakes. Ordinarily, she was not constrained by fear of taking a social misstep, but Miss Dalrymple’s training had left her certain of only one thing—that she was woefully ignorant of the social niceties. She did not want to embarrass Lady Sabrina by displaying that ignorance.