Gabriel said: “Grandmama, what is that foul stuff?”
“The very latest tonic, direct from Mühlhausen, and crafted by an ancient order of Ursuline nuns,” the old lady replied, and swallowed it down in a single gulp. She choked slightly, gave a slight wheeze, and directed her cold gaze to Livia. “I suppose you expect me to congratulate you for saving that mongrel’s life?”
Livia lifted her chin. “No, ma’am.”
“Well, I won’t! And now we have a new debacle facing us! Do sit down, Miss Stuart, you give the distinct impression of hovering, which I can’t abide.”
Livia thought back to the none-too-clean crate upon which she had sat. “I’d better not, ma’am,” she said, and went on in an impulsive rush: “I know my behavior wasn’t what it should have been, but I simply had to do it! And Gabriel was splendid! The way he confronted that awful man in the phaeton—oh, ma’am, I wish you could have heard it!”
“Yes,” Mrs. Penhallow replied with awful sarcasm, “my grandson practically brawling in the streets of Bath, and you scrambling about in a disgracefully hoydenish manner. I call that splendid! Evangeline, more tonic!” When shortly she was fortified with a second dose (followed by a slight gagging noise), she went on acidly:
“I had been used to think you a most ill-assorted couple, but now, after today’s exploit, I have changed my mind. You, Gabriel, are capable of the lowest, most boorish behavior, and you, Livia, are obviously the proverbial silk purse. It seems to me you are perfectly suited.”
Gabriel said nothing, only gave his grandmother a slight, ironic smile, which she received in fulminating silence, her white hands twisting together in her lap. Miss Cott tactfully kept her eyes fixed upon the needlework on which she was industriously employed.
Livia stood by the mantel and looked thoughtfully at each of them in turn. In the past weeks, she’d exchanged more words with these three people—individually and collectively—than she had with her aunt and uncle at Ealdor Abbey in all her years there.
And she’d come to learn quite a lot about them.
For example, she knew that Gabriel was an excellent dancer, never tugging one about or stepping on one’s foot or trying to maneuver too close in an unpleasantly insinuating fashion. And that he liked beef but not venison, and his tea served very hot and without sugar. That he never doused himself in pungent fragrances as so many other men did, but always smelled clean and masculine and exactly like himself. That he was, like her, an orphan. That he spoke courteously to servants. That his teeth were very white and mostly straight but for eyeteeth that were, ever so slightly, crooked, a little flaw which somehow made his smile all the more devastatingly attractive.
She knew that Grandmama was widely read, and had fascinating things to say about literature and poetry (and that she did not in the least care for the Sturm und Drang poets such as Wordsworth and Bryon, favoring instead Milton and Dryden and the Augustan poets of the previous century). That she preferred emeralds over diamonds, and although she frequently changed her rings she always wore on her fourth finger an exquisite square emerald, of modest size, in a simple gold setting. That despite her age, she walked and moved with a grace that was unmatched.
As for Miss Cott, Livia was well aware of her dignity and kindness, even when Grandmama was at her most curt and demanding. She’d learned that Miss Cott had the charming first name of Evangeline. And that her gray hair was curly, but she somehow managed to subdue it into a severe chignon. That she was very fond of dessert, although she was scrupulous about partaking of it in a moderate way. And even when one was ignorant, she never made one feel stupid or small.
Yet, Livia mused, the three of them all shared a common characteristic: they seemed to wear—more often than not—what she had, in her own mind, termed the Penhallow Mask, Gabriel and Grandmama most of all, of course.
On the occasions when she’d seen the mask slip, she’d gotten glimpses of them as, well, as human beings, shaken by turbulent emotions, alight with humor, fallible and imperfect and wonderful and real.
Yes, in some ways, she knew a great deal about them, but in others, they remained almost as strangers to her.
Wistfully she looked back to Gabriel. In the quiet which had descended upon the drawing-room, he had picked up from the table at his elbow one of the newspapers which lay upon it, and was now unhurriedly leafing through it. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, perfectly at his ease in boots and buckskins and a beautifully cut black coat. He was indeed wearing the Penhallow Mask: his countenance was again cool and impassive. Remote.