Wyrde and Wayward

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Upon Gussie’s return across the park, she found a warm welcome awaiting her. Being as it was the kind of welcome born of expectation, she knew she must soon disappoint. Nonetheless, she enjoyed a moment’s heart-swelling gratitude upon beholding the familiar and beloved outlines of Lake Cottage, its arched roof and prettily-shaped gables visible from some distance. Lord Werth had granted her residence there only some eight months previously, prior to which she had maintained her abode at the Towers. Here she had privacy, and a right to her own style of comforts. Solitude, too, or nearly enough, her uncle’s only stipulation being that Someone must live with her, to preserve her respectability. Every other Werth being, at present, suitably disposed of elsewhere, that someone was her former governess, still beloved by Gussie and Nell, and glad of a comfortable situation.

Fortunately for both, she was also excellent company.

‘And?’ said Miss Frostell, coming out of the parlour just as soon as Gussie stepped into the house. ‘How did it all go off?’

Gussie paused to discard Nell’s scratchy grey shawl, wondering in the process what had become of her favourite rose-coloured one. She would have to go up to the Towers again in the morning, to enquire after it. ‘Considering the hopes riding on Lizzie’s birthday, it could only be a let-down,’ she said.

Miss Frostell made a grimace of sympathy, and ushered her former charge into the parlour. ‘She is not, then, become a mermaid?’

‘A gorgon,’ sighed Gussie, and sank onto the sofa.

Miss Frostell, a far better needlewoman than any Gussie Werth, and a fine housekeeper too, listened to her recounting of the afternoon’s events in quiet sympathy, providing murmured commentary as befitted the extent of the calamity. She was not Wyrded herself, this excellent Miss Frostell, and rather regretted the fact — except that today, a different feeling animated her sweet, thin, withered face. Was that a modicum of… relief, in her hazel eyes? When Gussie was a child, they had speculated together of the gifts for which Gussie wished; of the forthcoming day when the Wyrde might choose her after all, and answer all her childish dreams. But none of those dreams had ever included a head full of snakes.

‘That is unfortunate,’ said Miss Frostell, when Gussie had finished. ‘The poor child. I had thought — well, there have not been so many curses in the current generations, have there? Not true misfortunes.’

‘If we pass over Theo, then no. I believe most of us are not too badly circumstanced.’

‘Yes, poor Theo,’ sighed Miss Frostell, with a degree of tender feeling that might be considered unwise. A woman of quiet habits herself, Miss Frostell saw Theo’s bookish tendencies as attractive; in fact, she appeared to find everything about Theo attractive, even his flyaway, rust-coloured hair and his outmoded attire.

Truly, there was no accounting for taste.

‘Oh, and now for a surprise,’ said Miss Frostell, picking up her embroidery frame. ‘A letter has come for you. I have set it upon the table there, just beside you. It has the look of an invitation about it.’

Gussie had not noticed the missive upon coming in, her head full of too many other things. But there it lay indeed, crisp and white against dark mahogany, addressed in a hand she did not recognise. Miss Frostell’s hints she disregarded; her governess had Imagination, and a way of wishing on her dear charge’s behalf. These wishes invariably involved Gussie’s ascension out of the ranks of the poorer Werths, and into great plenty, a trajectory only to be achieved by marriage; and that, of course, required an introduction to more gentlemen. Every letter bearing the name of Augusta Werth was an invitation, but only to Miss Frostell’s fancy. Reality was hardly ever obliging enough to follow suit.

But as she unfolded this particular letter, it dawned upon her that Miss Frostell, for once, was right: she was invited somewhere. She, Gussie Werth, least impressive of her line and a poor spinster to boot. In open-mouthed astonishment she read the following lines:

My dear child. You will not know me, for we have never been introduced. I hope you will forgive the liberty I take in thus addressing you, however, for I number your aunt among my dearest and oldest friends, and I am persuaded she would be delighted by the proposal I write to make you.

I shall be holding a little gathering at Starminster. I very much hope you will consent to make one of the party, and give me the honour of your company, for the period of a few weeks.

I trust your esteemed uncle, Lord Werth, will find nothing objectionable…

The letter went on in a similar style for several more lines, and was finally signed, Esther, Lady Maundevyle.

Gussie looked up from this puzzling missive, several questions at once upon her lips.

Miss Frostell forestalled her. ‘Maundevyle?’ she breathed. ‘Lady Maundevyle? Why, is she not a famous hermit?’

‘If she is, she must be a rich hermit,’ said Gussie. ‘Without which quality, the world would not find her habits half so interesting.’ She read the letter over again, without deriving any particular benefit from the exercise; the invitation still made as little sense.

She set it aside. ‘Where is Starminster, Frosty? Do you have your peerage about you?’

Miss Frostell got up at once, and rummaged about among a collection of paraphernalia in the pretty bureau occupying one corner of the room. She returned at last with a small volume in hand, fresh-printed and new, for Miss Frostell liked to keep her peerage up to date.

‘Maundevyle,’ she said, paging through the book. ‘Here they are. Viscounts only — not your dear uncle’s equal, then, quite. Principle seat: Starminster, in Somerset.’

Having enjoyed few opportunities to travel, Gussie had yet to venture beyond the borders of Norfolk. Somerset, she knew, was quite on the other side of the country, representing a journey of some days.

Miss Frostell closed the book. ‘Your correspondent must be the Dowager Viscountess, Gussie. The current incumbent is named Henry.’

‘Naturally I am overcome with joy at her gracious condescension,’ said Gussie, but absently, her mind still turning upon the problem of her letter. What could the Dowager Viscountess Maundevyle want with her?

‘He is four-and-thirty years old,’ continued Miss Frostell. ‘And,’ she added, with the air of a woman applying the crowning glory to a string of brilliant achievements, ‘he is unwed.’ She stood, beaming.

Gussie’s wandering attention sharpened. ‘Unw— Frosty! You are not matchmaking? Again?’

‘Why, of course I am. Your aunts may have given up on you, but I have not.’

‘For shame. Are we not happy here?’

‘Blissfully, and I shall cry for a week when you go away. But you are wasted here, Gussie. A woman of your talents—’

‘I have no talents,’ said Gussie. ‘Do not you know it is common knowledge, among the family?’

‘I was not speaking of the Wyrde. You deserve a high position, and it is shameful that you should never have had the opportunity to win one.’

‘Quite right,’ said Gussie, laughing. ‘Every woman of moderate beauty, small fortune and little practical use deserves a high position. And how should such a position ever be achieved, except by marriage?’

‘Your aunt Werth will support your going, I am sure of it,’ said Miss Frostell, affecting not to hear this. ‘Her being so old a friend of Lady Maundevyle’s.’

‘Is she, though?’ said Gussie.

‘Why else should the dowager invite you, if she is not?’

‘Why would she invite me, if she is? We are perfect strangers to one another. Even supposing her to be seized by a sudden freak, and compelled to fill her house with the unremarkable relations of all her friends, why would she choose me? There are Werths enough to satisfy every possible requirement.’

‘True,’ said Miss Frostell. ‘And it does not quite make sense that she should not extend the same invitation to your aunt. But,’ and here she hesitated, ‘perhaps it is your very lack of talents, as you put it, or rather your lack of the Wyrde, that encourages her. Not everybody prizes the effects of it as the Werths do.’

‘You may well be right, but still it is not quite explanation enough. The world is full of the unWyrded. There are far more of them, than there are of gorgons and mermaids and nightmarists. Why, then, me? She must be quite spoiled for choice.’

‘I cannot explain it, but I still think you should go.’

‘Why, Frosty?’

‘Well,’ said Miss Frostell, with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘Something wonderful could come of it. Who knows?’

‘That is like your optimism,’ said Gussie, folding up the letter. ‘But I am of a suspicious, shrewish disposition, and I say there is more afoot here than is apparent.’

‘Do you not, then, wish to find out what it is?’

Gussie sat tapping the letter against her knee, and did not immediately reply. At length she said: ‘Well, and why not?’ Glancing about at their comfortable, but quiet, parlour, she added: ‘Though it will be difficult to tear myself away from the unending revelries of the Towers, I daresay Starminster will contrive to entertain me.’

‘No,’ said Lady Werth, some two hours later, Gussie having walked back up to the great house to attend at dinner.

‘No?’ Gussie echoed, too surprised to come up with a more intelligent response.

Lady Werth thrust the letter back into her niece’s hands, crumpling the delicate paper in the process. ‘Starminster,’ she said, with an air of exasperation. Then, abandoning this line of thought, ‘Lady Maundevyle is not my dearest friend, whatever she may say; we have not spoken in quite twenty years. Why she should suddenly impose upon you, well—’ She stopped, and looked long at Gussie.

‘Yes, aunt?’

Lady Werth swept into the dining-parlour without offering any immediate reply. Only once seated did she say: ‘I do not think it suitable for you to attend upon Lady Maundevyle at Starminster.’

‘And if that is the case then certainly I shan’t,’ Gussie said calmly. ‘But it does not appear so objectionable to me, aunt. Why should the idea trouble you?’

‘You will not be suitably attended.’

‘I will take Miss Frostell with me. Lady Maundevyle could hardly object to so proper a measure.’

‘It is quite out of the question.’

‘Perhaps she would not object if you were to accompany me,’ Gussie suggested. ‘Seeing as she considers you so special a friend.’

‘Absolutely not.’

Gussie held her peace, watching her aunt closely. More lay behind her objections than was apparent, that was obvious. She began to feel quite tangled up in secrets, and the feeling did not please her at all.

She was not strictly obliged to seek her aunt’s or her uncle’s permission, being six-and-twenty years of age, and possessed of her own independence. But living, as she did, in one of her uncle’s cottages, and so often attending upon the family at the Towers, any outright defiance would be both unwise and unbecoming.

She did not mean, however, to be kept forever at home.

‘I should like very much to go,’ said Gussie, after a moment. ‘I have barely stirred beyond the family grounds. If I do not travel when I am granted the opportunity, then I will never see anything of the world.’

‘The world,’ said Lady Werth shortly, ‘is vastly overrated.’

Lord Werth, having made his appearance at table, now interrupted his wife. ‘What’s that, Gussie? Are you asked somewhere?’

Gussie explained, aware of her aunt silently fuming beside her as she did so.

Instead of leaping at once to her defence, as Gussie had hoped, and immediately offering her the use of his carriage, Lord Werth looked at his wife. Their eyes met, and something Gussie could not read passed silently between them.

‘You think it unwise?’ said Lord Werth.

‘You know that it must be,’ came the reply.

Lord Werth submitted. ‘Perhaps another time, Gussie,’ he said, kindly enough. ‘I am sure there will be better chances to see something of the world, than to be walled up at Starminster.’

Gussie gazed helplessly at her well-meaning protectors: at her aunt in her lavender silks and her elaborately arranged hair, perfect and composed and utterly unmoved; and her uncle, never unkind, but with a will to match the iron hue of his hair.

‘Why?’ she said.

Her aunt was startled into meeting her gaze. ‘Why… what?’

‘Why do you object? What is the real reason?’

Lady Werth looked away. ‘How fanciful you are, my dear.’

Gussie gave it up. This conversation had been conducted before an audience of attentive Werths, but one glance at their rapt faces — Cousin Theo at her elbow the only exception, intent upon a wholesale rejection of his food — convinced her that they could not intervene, nor were they inclined to try.

With a soft sigh, she turned her attention to her own dinner, and tried to console herself with ragout of mutton, and herb pie.