Страница 38 из 69
“I would hardly say Mrs. Clay got everything she wanted,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “She is dead.”
Mary sighed again. “I suppose.” Having failed to gain her sister’s sympathy, she turned her attention to Elizabeth. “Mrs. Darcy, do you have sons?”
Elizabeth was happy to come away from the heat of the window and sit down again. “No, only a daughter, Lily-A
“A daughter! How fortunate you are. I would do so much better with daughters. They are quiet and mindful, and one can dress them in such pretty clothes. Boys ca
“I have no children.”
“None at all? How very sad. I do not know what I would do without the cheerful sounds of my darlings at play. I suppose your husband was disappointed to have no son.”
Mrs. Smith responded with a polite smile, but Elizabeth saw in her eyes that this was a painful subject to her.
Apparently, Mrs. Wentworth, too, sensed Mrs. Smith’s discomfort, for she quickly said, “Mary, I wonder if you might do me a favor and suggest to our father that Alfred’s nurse be summoned. He begins to stir—I suspect he will wake soon, and when he does, he will be hungry.”
Mary, looking rather put-upon, roused herself enough to cast her gaze about for the Elliot patriarch. With a relieved half-smile, she settled back against her chair. “You may offer the suggestion yourself. He comes this way.”
Sir Walter approached, trailing in the wake of Miss Elliot, who parted the crowded floor like a ship’s figurehead, with Sir Laurence and Miss Ashford in tow.
“Here you are, A
“But he is sleeping.”
“I can see that.” Miss Elliot reached for him.
“Indeed, Miss Elliot, you need not disturb him,” Sir Laurence said.
“A sleeping baby is such a heart-moving image that I ca
“There—see how he snuggles against me? He is such a sweet little thing.”
Until that moment, Elizabeth would have wagered a year’s worth of pin money that the word “snuggle” was entirely absent from Miss Elliot’s vocabulary. As it was, Miss Elliot appeared oblivious to the fact that Alfred was instinctively seeking the soft shoulder from which he had been so abruptly torn, not snuggling into the bony one upon which he had just been thrust. He squirmed, fully wakening, and released a mew that quickly turned into a full, incessant cry.
“There, now … little … darling.” Miss Elliot’s steely voice jarred Elizabeth more than the baby’s cries. “Do not cry for your sister—”
Miss Elliot’s eyes suddenly widened, and her countenance went rigid. She pulled the mewling infant away from herself and thrust him toward Mary. A damp, uneven circle now darkened another portion of her gown; the lower half of Alfred’s sported a matching one. “Would you kindly take this child from me?” Her strained voice came through clenched teeth.
Elizabeth, happening to meet Sir Laurence’s gaze, saw that she was not alone in working to conceal amusement.
Sir Laurence coughed. “I should … go seek Mr. Darcy. My sister and I have not yet spoken with him today. Unless, Miss Elliot, I can be of use to you?”
“No,” she said tightly, a scarlet flush creeping across her cheeks faster than the stain on her dress. Alfred, still in her hands, increased both his agitation and his volume. Sir Laurence bowed and withdrew with Miss Ashford.
Miss Elliot looked at her sister sharply. “Mary—”
“Why must I take him? He has already ruined your gown. I should sacrifice mine?”
As the sisters quarreled, Alfred’s high-pitched protests continued. Elizabeth itched to take him from Miss Elliot and offer the neglected baby what comfort she could, but she would not insert herself in a family dispute. Thankfully, Mrs. Wentworth stepped forward and reclaimed Alfred. She wrapped the blanket around him and held him close, murmuring soothing words, mindless of whatever indignity her own gown might suffer in consequence.
Miss Elliot looked down at the damp spot on her dress. The black fabric helped diminish its conspicuousness, but it was obvious nonetheless. “Where is Mrs. Logan? What sort of a nurse is she, who ca
“She is in our rooms at the Three Cups,” Sir Walter said. “Where else would she be—here, sipping lemonade with her betters? The i
A
“That was but a few hours ago,” Sir Walter said.
“It is little wonder he is so irritable.” Mary shook her head with an air of superiority. “Honestly,” she said to her eldest sister, “one would think you knew nothing about children.”
“That is because I do not have any. Yet somehow I have been saddled with responsibility for a small creature that does nothing but cry and ruin my clothes. Perhaps, Mary, since you possess so much more experience with children, you should take Alfred home to live with you.”
“At Uppercross Cottage? I am sure our father wants to keep his new heir closer to him than that.”
“As a matter of fact,” Sir Walter said, “that idea holds merit. We are quite cramped in our rooms here, and even when we return to Bath, a town house offers nothing compared to a country home in space for a growing boy.”
Mary suddenly had the look of a chased fox. “The cottage is already too small for our comfort—it is not as if we live in the Great House yet. Our own two boys—”
“Will be perfect companions for Alfred,” Miss Elliot said.
“… consume all my time as it is,” Mary finished. “You have no idea. I am a slave to their needs from sunrise till bedtime.”
“I thought you employ a nursery maid.”
“Of course we do.”
“Well, then, with Mrs. Logan’s assistance, the addition of Alfred will hardly be noticeable,” Miss Elliot declared.
Now Mary had the look of a cornered fox. She glanced at her other sister, hopeful of sympathy from that quarter, but A
Mary stopped. She glanced once more at A
“She can tell you how much better it would be for Alfred to live with her.”
A
“Alfred, live with A
Miss Elliot seized upon the suggestion. “Yes, of course—A
“Yet she has no children of her own to demand her attention,” Mary hastened to add. “She can devote herself fully to Alfred.”
“That is true…” mused Sir Walter.
“She is his godmother, after all,” Mary reminded them. “And Captain Wentworth, his godfather. Why, I should think that office alone obliges them to superintend his upbringing and education.”