According to
Plan
Anne was surprised to see Mrs. Black again today and even more surprised to see her accompanied by the duchess. The elder lady led the way and the higher-ranked one was content to follow. Although they had more interest in Thomas first, she hardly thought they had come solely for him. He did recognise them and they did like him, but it was still too early for such calls. She was still feeding him breakfast, an activity that had best be aborted now with these distractions.
It was a pity, for she had concentrated wholly on Thomas in order to keep her mind off Mr. Newman's odd questions. It was altogether an odd morning. She supposed he had wished to avoid her and she had not been sorry, for to have run away and then to have to explain herself would make speaking even more difficult. Hopefully he would come home this evening and forget all he had said.
He might, but she discovered her two visitors seemed to have some clue of what had happened. They had come too early and they looked too inquisitive. She was determined not to enlighten them any further.
"Are you always up this early?" asked Mrs. Black.
"Yes, I am. I am often the first. I must be," Anne said, deciding that only by talking could she steer the subject. "If Thomas is up he will not give me any chance to dress myself properly."
"Males are selfish," the duchess nodded. "Their needs come first."
"Julia, you are ever the pessimist," said her cousin. "Not all men are bad. Or would you not agree with me, Miss Cartwright?"
"I hardly know any," Anne said cautiously. If she were the duchess, she would now be struck completely silent by such a dismissal of her opinion. She did not want such a thing to happen to her.
"Why, you know Mr. Newman! Is he bad?"
"No," she admitted grudgingly. She did not want to be caught in a revealing discussion of Mr. Newman, yet she could not honestly say she did not know whether he was bad. He was not.
"Have you already had breakfast?" Mrs. Black looked around the table.
Anne had managed a few bites, not more. "I try to eat as well as I can while I feed Thomas."
"You must try to take turns with Mr. Newman. One eats while the other watches the child." She began to feed Thomas herself. "Eat on."
Anne was silent. That was how they usually did it. If she said it had merely not been possible today, they might ask why -- unless they knew already. He might have told them. There was no other way they could know about it. But what had he said?
"I wonder why this has not occurred to him. Even he must see you have but two hands while you might need three or four," said Mrs. Black.
He had seen it, but she could still not say so, yet she also did not want them to think he was selfishly unobservant. She struggled to come up with a satisfactory answer.
Mrs. Black seemed to take pity on her. "Or is it only today that he left you alone?"
"Only today," Anne agreed.
"Oh dear. I hope it was not anything serious that called him away in such a hurry."
"We shall see," she said quietly. It was rather serious, she supposed, but not in the sense that he would never come back. This was his house. He would be back, but whether he would refer to their conversation, she could not predict.
"And how are you today?"
"I am fine, thank you," she said rather tonelessly, because she could not be entirely happy with their presence, nor with the prospect of Mr. Newman continuing his confusing conversation at the end of the day.
"You are not," said the duchess bluntly. After she had been silenced by her cousin, she had occupied herself in looking at Anne very closely.
"I am," Anne protested.
"Something happened."
"No." She could only repeat that. "No." But it did not look as if they believed her and why should they indeed, if it was not true? She pushed her chair back and ran to her room.
Anne hoped that if someone came after her, it would be Mrs. Black, but it was not to be. She might have told Mrs. Black everything, but that was more difficult to do to the duchess. She sat on her bed, her knees pulled up and she felt very much like a petulant little girl.
"It is my duty," said Her Grace, stepping into the room and looking around herself. "I hired him and so -- what did he do?"
"Do not dismiss him! He did not do that." Anne was aghast. The duchess was ever the pessimist -- Mrs. Black had said so herself. She could only be suspecting one thing.
"Which would be what?"
She clasped her arms a little tighter around her knees and gave the duchess a displeased glare. "That what worries you."
"You do not know what worries me."
"Yes, I do -- that."
"Let us stop this nonsense," the duchess ordered. She took a seat and arranged her black skirts most regally. "What did he do?"
Anne wondered how she could correct the impression that Mr. Newman had done something to her that had upset her. "Nothing."
"If he had done nothing, you would not have run away. Do not think you can fool me. You cannot. There is a different aspect to your silence today." The duchess was still scrutinising her.
"There is not," she said in determination, not even wanting to think about it.
The duchess sighed. "Miss Cartwright, please abandon the fear that I am here to dismiss your darling employer. I was under the impression he made a mess of something, as young men are wont to do, but your stubborn refusal to talk only serves to make me think it was something far worse than that."
Anne considered revealing a little. "He talked."
Even such a revelation did not appear to satisfy the duchess. She looked inquisitive. "I am sure he does so far more frequently than we do. This time it was about...?"
"I hardly remember." Anne looked away. Why could Mrs. Black not have come upstairs? "It was very confusing."
The duchess seemed to be imagining the scene. "Yes, well -- I can only imagine Mr. Newman having a very confusing mind, considering what he told the village. Had he come up with something new to tell the village? Did he walk away from the conversation or, knowing you, the lack of it?"
"No, I did -- and I was not completely silent," she said with a defensive blush. "I talk normally here."
"Ah. I see. So you would have talked normally, had the topic not been absurd? You walked away and he never followed?"
"No. Yes. That is how it went. About walking away. I do not know about the topic." She did not think absurd was the right description of it.
"That would explain why he did not eat breakfast at home," she mused. "What did he say to you to make you run away?"
She would not be able to repeat it word for word. It had been too confusing. "I still cannot make sense of it."
"Let me try. I may see what you do not. My judgement cannot be troubled by any possible effects on myself."
"But you will only have my interpretation, which I think was completely wrong if I understood Mr. Newman's reaction correctly," Anne hedged, but her desire to understand was greater than her desire to keep it a secret and she had to speak on. "First I thought he wanted me to speak more, then I thought he wanted me as his housekeeper, then I thought he would bring a wife into the house who needed a housekeeper -- and finally he said he would not!"
"Of course he will not, silly girl," the duchess spoke very convincingly. "He likes you."
"Well," Anne was still in doubt as to what that meant. First the duchess had appeared to condemn Mr. Newman, but now she defended him! "He will not take me to see any young men, he said. I think because he fears one of them will wish to marry me and then he must look for a new nanny."
The duchess rolled her eyes at such apparent stupidity. "Do you, if you see a young man, immediately think you may want to marry him?"
"N-N-No, Your Grace."
"Why then should a young man think that of you?"
"I had wondered about that as well," she confessed. "It made me a little uncomfortable to think your nephew the captain would revise his ideas about women upon seeing me, which Mr. Newman seemed to fear he would, so he dined out alone."
The duchess' eyes widened and gestured. "Mr. Newman is afraid other men will see what he sees."
"I do not think there is much to see," Anne said valiantly. She was too quiet to strike anyone.
"Well, you are a pretty girl and you dress in pretty colours. Why do you think someone would not take an interest in you and look beyond that?"
"But you keep saying all men are bad and you detest them," she complained. "Yet you want one to take an interest in me. I do not understand why you would wish such an evil upon me."
"Yes," said Her Grace, wrinkling her nose in a sort of grimace that could be a smile. "That would seem odd. Perhaps I should clarify that you must not always take me literally. If he did anything to you, I shall continue to say all men are bad. If he did not, I might concede there are some who are not."
"I am sure he is not," Anne said with a stubborn look. "He merely confused me."
"Miss Cartwright," the duchess said reflectively. "My nephew told me he could not heed my wishes if I did not voice them -- and I see this happening here!" The comparison seemed to excite her. "Yes, that is it! It must be the same thing!"
Anne waited in patient confusion, although she supposed it had some bearing on her situation. She did not voice everything either.
"I cannot see you voice your wishes," the duchess echoed her thoughts. "Do you have any? Did he voice his? Were they even recognisable as such?"
She raised her chin when she recalled an instance. "I told him I did not want to be his housekeeper."
"I cannot imagine he would ask you to be his housekeeper!" Her Grace cried. "He has more potential than that. He always speaks highly of you."
"In fact he said more of an equal, but I assumed more of an equal was a housekeeper," she said, less certain now. "It is more equal than a nanny."
The duchess pressed her hands to her face in horror. "You silly child! You refused him!"
Chapter Twenty-Two
"I refused him?" Anne asked skeptically and in some alarm. She was close to tears. "But he did not propose."
The duchess was not fond of tears. She gave a look of helpless horror and fled.
Apparently she had said something to Mrs. Black, because her cousin replaced her a minute later. She sat on the bed and not on the chair, and she held out her arms. "Come here, you poor thing. You gave my cousin a terrible fright."
"That was mutual," Anne sniffled.
Mrs. Black gave Anne a hug. "My mistake. She had wanted me to talk to you, but I said she was to blame for any misunderstandings, since she had lent her approval to Mr. Newman's scheme. He came to her for approval and, one would assume, guidance. I said she ought to provide it. Why are you crying?"
"She said I refused him! But he never even made himself clear!" Anne could not believe he had really meant to propose. She did not know what she wished Mrs. Black to think about it, however. It would not be entirely to her liking if Mrs. Black ruled out the possibility altogether -- she did like Mr. Newman.
"In matters such as these, that is often the problem."
"It must be Her Grace's wishful thinking," Anne mumbled, deriving some comfort from the motherly embrace and there being a problem with clarity, not with there being a proposal per se.
"Yes," said Mrs. Black with a smile. "She is hopelessly sentimental, do you not agree? Very prone to imagining love everywhere."
Anne did not think so and she was a little confused. "Are you being sarcastic?"
"Yes, my dear. She would not imagine it before she has noticed manifestations of a peculiar regard -- and that she can do."
"And you say she did?" Anne very much wondered what she had seen. "In me or..."
"I did too. Are you not often out together? I know because I have experienced that and Julia knows because she has not. There, irrefutable evidence of the rational kind."
"But that still does not mean he was proposing." She would like a definitive opinion on that matter.
"He may not have known he was," Mrs. Black agreed. "But if he has any sense he ought to do so. And if he makes another attempt you must not be so frightened as to run away."
"Oh, but I would be." Anne was certain of it.
"Yes, but how often do you think a man will try, if you keep running away from him? A good man will be as frightened as you are, yet he is expected to take the initiative. Imagine yourself in his place. He will not be perfectly certain of your feelings. He is taking a risk. Even more so if you have to keep living in his house afterwards, regardless of your answer!"
Anne listened attentively. Yes, such a situation might be awkward. "But what if I understood too much? More than he wished to say?"
"Would you like more wages? Yes, I will marry you?" Mrs. Black asked.
"Yes."
"Nobody ever said it was a simple undertaking and you are more likely to say too little than too much. Will you come downstairs with me now?"
"Yes."
Despite having thought about it all day and having reached the conclusion that she must be calm and strong, when Mr. Newman came home he gave her a disconcerting gaze that was not at all according to plan. Anne had resigned herself to awaiting his initiative, but here he came, looking rather frightened of having to take it.
His face expressed so exactly what Mrs. Black had said a good man would feel, that Anne pressed Thomas into his hands and fled the room. All her reflections had been for naught! She would need some more time now to decide on a new attitude. She did not know whether she had enough calmness and strength for the two of them.
Someone knocked on the door and she froze. He could not be thinking of coming in here! She remembered the letters vividly.
And in the dark of night, after all, who is there to restrain your wicked lustful passions, you will grant yourself dishonest access to her room and --
But it was not night and he did not come in. She went to the door and waited for a moment. She had run away and he had come after her. That must mean something. He must have something to say to her. She opened the door.
"Are you unwell?" Mr. Newman inquired. He stood waiting outside her room, looking concerned.
She was not entirely well and her honesty forbade her to say no. "Yes, sir."
"Is there anything I could do for you?"
Yes, propose! Or whatever he had in mind to tell her. She had never been so close to an unchecked comment and she blushed in alarm. "N-N-No, sir. I mean, please come in." It would not be dishonest access if she let him in herself and he could not possibly have anything dishonest in mind.
"Well..." he said when they had taken up positions in the two chairs. "You do not look very unwell anymore."
"It was silly of me," she said, looking at how she clasped and unclasped her hands.
"I cannot recall any instances of you being silly. Do you save such behaviour for when I am out?"
"No, you saw it a few moments ago. And earlier," she added. "When I went away."
"That was my fault. I said too much."
"Did you not mean it?" She thought he had. The other ladies thought he had. He should now not say he had not.
"I meant it." He studied his hands as they lay in his lap. "You may like him as well as you like."
"Thomas?"
"Thomas. Nobody will come to usurp the position you hold in his affections." He glanced around the room and then back at her.
Anne willed herself to meet his eyes. He was still not saying it, was he? Perhaps she ought to reveal a little more that she would be very welcoming of any declarations. She felt quite devious. "I am happy to hear that."
"I did not want to say anything to which you would have to answer too much," he said cautiously. "But perhaps I wished for more than I could reasonably expect. Did you know you are already entitled to recompense?"
"Why, sir?"
He gestured around. "I am here."
"This is still your house. You must have the right to go into any room you please." Anne felt some fear. She could not ask him for anything, whatever he might be wishing -- because she did not know what he might be wishing. "And I let you in!"
"Yes, you did -- but it is not a very good development."
"Why not?"
"If I can call you into my room to ask you something when I am not decent, what do you think would hold me back from stepping in here to ask you something? I foresee..." But he did not say what he foresaw precisely.
"But would recompensing me restrain your wicked lustful passions?" Anne inquired. When she had spoken she realised what she had said and she doubled over to hide her face between her knees. Mr. Newman would surely dismiss her now! Accusing him of wicked lustful passions! While angling for a proposal!
He remained silent for a while. Then he began to chuckle softly.
"What did I say?" Anne moaned.
"You do not know? I thought you were very clever for making such an observation."
"I was not even thinking!"
"That is even better, to make such an observation without thinking. It does not apply to me, however, for I do not have such passions. I have other things that need to be restrained, but they are not of a very wicked nature," he said reflectively.
"Would they disappear if I asked for anything?"
"No, they would not -- your doubts are justified. They could, however, change slightly in nature."
"Then what good does it do me to make demands?" she wondered. "Unless something would truly change for the better."
"Think about such a case," Mr. Newman advised. "I am hungry. You will come and dine with me?"
And what good would it do her to think, considering how she had been thinking all day and all her resolutions had proved useless? "Dine, yes. Demand, no."
Robert whistled as he went to the kitchen. She was too modest, but if she but took a moment she would know very well what she should ask. Then he wondered if she did not know that already. She looked very sweet, but she had a very strong will. If she had got it into her mind that she would not make demands, she would not.
Although, was refusing to make demands not a demand in itself? Given her position here, he could not really blame her for that caution. He must speak then. And if there was anything apart from those wicked lustful passions she would also not like, she would have mentioned it, he supposed. That was good. In retrospect she had said more than she had seemed to be saying.
He was nearly finished with the dinner preparations when Miss Cartwright and Thomas appeared. The boy would not keep his legs still and he could not be put in his chair. Robert lent a hand and managed to glance up into Miss Cartwright's face while he was doing so. She had been looking at him and not unfavourably, he thought, but she was startled when he caught her eye. She blushed becomingly.
"Yes?" he asked softly, after what seemed like an inappropriate length of time of gazing at each other. She gave a fearful nod and he could only smile at her.
She smiled back, gradually losing her frightened look.
"Do not fear," he said. "What would change? Except that you may always look like that and know it is a welcome sight."
"Is it?" she asked a little uncertainly, but no less pleased.
"It is." He smiled warmly. "I would like you to stay."
"Always?"
Robert nodded.
"And when Thomas..."
"Is it very odd to -- I think very highly of you, also in matters that have nothing to do with Thomas whatsoever." He gave her a helpless look when he felt an affectionate urge he must suppress. "Believe me. I think very highly of you and I would show you if I had not promised you I would not and if that deuced duchess had not sown doubts in my mind as to whether ladies like it at all."
Miss Cartwright looked fearful again. "Do you wish to embrace me?"
He loved her quickness. "I would like to embrace you and say you are adorable."
She gave it some consideration. "And that is all?"
"Would you like more?" he exclaimed in amusement.
"I do not know that yet."
He closed his arms around her when she stepped forward and he relished the feeling of holding her. "You are adorable," he said when he released her. Although she had not said a word, she had relaxed. She had liked it quite well, he thought.
He felt a little excited by it all, excited enough to say silly things. "I hope the old harridans are now as happy as old harridans can be."
Anne had not agreed with Mr. Newman about the harridans. She felt she should tell them -- for she could guess whom he meant -- it was all settled and she left Thomas with Mr. Newman after dinner. He did not mind.
She was shown into a pretty drawing room when she presented herself incoherently at the great house and asked to see Her Grace or Mrs. Black. A footman came to collect her a few minutes later. She was then taken into an impressive dining room where only the duchess and Mrs. Black were seated. The footman pulled out a chair for her and evidently she was supposed to take a seat.
Anne sat down hesitantly. She did not know who ought to speak first. A plate was set before her and she wondered why. "No, no, I have eaten," she protested.
"Is there any news?" asked the duchess, who was surprisingly in green.
"Yes, I believe it is settled." Anne stared at her empty plate. She was not going to fill it -- or would it be more polite to do so? "I am sorry I caught you at dinner."
"And in green. Your intended would have a fit. How is he progressing with The Black Witch?"
She was not certain and doubted he had taken it up to read more of it than the title. "I think he prefers The Agricultural Economy."
"That explains his conversance with proposals," the duchess said dryly. "But are we to understand he acquitted himself well this time?"
"It was enough." Anne did not dare to suggest he had acquitted himself very well. The two ladies might find fault with it. "And he embraced me."
The duchess choked on her soup. "I --" She had turned red. "-- do not feel the need to know all the particulars."
"But he said he was afraid to do so because you had told him ladies do not like it." She wondered what had motivated her to reveal such a thing, but it was done now.
"He asked you first before he attempted it and he even said this was because I had said...?"
"He did," Anne confirmed.
"Please spare me the other details," the duchess requested. She still looked and spoke as if something was caught in her throat.
It made Mrs. Black laugh and her amusement reassured Anne, who feared she had revealed something that was too private. "I had better return home," she said. "I have told you about the most important thing."
"The embrace," giggled Mrs. Black.
"Lavinia!" her cousin reprimanded her sharply. "But are you certain you do not wish to eat anything, Miss Cartwright?"
"I am quite certain." She was also certain she did not wish to witness a disagreement between the two cousins. On the matter of embraces they did not appear to think alike. Anne felt encouraged by Mrs. Black's opinion, since she had not disliked it at all.
"And when will you be wed?"
"Er..." Anne had no idea. "He did not say."
"You must see the vicar tomorrow morning," the duchess advised. "If Mr. Newman does not think of it, you must tell him to do so."
Robert had taken Thomas for a brief walk through the neighbourhood, through the churchyard and past the river. He had taken such walks more frequently in the past, he realised with a feeling of guilt, and he did not quite know what to think of his negligence. Thomas was too young to think anything and he was no help. He had never known his mother.
Robert decided at last he was not at all negligent. He thought of the many people who never even wondered. He at least did.
He ran into Miss Cartwright by the river, close to his house. She did not look at all distressed. He would almost say she was skipping. "How did it go?"
"The duchess was in green."
He was not unwilling to take that bait. "It must be her fiftieth birthday."
"Her fortieth, more likely!" she shot back. "She said you must talk to the vicar tomorrow morning."
"I was going to take you there tonight," Robert said good-humouredly. He had had no such plan. "But if Her Grace decrees we must put it off until the morning, so we shall."
"Oh, but..."
He was suddenly wary of the duchess' interfering tendencies. "Does she also have plans to instruct you about the wedding night? Because if she does, I am going to need to reinstruct you."
"I know nothing about wedding nights," said Miss Cartwright, looking afraid. "But it being a night does not make it sound very good."
He gave her his arm. "I know that and until you ask for one or one happens by itself, you will not have one, because I know you are still thinking of that letter that mentioned wicked and lustful passions -- which I told you were solely the writer's problem and not mine."
"I may never forget!"
"You like babies. Of course you will. A little girl?"
The next morning Robert took her to see the vicar. He explained it all, while Miss Cartwright was listening quietly. He was glad he knew she was in agreement, but an outsider might not see that. Fortunately Mr. Finney was not the most critical or skeptical of men. He could only see it as a good thing if two people wished to be married. Perhaps, Robert thought, his character was simply above reproach.
It was arranged easily enough and then he took her outside. "You will not like the banns, I assume. We could go away."
"Where? For three weeks?"
"If we miss the first Sunday, it will be less bad," he predicted. "They will be over their greatest shock on the second -- although how could it be a shock if I told them from the beginning?"
"You did not tell them you would marry me," she pointed out.
"No, but they cannot be too surprised that I now will. They must be relieved to hear you will be saved. Where shall we go?"
"I have nowhere to go."
"I shall arrange something. Go home. I have to do some work. Do you think you could come up with an idea today?"
"No."
"Then you must go with mine." He had an idea. "My mother may want to see you. We could visit her. We would be away and she would see you."
Miss Cartwright looked frightened. "What would she say?"
"I do not know," Robert said truthfully. "I only know what she would say if I did not inform her beforehand."
"Yes, she is your mother, so she would want to know," she said in resignation. "I must bear it."
Chapter Twenty-Four
They travelled in the duchess' carriage, which was comfortable, but it nevertheless still made the trip six hours. Thomas thought it too long. He wanted to crawl and play, but that was not possible. Anne was glad Mr. Newman did his share of the entertaining, because after two hours of trying she was tired and all out of ideas.
Mrs. Newman would not be expecting them. How would she react to their arrival? She might be happy to see her son and grandson, but she would not be prepared. Anne did not think she would live in a grand house. Mr. Newman had not mentioned there might not be space for them, but perhaps his family never cared about such things in advance. Anne's parents had liked to be prepared and her aunt had not liked guests.
Perhaps Mr. Newman merely did not wish to worry her, but he had not speculated at all about his mother's reaction. She would have to see whether such trust was justified. In an ideal world she would be welcomed with open arms, but the world was not ideal. Too much had gone right so far and something must be going wrong soon.
Another sort of duchess would not have condoned their going away -- unmarried without chaperones -- nor would she have lent out her carriage for the purpose. The lack of a chaperone seemed not to matter anymore, although Anne disagreed from a theoretical point of view. In practice, of course, nothing would happen.
"We have arrived." Mr. Newman's voice woke her up.
With a blush she found she had been leaning against him. She sat up straight and looked out. The house in front of which they had stopped was large, larger than the sort of house she had expected Mr. Newman's family would own.
"It is a school," he said.
"Oh."
Servants and girls had come out to greet them and Anne shyly descended from the carriage, hoping they were not looking at her too much. Fortunately she had Thomas on her arm and he was just waking up.
"What have you brought me?" cried one girl, but she was quickly sent away by a woman looking like a teacher.
"Your mother is in her rooms, Mr. Newman," the teacher said. "I shall take you and your family there instantly."
"What am I to tell the girls?" Mrs. Newman asked mildly after she had heard everything. "This is contrary to everything they have been taught. You must be married."
"We shall be," Robert answered. "I told you." He had done his best to explain it as clearly as possible and he had been thinking she had understood. She had greeted Miss Cartwright very kindly too, from her chair because she was not yet able to walk with her broken leg.
"Yes, Robert, you told me. Perhaps you had not considered that I am trying to teach the girls here proper behaviour and that my livelihood depends on my good name. I cannot undo all my efforts by acknowledging that she is not your wife. You must understand how I cannot."
"But what do you propose I do?" He could hardly be married on the spot. He had no licence.
"Pretend she is your wife."
"I do not see how lying is any better than being truthful." He vaguely wondered how his words related to his own gossip. Perhaps he had no business talking.
"My reputation -- the continuation of this establishment -- is at stake. I teach the girls they should never do anything of the sort, because it is wrong and dangerous, yet you will come here and show there are no ill effects of such actions whatsoever."
"I am glad you notice Miss Cartwright has not suffered."
"Please refer to her as Mrs. Newman, thank you. I must not know any other name, so that I may not make a mistake in addressing her."
"Mrs. Newman has not suffered, Mrs. Newman," Robert spoke rather contrarily. His mother was insane and he wondered why Miss Cartwright had been looking as if it all made perfect sense to her.
"My point was, why should the girls continue to listen to me if I speak apparent untruths? They are young. They believe rules exist to make their life as unpleasant as possible. If they see you travelling around with a young woman who is not your wife, they will see no harm in doing the same -- and you may depend upon it that they have not got the sense to choose a good man. You may also depend upon it that their parents hold me responsible for the conduct of my own children, thinking that if I cannot even instill proper principles into them, I could certainly not be trusted with other people's children."
"You would be proud of my conduct -- until this trip, I suppose," Robert said with a little pout.
"I do not doubt it. There was never a grain of wickedness in you. Perhaps that is why you do not understand that other people are different."
"I found out when I advertised for a young nanny. Three people wrote to me to say I was wicked and sinful for wanting to do this and that with her." He hoped such a description would suffice.
"So now you think there are three people in this world who would think such a thing? Or would you believe there might be more, everywhere you go?"
"If you put it like that, they are probably everywhere," Robert said cautiously.
"Therefore, you are here with Mrs. Newman. You will not mind very much, will you?" she asked Miss Cartwright.
"No, Mrs. Newman."
"She looks to have more sense than you do, Robert."
It was odd how all older women seemed to think so. "You must be glad I am getting -- I am married then."
"I am glad I only have one son," said his mother. "Please do not consider me unwelcoming, but without any prior notice from you I can only offer you the dormitory that was recently added on and that is not yet finished. I shall ask Mary to show you the way. It is almost time for dinner."
There were six beds in the new dormitory, but little else. The beds were not even made, although the maid who showed them the way earnestly promised to make them as soon as she could. There was at least running water in a separate room and save for the general emptiness it would do tolerably well.
"I do not suppose my mother will still have a cot," Mr. Newman mused. "My youngest sister will have grown out of it years ago."
"Sister?"
"Yes, if she had only had sons she would never have thought to start a school for girls. My youngest sister was the one who demanded a present. Now I wonder if you thought all my mother's pupils greeted me in such a manner." He looked at the beds. "They will not do for Thomas. Too high."
"No," Anne agreed. They must wait until the maid returned with the linen packages she had promised. Contrary to the pupils, they would not have to make their own beds, but the maid would do it for them. She might know about a cot.
"Are you very distressed by it all?" Mr. Newman asked as he sat down on a bed.
"No, sir." She had not been greeted unkindly by his mother, who certainly seemed to accept her as her son's choice. Nothing had been said about that. She understood how his mother had wanted to settle the other matter as soon as possible, before any damage was done. She had made perfect sense to Anne and even the criticism of her son had been rather good-natured. Mrs. Newman was a schoolmistress, though, and must set him right.
"Despite the fact that we are endangering my mother's reputation?" He spoke mockingly.
"I understand her."
"And she places us in the same dormitory! Which, if the truth were to come out, would be infinitely more damaging than having travelled hither together."
"Then it must not come out," Anne said firmly. "I am resolved not to be troublesome -- and her solution is so much like yours that it almost made me giggle. I was afraid it would make me look flighty, though."
"Flighty and troublesome! You are as troublesome as a ... as a..." He got up to open a window. "It smells too new in here."
"The school must be going well if she could afford to have this built. I do not wonder at her wish to keep it that way." Mrs. Newman would need pupils.
"I say, Mary," he said when the maid returned. "You do not happen to have a cot somewhere?"
"No, sir."
He pushed against one of the beds. It shifted easily. "Then we shall just have to move the beds so Thomas will not fall out. Come, Anne."
Anne followed him back to his mother's room. It was the first time he had said Anne. She had to keep reminding herself that she would soon be married to him, because she could not instantly assume a greater familiarity with him. He had not done so with her either until now. She shifted Thomas onto one arm and grabbed Mr. Newman's sleeve.
He stopped. "Yes?"
"Will you always say Anne now? Or is this because you cannot say Mrs. Newman?"
"I can say Mrs. Newman, but not to a wife." He smiled. "Anne sounds much better -- unless you wish for something as bad as Darling Wife?"
"No, no!" she said hurriedly. "Never, I think. That would sound very mocking indeed."
"Silly, certainly."
"How will you move the beds? There will always be one side open if you move the bed against the wall, so I suppose you meant I should sleep on that side. That can be done, but he cannot be sent to bed before us. N-N-Not," she suddenly stammered, "that we must go at the same time. No, I shall go with him and you need not worry."
"You cannot say it is your job to go with him, not here. We shall see how it goes. Let us now dine with my mother."
Despite her cautious welcome and her often stern looks, Mrs. Newman was not unfriendly. She was merely very committed to her school. Her daughters and the six girls who boarded also sat at the table and they were distracted by both father and son. Anne guessed they did not often have men or small children at their table. Only the presence of Mrs. Newman kept them from giggling overtly.
When some of the girls were reprimanded by their teachers, Anne was glad she had once been to a good school and that her table manners caused no frowns. Mrs. Newman's own daughter-in-law could not set a bad example. She did not suppose Mr. Newman had drawn this same conclusion. He was conversing quietly with a sister.
His sisters were either uncommonly well-mannered or they lived in fear of their mother, for they had not asked a single question about his new wife. There were three of them and she guessed that only the youngest was still a pupil.
After dinner the girls and the teachers retired. They had some free time in their respective sitting rooms and it would finally be question time, Anne feared. Only Mrs. Newman and the two elder Misses Newman remained and the girls half carried their mother into her own sitting room.
"What do you think of the new dormitory, Robert?" his mother inquired when her leg was stretched out comfortably again.
"It looks well done. Will you be taking in new pupils?"
She nodded. "Six more would be possible. I am taking in a few new ones after the next school holidays already. I wrote this to you." She raised her eyebrows because he seemed to have forgotten.
"Well..." He looked away. "I confess I have not read everything I received with the attention it deserved over the past months."
His mother looked as if she had accidentally referred to something uncomfortable. "Yes -- could I hold Thomas? He has grown so big." She had not given her grandson much attention until then, but that did not appear to have sprung from a lack of interest or feeling, for within second she was smiling like a proud grandmother.
Anne received so little attention that she nearly felt slighted. Just when she was beginning to wonder if Mr. Newman's sisters disapproved of her, or if they had simply been brought up not to embarrass guests with too many questions, one of them addressed her.
"You are very quiet."
She did not know what to answer, for she could not imagine anyone in her situation conversing freely as if these people were good acquaintances. Everyone would be quiet.
"But you are very pretty," the girl continued.
That was an even more astonishing comment.
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