A Chance Encounter

  A Chance Encounter

  Mary Balogh

  Mary Balogh

  A Chance Encounter

  Chapter 1

  Mr. Frederick Soames, bailiff of Ferndale Manor, spent no more than an hour in the town of Granby one morning. He spent half of that time at the blacksmith's forge having his horse shod and the other half in the road outside the rectory exchanging civilities with the Reverend Claridge. Yet that short visit furnished the townspeople and the families of the surrounding countryside with enough food for gossip to keep them all happy for a week.

  Mr. Mainwaring was finally coming to take up residence in the manor that had been willed to him on the death of his uncle more than a year previously. The blacksmith told the innkeeper and the innkeeper told the butcher, who told everyone who came to his shop to purchase their meat supplies, that the master was coming for a lengthy stay, the Season in London being over for another year. He was to be expected within the next week or ten days.

  The vicar told his wife, who told all her lady acquaintances, that the housekeeper at Ferndale had been given the most intriguing instructions. She was to open up and prepare not only the master bedroom, but several guest chambers as well. It appeared that Mr. Mainwaring was not coming alone.

  During the week of excited anticipation, Ferdie Worthing, only son of the squire, Sir Harold Worthing, basked in sudden and unexpected fame. Ferdie was young and good-natured, but not particularly handsome or intelligent or talented. On this occasion, though, he had a distinct advantage over all his social peers: he knew Mr. Mainwarjng.

  Of course, Ferdie did not really know the man. He had seen him twice from a distance the previous winter when a former university crony had invited him to London for a two-week visit. William Mainwaring had been pointed out to him one afternoon at a race meet, and Ferdie had taken a good look because he had recognized the name as that of the new owner of Ferndale. He had also glimpsed the man at church one Sunday morning from a distance of eight or nine pews back.

  His acquaintance with his new neighbor was, therefore, very slight. But it was enough to catapult him into the limelight when no one else near Granby knew whether to expect an infant or an octogenarian, a gargoyle or an Adonis.

  "The fellow's regular top-of-the-trees," Ferdie told Mrs. Claridge and Miss Anne Claridge when his sister, Lucy, had persuaded him to escort her on a visit to the rectory one afternoon. "His tailor must be Weston, without a doubt. Looks as if he must have been poured into his coats." Ferdie sounded wistful.

  "Is he a young gentleman?" Mrs. Claridge asked.

  Ferdie considered. "Thirtyish, ma'am, at a guess," he replied.

  Anne sighed. "And is he handsome, Ferdie?" she asked, getting to the important point.

  "Great tall, dark fellow," Ferdie said. "He's well enough, Anne."

  She gazed at him worshipfully.

  The following afternoon saw Mrs. Claridge and Anne at the home of Mr. Thomas Rowe, gentleman farmer, two miles outside town. Anne and Cecily Rowe were bosom friends and spent a great deal of time together exchanging confidences, Mrs. Claridge and Mrs. Rowe visited only when there was significant gossip to be exchanged. The occasion did not arise nearly as often as either of them oould have wished.

  “Well, I declare, it will be most gratifying to have Mr. Mainwaring in residence at last," Mrs. Rowe told the room at large. "I have always said it is a sad shame to have a large estate like Ferndale standing empty for so long, have I not, Cecily?"

  "Yes, indeed, Mama," her daughter agreed obediently.

  "Ferdie Worthing says that Mr. Mainwaring is young and handsome and quite top-of-the-trees," Anne Claridge said to Cecily.

  "Yes, Ferdie would say that," Cecily said unkindly. "He has been quite insufferable ever since he spent those weeks in London last year. It is amazing he did not claim to have been quite intimate with Mr. Mainwaring."

  "You are being unkind, love," said Elizabeth Rossiter, Cecily's governess-turned-companion, looking up from her embroidery. "It sounds to me as if Mr. Worthing has merely provided information that we have all been longing to hear."

  Cecily shot her a cross glance. "As usual, you are probably right, Beth," she sighed.

  "It is high time Mr. Mainwaring came to the manor," Mrs. Rowe said, nodding sagely. "I always tell Mr. Rowe that we are so dull here in the country that we might as well not bother to dress and set an elegant table. When there is any entertainment, we see the same faces and the same gowns over and over again."

  "Do you really think there will be balls and parties at Ferndale, Mama?" Cecily asked eagerly. "Oh, I do hope Mr. Mainwaring brings a whole pile of young men with him."

  Elizabeth Rossiter gave her charge a speaking glance, but that young lady was so enraptured with the mental image she had of herself glittering in the midst of an admiring group of eligible young men, that she did not notice.

  "Papa is going to call on Mr. Mainwaring the moment he arrives," she said finally to Anne. "I was dreadfully afraid he would not, that he would say it was not his business to pay social calls on newcomers, but he told us he would at dinner last evening, did he not, Beth?"

  Elizabeth inclined her head.

  "He says that Mama and I should not go because Mr. Mainwaring seems to be a single gentleman, but if he brings house guests and some of them are ladies, then perhaps we may call, Papa says."

  "Yes, my papa means to call, too," Anne said, not to be outdone. "The front pew is kept for the master of Ferndale, you know. Papa wonders if Mr. Mainwaring will want new cushions for the seat."

  The topic of conversation in the Rowes' drawing room did not change even after the Claridge ladies had left. In fact, little else had been talked about for two days past. Mrs. Rowe already had Cecily all but betrothed to the unsuspecting Mr. Mainwaring.

  "It stands to reason, my dear," she said to Elizabeth, "that if he is still not married after living in London and Brighton, he just does not like the ladies of the ton. They are too starchy and artificial for him, you may be bound. He will find a country girl refreshing. And Cecily is excessively pretty, you must admit."

  "Oh, indeed I do," Elizabeth replied gravely, trying to hide the amusement she was feeling, "but I should not get my hopes up too high, ma'am. We do not know that he is an agreeable man or, indeed, for sure that he is not married."

  "I do not think he can be, my dear," Mrs. Rowe said. "Soames would surely have told the vicar if there were a Mrs. Mainwaring."

  Elizabeth bowed her head in acquiescence.

  "Cecily," her mother said briskly, "tomorrow we shall go to Miss Phillips and have her make you some new gowns. We cannot have the London visitors thinking us country bumpkins. It is most provoking, indeed, that your papa will not take us to Bath to a more fashionable modiste, but he always says that forty miles is too great a distance to travel merely for trifles."

  “Mama, shall I have a new ball gown?" Cecily cried. “And a fashionable one, too?"

  "Yes, yes, my love," her mother agreed. "You are eighteen years old this year, and I cannot see that Mr. Rowe will ever agree to a Season for you. We will have to make the best of our opportunities."

  Mrs. Rowe, who had risen from her chair to pace excitedly about the room, suddenly stopped and turned to her employee.

  "Indeed, my dear Miss Rossiter," she said kindly, "you must accompany us and order some new gowns as well. It would also do you a great deal of good to meet Mr. Mainwaring and his friends. You are a gentlewoman, for all that you have been in our employ for six years. Now that Cecily is growing up, you should be thinking of returning to your own proper station. I am sure you could still make a quite respectable marriage if you applied yourself."

  "It is very kind of you to say so, ma'am," Elizabeth said, rising decis
ively to her feet and folding her embroidery into her work bag, "but lam in the sort of position in which I belong. And I have no wish to marry. Come, Cecily, love, it is time to go to your room to get ready for dinner. You know your papa does not like it when you are I.ile."

  Elizabeth escorted Cecily to her room, rang for her maid, and retired to her own room to get ready for dinner. She too was to dine with the family, as she had done for the past year, since Cecily was declared too old for the schoolroom and the governess's title was changed to that of companion. Even before that, Elizabeth had frequently been asked to dine. Mrs. Rowe was very conscious of the fact that the governess had been born a lady and that only straitened circumstances had forced her to seek employment. She had tried for all of the six years to treat Elizabeth as a friend rather than as an employee. The governess had gently but firmly resisted. She had been quite determined, in fact, to leave the house and seek a position elsewhere once Cecily no longer needed her, but Mrs. Rowe had pleaded so convincingly that her daughter needed a companion to restrain her wilder impulses that Elizabeth had agreed to stay for another few years.

  Elizabeth Rossiter was six and twenty years old. She looked the part of a governess as she dressed for dinner without the help of a maid. The gray cotton dress, with its high, unadorned neckline and long, fitting sleeves, was changed for an evening dress that was almost identical except that the fabric was silk. She loosened her long chestnut hair, which was tied in a severe knot at the back of her neck, brushed it until it shone and crackled against the hard bristles of the brush, and arranged it in the same style. The face that looked back at her from the mirror was calm. There was no self-pity in the look.

  Elizabeth had been considered an exceptionally beautiful girl when she made her come-out in London at the age of twenty. Not pretty, but beautiful. The fact that she had spent five years running her father's home after the death of her mother had given her a maturity that many other debutantes lacked. She had acquired a dignity in face of the difficulties of her situation. Her father had been frequently in his cups; he held gambling parties in his country home and was often beset by creditors. Through it all, Elizabeth had tried to run the house as if it were a home for the sake of John, her younger brother. But when John, under the sponsorship of his godfather, had gone to Oxford, Elizabeth had finally given in to the frequent pleadings of Lady Crawford, her maternal aunt, and had gone to London to be introduced to the ton.

  Things might have gone well for her there. She had made friends, she had had admirers, her engagement calendar had constantly been filled. Aunt Matilda had been hopeful of her making a good match despite her lack of fortune. Elizabeth often wondered what might have happened had she not met Robert, but, of course, such thoughts were useless conjecture. She had met Robert and fallen in love with him and… But she had trained herself over the long years not to think of that episode in her life.

  The fact was that even before the end of the Season she had been back in the country with her father and that within a year he had been dead. No one had been more surprised than she to discover that her father had left no debts. Even so, the estate was impoverished, and bringing it back to prosperity would be a long and tedious business tor her brother, who was still only eighteen years old. A jood bailiff had been hired to reverse the neglect of years, while John finished his studies at university. Elizabeth had reached the decision to seek employment and had found a position with the Rowes in the West Country. John had been upset and, in fact, had constantly tried to persuade her to resign her position and to move back home. But 1'lizabeth had been adamant. She would never marry- her experience in London had assured that. And she would not burden her brother with her presence. She had been glad of her decision when John married at the age of two and twenty and a child arrived the following year. She was delighted, too, to know that the estate, though still not prosperous, was beginning to pay its way.

  Elizabeth descended to the dining room when the bell sounded, and spent the next hour listening, in some amusement, to Mrs. Rowe rhapsodizing about the expected pleasures of the coming weeks.

  "So you think our new neighbor will soon be riveted to Cecily, do you, my love?" Mr. Rowe asked, chuckling at the blush that immediately brightened his daughter's cheeks.

  "Papa!" Cecily cried. "I do not even know if I shall like him. I do not even know that he is handsome, though Ferdie says he is."

  "What does that signify if he has the handsome fortune that I have heard he has?" her father replied with a twinkle.

  "Well," Cecily said doubtfully, "but I should hate it, Papa, if he were positively ugly."

  "Depend upon it, my love, if he is wealthy, he is probably handsome too," Mrs. Rowe comforted.

  Mr. Rowe chuckled. "Is it not a blessing, Miss Ross-iter," he commented, "that our country is not ruled by a woman's logic?"

  She smiled. "Ah, but it is a woman's romantic view of life that keeps it from becoming dull," she replied.

  "Then we must look for a duke, at least, to be part of the Ferndale party," Mr. Rowe said, directing his attention back to his plate again, "for you, of course, Miss Rossiter. Who could be more romantic than a Cinderella figure?"

  "That would be very fine," she agreed gravely, "but we should have to prevail upon Mrs. Rowe and Cecily to conspire to keep me busy in my rags so that I could not attend the ball."

  "But it is your idea not to have anything to do with elegant company, my dear," Mrs. Rowe interjected. "I would like nothing better than for you to meet a duke. The idea of my trying to prevent such a match! Is there to be a duke as a member of the party, Mr. Rowe?"

  Her husband smiled fleetingly at his plate, but directed at his wife a secretive look that raised her curiosity and anticipation of the proposed arrivals to near-fever pitch.

  ---

  The topic of Mr. Mainwaring and his anticipated arrival had hardly begun to flag one week later when it was given a reviving boost. The ostler of the Granby inn told the butcher, who as usual told all comers for the rest of the day, that two grand traveling carriages had stopped at the inn to ask directions to Ferndale. The first carriage had apparently been carrying passengers, though they had not been obliging enough to step down and be counted. The second was loaded down with trunks and bandboxes. Two gentlemen riders had accompanied the carriages, both dressed in the height of fashion. Indeed, it was one of these gentlemen who had asked directions of the innkeeper.

  Mrs. Rowe had to live with her impatience for two whole days before her husband made the promised call on the new arrivals. Her only consolation was that the other gentlemen of the neighborhood would be feeling similar scruples about descending too early on the new owner of Ferndale. Mrs. Claridge would surely have found an excuse to call if she had had any information, and Lady Worthing would have found a more subtle way of informing her supposed inferiors if she knew anything of the identities of the visitors.

  No soldier marching into battle has been more lovingly sent on his way by his womenfolk than was Mr. Rowe when he departed for Mr. Mainwaring's house. He was sent back upstairs once to change his coat because the first one was too loose for current fashion. He complied with his wife's demands with an amused indulgence and pinched his daughter's chin as he made his escape to his waiting horse.

  Mrs. Rowe and Cecily jumped to their feet in unrestrained excitement when he strolled into the drawing room a little less than two hours later, and Elizabeth smiled up at him from her embroidery.

  "Well, Cecily," he began, "it seems that your mama is right again. Mr. Mainwaring is, in fact, both young and handsome."

  "Oh, Papa," Cecily squealed.

  "I am so gratified that you went today to pay your respects," his wife added ecstatically. "I vow that you must have stolen a march on Squire Worthing, which is only as it should be, my second cousin Harriet being sister-in-law to an earl."

  "No one in his right mind would argue that that connection gives us a position of undisputed superiority in the county, my love," her husband re
plied indulgently, "but Worthing was there before me, with Ferdie in tow."

  "How provoking!" said Mrs. Rowe. "But do tell all, my dear Mr. Rowe. What manner of man is Mr. Mainwaring, and who are his guests? Will they feel it a condescension to associate with us? Or are they prepared to join in the social activities of the neighborhood? Oh, depend upon it, Lady Worthing will have them all to dine before we can make plans. She will be pushing that pasty little Lucy at him, mark my words, though the chit is only seventeen and much too young to be setting her cap at a gentleman from town. But then, Lady Worthing always did lack something of breeding. Father a cit, you know, Miss Rossiter."

  "Am I to answer your questions now, my love?" Mr. Rowe asked meekly. "The gentleman of the house is tall, dark, and handsome, Cecily-definitely the answer to a maiden's dreams, I believe. He might be difficult to bring to the point, though, love," he added as Cecily clasped her hands to her bosom and gazed adoringly at him. "His manners are quite correct, but there is a certain stiffness about the man. He is not perfectly amiable, I would guess."

  Cecily seemed quite unperturbed. If a man were tall, dark, handsome, wealthy, and single, what more could a girl ask for?

  "It seems that there are two more gentlemen and two ladies at the house," her father continued, "though I met only a Mr. and Mrs. Prosser, a youngish and perfectly amiable couple. Mrs. Prosser's sister is also of the party, we were told, and another mysterious gentleman, whom I heard referred to only as 'his lordship.' There, my dear, have I not made you happy today? Your family has been put upon visiting terms with our new neighbor, I have discovered the answers to many of your questions, and I have left you with an intriguing mystery."

  "'His lordship,'" Mrs. Rowe repeated. "We have a member of the aristocracy in our midst. Now I wonder if he is a handsome man."

  "He is probably a hunchback with a squint and not a groat to his name," her husband suggested with a straight face.