Love's Way by Joan Smith

I asked Emily, for the day and hour of his departure had been known for a week.
    “Yes, he did,” she admitted. “I had hoped to come yesterday, but Aunt Hennie had the migraine, and of course it would not do for me to run about the countryside unchaperoned.”
    That she had been doing just that for the past several years caused not so much as a blush to stain her cheeks, the hoyden.
    “Certainly not,” Mrs. Crawford seconded her. “Cousin John would be highly displeased with such unladylike conduct.”
    “We would have been happy to fetch you, Emily, if you had let us know,” I said, with a withering glance which I hope gave the duenna the idea we were not fooled by imaginary migraines.
    “You do keep a carriage, do you?” the brazen woman asked, as though to imply we were of that class that walked through the dust to pay our calls on foot.
    “Yes, ma’am, we do, and both of them happened to be sitting idle yesterday,” I retaliated.
    “As it happened, we were extremely busy all day yesterday with Mr. Gamble’s cartons arriving from India,” was her next sally.
    I expect a little of my interest peeped out at this speech. Nora and I had been conjecturing wildly on this score for several hours.
    “Artworks,” she explained briefly. “Statues, gems, ancient Indian manuscripts. He has brought many scholars back with him, to be employed at the museums and universities.”
    “Meanwhile Edward tells me they are trying to clean up the Hall,” I replied. “How are the tiger and elephant? I do hope they have not made a muddle of the artworks and manuscripts.”
    “Many botanical and zoological specimens of all sorts were brought back, to be studied and examined. They will be happy to receive them in London,” she said with a blighting stare.
    “Exeter Exchange do you mean?” I asked, “to be added to the menagerie there?”
    “John brought me a monkey,” Emily said brightly, having at last found an item of interest that did not appear to have been disqualified by the Tartar.
    “How many scholars did he bring?” Nora asked. She wished to be polite but was bursting with curiosity, like myself.
    “A dozen or so,” Hennie answered. “No doubt vulgar gossip has exaggerated the whole business. I see Grasmere is no different from Windermere. The town whispering about the lord of the village.”
    “There is of course some talk about Lord Carnforth, due to his—illness,” I answered in a sweet tone.
    She bridled up like an angry mare, sparks shooting from her cabbage-green eyes. “I was referring to Cousin John,” she said.
    “You cannot mean to tell me Lord Carnforth has passed away, and we not hearing a word about it!”
    “Certainly not. Gossiping about their betters is what I meant, Miss Barwick. John will soon be the lord of the village,” she explained patiently.
    I opened my mouth to agree that we gossiped about not only our betters but the inhabitants of Carnforth Hall as well, but Nora got in before me. “How is Lord Carnforth?” she asked, in a conciliating spirit. I was left to read her injunction against further rudeness from the manner in which she snapped the mesh out of her netting.
    We listened to an outpouring of imaginary ailments besetting the earl, of which overdrinking made up no part, for ten minutes, at the end of which time I had got my temper under control sufficiently to offer our guests a cup of tea. I could hardly believe my ears when the creature refused! Why on earth had she bothered to pay this call, if only to insult us?
    I did not press her a second time. She did not invite us to call on them at the Hall, nor did I intimate that any second call from Mrs. Crawford would be a joy to us. Throughout the last tense minutes of the call Emily sat like a wind-up doll, receiving and obeying instructions passed silently from her aunt’s green eyes. When the black-mittened hands reached for her reticule, Emily arose and began what was obviously a rehearsed speech.
    “It was