Civility, though, had been preserved. How they had managed it, she and Jasper, she did not know. But she felt somehow as if they had just passed one of the first great tests of their marriage and their position as lord and lady of Cedarhurst.
She could not pretend to be delighted by the unexpected, and uninvited, arrival of three new guests. She could not pretend that she had not been deeply insulted by the words Sir Clarence Forester had uttered out on the terrace. And she could not pretend either that for one shameful moment when Jasper had left her side to stride over to him, she had not hoped he would knock him senseless and evict him from his land without further ado.
But civility had called for better, and they had both risen to the occasion. She was proud of them both.
Katherine forced herself to relax as afternoon turned to evening-especially after she had finally been able to escape to her room to change her dress and repair her appearance. There was really nothing to which Lady Forester and her son could take exception. Almost all the female guests were girls more than young ladies. Almost all the male guests were well below the age of majority and were boys more than men. Even Sir Nathan Fletcher, who was a friend of Stephen’s from university, was only twenty-one. Stephen himself was not quite that.
And the young people were very well chaperoned indeed. The Countess of Hornsby, Mr. and Mrs. Dubois, Uncle Stanley, Miss Daniels, not to mention Jasper and Katherine herself-all of them kept an eye upon their own charges and everyone else’s. No, Lady Forester would have nothing about which to object.
She found something anyway.
It happened in the drawing room after dinner, just before the gentlemen joined the ladies. Someone in the group of young ladies that had gathered about the pianoforte mentioned the fete and the ball. The older ladies were gathered about the fireplace, conversing about something else.
“Mr. Shaw and Mr. Thane,” Hortense Dubois said, “are going to join in the tug-of-war at the fete. I do not know if any of the other gentlemen will find the courage to join them. I can scarcely wait to see it.”
“I would join in myself,” Jane Hutchins said, “if I could be sure of being on the winning side.”
There was a gust of girlish laughter.
“Girls-ladies-are not allowed,” Lady Marianne said, pulling a face. “We might get muddy. Men have all the fun.”
“But just imagine, Marianne,” Araminta Clement said, “losing the pull and being dragged into a mud bath. In one’s best dress.”
“But everyone who is to be in the tug-of-war and in the mud wrestling,” Louisa Fletcher said, “is to bring old clothes to wear. And then, if they get muddy-or when they get muddy if they are wrestling-they are to swim in the lake to clean themselves and change into their good clothes.”
“Not on the bank in full sight of everyone, I hope,” Beatrice Finley said, fanning her face vigorously with a sheet of music.
“Oh, my!” Alice Dubois exclaimed, a hand over her heart. “Perhaps I can persuade Michael to join the tug-of-war.”
There was another flurry of girlish giggles.
“Fete?” Lady Forester said sharply from the other group of ladies. She looked at Katherine. “Fete? What fete?”
Katherine smiled.
“Jasper and I have decided to revive an old tradition of holding an annual summer fete and ball at Cedarhurst,” she explained. “There has not been much time to organize it this year, but everyone for miles around has pitched in to help so we are able to combine it with the celebration of Charlotte’s birthday the day after tomorrow.”
Lady Forester’s bosom had swelled.
“Ball?” she said. “In the ballroom? For girls who are not even out yet?”
It will be the only room large enough,” Katherine said. “All our neighbors will be attending as well as the houseguests. And all ages, too.”
“There cannot be that many people of genteel birth living close enough,” Lady Forester said.
“Everyone has been invited,” Katherine said.
“Everyone?” Lady Forester’s bosom swelled even further. But she was prevented from making any other comment by the arrival of the gentlemen from the dining room.
It was a few minutes before everyone had settled with their tea and Alice Dubois had taken her seat at the pianoforte with her betrothed standing behind her to turn the pages of her music. But as soon as everyone had settled and before the music could begin or any sustained conversation, Lady Forester spoke up again for all to hear.
“Uncle Seth,” she said, “did you realize that instead of a discreet birthday party here the day after tomorrow for dear Charlotte’s birthday, there is to be a fete and a ball?”
“I did not, Prunella,” he said with a scowl. “But thank you for the warning. I shall be sure to spend the day in my room-with the window closed.”
“Everyone is invited,” she said. “Everyone. That includes tenants and laborers and shopkeepers and other such, I presume. And Charlotte is to be allowed to dance in the ballroom during the evening. Surrounded by riff-raff. And there is to be mud wrestling and a tug-of-war over mud. Is this a fitting home for your great-niece and my niece and my dear dead brother’s daughter?”
“Clarrie,” Jasper said pleasantly, “there is room for another man or two on the tug-of-war teams, I believe. I daresay we can find you a place at the back of one of the lines-or at the front if you prefer.”
“Uncle Seth,” Lady Forester said, “my brother banned the annual fete when he married Charlotte’s dear mother. He banned it because it was vulgar. But more than that, it was sinful. He took a moral stand and refused to have Rachel and Jasper and Charlotte exposed to something so wicked.”
“I believe, ma’am,” Jasper said, “you would wish our guests to understand that your esteemed brother had the state of Rachel’s immortal soul in mind and mine when he announced the ban, but not Charlotte’s. It would have been nothing short of scandalous if she had been in existence at the time, just after his marriage to my mother.”
Mr. Dubois laughed aloud, and Mrs. Dubois silenced him with a pointed look. The young ladies all blushed and the young men looked interested.
“For the love of all that is wonderful, ma’am,” Uncle Stanley said, sounding thoroughly exasperated, “what Wrayburn did do with his pious ways was kill all the joy that had ever existed at Cedarhurst and besmirch my brother’s name. All in the name of a god of wrath I would not worship even if he heated up hell ten times over for my benefit.”
“Our papa,” Arnold Fletcher said from the far side of the pianoforte, his voice shaking slightly, “has told us so many grand tales of the Cedarhurst fetes that I can almost imagine that I had been at one. I cannot wait for the day after tomorrow.”
“Katherine and Jasper have worked very hard,” Margaret said quietly, “so that everyone in the neighborhood from the youngest child to the oldest grandparent can have a day of pure enjoyment.”
There was a general murmur of agreement.
“It is too bad, Prunella,” Mr. Wrayburn said, “when a man may not enjoy his after-dinner tea without being talked to and appealed to when he has said that he will make his decision in his own good time and with his own perfectly capable powers of observation. I’ll be damned before I leave home again.”
“Perhaps, Miss Dubois,” Katherine said, “you will play for us now? You always do it so well. And, Jasper, I believe Lady Hornsby and Miss Daniels would like to play cards if there are two gentlemen wishful of joining them. Sir Clarence, perhaps? And Mr. Gladstone? Is anyone ready for more tea?”