My dear Philippa,
I’m afraid we can’t make it to Town this year, given my condition. Won’t you visit us in Norfolk once the season ends? My sister-in-law, Caroline, would be most glad of the company, and Sir Roland’s estate is lovely in full summer. There are Roman ruins nearby. I think you’ll find the environs amenable to your favorite pastimes of wandering and daydreaming.
Bring Eliza if you like. It might do her good.
Yours, etc.
Margaret
IF SIR ROLAND FARNSWORTH was a snail, Eliza decided his sister Caroline was a jaybird. A bossy, fluttering nuisance of a young woman with a squawking voice and a sharp, beak-like nose. It was easy to understand why Margaret had been so desperate for company here in Norfolk.
“Pippa! Liza! Over here.” With a flapping hand, Caroline called them over to a hedgerow that bordered the lane. “Bring your baskets. Don’t dawdle.”
Once again, Eliza found herself envying her sisters. Margaret had the excuse of being round with child and needing a quiet rest at the house. Clever Philippa had brought along a book as a portable means of diversion. Meanwhile, Eliza toiled at Caroline’s whim.
“This one’s just bursting with fruits,” Caroline said. “And they’re just the right amount of squidgy.” She arched her eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
Eliza didn’t know what she meant. Not at all. Caroline was always making strange innuendos that Eliza supposed were intended to sound worldly or witty, but just made no logical sense.
“Do come along then, Liza.”
Eliza obeyed, tromping heavily through the ankle-high grass. She wore a thin sprigged muslin frock and lightweight nankeen half boots, but the ridiculous sunbonnet on her head weighted her every step. A “gift” from Caroline, it had the circumference of a cartwheel, and narrow ribbon ties that kept choking her. Eliza had tried to refuse it, but Caroline had remarked with another pointed eyebrow that she would not send home a be-freckled Miss Cade—if Eliza knew what she meant.
It meant Eliza was stuck with the bonnet. For now. All afternoon, she’d been dreaming up ways to lose it. But there weren’t any handy ponds or streams. The breeze wasn’t strong enough to blow it away (hurricane-force gales would be needed for that). And one never could cross paths with an enraged goose or hungry goat when one desperately wanted to.
“Mind the thorns.” Caroline stood back while Eliza bent to pick gooseberries from the hedgerow. “And I say, Pippa—do put away your reading and join us. Books belong in libraries, dear.”
“Berries belong on bushes.” Eliza divorced a fat gooseberry from its stem. “Yet here we are.”
Caroline didn’t try to engage that argument. “I hear that Lord Brentley will soon be returning to Suthermarsh. That is cause for excitement.”
“Is it?”
Caroline laughed in a superior way. “Oh, my dear Liza. Excitement indeed! I’m sure I don’t know any gentleman Lord Brentley’s equal. So handsome. Margie must invite him for dinner at the first opportunity, and you may see for yourself. Pippa, I warrant he’ll pull your nose out of that book…if you know what I mean.”
Eliza couldn’t restrain herself. “No one calls her Pippa. No one calls our sister Margie. And no one calls me ‘Liza,’ either.”
“Well, I do.” Caroline gave Eliza’s ear a tweak. “Because we’re going to be the best of friends, we three. And you must call me Caro.”
Must we?
To keep from saying it aloud, Eliza plucked a berry from the bush and popped it straight into her mouth. The tart-sweet burst of juice made her whole face pucker.
“Ah! Oh help!”
The outburst came from Philippa. In her intense devotion to literature, she’d snagged herself on the hedgerow.
“Don’t move,” Eliza told her, setting down her basket and hurrying to help. “These thorns are nefarious. Is it your sleeve that’s caught? Or your shawl?”
“I…” She winced. “Neither, I fear. It seems to be my arm.”
“Oh, no.” Eliza craned her neck and gingerly pushed aside the branches to view the wound. She sucked in her breath through her teeth. “Oh, Philippa. However did you manage this?”
A formidable thorn nearly two inches long had snagged the soft flesh at the back of her sister’s arm. What unhappy luck. If she’d only met the needle head-on, she would have recoiled with a mere prick or scratch. But the angle was such that the thorn had burrowed straight under the skin like a splinter. The hedge had her skewered most viciously.
When Eliza so much as touched the branch, Philippa cried out in pain.
“What is it?” Caroline asked, flitting about in a state of panic. “What’s happened? Oh, I told you to leave that book.”
“There’s no need to panic,” Eliza said calmly, pulling the small pair of shears from her apron pocket. “I’ll just snip you free. Then we’ll see about removing it.”