Page 34 of The Summer Country

Mrs. Davenant snorted. “I’d hardly call inheriting Peverills making your own way. You’re an heiress, girl, whether you like it or not.”

“The house . . .” put in Adam.

“Eh.” Mrs. Davenant waved that aside. “A house is a house is a house. The land is rich, always has been. Those Peverills knew what they were doing when they staked their claim to those acres. It won’t take much to put it right again. But it will take money. Money for equipment, money for hands. You haven’t any jewels to sell, have you?”

Emily touched the plain oval locket at her throat, the other half of her legacy from her grandfather, worth less in coin but twice as valuable. “I could borrow the money, couldn’t I? With the plantation as security.”

“You could,” said Mrs. Davenant. “If you want to lose it. You can’t trust those moneylenders. Leeches, all of them. They’ll suck the life out of you and then take your land once you’ve been bled dry. I’ve seen it happen before. I have a better suggestion for you. Sell me the southeast parcel. Use the money from that to cultivate the rest.”

“Or you could just sell the whole thing,” offered Adam, “and come back to Bristol.”

To sit in Aunt Millicent’s parlor and wind wool? Emily couldn’t think of anything she would like less. To Mrs. Davenant, she said, carefully, “I wouldn’t want to alienate any of the land until I had a better sense of the workings of the whole.”

“Right now, the whole is rotting,” said Mrs. Davenant. “And will continue to do so unless you expend some considerable funds. Would you consider leasing the parcel?”

“I would have to consult my agent in Bridgetown.” That is, if she had an agent in Bridgetown. Mr. Turner, she knew, had served as her grandfather’s agent in any matter of things, but that arrangement wouldn’t necessarily extend to her. It would, however, give her an excuse to return to the Turner household. She wondered if Dr. Braithwaite would be in residence.

“Agents.” Mrs. Davenant dismissed the breed with a tilt of her glass. She was drinking claret, not lemonade, although Emily noticed she only sipped sparingly. “In my day, such matters were dealt with between gentlemen.”

“As we are?” said Emily, rather liking the notion. “There’s just one problem. I don’t know enough to even begin to discuss terms.”

“Ah, well. It was worth an attempt,” said Mrs. Davenant, unabashed. She raised her glass to Emily. “That’s the first challenge. Admitting what you don’t know. You would be surprised at how few can manage it.” She looked pointedly at her grandson, who pulled a face in response.

Emily did her best to swallow her smile. “I am very sensible of my ignorance. But I’m a quick study.”

“Speak to your agent. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.” Mrs. Davenant stood, abruptly signaling the end of the meal. “George, why don’t you show Mr. and Mrs. Fenty our garden. There are views clear to the ocean if you stand in the right spot. Miss Dawson, you’ll come with me.”

Adam looked over his shoulder in surprise as his chair was magically pulled back for him. Saving face, he said importantly, “We do have an evening engagement in Bridgetown. At the governor’s house.”

“Those are always a sad crush. That Colebrooke sends a card to every stray who wanders off the wharves.” Having rendered Adam speechless, Mrs. Davenant added magnanimously, “Don’t worry. I’ll get her back to you in plenty of time. Go along now.”

“The gardens are lovely,” said Mr. Davenant. Emily began to understand why he so frequently sounded as though he were apologizing. He was in the habit of it. Taking charge of Laura and Adam, he led them through yet another arch in the middle of the far wall. “Do you sketch, Mrs. Fenty?”

Mrs. Davenant took Emily by the arm, marching her in the other direction, back through the great room. “You have to be direct with men. They have no truck with subtleties. You don’t favor your grandfather.”

Emily was beginning to get used to her abrupt changes of topic. “I look very like my father.”

Mrs. Davenant eyed her sideways, taking the measure of her features, the soft, mid-brown hair, the hazel eyes that were more brown than green. “Is he also from Barbados?”

“Yorkshire.” It was strange how exotic it sounded here, in this large, light-filled room. The moors and mists of her father’s childhood home might have been something out of a novel by Currer Bell. “But my father has served for some years as the minister of a parish in Bristol.”

A very poor parish in Bristol. That had been by choice, not chance. Her father’s convictions would suffer nothing more. Had not the Lord himself gone among the poor? Although sometimes Emily suspected it was less a matter of conviction and more that her father simply didn’t notice such things. He would eat mutton as happily as beef.

Her grandfather had raged at his daughter throwing herself away on a penniless clergyman, a clergyman, no less, with no ambition for the higher orders, content to serve in the poorest section of the city. But her mother had never wavered. It was a story Emily had loved to hear as a child, how her mother had held fast in the face of all opposition.

“And what does the Reverend Mr. Dawson think of his daughter gadding halfway across the world?”

“He gave me his blessing.” Never mind that her father’s blessings were extended easily and broadly. And that he had, now, other interests. No, she wouldn’t think about that. Not now. Not here. “He raised me to know my own mind.”

Mrs. Davenant emitted a distinctly unladylike snort. “No one really expects a woman to know her own mind. You’ll find that out soon enough if you try to take Peverills in hand. Every man jack of them in Bridgetown will pat you on the head and try to make your decisions for you.”

They had stopped at the end of the great room, where a rectangular opening led into a small room containing several beautifully made bookshelves and a tall and narrow desk bristling with pigeonholes.

Emily looked at Mrs. Davenant, imposing and imperious in black taffeta. It was impossible to imagine her being patted on the head, at least not if the offending party wanted to keep his hand. “But you managed it.”

“I married.” Something about the way she said it forbade further comment. “What are you doing standing there? Come into my office. Oh yes, this is my office. I send George out to supervise the day-to-day running of the thing, but all the paperwork comes back to me.”

Not just the paperwork. There was, Emily saw, a door that led to the veranda, a private entrance. And, next to it, a spyglass on a brass stand.