Читать книгу Buried Jewellery Box - Reseda Shaykhnurova - Страница 6

At breakfast, Ralph caught his sister’s eye, who winked at him furtively.

“My dear, I was going to pay a visit to Countess Melshem,” said Mrs. Fellows to her husband. “Shall we go together?”

“I am afraid I have business, Rebecca. But you can take Melody with you.”

“No, I cannot go,” said his daughter.

“Why not?”

“Because there has to pass sometime after the incident with Ralph and Georgia before I can meet with her.”

“But it was in no way your fault, dear!”

“I know, Mother, but I will feel awkward anyway.”

“I think it is a reasonable decision, Rebecca,” Mr. Fellows agreed with his daughter. “And you will take notice of the situation there and of our neighbors’ mood.”

“Well, you leave me no choice. Megan, ask the coachman to prepare the carriage.”

“Yes, milady.”

During the rush about their mother’s departure the brother and sister managed to discuss the nuances of the latter’s bath procedures. She promised to be prepared at half past ten and leave the windows curtains open. The barn above the stables was opposite the bathroom on the first floor of the house, so one could look through a crack in the wooden wall of the stable and see a large bath bowl and the one who was taking a bath.

At the appointed time, Megan prepared a bath and asked Miss Fellows to come in. Melody tried not to look in the window, but she did glance a couple of times toward the barn. Her heart was pounding, and she was blushing. According to the legend, she was not aware that Ralph allowed his friend to watch her, so she was supposed to behave naturally. However, she had difficulty doing that, she dropped the soap now and again, so she had to bend over the rim of the bowl. “I suppose he is happy,” she muttered to herself. “I suppose he is sitting and smiling there.”

When Melody had stepped out of the bowl and was looking for a towel to wrap herself in, her father came into the room, wearing an unbuttoned white shirt and rolled up trousers. He froze up in shock, seeing his daughter naked, and she gasped and covered her breasts and crotch with her hands.

“Graham, do not enter!” shouted Mr. Fellows to his valet, who was about to bring in clean underwear and a towel.

The father immediately turned away and muttered crossly as he was leaving, “Tuesday is my day for bath procedures. Was it so hard to discuss the time with me or Graham?”

George Melshem, who was watching the scene, laughed heartily, though he did not hear Henry Fellows’s words.

“I can’t believe you did not want to show her to me undressed!” he said to Ralph. “Unlike you, your father has seen Melody naked, as it turns out.”

Ralph dropped his head dejectedly.

“You could at least show some tact, George,” he replied to his friend grumpily. “I hope that we are even now, and you will continue being friends with my family and me.”

“Of course, I will!” promised the viscount and patted his neighbor’s shoulder.

“Will you keep what happened secret from your sister or anybody else?” asked Ralph, walking with George to the gate.

The earl’s son slyly looked at his friend and slipped through the gate, making no answer.

Returning to the house, Ralph first went see his sister. She was writing something in her diary.

“I thought that you had told Father that you were going to do it in his time!” he said as soon as he entered. “He always takes a bath at eleven o’clock on Tuesdays with a rare exception.”

“I forgot,” said Melody. “You had confused me with your George and his whim!”

“Well, he was pleased.”

“Pleased with this escapade”

“With the escapade and with your body.”

“So, did you make friends?”

“He said so.”

“And what do you think?” insisted his sister.

“I think he does not care for my friendship. It is more likely that we shall stay mere acquaintances.”

“All the better. At least he will not roam around here with no call.”

Ralph sat next to Melody and picked her diary from the bed.

“Give it back!” she told him instantly.

The brother handed her the thing that was so important to her, and the photo of her and her father fell out of it.

“Oh dear! I had forgotten about our trip to Paris.”

“And I remember everything,” said Mary with nostalgia.

“Our mother’s and my daguerreotype did not come out well. I could not stay long in one position,” Ralph laughed.

“You never listened to our parents at all,” his sister said in reproach.

“You almost have not changed, Melody.”

“Just my appearance.”

“You are strange. We used to be close, we used to play and walk together. And now you sit at home like an old maid. Always clinging to your mother’s skirt.”

Melody looked at her brother, as if she wanted to retort, but thought better of it and said nothing.

“So are you going to tell me who he is?” Ralph persisted.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know it.”

“I will not,” answered his sister.

He went down to the sitting room and found his mother and Countess Melshem there.

“Son, you come just in time!” exclaimed Mrs. Fellows. “Be so kind as to go to the kitchen and ask them to bring us tea and cucumber sandwiches.”

“But they have just cleared up after our brunch.”

“That is why we keep servants, my dear, to serve and clean when we demand,” the guest retorted.

The young man said nothing to that, just nodded disapprovingly and proceeded into the kitchen.

When the tea table was set, the two ladies continued the discussion they had started in Melshem Hall.

“I assure you, my friend, he will be glad to marry Georgia!” said Rebecca Fellows. “It is just that he is modest and wanting in initiative. But he is certainly in love with your daughter. What else can explain the fact that no girl in the county was graced with his attention?”

“Perhaps you are right, Becky, but I still want happiness for my Joe. She loves Ralph with all her heart, yet she will not humiliate herself in front of him for the sake of mutuality.”

“Believe me they will make a wonderful couple! Imagine the headline in local newspapers, ‘A promising grandson of Esq. Fellows and a beautiful daughter of Earl and Countess Melshem are to be joined in the most outstanding marriage in Derbyshire’…”

The guest rolled her eyes and smiled contentedly.

“Yes. It will indeed be a wonderful marriage. They are both so beautiful and excellent in society. We should discuss the size of dowry. But I am going to leave it at the mercy of our husbands.”

“I agree,” Mrs. Fellowes was delighted and took a sip of tea.

“What about your Melody?”

“Melody?”

“Does she ever intend to become Lady Melshem?”

“Oh, Fanny, when it comes to her I am not sure of anything,” raising her hands to the sky, Rebecca started complaining. “She does not welcome any local young men’s attentions; she even stays at home most of the time. I am afraid that one day she will announce that she is leaving for the monastery.”

“Your daughter is too pretty for a monastery. Do not allow her to break your dreams!”

“But what can I do? She does not even speak to me sometimes. I do not know what’s on her mind and heart. The only person with whom she shares her secrets is Henry. However, he will never disgrace himself by discussing them with me.”

“George also avoids this topic. But I know that his feelings are hurt. Once he even aggravated Joe to the point that she slapped him on the face.”

“Why?”

“Because he had offended Melody.”

Rebecca Fellows appeared unpleasantly surprised, but she did not try to find out how her friend’s son could hurt her daughter. In a quarter of an hour, she walked the countess to her carriage and then went to her husband’s study to tell him about the plans on their son’s marriage.