Chapter 35

Despite Rufus’s oft-expressed qualms, Mr. Smith proved as good as his word. Within the week, he had presented Belle with a detailed plan for the restoration of the estate, upon which—from the deep circles beneath his eyes—he had clearly worked all night, perhaps several nights. With Rufus’s help, they refined it, prioritising the few remaining tenants, the farm, and the acquisition of essential servants only, someone to help Tom in the stables, a housekeeper, and a maid, so that Hannah could focus on her beloved kitchen. The house interior would be a longer-term project, but they could at least create some liveable spaces within it, and Mr. Smith had drawn up a list of reputable local craftsmen to help with the roof. The main problem, however, remained the ivy, since any repair work would be futile while it continued to dig itself into the masonry. Belle, of course, did not want it destroyed, but it was going to take a small army of gardeners to rein it in. In the end, it was Rufus who suggested they borrow some from Valentine—enough, at least, to wrestle the ivy, dredge the moat, and restore some semblance of order to the courtyard and kitchen garden.

“I hate this idea,” Belle said, as she walked with Rufus to the stables.

“I know, dear heart. But it’s our best option.”

She also hated that it was their best option. “You must not be grateful. Not even a little bit.”

Annoyingly, Rufus laughed. “How am I to do that? ‘Valentine, may I have the assistance of some of your gardening staff, for I’m sure you are able to spare some? Oh, I can, how wonderful, now fuck you’?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“You don’t think that might perhaps induce him to rescind his gardeners?”

“Bonny would not allow him to.”

“I would still prefer to deal with him in a broadly reasonable fashion, if you can live with that.”

Belle considered the matter. “ Probably I can live with it.”

“If it helps,” suggested Rufus, smiling, like any of this was amusing , “I will impress upon him very severely the consequences of his negligence.”

“How severely?”

“I just told you: very severely.”

“No, but very is such a subjective term. What you think of as very I might think of as averagely .”

There was an expression she had noticed that Rufus got sometimes when they were talking. A certain crinkling around the eyes. A softness of the mouth. As though he was smiling with everything but his lips. Belle was not sure what to make of it. She just knew it was hers, somehow. In any case, he was wearing it now.

“How’s this for a measure of severity?” he asked, contorting his face into an unconvincing glower.

“Disappointing.”

“My words, then, will cut him as diamonds to glass.”

“Will they, though?”

He sighed. “Bellflower, you will have to forgive Valentine at some point.”

“I’m forgiving him all the time ,” she protested. “He just keeps on doing things that upset me.”

“And your good opinion once lost is lost forever?”

Now it was her turn to sigh. “It’s not that. It’s more that I can like Valentine for how much he loves Bonny, and how happy he makes him, and dislike him for everything else at the same time.”

“Would it not be easier to embrace the first and let go of the second?”

“Not at all.” Her eyes widened. “You see, Rufus, something you have to understand about me is that I’m very talented at disliking people and can do it in all sorts of circumstances that others might find discouraging.”

Laughing, he took her hand and kissed it—something else he did so often and so easily, she wondered if he even noticed anymore, or if it was an oddly charming habit to him. “I celebrate all your talents.”

Tom was waiting for them in the forecourt, with a horse already saddled for Rufus.

“You will ride safely, won’t you?” Belle said.

“I will,” he promised. “I’ll even wrap up warm while I do.”

She leaned in and prodded his shoulder. “Well, forgive me for caring that you don’t break your neck and die in a ditch.”

Before he could answer—which she was sure he would do sarcastically—they spotted a horse and buggy coming along the carriageway towards them.

“After the ivy,” Rufus remarked, watching the harried driver ducking and weaving through the branches, “we must do something about the road. It’s a death trap.”

“It could be a blessing in disguise. Think of how it will discourage unwanted visitors.”

“What about wanted visitors?”

She wrinkled her nose. “ Are there any visitors we want?”

“Yes. Our friends and lovers. The people we wish to work on the estate.”

It felt strange ... nice ... strange ... to hear him speak so readily and so nonchalantly of the future, when he had not wanted such a future with her at all.

At last, the cart rolled to a halt before them, and the driver—a no-nonsense, rough-set man—climbed down. He moved almost immediately to remove his cargo, which turned out to be a large basket from which slight movement and gentle snufflings emerged.

“Miss Tarleton?” he asked, arms full of basket.

Belle, who was a big fan of surprises, stepped forward. “Mrs. Yes. Is that for me?”

“Aye. Here’s the note.” Laying the basket at her feet with a muffled oof , the man produced a crumpled scrap of paper from the interior pocket of his coat.

“What is it?” Rufus was not a big fan of surprises, and thus his tone was suspicious.

Unfolding the page, Belle read it quickly. “It’s from Uncle Wilbur. It says, ‘Congratulations on your marriage. Wishing you every happiness.’ And then an ink splodge and a coffee stain. He’s not a wordy person.”

“You mean”—Rufus eyed the now increasingly animated basket—“this is a wedding present?”

“I think so.”

Crouching down, Belle tugged off the lid, peered inside, and burst into tears.

Behind her, Rufus made an appalled noise. “Oh my God, what’s wrong? Did he send you something awful?”

“No,” she sobbed, “he sent me something beautiful .” She reached into the basket and drew out a glossy black piglet, who settled comfortably into her arms, its bright gaze darting about with eagerness and curiosity. “Look.”

Rufus took a step back, apparently concerned he was going to be made to hold a pig. Which just went to show what he knew because Belle wasn’t going to let just anyone cuddle her pig. Cuddling pigs was a privilege, not a right. “Yes,” he said. “I am looking. That’s a pig.”

“Not just any pig. This is one of Boudica’s children.” She squeezed the little piglet tighter, though not in a way that would make it uncomfortable. “Boudica is my uncle’s prize sow. She’s the fattest pig in Surrey.”

“Congratulations to her?”

“Very much congratulations to her. It is a great accomplishment. She is also very intelligent. Her favourite plays are Restoration comedies, especially the work of Aphra Behn.”

“Are you sincerely telling me you spent your childhood reading Restoration comedies to a pig?”

“Of course not.” Belle tossed her hair. “Boudica and I read lots of plays.” Adjusting the piglet in her arms, where it seemed perfectly content to nestle, as long as it could see about it, she looked up at Rufus. “What are we going to call her?”

“Boudica Strikes Back? Revenge of Boudica? Boudica II: Candlelight Boogaloo.”

These suggestions, Belle simply ignored as they deserved. “She needs her own identity, Rufus.”

“Of course she does.”

She narrowed her eyes at her husband. “I do not think you are taking our pig seriously.”

“Our pig?” he repeated, his expression briefly unreadable. Then he came forward and tentatively reached out a hand to stroke the piglet’s head. “Does it—does she like this?”

“Oh yes. Pigs are very affectionate. They don’t always like being picked up, but I suspect she’s a bit tired from her journey and overwhelmed by being somewhere new.”

The man who had delivered her cleared his throat pointedly.

“I’m so sorry,” cried Belle, recalled to her duties. “Thank you so much for coming all this way.” She turned to Tom, who had been patiently standing by Rufus’s horse during all the porcine excitement. “Can you take this gentleman to the kitchen, please, so he can rest and refresh himself? And ask Mr. Smith if there’s anything we can give him for his trouble.”

When Tom and the newcomer had departed for the house, Rufus resumed his cautious petting of the piglet. “Lady of the manor suits you.”

For some reason, this left Belle oddly flustered. “Do you think so?”

“I do. Have you thought of a name for our pig yet?”

“It should be a noble name. A name for a warrior and a queen.”

“?thelfl?d?” suggested Rufus.

And Belle smiled up at him giddily because Rufus’s mind in action was a wonderful thing. “Oh, that’s perfect.” She gave ?thelfl?d another squeeze. “Just like you, ?thelfl?d. Do you like that? ?thelfl?d?”

?thelfl?d definitely liked that.

“Look how pink her nose is,” said Belle. “Isn’t that just the loveliest thing?”

“Well”—it was Rufus’s driest voice—“at least I need not worry about you lacking for companionship while I’m gone.”

The truth was, Belle would miss him, but she was too embarrassed to say so in case it sounded clingy or gauche or wrong or presumptuous or too much or any number of things that were bad somehow. “When will you be back?”

“Three days? Five at most? Six if I visit any rare booksellers.”

“I shall expect you in six then.”

“Very well, then.” He swung himself effortlessly onto the waiting horse. “Be good, Mrs. Tarleton.”

“What, me?”

“Well, try to cause only a manageable amount of drama and chaos.”

“I promise, Mr. Tarleton.”

He paused for a moment, reins in hand, looking down at her. Again, something unreadable crossed his face. Not quite a frown. Ambiguously thoughtful. “I’ll miss you,” he said.

Before she had a chance to reply, he had urged his horse into motion and was away, leaving her somewhat confused and cuddling a pig.

Life at Swallowfield continued in its busy turbulent fashion, so Belle should not have felt Rufus’s absence too keenly. It caught her mostly in the evenings, when she had grown accustomed to him simply being there, whether he was doing something with her or not. Her closest point of comparison was growing up with Bonny, when, despite their aunt and uncle’s care, they had often felt as though they had only each other. Their world was limited and unsatisfying—contained too much pain—so they had created new worlds for themselves and taken it for granted they would always be together. That, of course, had been the silliness of lost and lonely children. They had needed to grow up, needed to expand their horizons. But Bonny had long ago stopped needing her. She was his twin; that bond was eternal and unbreakable. But Bonny took it for granted, the way people took their liver or their soul for granted. Belle, though she did not begrudge him that, still felt the loss.

Needless to say, her friendship with Rufus was very different from her relationship with her brother. But she realised she hadn’t felt that sense of certainty with anyone since Bonny. Of being part of someone’s life, rather than simply a part of their journey to somewhere, or someone, else. It scared her a little. Perhaps more than a little. Because while Rufus had been true to his word, and never spoken to her again of his need for romantic love, she could not forget that—although he was everything she wanted, and more—she was a compromise to him. Or worse, an obstacle.

Besides, even without Rufus to worry about, she knew it was when you got comfortable that life took things away from you.

It was upon the fourth day after his departure that Belle decided to start work on the library. Not, strictly speaking, a vital room, but knowing it was there, and all shut up and dusty, was a thorn in her heart. Compared even to Valentine’s London residence, it was not very grand. It was, in fact, little more than a sitting room that had probably once been a bedroom. But it had a wide stone fireplace, which was perfect for winter evenings, and several sets of rectangular windows, which were perfect for summer afternoons, and several bookcases just waiting to be filled. There’d never, as far as she could remember, been a desk. And, indeed, after releasing the pieces of furniture from the sheets in which they were swaddled, she discovered them mostly shabby but functional: a set of mismatched chairs, a couple of them upholstered in faded tapestry, a mahogany armchair with scrollwork arms that had once been able to fit both Bonny and Belle, and a re-purposed drop leaf dining table, at which her father and mother had sat, working separately upon their correspondence. A desk is a piece of furniture for one person, her father had said, and one person alone. A library is a space to be shared. And, suddenly, for all its future promise, for all the memories contained within it, the room looked terribly bare and empty.

Once she had finished a furtive cry, Belle got to work. There were cleaning supplies aplenty stacked up in the old brewery, now it was no longer being used to incarcerate wayward stewards, and—in a series of trips—she was able to provide herself with buckets of water, bars of soap, and solutions of herb-infused vinegar, as well as various cloths and scrubbing brushes. ?thelfl?d was very interested by this process and trotted to and fro with Belle, before she was encouraged to stay in the kitchen with Hannah, lest she accidentally put her snout in the lye.

Back in the study, Belle was briefly daunted by the scale of the task before her. In many ways, beginning was the hardest step because she had to pile all the furniture out of the way and re-cover it, and then roll up the rug in case it could be salvaged, all of which made the room look even less like a room than it had before she’d got involved. Probably if she had been more like Mr. Smith she would have made a plan or a list or something, and that would have helped her feel like she was acting with purpose and making progress. But she was a Tarleton, and Tarletons, for better or worse, just did things.

So she cleaned the windows, inside and out, cutting back the ivy she could reach and scrubbing the grime from the glass, until the light could sweep the room unhindered. For the most part, it simply illuminated everything that still needed to be done, but it was encouraging, too, revealing possibilities for the future in bright strips and dancing dust motes. It made Belle happy. And once, some hours later, the task was done, she flung all the windows wide, letting fresh light and fresh air claim the room anew.

Anyone else might have called it a day, but Belle was gliding like a pond-skater on accomplishment, and she decided to scrub the fireplace too. This required considerably more labour than the windows because soot and dirt had been allowed to build up, and she was increasingly convinced something (or several things) had made a home (or successive homes) in the chimney. Bats, she thought, from the colour and texture of the droppings. Possibly jackdaws at some point? And what had her life become that she was speculating so deeply about poo?

“Mrs. Tarleton?”

Coming disembodied from somewhere behind her, Mr. Smith’s voice was both startling and unexpected. Her response was, therefore, a yip.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She scuttled out backwards on her hands and knees. “Cleaning the fireplace?”

“You’re not a maid.”

“Well, no.” Sitting back on her haunches, she wiped the sweat from her brow, realising belatedly she had probably just smeared herself with soot. “But we don’t have a maid.”

It had been some days since she’d seen Mr. Smith, for he’d been busy about the estate. As she had suspected, even with fading bruises on his face, he cut an intriguing figure, not dandyish but neat, with a hint of rigidly controlled sensuality in the cast of his features, suggesting a man in conflict with either his history or his nature. Clean and drawn severely back from his face, his hair was almost silver. His eyes paler still. “You still shouldn’t—” he began.

“Shouldn’t what? It’s my house. I can do what I like.”

“You’re a lady. It’s beneath you.”

“I don’t think honest work is beneath anyone. Though,” Belle admitted, abruptly aware of how sweaty and dishevelled and tired she was, “I could do with a lot more practice at it. Is there something I can help you with?”

He tucked his hands behind his back, as though he were a schoolboy about to make a report to his housemaster. Then seemed confused because Belle was still kneeling in the grate like an urchin.

“Sit down?” she suggested.

This idea he apparently liked even less, eventually compromising on a kind of awkward half crouch that must have been murder on the thighs. “I came to update you on progress so far.”

“Exciting.”

“The family I”—he coughed—“I evicted are willing to return to the farm, at a reduced rate, of course, given the work ahead of them, and under more favourable terms, given the”—he coughed again—“damaged trust. They are good, reliable people. I did them a disservice and cast them into significant difficulties, and, even though it is less legally advantageous to us than it might be to find entirely new tenants, I still recommend—”

“Of course,” said Belle. “This is absolutely the right thing to do.”

Mr. Smith swallowed, his colour fluctuating briefly, and then fading away almost entirely until he looked positively grey. “I’ve also committed some of your remaining funds to improvement of the cottages, including those still under lease. That decision was, I will concede, primarily ethically driven, but once they’re fit to live in, the properties will be a consistent source of income.”

Belle nodded. “Once again, very good thinking, Mr. Smith.”

“As for the south-east bedroom, I’ve engaged a stonemason and a roofer to come in once the ivy has been managed. They would both like to be your first port of call for similar issues and, should this be agreed, are willing to defer payment for their labour until next year, meaning you would need to cover the cost of materials only, at least for now.”

“How wonderfully you have negotiated this, Mr. Smith. I agree without hesitation.”

“The updated plans for the estate,” he went on, almost as though Belle hadn’t spoken at all, his eyes fixed distantly upon the chimneypiece behind her, “I’ve left in the moat room. I believe you’ll find them comprehensive and cohesive.”

“I’m sure I—”

“And that being so, I hereby tender my resignation, effective immediately.”