As the committee dispersed into the heavy fragrance of evening in the garden and the elongating shadows of the chimney pots, Beatrice paused to stand with Agatha in the doorway of the garden studio and watch until the last hat ducked under the arch of the gate.
“I’m sorry about Mrs. Fothergill,” said Agatha. “She can be so unthinking.” She would have liked to say more, to offer to assist Beatrice in the purchase of a silk dress should she care to be a handmaiden, but instinctively she knew such an offer would be as humiliating to this independent young woman as any of Bettina’s blunt insults.
“I try to find her lack of subtlety amusing,” said Beatrice. “Poor Mrs. Fothergill stands such little chance against your powers of diplomacy that one could almost feel sorry for her.” She hesitated before adding, “But then she does bear you such very particular enmity.”
“I was once engaged to marry a man she admired,” said Agatha. “And then my fiancé died, and though I went away for quite some time, we have somehow never been able to move beyond our silly girlhood rivalries.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Beatrice, her expression softening in a way that invited further confidences. Agatha chided herself for bringing up old stories she had no intention of repeating.
“Now we are at war I really must try harder to be generous to her,” she said. “I have no great hope that Bettina will follow my good example, but at least it may confuse her long enough for us to seize advantage.”
“There is nothing quite as satisfying as helping with real work such as this,” said Eleanor Wheaton. Eleanor, Celeste, and Beatrice were comfortably seated on chairs in the cool shade of an oak tree, stripping hops from a pile of long vines. “One feels such a connection to the land.” Eleanor, dressed for the occasion in a pink and white cotton lawn dress worthy of a shepherdess in an operetta, seemed cool and serene, as if stripping hops were no different from embroidering with silk thread. Her gloved fingers worked nimbly as hop flowers tumbled in a steady stream down her apron to the large piece of burlap spread at their feet. Celeste was also calmly engaged, though she picked the hops more daintily, as if she were coaxing butterflies from a flower. Beatrice found the task frustrating: the scratching of the woody vines, the bitter green smell of the buds, the wet streaks of sap across her gloves. She ripped and pulled, and bent to pick shredded leaves from the pile of bruised hops at her feet.
“There is nothing quite as satisfying as doing work because one chooses to and not because one is under an obligation,” she said, feeling waspish as she tried to wipe perspiration from her cheek without allowing any itchy sap to touch her skin. “I doubt farm work is as much fun for those who must scratch a living working the various harvests.”
“Everyone looks forward to hopping,” said Hugh, dumping a fresh armful of vines behind Beatrice’s chair. His shirt, stained from carrying armfuls of hops, was open at the neck, and her eye caught a hint of the shadowed hollow of his throat. His sleeves flapped loose over his leather gauntlets as he waved a hand at the field. “It’s a holiday for the London families and a child’s winter coat earned for the country women.” A holiday atmosphere did seem to hang over the hop field. Women gossiped along the rows, small children played in the hedges, and cooking fires sent streams of smoke into the air from a group of rough wooden huts along the riverbank. In the full sun of the field, groups of men, women, and older children followed the falling rows of vines, singing as they picked. The other young men of the party, Harry Wheaton, Daniel, and Daniel’s friend Craigmore, were cutting vines with the best of them. As Hugh surveyed the field, Beatrice saw a brief shadow cross his face. “I can’t help but wonder how many of the young men harvesting here today will be here next year,” he added, so quietly that Beatrice doubted he had meant to speak aloud at all. She felt a chill brush the golden afternoon.
“It is true that if we lived by our harvesting talents we would quickly starve,” said Eleanor. “But it feels good to join in rather than just walk around and look, like a queen with her peasants.”
“The peasants are especially impressed that you brought them an earl’s son this year,” said Hugh. It was hard not to admire the broad-shouldered young viscount, thought Beatrice. Craigmore carried himself with an easy politeness, with no trace of hauteur, and his pink cheeks added a touch of boyish humility to a strong chin and a brush of thick blond hair. As they watched him help an old woman to push her huge sack of hops onto a cart, Beatrice was forced to consider that in Craigmore’s shining golden youth, the nobility of England might find some argument for pedigree that she had found absent in the withered remnants of the Marbely family.
“And unlike Harry, he doesn’t try to compete with all the local boys and pinch all the girls,” said Eleanor, looking to where Harry was hacking at the tall strings of vine with the wildness of a pirate. “My brother must always try to win,” she added. “It’s so unreasonable of him.”
“All young men try to win,” said Hugh. “That’s why I prefer not to join in at all.” At this, Beatrice could not contain a bubbling chuckle. Hugh looked confused and then frowned as he added, “I didn’t mean to imply any prowess on my part. I merely understand, as a man of science, that I am not immune to the competitive urges of youth.”
Daniel and Craigmore soon left Harry Wheaton to his labors and made their way to the tree, carrying additional piles of vines.
“Cold drinks must be fetched at once,” said Eleanor as they arrived. “Daniel, do go and find the footman. He will have put the bottles in the river somewhere.”
“Hugh, be a sport and go instead, will you?” asked Daniel, throwing down his gloves and pulling a small notebook from his pocket. “Only I must get down a few lines that have been dancing around in my head.” He slumped to the ground, rolled away onto his stomach, and began to scribble with a chewed stump of pencil.
“Daniel is always inspired to write just when someone suggests real exertion,” said Hugh.
“In Florence, he once seriously considered renting a bath chair to carry him up into the hills just so he could finish a villanelle,” said Craigmore, with a broad smile. “I offered to break his leg to make him look less ridiculous.”
“I’m not listening,” said Daniel.
“The inherent laziness of the creative classes,” said Hugh.
“I assure you it’s just the poets,” said Craigmore. “We artists are always more than ready to put a shoulder to the wheel.”
“You are ruining my concentration worse than that dreadful singing,” said Daniel. “I shall fetch refreshments just to have some peace.”
“I will come with you in case you swoon into a sonnet between here and the river,” said Craigmore.
The two young men set off down the slope to the meandering green river, laughing, exchanging a few shoves as they leaped over tussocks of rough grass and negotiated patches of hairy thistle. Beatrice was forced to admire the easy way in which they seemed to manage their friendship, as if they were still young boys, with none of the hesitancies and awkwardness that she felt as a woman. She could argue that it came from less perception, less thought as to social negotiation, but she still envied the ease with which they strode down the field, with no thought but the present task and the delight of each other’s company.
“I like Craigmore,” said Eleanor. “Not as stuffy as his father, who is terrorizing all the footmen with his long stare.”
“It must be a strain to entertain guests while also getting ready to open the hospital,” said Beatrice. “Your mother must be quite exhausted.”
“Major Frank, who is in charge of the hospital, keeps suggesting the same,” said Eleanor. “But Mother assures him that she will continue indefatigable in her efforts.”
“I’m sure he is quite reassured,” said Hugh, laughing.
“I would feel sorry for him,” said Eleanor. “But he stutters so whenever I enter the room that I’m reasonably sure he thinks my marriage to Otto makes me a spy.”