The thoughts and the mental debate teemed through Imogen’s mind even while she listened to her aunt’s animated chatter about the visitors that were expected, though she did not know how many were coming or even exactly when, and Cousin Percy did not know either. It was very unsettling. Aunt Lavinia went on to talk about the entertainments they must plan. It had been a veritable age, she said, since there was any evening entertainment at Hardford. Dear Brandon had not held with such things But now . . .
Imogen let her prattle happily on. And she was hugely relieved—and disappointed?—that the earl did not come home while she was there. He did not come back to the dower house either in four days, and Imogen paced, upstairs and down, unable to settle to any activity for longer than a few minutes at a time. She would have paced the cliff path and the beach too, but she was afraid of running into him. The farthest she went, except for that one visit to the hall, was the garden, where she found that the first snowdrop had bloomed.
He did not come, and she was safe from her own weakness and indecision. She did not have to decide if it would be wrong or not.
On the fifth day, Mrs. Primrose brought news with Imogen’s luncheon. A pageboy, sent from the hall with fresh eggs, had brought word of the arrival of two grand traveling carriages full of passengers and a few riders in addition and a great deal of baggage and noise and bustle. And then later in the afternoon the same pageboy returned with a hastily scrawled note in Aunt Lavinia’s hand inviting Imogen to dinner so that she might meet a number of long-lost cousins, though some of them were not strictly speaking relatives as they belonged to the maternal side of Cousin Percy’s family.
His mother had indeed not come alone, then.
Even while Imogen was thinking up excuses for not going, her eyes focused upon the last two sentences—Cousin Percy asked me particularly to write to you on his behalf, dearest Imogen, with apologies for not doing so himself. He is busy with his loved ones.
The invitation came from him, then, even if the apology was probably Aunt Lavinia’s invention. And it was only proper that he invite her, Imogen supposed reluctantly. She was, after all, the widow of his predecessor’s only son. And by the same token, it would be unpardonably rude of her not to put in an appearance.
She sighed and went to the kitchen to inform Mrs. Primrose that she need not prepare an evening meal.
*
It could have been worse, Percy thought as he dressed for dinner. All his relatives, both paternal and maternal, might have descended upon him—as they still might, of course. There could be a dozen packed carriages bowling along the highway at this very moment in the general direction of Hardford. One could not know for sure.
Aunt Edna, his father’s sister, had arrived late in the morning with Uncle Ted Eldridge. Their son, Cyril, had come with them, as had the three girls, Beth and the twins, Alma and Eva. They had been in London, kicking their heels according to Cyril, waiting for the Season to begin so that Beth could be fired off into society and onto the marriage mart. The prospect of passing some time by coming to see Percy in his proper milieu and to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, albeit belatedly, had appealed to them all, without exception.
Aunt Nora Herriott, his mother’s sister, had been equally enthusiastic over the invitation and had come with Uncle Ernest and their sons, Leonard and Gregory. They also had come from London and had met the Eldridges by chance at a toll booth and traveled with them thereafter.
One big, happy family come to jollificate with him, Percy thought as he considered the fall of his neckcloth with a critical eye and gave Watkins a nod of approval. Was jollificate a verb? If it was not, then it ought to be, for it perfectly described what his family clearly had in mind for the next week or so. One shuddered at the very thought.
And it might not be just family. According to Cyril, Sidney Welby and Arnold Biggs, Viscount Marwood, were thinking of ambling down this way too and might already have begun ambling.
And then, in the middle of the afternoon, just when things had been calming down at the house, Percy’s mother had arrived in company with Uncle Roderick Galliard, her brother, and his widowed daughter, Cousin Meredith, and her young son, Geoffrey.