Friends and Lovers Read Online Free PDF Page A

any interest in plants before moving here. While I worked over my pots and boxes, a feeling of deep peace descended upon me. Daydreams unfolded in my head, of a halcyon future in which I played mother to my niece and nephew. I had an idea how the children looked, from pencil sketches Hettie had sent home shortly before her death. I knew Gwen would be six now, Ralph four.
    Gwen favored the Harris family in her physical makeup. She had Hettie’s and my own fair skin and gray eyes. Like us, her hair was an indeterminate shade of light brown that came close to blond in summer, darkening to a less attractive shade in winter. God’s graciousness had been passed along from mother to daughter, endowing the latter with the dimples and curls that avoided me.
    Ralph more closely resembled his father, having darker-brown hair and brown eyes. His waywardness was occasionally mentioned, and blamed on his being of the male sex, but between friends and family, we admitted he might have inherited a little something of unstable temperament from his da as well. No matter, he was young, and I would train him up to be a proper gentleman.
    I arranged a fairly idyllic life for us all. Menrod would give Ralph a pony on his sixth birthday. He would also want to send him away to a public school later on, but my idyll did not extend so far into the future. I thought of the nearer term, when we would be into a more comfortable house than the dilapidated cottage.
    Gwen would come to view me as very much of a substitute mother. When you reach twenty-five and have no family of your own, it is a rare gift indeed to be given a child who bears not only your family’s blood, but even your own name. I knew as surely as my dracaena was wilting to death that I would love the children, and formed the firm resolution they would be made to love me in return. I would have children, even if a husband was denied me.
    “He’s here,” Mrs. Pudge hollered from the conservatory door. She held her cooking apron in her hands, indicating she had ripped it off and run up from the kitchen to get the door, which told me Pudge was busy in the yard, fighting with the roses. They share the duties of butler in this fashion.
    “Are the children with Mr. Everett?” I asked, removing my gloves and struggling out of my smock.
    “It’s not Everett. It’s him. Lord Menrod.”
    “Menrod? What is he doing here? Has he brought the children?”
    “No, he’s alone, and he says he’s in a hurry, so you had better come as you are.”
    I brushed my hair back, tucking in a loose strand, and wishing I might take time to nip upstairs to tidy myself before greeting him. We do not often have the honor of greeting a lord at our cottage door. I also wished I had thought to put a chair or table before the destroyed staircase. The carpenters had left, awaiting Everett’s return from London. I begged them to finish up the job in some manner, but they were worriesomely coy, which inclined me to fear Everett was buying some hideous materials or ornament for the job.
    I hastened to the sitting room, to find Menrod standing in the middle of the floor, with his quizzing glass raised to examine the fireplace. He turned his austere, gaunt face toward me. Menrod is tall and thin. He dresses with no frills, but all his materials and tailoring are of the finest. He is dark-complexioned, like all his family.
    “You have changed the fire irons here,” he said in an accusing tone. His manners are not so fine as his tailoring. “The tongs, the poker, the shovel—where are they?”
    “They fell apart from age. Their handles were made of wood, you know. It is not easy to tend a fire with handleless tools. Have you seen the children?”
    “Where did you put the pieces? I know a blacksmith who repairs valuable old artifacts. Those brass-handled things clash with the rest of the house. I’ll have the wooden handles replaced.”
    “I don’t know where the bits and pieces are. Have you seen the