Inheritance Feud

Chapter 1

Chapter One

ON a still, sunny afternoon in late May, Hermione Doon, the young heiress of Baron, sat in her aunt Galadriel's flower garden at the nearby dower house, the Mains, in the shelter of a great and ancient yew-arbour.

The rest of the garden itself was not what it would later become, few folk yet having adopted the southern habit of troubling to grow flowers for the look of them.

Mrs. Galadriel, a provident lady, still main tained a long bed of kitchen-herbs behind a discreetly dug path of gilly-flowers and, at the end, a small yellow Scots rose bush in early bloom. The resulting admixture of onion, chive, fennel, clove-pink and rose came to Hermione as she sat, slippered feet together and slim, bone-stayed back correctly upright, in the arbour, stitching at her embroidery frame. Her nose wrinkled in appreciation of the spiced, beckoning odour of the sun-warmed garden; but much as she would have liked to go and bury her face in the gillyflowers, savouring at close quarters their heady scent, she did not. It would have been unladylike, and one must always, even when apparently unobserved, behave like a lady.

A tangle of coloured silks lay nearby on the arbour-seat and Hermione reached down, selecting a blue thread and inserting it in her needle. She was engaged on a tester, which when completed was to be stretched, lined and hung above one of the beds at Baron, when the great house should be opened again for them all to live in. Aunt Galadriel had promised that, if little more, and would no doubt fold away the completed tester with the matching chair-seats, footstool, fireguard-panel and other such objects Hermione had already completed. The girl's mind, briefly rebellious, wondered how much longer Baron would have to remain closed. Papa had been dead now for almost three years.

The tears pricked, interfering with any clear view of the design of leaves, flowers and pomegranates aunt Galadriel had chosen, whose centres Hermione was at present filling in with Jacoby-stitch. Papa had loved her less than her cousin Theon, because she was a girl and they had little about which to converse; but he had been kind, and had allowed Hermione to run wild and, as long as there was any money, to ride a pony, One of the first things aunt Galadriel had done, after turning Theon away from the door of Mains, later, was to sell the ponies; Hermione flushed now with indignation, remembering. There was nothing at all she herself had been able to do about it, neither tears nor, in those days, temper being of any avail.

 Young girls, aunt Galadriel had said, must learn their manners and their stitchery, not romp about the countryside like hoydens; and so Hermione, still red-eyed for Papa, had been whipped, then strapped into a back-board to prevent her developing a stoop, and put to master samplers, which she hated; then, by the time hate had been further flogged out of her, to be replaced by apathy, the footstools and the like. They were, by now, a welcome enough way of passing the days, which, as aunt Galadriel kept small company, were lonely.

The sun shone on irreverently, prevented from freckling Hermione's roseleaf skin by the clipped, solid presence of the yew-arbour. This was so old it must have been there before the dower-house was built, perhaps even before some parts of Baron. By contrast, in its dark stern frame, Hermione herself seemed ephemeral and young; a very young girl of fourteen, attired in a carefully-ironed white muslin gown with pale blue ribbons, exactly the shade of the small satin slippers she wore, whose heels were flat. It was necessary, aunt Galadriel said, always to be dressed ready to receive any company by noon, whether or not the company ever came. The Mains was eleven miles from the nearest post-road and was unlikely any company would, except Uncle Sandor who at times rode over; and he had come less often of lat

Hermione stared down at her dress, reflecting that next time it was washed, a new laundry-maid would again have to be found. These were hard to come by, and aunt Galadriel had said she might, this time, try the Grattan orphanage forty miles off for a waif trained to domestic service. Those were not always available, and one had to wait; meantime, Mrs. Betts, the cook, would no doubt do Hermione's gowns. One must not, of course, even if the new arrival were one's own age, consort with maidservents. There were a great many things one must not do.

As if to deny all this, and remind Hermione that she was not a puppet without life of its own or choice of movement, a soft, escaping ringlet of brown-gold hair slid out of its confining riband, cascading down over her shoulder so that she had to put aside her work and tuck it back. Its warm, resilient quality made her think of silk, and of her own long lashes which, she knew, could touch her cheeks when lowered.

A doll, she looked like. But a doll had blue eyes. "Mine are hazel," thought Hermione unaccountably. She raised them, letting the stitchery remain in her lap, and again surveyed the warm, untenanted garden. Hazel eyes, with gold flecks among the green, and a small neat mouth like an unopened rose, that seldom laughed nowadays. She was pretty; she knew it, had always done, though no one had told her. Even Theon, who'd teased a lot when they were together like brother and sister in old days, hadn't ever told her she wasn't pretty, only stupid because she was a girl, and-and because of Baron.

Hermione closed her eyes; the brief instant's withdrawal hid a sudden expression of deep, intuitive awareness and pain, doing away with any suggestion, despite the flowerlike pretti ness of the face, of insipid folly. That she knew what she could not yet name was true; certain things were unsafe to dwell on. It was better, as aunt Galadriel would certainly say, to return to one's obedience and the day planned for one, and stitch uneventfully on. Obedient, pretty Hermione; hardly a ghost of the rebellious child there had once been … She had obtained permission, today, to sit in the garden for an hour and a half, until tea; and to come in at once before then if it should show signs of clouding over, lest she get her new satin slippers wet.