No, what struck Nev were the men. As a child he had known them all, by sight if not by name. Now he recognized a few faces, but the majority were unfamiliar. They seemed thinner than he remembered, thinner and harsher, somehow. As a child he would ride past them, waving and shouting, and they would wave and shout back. Now they tugged their forelocks or touched their caps in sullen silence.
Nev glanced at his wife. She was shrinking back against the seat, but when she caught his eye she straightened. “I’m sure they will be friendlier when they’ve got to know us better.” Her voice barely shook at all. “They are just unsure of what kind of master you will be.”
Nev was not sure what kind of master he would be either.
“Have you met Mr. Kedge before?” Penelope asked her husband.
“Tom Kedge? A hundred times. A stout man with dirt under his fingernails, a roly-poly wife, and a loud voice. His cottage is half a mile up ahead. His laborers live with him until they marry, so there are always a dozen folk in and out. Every time I’ve seen Mrs. Kedge she’s been passing someone a mug of ale in one hand and swatting someone with a rolling pin with the other. She used to give me fresh rolls.”
Penelope smiled.
He bit his lip. “I haven’t seen them in years, though.” Then they rounded a bend, and Thomas Kedge’s cottage was visible. It was larger than Penelope had expected, the largest house they had seen along the road-although, of course, on nowhere near the same scale as Loweston Grange itself. Nev whistled. But it was not until they got closer that Penelope realized why; it was larger than he had expected too. The whole left part of the cottage was visibly newer, as were the shingles on the roof. Honeysuckle and roses, along with a local plant she didn’t recognize, were just beginning to creep up a new trellis on the older side of the house.
“Tom Kedge never had glazed windows before!” Nev pulled up the horses in front of a neat drive. “I don’t understand-I thought things had been going poorly here.”
Surely this was a good sign, but Penelope could not appreciate it. She was seized with nervousness. She did not want to meet Nev ’s tenants. What if she could find nothing to say to them? What if they disliked her? What if they only gazed at her blankly like the laborers in the field?
Nev looked as uncertain as she felt. He had pulled the cart to a stop, but now merely sat holding the reins. They exchanged rueful smiles. She wished there were something she could do, but she was as out of her depth here as he was; more so, probably. He, at least, was used to the idea of having tenants. Mrs. Kedge had given him fresh rolls.
After half a minute or so, a scrawny boy ran out from behind the house to take the horses. As Nev and Penelope walked up the path, the front door opened and a round woman of middle years stuck her head out the door. “Come in, come in!” As they got nearer, Penelope saw that her blue muslin gown was nearly new. So was the lace on her cap, though it looked machine-made to Penelope. Her graying hair was inexpertly teased into ringlets around her ears. “I haven’t seen you in so long, Lord Bedlow! Look at you, handsomer than ever! Is this Lady Bedlow?”
Nev introduced them as Mrs. Kedge led the way into a whitewashed parlor. Freshly cut roses in an earthenware jug stood on the table. The wooden floor gleamed, and the mantelpiece and end tables were crowded with porcelain figurines.
“Betsey!” Mrs. Kedge called shrilly. “Bring tea for his lordship! And some rolls!” She turned to Nev. “Those were always your favorite. How have you been? We were all so sorry to hear about your father. He was such a wonderful man!”
Penelope didn’t think Mrs. Kedge noticed the skepticism that flashed across Nev ’s face. “Thank you,” he said easily. “I’ve been well. It looks like you have too-you were never so fine the last time I begged rolls from you!”
Mrs. Kedge smiled at him. “Yes, we had a couple of bad years, but Tom works very hard and he turned us right around. And he tells me there’s so much less waste now that the fields aren’t divided in that ridiculous way. Here, do sit down, please.”
They sat on sturdy wooden chairs around the table. “Is Tom by?” Nev asked. “I was hoping to discuss with him what needs to be done to-” He trailed off, then repeated, “What needs to be done.”
“Oh, yes, he’s talking Poor Authority business with the vicar in his counting room. Dear,” she hollered, and Penelope jumped. “Come meet her ladyship! We’ve all been half dying to meet you,” she added more quietly, smiling at Penelope.
A rather dirty maid came in at that moment, ostentatiously carrying a great silver tea tray. A plate of rolls and half a seedcake sat in the center. “Just set it down on the table and go, Betsey,” Mrs. Kedge told her. “And wash your face! Aren’t you ashamed for his lordship and her ladyship to see you?” Betsey set down the tray with a rattle and fled, red-faced.
“She’s a good girl.” Mrs. Kedge poured the tea and presented it in a manner she clearly thought very grand. “I do worry she’ll break the china, though.”
“You have quite a collection.” Nev gave every evidence of admiration for the china shepherdesses and monkeys dressed as fine lords and ladies that littered the room. “Aren’t you afraid the boys will knock them over? I remember you were forever telling me how all your nice things were broken.”
“Oh, the boys don’t live here anymore,” someone said from the doorway, and Penelope turned. This must be Tom Kedge. His sunburnt, genial face and massive body seemed too big for the house, as did his stentorian voice; it was probably just the right volume for directing men in a wheat field.
“It’s not like the old days.” Kedge shook his head. “People used to be content with their lot, and now-new men in and out of the district every year, and half the population up and emigrating to America. And the soldiers-I hate to speak ill of men who fought for their country, but it seems like a lot of them came back wrong. Couldn’t have ’em in the house anymore! Not safe for my Sally.” He smiled and winked at his wife.
Mrs. Kedge smiled back at her husband. “I do miss the racket sometimes. It’s so quiet in the house. But that’s progress, isn’t it? Things change. We shouldn’t like to live in the Dark Ages!”
Penelope looked around at the comfort and the cleanliness and pictured again the sullen, lean faces of the workers, even the boys. No, it would not do to have them tramping in and out and getting mud on Mrs. Kedge’s nice floor or breaking her fine china. Mrs. Kedge was too good for that now.
She thought of her father’s managers and foremen. Her father was friendly enough with them at the brewery, but he certainly did not invite them to dinner in Russell Square. Penelope tried to imagine those men drinking a glass of brandy at the mahogany dining table, but it was impossible; and they would hardly have wanted to. Yet her father had known some of those men from boyhood. So had her mother. Penelope remembered meeting a Mrs. Raeburn, who worked at the brewery affixing labels to kegs, bottles, and casks. The woman had pinched her cheek and told her that she and Mrs. Brown used to steal pies off a cart together.
Penelope knew that people found her mother distasteful; now she looked at Mrs. Kedge sticking out her pinky as she drank from a teacup painted with fat little Chinese boys and understood how they felt. She hated herself for it.
Kedge stepped out of the doorway. A much smaller man entered the room in his wake. An unprepossessing fellow in his middle thirties, his dirty linen and pompous air made him look even plainer than he would have without it. He waited, a small smirk on his face, until Mr. Kedge said, “The head of our flock, Mr. Snively.”
“How charming it is to see you again, Lord Bedlow, even under such sad circumstances,” the vicar said. “Your father will be severely missed by all true souls at Loweston. I am deeply pleased to meet your ladyship. It is an honor, truly, Lady Bedlow.” He took her hand and bowed, a little too low, in a way that made Penelope wonder if he were not trying to show up the Kedges as ill-bred.