“I’m attending a morning call, Aunt,” Caroline said.
“The difference, in my experience, is largely one of refreshments.” Lady Hayward set one precise stitch, then another. “Though I have attended certain morning calls that compared unfavorably to the funeral in terms of general animation.”
Caroline adjusted her posture by half an inch, which was all the concession she was prepared to make, and fixed her gaze on the drawing room door.
Esther appeared at her elbow a moment later and pressed a small, warm cup of tea into her hands without a word, the wayshe always did when she suspected the morning was going to require it.
Caroline glanced at her and found that her expression was entirely serene. She also returned to her seat at the writing desk without any commentary whatsoever, which was, in its own way, a commentary.
The first suitor arrived at eleven o’clock.
Mr. Calloway was twenty-nine, fair-haired, pleasant-featured, and in possession of an estate in Buckinghamshire that her brother had described as well-maintained. He made his bow a little too carefully, as though he’d rehearsed it, and as he settled into the chair across from the settee, he smiled at Caroline.
She knew that kind of smile. It was the smile of someone who had arrived with a set of useful opinions and intended to deploy them in an orderly fashion.
“Lady Caroline.” He had a mild, agreeable voice. “I understand you’ve recently returned from spending some time abroad.”
“I have. Three years on the Continent, primarily.”
“Wonderful. I myself have not had occasion to travel. I find the home counties suit me entirely.” He folded his hands. “One has all one requires, do you not agree? Without all the inconvenience of crossing water.”
From the corner of her eye, Caroline caught Lady Hayward’s embroidery needle pause for one full second before resuming.
“One might argue,” Caroline said carefully, “that the inconvenience is rather the point.”
He laughed pleasantly. “Ha. Yes. Quite.” He clearly had not processed the content, only the tone, which he had correctly identified as polite. “And do you enjoy music, Lady Caroline? I am told you are musical.”
“I play adequately.” This was true. “Though I prefer reading.”
“Ah. Yes.” Another pleasant laugh. “My sister reads a great deal. I always say: ‘A quiet house is a happy house.’”
From the writing desk, Esther made a small, soft sound that was almost nothing at all. Caroline caught her eye across the room for a single instant, and the smallest possible understanding moved between them before they both looked away.
Lady Hayward’s embroidery needle made a sound against the hoop that was not quite a comment. It was very close to one.
Fifteen minutes passed in this way. By the end of them, Caroline had learned that Mr. Calloway kept two excellent hunters, had an opinion on the drainage of fenland he was willing to expound upon at considerable length, and believed that a woman with too many opinions was, as he put it,a trial to everyone around her.He’d spoken it with such cheerful, total unawareness that she could not even construct a proper objection to it.
He was not an unkind man. She was fairly certain of that. He was simply a man for whom the world had always arrived in exactly the shape he expected, and he found this deeply satisfying and wished it to continue indefinitely.
He left at five to twelve.
“Well,” said Lady Hayward, into the silence that followed. “He does love his hunters.”
“He mentioned them seven times,” Caroline said.
“Eight.” Lady Hayward turned her embroidery hoop. “I counted.”
“He seemed very settled,” Esther offered, in the careful tone of a woman attempting to locate the most charitable possible framing of the last forty minutes. “In his habits.”
“In every conceivable way,” Caroline agreed.
The door opened, and her brother appeared, which meant he had been waiting in the corridor. He moved to stand near the fireplace with his arms crossed and the expression of a man performing neutrality on behalf of an argument he had already won internally.
“He’s a decent fellow. Good land, sound character,” Lewis said.
“He told me that a woman with too many opinions is atrialto everyone around her.”
Mild annoyance passed across his face. “He was speaking in generalities.”