“Peder used to ask me how anyone different was supposed to survive. Was Mrs. Hocking to starve just because she doesn’t know how to smile? They started calling her a witch just because she cursed out the steward for cheating her on her pigs. But you hired her and now she’s got money to feed her boys.” She lifted her chin. “Peder appreciated your foibles, and so do I, now.”
Damned by faint praise. Daniel was used to being compared unfavorably to his brother. God knew he’d never been as fun or flashy as his brother. At least, not until he’d escaped England in search of his own fortune. That was when he’d discovered there was so much more to the world than Cornwall. Still, it was reassuring to know that his late brother appreciated him, and nice to hear his sister-in-law echo the sentiment. It wasn’t exactly a declaration of family love, but he would take it and be grateful.
“Thank you, Nessie.”
“Now stop fussing. You’ve finally gotten a proper servant. You should be grateful.”
“This is well beyond proper behavior, Nessie. She folds her hands and stands like this.” He mimicked her statue-like attitude.
“Excellent behavior.”
“No, it’s not!” He huffed. “I’ve been served in palaces, dined with the Pope, even—”
“Yes, yes, I know. But you’ve also crossed swampland up to your neck, slept in jungles with insects the size of a fist, and ridden a camel.” It was clear that last one was the most outlandish in her opinion. “What you consider commonplace is most assuredly not.”
He couldn’t argue with her there, but it still aggravated him that Miss Li-Na acted as if she were a beaten dog. He found it deplorable to treat an animal in such a fashion. He thought it a high crime for a woman to be so debased.
“It’s wrong,” he said flatly.
Nessie shrugged. “She’s Chinese. What do we know of their customs?”
“She’s an artist. A painter of such amazing works.” He shook his head. How could someone so cowed create the works he’d seen?
“An artist? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a woman.”
And here he returned to a familiar argument among the buyers and purveyors of art. “That has nothing to do with anything. Nessie, you’re embroidering new seat covers right now. What is that but art?”
“It’s decoration for furniture. That’s not—”
He stomped over to her work. “It’s a design of your own making. It’s a flower that looks to be moving even though it’s stitched down. It’s art.”
She sniffed as she put the fabric down. “I told you, it’s a chair. To replace what was lost when the roof collapsed.” She lifted her chin and repeated what she had been taught as if the vicar himself were moving her mouth. “Women make babies. We make homes and families. We teach the next generation. That is the natural order of things.”
“Nessie, that’s natural for you. It’s not natural for everyone.”
The woman pointed her finger straight at him. “And if your new Chinese servant stands like a statue and doesn’t want to paint, then that’s what is natural for her.”
He didn’t respond. There wasn’t any point. Nessie saw the world in one way, and he in another. She never believed his tales of women who threw spears as well as the men. Or women who managed their own money while the men waited for handouts. And though she deplored the accusation of witchcraft against anyone, he had heard her wonder how Joseph had come to be cursed.
That was not the way he viewed the world, but she was set in her beliefs. Meanwhile, Nessie turned her attention to her youngest son.
“Leave the blocks, Joseph. It’s time for nuncheon.”
Her son ignored her. Indeed, he might have been deaf for all the reaction he gave.
“Do you stay to dine with us?” Nessie asked Daniel.
“What? Oh, no. I need to repair the fence along the Mellin farm. Bob is still laid up and there’s no one to do the work.”
Nessie pursed her lips. “Doesn’t Anne have family? A brother or some such to help her?”
“Not that she’ll ask for help.”
“You can’t be doing the work of the own tenants every day. People will think you’re doing something with Anne and that won’t help her at all.”
He was aware. But if he didn’t do the work, the family might very well starve.
Meanwhile Nessie turned and spoke firmly to her son. “Joseph. It’s time now. Leave the blocks and come here.”