Alred invites everybody

Lady Sophie talked on and on, and Lady Hedwige was beginning to believe that it was not enough that Sophie speak German to make her company agreeable.

Sophie was a clever, educated young woman, and though she was not interested in literature, her conversation could be interesting when she told of the many people she had met and places she had visited in the train of the Baroness of Engern. However, now that those stories had been told, her conversation lately consisted primarily of complaints about her new home, her mother-​​in-​​law, and especially her husband.

Sir Leofwine did not sound like a pleasant man – certainly Sir Egelric had little tolerance for him – and if Sophie’s tales were to believed, Leofwine’s mother was not a pleasant woman either. But Hedwige longed to tell Sophie that a grumbling, inconsiderate husband was better than what she might have had.

Hedwige longed to silence Sophie with tales of Friedrich, but this she would never do. Even her own sister knew no more than what she had witnessed with her own eyes. Hedwige firmly believed that if one was in an unpleasant situation that one could change, then one had only to act to change it; and if one could do nothing about the situation, then one had only to bear it in silence. There was no time or place for complaints in Hetty’s world. But sometimes she did long to complain – if only to complain to Sophie about her complaining!

“I declare, there are times when I almost envy you, Hetty,” Sophie sighed. “I’m certain you miss your husband, but you have your brother-​​in-​​law to do most everything a man can do for you, and for the things he can’t do…” Sophie laughed. “That’s where I don’t envy you so much, though there are times when I suppose even that is a blessing. And you have your pretty baby. I’m certain that’s the best part of a man.”

“I do love Bruni,” Hedwige said weakly.

“Though I suppose it’s quite a bother before they’re born,” Sophie groaned. “Don’t tell Leof, but I suppose I have that to look forward to. Though I seemed to make it through the part where I’m supposed to be sick without being sick at all.”

“Oh, Sophie!” Hedwige smiled. “Are you expecting?”

“I think so. My maid says it will be for the month of May. I suppose that’s fine, since I’ll be up again by the summer.”

“But… Sophie, you shouldn’t have ridden out here today if that’s true.”

“Oh, bother! It won’t hurt. What can happen? Shall I shake it loose?” she laughed.

“Don’t say such things, Sophie,” Hetty gasped, scandalized. “Your baby!”

“I haven’t even felt it move yet. It’s not truly a baby. I wouldn’t mind if I could wait another year or two, if I had the choice. Which I do not! If I – ”

“Oh, Sophie, hush!” Hedwige whimpered when she heard footsteps coming up the front stairs. “Someone’s coming!”

“Oh, bother! It’s either Lili, in which case I don’t care, or it’s Ethelwyn, and he doesn’t speak a word of German.”

But it was neither Lili nor Ethelwyn – it was Alred and Egelric together. Hedwige felt all the blood come rushing up to her pale face. She had not known Alred was here, though it almost surprised her to find that she had not guessed. Sometimes she had the idea that she could sense his presence nearby even when he was not in the room.

“Oh, it’s only these two gentlemen!” Sophie said in English. “I don’t think Sir Egelric speaks a word of German – at least not any words that he would use to address me!” she laughed as Egelric bent to kiss her hand.

“I am beginning to know a few useful phrases,” Egelric said, “though none for addressing you!”

“And you reckon without me,” Alred said.

“I forgot,” Sophie laughed, “you are supposed to know all the languages of the world, just like the devil. Let’s test them, Hetty. We were just saying,” she began in German, “how tiny you are, Alred, and also what a big, ugly nose Egelric has.”

“What was that?” Egelric asked. “I heard my name.”

“It appears the ladies were only stating the obvious,” Alred said, “having noted that I am a very small man. Also they were saying something about how prodigiously large and terrifying of appearance is some part of your body, old man, but I didn’t catch which.”

Sophie shrieked with laughter, but Hetty shrank blushing back against the cushions.

“It can only have been my nose,” Egelric said gravely.

“It seems obvious, but we shall ask Lili to confirm,” Sophie giggled.

“Where is Lili?” Egelric asked. “I thought I would find her with the two of you when I saw Sophie’s horse here.”

Alred finally came to kiss Hetty’s hand, and it seemed to her that he gave her a look of mute apology for his joke before he sat beside her. Beside her!

“She’s upstairs,” Hetty said. She could have said that she was upstairs playing with the baby, but she did not want to hurt Egelric by reminding him that Lili hadn’t one of her own.

“Excuse me a moment,” Egelric said and began to walk to the stairs, but Sophie simply threw back her head and shouted, “Lili! Your husband is looking for you!”

Hetty cringed for Lili’s sake, but she admitted herself delighted when Alred turned to her and gave her a private look of amused compassion, as if he wondered how she bore Sophie’s exhausting visits at all. She smiled broadly at him in reply.

Lili did not even pause to peek down at them from the gallery, but only ran for the stairs crying, “I’m coming!” as she went.

Alred had to rise, of course, to kiss Lili’s hand, but Hetty was almost certain that when he sat again, he sat a little closer to her than before.

Meanwhile Egelric simply sat himself heavily in a chair.

“Alred at least is kind enough to kiss my hand when I come in,” Lili pouted.

“Come here and I shall kiss whatever you like,” Egelric said and patted his knee.

“Oh, no! I shall sit on the couch beside the only gentleman present,” Lili said with feigned haughtiness, to which Egelric replied by deliberately lifting each of his feet and propping them up on the last remaining cushion of the couch.

“Will you put your boots on my clean cushions, sir?” Lili cried.

“A gentleman wouldn’t, but since you remind me I am not…”

Lili laughed, and they all laughed with her. “He always outsmarts me,” she said fondly, and compromised by sitting on the arm of his chair.

Hetty smiled at the two of them. She was not envious of her sister’s happiness – not when she knew her own was so close at hand. Besides, Hetty could not imagine anything worse in the world than the death of one’s only child. She did not think she could ever envy Lili again.

“So, what were you all discussing before I came?” Lili asked.

“Alred and I only just came in,” Egelric said.

“Your sister and Sophie were attempting to teach Egelric some German,” Alred said.

“How did that turn out?” Lili asked.

“Sophie was simply attempting to tell him he had a big, ugly nose, but fortunately he did not understand.”

“Oh! But I like his nose!”

“So we thought!” Sophie laughed wickedly.

“But what I had hoped to discuss,” Alred said at once, thereby sparing Hetty any further embarrassment, “was a certain invitation to which your ungentlemanly spouse has not yet had the courtesy to reply.”

“I told you I should ask Lili first,” Egelric protested.

“Ask me what?” Lili chirped.

“I have invited you all for Christmas,” Alred said. “I believe we can manage with Bruni,” he said to Hetty. “The Lord knows I rode everywhere with my Margaret when she was that age. And I hope you will consent,” he said, turning back to Lili and Egelric. “The last time I invited Egelric for Christmas, he got a very lovely wife out of it, and perhaps if I’m lucky he will return the favor one of these years.”

Hetty gasped and turned redder than ever, though as usual no one was paying her any attention. Was it possible he meant to speak to her at Christmas time?

“How sweet!” Lili said. “May we go?” she asked Egelric.

“We shall spend Christmas anywhere you like, Lili,” Egelric said.

“Anywhere?” she giggled. “In that case, I beg your pardon, Alred, but I should like to spend Christmas on the moon.”

“On the moon!” Egelric laughed aloud.

“And if your father sank in up to his knees, then I shall be sunk in moon dust up to my shoulders!”

“Does this bitty hen have such wings that she can fly up to the moon?” Egelric cooed and tickled her back.

“Those two appear to have other plans,” Alred said softly to Hetty. “But unless you care to tread moon dust for Christmas, I hope you and Bruni at least will join us.”

Hetty was so moved she could not speak, and so she nodded.

Alred opened his mouth as if he meant to say more, but they were all distracted by a thump and a squeal as Egelric succeeded in tickling Lili down into his lap.

“You two are too much!” Sophie cried. “Are you certain you want this sort of goings-​​on in your castle, Alred?”

“I think it would be a nice change,” Alred said. “Even the old man is getting too old to sit in my lap and be tickled any longer.”

“I hope you don’t think Egelric means to let you borrow his wife to tickle.”

“No, Sophie, I do not. But any ladies not similarly encumbered by jealous husbands are welcome to come and let me practice on them.”

“Count me out, then,” Sophie groaned.

But Hetty’s heart was pounding. She had never in her life sat on a man’s lap to be tickled, and the thought terrified her, though Lili seemed to like it. And yet… if it were the lap of as gentle a man as Alred, she thought, though she might be terrified, she might enjoy it too.