A Midsummer's Magic Read online

  A Midsummer's Magic

  By

  Mary Chase Comstock

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Epilogue

  AN EXPERIMENT IN ROMANCE

  St. Ives noticed that the bird, Trevalyen, was watching him fixedly from his roost in the corner, cocking his head from one side to the other. He raised his eyebrows at the bird. It flapped its wings vigorously, looking for all the world as if it were urging him in Lady Polly's direction. St. Ives shrugged and made a mental notation: experiment one.

  He slowly crossed the room to where Hippolyta stood silhouetted against the open window. He looked back at Trevalyen. The bird flapped its wings yet again. Uncanny! St. Ives turned back to the lady. All at once and with a great Whoosh! the bird flew directly out the window just above their heads, so startling Hippolyta that she stumbled backward, directly into St. Ives's arms.

  "Umph!" she managed. "That foolish bird! I… I beg your pardon, St. Ives."

  "Granted, my lady," he said in a low voice as he steadied her.

  She gazed into his grey eyes and was disturbed to see that they seemed troubled, questioning. "What is the matter, St. Ives?" she asked softly.

  "Merely this," he whispered as the sound of the raven's cry faded slowly to silence. Then he lowered his lips to hers.

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  850 Third Avenue New York,

  NY 10022

  ISBN: 0-8217-4632-4 / 978-0-8217-4632-5

  Copyright © 1994 by Mary Chase

  First Printing: July, 1994

  One

  Diana Neysmith eased herself back onto a pile of downy pillows, and carefully arranged her dark ringlets against their snowy backdrop. She had been awake for some time now and had just finished applying a generous dusting of rice powder to her round, pink cheeks and a smudge of charcoal beneath each eye. Fate had been unkind to her, and, if her high coloring and robust health could not reflect her sufferings, she saw not the least thing wrong with using whatever devices came to hand to disguise her deceptive rosiness.

  She had to admit that the sight of her pale visage in the glass just now had been quite affecting. Certainly, the spectacle of her distress could not fail to wring even the most hardened of hearts. She would be a weak-willed thing indeed if she were to bow to the dictates of cruel fortune. She had taken her best action. Now, all she must do was wait for Jane to bring her morning tray.

  It was not terribly long before Diana's patience was rewarded. Indeed, she took it as a propitious omen that the warbled notes of a melancholy dirge, executed with a good deal more energy than accuracy, preceded the maid's entrance:

  He rode, he rode till he met six young men

  With a corpse all dressed in white.

  'Come set her down, come set her down,

  Come set her down by me,

  That I may kiss her clay cold lips

  Before she is taken away!

  By the time Jane had pushed the door of the chamber open with one generous hip and sung these last notes, Diana was forced to wipe away a small tear that threatened to run down her powdered cheek and destroy her handiwork. Had it not been for her healthy constitution, the song might well have been written about her, she decided with a small, self-pitying sniff.

  "Alack the day, my pet," Jane complained mournfully as she carried the heavily laden tray toward her young mistress's bed. " 'Tis a clear blue day, but I expect it will turn dreadful before too long. There is a creaking in my bones that will not go away. But do not waste a thought on my sufferings, child. Here is your breakfast, though, I warned Cook, the bacon does not look quite right. If tainted meat should make you sick as a cat, it will be on her head. But never mind me, Miss Diana. Sit up and eat just the same. You must be ready for today's journey as fast as may be."

  Instead of applying herself to her breakfast with her customary alacrity, Diana merely moaned pitifully and turned her head away, reflecting as she did so that it was a good thing she had eaten quite a hearty meal on the previous night.

  "I vow, Jane," she whispered hollowly, "I could not swallow a bite."

  "What, Miss Diana?" Jane exclaimed in sudden distress. "No chocolate? No poached egg? Not even a lovely scone? Lord save us all!" To say that it was unlike her young mistress to refuse food was to gravely understate the matter.

  By way of reply, Diana sighed dramatically and cast her eyes toward the ceiling.

  "You are never ailing, Miss Diana!" Jane exclaimed, throwing her hands up in horror. "Oh, my heart! And the family fixing to go to Brighton this very day. It is too vexatious! I do not know what the Master will say, indeed I do not!"

  Diana vouchsafed a heart-rending groan.

  "Well, I see I had best fetch Lady Ann for all I wish I did not have to! I fear she will not like this at all, Miss Diana. You know very well she cannot, since she has been looking forward to this holiday for ever so long. Oh, she will be fizzle-fazzled! Do you not think," she asked in a hopeful tone, "that you could bundle up well and be sick in Brighton?"

  With steadfast resolution, Diana flung an arm over her brow and groaned again with renewed energy. She would not go to Brighton! She had not the heart to go to Brighton. No power on earth could force her to that noxious place, the streets and parks absolutely vile with lovers and their noisome excesses…

  "I do not like telling Lady Ann at all, Miss Diana. It is more than a body ought to be asked to do," Jane went on mournfully, "for she does take on so when plans do not go just as they ought. I am sure it was that foolish assembly last night. The damp night air cannot be salubrious and I have said so on more than one occasion. Many's the young girl has died of it. Oh, dear, Miss Diana," she cried out suddenly, clasping her hands to her breast, "do try to not die! For, if you should, I am sure it would be the most shocking thing and would upset Lady Ann even more than not going to Brighton!"

  At this last silliness, Diana summoned herself from the clutches of the Grim Reaper. Half rising up in her bed, she snapped impatiently, "For heaven's sake, Jane, just go at once and tell my mother I must see her. I have not got all day!"

  Thus commanded, Jane sighed dolefully, bobbed a quick curtsey, and retreated hastily. Diana folded her arms with grim determination and waited. A very few minutes passed before the door opened once again to admit a distraught but elegant lady in a dressing gown of burgundy silk trimmed with little peach-colored tassels. Lady Ann Neysmith was a still-lovely woman, just past the best years of her youth. Her china-blue eyes were fringed with thick lashes, and only a few strands of silver betrayed her golden curls.

  "My poor angel," Lady Ann fluttered, sitting down on the edge of the bed and placing her hand on Diana's exceedingly pale brow. "What is it?"

  "I am very much afraid, Mama," Diana whispered faintly, "that I am not altogether well today."

  "Well, my chick, a visit to the seaside will soon set you straight. Why, a change of air must be the very thing!"

  "But, Mama," she faltered, "I am sure I am not equal to such a journey."

  "Oh, but you must be, my dear," her mother explained with a patient smile, "for it is already planned, you see. The trunks are packed. Most of the servants are sent ahead. There is nothing for it but to go." She smiled innocently, then, patting her daughter's cheek, she stood up and pr
epared to go.

  "Mama, do but listen," Diana persisted desperately, clinging to her mother's arm. "I tell you I cannot go. Do but look at me."

  "You do seem a shade pale," her mother admitted after a moment's hesitation, "but never fear. The fresh sea breezes will bring the roses back to your cheeks."

  Diana bit her lower lip and frowned. She would not go to Brighton. She would not face that villainous Lord Dumphrey with all his smiling ways and that wretched, wretched Miss Varney. She would not get roses in her cheeks. She would curl up her toes and die first.

  "Now, eat your breakfast, my love," her mother told her. "We must be ready to go in two hours. You know what your father is when he has to wait."

  Diana allowed two great tears to well up in her enormous brown eyes. "I am afraid I cannot, Mama," she said in a tremulous little voice.

  "Why ever not, Diana?"

  "Oh, how tedious you are!" she cried desperately. "Can you not see I have gone into a decline?"

  When Lady Ann faced her husband, Sir Reginald, with this dreadful news, that gentleman looked up momentarily from his newspaper. "Diana's taken one of her freakish fits again, eh?"

  "Well, I am sure I do not call a dangerous decline a freakish fit, Reginald," she said reprovingly. "It is excessively poor of you to do so. It would break your heart to see how sickly she looks. She is as pale as paste. Oh! She is such an inconvenient child, though; my nerves are quite jangled. And," she pouted, "I do so want to go to Brighton."

  "And so you will, my love," Sir Reginald told her as he turned the page of his paper.

  "Well, I am sure I do not know how. How can you even think it, Reginald? If she should take a notion to have a fit it would be most troublesome. The coachman would never countenance it."

  Here, Sir Reginald sighed heavily. "You forget, my love, that the coachman is in our employ. If we all should choose to take fits he must countenance it, and I daresay he ought, for he is paid well enough. However, I do not think Diana is any more likely to take a fit than I am."

  "But how can you be certain?" his wife persisted. "Girls take fits every day, and you must own that Diana's going all stiff and hysterical on the road to Brighton would never do at all."

  "No more it would. You are quite right, my love," the gentleman conceded gravely. "This is a very dangerous circumstance. No, I fancy Brighton's liveliness would be altogether too stimulating for the poor child's constitution. However, I have a good notion to send her to the country to recover herself."

  "To the country, my love?"

  "Well," he explained, "she cannot stay here by herself, and I see no reason for the rest of the family to miss a holiday simply because we have raised an exceedingly silly daughter."

  Lady Ann looked at him blankly for a moment. "I am afraid you must explain yourself, my love. Diana is surely no sillier than I am."

  "As ever, you are right, my love," Sir Reginald told her with a slight smile. "I spoke amiss. However, do but take a moment to look at your hand."

  Lady Ann held her hand up and frowned at it. After a moment, her husband reached out, and pulled her hand toward his lips. Then he blew. A puff of white powder clouded the air. Lady Ann frowned in confusion.

  "You see, my dear, I believe our Diana is up to her old tricks."

  "I am afraid I do not follow, my love."

  Sir Reginald sighed deeply. "You remember when she was a child how she painted her face with currant juice and drank hot tea so we would think she had the scarlet fever? As I recall, she did not wish to pay a summer visit to her cousins in Kent. Now, she does not wish to go with us to Brighton, so she has covered herself in rice powder. I saw it on the sleeve of your dressing gown as soon as you walked in."

  Slowly, the dawn rose in Lady Ann's lovely eyes. "But, my love," she said slowly after a few moments, "why should Diana not wish to go to Brighton? All the world wishes to go to Brighton."

  "All the world," he told her solemnly, "has not been slighted in love."

  Sir Reginald watched with some amusement as his wife slowly digested this new information. Forestalling her inevitable questions, he went on. "I should not have known myself, had I not entertained a most singular interview with our daughter yesterday afternoon. She informed me that Lord Dumphrey would soon be calling on me. It was to have been his intention, so Diana assured me, to beg permission to pay his addresses."

  "I had not the least idea he was such a villain!" Lady Ann exclaimed vehemently. "Why, he is to be married to Miss Varney, as all the world knows."

  "All the world did not know it until last night," her husband reminded her patiently. "I do not know what possessed our daughter of the notion that a celebrated Corinthian had singled out a child of sixteen for his attentions, but clearly she thought it was so. Now, she is not only broken-hearted, but humiliated as well. Miss Varney and her family are to shortly travel to Brighton. Lord Dumphrey will attend them. Ergo, Diana has gone into a decline."

  Lady Ann appeared to be digesting this line of reasoning, and Sir Reginald allowed her the time to do so. During the fifteen minutes that followed, he finished reading his paper, penned a brief letter, sealed it, and looked expectantly at his wife.

  "I do not understand," she said.

  He paused for a moment. "Er… which part do you not understand?"

  "How it is that we are going to Brighton and Diana is going to the country."

  "Ah, I did neglect that part. Sorry, my love. I have just this moment written my sister Hippolyta to say we are sending Diana to her for a brief visit. Needless to say, Diana and the letter will arrive at the same time, but that is neither here nor there. You and I and young Bertie shall travel to Brighton—but hang me if I haven't a notion to send Bertie along with Diana and just the pair of us go to Brighton! What do you say to that, my love?" he asked, pulling her down on his knee. "It will be quite like old times!"

  "Aunt Polly!" Diana cried in the same distressed tones a tragic heroine might utter the name of a loathsome villain. "But I do not wish to go to Aunt Polly! I wish to stay right here. I wish to keep to my bed and have Jane take care of me!"

  "I daresay you do," her father allowed good-naturedly. "However, it will never do at all. Now out with it, Diana. Just what have you against your aunt besides her being a quiz?"

  Here, Diana bit her lip in silence. How could her father possibly understand? First of all, there were never any young men at Aunt Polly's. They were all very nearly as old as churches—thirty and more—and tedious besides! Always prosing on about something they had read in some dusty volume!

  Besides, that stepson of hers, Edward, was so vexing. The last time she saw him, three years ago, he had convinced her and Bertie to take a shortcut he knew across the moors. They ended up knee-deep in a vile marsh where she had ruined her best pair of kid slippers. To make matters worse, Edward had had the bad grace to laugh at her. If, by some miracle, time had wrought any change in his thoroughly odious character, she doubted it would be of the least significance.

  These were not the most significant of her problems, though. She did not at all wish to voice her true feelings about her father's sister, however well founded she felt them to be. Father could be quite tedious about family. It did not matter to him that she would spend the next month living on tiptoe—in mortal terror!

  "It is just that Aunt Polly is so…" she trailed off, unequal to finding the proper word.

  "Aye, she's singular," Sir Reginald conceded, "but there is nothing in that. The whole family is singular. Not a thing to be done about it. Nevertheless, your mother and I are going to Brighton. You and Bertie are off to Hippolyta."

  "Not… not Bertie, too!" she exclaimed in anguished tones.

  "Bertie, too," her father repeated cheerfully. "Now, I want you out of bed, dressed, and ready to leave here in an hour."

  "But, Father!" she cried in tones of mournful reproach.

  "Can you not see that I am unwell? How can you be so unfeeling?"

  It was most unfortunate that Dian
a came from too good a family to take to the stage, Sir Reginald thought ruefully. What a waste of histrionic talent! Dismissing this vain thought, however, he frowned and said, "Be sure to wash your face, Diana."

  "Aunt Polly!" Bertie cried as he bounced from his bed. "That's famous, Mama! Aunt Polly is far better than Brighton!"

  "I am glad you approve," Lady Ann told him with a slight smile. She truly did dote on this lad of eight years who, unlike Diana, shared her own fair coloring and enormous blue eyes. "However, I am very much afraid your sister will not."

  "My sister is a looby!" the child stated with grim conviction.

  "Oh, dear! I do not know where you pick up such vile language, Bertie. Come, sit on my knee and eat a sweetmeat to take the bad taste out of your mouth."

  Bertie, in fact, thought words such as the one he had just uttered made his mouth feel very good indeed. Nevertheless, he climbed onto his mother's lap and popped the treat into his mouth. He was not one to pass by good fortune lightly.

  "Aunt Hippolyta!" he repeated as he licked his lips. "I shall have to bring my spyglass, for she has a very fine turret, you know. I can see for miles!"

  "Yes," his mother said absently. "Remember to tell Jane to tuck it into a bag for you."

  "I shan't forget that, nor my little notebook, neither," he told her as he slid down from her lap. "And, if I am very, very good, perhaps Aunt Polly will let me visit her laboratory."

  "Do try not to touch anything nasty," Lady Ann shuddered. For a moment she was not at all happy about sending the children to her husband's younger sister. Hippolyta was such an odd woman, all alone in that rambling estate on the moors. For good or ill, however, a moment was all the length Lady Ann's apprehensions ever lasted. They were quite forgot by the time she had shut the door behind her.

  "Off to Aunt Hippolyta," Bertie grinned to himself. "Off to the witch's domain!"