“Hey Ho—it’s a fine day for the nutty buns! Hey Ho, Hey Ho—here come the Nutty Buns! Hey Ho, Hey Ho, Hey Ho—NUTTY BUNS!”
A new experience for a Sherbrooke at a breakfast table, Meggie thought, wanting to laugh, but she only smiled, nodding toward Mrs. Mullins. “That was lovely. Thank you, Cook. May I have a cup of tea?”
Cook continued singing even as she poured the tea. Soon every nutty bun was in capital letters. Then, with a final hey ho, she disappeared back through the wall.
No one saw anything amiss with anything. Just another breakfast at Pendragon.
Meggie ate. The eggs were delicious, as were the nutty buns. So Cook made a perfectly wonderful breakfast, just as Thomas had told her, but why, then, was the dinner so abysmal? She would write to Mary Rose immediately for recipes. Wait, maybe she needed to have a song to accompany the dinner dishes she prepared. Hmmm. Meggie hadn’t ever tried to write a song before, but now she would.
William Malcombe said, a limp piece of bacon draped over one finger, “You’re a very pretty girl.”
“Thank you, William. You are a very nice-looking boy. You look like your mother. Are you really sweet?”
Libby said, “A pretty compliment. Madeleine, did you hear that?”
“I heard. Where is Thomas, young lady? Did you exhaust him last night?”
Thomas said in a very loud voice from the doorway, “Mother, forgive me for being late. I wanted to see that Pen was all right after his soaking yesterday. He is. Meggie, you have met William, I see. He is visiting us from Oxford. A surprise visit.”
“Yes, I have met William.”
She said nothing while Cook served Thomas scrambled eggs and nutty buns. She wasn’t singing now. Meggie continued to say nothing when Madeleine said, “What are your plans today, Thomas?”
“I am taking Meggie about the property. Would you like to introduce her to Mrs. Black?” He added to his bride, “She is our housekeeper.”
“Here from before you were born?”
“That’s right,” he said, all pleasant and easy, and ate a nutty bun.
“I will need a horse,” Meggie said.
“I have selected Aisling for you. That means’dream’ in Gaelic. She is a bay with one white stocking, and on a good day she can beat Pen in a race.”
“Prepare, my lord, to eat dirt.”
He laughed. “After Survivor, I couldn’t very well provide you with a nag, now could I?”
Closer to two hours later, since Meggie had agreed to walk on Barnacle’s back in the kitchen, she joined her husband at the Pendragon stables to meet her new mare, Aisling, and give her two carrots.
When they were riding down the long drive, the sun hot overhead, she said, “I met Mrs. Black in the kitchen. She is very nice. She is also nearly blind, Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“She can’t see dirt.”
“No, probably not much.”
“Then why hasn’t your mother seen to it that Pendragon is cleaned and the furniture waxed and the draperies replaced since Mrs. Black is blind?”
“I never asked. However, now you will see to it. At last I will have a clean house.” She was so startled she nearly got knocked off Aisling’s back when the mare swerved too close to an oak tree branch.
“Have a care, Meggie.”
“Oh yes, I’m sorry, Aisling. Goodness, you have noticed that the place is a mess then?”
“Mrs. Black is nearly blind, not I. I was hoping that you would notice and wish to take a hand in fixing things. There is enough money to make any reparations you wish to. I have already done quite a bit of work on our tenant cottages and outbuildings. You have but to ask Paddy, my steward, and he will see to it. He will be about this afternoon. I ask only that you tread diplomatically around my mother and all the servants. Change is usually very difficult for people.”
Meggie nodded. “Maybe your mother believed there wasn’t enough money and that was why she didn’t do anything.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow to that. “You’re kind to make that excuse, Meggie. However, as you know, cleaning really doesn’t require much money. No, she merely doesn’t care. She has always hated Pendragon. Her home was Bowden Close. I imagine that she might want to go live there now that it belongs to me. She spends all her time producing endless journals, recording all her woes in both English and French.”