"When did you get back?"
Mrs. Severton, returning from a visit to the neighbor's, found Eloise at the table adjusting her shawl and looking rather more laden-down than she'd left.
"Recently."
"Did you manage everything?"
"Yes, mostly. Though I think the arrangement with Mr. Keynes ought to be reconsidered."
"Oh, I shouldn't wonder. Mrs. Luzon was just telling me he's been seen at the gambling house rather frequently of late. Men who go there rarely come out the better for it. He probably neglects the shop and hopes luck will do what honest work should." She was warming to her subject when her eyes fell on the table—or rather, on what had become of it.
When she'd left, there had been a few trinkets. Now there was barely a surface visible beneath an accumulation of vegetables, eggs, wrapped parcels, and items of uncertain origin.
Mrs. Severton approached with the expression of a woman who has lived long enough to recognize a pattern.
"You don't need to explain. How many people did you pass on the road to Cambon?"
Eloise began counting on her fingers.
Mrs. Severton waved a hand. "Never mind."
"Your father is too kind—that's always been the difficulty." She began sorting through the vegetables with practiced efficiency. "And people remember kindness for exactly as long as it suits them."
It wasn't entirely fair, and she knew it. Mr. Severton had spent decades quietly helping people who had nowhere else to turn—reading letters for those who couldn't read, untangling the arithmetic at the Cambon fair so no one was cheated, lending money he couldn't spare and time he didn't have. He'd turned down university posts because of it. And most people were grateful. Most.
But the ones who weren't—who blamed him when things went wrong despite his efforts—those were the ones that pressed on Mrs. Severton's chest like a stone.
"It's good that there are grateful people," she said, which was the most charitable framing she could manage, and moved on.
As she sorted through what the road to Cambon had produced, her hand found something that didn't belong with the rest—a paper bag, clearly from somewhere other than Feltham, with gold embossing pressed into a bright pattern. Capital work, unmistakably. She lifted it, turned it over, and drew out a glass jar tied with ribbon and a small paper tag.
"What is this?"
"Sergeant Thornton sent it for you. It's a tea Mr. Wilson brought back from overseas—some warm, distant country. It has a remarkable aroma, and the taste is just as good. They're going to serve it at Blissbury. Would you like to try it?"
Mrs. Severton lifted the lid, and the scent that rose from the jar made her pause. Unfamiliar, floral, warm—not repulsive, as she'd instinctively braced for, but something she couldn't quite place. It reminded her, distantly, of something she'd smelled once in the capital: the air from a country where, they said, it was always summer.
Eloise brought cups and hot water from the kitchen, then demonstrated as Mr. Wilson had shown her—tea in the cup, hot water poured over.
"Does it need to be strained?"
"No. Wait."
Mrs. Severton watched the cup with mild skepticism. Her daughter was watching it with the expression of someone waiting for a particularly satisfying thing to happen.
A moment passed.
"Oh!"
The flower unfurled in the cup—slow and complete, opening in the hot water as though it had been waiting for precisely this moment.
"I've seen flower teas before," Mrs. Severton said, her skepticism entirely gone. "But never one that bloomed like this."
"Try it."
She brought the cup to her lips. The flavor met her—aromatic and sweet and somehow clean, nothing cloying about it, rich without requiring milk or sugar to make it pleasant.
She set the cup down and looked at the jar again.
As a hostess, tea was something she took seriously. The quality of what you served said something about how you received people, and Mrs. Severton had always refused to let Feltham set her standard—she had relatives in the capital send things that Mr. Wilson's shop couldn't supply. It was one of the reasons the ladies of Feltham loved to visit.
"It must have been expensive," she said. "I know it's not polite to say so of a gift."
"I don't know the exact price either, but Mr. Wilson's face said everything. Sergeant Thornton bought all the stock at once, so now this tea exists only at Blissbury and here. Apparently no one else could afford to buy it."
She'd expected this to please her mother.
Instead, Mrs. Severton's expression became carefully still.
"Is something wrong?"
"It's only—did he perhaps buy too much? Rare items are certainly important for Blissbury's reputation, but if it placed a strain on the estate's budget..."
"Oh, that. It wasn't from the estate's budget. He paid for it himself."
Mrs. Severton's concern shifted rather than resolved. "He bought all of it? With his own money?"
"Everything in the jar Mr. Wilson showed him. Which was quite a lot."
What Eloise had brought home alone would have amounted to a farmer's wages for the month. Tea was that kind of luxury.
"That was generous of him," Mrs. Severton said, in the tone of someone recalibrating. "Though it must have been a considerable expense."
"He received a great many decorations during the war. The monetary rewards for those aren't small. And he doesn't seem the type to spend carelessly." Eloise paused. "Or to mention it."
Her mother looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite read.
"How do you know all this?"
"We work together at Blissbury most days. You talk, after a while."
"That's true enough. But Eloise—this is the first time I've heard you speak well of a gentleman without someone else bringing it up first. You've always been so thorough about finding their faults."
"If that's how I seem, I must be the most ill-mannered woman in Feltham." Eloise's voice sharpened slightly. "And I'd point out that the fault-finding was rarely unprovoked."
Mrs. Severton, recognizing the terrain, changed course smoothly.
"In any case—we've received a thoughtful and expensive gift. Something ought to be given in return."
"In return, I go to Blissbury every day." Eloise let her shoulders drop with theatrical exhaustion.
Mrs. Severton regarded this performance without sympathy.
"What choice is there, with your father away? And don't pretend to be tired—you leave at dawn and come home looking altogether too lively for someone who's been suffering."
She wasn't wrong. Blissbury was considerably more interesting than sitting at home, and considerably more so than it had been when her father was there. Sergeant Thornton gave her actual authority to make decisions—trusted her judgment without requiring her to justify every choice. She'd done more real work on the estate in the past weeks than she had in years, and she would not have admitted to anyone, least of all her mother, how much she'd enjoyed it.
Outside, Lancelot the goose registered some strong opinion about something, loudly.
A moment later, Emily came through the door with her apron gathered into a basket shape, full of eggs—Lancelot apparently having objected to the collection.
"I'm back. I dropped Mrs. Luzon's eggs off on the way." She set them down and looked up, bright-faced with news. "And Mrs. Luzon told me—the deserter's been caught!"