Free In Distant Fields by Charlotte Bingham Page A

happen to one next year? Wondering if by next yearone will be married with five children? Or still wandering the world in search of a beau?’
    Kitty stared at her fleetingly. She herself felt really quite tired, and would not mind at all if she spent the rest of the evening on a wobbly gilt chair, watching everyone else enjoying themselves.
    Yet once Kitty and Bridie had begun her toilette , accompanied by still more nonstop nonsensical chatter from Partita, Kitty seemed to forget all about her fatigue, especially since Bridie’s method of brushing her hair was strongly reminiscent of the method she must use when beating Violet’s rugs on the washing line in the back garden.
    â€˜Lady Maude is quite interesting, actually,’ Partita said, lifting her arms up and not bothering to pause while Tinker, deftly balancing the dress between two sticks, lowered yet another ball gown over her newly coiffed hair. ‘Interesting and fun, but her husband is horrid.’
    â€˜Now, now, Lady Tita,’ Tinker clucked. ‘If you don’t take care, there’ll be soap instead of paste on that toothbrush of yours tonight.’
    â€˜She and the awful Cecil live in what was her father’s house. Lady Maude’s family are Keepers of the Keys, do you see – of our keys, of the keys to Bauders. That has been their position for goodness knows how long,’ Partita sighed, emerging from her now fully lowered gown. ‘When a monarch visits, there’s this elaborate ceremony with the Keys. It drives Papa todistraction because whenever King George and Queen Mary visit, he has to wait for boring old Cecil , who has now taken on the role of Keeper of the Keys for himself, to be done with all his bowing and scraping and special speech-making. It really is enough to drive the King, and Papa, to distraction.’
    â€˜Tut tut,’ Tinker clucked again, frowning at Bridie. ‘All this criticism of His Grace’s friends, Lady Tita. It ain’t fitting. It really ain’t fitting.’
    â€˜Oh, never mind fitting, Tinker,’ Partita replied, regarding herself in the dressing glass. ‘I am quite sure that anything I say is as nothing compared with what you have to say in the servants’ hall.’
    â€˜At least we waits till your backs are turned, Lady Tita,’ Tinker said, giving her mistress’s sumptuous gown one last adjustment.
    â€˜You would blush if you knew what I said about you, Tinker,’ Partita said, pulling a face at Kitty. ‘It would turn that curly hair of yours quite, quite straight. The fact is, Kitty – Cecil Milborne is to be avoided. Mamma says poor Hugh’s asthma is entirely accountable to his father’s beastliness.’
    â€˜Folk gets asthma from damp, Lady Tita—’
    â€˜Sure you should try the place where I was raised,’ Bridie offered. ‘There was so much damp Mam never had to draw water for washing, she just ran the flannel across the walls …’ She left the sentence unfinished, shaking her head.
    â€˜Horrid for you …’
    Partita made commiserating noises, while not really listening. She turned to Tinker.
    â€˜You’ve been an angel as always, Tinks, you know that, don’t you?’
    Tinker looked up momentarily from her tidying-up. ‘I do know that, Lady Tita, and you have been a little devil as always.’
    Partita blew her a kiss. ‘You are my own dear Tinker, and you know it,’ she said, smiling with satisfaction.
    â€˜Thank you, Bridie,’ Kitty called back in her turn from the door, despite the fact that her head was still aching from the maid’s attentions to her hair, but that was not something she could now do much about.
    The carriages circled in front of Milborne House, the flares lighting up the grand parade of horses and harnesses, of coachmen and grooms, of doors painted with ancient coats of arms. The old, eighteenth-century stone house, with