The Youngest Bridesmaid by Sara Seale

she was found wanting. If Tibby had ever met Melissa, indee d , even if she had not, she was bound to make comparisons.
    “ I ’ d have thought you ’ d more sense, Mr. Piers, ” was her first uncompromising comment. “ Cradle-snatching ’ s the first sign of old age. What possessed you? ”
    “I don’t know, Tibby, unless I had a sudden moment of intuition,” Piers answered lazily.
    “Intuition my foot! Temper more like—I’ve read the papers.”
    “You should never believe all you read in the press, Tibby dear, and you must be nice to my little bride. She has much to learn about our life here.”
    “She’ll learn nothing you’re not willing to teach yourself, but that, most like, will amuse you for a time.”
    “ You will have gathered that Tibby has a poor opinion of me as a prospective husband, ” he said , cocking an eyebrow at Lou and she had the unhappy impression that they were both merely using her as the excuse for a familiar sparring match, and she wondered how Melissa would have dealt with this old woman who clearly had little respect or patience for tender feelings. But Melissa, of course, would not have cared. She would have made a few gracious overtures because it was a good thing to be charming to servants, then written Tibby o ff as a tiresome old bore and tried to persuade Piers to pension her o ff. Too tired to pay attention to their voices any longer, Lou let her eyes wander over her new home, or as much of it as she could see from where they stood. Get the feel of the house, Piers had said, and she began to realize that the disappointing fa c ade had been misleading. The house had a depth one would not suspect from the front, or someone had built on and created a surprising illusion of space. Stone passages led of f the wide hall, high and vaulted, with steps going up and steps going down to other rooms; a great stove, ugly but efficient, radiated a comforting warmth, and oil lamps cast distorted shadows on the whitewashed walls.
    “ Rather bare and monastic, are you thinking? ” Piers said suddenly, making her jump, and she became aware that they were both watching her, Piers with a hint of amusement, Tibby with pursed lips and an expression that could be termed pawky. It could matter to neither of them, she rejected, what she thought of the house, so she said nothing.
    “ You ’ ll be wanting your room, maybe? ” the old woman said with a belated sense of her duties, and without waiting for an answer led the way upstairs.
    The room Lou found herse l f in was high and narrow with rush matting covering the fl oor and a bed that looked comfortable but unwelcoming with its utilitarian air of severity and plain, dark spread. A door leading to another room stood ajar, and through it Lou glimpsed fire light dickering on Persian ru g s and the gleaming patina of polished wood, a room to which this bare, impersonal chamber was clearly an annexe.
    “ Would you l i ke me to unpack for you? ” Tibby said, and Lou caught hostility beneath an o ff er which was, she was sure, not intended to be taken s eriously.
    “ No, thank you, ” she replied politely, accepting with a sinking heart the fact that the old woman seemed to have taken a dislike to her, then she became aware that Piers had followed them up and was standing in the doorway with raised eyebrows.
    “ Why haven ’ t you had the bed moved? ” he asked.
    “ Time enough in the morning, ” Tibby replied. “ You ’ ll be needing a good night ’ s sleep with that bad head and all. ”
    “ Stubborn old bitch, aren ’ t you? ” Piers observed with the unoffensive ease of long standing. “ Well, take Mrs. Merrick ’ s cases into the other room, and bring mine in. here. Did you give the orders where she was to sleep? ”
    “ I put you in your accustomed room, naturally, but if madam wishes to change— ”
    But it appeared to Lou that Piers, too, had caught the scarcely veiled mockery behind that subservient “ madam ” , for