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FOOTMAN WANTED in a Gentleman’s Family, A steady Man. He must have been used to waiting at table, and the business of a family.

Sanity returned with the rest of the Barstows, and Sarah thanked heaven they were so full of enthusiasm for Antony and Cleopatra that her mention of Mr. Langworthy’s call elicited no more than a sighing “I’m sorry to have missed him, when time is so short” from Mrs. Barstow.

“I told you not to remind her!” Frances hissed, widening her eyes at Sarah behind Mrs. Barstow’s back before saying loudly, “You should have heard Gordy recite Enobarbus’ speech about ‘the chair she sat in like a burnished throne,’ Sarah!

It was far better than that little boy what’s-his-name squeaking, ‘Let Rome in Tiber melt.’”

Sarah of course prevailed upon Gordon to repeat his triumph, and Mr. Langworthy was safely forgotten.

Except by Sarah.

It doesn’t matter , she told herself as she fell asleep that night. It doesn’t matter if I think now I might have learned to like him well enough to—

Well enough to marry him? replied the darkness.

It did not matter.

He would be going soon. By the children’s ball, or even sooner, if he took her words to heart.

Though the following day was dry and clear and Sarah another day better, Lord Dere would not hear of them walking to Perryfield and sent his coach.

At the foot of the baron’s note Mrs. Dere added in her elegant hand: “Please pay no particular attention to the new footmen, but rather treat them exactly as you would Wood or any of the others.”

“That’s like being told not to look at a person,” remarked Frances. “What can one do then but look right at him?”

“And Peter says they’re perfect bunglers,” put in Gordon, “which makes me especially want to look.”

Her thoughts elsewhere, Sarah alone was uninterested in the new servants, but when the coachman Ogle helped her descend at the great house, his muttered “Ah, Lord a mercy” caused her to glance at him and then to follow his gaze to the front door being opened.

A head poked around it, which was the next instant whipped away again, to be replaced by Wood the footman, his usual impassive countenance marred by a cross expression.

When the Barstows entered, Wood’s stiff bow and pressed lips made it impossible not to peep at the two apprentices he had been assigned.

They wore livery as he did, wigs as he did, but they could not have looked less like him.

One was tall and stooped and ancient, with a square, slack face, and Sarah could only wonder at such an aged person still needing to learn the duties of a footboy.

He must be incompetent indeed. The second was as young and lithe as the first was old and decrepit, and in him Sarah recognized the pert features which had first peeked around the front door.

Pert features dominated by two pale eyes as keen as ever Harry Barbary’s had been. Could he possibly be a relation?

“Wrigley and Blodgett,” grunted Wood. Not bothering to indicate which was Wrigley and which Blodgett, nor waiting for the infirm one to creak upward from his bow, Wood stamped past both, leading the Barstows to the drawing room.

“Mrs. Sebastian, how good to see you up and about again,” Mrs. Markham Dere greeted her. “We feared your illness would prevent you attending the children’s ball, and you were much missed as a partner at our last dancing lesson.”

“Thank you, madam. I am glad not to miss the ball.”

“We missed your gracefulness,” spoke up Lord Dere, when he saw that his niece considered her show of concern complete. “Perhaps Mr. Langworthy in particular, since poor Tommy Wardour’s feet seemed beyond the boy’s ability to control, and our naval friend bore the brunt of them.”

“If we were learning clog dancing, Tommy would excel,” joked Frances.

“Why, Uncle, you speak as if Mr. Langworthy were Mrs. Sebastian’s particular friend,” said Mrs. Dere with a brittle laugh, “instead of being a friend of all the Barstows. Besides, whatever Mr. Langworthy’s sufferings, they are nearly at an end.

” Regarding Sarah with a thin smile, she added, “I’m certain your family has told you, Mrs. Sebastian, that we are soon to lose the man back to Portsmouth? ”

Sarah bowed her head in acknowledgement but was spared making a response by the younger footboy suddenly giving a shriek and beginning to dance about the room, as if inspired by the idea of Tommy Wardour clog dancing.

“He’s caught fire!” cried Gordon and Peter in unison, while Maria screamed and pointed helpfully at the tail of the footboy’s coat.

In a blur both Wood and the baron sprang forward, but Wood seized the little fireplace broom first and laid about him until the footboy was flattened on the carpet, wig askew and posterior extinguished.

“Little fool!” hissed Wood. “What did I say about standing further to the side?”

“Now, now, Wood,” soothed Lord Dere, “he has already received his punishment, in mortification, if not injury. You all right there, young Wrigley?”

On the contrary, young Wrigley looked about to burst into tears, but he managed to unscrew his features enough to squeak, “Yes, milord.” Clambering to his feet, he gave his wig a tug to straighten it, covering a stripe of ginger hair.

The kindly baron took pity on the unfortunate lad and stepped in front of him to block him from view of the gathering. “Mrs. Sebastian, did you make Gordon give you his Enobarbus speech yesterday? It was very well done, indeed. Quite the hit—”

“As was Peter’s delivery of Octavius’ ‘She shall be buried by her Antony,’” interposed Mrs. Dere.

“Very true, Alice,” he agreed. “Both boys did marvelously.”

“I would have liked to see them at Keele’s,” Sarah answered. “Gordon did recite for me later, and perhaps I might prevail on you too, Peter, after dinner?”

Peter agreed, of course, and Mrs. Dere was appeased, and Wrigley the footboy had time to recover (if one ignored the occasional gulping and sniffling heard during the pauses) before Wood led him and Blodgett away to carry up the dinner, but then Sarah was sorry to see the subject of Mr. Langworthy renewed.

In fact, she somehow found herself on contested ground, with the baron inexplicably wanting to talk up the wonders of the man to her and Mrs. Dere equally determined to take him down a peg.

“It is too bad Mr. Langworthy will leave us soon, or we might have managed some theatricals at Perryfield,” began Lord Dere when they were seated for dinner.

There being only eight of them, the leaves of the mahogany table had been stowed, and it was possible—indeed, inevitable—to hold one general conversation.

“I don’t see what his presence or absence would have to do with it, Uncle,” returned Mrs. Dere. “It is not as if he performed at Keele’s.”

“But he might indulge us in a private setting if we proposed it,” said the baron. “And he is such a talented fellow that we would all enjoy it. I can vouch that even Langworthy’s reading of the nautical almanac holds everyone’s attention, wouldn’t you agree, Peter and Gordon?”

The boys nodded vigorously, Peter adding, “He’s splendid! I wish we could go back to sea with him.”

“And I!” chimed in Gordon, “if only for a little bit, to test what we are learning.”

“So that we might take readings and chart our course accordingly.” Peter’s chin lifted as he employed his teacher’s terminology.

“And have a limb blown off for your troubles, should your ship come under attack?” demanded Mrs. Dere.

Here the poor footboy Wrigley, who had been assigned the position behind Mrs. Dere’s chair, dropped the cover to the soup tureen. It hit the floor with a hollow dong ! before rolling away into the corner, Wrigley scrambling after.

Mrs. Dere shut her eyes briefly, leaving it to Wood to scowl at the hapless lad while the cadaverous Blodgett creaked forward with the fish, his knees popping like musketry fire.

“None of Mr. Langworthy’s limbs have been blown off,” objected Peter.

“ Yet ,” retorted his mother ominously.

The baron hastened to recall their attention. “Mrs. Sebastian, you see how fortunate it was for us, that your late husband’s friendship with Mr. Langworthy brought him to Iffley. And if Mr. Sebastian Barstow was at all like him, they must have been quite the pair.”

With all eyes upon her, Sarah was forced to reply. “For years I only knew of Mr. Langworthy from Sebastian’s letters, but my husband made him out to be a—memorable character. I have been glad finally to make his acquaintance for myself.”

“Sarah has such an even disposition that his coming has not ruffled her, but I cannot say the same for myself,” said Mrs. Barstow, one hand to her bosom.

“For me it has been a true comfort and pleasure to become acquainted with him, and I wish he might stay in Iffley forever! I grieve this terrible war which threatens again.”

“This ‘terrible war’ might be the means of making his fortune,” Mrs. Dere answered briskly. “And you ought therefore to be pleased for him, Mrs. Barstow, for there’s no denying he’s otherwise penniless and without prospects.”

Sarah’s face darkened. Apparently in Mr. Langworthy’s case, Mrs. Dere thought the chances of gaining prize money at sea outweighed the cost of possible death or dismemberment!

Thus provoked, all the even disposition in the world could not stop her then from leaning around Wrigley, who was ladling soup into her bowl, to say, “I share Mrs. Barstow’s regret, Mrs. Dere.

Though—though I have not known Mr. Langworthy long in person , I—feel what I have learned of him only—accords with my late husband’s high opinion.

And though I wish him fortune for his own sake, the price at which it may come—that is, the loss of life or limb—strikes me as—as far too high. ”

She was certain she went all over crimson as she spoke, as if she had blazoned her newfound fondness for the man in the public square, but fortunately the baron read her outburst differently.