The Purpose of Miss Shepley

Chapter Four (part I)

Notice: The Honorable Miss Edith Shepley, granddaughter of Prosper Shepley, Lord Ewert, to be presented 4 Bloomsmonth.

(The Quarterly Journal, Midwinter 526)

.:.

And so, I was out.

It was not the sort of thing to be talked of down in Ethelsburg, though I heard there was a terse announcement in one of the more obscure periodicals that sat, unread, in many studies across the Southlands.

In truth, the Barony of Ewert wasn't especially remarkable even within the Northerns, being rather small and unfashionable and crammed up against the very edge of polite civilization. But it had its wiles, even so. It was very profitable, and it was rather old, and because it clung to the old rules of inheritance -- a practice Folk often spoken badly of in times when their circumstances could not be improved by it -- it possessed a particular constancy not many could claim: since the day Able Eweherd was styled Baron, Ewert had been passed through an unbroken chain of sons and sometimes daughters to Prosper Shepley, and it would, some day, pass to me.

And now I was out.

But more importantly -- or so I thought -- I had lambs to look after.

I woke to bright sun and clear blue skies, and roused myself quickly. I washed lard and lemon off my face, then dressed in riding clothes without calling the maids. I was soon down in the morning room, my heart light and eager for the work ahead of me.

Mr. Wentworth was the room's sole occupant. He glanced upward as I entered, giving me a languid nod and a murmured Good morning before returning his attention to his book.

I nicked a piece of toast and three boiled eggs. Mr. Wentworth, meanwhile, turned a page and sipped at a cup of peppermint. He nodded again as I left, issuing another Good morning.

I slipped through the servant's door, gnawing on toast, and escaped into the garden. A little black kitten -- a frequent shadow the past few weeks -- romped after me til I passed through the garden gate. Soon, I was free of Ewert's grounds and well on my way to the west pasture.

For my eighth birthday, my grandfather had given me eight lambs -- two rams and six ewes -- and a silky lock of wool. He'd told me the new mill in Riverton favored a long, fine staple for its yarns, and there'd be good money in it if I could improve the breed. For the eight years since, when I wasn't studying with Miss Goodwin, I had spent the better part of my days trying to do just that.

I had met with many disappointments in my efforts. The first was that one of the rams wouldn't stud; he only mounted the other ram and would not be persuaded toward the ewes. I talked to every shepherd, young and old, in Ewert Town, but they said there was nothing for a ram truly stubborn like that.

In the end, we made a stew of him, and I'd begged my grandfather for the services of one of his rams. Quite shrewdly, he'd refused to give it for free, but as I was a child and had no ready coin to pay for it, I was obliged to depend on a single sire and a hope for the best.

My second great disappointment was a failure infuriatingly tangled with my greatest success. By my twelfth birthday, I'd bred a generation of lambs with fleeces long and fine and strong and black as coal. There were advantages to black sheep -- the wool took less dye, so long as one only wanted to dye it black -- but no mill in the Trothlands would buy such fleeces.

I spent years breeding white sheep in, filling books full of notes on which matings of rams and ewes threw how many black lambs, selling off the stock I didn't want and using the proceeds to pay for shepherds...