A World Apart (10 page)

Eliza could not bear to remain in this excruciating trance for another second. Summoning the last shreds of her will, she knocked at the ornate front door of the new-built mansion. A maid took her to an extravagantly furnished drawing room. As she stood staring through the transparent lace curtains, Eliza took in the newly planted gardens. A pair of peacocks strolled across a lawn. Then, with a strident cry, one of them fluttered up onto the rim of a Grecian urn. The peacock cried again and spread his tail. The play of rainbow colours caught the sun, creating a dazzling display of male pride.

‘Come.' The maid's voice dragged Eliza back to reality. ‘The ladies will see you now.'

Eliza turned to face her hosts. Mrs Thurber and her daughter sat beside a coffee table, elegant in fashionable silk gowns. The short, stout woman, her thin, sad-faced daughter at her side, pointed to a chair. Eliza felt Agatha's eyes taking in the last detail of her face, her dress, her boots, her reticule. She winced at the implications of that scrutiny. Though Eliza's dress was old, Hannah, a talented seamstress, had washed it carefully and stitched up the little snags and tears that came with wear.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Thurber, Miss Agatha.' Eliza took care to use the polished accent she'd absorbed from her years with Mr Harcourt. The maid curtseyed and disappeared. Eliza took her seat. She was by no means desperate to work for Mrs Thurber. She'd developed a curiosity about the meeting, wondering why they would seek her help, what they envisaged as her duties. But now, in the sterile silence, the room enveloped her in a palpable chill.

‘We have heard that you spent time teaching at the village school,' the matronly woman said.

‘Indeed, ma'am. For some years I've taught the village children to read and cipher.'

‘And tell me. What could you teach my daughter?'

‘I have…learned much over the years.' Eliza must give a fair account of herself, but without the least hint of braggadocio. ‘You will have heard that I spent time in the schoolroom of the Great House with Sir John De Havilland's children. We were taught by Mr Harcourt, a most scholarly man.' The middle-aged matron's face remained impassive. Drawing a breath, Eliza continued.

‘Mr Harcourt is a knowledgeable man. An Oxford don with a passion for the classics, for mathematics, history — why, even the geography of Europe and indeed, of the whole world.' She hesitated, uncomfortable as Agatha's eyes continued to bore into her. Many times Eliza had seen the young woman, from a distance as she shopped in the village. Now, at close quarters, she seemed aloof, ill at ease, as she sat in a stylishly striped half-dress, her long straight hair arranged in a tight chignon. Her frown had not melted since her guest had arrived. Eliza would try to thaw the situation, show her hosts that she was capable of playing the pleasant, agreeable companion.

‘May I suggest that we should discuss Miss Agatha's own interests and passions?' she said. ‘Before we — '

‘I repeat. What can you do for Agatha?

‘Why, ma'am. I've always loved learning. And books. I should hope I can help Agatha to grow such a love. That she will find pleasure in reading. And thereby become a more witty, informed companion so that her social life takes on a new warmth.'

‘What do you read?'

‘Why, novels, plays, anthologies. But any book will do. I read everything, from books about the wild beasts of Africa to the stately homes of England and the Continent. About Greek philosophers, Roman history, and the botany of the Americas. But I shouldn't expect everyone's tastes to be like mine.'

‘I wish to make conversation.' Agatha spoke in a tired, dry voice. ‘When I visit London for the Season. So that the
ton
will take me for an amusing, educated woman.' Eliza drew an easy breath. So Agatha had not yet set her sights on Harry alone.

‘Agatha has always been shy,' her mother added. ‘Too shy for her own good. Each year she returns from the Season, tells me the gentlemen have passed her over, yet again, for those empty-headed young things who giggle and flick their fans, and parrot silly nothings as they simper and grin at the gentlemen.'

‘Indeed,' Eliza replied, battling her nervousness. ‘But would it be wise to be seen as a bluestocking by the gentlemen of the
ton
?'

‘There are gentlemen of quality who would find a bluestocking very much to their taste,' Mrs Thurber said. Agatha's face reflected her growing discomfort.

‘Excuse me, Mother,' she said. ‘I feel…not myself. I'll return in a moment.' Without a glance in Eliza's direction, Agatha stood and left the drawing room.

‘I'm glad Agatha has gone,' Mrs Thurber whispered. ‘Now we can get to the heart of the matter.' She cleared her throat. ‘My poor daughter. All her life, she's been a round peg in a square hole. In company, she's shy. At home, she's given to fits of melancholy. She needs to be taken out of herself. And I look to you to attend to that duty, Miss Downing.'

‘Thank you, ma'am. I should like to help where I can. But why me?'

‘I have been led to believe that you are intelligent. Highly so. And learned to boot. Yet you are a young woman, close to Agatha's age. With perhaps her understanding of the world. Am I not right?'

‘Thank you, ma'am. You will know that I am but a poor girl from the village. Ignorant in the ways of the gentry.'

‘Yet I hear from…certain of my friends that you excel at feats of the intellect. Mathematics, logic, even philosophy.'

‘I do love ideas.' Eliza allowed herself to glow. She had been recognised for at least something. ‘I used to enjoy mock debates with Mr Harcourt,' she continued. ‘Oftentimes he encouraged me.' The woman aimed a manufactured smile at Eliza.

‘Well, then. I trust you will be able to instil a love for those games of the mind into Agatha's brain. I sometimes think she is, perhaps, a little slow up here.' She tapped her forehead. ‘And the young gentlemen of the
ton
have been quick to notice. They've abandoned her for those fluffy young empty-heads who seem to attract men like yesterday's dirty dinner plates attract flies.'

The drawing room door opened. Mrs Thurber fired a meaningful glance at Eliza, then smiled at her morose daughter as she sidled back into the room.

‘Take Miss Downing to your chambers, Agatha. Explain your tastes to her. Perhaps play a little pianoforte for her.'

Without the least ghost of a polite smile, Agatha turned to exit the drawing room. Silently, Eliza followed her. She led the way upstairs, down a long hall. At the end of the hall, she opened a door which led to a suite of rooms, each with a splendid view of the elaborate gardens. Wordless, Agatha slumped onto a sofa and looked away. Eliza took a chair opposite.

‘I'm glad Mother is not here.' Suddenly, the girl's face thawed. ‘The way she orders me about when we have company. She always makes me feel awkward, dull.'

‘Mmm. My own mother is rather…particular too.' Eliza said. ‘But now we have some privacy. I should like to hear things, from your heart.'

‘Very well.' Agatha rose and walked to the window, gesturing Eliza to follow. She pointed to the spreading grey slate roof, perhaps a mile away, that showed through the canopy of the garden's ornamental trees. ‘That is The Great House, as you surely know.'

‘Indeed.'

‘And you know Mr Harry.'

‘Indeed.'

‘Well then.' Agatha turned to look full into Eliza's face. ‘I'm…in love with him.'

Eliza froze. She must, must not reveal her horror. In the silence, she stared at the downcast girl, gritting her teeth; anything to hold back her shocked sobs. Until that moment silent and stony-faced, Agatha now began to pour out her emotions like a river in flood.

‘We used to play together as children when our parents met for croquet,' she said. ‘Harry was a year younger than me. A happy boy, playing little games, running, jumping, hitting the ball with his bat. Waving his wooden sword, pretending he was St George slaying the dragon. Then when we were older, he took me riding when we visited. He kept an old bay mare for me. Josephine, she was called. Whenever I did the London Season, I missed him so. I was sad for every minute I stayed away. Now I come home and I find he is gone to Oxford.'

Still Eliza struggled to block the explosion of emotions boiling in her mind. Did Harry know that his neighbour, the sad-faced little girl who had joined him in his garden when her parents visited, now loved him?

Eliza looked away. Agatha was gentle born. Eliza was an orphan, the child of peasant parents, one nameless sheep grazing the hillside among the thousands of others in the flock. Eliza was as likely to marry Harry as a shooting star was likely to land on her head. On the other hand, the Thurbers had been neighbours of the De Havillands for most of their children's lives. Everyone knew that Silas Thurber planned to acquire part of the estate of Morton-Somersby. Too often, Eliza had heard the village gossip that both neighbours favoured the match between the son and the daughter.

‘My mother and father want us to marry,' Agatha continued, innocently confirming Eliza's fears, plunging the knife deeper into her heart. ‘And Sir John De Havilland favours it too, if the servants' gossip is to be believed.' She smiled at Eliza. Now her face glowed. She had revealed her love to someone who might become her best friend. In the village of Marley, best friends for young gentlewomen were as rare as diamonds.

‘So, Miss Downing — may I call you Eliza, as friends do?' Eliza nodded, still swallowing her sobs, not trusting herself to speak. ‘My question is simple. Can you teach me things that will make Harry love me?' She smiled again, a smile that told Eliza she rejoiced in telling her new friend her most precious secret. ‘When he returns from Oxford?'

‘I, er...' Eliza gave vent to a choking cough. Why had Fate decreed that she would groom this downcast, lovesick girl to win the man she, Eliza, loved with all her heart? It was the cruellest blow a person of the aristocracy could land on a lowborn peasant girl. And it hurt the more because it had been so innocently delivered by a naïve young woman who had been raised in the shelter of a rural mansion.

‘I, I'm sure we can explore the classics,' Eliza choked. ‘Then perhaps Shakespeare. Most young gentlemen love Shakespeare — the gallant young hero wooing the beautiful woman. During the Season, many young people go to Shakespeare plays, so I've read.'

‘Wonderful! When can we start?' The magically transformed Agatha beamed as she spoke.

‘Perhaps we should discuss that with your mother.'

So began string of bittersweet days for Eliza. On Tuesday and Friday afternoons she visited Thurber Hall. Each romantic line of
The Odyssey
they read felt to Eliza like a rapier slicing between her ribs. Each time they parted, Agatha thanked her companion for her inspiration, and declared that when Harry returned, she would bedazzle him with her growing passion for the adventures of Ulysses. Indeed, with Eliza's every visit the shy young woman changed, grew out of her melancholy like a garden plant budding with blossoms for the coming spring. Soon the classics were put aside and Shakespeare took over.

Inevitably, Agatha began to ask her companion questions about men — what they liked and disliked, how to charm them, how to get one's way with them. Eliza winced at the turn their afternoons had taken, confessing her utter lack of experience, telling Agatha that everything she knew on the subject she'd gained from her reading. They took to discussing popular books of the moment, with their hints about fashion, manners, advice on which behaviours were chic, and which were not. Week by week, Agatha transformed. Soon Eliza realised that she could teach her charge no more. The shy little oyster had truly come out of its shell.

‘I must tell you, my dear Agatha,' she said at the end of one afternoon, ‘that you have become a new person. Indeed, there is little more I can teach you. You will fairly dazzle the young gentlemen of the
ton
next Season.' She avoided the mention of Harry. ‘Men have a saying. “Faint heart never won fair lady.” And I suspect you have taken to heart the women's version of that saying.'

‘Indeed I have,' the newly assertive Agatha answered. ‘And I must thank you for it, Eliza. It's all your doing. You've been the makings of the new me. Indeed, you are my fairy godmother. You waved your magic wand and I was transformed. But pray don't leave me now.' The smile she aimed at Eliza was sweet, open. ‘I should so love us to stay good friends. Indeed, you are my only friend, Eliza. You must see that I've changed my ways to be worthy of you. But on no account tell Mother what you just told me. She is happy to pay for your services, and she is very pleased with the results.' She giggled, waved a hand towards Eliza. ‘Indeed, she expects to see a ring on this finger very soon.'

Eliza saw that she had created a monster, then let it out of its box. Her success in transforming the once-shy girl could all too soon lead to Agatha's winning Harry's heart. Eliza left Thurber Hall that afternoon wishing she could die.

As Eliza grew older, the village folk often came to her with questions that only she, as the learned one, could answer for them. Farm labourers would ask her to reckon how many pounds of corn they might need to sow a certain field, or the number of rails required to fence it. Tradesmen brought their complaints about payment to her, wanting to know if they had been treated fairly.

It was a time of change in the county, indeed in the whole of England. Traditional agreements between labourers and masters, unspoken for hundreds of years and hallowed by usage, were being called into question. The rural workforce depended utterly on the landowners for their subsistence. The ancient cottages they lived in, the small plots where they cultivated vegetables for their tables, the food they bought with their wages, all flowed from the enterprise of the landowner. Labourers expected subsistence, no more, no less. In bad seasons, they followed the wisdom handed down by their forebears. The burden fell first on those closest to the soil. In their turn, the landowners poured a finely judged portion into the cup of benevolence. To exceed or to diminish this quantum would be to invite unrest among their tenants and disapprobation from their peers.