Carola Dunn (12 page)

“Why, what has he done?” asked Catherine. “Papa will not have any newspapers in the house while we are on holiday, you know.”

“He has forbidden Princess Charlotte to see her mother! Is not that unnatural in a husband and father? When I think how the poor Princess of Wales must feel to be separated from her only child, it makes my heart bleed, indeed it does.” Miss Weir dabbed at her eyes with a tiny wisp of lace. “Did you ever hear of such a shocking thing, Mrs Sutton? The ways of the male sex are quite incomprehensible to me, I am glad to say, but . . .” She prattled on, and Angel ceased to listen, turning to a pile of copies of the
Gazette
which she found upon an occasional table at her elbow.

The talk of goings-on at Court had whetted her appetite for news of her own circle, daily trivia being the sole content of her mother’s letters. She was turning to the gossip column to see who was staying where and with whom, when her eye was caught by the heading ‘‘Announcements.”

“A betrothal is announced,” said the first, “between Lady Anne Ardsworth, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Ardsworth, and Lord Damian Wycherly, eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of Medcliff.” It could not be true! Admittedly, Damian had confessed under pressure that he was merely “fond” of her, but that was scarce six weeks ago. How could he do this to her?

She turned quickly to the gossip page, which was full of little else. “Having been rejected by the cruel Lady E. B., better known as A.,” it began, “Lord D. W. has found consolation in the arms of Lady A. A.” At least they acknowledged that he had proposed to her first! Angel read no further but sat in a daze, answering at random when spoken to.

Mrs Sutton noticed her distraction and brought their visit to an end as quickly as politeness allowed. Angel recovered her composure sufficiently to thank their hostesses and bid them a courteous farewell. Then they were out in the street and walking towards Griseda1e.

As soon as they left the bustle of the village street, Mrs Sutton and Catherine turned to her with questions hovering on their tongues.

“Damian is going to be married!” she burst out. They looked blank. “Lord Wycherly! Damian! He asked me to marry him just last month and I refused him!”

“But Angel, if you love him, why did you refuse him?” asked Catherine.

“I don’t love him!”

“Then why are you thrown into high fidgets?”

“How can you ask? It is hardly complimentary that he is so easily consoled. Everyone will say he never really loved me.”

“To whom is he betrothed?” asked Aunt Maria quietly.

“To Anne Ardsworth. A silly, fluffy female without an idea in her head. It does not bear thinking about!”

“Have you thought how she must feel? To her it must seem that everyone is saying he only asked her because he could not have you. A most uncomfortable position to be in.”

“Oh.” Angel paused. “I had not considered. You are right, Aunt Maria, I should not like to be in her shoes for anything.”

“Do you know her? Then I think you had better write to her and wish her happy. If you are not sure what to say, I expect Catherine or I can help, unless you had rather consult your uncle.”

“N-no, I can do it. Must I really . . .? Yes, I suppose I must.”

Angel was very quiet the rest of the way back to Barrows End, and the beauty of the day was lost on her. As soon as they reached the vicarage, she found pen and ink and sat down to compose a letter. It took her some time, but at last she was satisfied. She showed it to Catherine.

“Do you think it will do?” she asked as her cousin finished reading it.

“Certainly. It is generous of you to say that Lord Wycherly did not love you, Angel.”

“It’s true. He told me that he worshipped me and then that he was deuced fond of me. That’s not love, is it?”

“I don’t think so,” said Catherine cautiously. “I do not believe it is what I should look for in a husband.”

“Nor I. Well, I hope they will be happy together, but you know, that leaves me at a stand. I quite expected Damian to be waiting for me if I did not find romance this summer.”

“You are not yet at your last prayers, my dear. And do not tell me again that you will be nineteen in September. Spare the feelings of your aged cousin.”

“I quite think you and Mr Leigh will make a match of it. You were talking to him forever yesterday, were you not? He will suit you much better than Lord Welch. You do like him?”

“He is an estimable gentleman. Now come and show your letter to Mother. She will be pleased with it, I know.”

For the next two days rain fell in a deluge. Placid Grisedale Beck became a torrent, and Angel saw nothing of Beth. However, they had been invited to Grisedale Hall to dine on Thursday, and in the middle of the afternoon the rain miraculously faded away. They drove up the muddy lane between wet hedgerows and meadows gleaming in the evening sun.

Lord Grisedale was in the drawing room to greet them, along with his daughter, her companion, and his nephew. Although he did not rise as they entered, he seemed to be in a better humour than on their previous visit. Angel soon decided this was due to the malicious pleasure he took in bullying Beth and Mrs Daventry. Nothing either of them did or said met with anything but unqualified disapproval, nor did their silence please him.

The burden of making a show of conversation was taken up by Mrs Sutton and Sir Gregory, who endeavoured to attract the old man’s attention to themselves. His disagreeable comments were met by the baronet with polite boredom, and by the vicar’s wife with tart rejoinders which at first seemed to infuriate him, but at last surprised a crack of laughter from him. Angel thought his laugh sounded rusty from disuse.

Once again, Angel was filled with admiration of the way her aunt handled the provoking old earl, and she resolved to copy her when her turn came to endure his megrims, as it inevitably did.

“Come here, girl,” ordered his lordship, glaring at her from under his beetling brows.

She went to stand before him and performed her best curtsy.

“My lord?” she enquired.

“What have you and Eliza been up to together?” he barked.

“Beth
and I have not seen each other since Monday, sir, because of the rain.” She knew her friend hated to be called Eliza. Lord Welch sometimes did so to tease her.

“Bah! I did not ask when you last met, but what sort of mischief you have been leading her into! She never had an ounce of pluck in her. Always followed D . . . other people about like a tantony pig.”

“Papa!” whispered Beth pleadingly. “Pray do not—”

“Be quiet, girl! You, what’s your name, answer me.”

“I’ve not led her into any mischief, sir, and it’s not fair to call her hen-hearted just because she does not get into any on her own.”

“Saucy chit! If you were mine I’d—”

“Uncle,” interrupted Sir Gregory with an air of ineffable weariness, “I believe you wished to speak to Mr Sutton about the Sperlings?”

Angel was rather annoyed with him. She felt she was doing quite well and was sure she could have thought up an excellent retort for whatever dastardly suggestion Lord Grisedale came up with. Resuming her seat beside Beth, she smiled at her with satisfaction.

“I am so sorry,” murmured Beth. “That he should speak so to a guest! He only did it to put me to the blush, you know. You were so brave to—’’

“Elizabeth!” roared her father. “Either hold your tongue while I am speaking or leave the room!”

Mrs Sutton did not find the prospect of conversation with Mrs Daventry sufficiently appealing to risk calling down that wrath upon her head, and the room became so quiet that everyone was soon perfectly cognisant of the Sperlings’ business. It was a great relief when dinner was announced.

Lord Grisedale took in Mrs Sutton, and the vicar gave his arm to Lady Elizabeth. Sir Gregory followed with Catherine, leaving Angel and Mrs Daventry to tag along behind. Angel thought disconsolately of her mother’s perfectly arranged dinner parties, where no lady could conceivably be left without a partner.

They ate in state at an unnecessarily long table which made it necessary to speak loudly in order to be heard by one’s next-door neighbour. Angel did not even try, concentrating instead on the excellent food. Her uncle, on her left, did no more than throw her an occasional encouraging smile, and Mrs Daventry, seated between her and Lord Grisedale, uttered no more than four words during the entire meal.

“Pass the salt, please,” she requested.

“Don’t interrupt, woman,” snapped his lordship, who was conversing quite happily with Mrs Sutton.

The vicar had calmly moved his chair down the table until he was close enough to Lady Elizabeth to talk quietly with her. A scandalised footman hurried to bring his plate and a multiplicity of knives, forks, spoons, and glasses after him. He soon had Beth looking more cheerful, but she did not attempt to speak to Catherine, on her other side. Catherine was in any case being adequately entertained by Sir Gregory. He said something that made her laugh, and thus inadvertently brought the earl’s unwanted attention upon her.

“What’s the joke, miss?” he roared down the length of the table. “Come on, speak up! What are you laughing at?”

“A
bon mot
of Sir Gregory’s, my lord,” she answered composedly.

“If it is so funny, I want to hear it. Speak up, girl.”

“I fear it would be incomprehensible out of context, sir. I cannot repeat our entire conversation.”

“Not fit to be aired in public, eh? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, young woman. In my day . . .” He went back to his discourse with Mrs Sutton, and not a moment too soon. Catherine had not lost her composure, but both her mother and father had been on the point of intervening, and on Sir Gregory’s face was a look of anger such as she had not thought that cool gentleman capable of expressing.

Lady Elizabeth was almost in tears with embarrassment. With a smile of apology to the baronet, Catherine joined her father in soothing her ruffled sensibilities, and soon the girl had recovered her complexion sufficiently to give a sign to the ladies to withdraw. They needed no second invitation.

Mrs Daventry started talking the minute they were out of hearing, drowning Beth’s apologies.

“The haricot was tolerable good, was it not, my
dear
Mrs Sutton, but the sirloin was
sadly
overdone and I do think the leg of pork was on the dry side also, which . . .”

She seemed oblivious of any unpleasant occurrences beyond the imagined spoiling of a few dishes. It suddenly struck Angel that the reason she did not mind Miss Weir’s chatter was that that little lady was as cheerful as Mrs Daventry was censorious.

This reflection brought back a memory of Lord Wycherly’s perfidy, and it was in brooding silence that Angel took her seat on a sofa beside Beth, as far from the others as possible.

“I fear you are much offended,” said Beth hesitantly. “Papa is quite outrageous. Pray do not suppose that it is directed particularly at you, for he is the same to everyone.”

“Is he? Then I am surprised that anyone visits you at all. Oh, Beth, do not cry, I beg you. I shall not desert you, I promise, so do not fall into the mopes.”

“It is unbearable, Lyn. I do not know how I survived before you came, nor how I shall when you leave. I would even marry Lord Welch to escape from here!”

“He told me you would in the end. He thinks you are pretending to be in love with someone else.”

“How dare he! Just because the man I love is too honourable to seek to see me against Papa’s wishes! I have not met him since Francis came home from London, so he knows nothing of the matter.’’

“That is three years ago, you were only sixteen! Have you never seen him since then?”

“Not to talk to, only to exchange bows. But I could tell by the way he looked at me that he still felt the same. Lyn, what shall I do? I cannot marry Francis, I cannot stay here,
he
will not take me without my father’s blessing. What shall I do?”

“Beth, Mr Marshall wants to see you! He must have realised how chuckleheaded it is to stay away for such a nonsensical reason. He asked me to arrange a meeting, so—”

“Who? What are you talking about? Who is Mr Marshall?”

“Why, Mr Leigh’s friend!” Angel exclaimed. “Your—”

“Mr Gerald Leigh?” queried Mrs Daventry, who had paused for breath at the wrong moment. “The vicar of Upthwaite? There
was
a time, you know, when he was quite an
admirer
of dear Lady Elizabeth, or so the
earl
tells me, but that is all past, for his father was only the
fourth
son of a
baron
so you see he is
quite
ineligible, though I daresay he is entitled to be considered a gentleman and of course his
mother
is a
Cranbourne
and may hold up her head with the
highest
but there, the son must earn
his
living for there is only the house and
no
land, and I believe a
small
amount in the Funds but not enough to live upon with any degree of
elegance,
and with no rank, fortune is
essential
though even were he rich as
Golden Ball
he could not aspire to the hand of a female in Lady Elizabeth’s position. Lord Grisedale was
forced
to give the young man quite a
set-down,”
she went on in a lowered voice to Mrs Sutton.

Angel turned her attention back to Beth, and was shocked to find her pale and shaking. Catherine also noticed her agitation and came to see if she could be of any assistance.

“Beth, what is it?” asked Angel urgently, but softly, clasping her hand.

“Nothing, it is nothing,” she said, on the edge of tears. “Pray do not . . . I must . . .”

“I think you must retire to bed,” suggested Catherine. “It has been a shockingly difficult evening for you, my dear. We will make your excuses if you wish to go, or perhaps you would like Lyn to go with you?”

“No. Thank you. Please do not . . . Pray excuse me, I am very tired.” Lady Elizabeth managed to bob a curtsy to Mrs Sutton on the way to the door, then disappeared without another word.