The Regency (53 page)

‘
These are troubled times,' Colonel Brunton pronounced
sagely, with a wag of the head. 'I don't know what we're
coming to. Country's goin' to rack and ruin. Decent brandy
costs the earth these days. And talkin' to young Skelwith the
other day about m' new house — says he can't get hold of good
building timber for love nor money. Boney's embargo —
import duties — and now this trouble with the Americans —'
He sighed heavily.

‘
We shall have a crisis before long,' said Dykes, the banker,
'if we keep pouring money into the Peninsula — and gold,
too, not this wretched paper currency we're cursed with.
Two bad harvests pushing the price of corn beyond reason,
exports almost vanished — there'll be more bankruptcies soon,
you mark my words. How's your father-in-law managing,
Morland? Now the Americans have refused to send us any
more raw cotton, he must be feeling the pinch, what?’

Isiah Keating was looking as though he wished they would
remember it was
a
wedding-party, so James said lightly, 'Why,
you know, he never tells me anything about his business
— knows I wouldn't understand a word of it if he did! But he's a canny old brute, and I'd back him to come out ahead
in any situation, just as I'd back our new chestnut colt to win the steeplechase at Easter.' An instant clamour of dis
agreement rose up from the sporting gentlemen in the group,
and having successfully changed the subject, James gave
Keating a solemn wink, and strolled away, saying 'But I must go and see how Fanny is doing. I'm afraid she's being obliged
to hold an intellectual conversation, and needs rescuing.’

*

Far from feeling the need for rescue, Fanny was at that
moment triumphantly routing her closest enemy, Roxane
Grey. The Grey girls, though unluckily numerous and notori
ously lapped in poverty, felt themselves superior because
their papa was a peer, and their mama had been a Miss Parr,
and related to the Percys of Northumberland. Roxane, the
nearest in age to Fanny, was a quick-tongued, lively girl who
particularly resented her family's poverty, and hated Fanny,
who had everything, and was insensitive enough to boast
about it.

Fanny felt that one so plain as Roxane, who had crooked
teeth and sometimes even appeared to squint, had nothing to
be proud about, and ought not to give herself airs in Fanny's
presence, simply on the strength of a viscountcy of relatively
recent date. Roxane Grey, however, had a close friend in
Miss Edys Cowey, who, on account of the early marriage of
her two elder sisters, had been out since she was fifteen,
and therefore had all the rights of superiority over a Fanny
Morland who was still in the schoolroom. Whatever Miss Grey
proposed, Miss Cowey supported, and between them they
were almost a match for Miss Morland.

It happened that the three of them found themselves in a
group with no young men nearby to impress, so there was
nothing for them to do but quarrel. The present conflict had
begun through a remark of Miss Grey's.

‘
Of course, John Skelwith is well enough,' she said with a
kind and pitying smile, 'but I wonder Patience Keating should
want to marry Trade. I should not care for it myself.'

‘
Oh, but the Keatings are not obliged to be so high,' Miss
Cowey said languidly. 'They may be genteel now, but the
family is not an old one, you know.'

‘
Yes, and the mama was an Anstey, wasn't she?' Miss Grey
added eagerly. 'They're in Coal, for all that he's a peer now.'

‘
Blood will out, dear,' Miss Cowey said with a superior
smile, 'And though I dote on Patience Keating —'

‘Oh, so do I! She's the dearest creature!'

‘
Yes, but Tom Keating, you know, is not quite the thing.
Don't you agree, Miss Morland?’

Fanny had been listening with scant interest, caring little for Keatings or Ansteys or anyone else she thought beneath
her; but the final remark was addressed so pointedly, and
attacked Fanny's proudest conquest so blatantly, that she felt
obliged to retaliate.

‘Agree with what?' she asked coolly. 'I was not attending.'

‘Don't you agree that the Keatings are not quite genteel —
particularly Tom Keating? Roxane and I were agreeing that
we should not care to associate too closely with them.'

‘Perhaps
you
might not,' Fanny said, raising an eyebrow in
unconscious imitation of her governess's style, tut then I
have not so much need as you to be careful who I talk to.'

‘
Why, what can you mean?' Miss Grey asked, exchanging a
glance with her friend, feeling that they had Fanny wrong-
footed.

‘
I mean that the Morlands are such an old and well-
connected family, my credit must be better than yours,' Fanny
said with unconcealed triumph. 'My family was granted its coat of arms three hundred and fifty years ago, you know.'
She smiled maliciously at Miss Grey. 'But I believe your papa
is only the
third
viscount, isn't he? And the Coweys, I under
stand, were graziers a few generations back. Isn't that where
the name comes from — cowherd?’

Miss Cowey went scarlet with rage, and Miss Grey hissed,
'You think yourself so high, Fanny Morland, but everyone
knows your family's had more scandals than rooks in a
rookery! And your grandpa's a mill-owner, so you needn't
be so top-lofty about your fortune, neither!’

Fanny, however, felt herself to be unassailable. 'Pooh!
Every old family has its scandals. We don't regard them, the
way the middling sort of people are obliged to do.' Miss Grey
almost choked at hearing herself thus classed with 'the middling
sort', and Fanny went on blithely, 'As to my grandpapa's
mills, I don't mind in the least if
half my
fortune comes from
manufacturing. It's the modern way for old money to marry
new money, and make it respectable. It just makes me richer
than ever, rich enough to buy both of you
and
your papas ten
times over, if I wanted.'

‘You're a vulgar, spiteful little cat, Fanny Morland!'

‘
And you're just eaten up with jealousy, because your pa
makes you wear cotton stockings!’

It was at this interesting moment that James strolled up to
the group, and by his adult presence stopped the battle in mid-bombardment.

‘
Hullo, Fanny! Are you having an agreeable time? And
your friends — it's Miss Cowey, isn't it, and Miss Grey —
though deuced if I know which one,' he said with his most
charming smile. You Grey girls are all so pretty, it's a day's
work telling you apart! Do you all enjoy yourselves? The
Keatings have put on a splendid feast, haven't they? Those
lobster patties must be the best I've tasted!’

There was no being rude to Fanny's father, who apart from
being a grown-up, smiled in such a way as to make a half-
grown girl feel like a pretty woman. Both young ladies,
though longing to rend Fanny limb from limb, were obliged
to swallow their fury and murmur something socially
acceptable.

‘
What was it you were talking about when I came up?'
James went on pleasantly. 'You all looked so serious, I made
sure it must be Lord Wellington's campaign you were
discussing.’

For a moment they were all too taken aback to answer.
Miss Cowey recovered herself first. 'We were talking about
Fanny's grandpapa, sir,' she said, with a sweet, grim smile at
Fanny, 'and how lucky she is to have such a fortune coming
to her from his
manufactories.'

‘
Were you indeed? We have just been discussing much the
same thing over by the fireplace,' said James. 'But if things go
on the way they are, poor Fanny may have to fall back on
Morland Place for her fortune, for the cotton kings are feeling
the pinch of the times, you know.'

‘
But Papa,' Fanny said urgently, not wishing her position
to be eroded, 'surely Grandpapa's mills are too big to be
troubled by the war?'

‘
These are hard times for all the mill-masters, big and
small,' James said. 'I'm sure your grandpapa will come
through, however. He's a very clever man. But you know, you
don't inherit the mills, Fan — only a capital sum: your grand-
papa always felt mills ought not to be left to a female.' Fanny
blinked. 'But come,' James went on with a smile, 'this is too
grave a subject for a wedding-day — even someone else's!
Should you girls — young ladies, I should say — like some
ices? Since your beaux have all deserted you, I will place
myself at your service.’

Before they could answer, however, Tom Keating had
appeared at Fanny's elbow again, with the information that
Mrs Keating had engaged a fiddler, and dancing was about to
begin in the saloon.

‘
I hope my reward for bringing you this intelligence may be
your hand for the two first dances, Miss Morland?' he
concluded.

James had never much approved of Tom Keating, largely because of his poor seat and heavy hands on a horse, but he
was also a notorious flirt, and judging by his red face and
moist eye, had been indulging himself fairly heavily in liquor.
He was not the partner he would best like to see Fanny stand
up with, even at an informal dance like this One; but he knew
enough of Fanny's pride not to wish to intervene in front of
her friends; and Fanny accepted the offer so regally, as a
deserved but commonplace tribute, that he felt she was in no
danger from him.

*

The next day after breakfast, Fanny followed her father into
the great hall and accosted him as he was putting on his
gloves to go out to the stables.

‘Papa, may I speak to you?'

‘What is it, Fan? Be quick, love — I want to lunge Comet,
and if I don't get to Twelvetrees soon, Salton will have taken
him out.'

‘
It's about Grandpapa's mills — what you said yesterday at
the Keatings',' she said anxiously. 'It isn't true, is it?'

‘
What isn't true?' James asked absently, searching around
in the heap of hats, gloves, whips and miscellaneous bits of
tack on the marble side-table for his crop. 'Deuce take it, I
laid it here only last night!'

‘
About Grandpapa not wanting to leave the mills to a
female,' Fanny said, and then with an exasperated movement
unearthed the crop, which was protruding from under a pile
of spurs and boot-straps, and thrusting it at him.
'Here's
your
crop! Now do attend to me, Papa. It's important.'