“Certainly, she’s one for getting ideas into her head is Olive,” Aunt Beryl admitted thoughtfully, sucking a piece of thread. “But is it all right, dear, you going up alone like this? He’s quite a young man, isn’t he? — though I suppose it’s all right as he’s a clergyman.”
“Of course,” said Lydia energetically. “I shall simply go up by the ten o’clock train, and do a little shopping — better take advantage of the sales as they are on, after all — and then probably see him after lunch, and find out what he wants to say, and come back quite early. It’s just business.”
“Well, that seems all right,” Aunt Beryl doubtfully agreed. “I suppose as he’s a parson he wouldn’t have asked you to come without it was necessary.”
Lydia forbore to explain that this was not what Mr.
Damerel had asked her to do, because it was exactly what she had hoped that Aunt Beryl would think.
She wrote a business-like note to Mr. Damerel, explaining that she should be in London on the following Monday, and offering to make an appointment with him at any time and place convenient to himself.
In answer, Damerel telegraphed that he would meet her train.
Lydia considered it fortunate that she encountered the telegraph boy on the very threshold, and received her missive direct. Otherwise she would certainly have had to explain the contents to the household, for telegrams were not common at Regency Terrace.
She told herself that it would be very foolish and a great pity to let her relatives attach significance to small events which, after all, did not in any way concern themselves, but she was all the time aware of a certain excitement growing within her.
When Monday morning came, and she stepped into the train, Lydia felt that infinite possibilities might lie ahead of her.
When Clement Damerel, after greeting her eagerly at the station, asked whether he might take her to lunch at the house of an uncle and aunt— “my mother’s unmarried brother and sister” — who would be delighted to make her acquaintance, she felt a shock of astonishment. He could not have much to say to her if he thus deliberately avoided a tête-à-tête, when he could so easily have suggested a Lyons’ restaurant or a quiet tea-shop! Lydia accepted the invitation, but said that she had shopping to do, and would find her own way to Eaton Place later on.
She was never afterwards able to recapitulate her impressions of that visit. She knew that the aunt seemed old and kind, and very like Lady Lucy, and that a still older uncle sat at the head of the table, and had to be shouted at before he could hear anything at all, and that the courses were much plainer and less numerous than those that had figured at Lady Honoret’s luncheon-parties. She also felt, rather than knew, that Clement Damerel was nervous, and this perception, together with a subconscious preoccupation as to the reason for his nervousness, made her feel more shy than was usual with her.
When the uncle and aunt drifted away after lunch was over, the old lady saying kindly that she knew Clement would like to show Miss Raymond the pictures in the library, her head was almost swimming, and she felt absolutely frightened lest she should be about to faint.
The revulsion of feeling when she actually heard his gentle voice speaking to her, and knew that she had been right and that he was asking her to be his wife, came to her as a positive relief from an almost unendurable physical tension.
Much as she would afterwards have liked to recall every word of their conversation in the library, where they spent almost the whole of that afternoon uninterrupted, Lydia could never do so.
The utmost that she was able to recapture was her own sense of bewilderment, that was not yet merged in triumphant realization, and the sense of Clement Damerel’s extreme gentleness and consideration for her. He would not even ask her for an immediate answer.
“I know it can’t be with you as it is with me, dearest — the first moment I saw you, I knew I’d found my ideal.”
That at least Lydia could remember.
And again: “You must think it over — not only whether you can care for me a little bit, but whether you can face the life of a dull country parson’s wife — that’s what it’ll end in, Lydia. When dear old Palmer retires, my mother wants me to come home, and there’s work enough even there — besides, I must think of her — she’s growing old, and my brother’s death was a fearful blow....
“Lydia, I should never have had the courage to think of this, I don’t suppose, if I hadn’t seen you first at work — not afraid to take up employment for the sake of your own independence, and the people who’d taken care of your childhood” Lydia listened to him almost as though she were in a dream.
“I don’t think I’m good enough,” she once faltered, and the ardour of his protestations startled her afresh.
“But I never knew — never guessed for a minute that you felt like that.” She found herself voicing the amazement that possessed her.
“Didn’t you?” said Damerel wistfully. “Sometimes I thought you couldn’t help guessing — but it wouldn’t have been fair to say anything while you were so much upset about that horrible affair of the Honorets — and then — well, Lydia — you’ll let me call you that, won’t you? — it’s such a dear little name — I’ll be honest with you, and tell you that I couldn’t have helped coming to see you, at least — if my dear old mother hadn’t implored me to keep right away for a time, and make perfectly certain of my own feelings. She guessed, of course — that time last summer when you were with the Palmers — but she’s old-fashioned, and though of course she couldn’t help seeing how — how wonderful you are in every way — one has to make allowances for the novelty — to people of her generation — of one’s wanting to marry anybody who isn’t either a more or less distant connection, or else Devonshire born and bred! You do understand...?” Lydia understood very little. She gathered a vague impression that Lady Lucy was surprised, perhaps even distressed, at her son’s choice, but that she would make no opposition to it, and Clement Damerel repeated again and again that his mother had only to know Lydia rather better in order to love her.
“Dear old Palmer went up and talked to her last week — I asked him to — and he couldn’t say enough of your cleverness, and the wonderful way in which you’d helped them in the parish down there, just as though you’d been born to it. It did make me hope, Lydia, that perhaps, after all, you wouldn’t mind a lifetime of that sort of work....”
Clement Damerel said a very great deal more, but he would not press Lydia for a definite promise, and she was slightly relieved not to find herself bound, although the conviction was growing within her that she meant all the time, as soon as the first shock of surprise had left her, to accept his devotion proudly and joyfully.
It was like nothing that she had ever experienced or imagined, and though the response invoked in her by his ardour was more in the nature of mental appreciation for his methods than anything else, she felt an increasing satisfaction glowing within her.
Still as though she were in a dream, she rose when the old aunt — with a great deal of preliminary rattling at the door — came in, and obeyed her gentle bidding to come upstairs for a cup of tea before going to the station.
It was only afterwards that she became aware of having noted, with surprised approval, her hostess’s total lack of any apparent curiosity as to the result of the long conference in the library.
Certainly, Aunt Evelyn’s eyes, to say nothing of Olive’s, would almost have been starting from their heads with sheer eagerness to hear what had happened! Even Aunt Beryl was not above the extremely transparent device of having come to meet Lydia at the station on her return, and they had hardly passed the ticket-collector’s little barrier before she said: “Well?” Lydia found it simplest to explain that she was really rather tired, and could she talk it all over with’ auntie to-morrow? “It?” Well, yes — Mr. Damerel had really had something special to say to her, but she didn’t feel able to talk about it yet — she must have time to think things over.
By
a final inspiration, Lydia suggested that Aunt Beryl should be really kind, and prevent Olive from bombarding her with questions as to the way in which her day had been spent, thus successfully precluding the very obvious possibility of Aunt Beryl’s joining in the bombardment herself, as well as propitiating her by the suggestion of an alliance between them.
Whatever else Aunt Beryl might be, she was loyal.
Lydia was able to register a fleeting mental acknowledgment of the fact in the days that followed.
And in the end she actually found herself almost asking counsel of this faithful relative, although she knew inwardly that her mind was already made up, and had been so from the first word of Clement Damerel’s proposal.
But it was reassuring to hear Aunt Beryl’s outburst of unhesitating satisfaction.
“Nothing could be nicer than a clergyman,” declared Aunt Beryl, almost as though she supposed her niece to be in need of reassurance as to her suitor’s social standing. “And people you knew at the Palmers and all! I must say, Lydia, I always thought you’d settle down early, though Aunt Evelyn didn’t agree with me, saying you’d get no opportunities, working, and rubbish of that sort. And, after all, you’ll be engaged and married before poor Olive, let alone Beatrice and that scallywag of a young Swaine — I’m afraid he’s nothing else. Well, I am pleased, dearie!”
“Then you think it will be all right?” Lydia asked eagerly, wondering whether Aunt Beryl had altogether realized the difference between Mr. Damerel and anybody to whom Beatrice or Olive Senthoven might have aspired.
“Why shouldn’t it be all right? You’re the very girl for a parson’s wife — so energetic and all, and look at the way you enjoyed helping Nathalie Palmer last summer. And if he goes to a country living, as you say, it’s just what you’ll like — very different to a London curate. Nice for the old lady, too, to have you both settled down next door to her,” said Aunt Beryl calmly.
“You mean Lady Lucy? You know she has her daughter-in-law and the little grandson living with her at Quintmere?”
“That’s the widow is it, poor thing! It’s very nice him being so well connected. Your mother would have been pleased at that, Lydia. Her own people were County, she always said — though I never knew any of them.”
That was the way Aunt Beryl looked at it.
The simplicity of her point of view did but little, however, towards counteracting Lydia’s annoyance at the way in which the others of her little circle expressed themselves when she was able to announce to them that she was really and definitely engaged to be married quite shortly to Mr. Clement Damerel.
Uncle George, indeed, merely said: “Well, it’s a great stroke of luck, my dear, but you deserve it if ever a girl did, and I consider him a lucky young man — even though you haven’t got a handle to your name!” Mr. Monteagle Almond was more decorous, though Lydia, self-trained to other standards, hoped that Clement would never hear his grandiloquent references to the Sacred Calling that was all too seldom dignified by the members of our ancient aristocracy.
Aunt Evelyn wrote an excited letter that might almost have been a page from “Burke’s Landed Gentry,” so many details did it contain as to the family into which her niece was marrying, and Olive, in Lydia’s opinion, was quite as “impossible” as she always had been.
“Fancy, you sly thing, going and getting engaged like that before either of us! Whatever will Bob say? We always used to chaff him about having a soft corner for you in his heart, you know, Lyd. As for poor old Bee, sticking to her Stanley without a dog’s chance of ever being able to marry him — you’ve put her nose out of joint all right! I’m only rotting, you know, ole girl — we’re all awfully pleased, I’m sure, that you’ve done so well for yourself. What’s the old lady like, Lyd? Shall you get on with her? Fancy you with a ladyship for your mama-in-law!” But of all the congratulations that Lydia received — with feelings that were, to say the least of it, mixed — those which disconcerted her most thoroughly came from her grandfather.
“Going to be married to the Reverend Damerel, are you?” said Grandpapa. “And hob-nob with all sorts of fine folk, your aunt tells me. I’m not at all surprised to hear it of you, Lyddie. I quite expected you’d do something of the sort.”
Then Grandpapa began to chuckle, and something almost sinister crept into his tone, although he had turned away from Lydia and pretended to be addressing himself to Shamrock.
“What was it we always used to say, little dog — eh? There’s no such thing as can’t; that’s it, no such thing as can’t.”
XXI
LYDIA RAYMOND was Lydia Damerel.
She had been Lydia Damerel for a year — for five years — for ten — it had all slipped by with inconceivable rapidity.
She had been twenty — and married to a young man whose social antecedents were entirely different from her own, who was very much in love with her indeed, and of whom she was both rather fond and very proud.
Her wedding had not been spoilt by Grandpapa’s death. On the contrary, it had simplified things very much, and as neither Aunt Beryl nor Uncle George would hear of any postponement, Lydia’s marriage had taken place from the Rectory at Ashlew, and Nathalie, and the Damerels themselves, had pitied her greatly for having no relations of her very own at the quiet wedding.
They were sorry about Grandpapa, too, and Lydia told them of his shrewd wisdom, and Clement regretted very much that he had never seen him. Indeed, as things fell out, he saw none of Lydia’s relations.
After they were married, they went to live in London for a year, at the end of which it was understood that old Mr. Palmer would retire, and Clement take his place at Ashlew.
Uncle George and Aunt Beryl remained on in the house at Regency Terrace, and because it was too large for them, as Aunt Beryl put it — (“But you see, Grandpapa’s pension went with him,” as Aunt Evelyn mysteriously murmured) — they received a paying guest in the person of Mr. Monteagle Almond.
So that it would not have been any easier for Aunt Beryl to leave the house, even for a little while, than it had been in the old days.
The Damerels went down to Quintmere for the birth of Lydia’s baby, and arrived just in time to hear the rather sudden announcement of Nathalie Palmer’s engagement to the young officer son, home on leave from India, of an Exeter solicitor.
Lady Lucy, who was fond of Nathalie, took a great interest in it all and in the many discussions as to whether Nathalie could marry at once, as Captain Kennedy urged, and go out to India, and, if so, what would become of the old Rector left all alone.
She had never shown greater warmth to her new daughter-in-law than when Lydia suggested, very modestly, that Mr. Palmer should remain at the Rectory and let Clement act as his curate during his lifetime.
“Clement thinks there is more than enough work for one old man and one young and energetic one.”
“Indeed, yes. But, my dear — you’ve only been married a year! Could you really be happy without having your home to yourselves?”
“Nathalie ought to have her chance,” said Lydia thoughtfully, “and though she will be so dreadfully missed, I would try and take on her work.”
“Dear child, it’s very good of you — it must be a sacrifice to share your first home, even with the dear old Rector” Everyone was very grateful to Lydia.
Good-looking Captain Kennedy wrung her hand, and Nathalie, her eyes still shadowed by the tears she had shed at the thought of letting her Jack go to India by himself for another three years, could only tell Lydia and Lady Lucy that all her happiness would be owing to them.
“To Lydia, my dear,” said old Lady Lucy. “The suggestion was Lydia’s.”
“Nathalie would never have left me all alone,” said the old Rector simply, “and I couldn’t have borne to feel that I stood in the way of her happiness. I hope I shall be very little in your way, Lydia, indeed. But it is very good of you, my child.”
So Nathalie was married, in haste because there was so much to be done
before the young couple must sail for India, and the only shadow cast upon the day was Lydia’s absence.
She was ill, and Lady Lucy could only give half her attention to the bride, even at the ceremony, and Clement Damerel none at all. Of the Quintmere people, only little Billy and his nursery governess came to the Rectory for the wedding breakfast, and the governess frightened many people by whispering that Mrs.
Clement had been taken ill the day before and that the doctor was anxious about her.
Attention was much divided between this rumour, distracting to many people to whom Mr. Clement’s pretty young wife had made herself charming, and the bride herself, full of distress at the news.
Nathalie’s last injunction, indeed, was that her father should telegraph news of Lydia.
That night Lydia’s daughter was born, and there was no further cause for anxiety.
Lydia had wanted to call her Ivy, but it was easy to see that old Lady Lucy disliked so fanciful a name.
“Now, Mary, my dear — that’s the name I should have chosen for my daughter, if I had ever had one.
Or why not some family name — Margaret, or my dear mother’s name — Jane — though I know that’s out of fashion nowadays. But there’s a very pretty substitute — Joan — or I hear that Dorothy and Margery are favourite names nowadays, if you want something a little bit romantic.”
Lydia had known too many Dorothys and Margerys at school to think either name in the least romantic, but she said amiably: “I think Jane is quaint. I could call her Jane.”
She was very desirous of pleasing her mother-in-law, and she had wanted a boy so much that it hardly seemed to her to matter what a girl should be called.
“Are you really going to have the baby christened Jane?” said Joyce Damerel in her abrupt fashion. “I think it’s very hard on her. She won’t like it later on — people always laugh at ‘Jane’ nowadays— ‘Plain Jane.’” Lydia did not like her sister-in-law, although she never said so to anyone, and gave no sign of her dislike. But Joyce’s protest turned her half-serious suggestion into a resolution, and the baby was christened “Jane Lucy,” to the great contentment of its grandmother.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 172