Letitia Or The Convalescent Heart

by Catherine Bowness

  “You must have been glad when he did not return,” Letty said.

  “Yes, at first I was – and I am ashamed to say that I almost hoped some accident had befallen him for then I would not have been constantly looking over my shoulder and jumping at the least little noise outside. As the years passed, I began to feel a degree of guilt for hoping that he would be unable to return until, eventually, I began to forget some of what had passed between us and wish that we might have the opportunity to make up.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  “I own I do not know. My life is dull but by no means uncomfortable without him and yet I did, or at any rate thought I did, develop a strong attachment to him, which – in short, I am ashamed to admit that I suspect I do – at bottom.”

  “I do not see that there is any reason for you to feel ashamed of such loyalty,” Letty said quietly.

  “I disagree. He was a bad man, as violent and unreasoning as my brother, and treated me abominably almost from the moment he persuaded me to elope; his manner even before we left had, with hindsight, been domineering; I thought it was because he loved me that he behaved in such a forceful manner – that he could not bear to be parted from me. Now I think it was because he loved himself so much that he could not bear not to have his own way. As a consequence of my own experience, it is not difficult for me to believe that you are still deeply attached to your Archie – but I wish you were not for I am certain no good will come of it.”

  “None has – at least so far,” Letty said morosely, “but, like you, dearest Aunt, I cannot tear him from my heart.”

  When they stopped to change the horses, Aspasia suggested they alight and eat a nuncheon. Unfortunately, their request for a private parlour could not be fulfilled since both were already in use. Assured that a quiet corner in the public saloon could readily be provided, the two women allowed themselves to be guided towards a table in a neat little alcove which looked out upon the courtyard but was somewhat removed from the rest of the room. They sat down, ordered a light nuncheon and surveyed the other inhabitants of the saloon before turning their attention to what was going on outside.

  It was not long before they heard the sound of a carriage drawing up and saw, through the window, two soldiers alighting from a travelling chaise; a couple of minutes later they burst into the room, still talking in loud voices.

  Letty, who had been engaged in peeling an apple, looked up. The men were in uniform and both could, without too much stretch of the imagination, be described as young and handsome. The sight of them gave her heart a jolt for she could not help thinking of her soldier – Lord Archibald – who had been – presumably still was - exceedingly handsome even when wearing perfectly ordinary clothes. What must he have looked like in his uniform?

  “Are those officers, Aunt?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes, I am sure they must be.” Aspasia, whose eyes were also dazzled by the red jackets, began to wish she had decided to eat nuncheon at almost any other post house in the world.

  “I am not sure that I could bear to see him again,” Letty confessed, following her own train of thought and assuming her aunt would know to whom she was referring. “I do not know why I thought at first that it would not signify.”

  “I am persuaded it would be the best thing that could happen,” Aspasia said firmly, perfectly aware of her niece’s preoccupation. “Very likely the scales would fall from your eyes and you would see him for what he was – and is now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My dear child: the man was a scoundrel.”

  “He was not!” Letty exclaimed, flushing angrily.

  Aspasia flushed too, irritated by what she considered to be her niece’s pig-headed determination to cast the odious Lord Archibald as some sort of romantic hero when she was convinced he was just another weak-willed man who had, with the monotonous regularity of his sex, dashed a girl’s heart and hopes and very likely ruined the rest of her life. While sympathetic to her niece’s continuing love for the rogue, she had rather hoped that their earlier conversation on the subject of enduring love for such unsuitable men might at least have convinced the girl that he was a bad lot.

  “Finish your apple, child,” she said brusquely, “and let us be on our way.”

  “But you have already ordered coffee,” Letty protested, also irritated – and a little disappointed by her aunt’s lack of understanding.

  “I will countermand the order,” Aspasia snapped. “It is taking far too long to be brought to the table. We cannot sit here all afternoon waiting for it, I suppose.”

  “No, but, look, Aunt, here it is now – and I own I would like to drink mine, if you do not mind.”

  “Very well. Thank you,” Aspasia said to the waiter as he unloaded his tray. “Please bring us the bill at once; we have wasted quite enough time here already.”

  “I apologise, Madam.”

  Almost before the man had retreated, Aspasia picked up the pot but tipped it so clumsily that the lid fell off, broke one of the cups and rolled on to the floor.

  “Devil take it!” she exclaimed under her breath.

  “I expect he will bring another cup,” Letty said.

  “Allow me,” one of the soldiers murmured, darting across the room and picking up the lid deftly from its position beneath the table and almost under the hem of Mrs Ripley’s skirt.

  “Thank you,” she said frostily, taking it.

  “Not at all – a pleasure. Shall I see if I can obtain another cup?” The soldier had planted himself firmly beside the table so that both women felt somewhat stifled by his presence.

  “I should imagine that to be the waiter’s job.”

  “Well, yes, of course; what I meant was that I would immediately ask him to bring one. He may not have noticed the accident, you see, because he had already gone out to the kitchen when it happened.”

  “That is a kind thought,” Aspasia said, trying to control her temper, “but pray do not allow us to delay your own refreshment, sir. We were, in any event, about to leave.”

  “Yes, but you may as well drink your coffee now that it is upon the table,” he argued.

  Letty tried to suppress a giggle for the soldier’s remark was only too accurate; the consequence of her aunt’s clumsiness had not only resulted in a broken cup but also in a quantity of coffee being spilled upon the table.

  He looked up and smiled.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “Captain Sharpthorne at your service.”

  He bowed gracefully and, seeing out of the corner of his eye that the waiter had re-entered the room, beckoned him. “I’m afraid there has been a slight mishap,” he explained. “Can you bring another cup as well as another pot of coffee – most of this has been spilled and the remainder cannot be very hot by now.”

  “It will be perfectly adequate, thank you,” Aspasia said coldly. “We are in a hurry to be on our way and a fresh pot of excessively hot coffee is not at all what we require at the moment.”

  While she was speaking and endeavouring to drive the young man away without being overtly rude, the other soldier made his approach.

  “Let me make you known to my uncle, Major Fielding,” the Captain said.

  Major Fielding was only some ten years older than his nephew and, apart from a dramatic scar running down one side of his face from his eyebrow to his chin, also a handsome man.

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Ma’am,” he said, bowing. “Will you join us in a glass of wine before you leave?”

  “Oh, no, thank you. We really must be going!” Aspasia repeated, beginning to prepare for departure by picking up her reticule and opening and shutting it several times. “Come along, Letty; we do not want to keep Lord Stonegate waiting.”

  “But we will not be seeing him today in any event,” Letty argued. “I am persuaded it will not signify if we arrive a little later at the Horse and Groom than we originally intended.”

  “Lord Stonegate?” Major Fielding
exclaimed, apparently delighted to hear the name.

  “Yes.” Aspasia was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain an agreeable manner. She could see that Letty, for all her protestations of undiminished love for Lord Archibald, was noticeably brightening in the presence of the soldiers and wondered how disagreeable a companion she might prove when baulked of her desire to spend time with them.

  “Do you know him?” Letty asked.

  “I was at school with him,” the Major explained, “so, yes, I know him – or knew him once – very well indeed. Of course, our paths have diverged since then because I joined the army while he went up to Cambridge. I haven’t seen him for some time. Are you perhaps relatives of his?”

  “I am betrothed to him.”

  “Are you indeed? Well, he’s a lucky man.”

  “Thank you.” Letty rewarded the Major for his compliment with a smile and a blush and Aspasia thought that it would not be long before Lord Archibald had been entirely forgotten. This thought led to a dramatic change in her approach to the soldiers.

  “Ah, here’s the coffee!” the Major exclaimed as the waiter entered the room with a tray. “Now, will you permit me to pour it so that there are no further mishaps?”

  “Do you suppose my hand too unsteady to perform such a simple task?” Aspasia asked, clearly insulted.

  The Major laughed. “By no means! It was only that I had the feeling you wished to leave from the moment we entered the room and it was your haste which probably led you to misjudge the relative positions of cup and pot.”

  “I was,” she admitted, smiling ruefully. “But I have changed my mind. Would you like to join us? No doubt the waiter can bring another couple of cups.”

  “Indeed, we would be delighted,” he replied at once, raising an interrogative eyebrow at his companion, who nodded enthusiastically. “And will you, Madam, join us in a glass of wine now that you have decided we are not the villains you feared?”

  “One must, I suppose, take care with whom one falls into conversation,” she said, attempting an explanation without much regard for the truth, “particularly if one’s party consists only of two females.”

  “Yes, quite so. And such ravishing ladies! I daresay every gentleman you meet wishes to engage you in conversation. Tell me, was it my mentioning my acquaintance with Lord Stonegate which reconciled you to us?”

  She smiled, pleased that he had found a rational reason himself and relieved that she would now be able to conceal the real – and rather less edifying - motive for her sudden change in attitude.

  While she was speaking to the Major, the Captain lost no time in seating himself beside Letty and engaging her in a discussion of the journey so far and her hopes for the remainder of the quite considerable distance.

  Watching her out of the corner of her eye and paying rather more attention to their conversation than her own, Aspasia applauded the young man’s tact in speaking on such an unexceptionable subject, listening gravely to the young woman’s replies and refraining from innuendo. If he had made an overt approach, she did not doubt that Letty would have remembered Lord Archibald and withdrawn like a sensitive plant.

  The liquid spilled upon the table was mopped up, the broken china swept up, more cups were brought, a bottle of wine opened and the four became increasingly animated. It was therefore a good half hour before Aspasia recalled her duties as a chaperone and began once more to agitate about the importance of them being on their way.

  This time the soldiers made no demur but made sure that they knew which Horse and Groom the ladies had booked for their overnight stay and expressed the hope that they might meet up once more in that establishment and indeed take their dinner together.

  “But are you not on duty?” Aspasia asked.

  “Not precisely,” the Major replied. “We have been on furlough and travelled north to attend a wedding. We are required to report for duty at Dover in just over a fortnight but, until then, are free to amuse ourselves. In fact, now that you have reminded me of my old friend, Stonegate, I believe we might call on him to pay our respects – and offer our congratulations on his betrothal.”

  This suggestion not unnaturally struck Aspasia as an exceedingly poor idea because she was conscious that, after her initial disapproval, she had encouraged the men quite shamelessly; the threat of them visiting Lord Stonegate in his castle and making a lively reference to their having met in an inn worried her. What in the world would the Earl make of his fiancée and her aunt acquiring a couple of military admirers en route?

  The Major, seeing some of these thoughts reflected in her face, laughed and said, “Pray do not be exercised about what we shall say; we will deny ever having met either of you before.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, blushing furiously. “I did not …”

  “I believe you did,” he contradicted, still smiling, “but it is absolutely understandable. After all, you do not want him to get the wrong idea!”

  “No. Thank you for joining us,” she added, standing up so quickly that her chair fell over.

  The Captain picked it up and, while thanks and apologies were being exchanged, the Major paid the ladies’ bill as well as his own, thus putting the women under an obligation to him. Aspasia, perceiving this, tried to argue the case but was forced to acknowledge that the more she engaged in a dispute over the bill, the closer the two parties became, united now in a sort of shameful collaboration.

  Letty, meanwhile, had begun to giggle in a manner so wholly at variance with her sour expression when she had arrived at Aspasia’s house only a few hours earlier, that her aunt began to fear she was deranged.

  “You’ve not told us your names,” the Major said as the women finally succeeded in moving away from the table.

  “No; that will be something for you to learn when you meet us ‘for the first time’ at Lord Stonegate’s,” Aspasia said.

  “Oh, indeed! I shall look forward to it!”

  He sprang forward, opened the door into the hall and escorted them outside and into their carriage.

  “I thought we’d never get away!” she said on a sigh as the vehicle turned out of the inn’s courtyard on to the road.

  “I don’t think we have altogether,” Letty pointed out. “I am sure they mean to follow us.”

  “I am sorry,” the aunt said after an awful pause. “I cannot think why your father entrusted me with you for it is perfectly clear that I leave a great deal to be desired as a chaperone.”

  “Oh, pray do not castigate yourself,” Letty said kindly, almost adopting the role of chaperone herself. “I own I enjoyed talking to them and no harm has been done: we have not been abducted or – or hurt in any way.”

  “Did you like Captain Sharpthorne?” Aspasia asked.

  “He seemed perfectly agreeable,” Letty answered pleasantly, adding after a moment, “but, if you are wondering whether my laughing at his jokes indicates that I have ceased to love Archie, I can assure you that it has not. Did you like Major Fielding?”

  “I did at first but then I thought he became a little over-familiar.”

  “Yes, I think he did. Do you think we should be rude to them this evening?”

  “Oh, lud, I hope they don’t turn up at the same inn. I am wondering whether we should stop at a different one even though we have booked our rooms at the Horse and Groom.”

  “Well, we could but … do you think Lord Stonegate would disapprove of our drinking coffee with them?”

  “I have not the least idea; remember I have never met him. What do you think?”

  “Well, I suppose he is quite a stickler for the conventions; after all, if he had not been, I assume he would not have rescued me in the way that he did. On the other hand, if what Papa says is true and he has a mistress, he really doesn’t have a leg to stand upon in the way of proper conduct. Aunt, why do you think he has made me an offer without having seen me for nearly four years and without ever having engaged me in conversation?”

  “I have been wondering
that ever since your papa wrote to me. Is he – does he have an infirmity of some sort?”

  Chapter 5

  Letty burst into laughter. “Not that I recall. He is quite strong and is no mean whip for he caught up with Archie and me in no time and knocked poor Archie out and carried me off in spite of my fighting him with every ounce of strength I possessed. Do you mean, is he ugly or has a large wart upon his face or something? I do not think so, but then I was not very interested in him and was far too busy kicking and screaming to study his countenance in any great detail. In any event, I am persuaded he cannot be excessively ugly for surely, if he was, he would not have a mistress who seems to prefer him to her husband.”

  “No; I suppose it must simply be that no other woman will have him unless he promises to give up the mistress. Are you sure she does not put you off? Now that you are betrothed, I believe you could stipulate that he must dismiss her for he would look pretty bad if he jilted you – whatever the reason.”

  “Even if it was because I had been flirting with a soldier on the way to his house?”

  “Oh, I don’t think flirting is precisely an indictable offence,” Aspasia said, “although I own I wish I had not been quite so ‘coming’ towards the Major.”