“There is no reason for you to be unkind, is there?” Letty asked. “It has been a shock and you may think it trivial but, to me, it was a devastating revelation.”
“I am persuaded it was for him too,” Aspasia said, “for you have made no secret of your disgust. Do you not suppose such an attitude to have hurt his feelings?”
“Yes, I am sure it has but what can I do? I cannot pretend to an affection I do not feel and – what is more – I am persuaded that doing so would not be of the least help to him. He has suffered abominably and, while I do not wish to add to his troubles, I cannot conceal my own sentiments.”
“Why can you not?” Aspasia asked, beginning to lose patience. “You are not an infant whose feelings take precedence over manners and would as a consequence be better confined to the nursery; you are twenty years old and should – surely must – know better. Have you told him how you feel?”
“I did not have to for he understood at once,” Letty admitted. “I am sorry, Aunt, but I cannot pretend to something I do not feel, and will not even try.”
“I see. So, when you marry Lord Stonegate, feeling - as you do – indifferent, will you not essay a show of affection?”
“No, for it will not be that sort of marriage.”
“I should think it will be the most miserable of unions,” Aspasia said. “Are you still intending to go ahead with it?”
“I do not know. I thought I would marry him because I was convinced it would be better than staying at home with Papa and his horrid new wife. That is very likely still the case only now for different reasons. Before, I thought that, if I could not marry the man I loved, I might as well marry an earl and travel a long way from my home; now? well, why should I not marry him?”
“Because it would be unfair on him – and on Lord Archibald, who would be obliged to see you all the time when you have broken his heart. I can foresee no good coming of this marriage. But I did not come here to ask you that or to read you a lecture; I came to ask if you were well enough to walk down to the river.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Certainly, it is not very interesting sitting here.” Letty flung off the rug and stood up. “You seem very taken with Archie,” she continued in a hard voice. “Perhaps you should marry him.”
Chapter 17
But Aspasia, who was beginning to think her niece might prove to be as difficult to manage at the Dowager Countess, refused to be drawn. She said only, “They are awaiting us in the dining room,” and led the way out of the saloon.
It was only after they had traversed at least half the long, dark corridor in silence that she softened sufficiently to reply to Letty’s pert suggestion.
“I was not certain that you expected an answer but, yes, I do indeed find myself vastly more taken with Lord Archibald than I had expected. He strikes me as a man well versed in the sort of hoops through which you might put him – having cut his eye teeth in such matters at his mother’s knee. He is also, from what I have seen, devoted to you. I believe I misjudged him, largely because I thought that a grown man had no business making love to a schoolgirl; I see now how mistaken I was to jump to that conclusion before I had gained the measure of both parties. I am now quite convinced that, as you have admitted all along, it was you who made the first move while he, so far as I can ascertain, has behaved entirely properly throughout. Now he is horribly wounded, not least in the matter of having a broken heart.”
“Stuff! He will get over it! In any event, so far as I can tell from looking around this house, he needs an heiress!”
Aspasia’s mouth fell open. She said, ignoring the contentiousness of Letty’s first dismissive statement, “Are you not an heiress yourself?”
“Am I?”
“Do you not know how much your father will settle upon you?”
“No. Papa has never been inclined to communicate with me on any matter beyond correcting my conduct. I do know that he sent Maria off with a large sum, but I thought that was because he wanted to get her off his hands and was afraid that no one would take her if he did not wrap her in gold, as it were. I have always known he expected me to make a better match – which was why he rejected Archie – but assumed that all the money had gone on Maria and that, since my elopement, he did not expect anyone to take me in any event. Is that why Stonegate wants me – for my dowry? Do you know that for a fact?”
“No; it was something her ladyship raised while we were eating luncheon, but she may simply have been trying to cause trouble.”
“Did it – cause trouble?”
“It clearly irritated Lord Stonegate.”
“Did it?” Letty repeated, this time with a different inflexion.
“She said he was heavily in debt,” Aspasia explained.
“Good God! You know, Aunt, I do not think I will marry him. But then, if I do not, what shall I do and where can I go?”
“Until you come of age you will be obliged to go back home unless I can persuade your father to let you lodge with me – if that is what you would like.”
As she spoke, Aspasia was by no means certain that she would like it. From pity for her niece’s lost love, she had moved rapidly to finding her a hard, selfish girl who thought of no one but herself. In truth, she was beginning to agree with her brother that the sooner she married the better for all concerned – except perhaps her husband.
“Would you have me? And could you afford me? I do not mean that I am expensive – I am not – but it would be another mouth to feed, although I suppose you could dismiss Miss Watkin if I moved in.”
Aspasia’s mind passed rapidly over the relative merits and drawbacks of sharing her house with Letty or Miss Watkin: Letty was not – or had not so far proved to be – boring but, where Miss Watkin’s brain was not powerful, Letty’s seemed to be both powerful and unreliable, veering wildly and irrationally between one opinion and its opposite; indeed, there were moments when the devoted aunt suspected her of being almost deranged. Would she, Aspasia wondered idly, prefer to be bored and irritated or obliged to be watching her tongue lest it lead her into an argument which she could not, in the end, win, on account of the other refusing point-blank to engage in any kind of rational discussion? The advantage of Miss Watkin, which Aspasia was inclined to think probably outweighed every other consideration, was that she was an employee and must ultimately do as she was bid or risk dismissal.
“I would love to have you to stay,” she replied at last, conscious that there had been a protracted pause while she wrestled with her conscience and eventually conceded defeat, “but I do not suppose you would be there for long: a gentleman would be bound to snap you up sooner rather than later.”
“He might want to,” Letty said, “but he would not succeed for I have done with gentlemen.”
This worrying pronouncement had less effect on her aunt than it might have done had they not spent time with the two soldiers en route to Stonegate. That had been the first indication that Letty’s heart was on the way to being healed although Aspasia did not think she was recovered quite sufficiently to be judged entirely well. She would no doubt continue to deny any interest in the opposite sex, citing the terrible after-effects of her thwarted love as having damaged her poor, innocent heart beyond repair.
They had by this time reached the door of the dining room, which was opened for them by Oliphant, who was standing outside.
The party set off at once for the river, led by Lord Archibald. It was not a long walk and took them across a sloping lawn (ill-kept) and through a shrubbery (in need of pruning) to bring them at last to the banks of the river whose curves they had glimpsed through the dining room windows.
The apprentice butler scurried past them as they made their way across the lawn, carrying chairs and rugs and accompanied by two maids laden with trays of lemonade and small cakes – as though, Aspasia thought, in spite of having just eaten a substantial luncheon, they could not be expected to pass half an hour without some form of sustenance.
The Earl, having enq
uired solicitously after his fiancée’s health, tucked her hand into his arm, saying, “Come, Letitia; it is not far, and I wager you will enjoy the air and the sight of the flowing water. I always find it soothing to sit beside a river. It is the same one which runs past Stonegate and forms the moat.”
“We were used to swim in it when we were boys,” Archie said. “We started by jumping off the ramparts of the Castle and then followed the current out and into the river. This house has been uninhabited for several years and we used to think it very romantic, dozing here beside the river.”
“How long did it take you to swim this far?” Aspasia asked, as they reached the bank and the Earl helped his brother to sit down.
“Not so long as you might think; the river comes by a shorter route than the road. Not much more than an hour as I recall.”
“When you are feeling better we will try it again,” the Earl said. “In fact, there is another way into the moat which doesn’t involve jumping. Or we could take a boat; we could do that any time if you will only come back to the Castle, Archibald.”
The younger man shrugged but glanced at the faces of the women before he replied, “Perhaps I will. Would you object to my constant presence, Letty?”
“Why should I?” she asked ungraciously. She had flung herself down on to a rug at the Earl’s feet.
“I would have thought there was every reason,” he replied. “Will you, do you think, be able to eat your dinner with my face at the table?”
She flushed. “It was not your face which drove me from the room,” she said. “It was my having been unwell earlier.”
“Yes, but was not that caused by my face?”
“Not altogether. It was the whole awful shock – and the drive – which made me ill.”
“You must have suffered quite abominably travelling all this way south,” Archie said in a falsely sympathetic tone, “if you have become subject to feeling sick in a coach.”
“I am not, generally,” she said, conscious of Aspasia’s sceptical eye as well as Lord Archibald’s knowledge that she was lying.
“Very likely it was the rich food,” the Countess, who had not spoken for some time, suggested.
“She didn’t eat it,” Archie pointed out.
“She ate a good deal of Frederick’s last night,” her ladyship reminded him.
“Ah! That explains it! Perhaps she should retreat with you to your Tower and restrict herself to dry bread and gruel.”
“It would not do her any harm,” his mother retorted. “She is by far too thin and needs to eat more substantial food than the rich little bits and pieces you two seem to think form a proper meal. I cannot conceive what has become of good old-fashioned English cooking,” she added with a pursing of her lips.
“Nothing much so far as I know,” Archie responded, smiling, “but it mostly remains in the nursery where it belongs. She is thin though; would you prefer a larger armful, Frederick?”
“Miss Denton is perfect as she is,” his lordship replied with an amused twitch of his lips.
“Pray do not discuss me as though I was a candidate for the harem!” Letty snapped.
“Lord! I never thought of that,” Archie exclaimed, “but, from what I know of you, you would be an excellent choice for such a role.”
“Too thin!” the Countess said.
“Not altogether without the desirable shape though,” Archie said, considering his former love with his eye half closed. “And her face is ravishing. I feel sure she would learn the correct way to behave in a trice and would probably enjoy the job!”
“How dare you speak so!” Letty shouted, the simmering sparks of her temper catching fire. She jumped up from her position on the rug, took one step towards him and raised her hand to hit him; but she was left-handed and the cheek with which she would have made contact was the damaged one. Her hand froze in mid-air and Archie, smiling enigmatically, caught her wrist and held it while he turned his face.
“Try now!” he encouraged. “Although I think you will have to use the back of your hand – not, I think, what you had in mind; or you could try with the other if you think it will answer.” As he spoke, he released her wrist.
“I hate you!” she hissed.
“Well, do you know, I’m quite pleased to hear that for I cannot help feeling it is an advance on indifference.”
Aspasia, rendered exceedingly uncomfortable by this scene, wondered at the Earl and his motives for he did not intervene but looked on with a sort of benign approval. The Countess’s face was, as usual, twisted with spite. Did she, Aspasia wondered, enjoy seeing her son upset by his former love or did she consider it a fair price to see the girl humiliated?
“I don’t want to sit here,” Letty declared, pouting. “Can we go home now?”
“I think ...,” Aspasia temporised, looking at the Earl.
“That it will be my decision when we leave,” he supplied, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, yes.”
“But we have only just sat down, and it is exceedingly pleasant here in the sun. Why do you not take a walk, Letitia, if you do not care to be with us?”
Letty hunched an angry shoulder and said, “Will you come with me, Aunt?”
“I believe I would prefer to stay here,” Aspasia said, knowing that Letty would see this as the ultimate betrayal but, somehow, after more than two hours of trying – unsuccessfully – to endure the tension, she did not think she could face being forced to listen to Letty inveighing against the Meridews.
“I will come with you,” the Countess surprisingly offered, rising from her chair and adjusting her scarves.
Aspasia almost laughed when she saw her niece’s face. She doubted if there was any companion she would have liked less.
“May I take your arm?” Lady Stonegate continued, adopting a disconcertingly gentle tone. “The ground can be uneven along the bank and I do not want to fall.”
Letty, her face set in mutinous lines, obediently crooked her arm so that the older woman could put her hand within its curve and lean, apparently trustingly, upon the younger.
The three left behind said nothing for some time and Aspasia, relieved that the two distempered females had gone away for the time being, lay down flat on her back and tipped her bonnet over her eyes. She could hear the gentle lapping of the river as it ran between its banks, interrupted by birdsong and a faint rustling of the trees as the breeze stirred them. The sun on her arms was warm and she thought, briefly, how delightful it was to lie here, untroubled by either Miss Watkin’s inane chatter or her niece’s constant complaints.
“Will you join us at the Castle?” the Earl asked his brother.
“Are you certain you want me?” Archie queried.
“Yes; you must not allow yourself to be cast down by Letitia’s attitude, you know; she will grow used to your being there after a little while and then, if the two she met en route do turn up, you will have them to amuse you as well. It will do you good and may lead to all sorts of unexpected results.”
“Just so!” Archie agreed. “I suppose at least one of them is pursuing Letty on his own account; are you hoping, now that she seems to have abandoned me, that one of them will take her off your hands?”
“Oh, I think she has done that herself,” the Earl replied. “She declared quite clearly at luncheon that she would not marry me, so I don’t think I have to be exercised about that.”
The men spoke in low voices and Aspasia wondered if they thought she was asleep.
“Are we to act as matchmakers for both of them?” Archie asked. “For I suppose Fielding is interested in Mrs Ripley.”
“I should imagine he is. It would be odd if he were not for she is remarkably good-looking.”
There was a pause during which Aspasia supposed that a pregnant look must have passed between the brothers for the Earl gave a low laugh and said, “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“I suppose Lady Vanston knows of your intentions,” Archie murmured after another pause.
“Has she given you permission to pay court to another woman?”
“I hardly think I need her permission,” the Earl retorted. “She is not my keeper.”
“No? There are many who would dispute that.”
“We have parted,” the Earl said quietly, “with no hard feelings on either side.”
“Not perhaps on yours – I presume it was you who decided the liaison must cease – but I do not think you can be certain of her sentiments.”
“No one can know another’s true feelings,” the Earl acknowledged, “but she has always been aware that eventually I would marry and I have never led her to believe that our connexion would continue after that. I intend to be a very paragon of a husband.”
“Perhaps – but what will you do if it turns out that you do not become a husband just yet? Will you go back to Lady V?”
“No; it is ended. I suppose I will have to resume the search for a bride.”
“Will it be limited to débutantes, do you think – or would you consider a more mature female?”
The Earl laughed and said lightly, “To match me, do you mean?”
“You are not so very old, but you are accustomed to the company of a grown woman; would you not be irritated by the often absurd starts of an excessively young one?”
“Very likely; I own I have been surprised by Letitia’s volatility and realise that she and I would have little in common. I suppose, when we have been married for a few years and, with luck, have children, we may find mutual ground but, yes, you are right that, lovely as she is, I fear I would find it onerous dealing with her megrims. My real concern though is that she would grow to dislike me; I have no wish to make her unhappy.”
“She is already unhappy,” Archie said quietly. “She is exceedingly angry and utterly miserable. I was too young to understand that when we first met.”
“Are you glad she has taken against you?” the Earl asked, gently chiding.
“No; I am heart-broken. I love her with all my heart and would dearly like to have the opportunity to alleviate her rage and make her happy but, unfortunately, she will not now allow me the opportunity.”
Letitia Or The Convalescent Heart Page 15