by Joan Aiken
‘It is lucky for us, I believe,’ said Emma, ‘that my brother Robert will think rooms over a baker’s shop even more disgraceful than rooms over an apothecary. We are not likely to be entertaining him.’
‘Stupid man! I have no patience with him,’ said Mrs O’Brien. ‘He is not half the man his dear father was.’
But Emma was sorry not to see her sister Elizabeth – or Penelope, or Dr Harding. That part of the family, she feared, must also have cast her off. Nor was there a second visit from Miss Osborne. She did, however, receive news of the Osborne family for, one day, when she was executing some household commissions in the High Street, she encountered Mr Howard.
He seemed a little embarrassed at the meeting and explained that his horse had cast a shoe and he was waiting for it to be shod.
‘Will you not come and meet my aunt?’ Emma suggested.
He hemmed and hawed – hesitated – but finally accepted the invitation. By now Mrs O’Brien was in spirits quite her old self – lively, alert, and keenly interested in people and public affairs. Only the lines of her worn countenance betrayed the troubles that she had been through.
‘Mr Howard! I hear that you were a great friend to my poor brother. I am very glad indeed to meet you.’
Mr Howard had been looking rather pale and dejected, but he brightened at this cordial greeting.
‘And I am happy to meet you, Mrs O’Brien,’ he said. ‘Especially as I was witness to the deep anxiety suffered by your niece during the months when she had no news of you. It is an excellent thing that you are reunited at last. And indeed I can bring you and Miss Emma some cheering news. The publication of your brother’s sermons has been attended with a remarkable success; the first edition is already all subscribed, and a second edition is reprinting. I shall have a draft for you, Miss Emma, very shortly, for over two hundred pounds!’
‘Two hundred pounds! Why, that is riches! My aunt and I may subsist very comfortably on that for an untold period of time.’
‘Not only that, my dear Miss Emma, but the publishers are eager for a second volume – having heard from me that the set of sermons already published is only a very partial selection.’
‘Oh, good heavens,’ said Emma, ‘is that really so? This is wonderful indeed – but all my father’s papers and books are at present with my brother Sam in Guildford – we thought it best, after Papa’s death – since, though it was true the rights were left to me, my place of residence at that time appeared so uncertain . . .’
‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Mr Howard, a little embarrassed.
‘I will write to Sam and ask him to have the papers conveyed to me here. That will provide a pleasant evening occupation for me and my aunt – sorting and selecting a second series.’
‘Indeed it will!’ said Mrs O’Brien.
Mr Howard looked a little crestfallen, as if he had hoped to be offered the task.
‘Well, I shall look forward to hearing from you,’ he said after a moment or two, ‘when you have made your choice.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Emma. ‘And now I am going to send you on your way, Mr Howard, for I am sure your horse is shod, and it is past time for my aunt’s egg-nog.’
Reluctant but acquiescent, he took his leave.
‘Oh, by the bye,’ he said awkwardly on the stair, ‘there is a piece of news which you may not have heard – Lady Osborne is to marry her cousin, Lord Rufus Bungay. He has returned from abroad, not long since. They were old childhood playmates.’
‘Indeed?’ said Emma, very much startled. ‘But—’ However, she choked down the rest of her rejoinder and watched him walk away, slowly and with head bent, along the street.
When she returned upstairs with the egg-nog Mrs O’Brien said at once:
‘That man has the intention to return and make you an offer, my dear.’
‘Do you think so?’ Emma said doubtfully. ‘Despite our inferior social standing?’
‘He has all the look of it.’ Mrs O’Brien spoke with the authority of one who has, in her time, conducted a multitude of flirtations resulting in two marriages.
‘But it must be decidedly awkward for him, situated as he is, known to have been, to all intents and purposes, the property of Lady Osborne for so long . . .’
‘Ah, my dear, a man will soon forget an inconvenient trifle like that. But the important question is, do you mean to have him?’
Emma thought of the letter in her reticule, the book about Saxon kings at her bedside. She had not yet mentioned these matters to her aunt. Nor would she. She felt like a bird with one precious, fragile egg. She would run no risk, would not tempt Providence.
How foolish I was, though, she thought. I could quite properly have asked Mr Howard if he had any news of his cousin.
‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, I do not.’
‘But he seems an excellent person, my dear, a clergyman, of good family, comfortably situated—’
Emma said stubbornly, ‘He does not have the resolution that I like to see in a man. He was for too long at the beck and call of Lady Osborne, who is a detestable female. I like a man who is deedy, and makes up his own mind.’
‘Ah, but, my dear, you could supply all the resolution,’ said her fond aunt.
***
The following Saturday brought Sam, in response to Emma’s letter, with a large bundle of papers and notebooks.
But he was not the cheerful, affectionate Sam of the previous visit; he looked white and shocked.
‘I see you have not heard the news?’ were his opening words.
Aunt and niece stared at him in alarm, then at each other in surmise.
‘No, Sam, what is it?’
‘The canal bill failed to get through Parliament – the petition was dismissed – and, much worse, the Canal Company has declared bankruptcy, for Thickstaffe’s partner has absconded with the funds. Harding is a ruined man!’
‘Oh, Sam! But what about yourself?’
‘Well, I have lost what I put in,’ he sighed. ‘I am not so much worse off than I was this time last year – but I have lost my hope, for ever, of Mary Edwards. I had thought I might have enough to offer if this scheme prospered – since, for some reason, her engagement to Osborne has never come off—’
‘But, good heavens! Dr Harding ruined! Will he have to sell Clissocks?’
‘I imagine so,’ said Sam gloomily. ‘That is not the end of it. Margaret and Thickstaffe have eloped.’
‘What?’
‘Impossible!’ burst simultaneously from Emma and Mrs O’Brien.
‘No, no, Sam, you must be mistaken! It was always Penelope and Thickstaffe who were supposed to be conspiring together – at least, according to Margaret.’
‘Well, it is true enough. I have just come from Clissocks. Penelope is in a fine rage, I can tell you – blames the whole on Margaret and her insinuating ways. For my part, I think Harding is well rid of Thickstaffe – I never cared for the fellow; of course I would like to see him laid by the heels, I’ve no doubt he feathered his own nest out of the business; but the tale is, they are gone abroad, he has a cousin in Philadelphia. Poor Harding is like a man stunned.’
Sam left soon after, saying that he must pursue his practice with extra vigour, now the chance of making a fortune from investments was lost to him.
As Emma escorted Sam down to the street, Tom Musgrave came riding to the door, and, on Emma’s nod, proceeded up the stairs. Sam stared after him with considerable disapproval.
‘How does that fellow come to be calling here? He is not at all the thing!’
‘Well,’ said Emma reasonably, ‘he is hoping to win the regard of Elizabeth, and I am encouraging him. After all, he is comfortably off, and very attached to her. If the Hardings are ruined, Elizabeth could do much worse! And Tom and Aunt Maria get on excellently well – don’t forget, he is a connection of
her first husband, Uncle Turner. And he makes her laugh and tells her about his horses, which keeps her entertained, as Captain O’Brien was such a racing man—’
But Sam shook his head, still declaring that Tom Musgrave was not at all the thing.
‘Oh, Sam, you are growing as bad as Robert. Heavens! There will be no bearing Robert now! He will be saying to everybody that he told them so, all along.’
Chapter 12
Spring, which had, that year, been slow in its arrival, now gathered momentum. Bare branches began to be softly outlined in light and brilliant foliage. Gypsies sold bunches of primroses at street corners in the little town. Fruit trees in gardens put forth cascades of blossom, first the pear and cherry, then apple and quince. Emma sighed in secret for the orchards and meadows of Stanton; she felt constricted among houses and streets. Her aunt Maria observed with concern that she grew a little thin and pale. Pupils, however, she had in plenty, and the two ladies were not lacking in society: the Hunters, the Tomlinsons, Mrs Norton, and Miss Styles all recalled their old connection with Mrs O’Brien and came to drink tea and discuss past times. Tom Musgrave paid faithful, if less frequent visits. Mrs O’Brien still went twice weekly to the warm bath for the relief of her rheumatic joints. At first she had been carried there on a litter by two stout boys, at a fee of sixpence. The enclosure of the Wells was located in a pavilion in a dingle on Epsom Common, about fifteen minutes’ walk from their lodgings. Latterly Aunt Maria had ridden thither in a chair, with Emma walking beside. Close to the Wells themselves, with their enclosures, their hot and cold springs, private cabinets for male and female immersion, and the fountain, where cups of mineral water might be obtained, had grown up a small parade of tea-shops and circulating libraries where trinkets, ornamental combs, handkerchiefs, and other such temptations were offered for sale. Beside the glassed-in building, inside which palm fronds and tropical foliage luxuriated in the steamy atmosphere, was an outdoor terrace containing small tables and chairs where, on mild spring mornings, tea, coffee, and other beverages might be purchased and drunk.
Here it was Aunt Maria’s one indulgence to sit for a while, when the weather was propitious, and watch the customers and the foot-passengers coming and going.
‘I do so like,’ she said, ‘to look at the new hats and the modes and the various ways they have now of dressing hair; in Ireland there was nothing of the kind; young girls in that land wear their locks quite long and plain, hanging down their backs; they would stare to see all these ringlets and braids, and the coronets and Grecian knots.’
One morning, as they sat sipping lemonade, Aunt Maria listening sympathetically while Emma gave a description of her successful campaign to improve Elizabeth’s hair, and the sad anti-climax that had followed, Aunt Maria, looking over Emma’s shoulder, said in a low tone:
‘My love, some lady of consequence is approaching us; she seems to know you. But she looks very severe. Who can it be?’
Emma glanced round and saw Lady Osborne walking towards them between the tables. To call her expression severe had been no exaggeration; she looked positively incandescent with wrath.
Coming to a halt by their table she said: ‘Miss Emma Watson; I had been informed that you are sometimes to be seen at this place. The lady with you I assume to be your aunt?’
Emma assented.
‘I should be obliged for a few minutes’ private conversation with you.’ She glanced around. ‘Shall we take a turn along the paved walk at the side here? It appears to be quite unfrequented.’
Startled, apprehensive, half guessing what might follow, Emma helped her aunt to stand up, and they followed Lady Osborne to the paved path, which ran between clipped box hedges.
Lady Osborne at once said, ‘Mrs O’Brien? Do I have your name correctly? I understand you to be the source of a malicious falsehood which has been circulating in this vicinity, regarding a member of my family.’
Aunt Maria calmly replied, ‘Does your ladyship refer to my letter regarding the parentage of the young lady known as Miss Edwards?’
Lady Osborne bowed her head, frowning, with tightly compressed lips.
She looked to be, for a moment, almost too angry for speech; the brilliancy and grace, the look of youthful buoyancy which could animate and, at times, make her appear twenty years younger than her actual age, had quite deserted her; she seemed like some vengeful Valkyrie.
Then, in a low, grating voice, she exclaimed:
‘How dare you? How dare you so traduce the family name of Osborne? With such a barefaced lie?’
‘Your ladyship must excuse me,’ Mrs O’Brien answered without heat. ‘The statement was no lie. I myself was well acquainted, at one time, with the mother of the young lady in question – poor Miss Clara Edwards was my dearest friend – and I am able to assure any inquirer as to the absolute verity of my statement. I would stand up in a court of law and repeat it without the least hesitation. Nay, I even have a letter in Miss Clara’s own handwriting attesting to it . . .’
‘By this malicious fabrication you have created a most unfortunate impediment to a thoroughly eligible and desirable alliance!’ continued Lady Osborne, ignoring Aunt Maria’s previous statement entirely.
‘There, I can hardly agree with your ladyship. No alliance can be considered eligible or desirable which involves its participants in behaviour that is expressly forbidden by Holy Writ.’
Lady Osborne seemed momentarily silenced by this decisive pronouncement. But then she went on, ‘Moreover your fabrication – for such I still declare it to be – casts a most undeserved slur upon the name of a gallant Christian gentleman, who is, alas, not alive to speak up in his own defence – my husband, the former Lord Osborne. How could you have the audacity to slander him so? And who in the wide world would believe such a disgraceful tale?’
‘As to that,’ said Mrs O’Brien, smiling faintly, ‘I know several people still living who can confirm my story. Old Mrs Ranmore, for instance, now living with Mrs Harding at Clissocks.’
‘Old Nanny?’ said Emma, surprised. And then she remembered and added, ‘Why, yes, I recall, she did seem very shocked at hearing that Lord Osborne and Miss Edwards were likely to be married.’
Lady Osborne seemed momentarily silenced. Mrs O’Brien went on:
‘Doubtless, by the end of his life, your husband was a pattern of all the virtues and might then truly be described as a gallant Christian gentleman. But at a younger age, when I knew him, though gallant might well pass muster as a description of him, I fear the other terms would not; his reputation was sufficiently wild, when I was in my twenties, for him to be known by the sobriquet of Rake-hell Ralph (and another name which I will not venture to repeat). Others besides myself must certainly remember these facts.’
Lady Osborne was seen to flinch. Evidently these appellations were not unknown to her.
By now they had reached the end of the paved walk. Lady Osborne swung round and declared with great emphasis: ‘Unless you instantly take pains to have this story contradicted, and completely denied, I shall make sure that no reputable persons will have anything to do with you and your niece. You will then find that you are quite cast out from good society – ruined, disgraced, as I understand that your connections at Clissocks have been. You will be the contempt of the neighbourhood. I shall further make it my business to see that you are unable to earn a livelihood in this part of the country. Nobody will wish to have any dealings with you.’
‘If your ladyship is able to do that,’ said Mrs O’Brien simply, ‘then I suppose we shall be obliged to move elsewhere. I have good friends in Shropshire, where your ladyship’s writ, perhaps, does not run. But I fear I am quite unable to contradict the story about Miss Edwards, for it is true.’
Lady Osborne swept back along the path. She did not precisely shake her fist, but the movement of her fan suggested it. Then she vanished from view.
‘Oh, bl
ess me!’ sighed Mrs O’Brien. ‘I can see that it must be very vexatious for the poor woman to have this discreditable old story about her husband come to light just now. But what was I to do?’
‘You could do no other than what you did,’ Emma assured her. ‘And, as to her threats, I do not much regard them. I cannot imagine that she will be able to entice away all my pupils, or even very many of them!’
‘But I feel badly about the Edwards family. Henry Edwards has never replied to my letter. I am afraid he must wish that I had never come back to this neighbourhood to cut up his peace and disrupt his plans.’
‘Aunt Maria, you did what your conscience told you to do. Nobody can do more.’
‘I feel very tired, my dear,’ said Mrs O’Brien dejectedly, after a moment. ‘I think perhaps you had better find a chair and take me home.’
Emma did so, deeply concerned lest this acrimonious interview should have caused a relapse in her aunt’s physical condition; for the doctor had said that, because of his patient’s previous extreme debility, the slightest deterioration in her circumstances might result in a severe setback.
Happily, when they returned home, they found two letters waiting, which the post-boy had delivered to Brigit the maid. One of them, addressed to Mrs O’Brien with a Dorking postmark, proved to be from Mr Edwards. The letter was like the man himself, dignified, courteous, and, to Aunt Maria’s immense relief, not at all angry at the revelation which she had felt obliged to make. On the contrary, he expressed himself as deeply obliged to her for preventing a most dreadful, if inadvertent transgression, and for doing a most disagreeable duty and providing the answer to a long-buried mystery.
‘My poor sister had always promised that, one day, later on, she would divulge to me the name of her seducer; but death took her before she was able to do so; and our ignorance in this respect has made it doubly hard for us to be certain that we were acting in Mary’s best interests during the time of her upbringing. The information you have given us – which is confirmed by many details of Mary’s appearance and character, and by some recollections of my own – will give us a firm basis on which to make any future decisions, and we are proportionately grateful to you.’