It was on account of Mrs Porter’s relatives that she had once – before her daughter’s amplitude became such a stumbling block – hoped to marry her well. Mr Porter’s background had been largely forgotten since he had acquired the manners and connexions which his parents had bought by sending him to Eton.
If only the girl were more feminine she might have netted a title; of course she might still do so on account of the fortune but Mrs Porter knew that it would behove her, as a loving parent, to examine every suitor minutely in case he should prove to be a fortune-hunter. Only too aware of her daughter’s shortcomings, she suspected that any man who expressed an interest would be in pursuit of the fortune rather than the girl; she was nevertheless determined that there would be some sort of a fair exchange such as a grand title for the fortune.
“Oh! Has he gone already?” Susan asked with a sinking heart; the absence of her father usually led to more frequent - and less tactful - criticism from her mother.
“Not quite – you will be in time to bid him adieu. He is packing at the moment. Was that his lordship going up the stairs just now?”
“Yes. Did you want him, Mama?”
“Your father was looking for him to explain why he had to leave so suddenly.”
Susan nodded and moved towards the stairs herself.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked, sensing perhaps a certain evasiveness in the girl.
“To take off my bonnet, Mama.”
“Oh, very well. Pray do not be long about it. We do not want to keep Papa waiting.”
“No, of course not. I will be down directly.” Susan, permission having been granted to remove herself, ran up the stairs energetically.
“There is no need to be quite so headlong,” her mother called after her.
Susan slowed but, when she had covered more than three quarters of the distance and considered herself to be out of sight of the figure observing her, took the steps two at a time.
She did not go to her own chamber to remove her bonnet but, safe in the knowledge that her mama was downstairs, went to her father’s room where she knocked upon the door. Receiving immediate permission to enter, she found her father and his valet engaged in throwing a few necessary articles into a valise.
“Must you go, Papa?”
“I am afraid so, my darling,” he replied, jerking his chin at the valet so that that individual, taking the hint, bowed himself out of the room.
“Mama tells me you have not yet taken leave of Lord Marklye. Will he not be dreadfully disappointed to be left with Mama and me when I daresay he wished to spend the summer with you?”
Her father laughed. “He will get over it. I am sorry to be going. He has a fine place here and I was looking forward to a summer of riding and picnicking – even swimming. But I am afraid those idiots I left in charge cannot, after all, manage without me – and you can, perfectly well.”
She shook her head for, left alone with her mama, she did not feel she could manage at all. Mrs Porter would be ‘at’ her constantly, exhorting her to walk more slowly, speak more quietly and, of course, practise her dancing and pianoforte-playing. She did not, now, object to the playing but was afraid that it would be more difficult, with her mother at a loose end, to escape to the copse for another al fresco singing lesson.
“His lordship has offered to teach me to swim. Would you object to that, Papa?”
“Has he now?” Mr Porter looked at his daughter from beneath his brows with a suddenly arrested expression. “What prompted him to that, do you suppose?”
She smiled. “Nothing about me, Papa, save for my sex. I met him, somewhat damp, just now in the hall. He had a moment before rescued a beautiful maiden from the river and was clearly desirous of pursuing his acquaintance with her. I think he hoped that, if I would join the lessons, I could act as chaperone.”
Mr Porter gave a shout of laughter. “Why not? It sounds an excellent notion; after all, you never know when you may not need such a skill and it will give you something to do.”
“Truly? May I? I do think that it would be amusing. Will you tell Mama that I have your permission before you go?”
Mr Porter’s penetrating grey eyes rested on his daughter’s supplicating face for a moment. He was, apart from Marklye, the only man to whom she was able to raise hers. She saw his sympathy writ large before he took a step towards her and enclosed her in his arms, his chin resting comfortably on the top of her head.
“Yes, I will do so at once,” he said into her hair. “Chin up, my darling! Marklye will no doubt make your stay here thoroughly enjoyable and you may find a new friend in his aquatic beauty.”
“I doubt it,” she said, not quite succeeding in repressing a sob. “I should think it would be impossible to find two females so different.”
Chapter 8
“You will be learning to swim together – is that not enough? It is certainly not something that you will share with anyone else. Once you have begun, I daresay you will find there are several other things in which you both take an interest. I do not know how much older than you she is but I am several years older than Marklye and yet I like to think we are friends.”
“It is different when you are as old as you and he, Papa. At my age, I have no history of anything except the schoolroom; and then our positions are so very dissimilar, are they not? I am an heiress and she is a paid companion. I suppose that is balanced by the fact that she is clearly a Beauty and I clearly not.”
“You are the same sex – will that not be sufficient?”
“No; she must be only too well acquainted with all the discomfort attendant upon being a paid companion to an old lady, something of which I can hardly conceive. On the other hand she will be accustomed, no doubt, to gentlemen admiring her. I suppose she must have suffered a disappointment in love whereas I, although prepared for it, am still foolishly full of hope. We each possess what the other lacks – and no doubt desires.”
“We do not know that she is a Beauty, except in Marklye’s eyes,” Mr Porter pointed out, not much liking the rather despondent turn that his daughter’s side of the conversation had taken. “And he was no doubt swayed by the fact that he rescued her from drowning. It is possible that her position – even before she became a companion it cannot have been precisely good – narrowed the choice of husband that might have been available to her. So far as you are concerned, I will not deny that your height is a disadvantage but there are a great many tall men and you should not despair of finding one that is congenial.”
“It is not only my height though, Papa, is it? Even were I a foot shorter I would not be pretty.”
Her father put Susan away from him and regarded her thoughtfully through half-closed eyes.
“You are not so bad, you know,” he said at last, answering the question as seriously as it had been put. “You are in fact not unhandsome if you would take more pride in your appearance and stand up straighter. You will not make yourself small by hunching your shoulders; all that achieves is that you look disagreeable and that – unless I have quite lost touch with the youth of today – is much more off-putting than a few spare inches – in any direction.”
Susan was obliged to laugh at this although in truth she did not find it amusing. If her doting papa – and he was to all appearances a deal more attached to her than was her mama – took such a very unromantic view of her looks, what hope had she of impressing any other gentlemen?
“In any event,” he went on, “you are very young. There is no hurry. Indeed, for myself, I should be perfectly happy if you were to remain by your papa’s side for ever.”
Susan, perceiving this to be a declaration of affection in spite of the depressing picture it conjured in her mind’s eye, kissed her parent’s cheek and withdrew from his embrace.
“There’s a good girl,” he said, patting her shoulder. “You must work hard at your dancing and your music while I am away. Are you quite happy with your tutors? Have they been kind so you so far?”
“Yes, Papa, they are both very kind,” she said, blushing as she thought of the music teacher and his encouragement.
“Good. Do not hesitate to tell your mother if either should prove to be disagreeable or indeed no use. I daresay Mama will wish to sit in on some of your lessons.”
“Yes, Papa,” she repeated, turning away, her heart sinking. Mama would be bound to lay off the wrong one and, without Papa to intercede, she would be unable to stop him from being sent away.
“I’ll speak to her about the swimming,” he promised as she opened the door.
“Thank you.”
It was some half an hour later that she stood in the drive beside her mother and their host to wave her father’s carriage off.
“What is this about learning to swim?” her mother asked as they turned back into the house.
Marklye heard and, seeming to consider the remark addressed to him, in spite of the fact that Mrs Porter had been leaning towards her daughter as she spoke, said, “I found a young woman drowning in the river which made me think that, since we have several weeks of warm weather ahead of us, it might be a good notion for Susan to learn to swim.”
“I daresay the young woman had good reason to drown herself,” Mrs Porter replied sharply.
“Why, Mama? What reason could she have? That is a terrible thing to contemplate!” Susan exclaimed.
Mrs Porter looked embarrassed. Although she had stopped short of giving the reason which presented itself to her of why a young woman might wish to drown herself, she had not intended that Susan should question her on the matter. The girl had a distressing habit of worrying at a subject to obtain an answer which rarely failed to vex her.
“Disappointed in love, I daresay,” she said.
“Oh, the poor creature!” Susan exclaimed.
“She fell in by accident,” Lord Marklye interpolated. “I thought that I could teach both young ladies at the same time so that each could chaperone the other.”
“Young lady? Was she a lady?” Mrs Porter asked accusingly.
“Undoubtedly – and she still is a lady. Fortunately I was able to rescue her.”
“I see,” Mrs Porter spoke with such emphasis that she managed to convey doubt upon the veracity of his statement. “But what was she doing in your river? Where did she come from?”
“She is Lady Leland’s companion and fell in from that side.”
“I see,” Mrs Porter repeated, clearly convinced that the woman’s presence in the river as Marklye passed was anything but accidental, “but I cannot think that a companion would be a suitable chaperone for my daughter. I daresay she is – she has a rather different background – and she is probably well advanced in years.”
“Advanced in years?” Marklye gave a sudden bark of laughter, picturing, no doubt, the nymph he had pulled from the river. “She is, I suppose, obliged to work for a living,” he added more soberly, “but there is no doubt in my mind that she comes from an excellent background. I fear I did not question her closely on her connexions at the time. It seemed to me that the urgency of the situation required me to act instantaneously. We were, in the event, of course, obliged to introduce ourselves.”
“If her family is so unexceptionable it seems surprising to me that they have not seen fit to provide for her properly; becoming a paid companion is no better than becoming a governess and neither can be accounted an equal with Susan.”
“No,” his lordship agreed quietly but with a wealth of meaning behind the single word which caused Mrs Porter to flush angrily. She knew that, although Mr Porter was a friend of his lordship and was able to provide a large dowry for his daughter, she had married beneath her.
“Come, Jenny,” Marklye went on, remembering that the duty of a host required him to refrain from teasing his guests and that, if he wished to teach Miss Best to swim, he would be well advised to avoid putting up Mrs Porter’s back.
He was not, in truth, fond of Mrs Porter and had frequently had occasion to wish that his friend had not married her. He sometimes wondered if Mr Porter also regretted his choice of wife. He had presumably been looking for a bride whose family connexions would improve his own position and, while Jenny Porter’s were indeed unexceptionable, her manner, comprising as it did a lofty contempt for lesser persons with a rigid adherence to what she considered proper behaviour, made her the sort of person who possessed a rare talent for chafing her companions.
Marklye himself, in spite of his title, was probably considerably less well connected; certainly his family was not at all respectable. The Marklyes had produced several disagreeable scions, so many indeed that one or two wits had referred to them as a ‘flock of black sheep’. The uncle from whom he had inherited the viscountcy had been a shocking loose screw; many considered that his death from an unpleasant disease contracted during his disreputable career had been positively merciful since it had spared him the scaffold.
“She must be a perfectly respectable young woman to have been engaged by Lady Leland,” he went on in a more placatory tone. “I will invite them to visit us and introduce you, if I may. You will then be able to make up your own mind on her suitability as a chaperone. I think it would be a wise precaution for Susan to learn to swim in case she should find herself accidentally cast into a large body of water at some point and – in addition – I think she would enjoy the exercise.”
“Mr Porter was eager that she should learn,” Mrs Porter conceded, making some attempt to grasp the olive branch she had been offered. “I will make a final decision when I have met the companion.”
And with that both Lord Marklye and Susan had to be content.
The next morning saw Mrs Porter determined to discharge her maternal duty. As soon as breakfast was finished, she said, “It must be time for your dancing lesson, Susan; you had better not keep Monsieur Lapideau waiting.”
“No, Mama.”
“I believe I will come with you today,” Mrs Porter added. “I should like to make sure that your tutors are moving in the right direction so far as your preparation for next spring is concerned.”
Susan’s heart sank at the prospect of her mama sitting behind her rather than the bored maid. She was afraid that her mother would miss nothing and would, besides, find a great deal to disparage in her daughter’s progress.
When they entered the room designated for the lessons they found both tutors, as well as the maid, idling around the pianoforte. The music teacher, Signor Pontielli, was at the instrument where he was playing a lively air to which the dancing master was trying to persuade the maid to dance. She, looking not in the least bored, was giggling happily and curtseying in a flirtatious manner to the Frenchman.
“I see you have found a way to entertain yourselves while waiting,” Mrs Porter said in a loud voice which galvanised all three. Signor Pontielli let his hands drop from the keys and pushed back the stool in order to rise and bow to his employer; Monsieur Lapideau straightened from his ironically imploring pose before the maid; and the maid stopped giggling and bounced into what she no doubt judged a suitably humble curtsey.
“You may go,” Mrs Porter said coldly. “I shall sit it on my daughter’s lessons today.”
“Yes, Madam,” the maid dropped another curtsey and left the room before she could be dismissed altogether.
Mrs Porter sat down in a chair at the side of the room. “Pray do not mind me,” she instructed, neither expecting nor hoping that this prohibition would be heeded. “Continue with your lesson. Which do you do first – dance or play?”
“We dance, Madame,” Monsieur Lapideau explained. “So that I am able to leave when Miss Porter begins on her music lesson.”
“I see. What do you do then?” his employer asked, making it quite plain by her tone that she understood that, with this arrangement, he was working for only half the time for which he had been contracted. As a consequence, either some other employment must be found or he must expect his wages to be cut.
“I return to my room, Madame, w
here I have been drawing up a list of the dances Miss Porter will need to learn, together with detailed drawings of the moves each is likely to require. I hope that meets with your approval, Madame.”
“You can show me later; please begin the lesson now.”
“We were learning the moves for the cotillion yesterday,” he explained. “Shall we, Miss Porter, repeat what we did as exactly as possible so that your mama can see what you have learned?”
The dancing master was a small, wiry Frenchman who had at one time danced at the Paris opera. Since leaving that establishment, he had considerably aggrandised his former position there. He had once hoped to become a famous ballet dancer but his lack of inches, together with a manner that was oleaginous rather than bold, had put paid to the achievement of this ambition. He had been used to dance in the chorus, only occasionally being promoted to dance a goblin or some such when the storyline required it. His small stature had made it impossible for him to assume a role where he would have been obliged to lift a female dancer and, when he reached the age of thirty, he had been laid off altogether. Some five years had passed since then and he had managed, by means of careful insinuation and creative writing of false credentials, to carve out a new career as a dancing master to young ladies about to be introduced to society. The fact that he was neither young nor handsome proved to be a considerable advantage in gaining employment since matrons, who would have been exceedingly anxious about employing a handsome young man to lead their daughters into a variety of dances, were reassured by his plainness.
Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence Page 7