The Country Gentleman

by Hill, Fiona

  Left alone, the new-married pair smiled at one another. Anne, much restored by the fresh, cold air, raised an eyebrow and said, with an almost childish glance of mischief, “Well, it’s done!”

  “Done indeed. And now—” He leaned down, looming dizzily over her. His breath fell warm on her ear. “Off to London with you whenever you like! You may go tonight, if you care to; I’ll brave the neighbours’ noises.”

  Whether it was the chill of the day penetrating her numbed limbs at last or some deeper coldness, Anne, curiously, heard him with a shiver, and a sensation of ice in her veins. Almost chattering, “I should like a cup of tea first,” she told him, “if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Oh, indeed! Dear ma’am, you must be frozen out here, without so much as a shawl.” He bundled her solicitously back indoors, saying, “I did not mean to hurry you, you know. Only to make you easy. Stop as long as you like,” invited her husband, concluding generously, “Stop a week! It is all the same to me.”

  Ten

  In the event, the new Mrs. Highet passed near a fortnight more in Cheshire before journeying to town. She had her remove from Linfield to conduct, she said, and her installation at Fevermere. Moreover, Celia had found and was preparing for her a house in London, which also needed time. Besides, she did not like to expose Mr. Highet to the gossip and pity a parish must shower upon a husband so soon deserted by his wife. Mr. Highet iterated his willingness to endure it for her sake; but Anne insisted and stopped on.

  As she had foreseen, Charlotte Veal had been far from sorry to hear of the change in Linfield’s tenantry. Mr. Rand was wild with relief and delight at the prospect of serving a gentleman again. In fact, dry eyes were general throughout the house. The London servants were overjoyed to know they would soon return to their old haunts and friends. Nor did Anne and Maria quit the place with any excess of sorrow. The house had been too small and plain. Anne never even unpacked the vast majority of her Holies Street things—which was fortunate since, though they had been transported a long way to little effect, at least they did not need packing up again.

  Fevermere, the ladies had found upon being invited to explore it, was far more substantial. Three or even four times the size of Linfield, it was fitted out with plenty of plush carpets and brocaded draperies; its walls were hung with papers and silks; its furniture was—though scarcely elegant or modish—pleasant, abundant, and not vulgar. Mr. Highet had not exaggerated when he said an entire wing might be made over to them. Their part of Fevermere was by itself nearly as large as Linfield. They could be quite as private (even lonesome!) there as they liked, meeting Mr. Highet and his devoted progenitrix only at meals—or, if they wished, not even then, for the kitchen was happy to send whatever they desired to their suite.

  As for Mrs. Highet the elder, she was a long way from making the newcomers feel they were rude to keep out of sight. On the contrary, she was full of thoughtful suggestions as to how they could make their wing discrete. She pointed out that one of their larger sitting-rooms might well be changed into a drawing-room for the reception of guests, and promised to undertake the alteration herself while they were gone. She even proposed the conversion of a parlour near it to a dining-saloon, so that (save for kitchens and stables) they might be quite independent. Her concern in all this was naturally, as she often remarked, for them. She knew her daughter-in-law had lived solitary many years and easily conceived how little a change in habits must appeal to her now. The two Mrs. Highets had neither of them cared to discuss explicitly the oddities of the recent marriage, but Anne knew the other was in full possession of the facts, and so bore her clumsy shifts and thin solicitude with amused tolerance.

  Mr. Highet continued quite the same towards Anne as ever. She saw him at dinner, but not often at any other time, for (she having entrusted to him the management of both estates) he had no longer to consult her on decisions, nor to lend nor to borrow of her. Their intercourse, curiously, was rather more than less public after their marriage, for the reason that it all took place at Fevermere, where the senior Mrs. Highet constantly dogged her son. Once or twice Maria Insel contrived, on a narrow pretext, to detach that venerable lady from the other two after dinner. But Maria would have been disappointed to know her efforts had no observable effect on Mr. Highet. He remained towards his wife as friendly, serious, and ever so slightly obtuse as ever.

  Only once, just before she at last took her leave for London, did he seek her out privately. One morning he sent a note up with her chocolate requesting an interview in her sitting-room at a given hour. She came to him with a head full of trunks and boxes, coaches and inns, for she had been directing the preparations for her journey. She found him thoughtful and even slower of speech than usual. He apologized for taking her from her tasks, then,

  “Madam, I am come to ask before you go, whether you are content with the—” he faltered, “the step we have taken together; or if, on the contrary, you have come to doubt its wisdom. I pray you speak frankly, for I don’t know when I shall see you again.”

  Anne, surprised, thought a moment. It was a question she had already considered, of course, but she did not wish to answer hastily. Presently, “I have no regret,” she said, “though I am sometimes amazed to realize my situation. But six months ago, I was single and independent. Since then I…” Her thoughts having turned to Ensley, and how his marriage in some ways precipitated hers, she fell silent. At length, “Much has happened. But doubts—no, I have none. It gratifies me to watch you administer the joining of the estates. You demonstrate such zeal, enjoyment, and ready ability, as is a delight to see. For myself, I confess I anticipate my return to London with the keenest pleasure.” She hesitated almost imperceptibly but did not add that, at the same time, it rather saddened her to think of quitting Fevermere. It was an emotion she did not fully understand, and as such seemed wiser to keep to herself. “But you, sir. Since you are kind enough to pose it, permit me to return the question, and urge upon you the same candour.”

  Gravely, immediately, “I have no regret,” he said.

  She waited but (as he said nothing more) finally smiled, stood, and remarked, “I shall write to you, if I may, to tell you how I go on in London.”

  “I hope you will. I shall answer.” Following her lead, he rose, smiled, and was about to leave when he turned of a sudden to ask lightly, “You have no cause, I hope, to complain of my manner towards you since we are married? I am as you like me to be? Not too familiar? Not too formal? You see I still avail myself of the candour with which you charged me to speak.”

  Unaccountably, Anne’s cheeks crimsoned and burned while she answered, looking down, “Quite, quite. No cause, as Cordelia said. Pray be easy on that head.” She wished, but could not bring herself, to reverse this question too. Instead, still looking down, she thanked him for his concern and hurried him out of the room.

  Dolphim and the waggons set off on the first of December. The ladies followed a few days later, venturing forth under a leaden, overcast sky early on the morning of the fourth. Mrs. Highet the elder had arranged a small party for the previous night, at which the Crombies, the Wares, and so on, were meant to bid good-bye to Mrs. Highet the younger. But clouds and a cold, spitting rain had prevented it.

  Mother and son turned out, naturally, to wish the travellers a safe journey. Mrs. Archibald Highet bade them God-speed (“and good riddance,” speculated Anne silently) with admirable fortitude, then watched as her son handed first Maria, then Anne, into the carriage. No opportunity for tenderness, had they wished to display any, was granted to husband and wife. But Anne (who for her part felt an heavy, strange reluctance to go away—which she set down to mere timidity and force of habit) believed she detected a particular fervour in the press of his hand on hers, and heard a huskiness (or so it seemed) in his last words, “Come back as soon as you like.”

  She thought, “I shall regret him!” but at once heard another part of her mind answer, as if a spring had released it, “Anne, you ar
e a gudgeon!”

  Then Mr. Highet shut the door and the ladies were on their way. No torrential rain or other freak disturbing them, they made a quiet journey enough and were in Portman Square in time for dinner Friday night. The Grypphons were gone down to Surrey till Sunday, but the house expected them and they were soon comfortably installed.

  On Saturday, not without some trepidation, Anne sent a note to Ensley. Since his marriage she had always directed her letters to the desk he occupied as Undersecretary in Lord Liverpool’s office. But he had repeatedly assured her this discretion, as he called it, was unnecessary, that Lady Ensley perfectly understood he was in private communication with her, and would in no way be disturbed by evidence of it. Eager to see him, she made bold to give the Grypphons’ man his house number in Cavendish Square, and hoped for the best. In an hour he had answered her; in two he had come.

  She received him, on a perverse whim, in that same library which had been the scene of their last interview in London. Again the soft carpet, the well-oiled hinges of the door, allowed her to enter before he perceived her, and to observe him briefly. This time he sat in a chair by the window, frowning at a copy of the Gazette. He wore a dark frac, a shirt with a very high collar, and white pantaloons which must, she thought mechanically, show disastrously even the smallest spot of mud. Since she had seen him he had grown favoris: Blond and slightly curly, they made his long face look even longer. He seemed pale to her, and thin. When at last she said his name, he looked up, jumped to his feet, and raised his quizzing glass to his eye with a heavily be-ringed hand.

  “Let me look at you,” he breathed, not coming towards her but standing, the Gazette fallen to his feet, and from this vantage scrutinizing her. “Athena,” he finally pronounced, “as always. Strong, beautiful, wise.” He dropped the quizzing glass and advanced with hands outstretched.

  She met them with her own. What a fop he looked! How unwholesome, how…meagre. “Athena,” indeed!

  And sure enough, his next words were from Homer: “All men have need of the gods,” he murmured. “Or goddesses, in my case. You are mine.”

  She smiled; but good heavens, had Ensley always spouted Greek? Used a quizzing glass? Tied his cravat with such precious care? Had he changed, or did she only see him differently?

  “You look pale, my dear,” she said at last, uncertainly. “Are you well?”

  Surprised, “Quite well,” he assured her. “But you! Cheshire has done something for you after all. You look blooming, vigorous, charming! Mine eyes drink you with the thirst of a man dying in a desert. How I have waited for this hour, Anne. Come sit by me.”

  He dropped her hands and drew her to that same settee covered in Morocco on which they had sat one night five months before. But even as she sat by him, “Dying in a desert?” Anne was thinking. “He means it half in jest no doubt—yet is this the man for whose sake I bound myself to a loveless marriage? He lisps his R’s, forsooth! ‘Mine eyes dwink you…’ Saints defend us!”

  “How was your journey?” the gentleman who, all unawares, inspired these thoughts asked comfortably. “Not difficult, I hope? Tell me all. Do you trust Mr. Highet? Does he conduct himself as he should? If he has taken advantage of you, by God I’ll— But tell me.”

  Anne answered him naturally enough, assuring him Mr. Highet had been perfectly pretty-behaved, that the journey was easily accomplished, and asking him how he did in turn; but all the while she spoke her brain was busily arguing, “Make no hasty judgement. You have grown accustomed to Mr. Highet’s blunt country ways, that is all. Ensley is not thin; Mr. Highet is broad. Nor pale; Mr. Highet is ruddy. In an hour all this will have passed. You will remember yourself and Ensley. Patience, my girl!”

  “I have seen the house Celia selected for you,” his lordship was saying now. “Quite the thing, in my opinion. Mount Street, tout près du Parc. You will like that. Rather empty at the moment, naturally, but I believe your furnishings will suit it to perfection.”

  “And your own new house? Do you like it?”

  “Oh yes,” he said carelessly, “quite pleasant.”

  “And Lady George?” Mrs. Highet inquired. “How does she?”

  Lady George’s husband smiled. “Very well, by the look of her,” he answered. “Trots up and downstairs all day long, happily ordering the servants about and playing hostess to callers. I never saw a girl so taken with the business of commanding her own establishment. Her father’s given us Wiltwood, you know—little place of his in Kent—and now Juliana’s wild to assemble a party there for February. You will be one of our guests, naturally.”

  “Will I? Does Lady George invite me herself?”

  “Does she—? Oh, I see. Anne dear, do please try not to fret on her account. I tell you over and over she regards our friendship with the utmost indifference. She’s a spirited girl, with plenty of interests. She doesn’t feel what you would. I’m more than twice her age, for heaven’s sake. She isn’t attached to me!”

  Anne said nothing, but her scepticism was written on her face.

  “Very well, when you come to Cavendish Square you’ll see for yourself. In fact we are giving a party Tuesday night, a musical evening. Juliana’s idea, of course. You will come, won’t you?”

  Lord Ensley turned to her on the settee and took her hand in his, patting it gently. Whether he guessed Anne was of a strong mind to take it away she did not know. She only left it with him by dint of considerable effort. It seemed to her extremely wrong to let him hold it now. The rings on both their fingers glinted fiercely in the morning sunshine. “If you like, certainly I shall come,” she obliged herself to respond. Rallying still more, “Now Ensley, a serious matter, if you don’t mind. It is—your whiskers!” she finished, laughing up at him. “Really! Favoris? Whatever possessed you?”

  “Don’t you like them?” He raised his hand to pat his cheeks with a good-humoured air of hurt. “My valet suggested them. I thought they suited me.”

  “They do. They make you look exactly like a middle-aged sheep. Now pray, in the name of all that’s sensible, shave them off to-night, or I shan’t be able to look at you without smiling.”

  “I like you to smile,” he pointed out. But the effect of this mild gallantry was so evident that he went on at once, “For God’s sake, don’t withdraw from me, Anne. I see you cringe at every advance, and it tears my heart. Juliana is nothing to me, nor I to her. Believe that!”

  It was the directness she had always liked in him, his habit of naming a trouble the moment he saw it, and meeting it head on. “Give me time,” she muttered in a low voice, suppressing an objection that his feelings and Juliana’s were not the only ones pertinent here. In a moment she turned the conversation to Lord Liverpool and the new legislation, eagerly pumped him for on-dits, and reviewed with him the state of his own career.

  She came away from her hour with him confused and troubled. True, even in that short span his mannerisms had ceased to strike and grate on her so. He seemed less …well, ridiculous. Nevertheless, why did he need a valet at all, let alone one with such poor judgement? Mr. Highet had no valet, and he seemed to manage. And why did Ensley fuss at his cuffs so much? She had twice caught him rearranging them, as if such a detail possibly mattered. And when they had spoke of politics, he very distinctly struck a pose—back straight, eyes fixed on the middle distance, chin lifted, chest swelled—intended to impress her as statesmanlike and forceful. Studying his attitudes! Indeed!

  Besides all that, some of the things he said— When she asked him about the bread riots, he answered he did not think they would “come to much,” that a little firmness would put them down. But what of the people actually starving? she asked. Piffle! No one need starve. They had poor relief; anyhow, there was always work if one looked for it. What concerned him was Spa Fields, or the riot they had had this past Monday in London.

  Anne having left Cheshire before news of that event could reach her, and since then being on the road, had heard nothing of it. Ensley assured her i
t had been frightful, quite threatening, quite intolerable. A mob in the Royal Exchange! The Government would be better prepared next time, he assured her, his brow stern. They would make an example of one or two of these radicals, who put ideas into the heads of simple people. Habeas corpus was to be suspended, he confided to her, sedition quenched at all costs. That was what came of the abuse of liberty.

  Anne had shivered. Not that she approved of riots, or sedition, of course; but because Ensley had seemed so ferociously resolved. Surely the riots could not all be the result of the treacherous thunderings of a few? Surely happy people, no matter how simple, did not riot? She had read some of the books and pamphlets by the rabble-rousers Ensley deplored (the better to fence with Mr. Mallinger during his Wednesday visits of old) and had found in them, among much to scoff at, a number of worthwhile points. And she had seen more of humble folk in Cheshire than ever before in her life. Ensley must either be ignorant or hard-hearted. Yet he was so emphatical.

  Well, she would talk to him. She, after all, had been equally ignorant before her sojourn at Linfield. They had always dealt wonderfully well together. In a se’ennight or so, when she had grown accustomed to London again, and seen Celia, and established herself a little in Mount Street, all would come right. So she informed herself. And with this comforting certitude to sustain her, she went upstairs to change into a new, dark violet walking-dress, then out with Mrs. Insel to call upon some friends.