by Anthea Bell
“One of the matters which brings me to Cheltenham concerns the Howells: I believe they have been butler and housekeeper here for a very long time?”
“Oh yes!” said Elinor Radley at once. “Yes, and I know, for Mr. Stanfield has told me, that you know how things are left—”
“Or rather, not left.”
“Yes, that’s precisely it!” she said with evident relief. “I felt—at least, I hoped that you would understand! They are such a worthy couple, you know, and have been with Lady Emberley for ever, and though the work has been rather beyond Howell lately, and his deafness certainly hampers him, Lady Emberley kept him on, saying we should do very well with only Mrs. Howell to run the house. Though I am afraid she has been sadly overworked, poor soul. But I’m sure it was good of Lady Emberley not to dispense with Howell’s services when he could not really carry out a butler’s duties any more.”
“What you mean,” said Sir Edmund drily, “is that she slave-drove the pair of them! And probably yourself too. From all I recollect of my Cousin Sophronia, I don’t think that in general benevolence dictated her actions, do you?” His eyes met hers with a hint of challenge, and in a moment she said, with an engaging little chuckle, “Dear me, you’ve hit the nail on the head! Yes, she knew a younger butler would require a higher wage—but it wouldn’t have done for me to say so to you, would it?”
“Oh, you can say what you like about my Cousin Sophronia!” he returned. “I have the liveliest—and most uncomfortable—memories of her. And you have been her companion for—did you really say seven years? I can’t imagine how you endured it, but that is none of my business. The Howells are my business, however, and I take it you know as well as I do that no provision at all has been made for them. And don’t try telling me that was an oversight on my cousin’s part, for I shan’t believe you!”
“Then I won’t—since I see I can’t hope to humbug you, Sir Edmund!” said she, demurely, laughter dancing in her eyes.
“I’ll ask Mr. Stanfield to put something in hand directly: a codicil which he had previously overlooked, don’t you think?”
“Oh yes!” she exclaimed, with warm approval. “A most thoughtful way of doing the thing—though rather unfair to you, Sir Edmund, since they won’t know it is your own generosity. But of course she ought to have left them something, and I can’t tell you what a load you have taken off my mind! I—I was persuaded that you would do something of the sort, but naturally I could not be quite sure until I met you. How happy they will be!”
She favoured Sir Edmund with a delightful smile, and he, smiling back, had the impression that the warmth in the room proceeded from the young woman at the desk quite as much as from the little fruitwood fire in the hearth. However, he was frowning slightly as he said, “Well, that’s settled! But now we come to another if related matter ... is there a place, I wonder, where Persephone could amuse herself while we discuss it in private?” He glanced at his ward. Miss Grafton, bored with the conversation of her elders, had finished her lemonade and risen from her chair, and was now wandering among the furniture at the far end of the room, lifting a dust-sheet now and then to see what lay beneath.
“Yes, of course.” Elinor Radley rose too. “Miss Grafton, all this business talk must be tiresome for you, but there are books in the little room next door, and also a pianoforte, if you care for music, and would like—”
“Oh yes!” interrupted Persephone, suddenly radiant. Reaching the door towards whicn Miss Radley was moving ahead of her hostess, she flung it open. “A pianoforte—oh, famous! I was thinking that I might find one over there, you know, but when I looked there was only an old bureau and a table. Oh, pray let me play it! You see, I have not been able to do any practising for two whole days now!”
Her tone made it clear that she considered this a major deprivation. She was already lifting the lid of the instrument, and picking out a scale.
“I’m afraid it may be out of tune, for I have not played much recently,” Miss Radley apologised.
“It is a little out of tune, but never mind, I think it will serve,” said Persephone absently—though with what, to Sir Edmund, was an entirely unexpected note of maturity and assurance in her voice, “Well, this is of all things great! I never thought to have a chance to practise on my way to London! There, now you may talk all the business you want, and don’t mind me! Yes, this is a very tolerable instrument, and I shall be happy to remain as long as you like,” she graciously informed her guardian. “I may look through the music in your piano stool, may I not, Miss Radley? Good! I shall do very well in here,” she finished cheerfully, shutting the door of the little book-room behind her. Presently, rippling cascades of arpeggios proclaimed the truth of her assertion.
“Music has charms!” said Sir Edmund, a good deal startled. “Do you perform miracles every day of the week, Miss Radley?”
“Miracles?”
“You should have travelled with young Persephone from Bath—or rather, you should not, for I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else! She was given over entirely to a furious fit of the sulks. You’ve certainly coaxed her out of that, and how you contrived to do it I don’t know, although I suspect that, as seven years of pandering to Cousin Sophronia’s whims must have taught you how to deal with—er—a twitty old lady was, I think, Mrs. Howell’s wording—perhaps a twitty young lady is not so very different.”
She gave a little choke of laughter, and said, “Well, I suppose I have had a little practice in—in the use of tact, but I can’t think that necessary with your Persephone. The most charming child! Oh, do but listen!” For Persephone, in the next room, having run through her scales and arpeggios, had embarked upon a sonata by Clementi, which she was executing with great virtuosity. “I certainly never met a girl so willing, indeed positively anxious to sit down and practise! But plainly it’s no hardship to her. How very well she plays!”
“So she does,” said Sir Edmund, considerably surprised himself. “I’m not so well acquainted with her as I ought to be, having spent most of my time out of the country in recent years, and I own I had no notion of her talent. At least one of her schoolmistresses did mention Persephone’s musical gifts, but it struck me that the good lady was—how shall I put it?—oddly wary in her praise!”
“Yes, well, that’s not to be wondered at,” said Miss Radley thoughtfully. “You are taking her to London for the Season, I suppose? Such a gift, you see, might be a positive drawback! She is not only accomplished, but almost too accomplished—she plays so much better than most young ladies. I fancy that other girls—and their mamas—may not quite like to find themselves so easily outshone.”
“True! But luckily she has a fortune to recommend her, as well as her looks, so I dare say the young gentlemen she meets won’t object to her playing the piano well! Now, never mind Persephone for the moment.” He looked into the clear flames again, the small frown between his brows deepening. “This is deucedly awkward, Miss Radley, but I take you for a woman of sense, and I fancy you may have some idea of my particular reason for calling on you. May I be blunt?”
“By all means, sir,” said Elinor Radley composedly.
“We have satisfactorily dealt with the Howells, but there is still a far greater omission in my Cousin Sophronia’s will, is there not? Plainly, you were better acquainted than I with the old dragon—indeed, I don’t recollect setting eyes on her since my cousin Jack and I were boys, and filled her tea caddy with baby toads—”
“Did you indeed? How very shocking!” said Miss Radley, straight-faced, but with amusement in her eyes.
“Yes, wasn’t it? We were in disgrace for days!”
“I wish you will tell me about it!”
He smiled and shook his head. “Well, I won’t! Or not now. You are trying to distract me from my purpose, Miss Radley.”
“Touché!” She resigned herself. “I am afraid you are right.”
“So—if I may finish what I was saying—you knew both the old lady and th
e excellent Mr. Stanfield too well for me to be able to pretend to a second overlooked codicil! But I want to assure you that the deplorable omission of your own name from the will shall speedily be set right, and Mr. Stanfield and I between us will see that an appropriate settlement is made on you.”
“Oh dear! I was afraid you were going to say something of the sort,” remarked Miss Radley. Conscious of all the awkwardness of the situation, she seemed a little breathless, but was otherwise in perfect command of herself. “To be blunt with you Sir Edmund, the long and the short of it is that I could not—would not—accept of any such arrangement. It is not what Lady Emberley would have wished.”
“Then she damned well should have done!” said Sir Edmund, forcefully. “Forgive my language, Miss Radley, but I never in my life heard of anything so shameful as her failure to mention you in that will of hers!”
“For all you know,” suggested Elinor Radley, looking down at the desk and carefully picking her words, “she may have made me a handsome present before her death.”
“Are you telling me that she did any such thing?” demanded Sir Edmund. “Look at me, please, and be honest with me, Miss Radley!”
Reluctantly raising her eyes to his, she gave a tiny shake of the head. “But you see,” she said quickly, “matters are not at all as you had supposed. Were I the old lady you thought me, I’m sure I should be happy to accept your charity—please don’t think me ungrateful. However, the thing is that I—I have had enough of charity in my life, and to tell you the truth, Sir Edmund”—here her firm little chin came up a trifle defiantly—“it has for so long been out of my power to refuse anything, that is a great luxury to do so! And I am not a frail old lady unable to earn my bread!”
“If I may ask without impertinence, how do you intend to do so?”
“Oh, as a governess, of course,” she said at once. “It is a perfectly respectable calling, you know! I was a governess for a little while, before I came to live with Lady Emberley when—when she offered me a home. And I’m not quite out of the way of teaching, because she let me take a few pupils here while she was resting in the afternoons, so I have been instructing small girls in the rudiments of education, and a little music—not that I could ever lay claim to Miss Grafton’s proficiency!” Launching into the brilliant Rondo of the sonata, Persephone had reminded them of her presence in the next room. “That meant, you see, that I could earn my own pin money, and need not be a charge on Lady Emberley except for my keep.”
Tight-fisted old harpy, thought Sir Edmund, apostrophizing his late relative again.
“And it was very agreeable to feel at least a little independent,” she added, as if reading his thoughts.
This he had to allow. Remembering his puritanical, cross-grained old cousin, he could not help wondering what sort of life this attractive and intelligent young woman had led with her, nor contrasting it with the brilliant prospects of Persephone, blessed with a large fortune of her own, and with a dazzling Season and surely a fine marriage ahead of her. What puzzled him was why Miss Radley had not preferred even the dreary situation of a governess to such a life. He rather suspected the old lady of having exerted moral pressure by appealing to a young girl’s sense of family duty, so as to provide herself with a useful and able companion at the minimum of expense. Choosing his words rather carefully, he said as much.
Miss Radley, however, gave a smile of wry amusement, and said, “No, no, sir, you are quite mistaken! The advantage was all on my side.”
Sir Edmund did not believe it, but could hardly with propriety ask any more questions, and in any case their conversation now suffered another musical interruption. Reaching the end of the sonata, Persephone paused briefly, and then struck a resonant chord before raising her voice in song. And what song! thought both listeners, their minds momentarily diverted from all else.
“It is a scena and aria by Beethoven,” said Miss Radley quietly. “She has found a piano arrangement I have of it—though I am afraid it is rather beyond me!”
“Ah, perfido!” Persephone’s voice rang out pure, clear and loud: very loud. As her soaring soprano rose and fell to the accompaniment she was playing, the couple in the next room listened spellbound. Had Miss Madden been present, she would have recognized in the scene the realization of her worst forebodings. Miss Grafton had let loose the phenomenon known to Selina and Mary Madden as The Voice, and The Voice was in full cry.
“Good God!” said Sir Edmund softly, as Persephone drew to the close of the piece.
“Quite magnificent!” agreed Miss Radley. “And of course, quite out of place in a polite drawing room! No wonder her schoolmistress was wary! A few pretty, sentimental ballads are what a young lady should sing—performing them prettily too, if possible, but not in a voice of that quality! What a talent to possess, though! She plays very finely, but I think it is the singing voice which is the greater gift.”
“I wonder,” said Sir Edmund thoughtfully, “whether that is behind her extraordinary dislike of coming to London? You must know more about young girls than I do: can it be she fears she won’t have as much time for music as she has been used to?”
Miss Radley considered this, and said she wouldn’t have thought so. “For as to her style of singing, what is not quite the thing in London is not quite the thing in a Bath seminary either! Does she really dislike the notion of London so much?”
“She has been accusing me the whole way of the most monstrous tyranny in taking her there!” said Sir Edmund, and found himself describing to Miss Radley’s sympathetic ear Persephone’s puzzling behaviour on his first meeting with her in Bath, and on their subsequent journey to Cheltenham.
He made it entertaining enough in the telling to amuse his companion a good deal, but she bent her mind seriously to the matter, and when he had finished said, “Oh, well, that is plain enough! Wrenched from those she holds most dear, you said? And torn from all closest to her heart? The case is clear! Poor child, she is in love, no doubt with someone entirely unsuitable whom she has, perforce, left behind her in Bath.”
“You think so? I own,” said Sir Edmund, “that the notion did cross my mind, but I don’t see how she could have formed such an attachment without the knowledge of her schoolmistresses. They did not seem at all remiss in supervising their charges, and I’m pretty confident they would not have concealed such a thing from me. However, it would certainly account for Persephone’s attitude! Of course, she is pretty enough to turn heads wherever she goes, and indeed, there was some trouble with my young nephews’ tutor a couple of years ago. Well, I can only hope that the pleasures of London will soon drive this hypothetical swain from her mind, for if not I shall never hear the end of it from my sister! You don’t imagine, do you, that Persephone would do anything so rash as to run away from London?”
Miss Radley seemed to find this a difficult question to answer, but said at last, “It is hard to know just what an impressionable girl may do when—if she does not clearly see the right course to follow, but with Lady Yoxford’s guidance, she cannot fail to know what that is! And I am sure she will soon be very happy in London, and quite forget Bath.”
“I trust so. Unfortunately, my sister is already a little apprehensive: her health is not strong, and we intend to engage a chaperon for Persephone,” said Sir Edmund, without thinking too much of his words. A moment later, however, an idea occurred to him: an idea so blindingly obvious that he could only marvel at himself for not having thought of it half an hour before, or indeed the moment he set eyes on Elinor Radley. “Miss Radley!” he began. “Or no, I shall presume upon our relationship, since we’re cousins—”
“Are we? No, surely not.”
“Yes,” said Sir Edmund firmly. “Of course we are—you on one side of old Cousin Sophronia’s family, I on the other. I shall therefore call you Cousin Elinor, if I may?”
She nodded, a faint blush staining her cheeks again. “Well, Cousin Elinor, if you are really bent upon finding employment, our reprehensi
ble old relative having failed in her plain duty to make provision for you—”
“No, no!” she interrupted him earnestly. “I really must set you right there! I would rather not go into detail, but the fact is, Lady Emberley thought she had made provision for me, only it was not—not in a way that I could like. Although I know she thought that ungrateful in me, as perhaps it was. However—”
“Yes, well, never mind that for now!” said Sir Edmund. “What I was about to say—”
But he got no chance to say it. There was a tap on the door, and a somewhat flustered Mrs. Howell instantly entered the room, exclaiming, “Oh, I do beg your pardon, miss—beg pardon, I’m sure, Sir Edmund—only—dear me, Miss Radley, it’s the Reverend!”
“Mr. Spalding?” Elinor Radley’s brows drew together. “Pray tell him that I am engaged upon business, Mrs. Howell, and cannot receive him now!”
“Oh dear, how very vexatious!” exclaimed Miss Radley. “What is to be done? Oh, do forgive me, Sir Edmund; I was afraid of this visit, but just at the moment ... oh, dear!” she repeated, rather helplessly.
Sir Edmund was a little amused to see Miss Radley’s admirable calm ruffled for the first time, but said at once, “I’ll go, shall I, Miss Radley, and leave you to your caller? Though I must first prise Persephone away from that instrument of yours!”
This task promised to be a difficult one. Although the stormy drama of Beethoven’s aria had been succeeded by a gentler selection of folk songs from the British Isles, arranged by the same composer, Persephone was carolling blithely away in a manner which did not at all suggest that she was ready to exchange the pianoforte for the comforts of the Plough Inn.