by Anthea Bell
Sir Edmund’s manner made it very plain that he meant the clergyman rather than himself to take his leave, and Mr. Spalding, mesmerized by that suddenly chilly blue stare, found that he could only open and shut his mouth once or twice, temporarily unable to utter a word. But at last, turning to look at Elinor with a certain new respect, he managed to say, “Well! Upon my word! This is an odd start but then,” he hastened to add, “one can never know, of course, just what is the thing in Society. Although—but no, I will say no more upon that head!”
“Good,” interjected Sir Edmund, who was rapidly tiring of Mr. Spalding and hoped he would say no more on any other head, either. But the rejected suitor, his powers of speech recovered, proceeded undeterred.
“If you are to be countenanced by Sir Edmund—by Lord and Lady Yoxford—by Lady Cowper ... Well, my dear Elinor, I venture to believe that you will continue to bear in mind dear Lady Emberley’s express wishes concerning our future union! Once your services are no longer required by Miss Grafton, I fancy you will wish to reconsider the advantages of a respectable marriage! Sir Edmund, should I find myself in London, I shall take the liberty of calling in Upper Brook Street—yes, indeed I shall!”
And with this, and another hearty and protracted shake of Sir Edmund’s hand, he at last left the room.
Recovering from her stunned silence, Elinor said faintly, “W-well! Was ever anything so mortifying?” But the unsteadiness of her voice was mostly due to amusement, and resting her elbows on the desk and laying her head on her clasped hands, she gave way to peals of laughter.
“Or diverting!” said Sir Edmund, at long last able to give rein to his own mirth. When he could speak again for laughing, he inquired, “Good God, can my deplorable old Cousin Sophronia really have intended you to marry that—that ecclesiastical stockfish?”
“Oh, dear me, yes!” Elinor told him, wiping the tears of amusement from her eyes. “You see, she thought it just the way to provide for me, and to that end she left Mr. Spalding some money—”
“Which I observe he has no scruples in accepting!”
“No, why should he? It was meant, I own, as a kind of—well, a dowry, and you must admit a generous one, but nobody actually said so. However, I could not like the notion—”
“I should think not!”
“I did try to be grateful. I even wondered, for a little while, whether it would do. Mr. Spalding really is an estimable man, you know, and one ought to appreciate him at his true worth, only—only he appreciates it so well himself, that it somehow seems superfluous for a wife or anyone else to do so too. He could not believe that it was not merely out of consideration for Lady Emberley I refused to regard the engagement as a settled thing. And though you might not think it, I have often tried to convince him of that. Well! I can only say, Sir Edmund, that I am heartily grateful to you for coming to my rescue with that tall tale of yours. You did it quite beautifully.”
“Tall tale?” said he. “I hope it will be no such thing, Cousin Elinor.”
A flush again stained her cheeks as she stared blankly at him, quite bewildered.
“I see I am going too fast—too fast for you, that is, but your suitor led me, hopefully, to anticipate. May I in all seriousness beg you to consider the idea of coming to London to look after young Persephone? I was just going to put the suggestion to you, you know, when the good Mr. Spalding insisted on interrupting us.”
“W-were you?” said Elinor faintly, feeling as if the ground were not quite steady beneath her feet.
“Indeed I was. I do urgently require a lady to chaperon Persephone—and I warn you, it could be an arduous task. As I’ve discovered, she can be a very headstrong child, and it was thus with some trepidation that I was about to put my request.”
Looking at Sir Edmund, Elinor could not believe that he had ever felt trepidation in his life. “But—but this is ridiculous!” she managed to say.
“Why? It is all just as I told Mr. Spalding, Cousin Elinor—I have ulterior motives in claiming our relationship, you see. Who could possibly be better than a cousin to help my sister with the problems of Persephone’s come-out? Problems like that,” he added reflectively, as Persephone’s voice soared up again, unleashed from all restraint, in a passionately felt lyric of what he fancied was very modern composition.
“Yes,” Miss Radley soberly agreed. “Such a very marked talent—how wicked it would be to thwart it! And yet, I do see that it may make life more difficult for her.”
“I knew you would. At least you’re under no illusions! What’s more, the child took to you at once, you can’t deny that. So will you take her on?”
“Oh, I should like it of all things!” Elinor could not help exclaiming. The dazzling prospect so incredibly opening out before her of escape from her life at Cheltenham—not into the servitude of a governess’s lot, but to a London Season in the lively company of Miss Persephone Grafton—quite took her breath away. In a moment, however, she forced herself to say resolutely, “Only—only it won’t answer, sir, truly it won’t!” She took a deep breath, and continued, with some difficulty, “Didn’t you hear what Mr. Spalding was saying? About the impropriety of my applying for a governess’s post?”
The visible effort it cost her to bring out these words was not lost on Sir Edmund. Naturally he had heard Mr. Spalding’s remarks, and had been first mildly intrigued and then, as the clergyman insisted on dwelling on what was plainly a painful subject, and he observed Miss Radley’s distress, decidedly indignant on her behalf. He therefore said lightly, “Yes, and I never heard such stuff in my life. The fellow talks fustian, and is very ill-bred too. I do beg, Cousin Elinor, that you won’t refine too much upon anything he may say!”
But she persisted. “Sir Edmund, surely I must tell you what it was he meant! I do think perhaps—perhaps he might be wrong, even though he is a clergyman, and it was not after all so very bad—”
“Of course not!” said Sir Edmund briskly, notwithstanding his total ignorance of the supposedly reprehensible matter under discussion.
“But you might not wish to employ me once ... once...”
“I do wish it, if employ is the right word, considering the favour you would be doing to my sister and myself.” Touched to see Miss Radley turn away to hide the tears that sprung to her eyes, he added, in a rallying tone, “Come, you don’t mean to tell me that whatever shocking indiscretion you committed in the schoolroom—”
“Only just out of it!” she said almost inaudibly.
“—makes you unfit to take charge of Persephone, when my very strait-laced Cousin Sophronia considered you a proper companion for herself and a suitable wife for that fellow Spalding?”
“That’s it, you see!” she said, grasping at this straw. “Lady Emberley did say that—that her giving me a home restored me to respectability. No,” she added scrupulously, if with reluctance, “to a measure of respectability.”
“Evidently she had a turn for fustian too. She was an old dragon when last I saw her, as well as clutch-fisted, and I can see she never changed to the day she died,” observed Sir Edmund. Lady Emberley, he deduced, had for her own ends browbeaten a young girl into a sense of disproportionate guilt over some youthful folly: this was the interpretation he was most inclined to put on what he had heard. He would have liked to know more, if only to reassure Miss Radley, for his judgment of character was in general sound, and he could not believe that her conscience was really burdened by anything but the mildest of peccadilloes. However, he sensed that the subject was best left alone just now, and moreover, at this moment Persephone burst into the room.
She had apparently exhausted the music to be found in the piano stool, for she inquired, “Miss Radley, I suppose you have not got the music of Haydn’s Canzonets, have you? I heard them sung not long ago, and have wanted to try them myself, but I couldn’t obtain a copy in Bath.”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t one here either,” said Elinor, with an effort wrenching her mind away from the amazing
vista of freedom before her. “But of course, you may easily obtain them in London.”
“Good gracious, so I may!” It was obvious that this had not previously occurred to the single-minded Persephone. “Why, I may buy all the songs I want in London, mayn’t I?”
“So long as you don’t squander all your wealth upon them!” said her guardian gravely.
She now appeared to be feeling in perfect charity with him, for she said only, with a trill of laughter, “Don’t be absurd! Oh, I see you are funning me.”
“My dear Miss Grafton, how beautifully you sing,” Elinor put in. “Forgive me, but I cannot help saying so. How much you must be looking forward to the Opera and all the concerts one may hear in London.”
At this, Persephone brightened even further. “Of course, there will be concerts there, will there not? More than I could ever hear in Bath! Do you know, I never thought of that before! Why, I don’t think I shall mind going to London so much after all!”
“Good,” said Sir Edmund. “Then perhaps you’ll add your voice to mine—and by the by, I had no notion either that you had so fine a singing voice—and help me to persuade Miss Radley, who is in fact our Cousin Elinor, or so she and I have agreed—to come to London and bear you company. You remember that I promised we should find someone who was agreeable to you.”
“Oh yes!” cried Miss Grafton readily. “Oh, do say you will come! I should like it so much! You know, perhaps he is not so very bad,” she said naively, contemplating her guardian, “for he did say I should not have an old cat as chaperon.”
“And to my own discomfiture, we have already discovered the evident fact that Cousin Elinor is no such thing,” said Sir Edmund.
“I am so glad you are to come with us, Miss Radley,” said Persephone blithely. “For you will, won’t you?”
“Yes—yes, if you really wish it.” Overborne, Elinor looked from one to the other.
“Then that is all settled,” said Sir Edmund, with satisfaction. “It’s fortunate that you seem to be fond of music yourself, cousin! I dare say that once you are in London, you will know how to provide for whatever Persephone needs in that line.”
“She will require a pianoforte,” said Miss Radley.
“I shall require a pianoforte,” remarked Persephone at almost the same instant.
“Excellent!” said Sir Edmund, smiling. “I can see you will go along famously together.”
5
Ahe had been swept off her feet: so much she acknowledged to herself. The sensation, while unusual, was far from disagreeable. Who could have supposed only two days ago, thought the bemused Elinor, retiring to bed in the charming room prepared for her in Upper Brook Street, that she would now be in London, welcomed into the Yoxford household quite as a member of the family?
During the last forty-eight hours, she had had very little leisure to reflect upon the extraordinary change in her fortunes. Such a whirlwind of activity as those two days had been! Sir Edmund had determined to spend a second night at the Plough in Cheltenham, to allow Miss Radley time to make her own preparations for travelling to London, while he took the opportunity of settling the outstanding business relating to his cousin’s estate; he had therefore sent John Digby on ahead of the rest of the party, with a letter for the Viscount and Viscountess.
Elinor was relieved to know that this missive gave advance notice of her own arrival in London. Despite all Sir Edmund’s assurances that she would be more than welcome at Yoxford House, and Persephone’s disarmingly obvious liking for her company, she had quailed a little at the idea of appearing quite out of the blue. Not that she had much time to spare for misgivings, as she and Mrs. Howell bustled about the house in Royal Crescent, completing the task of sorting its contents in preparation for the sale of the property. And she for one wouldn’t be sorry to see the back of the place, Mrs. Howell affirmed. “Many’s the time Joshua and me would have given our notice, miss, but for the difficulty of finding another place for a couple at our age, and what’s more, leaving you to my lady on your own! And where she would have found another respectable pair at the wages she paid us I don’t know! But there, I won’t speak ill of the dead, and to be sure, she did right by us in the end, miss, as I dare say Sir Edmund has told you, and we’re to have our own little cottage and be very snug. And I’m as glad as I can be to see you off to London to enjoy yourself, miss. Time and again I’ve said to Joshua: this is no kind of life for a pretty young lady like Miss Radley, I’ve said.”
“Oh, hush, Mrs. Howell!” said Elinor, smiling. “I am not going to London to enjoy myself, you know, but to look after Miss Grafton.”
“Ah, well, I dare say you’ll have as many fine beaux as her,” said Mrs. Howell cheerfully, rising from her knees on the floor beside the linen cupboard, where she had been counting sheets. “Eh, just hark at her now!” For Persephone had not been at all averse to remaining in Cheltenham another day provided she might have the use of the Royal Crescent pianoforte, and she was now mid-way through a song by Mozart. Its liquid notes poured out from behind the book-room door. “I never in all my days knew a young lady so fond of playing the piano, never! And how loud miss does sing, to be sure! Still, she seems a nice young thing, and a very pleasant gentleman Sir Edmund is, too.”
Elinor was very ready to agree whole-heartedly with this last proposition, but told herself sternly, as she carefully folded her own modest wardrobe and laid her gowns in tissue, that she had not been swept off her feet in that way! And would not be, either. It was one thing to acknowledge that she had taken an instant liking to a man who insisted, with such delicate tact, on the relationship between them, becoming her benefactor while making it seem that she was doing him the favour. That was a very natural way for her to feel in the circumstances! It would be quite another thing if she were to lose her head over him, just because he had a pleasing face and fine figure, combined with an engaging manner and a sense of humour that exactly chimed with her own. No, my dear girl, thought Elinor, firmly addressing herself, no, you learned your lesson a long time ago, or so I should hope! Not that Sir Edmund, of course, is in any way comparable to...” but here she gave herself a little shake, and made haste to finish her packing, after which she went down to share with Persephone the light luncheon Mrs. Howell had prepared.
Miss Grafton, partaking with relish of cold chicken in aspic jelly and a tart of leeks and cream, volunteered the information that singing always made her hungry. “But I must not sing much more today.”
“No?”
“No, because at my age, it does not do to overstrain the voice,” said Persephone, with an air of great wisdom. “If one has a voice, you understand, one must look after it: train it, and do one’s voice exercises every day, of course, but not force it. Opera singers, you know, take the smaller parts in general when they first go on the stage.”
“I see—but you are not going on the stage,” said Elinor, with a smile.
“No,” agreed Persephone, but with such lack of conviction in her tone that Elinor felt a stirring of alarm. Could the child be nurturing some fantastical ambition to become an opera singer? Elinor had been to the Opera herself during her single visit to London. Long ago as that was, she could not help feeling that Persephone’s voice might well challenge comparison with that of many a professional performer. But Sir Edmund and the Yoxfords would hardly look kindly upon theatrical aspirations!
“The thing is,” Persephone was continuing, helping herself to more leek tart, “that if I am careful of my voice, it should come to its best when I am a good deal older, perhaps about your age. Oh dear, I ought not to have said that!” she exclaimed, for once looking abashed. “I didn’t mean to be uncivil, Elinor—I may call you Elinor, mayn’t I? And you must call me Persephone.”
“You may certainly call me Elinor: I wish you will! And you were not a bit uncivil, for if I were not a good deal older than you, I should hardly make a suitable chaperon.”
“No, I suppose not. But I did rather expect that
whatever my own feelings, Cousin Edmund or Cousin Isabella would choose somebody really old, and that you are not, after all!”
“Thank you,” said Elinor, gravely.
“And I must own,” continued Persephone engagingly, “that when Cousin Edmund said you were to come with us, it made me think better of him directly, even if it was unkind in him to make me leave Bath without a chance to say goodbye to my friends—”
“But, my dear, surely he would have let you take leave of them if you had but asked him!”
“Oh—oh, well, the thing is that my—that some of my particular friends are not in Bath just now,” said Persephone, a little gruffly. Elinor observed that her colour was heightened. “They have gone on a walking tour in Wales, and—oh, and now how are they ever to know where I have gone?”
This came out as a little cry of despair, and went straight to Elinor’s heart. “You can always write to them,” she suggested.
“They don’t reside in Bath,” said Miss Grafton gloomily. She seemed about to fall into a downcast mood, but at that moment, most fortunately, Mrs. Howell entered with her chef d’oeuvre, an ice pudding, at which Persephone exclaimed in delight. Her spirits much restored, she told Elinor, as she made inroads upon the pudding, “As I was going to say, you are not at all like a chaperon really, and I feel more as if we should be sisters, don’t you? I am sure it must be a very comfortable thing to have a sister!”
Elinor, an only child herself, owned that she had often thought the same, and by the time it was established that both she and Persephone had lost their parents young, and had subsequently been brought up by rather elderly ladies, they were firm friends. Not so absorbed in her own affairs that she could not take a lively interest in those of someone she liked, Miss Grafton soon elicited from Elinor the information that after the death of her widower father, a clergyman, when she was twelve years old, she had gone to live with her maiden aunts Jane and Matilda, and when she was eighteen she had spent a Season in London at the house of her eldest and only married aunt.