by Joan Aiken
She hurried downstairs.
The hush outside, she found, was echoed by a hush indoors. Meade, the cook, met her in the hall, laid a finger on her lips, and whispered, ‘We’ve saved your bit breakfast for ye, miss, in the kitchen. Will I bring it to the breakfast parlour?’
Hatty shook her head.
‘Thank you, I am not at all hungry.’
She felt as if she could never eat again.
‘Not even a cup of tea? In that case, Miss Hatty, Master wants ye in his book room.’
‘Oh, is he not gone to his office? But no,’ said Hatty recollecting, ‘I suppose that today he feels that he must stay at home.’
She went upstairs to the first floor. There, outside the door of Mr Ward’s work room, she found her cousin Tom, seated, rather dejectedly, on the window-seat. He had a row of his own tops in front of him and was endeavouring to keep them all spinning at once.
‘Hilloo, Cousin Hatty,’ he said in a dismal tone. ‘The devil’s to pay, in there.’ He nodded towards the book room door.
‘What can you mean, Tom?’ she asked, her heart falling. ‘Is it – is it about my aunt? Is she worse?’
‘My mother? No, not that I know on. No: it’s Ned. Burnaby had some tale to tell. I don’t know what. Poor Ned was in a rare quake, I can tell you. And I heard Burnaby say, should she fetch you, and my father said no, let her have her sleep out.’
Hatty knocked on the book room door and went in.
Of the three people in the room, Mr Ward sat at his desk, Burnaby and Ned stood at equal distances from him and from each other. Burnaby was as usual, hard-featured and impassive; only, there was a pale gleam in her eye which Hatty had not seen before. Ned had been crying, Hatty saw; his cheeks were smeared with tears. But he was not crying now. He looked at Hatty, cleared an obstruction from his throat, and said, ‘Sir, it is unfair to bring my cousin into this. She is not – she has nothing to do with it.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Burnaby sharply. ‘You’ll pardon my speaking out, sir, but that’s a lie. She knew all along what was going on. The note proves it. And, as well, before that, in times gone by, it was her and Master Ned what used to go off and get up to their nonsense in the old graveyard. Oh, I heard about that! I had it from Deakin. He knew it was as much as his place was worth not to answer my questions.’
Hatty looked dumbly at her uncle. He was pale and grave. He held a piece of paper which, from its creases, had once been folded into the form of a cocked hat. He said, ‘Your cousin Sydney found this in the conservatory and – I suppose not wishing to distress me – gave it to Burnaby.’
Ned’s eyes met those of Hatty.
‘What is it, sir?’
Hatty, like Ned, found that her throat wanted clearing.
‘It is a letter. To my son Ned.’ Mr Ward handed it to her with a gesture of disgust, and Hatty, casting her eyes over the lines, read aloud:
‘My darling Neddy: I am lade up at Home with a bad sore Throat & so not alloud out of Doors, so cannot come to Meet you at our Usul tristing place. What a sad Shame! I’ll pay Sukey 6d to give this to Deakin with another 6d to put it in our flourpot in the hot-house. So hope youll find it their. And hope to be better by the dance-class next week. How can I wait til then for your Sweet Kiss & caresses? But perhaps at least your Cross Cousin will bring me a note from you? I will hope – hope – hope –
Your Sweet-heart Nancy.’
There was a silence after Hatty had finished reading the note. Poor Ned had flushed a deep burning red. Burnaby pressed her lips together and looked at the floor, as if to veil the satisfaction in her eyes. Mr Ward snatched back the note and tore it to pieces and cast the bits into the fire. Then he said, ‘It seems that all the Price family are birds of a feather. But that my own son – my own niece whom I have treated as if she were my daughter –’ (That you have not, thought Hatty rebelliously. But then she recollected the twins, who really had been Uncle Philip’s daughters. How had he treated them?) He went on: ‘That such a system of regulated deceit, lies, and subterfuge should have been going on under my own roof – clandestine meetings in the conservatory – and in the graveyard, of all unsuitable places. How long, may I ask, sir, have you been sneaking off to the graveyard?’ he asked Ned.
‘I suppose – six or seven years. Ever since I found the door,’ mumbled Ned.
‘And you took your cousin in there too?’
Ned looked at Hatty, who said firmly and clearly, ‘Yes, sir. Ned and I used to play at house in the big lime-tree. We pretended that it was our palace.’
‘Played house!’ Mr Ward’s tone of disgust turned the words into something else. ‘And then you brought that Price hussy in there.’
‘Sir, Nancy is not—’
‘Be quiet, sir! I say she is! In any case – thank goodness – you will see no more of her. She is being sent off to stay with cousins in Holborn – so her wretched mother informs me.’
Hatty had not thought that Ned could look more miserable, but this information really seemed to demolish him. He let out a sound like a puppy’s whimper, and pressed his knuckles to his eyes. Mr Ward surveyed him without the slightest sympathy. Hatty thought in pity of poor Mrs Price, at the best of times a rather untidy, distracted-looking lady; now, as well as all that sickness in the house, she had a disgraced daughter to be sent away.
‘And now you.’ Mr Ward turned his attention to his niece. ‘I had thought that you were a decent, honest, straightforward girl, but it seems I was mistaken. Not only did you abet my son Ned in these clandestine goings-on – in this tawdry hole-and-corner trafficking with that pitiful little hoyden – but it seems that you yourself have been encouraging the addresses of my son Sydney – enticing him with I do not know what arts and wiles—’
‘No, that I have not, sir!’ interrupted Hatty indignantly.
‘Sydney, whom I did think to be a lad of sense and decorum, resolved on climbing high in his profession—’
‘I never enticed him! I would never wish to! I cannot abide Sydney! He made an offer of marriage to me, and I refused him.’
‘That is not what I hear from Burnaby. She tells me that you were encouraging him, leading him on, with the intention of accepting him in the end.’
‘It was no such thing! She is completely mistaken. I said no. I boxed his ears!’
Mr Ward drew himself up and pursed his lips, as if the mere thought of such a scene were repugnant to him.
‘Well, I am truly thankful that you, Ned, will be off to sea in a few weeks; a life in the navy will soon cleanse your mind and rid you, I trust, of such vulgar propensities. As for you, miss –’ he turned back to Hatty, ‘it is an excellent thing that your father is recently married to Lady Ursula. In regard to you, at least, my course is clear. I am going to send you straight back to Bythorn.’
‘Oh, no!’ Hatty’s gasp of protest came out as a whisper. She cleared her throat again, and said in a louder tone, ‘But what about my aunt? What about Aunt Polly? Who will take care of her? And the house?’
‘You need not concern yourself about your aunt,’ said her uncle. ‘Burnaby can do that very well, now that she will no longer have the twins to look after.’ Burnaby looked coldly triumphant. ‘You do realize, both of you, do you not,’ continued Mr Ward, impartially addressing his son and niece, ‘that if it had not been for this disgraceful entanglement with that pernicious girl, the measles infection would not have been carried into this house, and the twins would not have caught it from Ned? You do realize that you are responsible for your sisters’ deaths?’
‘No, sir! That is not so!’ Hatty was hoarse and trembling at the horror of her own prospects, but she still had enough tenacity to argue. ‘That is not fair. Ned could have caught measles at the dancing class – from Nancy or – or from anybody else. Mr Filingay says that it is all about.’
‘We will not discuss that,’ Mr
Ward said shortly. ‘Harriet, you may as well go directly and start to pack up your things. I am arranging for you to travel to Bythorn under the care of Lord Camber’s steward, a very respectable person named Godwit who is taking some papers for me to be deposited at the Duke’s bank in Bythorn. He travels tomorrow. So you will have the day in which to make your arrangements.’
Almost stunned, Hatty said, ‘But what about Ned’s clothes – his outfit for going to sea – who will take care of that? All the linen requires to be marked – and half the shirts are not yet made up—’
‘One of the maids – some person – will take care of it. That is of no consequence. You are not indispensable, you know – don’t think it. Now, Harriet, I do not wish your aunt to be hearing about any of these matters. It would only distress her and serve no useful purpose. You will oblige me by remaining out of her room today. She can be told that you are indisposed. You may see her in the morning to say goodbye before you leave – if I think fit – that will be sufficient.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Now Hatty did not wish to meet Ned’s eye. She had no comfort to offer him, and was sure that he had none for her. They must each struggle out of this nightmare as best they could.
She went up to her room and began packing her clothes.
VIII
The coach journey from Portsmouth was unredeemedly wretched. Godwit, Lord Camber’s steward, travelled outside during the first half of the trip, so Hatty saw little of him. He was a spare, middle-aged man with a pear-shaped head, narrow above, wider below. That was the only impression that Hatty formed of him. He was attentive to her comfort, however, procured her a room when they stopped for the night at an inn outside Oxford and had a meal uniting dinner and supper sent up to her there on a tray. The next day’s travel proved even slower, for snow continued to fall, making the roads treacherous, and towards the end of the journey there was nobody inside the coach but Hatty herself. Godwit therefore moved in, observing that it was cold enough outside to give chilblains to a brass monkey, and with the snow that was coming down now, he feared they’d be late reaching their destination.
‘You’ll be met at Wanhurst, miss?’ he asked, naming the nearest large town to Bythorn.
‘No, my uncle sent an express, requiring my father to have me met at Wanmaulden Cross. That will save them full seven miles – fourteen, going and coming.’
‘Eh,’ said Godwit thoughtfully, ‘that’s true enough. But Wanmaulden Cross is a no-account sort of place to meet in bad weather. There is but one inn, The Woodpecker, and that’s naught but a paltry hedge-alehouse; not a proper place for a young lady to be kept waiting, should some mishap chance to delay one of the parties; not a proper place at all; at least, not to my way of thinking.’
‘You know that country well?’ asked Hatty.
‘Why yes, miss – ‘tis not far from Wanmaulden Cross that Master Harry has his cottage – Lord Camber I should say, miss – right in the thick of the wood, he lives, and has these five years; the road past Wanmaulden Cross is his nearest coach-road.’
‘Oh, do tell about his cottage!’ cried Hatty, greatly interested, and glad of any distraction that would prise her miserable thoughts away from the trouble she left behind her – Aunt Polly abandoned to the untender care of Burnaby, Ned bereft, not yet fully recovered from the measles, about to face a strenuous, unfamiliar new existence in the Navy; Tom, poor Tom, soon to be left all alone; and the twins – but Hatty could not bring herself to think of the twins. And to contemplate the prospect ahead of her was even more distressing and fearsome: the wrath of her father, the scorn of Lady Ursula, the dislike of Agnes; Hatty was not certain if Agnes and Mr Norris were already gone off to Mansfield parsonage, but if Agnes were still at home she would be in no easy humour . . . What would the family do with her, Hatty wondered. Uncle Philip’s anger seemed mild in comparison with what she might have to face at Bythorn.
So it was with interest and relief that she asked about the cottage. Anything concerning Lord Camber would be worth hearing.
She had thought Godwit a rather stolid-looking man, with his odd, humorous, pear-shaped face; when invited to describe his master’s way of life, he became cheerful and discursive. His small, grey-blue eyes darted from side to side with wicked humour as he enumerated all the terribly expensive and needless ‘improvements’ made by the Duke at Bythorn Chase – the follies, the grottoes, the fountains, shell-houses, orangeries, lakes, water-gardens, temples, obelisks and monuments the Duke had erected, the avenues he had chopped down; meanwhile his unfortunate tenants lived in discomfort and squalor, with rotting thatch and crumbling walls.
‘My grandma was one of ’em,’ said Godwit. ‘Storm two winters ago blew half her roof off, and his Grace’s man of affairs said it could not be repaired until they’d finished the pavilion. Living in a puddle, my gran was. The pavilion! Who wants a pavilion half a mile from his house, that’s what I’d like to know?’
‘What happened to your grandma?’
‘Lord Camber took her in to live with him. She’s a prime knitter and needlewoman, is my old gran; takes care of all his Lordship’s mending. And she’s company for Mrs Daizley, that’s his housekeeper, and they both keep an eye on the boy, Dickon. Ay, they’ll all be missing his Lordship sore, now he’s gone off to the Americas,’ Godwit ended thoughtfully.
‘But what have the Duke’s pavilions to do with Lord Camber’s cottage?’
‘Why, miss, my master’s what you’d call a Democrat. He believes that the things of this earth were given to mankind to share out freely.’
‘I wonder if that is so?’ said Hatty, half to herself.
‘I’ve often asked myself the same question, miss,’ said Godwit unexpectedly. ‘Why did the Almighty create dukes and earls and marquises if he did not mean them to have more worldly goods than the rest of us? He must have had some purpose in mind.’
Hatty’s internal question had gone off in a different direction. She had been wondering if the human race had not quite unjustifiably snatched control of the animal, vegetable and mineral resources of the globe; what right had they to do so? We write verses, she thought, we make up tunes and invent clever machines; is it reasonable to expect the whole world to be given to us as a reward? Just for a bit of cleverness?
As often, when a poem was incubating in her mind, ideas and the words to frame them seemed to float towards her simultaneously from some dark nowhere.
‘So,’ continued Godwit, ‘even when my master was a lad in his teens, he began to worrit at his father to look after his tenants and his estates a bit better, and not spend all his cash on furbishing and altering and improving. He said the tenants had as much right to comfort as his Grace. But the old Duke’s neither to hold nor to bind, miss – except by the Duchess, and after she died and my master went up to Oxford, and from then on, it was nought but argification and fritsomeness. So when Master Harry came into a bit of property at twenty-one – that’s Wanmaulden Wood, miss, and the cottage on it – he moved out of Bythorn Chase altogether, and he and the Duke don’t see each other, not if they can avoid it.’
‘When did the Duchess die?’ asked Hatty.
‘Oh, a long time ago, miss; when his Lordship was but a boy. And Lady Suzanne and Lady Louisa were just little things. So, since then, there’s been no one to, as you might say, keep an eye on his Grace.’
‘What about Lord Camber’s brother?’
‘The Colonel? He’s mostly off with his regiment, miss. And the young ladies is married now, living up north.’
‘Oh, yes.’
Hatty had a sudden flashing recollection of the Assembly Rooms at the Crown, the girls dancing and laughing in their pale muslins, Lord Camber holding her by the hand, Monsieur Lamartine inquiring after the ladies Suzanne and Louisa. What a long time ago that seemed! And that was because Lady Ursula had decreed that we must all have dancing lessons.
That is twice that Lady
Ursula has come into collision with my life and sent it shooting off in a different direction, Hatty thought. What a powerful influence the woman has. She is like a hurricane or a volcano.
‘What about Lady Ursula Fowldes?’ she asked. ‘Does she ever visit the Duke? She is his niece, is she not?’
‘Yes, miss. But since she and Master Harry broke it off – and that’s a decent few years ago now – she don’t go next or nigh the Chase. Now, here we are,’ said Godwit, peering through the snow-dappled window glass. ‘Here we are, if I’m not mistaken, drawing nigh to Wanmaulden Cross but I don’t see any sign of another carriage a – waiting for you, miss.’
Hatty’s heart sank. Their journey, across white-blanketed, fog-wrapped countryside, had been long and excessively cold, for the last five or six miles through uninhabited woodland; she was filled with dread at the prospect ahead of her, the return to a strange, changed home, the unwelcoming people she would encounter there, most particularly the thought of Lady Ursula ensconced in her mother’s place; but she had braced herself to face this bleak arrival, and the thought of its postponement froze her with dismay. Especially since, if there had been some accident or misunderstanding, she felt very sure that she would be the one to incur the blame for it.
The coach drew to a standstill.
‘You bide in there a moment, missie,’ advised Godwit. ‘I’ll tell the driver to wait, while I ask at the inn whether anybody’s come for ye.’
The snow was falling again, softly and steadily; Hatty watched his figure dim and disappear through the pelting flakes. The inn was no more than a grey shape seen against a background of darker trees; a pale light shone in one window; the curve of the thatched roof was like an inverted cup covered with snow. There was no other dwelling.