The Youngest Miss Ward

by Joan Aiken

  ‘Because the landlord is a swinker,’ said Hatty.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘He drinks. He was under the influence of liquor. And there was nobody else about the place to send with a message.’

  Agnes and Lady Ursula exchanged disgusted glances. That a member of this family should have such a tale to tell was the burden of their looks.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I could not stay at the inn. Godwit – Lord Camber’s manservant who had escorted me from Portsmouth – took me to Lord Camber’s cottage in the wood. It was too late and dark and stormy to go anywhere else. So that was where I stayed.’

  ‘You stayed in Lord Camber’s cottage? That was a most unseemly thing to do!’

  ‘How could I help myself? It was not possible to go farther – it was snowing hard.’

  ‘How thankful I am that our dear father had not lingered on to hear this tale!’ declared Agnes with upraised eyes.

  ‘I had understood that Lord Camber was already departed for America,’ observed Lady Ursula with a contemptuously curling lip. ‘What caused him to delay his departure?’

  ‘His father was ill and sent for him.’

  ‘Humph! So he, at least, has some filial feelings.’

  ‘But then,’ said Lady Ursula, ‘he returned to his cottage. Pray, who else was there in this – this abode?’

  ‘His housekeeper, Mrs Daizley – a very excellent woman,’ said Hatty defensively. ‘And old Mrs Godwit. And Godwit himself. And a deaf-and-dumb boy, Dickon.’

  ‘A thoroughly respectable household, upon my word!’

  During the whole of this interrogation the three females had stood in the front hall, at the foot of the stair. But now a gentleman came slowly down the stairway. He was a heavy-looking, elderly clergyman, who wore on his reddish countenance an expression of fixed gravity and disapprobation. Hatty guessed him to be Mr Norris.

  ‘And whom have we here?’ he inquired.

  ‘This is my youngest sister Hatty – Harriet,’ Agnes informed him.

  ‘Ah – so. It is a regrettable circumstance that she has arrived too late for her father’s last moments.’

  How was I supposed to know that he was dying? Nobody told me, thought Hatty. But she had the sense not to utter this question aloud.

  ‘And why, pray, do we stand here thus in the cold hall?’ Mr Norris inquired.

  Hatty wondered if she might retire to her bedroom to remove her bonnet and pelisse. But did she still have a bedroom in this house?

  Lady Ursula decided the matter. ‘Well – you had best remove your outer garments. You may go up to your old bedchamber, then return to us in the breakfast parlour. By then we shall have decided what is best to be done about you.’

  Hatty found that the servants had already anticipated Lady Ursula’s instructions. Jenny was in her old room, had lit a fire, and was unpacking her boxes.

  ‘Oh, dear Miss Hatty! I’m that pleased you’re back – though, sure, ‘tis a sad home-coming for ye. And will Miss Fanny be coming too?’

  ‘Gracious me, Jenny, I don’t know. She is in Bristol. I am not certain whether anybody has her address. I suppose my uncle Philip may let her know. I suppose he may come himself—’

  At this moment a sudden and shocking thought overtook Hatty. Upon her father’s death the ownership of the house reverted to her uncle Philip. Would he arrive forthwith and take possession?

  No wonder Lady Ursula had appeared so grey and grim. She was now a widow.

  Not that she doesn’t always look like that, thought Hatty. I once saw a picture of the stones in a circle at Stonehenge. She is like one of those great monoliths:

  Grey as a boulder, harder than granite

  more distant, colder than a dying planet . . .

  But wait! Wait a minute! Suppose that by any chance Lady Ursula is with child? Suppose she is increasing? Aunt Polly said that was not very likely – but still, I suppose that no one can be sure yet, not at least for some period of time – how long? If she were to have a boy child, I suppose he would be the heir. My half-brother. How strange! And then he would inherit the house. But suppose she had a girl child? I would be sorry for that girl . . .

  Hatty’s knowledge of the probabilities and time intervals involved here was minimal; she longed for Aunt Polly’s useful and sensible company and experience. Oh, dear Aunt Polly, how are you? Are they taking good care of you? Who is looking after the house?

  The atmosphere of this house, for Hatty, seemed to offer nothing but grief, anger and calamity.

  Again, Jenny anticipated her. ‘Your uncle, Mr Philip Ward – he’ll have this house now, won’t he, miss? Since the new Missis isn’t in the family way—’

  ‘Oh, Jenny! But how do you know that? How can you be certain?’

  ‘Lord love ye, Miss Hatty, us in the servants’ hall knows all that kind of business. Fanshaw, that’s Lady Ursula’s maid, she knows. And so do the rest of us. There ain’t naught in the wind of that sort. No, no, Lady Ursula will just have to pick up sticks and be on her way out of this house. And nary a soul here will be sorry for that, I can tell ye! She’s not at all like your poor sweet lady mother, Miss Hatty.’

  ‘But they cannot make her leave at once, surely? There must be a – a period of – of grace?’

  ‘Oh, ay – ‘tis around a month or two, summat like that; Mr Firle, he’ve a cousin in the law line, a lawyer’s clerk, he told us it’d be a while before she had to walk her chalks. Then – word has gone round – ‘twill be your cousin, Master Sydney Ward, as comes here – what do you think? Is that like to be so, miss?’

  Hatty remembered Sydney saying, ‘I’ll come in for Bythorn Lodge in the end. And then shan’t I laugh! A devilish good base – handy for town, close in among the nobs.’ And he had gone on to say, ‘I daresay you’d not object, one day, to be back in your old home, Queen of the nest in Bythorn?’

  Good gracious! she thought. Suppose I were now, after all, to take Sydney at his word!

  For a moment, her fancy toyed with the notion. She tried to imagine Lady Ursula’s look of amazement, of horror, at the revelation that she was to be displaced by her disgraced step-daughter.

  But no; it would not do. Nothing, no fleeting moment of triumph, could make up for the misery, the tedium, of being obliged to spend the rest of life with Sydney Ward; the prospect was unthinkable.

  Hatty braced herself, and went down to the breakfast parlour. There, she found that the conclave of Lady Ursula, Agnes and Mr Norris had already resolved on her future.

  ‘It is, on the whole, a timely and expedient circumstance,’ announced Lady Ursula, ‘that the Governess, Miss Stornoway, who, for the past five years, has undertaken the guidance and education of my two youngest sisters, Barbara and Drusilla, at the Priors, has, it appears, of late, been almost entirely incapacitated by a tiresome rheumatic disorder, which renders her wholly unfit for her duties. The girls are become quite disgracefully idle and unruly, since Miss Stornoway cannot discipline them as she ought. “Mama!” I have said to the Countess, on I do not know how many occasions, “Mama, you must get rid of that woman! The girls are entirely out of hand.” “I know, my love, I know,” she replies, “but where am I to find a person with the necessary authority to rule them, a person, moreover, who will not object to our remote, secluded situation? Nearly all the applicants are deterred by that aspect of the house.” But undoubtedly, for this post, my unfortunate step-daughter will do well enough. She is sufficiently well-connected so that the girls must use her with at least minimal respect. She is young enough so that she may hold the position for as many years as may be needful; and the seclusion of the situation is, in her case, an added benefit, since her scandalous history will not be exposed to public notice. Harriet may therefore take up her duties at once. The life at Underwood is wholly retired, my sisters never go out, they see nob
ody; visitors do not come to the house; and so this disreputable incident may be forgotten. Among ourselves, of course, word will spread no further – especially since one of the protagonists will by now, I trust, have departed abroad.’

  Agnes and Mr Norris wagged their heads approvingly. ‘But will your lady mother – will the Countess have no objection to the young person?’ gravely inquired the latter.

  ‘Not if I myself propound to her the merits of the case. I shall write her a letter. Mama, I shall say, your problems are now at an end. You may feel no further anxiety. Miss Stornoway may be sent packing without more ado. And that will relieve poor Mama of a great deal of inconvenience, for the wretched woman has been eating and drinking at her expense for the last two months, at least, to my knowledge, without doing a hand’s turn of work – so there will really be no more to be said. All will be well at Underwood Priors.’

  ‘Underwood Priors?’ repeated Hatty doubtfully.

  She remembered Lord Camber pointing out the low-lying, irregular old mansion, huddled down half out of sight in its elbow of wooded downland; at the time, happy with her companion in the brilliant sunshine on the hilltop, she had thought: yes, it appears a picturesque and interesting old place, to be sure, but I should certainly not care to live there; it looks so very dark, damp, and secluded.

  Perhaps it was her childhood, growing up in that gloomy place, that imbued Lady Ursula with such a sour and carping disposition?

  Oh, Lord Camber! What a long time ago – a whole lifetime! – that first carefree walk in the snow seems to me now! And yet it is only three days. And I have the rest of life to live without seeing you again.

  ‘Must I go there? To Underwood Priors?’ she said with reluctance.

  ‘Obstinate, ungrateful girl! Certainly you must! And the sooner the better.’

  ‘Ought she not to remain here until after Papa’s funeral?’ suggested Agnes.

  ‘No. I believe she had better set out as soon as possible. Other people, as well as Mr Ward, may have seen her wandering the hills in the company of Lord Camber. It is best that she do not appear with us in public, especially at the interment. I will despatch a note to my mother asking that a conveyance may be sent for her as soon as possible.’

  ‘Yes, you are right,’ agreed Agnes, eyeing her younger sister with disfavour. ‘Moreover if she remained here she would require a complete mourning outfit for the funeral. At Underwood a black gown will be sufficient, for, as you say, she will not be going out, she will not require a new pelisse. She appears to have grown a great deal at Portsmouth, much faster than might have been expected.’

  By now – in any case – the day was found to be too far advanced for Hatty’s immediate transfer; her removal was accordingly fixed for the following morning.

  (In fact, with poor Mr Ward lying dead upstairs, there were a great many duties to be discharged, orders to be given, news to be sent out; also, in the mysterious underground fashion of the countryside, tidings of the sudden fatality had percolated from one household to another, so that neighbours now began to come calling to pay their respects to the bereaved family, and must be appropriately entertained.)

  In these circumstances Hatty’s presence proved quite useful; she was sequestered in her father’s business room upstairs (which he had used very little himself) and employed in answering notes of condolence and writing letters to distant relatives who had to be informed of her father’s decease. An express was sent off to the family in Portsmouth. Hatty wished she could think that Aunt Polly would be well enough to come to the funeral, but felt sure that she would not. In any case, she herself would be gone to the Priors before the Portsmouth family arrived.

  So the day passed, drearily enough.

  Jenny brought up a tray of cold meat at about an hour after noon, and Hatty seized the opportunity to ask about her cat Simcox. ‘Is he still in the house?’

  ‘Oh, no, miss, he died a while back; he got hurt by a fox and never mended. But miss – Lady Ursula – she has a cat of her own, so it’s as well Simcox is not alive; they say two cats in a house never agree.’

  ‘Lady Ursula has a cat?’ repeated Hatty, rather surprised.

  ‘Indeed yes, miss, and a nasty disagreeable brute it be; not that it was helped by Master kicking and laming it one time when he’d taken a drop too many. He’ve been tippling a fair bit, miss, since your lady Mama died.’

  ‘He used to, before, when he was out of humour,’ Hatty remembered.

  ‘It got worse, miss. Most nights he’d be fair foxed and Firle would have to put him to bed. And he’d take a flask along when he went out after the hounds. We thought it might ease off when he wed the lady – but it did not at all. She used to go to London, for a night or two, at times, to stay with her Papa – to get away from him, we thought. And that riled the Master.’

  Harriet felt a twinge of pity for Lady Ursula. Mr Ward’s temper, surly at best, could become violently irritable when clouded by liquor; marriage to him must have been bleak enough, unless he were put in a better humour by the possibility of an heir. And to somebody like Lady Ursula – accustomed, all her life, to her own way, to her own consequence . . . Hatty wondered if the unexpectedly sudden death of her husband might not have come to the lady as something of a relief.

  But where would Lady Ursula go now? What would she do? Would she return to Underwood Priors? (Heaven forbid!) Had Mr Ward left her a sufficient competence so that she might form an independent establishment somewhere? Hatty suspected that this was unlikely. From various remarks that her uncle Philip had let fall now and then she believed that her father might have been in straits, that his income had diminished even from what it was when the first Mrs Ward was alive.

  No doubt all the particulars of Mr Ward’s bequests and reversions were well known in the servants’ hall, but Hatty felt that it would be undignified to apply for particulars to such a source.

  Information she was soon to receive, however, and from an unexpected quarter. The next day she rose early, after a restless night in her own bed, the bed she had once longed for so acutely. Now the bed, the room, the whole house seemed foreign, hostile territory and it was no hardship to re-pack her belongings. Entering the breakfast room she was not particularly surprised to be eyed malevolently and hissed at by a limping, moth-eaten ginger cat who squatted by the meagre fire and stared with pale green eyes.

  ‘That’s Lady Ursula’s Copper,’ said Firle. ‘Nasty bad-tempered brute he be. Don’t go next or nigh him, Miss Hatty.’

  Nobody else was down. Not wishing to be the first at breakfast, Hatty found an old cloak of her sister Fanny’s in the pantry and went out to stroll on the gravel sweep, which was now mostly free from snow. Here she was soon surprised by the arrival of a carriage, which approached at a spanking pace, drew up smartly, and disgorged her cousin Sydney.

  ‘Well I’ll be blest! Cousin Hatty! I hardly thought to see you here so soon!’

  Sydney appeared in high spirits, and not unfriendly. Hatty supposed there might not have been time for him, in London, to receive news of her expulsion from Lombard Street; he might think she had simply come to Bythorn because of her father’s death.

  He was even more smartly dressed than when last seen in Portsmouth, with a black band round his arm, and bore, altogether, a very triumphant, satisfied expression. He carried a portfolio of papers.

  ‘So! Cousin Hatty! All has turned out as I foretold. Has it not? And even sooner than my expectations. Here I am, you see, ready to take possession. But I’m not one to bear malice, no, curse me, I ain’t! How about it, Cousin Hatty? Will you reconsider what you said to me in my father’s house and make me a happy man? Will you be Mrs Sydney?’

  ‘No, Cousin Sydney, I thank you, but I cannot. The answer is still no—’ Hatty was beginning, when interrupted by the irate appearance of her sister Agnes, black cap-ribbons twitching and almost standing on end with anger.
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  ‘What, pray, is the meaning of this, what are you doing, Hatty, to be stepping outside the house against our express instructions – in this uncalled-for manner – putting yourself forward – as if you were not in disgrace?’

  Agnes’s nature had certainly not been ameliorated by marriage to Mr Norris, Hatty decided. Did she still pine for Daggett the bailiff? Mr Norris seemed a dour and taciturn character, though, to be sure, Hatty was not meeting him under the most favourable circumstances.

  ‘This is our cousin Sydney Ward, Agnes,’ she explained pacifically, and, to Sydney, ‘My sister Agnes, Mrs Norris—’ But her introduction, instead of placating, had the reverse effect.

  ‘Indeed! I suppose, young man, you think you can come to this house, take possession of it, and drive me and poor Lady Ursula out into the fields! With your poor uncle not yet cold on his deathbed!’

  ‘Why yes, Cousin Agnes, I do think that,’ he replied coolly. ‘Though such is not my immediate intention, I assure you.’

  ‘I should like to know how you got wind of your poor uncle’s demise so fast,’ snapped Agnes. ‘I am sure nobody from this household has informed you yet.’

  ‘Oh, we lawyers have our means of exchanging information,’ Sydney told her with a self-satisfied smile. ‘The attorney in Wanhurst owes me a favour – he sent me an express about the unfortunate accident to my uncle. And I have, as well, some business to transact with Lady Ursula so I thought I would just step down this way and cast an eye, while I was at it, over my uncle’s affairs. Which, as his heir and executor, I am fully entitled to do. Killing, you see, two birds with one stone.’ And, without waiting permission to do so, he instructed his driver to take the carriage round to the stable-yard.

  Red with anger and frustration, Agnes said, ‘Well, I suppose you may as well come into the house. I do not suppose I can stop you.’