by Joan Aiken
The Duke of Dungeness was a decided eccentric, du Vallon told Hatty; if he had not been a duke his mental state would have been termed madness.
‘But so it is with many of these noble families. They are so inbred that such singular aberrations are commonplace among them.’
Hatty thought of Drusilla’s visual deficiency and Barbara’s pilfering.
‘But the Duke’s children are normal enough, are they not?’ she asked, hoping that the Abbé would say something friendly about Lord Camber.
But, to her dismay, he exclaimed, ‘Au contraire, Mademoiselle Hatty! Of the girls I know little harm – Suzanne and Louisa married well enough and seem to have settled satisfactorily with their spouses. But Camber! Some say that he is no worse than a Holy Fool – though even in that role he has done untold harm – but I find him insupportable! He has a habit of telling the truth – or what he considers to be the truth – in and out of season, at the most inappropriate moments. At Cambridge he was known as Candide.’
Such a look of venom momentarily distorted the Abbé’s countenance that Hatty did not dare make further inquiries in this area, but du Vallon went on: ‘See what harm he did his cousin Ursula. As you may know, they were fiancés. She had a passing weakness for his friend Fordingbridge – it was a nothing, no more than an amitié tendre – would never have come to anything, but Camber had to make a grand drama out of it with renunciation scenes and heroic relinquishment and resignation. All quite unnecessary, believe me.’
‘But,’ suggested Hatty cautiously, ‘perhaps he had come to the conclusion that he and Lady Ursula were really not – really did not suit? After all they are very, very different from one another. And they never did resume their engagement.’
‘Now they are different,’ snapped the Abbé. ‘But if they had remained together, who knows? He might not be such a Holy Fool, she might be less angular and intransigent.’
‘But if she loved Fordingbridge?’
‘Pfui! That would have come to nothing. I know, I!’
‘Why?’ Hatty asked obstinately. ‘How do you know?’
‘Fordingbridge was not of a kind to love any woman for long. At the beginning he had been Camber s friend.’
‘Oh,’ said Hatty rather blankly.
‘Fordingbridge wrote Camber a letter from India, making Camber promise that, if misfortune should come to him, Camber must look after Lady Ursula. Did Camber do so? No, he did not. In fact he worked upon her, almost compelled her to return and look after these tedious girls—’
Hatty longed to ask how in the world du Vallon had known about this letter from Fordingbridge to Camber. It did not sound as if he and Camber had ever been on sufficiently close terms to make such a confidence likely between them. And what, she wondered, had been the incident, presumably at Cambridge, that engendered such a strong dislike for Camber in the Abbé?
But at this moment Barbara entered the library, picking up the Abbé’s last phrase.
‘What tedious girls?’ she demanded instantly.
‘The girls who read this volume,’ promptly replied the Abbé, holding up a book. ‘Fordyce’s Sermons for Young Women. See, it is already the ninth edition, and it was first published only twenty years ago. It must be in great demand. I have been exhorting Miss Ward to read you and your sister one of these edifying homilies each day as you lie on your back-boards – the author requires young ladies to wear at all times an air of bashfulness, to eschew any kind of wit or humour or spriteliness, to show sedate manners in company, to be quiet, demure and humble. Love of shining is most particularly discouraged.’
‘Sad stuff! Pray do not read it to us, Miss Ward.’
‘Well, I will not,’ promised Hatty. ‘I don’t detect any particular love of shining in you and Drusilla, fortunately – perhaps because there is no company to shine at.’
‘Aha!’ said Barbara. ‘But we are to have company. Papa has written to Mama that he will certainly be here in September and that he may bring a party of friends.’
‘Then you must remember not to be spritely. Or to shine,’ said Hatty.
Barbara pulled a face at her – the nearest she ever approached to a smile – and demanded, ‘Marcel, may we have Thermopylae?’
‘Have you completed your devoir for Miss Ward? And you should not call me Marcel in her hearing.’
She put out her tongue at him. ‘Yes, yes, we have done it, we have done it.’
‘Which kind of men did King Leonidas take with him to the Pass of Thermopylae?’
‘Only men with sons to succeed them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he knew they would all be killed.’
‘And where were the rest of the Greeks?’
‘On Salamis Island.’
‘Very well, go and set up the battlefield. But before our battle I think we should play a game of battledore and shuttlecock. Drusilla looks a little pale.’
Drusilla, who came in behind her sister, had stood looking wistfully at the fire which, even on this warm August day, was, by the Abbé’s command, kept burning in the library.
The two sisters ran off to set up the battlefield.
‘You have done those girls much good,’ du Vallon pronounced. ‘More, I am bound to admit, than their sister Ursula would have achieved.’
‘Oh, but so have you, Monsieur!’
A footman came in and said to Hatty, ‘Miss, there’s a visitor for you. A young – gentleman.’ His hesitation on the last word was noticeable. ‘I have put him in the lobby to the left of the front door.’
‘Thank you, Firkin.’ Who in the world can it be? Hatty wondered, her heart leaping up, then falling again.
The visitor proved to be Hatty’s cousin Sydney.
‘Well, well, Cousin Hatty,’ he said, scanning her up and down. ‘Have not the Fowldes paid you any wages yet? That gown looks to me like one of my mother’s choosing! Did I not see you in it last year?’
‘Oh,’ cried out Hatty, ‘how is my Aunt Polly? I long to have news of her. Did she make a good recovery from her illness?’
‘No,’ said Sydney flatly. ‘Did you not know? She had a second seizure in April and died two days after.’
‘Oh no!’ whispered Hatty. ‘Oh no! She has been dead five months?’
‘That is so.’
‘And nobody wrote to me! Nobody told me! Here have I been writing letter upon letter – and nobody thought to let me know. Oh, that was cruel.’
‘Well, what would you expect from my father? He had cast you off – he is not one to make a change, once he has decided upon a course of action. He never speaks of you, never mentions your name.’
‘Does he know that you have come to see me?’
‘Oh, very likely. For I am here on business. My mother left you fifteen pounds in her Will. It was hers to leave – from her dowry. She had always saved it.’
Sydney handed his cousin a small cloth bag. ‘And furthermore she left you her book of kitchen receipts, though I do not suppose that you will have any need of that in this establishment. No doubt they look after you hand and foot.’
He gave Hatty a sour smile, glancing superciliously round the shabby little apartment. ‘Have they paid you yet?’
‘Well – no,’ admitted Hatty. ‘But Lord Elstow will be here himself next month. I have not met him yet, he has never been home since I came here. I daresay he will arrange to pay me then. Lady Elstow does not take much part – much interest – but is, I think, quite approving of what I am teaching the girls.’
‘Well, you are a stayer, I am bound to admit that, Cousin Hatty! I had not thought it possible that you would settle in here. I knew you had a strong constitution, but still I am surprised. You look well enough, too.’
‘I can say the same for you, Cousin,’ Hatty retorted, not without a touch of malice, for since she saw him last, Sydney had p
ut on weight to quite a degree, and now looked the image of a plump, self-satisfied young man of business. His clothes, hat, and complexion were all glossy; and the latter decidedly rubicund. ‘You have a most prosperous air. I hope that is a true indication of your condition?’
‘Thank you, yes. I spend three days a week in London and the other four in Bythorn where, already, I have enough business to keep me well occupied.’
‘And my – my stepmother, Cousin Ursula? Where did she go?’
Hatty had hardly, yet, felt the full pain of Aunt Polly’s death; she was talking and asking questions mechanically, in an instinctive attempt to postpone the final shock of grief. To have been deprived of the right to mourn all this time, to have been kept in penitential ignorance – or so it seemed to her – increased the sharp sense of unjust punishment. That is the second death, she thought, in which I have not been permitted to participate as I had the right to. Unbidden, a memory flashed into her mind of the rainy graveyard in Portsmouth, the distraught daughter of Lady Pentecost attempting to throw herself into her mother’s grave, Lord Camber stepping forward and kindly, with perfect sympathy and understanding, guiding the poor creature away to some comfortable haven.
Oh, he is not a Holy Fool!’ Hatty thought passionately. He is not, he is not! He is a truly warm-hearted, understanding person. Oh, how I wish he were here. He was so fond of Aunt Polly too . . .
Half-unconsciously, she compared her mental image of Lord Camber with the two men she had most recently talked to – du Vallon, clever, amusing, but, she felt, untrustworthy, lightweight, swayed by who knew what strange unaccountable objectives or desires, while the motives actuating her cousin Sydney were all too plainly visible in his every look and gesture. Self-interest governed him and always had and always would.
Now he was glancing discontentedly round the bare little room. ‘Lady Ursula?’ he said carelessly. ‘Oh, she went to stay with one of her sisters but that was only for a month or two; I fancy she was hoping after that to quarter herself on your sister Lady Bertram at Mansfield Park . . . I hear Lady Bertram is very good-natured. Your stepmama can probably hang up her hat at Mansfield for as long as she cares to; that is, if she don’t get across Sir Thomas or rub your sister Agnes up the wrong way. Lord save us, what a harpy she is. I should think you were not sorry to leave her behind when you came to reside with us at Portsmouth, hey, Cousin Hatty? But how do they treat visitors in this great damp barrack of a place – is there any chance of a glass of Madeira, or something to warm the cockles of a man’s heart? After I have rid all this way to see you?’
‘I am rather surprised that you did,’ replied Hatty, jerking the bell pull. ‘Could you not have sent a messenger? Or have you business with Lady Elstow? And are you not presuming rather far in expecting that visitors to the governess may hope to be entertained in the same style as visitors to the family?’
‘Oh, not in the same style – but, after all, plague take it, you are related to them, your mother was a Wisbech, and Lady U was your stepmother. And I could give Lady Elstow news of Lord Camber if she were interested.’
‘Which she would not be in the very least; she has a decided prejudice against him. But you may as well tell the news to me,’ said Hatty, masking intense interest in a casual tone. ‘How do you come to hear from him?’
‘Oh, he wrote asking for another piece of land to be sold. He and his father, in their different ways, are just as feckless as one another.’
The door opened and a footman came in.
‘You rang, miss?’
‘Fetch us a glass of wine, will you?’ said Sydney. The man bowed and vanished again.
‘So has Lord Camber now left his master and settled in Amity Valley?’ Hatty inquired, still in a negligent manner.
‘No, but he is about to do so. It must be said that they obtained that land on most advantageous terms.’ Sydney was evidently put out that somebody had concluded a successful piece of business without his intervention. ‘They have acquired another thirty-three square leagues of land with a mineral spring on the banks of the Susquehanna river – the ground rent is only one red rose in the month of June for ever.’
‘Good gracious,’ said Hatty. ‘That is a bargain indeed. I wonder who the rent is paid to?’
‘Oh, doubtless some native Indian tribe,’ Sydney said irritably. He added in a casual manner which Hatty instinctively felt had a false ring to it – for when was any action of her cousin Sydney ever casual? – ‘By the bye, Hatty, I suppose you are not informed as to the present whereabouts of the title-deeds to Lord Camber’s little place in the woods – Thorn Grotto, is it called?’
‘Title-deeds of the Thatched Grotto?’ Hatty was puzzled. ‘No, indeed! I have no idea at all. Why should you expect me to know such a thing?’
‘Well, you spent some days there, did you not? Some member of the household might have chanced to mention the matter.’
‘Why, are they lost?’
‘Oh, merely mislaid. They are sure to come to light.’
Sydney moved to the window, through which the Abbé du Vallon could be seen with Drusilla and Barbara, playing at battledore and shuttlecock on the carriage sweep, which was about the only level piece of ground in the vicinity of the house.
‘That, I suppose, is du Vallon, the Frenchman who comes to catalogue Lord Elstow’s library?’
‘Yes, that is the Abbé.’
‘He takes time off from his labours to play with the daughters of the house? He must be very good-natured.’
‘Yes, but he is very diligent also.’ Hatty defended the Abbé. ‘He works long hours in the library – he informed us that there are some very precious and interesting old volumes there.’
‘Ah, indeed?’ Sydney’s eyes momentarily lit up. Though not at all interested in old books, his mind was naturally alerted at once to anything of pecuniary value. But he continued doggedly with his inquiries about the Abbé. ‘And how does Lady Elstow receive the Frenchman? Is he likely to be a suitor for one of the daughters?’
‘No, I do not think that is at all probable.’ Hatty was quite startled at the suggestion. ‘He behaves to them more like an older brother, a relative. Well, he is in some way connected to the Fowldes family. But he has no money, none at all, I am sure Lady Elstow would not for a moment entertain any notion of such a match. Besides, he is such a strange, dried-up little creature – the girls enjoy his company, but it is for lack of any other – I do not think they would ever look upon him in the light of a suitor.’
‘He is civil to you? Uses you with propriety?’
‘Oh, perfectly. Indeed, he is very good company. Why, Cousin,’ exclaimed Hatty, with an irrepressible chuckle, ‘were you afraid that the Abbé might offer me some affront? Nothing, I am quite certain, is farther from his thoughts. Is that why you rode all this way to Underwood? To protect my virtue?’
Sydney scowled. ‘If I did so, Cousin, it would be no joking matter. Your reputation is already somewhat in question, after those nights spent under Lord Camber’s roof.’
‘Oh, who in the countryside cares a fig for my reputation? Who, indeed, knows about that visit?’ But Sydney’s inquiry about the title-deeds had made Hatty anxious. ‘Lord Camber is not proposing to sell the little house, is he?’
She thought of the happy household established there – Godwit, his grandmother, Mrs Daizley, the boy Dickon, and Miss Stornoway. What refuge could they find, if the house were to be sold? She thought of Lord Camber’s offer of the place as a haven for herself, but did not mention this to Sydney, who would almost certainly put some disagreeable construction upon the gesture.
‘You must understand, my dear cousin, that I cannot discuss Lord Camber’s business transactions with you,’ Sydney said chidingly. His repressive air annoyed Hatty, who felt that she was probably more conversant with Lord Camber’s plans and wishes than her cousin. But he was still intent on the su
bject of du Vallon.
‘I wonder that Lord Elstow allows him the freedom of the place here, thinks fit to establish him in the same household with his daughters. He has a somewhat unsavoury reputation, I understand.’
‘Oh?’ Hatty was not wishful to hear demeaning stories about the Abbé from her cousin Sydney, who, even as a schoolboy, always had a predilection for telling malicious tales, generally much exaggerated, about all his acquaintance.
‘They say—’ Sydney began, but Hatty interrupted him.
‘Cousin, if you have no more business to transact, I must return to my charges, and not be loitering here, listening to gossip. Or I should certainly merit a rebuke from Lady Elstow.’
‘Oh – very well! But, Cousin, there is one more thing I have to say – I ask – I wonder very much—’ Sydney suddenly lost his assured air and looked merely like a fat, plain young man, rather over-dressed, nervous and mistrustful. ‘Do you – can you like it here?’ he brought out at last. ‘Do you go on as you should in the household?’
‘Why, yes.’ Hatty was surprised at this unexpected solicitude. ‘Quite to my own surprise, I get on comfortably enough. Lady Elstow does not interfere with my authority over the girls, they mind me tolerably well, and, what is most important to me, I have sufficient peace and lack of disturbance – and a most wonderful supply of books to provide a foothold – a good environment – for my own work.’
‘Your own work?’ Sydney looked wholly puzzled.
‘My writing.’ He still looked blank. ‘My poetry.’
‘Oh, good heavens. You still do that scribbling? I had thought you meant work.’
To this statement Hatty did not choose to make any reply. She waited in cold silence.
‘Cousin Hatty, have you given any more thought to my offer?’ Sydney brought out at last. She continued to look at him blankly. ‘My offer of marriage? It still stands! Consider how very comfortably circumstanced I now am with my own house, a number of excellent connections, more coming in all the time. It cannot but present a most favourable contrast to your own circumstances and future. What lies ahead of you but more drudgery here, or similar drudgery in some other household? I assure you, Cousin Hatty, that you are never likely to receive a more eligible offer than mine – and you know that I have always felt a decided partiality for you,’ he added as an afterthought.