An Intimate Education: A Comedic Tale of Open Hearts and Narrow Minds

by Anna Willman

  “Is that how you quieted your conscience then, Madame? Or had you none to quiet?” It was all he could do to keep his voice even.

  Mrs. Digby turned to her daughter-in-law. “I told you it would be of no use, Sarah! He cannot understand me. Men have no sensibility – they are all about their honor, their precious integrity. What good is that when compared to the human heart?”

  Thomas looked at his mother full on, then. “The human heart is worth very little when it is as crooked as yours, Madame,” he said. “Mine is the harder way, to be sure. There is no softness here, no wiggling free of what is right and true. But it was not I who dishonored that grand old man who was your husband, but not, alas, my father. It was not my honor that cheated him, but your loving heart, your crooked heart.”

  His voice broke on the last phrase. He could no longer look at his mother, who sat, stunned, tears streaming down her cheeks. He turned to his wife, his voice pleading. “Sarah, my dearest, I understand that this is most unfair to you. I know that it is hard, but my way is the only honorable path before us. I cannot be a party to cheating a kind old man of his dream. I cannot allow myself to profit from her lies.”

  Sarah had moved from her chair to sit on the sofa next to his mother, her hand on the older woman’s shoulder in a gesture of support. The look she turned on Thomas was one of reproach. He stumbled on, his voice less and less controlled as he struggled to reach her.

  “I hope you will understand. I pray that you can accept this path. We have come so far together, you and I. You have always been my true delight.”

  She shook her head slightly and turned towards his mother.

  “Stay with me, Sarah.” He was begging now. “I am losing everything. Not just my house and servants. Not only my mother, but my very self. I scarcely know who or what I am anymore. I do not know that I can bear it if I must lose you, as well.”

  Sarah looked in his eyes and saw his pain, the loneliness that lived there. She looked at his mother and saw pain there as well. And she understood suddenly that her own path might prove to be the most difficult of all.

  “Go home,” she said gently to Thomas’s mother. “I will call upon you tomorrow.”

  And she went to her big, strong husband and sat down next to him and took his great body into her arms, cradling him against her shoulder as if he were a baby.

  Thomas wept. And then he talked. He talked about the man he had thought was his father.

  “I loved that old man,” he said. “I lost him when he died, and now I feel as if I’ve lost him again. Only this time it is forever.”

  “He gave me everything,” he said. “The best education, strong and beautiful horses, a generous allowance, the finest of everything. And all he ever wanted in return was for me to be a gentleman. For his son to be a gentleman.”

  “He would set me up for some grand entertainment and then remain in the background, quiet and unassuming. Sometimes he’d go clear away, so that no social blunder of his would embarrass me. I didn’t care for that, but he insisted. Said he was afraid he’d hold me back. Didn’t want the smell of the shop to stick to me.”

  “The smell of the shop,” he repeated with a self-mocking sneer. “For his sake, I did everything I could to compensate for my faulty breeding. I strove every day to become the most correct, the most honorable, the most worthy gentleman on the town. I stayed away from the gaming hells, from the high flyers, from anything that was at all disreputable. When my classmates were sent down from Cambridge for boxing the watch, I attended to my studies. When they scorned Almack’s as dull work, I attended the assemblies and stood up with whatever young lady the patronesses assigned to me. All to make that old man smile, just to see his chest swell a little with pride while he dressed me down for some minor indiscretion. Always minor, and usually to do with acknowledging him as my father, for I could not, would not, disown him no matter what he said. I loved him. And was proud of him, too, though my whole life was schooled to distancing myself from his world of commerce.”

  “It was my mother’s birth,” he said, “that, along with my father’s riches, made me acceptable to the ton, but it was my father’s dream that made me honorable.”

  “If it were not so sad, it would be amusing,” he said. “For it turns out that my breeding is impeccable, if on the wrong side of the blanket, and the wealth that smoothed my way is not, after all, mine.”

  “As my father is not mine,” he said.

  Sarah held him while he wept, listened while he talked, and began to understand her husband a little better. She perceived that his refusal of the fortune was a testimony to his love for the old merchant, and then she felt tears running down her own cheeks. She wasn’t altogether sure what she was weeping for. The loss of her abigail, perhaps, or the carriage, but there was more to it than that. Her husband, who had always seemed indestructible – a mountain of a man, handsome and strong and wise and in every way superior to the husbands of her friends – was very nearly broken, with only his integrity and her own comforting arms to hold him together, and she felt that she must not fail him now.

  When at last he was through talking and had no more tears to shed, Sarah took him up to his bedroom and called for his valet to pull off his boots and put him to bed. Then she went to her own room to change for dinner. She ate a solitary meal in the dining room, scarcely tasting what she ate, and then called all the servants to come to her in the grand salon.

  They heard the news of their impending dismissal in a hushed silence that was marked as much by their awe at the downfall of a family fortune generally thought to be unshakeable as by their dismay at the change in their own situations. Most of their concerns on the latter score were soon laid to rest by the generous conditions of separation prescribed by Thomas, and only one of the housemaids expressed a willingness to so demean herself as to continue in their service in such a small establishment as Sarah described would make up the Digbys’ future residence. The others expressed the opinion that, with the promised references, they might reasonably expect to find employment in another grand establishment. Sarah could not disagree and wished them all well in her quiet voice.

  Thus reassured, the servants retired to their quarters, where their conjectures remained fixed on what calamity could have occurred to have brought about such a sudden and dramatic disaster upon the household.

  Sarah retreated to her room and, when her abigail had undressed her, brushed out her hair, and left her alone with a cup of warm chocolate to sooth her, gave full vent to her feelings with a whole-hearted bout of tears.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: In Which Lady Legerwood Falls Ill

  When Guinevere went to call on Louisa the next afternoon, she found her friend stretched out languorously on her velvet chaise lounge with Miss Manning hovering anxiously nearby.

  “Oh, Gwen, is it not shameful?” Louisa’s voice was weaker than usual and she spoke slowly. “I cannot think how it came about, but I have been so very foolish as to overtire myself.”

  “Oh dear,” Guinevere said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Miss Manning bent over Louisa to straighten her lace cap which had slipped askew and then reached out gingerly to shift the pillow beneath her head. Louisa grimaced and waved her away.

  “No, no, Emily, my pillow is just fine as it is.” Louisa said, then seemed to gather her energy to add, “Why don’t you look up that recipe for a stimulating tisane that you told me you saw in my mama’s commonplace book? And then just take a little rest from attending to me. I know you are eager to start that new romance we got from the lending library.”

  “I could not bear to indulge myself while you are so ill,” Miss Manning protested, wringing her hands. Her voice rang shrilly in Guinevere’s ears.

  A look of impatience flickered across Louisa’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a gracious and determined smile. She spoke carefully, enunciating each word slowly, one at a time. “You have been most kind, but I do not need you just now, Emily. I will be fine without you so
long as Lady Guinevere is here with me.”

  “But Cousin…”

  “Enough, Emily! You have put up with my crochets all morning. It is Gwen’s turn to bear with them now.”

  Miss Manning hesitated, looking uncertainly from Louisa to Guinevere.

  “Go and read,” Louisa said wearily. “Take up your embroidery, or go for a stroll in the garden. I command you to do something that pleases you.” She sighed and added, with a small smile, “I promise I will send for you when Lady Guinevere leaves.”

  Miss Manning fluttered around the room. She picked up her embroidery basket and the romance. Then set them down again on a foot stool and with shaking hands made several futile attempts to light a pastille in the castle-shaped burner. Guinevere took pity upon her and taking the spill from her trembling fingers, caught the little pastille on her first try and dropped the splinter of wood into the fireplace. Miss Manning caught her breath in what sounded almost like a whimper and retrieved a thick bound commonplace book from a drawer. Then she gathered up her sewing and her novel, paused to pick up a woolly shawl, twittering nervously as she moved, and finally went out of the room with all of these items stacked up in her arms. Guinevere and Louisa watched in silence.

  “Really!” Louisa said, sinking into her pillow when at last Miss Manning had closed the door behind her. “I cannot think what has come over Emily. She has always been so calm and steady when I was having a bad turn. But this time, she fusses at me so, I can scarcely bear it.” As Louisa gradually relaxed, her voice blurred the words a little.

  “It must worry her greatly to find you ill again when we were all so sure that was behind you,” Guinevere said.

  “Perhaps,” Louisa said. But she frowned slightly and added, “But if that is the case, then I have wronged her greatly, for I have had the notion that she was not quite pleased about my good health. It has meant a great change in our lives, and Emily is a creature of routine. Changes unsettle her.”

  “Certainly with you going abroad, her life must be overset.”

  “Yes, and I have been wanting to talk with you about that. I must do something magnificent for her, but I cannot think what.” Louisa’s soft voice lingered over the words, letting them out slowly. “She has been so good to me, and even now, when I am cross with her, she bears it all with patience.”

  “I take it she is not going to travel with you?”

  “No, indeed. She would be very much in the way.”

  Guinevere examined her friend’s face, but overcame her curiosity and did not ask any questions, sensing that they were nearing Ned’s forbidden topic. “What will she do when you go?”

  “That’s just it,” Louisa sighed. “She refuses to stay here with Edmund. She says it is not at all the thing. I think she will end up going to her parents, but the thought does not seem to cheer her. I feel like an ungrateful wretch, so many years she has given me, and I abandon her to pursue my own pleasure.”

  Guinevere observed her friend with some alarm. Louisa’s voice had continued to grow weaker, and her eyelids drooped as she spoke. “Tell my, dearest, what is this illness? What brought it on?”

  Louisa strained to open her eyes. “I don’t know. I was in fine fettle, really. Everything was bright and new, ever since I resolved to stop quacking myself – as you advised, Gwen. I stopped all of Dr. Bartley’s remedies and partook of only the mildest of Emily’s tisanes. And I talked with Ned, and…”

  “You will not tell me about that,” Guinevere reminded her.

  “Oh. Yes. Thank you. My mind is so fuddled.” Louisa sighed and let her eyes close for a minute.

  “And when did you start to feel ill?”

  “It was yesterday, right after Emily and I had our breakfast. I was suddenly dizzy and so very tired that I had to go back to bed. And it has been like this ever since, though Emily has tried any number of teas and tisanes to restore me.”

  “Perhaps you only need to sleep. We can talk again another day.”

  “Sleep is all I can do. I have slept all day long for two days now. I have no energy for life,” Louisa complained. “Don’t leave me. I want to talk.” Her voice was slow and heavy. Tears were slowly gathering in her eyes, spilling over and sliding down her cheeks. “If I don’t get better soon, Ned says we will have to put off our trip. And there’s this business about Edmund and Elizabeth to see to.”

  “I can call on Mrs. Westlake without you,” Guinevere said. “You may safely leave that to me.”

  Louisa spoke with a little agitation now. “But it is my responsibility, not yours. And you said yourself that she may not trust you. Would it be so very bad if we waited just a few more days until I got better?”

  “Of course we can wait,” Guinevere said calmly.

  Louisa relaxed again and tugged listlessly at her pillow, which had slid even further to one side as a result of Miss Manning’s anxious ministrations.

  Guinevere smiled. “May I fix that pillow for you without being sent from the room?”

  A small gurgle substituted for laughter. “Wasn’t I horrid? I’m afraid I have been unkind to dear Emily. Yes, do please fix this wretched pillow.”

  When Guinevere had done all she could to make Louisa comfortable, she sat back in her chair and studied her friend thoughtfully.

  “I wondered if perhaps your illness was caused by distress over our plan to call on Mrs. Westlake.”

  Louisa shook her head, the motion slow and languorous. “No, I’m sure it is not that. I was feeling distress, of course, but also eager, in a queer way. To be taking the initiative, to act the adult instead of remaining a passive, pampered child of a woman. No it cannot be that.”

  “Perhaps you should call in Dr. Bartley.”

  “No, for it was when I stopped taking his remedies that I first began to feel better.”

  “Another doctor then? I have never cared much for Bartley. He has always seemed to me too quick to dose his patients with strong soporifics.”

  “Perhaps. But let me try first to recover on my own. Emily is so good at finding remedies that surely I will be better soon.”

  “Her remedies have done you little good thus far,” Guinevere commented. “But perhaps she will find something to the purpose. In the meantime I shall endeavor to think of something splendid for her. Could you not give her one of Ned’s smaller properties, perhaps, so that she might set up house for herself?”

  “I doubt she would consider anything so eccentric. Indeed she has a considerable competence of her own and could afford to set up housekeeping for herself without our help if she chose. If she had a good friend to live with her, she might be persuaded that it was respectable enough for a lady of quality, but she has devoted herself so completely to me these past years that I do not believe she has any friend besides me.”

  Guinevere observed that Louisa was rapidly tiring and struggling to stay awake. So she said, simply, “We can talk more of this later. I shall certainly give it my earnest consideration. Miss Manning has been good to you and must be rewarded accordingly. You will want her to know how much you appreciate her goodness.”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly,” Louisa said softly. Suddenly all the tension ran out of her body. She closed her eyes and added. “Will you stay with me a little longer while I sleep, my dear Gwen? I don’t think I can bear to have Emily fluttering about me just now.”

  And so, instead of calling on Mrs. Westlake, the two friends spent the afternoon together in the quiet of Louisa’s bed-sitting room. Guinevere sat deep in thought while Louisa slept. Occasionally Louisa managed to arouse herself briefly, but what conversation they had was brief and of little consequence.

  And while they were thus occupied, Mrs. Westlake and her daughter removed themselves from London and repaired to the country, Elizabeth protesting this sudden and unwarranted separation from her fiancé the whole way.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: In Which Lord Carew Makes Plans

  Lancelot sat gloomy at his desk, the sheaf of letters before him. Thomas�
� formal note of dismissal lay to one side of the pile – a grim reminder of disaster if he made another poor choice. Surely at least one out of so many offspring would be glad to ease a father’s life. It was simply a question of selecting the right one. Guinevere had treated him shabbily in refusing to lend him her advice, for, with all her society connections, she would know exactly which of these to choose.

  “Poorly done, Gwen,” he said aloud, “not to stand by a friend in need.”

  Jarman, who had just brought in the tea tray, looked startled for a moment to hear his master talking to himself. But then he bowed slightly and took his leave. Lancelot caught the merest hint of a shaking head and almost called him to account for mocking his master, but then thought better of it. Jarman and William at least were true friends, no matter that the world saw them as servants. He felt a surge of gratitude and took a sip of his tea. And then took another, for it was delicious, not like that stale brew Jarman had been serving up. Good! He’d found a fresh stash somewhere. He only hoped Jarman had not spent his own blunt on it. Probably, he had. Or William had.

  It was with renewed resolve that Lancelot began once more to sift through the letters before him. He could not bear to continue living off his servants’ generosity.

  He had originally intended to apply to his sons before considering his daughters, but something Guinevere had said to him had made him reconsider. ‘Pigheaded’ she’d called young Digby. Well none knew better than he that men were more cursed with pigheaded pride than were women. And women were inclined to be kindhearted, too. Surely his daughters would not respond with such unreason as had Thomas Digby.