by Mira Stables
The talk turned to painting. The Comtesse hoped that she might be permitted to finish the portrait and undertook to see that the sittings did not interfere with lessons. The Viscount reminded Miss Parminter that he had promised the girls a holiday when he came home which would allow plenty of time for the artist. He was not allowed to look at the portrait which, the Comtesse said, was scarce begun. He should see it when it was finished. He commended her choice of costume and Miss Parminter agreed enthusiastically that nothing could better become the child. Style and colour alike were calculated to bring out her unusual quality. Only the Viscount found it a little surprising that a Frenchwoman who had, admittedly, escaped from her own country by the narrowest of margins, should have been able to bring with her a riding habit which she must have discarded twenty years ago.
Chapter Eight
Jervase had spent most of the past five days in travelling, at a season of the year when even the hardiest avoided the roads. Yet when he bade the Comtesse and Miss Parminter a courteous good night he did not at once seek his bed. Nor did he do anything like justice to the palatable viands that had been hurriedly assembled and set out for his enjoyment in the library. He carved himself some slices of cold beef which he made into substantial sandwiches and prowled up and down the floor devouring them in absent-minded gulps. The edge of his ravening hunger thus blunted, he forgot all about it but continued his restless pacing until, suddenly aware of physical weariness, he flung himself into a chair, put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.
With his eyes closed he could see even more clearly the glorified face of the girl who had looked up at him in adoring surrender. He knew that he wanted her for his wife above anything else that the world could hold. And she was still a child, her devotion innocent of all trace of passion. She loved him because she saw him as a very figure of romance, a Cophetua who had stooped to raise a beggar child to the steps of his throne. There was no reality in such love. It was the stuff that dreams were made of and would never survive the touch of harsh reality. But if he guarded her carefully, left her free to grow into a woman and wooed her delicately the while, might it not be that she would learn to love him as he so deeply desired? Not as a dream prince, but as a man—warm—faulty—human.
Hetherston had certainly been in the right of it about the rashness of his impulsive offer. Had he, Jervase wondered, foreseen this particular outcome? The difficulties that beset his path seemed mountainous. As if it were not enough that he must wait for his little love to grow up, his grandfather would never consent to such a marriage. It would go sorely against the pluck to break with the old man who had been so good to him in his own fashion. Moreover it would mean saying good-bye to Wrelf and Stapleford, for the Marquis would assuredly disinherit him and he would never be able to keep up even Stapleford, let alone Wrelf, on the modest fortune that he had inherited from his mother. A high-sounding title was a pretty hollow bauble when you could not afford the style of living that went with it. And Lissa loved the Place. If he had to give it up, would she still care to marry him? The dark head came up proudly, confidently. If he could teach her to love him she would marry him despite his poverty. Her capacity for loving was writ clear in the generous mouth, the candid adoring eyes; was shown in the affection that she poured out on Mary and now, it seemed, on so unlikely a person as Miss Parminter. A world in which that love was freely given to himself seemed almost too good to be true, but with all his heart he was determined to attain it. Meanwhile he must keep his own counsel and cherish his darling so unobtrusively that no one, least of all Lissa herself, should guess his secret. It was a very serious, resolute young man who went thoughtfully up the shallow curving staircase to his bed, to fall instantly, dreamlessly asleep.
There was joyous excitement next morning when the baggage arrived and his lordship presented his belated Christmas gifts. He had been sorely puzzled to know what to buy for he had been determined that the two girls should have matching presents. Yet because Lissa was not his sister so many gifts that he would have liked to choose were not permissible. Then he had remembered the cold little hands that had been clasped in his as they skated together and bought muffs, soft, silky, white fur for Mary, black for Lissa, since all the browns and golds seemed dull and faded beside his memory of her hair. He had bought gloves for Miss Parminter, of a skin so supple and a workmanship so exquisite that it seemed suspiciously probable that they were of French origin. Miss Parminter, who had never received anything so elegant in her life, laid them away in a drawer, still wrapped in their tissue paper, refreshing her feminine soul with an occasional peep. She would never have dreamed of wearing them if their donor had not enquired anxiously as to whether they were the wrong size. Upon this she was eventually persuaded to wear them on Sundays to church, if the day was fine, where she vastly disconcerted Mr. Hetherston by keeping her gaze fixed on the hands lying clasped in her lap instead of on his face as had been her wont. Had he guessed the reason he would certainly have felt called upon to preach that threatened sermon on vanity.
Now that his lordship was returned the short dark days of February passed cheerfully enough. Though he had suggested a holiday the girls preferred to spend most of their mornings in the schoolroom unless it chanced to be fine enough for them to ride with him on his estate business. The village folk grew quite accustomed to seeing the little party trotting gaily by, Mary still preferring the quietest horses but much more confident than of yore, Lissa, if not straitly forbidden, inclined to attempt feats that were beyond her limited experience. His lordship was more often at home than in the weeks before Christmas, catching up, he blandly assured them, on neglected duties, though duty did not seem to prevent him from spending a good deal of his time in devising amusement for the girls.
When they were snow-bound for a week they raided the attics and two stalwart footmen laboured downstairs under trunks crammed with the discarded finery of the ages. The girls must dress up, of course, but that was not enough for his lordship. They must also assume the manners and characters of the original wearers. One or two of the costumes could be matched with the portraits in the gallery but there were some hilarious guesses at the age and ownership of others. Mary looked quite bewitching in a riding jacket of fawn worsted with a collar of matching velvet, the facings of pink silk, the buttons silver. It was cut in a very masculine style with a deeply pleated skirt and large military pockets. But her attempts at managing the hooped petticoat that went with it made her audience rock with laughter and wonder what would happen if she actually wore it on horseback, since she could not even walk across the room without a most improper display of ankle, while an attempt to seat herself with the dignity required of a Viscountess Stapleford reduced her brother to helpless mirth and caused Miss Parminter to blush with confusion and prim up her lips in a fashion that they had not seen for weeks. Sobriety was only restored when Lissa held out a tiny garment that could only have been worn by a child of two or three and asked in puzzled fashion what it was. It was an iron corset, said Miss Parminter gravely, and in the ignorance of bygone days small children had been put into such dreadful contraptions in the belief that their bodies would grow straight. The girls looked at it in horrified awe and were thankful that they lived in modern times when such abominations were no more.
Happily, at this time, they were spared the attentions of Mrs. Wetherley. Miss Phoebe had succeeded in attaching a very eligible suitor, a gentleman of respectable fortune and extremely nice in all matters of good ton. What was more he was the second son of an Earl and his elder brother was not only unmarried but was known to be of a sickly constitution. Miss Phoebe, making no objection to spindly legs, protruding teeth and a chin that receded into the top fold of a beautifully tied cravat, was all compliance and her Mama was bending all her energies to the task of bringing this promising fish safely to grass. She had abandoned hope of securing Stapleford when he had lingered so long at Wrelf, and if the Fates were kind might yet see her daughter a Cou
ntess. The matter of Lissa Wayburn’s parentage must wait upon more urgent affairs.
Yet despite all the fun and laughter that once again filled the Place, matters were not just as they had been before Christmas. For all the light-hearted nonsense with which his lordship imbued their pastimes there were moments when a close observer might have perceived the serious air that underlay the frivolity. And though he occasionally indulged in a tussle with Mary, rumpling her hair or teasingly holding her wrists when she threatened physical violence in revenge for some impudent quip, he never adopted this brotherly attitude with Lissa. And very proper, too, approved Miss Parminter, commending his instinctive good sense. The child was growing up fast and it seemed probable that she had the passionate and romantic nature that went with her glowing hair and that wide, beautifully cut mouth. It was very natural that she should worship his lordship to the point of idolatry, so good as he had been to her. There was no harm in that. But it would never do for her to fall in love with him. It could not be long, now, before he returned to his proper sphere and then that particular danger would be averted. Meanwhile, his grave courtesy, his instant attention to the girl’s smallest need, from the moving of a candle so that she might see better to the placing of a fire screen so that the flames should not scorch her cheeks, and his unfailing patience with her endless questions and her occasional naive mistakes were a perfect example of the behaviour of a very great gentleman, and Miss Parminter felt that her charges were indeed fortunate to have such a standard to form their budding tastes.
That Lissa might fall in love with his lordship she could well envisage. The one danger that never entered her head was that his lordship might fall in love with Lissa. He, at least, must be well aware that such an unequal match was out of the question and would undoubtedly drop the handkerchief, when it pleased him, to some demure damsel of impeccable lineage. Olivia—for by now she and the Comtesse were on familiar terms—might shake her head and utter ominous warnings about the dangers of propinquity, but however much the pair were in each other’s company they were never alone and nothing passed between them that all the world might not hear. Miss Parminter dismissed her faint uneasiness and decided that Olivia was imagining things.
So matters went on very comfortably on the surface. The Comtesse became so much a part of the familiar routine that it was difficult to imagine how they had ever managed without her. Lord Stapleford had felt some misgivings over accepting her help with the girls, help which was quite invaluable since she supplied the background of a woman experienced in both court and social life, such an atmosphere as his mother would have provided for her daughter. He knew that any offer of payment would be hurtful, even insulting, so it was fortunate that it did not seem to be necessary. The Comtesse, unlike the majority of her fellow emigrés, showed no signs of poverty. He salved his conscience by giving orders that Mrs. Wayburn should be supplied with all the dairy produce that she and her lodger could possibly require from the Home Farm and such fruits and vegetables as were available at that season. For the time being the Comtesse seemed to have abandoned Lissa’s portrait and was indulging a wicked talent for caricature which respected no one, from his lordship’s ponderous butler to his lordship’s self, and was appreciated even by its victims.
With the coming of spring their little community flourished in increasing isolation as one after another the local gentry returned to Town to open up their houses for the Season. Save for asking Miss Parminter to see that the girls had new gowns, appropriate to the promise of warmer weather, the Viscount seemed unaware of the passage of time and showed no sign of planning to return to Town himself.
Instead it was Miss Parminter who was quite unexpectedly called upon to do so. The daffodils were spreading their golden frills about the hems of the great house when a middle aged manservant cantered up the drive one afternoon demanding speech with her. She had some difficulty in recognising him, since he had but newly taken service with her Great-uncle Carnforth when she had bidden farewell to that sombre establishment in Bloomsbury some twelve years ago, but he was able to identify himself to her satisfaction. He was come, he explained soberly, to summon her to his master’s deathbed. She was the sole surviving creature linked to him by ties of blood and he had taken a fancy to have her in attendance on his passing.
The nature of General Carnforth’s illness was somewhat obscure. He had always been of a full and bronchial habit and had found the spring weather treacherous. This year, an unusually severe attack following close upon a sharp set-to with influenza had persuaded him that he was booked and he had despatched Dawber to escort his great-niece to London, not omitting a pithy reminder that she need not expect a comfortable inheritance upon his demise. She had already had all the good she was like to get of him and his bones would make meagre picking, but if she had any sense of family obligation, etc., etc. Dawber softened the message as best he could since he dare not for his life omit it. For one supposedly moribund the cantankerous old devil had been amazingly fluent and precise. In fact, so ill prepared for heaven was he that it would not at all surprise Dawber if a stay of execution were granted.
Miss Parminter heard him out with admirable calm and consented to accompany him back to Town. The day and hour must depend on what temporary arrangements his lordship could make to fill her place but she felt that a simple solution was ready to hand and anticipated little delay. His lordship, strolling up from the stables, met the news of the impending disruption of his household with equanimity until he remembered Lissa. He expressed proper concern for Miss Parminter’s aged relative and said that of course she must go to him at once; added carelessly that it would do Mary no harm to take a brief holiday—and then stopped short. “But what about Lissa?” he demanded urgently. “She cannot remain under my roof unchaperoned.”
Somewhere in the depths of Miss Parminter’s awareness an alarm was sounded. His lordship was too instantly concerned for a matter that should have been the merest afterthought. If no suitable arrangement could be made, Lissa could perfectly well go home for a few weeks. There was no occasion to devote such anxious attention to so small a matter, even to accomplishing the ruin of a beautifully tied cravat by tugging abstractedly at its folds while he wrestled with the problem. She said, rather repressively, “As to that, my lord, if the notion meets with your approval, I had thought that the Comtesse de Valmeuse might be persuaded to take my place for a little while; just until I can see for myself how matters stand with my uncle.”
His instant acquiescence was perhaps natural under the circumstances, but surely the relief and delight that he expressed were a little excessive? Her eyes suddenly opened to a danger that she had not anticipated, Miss Parminter mentally resolved to have a serious talk with Lissa before she took her departure.
She found it uncommonly difficult. The child was so absurdly innocent that hinting was of no avail. And to make the task even more awkward she was really not quite sure what it was that she feared. She sensed that his lordship was more interested in the girl than was wise or proper, but could not credit him with a deliberate attempt at seduction. If Lissa were to become aware of that interest she might well respond with an ardour that could sweep the pair of them into dangerous waters. Yet to warn the girl might precipitate the very crisis that she feared. She compromised by asking her to be particularly circumspect during her absence, saying that now she was almost grown up she must no longer expect the licence that was granted to a child. Lissa looked puzzled and distressed and asked at once if she had transgressed in any way. Poor Miss Parminter sighed and tried to explain. “It is just that your situation is of particular delicacy. I wish that I had not to leave you just now. You are devoted to his lordship I know, and seeing so much of him and his manners so free—not that he would ever go beyond the line—in short, my dear, it would not be at all strange if you were to fancy yourself in love with him. Girls of your age are prone to such romantical attachments. And I need not tell you that it would never do, for you are a sensib
le child, but I felt I should just drop a word in your ear. Nothing but heartache could come of it.”
She felt uneasily that she had already said too much for Lissa was gazing at her with eyes grown huge and pansy dark, as one stunned by some strange new vision, unsure as yet whether it promised good or ill, and even as she uttered her final warning a wave of colour flushed the delicate skin and the girl turned her head away from the anxious gaze. But after a moment or two she spoke, quietly enough.
“It was kind in you to think of me, and to warn me, dear Miss Parminter. But I think I stand in little danger. It is true that I love his lordship with my whole heart, but that brings me happiness, not heartache. My only wish is to serve him, and that I may do by helping his sister. I could never imagine myself ‘in love’ with him. It would seem—oh, I do not know how to say it—an impertinence, I think. A nameless waif daring to raise her eyes so high.” And then she shocked her preceptress to the core by adding wistfully, “It’s not as though I were pretty. He wouldn’t even want me as his mistress.”
“Good heavens, child! Never speak so again! Such thoughts should never enter your head, far less pass your lips. His lordship is by far too great a gentleman to nourish any such evil design, and you, I must pray, will learn to value yourself better. You have health and ability and good fortune as well, in that you are receiving a fine education to give you a start in life. You may reasonably hope to secure an eligible situation and perhaps in the fullness of time you may marry respectably. But not if you give utterance to such shocking sentiments! Meanwhile, here is my direction in Bloomsbury. Write and tell me how you all go on, for I daresay I shall be sadly homesick. And remember, child, I am your true friend. If ever you need help I shall be happy to serve you.” And Lissa hugged her and thanked her and apologised all in one breath so that she seemed a veritable child once more, and Miss Parminter was a little comforted.