A Song Twice Over (9 page)

Certainly there
was
a whole wide world stretching beyond her husband's ornate and very solid front door. Of course she knew that, could even smell it all too clearly sometimes whenever she was obliged to drive through Market Street in the summer, a wisp of cambric soaked in lavender water held to her nose. But she counted it her good fortune never to have been obliged to venture too far. She had everything she desired in her home, in
him
, and whenever he became a little
too
autocratic, as all gentlemen sometimes did – one knew that – then she had her own pretty ways of coaxing him back, without a cross word spoken, to good humour.

She was not clever, of course, and would say as much to anyone who cared to know, freely admitting that numbers were a mystery to her and anything but the very lightest of novels beyond her grasp. Why not? Since everyone knew that gentlemen did not care for clever women. Sweetness and prettiness were what counted, and Amabel Dallam was pretty in everything, from her dainty frilled and beribboned dresses to the crystallized fruits she nibbled in place of luncheon; from her violet-scented writing paper and her violet-coloured ink to the silk-upholstered landau in which she drove out, shaded by a fringed parasol, to deliver her letters; from the lace butterfly caps which sat like gossamer on her honey-gold ringlets to her butterfly hands, hovering all day about a piece of fine embroidery, at which no one ever saw her take a stitch.

Pretty too, not only in her genuine helplessness in all practical matters but in her gratitude to the many who undertook them in her place, so that her servants grew protective towards her and usually stayed with her longer than they had ever intended. Pretty in her impulsive generosity, the ease with which her sympathy could be stirred and her purse strings opened. Easily-put-upon, in fact, had not her husband watched over her so carefully.

In short, a contented woman, finding herself in the one situation to which she was ideally suited, conforming as naturally to the rules of Etiquette as if they had been written on her behalf, her own experience of marriage which was, indeed, the only career open to a woman of good birth and good manners, so very pleasant that it puzzled her to see her only daughter still single, by her own choice, at twenty-two.

That Amabel loved her daughter was beyond question. Nor did she even remember, now, her faint whisper of regret that this precious only child had grown to resemble her sensible, serviceable father instead of her pretty mother. Gemma was Gemma and, therefore, perfect. Adorable. And if, when she had chosen her daughter's name, the ‘gems'in her mind had been delicate seed pearls, elegantly sparkling diamonds, rather than the square-cut amethyst in a heavy gold setting which Gemma had become, then she had forgotten that too. Not that the dear child was large or clumsy, simply rather more dignified in her build, ‘stronger'than present Fashion liked to see, having inherited John-William's squareness instead of Amabel's fashionably sloping shoulders, John-William's capable hands and feet, designed for standing firmly on the ground; a fitting occupation for him, of course, but something not really to be encouraged in a young lady.

She had his brown eyes too, instead of Amabel's cloudy blue, set beneath well-marked eyebrows which had been known to come together – like his – in a frown, his rather olive complexion, straight brown hair that was neither dark enough to be called brunette nor light enough to lay claim to blonde. And, moreover, when it became apparent that Nature had not blessed her, she had lacked the necessary vanity to attempt improvements. Nor Amabel the resolution to force her.

Amabel herself, at her own mother's insistence, had worn tight-laced whalebone stays day
and
night from the age of thirteen until her marriage when sleeping in corsets had become inappropriate. But when Gemma, in her turn, had wept at the discomfort, Amabel had wept with her, allowing the laces to be loosened so that her daughter's waist had grown with the rest of her, to a full twenty-four inches, which made her bosom, by contrast, seem smaller than Dame Fashion decreed.

Yet her smile – her mother insisted – was lovely, her temperament generous and loyal, her accomplishments numerous –
too
many, perhaps, in a girl destined by rank and wealth to idleness – and Amabel, who was loyal too, had once spoken sharply – for her – to Mrs Braithwaite of Braithwaite & Son, worsted manufacturers, for describing Gemma as ‘sturdy'.
And
Lady Lark of Moorby Hall for calling her ‘studious'.

Sturdy and studious. Amabel still trembled at the memory of it. But these calumnies had taken place
after
Gemma's rejection of Ben Braithwaite and Felix Lark in marriage, so what else had it been but spite? And when Gemma had gone on to reject Uriah Colclough of the iron foundry and Jacob Lord of Lord's brewery, she had consoled herself with the thought that none of them had been quite good enough. Gemma, after all, could marry absolutely anybody she wanted. Gemma's mother choosing to close her mind, a little, to the fact that, so far as Frizingley was concerned, her choices were running out.

And then Tristan Gage had burst upon their horizon, taking Amabel's breath away, no matter the effect he may have had on Gemma's, so that she had at once detected the happy sound of wedding bells. And what a romantic bridegroom he would be. Not rich, alas, like the Braithwaites and Colcloughs, and with no title to bestow like Felix Lark, but well-born just the same, and with that air of ‘the great world'about him, of ‘London'as opposed to ‘provincial'society, so alluring to a woman like Amabel who had never quite dared to venture into it.

His mother had been the dearest friend of her childhood, a fascinating,
fashionable
creature even at fourteen, who had married romantically – whereas Amabel had simply married
well
– becoming the wife of the younger son of a baronet who had expected to inherit one of the family's various titles, from which only the frail life of a cousin or an ageing uncle had separated him. But Fate, alas for her dear friend Laura Gage, had not so decreed. The young cousin had survived to become
Sir
this or the other. The decrepit uncle had married on his death bed and lingered to produce a son. Nor had Fortune smiled over-warmly in the matter of investments, appointments, games of chance.

Yet nevertheless, for all her troubles, Mrs Laura Gage had lived what had always seemed to Amabel to be a thrilling life in such places as Belgravia, Knightsbridge, Cheltenham, Bath, returning North once or twice a year to see her family and her ‘sweet Amabel' from whom, in the most discreet and delightful manner, she would occasionally borrow a little money and show herself most grateful when Amabel tactfully converted her usual Christmas and birthday presents to the Gage children into cash.

Amabel had invited them both to stay with her when their father died – Linnet, an enchantingly pretty girl of fourteen, Tristan a year younger – and had written affectionately to Linnet ever after, completely unaware that she had seen in this slender, fair-haired, wholly feminine creature, the reflection of herself which she missed in Gemma.

Linnet was destined to become a great beauty and the bride of a titled gentleman. Both her mother, Mrs Gage, and her godmother, Mrs Dallam, had been quite sure of that, although an engagement entered into at the age of nineteen had come to nothing, while several other suitors had been unable to proceed for the lack of a dowry. Poor dear Linnet. She was twenty-four now, as lovely in the correct pale-porcelain fashion, as her doting Aunt Amabel had expected, dainty and delicious and thoroughly worn-out – although she would never admit it – from nursing her mother in her final illness, in circumstances of genteel poverty which made Amabel shudder.

Quite naturally she had rushed to the rescue, inviting the poor orphan at once to Frizingley where she had proved so agreeable a companion, so full of charm and wit and ‘London'manners –
so
like her mother – that Amabel had fallen happily and completely under her spell.

And then the long summer recess of the House of Commons had brought an adult and fascinating Tristan from Westminster where he had been eking out a living – wasting himself, said his sister – as secretary to some minor political gentleman; a young and very nonchalant Adonis, tall and fair with the thoroughbred slenderness and elegance of a greyhound, making light of his troubles and no secret at all of his appreciation of his dear Aunt Amabel's excellent dinners.

Was it too much to hope that Gemma might be charmed by him too? And surely, if this turned out to be what Gemma wanted, her father would not withhold consent, being well able to afford a luxury of this kind for his daughter, and having taken no steps to dictate her choice of a husband other than making absolutely certain that she met no one to whom one might seriously object.

From the day of his arrival Amabel had prayed for it. Gemma and Tristan. Linnet. The new house she had set her heart on in the still unspoiled countryside around Frizingley so that she might be spared the alarms and odours of the town. Just those few little miracles, oh Lord, and she would be forever content. Tristan and Gemma. And as they came into the drawing-room, her serious, brown-haired, ‘sturdy'daughter and carefree, gold and ivory Tristan, not hand in hand precisely but looking as if they ought to be or perhaps
had
been, her heart began at once to flutter, her small hand to reach out excitedly to Linnet.

But Linnet Gage, for whom her brother's marriage to Gemma – or rather to Gemma's dowry and expectations and the goodwill of her mother – was of the most vital importance, neglected, for the first time, to make a dash for her ‘dear aunt's'smelling bottle, leaving her to get on with her palpitations while she glided towards the – surely by now? –
engaged
couple, graceful even in her moments of agitation, only her voice betraying her by its sharpness as she called out ‘Tristan?'

‘Yes,' he said quickly, putting her out of her misery at once, knowing all too well what this marriage would mean to her. A secure home at last. An established role in Frizingley society which, although depressingly provincial and limited was better, as both brother and sister had agreed, than hanging on to the fringes of London as their mother had done, keeping up her pretences until they had killed her, and fooling no one in the end. Above all a chance for Linnet to find, among these rough and ready northern millionaires a husband for herself. And since Tristan Gage greatly admired his sister and, in his amiable, rather lazy fashion, had long been in the habit of following her advice – more often than not – it seemed to him that any one of these Braithwaites and Colcloughs should be downright grateful to get her.

‘Yes, Linnet – Aunt Amabel – aren't I the luckiest fellow alive … She said yes, don't you know.'

And then, having pressed her cool, pale cheek fervently against her brother's, and bestowed a brief kiss upon Gemma, making a great show of bending down – ‘Darling, we are to be sisters' – Linnet was all concern for her dear aunt's emotions, supplying in swift succession, her smelling bottle, her cambric handkerchief, her violet-scented writing paper so that a note could be instantly despatched to her husband at the mill.

‘My darling girl, I am so very glad.' Gemma was embraced over and over again by her mother, whose bliss grew larger every time she spoke of it. ‘Dear Laura's son. All I wish is that you be as happy together as I am, with your father.'

And smiling, Gemma accepted her mother's happiness – and her father's – knowing it to be real yet saddened by her own inability to feel at ease with it. She loved her father, admired his hard-headed, hard-wearing qualities, respected his integrity and – more often than not – his judgement. Yet she knew that to become the childlike, doll-like wife of such a man would seem no better to her than a gradual suffocation in honey and velvet. She loved her mother. Yet only, she realized, as the child, the doll to be petted and played with, the cooing dove to whom her strong, sure father hurried home each evening with such perfect content. And although she was glad with all her heart that their form of marriage
did
content them she had known, for a long time, that for her it had all the makings of a trap.

‘You will be happy, won't you, love?' For a moment Amabel, understanding happiness only as she had learned it from her husband, looked anxious.

‘Yes mother. Very happy.'

And responding at once to her daughter's stronger character, her far more natural authority, Amabel's frown was gone.

‘Then we must have champagne at once – do tell Mrs Drubb. And oh – my darlings – do you think a
Christmas
wedding? Lovely – how lovely, with holly in the church and white velvet, and Christmas roses. The very best time of year.'

And a midsummer grandchild perhaps, for her to smother in lace and swansdown and affection; to provide her with yet another reason for persuading her husband to buy her the house of her dreams on a green hillside miles and miles out of this smoky, hideous old town. Clean air for the child? John-William would surely listen to that.

‘Invitations,' she said. ‘Guest lists. The trousseau. Bridesmaids. The
complications
. Good Heavens.'

‘Dear Aunt Amabel,' murmured Linnet. ‘I am here to help you.'

And they sat down together, their scented heads very close, infinitely confidential, to begin their preparations, leaving Tristan smiling vaguely out of the window, feeling himself somewhat surplus to their requirements but not liking to appear ungracious by hurrying away to take his horse to the blacksmith, the destination for which he had been heading when Gemma had intercepted him. ‘We must go and tell mother,' she'd said. Here he was. And now, with the sort of composure he was used to in Linnet, it was Gemma, with a frank, straightforward smile he thought both friendly and reasonable, who gave him leave to go.