An Accomplished Woman (10 page)

This left Edmund: never
a favourite with his father, as lacking that boisterous assertion which the old
squire considered as manliness, and too bookish for his patience. Still, even
this seemed not incompatible with the appropriate destiny of a younger son. It
was absolutely expected at Heystead and in the district that Edmund Templeton
would enter the church.

But Edmund Templeton
refused to be educated for a clergyman. There were scruples — almost doubts.
These in themselves, his baffled father considered, were scarcely enough to
warrant the boy’s refusal — he did not know one parson in three who believed in
the cant he was obliged to produce of a Sunday; and indeed Edmund did not take
up his position wholly on a negative. Instead, he had a settled desire for his
future profession, which was medicine. And for all that he was less forceful
than his brothers, he had a quiet determination all his own.

It was a determination
that Squire Templeton regarded as nothing less than a malicious intent to lower
the family name. A profession medicine might be, but the lowest, fit for
Scotchmen and the sons of merchants. There were many heavy sarcasms about
starveling apothecaries, and even more violent expressions of displeasure,
before a reluctant consent, hardly to be distinguished from rejection, saw the
young Edmund depart Heystead for his medical studies, first at London and then
Leyden, on a meagre allowance.

It was while Edmund was
studying in Holland for his licentiate that his father died a conventional
death of gout and apoplexy, and his eldest brother Francis entered into his
inheritance; or, rather, flung himself into it. He commenced a career of hard
riding and hard drinking, of high living and high spending, and of the kind of
amorous adventure that left his liberty unencumbered and bis reputation
exalted. Soon afterwards Charles, the middle son, died gloriously of malarial
fever on his first posting abroad; and in the meantime Edmund, having qualified
as a physician, set up in practice in London. To his natural gifts he added
learning and diligence: he began to thrive, and presently counted distinguished
families amongst his patients. There was little communication between him and
Heystead; but the young squire would sometimes remark, when in his cups, that
his curious brother who had gone for a sawbones was doing pretty well for
himself after all.

As the proprietor of
Heystead was not. Properly managed, the estate should have yielded a
comfortable income. But Francis Templeton was more concerned with the
well-being of his highbred hunters than of his low-born tenants; and by his
thirty-fifth year, he had mortgaged everything he could, and found himself at
the end of his credit. Being still handsome, and being still of
good birth
—
a natal distinction that no subsequent amount of vice and folly could cancel
out — he formed the easy project of marrying money, and a short foray into the
London marriage-market soon settled the business. He contracted an engagement
with the young heiress to a City brewing fortune; and returned to Heystead for
what he pleasantly referred to as his last hunting-season of freedom.

But a fortnight before
what he termed his delivery into matrimonial custody, Francis Templeton drove
his mount at a perilously high fence — for the last time. Both horse and rider
were carried from the field with broken necks: the widow-to-be mourned, the
moralists wagged their heads, and the creditors of the late squire prepared to
press their claims on the estate. This now passed to the London physician, Dr
Edmund Templeton; and it was confidently expected in the neighbourhood that he
would waste no time in selling Heystead, and realising what he could from a
property much encumbered and dilapidated, and surely lacking fond associations
for him.

Instead the new heir,
after a period of reflection, left his London house and practice, and came to
take up residence at the Priory. For all that he had seldom been happy there,
Dr Templeton loved the old building, cherished its antiquity, and respected
what it stood for; and the man who had been the family disappointment applied
himself with industry and shrewdness to the repairing of Heystead’s fortunes.
The estate was set in order, renewed and improved with such success that the
debts of the late incumbent were cleared within two years; Dr Templeton
continuing in the meantime to practise as a country physician, and securing as
high a reputation with his patients as with his tenants.

His own wants and tastes,
perhaps as a result of the early habits of economy forced upon him, remained
modest. The chief employment of his leisure was in scholarly pursuits, in which
his painstaking intelligence had long delighted; the only indulgence of his
prosperity, the stocking of an excellent library. If prudence had prevented him
marrying young, it was generally assumed, as he turned thirty-five, that choice
had now replaced necessity; and in the wide circle of friendly acquaintance
that his temper and his talents had procured him, he was confirmed as a
bachelor until the very eve of his wedding.

Rosina Holdsworth came
into rural Lincolnshire as a gorgeously plumed and exotic bird might stray into
a flock of starlings. She was the orphaned daughter of a wealthy and ambitious
London lawyer, who had bestowed on her a comfortable fortune, which had seemed
likely to be augmented by the much older brother who was her guardian when he
brought her out in society in the winter of 1765. The brother, a prominent man
in Parliament and aiming high in the ministry, had hoped to extend his
influence by the profitable disposing of his sister’s hand; and the
twenty-year-old Rosina, accomplished, vivacious, and every bit as hauntingly
beautiful as her recent portrait by Gainsborough presented her, did not lack
for distinguished admirers. A favourite candidate was at length chosen — that
is, her brother forcefully pressed the match, and Rosina seemed to acquiesce in
it. The man was past thirty, and neither handsome nor sensible; but he had an
uncle in the Treasury and an aunt at Court, and there were coronets on his
family tree.

The contracts were being
drawn up when Rosina made the shocking defection that so outraged respectable
opinion. She had fallen secretly and passionately in love with another man. Her
brother had known and suspected nothing about it, until the night Rosina ran
away with him.

The man was a soldier:
young, good-looking, fascinating and, as presently appeared, quite without
scruple. Mr Holdsworth’s frantic enquiries had not succeeded in tracing the
runaways until it was too late. Whether Rosina’s soldier had ever proposed or
contemplated a Gretna marriage was not to be known: certainly he had tired very
soon of the game, and after the satisfaction of those appetites that she had
mistaken for devotion, he swiftly deserted her for a fortuitous posting
overseas. Rosina had little choice but to throw herself on her brother’s mercy.
Even now, she might have shrunk from that — but she had two lives to consider,
not one.

That Rosina’s brother
did not absolutely turn her out of doors was due less to compassion than
calculation. Society might conclude that Miss Holdsworth’s reputation was
conclusively lost after such an adventure; but still, not all the facts were
known, rumour could cast doubt as well as convict — and in short, if she were
not pregnant, something might yet be salvaged.

She was: but presently
she was not. Rosina miscarried her soldier’s child — and this could not be
hidden from the London world’s watchful eyes, and Mr Holdsworth was foolish if
he supposed it might be. Doctors, callers, servants — the truth might creep out
in a dozen places, and did.

There was only one
recourse for Mr Holdsworth. As a public man, he must sacrifice his familial
feelings on the stern altar of morality. He cut off all communication with his
sister, depositing her with a female relative too ancient and obscure to
understand what was going on. He made sure the world was aware that poverty
would not be added to Miss Holdsworth’s disgrace, as she would retain her
parental portion (which he could not touch). But beyond that, he would have
nothing to do with her.

Meanwhile Rosina
accepted her banishment without protest, or any demonstration of feeling except
a desolate blankness. Retirement with the bewildered old lady at Chelsea
offered a sort of peace; but such wounds as her body and spirit had received
could only be healed by a more active treatment. So thought Harriet Eastmond.

Harriet and Rosina had
been at school together, and had renewed their friendship in London the
previous winter. As the elder by two years, Harriet had always tended to add to
the role of confidante that of counsellor. Where Rosina’s first season had
ended in disaster, her friend’s had been happily crowned by marriage to Sir
Henry Eastmond, an uneventful baronet of thirty with a good property in
Lincolnshire, a stumbling manner, and a very large jaw. The bride, having seen
and approved her new home, paid her wedding-visits, and accustomed herself to
the embarrassing novelty of being addressed as Lady Eastmond, now descended on
her friend at Chelsea.

She remained steadfastly
loyal to Rosina; and was the more eager to be of use to her now, from a
suspicion that she had neglected their friendship at a crucial time, when her
advice might have prevented Miss Holdsworth’s worst misjudgements. Lady
Eastmond had then been much occupied with the matter of her own engagement, and
could surely be forgiven her inattention — but she did not forgive herself, and
was determined to repair the omission.

In spite of the several
sympathetic letters she had received from Harriet during her reclusive summer
at Chelsea, Rosina had scarcely been able to conceive even her best friend’s
remaining faithful to her. But the arrival of Lady Eastmond herself, all
fondness, generosity and encouragement, left no room for doubt. And Lady
Eastmond did not come to say cheering things and go away again. She had a plan
in view. Rosina must not consider her life at an end. Rosina was going to begin
it anew, and her old friend was going to help her.

The issue was not
decided at once. Grateful though she was for Lady Eastmond’s kindness, Rosina
quailed at the idea of re-entering the inimical world. Her late experiences had
left her a shrinking, stiff, withdrawn woman. Lady Eastmond, though careful not
to reveal it, had been shocked at the change in her; but she would not allow
this appearance to weaken her resolve.

The country: there lay
Rosina’s salvation. Good air and broad prospects would restore her health, while
the limited society of a country neighbourhood, far from both the knowing
sophistication of London and its painful associations, would gently reintroduce
her to company, and assist her to a better opinion of herself. Such was Lady
Eastmond’s plan of campaign, and Osterby — the Lincolnshire seat of her
compliant new husband — was to be the place. Rosina was to stay as long as she
liked, to be sociable or be quiet, just as she liked; and she was to consider
herself entirely under the protection of her friend, who would shield her
against the remotest of slights, and bolster her wounded reputation with her
own.

The doubts, the
hesitations were not few; but they must have been much greater, to have
withstood the persuasions of Lady Eastmond, commencing a long career of
benevolent coercion; and at last the Eastmonds’ travelling-coach bore the
notorious Rosina Holdsworth north, to a destination wholly unfamiliar to her.

Osterby lay in the
south-west of Lincolnshire, in a civilised country of flourishing brown soil,
green water-meadows and low, wooded lulls: the house stood commodious, neat and
symmetrical as the drawing of a careful child, in a well-barbered park.
Certainly this was a place for ease, for recuperation; and there were
sufficient families in the district to permit a gentle immersion in company,
without any danger of getting in over her head.

It was in this part of
her friend’s rehabilitation that Lady Eastmond found the least success at
first. A hundred miles was no absolute bar to the spread of gossip and
innuendo: if there was no hostility, there was a prurient curiosity of which
Rosina, in her state of flayed self-consciousness, could not fail to be aware.
Accordingly she shied away from all but the most unavoidable of company: took
her walks as far as the next parish, but no further: was perforce present when
her hosts gave a dinner, but could not be prevailed upon to dine out; and after
six months at Osterby, though her health and to some extent her spirits were
improved, she had only the most trifling acquaintance around the neighbourhood,
and had exchanged her dubious reputation for the less exciting one of
impenetrable reserve.

There was one exception:
a ripening friendship scarcely remarked, because of the quietness of the
parties, and the casual manner of their meeting. Sir Henry Eastmond was older
than his years in many ways, particularly in his cultivating a rich crop of
ailments. He had never found a satisfactory physician before the coming into
the district of Dr Edmund Templeton, in whom he soon placed an abiding trust.
Dr Templeton’s house at Heystead being only five miles off, he was often at
Osterby, sometimes to consult, sometimes simply to listen as a friend, and
placate the baronet’s anxious mind. Lady Eastmond soon learned to value and
esteem their frequent visitor, in part for his relieving her of some portion of
marital tedium, but also for his sound sense, talents, and amiable temper. It
actually occurred to her that such a man ought to be married, before she
noticed the increasing civility, the marks of mutual sympathy and regard,
between Dr Templeton and Miss Holdsworth; but once the two ideas were put
together in Lady Eastmond’s mind, there was room for nothing else.