An Accomplished Woman (26 page)

It was the first time,
Lydia observed, that Mrs Allardyce had said the words ‘my daughter’, though ‘my
son’ was often enough on her lips. Joining Juliet at the pianoforte, she felt
not only relief but a certain solidarity: not that Juliet seemed in any need of
it. That self-possession, Lydia divined, was really a necessary
self-sufficiency.

Meanwhile Mrs Allardyce
interrogated Phoebe, Mr Allardyce standing by with his look of judicious
tolerance and putting in a reproachful word here and there. It was plain that
he was the only person who opposed, or had found a way of opposing, his
mother’s will: plain too that she found a coy relish in this, which she would
not have tolerated from anyone else.

Presently he was coming
over to the pianoforte: his mother being too busy laying down some gimlet-eyed
law to Phoebe to notice for a moment.

‘Juliet — do you have
that Arne song you played in London? It was a particular favourite of Miss
Rae’s. We — that is, I should so like to hear it.’

‘Robert — Robert, what do
you do there? A song? Nonsense, come away. The place for music is at an evening
party.’

‘Then we shall have to
close the curtains, Mother, and call it evening: for I must have this song.’

Mrs Allardyce threw up
her hands, smiling archly. ‘There, Miss Rae — do you see how he rides roughshod
over me?’

Dear Papa,
wrote Lydia in her
thoughts,
it is very curious: I’ll go bail that Mrs Allardyce would have the
greatest contempt for such disreputable creatures as actresses: yet she is
acting her own character all the time.

‘You must play,’ Juliet
softly urged, with a touch on her arm. ‘Do, while you have the chance.’

Lydia was certainly glad
to feel the warm ivory beneath her fingers again, even in such circumstances.
The Arne song was a slight, fetching little piece that she had often heard sung
at Vauxhall Gardens, though seldom with such grave purity as Juliet Allardyce’s
excellent contralto gave to it. The piano part was simple enough for Lydia to
spare some glances for Phoebe and Mr Allardyce, who had gone back to a seat by
her side; their identical look of conscious attention, and the way their eyes
did
not
meet, seeming quite as significant as any amount of mooning. As
for Mrs Allardyce, her attention was all on them: there was none for her
daughter’s superior performance, which she seemed only glad to have done, so
that she could be talking again.

‘Well, Robert, you have
had your precious song: I hope you are in a way to be rational now.’

‘Thank you, Juliet, Miss
Templeton,’ he said, a little spur of earnestness showing awkwardly through his
habitual light manner. ‘You did it justice — ample justice — did they not, Miss
Rae?’

‘Oh, I never heard
anything more lovely,’ said Phoebe, for whom earnestness was only a step
further than being awake. ‘The only feeling it does not rouse in me is surprise
— for I do not believe there are two more accomplished women in England than
your sister and Miss Templeton. Indeed, if you were to hear her play on the
harp, you—’

‘Who has the dressing of
your hair, Miss Rae?’ put in Mrs Allardyce.

‘My maid, ma’am,’ Phoebe
said, after a surprised moment.

‘Then you may tell her
from me that she does it very well. The little coil at the crown — that is the
London fashion, I suppose, and very becoming. What do you say, Robert?’

‘You should know better,
Mother, than to ask a man such a thing. We are blind in these matters: we do
not know what to look for. A woman may come downstairs in one gown, and then in
another, and ask the man which one he likes best; and it is as certain as the
rising sun that
he
will say they both look very well, and
she
will
fall out of patience with him.’

‘Very true,’ said Lydia,
‘and is this not because he cannot be troubled to make the comparison?’

‘With respect, Miss
Templeton, it is not,’ he said, with his dry, slightly crooked smile. ‘The real
fact is, he has already forgotten what the first one looked like.’

‘Tut, Robert, such
nonsense,’ cried Mrs Allardyce. ‘You should not encourage him in it, Miss
Templeton. The truth is, after all, that men have something else to think of

‘Happy and fortunate for
the men,’ Lydia could not help saying.

‘Pooh, no bluestocking
notions here, if you please. I don’t care who hears me say it, I have no
patience with those clever women: they are forever envying men: and they are
always such shocking dowds.’

‘Now,
you
should
not be encouraged in such nonsense, Mother,’ Mr Allardyce said. ‘Mind and
elegance can, indeed often do, go together. And after all, you would surely
wish to be thought a clever woman yourself.’

‘I have sense, Robert,
which is vastly different from mere cleverness and book-learning. I know how to
recognise sense when I see it, and to value it; and I do not see what more one
needs to know. You will understand me, Miss Rae — you Scots are a prudent set.’

Even Juliet joined in
her brother’s laughing protest at that.

‘No, no, I say what I
think: that’s the way I am — and Miss Rae does not mind it, do you, my dear? I
have always found the Scots perfectly sensible and well-bred. Irish, that’s a
different matter. Have you connections in Scotland?’

‘Only very distant,
ma’am. Sir Henry Eastmond is my nearest kin.’

Mrs Allardyce looked
thoroughly satisfied with that. ‘I have not the pleasure of knowing the
Eastmonds, but Lady Eastmond I know by report: a woman welcome in all good
society, I hear; and of course my son has told me about her, from your
acquaintance in London. Robert approves her: and for all he is a provoking
creature, that is good enough for me.’

‘And of course you also,
Miss Allardyce,’ Lydia said to Juliet, who had taken a music-book into her lap,
and was sight-reading it, ‘had the pleasure of meeting my godmother in town.’

‘Oh, yes: she is all
openness: delightful,’ Juliet said, in her succinct way.

‘Well, she must be if
you
say so, my dear,’ Mrs Allardyce sniffed, ‘as you are very little inclined
to like people generally’

‘I like a good many
people, Mama,’ Juliet answered, with composure, just as there are a good many I
find intolerable.’

‘Well,
you
are fond
of society, Miss Rae, I know. My son has told me all about your triumphs in
town last winter. And it was your first out?’

‘Yes, ma’am — but I fear
Mr Allardyce has flattered me. My — my “triumphs” I cannot pretend to be
anything greater than not falling down any staircases, or forgetting people’s
names.’ She exchanged a brief sparking look with Mr Allardyce. ‘Or, at least,
only a few.’

‘Oh, I am shockingly bad
at remembering names, and I don’t care who knows it,’ cried Mrs Allardyce,
subjecting the pug to another pulverising caress. ‘It is easily managed: I just
say to them, “Now who
are
you?” People usually have sense enough not to
be offended.’

‘Or, perhaps, sufficient
politeness not to show it,’ Mr Allardyce suggested.

‘It comes to the same
thing,’ Mrs Allardyce said, with her cosseted shrug. ‘Now what age are you,
Miss Rae? Not yet one-and-twenty? I came out when I was sixteen. But then I was
ready. I had no fear of society. If there is fear in the case, thinks I, they
shall be afraid
of me.
But then you lived retired, of course — which I
never did — and you are an heiress. Your family showed sense in keeping you
back. Throw a young girl with fifty thousand pounds into the world too soon,
and there is bound to be trouble.’

Lydia, with much greater
knowledge of Phoebe’s situation, was beginning to feel exactly the opposite:
that Phoebe should have begun to know society earlier. Of course it was no use
saying any of this to Mrs Allardyce, who had set herself up as a woman of
strong opinions, meaning that she never listened to anyone else’s. There was
more to be gained for Lydia, during the short remainder of the call, by
silence, observation and reflection.

Certainly she did not
envy Phoebe her future mother-in-law, if such were to be the case; but then much
must depend on Robert Allardyce, and how he stood between them. He showed more
forbearance to his mother than Lydia thought was due — but then, she
was
his
mother. Mrs Allardyce’s attitude to her daughter was instructive too. Plainly
Juliet was not a favourite: just as plainly Mrs Allardyce was a man’s woman,
who would always find as much to condemn in her own sex as to condone in the
other. It was to the credit of both of them that Juliet seemed so attached to,
and unresentful of, her favoured brother.

Luckily, if any
prospective bride for her son could please Mrs Allardyce, it would be one of
Phoebe’s type — well-dressed, gentle, unassuming, and incapable of thinking ill
of anyone. And having been made privy to Mrs Allardyce’s ambitions for her son,
Lydia surmised that Phoebe’s fifty thousand pounds weighed heavily in her
favour also. Besides, even at the worst, there must be an eventual remedy for
the disadvantages of Phoebe’s situation: Mrs Allardyce
looked
as if she
would live for ever, and doubtless would trumpet her intention of doing so, but
sooner or later the happy moment must come that saw her finally contradicted.

None of this mattered,
of course, if Robert Allardyce were sincerely and profoundly attached. Lydia
thought he probably was: certainly she did not believe that the smooth
lightness and urbanity of his manner rendered him incapable of deep feeling (as
she suspected would be the opinion of the professionally tousled Mr Beck). But
it was hard to be sure; and there was the added dubiety of Phoebe’s own
feelings. They were written with all apparent plainness on her as the two of
them came away from Queen Square: subdued smiles, blushes, remarks that Mrs
Allardyce, though a little intimidating at first, seemed very good-natured (the
blindness of love indeed), and long rapt silences. But then came the High
Street, where Lydia could fancy a great brooding throb issuing from the
Christopher Hotel, darkening the air and making the sedan-chair men droop in
Gothic melancholy as they passed; and it was noticeable that Phoebe did not
talk any more of Queen Square, and surreptitiously put her hand to her reticule
to make sure the precious papers were still there.

In spite of herself,
Lydia could not help but be curious about the contents of the
Interlocutor.
(No,
that title was not quite right. The
Examiner?
No, too scholastic.) Back
at Sydney Place, Phoebe fell greedily to reading it; but when dinner
approached, and she went upstairs to dress, she left it behind, and Lydia
pounced.

She took in the bulk of
the contents quickly: essays, reviews, political articles — unsigned, but in
their uniformity of style suggesting that Mr Beck had written most of them
himself. She gave him credit for his energy, and even a brief glance showed
them to be full of ideas — even if the ideas were not so much set out as poured
in like a shovelful of chestnuts on a fire. But there was anonymous verse too:
much apostrophising of landscape with many a ‘Hail rugged spot’ and so on.
(Lydia always wondered about that — what made you want to Hail a spot, rugged
or otherwise, and how did you go about it?) But there was one poem, prominently
displayed, which was signed WM. BECK: the signature denoted pride, and demanded
attention.

The following is
extracted from a much longer Work, a poem in Heroic Measure, to which the
author tentatively assigns the title, ‘The Open Field: or, a Reverie Upon A
Rural Prospect With Figures’. N.B. — The Speaker of the poem, is supposed to be
a young man of Parts and Talents, but a prey to Melancholy, engendered by the
Objects of Pity and Tenderness operating upon a Nature too much framed for
Sensibility for its own Peace.

See where the milking
maid, with mantling blush

 Her squeezish task
a moment sets aside:

With care her lacteous
bucket safely stows

Beyond the reach of
bovine hoof, and turns,

 Half pouting, half
delight, her swain to view:

 The gloved hedger
— who, at this regard

His wonted steadiness
surrenders quite:

 With am’rous
shakes his heavy load he drops,

Though as her glances
roguish still invite,

He firmer grips his
needful implement . . .

‘Miss Templeton?’ Mary
Darber’s alarmed face appeared at the door. ‘Oh, miss, are you quite well — I
heard such a noise—’

‘Me. Coughing.’ Lydia
wiped her eyes and tried with deep breaths to compose herself. ‘Me coughing,
Mary, that’s all. So dry and dusty today

‘Dry and dusty sort of
place,’ Mary said, with settled antipathy. ‘I declare it’s made you quite red
in the face, miss. I’ll get you some water — no, I’ll tell you what’s best for
soothing a throat like that — milk. There’s a fresh half-pint downstairs—’

And it came from a
lacteous bucket.
‘No, no, thank you, Mary, really it’s not—’
Not needful, like the
hedger’s implement.
‘Really, I do very well, thank you.’