An Accomplished Woman (4 page)

Of course, Susannah had
a practical aim in view. When Lydia and George’s father died — and Dr
Templeton, though in fair health, was nearly seventy — George would become the
master and Susannah the mistress of Heystead Priory. She would not want an
unmarried sister-in-law prowling the galleries of the old house like a family
ghost. Well, let her fly away in a high wind on a broomstick. Lydia had no
intention of marrying to
oblige —
any more than she had nine years ago,
when she had turned down the most eligible man in the district.

And perhaps that had
been productive of a little irritation too — the mention of Lewis Durrant. But
George, being George, could not forbear bringing up the subject again at
dinner.

‘Oh! yes,’ he said,
interrupting his manly flourishings of the carving-knife. ‘1 was telling Lydia,
my dear, that I ran into an acquaintance of ours. I’m not sure you ever met
Hugh Hanley — but you remember, I think, meeting Mr Lewis Durrant at Heystead last
summer?’

‘Oh! to be sure,’
Susannah said, turning her smiling sweetness on Lydia. ‘Your old beau!’

Old beau. It suggested a
powdered wig, ruffles, and face-patches. ‘An old friend,’ Lydia said
temperately.

‘Well, young Hanley’s
his nephew — and his heir, as Durrant never married—’

‘Lord, another one,’
Susannah murmured.

(And a sword and a
silver snuff-box.)

‘Last time I saw the
young rip he was fashionable enough. But now he’s setting up as the greatest
swell you ever saw.’ George sniffed the mutton appreciatively. ‘Made me wonder,
you know, seeing him all fligged up, how I would feel if young Georgie started
living high on his expectations like that. Dice and horses and so on.’

‘Oh, but that’s quite a
different case,’ Susannah said. ‘Georgie is your
son,
and filial feeling
must always prevail. Mr Durrant is only the young man’s uncle — and uncles and
aunts, you know, can never be very important to the feelings. Only between
parent and child does one find the true sacred bond. After all,’ she accused
Lydia, ‘look how uncommonly attached you are to
your
father.’

(‘Pon my soul — sink
me!’ cried the beau, lifting his quizzing-glass.) ‘Papa and I are very good
friends, certainly,’ Lydia said. ‘I am fortunate in my home life, where there is
no disparity of mind or taste: no malice to be encountered, or dullness to be
endured.’

Susannah laughed her
silvery laugh. ‘Yes — I do like to think of you two pottering about amongst
your books. Oh, I should love to see dear Heystead again. Does my tree still
flourish as beautifully as ever?’

‘That’s the great oak,
on the rise before you strike the path to the fish-ponds,’ George put in.
‘Susannah is so very fond of it — she calls it her tree.’

‘It is so noble — it
seems to spread out its great arms in welcome,’ Susannah said. ‘Do, Lydia,
remember me to my tree.’

‘Certainly,’ Lydia said
reaching for her wine. ‘It is always asking after you.’

‘That won’t be long
now,’ George said, with a gentle plunge into melancholy: Lydia was to leave for
home the day after next. ‘Can’t believe it. Only seems a moment since you
arrived . . . Well — tomorrow night we must give you a proper farewell,’ he
went on decisively. ‘I say we go to Vauxhall. Music and supper and rack-punch
and so on. Then I shall get a sore head and not be able to do what I want to
do, which is make you stay with us longer.’

‘Oh! dear George,’ cried
Susannah, slinking round the back of his chair, and fastening her arms around
his neck like a lovely noose. ‘The things you do say!’

For
you,
Miss
Templeton,’ the maid said the next morning, coming upon Lydia reading alone in
the drawing-room, ‘Lady Eastmond.’

‘Yes, it’s me, my dear,
and too late for you to hide in the escritoire, not that you could as it’s too
small altogether, and why must we call a writing-desk by a French name, I ask
you? It’s not as if one
writes
in French, though
you
could to be
sure, and Italian no doubt. German too perhaps? You must tell me. If you run to
Swedish, mind, I shall doubt you. One only presumes or supposes that there
is
such a language as Swedish. There are, assuredly, Swedes, but beyond that I
cannot go. Come: kiss me: old women are allowed to demand this — indeed how
else are they to get kisses at all? Contrast young women, who must be begged for
them, a matter of name your price in fact.
You
might name any price,
I’ll venture. And so where then
is
George, though don’t tell me, he is
toiling in the vaults — which is what I conceive men do in banks, or do they do
something else entirely? — and charming Mrs Templeton, whither she? Not that I
mind in the least, because I wanted thoroughly to
have
you to myself,
and here you are.’

‘And here you are, and
now sit down, you’re making me giddy, besides wearing out the carpet. Yes,
George is at Craven Street, and Susannah I think has taken the children for an
airing—’

‘Makes them sound almost
like bed-linen, does it not? Or at least as bed-linen should be, though I went
to stay
many
years ago at Burghley, which is made such a great thing of,
and there was not only dampness but
residue.
If I mention hairs that
resemble the tiny springs inside watches I need say no more. For myself I
recommend country washing and no bleaching — of course, with poor Henry these
things are more a matter of necessity than choice.’

‘Sir Henry’s health does
not improve?’

‘It does not
degenerate,
but it does not improve — it’s delightfully like you, by the by, to
enquire, you dear thing — and the doctor is inclined to suggest that Henry does
not sufficiently
rouse
himself. I have answers for the doctor in
that
regard, but never mind.’ Lady Eastmond at last seated herself. ‘My dear
Lydia, I needed to see you. First, to refresh my old eyes with the sight. They
are refreshed. Second, to ask how you do. I know we have run into one another
while you have been in town, but still not
often —
you have too much
sense to move in the sort of circles in which
this
old body rattles her
perennial bag of bones.’

‘My dear Lady Eastmond,
I do very well, and so, I collect, do you, as you show already more energy than
I can command in a twelvemonth. And I am waiting for the
third.
Which in
fairytales is always rather important and alarming.’

Lady Eastmond,
uncharacteristically, even uniquely, was silent.

‘Dear me. I hope not bad
news.’ Fear rapped at Lydia’s chest. ‘You have heard nothing untoward from my
father?’

‘Bless you, nothing of
the shape. Your father is good enough to write me often, and the last I heard
he was very much himself, excited about the discovery of a manuscript fragment
at Boston. Medieval, I fancy. The very word puts me flat in the dismals but
then I’ve no more brain than a butterfly. No, the third, my dear, is a sort of
request, but nothing of great consequence. Now my memory is going with my teeth
but I
think
the last time we met — wasn’t it at the Hanover Square
concert-rooms, where there was that frightful Italian singer?’

‘Madame Bartolini. Her
voice is not what it was five years ago, though I think she makes better faces
now.’

‘And there, I believe,
you told me you would be leaving town before the end of April.’

‘Just so: I depart for
Heystead tomorrow.’

‘Ah, a pity, we might
have travelled up to Lincolnshire together, but I cannot think of leaving
before next week — I have been donkey enough to promise
two
friends my
attendance at their receptions, sad dull squeezes you would find them and
doubtless so shall I, but then as Henry often reproaches me I have never
learned to say no. And here’s an example for you,’ Lady Eastmond said, with her
liquid laugh, gripping her bonnet with both hands. ‘You’re too well-bred to
stare as you want to, my dear, but trust me I am thoroughly aware that no
scarecrow ever looked more hideous — only my milliner was so
very
persuasive
and before I knew it the disastrous purchase was made. Thirty years younger,
and handsomer than I ever was, and one might carry it off.’

The hat was a crimson
crownless straw with very little brim, fastening under the chin, and topped
with black plumes. Not a hat to flatter large features or a sallow complexion;
and Lady Eastmond, never of delicate looks, was at nearly sixty as brown as a
root with a face little smaller than a horse’s. Yet it was a face in its way
splendid, and easy to live with. The great Roman nose alone was like a
declaration of unaffected honesty. She was Lydia’s godmother: much loved by
her: much liked by her vast circle of acquaintance. She possessed both warmth
and sense, but not so much of the first as to make people sneer at her, nor so
much of the second as to make them fear her.

‘I like the hat very
well,’ Lydia said. ‘It has a — decided air. Will you have a glass of ratafia?’

‘Bless you for a
charming fibster, my dear, and thank you, the only cordial I need is the sight
of you, and now where were we? At the concert-rooms to be sure - and
there,
I
don’t need to remind you with your prodigious memory, I introduced you to my
ward, Miss Rae. The work of a moment, alas, as I recollect the little gadfly
was off the moment she’d made her curtsey, but more of
that
anon.’

‘Auburn hair — the true
red-gold one never sees — very pretty, and slight. I do remember.’

‘Pretty, as you say, my
dear, and too pretty for the peace of anyone entrusted with her care, when you
add to her looks her prospective fortune. I could hardly talk of it when she
was by, and presently that singer started her noise, but now we are tête-à-tête
I may give you the history. She came to us before Christmas. I say
my
ward,
but she is from Henry’s side of the family — her mother was his cousin. The
Raes of Edinburgh. Not at all a fashionable family, but highly respectable and
very
rich. The father died when she was a girl, and then, an only child, she was
brought up by the mother in a way that was quiet but — dare I say indulgent?
Well, Mrs Rae died last year, and then the poor girl was shuffled about various
relatives until the courts decreed that Henry be appointed her guardian until
her coming of age. Henry was content enough — that is, one supposes so: it is
often difficult to tell what Henry feels, though there are certain physical
manifestations . . . However, I was delighted. Lacking children of our own, I
thought it quite a blessing — oh, I still do, don’t mistake me — and when I
first set eyes on her, I knew I should love her. Now when she came to us, I was
about to set out for town for the season as I always do — and though staying at
Osterby for the winter suits Henry very well, I thought it the dullest prospect
for a girl of scarce twenty — and when I proposed that she come to London with
me, she was all eagerness.’

Lady Eastmond made a
sort of apologetic pause. Her kindly nature had, like everyone’s, its pockets
of selfishness: one was her refusal to give up her London season for anything.
The pause gave room for recognition of this fact, and for Lydia’s fond
allowance for it.

‘I am sure nothing could
have pleased her better,’ Lydia said, ‘especially if her life has been so
retired. You suggested her father was wealthy?’

‘Partly, I think, from
being a monstrous nip-cheese,’ Lady Eastmond whispered, ‘but no matter. The
fact is, Phoebe is heiress on her majority to fifty thousand pounds.’

‘A sizeable sum,’ Lydia
said, suppressing the urge to whistle. ‘Also, I fancy, a sizeable
responsibility for you.’

‘I knew you would
understand, my dear. Not that I don’t shoulder the responsibility gladly — she
is an absolutely charming creature, and it’s well for an idle old rattle like
me to have something to occupy her. And it has been a delight introducing her
to town: will you believe she has never been in London in her life before,
except once as a child? — and
then
her father kept to their lodgings the
whole time and allowed her to see nothing. She really has lived quite out of
the world and is absolutely artless and unspoiled — and yet there is not the
least awkwardness or timidity. That is why . . .’ Lady Eastmond’s smile was
again apologetic. ‘Well, at first I intended taking her about in society only a
very
little, but as she relished it so I saw no reason why I should not
bring her out in the proper fashion. And she has acquitted herself more than
tolerably, you know: there has been a good deal of attention.’

‘Attention? A charming
young girl with fifty thousand pounds? I only wonder you have not had to put a
guard upon the door.’

Lady Eastmond’s
spluttering laughter grew suddenly rueful.

She reached out for
Lydia’s hand. ‘Lord, my dear, how you remind me of your mother sometimes.’

‘And other times,
Bonaparte.’

‘Go along with you.
She,
God rest her, had something of Phoebe’s look when she first came out — how
it all struck her, I mean: great eyes drinking everything in. All open like an
ox-eye daisy.’

Lydia gently disengaged
her hand. ‘That,’ she said carefully, ‘must be a resemblance both tender and
troubling for you.’