An Accomplished Woman (41 page)

Here was an aspect of
Phoebe’s character not to be changed by worries, distresses and love-problems;
and even as she sighed, Lydia took heart from it, and concluded that she need
not fear too much for the state of Phoebe’s spirits. A girl who could find
Penelope Vawser well-meaning could find good in anything.

Perfect weather —
everyone agreed: a perfect day for the picnic — absolutely perfect. Such were
the civilities that passed among the party as they climbed into the two carriages.
It took Mr Durrant to point out the signal imperfection of the day, as they
manoeuvred their steep, jolting way out of the town.

‘It is too hot, and it
will get hotter. Your housekeeper, Miss Allardyce, need not have gone to the
trouble of roasting the chickens.’

Certainly the brilliance
of the sky had a hard, enamel quality to it: the clouds were powerless
fragments, and the trees, unstirred by breeze, might have been paintings on
glass. Lydia, in thinnest muslin, was already perspiring. It was high-pitched
summer weather: the kind that would not relent, but only perish in a storm.

Perfection was missing
too in the human element of the party, for Lydia at least. Mrs Allardyce had
joined it at the last moment: though the fact that she was already dressed for
an outing — frizzed, straw-bonneted, gloved, shawled and booted — suggested
that the sudden decision had been contemplated at least for a couple of hours.
She made much of the fact that she was breaking her habit of retirement — spoke
of it, indeed, at such length as must have exhausted the interest of even the
best-willed person; but along with her impatience Lydia found gratification.
There was surely in this an implied compliment to Phoebe, which she hoped her
friend would not be too modest to perceive. To realise in what regard she was
held in Queen Square must do her good: for Lydia was anxious that Phoebe should
not learn the wrong lesson from the affair of Mr Beck, and mistrust her own
feelings altogether. Here, again, she relied on the attentions of Mr Allardyce;
and a promising beginning was made, as Mrs Allardyce insisted on Phoebe and her
son riding in the first carriage with her, and surrendered her daughter to the
second, with a parting hint that she should not bore her companions by talking
dry stuff all the way.

They were not the only
party seeking the air and space of the country heights. Carriages of various
kinds overtook them, or passed them going the other way, and Mr Durrant
remarked on the glazed stares they met with.

‘Curious, this vague
hostility with which pleasure-trippers habitually greet each other — as if the
very idea of other people taking it into their heads to do what you want to do
is an affront.’

Juliet laughed. ‘As the Frenchman
said, the English take their pleasures sadly, after the fashion of their
country.’

‘Sully. Henri Quatre’s
minister,’ Lydia supplied.

‘Ah, one enjoys the
mot
so much better when one knows exactly who said it,’ Mr Durrant said, with a
little straight-faced nod in her direction. Lydia was determined not to blush,
and the impulse to kick him was restrained by the consideration that he would
probably find satisfaction in it. Juliet only smiled. She was looking very
beautiful today: the fine-boned, regal cast of her features, which could by
candlelight appear a little forbidding, was splendidly equal to the strong
sunlight, and the heat scarcely seemed to trouble her. Lydia momentarily felt
that if Juliet were not clever, sympathetic and congenial, she might dislike
her very much.

‘Oh, Mr Durrant, I quite
forgot,’ she said sweetly, ‘we had the pleasure of seeing your nephew Mr Hanley
yesterday, on the South Parade.’

He gave an explosive
grunt.

‘Mr Durrant will have
told you, I’m sure, about Mr Hanley,’ Lydia said to Juliet, ‘or I should say
Cornet Hanley of the Tenth Light Dragoons.’

‘Oh! yes,’ Juliet said,
exchanging a glance with Mr Durrant, ‘I know about him.’

‘And about his being in
Bath, no doubt,’ Lydia went on, with a feeling of having taken a sip of
champagne and finding it flat. ‘He has not called at Queen Square, I think? Ah:
Mr Durrant, you are remiss: you must indeed make the introduction soon.’

‘I do not see the
necessity’ he said, looking out of the carriage window, and manifesting an
unlikely interest in a five-barred gate. ‘If I contracted the plague, I hope I
should have more care for my friends than to go calling on them, and
introducing it into their houses.’

‘You are only making me
more curious to meet him,’ Juliet said, giving him a searching look.

‘Oh! it will happen soon
enough, no doubt,’ Mr Durrant sighed gloomily, ‘and when it does, no doubt like
everyone else you will be charmed.’

‘Well, we shall see. It
will be an interesting experiment, Mr Durrant,’ Juliet said, causing him to meet
her eyes, ‘as I do not generally set a high value on charm.’

Lydia was not sure
whether she was at the top of the see-saw, or the bottom; but she was prevented
from pursuing the question as the carriage slowed. The first had come to a
halt: Mrs Allardyce had spotted the perfect place for them to disembark,
ramble, and lay out their luncheon, as the servant who had been riding behind
came hurrying back to inform them. They were at the top of a broad green slope,
with a view of Widcombe below, and pleasant hills all about: but Lydia, handed
down from the carriage by Mr Durrant, and feeling the heat swaddle her at once,
feared that they were rather exposed, and could have wished there were more
shade than was offered by the thin copse that stood at some distance down the
slope, beyond a stretch of sheep-pasture. However, Mrs Allardyce was now
commander of the expedition, and there was nothing for it but to troop after
her, listen to her being strong-minded and incorrigible, and perhaps, if you
were Lydia, reflect on what a fine target she would present for a marksman with
a reliable gun and a sense of philanthropy.

Mrs Allardyce’s
servants, sensibly, and grumbling only with their looks, began conveying the
picnic-things at once towards the shade of the trees; but there was no such
unanimity of purpose in the party. Mrs Allardyce claimed Phoebe’s arm, and
directed her to the highest part of the hill with sweeping gestures — probably
referring to the many people she was acquainted with at all points of the compass,
who knew what she was like, and she didn’t care if they did, because she spoke
her mind, and so on. Mr Durrant was claimed by Juliet — or the other way round:
Lydia could not be sure, though she kept an eye on them from a sense of
detached disquiet. Detached, because of course it was his business alone: but
she did hope, from ordinary compassion for both, that he was not driven to such
provocation by Hugh Hanley as would cause him to throw himself at Juliet
Allardyce. There would be much to regret in that: a friendship spoiled —
dignity lost.

That was supposing, of
course, that Juliet should refuse him; and Juliet was certainly no Phoebe,
ready to fall in love at a moment’s notice. Still, she had her own pressures to
contend with — the stifling influence of her mother: might she not in turn be
driven to look favourably on Mr Durrant, who was, after all, a very eligible
man? The thing was true, even if the phrase was detestable. Again, not her
affair; but Lydia had a sense of a looming mistake — she seemed to breathe it
in the humid air. There was no question of her addressing Mr Durrant on the
matter. The interference would be keenly resented: he would consider that no
true motive could lie behind it.

Lydia thought she might
perhaps broach the question, quietly, with Juliet when they were alone; but she
reminded herself that her duty lay with Phoebe: and here the disposition of the
party seemed to promise well. Walking with Mr Allardyce, she hoped to draw him
out on his intentions, as she had done at the dinner in Queen Square — perhaps
even gently lead him towards that conclusion, to which his heart must already
be inclining him. Yet she found conversation difficult at first: he was too
sensible a man ever to be called
brooding,
but there was an abstraction
about him, a certain smothered short tension in his replies, which she had not
observed before. Seeing the sheen on his brow, she attributed it to the
stupefying heat, and pitied him. Where ladies could resort to thin muslins and
parasols, the prison of the gentleman’s coat and waistcoat was inescapable.
Spying a shepherd boy in loose shirt and straw hat, she remarked: ‘Now, but for
convention, you might be as comfortable as him.’

‘Hm? Oh! yes,’ he
answered, with a bare glance. ‘But the lad would surely trade places with me,
given the chance, and exchange poverty for a little stiffness and discomfort.’

‘Very true,’ Lydia said,
with a feeling as if the heat were affecting her perceptions too: this was like
talking to Mr Beck.

‘There — my mother would
be pleased: I am being stuffy and sententious, so a political career surely
beckons.’

She smiled: he was
himself again, or nearly: coolness would do the rest. ‘Speaking of convention,
shall we consider the beauties of the view duly admired, and go into the shade?’

It was better under the
trees, though the flickering of the intense sunlight through the leaves was
more dazzling than pleasant. Her thoughts seemed to scatter and dance with it —
thoughts of Phoebe, of Juliet and Mr Durrant and Hugh Hanley, of Mr Beck. Her
companion had lapsed into silence again, and suddenly it occurred to her that
he might have seen Mr Beck — that there might have beensome dramatic encounter.
She pictured Mr Beck arriving with a baleful flourish at Queen Square:
I
come to congratulate my adversary. Sir, the field is yours. Let me say only
this — the interference of Miss Templeton . . .
The thought was so horribly
plausible that she found herself blurting out: ‘Mr Beck — whom you know, of
course — has left Bath, I think.’

‘Oh, yes, I am aware of
that,’ he said, in a curious, bleached tone. Phoebe must have told him so, on
the journey here: well, that was surely encouraging. ‘Isn’t it odd,’ he said
after another unrestful pause, ‘the things one says unthinkingly — how they can
be more revealing than the most considered utterance? Just now I spoke
slightingly of politicians: yet how much of real feeling I find there! All the
dullness of such a life rises up before me. Yet it would gratify my mother:
which does weigh, though not so much, candidly, as she likes to think. And then
it is the road, of course, to advancement: to the juicy plums of places and
pensions and sinecures. Whereas the diplomatic service will not make a man
wealthy.’

‘A consideration only if
wealth is your object.’

He shrugged. ‘I shall
not be poor . . . but this is to take into account only my own wants, as a
single man.’

Ah, Lydia thought, with
quickened interest. ‘If you were to marry, of course, your bride would know
this, and accept it.’

‘That is exactly my
thought,’ he said — frowning, yet appearing somehow heartened. ‘What she must
also be prepared for, however, is an unsettled sort of life: subject to the
vagaries of war and governments, travelling and living abroad, accustoming
herself to the ways of foreign countries. This is a good deal to ask.’

‘Of a certain kind of
woman, perhaps: but if she has an open, enquiring mind, and an eagerness for
experience, I should call it rather an inducement than otherwise.’

‘If that were so, then I
should feel . . .’ He glanced at her with lifted brow, then looked away. ‘I
should feel able to — to proceed without impediments of conscience. Now that
sounds absurd,’ he added, with a little laugh, ‘but I hope you take my
meaning.’

‘I do; and I think I can
assure you, Mr Allardyce, that you may certainly consider there are no such
impediments in your way.’

His relief was visible —
and so, Lydia felt, must have been her own. This was propitious indeed: she
dared to hope that her anxieties over Phoebe, and the low spirits that
occasioned them, might soon be at an end; and in the circumspection and
delicacy with which Mr Allardyce approached his question, she found her
judgement confirmed. Mr Beck might have his good qualities, but surely here was
a man to whom Phoebe’s future could be confidently entrusted. He seemed about
to say something more; but they were interrupted by a loud halloo from Mrs
Allardyce, wanting to know why they were lurking there, and demanding that they
come and get some air on the heights.

Leaving the copse and
ascending the hill, she found a skittish breeze beginning to blow — earnest of
an approaching thunderstorm, perhaps; but for now a blessing: and with this,
and her own lightened heart, she had no objection to a further ramble, or even
to having Mrs Allardyce instructively point out the best views to her.

‘After all,’ said
Juliet, slipping her arm through Lydia’s, and urging her to fall back a little,
‘without Mama’s help, you might just stare at the grass, and wonder what all
the fuss is about.’

Lydia smiled. ‘How is
the war news lately?’

‘Call it a state of
armed truce, with hostilities likely to break out at any moment. Never mind: I
shall stick out for victory as firmly as Mr Pitt, and without the three bottles
of port a day.’

‘I heard it was six.’ Up
ahead Mrs Allardyce had claimed her son’s arm, and Mr Durrant, with his easy,
long-legged stride, was accompanying Phoebe. ‘You are set upon going abroad
with your brother, then.’