An Accomplished Woman (45 page)

‘I know it, and I admire
you all the more for it. Lydia—’

‘Stop. This — this freak
of yours is not amusing. It does no honour to me, and what is more important,
it does no honour to your attachment to Miss Rae.’

‘My attachment to Miss
Rae — well, I see that is still the sticking-point. You are scrupulous: you
need not be. My attachment to Miss Rae, if such it may be called, is a thing
that might have been, not a thing that is, as she has surely become aware. I
was much taken with her, when we first met in London — even began to fancy
myself a little in love; but that closer acquaintance, which you were good
enough, and wise enough, to promote, has revealed the limits of my esteem. At
the same time, my admiration of
you —
who have acted your part with
diligence and discretion, sacrificing all to the interests of your young
charge, and yet revealing your superiority to her with every breath and word —
oh, Lydia, that admiration is boundless. I cannot help it — I must ask that you
accept the offer of my hand—’

‘No — no, Mr Allardyce,
I cannot think of any such thing. You are not yourself . . .’ Yet she knew,
with a scorching mortification, that this would not do. Robert Allardyce was not
a man to say wild things: he was not a tippler or a joker. He was serious,
intensely serious; and she was tied to a stake of miserable realisation.
Phoebe: the pain she felt for Phoebe at this moment was only bearable in that
she knew she must prepare to endure much more of it. Her only solvent was
indignation.

‘Lydia — Miss Templeton
if you will — I won’t press. But I know this cannot be an entire surprise to
you, and I flatter myself that what I feel—’

‘I have heard quite
enough about your
feelings,
sir — enough to convince me that they are no
more to be trusted than your conduct. I can only ask what you suppose Miss
Rae’s feelings to be, she having been so shockingly misled.’

‘Miss Rae’s feelings, I
am sure, will not be such as to incommode her. I have surely made it clear to
her, by tactful and respectful means, that I do not wish our association to
develop in any more intimate direction; and
her
conduct has convinced me
that I do her no great wrong, and that she suffers very little from the
alteration.’

‘Her conduct? Now I know
you are not in your right mind. Miss Rae—’

‘Is your friend, and you
show all the generous loyalty to her that I expect of you. There is the
integrity, the singleness of mind that I have come to love — which a man must
hope to find in a future wife — and which Miss Rae, for all her qualities,
cannot be said to possess. She has shown herself very ready to be courted by
anyone who asks: you have shown yourself a woman thoroughly deserving to be
loved.’

‘These compliments, Mr
Allardyce, do nothing — nothing but make me more indignant on behalf of my
friend. I can only presume you are referring to Mr Beck — yet it was no secret,
and can be no surprise, that you were not Miss Rae’s only admirer. It is
ungentlemanly of you to cast such aspersions on her character.’

For the first time his
ardent look cooled, and his jaw grew tight. ‘If there were justice in such a
charge, I hope I should acknowledge it. Certainly I knew that Mr Beck had hopes
in that direction; and from what I began to observe, they seemed not unfounded.
Miss Rae seemed much more inclined to him than to me — a fact that, by then, I
could not positively regret, even if I could still deplore the inconstancy of
mind it demonstrated. I confess I was a little surprised at his leaving Bath —
abandoning a suit I had thought tolerably likely to succeed — but on further
reflection, and further information, I considered it no great matter.’

‘Information? You mean
Miss Rae has spoken of this?’

‘Not at all. Indeed I am
uncertain what information
you
may possess — but never mind — we are
speaking confidentially. I heard about her meeting Mr Beck alone, and secretly.
It was all the confirmation I required to acquit myself of any lingering sense
of obligation: my heart was as free to dispose of as she surely considered
hers. But I knew — I
know
where mine is fixed.’

‘The event you refer to
— yes, it happened once — some time ago. She freely confessed it, and was I
believe entirely persuaded to it by Mr Beck. It was wrong of him, and I told
him so—’

‘You must be referring
to a different event. More than once . . . Well, I am not surprised. Miss Rae
met Mr Beck alone the day before he left Bath — or rather, the evening. They
were observed in the coffee-room of the York by a friend of mine.’

Lydia knew she should
speak, but could not. Her throat felt like a wound.

‘The indecorum is much
to be reprehended,’ he went on, in a more relaxed tone, ‘but you, in your
kindness, will surely urge the heedlessness of youth in excuse. And yes, I
accept that; as you will accept that I am surely justified in happily
surrendering any claim upon Miss Rae. Certainly it would be absurd for her to
pretend to any claim upon me.’ As she did not speak he moved closer, his voice
soft. ‘Does this distress you? Really it should not. I think Miss Rae’s
affections are generally of a superficial, undeveloped kind; and there can be
little pain where there is no deep feeling. Her conduct has not been blameless
— but
you
have nothing with which to reproach yourself

Dear God, how mockingly
untrue those words seemed to her! She had done nothing right since coming to
Bath: she had involved everyone in misery. But the anguished silence in which
she suffered these thoughts seemed to inspirit Mr Allardyce. She found her hand
imprisoned again.

‘There will be time
enough to pursue these explanations, in which I am sure the conduct of everyone
may at last be found excusable, and no harm done. For now all that matters is
that you understand me — and the truth of my feeling. Let us begin again, my
dear, my dearest Lydia—’

She wrenched herself
away from him and rose, trembling, but fierce. One or two of the card-players
raised their heads.

‘These expressions are
offensive to me, sir. You have no right to make them: this feeling of which you
speak does not confer it: it is a feeling of which I entertained no idea until
this moment; and though it may be customary at a time to declare oneself
flattered, I must speak the truth, and tell you I am not. I have never
considered you in any other light than as a suitor to Miss Rae, and as such
held you in the proper degree of friendly esteem; but now I cannot even
maintain that much regard for you, and as for returning your feeling, it is
impossible. If you wish me to speak plainer than that, I will, but be assured
you will not like it.’

He had risen too: but he
did not draw near her. Mr Allardyce remained his precise and composed self, and
bowed. But he was white and meagre-lipped, as if he stood in a freezing blast
instead of the fug of the card-room.

‘Then I humbly beg your
pardon,’ he said, bowing again. ‘My feelings have misled me, and I shall not
allude to this subject any more. Yet I must express my perplexity. I trust I am
usually in command of my feelings — and if I am to doubt them, then I fear I
must begin to doubt some other things. To doubt, for example, whether you have
not after all set yourself to provoke these feelings: and to doubt your
professions of friendship for Miss Rae. If, as you seem to contend, she remains
in any way hopeful of a genuine attachment between her and myself, then I am
sorry for it; but she must have had some encouragement for such a hope, and
that encouragement has certainly not come from me. Altogether I must begin to
doubt, Miss Templeton, the part you have played since coming to Bath. If this
has been a game, then I congratulate you on your success in playing it; but
allow me to suggest that it is not one of your more admirable accomplishments.’

She did not see him go.
Some helpless childish impulse made her cover her eyes; and for some minutes
she stayed so, staring into the dry, dancing blackness: unable to move, or even
conceive its possibility.

It was one of the
card-players at last who roused her: an old lady, gently bending over her and
enquiring: ‘My dear, are you quite well?’ The simple touch of kindliness made
her flinch, and muttering something she ran from the card-room.

In the ball-room the
candles, the music, the tripping dancers assailed her like the distortions of
nightmare. She did not know what to do. Go: she must go, now, but somehow she
could not even see the door: and then there was Phoebe . . .

‘Lydia?’ It was Juliet,
looking with concern into her face. ‘Lydia, whatever is the matter? Are you
ill?’

‘Yes. Ill . . . yes, I
am feeling rather sick.’ Yes, sick — it was no lie — sick with her own
misjudgements, with the apprehension of the past: still more of the future.
‘Juliet, I must go home at once. Will you tell Phoebe? Tell her not to worry,
and I — I . . .’

‘Certainly I will tell
her, and if I know Phoebe she will insist on coming with you, as I would. Are
you feverish? You should have a doctor if so. Send for Dr Yates at Cheap
Street—’

‘No, no, nothing so bad
as that. If I could just get home — rest . . .’

‘You shall, and you
shall go in our carriage. No, I insist. Sit here. I shall have it brought round
directly, and I shall fetch Phoebe to you. Do you dislike smelling-salts as
much as I do? Very well. I shall only be a moment . . .’

Useless to protest: the
bitter irony of leaving in the Allardyces’ carriage weighed very little in the
balance of wretchedness. Much heavier was the look of tender concern on
Phoebe’s face, as she joined her, took her arm, and declared that she certainly
would not stay at the ball without her, and would give her a thorough dressing
if she even dared to think it.

There was, thank heaven,
no sign of Robert Allardyce; and they were able to make their departure during
the general scramble and hubbub of the tea-interval, when it would be least
noticed. Curious, Lydia thought: the things one continued to believe important,
even at such a time as this. Arranging one’s hair while the ship sank. Juliet,
capable and uninquisitive, saw them into the carriage.

‘It was dreadfully hot
in there,’ Phoebe said, as they set off. ‘Do you suppose that’s what it was? I
have been wondering about the cutlets we had at dinner. I didn’t take any, so —
no, wait, I did have one, I changed my mind. The one thing that
can
be
relied on in this life, as you are too kind to say. So it cannot have been the
cutlets. I wonder—’

‘Oh, Phoebe,’ Lydia
cried, bursting into tears, ‘I have something to tell you.’ But the tears were
so uncontrollable that the telling must wait; and she could only let them have
their way, while Phoebe — so patiently, so kindly, so unbearably — held her
hand.

Quiet and airy
situation’ was how the house in Sydney Place had been advertised. Quiet it
certainly was that evening, as Lydia and Phoebe sat gazing at different parts of
the swept fireplace; but to Lydia it felt no more airy than a tomb.

At the last — as she had
dried her tears, as they seated themselves, as Phoebe calmly declared that
whatever it was she had to tell, it could not be so very bad — Lydia had
clutched at a little hope. According to Mr Allardyce — and she had no reason to
doubt this — Phoebe had secretly met Mr Beck the night before he left. Perhaps
something had been forged anew between them then — something that would make Mr
Allardyce’s feelings for her of no account. But it was a feeble hope, Lydia
knew: for had she not been assiduous, ever since then, in directing Phoebe’s
vacillating feelings towards Mr Allardyce? And had she not, God help her,
lately been congratulating herself on her success?

There was no varnish to
be put upon it: no easy disguise or evasion that could be anything but a
despicable lie, and would not bring worse trouble and pain in its wake.
‘Phoebe,’ she had begun, ‘I have had a conversation this evening with Mr
Allardyce, which leads me to question whether we have not been a little
mistaken about his intentions . . .’ It would not do. ‘Oh, Phoebe,
I
have been horribly mistaken. He is not — what I thought him. He has declared
himself in love with me.’

So it had come out. Trying
— though often failing — to keep her eyes fixed steadily on Phoebe’s, Lydia
told her everything that had passed between her and Mr Allardyce in the
card-room. Everything in substance: the slighting manner in which he had spoken
of Phoebe must be softened, in tenderness to her, though it was making him
appear better than he was. If there was room for any feeling beside
humiliation, mortification, hurt pride, and pity, it was admiration for the
courage with which her friend listened to this narration. Her face revealed
nothing but solemn, profound attention: only her hands betrayed her —
wandering, plucking, twitching, as if they sought something unaccountably gone
missing.

And then, the unrestful
silence. Lydia bore it as long as she could; at last rose, went to trim a
candle that was smoking, and said, her voice feeling as hoarse as if she had
been speaking an hour to a crowd: ‘Phoebe — I feel I have no right to ask you
anything. But I do not want to give Mr Allardyce any more credence than he
deserves; and so — what he said about your meeting Mr Beck again . . .’

‘It is true,’ Phoebe
said, drawing a deep breath. ‘I am sorry to have deceived you, but I knew it
would be the last occasion. The meeting was of my proposing. I wanted — it
sounds rather pathetic, but I wanted to say goodbye to him, and above all to
wish him well. I’m sorry.’

‘Phoebe, please, I have
nothing with which to reproach you—’

‘Oh, I think you should;
but there was reproach enough, or regret, in the meeting itself. He was still
very angry, and he was not kind. He spoke hurtfully to me. I cannot blame him —
but I did feel it . . .’ She looked down at her quivering hands. ‘Well. I see
now — I see I am sadly to blame. Yes. I have been at fault from the start —
grievously at fault. It is one thing to be flattered by the attentions of a
gentleman — but to receive the attentions of two, and be unable to choose
between them — and to suppose that no evil can come from such a selfish,
light-minded state of affairs — really it is no more than I deserve, to . . .
to . . .’

To lose both of them,
was what she could not say, and it pained Lydia to think it. ‘Phoebe, you are
being much too hard on yourself. You have been well-meaning throughout: there
is no evil in having a susceptible heart. I know you can draw no comfort from
this, but yours is the true generosity and candour that I fear Mr Allardyce
lacks. I have been reviewing his behaviour — trying to see it from his point of
view — and it still seems to me that it has not been above reproach. He should
have said something . . .’

Phoebe shook her head.
‘In truth I am not surprised — at least, not wholly taken by surprise. I have
begun to feel, in my heart of hearts, that I am not good enough for him.’

‘You are a great deal
too good for him,’ Lydia said hotly, with his last chill, lacerating remarks
leaping again to her mind. ‘This too I cannot expect you to feel now — but in
time—’

‘Dear Lydia, you keep
thinking of me: and it is very kind, and I do not pretend that I am not a
little — knocked back, and dazed, and wondering where on earth I am . . . But I
can still be glad for
you
— gaining the love of so estimable a
gentleman.’

‘Glad for me? Oh,
Phoebe, we are certainly not understanding each other. I am not in the least
glad: I am angry: the only feeling I have towards Mr Allardyce is indignation.
I do not at all value his regard, believe me.’

‘Don’t you? Yet you have
always said — that is, you have always maintained that he is the most
creditable man, and—’

‘I was wrong,’ Lydia
cried hastily, ‘wrong in my estimation — and if in that respect I have
influenced your feelings, then I bitterly, oh so bitterly, regret it. But I
supposed — I thought he gave every indication of being most warmly inclined to
you, and from what I knew of him
then,
I believed it a very favourable
connection.’

You never gave me any
advice that I did not ask for,’ Phoebe said, with spectral gentleness. ‘The
only thing you did, I fear, was something you could not help. You outshone me.’

‘Phoebe, I beg you to
believe that I never set out to impress Mr Allardyce, to engage his interest or
his attention in the slightest—’

‘I know, Lydia: but you
did not need to. You needed only to be yourself.’

Lydia roamed about the
room — rather as Mr Durrant did, she thought. Well, his warning had been right:
not that it could have made any difference if she had heeded it. ‘Phoebe, I
will not hear you lower yourself in this fashion. All the blame must lie with
Mr Allardyce, who must surely have known that I had no interest in him or
anyone — that I am more than content in my single state. He must have seen
this, if he had half the sense with which I credited him.’ But then she was
forced to admit to herself that Robert Allardyce was not an easy man to read:
he might have been drawing all sorts of conclusions, coming to all sorts of
decisions, that did not appear on the surface. There was something to be said,
after all, for not being so guarded — for having at least some of Mr Beck’s
openness. The thought of Mr Beck made her mind throb even more acutely, and her
pacings more frantic. To think with what satisfaction she had seen Mr Beck
packed off, in perfect confidence that his departing shadow would be banished
by the bright light of Mr Allardyce!

And what an ill role,
indeed, she seemed to have played in Phoebe’s life. Mr Allardyce’s parting
hints had been, no doubt, the reflexive cruelty ofa disappointed man — not that
they did him any sort of honour; but Lydia could see that to a hostile
observer, or even a casual one, her conduct and its motives might appear in all
the cold yellow light of envy, coquetry, and malicious interference. She hardly
knew whether it made it better, or worse, to find Phoebe still refusing to
think ill of her.

‘I cannot quite blame Mr
Allardyce,’ Phoebe said slowly, her head bowed, ‘because to do so I must
abandon the warm regard I feel for him. Oh, I know I must do that in any case,
now — that is, I must abandon any hope of reciprocation; and as I said,
secretly I had begun to doubt it in any case. But it is hard — it is rather a
wrench — to turn my heart wholly against him.’

Lydia felt a swarm of
arguments against that, but she batted them away. ‘I know,’ she said miserably.
‘I know, Phoebe, and I wish it could be otherwise. I can find no good in this
evening’s work except the distant one — the one that I trust will come at last:
the realisation that you were mistaken in him, as I was. Mistaken not in your
feeling towards him — that was the honest impulse of the heart, and so never to
be regretted — but in your estimate of what
he
was feeling: and I still
contend that the mistake was entirely understandable, and that he played you
false.’

Fine words, but as with
most fine words there was a hollow-ness at the centre: the hollowness was the
omission of her own part in the affair. With intolerable pride she had trusted
in her superior judgement of Mr A and Mr B: with a pretence of objectivity,
which would have been far less reprehensible if it had owned itself to be the
mere operation of prejudice, she had directed Phoebe’s sentiments towards them,
dismissing the claims of one, advancing the claims of the other; and to an
effect that, for all her friend’s studied calmness of manner, must be injuring
her present happiness, and might be endangering its future, where trust and
proper self-esteem were concerned.

But Phoebe listened, and
nodded, her eyes fixed on the still smoking candle as if there were prophecy in
it; and then, stirring with a kind of slow shudder, said: ‘I dare say you are
right: but I do wonder, Lydia — can you tell me, for it is a question that
truly puzzles me — how
can
one know what another person is feeling?’

Lydia sat down heavily,
with an expressible weariness on her. ‘I don’t know, Phoebe. And I think I am
the last person who should even hazard an opinion on the matter.’

‘No, no. I trust you.
Yes, I trust you all the more, because you have not concealed anything about —
about tonight.’ The sketch of a smile appeared on her face. ‘Some people would
have, you know. They would have made the best of it, just to save themselves
trouble.’

Somehow this tribute
seemed the worst part of the evening to Lydia: she could have wept again, but
she was conscious of the fact that she had already fallen into an indulgence
that Phoebe, dry-eyed, had denied herself. She tried to think: but could only
say: ‘I don’t know. If we always knew, there would I dare say be a deal less
misunderstanding in the world. All I can think is, that if a person feels
something, they should say so, directly. It would not solve every difficulty,
but it might prevent a good many difficulties from beginning. For my part, I
have done with hints and clues and implications.’ Weariness and heart-soreness,
like too much wine, were making her excessive. ‘Feel it, and say it, and act
upon it, and the devil take everything else. “Let your yea be yea; and your
nay, nay.” That’s all.’

It occurred to her, too
late, that the biblical quotation might be taken amiss by Phoebe, steeped in
the solemnities of the kirk. But Phoebe only smiled: she seemed already drawing
away from the question, into some inner retreat where Lydia knew she could not
follow.

‘I think that is very
sensible,’ Phoebe said, rising. ‘I’m sorry — you will think me very strange,
Lydia, but I really must go to bed. Convention should dictate a wakeful night,
I know, but I must defy it and say I — I want only to sleep.’

Lydia watched her go
with deep misgiving — longing to say something more, but doubting the power of
any further words of hers to effect a remedy. Indeed her own way with words,
her fluency and persuasiveness, had done so much to create this predicament
that she felt tempted to take a vow of silence ever more. Life would be duller,
but it would be safer.

A glass of wine could
not ease her mind, but it did make her sit down and review her thoughts instead
of having them fly headlong around her. Phoebe’s apparent calm was not
reassuring — far from it. The silly trifling miss that Lydia had pictured when
Lady Eastmond had first proposed her as companion would not have been calm:
there would have been screamings and swoonings, smelling salts and
sofa-beatings, and presently a sharp retributory hatred of Mr Allardyce, or
Lydia, or possibly both, with at length an airy, healthy unconcern and a
declaration that she never cared for him anyway. But though she might have her
little absurdities, Phoebe’s was not a trifling nature. She felt deeply — Lydia
would have said too deeply, if she had not come so lamentably to mistrust her
own judgement.

Her feeling towards Mr Allardyce
remained unfriendly. Now that she had sufficient composure and leisure to look
back over their association, she was able to discern the warning signs of his
waning interest in Phoebe, even if his waxing interest in herself appeared
scarcely more plain and no less surprising. No: she could not have known; but
it was a grim thought that Phoebe must be looking back over the same events,
with a wretched consciousness of their meaning — and, surely, a creeping
suspicion of Lydia’s own motives that not even her generous nature could
suppress. Nor did she suppose that Phoebe could soon arrive at her own,
decidedly lowered opinion of that gentleman. He was not a villain: but he had
displayed a priggishness in his disapproval of Phoebe’s conduct, and a pettiness
in his reaction to her own refusal, that could never restore the respect, still
less the liking, she had entertained for him before.

But there was no
consolation in this — it only demonstrated afresh her wrong judgement. And
there was another memory of that evening, which set the seal on her state of
despondent contrition: Mr Durrant, and Juliet. She winced at the thought of her
own presumption in pressing advice on Mr Durrant; and whatever had gone on in
the cloakroom, whatever had been the outcome of that evening for them, she
could only feel that through her intervention the same curse lay upon it.