An Accomplished Woman (6 page)

‘Oh.’ Not much of a
reply: but the sound she wanted to make would have brought the maid running in
alarm.

‘Now let me explain. I
had it vaguely in mind that Phoebe, after London, should spend some time at a
watering-place — some other resort of society, where the too-hasty impressions
of town might be corrected, and her views enlarged. Indeed I had fixed on Bath
as the likeliest — at Brighton there is rather a
set,
and Weymouth I
find quite the deadliest place in the kingdom. But now Phoebe is in any case
all agog for Bath. For one, Mr Allardyce and his sister always repair there for
the summer, because that is where their mother has retired — and once he had
told her this, and asked if she knew Bath, Phoebe assured him she meant to go
there as soon as she could. It was not exactly an assignation — but for Phoebe
it is now impossible that she should
not
go to Bath. Which she was quick
to tell Mr Beck: and he being from Bristol, very near at hand, has expressed a
hope of seeing her at Bath — and she hopes so too; and so you see the
difficulty But also, the
opportunity!

All Lydia could do was
repeat, flatly: ‘Bath.’ For some reason the old beau had popped up in her mind
again. He was holding up his lily hands in delight.

‘Quite so, my dear, and
on reflection I do feel that Bath would be the very place for her. There she
will find as much society as in London, but with more decorum, and less
temptation. And if she docs encounter her two suitors there, so much the
better. For as you are surely about to remark, you clever thing, to
banish
them
from her presence would be to turn her romantic and defiant immediately.
Whereas what we want is for her to adopt a measured and sensible view of her
situation and prospects — do we not?’

‘Certainly,’ Lydia
answered mechanically, ‘that is the attitude one would wish every young person
to take, though it is a wish very unlikely to be fulfilled . . .’ She hardly
knew what she was saying: the old beau was simpering in her ear.
Bath,
m’dear! Beau Nash, and the Pump Room, and all that! Overpoweringly elegant!

‘I knew you’d agree,’
Lady Eastmond cried, ‘and I am so glad you are falling in with my scheme. Of
course, I
would
be happy to go to Bath with her: but in all conscience,
I cannot desert poor Henry any longer. And besides, my presence would be very
much
in loco parentis,
and that, so coddled as she has been, is the very
last thing she needs. Phoebe should have a young companion — she will feel a
greater sense of liberty, and more inclination to confidence — but a young
companion with some experience of the world, some wisdom, some independence of
mind and coolness of judgement. Now, my dear Lydia — have I not described you
to a hair?’

‘You have flattered me
most shamelessly,’ Lydia said, struggling to recover herself. (
The Master of
Ceremonies! The Assembly Rooms!
trilled the beau, sticking patches on his
face.) ‘Which is like your kindness, Lady Eastmond; and I am sensible of the very
great honour you do me, in placing such trust in my character and abilities.
And because I honour you so much in return, I would not for the world see that
trust abused. I would have to be strongly convinced of my fitness for such a
responsibility before I could even consider taking it up. Anything less would
be a betrayal of your faith in me. And I am so very far from convinced that
even to say I will think on it seems an unworthy prevarication. If I have any
of the cool judgement with which you so generously credit me, that judgement
declares at once that your task is beyond my powers. I am sure I would show
myself a most awkward, unsuitable, and generally unsatisfactory companion for
Miss Rae — and that my vanity could not endure. You have given me such a
character of perfection that I would not see it put to the proof. Let me rest
for the moment on my unearned laurels. You will very soon find someone else who
truly deserves them.’

Lydia was thoroughly
uneasy: perhaps that was why she seemed to see in Lady Eastmond’s face, usually
so broad-brushed in its expressions, a faint scribble of disappointment. Not so
much at Lydia’s answer as what lay behind it: what it revealed. While Lady
Eastmond hesitated, the old beau appeared again out of a cloud of powder and
pomade, enthusing.
The Royal Crescent! The Circus! The North Parade!
Yes,
Lydia retorted — by now hating him — and old prosing tabbies carried about in
sedan-chairs, and pretended invalids sipping lukewarm water and pretending to
feel the benefit, and card-parties . . . dear God, card-parties . . .

‘I have
surprised
you
with this,’ Lady Eastmond said at last, with her warmest, most equine smile,
‘and I am quite a fool not to anticipate that it would knock you back a little.
Lord knows I have never been a friend to surprises — Henry sprang one or two
upon me in our younger years that were, at the very least, in doubtful taste,
though that era is
long
past — and so I quite understand. This is
sudden. You have your preparations to make for returning home tomorrow. Very
well. I am content to leave the seed germinating — is that the word? it sounds
unpleasant somehow — growing, rather, in your mind, until we meet again. That
is, when we are both back in Lincolnshire, and I may have the pleasure of
introducing you to Phoebe at last. I have greater hopes of
that
than of
my poor persuasions. For I know you will love her.’

Probably no purer
incitement to hatred existed, Lydia had found, than being told of anyone or
anything:
you will love him, her, or it.
The spirit immediately rose up
like a fanged cobra.

‘Lady Eastmond, I had
better say at once that I cannot undertake to go to Bath with your ward. I know
nothing of her, but I know pretty well the world we must enter, and . . .’
Card-parties!
‘And if, for example, we are invited to a card-party, I cannot promise to
bear it as she has a right to expect. That rational creatures should spend the
limited time we have on earth in sitting about a table and exchanging pieces of
greasy cardboard to no worthwhile result seems to me a folly without equal—’

‘Oh! trust me, I fancy
Phoebe has no great taste for cards, and no more do I — a sad spoiling of
conversation I always think. No, you will have to do better than that to
convince me, my dear: and as I say, I wish only to leave the notion with you
and let it take its chance. All I
absolutely
ask is that when we are all
settled back in the country, I may bring Phoebe over to Heystead. I would
dearly like her to meet your excellent father, besides — well, besides the
rest.’ Lady Eastmond rose: she looked quietly triumphant, as if retiring from a
greasy-cardboard game with a clear profit. Wagging a gloved finger in playful
admonition, she added: ‘Now
that
at least you cannot refuse me, Lydia,
and if you do I shall positively dislike you — and there’s a piece of nonsense
to end on, as I could never do anything but love you to excess — which is why
the old gargoyle demands another kiss — there. And now my compliments to dear
George and his pretty wife and the children too — and I wish you a safe journey
tomorrow . . .’

Lady Eastmond was
halfway down the stairs before the maid could be summoned, or Lydia could
follow her. She was always fast, but not that fast. She had discerned, perhaps,
that her proposal had been unwelcome.

Discerned?
brayed the old beau.
Damme,
ma’am, ‘twas as plain as the pox on the face of a strumpet
—

‘Fop — off,’ she told
him, and fetched her cloak.

Vauxhall Gardens: newly
reopened for the season, the gravel walks freshly raked, the trees pruned, the
thousands of lamps restrung, the Grecian columns repainted, the temples dusted,
the grottoes regilded — and the admission price up again, as George contentedly
grumbled that evening. ‘I thought it was steep at two shillings. Someone’s
making a pretty thing out of it.’

‘Hush, George, you
shocking monster,’ said Susannah, who was in good spirits, being fond of a lot
of company: in fact she had once said, in her shining way, that she would like
to meet everyone in the world. At Vauxhall you could encounter a fair
cross-section of it: old-fashioned tradesmen, defiantly wigged, on the spree
with their nervous wives: packs of young bloods already shouting-drunk, and
daring each other to climb up and smash the lamps: prostitutes patrolling the
Dark Walks: young girls newly out, amazed by everything, look Mamma, oh Papa,
do look. Lydia was touched, and then she wondered if Miss Phoebe Rae was like
that, and grew uncomfortable.

She had said nothing to
George of Lady Eastmond’s request, for the simple reason that she expected him
to say she ought to comply: there is enough unwelcome advice in the world
without going searching for it. And the interim had been spent in trying to put
it from her mind, not with entire success. She was glad of the crowds, which
precluded much conversation, for she was afraid her preoccupied mood would
betray itself.

Up in the gallery of the
music-pavilion the celebrated Mrs Fuller from Covent Garden sang a florid air
while the liveried fiddlers below tried to keep up with her. The air was called
‘Why Won’t You Go To Bath, Miss Templeton?’ and had as its refrain the words:
‘Is it because you are selfish, selfish?’ That was how it sounded to Lydia, at
any rate.

Why not Bath? Anyone
would think you had been invited to spend the summer down a coal-mine, or in
Newgate. But no: Bath, the most genteel and respectable watering-place in the
kingdom.

Exactly, she moaned to
herself, exactly.

‘They’ll be ringing the
bell soon,’ George said. ‘Let’s get nearer to the boxes. There’s always such a
crush.’

They were passing a
cluster of young gentlemen, and at the sound of George’s voice something
detached itself from the compound of Hessian boots, hard laughter, lounging,
staring and starch, and became a handsome young blade greeting them. For a
moment Lydia feared another Cribs, before recognition chimed. ‘Mr Hanley
Forgive me — I did not know you for a moment.’

Hugh Hanley bowed,
making a very elegant business of it. ‘I am intensely relieved to hear you say
so, Miss Templeton. We last met, I think, at Heystead more than a year ago —
when, in other words, I was a mere mewling boy scarcely out of leading-strings
and crying for tart. If there had been no alteration from that distressing
spectacle, I should be mortified.’

‘Quite so — but such a
rate of growth, sir: does this mean that by next year you will be a toothless
old man with a stick?’

‘As I shall then be in
my twenty-fourth year, I may as well be.’ He sighed. ‘What a
horror
growing
old is.’

‘Now this is
extraordinary,’ George cried, pumping his hand, ‘this — allow me to introduce
Mrs Templeton — Hugh Hanley, my love, you recall me saying — for I ran into
him, you, the other day, and I was telling Lydia about it — extraordinary
coincidence!’

It was, if anything, a
very ordinary coincidence; but it made George happy to go on exclaiming over it
until the supper-bell rang, whereupon he asked Hugh Hanley to join them in
their box.

‘I can only accept if I
can be assured I shall not be
de trop:
for this is surely a family
party.’

‘Oh, not in any special
sense, sir.’ Susannah dimpled.

‘No, no, you must sup
with us,’ cried George, who believed that every addition to a party was an
improvement. ‘You’re of the old Heystead set after all: and Lydia can perhaps
give you news of your uncle — you still see Durrant a good deal, eh, Lyddie?’

‘Yes, I dare say: though
I can’t think of any news I can give you, Mr Hanley, other than that your uncle
is very well.’

‘Which, of course, is
the very news I am not supposed to like, as everyone knows I am desperately
waiting for his decease so that I may begin wasting his fortune.’

‘Oh, come now, my dear
fellow, no one thinks that,’ said George: long exposure to Susannah was making
him immune to irony.

‘It is a miserably
ticklish situation, though, Miss Templeton, when you think of it,’ Hanley said,
as they were seated and the cloth laid. ‘If I do ask after my uncle, I am a
designing hypocrite: if I do not, I am a cold-hearted rogue. Put yourself in my
position.’

‘The sorrows of an heir.
You have my sympathy, Mr Hanley. Or, pardon me, should I be addressing you by a
military title?’

‘I hope you would never
do so in any event: it smacks of the parade-ground. But no, the officer in the
Regulars is yet to be, and the lieutenant in the Militia is no more. It has
been a thoroughly diverting occupation. One gets about the country, meets a
good deal of company, and is admired without the inconvenience of being sent
abroad to fight the enemy. Still, a man can only rise so far in the Militia;
and I am not such a hypocrite as to pretend I don’t want to rise.’

‘But the Tenth Light
Dragoons, now,’ George said, ‘this is aiming high at a stroke. The cost . . .
What shall we have?’ The oldest waiter in the world was hovering outside their
box. ‘Chicken and ham, of course. And salad. Shall we have wine, or cider? I
always say there is nothing like Vauxhall cider.’

‘The cost is excessive,’
Hugh Hanley said readily, ‘as it is for most things out of the common. The
regiment is, without doubt, the most fashionable of all; and that is why I want
to join it. I could oblige you with pious cant about duty and service instead
if you like, but I had rather be frank.
There
are connections to be
cultivated, influence to be gained, interest to be exerted, as they are not in
a common line regiment. The cost is really an investment.’