Sprig Muslin

by Georgette Heyer

  Seldom had a betrothal met with more general approval than that of Gareth Ludlow to Clarissa Lincombe, even the disappointed mothers of other eligible damsels thinking it a perfect match. If the lady was the most courted in town, the gentleman was Society’s best liked bachelor. Indeed, he had seemed to be the child of good fortune, for he was not only endowed with a handsome competence and an impeccable lineage, but possessed as well as these essentials no common degree of good looks, a graceful, well-built frame, considerable proficiency in the realm of sport, and an open, generous temper which made it impossible for even his closest rivals to grudge him his success in winning Clarissa. Sadly Mrs Wetherby looked back to that halcyon period, before the fatal carriage accident had laid Clarissa’s charm and beauty in cold earth, and Gareth’s heart with them.

  He was thought to have made an excellent recovery from the blow; and everyone was glad that the tragedy had not led him to indulge in any extravagance of grief, such as selling all his splendid horses, or wearing mourning weeds for the rest of his life. If, behind the smile in his eyes, there was a little sadness, he could still laugh; and if he found the world empty, that was a secret he kept always to himself. Even Beatrix, who adored him, had been encouraged to hope that he had ceased to mourn Clarissa; and she had spared no pains to bring to his notice any damsel who seemed likely to captivate him. Not the mildest flirtation had rewarded her efforts, but this had not unduly depressed her. However modest he might be, he could not but know that he was regarded as a matrimonial prize of the first rank; and she knew him too well to suppose that he would raise in any maidenly breast expectations which he had no intention of fulfilling. Until this melancholy day, she had merely thought that she had not hit upon the right female, never that the right female did not exist. Her tears, on hearing his announcement, had sprung less from disappointment than from the sudden realization that more than Clarissa’s loveliness had perished in that fatal accident of seven years ago. He had spoken to her as a man might who had put his youth behind him, with all its hopes and ardours, and was looking towards a placid future, comfortable perhaps, but unenlivened by any touch of romance. Mrs Wetherby, perceiving this, and recalling a younger Gareth, who had seen life as a gay adventure, cried herself to sleep.

  So, too, when the news of Sir Gareth’s very flattering offer was later made known to her, did the Lady Hester Theale.

  Two

  The Earl of Brancaster’s family seat was situated not many miles from Chatteris, in the heart of the fens. The mansion was as undistinguished as the surrounding countryside, and, since his lordship’s circumstances, owing to his strong predilection for gaming, were straitened, it bore a good many signs of neglect. In theory, it was presided over by his lordship’s eldest daughter, but as his son and heir, Lord Widmore, found it expedient to reside, with his wife and growing family, under his father’s roof, the Lady Hester’s position was, in fact, little better than that of a cipher. Upon the death of her mama, several years previously, persons who were not particularly acquainted with the Earl had thought that it was fortunate, after all, that she had been left on the shelf. She would be able, said the optimistic, to comfort her stricken parent, and to take her mama’s place as the mistress of Brancaster Park, and of the house in Green Street. But as the Earl had disliked his wife he was by no means stricken by her death; and as he was looking forward to an untrammelled single existence he regarded his eldest daughter not as a comfort but as an encumbrance. Indeed, he had been heard to say, when in his cups, that he was no better off than before.

  His feelings, when, recovering from a momentary stupefaction, he realized that Sir Gareth Ludlow was actually soliciting permission to marry his daughter, almost overcame him. He had given up all hope of seeing her respectably married: that she should achieve a brilliant match had never for an instant occurred to him. An unwelcome suspicion that Sir Gareth must be a trifle bosky crossed his mind, but there was nothing in Sir Gareth’s manner or appearance to lend the slightest colour to it, and he banished it. He said bluntly: ‘Well, I should be very well pleased to give her to you, but I’d better tell you at the outset that her portion isn’t large. In fact, I shall be devilish hard put to it to raise the wind at all.’

  ‘It is really quite immaterial,’ responded Sir Gareth. ‘If Lady Hester will do me the honour to accept me, I shall of course make whatever settlement upon her that our attorneys think proper.’

  Greatly moved by these beautiful words, the Earl gave Sir Gareth’s suit his blessing, invited him to Brancaster Park the following week, and himself cancelled three sporting engagements, leaving London on the very next day to prepare his daughter for the singular stroke of good fortune which was about to befall her.

  Lady Hester was surprised by his sudden arrival, for she had supposed him to be on the point of going to Brighton. He belonged to the Prince Regent’s set, and in general was to be found, during the summer months, residing in lodgings on the Steyne, or at the Pavilion itself, where it was his affable practice to share in all his royal friend’s more expensive pastimes, and to play whist, for extremely high stakes, with his royal friend’s brother of York. Such female companionship as he sought in Brighton had never included that of his wife, or of his daughter; so, at the end of the London Season, Lady Hester had removed, with her brother and her sister-in-law, to Cambridgeshire, whence, in due course, she would proceed on a round of yearly and very dull visits to various members of her family.

  Her amiable parent, having informed her that it was a father’s concern for her welfare which had brought him, at great inconvenience, to his ancestral home, said, by way of preamble to the disclosure he was about to make, that he hoped she would furbish herself up a trifle, since it would not do for her to receive guests in an old gown, and a Paisley shawl.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Hester. ‘Are we to have visitors?’ She focused her slightly myopic gaze upon the Earl, and said, with more resignation than anxiety to her voice: ‘I do hope no one whom I particularly dislike, Papa?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort!’ he replied testily. ‘Upon my soul, Hester, you are enough to try the patience of a saint! Let me tell you, my girl, that it is Sir Gareth Ludlow whom we are to entertain here next week, and if you dislike him you must be out of your senses!’

  She had been somewhat aimlessly disposing the despised shawl about her shoulders, as though, by rearranging its shabby folds, she could render it less objectionable to her father, but at these words she let her hands fall, and said incredulously: ‘Sir Gareth Ludlow, sir?’

  ‘Ay, you may well stare!’ said the Earl. ‘I daresay you will stare more when I tell you why he comes!’

  ‘I should think it very likely that I should,’ she agreed, in a reflective tone. ‘For I cannot imagine what should bring him here, or, indeed, how he is to be entertained at this season.’

  ‘Never mind that! He is coming, Hester, to make you an offer!’

  ‘Oh, is he?’ she said vaguely, adding, after a thoughtful moment: ‘Does he want me to sell him one of Juno’s pups? I wonder he should not have told me so when we met in town the other day. It is not worth his while to journey all this distance – unless, of course, he desires first to see the pup.’

  ‘For God’s sake, girl – !’ exploded the Earl. ‘What the devil should Ludlow want with one of your wretched dogs?’

  ‘Indeed, it has me quite in a puzzle,’ she said, looking at him enquiringly.

  ‘Paperskull!’ said his lordship scathingly. ‘Damme if I know what he wants with you! He’s coming to offer for your hand!’

  She sat staring at him, rather pale at first, and then flushing, and turning away her face. ‘Papa, pray – ! If you are funning, it is not a kind jest!’

  ‘Of course I’m not funning!’ he answered. ‘Though it don’t surprise me you should think so. I don’t mind owning to you, Hester, that when he broke it to me that it was my permission to address you th
at he was after I thought either he was foxed, or I was!’

  ‘Perhaps you were – both of you!’ she said, trying for a lighter note.

  ‘No, no! No such thing! But for him to be taking a fancy for you, when I daresay there are a dozen females trying to fix his interest, and everyone of ’em as well-born as you, besides being younger, and devilish handsome into the bargain – well, I never was nearer to being grassed in all my life!’

  ‘It isn’t true. Sir Gareth never had a fancy for me. Not even when I was young, and, I think, quite pretty,’ said Hester, with the ghost of a smile.

  ‘Oh, lord, no! Not then!’ said his lordship. ‘You were well-enough, but you couldn’t have expected him to look at you when the Lincombe chit was alive.’

  ‘No. He didn’t look at me,’ she agreed.

  ‘Well, well!’ the Earl said tolerantly. ‘She had ’em all beaten to flinders. By all accounts, he never cast so much as a glance at any other girl. And I’ve made up my mind to it that that’s why he’s offered for you.’ He saw that she was looking bewildered, and said with impatience: ‘Now, don’t be a pea-goose, girl! It’s as plain as a pikestaff that what Ludlow wants is a quiet, well-bred female who won’t have her head stuffed with romantic nonsense, or expect him to be thrown into a transport of passion. The more I think of it, the more it seems to me that he’s acting like a man of sense. If he’s still hankering after Clarissa Lincombe, it wouldn’t suit him at all to offer for some out-and-outer who would expect him to be dangling after her for ever, carried away by the violence of his feelings, or some such flummery. At the same time, it’s his duty to marry, and you may depend upon it he made up his mind to that when that brother of his got himself killed in Spain. Well, I don’t scruple to tell you that I never thought to see such a piece of good fortune befall you, Hester! To think that you should make a better match than any of your sisters, and at your age, too! It is beyond anything great!’

  ‘Beyond anything – oh, beyond anything!’ she said, in a queer voice. ‘And he is coming here, with your consent! Could you not have asked me first what my sentiments were? I do not wish for this splendid match, Papa.’

  He looked as though he could hardly credit his ears. ‘Don’t wish for it?’ he repeated, in a stupefied tone. ‘You must be out of your senses!’

  ‘Perhaps I am.’ The ghostly smile that was at once nervous and mischievous again flitted across her face. ‘You should have warned Sir Gareth of it, sir. I am persuaded he cannot wish to marry an idiot.’

  ‘If,’ said his lordship awfully, ‘you fancy that that is a funny thing to say, let me tell you that it is not!’

  ‘No, Papa.’

  He eyed her in uncertainty, feeling that in some strange way she was eluding him. She had always been an obedient, even a meek, daughter, but he had several times suffered from the uncomfortable suspicion that behind the cloud of gentle compliance there existed a woman who was quite unknown to him. He saw that it behoved him to tread warily, so he curbed his exasperation, and said, with a very fair assumption of paternal solicitude: ‘Now, what maggot has got into your head, my dear? You won’t tell me you don’t wish to be married, for every female must wish that!’

  ‘Yes, indeed!’ she sighed.

  ‘Can it be that you dislike Ludlow?’

  ‘No, Papa.’

  ‘Well, I was sure of that! I daresay there isn’t a better liked man in England, and as for you ladies – ! The caps that have been set at him! You will be the envy of every unmarried woman in town!’

  ‘Do you think so indeed, Papa? How delightful that would be! But perhaps I might feel strange, and unlike myself. It wouldn’t be comfortable, not to be acquainted with myself.’

  This baffling, and (he considered) very nonsensical observation, threw him out of his stride, but he persevered, saying with as much patience as he could command: ‘Well, never mind that! To be sure, I never thought he was trying to fix your interest, but I am sure I have seen him stand up with you at balls a hundred times! Ay, and sit talking to you, when one might have supposed that he would have been making up to one of the beauties that have been hanging out lures to him for ever!’

  ‘He is very civil,’ she agreed. ‘He was used to talk to me of Clarissa, because I knew her too, and no one else would ever mention her name within his hearing.’

  ‘What, is he still doing so?’ exclaimed the Earl, feeling that here must be the clue to the mystery.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she replied. ‘Not for a long time now.’

  ‘Then why the devil, if he don’t want to talk of the Lincombe beauty, should he seek you out?’ he demanded. ‘Depend upon it, it has been to attach you!’

  ‘He does not precisely seek me out,’ she responded. ‘Only, if we meet at parties, he is too kind, and, I think, too great a gentleman, to pass me by with no more than a common bow.’ She paused, and sighed, blinking at her father. ‘How silly! I expect you are quite right, and he has had this notion of offering for me ever since Major Ludlow was killed.’

  ‘Of course I am right, and a fine compliment he is paying you!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said, and relapsed into silence, gazing thoughtfully before her.

  He began to feel uneasy. It was impossible to read her countenance. It was mournful, yet tranquil; but in the tone of her voice there was an alarming note which recalled to his mind her contumacious behaviour when he had disclosed to her the only other offer he had ever received for her hand. He remembered how meekly she had borne every manifestation of his wrath, how dutifully she had begged his pardon for disobliging him. That had been five years ago, but here she was, still a spinster. After eyeing her for a moment or two, he said: ‘If you let this chance of achieving a respectable alliance slip, you are a bigger fool than I take you for, Hester!’

  Her eyes came round to his face, a smile quivered for an instant on her lips. ‘No, how could that be, Papa?’

  He decided to ignore this. ‘You and he are both past the age of romantical high-flights,’ he urged. ‘He is a very agreeable fellow, and I don’t doubt he’ll make you a kind husband. Generous too! You will have enough pin-money to make your sisters stare, a position of consequence, and you will be mistress of a very pretty establishment. It is not as though your affections were engaged otherwhere: of course, if that were so, it would be another matter; but, as I told Ludlow, though I could not answer for your sentiments upon this occasion, I could assure him that you had formed no other attachment.’

  ‘But that was not true, Papa,’ she said. ‘My affections were engaged many years ago.’

  She said this so matter-of-factly that he thought he must have misunderstood her, and demanded a repetition of the remark. She very obligingly complied, and he exclaimed, quite thunderstruck: ‘So I am to believe that you have been wearing the willow, am I? Fudge! It is the first I have ever heard of such a thing! Pray, who may this man be?’

  She got up, drawing her shawl about her shoulders. ‘It is of no consequence, Papa. He never thought of me, you see.’

  With that, she drifted away in the indeterminate way which was peculiarly her own, leaving him baffled and furious.

  He did not see her again until the family assembled for dinner; and by that time he had discussed the matter at such length with his son, his daughter-in-law, and his chaplain, and with such sublime disregard for the ears of his butler, two footmen, and his valet, all of whom at some time or another came within hearing, that there was hardly a soul in the house unaware that the Lady Hester had received, and meant to decline, a very flattering offer.

  Lord Widmore, whose temper was rendered peevish by chronic dyspepsia, was quite as much vexed as his father; but his wife, a robust woman of alarmingly brusque manners, said, with the vulgarity for which she was famed: ‘Oh, flimflam! Mere flourishing! I’d lay a monkey you crammed her, sir, for that’s always your way. Leave it to me!’ />
  ‘She’s as obstinate as a mule!’ said Lord Widmore fretfully.

  This made his lady laugh heartily, and beg him not to talk like a nodcock, for a more biddable female than his sister, she said, never existed.

  It was perfectly true. Except in her ability to attract eligible suitors of herself, Hester was the sort of daughter with whom the most exacting parent might have been pleased. She always did as she was told, and never argued about it. She indulged neither in sulks nor in hysterics; and if she was unable to attract the right men, at least she had never been known to encourage the wrong ones. She was a good sister, too; and could always be relied upon to take charge of her young nephews and nieces in times of crisis; or to entertain, uncomplainingly, the dullest man invited (willy-nilly) to a dinner-party.

  The first person to discuss Sir Gareth’s proposal with her was not Lady Widmore, but the Reverend Augustus Whyteleafe, the Earl’s chaplain, who seized the earliest opportunity that offered of conveying to her his own reflections upon the occasion.

  ‘You will not object, I know, to my adverting to the topic, painful though it must be to you,’ he stated. ‘His lordship, I should perhaps mention, did me the honour to admit me into his confidence, feeling, I collect, that a word from a man in my position might bear weight with you.’

  ‘Oh, dear! I am sure it ought to,’ said Hester, in a consciencestricken tone.

  ‘But,’ said Mr Whyteleafe, squaring his shoulders. ‘I found myself obliged to inform his lordship that I could not take upon myself the office of Sir Gareth Ludlow’s advocate.’

  ‘How very brave of you!’ Hester said, sighing. ‘I am so glad, for I don’t at all wish to discuss it.’

  ‘It must indeed be repugnant to you. You will allow me, however, to tell you that I honour you for your decision, Lady Hester.’

  She looked at him in mild surprise. ‘Good gracious, do you? I can’t think why you should.’