Then late in the evening when Elinor, after an uncomfortable dinner during which both Lady Tremaine and William's mother had been in unusual agreement in abusing Jane for carelessness, went to see how Jane was, she found Mattie waiting for her in the dressing room.
'She's lost the child,' Mattie said. 'She's sleeping now. I'll sit with her, there's nothing you can do, so go to bed and try to sleep.'
*
Jane had been feeling very sore after her fall, frightened and weepy after the loss of her baby, but Elinor knew it was not the baby she mourned.
'William will be eager to get me pregnant again,' she sobbed, and complained that her arm ached and she could not find any position of comfort in bed.
Mattie bullied her gently, persuading her to eat the food she said she did not want, and drink a restorative cordial, the secret of which she said had come down to her from her mother.
The Colonel and Richard had both come to enquire after Jane. Richard, who had ridden to the Court, soon left after speaking briefly with Elinor, but the Colonel was closeted with Lady Tremaine for more than an hour. He was urged to stay for dinner, and despite saying he was not properly dressed to sit down with the ladies, he eventually gave way to my lady's urgings.
After dinner, when the Colonel had departed, Elinor was in the drawing room with Lady Tremaine, and George was sitting beside Diana who was idly playing the piano. Lady Tremaine had been very quiet since the Colonel's visit but she had, unusually, taken the gig into the village during the morning and Elinor felt sure she was going to the Black Bull. She had explained, at what Elinor thought far too great a length, how the Colonel was a great friend of her sister's in Truro, and she felt obliged to entertain him.
Edmund arrived home late on the following day. He looked tired when he came into the drawing room, and explained he had been on the road since early that morning.
'I would have been here earlier but for a broken trace, then a lame wheeler,' he said.
'Shall I order some supper for you?' Lady Tremaine asked.
'Thank you, no. I stopped to dine only two hours since.'
'It is never wise to try and cover so many miles in one day,' his mother said. 'I trust when you escort us to London you will not expect us to travel at such a breakneck pace.'
'You would have done better to ride, as I do,' George offered, only to receive a glare from his cousin.
Edmund sighed. 'Mother, you may go to London with my goodwill, but I am not going to escort you. You have footmen and can hire extra guards if you feel it necessary. I have too much to do here, and no wish to spend time dancing attendance on the ton.'
'You mean dancing attendance on me and Diana! How can you be so disobliging to both me and your guest?'
'Diana is your guest,' he said. 'She is of course welcome to stay with you as long as she wishes. I will go to London for a few weeks during the Little Season, but I refuse to go when most people are out of town. Now, if you will excuse me, I am for my bed.'
'Can you not even wait for the tea tray to be brought in? I must say, Edmund, I find you most inconsiderate and impolite. Your time playing at being a rustic on some wretched farm has not improved your manners!'
He had risen to his feet, and at her words slapped his hand on the table beside him.
'I did not play at anything, Mother! If you believe I wished to lose my memory, and work hard all day in the fields, rather than be in my own home, you are deluded! Good night!'
Without waiting for her indignant response he left the room, and shut the door so hard it was all but a slam. Lady Tremaine stared after him, her cheeks red with anger.
'Dear Aunt, do not be distressed,' Diana said, coming to clasp Lady Tremaine's hands and stroking them gently. 'He was tired, after a most uncomfortable journey. He will apologise for his bad temper in the morning.'
She would not be appeased, grumbling about the ingratitude of children to their parents, and Elinor escaped as soon as she could. She would have left the room earlier, before Edmund, but her chair was in a far corner, and she would have had to pass him in order to reach the door. She had decided it would be less obvious if she remained where she was, and tried to appear absorbed in the latest copy of La Belle Assemblée. For a long time she had considered Edmund was too tolerant of his mother's megrims, and wondered what they would do in the morning. Would Edmund meekly apologise? Would his mother maintain her disapproval? Elinor wished she could escape. It was time she began searching for a position as a companion, and hope she could find an employer less difficult to please than Lady Tremaine.
*
A week after Jane's fall she was well enough to come downstairs for a few hours. When there was a break in the wet, cold weather, Elinor persuaded her to sit out of doors, in the rose garden where the blooms struggled to survive the battering of rain and wind. It was there Richard found her when he made his daily call to ask after her health.
'I am feeling better,' Jane said. 'Do, pray sit down. I hear you have been most attentive asking after me. And I need to thank you for your help that day when I fell so stupidly!'
Elinor, most reprehensibly, decided she would go and fetch some lemonade. She felt that Richard's devotion entitled him to a few minutes alone with Jane, and she made no attempt to hurry. When she returned, however, Jane was alone, gently weeping.
'Dearest, calm yourself! It isn't good for you to give way in this manner.'
Jane only sobbed the harder.
'He says he still loves me,' she whispered. 'Oh, Elinor, I am so very miserable! He is the only man I really love.'
'He cannot be for you, Jane. You made vows when you married William, you knew what you were doing.'
'But I did not know how William would use me! I cannot bear the thought of being tied to him for the rest of my life! I wish I had broken my neck when I fell, or died with my baby!'
'Hush, Jane, my dear, that is wicked talk! Come, you must go back to bed, you are distraught.'
'He told me how he came to lose that miniature,' Jane said. 'I've given it back to him.'
'Was he careless?'
'Of course not!' Jane was indignant. 'It was not his fault. It was in a bureau in his father's house, but when he was sent off the West Indies he had no opportunity to retrieve it. Then when his father died the bureau was sold, which is how it came back to me.'
Richard came no more to the Court, and Elinor hoped he had left the village. Jane, though quiet, listened meekly to her and seemed to have regained her health. She even began to take short walks in the gardens whenever it was fine. When Elinor offered to accompany her she shook her head.
'No, Elinor. I need to be alone, to think. I find the peace of the gardens helps to soothe me.'
*
Lady Tremaine had greeted Edmund's stiff apology for his loss of temper with a slight nod of her head. She had refrained from talking with him, and he spent most of his time in the estate office, meeting the rest of the household only at dinner, when Lady Tremaine confined her conversation to trivialities, and afterwards in the drawing room spoke mainly to Diana, who hovered round her solicitously.
Every afternoon now Lady Tremaine drove out with the Colonel. He had hired a curricle, and though it was drawn with just one rather sluggish horse, her ladyship said it was sufficient gentle exercise for her, and if it rained they could raise the hood and still enjoy the fresh air.
Edmund was exasperated, feeling he was surrounded by difficult women. Jane was droopy, and he excused her because of her accident, and in particular for the loss of her child. She must be very unhappy, and she was clearly not wishing for a reunion with her husband. She looked anxious whenever a visitor was announced, probably thinking it was William returning. He had been gone rather a long time, but Edmund suspected he was busy organising the building at the farmhouse he meant to provide for his mother.
His own mother was cold, and had clearly not forgiven him for refusing to escort her to London. He frequently heard her and Diana making plans for what th
ey could do there, while bemoaning the prospect of having to depend on servants for protection. If only she would decide to go!
Mrs Tremaine spent much of her time demanding to know why William was spending so long at Bude.
'He cannot have such a great deal of business,' she claimed almost every day. 'Has he written to you, Edmund?'
'He will come back when he has seen to everything,' he said, day after day.
Amelia scarcely spoke and Edmund knew she flinched whenever she encountered him. He wondered what the devil she thought he was going to do to her. In a way he did not blame her, even at her age, for her timidity, with such a mother and brother dominating her every move. Mrs Tremaine was often critical of her dress, her embroidery, and her lack of spirit, but Edmund had noticed she only made these criticisms when she thought no one else could hear them.
Diana was irritatingly flirtatious. When she gained no response from him she turned to George, who was only too willing to encourage her. With Lady Tremaine often out driving, there was no older woman able to check her, and when Mrs Tremaine occasionally tried to advise her to behave more sedately, Diana flung up her head and pertly replied that she took no advice from someone who did not move in the best circles.
Only Elinor was sensible. She did her best to cheer Jane, complied with every imperious command made by his mother, was polite to Mrs Tremaine while ignoring her jibes about Jane's attitude, smiled encouragingly at Amelia and even tried to suggest they might ride out together. She frowned at Diana's worst excesses of flirtatiousness, but said nothing, and repulsed George's occasional fits of gallantry with polite but decided rebuffs.
If only all the rest could be consigned to oblivion! Then he laughed at himself. Was he envisaging a house where only he and Elinor resided? It would certainly be peaceful. She was the only woman in the house he liked.
*
Edmund's patience finally snapped when he heard Mrs Tremaine complaining that Elinor was taking too much on herself.
'She is turning my son's wife against him,' she declared to Lady Tremaine. 'I don't know why you permit her to remain here. After all, she has no claim on you, and from what I hear is perfectly capable of providing for herself, if only as a cook maid. That, I understand, is what she did before her sister managed to entice my poor son into a disastrous marriage.'
'I shall decide who stays in my house,' Edmund said. 'Your son's wife needs her sister, but she does not need your constant complaining. The Dower House is ready for your occupation, and I expect you and Amelia to remove there by the end of the week.'
'What? You are throwing us out? How dare you! William will have something to say when he hears.'
'No doubt. But I think we will all be better off if you have your own house to manage. If you do not wish to choose your own servants, you may have one of my footmen and a couple of maids. There is already a caretaker who is a good cook, and whose husband is a gardener. Of course you may have the use of my carriages if you ever wish to go to the village, or visit Plymouth.'
Mrs Tremaine stormed at his ingratitude, when William had looked after his estate so carefully while he was presumed dead, and her son would be furious when he discovered how his mother was being treated. Edmund was impervious to both pleas, and when they failed, to insults.
'I will have your possessions packed and taken to the Dower House by the end of the week,' he insisted.
Tears, insults, and predictions that the local gentry would condemn him for his inhumanity were listened to politely, but he was implacable, and finally accepting defeat Mrs Tremaine stormed out of the room and refused to eat at the same table, ordering her meals to be taken to the parlour she considered her own.
Though Lady Tremaine remained aloof, Edmund thought he saw a gleam of approval on her face. Diana was openly exultant, and quarrelled with George so loudly that Edmund said George could join his mother and sister at the Dower House.
Jane said nothing in public, but Edmund thought she relaxed and looked more cheerful. Poor girl, how would she fare when she had to accompany William and his family to Bude?
He considered Jane. He was sorry for her, but felt none of the love he must once have had for her. If he never saw her again he would feel no loss. Then he remembered that Elinor would probably be persuaded to accompany her sister. He would feel the loss of her calm, pleasant company, he realised.
William's mother, sister and brother eventually left, and dinner that day was the most enjoyable meal Edmund had enjoyed since his return, despite Diana's sulks that George was no longer there for her to flirt with. No doubt she would soon turn her attentions to him, he thought with a cynical grin. Even Lady Tremaine was gracious towards Jane and Elinor. Perhaps the next few weeks would be bearable after all.
*
It was two days later that a letter came from William, the first communication to tell Edmund how he was faring. The farmhouse was being extended and would, he hoped, be ready by the end of the year. He hoped his mother and sister might remain at the Court until then. While saying nothing of these plans, which only he was aware of, he read out the next part of the letter at dinner.
'But I have good news. My tenants have decided to return to their own home, they dislike the weather here on the north coast. They left a week since. So Jane and I might live here sooner than I expected. I would be most grateful if you would make arrangements for Jane to come to me as soon as possible. Elinor too, as I assume she will continue to help her sister.'
*
CHAPTER 12
'I can't, I won't go to Bude!'
They were in Jane's bedroom later that night. Jane had become hysterical as soon as they were upstairs. Elinor had been afraid her sobs could be heard by the others, and it had taken some time to calm her so that she could speak clearly.
'Jane, love, you have no alternative. You have to obey him. You are married to the man.'
'Edmund won't force me to go. He'll permit me to stay here when I explain.'
Elinor did not reply. What could Edmund do? He could not keep William's wife away from him. Perhaps he might threaten William? Yet what sanctions could he enforce? Bude was some distance away. It was possible to drive there in a day, but she doubted Jane would be able to send messages if she needed help.
'You have been ill, you can say you are not well enough to travel yet,' she offered, but clearly this was not a solution for more than a few days.
Jane shook her head.
'What good will that do?'
'I don't know.'
'I could ask Edmund to write to William and make him agree not to – well – treat me as he did before.'
'Yes, do that,' Elinor said. It would serve no purpose other than to keep Jane calm for a few more days, but Edmund could do nothing. William would ignore him, and be resentful of what he would with justice consider interference between him and his wife.
Did she wish to go with Jane, when she was eventually forced to submit? She sighed. It was, she supposed, her duty to try and protect her sister, but it was not a prospect to look forward to. She might be able to continue dosing William with laudanum, but he would surely begin to suspect, and know whom to blame. Mattie would not be there to give help and advice.
She lay awake for many hours mulling over the problem, but could think of no solution. When, on the following day at dinner she informed Edmund that Jane was feeling too unwell to come downstairs, and might not be well enough to undertake the journey to Bude for some time, Lady Tremaine sighed in disgust.
'That woman has no consideration for others! She has done little since she entered this house but mollycoddle herself. All this supposed illness is a sham! She needs to begin to think of others, and especially to start being a helpmeet to her husband.'
'People can overcome these megrims if they wish to,' Diana said, glancing at Edmund. 'A wife ought to make the utmost effort to help her husband. What is the matter with her? A broken arm? I broke mine when I was ten years old, but I did not make such a fuss about it.
I recall demanding to be let ride my pony again two days after I had fallen from him.'
'You are an example to us all, my dear. You must insist she goes within the week, Edmund.'
Elinor was rigid with indignation.
'You forget my sister also had the misfortune to lose the child she was carrying!'
'William's heir, and she would not have lost it, or broken her arm, had she taken more care not to trip over her skirts.'
Knowing why Jane had been rushing Elinor could find no more to say apart from that it could have happened to anyone. To her relief Edmund changed the subject by asking his mother if she had any news of how Mrs Tremaine was settling in at the Dower House.
Diana sighed. 'At least we do not have their gloomy faces to endure.'
'I understand George has decided to go and stay with friends at Taunton,' Lady Tremaine said.
'George? Gone? Who will ride with me now?'
Diana had quarrelled with him, but Elinor was amused to see she still expected his company.
'Edmund must do so, my dear.'
'Edmund is always too busy! I suppose I will have to take one of the grooms. That man Bert is quite handsome, in a bucolic sort of way.'
'Quite unsuitable.'
Diana smiled, but did not reply. Elinor was not surprised on the following day when Lady Tremaine, coming into the dining room for lunch, demanded to know where Diana was.
'The child has gone riding. Edmund, why did you not either stop her or go with her?'
'Because I was busy. And what she does is no concern of mine.'
Lady Tremaine was in the midst of scolding him for his lack of concern for a guest when Diana came dancing into the room. She was still wearing her riding habit, her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
'Bert knows all the country round about,' she said, with a saucy glance at Edmund. 'He took me to places George didn't know, a delightful glade beside the river, and a grassy ride where we could gallop.'
'Go and change, and we will hear no more of your disgraceful behaviour! I'm ashamed a niece of mine could behave with such lack of propriety!'
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