Ruined

by Ann Barker

  After Christmas, the weather closed in, and there was little chance of travel until the beginning of February. The first thaw brought Henry Lusty, who had no hesitation in renewing his proposal to Jessie, who in her turn, had no hesitation in accepting him.

  A few weeks after her acceptance, Mr Lusty appeared in his best black, with his clerical wig well powdered, and was shown in to where the ladies were busy with their needlework. He had clearly taken a good deal of trouble with his appearance. Jessie wondered whether as he entered the room, he thought of times when he had been far less welcome, having called at the bishop’s behest in order to ask Lady Agatha to vacate the vicarage for the next incumbent. On one of those occasions, she had even chased him out with a rolled umbrella. This time, however, her ladyship welcomed him with all the graciousness of a monarch receiving an inferior but well-meaning subject, then announced that she needed to speak to the housekeeper and left the engaged couple alone together.

  For a moment, they stood looking at each other without the least idea what to say. It was the first time that they had spoken privately since Jessie had accepted his offer.

  ‘It is … a fine day, again,’ Jessie remarked eventually, her colour a little heightened.

  ‘Er … yes. Yes indeed,’ Lusty agreed.

  ‘We are fortunate to have such pleasant days in February.’

  ‘Yes indeed. Sometimes February can be very … harrumph … unpleasant.’

  There was a brief silence. Both parties stood with their hands behind their backs as if to ensure that there would be no kind of undesirable contact. Then, as is often the way after an awkward silence, they both began to speak at once. ‘Have you…?’ Jessie began.

  At the same time, Lusty said, ‘I have written …’ They both stopped, and laughed self-consciously; but this little hiatus seemed to dispel some of the tension. ‘Pray, speak first,’ said Mr Lusty.

  ‘No no,’ Jessie answered. ‘Your sentence, unless I am very much mistaken, was a statement, whereas mine was a question. A statement should always take precedence over a question.’

  ‘Why so?’ he asked, honestly puzzled.

  ‘Because your statement might be the answer to my question and I should then be saved the trouble of asking it. Pray, speak first, Mr Lusty.’

  ‘You must call me Henry, my dear. I did say that you might.’

  ‘So you did … Henry. Pray, tell me what it was that you were going to say.’

  He took a step or two forward, unclasping his hands and putting out one rather awkwardly to take one of hers. She allowed him to do so. His clasp was light, and not unpleasant. ‘I have written to my sister, telling her of my good news,’ he told her. ‘I am almost certain that she will want me to bring you to London for a visit. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Why, because I was correct in my supposition,’ she answered. ‘I was about to ask you whether you had written to her. When do we set off?’

  He frowned slightly. ‘You are happy to go? I had thought that I might need to persuade you.’

  ‘I am a countrywoman, but that does not mean that I am not prepared to go to Town,’ she replied.

  ‘I am glad. I must confess, however, that I hope you will be mostly content to be in the country. The life of a parish priest in such a setting as this is the one that I have chosen. I would not want to change.’

  ‘I would not have you change,’ she responded honestly, meaning simply that she, too, was happy with country life.

  He must have read more into her statement than she had meant, however, for he murmured, ‘My dear,’ raised her hand to his lips, then stepping closer, pressed a kiss upon her cheek. ‘I have always thought your appearance to be perfect,’ he went on, colouring a little at his own temerity.

  ‘Even when I looked drab and twenty years older than my real age?’ she asked playfully. The copper coloured gown decorated with cream lace that she was wearing was new, and one of her favourites.

  ‘I hope that you are not expecting me to be free with compliments,’ he told her, with a hint of severity. ‘As long as it is modest, a woman’s dress is a matter of indifference to me.’ Jessie recalled that when she had first met him, she had been accustomed to dress in drab greys and fawns which did nothing to enhance her appearance. The change in her dress clearly did not please him very much. Briefly, she remembered Raff’s openly expressed admiration, but repressed the memory. Henry’s stumbling compliments were far more sincere than Raff’s practised flattery.

  Before she could reflect upon this, he spoke again, this time his tone arch. ‘There is one item of apparel that I am very anxious to procure for you, and that must be purchased in London.’

  ‘Mr Lusty, I am sure that buying items of clothing for a lady would not meet with the bishop’s approval,’ she teased.

  ‘I am speaking of an engagement ring,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Jessica, my dear, you must not wilfully misunderstand me, you know.’

  ‘I will try not to,’ she promised, feeling rather like a person who had told a mildly amusing jest, only to be asked to explain it afterwards.

  A few moments later, to Jessie’s relief, Lady Agatha returned, judging that they had been alone together for long enough. After having a glass of wine with the ladies, Mr Lusty took his leave, bowing very correctly to her ladyship, and raising Jessie’s hand to his lips. ‘I will tell you when I hear from Henrietta,’ he promised.

  ‘I have to admit, I never thought you’d do it,’ said Lady Agatha, when Jessie came back from seeing her betrothed off at the door. The older lady was pouring herself a second glass of wine. ‘I quite thought you’d go on sighing after my libertine brother until your dying day.’

  ‘I’ve been a fool,’ replied Jessie calmly. ‘Ashbourne is not for me. I must have something of my own.’

  ‘Sensible girl,’ replied her ladyship. ‘Lusty may not be the most exciting man in the world, but he’ll never stray. Unlike my Colin, I daresay he won’t gamble away his substance, either, or drink himself silly.’ Over twenty years before, she had ruined her chances of a good marriage by befriending Lady Hope when she had been the actress Claire Delahay. Her father, in the vindictive fashion that was characteristic of him, had refused to give her his support, so she had seized her only chance of freedom and accepted an offer of marriage from Colin Rayner.

  Mr Rayner, a younger son of a minor family, had been a clergyman from necessity rather than choice, but he had never allowed his work to interfere with his pleasures. He had enjoyed dressing up in vestments, and mingling with his congregation, particularly in the tap room of the Olde Oak, where he permitted anyone who was willing to buy him a drink or two, or possibly three. The pastoral care of his flock he had left to Lady Agatha, who usually rewarded those who brought him home on those occasions with a coin or two. Jessie had quickly learned to leave Lady Agatha her dignity by keeping out of the way at such times. It was a mark of how well Jessie knew Lady Agatha that the latter was prepared to be so frank about her husband’s shortcomings.

  ‘I am a very fortunate woman,’ Jessie agreed, and told herself that she would soon believe it.

  That night in bed, she took out her copy of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. Idly turning over the pages, she came across the following lines:

  Rakes know how to work on [women’s] sensibility, whilst the modest merit of reasonable men has, of course, less effect on their feelings, and they cannot reach the heart by the way of the understanding, because they have few sentiments in common.

  How very true! Ashbourne was a dangerous man. He did have the power to affect her sensibilities. His light tap on her arm to attract her attention on the steps at Woodfield Park had affected her far more deeply than Henry’s kiss on her cheek. A sensible woman could not ignore these facts. Having admitted the truth, however, it did not follow that she must therefore be silly and sentimental. The love that she felt for Ashbourne was not of the stuff of which reality was made. She would put all of that silliness behind h
er, cultivate an affection for Henry, and only think of Raff as a family friend.

  Henrietta Machin wrote back a short time later, and Lusty hurried round to show Jessie the letter.

  Words cannot express, my dear brother, how delighted I am to hear your good news. I am very sure that I shall soon come to esteem Miss Warburton as highly as you do yourself. Pray bring her to stay with me in London as soon as possible. Perhaps she might help in organizing Percival’s sermons, which demand my most urgent attention.

  ‘Percival was my brother-in-law,’ said Mr Lusty by way of explanation. ‘He was a clergyman, who sadly died five years ago. My sister is not in affluent circumstances, but she inherited a house in London three years ago and has a small income from our father’s estate. She also makes a little money by writing.’

  ‘Writing?’ echoed Jessie, intrigued. ‘What kinds of things does she write?’

  ‘She is putting together her husband’s sermons in a number of volumes,’ replied Lusty. ‘She also writes moral tales for children and other books of moral guidance.’ He reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out a slim volume. ‘This is one of her books. I thought that you might like to see it.’

  Jessie took the book from his hands. ‘Flirtation and its Undesirable Consequences: A Guide for Young Ladies,’ she read. ‘That sounds … informative.’

  ‘I have a number of others in my possession which are equally so,’ he answered eagerly. ‘Concerning the Folly of Trivial Activity on the Lord’s Day is one. The Deplorable Consequences of Novel Reading upon the Impressionable Mind, is another. Perhaps you might like to peruse them on the journey. They would help to make many a weary mile pass by, I am sure.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ agreed Jessie, wondering whether Henry would be observing what she was reading during the whole of the journey.

  ‘I was wondering whether her example might encourage you to write some little tracts of your own,’ said the clergyman shyly.

  ‘Only time will tell,’ Jessie temporized. ‘It seems to me that your sister’s work is very wide ranging. There may not be any new subjects left for me to consider.’

  Chapter Four

  They set out for London a week later. ‘Sadly, I will not be able to stay with you for more than a few days,’ Lusty explained to Jessie. ‘Duty dictates that I must not be absent from my tasks for too long. I will come to see you in London as often as I can. I have every confidence in my sister’s abilities to raise your spirits and the tone of your mind.’

  There was a long pause. Jessie straightened her back. ‘I was not aware that the tone of my mind was particularly low,’ she said, with a touch of hauteur.

  ‘No no, you mistake my meaning,’ replied Lusty, colouring a little. ‘It is simply that the … the connections that you are obliged to acknowledge here are … that is …’

  ‘You do not need to say any more,’ replied Jessie, her own colour heightened. ‘I am sure that Lord Ashbourne and your sister move in very different circles.’ As soon as she had spoken, it occurred to her that he might think that she was trying to sound superior.

  Thankfully such a thing did not seem to enter his mind. ‘Yes, you are right,’ he answered, relieved.

  Ironically, the mail coach in which they were to travel departed from Ashbourne, and to Jessie, it seemed a fitting beginning to her new life. Leaving in the early afternoon from one of the posting houses, it was due to arrive in London at the Swan with Two Necks in Lad Lane at around seven o’clock the following morning.

  There were two other occupants of the coach, a merchant who, like themselves, got on at Ashbourne and a thin, depressed-looking lady who had travelled from Manchester. This lady was sitting facing the horses, and although Mr Lusty would have preferred to sit next to his betrothed, he invited Jessie to take the other forward facing seat, and took his place opposite her, and next to the merchant.

  ‘Sixteen hours is a long time to be shut up with strangers,’ said the merchant in bluff, northern tones. ‘What say we introduce ourselves? My name’s Nathaniel Peacock and I’m off to London on a matter of business to do with the cloth trade.’

  After a moment’s pause, Henry said rather stiffly, ‘I am Henry Lusty, an Anglican priest, and this is my betrothed, Miss Warburton.’

  ‘Off to London to be married, are you?’ Peacock asked, beaming at the engaged couple as if he had had some hand in arranging the match. ‘I don’t blame you! Snap her up before some other fellow does so.’ He was a well-built man, even a little on the stout side, with a square, weather-beaten face, topped by a brown tie wig.

  ‘We are visiting a relative in the capital,’ said the clergyman in cold tones.

  ‘Making sure the family take to her, no doubt,’ grinned the merchant, seemingly unaffected by the other man’s disapproval. ‘They’d have to be mad, or blind, if they didn’t.’ He smiled at Jessie in a manner that was simply good-humoured, without a trace of flirtatiousness and she could not help smiling back. No one had ever suggested that she ought to be snapped up before. She could feel Henry’s disapproval, but determined to ignore it.

  ‘What of you, then, ma’am?’ Peacock asked the fourth member of their party.

  After a brief hesitation, the depressed-looking lady said, ‘My name is Griselda Watson. I am a governess travelling to find a new situation.’

  ‘A governess, eh,’ exclaimed the merchant. ‘Rather you than me, ma’am. Chase a lot of brats around a schoolroom for a pittance? I’d rather starve.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ murmured Miss Watson under her breath, before opening her reticule to take out a thin notebook with a folded letter inside it. Clearly, she did not wish to continue the conversation.

  Mr Lusty had taken advantage of Peacock’s attention being turned away from himself in order to extract a volume of sermons from his pocket and, when the merchant turned back, the clergyman was, to all intents and purposes, deeply involved in his reading. Jessie, who had been afraid that her fiancé would press one of his sister’s tracts upon her, took out her copy of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, confident that he would be too anxious to avoid conversing with the merchant to examine her reading material.

  ‘Reading, eh?’ remarked Mr Peacock. He leaned towards Mr Lusty, in order to examine his reading matter. Rather self-consciously, Lusty leaned away from him, affording Jessie, who was only giving a small portion of her mind to her book, with a rather entertaining tableau. Resuming his place after a moment, Peacock turned his head to look out of the window, and said ‘ho hum,’ a few times at irregular intervals, to no one in particular. He then began to drum his fingers on the window frame of the carriage in a rhythmic pattern. Looking surreptitiously at Miss Watson, Jessie saw her give way to a tiny smile. She was wondering whether the governess was thinking that had Mr Peacock been a small child, she could have offered to entertain him by suggesting that they should count all the different animals that they saw on the journey.

  After another interval, Mr Peacock leaned across once more, whereupon Lusty said, in the tone of a very irritated man who is trying to sound patient, ‘It is a book of sermons.’ No doubt he hoped that this would be the end of the matter, but it was not to be so.

  ‘Waste of time!’ declared Mr Peacock forthrightly.

  Even Mr Lusty could not ignore this. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ he exclaimed, outraged.

  ‘Waste of time, reading sermons,’ Peacock responded, expanding his point. ‘They’re meant to be heard, not read.’

  ‘Perhaps originally, but—’ Lusty began.

  ‘Heard a fine sermon preached in Sheffield fifteen years ago,’ Mr Peacock interrupted. ‘I’ve never forgotten it. 1779, it was. In the open air, too, where everyone could hear it.’

  ‘Indeed,’ replied Mr Lusty, his face rigid with disapproval.

  ‘Certainly. It was Mr John Wesley who was preaching that day, and as fine a sermon as any I’ve heard.’

  ‘I do not dispute that you were impressed at his words, sir,’ replied the cler
gyman. ‘But to preach in the open air is very shocking.’

  Perceiving that this argument would absorb both men for some time, Jessie turned to Miss Watson, who was looking out of the window. ‘Do you have a situation to go to, or are you intending to look for one in London?’

  The governess turned to face her. ‘I am intending to visit an employment agency,’ she replied. ‘I found myself obliged to leave my situation earlier than I had expected, so I will have to take whatever I can get.’

  ‘Such a pity that women are so limited in the work that they are permitted to do,’ Jessie observed. ‘Look what Miss Wollstonecraft has to say here.’ She pointed out a paragraph.

  Women might certainly study the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurses … They might, also, study politics, and settle their benevolence on the broadest basis … Business of various kinds, they might likewise pursue …

  Miss Watson looked at the paragraph that Jessie had indicated and smiled cynically. ‘Wouldn’t that be agreeable?’ she murmured. ‘It will never happen in our lifetime, though. Men are much too anxious to have their own way.’

  Listening to Mr Lusty and Mr Peacock each arguing his own position with single-minded intensity, Jessie felt very much inclined to agree.

  The Manchester mail lived up to its reputation by delivering its quartet of travellers to the Swan with Two Necks at 7.30 the following morning. The debate between Mr Lusty and Mr Peacock had proved to be quite protracted, leaving Jessie free to enjoy her book in peace, and Miss Watson to give her attention to the scenery outside, until the gathering dusk had put an end to both of these activities.

  A short break at a busy posting house at around seven o’clock in the evening had provided them with a meal, very welcome but rather too hastily swallowed because the mail could not wait. After that, they had all attempted to get some sleep. Mr Peacock, obviously a comfortable traveller, had dropped off almost immediately, and then snored in the kind of loud, vigorous manner that might have been expected from one of his general demeanour. Miss Watson had closed her eyes and settled back quietly in her corner. After a few minutes’ desultory conversation, Mr Lusty had suggested that he and Jessie should try to get some sleep. She was thankful for the suggestion. She was finding it a little difficult to converse with Mr Lusty, and was hoping that the whole of their married life would not be spent in struggling to think what to say to him. She consoled herself with the thought that shared experiences would surely give them things to talk about.