A Woman's Estate

by Roberta Gellis

  Abigail could just hear Hilda saying, “Hardly a foot in the door and she was telling us to get out, driving us out of the only home my poor children have ever known.” Worse yet, Hilda would be saying it to families in the neighborhood, just those people Abigail hoped to win as friends. Nor was there any way to keep Hilda away from them, since she knew from Mr. Deedes that the dower house, where Hilda was legally entitled to live, was situated right in the park surrounding the main house—not to mention the complication that it was occupied and the tenant would have to be evicted.

  Abigail sighed. She suspected she had been deliberately trapped, but she was not certain. Probably Mr. Deedes should have insisted that Hilda leave Rutupiae Hall forty days after Lord Lydden’s death; that was the law. A widow had no right to remain longer than forty days in her husband’s house unless it was specifically willed to her. There was some excuse for Mr. Deedes’ failure; it would take longer than forty days to obtain information from America as to whether Francis wished his stepmother to remain in residence and whether he intended to leave America and come to England. If Francis had survived and decided to remain in America, it would have been better to have Rutupiae Hall occupied than left empty.

  Actually, Abigail felt that the excuse was very weak. Mr. Deedes must have known Francis hated his stepmother—Deedes had hinted as much by saying that there was a lack of harmony in the household—and that Francis would never have agreed to sharing Rutupiae Hall with her or even to her living in the place in his absence. But there was another way of looking at it. If Mr. Deedes had requested that Hilda leave and she had refused, it would have created a dreadful scandal to evict her legally. It was unlikely that the solicitor would have taken so drastic a step without specific orders. But once it was clear to the servants who was truly the mistress of Rutupiae Hall, it would be easy enough to make Hilda want to leave.

  When the maid returned, Abigail did not waste any time over her own preparations for dinner, and shepherded Victor and Daphne down well within the half hour she had stipulated. The children had been roaming around Victor’s suite, peering into closets and giggling over the possibility that Victor would get lost trying to find his bed and have to shout for rescue. Abigail joined their nonsense gladly when they came to tell her of their discoveries, suggesting that Victor tie a line to his waist so that he could follow it back to a known point. This caused such a burst of hilarity that Abigail was confident the children had regained their spirits.

  In fact, they had regained them too well. They made so much noise coming down the stairs and rushing into the hall that she had to warn them that company manners would be necessary, or they would be sent to eat in the kitchen. This threat, however, was the wrong one. An informal meal in the kitchen was far more appealing to Victor and Daphne than sitting still and being proper for two or three hours with adults they did not know well and were not sure they liked. Both children immediately began to jump up and down and demand to be punished immediately.

  Exasperated, Abigail said, “Don’t you dare shame me in front of Hilda. Don’t you realize she thinks we are common barbarians? Do you want to prove her right? Victor, you are now Lord Lydden. Are you going to sit at the head of the table and act like a man or not? And you, Daphne, will you give her reason to say you have not been trained to be a lady?”

  She was sorry a moment later for using Hilda as a bugbear, which would not improve whatever slim chance there was to establish a friendly relationship, but there was no time to mend what she had said. And Hilda did not help. First she complained about the noise Victor and Daphne had been making on the stairs and in the hall, and when she saw the extra places at the table, she sniffed audibly and, looking off over the children’s heads, said that dinner conversation among adults was not suitable to children and that she hoped that in the future Abigail would keep them where they belonged—out of sight.

  “No,” Abigail said simply. “I am accustomed to having them about and am quite fond of them, you know.”

  Chapter Four

  The first dinner at Rutupiae Hall was a disaster. Before Abigail could soften her statement by explaining that Victor and Daphne would have their meals served separately as soon as proper supervision could be arranged, another contretemps arose. Eustace, who had been looking with some surprise at Abigail—for it was most unusual to have children dine with adults—had moved automatically but rather slowly to the master’s chair at the head of the table only to find Victor already seated in it. He had opened his mouth and then closed it very firmly and turned away almost as if he were going to leave the room.

  Abigail could feel her heart thumping in her throat, but she forced steadiness into her voice and a smile to her lips as she moved toward the chair at the foot of the table, inviting Eustace to sit to her left and Hilda on her right. She had expected an outraged outcry, but Hilda took her seat without a glance at the chair she must have occupied for years, and although she continued to complain about having to dine with the children, she said not a word about Victor sitting at the head of the table. This forbearance moved Abigail to apologize for not warning Eustace that she had told Victor to take the master’s place. Eustace mumbled a formal acceptance of the apology, but Hilda looked surprised and said that it was his place and if he had to be at the table at all, that was where he belonged.

  Abigail was thankful that there had been no time for the cook to try to show off for the new mistress. In her opinion the meal was elaborate enough and lasted far too long. She struggled to make conversation, but Eustace was abstracted, and Hilda’s responses were more the type that kills conversation dead rather than encourages it. The one and only good thing was that Victor and Daphne were remarkably well behaved. Not that they were silent; Abigail could hear their voices nearly all the time, but they were speaking softly. Practiced in letting sleeping dogs lie, Abigail did not glance in their direction for fear her attention would disturb the peace.

  As the second course was served, Abigail made one last attempt at opening an unexceptional subject. She offered compliments on the beauty of the gardens. This having been promptly done to death by a spate of strictures on the idiocy of her daughter—for it was apparently Griselda who planned and oversaw the gardening—and the stupidity and stubbornness of the gardeners, Abigail gave up and resigned herself to enduring the remainder of the meal in silence.

  That did not suit Hilda either. Abigail discovered that it was not necessary for her to introduce new topics of conversation. Hilda was quite capable of finding her own. From the gardeners she wandered to the odd shape of Rutupiae lands, which were no more than a half mile wide, although they stretched several miles from the bank of the River Stour to the house, and the fact that Rutupiae Hall was so close to Stonar Magna, precluding a proper “wilderness” to stroll in on hot, sunny days.

  “But I noticed a very pretty wood at the back of the house,” Abigail remarked pacifyingly before she could stop herself.

  “Those belong to Sir Arthur St. Eyre,” Hilda snapped, “all except about twenty yards, and I am not presently disposed to gratify Sir Arthur by trespassing on his property.”

  “Trespassing?” Abigail repeated. “I was given to understand that the families were very friendly and that Sir Arthur was too busy with politics to pay much attention to anything else.”

  “I cannot think where you could have come by such a foolish notion,” Hilda exclaimed, her peevish whine giving Abigail a strong desire to put her hands over her ears. “Although Sir Arthur is certainly political, we never found him friendly. Lady St. Eyre never invited us to her political dinners. I suppose she did not like the idea that I would be given precedence. Oh, naturally you won’t understand, coming from America as you do, but Lord Lydden was a baron, and Sir Arthur was only a baronet. And as for not paying attention to anything except politics, I can say that Sir Arthur is never too busy to stick his long nose into what does not concern him.”

  Involuntarily Abigail looked at Eustace, who had
several times softened his mother’s statements. He had at last raised his eyes from his plate, and they met hers briefly, but there was no expression in them that Abigail could read. Then he shrugged.

  “The families may have been close at one time, when my father and the late Sir Arthur were alive, but he died some twenty years ago, and the present Sir Arthur seems to have taken his responsibilities very seriously. He and Francis were childhood friends, but after a time he had no taste for Francis’ type of playfulness, so they drifted apart. Perhaps it is that same sense of responsibility that makes him monitor and forbid all expenditures.”

  “Necessary repairs,” Hilda cried before Abigail could ask what Eustace meant. “We shall have the roof down on us before Sir Arthur will admit that some attention must be given to this house.”

  “Is the roof leaking?” Abigail asked, aghast. Rutupiae Hall was an old house, originally Elizabethan, which had been added to and rebuilt in part over the centuries. The roof of such a structure, with its many joins and odd angles, might easily develop leaks that could cause serious damage from wetting and running along the supporting beams.

  “Oh!” Hilda flapped a hand dismissively. “How should I know whether the roof leaks? That was merely an example. However, there is a terrible draught from the drawing-room windows because the curtains are not thick enough. I was misled over those curtains. I will never again trust that sly creature who made them.”

  Abigail nodded without speaking, hiding behind a silence that could be construed as agreement. Actually she was thinking with relief that there was no need for any catastrophic confrontation with a tight-fisted executor over curtains for the drawing room. She was also rather concerned. If Sir Arthur were going to contest every sum spent, no matter how small, until Victor reached his majority—and curtains for the drawing room could not amount to a very large sum—she would likely come into serious conflict with him.

  She therefore felt more amusement than she might under other circumstances when Hilda explained that, of course, changing the curtains would necessitate replacing the wallpaper, furniture and rugs, also. Since so radical a refurnishing might run to several thousand dollars—Abigail could not yet think quickly in terms of English pounds—it became clear to her that Sir Arthur might be less unreasonable than Hilda had implied. A mild question as to what was wrong with the present furniture soon produced the information that Hilda was tired of the dowdiness of Queen Anne comfort and craved a version of Prince George’s Chinese rococo. Further, Hilda made it clear that she felt the stiff old Elizabethan and Jacobean portraits of Lydden ancestors should be replaced with more modern paintings by contemporary masters. She first suggested stylish portraits of herself and her children, and then, as a second thought, added Abigail and her children, and perhaps one or two landscapes by Constable.

  A flicker of sympathy for Sir Arthur passed through Abigail as she wondered whether it was the cost alone that had induced him to veto Hilda’s proposition. Abigail had a vision of a bucolic landscape by Constable against a glaring background of gold, red and black Chinese dragons and pagodas. Even as she repressed the temptation to giggle, Abigail knew it was possible that she was being unfair. There were Chinese wallpapers of great beauty and delicacy that would grace any room and any furnishings. As she had no reason at all to place any reliance on Hilda’s taste, however, she did not feel guilty.

  Still, Abigail did not contradict or express any reservations, even when Hilda’s comments on Sir Arthur’s niggardliness centered on expenditures where Abigail agreed even more heartily with the executor, as in his refusal to pay Hilda’s dressmaker’s bills and the cost of an expensive horse for Eustace. Hilda, Abigail knew, could well afford to pay her own bills, particularly as she was living at Victor’s expense instead of supporting her own household.

  Although it was true enough that Abigail was glad she could avoid any confrontation on this subject, she was not silent out of cowardice. Her mind was busy trying to sort out the contradiction between Alexander Baring’s favorable comments about Sir Arthur and Hilda’s diatribe against him. It did seem as if Sir Arthur was not too busy with politics to pay rather close attention to his executor’s duties. On the one hand, this was helpful because he was protecting Victor’s interests efficiently and bearing the brunt of Hilda’s animosity, which otherwise, Abigail guessed, would have been directed against herself and possibly against Victor. On the other hand, this close examination of minor matters like dressmaker’s bills again raised the specter of his interference in her affairs.

  There was little to be gained by her speculating, Abigail soon decided. She would have to arrange a meeting with Sir Arthur and discover for herself whether his close attention was owing to a distrust of Hilda, a most reasonable attitude as far as Abigail was concerned, or to a general desire to control others, which was sometimes an unfortunate result of the strong sense of responsibility Eustace had mentioned. Once or twice Abigail glanced at Eustace, but he had returned to his abstraction, and there was little pleasure in listening further to Hilda’s painful voice. Thus, it was with considerable relief that she saw the remains of the second course of the dinner removed and replaced by the sweets and savories.

  Just before release finally came, a shout of laughter from Victor, hushed with uncharacteristic rapidity, reminded Abigail that her children had been models of behavior. It was close to the end of the meal, so she took the chance of glancing at them and noticed that both were looking at Griselda. Then their eyes caught Abigail’s, and Daphne began to giggle and Victor joined her. The halcyon period was obviously at an end. Abigail hastily suggested that the children take a few cakes and excused them from the table. Even so, she made a mental note to reward them for not adding to her difficulties.

  Over the next few days, however, Abigail had no time to pursue her plan for meeting Sir Arthur. The weather turned wet, and the children’s curiosity and the newness of the house led them into constant mischief. The servants were more amused than disturbed, but Hilda, having several times discovered a maid repairing the traces of Victor and Daphne’s passage rather than performing her accustomed duties, fumed over the disruption of their work.

  Eustace was no better pleased with the hitches in the previously smooth functioning of the household. Although he did not complain directly to her, Abigail heard him angrily castigating Empson for permitting the footmen to lead the children around the house, which made them slow to answer his bell. Abigail was annoyed; she wished he had spoken to her directly rather than blaming Empson for what was not his fault. Too much of that might change the warm welcome Victor and Daphne had received from the servants.

  Worst of all, by accident—at least, Abigail hoped it was an accident, rather than a deliberate attempt to get back at Hilda—the children invaded Hilda’s room. That precipitated a major crisis. Both Victor and Daphne apologized, Abigail apologized, all three explained that it had only been a result of their mistaking the corridor, owing to having come up the wrong set of stairs. Still, it took a whole day to soothe Hilda’s sense of “having been violated”.

  Then Abigail felt she had to face the problem of transferring the management of the house from Griselda’s hands to hers. But Griselda’s silent shrinking from opposition to any proposal Abigail made, despite her clear terror that her mother would discover she was not performing her usual tasks, woke in Abigail a mingled pity and exasperation. Half of her wanted to shriek “Stand up for yourself, you ninny. I won’t bite you!” at the girl, and the other half wondered if there was any “self” left inside poor Griselda after years of being scorned and scolded by her selfish mother.

  Pity won over exasperation, however, partly because Victor and Daphne kept insisting that Griselda was “the best of good sports”, although they would not say why, and partly because Abigail was annoyed with Hilda, who was periodically still lamenting the dreadful shock caused by the intrusion of the children into her private domain. Inspired by this mixture of emotions, Abigail c
ame down to breakfast with an idea that would protect Griselda and still leave the real power in her own hands.

  This morning it seemed that everything was going to fall into place. Abigail had finally arranged what she felt was adequate temporary supervision for her children, although not for education. Mrs. Howing, the housekeeper, had suggested Francis’ old nurse, who lived on the estate in a cottage not far from the Roman ruins that gave Rutupiae Hall its name. Mrs. Franklin had married a farmer, and when he had died, she had sold the farm because her daughter’s husband, Price, the head gamekeeper on Sir Arthur’s estate, knew nothing about farming and cared less.

  Mrs. Franklin was not young, but she had not lost her touch with children. Over the years, she had taken into her home, first on the farm and then in her cottage, any of the children of the Lyddens or St. Eyres who, for one reason or another, needed special, private care for a few weeks or months. She had nursed Griselda over a long convalescence after she had been desperately ill, first with measles and then with pneumonia. Lady Hilda, Howing said expressionlessly, claimed she could not bear to see her pale, listless daughter creeping about the house.

  Needless to say, this did not improve Abigail’s opinion of Hilda, but she had asked Mrs. Franklin to come to Rutupiae, had been favorably impressed, and had arranged for her to supervise Victor and Daphne until she either sent them to school or hired a governess and tutor. Mrs. Franklin had not been very enthusiastic about living at Rutupiae Hall, but Abigail assured her that it would not be for long, at the most a month or two. The deciding factors were that Francis had been her favorite nursling and that his children had a special attraction for her.

  In fact, Abigail’s discussion with Mrs. Franklin provided another reason for helping Griselda if she could. To her relief, Abigail found that it was not necessary to tell Mrs. Franklin of Francis’ death because Griselda had taken the trouble to walk down to her cottage as soon as they heard of it from Mr. Deedes. And it was partly her grief over Francis’ death that prompted Mrs. Franklin to break her rule of caring for children only in her own home.