Louisa Elliott

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  ‘Well, it’s nice of you to say so, Moira,’ Louisa smiled, and set about preparing Victoria’s lessons. ‘And how have you been while I’ve been away?’

  Moira struggled to pull out the heavy chest of drawers and smiled her thanks as Louisa lent a hand. ‘Oh, fine you know. But my Ma’s worried about that young brother of mine, young Sean. He’s no good that one, won’t settle to a job, in with all the hard fellas – at least they think they’re hard. Just bullies they are. So now he thinks he’ll go to America, but what on, I’d like to know.’ Having dusted the skirtings and polished the floorboards behind the chest, she sat back on her haunches and grinned. ‘He only thinks the rest of us should pay his way. Now would you believe that?’

  ‘And would you?’ Louisa asked as they pushed the chest back into place again.

  Moira laughed again. ‘Sure, and it’d be worth it, just to get rid of the young... Ah, I’d better not say it, he is my brother, after all.’ On hands and knees, she continued along the edges of the carpet, rubbing and polishing as she went. ‘And how’s your Ma?’

  ‘Much better, I’m happy to say. Upset about my aunt’s death, of course, but better in herself.’

  ‘I was that sorry to hear about your aunt, Miss Elliott.’

  Louisa sighed. ‘It was a shock, yes, but she hadn’t been well for a long time. Anyway, my cousin is coming back to live with my mother and sister in Gillygate, which is a good thing for all of them, I think. Now, I must get on, and so must you. You won’t forget to give my room a thorough clean today, will you?’

  It was a gentle reminder, but necessary. Like most of her fellows, Moira was grossly overworked, rising early and going to bed late, her day an endless round of physical labour. Sympathy prevented Louisa from seeming too harsh or too precise.

  She spent the rest of the morning with the child, hearing her read, practising the times tables, and taking her through a modicum of elementary geography. In the afternoon, she supervised Victoria’s sewing lesson until Rachel’s arrival with a jigsaw put an end to it.

  Annoyed, Louisa went over to the window. The January afternoon was chill and overcast, and its bleakness found an echo in herself. Wind whipped ragged smoke from a score of chimneys, sending thin scurries of snow flying across the rooftops, etching slates and tiles with white. At doors and windows lamps were lit, like incandescent blobs of yellow on a colourless canvas, warmly inviting. But the street was deserted, apart from a solitary figure hurrying towards the liquid comfort of the Windmill Inn across the way.

  The approaching rattle of horses’ hooves startled her out of her reverie. She leaned further into the window, her heart beating faster as she saw the squadron of dark-cloaked Dragoons emerging beneath the arch of Micklegate Bar. Could it be their visitor at the head? She couldn’t tell. As they drew level with the house Victoria rushed to her side, clapping her hands at the jingling harness. Rachel joined them, her gaze rapt.

  The military were a regular spectacle, a bright spot on a winter’s day, entertainment in the summer as they displayed their prowess on the Knavesmire. This squadron moved as though motivated by a single mind, each horse a part of its master, each man at one with his brother; heads up, backs straight, emanating unity and strength.

  Rachel’s heartfelt sigh found a secret echo in Louisa’s heart. With a rueful smile she recognized the changes a week had wrought. The advent of Captain Duncannon had changed her perspective, created a particular interest, and suddenly made sense of Rachel Tempest’s longings. No wonder young girls were so dazzled, Louisa thought, when their lives were so proscribed.

  Rachel’s especially. At nineteen years old, she was barely a year out of the young ladies’ academy where she had finished her education, and already chafing at the reins her father sought to impose. He had paid good money to make a lady out of his pretty elder daughter, and yet, to Louisa, it seemed as though he did not much care for the finished product. Rachel had developed a taste for her schoolfriends’ style of living, for the kind of society her father affected to despise, and aped so assiduously. Her plans had been thwarted by a year of mourning, but now the year was up, she was determined to pursue that life regardless.

  Watching her as she strained to see the last of the squadron, Louisa suspected that Albert Tempest’s ambitions for a prosaic and strictly mercantile alliance would receive short shrift from his daughter. She had her sights set on more flamboyant game.

  Turning excitedly from the window, she unwittingly confirmed Louisa’s train of thought. ‘I can’t wait for Sophie Bainbridge’s party—they have an officer of Dragoons lodging with them, and Sophie says he’s sure to bring some friends.’

  Annoyed by her heart’s sudden, involuntary leap, Louisa bit back the impulse to ask the man’s name. With unaccustomed sharpness, she said: ‘Have you asked your father if you may go?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Rachel admitted.

  ‘I think you should. When is it to be?’

  ‘St Valentine’s Day – isn’t that romantic?’

  ‘Very,’ Louisa agreed dryly. ‘But it’s less than four weeks away. Do you think you can persuade your father before you have to answer the invitation?’ Privately, she held out little hope, knowing that from the depths of his middle-class, Methodist soul, Albert Tempest despised the military on principle, and had scant regard for the Bainbridges with their army connections. Sophie’s father was retired, but his eldest son, Arthur, was a Lieutenant with the Yorkshire Hussars; they lived in some style at Fulford, not far from the Cavalry Barracks.

  Before Rachel could reply, there was a tap at the schoolroom door. The girl, Moira, came in with a tray of tea and bread and butter, setting it down on Louisa’s desk by the window.

  ‘I can persuade him if you’ll help me,’ Rachel said as soon as the maid had gone; and with a shrewdness of which Louisa had not thought her capable, added: ‘My father listens to what you say.’

  ‘Really, Miss Rachel, you overestimate my position.’

  Two hours later, Albert Tempest passed beneath the arch of Micklegate Bar. The traffic of homebound workers had trampled the refined whiteness of the pavements into soft brown sugar, while the roadway was ravaged by trams and carts. He hesitated at the corner of Nunnery Lane while a dray squelched past through slush and dung, finally crossing with care for his boots and trouser bottoms.

  As usual, he bowed his head until he was past the convent; not as a mark of respect, but as a way of blotting its existence from his mind. Papists offended him. He detested having to allow his maid her hour off on Sundays to attend Mass; would not have employed her except that the Irish were generally willing to accept a lower wage. With the raising of his chin, he looked spiritually ahead to the day when he could afford to move his home and family to the cleaner air of Bishopthorpe. No, not Bishopthorpe, he thought; more heathenish ways there with the Archbishop and his Palace by the river. Dringhouses, perhaps, or Acomb, where the land was higher, the air fresh from the country.

  With his hand upon the bell, he wiped the worst of the filth from his boots onto the scraper by the door, his eyes ready, by the time it opened, not to look directly at the maid. Silently, he handed over his gloves and bowler hat, staring at, but not seeing, the black cast-iron curlicues of the massive hallstand. He waited while Moira removed first his ulster, then his coat, then bent to remove her master’s boots. Equally silently, she handed him his slippers and bore the wet boots away to the kitchen to be cleaned.

  As the door at the far end of the hall closed, Albert Tempest stood beneath the double-shaded gas mantle and smoothed his hair, checking its greying wings in the oval mirror on the hallstand. Satisfied, he went through into the drawing room where his daughters and Miss Elliott awaited him.

  It was a richly-furnished if somewhat dismal room, dominated by an elaborately framed likeness of the late Mrs Tempest, her hollow, haunted eyes defying any foolhardy attempt at gaiety.

  Thrusting aside her doll, Victoria leapt up to greet her father, plump little arms winding
about his neck, rosebud mouth puckering to be kissed. His response was genuine and spontaneous: the only spontaneous thing in his life, Louisa thought, as she unwittingly caught his glance.

  For a moment, she wondered what truth there had been in Rachel’s remark. For a man who rarely noticed the existence of his other servants, Albert Tempest’s eyes had dwelt on her rather too often and for rather too long of late. Having disentangled himself from the child’s passionate embrace, he received his other daughter’s perfunctory kiss as usual, and bestowed a nod in Louisa’s direction.

  Chafing his hands by the glow of a carefully banked-down fire, he commented on the weather. No suggestion of stirring the flames or adding more coal, however. They could all freeze, Louisa decided, while Mr Tempest would continue to say that blazing fires were dangerous and wasteful. If Rachel complained, she was told to wear a warmer shawl.

  Money spent on appearances was usually not begrudged, although even there he tried to cut corners. Like the daughters of the gentry he sneered at, Rachel must have her companion and Victoria her governess. As she strove to perform both roles, Louisa was beginning to feel the iniquity of her position. After the carefree atmosphere of her last post, the Tempest household was oppressive. Her duties, if not physically arduous, involved long hours and much patience, for the two girls, being so disparate in age, behaved like self-indulgent only children.

  As Mr Tempest seated himself, Louisa began to relax; she looked forward to these few minutes when he read his newspaper, relating suitable snippets of news while waiting for the evening meal to be served. For her, it marked the beginning of the end of the day. She would still have to supervise Victoria until bedtime, and prepare her lessons for the following day, but unless Mr Tempest was going out, or working alone in the library, she could sit in the schoolroom and read by herself.

  With her eyes on her mending, she waited now for her employer to settle himself. There would no doubt be a further bulletin on the progress of the Duke of Clarence. In her mother’s paper Louisa had read that he too had fallen victim to the ‘flu epidemic, and was even now at Sandringham, attended by the royal physicians.

  With a grunt that could have expressed either sorrow or satisfaction, Albert Tempest tapped his newspaper and announced that the Duke was dead. ‘“Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra, died in the early hours of this morning of influenza, at Sandringham House, a matter of days after his twenty-eighth birthday.”

  ‘Well!’ he exclaimed, oblivious to their stunned expressions, ‘that’s his future settled and no mistake. He won’t make Viceroy of Ireland now!’ He read on: ‘“H.S.H. Prince Francis of Teck, brother to Princess May, 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Dragoons, is naturally much affected, and has left the city to join his family in London.”‘

  A wail from Rachel caused her father to lower his paper in amazement, but even Louisa was surprised by his callousness.

  ‘How could you?’ Rachel demanded, tears in her eyes and voice. ‘How could you be so heartless, Father? What does it matter if he was going to be Viceroy? Just think how poor Princess May must feel — she was going to be married in the spring. What will she do now?’

  Albert Tempest snorted. ‘Well, my dear, I’m sure they’ll find another husband for her from somewhere. If she was about to marry a future King,’ he commented shrewdly, ‘she’ll be too valuable a property to end her days a spinster. Anyway,’ he added cryptically, ‘from what I’ve heard, she’ll be better off without him.’

  As Rachel gulped and dabbed at her eyes, her father rattled his paper irritably. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake stop that sniveling, girl! I’ve heard enough of that lately to last me the year out.’ With a glance at the mantel clock, he slapped his paper shut and excused himself, closing the drawing-room door behind him with unnecessary force.

  His elder daughter ceased her whimpering at once. Round-eyed, she turned to Louisa and said: ‘Why should Princess May be better off? What did father mean?’

  Pursing her lips, Louisa shook her head. ‘Perhaps you should ask him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell,’ Rachel declared with some disdain. ‘You know what he’s like. Come on, Louisa, you know — what did he mean about the Prince?’

  ‘I don’t know — anyway, I’m sure we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’ Under pressure, however, she said: ‘I have heard the Prince led a somewhat dissipated life.’

  ‘What’s dissipated?’ Victoria wanted to know, and Louisa shook her head at Rachel in annoyance.

  ‘It means a person who goes to bed very late, and doesn’t eat his greens,’ she explained severely. Most put out, the little girl returned to her dolls.

  Rachel looked blank. ‘Is that really what it means?’

  Irritably, her companion began to pack away the sewing things. ‘The word covers a lot of sins, Miss Rachel, as I’m sure you are well aware. In the Prince’s case, however, I think it also means he drank a great deal. Far more than was good for him.’

  ‘Oh. How terrible.’ But Rachel sounded disappointed, as though she had hoped for more. As she added her embroidery to the sewing-basket, the dinner gong sounded, cutting short further conversation.

  They took their places in the dining room as Albert Tempest rejoined them. Before Louisa’s arrival, the little girl had been cared for by a succession of nurses, and rarely came downstairs. It had taken a great deal of tact on Louisa’s part to persuade Albert Tempest that his younger daughter’s difficult behaviour was largely attributable to loneliness and grief after her mother’s death. Mrs Tempest had been a semi-invalid for many years, worn out by miscarriages and recurring illness, but she had been their mother, and the child needed company.

  Sharing more of the family’s life had certainly wrought improvements, and under Louisa’s tutelage the child’s manners were more acceptable, her appetite no longer giving cause for concern. It was a considerable step forward. As she bowed her head for the Grace, Louisa was aware that the privilege would not have been granted except for Albert Tempest’s adoration of his younger daughter. The fact that the experiment had worked made him view Louisa with greater respect. She hoped that was the only reason for his occasional little pleasantries.

  Conversation between courses, however, was hardly the stuff of which soirees are made. Rachel tended to prattle endlessly about her friends and their social engagements, Victoria contributed the occasional unwelcome profundity of which only children are capable, and, true to her position, Louisa never spoke unless invited to. But from the depths of his boredom, Albert Tempest invited her comments more and more often, for her candid and practical observations seemed to amuse him.

  Not for the first time, he chewed reflectively and stole covert glances at the young woman sitting less than six feet away from him. Hardly a beauty, he thought, especially with that curly, close-cropped hair; and taller by far than he liked a woman to be. But she was strong and healthy and looked more than capable of bearing a dozen strapping sons. Sons that his late wife had been quite incapable of producing. He had wanted sons; what was the use of building an empire without extensions of himself to carry it on? With a slight sigh, he acknowledged the near impossibility of such fantasies. He would have to marry again, and wives were such an encumbrance.

  His quick, darting glances might have gone largely unnoticed by the object of his attention, but they were not lost on Rachel. She had lived too long under the gaze of eyes glazed by boredom not to notice the change in her father. He paid little attention to what she said, and when he did listen, the only spark she provoked was that of irritability. After due consideration, she decided this was as good a time as any to begin her campaign for more freedom. Louisa must make of it what she could.

  Engrossed in thoughts which concerned Prince Francis of Teck and Robert Duncannon, Louisa missed Rachel’s first desultory remarks regarding the St Valentine’s Day party. It was Albert Tempest’s heavy voice which roused her attention.

  ‘I see, Miss Elliott thinks y
ou should go to the ball, does she?’

  ‘It’s not a ball, Father,’ Rachel patiently explained. ‘It’s Sophie Bainbridge’s twentieth birthday, and she’s having a small gathering of friends at home.’

  Louisa gathered her wits. ‘Please, Miss Rachel, do tell your father what I really said. That you should ask him. However, Mr Tempest,’ she added quickly before Rachel could interrupt, ‘I cannot see any reason why Miss Rachel should not go. It’s sure to be a pleasant occasion, and a good opportunity for meeting people.’

  ‘But I don’t care for the Bainbridges,’ he protested, belligerence creeping into his voice. ‘Empty-headed, the lot of them. And no doubt Churchy. No, Rachel, I don’t want you to go. Besides, who’d escort you? Different if you had a young man paying you court. Someone suitable, that is.’

  ‘And how is anyone ever going to court me, when I never get the chance to meet anyone?’ she demanded, her voice registering several higher decibels.

  Her father did not consider this to be a valid argument. ‘There are several young men I know who would be only too pleased to call on you, or escort you to a social evening at the chapel.’

  As the colour in Rachel’s face mounted alarmingly, Louisa entertained a passing thought that Mr Tempest was being deliberately provocative, but the argument had gone too far for her to intervene.

  ‘These — these — so-called young men you speak of, Father,’ Rachel eventually spluttered, ‘must be at least thirty-five, and unmarried simply because — because they are too repulsive for words! Arthur Grimshaw has warts as big as pigeons’ eggs, Frederick Swales is scarcely taller than Victoria, and that awful Mr Bickerdike looks like a scarecrow for all his money, and has dewdrops hanging from the end of his nose!’

  Louisa struggled to hide her laughter at these terrifyingly accurate descriptions. There were others, but none of them had money.

  ‘If these — men – are the best you can offer me, then I shall remain a spinster and plague you for the rest of my life!’