by Joan Aiken
“You can rely on my entire discretion,” he replied, bowing them out of the door.
“Is he not a dear man?” Isa said absently as they hurried up the hill. “Now what? Oh, I know—a ribbon for Parthie—” and turning aside into a draper’s shop she bought a broad white ribbon with a very pretty briar-rose pattern, pink and green, all along its length. “It is better than she deserves—but she was so disappointed. Life is hard for her, falling, as she does, midway between us and the little ones. And her disability—”
“Have we time to turn aside into the churchyard and read Louisa’s letter?” Alvey could take no interest in Parthie, whom she found a most dislikeable child.
“No, we had better not; the Beaumonts will be expecting us; also we, the Winships I mean, are so well known in Hexham that anybody might stop and ask who our correspondent was.”
Indeed this was true: Isa had been greeting people continuously ever since they came to the town—”Good day, Mrs Coxon; how are you, Mr MacDonald? Ah, Miss Ogle, my mother wished to thank you for the plants—you remember my sister Louisa, I am sure?” How shall I ever remember all these names? Alvey thought in dismay. Half the people encountered said they would have known Louisa anywhere, the other half said she had changed out of all recognition.
“Will all these people be at the Assembly?” Alvey asked.
“No, none of them. The Assemblies are very select: no townspeople, tradesmen or professionals, no infantry officers; to be admitted you have to belong to an unexceptionable County family with at least sixteen quarterings.”
“Good God! I should probably be thrown into prison for outrageous presumption if my antecedents became known—”
Isa laughed as they strolled on to the Canon’s house, a quiet, old-fashioned residence within a stone’s throw of the abbey church. Its panelled parlour, small-paned casement windows, and wide expanses of polished floor put Alvey in mind of the Abbey school. She was introduced to the Canon, a frail, silent old man, evidently in poor health, and to his sister, Miss Beaumont, a gaunt lady in her mid-sixties whose principal occupation appeared to consist in tending her brother, placing a screen between him and any possible draught, adjusting the comforter for his neck, or the footstool for his feet. Satisfied on these points, she greeted Alvey cordially enough, and inquired after Mrs Camperdowne; it was on Miss Beaumont’s recommendation, Isa had informed Alvey, that Louisa had originally been sent to the Abbey School, for Miss Beaumont was an old acquaintance of Miss Latournelle, the original founder, and her niece Fanny had attended the school some twelve years previously. Miss Fanny Beaumont, now in her thirties, had, Alvey knew, been engaged to a young man who had sailed to India in the service of the East India Company, contracted a fever in Calcutta, and died there. Fanny was plain, kind-faced, and now resigned to spinsterhood, in a severe grey dress and muslin cap tied over her close-braided hair. But she was taking a lively interest in Meg’s wedding preparations and had advice to offer on some nicety of the bridesmaids’ equipment—“With white velvet it will be infinitely better, my love—” and she appeared to look forward to the evening’s Assembly with unfeigned pleasure, though she had no intention of dancing herself. She greeted Alvey rather quietly; the latter received a strong impression that Louisa, of old, had been accustomed to snub and disparage Miss Beaumont as a person of no particular account.
But that shall be changed, thought Alvey militantly, responding to the unassuming kindness of Miss Fanny’s greeting, and then caught herself up, as she did twenty times a day, with the thought: What right have I to revise Louisa’s mode of behaviour to people? But yet she could not help doing it. In any case, she reflected, Louisa will very likely never return here, so the disparity between her manners and mine will not come under consideration; I shall be away from Birkland Hall soon enough, and what will it signify then whether I faithfully reproduced Louisa’s ways, or behaved out of keeping? By the end of a year I shall be gone. The thought of this escape, which she had held out for so strongly once, now struck her with a singular chill.
Then, recollecting Louisa’s letter, she became impatient to learn what the contents might be; but that must wait until after dinner, when the girls retired to their rooms to dress for the ball.
Dinner—an early, frugal meal—was soon over, and the young ladies repaired to their respective chambers: Meg, as an old friend, was sleeping in Fanny’s room, Isa and Alvey were together. Isa had the letter out of her reticule in a moment and carefully, with her scissors, prised up the wafer.
“Oh!” she said in disappointment. “It is sent from Cadiz! She had not yet reached India when it was dispatched.”
“How could she possibly, goose? The journey takes months—and then the letter as long to come back.”
“Very true—I had not thought.” Her eyes skimmed over the closely written lines. “Seize this opportunity—send back by the packet boat—assure you that I am well and very happy—confidence that I am fulfilling my duty—Mr & Mrs Tothill exceedingly pleasant company full of proper attentions—truly devout—several friends on board with them of like mind—one or two excellent young clergymen—naval officers also most helpful and obliging—Captain Middlemass a truly respectable and god-fearing man—in haste, the boatman is calling—from your sister in God—L. WINSHIP. PS I hope that my parents are in good health.”
“She almost forgot that post scriptum,” observed Alvey tartly, reading over Isa’s shoulder. The letter is like a child’s, she thought; so full of her new experience that she can spare no moment to remember anybody else.
“She might have expressed a word of gratitude to you, for permitting her to enjoy this experience!” exclaimed Isa rather disgustedly, folding the paper and tucking it away among her clean handkerchiefs.
“Oh, she might be afraid the letter would fall into the wrong hands, so dare not be more explicit.”
“I do not believe she gave the matter one moment’s thought.”
“Had you not better destroy the letter, once Meg has read it?”
“No, why? Who would come across it? And somehow—oh, I don’t know—perhaps for legal reasons, I fancy it had best be preserved.”
“Whatever you think—Isa! You are not proposing to go to the assembly with your hair like that?”
“Why, what in the world is the matter with it?”
“Everything! Come here—stand still!”
With skilled fingers Alvey rearranged Isa’s hair, and embellished the knot of curls at the back with a couple of white geraniums taken from the beau-pot on the old-fashioned dresser. “There! Now you look more like a young lady of fashion. Do not forget to keep your shoulders back—don’t slouch—and suck your breath in!”
“How can I possibly dance in such an unnatural posture?” grumbled Isa, as they ran down the shallow, slippery stairs, pulling shawls about their shoulders.
The Assembly Rooms, adjacent to the Black Bull Inn, seemed well in keeping with the rural tranquillity of the town, with their high, lozenged ceiling, crimson velvet curtains, spindly gilt Directoire chairs along the wall, and tiny gilt stage on which two fiddlers and a cellist could just be accommodated. There was a separate octagonal chamber for cards and chaperones, and an upstairs gallery, seldom visited because it was so draughty. Since the Black Bull was only two minutes’ walk across the market place from the Canon’s house, the young ladies walked to the rooms in shawls, calashes, and pattens, under the escort of the Canon’s manservant, who would return for them, with a lantern, at eleven o’clock sharp.
“My brother sits up for us, you see, and would worry if we returned any later,” Miss Beaumont explained.
Alvey was very fond of dancing—which, she found, was conducted very discreetly at the Hexham Assemblies: quadrilles, country dances, minuets being permitted, but waltzes still considered wholly unsuitable—and was happy to secure a partner for the first two dances. Meg and Isa were likewise paired off, Meg
with John Chibburn. Quite a number of young men had approached Miss Beaumont and asked for the honour of the Miss Winships’ hands. But the company was not large—there might have been twenty couples present; bearing in mind her strictures about “red-faced boobies” Alvey could not but admit that Louisa had some reason for her condemnation of the local society.
Alvey’s first partner, a Mr Fenwick, talked exclusively about hunting; her second, a Mr Forster, talked entirely about fishing; and the third, a Mr Clavering, appeared so terrified of her that he did not talk at all. He had evidently been ordered by his mamma to dance with the bluestocking Miss Louisa Winship and did not consider that his duty embraced the need for conversation as well. Since he was quite a passable dancer, Alvey was content to have it so. Isa’s partners seemed equally unexciting; Alvey began to comprehend why she saw so little need to take pains with her appearance.
At supper they sat with Meg and John Chibburn; Meg, the queen of the occasion, was in high spirits and pouted rather when Miss Beaumont, not long afterwards, indicated that it was time for her young guests to leave. But since their self-sacrificing hostess had sat against the wall on a hard chaperone’s seat all evening, with her niece beside her, Alvey could hardly blame the Beaumont ladies for retiring early; from their point of view the affair must, surely, have been tedious indeed.—To her surprise she found that this was not so.
“That was most enjoyable!” sighed Fanny Beaumont. “I believe I could listen to the music and watch the dancing for ever!”
And her aunt said, “Indeed it was a most agreeable occasion. I should not wonder, Fanny, if Captain Campbell were to offer for Hettie Musgrave; I observed that he was paying her very particular attention. And the younger Musgrave boy danced twice with Sophia Elliott; if I had been her Mamma I should not have permitted it. And Tom Bamborough distinguished Mary Armstrong to an extent which should certainly not have been sanctioned by her aunt unless his intentions are serious.”
It seemed that not a smile, not a gesture, not even the flip of a fan had escaped Miss Beaumont’s scrutiny; she is like a kind of walking Record Office of behaviour, thought Alvey, not a little alarmed, and also greatly relieved that her own communications with her partners had been of such a trivial nature.
“I suppose you will be bringing Parthie with you to the Assemblies, once Meg is married?” Miss Beaumont said to Isa.
“I suppose so, poor child; though dancing is not her forte she of course longs to wear dresses down to her ankles and attend the balls.”
“And what about you, Isa? When are we to hear of your engagement?” Miss Beaumont continued inquisitorially. “Now that your sister Louisa is come home, you must be looking about you. It is the duty of young ladies to get married.”
But Isa only laughed and said that she had no such intention.
“Meg has made such a very respectable alliance that I can afford to remain single.”
“My dear! That is no way for a young person to talk!” Miss Beaumont exclaimed reprovingly. “But I am sure you cannot be serious.”
Then they were back in the Canon’s house where he was drowsily waiting up for them over a dying fire, by the light of a flickering candle, and they speedily retired to their ice-cold chambers; Alvey was quite glad that she and Isa were to share a bed, and reflected rather ruefully that she was growing dangerously accustomed to a life of comfort and ease; fires, even in bedrooms, were piled high at Birkland Hall.
Next morning, punctually at half-past nine, Archie came to fetch the young ladies. A little snow had been falling for the last hour, and Meg shivered apprehensively.
“If only it does not snow so as to prevent our leaving on Saturday!”
“Na, na, Miss Meg, there’ll be nought o’ snow for a twa-three weeks yet.”
Meg and John planned to take Isa with them, as company for her sister, on their wedding journey. This was very self-sacrificing of Isa, who was not at all attracted by the idea of a visit to Brighton, and hated leaving home again so soon after her last excursion; but Meg felt, possibly with reason, that her new husband, on his own, might prove rather uninspiriting company. Isa had agreed to the proposal only on condition that she might be allowed to view the Pavilion and see some notable beauty-spots on the way back to Northumberland. They were to travel south by ship, remain some weeks in Brighton, then return northwards by slow stages, visiting relatives at Winchester and Warwick, pausing at Oxford, York, Matlock, Dovedale, and the Lake District. Only the thought of seeing these places had finally won Isa’s reluctant consent to such a long absence from home. Alvey looked forward to the departure of the sisters with more than a little apprehension; up to now she had committed no major solecisms, but she still very frequently found it needful to apply to one or the other for information, and could not think how she would go on with neither of them at hand.
The cold was bitter as they drove homeward. Along the tops of the angular hills, snow lay streaked and skeined; against its pallor the grey stone walls and lines of wind-bent beeches divided the landscape like markings on a map. Isa said wistfully, “I shall miss the best of the winter here. Winter is such a beautiful time.” And she sniffed the arctic air with keen pleasure.
Alvey shivered a little, imagining the seclusion of Birkland after a heavy snow.
“Heyday!” said Archie, as they passed the turn to Birkland village. “Here’s folk ahead of us on th’ road—” and he gestured with his whip to the tracks of carriage wheels leading onwards. “Rackon it’ll be Mester James.”
“Oh, mercy,” muttered Meg under her breath. “What a to-do there is bound to be when James learns about Annie Herdman and her baby; I almost wish he had not agreed to come home for my wedding.”
“Oh, come, Meg—you know he needs to rest at home for a while, to recover from his wound. How can you be so unfeeling?” objected Isa.
“And what about me? I shall only be married once! It is rather hard if the occasion is to be spoiled by these disagreeables.”
Really Meg is a selfish wretch, Alvey thought.
Archie turned the horses down into the Hall driveway, walking alongside them and holding their bridles to check their pace on the steep, icy track.
This had been Alvey’s first night away from the house since her arrival, and she felt, with a slight twinge of guilt, how agreeable it was to be returning—even with the certainty of family dissensions ahead, even with the added problems presented by James’s arrival, and the prospect of all the inquisitive strangers she was bound to meet at the wedding—despite this, she was startled at the feeling of homecoming aroused in her by the view, glimpsed between slender pine trunks, of grey walls and the massive bulk of the pele tower against the pale sky. The concern she felt for Sir Aydon and Lady Winship seemed almost akin to warmth. How dreadfully distressed they must have been, poor things, at the need to break such a piece of news to their son . . .
It occurred to Alvey that she was feeling, on behalf of these strangers, more solicitude than had ever been required of her for her own parents. This rather melancholy discovery kept her silent as the carriage drew to a halt on the gravel sweep and Archie came to pull down the step.
The moment they were inside the house, they were aware of the sound of raised voices, issuing from the library; Meg and Isa turned automatically in that direction; but Alvey, impelled by sudden diffidence, and scrupling to add her presence to the first family reunion, ran hastily up the stairs, murmuring that she had a packet for the old lady. This was true; she had bought Mrs Winship a copy of Crabbe’s poems. Depositing the other books in her bedroom she bore the volume along the corridor to the old lady’s chamber. Mrs Winship was still there, making her slow toilet with Duddy’s aid. The gift was received with gruff surprise.
“Very obliging of you to be sure—” old Grizel darted one keen glance at Alvey, as if calculating whether the motive had been to purchase future favour. “The Borough. Hm. Tales of hu
mble persons, I infer. I shall make Parthie read them aloud; very appropriate and salutary it will be for her.” Alvey was left wondering whether The Corsair by Lord Byron might not have been more suitable. “Parthie, of course, is below, dancing attendance, I’ve no doubt, on your brother and his friend, who arrived some half hour since; have you not seen them?”
Another keen glance.
“Oh?” said Alvey carelessly. “No, I came straight upstairs.”
“I daresay they are all at cap-pulling, if not dagger-drawing, down there,” said the old lady, not without relish. “Do you not wish to join them?”
“Not in the least. Who is James’s friend? I did not know that anyone else was expected?”
“Hah! That whets your curiosity! He is an army surgeon, a major. He and James have known each other since school days, and latterly, I understand, they met again, in Brussels, and have become very close; I believe there was talk of an attachment between James and Major Fenway’s sister.”
“Indeed? But I thought James—”
“Well, we shall see, we shall see,” said the old lady impatiently, as if she found the tangled affairs of the young too tiresome a subject for close consideration. “Come, Duddy, make haste, woman; I had better go down and join the gathering before blood is shed. Not that anyone pays me any heed. Run along, girl, run along; doubtless you will be eager to discover what kind of favoured man the major may be.”
Obediently, Alvey left, but not to join the group in the library. What would Louisa do, at such a moment, she wondered. Louisa, feeling herself superior, would remain elsewhere; Louisa never favoured her brother James, she would certainly display no particular eagerness to greet the returned hero.
Wrapping herself in an old pelisse, Alvey ran quietly down the back stairs and out into the tingling grey chill of the day. She turned along the cobbled way, noticing with pleasure that a coating of ice had turned the moss between the cobbles to a netted pattern of glistening emeralds; she skirted the slippery stable-yard and took her way along the broad terrace that lay on the south side of the house. No one would see her here; they were all in the library, which faced the other way. Here she could walk undisturbed, and think about Lord Love, and look out across the valley at the blue-and-white Cheviot Hills. Down below her the Hungry Water ran full and vociferous; she could hear it very clearly, and the cry of a curlew, and the lonely sound of sheep bleating. This time next week, she thought, they will all be gone, the wedding will be over; and now even the prospect of Meg and Isa’s departure came as a satisfaction.
