by Joan Aiken
“Isa did? Without any reference to me? How could she? Good heavens,” gasped Alvey, “I shall go clean distracted.”
What shocked her so deeply was not that the Major was party to her secret—that was bad enough, in all conscience, but somehow she instinctively felt certain that he would not betray her; no, what shook her to the roots of her being was the fact that the revelation had been made by Isa—by Isa, whose loyalty, she would have thought, was utterly to be relied upon. Isa, of all people!
Was no one what they seemed?
Major Fenway said, smiling, “You must not blame Isa too severely. I had already gone some way towards guessing the truth—and I do have what you might describe as a professional skill in cultivating people’s confidence—persuading them to let down their guard; it is my métier, after all. I hope to make it my life work.”
“Well!” said Alvey. “Just the same I would never have thought it of Isa!”
Privately she felt that, besides the professional skill on which he plumed himself, quite rightly no doubt, Major Fenway had in this particular case an advantage of which he may or may not have been aware: the fact that Isa had, from the start, been clearly predisposed to like him, enjoy his company, and place considerable trust in him. In fact, Alvey had wondered once or twice if Isa were not falling a little in love with the Major; and had thought, also, what a very good and suitable match it would be, between two people of warm kindly temperament, considerable intelligence, and not a little sense of humour. Neither had anything to boast of in looks, to be sure, but that might also endear them to each other.
“What a dangerous man you are, sir!” she said, regarding the Major with a satirical eye. “How shall I ever dare to hold a conversation with you again, after all the falsities that you must have detected in me, over and over? It was really too bad of Isa!”
“On the contrary,” he said cheerfully, “I hope that my disclosure may place our intercourse on a new and easier footing. Will it not be some relief to you to know that there is one person with whom you have no need to be on your guard, now that Meg and Isa are no longer at home?”
“Humph! I am not so sure as to that. In general I find that the safest way to maintain the pretence is to be equally on guard at all times, regardless of where I am or who is with me, even when I am by myself.”
“Was that the reason why James was never told?” he asked inquisitively.
“Partly . . . No: Meg and Isa thought it best. Otherwise there might have tended to be some delicacy—some constraint between James and myself,” Alvey explained in a constricted tone which seemed to prove her point. “And I myself had far rather he remain in ignorance—You have not told him?” she cried in a sudden fright. “I really would far prefer him not to know—he would think so very badly of me!”
“No, no—set your mind at rest! He shall not hear the story from me, I promise you. But do, pray, tell me all about yourself; I confess I am immensely curious to hear your history. That you are an author I know already; Isa told me that you are at work on a novel. And that you come from America—But beyond that I am in complete ignorance.”
“And your professional wish to acquire information is whetted to fever point? You long to discover what makes an apparently well-brought-up, well-educated female, in full possession of her faculties, engage in such an underhand, reprehensible scheme?”
“You do not take the words out of my mouth. I pass no such judgment. But I am greatly interested in the powerful creative impulse—in the urge to express, communicate, to generate original work—which must have impelled you to such a step; I should like to know about your past, your forebears, your background, in a word.”
Such a request is, of course, irresistible. Alvey said,—
“Well—I suppose there is no reason why I should not tell you. But should you not be going down to the house, to make yourself known?”
“By no means,” he said. “My intention is not to appear at the house until the dinner hour, when Sir Aydon cannot so far depart from the tenets of Northern hospitality as to drive me from his door. I am quite unprincipled, you see, and have my scheme carefully set out.”
“Why, then, arrive so early?”
“First, because I wanted to talk to you!”
“I am not in the least flattered—being aware that your interest is all in the way of business. And your second reason?”
“Why,” he said, “I plan to leave exceedingly early tomorrow—at about six if not before—with Sir Aydon, of course, if my mission has been successful—so I wished my horses to have a good rest.”
“Very practical! But I fear I cannot imagine any way in which your mission can prove successful—even I, with my fertile writer’s mind, cannot at all fathom how you will set about it. But we shall see! In the meantime, ask me what you will.”
“First, then, tell me about Louisa. I have had descriptions of her from Isa, from James, and from Meg, but I should be interested to learn how she persuaded you to this switch—for I am certain the plan did not originate with you.”
“No indeed! I was wholly reluctant—”
Alvey described her discussions with Louisa, and that young lady’s amazing, single-minded perseverance. “She is so very forcible! Rather like you, Major Fenway. She has a way of achieving her ends. I am persuaded she will make a most effective missionary. In the end I suppose she just wore me down.”
“Now tell me about your parents. Are they dead? Who were they? What were they?”
“Well,” said Alvey, “there, in a way, you come to the nub of the matter. At least I daresay you will think so. No, my parents are not dead. But they are lost to me.”
“In what way? Describe them to me.”
“They lived in New Bedford. My mother’s people, the Alveys, were from Lincolnshire, my father’s, the Clements, from Devon. He was a teacher, and a preacher. But when I was ten—I suppose my parents had, for some time, felt constricted by the life of New Bedford; they found the people there narrow, prejudiced, bigoted; my father came under the influence of a German preacher from Westphalia, Friedrich Muller, who invited him to join a religious community in a town he had founded in Hartland County, Indiana. It was called Unison.”
“A monastic community?”
“Not exactly. But celibate. Married couples lived separately, and children, if any, were brought up in a different compound, parted from their parents, except at certain times. All lived as brothers and sisters in God.”
“This was when you were ten? Did you join the community?”
“No,” said Alvey, “I could not tolerate the prospect. I could not endure the idea of being deemed a—a somewhat discreditable product of my parents’ union. I loved them; I had believed in their love for each other; to have all this, as it were, nullified, was entirely abhorrent to me. I disliked Herr Muller very much and resented his attitude to me. If I must lose my parents, I said, I would rather lose them entirely. I would rather go to an orphanage than exist beside them in a kind of prison where we must all pretend to be other than we were.”
“A strong-minded view for a child of ten!”
“I suppose. But my parents had always insisted, as soon as I could read, that I must learn to judge and think for myself. They were, both of them, deeply religious—dedicated—detached. That, I suppose, may have made the parting easier.—Though it was not easy. Fortunately for me, as matters fell out, I was not obliged to enter an orphanage; an elderly cousin took me in and completed my education. It was she who sent me to school in England, for she intended that I should be able to earn my living as a teacher. But before I had finished at the Abbey School she died; so, for the last two years there, I combined the role of pupil and teacher. Have I told you enough?”
“Indeed no! What about your parents? Do you hear from them?”
“No, never. That was another of the commitments at Unison—that there should
be no communication, by members of the group, with the connections they had severed when they joined it. The only way in which I could reunite with them would be by joining the community myself.”
“Which you have no intention of doing?”
“None.”
“It is an interesting reversal,” he said. “Instead of the child running away from home, the parents decamp.”
“Very interesting,” Alvey said so drily that he laughed.
“You are a formidable young lady, Miss—may I call you Alvey? Good Heavens—you call me dangerous? I regard you as far more so.”
“Why, pray?”
“Because you have seen the damage that high principles can effect, and immunized yourself against it. Now I see why Louisa Winship’s call to the missionary life touched a sympathetic chord in you.”
“I am not sure that it did,” Alvey said seriously. “What I mostly felt was impatience with her pretensions. I was almost sure that they were based on affectation—that if she were given her way, they would dissolve and vanish overnight.”
“Was that why you were prepared to indulge her and fall in with her wishes?”
“Perhaps. To see—to see—”
“To see if her resolve would fail?”
“No—yes; a little. To see how she would behave. I must admit that up to now she has not justified my doubts.—And of course also I was curious to see what her sisters were like—and her family. To find out.”
“Just so. To find out. You and I,” he said, “have a great deal in common. I shall be most curious to read this work of fiction that you are engaged on. Does it go well?”
Alvey began to laugh. “Oh, yes, it goes well. But you would think nothing of it, Major Fenway! It is the most frivolous piece of work possible. A fribble! Quite beneath your notice. Gentlemen, I am persuaded, do not read such things; gentlemen read philosophical treatises or the works of Samuel Johnson.”
“I myself prefer Shakespeare.”
“There you are! You will not like my hero.”
“It surprises me that you find the atmosphere of Birkland Hall sympathetic to such work; especially as so many household responsibilities have lately come to rest upon your shoulders.”
“Yes; and if you succeed in removing Sir Aydon, I am sure that even more will devolve on me. My—Lady Winship is in a rather curious frame of mind at present, far from showing any wish to resume her functions and authority as head of the household.”
“Well,” he said, “poor woman. It is not to be expected. Not after what has been happening to her.”
He gazed at Alvey thoughtfully, as if he were on the point of making some communication, then, evidently changing his mind, inquired—
“And do you hear from the real Louisa? Does the life come up to her expectations?”
“Oh, she is not yet arrived at her destination. The next letter, I suppose, will come from Madagascar; but she certainly seems like a creature liberated; there is no doubt that the choice of a missionary’s career was the right course for her. So, there, I was mistaken.—But, I pray you, sir, do tell me about James. Is he happy in his studies? Was he greatly overset by Sir Aydon’s angry letter? Has he managed to accustom himself to the wooden leg? Has he recovered from the distress of those unjust accusations regarding the dead child?”
“You take a keen interest in James.”
“Oh—why no—no more than in other members of the family. They all interest me,” returned Alvey coolly, though colouring somewhat under his gaze. All except Meg and Parthie, she thought.
“Well, I will answer your question. Yes: James is exceedingly happy in his studies. He has a good intelligence and a true interest in the subject; the auguries are excellent for his progress. No: he was not greatly surprised by his father’s letter—he had expected something of the kind; but he has good hopes of my errand. Yes, he hobbles about gaily enough on his wooden leg, and is already, with his good looks and interesting situation, turning the heads of several pretty professors’ daughters.”
“Oh,” said Alvey.
“I think it my duty to warn you, Miss Alvey, lest you take too deep an interest in James, that he is almost never heart-whole; since I have known him he has tumbled in and out of love half a dozen times, the last occasion being with my almost equally volatile sister. Fortunately, that came to nothing! James is one of my dearest friends, he is a dear clever fellow, but not such material as husbands are made of.”
“You are not suggesting that he was the father of Annie Herdman’s baby?” said Alvey indignantly.
“No, I am not. Do not ruffle up! The history of that poor child is a sad tangle which only time will unravel . . . it is to be hoped. No, I am perfectly sure that James had no part in that tragedy—”
“But you think it proper to warn me against him. I cannot imagine why! You need feel no responsibility for me, after all. And—and in any case, I daresay James and I will never meet again, if his father takes such a censorious view of his medical studies that he forbids him the house.—Besides, James has not the slightest interest in me.”
Alvey studied the watch at her waist-band, consequently missing the look of rueful sympathy she received from her companion. She said, “It grows late. I must return and take my mother—Lady Winship—for her airing in the basket-chair. It is a daily habit we have fallen into. What will you do with yourself, Major, until it is time to throw yourself upon Sir Aydon’s hospitality?”
“I shall take a walk down to the village,” he said. “James told me that he has an old nurse down there, a Mrs Claver, to whom he asked to be remembered. Perhaps she may have some information to impart about the baby.”
“I rather doubt that. Or it would have come to light by now. Well: I will see you later, sir,” said Alvey briskly, and turned back towards the house. He looked after her, still with the air of wistful sympathy.
Alvey thought it best to waylay Amble during the afternoon, and warn him of Major Fenway’s intention. Amble, she knew, was sincerely attached to Sir Aydon, and she had privately felt that he would have been a far better choice than Mr Thropton to urge the merits of Mr Harle’s course of treatment.
She found him in the pantry, polishing plate with new milk and hartshorn powder. He rose and greeted her with his usual civility, to which a new warmth of liking and respect had been added.
“How does Stridge go on, Amble?”
“Well enow, Miss Emmy; the lad’s got nowt but a bit of court-plaister on his cheek, and that’ll be off in a twa-three days. He’s frit of Sir Aydon, though, an’ won’t come into the Rooms if he can help it.”
“Well,” said Alvey, “that is what I have come to talk to you about. Major Fenway has returned, as I expect you know.”
“Ay, Blackett towd me his carriage was i’ the stable and he himself walked doon to the village.”
Nothing takes place that is not known, thought Alvey. It is almost impossible to believe that somebody does not know who was the father of Annie’s baby.
“The Major will be here to dinner, and spend the night. I fear Sir Aydon will not be pleased but—but I do not suppose he will raise any objections.”
“Nay, he wilna. He thought the Major a decent body enough; and he’s taken his bread and salt, he canna fling him fra the hoose.”
“Just so. The Major tells me he has some new scheme to persuade Sir Aydon to change his mind and agree to travel to Edinburgh and undergo this treatment to mend his legs.”
Amble sighed deeply.
“‘Deed, Miss Emmy, ‘tis what he should do. Time and again I’ve said so. But you know Sir Aydon, he’s neither to hold nor to bind. Stubborn as a stirk. If the Major can wheedle him into a different mind, that’ll be the best day’s work he ever did.”
“Well that is what he intends, Amble, and if you can help him, I hope you will.”
“I’ll do owt I can, Mi
ss Emmy, and blythe to.”
Chapter XIII.
Dinner that evening was quite as uncomfortable a meal as Alvey had expected.
Sir Aydon showed civility to the uninvited guest, but no more; he made no reference to his son, but talked long and pertinaciously of Helvoetsluys, Flanders, and the siege of Dunkirk. “Ah, those were gallant days,” he kept saying, firmly ignoring the Peninsular War and any later battles such as Waterloo. “Abercromby, now. There was a general for you!”
Lady Winship, perhaps embarrassed to recall how very confidential she had been with James’s friend while in her first distraught and stricken state after the rape of her garden, sat silent and withdrawn, making no contribution to the talk; Alvey, knowing her imposture discovered by the Major, felt equally constrained, but did her best, nonetheless, to keep some kind of conversational current running; Parthie made her usual excellent meal but remained for the most part speechless and sulky; evidently she had not forgiven the Major for failing to attend her when she took to bed with her black eye; and although he asked her kindly whether she were now quite recovered, she apparently refused to be mollified and merely muttered a monosyllabic reply. Nish and Tot inquired eagerly after their brother but were instantly commanded to be silent by their father, who then added, looking at Fenway:
“If you, sir, are come here in expectation of persuading me to that nonsensical scheme of James’s, I may as well tell you straight away that you are wasting your time. Good God! I have twenty better ways of spending my money than to be laying out fifty pounds on such a harebrained venture. Fifty pounds! Such a sum would pay the tax on my coach and horses for an entire year, and the coachman’s wage as well. So pray put any such notion quite out of your mind. And if you are come to plead James’s cause, you may spare your breath. I will listen to nothing.”
“I do not ask you to do so, sir.” Major Fenway then succeeded in turning the talk to fox-hunting, with much happier results; Sir Aydon, now that he no longer rode out himself, had lost touch with his hunting acquaintances and had nobody to reminisce with over notable runs and cunning foxes. He was soon in highly nostalgic vein. “Ay, they say the foxes of Simonside are superior in clever wiles to any in the whole county,” he said proudly, and told at great length of one terrific run when a tailless fox led the hounds from Croppie’s Hole on Simonside right down the valley of the Coquet to Amble Sands.
