by Joan Aiken
“What made you so late?”
“The storm. We had to walk the horses from Rievershield.”
“You should not have gone,” he said furiously. “It was very unresponsible behaviour.”
If she had not been so tired, Alvey would have smiled, he sounded so like Sir Aydon.
“I know, and I am sorry; but even Surtees did not expect the snow to come on so soon or so hard.”
Nish took hold of Alvey’s hand, grinding it punishingly between her fingers.
“You ought not to have gone. We thought you would never come back. It was a wicked thing to do!”
And all for nothing, Alvey thought. All for no news from Edinburgh.
She said conciliatingly,
“I did do a number of useful errands; bought things for Grandmamma—and for Mamma—I have brought you some new books and crayons—and pictures of animals—”
“We could have managed without them,” said Tot.
“Yes, but Surtees needed spermaceti oil—and a deal of other things—”
“You ought not to have gone,” said Nish again. She flung Alvey’s hand away from her angrily and huddled down again beside her brother. “Go away! We were asleep till you came, disturbing and waking us.”
“Is it not too cold for you, right under the window?” said Alvey, and thought she sounded like a fussy grown-up.
“We prefer it,” said Tot haughtily.
“Good night, then.”
Neither child replied. Nish blew out their candle before she had picked her way back to the door.
Alvey longed for her own bed and the warming-pan she had seen Grace preparing. But first she went to Parthie’s room and tapped for admission. Receiving no answer, she gently opened the door, and was startled to find the room unoccupied, the bed empty. Could Parthie still be in the drawing-room?
But then, on the dressing-table pincushion, she saw a square of white: a letter.
“Since No Body in this house apreciates me,” Parthie had written—her spelling was not much better than Nish’s, Alvey reflected—
“I am leaving and going to Coldstream with Mr Thropton, where we are to be Married. He loves me dearly and wishes me to be his wife. Then we shall go on our Wedding Jurney and return when Papa is better to claim my Portion. Goodbye! CHRISTIAN PARTHENOPE WINSHIP (soon to be Thropton).”
Mercy! thought Alvey in horror, where can they be now! Eloped! And she only fifteen! What a shocking thing! Ought I to tell Lady Winship?
Deciding not to do so immediately, she ran down again to the kitchen, where Mrs Slaley and Surtees were banking the fires and setting all to rights.
“Miss Parthie’s run off with Mr Thropton.”
“Eh, awa, naw,” said Mrs Slaley. “Yon parson was bound te git one o’ ye.”
She did not seem in the least surprised.
“But in this storm! When did you see her last?”
It appeared that Parthie had left the house, privily, and carrying a large carpet-bag, not ten minutes after the departure of Alvey and Surtees for Hexham. So that is why she seemed almost pleased that I was going, reflected Alvey.
“You did not mention the matter to Mrs Winship—or to Lady Winship?”
“Well—’twas noon of our business, rightly—and we thowt ye might as well rest in ignorance till morn, so weary as ye looked—”
It became plain to Alvey that the servants thought Birkland Hall would be well rid of Parthie, who was fretful, complaining, and required a great deal of attention.
“Yon Thropton’s welcome te her! He’ll be sorry soon enow.”
And, as Parthie had started so early, it was reasonable to assume that the pair would have reached their destination long ago.
“How far is Coldstream?”
“Fifteen—twenty mile. The blacksmith there, Sandy Robson, he’ll wed folk as canna get wed in their own parish.”
Rather a come-down for Thropton, thought Alvey, a clergyman in his own right, to be obliged to have the ceremony performed by a Scottish blacksmith. But apparently he thought the prize worth it.
“She’s so young!”
“Lasses gets wed at fourteen,” said Mrs Slaley bluntly.
“Should I tell them tonight?”
“Naw, let the old ‘uns sleep. Tomorrow’s time enow.”
In agreement with this, Alvey retired to her own bed, so warm and welcoming. Yet, unexpectedly, once in its shelter, she found herself prey to a desolation of loneliness and grief. Why, in the world? It was not from envy of Parthie—nor of Meg, fretful in her pregnancy. Wretched Parthie, spiteful, unlovable as she was—yet what a fate to be shackled, at such an age, to such a man! Nor was it, entirely, disappointment at the lack of news about her own book. News, recognition, these things would come in the end, they were bound to, they must. Nor was her distress caused by the sharp reception she had received from Mrs Winship and the children; for that, in some degree, was deserved, and showed at least that she was of use, of value to them. She could still feel the old woman’s cold soft cheek, and Nish’s little bony fingers angrily clamped on her wrist.
So what makes me so miserable?
Restless, changing her position for the twentieth time, Alvey decided at last on the source of her sense of deprivation and solitude. It was the closeness of those two children, huddled together in their need for comfort. No one, ever, in my whole life, has been so close to me as that, she thought. And very likely no one ever will be.
Chapter XV.
For several days after the trip to Hexham Alvey was obliged to keep to her bed. She felt considerable guilt at this, since neither of the older ladies now played much part in the functioning of the household; but she had caught a severe cold; her head ached, her back and limbs ached, she was alternately chilled to the bone or burning with fever.
“It’ll pass, it’s naught,” said Ellen, fomenting with hot flannel and administering spirits of nitre. “Ne’er worry your heid, Miss Emmy, matters’ll rin alang weel enaw for a twee-three days.”
The children, having evidently agreed to forgive her, were touchingly considerate and brought offerings to her bedside of apples, drawings, and stories they had written. Failing Parthie as a recipient, she gave them the Hebrew Melodies. Byron perhaps might not suit them as well as Scott, but still. . . In fact they discovered “The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold”, and read it aloud to one another with shouts of enthusiasm.
The elopement of Parthie was much discussed, of course.
Their view was identical to that of Mrs Slaley.
“Thropton’s welcome to her. She’s always peevish and selfish and horrible. I wonder that he wanted her.”
“It was because he always wanted to be married to someone in our family,” said Nish.
“I wonder he did not ask Emmy.”
“I would have said no. But in any case—” Alvey stopped, uncertainly.
Nish went on for her. “Probably Parthie told Mr Thropton that Emmy was not our real sister. So she would have been no good to him, not a Winship. Parthie was always going on about you to us,” she told Alvey. “She used to say that you had probably murdered Louisa and buried her in a hole in the ground. Or had her shut up somewhere in a tower.”
Once Alvey would have laughed at such Gothick fancies. But now, thinking of Lady Winship, she shivered. The children, however, seemed to take their mother’s self-imprisonment calmly enough.
“What did you say to Parthie when she told you these things?”
“Oh, we told her that we’d a deal sooner have you than the real Louisa. So then she gave up troubling us.”
“How did you know, so soon, that I was not the real Louisa?”
“Because of the scar.”
“Scar?”
“Louisa had quite a bad scar on her wrist, where Tot bit her once, when she was pi
nching him . . . Papa made him stay in bed for three days,” said Nish reminiscently. “It was on her right wrist. Did you never notice it?”
“No, never.”
“Where is Louisa now?” Tot inquired, not with any great interest.
“In India, I suppose, being a missionary; where she wanted to be.”
“And a good riddance to her too. Perhaps Parthie and Mr Thropton will go to India. I hope they don’t stay on in Birkland.”
Unfortunate Parthie! thought Alvey. I suppose first she tried to tell the old lady about my fraudulent dissimulation—but Mrs Winship had her stroke, so that was no use; then she persuaded Thropton to tell Sir Aydon, but he waited too long. No doubt he hoped the information would be his passport to favour, to being rewarded with Parthie’s hand in marriage. Failing that, she grew impatient and made him elope.—Somehow Alvey felt certain that the prime mover in this escapade had been Parthie herself; she could not imagine the placatory, servile Thropton initiating such a risky step. How would Sir Aydon take the news? He must be written to and informed, of course; that must be attended to as soon as she was up. She felt certain that Lady Winship would not have done so; and found that she was right.
“But do you not agree that he ought to be told?” Alvey said rather diffidently, as soon as she was sufficiently recovered to climb the stair to the pele tower.
“Oh yes; but if I wrote, it would only increase his anger against me. If you do so, I daresay he will not think much of the matter; he never cared two straws for Parthie. He will only think the worse of Thropton.”
Nobody mourned Parthie, poor girl, not even the old lady, whose chief adherent and hanger-on she had used to be.—But Mrs Winship did receive the news of the elopement in a thoughtful, gloomy manner, brooded over it for a while, and at last said gruffly—,
“He was a fool to take her. I’d have thought Thropton had more sense. Better to have waited for Nish . . . He won’t keep Parthie long.”
“Ma’am, what can you mean?”
“Those legs . . . Few of the women born in Charlotte’s family with that affliction live through their twenties. And Parthie has always been of an unhealthy, sickly habit. Indeed, in my opinion, it will be marvel if she lives long enough for him to claim her dowry.”
“Good God, ma’am!” said Alvey, appalled. She thought about Parthie, her selfishness, her sickliness, her despondent, querulous, unhopeful attitude to life, and asked, “Did she know this, herself?”
“I do not suppose that anybody told her, in so many words; but nobody kept it from her, either.”
“Was that, ma’am, why you have always been so kind to Parthie—allowed her the freedom of your chamber—appeared to favour her above the others—because you were sorry for her?”
The old woman appeared to give this question some thought. At length she said, “Perhaps . . . I did somewhat pity her, it is true, poor sickly thing. Nobody paid her any mind. Also, it suited me; she was biddable, she courted my good opinion. When you are old, such things have their value.”
But she imposed upon you too, thought Alvey. Tidying out Parthie’s room with Grace, packing up her things—“For, nae doot, she’ll be wanting ‘em gin she cooms back a wedded lady to the Rectory,” as the maid observed—Alvey discovered many articles that had evidently been purloined from Mrs Winship’s room: pieces of lace, toilet utensils, ornaments, perfumes, washes, even books.
“No wonder I thought I was growing so absent-minded,” drily observed old Grizel. “The girl was a proper little magpie.”
Not all the lost articles were found; some, no doubt, Parthie had taken with her on her nuptial gallop. The cupboard in her room also contained an amazing quantity of Minerva Press romances, of the most lurid character, presumably inherited from the departed Miss Waskerley.
Parthie must have found the adventures of Wicked Lord Love—if she read any of them—sad, tedious stuff after these tales, thought Alvey, leafing through the pages of these sensational works, filled with abduction, rape, duels, disembowelling, fratricide, matricide, patricide, infanticide, and sororicide. “Best use them for lighting fires,” she said to Grace, and dropped the whole bundle in the waste-paper basket, lest Nish and Tot acquire a taste for such reading-matter.
But then, on second thoughts, she reclaimed them and locked them up in a trunk. What right had she to destroy Parthie’s books? And the girl might be glad of them when she came back to inhabit the gloomy Rectory with Mr Thropton. Especially if, as Mrs Winship prophesied, she were likely to become ill . . .
Alvey felt bitterly remorseful about Parthie. I treated her all wrong, I ignored her obvious need, I blame myself extremely for being odiously thick-skinned, short-sighted and superior. I hope to Heaven that repulsive man is treating her reasonably well. Oh, how could I have been such a blind fool?
Fish Benjie presently delivered a letter from Guy Fenway. Sir Aydon, Guy wrote, had been much startled at the tidings of his daughter’s elopement—startled, shocked, and entirely disapproving. “But,” wrote Major Fenway, “it is a measure of Sir Aydon’s recovery that such an event, which would have wholly overthrown him a few months back—very possibly been the cause of a paralytic stroke—at this juncture induced in him no more than a few snorts of displeasure. He is of course far more indignant with Mr Thropton, but considers him more stupid than wicked; for one thing, as Sir Aydon says, he himself would have thrown no obstacles in the way of Mr T’s courtship and marriage to Miss P. in the ordinary manner, if that was what he wished; Miss P., Sir Aydon asseverates, was always a silly, hen-witted girl and he personally would not wish her on his most inveterate enemy. ‘In my opinion she will drive the parson mad in six months,’ he said several times. ‘Mr Thropton will be justly served for his cupidity.’ Upon James’s inquiry as to whether Sir A. intended to deprive Miss P. of her dowry, Sir A. said no, certainly not, he had no such intention, but he would reduce it to three thousand instead of the promised five, since there should be some penalty imposed upon behaviour of such a hotheaded and shameless nature; he did not wish to be the talk of Northumberland because all his daughters ran off, one after the other.
“Sir A. goes on excellently well, and it is our hope to escort him back to you early in April if the roads are then fit for travel. Meanwhile, dear ma’am, I send you my most cordial regards. James transmits his love to his grandmother and hopes she received the letter he dispatched to her some weeks past.—
I remain &c.”
I do not believe James ever wrote to his grandmother, Alvey thought crossly. He has been continually promising to do so ever since they left. I am heartily glad that I am now over my infatuation for him—or, at least, almost over it, that it no longer pains me so very greatly—for I can see that he is not to be relied upon, his promises are worth nothing at all. It is fortunate that Guy Fenway is such a good correspondent.
February and March went by, cold, bleak, and confining. Snow fell, and more snow; sometimes the Cheviots sparkled out, spectacularly white, but often they were veiled in cloud for days together. The Hungry Water roared louder and louder; ice formed along the edges, but the current in the middle was too swift to freeze.
When the weather was fine, the children went out tobogganing in the pasture that sloped down to the river. Little Betsey was old enough now to accompany them for a short time, but she quickly became cold, wet, and, when her boots were full of snow, she started to cry and had to be escorted home by Alvey. Whereas Nish and Tot were prepared to continue at this sport for hours on end, returning blue, half-frozen, but exhilarated by the tingling air and rapid motion.
“It’s lucky that Annie’s cousin made us that sled before he went off.” Tot said, “It’s by far the best we ever had.”
“I wish he were here to ride on it with us,” Nish said.
“Annie’s cousin? Who was he?”
“His name was Sim. He went away . . . It was lucky you bought us th
ose boots too, sister Emmy, otherwise we’d have had to go sledging in our bare feet.”
No day since that of the storm had been fine enough for another trip to Hexham; no news had come from Louisa, from Parthie and Mr Thropton, or from Mr Allgood’s cousin.
Alvey, during this period, found herself in a curious state of limbo; purged of her novel, eager to begin another, yet with no theme very particularly in mind. She longed for the process of writing, which had become an addiction, but no tale was there waiting to be told. Time by no means hung on her hands, however; with Lady Winship still voluntarily confined to her tower, the running of the establishment, indeed, of the whole property, devolved almost entirely upon Alvey; by the end of three months she began to have a very fair notion of household economy, the keeping of accounts, and estate management. She spent a good deal of time in the library, reading such works as were there on farm management, forestry, and stock raising; she consulted extensively with the elderly bailiff, Lumley, whom she found to be a well-disposed, sensible man. In any time left over from these occupations and the children’s lessons, she read the various memoirs of county worthies and local histories which she found in the library, having long ago exhausted her own stock of reading-matter.
“I wish, Miss Emmy, when Sir Aydon comes back, ye’d try and persuade him to raise more sheep and put down less of the land to wheat,” Lumley said over and over. “This land’s terrible poor for wheat; but, like all o’ the other great landowners, Sir Aydon’s fair sot on it. Now sheep, I grant you, wouldna bring such a profit, but they’d put the land in wonderful good heart, after twee-three years; and they say the price o’ wheat is tumbling fast; when all’s said and done it’s nowt but a gamble.”
“Well, I promise to mention the matter to him, Lumley, but you know Sir Aydon; he’s partial to his own way, and not likely to pay heed to any other person’s advice, let alone that offered by a mere female.”
“I wish he’d such a heid on his shoulders as ye have, Miss Emmy. He’s too hasty in his judgments.”
