by Evie Grace
Elizabeth sat down again, her expression turning from anger to distress as Agnes’s words began to sink in.
‘I would have thought that a young gentleman who was deeply in love with you would have discussed his plans for the rest of the summer with you first,’ Agnes went on. ‘I’m sorry if what I say upsets you. It’s little consolation, but one day you will meet someone who has the same regard for you as you do for him.’
‘Miss Linnet, I’m so sad.’ Tears rolled down Elizabeth’s cheeks, making Agnes want to cry for her. She was relieved that her pupil seemed to have grasped the reality of the situation, but regretted that she’d had to be so brutal in her assessment of it. She wished that George had never shown his face at Roper House.
‘It will take time for your heart to mend, but you will recover,’ Agnes said gently.
‘You are very wise. Thank you.’ Elizabeth sniffed.
‘Wash your face and get yourself ready for bed. You will feel a little better in the morning.’ Agnes hurried away and returned to the drawing room, hoping to catch Felix. She had much to say to him before he went away on the morrow, but the party had dispersed. Charlotte was straining her eyes, trying to reading a book in the flickering light of a candle while her father continued to sip at his brandy. Lady Faraday had retired to her room. The young gentlemen were nowhere to be seen.
She didn’t know what to do.
‘Is my sister feeling better?’ Charlotte said, looking up.
‘She has a headache – she will be better in the morning.’ Agnes excused herself, collecting a candle from the table outside the drawing room to light her way back to her room. It was after ten o’clock and the heat of the August evening was stifling. Was she going to have the chance to speak to Felix before he left? Her footsteps echoed hollowly on the boards along the corridor. On reaching her door, she slipped the key into the lock and turned it.
‘Agnes, it’s me.’
She turned to find Felix’s shadow right behind her.
‘I’ve been waiting for you. I needed to see you, to feel your lips on mine before I go,’ he said softly, his hand on her waist as he propelled her into her room and closed the door behind them.
‘You cannot stay here,’ she said, breathless.
‘I don’t care. Oh, I need …’ His words faded to a guttural sigh.
‘No, Felix.’ She pushed him away and placed the candle on the washstand. ‘This is too much of a risk. We must wait until we are married.’
‘You didn’t think that before,’ he protested, making her feel a little hurt by reminding her of their indiscretion. ‘It will be all right. No one knows I’m here.’
‘It’s impossible. If you love me you will do as I ask. Your sister sleeps on the other side of the wall, and the butler prowls the corridors of Roper House day and night.’ He would be more than happy to have an excuse to extort more money from her, she thought – or worse, reveal her secrets.
‘All right. I understand, but …’ He strode across to her and took her in his arms. ‘Oh, I will do anything for you, my darling, even though it causes me great discomfort.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing I want more than to lie in your arms again, but not here, not in the house.’ His hands were on her waist. ‘I suppose that you are here to tell me that you haven’t spoken to your mother.’
‘I’m afraid that a suitable opportunity has not yet arisen. Believe me, I’m as disappointed as you are that we aren’t in a position to announce our engagement. Part of me wants to climb up and shout it from the rooftop, but we have to set out on the right foot with my parents. To that end, I need to avail myself of a time when my mother is in a more receptive mood. She’s been unhappy with me since she found out that I brought my father’s best horse back lame the other day. It wasn’t my fault that it put its foot down a rabbit hole, but she didn’t see it that way.’
‘You make it sound as if she will disapprove of our liaison,’ Agnes said. He wasn’t exactly filling her with confidence.
‘I have to tread carefully. If I married you against my mother’s wishes, she would make sure that Papa disowned me and I would lose all of this.’
‘Wouldn’t you give up your inheritance for love?’ she asked softly.
‘I’m the only son. If anything happens to me, the estate is entailed to my cousin, and my sisters will lose out. If I inherit, I will make sure they are provided for – if they are not married off by then, of course.’ He paused, his brow furrowed. ‘It is a pity that you have no pedigree as such. My mother is impressed by social connections and good breeding.’
She felt concerned. No amount of beauty or intrigue or accomplishment in the arts of the drawing room would ever compensate for her origins, but that was the least of her worries at the moment. She felt uneasy. With Pell after her money, and Felix leaving Roper House, it was imperative that the matter of their engagement was settled.
‘Why did you not tell me when you were going to Paris?’ she asked.
‘We just did, at dinner. It was a spontaneous decision. George suggested it. Oh, Agnes, I argued against it at first, but I’d promised to accompany him. I couldn’t let him down.’
‘What about me?’ she said. ‘Didn’t you consider my feelings? I care about you, Felix.’
‘As I care deeply for you. We will have to spend the rest of our lives together in the future. There’s plenty of time. Perhaps we could plan a bridal tour and visit France together when we are married?’
‘I would have no objection to that,’ she said, smiling at last. ‘When will you be back, so I can count down the days?’ she asked, realising that she couldn’t change his mind about his trip to Paris.
‘We will drop by at Roper House on our way back to Oxford to tell you all about our adventures,’ he said. ‘I’ll be able to beg an advance on my allowance from Pa at the same time,’ he added with a grin. ‘George and I aren’t planning to stint ourselves.’
‘And what about this idea of yours of travelling the world when you’ve finished your studies?’ she said, remembering the conversation at dinner.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Let’s take one day at a time.’
‘Will we write to each other?’ she asked.
‘Yes, when I’m back in Oxford,’ he said. ‘There is no point in exchanging letters while we are in France – we are there but three weeks, that’s all, not a lifetime, my love.’ He took her face in his hands and kissed her passionately, then abruptly turned and left the room, as if he was hiding his sorrow at their parting, she thought.
From then on, time seemed to pass intolerably slowly. The atmosphere in the schoolroom was subdued. Elizabeth spent hours staring out of the window while Agnes waited for Felix’s return. Three weeks later, in the middle of September when the young gentlemen were due back from Paris, they received bad news. Felix and Master Moldbury would not be making an appearance in Upper Harbledown. They were travelling post-haste straight back to Oxfordshire. Lady Faraday announced this to her daughters, who told their governess when they next met to pursue their studies.
‘We will write to them,’ Agnes said, trying to hide her disappointment. All she really wanted to do was run away and cry in private.
‘Oh, can I?’ Elizabeth said more cheerfully. ‘I will ask after George.’
‘Why would I write to Felix?’ Charlotte complained. ‘He has no interest in my affairs, as I have no interest in his.’
Agnes gave out paper while the young ladies retrieved their pens and ink from their desks.
‘Do you know your brother’s address?’ she asked.
‘I will ask Mama,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Will you write to Felix, as well?’
Agnes turned away to hide the blush that rose up her neck.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You can write to him in French,’ Elizabeth suggested. ‘That way you can continue with your lessons.’
‘I think he must have more than enough to do with his studies at Oxford,’ Agn
es said, but her pupil did have a point. Pell or one of the footmen always collected up the post to be sent from the house, but if she wrote in French, Pell wouldn’t be able to read her letters even if he should intercept them. She would write once to remind Felix that she was thinking of him.
She sat down at her table to compose a note to her beloved while the sisters wrote their letters. She found that she didn’t know what to say: that she missed him dreadfully; that she was well, apart from a little sickness that she blamed on having eaten some mouldering cheese the day before. It sounded so inane and dull that in the end she merely asked him about his adventures in Paris and signed off. Nanny had always given her the impression that she was an intelligent and interesting young woman, but she was beginning to wonder if her attributes were really enough to hold Master Faraday’s attention. She felt that she had done nothing of consequence in her life, nothing that she could share with him, anyway. The thought pained her.
‘Have you finished yet, Elizabeth?’ she asked, getting to her feet.
‘No, I have much to say.’
‘Charlotte?’
Charlotte leaned down and picked up the dog from the floor. She cuddled him to her cheek.
‘Yes, I’ve finished mine. Please may we go out for a walk?’ she said. ‘I can’t stand being inside all day while my sister mopes. You don’t seem very happy either, Miss Linnet.’
‘I am a little tired,’ she said. Pell had demanded another payment that day, reminding her, as if she needed it, that he still had a hold over her. How she wished that Felix had come home as he’d intended. Hadn’t it occurred to him that she would be waiting for him?
She folded and sealed her letter with drips of hot wax from the vermilion taper, moving it to form a small circle of wax. She let it set, remembering her life at Windmarsh when she had had her own seal with her initials in silver intaglio relief. This time, she used a button to impress the seal.
‘Run and ask your mama the address, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘We’ll keep a note of it in the schoolroom so we can write again.’
‘I’ll go,’ Charlotte offered, and she disappeared with Sunny, only to reappear shortly afterwards with the address of the college at Oxford scribbled on a piece of paper.
Agnes thanked her and quickly memorised the address before handing it to Elizabeth.
She wrote the address on the front of her letter and blotted the ink.
When Elizabeth had completed hers, she offered to put Agnes’s downstairs with the outgoing post, but Agnes declined.
‘I’ll post this on my day off,’ she said.
‘Who are you writing to?’ Elizabeth said.
‘One should say, “To whom are you writing?”’ Agnes said, tucking her letter into her pocket. ‘If you really must know, I’m writing to my former nanny.’
‘Ah, what is she like? You haven’t talked about her before,’ Elizabeth said.
‘She is one of the loveliest, kindest people I’ve ever met. I spent many happy years with her.’ A tear rose in her eye at the memory of Miss Treen. In spite of the letter she had sent, making the problems with Pell worse for her, Agnes had forgiven her the transgression. She could afford to be forgiving when she was engaged to be married to Felix.
The following week, Agnes and the sisters took their usual promenade in the grounds of the house. They strolled through the gardens and along the path to the gate giving on to the park where she had once hastened up the hill to meet her lover. The leaves on the chestnut trees were changing colour, turning orange and yellow. Agnes thought she caught sight of a pair of deer moving along the ridge and down towards the copse where she and Felix had taken shelter from prying eyes. She felt sick with yearning. He had been gone for five weeks, and it seemed that it would be at least another thirteen before he returned for Christmas.
‘I received a letter today, Miss Linnet,’ Elizabeth said.
‘Oh?’ Agnes’s heart missed a beat. She had heard nothing.
‘It was from Felix,’ Charlotte said. ‘She is a little disappointed that it wasn’t from Master Moldbury.’
‘What did he say?’ Agnes asked, trying not to sound too eager. If Elizabeth had received a letter from her brother, it wouldn’t be long until she received one herself.
‘Oh. Nothing much.’ Elizabeth bit her lip. ‘He says that he and George are well and that they have been to evensong at Merton College and out beagling. He says that George looked a picture in his green coat and velvet hunting cap. And they miss us and wish they were back at Roper House.’
‘Anything else?’ Agnes asked.
‘Oh yes, he asks after you, Miss Linnet. It is just a line, enquiring about your health.’
October and November came and went. The leaves fell from the trees, the days shortened and an east wind blew across the countryside. It rattled windows and slammed doors. It was so cold at the beginning of December that they moved downstairs to a smaller room, where they sat in front of the fire with blankets across their knees. The sisters looked forward to their lessons, and Lady Faraday seemed content with their progress, which meant that Pell gave Agnes no bother, except when he collected his regular payments.
Agnes wondered why her lover hadn’t thought fit to write back to her. Perhaps he was too occupied with his studies, or his letter had been lost in the post. He would have written, she felt sure of it, but his answer never came, and she didn’t persist with her attempts to get in touch with him because of her fear of Pell’s prying eyes. She was a little out of sorts for a while, but her spirits and state of health began to improve as she counted down the days until Felix’s return.
By the end of the first week in December, she was on tenterhooks waiting for him. It was also her birthday. As she washed and dressed in her room, she remembered how she had looked forward to last year’s occasion, how proud she’d felt wearing the scarlet dress, and how her joy had quickly turned to sorrow. Poor Papa. She stifled a sob. She thought of Henry and happier times in the nursery, and wondered if he still thought of her as fondly as she did of him. How was Mama? And Nanny? Was she happy in Whitstable?
That was all in the past, she told herself. She had to look to the future now, and find joy and contentment in that.
‘How are the tea leaves today?’ she asked Evie when she turned up with the breakfast tray.
‘You are mocking me, Miss Linnet,’ the maid said, but she was smiling. ‘Only last week, I read Mrs Cox’s leaves and told her she would hear good news very soon, and guess what? She has had a letter from her brother to say that her niece is fully recovered from a broken arm.’
‘I didn’t know she had a niece, or a brother.’ Agnes regretted that she didn’t have a bond with the other servants.
‘How are you? You’ve bin poorly.’ Evie swept the ashes from the grate. ‘You aren’t …?’ She glanced towards Agnes’s midriff.
‘Aren’t what?’
‘In the family way?’ Evie whispered.
‘No, you mustn’t speak of that kind of thing!’ Agnes exclaimed. ‘It’s private. It isn’t something one should speak of.’
‘Why not?’ Evie looked shocked. ‘It is perfectly natural and it isn’t something that will go away if you don’t speak of it. Me and my sisters talk about personal matters all the time. Annie, the oldest, got herself into a situation, as you might call it, when she was only fifteen.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard right. She was walking out with this boy, not much older than her, and he got her into trouble behind the church.’
‘Oh dear,’ Agnes sighed. ‘What happened to her?’
‘Ma guessed and Pa gave her what for, then he went round to the boy’s house and had a few beers with his pa, who agreed that they should keep the baby. Annie and the boy are married now, and the child lives with them, but when he was small, he stayed with us.’ Evie smiled. ‘He was like the little brother we never had.’
‘Wasn’t there a scandal? I mean, the infant was born out of wedlock.’
‘Oh, people talked, but it soon blew over. It wasn’t long after that when Mr Watkins murdered his wife in her bed. That kept tongues wagging for a fair while because it turned out that she’d bin having relations with another man.’ Evie returned to the subject of Agnes’s condition. ‘It’s all very well being secretive, but sometimes it helps to share. I promise I won’t say a word to anyone.’
Agnes’s eyes filled with tears. She wished she belonged to a family like Evie’s where people didn’t mind so much about what they said to each other. She recalled the atmosphere at Willow Place, how the Cheeverses didn’t stand on ceremony, and generally said what they meant and in turn meant what they said.
‘You were sin gallivanting with Felix before he left, even though you promised me you weren’t. Pell said so,’ Evie went on.
Agnes blushed. Was it possible? They’d only connected twice.
‘I can’t tell a lie,’ she said eventually.
‘It is possible then?’ Evie persisted, as though she could read her mind. ‘What will you do? ’Er ladyship won’t ’ave you here if you’re with child.’
‘I don’t think I can be.’ Agnes looked down at her stomach – her dress was tight around her waist. She’d had to leave one of the buttons undone.
‘Well, it’s either that or you’ve bin eating too much dessert. You’re looking quite matronly if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘I do mind a little,’ Agnes admitted.
‘And you had the sickness something terrible on and off for at least a month.’
That was true, but she’d blamed the first bout on the mouldering cheese, the second on the marbled veal at dinner being too rich, and the next on the rice pudding she’d eaten being off. Through the swirl of thoughts in her head, Agnes accepted it now as a certainty. She was with child.
‘Evie, you won’t say anything?’ she urged.
‘So it isn’t just possible? It’s more than likely.’
Agnes nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’
