by Mira Stables
She found him a delightful companion. He had the knack of drawing her out without seeming to pry, and at the end of half an hour they were on very easy terms. She was a little surprised to find so important a personage even mildly interested in the small affairs of life on a Dales farm, and was inclined to ascribe his attitude to inherent good manners rather than to genuine concern, but she had no fault to find with that. Why should he be sincerely concerned? He made her feel that she was holding his attention, that her remarks were witty and entertaining, her opinions of value. Under this skilled handling she relaxed and glowed into something approaching beauty. The cool grey eyes, appraising her more closely than she guessed, were well pleased with what they saw. By the time that Mr. Fortune came seeking them, the Earl was gravely describing some of his wife’s animal protegees and their strange ways, stories which Ann assured him would be of deep interest to her small charge. If Mr. Fortune checked briefly and swallowed his amazement at seeing this ill-assorted pair so easy together, he was swift to recover his usual poise. He had come, he explained, to tell them that in view of the next day’s activities most of the ladies were retiring early, but that several of the gentlemen were proposing to while away an hour with a rubber of whist. He had thought that the Earl might like to join them.
Strolling back towards the drawing room he informed Ann, “And thanks to his lordship here, I’ve not had the chance of a word with you. There’s one or two things I have it in mind to say, so maybe tomorrow when all the fuss is over you’ll spare me half an hour of your time.”
Ann agreed to it and bade them both goodnight. She went slowly up to Barbara’s room, wondering once again at the change in her step-father’s manner. Why! He had been positively polite!
She tapped on Barbara’s door and went in, wondering if her sister’s customary placidity might have yielded to an understandable nervousness. Barbara was sitting on the bed, an open velvet jewel case in her hands, a slightly dazed expression on her face. She looked up as Ann came in, the shine of tears in her eyes, and held out the case wordlessly for her sister’s inspection.
“Mama’s pearls!” exclaimed Ann wonderingly. “His wedding gift to her.”
Barbara shook her head. “No. He is saving those for you. He said it was only right, as you were the elder. But he has had them matched for me, and the pendant and brooch too. I could scarcely believe my own eyes. He just pushed them into my hands as I was bidding him goodnight and would scarcely let me thank him. And as if that were not enough, Lady Broughton let slip this afternoon that he had settled a very handsome sum of money on me. She was surprised, she said, even a little shocked, that my greeting should be so cool. Did I not realize how fortunate I was to have a stepfather of so generous a disposition? Papa Fortune! Who grudged us every penny that was not spent on necessities. He told the Broughtons that he fully approved the match and had promised Mama that I should not go dowerless to my wedding. I feel so ashamed I could weep.”
So the change in Papa Fortune was not just in her imagination. Ann could only share her sister’s feelings. “I suppose that’s what he wants to tell me about,” she said ruefully. “Mama’s pearls. But why, why couldn’t he have shown a tiny fraction of this generosity when we were younger? When it meant so much to have new dancing slippers or a pair or real silk stockings?”
It must have taken months, perhaps years, to match those pearls, she thought, making her own preparations for bed. There was no saying how long the plan had been in his mind, no understanding it at all. But she was too sleepy to lie long awake puzzling over her stepfather’s inconsistencies.
She enjoyed Barbara’s wedding. Lady Broughton’s careful arrangements worked perfectly. Nobody was hot or hurried. Barbara looked lovely and very happy. The rich creamy brocade she had chosen for her wedding gown set off her dark colouring to admiration, and Ann knew that her own gown, of a delicate lilac pink, was vastly becoming. It did a good deal for one’s social confidence, she discovered, to know that one looked one’s best.
There was the usual delay, the usual laughter and teasing before the bridal pair left and such guests as lived in the vicinity gradually drifted away. She went slowly upstairs to tidy herself for dinner. There was no great haste, for she did not mean to change her gown. The lilac silk was far more elegant than anything else she possessed, and she would have few enough opportunities of wearing it. A mood of gentle melancholy possessed her. She was happy for Barbara, but it was sad to say goodbye to the close alliance that had linked them from birth.
Reaching the head of the stairs she lingered for a moment to make way for a hurrying abigail coming from the servants’ wing with a can of hot water. The girl was a stranger and she looked flushed and harrassed. She tapped on the door of one of the principal guest rooms and vanished within, but in her haste she did not close the door properly. Ann heard a sharp-pitched feminine voice say crossly, “—just because you must needs display your much-vaunted skill with the ribbons!”
“My dear, the accident would have happened just the same whoever was driving.” The masculine voice was a little weary, as though its owner’s patience was under considerable strain.
Ann hurried past. She had never heard Lady Conroy in a temper, but she had no doubt at all as to the owner of the peevish voice. In her absorption in the day’s events, she had forgotten all about the Conroys, but she now recalled that they had not been present either in church or at the reception afterwards. No doubt when Ethel arrived she would hear all about the accident that had delayed them.
But for once Ethel failed her. She was full of the party that was to be given for the servants and of what she meant to wear, and as Ann did not like to question her directly she had to wait until the ladies retired to the drawing room after dinner to satisfy her curiosity.
If the accident had caused Lady Conroy to miss the wedding, she certainly turned it to good account now in focussing all attention upon herself. To do her justice she told it well, with considerable dramatic ability and much play of fine eyes. Quite a pity that the display was being wasted on a wholly feminine audience, thought Ann unkindly. She knew that she was prejudiced against the storyteller, but even by her own account the lady came out of the incident with little credit, though of this she seemed quite unconscious.
The Conroy chariot had been in collision with a gig driven by a young girl whose strength had proved unequal to the task of controlling a bolting horse. A window in the chariot had been shattered and its gleaming panels scratched and dented, but the damage sounded fairly superficial. The gig had lost a wheel and cracked a shaft, and both horse and driver had been cut by flying glass. Lady Conroy’s abigail had tended the hysterical girl while her husband and coachman had freed the frantic horse from the wreckage of the gig.
“And we might still have been here in time for the wedding,” continued the narrator plaintively, “if Sir Stephen had not insisted on driving the girl to her home, which was quite unnecessary. It’s not as though she was a lady—just some farmer’s daughter on her way to market—and could do nothing but weep over smashed eggs and spilt cream, and vow the horse had never done so before but she thought a hornet must have stung him. Such a fuss. And no one with any thought for the dreadful shock to my nerves.”
At that point the arrival of the gentlemen caused the group around her to break up and re-form into several small knots of congenial friends. Ann drifted across to a small table standing beside the curtain-draped archway that gave on to the library. It held a collection of Chinese ivories and she examined these with interest and some amusement. Apart from Lady Conroy’s vivacious chatter there was a feeling of languor in the air. Everyone was pleasantly tired. Lady Broughton, receiving the appreciative remarks of her friends with smiling serenity, presently roused herself to ask the belated guest if she would give them the pleasure of a song. Lady Conroy demurred, saying with a delightful smile that her singing was no great thing, and the invitation was not pressed.
The smile faded. An incipient fro
wn darkened the beautiful brow, and since her husband was engaged in conversation with his host there was no one to coax or coerce the lady into a proper mode of behaviour. Seeking about her for some opportunity of venting her ill-humour, her eye chanced to light upon Ann. She rose, and rustled across the room with an air of pretty condescension.
“Such a surprise to meet you here, Miss Beverley,” she began. “You are, I must suppose, a distant connection of the new Mrs. Broughton. I had thought you—if I had given the matter any thought—wholly occupied with your many duties at High Garth. Such a rara avis as you are acclaimed. Do I take you out of your depth? But no! So accomplished a young person is, I am sure, well instructed in the Latin tongue. A paragon indeed. Your neighbours have not ceased to sing your praises. Not only highly educated, but equipped with all the domestic talents and wholly devoted to the Delvercourt interest. That at least I believe,” she put in, the charming voice suddenly raw and ugly with spite, “having seen something of it myself. And to be sure, no one ventured to say that you were a paragon of propriety Did you think that dung heap of a farm so remote that you might pursue your pastoral idyll unobserved? Or is it matrimony you have in mind? If that’s your ambition, you’re wasting your time. Patrick Delvercourt can’t afford marriage, and if he could he’d scarcely pick a wench out of his own kitchen.”
At first completely taken aback by the spate of venomous words, Ann’s instinct to retaliate in kind was further inhibited by her position as, in some sort, her antagonist’s hostess. The jibes at herself she might have ignored since they were so patently the imaginings of a petty and jealous mind. But the sneer at her beloved High Garth and the belittling references to Patrick were too much for any female spirit to endure. Her own quick temper took charge. She said hotly, “If Mr. Delvercourt chooses to marry I am sure his wife will be perfectly happy at High Garth. Unless, of course, he has the misfortune to select a luxury-loving little fortune hunter who values wealth and rank above integrity and human warmth.”
“Hoity-toity! Here’s a high flight,” smirked Lady Conroy. “These northern wastes seem to abound in non-pareils. Master Patrick is become a knight in shining armour to his kitchen wench! I suppose he paid for that gown you’re wearing. It’s easy enough, my girl, to be noble and generous at someone else’s expense! You may tell your fine master, you nasty little slut, that Sir Stephen has decided not to renew his lease of the Court after next quarter day. Then see how much of his nobility and generosity is left.”
The words struck dismay to Ann’s heart. She knew how delicately the finances of High Garth were balanced, and that it was from the letting of the Court that Patrick hoped to save money for Philip’s education. Wild thoughts of humble apology, even of pleading, flashed through her mind, though instinct warned that they would be worse than useless. But help was at hand, if from a rather unexpected quarter.
Standing with her back to the archway she had not noticed when the curtain was drawn aside; and her tormentor, happily absorbed in the pain that she could inflict on one who had aroused her bitterest jealousy, was equally blind. It was the tall figure of the Earl of Encliffe who stood in the opening; his cool voice that fell upon startled ears.
“Dear me!” he said blandly. “How very odd!” He raised his glass, and with its aid surveyed Lady Conroy with the impartial curiosity that one would accord to an unusual specimen, a proceeding that caused the lady to lower her gaze and to fidget with her fan. “You will forgive me, Miss Beverley?” he went on, the cool voice now rueful, apologetic. “I came to bring you a message from your step-papa, and I could not help overhearing what passed between you and this—er—young woman. In my day, you must understand, matters of business were left to my sex. A lady would have thought it shocking bad ton to be found discussing such a sordid affair as the renewal of a lease. But the ways of modern society are a continual surprise to me. I grow old, I fear.”
Since the Earl moved in the most select circles, his approval earnestly sought by aspirants to fashion, this could only be construed as a crushing set-down, while his show of friendship towards the despised Miss Beverley merely rubbed salt into the wound. Lady Conroy flushed a dull and unbecoming red, murmured something slightly disjointed about her husband trying to catch her eye this while past, and retreated.
The Earl looked down at Ann. His expression was unexpectedly sympathetic. “Objectionable creature,” he said dispassionately. “Don’t let her distress you, child. In matters such as this it is her husband who will have the last word, and I can safely promise you that your employer will get fair dealing from him But I forget my errand. Mr. Fortune would be grateful for a quiet word with you in the library. He and I are off tomorrow, sooner than we had intended, and mean to leave betimes. We have business together in Manchester.”
Ann was betrayed into showing her surprise. “Business? In Manchester?” she repeated, and then blushed and would have apologized.
The Earl smiled. “Yes. You did here me correctly,” he assured her, completing her confusion. “Do you think me a renegade? You I know to be a country lover—indeed, I share your preference. But I have come to see that England’s future prosperity lies, not in her lush green meadows, but in industry and commerce. We must develop and increase the products of our inventive genius, and seek wider markets. The meeting that your step-papa and I are to attend tomorrow is concerned with the development of railways—the highways of the future—which will carry the products of our mills and manufactories and foundries to the ports. But I become a dead bore. Such a lecture! Permit me, my dear young lady, to bid you farewell and good fortune. Why knows? Some day we may meet again—a hope that I shall cherish sincerely.”
She curtsied and gave him her hand in farewell, thinking that she, too, would be happy to meet him again, so kindly as he had spoken to her, and went off to the library reflecting amusedly that she had not thought to hob-nob with the aristocracy when she set out from High Garth, and smiling at the thought of what he would say if he met her in working dress and the pattens that she wore in the dairy.
The smile was soon banished when Papa Fortune informed her affably that he had taken order for her return journey, and, with his customary high-handedness, had already won Lady Broughton’s consent to his scheme.
“So as I was determined to see for myself this place that you’re so set on,” he explained, “we decided that I should take you up in my carriage when I come back from Manchester. We shall lie one night in Lancaster, and his lordship assures me that there’s a very decent little inn in this place—Ghent—no—Dent, that’s it. Your kind hosts will be spared the trouble of sending their carriage and servants to see you safe home. There now, what do you think of that?”
Fortunately she could find no words to tell him. Between indignation at having her own arrangements calmly over-set and horror when she strove to visualize Mr. Fortune’s impact on High Garth, she was speechless. And the plan was so sweetly reasonable, so precisely the behaviour of a careful parent, that there could be no evading it without making an unbecoming fuss. Disturbed and apprehensive, she went early to bed, thankful only that, as the Conroys, too, were leaving very early, she could avoid a further meeting with them by the simple process of remaining in her room till they were gone.
Chapter Sixteen
In the event, Papa Fortune proved to be an unexpectedly pleasant travelling companion, peaceable and competent. The mellowing of his disposition was inexplicable but apparently lasting, and Ann sunned herself in his unaccustomed good humour. A conversible evening in Lancaster did much to explain matters. The cheerful fire in the private parlour at the Castle Inn, an excellent meal and a tolerably smooth burgundy induced in Mr. Fortune a benign and confidential mood. He was, he informed Ann, to marry again.
“I always thought to marry Amelia,” he told her. “She’s my cousin, and we were brought up together after I lost my own parents when I was no more than a nipperkin. My uncle and aunt did their duty by me, there’s no gainsaying, and maybe a bit ov
er. A yeoman farmer, he was, and in a pretty prosperous way. They gave me a home and good schooling to start me off in the world. But when it came to me wanting to marry Amelia, that was different. What with us being cousins, which Uncle Nat didn’t hold with such close kin marrying, and with me having no money to speak of, which Aunt Isa didn’t approve, she being one with an eye to the moneybags, there were sour looks and some hard words spoken. Amelia was packed off to her Grandma’s in Wales, while I went back to London with my tail between my legs. Not that I gave up. I worked like three men, and I skimped and scraped and saved every halfpenny. I thought by the time Melia was of age I’d be able to show them that I was on the way to being a man of substance, and that maybe they’d change their minds. But I reckoned without Aunt Isa. Before the year was out she had her lass saxely tied up in marriage to a wealthy widower of her choosing. By what I can make out he was a kind enough husband, even if he was nigh on thirty years older than her, and he left her well provided for when he died. She’s no need to marry again unless she chooses. But she’s neither chick nor child to care for, while I’ve only the one step-daughter left on my hands—and an independent piece she is!”
He directed a fierce glare at Ann, but there was a distinct twinkle in the frosty blue eyes. She was encouraged to meet the accusation with an air of innocent surprise that made him smile.
