Sylvia Andrew – Reawakening Miss Calverley (страница 3)

The Dowager Lady Aldhurst was an upright figure with a silver-topped cane in her right hand. Tiny as she was, she dominated the room. She was wearing black as usual, but her dress was trimmed with a collar of Alençon lace, and a very pretty cap of the same lace covered her beautifully arranged frosted-black hair. A cashmere shawl was draped over her arms. On a small table next to her chair was a glass of Madeira, together with a plate of small biscuits and a pile of papers, on top of which was a copy of the Gazette.

When James came in she greeted him with no particular warmth, but her expression softened as he walked towards her with his characteristic easy stride. Tall, broad shouldered, with dark grey eyes and black hair, he was the image of the man she had loved and married more than fifty years before, and he had always held a special place in her affections. As James bent to kiss her cheek he smiled appreciatively as he caught a delicate trace of perfume.

‘I see you’re wearing the cap I gave you, ma’am,’

he said as he sat down. ‘It suits you. I swear you look younger every day!’

His grandmother was not to be mollified. ‘No thanks to you, sir!’ she snapped.

He smiled ruefully. ‘What have I done this time, Grandmama?’

‘It’s what you haven’t done!’ She picked up the copy of the Gazette. ‘Between the social announcements and the gossip I have never read the Gazette and the rest with so little pleasure. Read that, if you please!’

James took the paper and read, ‘“Lord Paston has announced his daughter’s engagement to the Honourable Christopher Dalloway…”’ He raised an eyebrow and, handing the paper back to her, said with a puzzled frown, ‘I wish the happy couple every joy, but I am not sure what it is supposed to mean to me, nor why it should cause you such displeasure…’

His grandmother glared and took the paper back from him. ‘That isn’t all,’ she said angrily. ‘Read down the page, sir! Look at the other announcements! Sarah Carteret is to marry someone I’ve never heard of—her mother won’t be pleased about that! And next month Mary Abernauld will marry Francis Chantry—’

This time his tone was more cynical. ‘So Mary is to be a Countess? I hope her father knows what he is doing. Chantry gambled away his first wife’s inheritance in pretty much record time—let’s hope he doesn’t lose his new one’s fortune as quickly.’

‘Arthur Abernauld is no fool, James,’ said his grandmother. ‘He’ll have seen to it that he won’t!’ Then she snapped, ‘Don’t try to change the subject! I haven’t asked you in to talk about the Abernaulds!’

‘I’m relieved to hear you say so. They’re a tedious lot. What did you want to see me about—apart, of course, from the pleasure of my company?’

She tapped the paper with her finger. ‘It’s this. Did Barbara Furness tell you she was going to Scotland? According to the Gazette, her parents are taking her for a prolonged stay at Rothmuir Castle. Does this mean she has given up waiting for you to make her an offer and intends to accept the Marquess after all?’

James leaned back in his chair with a lazy smile. ‘That is something you would have to ask the lady.’ When Lady Aldhurst simply held his eye and waited in silence he added, ‘Surely I don’t need to tell you, of all people, that Lady Barbara has never expected an offer from me. What is more, I don’t believe she would have accepted me if I had made one.’

His grandmother looked grave. ‘That’s not the impression you were giving the world, James.’ She poked her stick at the sheets still lying on the table. ‘And it’s not what the scandal sheets are saying, either. According to them, she has left London with a broken heart. Is that true?’

‘Let me see.’ James picked up the offending newspaper, but after a quick glance he murmured, ‘Barbara has been busy! So this to be my punishment!’

‘Is it true?’

James got up and said impatiently, ‘Of course it isn’t! Barbara is simply playing one of her tricks. She was furious when I told her she was behaving badly to a friend of mine, and thinks she can pay me back through this piece of nonsense. Lady Furness insisted on taking her daughter to Scotland, but I’ll be amazed if Barbara isn’t back in London before the month is out, heart whole and perfectly free of any engagement. Why on earth do you read such unedifying rubbish?’ He looked at his grandmother, and said, surprised, ‘You surely don’t believe it?’

‘I no longer know what to believe, James. And you can stop towering over me like that. Sit down, sir! Sit down and look at me!’

His jaw tightened and for a moment it looked as if he would refuse. Then their eyes met and he shrugged his shoulders and sat down. His grandmother thought for a moment and then said slowly, ‘I can see you’re annoyed with me. You think I’m an interfering old woman, and I suppose you’re right. But I care about you, and I care even more for the good name of the Aldhursts. It’s an old name and a highly respected one, and I am not prepared to see it bandied about in newspapers such as these.’

‘Why the devil does the world have to take such an interest in my affairs?’

‘Oh, come, James! You must know that you’ve been regarded as one of London’s most eligible bachelors ever since you were old enough to enter society. Lady Barbara is only one of a large number of girls whose names have been linked with yours in the past year or two. Three others are also in that newspaper—Mary Abernauld, Sarah Carteret and the Paston chit. You are acquiring a reputation, James.’

‘Really, ma’am, I thought you had better sense. You more than anyone must know what it is like. I have only to dance once with a girl, or happen to be more than once in the same room with her, or even raise my hat to her in the street, for the gossips’ tongues to start wagging. I hardly knew the Carteret girl. Our so-called affair was only ever in the girl’s imagination, fed by her mother’s ambition. I never remotely considered asking her to marry me.’

She shook her head. ‘You have never to my knowledge remotely considered asking anyone to marry you.’ She put the Gazette back on the table with a sigh. ‘Three of London’s most desirable young women—four with the Paston girl—all well born, all well bred and all passably good-looking. And now they are all about to marry someone else.’ She gave a frustrated tap on the floor with her stick. ‘You’ve known Barbara Furness a long time. I had such high hopes of her.’

‘She was John’s friend, not mine.’

‘But John is dead and you are alive. You could well have made a match of it. Now you’ve lost her to Rothmuir, who must be fifty if he’s a day! What stopped you? Is there some truth in what they are all saying? That you think no woman is good enough for you?’

James was offended. He said curtly, ‘You must know me better than that! Of course that’s not true!’ He turned away from her and gazed out of the window.

Lady Aldhurst said more gently, ‘Then what is it, James?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve been introduced to innumerable girls since I came out of the army. They all seem such polished articles. They’ve been trained to smile, but not too much, to converse, but not too wittily, to play an instrument, but not too brilliantly. They have been to the best dressmakers, the best milliners, and they have without exception been taught every trick of proper deportment. So much effort in pursuit of a suitable match…’

He paused and turned round to look at her. ‘The trouble is, ma’am, there is so little to distinguish one from another.’ He corrected himself. ‘No, Barbara Furness is different. She is a minx, but she at least makes me laugh…John loved her, and since he died I have very occasionally wondered whether she and I could tolerate one another enough to make a marriage work.’

‘Well then—why not Lady Barbara?’

‘The feeling didn’t last. She is beautiful enough, and she amuses me, but I want more than that from a wife. I’d rather not marry at all than feel nothing more than amusement or a somewhat lukewarm regard for the woman I intend to share the rest of my life with.’

‘But you must marry, James! You owe it to the family. You’re the last of us now that John has gone. You must have some sons. Or do you intend to let the line die out altogether?’

There was a long silence during which James continued to watch the carriages and horses, the vendors and servants passing in a constant stream up and down Brook Street. At last he said with a touch of bitterness, ‘You’re right, of course. I owe it to the family. When John died I “owed it to the family” to give up the Army career I loved. After my father died I “owed it to the family” to spend months rescuing our estates—Charterton, Aldhurst, Baldock and the rest—after he had neglected them for years.’

‘You haven’t mentioned the most important. You haven’t mentioned Roade.’

‘I haven’t been to Roade. I dislike the place,’ he said curtly.

‘Your grandfather and I loved it, James.’

After another pause he turned round and said grimly, ‘And now I suppose you think I owe it to the family to secure its survival.’

‘Quite right! You’ve waited far too long as it is. You need to marry.’