An Accomplished Woman (38 page)

‘Oh, no, not that sort
of novel. That would not suit you at all. I was thinking of the way you help me
to see things, not by dictating — really, that was shocking of Mr Beck — but by
reason. Persuasion. You could make a very good sort of novel about people
simply facing these questions, and about what is best to do in life. I remember
one of my governesses reproving me for indulging in sensibility. I think she
felt I needed sense instead. But then how to reconcile the two? That is the
sort of thing I mean.’

‘Sense and sensibility —
well, it has a certain ring. But I doubt, you know, that it would appeal. And a
mere woman writing about moral questions — surely that is man’s field—’

‘Park,’ cried Phoebe, ‘that
was the governess — Miss Park. Very austere: I was rather frightened of her.
But I remember finding out by chance that her first name was Emma, and thinking
how pretty it was, and wondering if there was a different person inside that
stern lady I knew. But then who can guess at the feelings of others?’ She
sighed. ‘It is hard enough to know our own . . .’

Phoebe’s gaze was
straying again to the carpet, and Lydia mentally urged Mary Darber to hurry
with the wine.

Lydia woke in the middle
of the night dry-mouthed from excess of wine and talk. Going downstairs to
fetch water from the kitchen, she saw candlelight coming from the drawing-room.
Phoebe was seated at the bureau in her nightdress, writing.

‘Phoebe? Can’t you
sleep?’

Phoebe offered the
outline of a smile. ‘I have simply been lying there composing the letter in my
head. So I thought I had better get up and write it. Then John can take it to
the Christopher first thing in the morning.’

Lydia sat down, hugging
herself. It was a mild night, but two o’clock always has its own chill. ‘Are
you sure?’

‘About writing?’

‘About all of it.’

Phoebe wiped her pen
carefully. ‘I am very fond of Mr Beck. Indeed when I think of him my heart — my
heart misgives me. But still I do not think I should accept his proposal. There
is a suddenness in it — a rashness. It is too precipitate. Is that a good
word?’

‘It is exactly the right
word.’

‘Good, because that’s
the one I’ve used.’ Phoebe glanced dubiously over her letter. To Lydia it already
looked very long. ‘I have also said that marriage is a very big step — which it
is, isn’t it?’

‘Not only a step, but a
whole flight of stairs. And so you must be sure that the two of you will toil
up them in reasonable harmony.’ Lydia got up. ‘But I’ll leave you, else I shall
certainly appear to be dictating.’

‘Oh, I have mentioned
that too, in strong terms. But, Lydia — I must know that you approve of what I
am doing.’

Lydia stifled a yawn.
‘If it is what you want, then of course I approve it.’ This was an evasion, as
Phoebe’s anxious look showed. ‘But yes — I think you are doing absolutely the
right thing.’

‘Thank you.’ Phoebe gave
the ghostly smile again, and returned with fresh energy to her writing.

Lydia was late rising in
the morning, and was only just finishing breakfast when the street-door shook
with a violent knocking. She met, then evaded Phoebe’s eyes as Mary went to
answer it, and a familiar deep-chested voice spoke.

‘I must see Miss Rae.’

Lydia nodded to Phoebe.
‘Go on, my dear. Take him up to the drawing-room. I’ll stay here.’

Well, it was after all
to be expected. Mr Beck would surely wish to hear his answer from Phoebe’s own
lips. Abandoning her tea, Lydia suffered a little disquiet at the thought of Mr
Beck’s passionate persuasions and limpid eyes undoing everything, and causing
Phoebe to change her mind: but there, it was out of her hands now. She would
certainly resist the temptation to creep out to the hall and listen.

The temptation had taken
her as far as the dining-room door when there came another knock. This time she
heard the voice of Lewis Durrant.

‘Thank you, Mary,’ she
said, stepping out. ‘I will see Mr Durrant in here. If you don’t mind the
breakfast things, sir.’

‘What’s this, a new Bath
fashion?’ He roamed around the table. ‘Rather like the
levee,
with
butter and crumbs. That ham looks dry stuff. There is only one thing worse than
the provisions in this town, and that is the price demanded for them. Where’s
Miss Rae?’

‘Upstairs. Receiving a
caller. Please sit down, Mr Durrant.’

‘A caller? You are
neglecting your duty again, Miss Templeton.’

‘There is something of
an important and private nature going forward, which specifically requires my
absence, not my presence.’

‘Ah, now you’re sounding
like a chaperon,’ he said approvingly. ‘You’ll be knitting before long.
Important and private, eh? Sounds promising, or perhaps not.’

‘I am not at liberty to
say any more.’ He was wearing his old loose country coat again, she saw. ‘Mr
Durrant — I do think it was a pity about your new coat.’

‘Was it? Why?’

Somehow she did not care
to say he looked well in it. ‘Because — it was new. You must order another like
it.’

‘Two coats in one year?
You’ll turn me into Hugh Hanley.’ He groaned. ‘There, I managed to forget him
for a few minutes. He’s here. Put up last night at the York Hotel — naturally,
that being the most extravagantly expensive in Bath. And came straight to my
lodgings for a comfortable cose, as he put it. Also so that I might feast my
eyes on his new uniform. Such was the treat that awaited me when I got back
from Queen Square. Yes, the moneylenders have responded again to my name, and
his commission in the Prince of Wales’s Own is bought, though he is not
gazetted yet.’ He sat down moodily, digging his hands in his breeches pockets.

‘And was your cose
comfortable? Did you fall on each other’s necks, and swear to renounce all your
former animosity?’

‘Not really: the only
thing I wanted to do to his neck was wring it. Probably the feeling was mutual,
though of course he kept the smile going to the end.’ Mr Durrant produced a
brief imitation, more grotesque than authentic. ‘He tried to dissuade me, in
the most insolent terms, from what he called my Bath folly. I replied that it
was none of his deuced business: and so it went on.’

‘Though of course it is,
in a sense, his business. It is solely because of him that you are pursuing
your f— your project.’

‘Not solely,’ Mr Durrant
said, looking out of the window. ‘Well, he may hound me all he likes: it only
hardens my resolution. The sight of Hugh Hanley parading Bath in his red coat
is almost enough to make me propose marriage to the first woman I see.’

‘How enchanting for her
. . .’ Lydia cocked her head: she could hear agitated footsteps above, and Mr
Beck’s voice audibly raised. ‘Important and private matters going forward — or
backward?’ he asked, studying her. ‘I believe that’s Beck I hear.’

‘Yes . . . but really,
Mr Durrant, I shouldn’t talk of it, It is purely Phoebe’s affair.’

‘Hm? Well, it is plainly
affecting you also. You look as grey as that ham. Come, tell me a little. Even
a chaperon must have a confidant.’

‘Well — I must insist
that you adhere to the meaning of that word, and regard this as given in the
strictest confidence.’ He sniffed. ‘Miss Templeton, you know my character.’

‘I do, and it reassures
me. I need not fear looseness of tongue in a man who will seldom give himself
the trouble to speak. The matters are — the matter is a proposal of marriage.
That is, Mr Beck has made the proposal, and Miss Rae has declined it.’

‘Has she now?’

‘Yes — and you need not
sound so surprised. She is very young, after all, and an heiress, and she must
give great thought to the disposition of her hand; and the proposal is rather —
precipitate.’ Mr Durrant, irritatingly, was silent, regarding her with dry,
heavy-lidded interest. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, getting up and roaming, ‘to be
sure, very true. Only I supposed Miss Rae was — well, I supposed her very ready
to have him.’ He glanced up at the ceiling. ‘And is she, as it were,
administering the blow now?’

‘Her decision was
communicated by letter. I imagine Mr Beck seeks to — to confirm it.’

‘Yes, I shouldn’t
wonder. Well, I am sorry for him. He is something of a cockle-brain, to be
sure, but still it is hard on the man, when he surely had good grounds for
thinking his luck was in.’

‘Now I am surprised, Mr
Durrant. You hear of a man failing of matrimony, and you commiserate instead of
congratulating him on his escape.’

Mr Durrant paused in his
pacing, and looked at her with a kind of dawning of malicious delight. ‘Miss
Templeton. I believe I detect your hand in this. You wish her to marry her
other suitor — you want her to take Robert Allardyce.’

‘Good heavens, Mr
Durrant, you do misread a situation. My wishes — whatever they may be — have
nothing to do with the case, nothing whatsoever.’ She lifted her teacup and
drank, trying to repress her shudder at the taste.

‘Yes, that must be
pretty well cold and stewed by now,’ he remarked. ‘Come, I am sure you must
have at least made your wishes known, and they must carry some weight with Miss
Rae. It is plain to me, simply from observation, that you much prefer Mr
Allardyce of the two.’

‘Very well — privately,
in my own opinion, yes,’ she said, frowning. ‘And what do
you
think? You
are very thick with that family. You said you were at Queen Square last
evening, after all.’

‘So I was,’ he said,
smiling at her annoyance, ‘invitation to cards and supper.’

‘And so,’ she went on,
more annoyed than ever, ‘you have become pretty well acquainted with Mr
Allardyce, and I’m sure that even your misanthropy will concede him to be a
very sensible man.’

‘Yes: thoroughly
sensible, I have no doubt of it. But what I beg leave to doubt is whether a
sensible
man would entirely suit Miss Rae.’

You suppose you are revealing
your insight, but in fact you are revealing your prejudice. I know Phoebe a
good deal better than you: I know she has abundant good sense: indeed the fact
that she has attracted the regard of such a man as Mr Allardyce is proof of
it.’

‘Perhaps: but good sense
is not necessarily what every man looks for first when he chooses a wife. Which
is just as well, in a way, as otherwise the human race would soon come to an
end.’

‘You are being
deliberately provoking. I have nothing excessive to say for Mr Allardyce, or
against Mr Beck. I would only urge against haste and thoughtlessness, and those
I see in Mr Beck’s proposal, and so does Phoebe.’

Mr Durrant grew sharply
attentive. ‘Do you mean he should have waited?’

‘Yes — I don’t know —
perhaps,’ Lydia said, floundering, ‘and besides, a man may always — well, ask
again.’

‘Ask again!’ Mr Durrant
repeated, with a very cool look of appraisal. ‘Forgive me, but I discern a lack
of insight
there.
For a man to ask again, after he has been refused,
requires a great conquest of his natural pride — such a conquest as he may feel
himself unable, at the price of all self-respect, to make.’

‘Then that is his
affair: but he should consider that, by and large, men are over-supplied with
this natural pride, and it can do them no harm, and even some good, to dispense
with a little of it now and then.’

‘This is easy for a
woman to say.’ He sauntered to the window, and began feeling the stuff of the
curtains. ‘She has nothing to do in such a case: no efforts to make: no adjustments
to her self-opinion to countenance. She may just sit there, nursing her favour
like a miser’s purse, and await the next approach.’

‘If that is ease, it is
the ease of the caged bird. You say she
may
just sit there, but in truth
she
must
just sit there. It is not given to a woman to declare herself —
to make proposals or counterproposals: if she changes her mind, she is
powerless to act upon her inclinations, and must merely hope: sit and hope.’

Mr Durrant dislodged the
silk cord holding back the curtain, retied it with splendid awkwardness, and
came smartly away from the window. ‘All the more reason,’ he said, scowling,
‘for her to make the right choice to begin with.’

‘Precisely. I am glad we
are in agreement.’

He seemed about to say
something more, something as definitive as a sword-thrust, when there was a
great clatter on the staircase, and then Mr Beck thrust open the dining-room
door.

‘Well, Miss Templeton. I
congratulate you. Your object is achieved.’ His superb cheekbones worked
convulsively. ‘You have turned Miss Rae against me in full measure, and I admit
my defeat. While such influence continues to prevail, my suit is hopeless.’

Lydia rose. ‘Mr Beck, I
understand that your feelings on this occasion must be painful, but you are
mistaken, grievously mistaken if you suppose that I—’

‘I have been mistaken:
oh, yes, mistaken in many respects. Not least in supposing that, in spite of
our differences, you did in the last resort “understand feelings”, as you phrase
it. But you do not, madam. Your understanding is vast, admirable indeed, but
there it fails, believe me, most miserably. This is uncivil: I know it: but you
need not fear the incivility will be renewed, for you will not see me again.’
His burning eyes finally took in the presence of Mr Durrant: he swallowed.
‘Sir.’