Evelyn Richardson (14 page)

If, in the ensuing days, the academy’s headmistress seemed to spend less time in her office and more time visiting the classrooms or joining the girls as they strolled in the garden, no one seemed particularly aware of the change in routine except for Margaret Denholme, who simply ascribed it to Catherine’s recent meetings with the Marquess of Charlmont and her desire to show the academy’s most important patron that everyone at Lady Catherine Granville’s Academy, from the headmistress on down, was concerned for the welfare of its pupils.

But despite her increased vigilance, Catherine was able to discover nothing further, nothing beyond a certain air of expectancy that Arabella was at pains to hide whenever she happened to catch the headmistress’s eyes upon her.

Then one day Catherine, who in search of a slight diversion of her own was returning from an expedition to a nearby stationer’s, happened to notice a rather sporting-looking young man sauntering slowly along the Royal Crescent in a studied casual sort of way. Catching sight of Catherine, he swiftly turned his attention to the exquisite ionic columns of the facade, assuming a look of intent interest in Mr. Wood’s architectural masterpiece and one of Bath’s crowning glories.

He was a rather handsome young man, in a florid, square-jawed sort of way, the kind of man who was generally more interested in fox hunting than aesthetics and whose attention was more likely to be caught by horses and hounds than architectural detail. Furthermore, he had been sauntering along in the same casual manner when Catherine had left to go on her errand.

All the vague suspicions that had been plaguing her for the past week came crowding back into Catherine’s mind. She nodded abstractedly as Riddle opened the door and marched upstairs to her office, where she proceeded to pace back and forth across the Axminster carpet.

Now, what was she to do? All her instincts told her that the young man in the street was the reason behind Arabella’s exuberant behavior, but how was she to prove it without compromising the girl’s trust? Was the young man simply seeking an assignation or was he planning an elopement?

For the rest of the day Catherine wrestled with this thorny issue. It intruded on her thoughts well into the evening as she sat before the fire in her own library trying to distract herself with the latest issue of the
The Edinburgh Review
. And it certainly kept her from drifting off into the dreamless sleep she longed for. At last she was forced to conclude that there was nothing to be done except to proceed in the manner that she had already adopted of keeping the girl under close observation while watching carefully for further developments.

None of the other girls appeared to be involved in Arabella’s secret. There were no exchanges of knowing looks, no whispered conversations that Catherine could see. Therefore, Arabella must not be meeting him during any of the group excursions into town but must instead be biding her time until she could snatch a moment alone. One of the academy’s cardinal rules was that no young lady could leave the premises unescorted, and there was simply no way for anyone to slip past the watchful Biddle at the front door, which left the small gate in the back wall of the garden as the only possible means of egress.

And the best way for Catherine to keep an eye on that gate was to remain in her office, which afforded an excellent view of the entire garden behind the academy. Accordingly, she let it be known that she was catching up on a mountain of work and spent the next day and a half closeted in her office, keeping a weather eye out the window overlooking the back.

At last her perseverance paid off as late one afternoon a few days later she noticed Arabella lingering in the garden while the other girls returned to their studies. Catherine watched breathlessly as Arabella glanced carefully around the garden and then very casually strolled toward the gate at the back.

Laying down her pen, Catherine hurried down the stairs and out the French windows across a small terrace and down the path that led to the gate. By this time, the gate was deep in shadow and her view of it was obscured by the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, but she was soon close enough to hear the click of the latch and she quickly stepped off the gravel path onto the grass in order to muffle the sound of her footsteps. The gate squeaked on rusty hinges as it swung open and then came the sound of lowered voices speaking earnestly to one another.

When she drew close enough to make out the two figures framed in the arched gateway, Catherine stepped back onto the path, slowing her pace as though she were taking a leisurely turn around the garden. A few yards from the gate, she executed a well-feigned start of surprise. “Goodness! I did not see you there, Arabella. How you startled me.”

Catherine’s start of surprise was nothing compared to the look of dismay registering itself on Arabella’s face, but the girl quickly regained control of herself. “Good afternoon, Lady Catherine. I was just speaking with, ah, an old family friend who happened by. Is it not delightful? Mr. Foxworthy was in Bath on business and, recalling that he had heard Mama mention that I was attending school here, he stopped to inquire after me and bring me news from home.” Arabella spoke as glibly as though clandestine meetings in the garden with young men were a perfectly natural course of affairs, but the unusually high pitch of her voice and the defensively raised chin quickly gave her away.

Mr. Foxworthy, however, was not about to dissemble. Stepping forward, his blue eyes blazing defiantly, his lips set in an obstinate line, he thrust Arabella behind him. “What Lady Arabella means to say”—he shot a quelling look at his companion—“is that I am not only an old family friend, but also her affianced husband, and—”

“Then it is a pleasure to welcome you to the academy, Mr. Foxworthy,” Catherine broke in smoothly, ignoring his pugnacious stance and belligerent expression. “We are all very fond of Arabella and are happy to make the acquaintance of someone who appreciates her as much as we do. Will you not step inside? I think you will find it far more comfortable in the drawing room as there is a decided chill in the air.”

“I cannot stay long as I am expected home today. Arabella and I are to be married soon, and I merely stopped by to discuss some final arrangements.” Foxworthy remained rooted to the spot, staring defiantly at the headmistress.

But Arabella, who had recovered from her initial surprise, smiled gratefully at Catherine and directed a pleading look at her fiancé. “Yes, do let us go inside. I think you will find it quite charming, Foxworthy.”

“Oh, very well, but only for a moment, mind you. I must be getting back to my affairs,” he muttered ungraciously, but he followed the women back inside docilely enough.

Seating herself in a chair by the drawing room fire, Catherine directed the pair to the sofa opposite her. “I am sorry that I did not know about your engagement. If I had known, I would have made the drawing room available to you. It is one of those longstanding family arrangements, I assume.”

“Well, we have not—”

“Yes.” Foxworthy cut Arabella off with another quelling look. “It is only natural, after all, for the two most ancient families in the county to ally themselves with one another.”

“It is a pity the Marquess of Charlmont did not think to mention it. We could have spared you the discomfort of—ah—meeting in the garden.”

Arabella looked distinctly ill at ease, but Foxworthy, no longer feeling at a disadvantage now that he saw that the headmistress was only a few years older than he, if that, cleared his throat importantly. “Naturally the Marquess, who has only recently come into the title, has far more important things than a wedding to occupy his time,” he responded pompously, conveniently forgetting that one of the first things the new marquess had done was to engineer an encounter that even someone as unimaginative as Foxworthy had recognized as being more than pure happenstance, an encounter in which the marquess had made it uncomfortably clear that he was not impressed with the squire’s son. “Therefore I have not seen fit to discuss the details with him, but he will soon be hearing from me.”

“Of course, that would explain it.”

Catherine’s heavily ironic tone was entirely lost on Foxworthy, but not on his fiancée. Arabella flushed uncomfortably and looked somewhat abashed by his air of self-importance.

“But now we have detained you from your affairs too long, Mr. Foxworthy.” Catherine rose majestically. “Do let us know when you will be in town again.”

In the face of such obvious dismissal, there was nothing for him to do but obey her. However, he was clearly not happy. Rising with a little less confidence than when he had sat down, Foxworthy nodded curtly to them both and strode from the room with as masterly an air as he could muster.

Chapter Fifteen

Arabella remained gazing at her headmistress with a mixed expression of awe and trepidation.

“A most forceful young man,” Catherine remarked, taking her seat again. “Having grown up in such close proximity, you know one another quite well, I gather.”

“Not all—er—yes, naturally we have known one another since childhood, and, well…” Caught off guard by the unexpected calmness of Catherine’s reaction to the entire encounter, Arabella found herself totally at sea.

‘Then I expect that you know what you are about. You seem to be a young woman who knows her own mind. Still…” Catherine shrugged expressively and made as if to rise again.

“What…what do you mean?”

“I mean that a young man who is so confident of a woman even before they are married, a woman whose wealth and station are so clearly superior to his, will only become more so once her entire fortune and person are his to dispose of.”

“I do not understand you.”

“What I mean is that, from the little I have seen of you, I would say that you are a spirited young woman, spirited enough to be saucy with your uncle. Yet now you are acting as meek as a lamb, obeying every look, every gesture of a young man who possesses none of your uncle’s stature or intelligence. Nor does he have a natural right to your respect. Furthermore, you, who never appear to be at a loss for words in any other situation allow this young man to speak entirely for you, a young man who is far less articulate and, from what I can tell, far less clever than you are.” Catherine paused to judge the effect of her words, but somewhat to her surprise, Arabella did not look mulish or defensive, as was naturally to be expected, but appeared instead to be thinking it over.

“It seems to me,” Catherine continued, “as though one ought to begin as one intends to continue. And if you are the sort of person who wishes to defer to her husband on every issue, who wants a husband who clearly expects you to look to him as your lord and master, then it is all very well. But if not…” Catherine allowed her words to hang in the air. From her conversations with Lucian she had gained the impression that Arabella tended to ride roughshod over the easily influenced Marchioness of Charlmont. From observing her in conversations with the other girls she had also arrived at the conclusion that Arabella was a strong-minded young woman who would definitely not picture herself as a dutiful wife meekly adjusting her wishes to suit her husband’s.

Arabella’s eyes widened in surprise. Clearly the possibility of such an absurd state of affairs had never crossed her mind.

“Marriage is a good deal different from courtship, you know. And a man who has control over both your fortune and your person is far less likely to accede to your whims and desires than one who is still hoping to win you. In general, men who are married are far less biddable than men who are courting. Then they are on their very best behavior since they have everything to lose if they are not. But naturally your uncle will see to it that when the marriage settlements are drawn up you are left with something to call your own. My own dear father, I fear, was far less worldly than you uncle and allowed everything to go to my husband. He trusted, rightfully enough, in my husband’s gentlemanly nature to see that I was provided for in the manner in which I had been brought up. Unfortunately, what my father did not foresee was Granville’s untimely death. Honorable though my husband was in the disposition of my fortune, his heir was far less so. All that I brought with me to our marriage is now in the hands of someone who is not at all as concerned with my welfare and happiness as my husband was. But I suppose that since yours is a longstanding arrangement, a good deal of thought has already been given to that sort of thing. No doubt your father and your fiancé’s father had many conversations on the subject.”

If Arabella had appeared uneasy before, she now looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I do not know. I mean I was not privy…” She faltered, thought deeply for a few moments, and then in a rush of confidence admitted, “He never spoke— I mean, we were not friends in that sort of way until after father died.”

It was clear from the strain that could be heard in Arabella’s voice and the unhappy expression in her eyes that she had arrived at the same distressing conclusion Catherine had, that it was Lady Arabella’s fortune and connections rather than her charming person that were the motivating factors in young Foxworthy’s courtship of her, and that worldly considerations rather than more tender emotions had driven him to seek her out—and to seek her out when he thought there was only the spineless Marchioness of Charlmont to object to his obviously unsuitable proposal.

“Then you think,” Arabella’s big brown eyes were suddenly awash with tears, “you think he only wants me for my fortune?”

Clearly this was a sadly lowering reflection for one who had been picturing herself as a heroine in a highly romantic escapade. “I do not know,” Catherine responded gently. “Only you can know that for sure. But marriage is a rather big step, and a risky step for a woman, especially if she is not sure. Now, you have had a rather wearing day, and it is time for supper. I suggest that you think no more about it until you have had something to eat and some time to rest. Things are always much clearer in the morning when one has had the chance to sleep on them.”