Miss Hartwell's Dilemma (14 page)

At the end of June, all the young ladies had generally gone home. Her ladyship had never seen her house actually in use as a school, and there was no guessing what she would think of it. She had taken a notion to look in on the Queen’s trial, which was due to resume next week. Since she took the rule against travelling on the sabbath as literally as everything else, it suited her very well to spend that day with her goddaughter. Amaryllis was fond of her godmother, and excessively grateful, but the thought of trying to entertain that toplofty matron for a whole day in such a situation appalled her.

“‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.’ Mark 2, verse 27,” said Tizzy unhelpfully.

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Vaux. “You know it is quite impossible to keep the house immaculate with two dozen girls running about. I usually have time to clean before she comes. I shall have to send at once to the village for extra help and consult Cook as to a menu, and Daisy must go and buy what is necessary, and room must be reserved at one of the inns for her coachman and outriders and stabling for her horses, and the girls must be warned to be on their best behaviour for you know what a stickler Cornelia is, and how prodigious fortunate that I have kept her chamber on the first floor free for you know we could use the space a hundred times over, I vow.”

“You must have had a presentiment of this occasion,” said Amaryllis with a smile as her aunt ran out of breath. “I know you will work a miracle as you always do, and everything will be perfect by the time she arrives. What can Tizzy and I do to help?”

Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day, and with the aid of two extra women from the village the house was scrubbed and polished from top to bottom until it gleamed. Girls could be found in every corner practising their curtsies on each other, and glorious odours wafted from the kitchen. Ned was on his knees in the front garden, removing every errant blade of grass from the flowerbeds and coaxing half a dozen late-blooming roses to keep their fading petals just three days longer.

Shortly after four on Saturday afternoon, a magnificent equipage with crested doors, drawn by four matched bays, pulled up in front of the school. Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh had sent two other coaches laden with servants, luggage, linen, and plate, ahead to London with her downtrodden companion. She was travelling light, with only two trunks strapped on top and accompanied only by her dresser, her coachman, four outriders, and a footman hanging on for dear life behind. All but the dresser wore bottle-green livery and powdered wigs. The housemaid set to watch for the arrival was so flabbergasted by this apparition that she forgot to call Daisy until the footman was halfway up the garden path.

Daisy boxed her ears. “Run and tell miss her la’ship is come,” she ordered, peeping through the window and seeing that the tall, spare abigail was descending from the carriage already.

The footman was as haughty as a lord, much haughtier in fact than a number of lords Daisy had met. Having ascertained that Miss Hartwell was at home, he returned to the carriage to help his mistress descend. This operation occupied both himself and the maid, since Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh was as tall as her abigail but built on majestic lines. Daisy had seen it before, but she still watched in fascination as three purple ostrich plumes emerged, followed by a mountainous figure in a purple pelerine trimmed with sable.

“My muff, Gribbins.” The words floated to her as the dresser reached into the carriage and produced a sable muff the size of a spaniel. “My reticule, Gribbins.” A handbag large enough to hold said spaniel.

Taking the footman’s arm, the purple mountain advanced up the garden path with Miss Gribbins in her wake bearing a shawl, a bandbox, and a dressing case. As Daisy curtsied, once to my lady, once to Miss Gribbins, Miss Hartwell hurried down the stairs to greet her godmother. Amaryllis was enveloped in a vast embrace, then her ladyship released her and examined her with some severity.

“You are pale. I trust you are not wearing yourself to a shadow with this seminary of yours?”

Since Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh’s alarmingly high colour clashed abominably with her purple draperies, and she always thought everyone else pale, Amaryllis ignored this criticism.

“How delightful to see you, Godmama! Won’t you come upstairs and take off your hat? The usual chamber, Gribbins,” she added to the dresser.

Miss Gribbins, a Friday-faced woman dressed in black bombazine, curtsied in a stately manner and sailed away towards the kitchen. Though she did not appear to hurry, she reached the first floor chamber before her mistress, accompanied by a housemaid bearing a jug of hot water. It would have been greatly beneath her dignity to carry the jug herself. Indeed, to be staying in a house with no butler, no housekeeper, no footmen, no servants’ hall, accorded ill with her notions of what was due to her consequence. Her air of toplofty disdain cowed the school’s servants so that they scarce dared open their mouths in her presence.

Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh, enveloped in mauve satin, was at last safely installed in the private drawing room with a glass of Madeira at her elbow. Miss Tisdale made her curtsy and withdrew. She knew well that, as a former governess, she would be considered disgracefully encroaching were she to take her share in entertaining their honoured guest. Mrs. Vaux, whose birth and breeding were unexceptionable though her present occupation was no more exalted than Miss Tisdale’s, was relieved to find herself still addressed as “dear Eugenia.” She settled down with her ladyship to a comfortable cose.

Amaryllis listened with half an ear to their gossip of the doings of the Upper Ten Thousand. Everything her godmother said was undoubtedly true, since she had no opinion whatever of rumourmongers and never repeated on-dits. However, the world they were discussing seemed so far off and irrelevant that Amaryllis found it uninteresting. Time enough when she married Bertram to concern herself once again with the shocking news that Lord X’s youngest daughter had run off with Sir Y to Gretna Green.

It occurred to her that her ladyship probably knew all there was to know about Lord Daniel Winterborne. Though she scorned rumour, few facts about the Polite World escaped her eagle eye, and her memory for scandal was nothing short of phenomenal. Open enquiry would arouse her suspicions, but there must be a way to inveigle her into revealing all. Amaryllis set her mind to the problem.

It was out of the question to subject Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh to dining with twenty-four schoolroom misses, even had the prospect of conveying her below-stairs and back up again not been daunting. A small table was set up in the drawing room, and after changing her dress, Mrs. Vaux rejoined her there. Amaryllis, in the face of disapproval, maintained that she must dine with her pupils, but afterwards she left them to Tizzy in the common-room and repaired to the drawing room.

Her ladyship graciously conveyed her compliments to the cook, and then asked in somewhat waspish accents whether her goddaughter was now able to spare her a little time. Mrs. Vaux slipped out, promising to return to take tea with “dear Cornelia.” Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh at once turned to the attack.

“Tatenhill’s heir is back in England and still unmarried,” she announced. “I observed your request not to tell him your whereabouts after Hartwell’s disgraceful behaviour, but if he has worn the willow for you these six years, it would be foolish beyond permission to continue to avoid him. If he applies to me, I shall inform him.”

“Lord Pomeroy has found me out, ma’am,” said Amaryllis, her face crimson. “He has done me the honour to renew his suit, and I suppose I shall have him.”

“Suppose!” Her ladyship was outraged. “Where are your wits wandering, miss? For two years you played fast and loose with him, and now he is nodcock enough to return to your apron strings you say you suppose you will have him! Do you expect me to believe that you prefer playing schoolmistress to marrying one of the best catches on the Marriage Mart and becoming the mistress of Tatenhill? Let me tell you that if you throw away this chance to return to respectability, you need expect no further help from me.”

With difficulty, Amaryllis suppressed her anger. “I have not yet revealed to Bertram that my father is now an ironmonger in America,” she said, outwardly calm. “It is possible that he may cry off when I tell him.”

“An ironmonger? Viscount Hartwell an ironmonger!”

“Yes, ma’am. Papa married the…the lady he ran off with, and they own a hardware store in Philadelphia. He has invited me to join them there and help in the store. I have two half-brothers, it seems.”

Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh, a stunned look in her rather protuberant eyes, struggled in silence to absorb this news. Never one to hesitate, she came to a quick decision.

“There is no need to tell Pomeroy until after you are wed. Philadelphia is three thousand miles away. What your father does there can have no conceivable effect on your life here.”

“Godmama! Never did I think to hear you countenance such havey-cavey goings-on. I cannot possibly consent to concealing such a thing from my betrothed.”

Her ladyship’s bosom heaved as if buffeted by a North Atlantic gale. “And why, miss, have you not told him yet?” she enquired dangerously.

“I hesitated to interrupt the sweet nothings he was whispering in my ear,” said Amaryllis, smiling cajolingly at the old lady. “Come, Godmama, I have said I will have him, if he will have me, so let us not brangle and brawl.”

“I hope you do not teach your pupils to use such unladylike expressions.” Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh’s outrage was muted. Threats having failed she turned to bribery to ensure that her much-loved goddaughter should do what was best for her. “I daresay you may be worrying about Eugenia. When you marry I shall provide for her of course. An allowance large enough for her to live in comfort, if not luxury.”

Amaryllis kissed her plump cheek. “How kind you are” she said. “That does indeed relieve my mind. Now, what do you say to meeting a few of my girls?”

Her ladyship graciously expressed her willingness, and Amaryllis went off to fetch them. She had already decided who to present. That they must be particularly decorous damsels went without saying, but she also chose them for their families. She wanted her godmother to recognise immediately the names of four, so that she would be curious about the fifth—Isabel Winterborne.

It went exactly as she had planned. Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh congratulated her on her pretty-behaved charges, and then went on, “I cannot quite place Miss Winterborne. Bellingham’s heir is not married, I know, though he must be six and thirty if he’s a day. Never say you accept by-blows in this fine academy of yours.”

“Isabel is Lord Daniel Winterborne’s child, ma’am.”

“Lord Daniel. Hmm. Ah, I have it. Divorced.”

“Divorced?” asked Amaryllis, aware of a cold, sinking feeling.

“That’s it. His wife went off with some military fellow, I believe. Bellingham pushed it through the Lords as quietly as possible, but these things cannot be hushed up. Quite disgraceful, a ramshackle business at best. It must have been just a year or two before Perceval was shot, too.”

“What has the Prime Minister’s assassination to do with the Winterbornes?”

“Nothing whatsoever. Only the murderer’s name was Bellingham, you may remember, and the papers associated it with the Marquis’s title. The shock of that, on top of the divorce, was too much for Lady Bellingham. Took to her bed and died a few weeks later.”

“I have been told that Lord Daniel is something of a rake,” said Amaryllis cautiously.

“Not that I know of. I daresay he has his game pullet in keeping, like the rest of them, but I should have heard if he were a downright loose fish. And do not let me hear those words on your lips, miss. When you are as old as I am you may say what you please.”

“Which words, Godmama?” Amaryllis asked with an innocent face.

“You know very well, baggage,” growled her ladyship.

Mrs. Vaux came in, followed by Daisy with the tea tray. Glad of the interruption, Amaryllis took her cup and went to sit a little apart, leaving the older ladies to their gossip.

She listened for a moment. To her relief, Lord Daniel’s name was not mentioned.

At least his lordship was not an out-and-out libertine, she thought. Mr. Raeburn must have heard something to offend his clerical sensibilities, or perhaps offended neighbours had invented disgraceful stories. The Fashionable World considered keeping a mistress scarce even a peccadillo. She was sure Bertram must have had his barques of frailty during their long parting, and it did not disturb her in the least. He had probably frequented the muslin company even during their betrothal, in fact. She was glad she had not thought of that at the time. It might well have upset her then.

Was that why Lord Daniel’s wife had left him? A young girl coming innocent to marriage might well have been shocked to learn that her new husband was visiting lightskirts—but not shocked enough, surely, to lower herself to their level by deserting home and child to go off with another man. What had driven her to such a desperate and irrevocable step?

Amaryllis remembered her first interview with Lord Daniel—his arrogant, peremptory manner, his harsh, unsmiling face. She had taken him in instant dislike. Since then she had seen another side to him. He was a loving, gentle father, could be a charming companion, and seemed to be a considerate employer.

Perhaps his bride had seen the two facets of his character in reverse order—the adoring suitor transformed into a surly, morose, dictatorial tyrant. Life with him must have been unbearable to make the alternative appear acceptable.

Thoroughly depressed, Amaryllis excused herself and went to join Tizzy and the girls in the common-room. Isabel came to sit beside her.

“I was a bit frightened of Lady Mountollay,” she confided.

“Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh.”

“Lady Mountolivet Gurnleigh,” she repeated carefully. “She is nearly as big as her name.”

“And fierce-looking too,” agreed Amaryllis, trying not to giggle, “though we should not say so, you know. Besides, her bark is worse than her bite, I promise. Do you know what that means?”