Miss Hartwell's Dilemma (6 page)

“Till Sunday then.” He turned to go, then swung back. “Amaryllis, do you still have my ring?”

“I sold it,” she said bluntly.

After a pause, he said softly, “Do you know, I find that my disposition is more romantic than I had thought.” He strode off into the night.

Amaryllis stared after him, hands clenched, a cold weight settling over her heart. Anger came to her rescue.

If she had distressed him, why did he not say so and let her explain? She had not dared entrust the valuable ring to the post and had kept it to return to him at a later date. Then they had needed money desperately—more desperately than Bertram, with his wide estates and generous allowance, could ever understand. He might have let her try to explain.

As she trudged up King Street, she remembered other occasions when he had gone off looking hurt, so unwilling to quarrel with her that he would not demand an explanation of whatever troubled him. And he always accepted her every suggestion without a murmur, even when it was a matter of putting off their meeting for three days or their wedding for two years.

He had been a buck of the first stare, a leader of the Corinthian set. Yet in his dealings with her he was something more like a milksop. Was that why she had postponed the marriage time after time? Of course, she had no wish to be ridden over roughshod...nor did she desire to rule the roost.

She had always taken his complaisance for granted. Now it struck her that he must have loved her very much, more than she could imagine, to put up with her whims for so long. Did he still love her?

Entering the house, she heard the sound of voices from the dining room. The rest of the household was still at dinner, the young ladies doubtless practising their company manners and polite conversation under Mrs. Vaux’s benevolent eye.

Miss Hartwell took off her cloak, hung it on the row of hooks among a couple of dozen others, and shivered. It was not much warmer in the vestibule than outside, but with the shocking price of coals they could not possibly light fires everywhere in September.

Daisy came out of the dining room bearing a tray, so Amaryllis called to her and asked for a bowl of soup to be brought to the common drawing room. Fortunately, her aunt had ordered a fire made up in there. Warming her hands at the flickering flames, Amaryllis gazed into the glowing embers and imagined herself in sunny Italy with Bertram. She could have travelled all over Europe as Lady Pomeroy instead of slaving to build a school in an obscure corner of Essex.

One of the housemaids brought her soup and built up the fire. Soon after, the girls tripped in, chattering like a flock of exotic birds in their evening gowns of pink and primrose and white. Suddenly Amaryllis was glad she had created this little community. It was something to be proud of, hardly a distasteful task she had teen forced to perform unwillingly. This school had not only provided the three of them with a home but also, she hoped, educated a few young ladies to have something more in their pretty heads than clothes and dancing and the hunt for a husband.

Isabel Winterborne and Louise Carfax came in together, their heads close, whispering to each other. Miss Hartwell was glad to see that Louise had settled in so quickly and that the timid Isabel had at last found a friend. She watched them for a moment. Then one of the older girls approached her with a gay request to listen to a couple of songs she had practised over the holidays. Amaryllis went with a group to the music room and spent a delightful evening singing ballads and folk songs, though one or two, learned from brothers, had to be censored.

* * * *

Friday passed with the usual classes, but Saturday was given over to fashionable pursuits.

Miss Hartwell taught dancing in the music room, demonstrating the steps and then going to the piano to play as they tried them. She enjoyed watching them hop and twirl, those taking the man’s part bowing gravely, the ladies fluttering their eyelashes provocatively. If she married Bertram, she would go to balls again, dance till the early hours of the morning instead of retiring at ten to rise early.

Miss Tisdale relaxed her strict standards of literature to discuss the latest novels with the older young ladies. After all, they must be able to converse about them when they entered Society, and it was best to teach them to discriminate between those they might admit to having read and those that ought not to be mentioned in public.

Mrs. Vaux brought out a lifetime collection of magazines from which the young ladies learned the history of fashion—how they giggled at the powdered wigs and hooped skirts—and to choose the styles and colours that would suit them best. Weekday lessons might or might not instill an inclination towards serious thought. However, it was thanks to these Saturdays that only last year an ex-pupil of the Castle Hedingham Academy had been declared an Incomparable and brought a duke’s son up to scratch in her first season.

* * * *

On Sunday, Miss Hartwell took the younger girls to the early service at St. Nicholas’s. It was shorter than the later morning service, easier to sit through without fidgeting, and there were fewer parishioners to be disturbed. Today this proved just as well, as Miss Carfax was constitutionally incapable of sitting still with her mouth shut for more than five minutes. Her inseparable companion, Miss Winterborne, while perfectly self-disciplined, had clearly never been to church before and had not the least notion when to kneel or sit or stand. Miss Hartwell vowed silently to arrange a special session for the pair with Mr. Raeburn before next Sunday.

The vicar had not yet met the new pupils, since he taught at the school on Mondays, his least busy day. The girls who knew him curtsied at the door as they passed out into the churchyard. Miss Hartwell introduced the others, noting with irritation that he stared curiously at Isabel Winterborne on hearing her name. He was of course too gentlemanly and too kind to say anything, but she knew he was marking her as the child of a rake.

Her mind at once flew back to carefully suppressed memories of her debut in town, when she had more than once overheard whispers pointing her out as a daughter of a libertine. Lord Hartwell had been far too popular for the stigma to interfere with her success, but it had hurt. Ruthlessly she suppressed the memories again while promising herself that Isabel should never suffer for that reason while in her charge.

She invited Mr. Raeburn to dine at the school on Monday and he beamed at her. “I shall be delighted, Miss Hartwell. If my sister is well, that is. Shall I see Miss Tisdale this morning? And Mrs. Vaux, of course?”

She assured him that they would both attend church and walked her column of young ladies two by two back to the school, her attention now occupied by the problem of persuading Miss Augusta Raeburn to remove from the vicarage.

Chapter 5

In spite of the fifteen-mile drive, Lord Daniel arrived before luncheon while half the girls were still at church. Daisy went up to the common-room to announce him.

Isabel jumped up, her thin face radiant. Her cheeks had more colour than a week earlier, and Mrs. Vaux had altered her dresses to fit. She looked much less like a bewildered waif.

“Papa is come! May I go down to him, ma’am?” Miss Hartwell nodded. The child flew from the room, followed at a more sedate pace by her teacher. Lord Daniel was standing by a window, looking out. Hearing footsteps on the stair, he turned. Amaryllis watched his face as he saw his daughter racing down to meet him. A smile of heartfelt joy and relief lightened his habitually sombre expression to such an extent that she could scarce believe it was the same man. He looked ten years younger, scarcely older than she was herself. She felt her own lips turn up in an involuntary echo.

Isabel flung herself at him. He caught her with his left arm, hugging her close, his right hand stroking her hair. Amaryllis continued down the stairs and he looked up, his face resuming its watchful harshness.

“Good day, my lord.”

“Good day, ma’am.”

“You wish to take Miss Isabel out?”

“Such is my intention.”

“She must return by five o’clock, if you please, to change for dinner.”

“If she returns at all. If not, I shall send later for her box.”

“I beg you will inform me, my lord, if you decide to take her with you.” Miss Hartwell ignored his unseemly lack of ordinary courtesy. Indeed, she was growing quite accustomed to it. “I cannot so easily accept the disappearance of one of my girls.”

He unbent a little. “Of course, Miss Hartwell, I understand your concern. I shall not take her home without conveying a message to you.” That settled, he returned his attention to Isabel. “Have you a cloak, love? It is warm at present but may grow chilly later.”

Isabel fetched her cloak from the row of hooks by the front door, and without another word they left.

Miss Hartwell stared after them in exasperation. It was no use expecting better manners from the child when she had learned what she knew from her father. If she came back, Mrs. Vaux must coach her in the common proprieties that most girls absorbed without effort from their female relatives. All the same, it hurt that Isabel had left without the slightest farewell.

The carriage, a light barouche, was moving off down the street. Amaryllis noted with some surprise that Lord Daniel had brought his coachman rather than driving himself on such an informal and personal occasion. Then she heard a giggle from the top of the stairs and saw three or four girls leaning on the bannisters. Doubtless they had been peering over to catch a glimpse of Isabel’s father. As Amaryllis went upstairs they scampered towards the common-room, except for Louise, who waited for her teacher.

“My Papa never looked at me so,” said Louise companionably but with a trace of envy as they followed the others. “He generally looks angry when I see him, for I scarcely ever see him when I am not in a scrape.”

“You have not been in any serious scrape since you came here, and so I shall tell your uncle.”

“Uncle Bertram will not care. He only laughs at me. Besides, if I have not been in trouble here it is because my brothers are not here. Usually I fall in the briars because I do something they are doing and it turns out to be unladylike.” She grimaced. “It is not at all fair that boys are allowed to do so many things girls are not.”

Miss Hartwell distracted her from her grievance by enquiring as to the names and ages of the unjustly favoured brothers, and she very soon heard a great deal more about them than she had any desire to know.

Mrs. Vaux and Miss Tisdale had brought their charges back from church and luncheon had been eaten before Lord Pomeroy put in an appearance. Amaryllis had Daisy show him to her office and joined him there.

“Still a late riser, I see,” she greeted him with a smile.

“How can you say so, when I delivered Louise to you at an ungodly hour of the morning the other day.”

“It was quite eleven o’clock, and Miss Louise has revealed that you spent the night with friends near Braintree and travelled no more than ten miles on Thursday.”

“Little tattletale.”

“However do you manage on your diplomatic missions? I do not remember that you were ever used to rise before noon.”

“I am not the only diplomat to abhor early rising, I assure you. All meetings are scheduled in the afternoon, and in any case most of the business is carried out at parties in the evening.”

“Are you a good diplomat?” she asked with considerable curiosity.

“Fair to middling. My forte is talking people into compromises. I should never have been a great one because I am too lazy to work hard at it. However, I have had to resign because m’father is ill and wants me at home to take over running things. I am to be given a seat in the Commons too, which is a deuced nuisance.” He grimaced, looking so like his niece that Amaryllis laughed.

She sobered immediately. “I am sorry to hear that Lord Tatenhill is unwell.”

“He is well enough to attend Queen Caroline’s trial or at least to risk a large fine if he did not. He is also ill enough to want to see me married, and preferably with an heir, before he dies. Amaryllis, I can get a special licence tomorrow. We could be married by Wednesday. My feelings have not changed.” He looked straight at her. “I was never sure of yours.”

“I was in love with you,” she said, rather breathlessly. “But how can I know so soon what I feel now? I have been too busy to think calmly.”

“I do not want you to think calmly. I want you to tell me now that you will marry me at once.”

“I cannot leave the school at such short notice, Bertram. Surely you can understand that.”

“The school? To the devil with the school! Let them find someone to take your place,” he said impatiently.

She gazed at him in shock. “It is my school,” she cried. “I am not employed here to walk out when I feel like it. I created it from nothing.”

He sighed and shrugged. “How long then? This time I shall not let you put me off indefinitely.”

“We are no longer engaged, Bertram,” she said quietly. “I have not yet agreed to marry you. If I do, I promise I shall give you a date and stick to it, but I will not tie you down until I know my own feelings better.”

“I am tied to you, whether either of us likes it or not.”

“Do not be so melodramatic, my dear.” Amaryllis hid her impatience behind a smile. “You have been abroad all these years. I daresay there are a dozen beauties newly come on the Marriage Mart who will suit you as well as, or better, than I. Go look about you.”

“What, go through all that circus again? Never! Well, since you will not give me yea or nay, I had best go and take that little imp of mischief my niece out for a drive.”

With a reproachful look he raised her hand to his lips and departed. Amaryllis was left with the hollow feeling that his devotion to her might well be as much a result of his indolent unwillingness to look for another bride as of his indubitable affection.

Since the sun was shining, Miss Hartwell, Mrs. Vaux, and Miss Tisdale divided the rest of their pupils into three groups according to their enthusiasm for country walks. Mrs. Vaux took those who considered a mild stroll sufficient exercise for a saunter down the lane. Miss Tisdale led the next group, the largest, for a walk through the village and down Nunnery Street to the river. They carried baskets, since their route passed a thicket of brambles and the blackberries would be ripe.