My Dear Jenny (20 page)

And no matter what Emily said, somehow Lady Teeve agreed
absolutely, and still contrived to leave Emily with a horrible feeling that she
was wrong, that Jenny
was
throwing
herself at Teverley—whom she had not seen since his visit to her sickroom—and
that no one in the party was as civil to her as Lady Teeve.

And then the lady would dismiss her and take up her netting,
or begin to talk to Sir John or one of the Brickerham girls.

Left sitting alone, with Jenny retired to her sickroom and
all the others in conversation, Emily began to gravitate toward the gentlemen’s
group, where they were discussing earnestly a problem at one of Peter Teverley’s
Indian plantations. Sir John had just finished making a long, involved
suggestion, and was countered by Lord Teeve, who proposed an exactly opposite
remedy for the problem.

“Precisely what Miss Prydd said, sir,” Teverley agreed. “And
I find that the more I think upon it, the more I think that she—and you,
of course—are right. Let the men have their families there, and they will
work the better for it.”

“Do you discuss your business with Miss Prydd?” Sir John
asked.

“Well, on one occasion the subject came up, and she made a
few very observant remarks.”

“A fine little lady, that,” Lord Teeve pronounced from his
chair.

“Remarkable,” Teverley agreed quietly.

This was too much for Emily, on top of Lady Teeve’s
pronouncements about Jenny, Mr. Teverley, and Joanna Brickerham. She giggled. “Jenny,
remarkable?”

“What, child?” Lord Teeve looked up vaguely, surprised by
her interruption.

“Why, sir, only that Jenny is the dearest creature on earth,
but remarkable?”

“My dear child,” Teverley drawled. “What is remarkable to a
man of five and thirty may easily pass the notice of a babe of seventeen.”

“I am not a
babe
,” Emily cried, stung.

“Of course not,” Teverley agreed, unconvinced. “Hi, Domenic!”
He called for his cousin, who had been sitting and chatting idly with Sarah
Brickerham, as she worked her tambour frame. The youth joined his cousin in a
moment. “I suggest that you take this charming young lady and propose a game of
draughts to her.” Teverley turned back to Sir John and Lord Teeve with the calm
incivility of a father dismissing an impertinent child. Dom stood, feeling a
little awkward, but happy now for the opportunity to spend some time with
Emily.

But, “I am not feeling quite the thing, Dom. If you’ll
excuse me, I shall retire,” she said wanly, and left him, to take her leave of
Lady Teeve. Domenic’s mother smiled at her guest, wished her a good night’s
rest, and, once the girl was gone from the room, permitted herself a satisfied
smile.

o0o

Emily, hating Teverley, hating Domenic, hating Joanna
Brickerham and Sir John and Miss Sarah, and Mary Quare, and mostly hating
herself, went up the stairs, hesitating in front of Jenny’s room. She needed to
be comforted, she needed to be soothed and permitted to cry; perhaps Lady Teeve
was wrong about Jenny. Perhaps she was not trying to attach Teverley (though,
of course, how could she?). And Jenny was always ready to hold her hand, pat
her hair, and with common sense chide her out of the sullens. Emily paused a
moment, then opened Jenny’s door.

Jenny was asleep, the light still burning.

Emily left the room, convincing herself that no one cared
for her, and of all those no-ones, Jenny was the worst. Jenny had fallen from
her horse and thus put Emily in disgrace; Jenny had presumed to give Teverley
advice, which he was going to follow; Teverley had almost compared Jenny’s
antidotical common sense with Emily’s beautiful birdwittedness and found in
Jenny’s
favor! And now, Jenny was asleep
when Emily needed her!

It was the outside of enough. Before Emily slept that night,
which she did very badly, she had convinced herself that Jenny was her enemy,
and had so far forgotten her place as companion—a post which Miss Prydd
had not accepted, and for which she certainly received no salary—as to be
asleep when her mistress needed her. Emily slept at last, wondering why she
found herself so miserable.

It was the opinion of the doctor, visiting the next morning,
as it was of several members of the household, that Miss Prydd had overtaxed
herself, and, although admittedly a game sort of lady, was not yet truly strong
enough to go among company. The doctor went so far as to say that Miss Prydd
might take her choice: the free run of the house now, or attendance at the ball
in four nights’ time, if she behaved herself as becomes an invalid and did not
sit in company for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Jenny was fully aware
that her “company” for those four days was likely to consist of Emily, the
sullen Mary Quare, and Miss Sarah Brickerham, who had an innocent’s blithe
ignorance of the currents which boiled around her. Despite even this knowledge,
her inclination was to settle in her room and play the invalid, enjoying four
days of moderate boredom and excellent meals (Lady Teeve’s cook was not one to
be thwarted by the mention of a sickroom, and, if anything, outdid himself in
preparing dishes to tempt Miss Prydd’s appetite). Mary Quare would stop to see
her now and again, Emily would dart in and out, and for the rest of the time
Jenny saw no problem in contenting herself with books, which Miss Sarah
Brickerham undertook to deliver to her.

“Mr. Teverley picks them out—I should say, both the
Messrs. Teverley, for dear Mr. Domenic stood about giving suggestions to his
cousin,” Miss Brickerham fluttered. “I was most grateful for the assistance,
for, you know, I ain’t bookish in the least. Are they all novels?”

Miss Prydd assured her visitor that indeed, most of the
books supplied her were novels. Miss Brickerham drew back, pleasantly
scandalized. “Although I daresay other books may be even a worse trial to read.
Imagine a travel book, or some horrid history. Why, the library downstairs is
full of the most dreadfully serious books, and I cannot understand who reads
them, for Teeve and Lady Teeve don’t seem bookish or blue at all, do they? Jo
says—” And here Miss Brickerham was stumped, trying to recall what her
sister had said of the matter.

“I suspect that they are the work of several generations,”
Jenny suggested mildly. “And some of them may only be decorations, at least
now, unless Lord Teeve cherishes a scholarly bent.”

“That’s just what Jo said!” Miss Brickerham agreed happily. “At
least I think that was what she said. Jo’s far the cleverer of the two of us,
Miss Prydd, and she says—”

For the next few days, grateful as she was for Sarah
Brickerham’s good-natured company, Jenny wished she could hear rather less of
what Joanna Brickerham had said on all occasions. Emily, after the first day of
dancing in and out of Jenny’s room, came in only twice on the second day and
once on the third day of Jenny’s renewed incarceration in the sickroom. When
she did appear, it was with the air of a child making a duty visit to an
elderly and disagreeable aunt. While she was there she chattered on, at only a
slightly faster pace than ordinarily, but her eyes were guarded, and it was no
trick at all for Jenny to tell that something was not right with her friend.
And to Jenny’s urgent inquiries as to how Emily was getting on, the girl gave
her a look of mingled slyness and resentment, insisted that everything was
delightful—and began to rattle about Lady Teeve in much the same way that
Miss Sarah Brickerham spoke of her sister. Jenny, wishing that she could
believe that this was due to the fortuitous kindness of an older woman to a
young and charming one, wished that she were up and about.

Still, she reflected, she could no more afford to treat
Emily as a child than could the girl’s parents. She sighed. “I wish—I do
wish that I had told her of the meetings Lady Teeve and I suffered before she
gave this invitation, I know it will not purpose to tell her now. I only wish
that I knew that
Emily
knew something of the lady’s real character, and
what some of the circumstances surrounding this visit are.”

Had she made it her business to indulge in this sort of
thought, Jenny would quickly have given up her resolve to save her strength for
the party, but she had a suspicion that she might be needed at Emily’s side
during the party, and in the meantime, truth to be told, she rather enjoyed the
chance to lie abed with no more responsibility than her own amusement. Sarah
Brickerham might appear, or Mary Quare bearing the tea tray, and Jenny would
exert herself to be social, to listen to Miss Sarah’s latest unwitting
drollery, or to try—albeit unsuccessfully—to break down the
unchanging wall of resentment between Miss Quare and herself.

From Sarah Brickerham, who, in her eagerness to amuse and
cheer Miss Prydd, did not guard her tongue very well, Jenny learned that Emily
was not the only one—even excluding, as she must always do, herself—who
had fallen to Peter Teverley’s charming smile. Frequently what “Jo said” would
center about the other members of the party, and when she commented upon
Teverley, at least in Sarah’s company, Joanna Brickerham was full of praise for
Mr. Teverley’s appearance in riding dress, for his neat leg, for his romantic
look (here Jenny sniffed amusedly) and for his money. Very often full of praise
for his money. “Jo says Mr. Teverley is fairly rolling in money, Miss Prydd,
although you don’t think of a man like that as the sort—he dresses too
plainly for a wealthy man, doesn’t he? Although Teeve don’t dress much more
elaborately than his nevvy, and I
know
he’s full of blunt.”

Disturbed and intrigued by these confidences, Jenny tried to
draw Miss Sarah into confession of her own opinions, but it seemed that she had
none; she was obviously too used to receiving them secondhand from her sister.
Faced with this obvious dependence between the sisters, Jenny ventured to ask
what would become of one when the other married. “Mr. Harrington will take care
of me,” Sarah replied, undismayed, and went on to explain that Mr. Harrington
was her betrothed, whom she would henceforth trust to make all her decisions,
and to whom, Jenny inferred, she would in future go for her opinions. “It ain’t
announced yet, for Mr. Harrington is in mourning for his step-mamma, and don’t
wish to show no disrespect. Jo says...” and Miss Sarah continued in her
recitation until Miss Quare came to scold her and turn her from the room. And
even then, Jenny saw, she bore no ill will, but smiled at her hostess’s
companion, made her curtsy to Jenny, and danced down the hallway, humming
softly to herself. Jenny, faced with Mary Quare’s grim service, rather wished
she might have followed in Miss Sarah’s path and vanished herself. And she
received meekly her broth and toast and her pork jelly, thinking wistfully of
sunshine.

o0o

Emily Pellering was experiencing a novel feeling of freedom
and a somewhat unnerving sensation of being alone. She had, of course, been
alone before, but never before had she felt quite so unattended, so much
responsible for her own actions. It was not an altogether pleasant feeling, for
it took much more thought than she was accustomed to give in dealing with her
fellow creatures. And when she felt some sting of compunction, or some twinge
of dismay at her own behavior among the company, she reminded herself that
Jenny was only up the stairs, after all, and was looking after her in a
fashion. Taking this further, she could persuade herself that it was all Jenny’s
responsibility after all, and if she was so disobliging as to be ill, it was
not her, Emily’s, fault. Emily avoided thinking of the accident that had led to
Jenny’s convalescence, since that made her remember uncomfortably some of Peter
Teverley’s remarks to her. This only hardened her heart against Jenny further,
for being the cause of those scolds. And after a day or so she had convinced
herself that Jenny deserved no better treatment than a grudging visit once or
twice a day, and in deciding this, insured her own inclusion among Lady Teeve’s
familiars. Her hostess had nothing to object to, it seemed, in the company of
the young woman, and often drew Emily over for what she termed a comfortable
coze.

“I dearly love to talk with young people, you know,” she
assured Emily.

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I—”

“And you are such a pretty thing,” the lady continued,
undisturbed. “How did you come to meet Domenic, my dear?”

“Why, ma’am, we were traveling—” Emily broke off.
Began again. “We were, Jenny and I, we were traveling. To my Aunt Judith, in
the north. Only we stopped at the inn for a collation—Domenic, I mean Mr.
Teverley—must surely have told you of the inn, ma’am? And the landlady’s
son had the measles, and we had to stay where we were for the longest time, so
Jenny suggested that we might share a room—”

“But I thought that you were traveling together?” Lady Teeve
questioned with a perplexed alr.

“Yes, ma’am, certainly we were. Only. Only, you see we had
neither of us thought to have such a disaster fall upon us, and hadn’t the
money to pay for separate lodgings for the entire term of a confinement of
measles, and so we—yes, we shared rooms, and became better friends than
we already were,” she completed with triumph.

“Ah yes, Domenic has spoken to me of the inn, but you know
what dreadful tale-tellers boys are, my child. I had only the barest bones of
the story, you see. Were there others at the place?” Lady Teeve examined her
embroidery sharply.

“Only Mr. Teverley, and Mr. Peter Teverley, and a curate of
the most dreadful, prosing sort, and A—That is, a very unpleasant young
man who stayed foxed practically all the time that we remained there.” Emily
felt uncomfortably near the truth, and wondered what question her hostess would
next advance. But that lady, perhaps aware of her guest’s wariness, forbore to
question further, and made a pleasant comment on Emily’s dress.