The love child, p.1
The Love Child, page 1
The Love Child
Fiona Hill
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
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New York, NY 10016
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Copyright © 1977 by Ellen Pall
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com
First Diversion Books edition November 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62681-475-2
More from Fiona Hill
The Autumn Rose
The Stanbroke Girls
The Trellised Lane
Sweet’s Folly
The Practical Heart
The Wedding Portrait
Love in a Major Key
The Country Gentleman
To TJ, who reads me
1
“I know you do not particularly care for criticism,” said Lady Louisa Bridwell, reaching as she spoke for a round bonbonnière on the parcel-gilt table before her, “yet I cannot but account it the most unutterable madness to have invited so many people down this year. Will you hand me that box of comfits?” she added, her plump arm failing of its goal.
“Are you afraid they will eat up your sweetmeats?” inquired her hostess, in a voice whose stridency did nothing to mitigate the unkindness of her remark. “You needn’t be; there are sufficient for all appetites.”
“It is entirely astonishing, Sarah,” Lady Louisa rejoined placidly, her tongue wrapping round a confection of an especially satisfying flavour, “how proof I am become against your sharpness. I do not mean to say, you know, that it ever discomforted me much; but there was a time, in our girlhood, when you succeeded in producing a disagreeable twinge or two in my conscience.”
The lady thus familiarly addressed made no reply; rather she trained a faintly sceptical gaze on the other, the tip of whose tongue was now engaged in probing (with imperfect discretion) certain recessed regions in her mouth where a trace of the interesting lozenge might yet linger.
“Don’t look at me that way!” Lady Louisa cried out, when at length she perceived her hostess’s steady regard. “I protest, you make raspberry taste like vinegar.”
“You ought to drink vinegar, you know,” her companion advised her, “and eat very little. Otherwise you will fall prey to the gout.”
“I beg you will not be so silly,” her ladyship returned uneasily. “Females are never goutish.”
“They may be,” the other observed. “However, I will be quiet if you like.”
“Oh, you needn’t be that!” Lady Louisa exclaimed, as if horrified. “One might easily languish away altogether down here, were it not for a little conversation.”
“And that, my dear, is why I have invited so many people this year. For precisely that reason.”
“Now you are teasing,” was the instant objection. “You could never languish away, under any circumstances, I am certain. You are always reading, always writing; you have your embroidery and your household accounts…I never knew anyone so industrious, who might so easily be idle. Sometimes it positively frightens me!”
If this were meant for a compliment, its recipient did not acknowledge it. Instead she fell again to observing her interlocutor, or rather to appearing to observe her interlocutor, since she did not look so much at as through her. Such a stare might be deemed very rude in another person; in this it was accepted without demur. It was the powerful gaze of a powerful lady—the Duchess of Karr, in fact, and very few were those who cared to judge her. It will have been observed that Lady Louisa Bridwell made one of that élite, but she dared to join them more from a consciousness of her own ineffectuality than from any desire to command or to correct. The duchess was serenely aware of this circumstance, as she was aware of most things, which was as well for the defenceless Lady Louisa. Yet in her own way, perhaps, the latter too understood what position she held in the duchess’s private, very personal ranking of society: she was tolerated for her agreeableness, and otherwise regarded much as one regards the blindfolded player in a game of blindman’s-bluff—which is to say, was whole-heartedly, though not cruelly, laughed at. It was a feeble, inelegant position—but it was a position. Whatever her understanding of it, Lady Louisa made few complaints.
The duchess entertained her guest, on this occasion, in an apartment known as the Rose Saloon from its being hung with rose-coloured silk. A suite of parcel-gilt mahogany furniture was disposed within its walls, the most prominent piece of which was a large, high cabinet in the Chinese style, its transparently paned doors revealing an exquisite collection of miniature cups and saucers in cloisonné enamels. A long scroll suspended opposite to this cabinet, lettered in Chinese characters and with a water-colour representing a waterfall and some tiny trees, encouraged the Oriental effect of the furnishings, as did the floridly-carved, marble-topped table which Lady Louisa’s hand (as the reader will recall) could not quite reach.
The Rose Saloon was but one of innumerable apartments within Grasmere Castle, the principal estate of His Grace the Duke of Karr. There were in addition libraries and sitting-rooms, breakfast and dining parlours, the conservatory, the ball-room, the bed-chambers…in short, a bewilderment of nooks and spaces. The castle had not, as was the case with numerous other ancient residences in the neighbouring hills of Nottinghamshire, been permitted to fall into decay. On the contrary, the fortunes of the noble family of Karr had been consistently so felicitous as to permit of the addition to Grasmere, in each succeeding age, of every modern convenience and refinement—and since this process had been in continuance some three or four hundred years, there were many refinements indeed to be found there now. At the date with which we concern ourselves, the castle had yet a rather Gothic air, very satisfying, perhaps, to viewers in whom the appellation “castle” might conjure up fancies of towers, pinnacles, and iron-worked fronts. There were indeed towers, and a myriad of spires and narrow chimneys whose grey stone pierced the sky, effecting an impression which even the least romantic of critics must freely have admitted to be sinister. The duchess, though she had no taste for brooding drawing-rooms or mysterious studies, had yet always retained quite a fondness for the ominous exterior of His Grace’s ancestral home, and did not endeavour to brighten its almost morbid aspect. The interior, of course, was something else again; there she had striven always for elegance and comfort—nor had her effort been in vain. The friends and acquaintances who wintered with her in Nottinghamshire—and some made an annual routine of it—could expect to find their personal quarters cheerful and spacious, and the common apartments warm and eminently habitable. The massive gates, emblazoned on either side with the arms of Karr, through which one entered the drive to Grasmere, were opened to them by an obliging porter attired in the blue-and-gold livery of the house. Everywhere, as they proceeded, such liveried gentlemen were observable; on arriving at the porch, they found themselves attended by the most willing footmen, the most discreet and serviceable butler, and these attendants were no scarcer nor less useful within the castle than without it. The duchess believed in comfort for her guests; she had frequently been shocked by the paucity or impudence of servants in the houses she had visited, and she had early taken the resolve that no visitor to Grasmere should be so uncomfortably imposed upon as that.
The other buildings of the estate were no less efficiently and conveniently managed than the castle itself. The kennels, housing a number of terriers, five-and-twenty setters, and a dozen blood-hounds, were maintained by a competent and trusted keeper; so also were the stables and the carriage-house, through the means of which any number could ride or drive; a small dairy was contained within the park, which was the source of the purest cream and butter anyone might desire. Gamekeepers roved the woods that bordered the park, and closer in to the castle were gardens where vegetables were cultivated, orchards, succession houses, herb-beds, and a fine, formally-terraced flower garden, complete with a hedge maze. Grasmere had been built upon the slope of a gentle incline, so that the front, as one approached, reared up imposingly above the land before it; a stream, substantial enough to reward those anglers who visited it, separated the church-yard from the central grounds. The small, stone-work church stood above it on a knoll.
In all, Grasmere Castle presented a brilliant example of an English country residence. Its mistress, though perhaps not an inviting woman herself, was yet determined that her home should be hospitable in both the manner of its offering and the abundance of what it offered. Its master, an avid sportsman, willingly saw to the keeping of its grounds; moreover, his respect for his name and its history encouraged him to take an interest in his tenantry, and particularly in their education, which had resulted in a contented, orderly population both at Grasmere and in the local village. With such a picture in mind, the reader will soon perceive that it was not the fear of anyone’s “eating up her comfits” which prompted Lady Louisa to make the remark we overheard at the beginning of this history; it was not, evidently, any fear of loss of ease or comfort at all. It did not proceed from any of these selfish motives, nor was it made quite at random. It had to do, in fact, with the perpetuation of this happy, generous race of land-owners; it had to
Timothy, the Most Noble the Duke of Karr, was not the husband but the son of the lady whom we have already had the pleasure of meeting. The husband of this last, the present duke’s father, had passed away some years before, the victim of an apoplectic temperament and a good deal too much wine. He was survived, of course, by the dowager duchess, and also by the eighth duke (his only son); he had no daughters. While the eighth duke, a vigorous man of some five-and-thirty years, made an admirable successor to his father in many ways—he was, for example, conscientious, good-humoured, capable, and intelligent—he had yet one flaw of perhaps critical significance. This flaw it was which so concerned Lady Louisa; this flaw it was which concerned the dowager duchess yet more. Very simply, His Grace the Duke was yet a bachelor, a condition which may reasonably be considered to constitute a serious fault in the head of so illustrious a household.
The duchess at least accounted it a serious fault: in the course of nearly a decade, she had presented to him several score of candidates for his bride, among them ladies both thoughtful and gay, slender and plump, dark and fair, biddable and independent. None of them suited Karr, apparently, for he continued his state of singlehood still. The duchess was not a woman to press, and she had begun her campaign mildly, with the introduction to her son of some two or three young ladies one season in London, and a discreet suggestion; in recent years, however, she had begun to grow quite alarmed. Her son manifested a more and more marked resistance to the notion of wedlock—it had become, in fact, a proverb among the London ton that unlikely events should take place “the day after Karr takes a wife”—and she could discern in his behaviour no indication whatever that he felt the least disposition to alter his views. She reasoned with him; remonstrated with him; refused, during one season, to speak with him: still the obstinate gentleman persisted in his contrariness. The only eligible party he seemed at all able to tolerate was a Lady Henrietta Helms, the daughter of the Earl of Marland. This rather sober young person, though in most other respects the soul of prudence, was yet rumoured to have turned down (on the basis of His Grace’s slim encouragement, the gossips said) quite a handful of advantageous offers from other interested gentlemen. And yet the duke had not actually done her the honour to request her hand; she therefore continued to sit upon the shelf, at the age of twenty-two, growing slightly dusty and (it may fairly be supposed) just a trifle anxious.
Her Grace was highly partial to the possibility of a match being effected between her son and Lady Henrietta. While not precisely the sort of person to whom she felt herself personally drawn, Henrietta was of impeccable birth; she had an unexceptionable manner and a certain narrowness of ideas, of originality, which might not be wholly undesirable in the prospective holder of so valuable a position. At least Karr appeared to accept, if not to appreciate her. He had a habit of responding to his mother’s hopeful queries regarding each newly presented young lady with but a single word: Lady Alice? “Insolent.” Lady Margaret? “Insipid.” To the interrogative, “Lady Henrietta?” which she had put to him, the duke had replied, “Quiet.” This epithet, while hardly enthusiastic, was yet the most promising of any he had previously uttered, and it was with this fact in mind that the duchess included on her winter’s guest list the names of the Earl of Marland, his lady wife, and the happy Henrietta.
“I can see perfectly why you take care to invite Lady Henrietta,” Lady Louisa was saying, the duchess’s uncomfortable gaze having induced her to return to her initial point, “but the rest of them are mere distraction. I like distraction,” she added, “but I don’t see how it can further the achievement of a match. Particularly when you have asked someone so distracting as the Contessa di Tremini! Really, Sarah, it is errant foolishness.”
The duchess smiled indulgently at this. She was a handsome woman, statuesque for all her sixty years, with the dark eyes and straight nose she had handed down to her son. The smile she now gave revealed an even row of teeth behind her thinning lips; it creased her cheeks but it did not lift them, nor did it add a light to those dark eyes. She had had a genuine smile once, but she had lost it somewhere, evidently. Lady Louisa had not seen it in some thirty years (the two women had been acquainted since childhood), and if she did not miss it it was only because she had forgot it ever existed. It had been, once upon a time, a delightful smile.
“I was obliged to provide for your amusement, now wasn’t I?” she answered at last. “A moment ago you confessed, I believe, a fear that too much solitude might prove fatal. Such a demise would be most grievous to me—and most awkward.”
“Sarah—” was the only reply, uttered in a tone in which reproach and disappointment mingled ineffectually.
“Well, if you must know, my dear,” the duchess took up more expansively, “I asked them all down because I did not care to die of boredom. Timothy is very interesting, I am sure, to his companions, but he and I have long since exhausted the discourse of which we are capable alone. And Lady Henrietta—well, a girl whose chief quality is her entire willingness to do, think, and say as she is told is not the sort of conversationalist I cherish.”
“Don’t you care for Henrietta?” the other asked, with startled naïveté.
“Of course I care for Henrietta,” said Her Grace, placing a disagreeable emphasis on the word care. “She is an excellent girl, a very excellent girl. The point is, simply, that the persons for whom I care are not the ones whose company I most enjoy.”
Lady Louisa took this in thoughtfully. “Does that mean you do not care for me?” she inquired finally.
“Not at all, my dear. It means I do not enjoy your company.” And as if to prove the truth of this assertion, the duchess rose on her words and wandered toward a window. “Where is Karr, after all? He promised to be here for dinner, and it is nearly six already.”
A long, pale shadow washed the room, curiously bleak for the light of early autumn. The Duchess of Karr gazed through a wrought-iron grille onto the park, and the stream and the church beyond. She could not hope to see her son, who was due to arrive tonight after a fortnight passed in London, through this aperture; yet she gazed, pensively, silently, her inexpressive back turned toward the room. The duchess was rather addicted to gazing.
“You will regret the Contessa di Tremini,” Lady Louisa said, after a pause in the conversation which was painful to her. “Remember, I warned you.”
“The Contessa amuses me. She is so thoroughly, so gracefully, so bountifully foolish.”
“She has never seemed foolish to me,” her ladyship objected. “Or if she is, I wish I could be so foolish. Her life appears to be completely made up of pleasure.”
“That is precisely what I mean, Louisa,” the dowager replied, turning from the window and pacing the length of the small saloon.
“Oh,” said the other, her pudgy, unclear features relapsing into their habitual expression of submissive, slightly puzzled, resignation. “If we dine at seven, I suppose I must go and dress. I wonder where Sir Isaac can be?”
“I daresay he is at billiards with Mr. Faust,” the duchess suggested. It was a plausible notion, since Sir Isaac Bridwell divided his waking hours almost evenly between the dining-and the billiard-table. That Mr. Septimus Faust should be with him was almost as likely an hypothesis, since he was the only other guest to have arrived at Grasmere as yet. Though he did not play at billiards with the devotion, indeed the passion, Sir Isaac did, it was probable that the latter had persuaded him to play that afternoon—for if he had failed to persuade him, he would have been left with neither food to eat nor billiards to play, and then where would he have been? There are certain eventualities so desperate that, faced with them, the weakest of men become strong, and the most inarticulate, eloquent.
Lady Louisa accepted her friend’s surmise with a murmured “Oh,” and rose (selecting just one last comfit to fortify her) to quit the room. She accomplished her exit using her wonted gait, a singular commingling of a shuffle and a flutter. She minced along, her feet never really quite leaving the floor, yet with such a bounciness in her plump figure as she took each step, that her progress gave the impression of being almost airy. In this manner she had bounced through life, from her father’s house to her husband’s, and in and out of her friends’ homes; in this manner she would trip and bounce to her grave, no doubt, and into that mansion wherein there are so many houses. She was as incapable of causing pain as she was of desiring to do so, and was, all in all, a very good soul.
