A London Season (4 page)

And she would say no more until, nearly half an hour later, as the chaise at last approached the spa town of Cheltenham, she roused herself to take up the conversation apparently just where she had left it off, remarking in the same discontented tones, “And now you are bent on dragging me with you to call on some other frowsty old cat! It
’
s too bad of you, it is indeed, and I think you are the greatest beast in Nature!”

3

D
isposed as he still was to regard Jack
’
s daughter as a child rather than a young woman, Sir Edmund found this decidedly infantile burst of temper comical and even touching, but their arrival in Royal Crescent spared him the task of composing a reply of sufficient gravity. The chaise was soon drawing up outside the elegant, narrow facade of the house that had been occupied by Sophronia, Lady Emberley, until her recent demise full of years and
—
if the truth were told
—
full of ill will towards the greater part of her fellow men. This event had occurred over three months before, and there were no obvious signs of mourning left about the house. Sir Edmund, who intended to have the place put up for sale, gave it only a cursory glance before directing John Digby and the postilion to find their way to the Plough, and then, with Persephone, mounting the short flight of steps to the front door.

A quick look at his ward
’
s face confirmed his impression that discontent and a sense of grievance were still seething within her. He thought, ruefully, that while he might be an old hand at dealing with the wilier politicians of Europe around the conference table, he had not the same happy knack with a wilful girl of eighteen. However, he knew better than to utter anything so sure to achieve the opposite of its intended effect as a sharp reproof, and said only, in a low voice, “I know you
’
ll make yourself agreeable to Miss Radley, Persephone. Old ladies are so easily flustered and distressed, are they not?”

Persephone cast him a suspicious glance, but had not time to reply, for the door was being opened by an elderly butler. His wrinkled face was wreathed in smiles, but to judge by his failure to respond to Sir Edmund
’
s civil greeting, he must have been stone deaf: he said not a word, but continued to smile with the utmost amiability.

A moment later, however, a neat, capable-looking woman in late middle age appeared in the hallway behind him. Straightening her apron and bobbing a curtsey, she launched into a speech of welcome, proving as voluble as the butler was silent. “And you must please to forgive us, sir, being all at sixes and sevens as we are!” she concluded, as Sir Edmund handed his hat and gloves to the old man. “For Miss Radley
’
s been that busy, sorting out my lady
’
s things
—
you see, sir, my lady never could abide to throw anything away, and if you
’
ll pardon me for saying so, oh, but she
could
be such a twitty old lady when crossed! Well, so it has all fallen on Miss Radley
’
s shoulders, and when she told us we might expect to see you today, why, Joshua here, who is my husband, sir, and Howell is our name, Joshua says to me it
’
s his place to open the door. But
I
says to
him
—
for you must know, sir, hard of hearing as he is, I
can
make him understand me
—
how will you ever hear the doorbell, Joshua, says I? Why, Mary, says he,
you
must listen for it and give me a bit of a nudge, and then I can open the door to Sir Edmund, as is only right, says he, and
you
can take him in to see Miss Radley! So that is what we did, sir,” said
Mrs.
Howell, unnecessarily. “And now, if you and the young lady will just step this way?”

Evidently satisfied that he had played his due part in the proceedings, Howell had disappeared half-way through his wife
’
s speech. She was now ushering Sir Edmund and his ward through the hall, and into a drawing room which lay at the back of the house.

With memories of his draconian Cousin Sophronia in his mind, Sir Edmund hardly expected to receive so immediately pleasant an impression as he did on entering this apartment. The hall itself had seemed cluttered with graceless furniture, just the kind of thing he would have imagined the old lady to possess, and certainly the drawing room contained a number of similar pieces: large, dark and heavy, some of them covered by dustsheets. These, however, had all been pushed to one end of the room, which was not particularly tidy, and indeed appeared to be in a kind of transitional state, as though it were being progressively dismantled. But it had large windows, through which the late afternoon sun streamed in, and a bright little island of comfort and warmth had been created beside one of these, at the other end of the room from the crowded furniture. Here, a fire of fruitwood logs burned clear and fragrant in the grate, some elegant chairs were disposed on a handsome Persian rug, and there was a sizeable desk in the bay of the window itself, standing in a pool of sunlight. This desk was covered with neat stacks of paper, and a young lady sat at it writing.

Sir Edmund was looking about him for his late cousin
’
s companion, described to him by
Mr.
Stanfield as
a very respectable spinster lady.
Miss Radley, he knew, was a distant connection of Lady Emberley
’
s on the other side of her family from himself, and that was all the information he had about her. He now saw that the girl at the desk had risen, putting down her pen, and was coming to meet him.

“Sir Edmund Grafton?” she said, in a pleasantly modulated voice. “How do you do? I am Elinor Radley. I think
Mr.
Stanfield has mentioned to you that I was Lady Emberley
’
s companion for the
l
ast seven years.”

Rapidly readjusting his ideas, Sir Edmund said, “I am very glad to meet you, Miss Radley; let me introduce my ward, Miss Persephone Grafton.”

At a second glance, he saw that the lady was less young than he had at first supposed, being perhaps about five or six and twenty, and with a quietly assured manner that was not that of a girl. She was no dazzling beauty like Persephone, but nevertheless there was something very taking about the warm smile which extended to her fine grey eyes, her shining chestnut hair arranged in neat bands, and her slim figure in its sober dove-grey gown trimmed with black crape ribbon.

For her part, Miss Radley, who had felt a very natural curiosity about Lady Emberley
’
s heir, was looking appraisingly at Sir Edmund. She liked what she saw: a tall, well-knit and athletic frame, clad in white doeskin pantaloons and a riding coat of blue superfine; a lean, strong
-
jawed face with what she suspected were deceptively lazy blue eyes, and a humorous set to the mouth. The first grey, she saw, showed in Sir Edmund
’
s dark hair. From his easy manner, no one would have guessed how different he found Miss Radley from the elderly spinster of his imaginings, had not Persephone given him away by uttering a delighted trill of laughter (the first he had yet heard from her) and exclaiming, “Why, you
’
re not an old cat after all!”

“Well, I
hope
not,” said the other girl, gravely, “but one can never tell when old cattishness may overtake one, to be sure! I am so pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Grafton.”

“You see,” confided Persephone, whose sulks seemed magically to have evaporated, as if unable to withstand the pleasant warmth of this room,
“
he
was persuaded you were as old as the hills, and I have been most
sternly
adjured, I promise you, not to do or say anything
at all
, because old ladies are so easily flustered! Oh, how comical!”

“And how mortifying to me!” said Sir Edmund, smiling. He could not but be thankful for the improvement in Persephone
’
s temper which Miss Radley had instantly, and apparently without the smallest effort, brought about, but he added ruefully, “Will you leave me with no credit at all, Persephone? But for you I might have extracted myself from my misapprehension without anyone
’
s being the wiser! I see, Miss Radley, that I must confess I
was
expecting an elderly lady, someone of my late cousin
’
s own generation
—
though I really don
’
t know why. I dare say Persephone will now inform you that I have dragged her here against her will to visit you, because old ladies
are sticklers for keeping correct hours!”

“No, I won
’
t, though you
did
say so,” Persephone promptly replied. “Because I think I am glad now that I came, and you did not take me to the Plough directly. So there!” she finished, challengingly.

“Good gracious, you mean you have only this moment arrived in Cheltenham? My dear Miss Grafton, you must be quite worn out!” exclaimed Miss Radley, with ready sympathy. “Do pray sit down
—
and you too, sir. I
’
m sure you would be glad of some refreshment after your journey.” She indicated the chairs by the fireside, pressed a bell near the desk, and when
Mrs.
Howell appeared requested some Madeira for Sir Edmund. “And is there any of your excellent lemonade left,
Mrs.
Howell? Good
—
then please bring a glass of it for Miss Grafton.”

“Thank you, Miss Radley, you are very kind. I must apologize,” said Sir Edmund, “for my late arrival; we were delayed on the road.”

“Well, I
’
m sorry for the inconvenience to
you
.” Elinor Radley had seated herself at the desk again. “But I own that, for my part, I was quite glad to have the time to finish putting Lady Emberley
’
s effects in order for you. The papers in the desk here were the very last of it
—
you may say that I ought to have completed the task days or even weeks ago, but
—
”

“I should most certainly say nothing of the sort!” protested Sir Edmund. “It must have been a thankless task indeed! I collect there was a great deal to be done?”

“Well, there was,” she confessed, “for Lady Emberley was
—
was so very much attached to the possessions of a lifetime, and so given to habits of economy, that she was quite distressed by the notion of disposing of anything whatsoever.”

Was a miserly, acquisitive old jackdaw
, thought Sir Edmund, adding his own unspoken gloss to this.

“Here, for instance,” said Miss Radley, pointing to a bundle of papers, “is what I do believe must be every receipted bill she received over the last twenty years. And this is her correspondence with
Mr.
Stanfield, which of course she did quite right to keep, and
this
—
” she indicated the biggest pile of all
—
“consists of letters from her family, all preserved for many years, as you can see.”

“What an excessively boring time you must have had, sorting all that out! I fancy that a bonfire is the place for all but
Mr.
Stanfield
’
s papers!”

Sir Edmund was mildly intrigued to see a faint flush rise to Miss Radley
’
s cheeks, and wondered what he could have said to occasion it. But she answered only, “Do you really think so? I own, I am not in favour of going through life cumbered with old possessions and papers myself! But I don
’
t believe,” she said earnestly, “that I have given or thrown away anything of interest or value. Whenever we were in the least doubt,
Mrs.
Howell and I have been consulting one another. Ah, here
is
Mrs.
Howell!” And the Madeira and lemonade were brought in.

“How delicious this is! Thank you!” said Persephone, sipping from her glass, and beaming at the gratified housekeeper. Once again, Sir Edmund was astonished by the change in her. Let the child but continue in
this
frame of mind, he told himself, and she will be back in Bella
’
s good graces directly
—
and if I know Bella
’
s kind heart, they will deal extremely well together! He drank some of his own Madeira, and turned back to Miss Radley once the housekeeper was out of earshot.

“One of the matters which brings me to Cheltenham concerns the Howells: I believe they have been butler and housekeeper here for a very long time?”

“Oh yes!” said Elinor Radley at once. “Yes, and I know, for
Mr.
Stanfield has told me, that
you
know how things are left
—
”

“Or rather,
not
left.”

“Yes, that
’
s precisely it!” she said with evident relief. “I felt
—
at least, I hoped that you would understand! They are such a worthy couple, you know, and have been with Lady
Emberley for ever, and though the work has been rather beyond Howell lately, and his deafness certainly hampers him, Lady Emberley kept him on, saying we should do very well with only
Mrs.
Howell to run the house. Though I am afraid she has been sadly overworked, poor soul. But
I’
m sure it was good of Lady Emberley not to dispense with Howell
’
s services when he could not really carry out a butler
’
s duties any more.”

“What you mean,” said Sir Edmund drily, “is that she slave-drove the pair of them! And probably yourself too. From all I recollect of my Cousin Sophronia, I don
’
t think that in general benevolence dictated her actions, do you?” His eyes met hers with a hint of challenge, and in a moment she said, with an engaging little chuckle, “Dear me, you
’
ve hit the nail on the head! Yes, she knew a younger butler would require a higher wage
—
but it wouldn
’
t have done for me to
say
so to you, would it?”

“Oh, you can say what you like about my Cousin Sophronia!” he returned. “I have the liveliest
—
and most uncomfortable
—
memories of her. And you have been her companion for
—
did you really say seven years? I can
’
t imagine how you endured it, but that is none of my business. The Howells are my business, however, and I take it you know as well as I do that no provision at all has been made for them. And don
’
t try telling me that was an oversight on my cousin
’
s part, for I shan
’
t believe you!”