An Accomplished Woman (16 page)

‘Do
youplay,MissRae?’Lydiaaskedquickly,anxioustoescape
commendations that had something of the auctioneer about them.

‘Very dismally. I cannot
stop thinking about the left hand and the right doing different things, and how
strange and awkward that is. I remember my governess, or one of them, saying I
approached the pianoforte as if it were the pillory.’

‘Phoebe was educated at
home,’ put in Lady Eastmond, ‘and I fear, with all possible respect to her
mother, that the governesses were not always well chosen.’

‘Mama tended to choose
them for their morals,’ Miss Rae said, with a faint rueful smile. ‘And they
were, indeed, very good women.’

‘And the good are not
always clever, and the clever are not always good — is that a proverb, or a
quotation, or have I perhaps just made it up?’ Lady Eastmond chuckled. ‘What do
you say, my dear sir — you who unite
both
qualities?’

‘You flatter me so
shockingly that I hardly know what to say.’ Dr Templeton smiled. ‘Virtue may be
found in unworldly simplicity, to be sure; but I think it is much better
reinforced, and directed, by good sense. See, here is that ticklish question of
head and heart again.’

‘The advantage of a
head, or mind or brain, is that it will be a resource and support to you in
life,’ Lydia said crisply, ‘while the heart is liable chiefly to cause you
pain.’

‘I think there is a
great deal in what you say’ said Miss Rae, turning on Lydia her full, intense
attention — which was very attentive indeed. You felt that she was ready at
once to suspend everything, indefinitely and without condition, to hear what
you had to tell. ‘I was so attached to my old nurse that Mama warned me it was
unnatural, that I ought to moderate my feelings, but I couldn’t help it — or I
thought I couldn’t, perhaps. And then when she grew old, and ill, I could
hardly bear it; and when she died, I was in an absolutely ungovernable state. I
almost wished I had
not
loved her so much: because then I might have
remembered her better, in a way; instead all I was thinking of was her being
dead, and my grief — which was a sort of selfishness. But can one feel to
order, as it were? I wish I knew the answer.’

Lydia hesitated,
glancing into and away from the distressing violet eyes. She had forgotten this
quality of youth, which could make the very air thicken with significance —
while at the same time clearing and freshening it. Yes, she was being won over.
Miss Rae had probably a thousand absurdities, but no matter: Lydia was now
helplessly interested in her. Interest, no doubt, was one of those cool
attributes of the head not the heart — but it was no less powerful for that.

Thank heaven, though, it
could never be powerful enough to take her to Bath as Miss Rae’s companion. And
hadn’t she set herself so stiffly against the poor girl because she feared
being pushed or betrayed into that quagmire? — whereas she would be quite happy
to walk the neat trimmed paths of acquaintance, even friendship. Realising
this, Lydia experienced that kindly relief which follows the waking from an
uncanny and troublous dream: life, yes, has its difficulties, but it is
recognisable, it is not like
that.

‘I wish I knew the
answer too, Miss Rae,’ she said; and in her new security of feeling, added pointedly:
‘I am afraid Lady Eastmond, in her kindness, may have been holding me up to you
as a species of oracle, but that I assuredly am not.’

‘You must know a great
deal more than me,’ Miss Rae said seriously, ‘for I am shockingly ignorant. But
really, from what I have read of those ancient oracles, I think they were
monstrous frauds. A king would come along and ask, “Shall I go to war with
another king?” and the oracle would make a lot of smoke and say, “If you do a
kingdom will fall.” Surely, this is the most shameless imposture. They may as
well have said, “What will be will be.”‘

‘But just suppose,
Phoebe, there was a real, truthful oracle,’ Lady Eastmond said, with a sudden
swoop of eagerness, ‘what would you ask it?’

‘Why, I should not ask
it anything, in case it gave me an answer I did not like,’ said Miss Rae,
reasonably.

Lady Eastmond looked
dissatisfied; while Dr Templeton, settling himself to rumination, said: ‘Ah,
which ofus would truly wish to foresee the future? The ancient world was
devoted to this idea, and it survived in the medieval mind: but if it were
really a possibility, who would look? Who would dare to lift the veil?’

‘I don’t believe it
could be possible, sir, because the future depends on the choices you will
make, and you haven’t made them yet,’ Miss Rae said: then frowned, paused, and
silently ran this over again in her head. ‘Yes. That.’

‘What did I tell you,
Phoebe? These dear Templetons will have you talking philosophy in a moment,’
chuckled Lady Eastmond: happy, but also a little dismissive; their amiable
weakness, you know. ‘Choices, aye, what tremendous choices one has to make —
especially when young — on the threshold of the world, with tempting
fascination on every side! You’ll know, of course, my dear sir, that Phoebe has
just enjoyed her first London season. Enjoyed — Lord, that’s the right word
indeed: you will hardly believe what a success she was! I was almost afraid of
what I had done in bringing her out so. Many a girl would have her head turned
by it. But not Phoebe — or if so, only a very little.’

‘A tribute to Miss Rae’s
good sense, and that of her protectress,’ Dr Templeton said smiling.

‘Bless you for saying
so, my dear sir — and I only hope I may be as useful to Phoebe in the future —
but as you so rightly remark, who can foretell the future?’

Who indeed? Lydia
thought: but she knew very well where Lady Eastmond’s thoughts were tending. It
was time to anticipate them — forestall them. For the past week she had had the
uncomfortable sensation — supremely uncomfortable for one of her temperament —
of her life slipping out of her control. Now she would take command of it
again. Show herself a good hand with the ribbons.

‘It just occurs to me,
Miss Rae,’ she said brightly, ‘as you are kind enough to admire Heystead, whether
you would like to see the very finest house in the district? Culverton — it is
the home of my father’s friend Mr Durrant, and justly admired, as the
guidebooks would say. The grounds and gardens are indeed beautiful, even I will
allow, and usually with me a little vegetation goes a long way. There is a
scheme to take a party there soon, and I should be so very happy if you would
join us.’

Miss Rae was all
pleasure: Lady Eastmond beamed, and gently slapped her own knees. Lydia’s
satisfaction lay in knowing the limits of her own proposal. Let us walk and
talk: let there be friendship, confidences: let there be, God help her, advice;
and then — do you hear, ghosts? — let that be the end of it.

The excursion to Culverton
was settled for a week hence. Lewis Durrant accepted his fate with, for him,
good grace: he would lay on a luncheon for his guests, he told Lydia in a short
note, and the punishment for anyone who trampled his flower-beds would only be
a brief whipping. Lydia did not consult Mrs Vawser first: instead she arranged
everything, then called at the Vicarage-house, reminded her of the scheme to
Culverton, and assured her that all her careful directions for it had been
followed to the letter. There was then only the fatigue to be borne of Mrs
Vawser’s self-congratulation, and loud wondering how people in this dear,
pottering place ever got anything done without her.

For Lydia there was real
pleasure in the prospect. She was always glad to see Culverton, in spite of the
equivocal associations the spot bore for her; but above all, there was pleasure
in Phoebe Rae being of the party. In the interim Lady Eastmond brought her over
to Heystead again, and she and Lydia had some conversation apart.

Yes: there was much to
like in this gentle young woman with the slow-dawning smile and soft clarinet
voice. It was not simply a negative matter of expecting a giggling scatterbrain
and finding instead someone tolerable. Miss Rae was positively engaging. The
real respect she showed for Lydia’s father was a point in her favour at once;
and the fact that she obviously admired Lydia also had, no doubt, its effect:
the stupidest people suddenly become a little cleverer when we learn that they
think well of us.

But beyond this there
was something pure and unaffected about Phoebe Rae that struck on Lydia’s
sensibility like a perfectly tuned major chord. Her sheltered upbringing — and
from a few hints Lydia had been able to construct the sombre echoing house in
Edinburgh, the remote and imposing father, the smothering mother — had not been
without its benefits. If her education had been patchy, at least she had been
protected from learning the wrong things: how to be arch, smart, vain, trivial
and worldly. Nor was her seriousness unsweetened by humour — and Lydia was
disposed to like anyone who made her laugh.

Still, Miss Rae was
undoubtedly intense: in her curiosity, her tastes, her openness to impression,
even her attention (the one alteration that Lydia could have wished in Phoebe’s
appearance, was that she would blink a little more often). It was plain from
her feeling talk of her late parents, of beloved servants and even household
pets, that her attachments were intense likewise. In this anyone who took an
interest in her welfare — even the carefully measured interest that Lydia
intended to take — must perceive a potential danger. Indeed Lydia saw now that
her first flippant dismissal of Lady Eastmond’s kindly anxieties about her
ward’s suitors had been wrong. No one could wish to see such a trusting and
candid nature exposed to the consequences of a mistake for which only her
inexperience, not her character, could be blamed. (There were young girls
aplenty, on the other hand, whom one could watch very happily going to blazes.)
Phoebe merited every effort of sympathy, understanding and involvement — short
of going to Bath with her.

It was agreed that, as
the party would be setting off for Culverton early in the morning, Miss Rae
should come to Heystead the afternoon before and stay the night. It was a
thoroughly pleasant evening: Dr Templeton, who had taken a great liking to his
guest, listened with rich enjoyment to her description of the rigours of the
Edinburgh sabbath.

‘Because the curtains
were always closed on a Sunday, I had an idea as a girl that there must be
things out there I must not see. So inquisitiveness made me daring, and at last
one Sunday when my governess was not by I opened them a little and peeped out.
For a long time all I saw was an empty street; but at length a man came along,
all red in the face, and walking very unsteadily. When he fell down and lay
still I shrieked. My governess came and I cried that there was a dead man out
there. She looked, and said that he was not dead but he might as well be. She
was a very
good
woman, but a little severe. It was a long time before I
understood that walking out on a Sunday did not actually kill you: that the
poor man was dreadfully drunk, and had quite sensibly decided, as there is
never a carriage to be seen on the sabbath, to lie down there and sleep.’

After dinner Lydia
played. Her suggestion that Miss Rae might like to approach the pianoforte was
met with the emphatic negative of flaming cheeks, bitten lips and frenetic
head-shakings; but Phoebe listened devotedly; and at the end of one piece tears
stood in her eyes, and she was wrapped in melancholy for some time afterwards.

‘I heard that piece
several times in London,’ she huskily confided, when Lydia rejoined her on the
sofa, ‘and it has such tender associations for me. I wonder how it is that
music has the power to bring back recollections so forcibly?’

She lapsed again into
pensive silence, the mystery of which required very little penetration. Either
Mr Allardyce the diplomat or Mr Beck the scribbler is behind these sighs,
thought Lydia. Or possibly both, which is where the difficulties begin.

Phoebe’s usual cheerful
temper was restored, however, the next morning: a warm bright morning combining
the best qualities of spring and summer. ‘Nothing like a blue sky to lift the
spirits,’ observed Dr Templeton over breakfast. ‘Which cannot, of course, be
the case in hot desert countries, which in turn must prove something about the
relativity of human pleasures — but I am too content to pursue it.’

He was to accompany them
to Culverton, the others of the party being Mrs Vawser and Mr and Mrs Paige.
Miss Beaumont had declined Lydia’s personal invitation, declaring that she had
something better to do than go on idle jaunts about the country. As she plainly
had nothing better to do, beyond staring at the faded pattern on her parlour
wallpaper, Lydia could only conclude that she refused for the simple pleasure
of saying no, and perhaps the more refined pleasure of causing offence and
discomfort. (If she was expecting to cause
disappointment,
she was sadly
misled.)

‘I shall go about the
park with you as much as my legs will allow, my dears,’ Dr Templeton said, as
they took their places in the carriage — Lady Eastmond’s chaise, which had
brought Phoebe here. ‘But I confess my chief temptation is the opportunity of
consulting Mr Durrant’s excellent library: so if I disappear, you know where I
am to be found.’

‘Is Mr Durrant a very
learned man?’ asked Phoebe.