An Accomplished Woman (36 page)

On Lydia’s taking her
place at the pianoforte, she found amongst the music-sheets a copy of the
fiendish Clementi sonata she had bought in London. Well, if her hostess was set
upon turning the deaf ear of rudeness and indifference, then at least her teeth
would rattle for it. Lydia played two movements: having lulled her audience
with a sighing
Andante,
she launched demonically into the
Presto.
One
of the makeweight gentlemen jumped so hard at the first crashing chord he
nearly disappeared into his cravat like a tortoise. Juliet watched and listened
avidly and, as it were, professionally: the odd slip of the finger that would
have escaped the notice of the others would be obvious to her. There was a
certain additional spur to flamboyance in this, and Lydia ended more
prestissimo
than
presto,
and with the agreeable consciousness that Mrs Allardyce
was finally not talking.

At least, not for a
moment. Soon her voice was sailing over the applause: ‘Hm, very pretty. What a
great
labour
it must be, writing down all those notes, and just for
something that lasts a few minutes. I suppose these composers somehow find it
worth their while.’

‘Art should be pursued
for its own sake, Mother,’ Mr Allardyce said, with a little bite of asperity in
his tone, ‘rather like good manners.’

Secretly Lydia felt she
had been more showy than artistic: but she did possess one skill too often
lacking in the amateur musician — knowing when to leave off. Smilingly, she
declined Mr Allardyce’s entreaties that she play more; and rising, found Mr
Durrant had come forward to hand her to her seat.

‘Thank you, Mr Durrant.
Now make the expected compliments on my playing, and I shall not despair of
your becoming a drawing-room exquisite at last.’

‘We have been royally
entertained. Indeed I would say that you have surpassed yourself, Miss
Templeton — or rather, surpassed someone else, which may after all have been
the intention.’

Lydia strove to control
her expression without thinning her lips. ‘So much for the expected
compliments.’

‘Oh, there is nothing
wrong with a little emulation — a little competition,’ he said, sitting down
beside her. ‘Certainly it can do you no harm — you who have been accustomed to
being considered the most accomplished of women — to have your superiority put
to the test.’

‘Well, it is at least
capable of being put to the test, Mr Durrant — it has grounds, on which
judgements can be made, opinions canvassed. Contrast your superiority, which is
based entirely on your opinion of yourself

He shrugged. ‘I would
trust no one else’s opinion on so important a matter. Come, would you? If some
absolutely infallible sage and seer undertook to tell you the whole truth about
your mind and heart, would you still not turn him away, and say, “No thank you,
I know that best”?’

‘Perhaps: but I will
confess that there are some things about ourselves which others are better
placed to see. We must all beware complacency, Mr Durrant. Your friendly
civilities to Miss Allardyce, for example — you may well consider them no more
than that—’

‘And you do not?’ he
said sharply.

‘I speak only as a
neutral observer, Mr Durrant.’

‘Pooh, there’s no such
thing, least of all when a woman is doing the observing. She will build a feud
on a cool glance, and construct a romance from a pleasant exchange of chat.’

‘I said nothing of
romance. But perhaps you should have a care, lest Mrs Allardyce be on the watch
for a match.’

‘Extraordinary world,’
he said, sitting back with a look of bitter surrender. ‘To be subject to these wild
suppositions — romances — matches — simply for enjoying the company and
conversation of a rational, intelligent woman: no more, nor less.’

His displeasure was
plain and profound — she thought it could hardly be more so, until Mrs
Allardyce beckoned him to the sofa beside her. Well, that would do him no harm
either. Privately Lydia shook her head over Mr Durrant’s obtuseness. She
congratulated herself on being too polite to point out to him that romances and
matches were precisely what had brought him to Bath; and as for the company and
conversation of a rational, intelligent woman — no more, nor less — why, if
that was all he sought, why come all this way for it?

Mr Allardyce was at her
side. ‘Miss Templeton,’ he said urgently. ‘Miss Rae and I have been talking of
the future.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she cried —
unable to restrain her eagerness:
The Duenna’s Distresses Ended!

‘Yes, and we are agreed
that this fine weather surely cannot hold much longer. Soon enough there will
be that rain and greyness which always makes people stare miserably out of the
window and wonder why they did not make an expedition into the country when
they had the chance. I have been telling Miss Rae of the delicious views round
about Lyncombe and Widcombe. They are all the more delicious in that when you
are tired of them, you have only a short ride back to Bath, and so rapture is
not overtaxed. We are agreed that it would be shameful, even criminal, not to
make a picnic party — say, early next week. But it must be the
right
party.
For one thing, if you do not consent, the idea is abandoned for ever.’

‘It sounds delightful,’
said Lydia, turning over the coin of her disappointment.

‘And then we must have
Mr Durrant too. Though I’m sure Juliet —’ with a smile ‘— will be able to
persuade him. Now, nothing very formal — no servants in gloves laying a trestle
table on the hillside. Just a meal when we want it, and in the meantime
everyone to ramble about as they please. At the risk of declaring myself that
most unbearable of beings, a child of nature, I do have a fancy for the open
air now and then. Somehow — somehow one can think and speak more freely.’

‘An excellent notion,’
Lydia said, answering his smile. This was promising indeed: even more so, in
that he had not been so punctilious, nor Phoebe so vacillating, as to suggest
the addition of Mr Beck to the party. Her flicker of sympathy for Mr Beck on
that account was soon extinguished by a vision of him let loose in the country
— tirelessly tramping, drinking from streams, and knowing the names of all the
wild flowers.

Though Lydia was not
superstitious, she refrained, when writing to her father the next day, from
alluding to her hopes that her duty might soon be over and Phoebe’s dilemma
resolved. She preferred to postpone any hint of that, until the moment of
definite announcement; and wrote instead of the enlargement of their Bath
acquaintance, actual and potential. The Vawsers here, alas: and, more
interestingly, Hugh Hanley soon expected. The arrival of this young man, whom
she did not much like, and did not at all respect, was a matter of anticipation
for Lydia only for its effect on Lewis Durrant; and in that she found a certain
tart enjoyment. She sincerely wished him well of his temporary celebrity at
Queen Square — of his basking in the smiles of the rational, intelligent Juliet
Allardyce: it was simply that she found about him now something just a little
too smug, and requiring deflation; especially as she was so much nearer winning
their wager than he was. The presence of his nephew could always be relied on
for that. But this feeling also she omitted to mention to her father — who,
besides his general benevolence, was always unaccountably indulgent to Mr
Durrant.

The country picnic was set
for three days’ time. The weather was, indeed, of a perfection that to any
inhabitant of England must appear almost sinister; and when Lydia took her
customary walk alone that afternoon, she sought the green freshness of Sydney
Gardens, just down the street from the house, and free at this time of day from
the perils of rogue fireworks.

But not from all perils.
Approaching the gate, she saw Mr and Mrs Vawser coming out of it. If she
proceeded, they must meet. There were worse things than having to talk to a
person you detested; but just now, at the hour consecrated to solitude, Lydia
could not think of any. She turned, and keeping herself well hidden beneath her
parasol, loitered back the way she had come. Risking a glance, she found to her
frustration that they were strolling the same way, along the south side of
Sydney Place. She debated whether to carry on, and make the whole circuit of
Sydney Place in the hope of losing them; but a simpler solution presented
itself. Doing artful things with the parasol, she crossed back to the house,
went in, and stationed herself discreetly at the dining-room window to watch
the Vawsers away, and await the moment of safety.

The moment came: Mrs
Vawser’s opulently feathered bonnet, which had the unfortunate effect of making
her husband appear even shorter than he was, disappeared from sight, and Lydia
prepared to resume her interrupted airing. The sound of voices from the
drawing-room upstairs stilled her. Phoebe’s, and another.

An odd hour for calling;
and the urgent agitation of their speech did not suggest a polite exchange
about the weather. Then came a kind of despairing hollow laugh, and she
recognised the other voice.

Lydia walked upstairs,
neither creeping nor stamping.

‘Oh, dear God,’ came
William Beck’s voice, ‘surely — I thought you said she—’

‘Good afternoon, Mr
Beck,’ Lydia said, going in. She laid down her parasol and took off her gloves.
Phoebe was standing at one end of the room, clutching the back of a chair:
white-lipped, angular with tension, but not wholly uncomposed. Mr Beck stood at
the other end of the room, his back against the bookcase: looking about as
composed as a man who had thrown himself off a cliff and found himself at the
bottom unharmed.

‘I’ll go,’ he said,
ignoring her. ‘Miss Rae — forgive me — I’ll go—’

‘Not on my account, I
hope,’ Lydia said, seating herself.

‘Oh — dear God — what’s
the use?’ he said brokenly, or more brokenly than usual. ‘This is efficient
spying indeed, madam — how do you do it? Do you put hounds on my scent?’

‘Mr Beck, please,’ said
Phoebe, painfully, ‘you should not speak so—’

‘Pure coincidence, Mr
Beck,’ Lydia said, ‘as no doubt it is pure coincidence that brings you here at
the very time of the day when I am always out. Certainly it cannot have been
intentional, as you made it plain to me, in our previous conversation, that you
would not seek to do this sort of thing again.’

‘You see?’ he cried,
with a sweeping gesture towards Phoebe. ‘Hearken to the language. “This sort of
thing”. It is no wonder . . .’ A brief fit of roaming, staring, and
half-laughing prevented him saying what was no wonder. ‘Miss Templeton. You may
as well know, as
you
are sure to find out anyhow —’ with a very
unfriendly look ‘— that I came to see Miss Rae — I
had
to see Miss Rae,
alone, for the most pressing, the most undeniable and sacred of reasons.’

So that was the way the
wind blew. Lydia might have realised it at once, from a certain charge in the
room, suggestive of the momentous; but Mr Beck’s habit of imparting
momentousness to a request for a glass of water had diverted her from the
proper conclusion. She made a mental adjustment — there was no adjusting her
feelings, which were hopelessly mixed — and looked from one to the other: but
especially at Phoebe. She saw acute discomfort, unease, trouble — but could not
for the moment see beyond them.

‘I understand, at least
I think I do,’ Lydia said carefully. ‘You might, Mr Beck, have simply asked to
see Miss Rae privately on a matter of such importance and delicacy, but never
mind that—’

‘Aye, never mind that,’
he grated. ‘I’ll go, Miss Rae. It is of no use my staying for an answer now —
now that your sainted protectress is in place.’

‘Mr Beck, please do not
speak so,’ Phoebe cried, with an anxious glance at Lydia. ‘My answer — I have
told you that I cannot give you an answer, at least — not at the present
moment.’

‘The present moment is
indeed miserably inopportune,’ he said, heading for the door, then stopping to
glare at the fireplace just to Lydia’s right. ‘I can only hope, Miss Rae, as
the matter is now out of my hands, that you will not let
her
dictate
your answer too.’

Lydia had tried to make
allowance for the young man’s feelings, but this was too much. ‘Sir, I have put
up with being a spy, and a sainted protectress, and setting hounds on you, but
I cannot consent to be talked
over
in this way. Have the goodness to
talk
to
me, if you have something to lay to my charge.’

A moment’s confusion
passed across his face. ‘You must forgive me,’ he said — but he made it sound
more like an order than an appeal. ‘I am unable to say any more — my heart is
so full I hardly know . . .’ He wrenched himself round to bestow an anguished
look on Phoebe, wrenched himself back in a sort of bow to Lydia, and then with
no apparent damage to his spine stalked out of the room.

Phoebe sank into a
chair; and they sat gazing at each other with a kind of deliberate suspense of
emotion while Mr Beck’s rapid footsteps faded into the street.

‘Lydia,’ Phoebe said, ‘I
am so very sorry’

‘Are you? I cannot see
you have done anything to be sorry for. But I am sorry too — for coming in so —
but then I did not mean it either. I was escaping the Vawsers. Believe me,
please, I did not design it.’

‘Oh, Lydia! Of course I
believe it,’ Phoebe said, with her most luminous and steadfast look.

‘Thank you: I fear Mr
Beck does not.’

‘He was — very
overwrought. But that does not excuse ... I didn’t know he was coming, Lydia. I
hope you can believe that — after last time. He simply burst in and — and
spoke.’

‘Of course. And the
subject of his speech was, I presume — that is, I assume . . .’

‘What
is
the
difference between them, I wonder,’ Phoebe said, passing off a sob as a laugh,
and scrabbling for her handkerchief.

‘My dear Phoebe, I am very
stupid. You perhaps wish to be alone just now — to reflect in peace, to
consider—’

‘Oh, please no! Don’t
go. I shall be better in a moment — not so nonsensical. To tell the truth, when
Mr Beck began — speaking, my first thought was a wish: I wish Lydia were here.’

Lydia opened her mouth
to speak, but got no further. Phoebe, gentle Phoebe: who ushered trapped flies
out of the window with patient care, and who also possessed the ability to be
quite terrifying.

‘Well,’ she managed at
last, ‘I am flattered; but such a moment is, as Mr Beck hinted, usually
reserved for the tête-à-tête, and is not improved by the presence of a third
party. Though I still wish he might have openly sought the audience, instead of
feeling he must go behind my back to secure it. Never mind. That
was
the
question he came to ask — was it not?’

Phoebe nodded, examining
the hem of her handkerchief. ‘He asked me to be his wife.’

Lydia sat back, then sat
forward: there was no bodily position that could ease the discomfort of her mind
at this moment. Its acuteness surprised her. That Phoebe would receive a
proposal had always been a probability, and the fact that Lydia had begun to
expect its coming first from Mr A and not Mr B did not render this event at all
astonishing. Indeed, reviewing Mr Beck’s conduct since their arrival in Bath
she found it appeared thoroughly likely that he would throw down such a
declaration. Still she could not shake off her perplexity. It was as if she saw
for the first time what a great matter this was: no parlour-game, no
comic-opera complication, but a crisis of decision that would determine the
future course of Phoebe’s life. And we have only one life, she found herself
thinking insistently, as if that, too, were a new and startling apprehension:
we have only one life. Beneath all this lurked, sulky now but still combustive,
her anger at Mr Beck for the way he had treated her: indeed, for the way he had
treated them both.

But it was not her part,
she reminded herself, to bring any of this forward. It was alarming enough that
Phoebe had wished for her presence during the proposal. But she allowed herself
a little measure of relief that Phoebe had not, at least, answered it with a
definite yes.

‘I see. I shall not
press you for details of what is, after all, an entirely private transaction.
But I hope I did not march in
just
at the moment of—’

‘Oh, no no,’ Phoebe
said, with a weak smile. ‘He asked me at once — it was as if he were terribly
burdened with it. He flung himself down, and said he could not bear it any
longer, and that I must answer his question — whether I would make him the
happiest of men or the most miserable.’

The happiest of men,
thought Lydia before she could stop herself: not the freshest of figures.

‘He was most —
impassioned,’ Phoebe went on. ‘A few minutes before, I had been looking in my
work-box and wondering what had become of the gold thread that I bought the
other day, or at least I was almost sure I had bought it — and then, suddenly,
this. I am afraid I was very awkward — very stupid. I did not know what to say
or do: it was in my mind, absurdly enough, to ask him to go out and come in
again, and begin in a different way — or not begin at all . . .This
is
very
nonsensical,’ she burst out, biting her lips, and frowning at the clock on the
mantel as if it were telling some fantastical time that had never been heard
of.

‘It might be, if the
occasion of it were something trifling; but, my dear Phoebe, that is not the
case. It is entirely natural to be agitated, to be at a loss for words—’

‘Was that how it was for
you?’ Phoebe asked, with a hopeful look: then dropped her eyes. ‘I’m sorry —
that is not my business at all’

Lydia took advantage of
Phoebe’s embarrassment to deal with her own. It was curious, and not pleasant,
to dip suddenly into the well of her past, and remember the moment of Lewis
Durrant’s proposal: especially as she was forced to confess, if only to
herself, that she had certainly not been at a loss for words: that she had had,
if anything, a gratifying surplus of them.

‘That was exactly how it
was,’ she answered briskly. ‘Though of course nothing can be exactly comparable
in such a case. For one thing, I was quite certain of my reply, and I have the
impression that you were not.’

Phoebe shook her head.
‘It is very difficult. I struggled with all sorts of feelings — so many, so
confusing that I hardly knew myself. But I knew that a definite answer was not
in my power — though I felt it dreadfully unfair on him — and I said so. And
you heard me repeat it, did you not?’

‘I did. And I think it
very sensible, when you had been so taken by surprise.’

‘Yes,’ Phoebe said, on a
melancholy note; then threw down the handkerchief, as if it were a seductive
distraction, and met Lydia’s eyes. ‘And I felt it to be sensible, and right, absolutely
right, when you came in and he was so rude to you. That I cannot excuse:
nothing can excuse it.’

‘No, no: it was a
difficult situation, and he was not in command of himself,’ Lydia said, with
that most luxurious feeling of having been wronged and being generous about it.

‘Perhaps: but I cannot
like the way he spoke to you, Lydia. What he said to me at last — “I hope you
will not let her dictate to you”, or something like it: I am so sorry for that.
I know he is impulsive in the way he talks, but that—’

‘That was regrettable, I
would say, Phoebe, only for the disrespect it showed to you. I do not mind his
suspicion of my influence: I am used to it: but I do mind when he suggests that
you
are too susceptible to that influence. There is a dismissiveness
about it that — for the moment at least — does not speak the lover.’