Curricle & Chaise (12 page)

‘Lord – I should have screamed the place down had that happened to me.’

Julia seemed genuinely shocked when Lydia discussed the incident with her later. Lydia, indeed, had considered keeping the whole matter to herself but somehow it would come out and she found herself describing the whole episode to her cousin before she even realised it.

‘And yet he didn’t seem to think anything of it. I looked at him immediately he set me down and his
face was as inscrutable as ever
.’

‘He is certainly a strange man, I declare. I cannot think how mama can expect me to fall in love with him. Why, from the way he is behaving I would say it is much more likely, Lydia, that he is passionately in love with you...’

The weather being uncommonly fine for the time of year Lydia put aside the gown that she was letting out for Mrs Abdale in preparation for the Branton Christmas ball (
apparently
said garment having unaccountably shrunk since its last appearance) and gazed out of the window with a sigh.

‘I should love to go riding today, Julia,’ she said, forgetting the presence of Charles behind his newspaper for a moment. ‘I feel confident enough now to try a ride without any instruction – do you?’

Julia was less certain. The prospect of a cold ride out, with little likelihood of meeting Edward to make it worthwhile, seemed a good deal less inviting to her than
it did
to Lydia. No, she certainly did not feel confident enough to venture out on a horse alone, even within the confines of the park.

‘I will go with you, Lydia, if my sister will not,’ offered Charles, throwing down his paper in a heap and stretching lazily. ‘Lord knows, I need all the excitement I can get at Abdale and a ride on a horse may be all that’s on offer today.’

Lydia was dismayed. There was nothing she would dislike more than a ride alone with Charles. He had been right to suggest that she should grow frightened of him. He had a particular way of looking at her w
hich, whilst not making him
ugly exactly – he was far too handsome a man for that – made him seem quite menacing to her. She glanced at him uneasily.

‘I am obliged to you for the offer, Charles,’ she managed to say, searching desperately for an excuse that stubbornly refused to come to her aid, ‘but we are both such novices that I’m sure you would soon grow weary of the very slow pace and wish to gallop off on your own. If Julia doesn’t want to come with me I had better apply myself to your mama’s alterations instead.’

‘Damn my mama’s gown,’ was the filial response. ‘She will look no better in it, do with it what you will. No – you have expressed the desire to go for a ride, and a ride, therefore, you shall have.’

With no more protests to offer, but with a heavy heart, Lydia had no option but to agree. Within fifteen minutes the two riders met at the stable, Lydia in her well-fitting riding habit and little feathered hat, Charles in starched collar (which, even on horseback, restricted his head movement somewhat) and yellow breeches. They set off at a very sober pace from the cobbled yard.

‘We will make for the north of the park,’ directed Charles, grinning down at her from the height of his stallion. ‘It looks mighty fine at this time of year.’

‘I have not known you to worry much about the view before, Charles,’ was the cynical reply. ‘I would have thought that a chase after foxes would have been more to your taste than a gentle walk across the park with me.’

‘Well that’s where you’re wrong, Miss Know-it-all. You always think you know more than what’s good for you. I know what I like and I would thank you to allow me to indulge it.’

As expected, however, Charles was content with her sedate pace for only a very few minutes. She could tell by the impatient spurring-on and checking of his mount that he was itching to gallop on ahead. She refrained from again suggesting that he leave her. For one thing she cared nothing for Charles’ comfort, as he cared nothing for hers. For another, she did not want him to feel that she harboured any concern for h
im whatsoever
. So she remained quietly on her placid little pony, oblivious to his irritation, and tried to enjoy the brilliant morning air as best she could.

Suddenly, though, Charles’ highly strung stallion took fright at the unexpected appearance of a horseman on the drive ahead. In a flash it reared up, and with a great
whinny
careered wildly across the park before Charles knew what he was about. Lydia’s own pony was directly in the path of the larger horse. Being slightly knocked by it as it flung itself forward, she took fright
,
spun round and took off along the driveway back towards the stables with a determination which Lydia had never suspected she possessed, her rider still clinging onto her back in a desperate attempt to remain seated. The new horseman amended his course at once. Aiming for a point a little ahead of her he made up the distance in no time and galloped alongside for a second before deftly grabbing hold of Lydia’s reins. In another moment they were slowing to a halt. Pale and quaking, Lydia could only sigh in relief.

‘You have learned your lessons well, Miss Barrington,’ conceded Mr Churchman dryly, making certain that the pony was calm before letting go of the rein. ‘I congratulate you on your ability to keep your seat. May I suggest, however, that you refrain from galloping in future until you are a little more competent to control the beast?’

It was unkindly said. Shaken as she was, Lydia could find no words of reply. Charles had rejoined them before she realised quite what had happened. So she flushed with mortification instead, and tried to look dignified. Then she kicked her pony’s side, urged her into motion (which, considering the show of speed so lately exhibited by her was surprisingly difficult to achieve) and walked on as quickly as she dared just to prove to them both what a competent horsewoman she really was. Flinging the reins to the groom she rushed into the house by the back entrance. She felt annoyed with herself for riding out with Charles and mortified that Mr Churchman had spoken to her so sev
erely. She felt hurt and upset
and more than inclined to sulk. So she sat in her room, white and shaking, until she knew that he must be gone, resenting the minutes that he was spending with the Abdales, wondering whether he was hoping for her return, but too proud to show her face to him again.

Her soreness lasted right up to the day of the ball. Branton, some five miles distant, assumed the role of principal town in the neighbourhood by dint of having two large houses, several small shops and a very imposing inn. It was an attractive village but its greatest attraction to the young people of the neighbourhood was the fact that the local magistrate had himself paid to extend the ‘Black Swan’ to provide sufficient accommodation as to be suitable for dancing. It was owing to this largess that Julia and Lydia were thrown into a flutter of excitement at the thought of an evening at the ball. Indeed, it had provided the chief topic of conversation in the morning room for several days previously, whilst the preparations it necessitated by way of mending petticoats and retrimming (and, in Mrs Abdale’s case at least, extending) gowns had formed the chief occupation for well over a week.

On the morning of the ball Julia was putting the finishing touches to her gown when Mrs Abdale ventured into the morning room for the first time in several days after a particularly severe cold had forced her to take to her bed. During this period Lydia had b
een called upon to provide her a
unt with a range of nursing care, as Mrs Abdale had declared her daughter far too delicate to risk her own health in the sick chamber (and had secretly determined that Lydia’s skill in administering the various pills and potion
s prescribed for her by Dr Richard
was incomparably better than that of anyone else in her family). Mrs Abdale, as can be imagined, did not make the most docile of patients and she had run Lydia ragged at times with her constant demands and complaining. This being the case, it was somewhat of a relief for Lydia to find her services no longer required
and her aunt returned to glowing health in
the land of the living once again. Unfortunately this relief proved to be somewhat transien
t. Just at the moment that her a
unt entered the room Lydia was wondering aloud whether or not to add a second flounce to her ball gown, now that she was fully out of mourning. As she did so she became vaguel
y aware of a stiffening in her a
unt’s demeanour, followed, a moment later, by the dulcet tones of that lady herself as she positioned herself comfortably in front of the fire.

‘I do not know, Lydia,’ she began imperiously, ‘that you should be talking of the ball in quite such a way. You take too much for granted, indeed, in expecting to go at all. I have not yet decided that you should be allowed to accompany us, given your dependent position in this household and your so-recent bereavement which has occasioned it.’

Lydia looked aghast but quickly amended her expression to one of tolerable composure as soon as she realised that h
er a
unt’s first objective, as usual, was to pain and distress her.

‘I must be guided by what you say, ma’am,’ she managed to get out, if not entirely convincingly. ‘I am perfectly conscious of the position you hold in my mother’s stead. Yet I would suggest that it is now so long since her death that I cannot imagine any impropriety in my attending a local ball.’

‘Well you must be made aware of these matters, Lydia. Your mother would have wished me to guide you in such things. I shall discuss the matter with yo
ur u
ncle and establish his opinion but I would have you know that, were it left entirely to me, I should strongly disapprove of you even thinking of attending a ball this side of the spring.’

Lydia was left with the most unseemly thoughts in her breast. She had no faith in any strength o
f judgement on the part of her u
ncle and she was p
ersuaded that the spite of her a
unt would serve quite well to prevent her attendance that night. As it turned out, however, salvation came from a most surprising, if even more mortifying, source. It was actually Charles who, on hearing of her plight from his sister a little while later, went immediately to his mama and demanded that she change her mind.

‘So you are bent on denying Lydia the pleasures of a dance, mama,’ he said, on finding that lady reclining in the saloon.

Mrs Abdale looked up at her son sharply.

‘I have advised her of the impropriety of it, to be sure.’

‘Well I have come to tell you that I shall not accompany you, either, if Lydia is not to go. I have had enough of escorting my sister to balls. You may go alone if Lydia stays behind.’

Mrs Abdale was not amused by her son’s unfilial announcement.

‘But she is scarcely out of mourning, Charles. Surely you can see that she should remain in the background for now?’

‘Your sense of propriety is praiseworthy, mama, though I doubt it extends to your own abstention tonight. After all, Lydia’s mama was a sister of yours, in case you should have forgotten.’

Only Charles was in the happy position of being able to speak to Mrs Abdale in such a way and she could deny him nothing. True, she did wonder a little at Charles’ eager championship of his cousin, but put this down to Lydia’s own sly insinuation with him. Far be it for her to give the wretched girl the satisfaction of making her fall out with her own son. So with a rather sulky ‘Well, the girl may make an exhibition of herself if she chooses’ she dismissed the project from her head and Lydia was to join them after all.

Much as she might deprecate the source of her deliverance Lydia could only be pleased at this unexpected change of direction. From a busy life in town, the only respite from the dreary round at Abdale had been the visits from the Churchmans and even these had ceased over the past few days as Henry and Edward had gone to London to gather a party for the Christmas festivities. Julia’s spirits being sulky and irritable in turn in the absence of her beloved, Lydia still feeling sore about the incident with the horse, and the weather being cold and unpleasant again, making exercise impossible, the ball had been the one thing to keep them both from unmitigated boredom and depression.

As the hours before the ball ticked by, however, the girls’ spirits rose. Julia had heard from a servant that the Churchmans had returned to Grantham the previous night and was almost ecstatic with excitement. Even the continually teasing presence of Charles, who never failed to annoy her by appearing wherever she happened to settle, watching her with that unnerving leer of his, failed to have its usual sobering effect on Lydia as she counted the minutes until she could allow herself to retire to her room and change.

In keeping with a
unt Abdale’s views on her situation Lydia was afforded only the services of the upper housemaid in her endeavours to get dressed. Even this reminder of her dependent position failed to quell her spirits tonight, however, and it was with some pride that she finally admired
what reflection of herself
she could see in the tiny
, cracked
mirror in her room.

‘Well, I must say, Miss, you look just as you ought, despite what the mistress might hope,’ asserted the housemaid, with some conviction. ‘That sprig muslin of yours is just the thing for a ball like Branton I should say – far better to dress simple than be overdone and showy, be you the finest lady ever.’