The Regency (2 page)

‘I was wondering if we have just begun a child.'

‘
You said that last month, and the month before,' he said,
and was instantly sorry. 'My own love, don't worry. We've
only been married four months,' he said reasonably. 'There's
plenty of time.'

‘
I know,' she said contritely. 'I am foolish; it's just that I
love you so much, I want every time to get with child.'

‘
It
will happen, in its own time,' he said, thinking that he
was in no great hurry to have to suspend for a year the delight
of making love to her. Of course he wanted them to have
children, but he was content to wait. Tactfully, he changed
the subject. 'What do you do today?'

‘
I have some calls to make: first to return Lady Fussell's,
who called yesterday, and then I must go to see Mrs Shawe,
because she is very low after her miscarriage, poor lady — her
second in two years, James, just imagine! And then to the
village: I shall call on Widrith the weaver — oh, how hard it is
to say that name! — and Abley the baker.
I
shall order one of
his hams, I think.'

‘
My love, surely we killed a pig only two days ago?
I
may
not have much of a memory for domestic detail, but
I
do
remember Father Aislaby laughing about a fracas in the
kitchen over the trotters.'

‘
Trotters!' Héloïse repeated, rolling the 'r's voluptuously.
'What a word this is, so touching, for pig's feet! But yes, it was
because Monsieur Barnard wanted to make the feet into a
special dish for me, and Ottershaw said they are not fit to be
served to gentlefolk, which upset him. Barnard does not like
to be told his business. And so there was a trouble.'

‘
That's putting it mildly, when the cook threatens the
butler with a cleaver,' James observed.

‘
I don't think he would actually have
struck him,'
Héloïse
said judiciously. 'Only it seems there is a tradition in your kitchens that when a pig is killed the
t-r-rotters are
always kept
for the upper servants, and Ottershaw did not want to lose
them.
I
like pig's feet very much, as Barnard prepares them,'
she added musingly, 'but
I
think one could not serve them
when there is company for dinner. They have not a very
proper look.'

‘
Well then, why do you want a ham from Abley the baker?'
James asked, remembering where they had begun.

‘
Oh, not because we need one, but because he has been ill.
For several days he could not open his shop, so he has lost
much money. I shall let him overcharge me for the ham, and
that will make things easier for him. And
I
shall ask him what
is the secret of his feeding, which makes his pigs taste so much
better than ours.'

‘Do they?'

‘
No, but it will make him feel more cheerful, because
everyone likes to be asked about something they know well,
and he must be in need of cheering. It is very wearing to have
the cold in the lungs, and cough all the time. And he truly
loves his pigs, I think.’

James laughed affectionately. 'Madame Machiavelli! Do you know everything about every one of our villagers? You remind
me of Mother.'

‘
Do I?'
Héloïse
looked pleased. ‘I should like to be worthy
of her, though I am mistress of Morland Place only until
Fanny grows up. But I often think of your mother, and try to
think how she would do things, and keep her kingdom for her
properly. A sort of regency, you know.’

James looked down tenderly into her face. 'You are every
thing she could have hoped for, Marmoset. And everything I
want, too.’

Héloïse sighed with pleasure and lifted her lips for kissing.
‘But James,' she said, breaking off a moment later, 'speaking
of Fanny, it really will not do, you know. She must have a
governess.' James rolled off her, without making any reply,
and Héloïse, regarding him thoughtfully, added, 'And Sophie, too, of course. A good governess for both the girls will make
all the difference to them.'

‘
You haven't worried about a governess for Sophie until
now,' James said expressionlessly.

‘
I was used to teach Sophie myself before I married you, but now at Morland Place I have so much more to do that I
have not the time. And besides,' she added ruefully, 'my edu
cation was only such as girls were given in France before the revolution — needlework and devotions!’

James only grunted unhelpfully at the pleasantry.

‘
And besides again,' Héloïse went on frankly, 'you know
very well that Fanny would not mind me. Yes, James, do not
make faces and turn away your head! You know it is true.
Fanny does not like me.'

‘
Nonsense! If you mean that business last week, there's no
proof at all that it was Fanny who did it. I think it's very hard
the way you all automatically blame her, just as if she were
responsible for everything that happens in this house. And
even if it were Fanny,' he added with the irritability of guilt,
‘it was only a harmless prank.’

Héloïse leaned up on one elbow. 'James, she all but admitted it. And it may have been a harmless prank, as you say, to
steal a knife and cut up two of my dresses, but me, I did not
find it amusing. Fanny does not like me; and Father Aislaby
does not like
her,
and won't take any trouble with her, and
someone
must take trouble with her,
mon âme,
or she will grow up very strange, and be unhappy. I am sure she is not happy now, no, even doing what she likes all the time. ‘Do
what you will' is not a good thing for a child. You must
engage a governess —
voila tout.'

‘
A gaoler, you mean,' James muttered. He stared stonily at
the canopy for a moment longer, and then sighed and yielded,
turning onto his side to look at his wife. 'Oh Marmoset, I
worry so much about her! When she was born, and Mother
first put her into my arms, I thought I should die from so
much love! She was so perfect, so untouched and innocent. I
thought I would devote my life to her. I thought she would
make everything right for me. I was lonely when I was a child,
and I determined she should never feel that way. And her
mother never cared for her, so I had to care twice as much. But somehow, it didn't answer. She seems to get more wild
and difficult all the time. When I saw your dresses all cut to
shreds —’

He broke off, and his expression was painful. Héloïse
understood the agony of divided loyalty he must have felt, and still be feeling: loving her, and loving his daughter, he must want so much to convince himself that Fanny had not
meant ill by her 'prank'.

‘
Well,
mon âme,
I have told you what,' she said comfort
ably, making her voice matter-of-fact for his sake. 'Find a
good governess — a woman of learning, whose character is
firm, and whose heart is warm -- and let her devote herself to Fanny, and you will see all will be well. I wish we might find
someone like Lucy's good Miss Trotton! She is exactly the sort
of woman who would suit.'

‘
Do you think so?' James said, already more cheerful. ‘I am
not averse from bribing Trot to change establishments, if you
think it will serve! Offer her twice the salary Lucy gives her,
perhaps? Or would a sum of money, cash to invest in the
Funds, be more to the purpose?'

‘
Now it is you who are Machiavelli,' Héloïse smiled, and
allowed herself to be engulfed again. How easily James was
swayed into optimism, she reflected, when it came to his way
ward daughter; for herself, she had been much perturbed
over the knife incident, though she had made light of her
fear, not to put ideas in Fanny's head. She did not believe
that the hiring of a governess, even one like Miss Trotton,
would put everything right in an instant, but it seemed to her essential that someone should have continuous charge of the
child. She must not be allowed to run all over the country
unattended as she did now. It was not only the question of the
harm to Fanny's manners and morals, but of the harm she
might do to others. Where had she got the knife, for instance?
It had not come from Morland Place. Héloïse had a mother's
vulnerability towards her own little Sophie and Thomas. She
could not really believe that an eleven-year-old child would
actually do them violence, but she would not have them
bullied or oppressed if she could help it, and Fanny was more
than equal to that.

But she seemed to have carried the first point, at all events;
James would no longer resist the idea of a governess; and as
he was now giving serious consideration to the question of
how much of his tongue would fit into her left ear, she felt
obliged to leave further discussion for another time. The
dressing-bell had not yet been rung: there was at least
another quarter of an hour, she estimated happily, before
they need get up.

*

The subject of her stepmother's musings was at that moment
only a few yards away, in the chapel gallery. Crouching down,
Fanny could look through the pierced-work of the balustrade
without being seen, and watch Beamish, the altar-boy of the day, lighting the candles and setting things out for the early
celebration. Yesterday Beamish had been held up to Fanny as
a model of youthful piety and good behaviour by Father
Aislaby, who had discovered her playing cat's cradle during
vespers. Now Fanny meant to get even with him.

In one hand she held a short length of narrow pipe, which
she had taken from the back of the blacksmith's forge, and in
the other a few dried peas. When the moment came, and
Beamish was in the right place, she would let fly at him. A
dried pea, striking the right, tender place with sufficient
force, could hurt a surprising amount. If he were to drop and
break a candle he would find himself in trouble. At the very
least, he would probably let out a yell, which would earn him
a reprimand; and in the dimly-lit chapel he would never know
what hit him.