Indiscretion (23 page)

‘I am glad to hear it, Miss Fanny
—
do you hear, my love? Here is a compliment to you, for you are the sweet inspiration behind all such things. Indeed I would say, Miss Fanny, that I never knew felicity, until
...’
A cloud passing across Mr Hampson’s brow, suggested that even he began to detect a certain staleness in the figure: but he turned it smartly, going on: ‘Until I knew matrimony. And on the subject of entertainments, Miss Fanny, I may add that we intend a supper and carpet-dance at the Grange on Friday next, to which we would be very glad to welcome you, and all the present company.’

‘Do you suppose, my love
... ?’
Mrs Hampson made some girlish mouthings and chuckles at her husband. ‘Do you suppose
... ?
That our picture will be ready by then?’

‘My sweet girl, it is hardly begun! But I know what you mean
—
I do share your impatience to see it
—
to see
us,
immortalized, impregnated
—
do I mean impregnated? I fancy not
—
to see us fixed, at any rate, in paint. We are having a bridal portrait painted,’ he pursued, smiling on Aunt Selina. ‘And no doubt, ma’am, you are ready to call us monstrous vain for it!’

‘Not at all
—
a charming notion, Mr Hampson. You have been sitting to the artist already?’

‘Aye, aye
—
a remarkable young fellow, comes to us for the sittings. He has been engaged upon some views at Hinchingbrooke, but is turning his hand to domestic portraiture also, for select clients. I have studied his samples: they are very good, very lifelike: still, you know, I am a little anxious for the outcome: I am anxious that he should do
justice
to my Felicity.’

As it was difficult to conceive of an artist being actually unflattering to Mrs Hampson, short of painting her with a horse-collar and tusks, there was not much that even Aunt Selina’s politeness could find to reply to this beyond a smile and a murmured agreement. Fanny, however, had not done with her own subject.

‘You must promise, Bella, that when you are married you will be regularly giving parties, and keeping more company than anyone in the county
—
indeed you must, you are our only hope — and is there not at Hethersett a room quite large enough to accommodate a creditable private ball? I went there only once, and did not see all over the house, but I’m sure I remember Richard speaking of such a room.’

‘It is not proper to speak of your sister’s fiance so,’ Lady Milner said relentlessly.

‘Oh, well, he is
nearly
my brother-in-law
—
isn’t he?’ Fanny went on, unperturbed. ‘And when he is, I may call him by his first name, so it is only anticipating a little. Indeed, Stephen, how long
are
we to be anticipating? When is this wedding to be?’

‘My dear Fanny, why ask me? I’m not marrying him.’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. Here have we been waiting for you to come home and get matters settled with Isabella, and you remain so provokingly indifferent.’

‘What matters?’

Caroline could not keep silent. ‘A woman going to be married likes to have such things as the date of the wedding fixed, Mr Milner
—
and so, accordingly, orders made for trousseaus and lace and such, and preparations for removal
—
matters very trifling to the male mind, I know.’

Mr Milner raised his eyebrows, drank his wine, and looked over at Isabella. ‘Well, what say you, Bella? Are you all for getting these matters settled?’

‘As I have mentioned to you, Stephen,’ she answered, her voice quiet, but her eyes shining, ‘I really would like to be married before Christmas, if it were possible: and you know Richard is now on his way home, and writes me that he is in perfect agreement.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Mr Milner said, after studying her for a moment. ‘It doesn’t leave a great deal of time for the arrangements; and I really don’t see the need for haste. Consider: you have not been properly acquainted above eight months, nor engaged above four. This is not much. People in romances, you know, wait for each other for years. And if it is a true, sound attachment, as I am assured it is, then it must be a hardy plant, and will not wilt and wither for a little delay’

‘But if it is a true, sound attachment, then it needs no delay’ Caroline said to him. ‘And besides, Mr Milner, how can you, who are so avowed an enemy of matrimony, presume to this expertise on the subject?’

‘Oh, very easily,’ he replied with energy. ‘A man who stands aloof on a high hill looking down on a landscape, sees it much more clearly than one grubbing about down there in the boggy lowlands.’

‘The elegance of your language is overpowering.’

‘I’ve always thought so,’ he said, with a comfortable smile, then, turning: ‘But be it as you will, Bella. As soon as Richard is back at Hethersett, let us meet and make our plans, and talk deeply of lace. I still think there is no need for hurry
—
and you might at least credit me, you know, with a generous motive, that I don’t want to lose my dear sister.’

‘I might, but I won’t,’ said Isabella, cheerfully. ‘You’ll hardly notice I’m gone, knowing you, Stephen; and besides, I am not moving far away, certainly not far enough to talk of losing.’

‘Ah, Hethersett is all very well, and not far as the crow flies,’ he said, gravely shaking his head, ‘but it is, after all, over the border
—
over into Northamptonshire: where folk are queer, so I hear. They butter their bread before slicing it, and no good can come of
that,
Miss Fortune, you’ll be the first to agree.’

‘I didn’t know we were so close to Northamptonshire,’ Caroline said, again tempted to smile, yet troubled also by some fugitive memory.

‘Very close,’ he said solemnly, patting her hand, ‘but don’t fear: if they try to invade us, we shall hurl them back across the Ouse; and then we can always retreat to the fortress of St Neots, and wait for our allies of Cambridgeshire to arrive, with their fierce eels-of-war, and the army of Norfolk firing dumplings into the sky
—’

‘Mr Milner
—
I make one simple remark, and you turn madman!’

‘Yes, Stephen,’ Lady Milner said precisely, cutting across Caroline’s laughter. ‘Miss Fortune did not mean anything of that kind, only that she is unacquainted with the local geography. Here we are at the meeting of the eastern and midland counties, Miss Fortune,’ she went on instructively, ‘and when Isabella becomes Mrs Richard Leabrook of Hethersett, she will become a resident of Northamptonshire, though only six miles away.’

‘Yes,’ Caroline said, faintly and mechanically. ‘Yes, I see.’

Something
—
some kind, tutelary spirit
—
had prevented her crying out at that name, but it had been a close-run thing; and now, while Lady Milner continued with some dusty remarks about county boundaries, she must somehow contain her shock and dismay, and try to make sense of this critical information.

Her reeling mind snatched at one desperate chance, only to relinquish it after a moment. It could not be a different Richard Leabrook. There might conceivably be two John Smiths with estates in Northamptonshire: but this name was not common. No: Isabella’s intended husband could be none other than the same Mr Leabrook whom Caroline had met at Brighton. The same Mr Leabrook who
—
while engaged to that gentle, trusting young woman at the other end of the table
—
had coolly attempted Caroline’s seduction.

Caroline blinked down at her plate. There was roast duck upon it. She could not imagine how it had got there. She did not even like roast duck. She reached for her wine-glass: that, alas, was empty, though she could not recall draining it.

Was there any other possible explanation? Caroline prided herself on an inventive mind: probably this was an inheritance from her father, who could persuade himself of the most elaborate impossibilities; but here there was no sidestepping the plain, solid facts. She had encountered Isabella’s
fiancé
before, and from that encounter knew him to be, beneath an apparently amiable exterior, a callous and unprincipled libertine.

Her mind grasped desperately again at a passing hope
—
only to drop it as a disgusting absurdity: the suggestion that Isabella might already
know
this about her fiance’s propensities, and not mind. A greater nonsense could not be conceived. Far more probable, far more sadly probable, was the reverse: that Isabella was deceived, as Caroline had been at first, in her estimate of Mr Leabrook’s character.

All at once she found her glass being refilled: by Stephen Milner himself, who had taken the wine from the manservant’s hands. She was grateful, but his eyes were dwelling curiously on her, and she hardly knew how she would manage speech.

‘You are very silent, Miss Fortune.’

‘Oh
—
I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be: I consider it a promising development.’

‘Indeed: perhaps you can consider something else while you are about it, and that is how it is possible to be
very
silent, when silence is an absolute. You would not say that I was
very
perfect, would you?’

‘No,’ he said gravely, ‘I certainly would not say that.’

There was after all a certain relief, for the moment, in quibbling as usual with Mr Milner; and it reassured her at least that she could present a normal appearance: but it could not long divert her thoughts from her disturbing discovery. She found herself gazing so fixedly at Isabella that at last her friend showed signs of discomfort, and began wiping her lips and adjusting her fichu, as if afraid there must be something amiss with her appearance.

‘Now tell us, Caroline, what do you think of long engagements?’ came Fanny’s voice
—
not, just then, a welcome sound.

‘I think there is something to be said for them,’ she answered after a moment, ‘because in an engagement, at least, one has a choice of duration: whereas in marriage itself there is no choice: all marriages are long
—
lifelong.’

Aunt Selina smiled, and Mr Milner laughed, though in fact there were serious and even foreboding thoughts behind Caroline’s words.

‘Lifelong
—
ah, thank the stars for it!’ sighed Mr Hampson, gazing with renewed uxoriousness on his well-feeding bride. ‘Thank heaven, I should say’

‘That’s where the stars are, Mr Hampson,’ Fanny informed him.

‘So they are, Miss Fanny,’ Mr Hampson serenely agreed, ‘and that is where I am, and have been, every day since I became united to one in whom the brilliance of the stars themselves is united with such other qualities, too many to enumerate, as can only make a man hope to deserve the good fortune which placed in his way such a prize that
...’
Mr Hampson, running out of breath and grammar, paused to blow a kiss at Mrs Hampson, and then concluded more succinctly: ‘Miss Milner, I wish you the same joy as I have found!’

So do I, thought Caroline, finding she had drained her glass again: so do I, and yet I fear, I do fear, that with Richard Leabrook you won’t find it.

These anxious reflections were still occupying her when the ladies moved to the drawing room, and she could almost have wished to stay with the gentlemen and the port: for now any quietness or abstraction on her part must be more conspicuous; and moreover Isabella, all in a glow, moved in for
a
tête-à-tête
as
soon as the tea was poured. Her brother’s acquiescence had transformed her: and now, indeed, the reserve with which she had been accustomed to speak of her forthcoming marriage began to break down
—
now she must be talking of Mr Leabrook; though characteristically she was apologetic about it.

‘I know it must be a great bore for other people to have to listen to such things, which is why I try not to keep harping on it
—
but now that the wedding is fixed, or nearly, I cannot help but be excited.’

‘My dear girl, other people? I’m not one of those, I’m your friend, and there is nothing I would like better than to hear all about it.’ Such must be her reply, out of very affection for Isabella: even though there was no more uncomfortable subject imaginable than Mr Richard Leabrook. ‘So do tell, when did you first meet the
—
the gentleman?’

‘Well, we have been acquainted with the Leabrooks for some time
—
that is, Papa knew Richard’s late father, and things like that. But I was first introduced to Richard at the spring assize ball in Huntingdon. We talked, and danced
—
he is very elegant dancer.’

I know, thought Caroline, smiling, and in agony.

‘And the next morning he called, and
—
well, I’m afraid this will sound monstrously giddy and girlish, but that was it: I knew all: my fate was most happily sealed. Or my goose was cooked, if you prefer
—
that would be Stephen’s language. Oh, there goes my neck.’