Indiscretion (27 page)

Though his delivery of this joke was almost obstetric in its effort, Caroline could not help but laugh. Her opinion of Captain Brunton

was altered: alongside that stiffness she detected sincerity and warmth; and she was satisfied also that she understood his cryptic confidences about what kept him at Wythorpe
—
indeed, that they only confirmed what she already believed.

‘But I have wearied you, talking about myself. What do you think of the Grange
—
a handsome old building, is it not?’

Caroline agreed that it was, in some surprise: for in the first place, she had asked him about himself, and in the second, most men could talk about themselves continuously for several hours before it occurred to them that the subject might lack variety. Besides, she thought, he had not really been talking about himself: he had been talking about Lady Milner.

Well, there could only be two results. Either Lady Milner sought only the consolation of a tame suitor forever dancing attendance, or else Captain Brunton would win her. Neither would be greatly appealing to Isabella — but then that, Caroline reminded herself ruefully as she stepped into the Milners’ carriage that night and looked at her friend’s rapt moon-gazing
profile,
did not matter now: because Richard Leabrook was returned, to make everything right. She was not to be spared further reflections on the dreaded event, for Fanny was full of Mr Charles Carraway and his art, and was soon urging her sister to do something to advance them.

‘Bella, you must recommend him to Richard. He is a man of taste, isn’t he, and would always seek to patronize the arts? Well, then
—
all those expensive improvements he has made to the estate at Hethersett, surely they should be recorded in a set of landscape views, say: oh, and then a wedding portrait, why not that also? You and Richard would paint beautifully!’

‘But what you have not considered, Fanny, is whether Mr Carraway can paint beautifully, for you have not seen any of his work,’ Lady Milner said, with her customary severity
—
though not, Caroline admitted to herself, without justice. ‘The Hampsons may be pleased with his work, but for all their qualities, I would not judge them connoisseurs of art.’

‘I can tell Mr Carraway’
s
art, from his character,’ said Fanny, loftily, ‘and that is spirited, natural, forceful, and earnest. And before, Augusta, you fall into any suppositions about my having a
taking
for him, or any such vulgarly conventional nonsense, I will say I admire his intellect and his sensibility, and we find much to talk about
—
and I hope two rational creatures may do that, even in Wythorpe, without petty minds fancying an engagement.’

‘Then that is very well,’ returned Lady Milner, ‘for an engagement to a travelling painter, without family or prospects, is not something that could be seriously considered for the daughter of Sir Henry Milner, even if she were of an age to be talking of such things.’

Fanny’s mind must have reeled with so many stinging replies that selection was impossible, for she was uncharacteristically silent; while a pensive Caroline was occupied in gazing back out of the window to make sure the gentlemen were following on foot. It was not that she feared the superannuated highwayman of Mr Milners jest
—
but she did feel a curious need to know that Mr Milner was, at least for now, near.

Caroline’s first thought on waking the next morning was that Mr Richard Leabrook would be at the Manor today: her second, that she would not go anywhere near it. The encounter must come
—
why rush to meet it? But she had reckoned without Aunt Selina, who denied her the comfort of procrastination by declaring after breakfast that she would walk over to the Manor, to give Lady Milner the recipe for orange wine she had been asking about, and who naturally anticipated that Caroline would go with her. There was no excuse Caroline could make that would not appear altogether strange: so she must perforce put on her bonnet and set out with her aunt, clinging only to a morsel of hope that Mr Leabrook would be tardy in his visit, and they could get away before he arrived.

Turning out of Rectory Lane into the High Street, Caroline did experience a moment of pure curiosity
—
about what it would be like to see Mr Leabrook again, and how he would react, and what would happen
—
almost as if this were happening to someone else; in which case she would find the whole thing rather interesting. However, a moment later her heart sank again under the renewed knowledge that this
was
happening to her; and a few moments after that, every thought and feeling was thrown into disarray by the sound of a horse’s hoofs, and by her turning to behold Mr Richard Leabrook, coming up behind them, mounted on a fine bay.

Aunt Selina, turning too, called out a cordial greeting. Mr Leabrook reined in, doffed his hat
—
and saw Caroline’s face.

‘Mr Leabrook, how do you do? We heard you were returned to us. Will you allow me to introduce my niece, Miss Caroline Fortune? She has come to live with us at the Rectory. My dear, Mr Leabrook, of whom you have heard tell.’

For an instant, as he gazed upon Caroline, Mr Leabrook’s handsome face wore the look of a man who had been mortally offended. It was followed by a fleeting expression that might have been fear; and then, with the self-command that she remembered, he gathered himself, and turned his face into a mask of absolute indifference.

‘How do you do?’ he said, and then: ‘I trust, ma’am, I find you and
Dr Langland
well.’

So, he was not to acknowledge her. While Aunt Selina replied, all Caroline’s anxieties and misgivings were swept aside by a sudden wave of anger. She had a vivid memory of the last time he had come to Mrs Catling’s house, when he had coolly contrived to treat Caroline as if she did not exist. Now here he was, aloof and sleek as his thoroughbred mount, doing the same again. It was this anger, rather than any other consideration, that brought her to decision.

‘In fact, Aunt, Mr Leabrook and I have met before,’ she said.

Aunt Selina looked her surprise.

‘At Brighton,’ Caroline pursued. ‘Do you recall, sir?’

‘Ah. I believe so, yes.’ He inclined his head a very little: he would not lose his composure again, but she had the sense of a victory, especially when, responding to a very slight shake of the bridle, he said in a regretful tone: ‘This horse of mine never will wait. You are going on to the Manor, I take it? I shall have the honour of seeing you there anon: pray excuse me going ahead. Mrs Langland: Miss Fortune.’

Horse and rider went elegantly on their way; and Aunt Selina remarked, with a slight smile of approbation: ‘He is in a hurry to see Isabella, no doubt. But, my dear, fancy you knowing Mr Leabrook after all! From Brighton, you said?’

‘Knowing only slightly. Mrs Catling kept so much company there
—
one met everybody’

Her aunt appeared satisfied with this; but Caroline could find no equivalent satisfaction in their meeting, beyond that small pleasure of having taken him off guard. Seeing him in the flesh had reminded her yet more forcibly of how much reason she had to dislike and mistrust him; and he, while giving little away, had given enough to show that those feelings were certainly mutual. She could anticipate nothing good from their relation: at best, there must be awkwardness and discomfort: at worst
—
well, there she did not like to let her imagination trespass; and she could not even feel the relief of having got the meeting over with, as it must in a sense be gone through again when they arrived at the house.

There they found all the family gathered in the drawing room: Mr Leabrook attentively seated next to Isabella, who was pink, bright-eyed, and embarrassed with pleasure. She put out her hand warmly to Caroline, crying: ‘Oh, Caro, I have looked forward to this moment
—
now I can introduce you
—’

‘Ah, I was going to say, my dear,’ Mr Leabrook put in smiling, ‘Miss Fortune and I were reacquainted in the lane just now. Reacquainted, yes: we happened to meet when I was down at Brighton in the summer.’

‘Really? How curious! My dear Caro, fancy not saying you already knew Mr Leabrook.’

‘Oh, I have absolutely no memory for names,’ Caroline said, with a wave of her hand, ‘that was why. But when I saw Mr Leabrook’s face
—
why,
then
I remembered.’

A short bow was all the response he gave to this: his expression was absolutely unrevealing, even if, to Caroline, his silence was not; and soon he was being loaded with enquiries about the relations in the north whom he had been visiting, about his mother’s health, about the state of the harvest at Hethersett, and so on. Fanny also was not slow in telling him of Mr Carraway and pressing the painter’s talents on his attention. To all of this Mr Leabrook was apparently as calm, easy, and gracious in reply as Caroline remembered him from Brighton, before her disillusion: but in a man of such polished manner, it was hard to tell whether or not there were really perturbation beneath the surface.

At length, however, the claims of engagement were acknowledged, and Mr Leabrook and Isabella went out to walk together in the gardens. Caroline struggled to compose her own feelings, which were more agitated than she had foreseen by the sight of the trusting Isabella on the arm of a man whom she knew to be so duplicitous; and, feeling unequal to conversation, was grateful for the talkative Fanny, who readily took up the burden.

‘There — I knew there was something else — I was going to scold Richard about giving a ball at Hethersett. We
must
have one soon, else I shall perish.’

‘My dear Fanny, surely the winter assemblies at Huntingdon begin in a month’s time,’ Aunt Selina said.

‘So they do, Aunt: and perhaps when I am as old as — that is, when I am serene and full of years, a month will not seem a long time, but I assure you just now it does. Besides, Hethersett is very much a place worth seeing, and Caroline, you know, has not seen it yet - and so, what more pretext is needed?’

‘Greater pretext,’ Lady Milner corrected her.

‘Caroline, you must back me up,’ Fanny insisted. ‘He cannot resist us both.’

‘Miss Fortune does not seem to share your eagerness, Fanny,’ said Stephen Milner, infuriatingly, as Caroline hesitated. ‘You needn’t fear, I shall be quite happy to favour you again with my one dance, Miss Fortune, even though I have already done so once. I’m generous like that.’

‘I’m overpowered by your liberality, Mr Milner, but I must insist that you grant the favour to some other fortunate girl next time. The unforgettable experience of performing a cotillion with a dancing bear is not one I would wish to arrogate entirely to myself.’

She had meant only to answer him in kind, but it came out, to her own ears at least, quite acid; Lady Milner forgot to primp long enough to look surprised, and Stephen’s eye fell on her more ironically than ever. I am betraying myself, she thought: I must be natural; but it was hard, especially when she had just caught a glimpse, through the window, of Isabella and Mr Leabrook walking arm-inarm across the sunlit lawn, with Isabella’s gold-fair head inclined confidingly towards his shoulder. In fact vexation was now the first among Caroline’s contending emotions, for it seemed miserably unfair that she alone was in this position. If only those danglers, Matthew and Maria, had not fallen in with Mr Leabrook on the road to Brighton, she would now be in a state of pleasant insensibility
—
looking forward to the prospect of a ball, wondering whether there would be white satin worn at Isabella’s wedding, but able to think of other things just as easily, and with no great consequence depending on any of them. Instead there was this torment: and though she was soon granted the relief of the visit coming to an end, worse was to follow, for Stephen himself invited the Rectory family to come back and dine with them later.

Again there was no possibility of escape without drawing to herself exactly the kind of attention she sought to evade: and Caroline actually wished she could have been the sort of vaporous irritating girl who was forever having headaches, for then she could have pleaded one without undue comment, and stayed home. Instead she found herself that evening seated, perforce, at the same dining-table with Mr Richard Leabrook
—
only two places away from him, indeed: so that he was able, early on, to turn to her and say: ‘Miss Fortune, I am informed you have suffered a signal loss: pray accept my commiserations: and also my sincere hope that you find yourself happily settled with your aunt.’

It was said with perfect correctness, and indeed delicacy: obviously Isabella had talked to him, freely and innocently, of her friend’s history, and he was making the appropriate response; and only the absolute blankness of his eyes, while his lips pronounced these words, revealed his true feeling. Caroline thanked him in the same mechanical way. Here was the summit of awkwardness and unreality: she felt it acutely, and was sure he must too; and though they exchanged few remarks after this opening, somehow she felt his eyes often on her, like a chill draught from an unknown source.

Fanny soon returned to the attack about a ball at Hethersett, in spite of her stepmother’s reproofs; but Mr Leabrook was in any case quite amenable. ‘An excellent notion,’ he said. ‘I have some company coming up from London at the end of next week, and I was a little concerned for their entertainment. I dare say we could muster twenty couple, if the weather remains tolerable: and the Hethersett road has lately been mended. I wonder when the moon will be at the full
—’
‘Thursday sennight, sir,’ put in Captain Brunton, who had been more than usually quiet.

‘Ah? I’m obliged to you
—
then Thursday sennight it shall be. Does that meet with your approval, Miss Fanny?’

‘That is just the sort of decisiveness I like,’ Fanny said, ‘and now all that remains is to badger you about Mr Carraway again.’

‘No need: Mr Carraway may certainly come to the ball: I shall be happy to meet him. Beyond that, Miss Fanny, I make no promises, not even to oblige my future sister-in-law.’

‘Hey, well, brother-in-law, that’s good enough
—
at least you have no qualms about inviting a mere painter to a reception. Augusta thinks he must be quite below the salt, you know.’

‘Fanny, you misrepresent me,’ her stepmother intoned. ‘I remarked only that, without independent means, the young man’s place in society must be an insecure one.’ ‘Pooh, genius can disregard society.’

‘That is exactly what it cannot do,’ said Lady Milner. ‘Mr Leabrook, do you not agree?’

‘I do not underestimate the power of society
—
but I am rather inclined to Miss Fanny’s belief, if it be that talents are as much to be valued as birth or fortune.’

‘More
to be valued!’ cried Fanny.

‘This may be very well as a principle
—
but what you, Fanny, would call dreary practicalities must be considered, else they may lead to far drearier practicalities,’ Lady Milner said. ‘In the choices of life, prudence is not necessarily a denial of happiness: it may be the very means to that end.’

‘Lord, Augusta, you are marrying me off again
—
when I told you that Mr Carraway
interests
me, no more nor less: because he does not tell me how many birds he bagged this morning, and chuckle at everything I say’

‘I am misrepresented again
—
you see how it is, Mr Leabrook!’ Lady Milner sighed. ‘If I am over-cautious, it is because I must act, you know,
in loco parentis;
and one would see the young
—
that is, those who are on the threshold of life
—
well advised. Mr Leabrook, now: you would not wish to see your sister throw herself away, would you?’

‘Of course not, madam: yet I still believe that inclination, not calculation, is the soundest basis for matrimony. I must believe it, you know, simply because it is what I have followed,’ Mr Leabrook said, with a smile and a bow of his head to his
fiancée.
He only showed so much deference to Lady Milner, Caroline observed; and that, of course, would please Isabella.

‘And how is your sister
—
Georgiana, isn’t it? Is she still at school?’ asked Aunt Selina.

‘She does very well, Mrs Langland, I thank you
—
knows her own mind wonderfully, and will be directed by no one, and thinks all her elders fools, which no doubt we are. She continues at school for another year, if they will have her.’