Indiscretion (29 page)

‘I see,’ said Caroline, unmoved, and pleased to find herself so. ‘Well, Miss Downey, with no disrespect to you, I must tell you I do not at all care what Mrs Catling thinks or says about me. I feel able to say this, because I understood that was your position also.’

‘So it was,’ Maria said, with a pretty yawn and a distant look; and then, shaking herself, ‘So it is, my dear. Though I must tell
you,
or at least I don’t have to but I may as well, that my own independence of Aunt Sophia now stands upon shakier ground. You remember I told you of my rich overseas gentleman, who was going to make me what the novelists call His Own as soon as he had settled his affairs in the West Indies? Alas, a letter has reached me across those unthinkable seas — what is the
point
of all that water, I’d like to know? — which gives me to understand that he must linger longer under the tropic sun. How much longer linger? Ah, on that point he is vague, again as only a man can be — but I am not to look for his return in the near future, and indeed he suggests that I should not consider myself bound by any sort of engagement, as that would be shockingly unfair to
me.
In short, my dear, I am jilted! Is it not monstrous inconvenient?’

‘Something worse than that, I would say,’ Caroline answered, studying Maria’s exquisitely
inexcitable
face. ‘Though I do not know how deeply your feelings
—’

‘They were not deeply anything, my dear, thank heaven, but it is a great nuisance nonetheless. But what you say about Aunt Sophia is absolutely right, of course, and I certainly do not intend to begin fighting Matthew for her favour now. It would be too ghastly. No, I must look elsewhere. Truth to tell, when we came away from
Brighton I remember thinking, I doubt that poor girl will last a month — not because you didn’t handle her well, my dear, you handled her better than practically everyone — but simply because there
is
no pleasing her. Well, I’m glad it has all turned out for the best anyhow, and that you are comfortably situated at last. You are in delightful looks, you odious creature. Is it the country air? I do not mean an aspersion: I am beginning to think this the best sort of life, after all. That angelic being on Mr Leabrook’s arm must be his future bride, I think?’

‘Isabella. Yes, she — he is a very lucky man.’

‘And they smile at each other, and seem fond of each other, and everything! Really this is so much better than overseas gentlemen and their empty promises. I must look about me. Let’s see, who is that very long-legged man who took himself off
—
the one with the provokingly sleepy eyes?’

‘Oh! That’s Stephen — Mr Stephen Milner, that is. Isabella’s brother. Oh, no, you had better look elsewhere, believe me.’

‘Why? Is he taken?’

‘No, no,’ said Caroline, beginning to find, for some reason, the touch of Miss Downey’s silken arm through hers rather annoying. ‘It is not that at all. Only that you would have to work very hard to captivate
that
gentleman. Indeed, he might as well be in the West Indies, for all the effect you will have on him.’

‘Better and better — I enjoy a challenge. My dear, I must go and get my introduction to the future Mrs Leabrook, and then perhaps I can secure one with her brother. Adieu for the moment — we shall see a lot of you, shan’t we? — we stay a fortnight at least. Meeting you again, you know, is quite the most
...’
A lazy laugh supplied the end of the sentence as Maria’s elegant form rippled away.

Left alone, Caroline examined her own peculiar feeling of irritation. She liked Maria well enough, after all: nothing had been said that could offend. She just kept thinking of that word
danglers,
and how very true it was: for here was Maria dangling after Stephen Milner, even if only in jest, barely minutes after first setting eyes on him.

Here was Maria, and here surely must be Matthew: but she could not yet see any dark young gentleman being unnecessarily intense, and she took the opportunity of bracing herself with wine before Isabella came upon her, asked her happily if she were not glad she had come after all, and bore her off to make an introduction.

This was to a lady seated in throne-like state on a sofa before the fire — Lady Milner would be jealous of that, Caroline thought — and who seemed to be receiving a file of visitors in appropriately royal style. She was Mr Leabrook’s mother, as might have been surmised from the aquiline good looks valiantly resisting the conquest of fat; and she was not at all intimidating, Isabella confided in Caroline’s ear as they approached, in the way that a prospective mother-in-law was supposed to be. This Caroline found, in the course of a short interview, to be quite true: for to intimidate, one must be aware of the victim, and Mrs Leabrook would have talked on if you had fallen at her feet in a dead faint. She was a garrulous woman who had long been listened to with rather too much indulgence, and who was a little too inclined to consider herself a Character, on no greater evidence than a continual compulsion to talk about herself, and some large rings. Caroline, in a rare moment of silence occasioned by the necessity of Mrs Leabrook’s sipping her tea, remarked how admirably fitted out the ballroom was.

‘It is admirably fitted out. I told Richard, when we were making things ready today, I observed to him that it was admirably fitted out at last: the dining-parlour too, I am of the opinion that a dining-parlour sets the tone of the house, I remember telling my cousin so, my cousin Mrs Lilley, the Lilleys at Kesteven, it was when they were refurbishing the Great House, before that they had lived in the Dower House because of the repairs but I always said to them they would not be as drastic as they thought and, ah —’
here Mrs Leabrook, with a technique a flautist would have envied, drew breath whilst still talking
‘—
and I find this is pretty much always the case, though I can say that here at Hethersett there is very little to choose: the Dower House is rather newer than this house and in very good repair, and I don’t at all mind removing there when Richard marries, it will suit me very well because for one thing it is closer at hand to my poultry-yard and my dovecotes, and I think it a very good thing that these improvements have been made before he marries: it is what I have always advocated, indeed I have been saying so to him for years and years and years and years and years, and, ah
—’
Here Caroline lost the thread, as she fell to wondering why the succinct expression
years and years,
which sufficiently conveyed the passage of time, was deemed inadequate by Mrs Leabrook. But she was not long in considering the mystery: the woman
would
be talking, and for someone so minded, any words would do. Caroline spent the remainder of her audience nodding and wondering, charitably, whether it was nerves that made her hostess like this; and was able to move away at last, with a polite nod and smile, in the comfortable certainty that it was not so, and that no more complex explanation was needed than that Mrs Leabrook was very talkative, very self-absorbed, and very stupid.

Still there was, as Isabella had said, nothing to fear from her: everything, indeed, appeared set fair for this marriage
—
with the single exception of Caroline’s dark knowledge; and that began to seem more and more like some deceptive dream as the rooms filled with chattering guests, and Mr Richard Leabrook, welcoming and welcomed, moved genially among them.

‘I know,’ said Fanny, suddenly appearing beside Caroline, and nodding towards the figure of their host, ‘I often look at him too, and think how splendid that Bella is going to be married to him. I have already introduced him to Mr Carraway
—
and he is most interested, as I thought, in patronizing an artist of such promise
—
and in short he could hardly be better, considering he is getting towards the age of thirty, when really not much is to be expected from people. At least, not in this dismal country
—
London I dare say is different
—
people are surely not so staid and fudgy there. Charles has lived in London
—
Mr Carraway, I should say
—
oh, but I needn’t trouble about that with
you,
need I?’

‘Well, I am not about to reprimand you for calling a young man by his first name. I know it is supposed to be very shocking, but I have never quite seen why.’

‘Exactly! If only everyone thought like you. Just as the world makes a great fuss if a woman and a man who are not engaged or married write each other letters
—
is this not the most absurdly repressive convention?’

‘I confess I do not see the harm in it,’ Caroline answered honestly: though with a faint suspicion that what she was agreeing to was not a general proposition, but something rather more specific
—
a suspicion that deepened as she saw the burning look Fanny bestowed on the figure of Charles Carraway, who was paying his respects to his hostess.

‘Do you know? I have sometimes felt I would go
mad
for the lack of someone to confide in,’ Fanny said. ‘Bella is dear, and sympathetic, but she so wants to believe the best of everyone, and that makes her rather conventional. Whereas you
—
I feel I could say anything to you, and you would understand and not judge!’

‘My dear Fanny, there are limits. If you told me you had put poison in Lady Milner’s tea and intended burying her under the summer-house, I should feel obliged to say something, and might even judge you with a certain degree of severity’ Caroline spoke lightly, but with purpose also
—
for she detected an actual confidence coming, and was anxious to deflect it. She was burdened with quite enough secrets.

And here came the donor of one of them now: Matthew Downey. ‘Miss Fortune, is this not remarkable? How do you do
—
and ‘who would have thought?
—
is it not remarkable? I am so very glad to see you again
—
and you know I never say these things out of mere form
—
really there was never anything so remarkable
...’
Matthew went on remarking on the remarkableness for so long that Fanny, who was in any case itching to rejoin Mr Carraway, made a swift escape, and left Caroline alone with him.

‘And so you have actually discovered a long-lost family
—
quite a delightful and romantic notion: and I who have known what it is to have a family’s love, Miss Fortune, can certainly rejoice for you in that. Indeed, to tell the truth when I knew you at Brighton I used to pity you for being so alone in the world.’

Caroline was about as fond of being made an object of pity as most people, but she managed to smile her gratitude for this evidence of Mr Downey’s sensibility.

‘Of course it is a thousand pities you were unable to continue in your service to Aunt Sophia. I really believed you suited her well, and was pleased to think of her with such a companion
—
yes, I truly thought you worthy of the place.’

‘Thank you,’ Caroline said peaceably. ‘But there, I’m very happily situated now, and all is for the best. But now, how do things fare with you, Mr Downey? There was a certain lady whose name begins with P whom you used to tell me of: she is well, I hope?’

‘Of course, you must often have thought of that,’ he said, beaming. ‘She is well
—
yes, I thank you, the heavens be praised, she continues well
—
and even bears up under the strain of this intolerable secrecy, which, to be frank with you, grows worse and worse. And yet it is more necessary than ever. I regret to tell you, Miss Fortune, that greatly as I esteem her, there is no denying that Aunt Sophia’s temper has become more exacting.’

As no one was better qualified to testify to that than Caroline herself, she did not know quite how to answer: not that this greatly mattered, as Matthew was as willing as ever to dominate the conversation.

‘I had allowed myself lately to hope that she and I stood on terms of better accord, without those — those misunderstandings to which we were so sadly prone,’ he went on, working his hand through his hair and breathing dramatically through his nose. ‘But, alas, she is in an unhappy humour again, and I hardly know how to please her. This visit to Leabrook, now — she pressed it strongly, absolutely insisted that we go, and then on our departure seemed to reproach me for going off on a jaunt when she was all alone.’ Matthew sighed. ‘I do wish, you know, that she had not been forced to dismiss you, Miss Fortune — it was a thousand pities for everyone!’

Caroline restrained her tongue for a moment while she made absolutely sure she had heard him right. ‘Mr Downey, to say that Mrs Catling
was forced
to dismiss me is to put a very strange construction on the matter. You know — Maria has told me so — what happened: my father had died, I wished to go to his funeral, and she would have prevented me: it might be truer to say that I was
forced
to leave.’

‘Ah, but she is an old lady, you know, Miss Fortune — and was, besides, very poorly at the time.’

‘She had a cold, sir, such as everyone suffers once or twice in a year; and as for making allowances for her being old, I think there is an equal case to be made on the opposite side — that is, for her being old enough to know better.’