Indiscretion (37 page)

‘Oh, Bella, I don’t know what to say,’ Caroline said.

You needn’t say anything, Caro, because you have done the right thing and now you are vindicated!’ Fanny put in.

‘Be quiet, Fanny, and, no, she isn’t,’ Stephen growled. ‘Miss Fortune, our friend Leabrook denies your story emphatically: but then he would. If it is true, he is a villain: if it is not, you are. What matters is what Isabella thinks and feels, and as it appears she cannot quite feel the same about him just now as formerly, I proposed the wedding be put off.’

‘Bella?’ Caroline asked, drawing tentatively closer to the writing-desk. ‘Is that ‘what you want?’

‘I want,’ Isabella said, examining her pen, ‘I want none of this to have happened. I want it all as before
—
but of course that’s impossible. And so, while I cannot believe what you have told me about Richard, I cannot
—
cannot quite
disbelieve
it either: because I cannot believe you are
...
what he said you are.’

‘Well,’ Caroline said, her throat tight, ‘thank you for that
—
but I wish it had come to no such choice, Bella, truly
—’

‘I’m sure, my dear,’ Isabella said, with a sunken smile, ‘and I wish
we
could simply go back to the way we were together, but I
—’
She frowned at her writing as if it were Chinese. ‘Forgive me, I can’t be very welcoming just now, because when I look at you I think of
him,
and so
—
we are perhaps not the best company for one another at present.’

‘Yes,’ Caroline said, miserably regarding Isabella’s tense shoulder, ‘yes, I see.’

‘Bella, really! You should be thanking Caro
—’

‘Not your business, Fanny’ Stephen said firmly, ‘and I wish it were not mine either, but it is, God help me.’ He had perched himself on the windowsill, from which he could sweep them all with his scornful look. ‘We need not be quite so apocalyptic about it. As I told Leabrook, if he is genuine, then he won’t mind waiting anyhow. He has gone off in what your romance-writers call high dudgeon, but I don’t suppose that will last.’

‘He is a proud man, Stephen,’ Lady Milner put in, with a slight shake of her head.

‘Besides, surely Bella would
never
wish to be reconciled with a man who behaved so monstrously,’ said Fanny hotly.

‘Again that depends on what Bella thinks and feels,’ Stephen said, irritably tugging at his loosened cravat as if he longed to shed and throw something else, ‘and that is Bella’s business only, though I would suggest that time is exactly the thing needed to put those thoughts and feelings in order. And I say again, Isabella, there will also be time enough later to write those damned letters.’

‘But you must consider, Stephen, that an engagement is a public matter,’ Lady Milner said, ‘and society is apt to take a great interest
—’
‘Society! Society my
—
ah, I suppose so,’ Stephen said, subsiding into saturnine gloom.

‘I will help you, Isabella,’ Lady Milner said, and then, after a moment: ‘If you will allow me.’

‘Thank you,’ Isabella said, with a dazed look. ‘I’m sure I can manage, although
—
although if you could go through the list of people who should be told with me
...’

‘Certainly. We shall make sure that everything is done correctly’

‘Correctness!’ snorted Fanny. ‘Caro, do you hear them?’

‘You think it mere empty convention, Fanny,’ Lady Milner reproved her, ‘but it is really another word for doing what is right.’

‘Oh, but right by whose standards?’ Fanny scoffed, marching about. Caroline felt herself appealed to, but she was reluctant to make any alignments just now: she was all absorbed in the unhappiness of Isabella’s coldly presented shoulder. Also she knew quite well why her friend was fussing about the letters: it was something to do, occupation while the pot of grief bubbled and came to the boil. Here was an extra pity: the fact that she still understood Isabella better than anyone in the room.

‘I think,’ Isabella said, gathering up her papers, ‘if you will excuse me, I shall carry on with this upstairs.’

As she got to the door, Captain Brunton appeared
—
or rather, he had been there all the time: but had been so fixedly still and speechless it was as if a piece of furniture had come to life. Now, however, he was all animation: he sprang to the door, seized the handle as if he wished to open a thousand of them, and his wary grey eyes glistened as he said grindingly: ‘Miss Milner
—
I
—
I
—
if there is anything, anything at all I can do that may be of service to you
—’
he fetched a great breath
‘—
then I hope you know you have only to name it.’

Isabella looked at him, blinking: emerging, Caroline could tell, from dark and distant thoughts; and surely for an instant thinking,
What? Do for me? What on earth could you possibly do for me that would make any difference
... ?
But then the true Isabella stepped out from her self-shadow. She smiled as best she could and said: ‘Thank you, Captain Brunton. You are very kind. Really there’s no need
—
but you are very kind.’

She passed by; and Caroline saw her go, and saw him bow, in a dazzling tableau of realization. No, no, she thought, it is not kindness: no, no, it is much more than that.

Fanny, a little irritatingly, was at her side. ‘Don’t pay any heed to Bella just now, Caro. She is still quite stunned, you know, and so she’s hardly aware of what she’s saying, but she
will
come round, and see that you have actually done her a service.’

‘I would rather not have done any such service,’ Caroline said bleakly. ‘What will happen now?’

‘We must wait and see,’ Stephen said, springing off the windowsill. ‘It may be that on reflection Isabella wants to end their association altogether: or he might: or time may effect a reconciliation. Again, that’s Bella’s choice. But they had better keep apart just now. And I’m afraid she seems to feel the same about your presence, Miss Fortune: thoroughly irrational, but then she is a woman.’

‘Yes,’ Caroline said rising, ‘I was forgetting what an expert you are on our sex, Mr Milner. Well, I shall go
—’

‘Oh, but this is unfair,’ Fanny cried. ‘Stephen, she cannot consider herself banished!’

‘I don’t,’ Caroline said, with a constrained laugh, ‘but it’s best, just now, if I leave, especially as Isabella is not comfortable with me.’

‘Spoken with excellent and surprising sense,’ Stephen said. ‘I shall see you out.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘It was a statement not a question.’

So she found herself returning down the oak avenue with Stephen striding at her side, in a baffling silence that at last he broke by stooping to pick up a crisp frosted oak-leaf and declaring: ‘Is it possible to imagine a more beautiful shape that that? There’s one question. The other one, the one that is buzzing through your mind, Miss Fortune, is: if I believe your tale about Leabrook at Brighton, why have I not horsewhipped him?’

‘That question is not buzzing through my mind, Mr Milner, nor even gently humming. You do not like to horsewhip your horse, let alone a human being; which is one of your more tolerable eccentricities. Also I’m sure Mr Leabrook would promptly have the law on you.’

‘Also you suspect that I
don’t
believe your story.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said; and then again, helplessly: ‘I don’t know. The alternative, I suppose, is to believe him; and if that were so, you surely wouldn’t be walking beside me like this.’

‘Oh, I might,’ he said, with a great shrug, crumpling the leaf up. ‘I’m not particular.’

‘Mr Milner,
do
you think me guilty?’

‘Do I think you guilty? It depends what you mean
—
guilty of only this, or of every other transgression. I can easily believe you capable of them all. The curious point, Miss Fortune, is why you should care for my opinion on the matter.’

‘It is a curious point, but let us put it aside while you give me a direct answer.’

‘Oh, you know that is beyond me, Miss Fortune. All I can say is, I don’t believe you are an out-and-out villainess: but I do wish you had spoken sooner.’

‘Do you now? Well, that is all very well for you to say: you have not been through my difficulties. Indeed, I would urge you to put yourself in my position for a moment, and then consider what you would have done.’

‘In your position? Well, let’s see. I am asked by Leabrook to run off with him to London and abandon myself to dissipation
...’
He shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t know: he is undoubtedly a handsome fellow, but really there are laws, you know
—
and besides he would surely lose his respect for me after a while
...
Now, now, don’t wave that bonnet at me
—
it might go off.’

‘Well, really you are incorrigible,’ she said, aiming a mock swipe, ‘and really we should not be laughing. It is a sad time.’

‘So it is, but it will get better. Isabella is no Lent-lily; and as soon as she shows some little sign of being herself again, I shall take myself off.’

She stopped short. ‘You mean go away? Where?’

‘Oh, anywhere that’s interesting, and that’s far away from all this infernal muddle.’

The anger that rose in her was so complete, so white-hot, that she might have wondered whether it was really not against him but the whole cumulative situation. However, it was not a situation that stood there with its hands in its pockets, regarding her with that insufferable look of self-possession. It was Stephen, and he got the anger.

‘Yes, that’s right, run away,’ she cried. ‘Whenever there’s trouble, whenever life becomes complicated, then you must take to your heels and run away.’

‘I was thinking of going by post-chaise,’ he said imperturbably.

‘It hardly matters how you go
—
or even if you go
—
because even when you are not running away, Mr Milner, you are running away.’

‘Insofar as I can understand that, Miss Fortune, it sounds like the description of the eminently sensible man.’

‘And suppose everyone was to run away from life in that fashion?’

‘Well, everyone would be running in the same direction, which would be something. But really, I cannot comprehend your objection to my acting as any free man may do: certainly you may be sure that both Isabella and the Manor will do very well without me.’

‘You
are sure, because it suits you to think so. Others might say that this running away was the root of all the trouble in the first place.’

‘It would be very presumptuous of those others, if so,’ he said softly; and the hard glitter in his eyes showed her that now, at last, he was truly vexed. ‘They might as plausibly point to the beginning of the
trouble
as your arrival in Wythorpe, Miss Fortune.’

‘Oh, that has always been your belief, and there is nothing I can do to alter it. But at least when you are off poking about in tombs, Mr Milner, you will be spared having to observe the effects of my delinquencies here. Though no doubt there will be letters
—
and so when you hear of the church roof falling in, or Farmer Chivers losing his best milker, you will know who to blame.’

He frowned down at her: but a part of him appeared to wish to step back to good humour; awkwardly he said: ‘This is not one of our best quarrels. It seems rather too meant.’

‘I meant them all,’ she said, crushingly, untruly; and walked away with her head held as high as only utter misery could make it.

There can be few places more conducive to the quiet, solitary contemplation of melancholy thoughts than a window-seat; and if beyond the window-panes there is a steely vignette of November murk and withered twigs, so much the better. As the Rectory possessed just such a seat in the front parlour, it was no wonder that Caroline betook herself to it much over the next few days; and she was sitting there, dully gazing, her knees drawn up and her temple against the cold glass, when the unknown horsewoman appeared.

‘I know, my dear,’ said the unknown horsewoman, turning into Maria Downey as she was shown into the parlour, ‘I hardly recognize myself. Just like some ghastly thick-ankled countrywoman who rides to hounds and shouts “Yoicks.”‘ She grimaced down at her tailored riding-habit. ‘But there,
que
voulez-vous?
I spent so much of my youth deliberately getting myself invited to country houses that I somehow learnt to ride,
malgré moi.
I do dislike people who lard their conversation with French tags. And so how do you do? A redundant question. You do rather dismally by the look of things.’

‘No, I
—
well, yes. Dismal is the word. You’ll have heard, of course, about the unpleasantness at the Manor.’

‘Just barely,’ Maria said, yawning and tapping her slender booted foot with her riding-crop. ‘Mr Leabrook is not a man to prate much of his private affairs. Thank heaven. But yes, one has the gist. All I can say, between us, my dear, is that people out here in the wilds, full of all the virtues though they are, do tend to take things with a tremendous seriousness that we who have lived in other circles
...’
She waved a serpentine arm. ‘Hey, well, I dare say they can’t help
it. It must be, as our tantalizing friend at the Manor says, the Cromwell strain.’

‘I suppose
...
You had better hurry, by the way, if you wish to be tantalized any more by Mr Milner. He is leaving tomorrow morning for Dorset.’

‘Dorset? Whyever?’

‘I gather there is a place, or a thing, or a set of things, called Maumbury Rings, which he wants to look at.’ It was Fanny who had told her this, last evening. She had been doing her best to find it merely amusing ever since. ‘But you will find him at home today at least.’

‘Oh! well, I think after all I will spare Mr Longlegs, this time. He is a monstrously tough nut to crack
—
and I leave myself tomorrow, for London. Yes, back to Golden Square, and the lamentations of Matthew. He has written me
—
not quite a letter, more a sort of howl on paper
—
about Aunt Sophia and how she absolutely refuses all communication with him and he is in despair and so on. It
is
a pity
—
but he
would
go entangling himself with shopkeepers’ daughters. Caro, tell me
—
it’s impossible for me to judge, you see, as he’s my brother
—
would you call Matthew a good-looking man? A man, at least, not without attractions?’

‘I
...
I dare say most people would reckon him not unhandsome,’ Caroline said uneasily, ‘and he can be agreeable
—’

‘Oh, don’t fear, my dear, I’m not matchmaking,’ Maria said, laughing. ‘I’m just wondering whether he should not learn from this episode, and go seek a golden dolly. He is, as you say, not a fright, and he dresses well enough, and dances
—
and in short, there must be plenty of large-chinned heiresses sitting by the walls in the assembly rooms at Bath or Tunbridge, just waiting for such an acceptable fellow to come along. I think I must put it to him.’

‘I confess I cannot imagine Matthew entering into any such scheme,’ Caroline said. ‘He is altogether too idealistic.’ Curiously, in spite of the late acrimony between them, she found herself inclining to Matthew’s side as she said it.

‘Do you think so? Perhaps. A thousand pities. People will not see where their interest lies in this world! To tell the truth, I’m undecided whether to call at the Manor at all, even though I do want to say my goodbyes. I am conscious of coming from Hethersett, you see, and I don’t know how glad or otherwise Miss Milner will be to see me, and whether it won’t all be dreadfully awkward. What do you think?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ Caroline said listlessly, ‘as I don’t feel welcome there myself.’

‘Dear, dear! I wish I were not leaving you in these dumps. But look here, I do mean to return
—
that is, I think both Matthew and I will, before Christmas: Mr Leabrook insists, and old Mrs Leabrook insists, of course, a hundred times over. It is not as if, after all, there is any prospect of a Christmas season with Aunt Sophia: not for Matthew at any rate, and I certainly wouldn’t face that horror alone. So, my dear, let us call it only
au revoir
—
and when we do
revoir
each other, I’m sure all this stormin-a-puddle will have blown out.’

‘Do you think so?’ Caroline said, with more scepticism than hope. ‘And what about Mr Leabrook? What are his feelings?’

‘Oh, my dear, you fish in the wrong pond if you ask
me
about
feelings.
I can no more read them than
—
than this page of Greek,’ Maria said, chuckling, and with her riding-crop flipping open the book that lay on the table at her side.

‘That’s Latin.’

‘Which proves my point exactly. Oh, it is a shocking lack in me, I know. I wonder if Matthew came in for my share of the feelings? That would explain a lot. Still, you know, my dear, insensibility
—’
rising, Maria slipped her gloved hand in and out of Caroline’s
‘—
it really is the best way to be. In terms of trouble.’

‘Yes: I’m sure it is,’ acknowledged Caroline. And she went about trying to be that way, after Miss Downey had departed. She adopted apathy, she invoked insouciance. It did not work. She was not made that way, even if she did not run to the other extreme of Fanny Milner, who descended on her as usual that afternoon with many embraces, gazes, hand-squeezings, and urgent avowals of solidarity against the blinkered and narrow-hearted world.

It
was kind in her, it was touching, and it was very slightly irritating: Caroline did not have the crusader’s spirit. Still she was not so over-supplied with friendship just now as to undervalue that which Fanny offered her. She even accompanied Fanny, the next week, to one of the Hampsons’ evening-parties: but the experience was not pleasant. She could not help but sadly turn in her mind the memory of a previous occasion here, when Isabella and Stephen had been present
—
as they were now so glaringly absent. And though the Hampsons were as fulsome in their welcome as ever, Caroline detected a mixture of constraint and inquisitiveness in the other guests, which prickled her with a double discomfort: double, because she was torn between wanting to demand of each frozen smirk and sidelong glance exactly what it meant, and longing to fly from there wailing with her shawl over her head.

Mr Charles Carraway was, naturally, of the party; and Fanny, naturally, was much with him; and when the next morning Mr Carraway called at the Rectory to enquire after Caroline’s health, and to ask with his dreamy politeness whether he might look over the drawings about which he had heard so much, it was natural likewise to suppose that Fanny had put him up to it.

‘Oh, I don’t deny that Fanny and I spoke of it last evening,’ he said, smiling, glancing up from her sketchbook.

‘And she said, “You must go and call on poor Caro, who is so shunned and scandalous, and give the neighbourhood a lead.”‘

‘Now this drawing has spirit. The shoulders and turn of the neck
—
you have caught the tension of the figure admirably. Oh, Fanny did not say
poor
Caro: that implies an object of pity. She does not conceive you such, Miss Fortune. Neither do I. Rather the reverse. And I was glad to come: there was no persuasion against my will, I assure you. I do not entirely understand these controversies: all I can see is that Fanny likes you, and her judgement I trust, and as I have not witnessed you frightening children, picking pockets, or shooting squirrels, then really
...’
He concluded with a charming laugh, a shake of his dark curls, and a sharp prod at the next drawing. ‘Ah
—
now this is not right. The spirit is gone. Some dullard of a
drawing-master has been at you here, making you show every fold. Omit — always remember — omit a line if you are unsure of it. Ask yourself, does it serve you? If not, out with it.’

‘I see
...
If only life were like that, Mr Carraway’

‘Oh, life.’ He laughed, shrugging, as if she had mentioned something as abstruse as algebra, distant as the Pole. ‘It is hopeless consulting me
there,
Miss Fortune. Now here is a well-rendered scene — there is dash, there is air — and those wonderful bent poplars: is this local?’

‘Yes: just this side of Alconbury Hill.’

‘Ah, I must take a turn that way, now that I have leisure. Yes, the Hampsons’ portrait is finished: they are happier with it than I deserve, for it was an indifferent performance, I fear — though I always have this feeling after a picture is done. Fanny says it is a good sign: for what is a race, once it is won? She is an education.’

‘Were you not engaged to draw some views of Mr Leabrook’s estate?’

‘There was talk of it. But the case is altered. Fanny would not have me do it; and I would rather not.’ Mr Carraway bent to pick up the kitten Matilda, who was fighting his boots. ‘She is a tiger in miniature!’

‘Fanny?’

‘She also,’ he said, laughing.

And she also came knocking at the door very soon after. It was plain, from the mutual and complete unsurprise of the pair, that this had been arranged; and that to the desire of paying Caroline a tribute, Fanny had added the incidental but very practical plan of securing a meeting with Mr Carraway. They were both too mannerly to say so, or to make manifest their wish to go off walking together: it was Caroline who with a straining laugh shooed them out at last. She felt herself to be indifferent company in any case; and permitting a young man and a young woman to stroll about the village in broad daylight and cold weather did not seem to her fraught with moral danger.

‘Bless you, Caroline. You always understand,’ Fanny said on the doorstep, embracing her again. ‘Oh! by the by, there is another change at the Manor. Would you believe we are to be free of Captain Brunton at last? He leaves for London tomorrow. Oh, I shouldn’t be uncharitable, but really it is not a moment too soon
—
he has been so overbearing lately. Indeed, he was actually quite rude to you the other day, Charles, was he not?’

The painter shrugged and blinked his beautiful eyes. ‘He is an unhappy man, I think.’

Ah, yes, thought Caroline: and he is making himself go away from the source of his unhappiness.

‘Well,
I
fancy he is jealous because Augusta is not so thick with him any more. And
that,
most curiously, is because she devotes so much time to Isabella. Yes, I must confess, Augusta has been quite a boon to poor Bella since that beast of a Leabrook was unmasked. She reads to her and finds her little occupations to divert her mind, and generally
—
yes, she has shown herself rather sensitive and thoughtful! You simply never know, do you?’ Fanny concluded with a very young laugh, the laugh of someone confident that they do know, pretty much, everything worth knowing.

The departure of Captain Brunton, whom Caroline had come to respect, seemed of a piece with this wintry and denuded time. Everybody is going, she thought, as she took a solitary walk later, like those leaves: she gazed up at the horse-chestnuts on the green, almost bare now, one especially solitary leaf clinging like a rag to the end of a skeletal bough and offering her a satisfyingly gloomy image of herself. She wished she could have said goodbye to the Captain, but she still shrank from intruding herself at the Manor: she did loiter a few moments at the entrance to the oak avenue, her heart dully thumping, but could go no further. Leaflike she drifted home, and found Captain Brunton in the parlour with her uncle.

‘Ah, my dear
—
here is our friend Captain Brunton, you see, and he has been telling me the most remarkable stories of his time on the West Indies station
—
pagan sorcerers actually reputed to raise the dead
—
shocking
—
yet with a dreadful fascination — but lack-aday, here is an end of it, because Captain Brunton is off to London tomorrow! Is it not the greatest of pities? My dear girl, what
have
you done to people hereabouts? They are all taking to their heels!’
Dr Langland
was innocently oblivious that only he laughed at this joke. ‘So, my dear sir, have you hopes of a commission at last?’

‘I mean to try again at the Admiralty, sir, yes. But I have other business besides. As I cannot tell how long my absence may be, I felt I should step over and say my goodbyes, and present my compliments.’ Captain Brunton inclined his head towards Caroline, his eyes seeking hers.