Indiscretion (38 page)

‘Well, I wish you good fortune, my dear sir
—
heaven forfend that England should neglect her stout old hearts of oak!’
Dr
Langland cried, with a great clap of his huge hands. ‘But I’ll tell you what you should do besides, Captain Brunton
—
besides looking about you for a berth, you should look about you for a wife. You cannot do better, at your stage of life, my dear sir: it
grounds
a man most securely. I am for having everybody marry. Selina tells me that Isabella’s wedding has been put off — I cannot think why. No, you must promise me you will look about you, Captain Brunton: I speak as a man who knows the inestimable contentment of matrimony.’

‘That I do not doubt,’ Captain Brunton said, with a tight, shadowed smile. ‘And I believe the married state to be
—
all you say, sir; but I do not anticipate entering it myself, at least not
—
not soon.’ He turned to Caroline. ‘Miss Fortune, you have had a pleasant walk, I trust.’

‘Oh, that’s what all you young fellows say,’
Dr
Langland boomed over him, ‘until the moment when a pair of pretty eyes smites you, and then
—
bang! Your goose is cooked! Oh, and it will come to you too, my dear, you may be sure, though of course it will not be pretty eyes that do it, it will be rather
—
I don’t know what
—
handsome eyes perhaps
—’

‘I’m quite happy for my goose to remain uncooked, Uncle John,’ Caroline told him. ‘Even at the risk of becoming a tough old broiler at last. Thank you, I had a very pleasant walk,’ she added to Captain Brunton, who was swallowing a harrumph of amusement.

‘No, I am for having everybody marry,’
Dr
Langland said, with his beam of
incomprehension, ‘and really I must ask Bella why she is delaying. And it is a great pity, Captain Brunton, that we could not find you a bride here — perhaps next time you visit
...
Yes, Nancy? Am I wanted?’

‘Yes, sir. Old Mr Powlett,’ said the maid. ‘About getting his wife churched after her last
‘un.’

‘Ah, indeed, I’ll be there directly. Pray excuse me, Captain Brunton. Now there’s an example for you
—
old Powlett
—
on his third marriage, and a father I think for the eleventh time now. Blessed matrimony, my dear sir!’

‘Miss Fortune, I had hoped for a private word with you,’ the Captain said, easing his tight cravat, when
Dr Langland
had gone. ‘This is opportune. I
...’
The word, it seemed, would not come: after a moment he struck himself savagely on the knee. ‘I wish I was one of those fellows with ready tongues!’

‘There is such a thing as a too ready tongue,’ she said, smiling. ‘Captain Brunton, I am very sorry you are leaving.’

‘So am I. Well, in some ways. Not in all. In other circumstances
...
Miss Fortune, I wish I might go knowing you were still a welcome visitor at the Manor: it would reassure me
—
please me
—
to think of you there.’

‘Oh, Lord, Captain Brunton, it wouldn’t please anyone else!’ she burst out in an access of self-pity; then, recovering herself: ‘Thank you, though, for the thought. It is what I would like myself above all things: but while matters stand so awkwardly
...
Unless you feel — do you? — that I might make the attempt?’

He winced. ‘Just now
—
I think not. If I had to choose a word to describe Miss Milner, it would be
raw.
She seems to prefer no mention of
—
well, of her engagement, of Hethersett, of the whole business. My cousin tries, with some success, to keep her mind fixed on other things. But Augusta, I should add, has come firmly down on your side, Miss Fortune: between ourselves, she is your stoutest defender. Except for Miss Fanny, of course,’ he said, with a faint smile. ‘But as for Miss Milner — I believe that she still cannot quite let go of
...’
He peered into his hat, colouring. ‘I should not speak of her so. It is not my place.’

‘I know you do so out of kindness, sir. And I would like to think of
you
still at the Manor too.’

‘Thank you,’ he gasped out, crushing his hat now. ‘Miss Fanny
—
I am afraid she resents my presence.’

Caroline struggled. ‘She is
—
very young. Perhaps a little headstrong.’

‘I wish she were not,’ he said, frowning. ‘But there, in that regard at least I can think of your looking after her: I know you do meet. I’m sorry, I must sound like a regular old mother hen.’

‘Better than a cooked goose. I hope, Captain Brunton, you will find it possible to come back,’ she said, holding his eyes.

‘I hope so too,’ he said, after a moment. He stood up as abruptly as if someone had told him his chair was on fire. ‘Miss Fortune, if I should need to write to you, may I do so care of your aunt?’

‘I’m sure that would be quite proper. Not that you need concern yourself about propriety, you know, when it comes to a person like
me’
she said, with a wry laugh.

‘Not at all
—
not at all,’ Captain Brunton said, in his gruffest, sternest way; and in farewell he gripped her hand like a wrestler.

From the window she watched his upright, compact figure go smartly off; and it occurred to her, in an abstract way, that the Captain was a man with whom a woman might profitably be in love. Not she: the solemnity with which he answered her laugh was an exemplary proof of their suitability to be friends and no more; but someone of a serious turn of mind
...
Now I’m being like Uncle John, she reproached herself, marrying everyone off. It was after all none of her business, in more than one sense.

For which
—
the second sense, the sense in which she was content to be solitary, disengaged, heartfree, coolly observant
—
she was heartily grateful. Look at poor Bella: look at Matthew Downey: look at Captain Brunton. Thank heaven she stood outside that wearisome game.

‘What are you looking for, my dear?’
Dr
Langland said, coming back into the parlour, and finding her staring raptly out of the window.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

· · ·

December came in rimey and rheumy. Freezing fog stealthily stalked the hollows about Wythorpe: the sheep breathed wet plumes in and out, chimney-smoke made smudgier columns in the misty air, in the church
Dr Langland
preached above a condensing cloud of rasps and wheezes. In this church, a couple of times, Caroline met an Isabella still hollow-eyed and noticeably thin, and they exchanged tentative words. A couple of times, also, she went with Aunt Selina to call at the Manor, and there were more tentative words: cordial enough; yet to Caroline it all seemed still stiff and empty. There was so much between them that was not to be spoken: they were like two people at either ends of a room in which most of the floor had collapsed.

Stephen was on his wanderings somewhere down in the southwest, and favoured them, Fanny told her, with the occasional scrawl to inform them he was alive. The idea of his writing letters awoke in Caroline a most absurd wish that she might get one. She kept thinking of their last meeting, of its sad and scratchy unsatisfactoriness; and thought that even to receive a page of nonsense, which was how she imagined Stephen’s letters, would at least efface that impression of a last, bitter word.

Fanny still clove loyally to her, and confided one morning, after a little wide-eyed hesitation, that there had been a civil exchange of notes between Isabella and Mr Leabrook.

‘No more than that,’ Fanny said, ‘and I think Bella is still very uncertain how she feels towards him, and he is still mighty proud
—
but who can say? Augusta counsels caution, caution. Yet I really believe Isabella simply cannot let go of love
—
and who can blame that? Is it not the hardest thing in the world to relinquish, once you have it?’

‘I think it is,’ Caroline heard herself say. ‘And the hardest to grasp also. You have to seize it at once, else it may be too late.’

‘I knew you’d agree,’ Fanny said, her voice fading in Caroline’s singing ears.

It was two days after this that the maid, bringing the letters in to the breakfast-parlour, caused Caroline’s heart to do a peculiar and

unaccountable leap when she said: ‘Here’s an odd one for you, miss.’ But no, not actually a letter: sealed, but not posted: only the direction ‘Caroline’, in what she recognized as Fanny’s handwriting. And then a sharp misgiving turned her heart gymnastic again.

‘It is my second Advent sermon this Sunday,’
Dr
Langland was saying, ‘and I think to keep to tradition, and preach on Judgement
—
the second of the Four Last Things, you know, my dear. Death, Judgement, Heaven, and
—’

‘Hell and buggery,’ Caroline cried out, jumping to her feet with the opened letter in her hand. ‘Oh
—
forgive me
—
an old military expression. It’s just that this news is so
...
Oh, dear.’ Weak-legged, she sank down again. ‘I’m afraid Fanny has run away with Mr Carraway.’ And while her uncle and aunt gasped she stared again at the ensuing words:
just as you, my dear Caroline, advised me!

No time now for qualms about calling at the Manor. Caroline, her uncle and aunt were there before the breakfast things had cooled. They found Lady Milner and Isabella in a state of agitation bordering on the frantic. A similar note had been left on the chimney-piece for them: the servants had confirmed that Miss Fanny’s clothes were gone, and Lady Milner, in the midst of questioning them, had allowed anxiety to get the better of her temper. The stable-boy, smarting at her remark that he must surely have heard something from where he slept over the stables, was divided between crying and giving notice. While Isabella tried to pacify him, the housekeeper announced with a certain veiled satisfaction that Miss Fanny’s dogs were howling for their exercise, and there was nobody free to do it. And none of this was helped by their having to explain to
Dr
Langland exactly what had happened.

‘No, no,’ he kept saying, ‘there is a mistake here, you know. The fact is she cannot have gone off alone with that gentleman, for you know Fanny is a young girl
—
that is, a maiden, you know: and they are not married. Do you see?’

In a kind of tight-jawed wail, Aunt Selina said: ‘That is precisely the point, and that is precisely why we are so dreadfully concerned. My dear,’ she added contritely.

Dr Langland’s
mouth fell open. ‘Lord, bless my soul.’ Blinking at his wife, he sat down heavily: luckily there was a chair there. ‘Oh, heavens. But Fanny
—
Fanny will be ruined.’

‘Yet this isn’t certain, is it?’ said Isabella. ‘I mean about their intentions. Let us look at those notes again.’ (Let us not, thought Caroline.)

‘She says they are going to London — but could that not mean
after
they have eloped to Gretna to marry?’

Lady Milner said, shaking her head: ‘My dear, she does not mention Gretna at all, and she surely would if that was part of their plan. There is no reason to omit such a vital fact.’

‘Oh, Fanny,’ Isabella said, drooping, ‘what have you done?’

Perhaps, probably, she did not intend it: but Isabella’s moist eyes did alight on Caroline as she said these words, and Caroline felt the cold touch of accusation. Colder still when Uncle John, saying they must examine the evidence, proceeded to read out the farewell notes in his strongest pulpit voice.

‘“You must know that Charles and I are united by a love of the truest, profoundest and holiest kind, one which it is hardly to be expected would be comprehended or countenanced by society in its state of dismal unenlightenment — seeing as it does only my supposed youth and his supposed ineligibility — not the finer reality beyond. Least of all can such a sensitive plant flourish in the stony soil of a provincial backwater. The place for us is London. There are the most promising chances for one of Charles’s avocation: there we shall be together and happy, and I do believe you will rejoice for us. Life is there to be lived — it is a crime to let convention and caution stifle it — so we are off tonight — seizing the moment, just as you, my dear Caroline, advised me!’” Dr Langland gaped mournfully. ‘Oh, Caroline! Oh, my dear girl, this really was not responsible in you! Did you
know
of this scheme ... ?’

‘We must remember,’ Aunt Selina put in, touching Caroline’s arm, ‘that what we hear in these notes is the voice of Fanny — and you know Fanny always does tend to put her own complexion on things; even perhaps believe what she wants to believe. And
I
cannot believe —’ yet was there a quaver of query there? — ‘that Caro would have encouraged this, nor even have had any notion of it.’

‘Indeed I did not know about it,’ Caroline said — while her mind teemed with recollected hints that now seemed obvious; and she grew as conscious of the eyes upon her as if the memories were breaking out like spots on her cheeks. ‘That is, she did not tell me about any plan to elope with Mr Carraway. Yes, she has often been to see me lately —’ a faint abashed turn of the neck from Isabella at that ‘— and to be sure, she was often talking of Mr Carraway, and her — her feelings generally, but — oh, well, you know that was Fanny!’

Suddenly she realized she was talking about Fanny in the past tense: as if she were dead. And of course it was not that bad ... but, but Fanny, as a minor, could not marry without her parents’ consent, at least not in England. That was why young girls defying parental edicts fled with their beaux over the border to Scotland, where different laws applied and where at the first stop of Gretna Green they could be united with their disapproved choice and return south as brides. It was a rebellion that could leave lasting family division: but it did allow a return to the social fold. What Fanny had apparently done was quite different. Socially it damned her. Doubtless, drunk with love and adventure as she was, Fanny would say she was very ready to be damned. But Caroline doubted that a gently bred girl from the shires like Fanny really knew what that perdition entailed.

In such a case much depended on the character of the man. Charles Carraway did not
appear
a heartless seducer who would take what he wanted and then abandon a girl: he seemed too romantic, unworldly. But Caroline knew better — she above all knew better — than to trust to seemings. And the mere fact that he had taken off with an innocent girl of seventeen showed him either blind or criminally careless.

But what about me? Was I neither of these things? If I did not encourage them, did I discourage them? Would Fanny have done it without my example, or what she sees as my example? Why do I keep hearing that sound:
cuckoo, cuckoo
. . . ?

‘Miss Fortune, can you think of any suggestion — anything Fanny may have said, that would give us a clue to where precisely they have gone?’ Lady Milner asked.

‘I cannot, Lady Milner, because she did not tell me anything about this.’ Unpleasant sensation, like dampness slowly drying on the skin, of not being believed. ‘I know Mr Carraway trained in London: he may still have connections there; but I know no more than that.’

‘I wish it were not London,’ Isabella said. ‘It’s so big — a person can just disappear there.’

So it is, as your fiance well knew, Caroline thought, tasting a pungent mixture of emotions: it was where I was to go and be his mistress, and when he had tired of me, no doubt I was to disappear — into that deep, deep pool of lost women, their reputations gone, their choices ended, their stomachs needing to be fed. The muslin sisterhood, as they were called: a euphemism, it made it sound almost pleasant. God forbid that should happen to Fanny.

These thoughts revived her anger against Richard Leabrook; and remembering what Fanny had told her about a possible reconciliation, she wanted to cry out in warning to Isabella: to reach out to her friend across that gaping floor. But no, Fanny was the main concern for now. Caroline forced herself up out of reflection, grasped at practicality. ‘What about Mr Carraway’s lodgings in Huntingdon? Something may be known there. There must be a landlord, neighbours.’

‘An excellent notion,’ Lady Milner said promptly. ‘Isabella, pray ring the bell — we shall have the carriage made ready
—’

‘But, Stepmama, should not one of us at least be here, in case there is any word? Or in case Fanny changes her mind and comes back?’

As she spoke, Isabella’s eyes met Caroline’s, distantly, but not beyond the reach of a gleam of sad mutual amusement: Fanny change her mind? And it was the first time, Caroline realized with a feeling that was also shadowed-bright, that she had ever heard her call Lady Milner by the name.

‘We can go,’ Aunt Selina said, adding, with a glance at the rain-spattered window and a visible gathering of courage: ‘I dare say the roads will be fair enough
—
won’t they, John?’

‘Oh! I dare say,’ grunted
Dr Langland,
who was still poring over the farewell notes. ‘Dear me! “The stony soil of a provincial backwater” — that is something of a mixed metaphor. Not a felicitous turn of phrase, at any rate. I shall tell Fanny —’
He stopped and gave a violent rub at his boyish hair. ‘That is, I would, if only I could see her! Will I ever see her again, I wonder? Oh, Caroline, Caroline —’ he muttered, feeling his wife’s eye on him, but
Dr Langland’s
mutter was only a shout muffled
‘—
it was not well done in you!’

‘I do
not
know where the gentleman has gone. And if I did, I should enquire of him, if he
is
a gentleman, why he suddenly vacated my upstairs apartments without telling me, without leaving an address, and without paying me the three months’ back rent that’s owing.’ The stationer spoke with affronted dignity, whilst running his flexible stationer’s thumb, criss-crossed with paper-cuts, down the edge of a ream.

Caroline and her aunt exchanged a glance. This did not look good.

‘Is it possible, sir, that he might have left word with anyone — spoken with anyone before his absconding?’
Dr
Langland asked.

‘He didn’t leave word with
me,’
the stationer said, consoling himself with another long riffle, ‘and that’s about all of it.’

Ah, but was it? Caroline had noticed the stationer’s daughter, pale, pretty, seventeen, lurking and listening at the back of the shop. Quietly she approached her, the question on her face.

‘No.’ Tight-lipped, tragic-eyed, the girl shook her head. ‘He never said anything about going. Oh, he never said!’

No, this did not look good.

‘Perhaps
I
might ask if you are particular friends of his?’ the stationer said. ‘In which case, might you have come in order to settle that particular outstanding bill?’

‘No, no, sir,’ Uncle John cried, with a thump of his cane on the floor. ‘We have come to settle his hash!’

‘Oh,’ said the stationer, going back to his paper.

His daughter slipped away weeping. This did not look good at all.

· · ·

At Wythorpe Manor, news of a sort. Nothing, at any time of day or night, could go quite unobserved in the village; and it was reliably reported that a post-chaise had been seen, in the early hours, waiting at the turn to the oak avenue.

‘Well, now, that’s something, eh?’
Dr Langland
kept saying, exuding a terrible freshness. ‘Now we know something. Yes, yes. Now we know how they left, do you see?’

‘Oh, John, they are hardly likely to have walked to London,’ cried Aunt Selina, uncontrollably. Twice in one day that the saint-like patience had lapsed: Caroline could see in her aunt’s hollow eyes the coming tortures of guilt.

Lady Milner said: ‘Well, I have written Stephen at his last address. I can only hope it reaches him. He must come home. He is needed.’

‘Yes,’ Caroline said aloud, before she even knew she was going to speak. ‘Oh, yes, certainly
—
that is the best idea.’

The following two days brought no news of Fanny. Lady Milner said that she shuddered to think, without specifying what it was that she shuddered to think. Rumour flitted about the neighbourhood and brought a series of maliciously well-meaning visitors to the Manor, remarking, dear Lady Milner, how long it was since they had called, and how nice to see her and Miss Milner again and
—
but, goodness, where was delightful Miss Fanny?

The third day brought Stephen.

He had travelled post, setting out as soon as he received Lady Milner’s letter, hardly pausing to eat or drink. ‘Nor, I fear, shave
—
he looked quite a Robinson Crusoe,’ related Aunt Selina, who had been at the Manor when he arrived.

‘And how is he?’ demanded Caroline. ‘Annoyed, I dare say, at having to leave his precious mouldy ruins to come back and take charge of his own household?’

Aunt Selina looked as surprised as Caroline felt at this tartness.

‘Well, he is, I think, most seriously concerned for Fanny,’ Aunt Selina said. ‘Though, characteristically, he calls her a little fool and says she deserves whatever she gets. But I’m sure he doesn’t mean that.’

‘Oh, who can tell, with Stephen?’ Caroline said airily, and returned to her work. She was making up baskets for the traditional Rectory gifts to the poor and infirm of the parish on St Thomas’s Day, and she found that she was cramming them so fiercely full with stockings and jars of preserves that the infirm, at least, would be hard put to open them.

She did not know why she was so out of sorts: which was another way of saying that she did. It was because she laboured still under the feeling that she was being blamed, at least in part, for Fanny’s elopement. Oh, Lady Milner was very correct towards her, and Isabella kindness itself; yet she detected a watchful look about them. It made her feel like a reformed thief to whom everyone was determined to be fair, even as they kept surreptitiously counting the spoons. This was not helped by
Dr
Langland, who remained stuck in one of his blind alleys of misunderstanding, and kept sighing: ‘Oh, my dear Caroline, if only you had said something!’

There is nothing like being harshly judged to make one harsh in judgement; and Caroline completed the filling, or rather stuffing, of the baskets with some further internal strictures on Stephen Milner’s character. For he, who had been ready to blame her before anything had happened, when she was a mere unknown quantity newly added to the Wythorpe sum, must now be poised to descend on her with all his heaviest and most knowing scorn. Well, she thought: well, I am ready.