The Corn Maiden, page 3
Looking around the brightly lit ballroom, Nell was suddenly daunted by the task she had set herself. She was instantly surrounded by a group of chattering, smiling friends and, though she went through the motions of laughing and exchanging gossip with them, her eyes were darting around the room in search of someone suitable to complete her schemes. There were hardly any new faces. Most of the gentlemen were wearing dark colours this year, evening coats of blue and black or buff with cutaway tails to reveal faultlessly tight pantaloons, fitting without a wrinkle down to short silk stockings and buckled pumps. Here and there, a pretty waistcoat relieved the gloom. Their hair was dressed uniformly au naturel, sweeping attractively forward in curls over the forehead.
They formed a sombre background for the rest, the military men wearing their bright uniforms. The scarlet coats and gold epaulettes of the infantry were the colours that caught her eye. A soldier? A good thought! An inspired thought! A wicked thought! Many of them were younger sons with their way to make in life, pushy young men who would count themselves fortunate indeed to attract the attention of an heiress such as Lady Elinor. There were wars aplenty raging all over Europe, were there not? Her adored brother Rupert had indeed lost his life four years before in the ill-starred retreat to Corunna. Soldiers were apt to be sent away from home for long periods to remote and dangerous places like the Peninsula, places from which they quite often did not return. Why, poor Nell Somersham might well find herself a very young, very rich, and very independent widow in no time at all if she married one!
Fighting down a spurt of shame at the way her thoughts were running, Nell, grimly determined, sipped some more champagne and let her eyes run speculatively along the lines of uniformed men. Soon the first dance would be over, the couples would break up, and she would find herself besieged by hopeful acquaintances asking to book dances in her carnet de bal, which, for the moment, was empty.
As she looked about her, her attention was suddenly taken by a tall figure in a Hussar uniform. She looked more closely, feeling that the man was strangely familiar. The frogged grey and silver tunic with its dolman jacket worn dashingly over one shoulder, the long slender trousers, grey with silver embroidery emphasising the length of the leg, the immaculately shiny black boots—the uniform of the Hussar, she thought with a sigh, was by far the most attractive uniform of all.
And only Henry Collingwood, she reflected crossly, was capable of failing to make such a uniform look romantic!
Henry Collingwood, her friend Sarah’s older brother, whom she had known since they were children. Henry Collingwood—weak, lazy, overweight schoolboy—was now grown, it seemed, into a weak, lazy, overweight soldier. Although four years older than Nell, he had, when they were young, been her devoted slave, and she remembered with embarrassment the appalling way she had treated him, though she remembered also, with a guilty smile, that he had at least had the sense—or was it the lack of courage?—to disobey her in the matter of crossing the paddock with the bull in it.
“Sarah!” she exclaimed, moving over to stand by her friend’s side. “The tall Hussar over there, helping himself to an iced cream, looks uncommonly like your brother Henry! I thought he was away at the war?”
“Oh, Nell! You are not mistaken. It is indeed Henry. He is just returned from Lisbon. He is injured—do you see his dolman disguises a sling? His regiment have sent him back to recover, but also on a recruiting mission until he shall be well again.”
“Poor Henry! How was he wounded?”
“Ah…he was not exactly wounded, Nell.” Sarah’s eye sparkled with complicity. “Henry was riding through Lisbon, and he fell off his horse when the creature shied; he broke his shoulder.”
“Poor Henry!” Nell exclaimed again with rather less sympathy. “He never had much luck, especially with horses,” she said, eliciting a gurgle and a flash of amusement from Sarah. “But perhaps he has had better luck with women? Is he now married? I had not heard it announced…”
“No indeed, Nell! Were you not aware? He has always held the unreasonable hope of making a match with you!”
Nell smiled with satisfaction. “Sarah, I wish you would present your brother to me. I should like to meet him again after all these years. I am sure we shall have much to talk about.”
A few minutes later, Nell found herself circling the floor in the arms of a blushing Henry Collingwood. “Gad, Lady E.,” he said breathlessly, “it’s prime to see you again. I vow I often thought of you in Spain. But all the fellows said, ‘Nell Somersham! Forget it! With all her tin! Lor!—you’ll find she’s long hitched when you get back!’ But, Lor! Here you are, as free as your humble servant.”
Nell couldn’t help remembering an unkind story told to her by a cousin in the Dragoons and of which Henry Collingwood was supposed to be the hero—“Once there was a Hussar officer who was so stupid all the other officers noticed it!” But she favoured him with a dazzling smile as she said, “Yes indeed, dear Henry, I remain unhitched. I’m as free as a bird!”
“Dammee!” said Henry ecstatically, aware for the first time that he was the subject of envious male attention. “Dammee—as free as a bird, and, er, as, er, as pretty as a bird, ’pon my soul!”
So overcome was he with this bold sally that he could only gaze and swallow till Nell rescued him from his embarrassment by saying, “But as hungry as a horse—would you escort me to the supper room, Henry?”
“Yes, yes!” said Henry excitedly. “We might perhaps occupy one of those little booths, eh, what? Have more of that capital iced cream?”
Lucy was waiting eagerly for news of the ball when Nell returned after midnight. Nell danced into her room, pink and triumphant, kicking off her shoes.
“Lucy, bring me pen and paper! At once!” she called out.
“Pen and paper, Miss Nell? But ’tis after midnight, madam.”
“I have a very important letter to write, Lucy, and you must take it off as soon as you can in the morning and put it in the mail. The express mail!”
She pirouetted happily around her room until Lucy scurried back with her writing case and then announced triumphantly, “I’ve done it, Lucy! I have found a husband! I am—unofficially, of course—engaged to be married to—oh!—the most wonderfully, perfectly, incredibly, utterly dull man in the world! It just remains for me to secure my Scottish guardian’s consent to marry him, and I am free of my stepmother forever. I shall be, at last, in charge of my own life!”
She settled down at her desk and wrote to Roderick Lindsay, Esq., of Callander, Scotland.
Dear Cousin Roderick,
You will be aware that, under the terms of my father’s will, if I marry under the age of twenty-five, I must seek your approbation. I am writing, accordingly, to solicit your written consent to my contracting such an alliance with the Honourable Mr. Henry Collingwood. Mr. Collingwood, who is of good family, being the second son of Baron Dunsford of Dunsford Hall, Great Missenden, a family well respected in Buckinghamshire, is currently in England recovering from injuries sustained whilst in service with his regiment in the Peninsula.
I will not deceive you, Sir, but will openly declare that Mr. Collingwood is without means of support beyond his army pay, but I am persuaded that, due to circumstances with which you will be familiar, I need not be seeking the support and fortune of another.
Your most obedient,
Elinor Somersham
“There now,” she said, sanding the letter carefully, “the die is cast! All I have to do is wait in patience for my reply. Surely my cousin cannot refuse me?”
Twelve days later, Lucy heard with dismay a shriek of distress coming from her mistress’s room. She hurried anxiously along, expecting at the very least that Suzette had at long last sunk her tiny teeth into Nell’s leg, to find Nell shaking with rage and exclaiming in very unladylike language learned from her country childhood—one solid advantage of having been brought up in the company of farm boys and stable men. She was stamping about the room brandishing a letter.
“How dare he treat me in this way? What an uncivilised, crusty old Scots curmudgeon I have to deal with! And he does not even deign to reply to me in his own hand! See here, Lucy.’ She waved the letter in front of Lucy’s nose. “He has had his Man of Law write on his behalf! How unfeeling! What a lapse of manners!”
She read again the distressing letter, hoping against hope that she had misconstrued its meaning, looking carefully at the precise, old-fashioned clerkly handwriting and narrowing her eyes with distaste at the dry, formal phrasing. “Listen, Lucy!”
And she read out with heavy emphasis, and with her best essay at a Scottish accent:
Mr. Adam Renfrew of Glasgow writes:
I am required by my client, Mr. Roderick Lindsay, to present his compliments to Lady Elinor Somersham and to respond to her letter to him of the 2nd of September. Mr. Lindsay has, of course, given the closest attention to her request. Knowing something of the gentleman to whom Lady Elinor refers, he is, however, unable to accede.
In the alternative, he is able to put forward a proposal that, he is persuaded, will be to their common advantage.
The proposal—and the word, Lady Elinor will appreciate, is used advisedly—is a simple matter of business, namely that, abandoning her intention to marry the Honourable Henry Collingwood, she should contract a matrimonial alliance—and, again, the word is used advisedly—with Mr. Roderick Lindsay.
In proposing this, Mr. Lindsay is influenced by the apprehension that her intended betrothal to the Honourable Henry Collingwood was unattended by any mawkish sentiment of romance. She will be merely changing one business proposition for another. She would achieve what Mr. Lindsay conceives to be her principal end—namely, the release of her fortune—with the consent of her guardian. In exchange, Mr. Lindsay would expect that, as an aspect of the marriage settlement, the Scottish estates should be settled on the House of Lindsay absolutely and in perpetuity.
So confident is Mr. Lindsay that this proposal will commend itself to the good sense of Lady Elinor that he has embarked on exploratory discussions on the matter with his man of business (your servant, ma’am) in Glasgow, following which, he will write to her further.
“What kind of man must he be to write to his ward in such terms? What can he possibly mean by ‘knowing something’ of Henry? What is he hinting at? This is very mysterious! How can he be acquainted with Henry? And ‘a mawkish sentiment of romance,’ if you please! What a phrase! There is a sly irony there that makes me think that my dear Cousin Roderick is surely teasing me. At all events—what I have from my estimable cousin is a flat rejection of my request to marry Henry and, instead, he proposes marriage—a marriage of convenience—with himself! This is the outside of enough! I suspected that he had designs on my Scottish estates, and here is the clear proof! He does not even attempt to disguise it! I fear, Lucy, that he is going to refuse any request I might make to marry. Why, if the Prince Regent himself were to propose, I wager Roderick Lindsay would withhold his permission! And my stepmother is going to refuse her consent for me to marry anyone other than her own nominee, odious Fanshawe!”
She crumpled up the letter and hurled it with all her force at the wall. “I’m a puppet, Lucy! And people pull my strings to make me dance to their tune! All I have to look forward to is five years of being held almost a prisoner in my own house. And now Stepmama speaks of sending you back to Suffolk and putting some condescending London maid in your place. The next thing I shall hear is that Turvey too is being dismissed at the end of the month, and then there will be no one near me in whom I may trust or confide! She means to wear me down until I accept Fanshawe! Oh, Papa, what were you about? What on earth could have persuaded you that this Lindsay would be a suitable guardian for me? I wish I could understand!”
Pale and distressed, she sank into a chair, head in hands, while Lucy fluttered round her, tidying and straightening the already tidy room. Finally, Lucy plucked up the courage to ask, “Begging your pardon, Miss Nell, and please tell me if I am speaking out of turn…but…but…’ She took a deep breath and went on resolutely, “Have you ever been to Scotland, madam?”
“Certainly not, Lucy,” said Nell, raising a tear-stained, impatient face. “And I should not wish to go! I loved my Scottish grandmother. Her name was Alice, and I remember her well from my childhood. Indeed, she taught me many Scottish songs and told me stories of her own country, but I believe it to be very remote and cold—a poor country and one that hates the English. The inhabitants eat the stuffed stomachs of sheep, so I understand, and mountains of salty porridge…The women are red-haired and unattractive, and the men even more so. They wear thick skirts and are much given over to sheep stealing and killing each other with broadswords.”
She gave a sigh that turned into a shudder.
“Then you would never want to go and live on your Scottish lands, madam? And if it is the poor country you describe, the estate cannot produce much of value? They are nothing to you then?” said Lucy carefully, head tilted on one side.
Nell looked at her maid’s flushed and eager face, fished out a kerchief, and blew her nose. “Lucy, what is this, pray? Can I possibly understand you correctly? Are you trying to put it into my head that I should...? I can’t believe it! Besides, it would surely be base and scheming, as you must see, to...?”
“Can’t see the difference,” said Lucy stoutly, “to be honest, madam—if it comes to base and scheming—between marrying Henry Collingwood and marrying this Mr. Lindsay, except you’ll lose a bit of Scotland and a draughty old castle that you can’t be doing with anyway. And the gentleman does say as how it’s a business proposition, doesn’t he? I mean, Miss Nell…um…” Lucy coloured and hesitated, wondering whether she was going too far and finally plunging in with, “You wouldn’t have to be…er…obliging him, if you take my meaning?”
She retrieved the letter and smoothed it out. “All you’d have to do is sign a piece of paper. This old codger writes like a schoolmaster and talks like a lawyer…He’d have it drawn up in no time. He’d be happy, and you would certainly be happier. Imagine, Miss Nell, being a married lady! You could tell her Ladyship what to do with herself, you could take your rightful place in society—we could even go back to Somersham if you wanted. And all without the bother of a husband trailing about after you.”
“Lucy! You are an inspired plotter and a disgrace! But you forget something: one day I should like to be married to someone I love, and when I want to have children I shall be frustrated by a legal tie with a crabby old Scotsman! Marriage is easy—divorce is impossible.”
“Well, look at it this way—if he’s your father’s cousin, Miss Nell, he must be quite old, wouldn’t you think? Lord Hartismere was no chicken—nearer sixty than fifty, if I recall? And if Scotland is as cold and dangerous a place as you say, then this old bird very likely won’t last much longer, surely? You’ll soon be free to marry again—and someone of your own choosing!”
Nell’s astonishment turned to a bubbling laugh. “I do believe you’re right, Lucy! But you can’t be…and yet…it would certainly be one way out of my predicament. Could it possibly work, do you think? Perhaps I should try…I won’t be beaten! I will control my own affairs! I will!” She paused, and her eyes narrowed; her chin rose in a mutinous expression that Lucy knew meant trouble. “I’m going to Scotland, Lucy! We’re going to Scotland! I’m going to beard this supercilious, decrepit old money-grabber in his awful Scottish lair! I’ll meet him and deal with him face to face. I’ll marry him! After all, as my guardian, he may himself give consent! I’ll sign his papers and come straight back home a free and independent woman!”
“We’re going to Scotland? What, all the way to Scotland?” asked Lucy, who had been imagining that all the arrangements could be made by post. “But Scotland is a terrible long way off, is it not, Miss Nell? Farther than Norwich, I do believe?”
Sensing her maid’s rising panic at the idea of leaving civilised London and risking the dangers inherent in the company of wild, porridge-eating Highlanders armed with broadswords, Nell said, more gently but still firmly, “Yes, about three times more distant, I should guess, so Lucy, the sooner we get started, the better. It’s early September now, and it will take at least a week to get there, possibly a week to conclude our business, and a week to travel back. We must return as soon as possible to avoid bad weather on the roads…”
Her mind was racing now, challenged by the idea of doing something greatly daring, something that would require courage and, above all, careful planning.
“Say nothing to Stepmama,” she said unnecessarily. “You may start to pack a portmanteau with things we shall require—sufficient for three weeks. And, Lucy, take care to put in warm clothes, as I dare say it will be chilly and wet. We must travel by post chaise! But how would one arrange that? Turvey! He will know how to hire a post chaise! I will engage him to secure one for us for tomorrow morning as early as may be. We will travel in comfort, Lucy! The mail coach would be slower, and we would have to travel crowded in with other passengers. I do not wish to make conversation with strangers for a week, and we would run the risk of being overtaken and brought back if Stepmama or Fanshawe found out what we were about. They would never catch us in a post chaise—why, I believe they go along at ten miles an hour on the good roads!”
“But how will we pay for it, Miss Nell? They do say them post chaises is terrible expensive!”
“I’ve thought of that too! My father always kept a small store of guineas in a secret drawer of his desk. He showed me how to open it when I was a child, and I have been adding to it a good part of my monthly allowance since he died. It’s not a fortune, but it should be adequate for our needs. Go quietly now and get a portmanteau down from the attic. If you’re discovered, you must burst into tears and say that Lady Cecilia has dismissed you and you are packing to return to Suffolk. I’ll go and find Turvey and have him arrange our journey. Poor Turvey! It would be a kindness to send him straight back to Suffolk lest Stepmama should choose to vent her anger on him when she discovers we are gone.
