A Matter of Choice

Chapter Seven

The following morning, Samuel Hastings was ushered into the parlour, to find only Mary within.

"My mother will be down shortly, I dare say, and I will send for James," said Mary with barely contained excitement. "Oh Mr. Hastings, we have such news that I don't think I can bear to wait for them to tell it."

"I have news as well, but it appears that your news is of a more exciting nature than mine."

"My news is the best news, but it brings with it something of sadness as well. But that is not to say that your news is unimportant."

"What if I tell my news first, for it seems that if you tell your news first there will be no telling of mine. After your news is told we will want to talk only of it, and my humble news will go right out of my head."

"Then by all means tell it. I would not have your news so abused as to not be heard at all."

Samuel Hastings sat as Mary pulled the bell and sent for her brother, then set to walking impatiently round the room.

"Sit, Miss Warrington, please. It is hard to talk with such a moving target. Come, maybe you should tell your news first, and I will wait for another day."

Mary quickly sat on the chair beside his and gave him all her attention so earnestly that they both broke into laughter.

"I am afraid my news will be very flat, after all this build up. It is only that my cousin is coming to keep my mother company, and I would like to introduce her to your mother and yourself next week, if I may."

"But of course, we would be glad to meet her. Will she be staying long?"

"She is coming as a companion to my mother and will stay as long as they both wish it. My mother is not one for society, but she misses my father terribly, and needs more company than I can provide. My cousin is five and twenty, and has a desire to live in the country. She is at present living with her brother in town, but her brother has recently married and her presence is not as desirable as it had been."

"When I am living with my brother, and he decides to marry, I suppose I shall have to do the same, and return home to keep my mother company."

"That is a fine future you have planned for yourself, but your brother would not be so hard hearted as to send you away!"

"But his bride would not want me, surely."

"Your brother would not marry a woman of that nature. You can depend upon it. His wife will be so sweet as to love you dearly at once and to never let you go."

"And he has no plans to marry for some time, so I shall have a few years of contentment running his establishment for him. You see, it is not such a bad future after all. But it is sad for your cousin not to be wanted."

"But she is wanted. By my mother and myself, in a situation much more to her liking than living with her brother."

"Then I am happy for her, and can't wait to meet her. What is her name?"

"I am sorry, I should have said. She is Miss Viola Broome, my mother's late brother's daughter. I am hoping that the two of you will become friends."

"Your news was not so flat as you tried to have me believe. I should say it is very good news."

"But not the best?"

"No. I reserve that distinction for my news. Oh! Here is James! Now you will see."

James entered the room with his mother on his arm. "Good morning Hastings. Has my sister jumped the gun and told you our big news? No, I see that she has not, she is still fair bursting with excitement." He saw his mother established on the settle, with all her silks near at hand, and then gave his welcome news to his friend. It was received with all the happy congratulations that it deserved, and there was much talk regarding the particulars of the plan. James was in very high spirits, which were soon shared by everyone in the room.

"What did you say of sadness Miss Warrington? I find no sadness in this news. It is just what your brother has desired, and certainly the best news."

"But there is sadness because he will be leaving us, and shortly too. I have a selfish nature, I am afraid, and think of myself when I should only be thinking of him."

"Yes indeed, you are very selfish." Samuel Hastings looked at Mary straight-faced but was unable to hide the glint of humour in his eyes.

"Don't think I shan't be missing everyone here," said James. "I have enjoyed these few months together, after my years of study. But it is the nature of life; children must leave the nest and make their own way in the world Brothers and sisters cannot stay together, but they can remain close in each other's hearts. We will write. We will not be lost to each other."

"Your sister will start her first letter the morning you leave," said his mother, smiling softly at him, "and I have already started mine."

"And in a few years, when I am on the shelf, you will send for me to live with you," said Mary.

"Now you are talking nonsense, Mary," said her mother.

This was not a discussion that Mary wanted to get into with her mother at this time, so she quickly turned the subject. "That was not the only sadness I was referring to, Mr. Hastings. This has all come about because of our great uncle's poor health. As wonderful as it is for James to be managing our great uncle's estates for him, we cannot rejoice in his poor health can we?"

"And this from the girl who calls herself selfish," said Samuel Hastings. "You cannot hide your true nature. I hope the old gentleman will recover with your brother there to take all his worries away."

"I shall do my best by him," said James. "Oh Hastings, you cannot know how eagerly I look forward to settling his affairs. I am impatient to start. I would leave this moment if I could, but I have my trunks to pack and send by carrier in the morning, so they can arrive before me. I shall be leaving Friday morning, and arriving Saturday evening, if all goes well. I was about to go out on Sophocles now, for a last look on the harvest, and a last word with Dodson, though he does not attend to all I say, I hope that some of what I tell will bear some weight with him. Would you care to join me?"

"If the ladies would excuse us, I should be most glad to, for it is not only they who shall miss you, my friend."

Mary resisted the urge to beg them to let her come. They would need this last ride together. As she watched them leave the room, she realised that she was losing more than just her brother's company. When he was gone, his friend could not come and visit as he had used to. Life was going to become very dull. As much as she loved her parents, Mary acknowledged that she needed other company. And not the company of her former morning visitors, she was well out of that. It would return to how it was before James had come home, only without Anne, not that Anne had been such good company for her. She sighed and picked up her workbasket, and set to the task of mending her brother's shirt. She and her mother had a small pile of odds and ends of his that needed attending to before the trunks could be completely packed.

As James and Samuel finished their tour, the late afternoon sun gave a golden cast to the hedges, and deepened the shadows in the lanes. James stopped and gazed about him, glorying in the quality of the light, the deepness of the blue of the sky, the clarity of every leaf in the Hawthorne, the distant swish of scythe and call of one labourer to the other.

He looked over to his friend and said, "Hastings, I do have a favour to ask you."

"You know I will do anything for you."

"I don't want to put you in an awkward position, but can you look in on my sister now and then? She will be all alone with my parents and they lead such quiet lives. Would you be able to manage it?"

"It is a favour that I would only be too happy to perform. I think I can set your mind at rest. As luck would have it my cousin is coming soon to be companion to my mother, and I have already procured an invitation for her. Not only will I be able to look in on your sister, but I will be able to provide her with a truly delightful companion. I believe that she and my cousin will deal famously together."

"You are a very capable man."

"Indeed, I do my best."

It seemed the two friends understood each other very well. They slowly walked their horses along the lane until it was time to part, James to the stable, and Samuel back to his own estate.

Friday morning came all too soon for Mary, and not soon enough for James. In the crisp dawn light he said his last goodbyes, mounted Sophocles, and began his journey. His route took him through Bedford and Northampton, and then on to the village of Litchborough, where the White Hart provided a stable and oats for the weary Sophocles and a rustic but clean bedchamber for himself. Saturday morning he was up at dawn to afford time for Sophocles to make the near seventy miles left at an easy pace, resting at Banbury and Chipping Campten before arriving at Wortham Lodge late in the evening.

Chapter Eight

In the county of Worcestershire, about fifteen miles from the county town of Worcester, the village of Barstow was situated. Just beyond the village, the solid bastion of Barstow Hall rose behind a wood of ancient oak. The road continued on, undaunted, across a wide river, then up and over a small hill. To the left a drive forked off, bounded on both sides by immense iron gates, open most every day of the year. The drive lead to a grand mansion, erected on the crest of the hill, looking imposingly across graceful lawns, to an ornamental lake and a valley of softly undulating meadow, graced by a meandering stream and artfully disposed groves of beech. This was Wilverton, the country seat of the right and honourable Lord Ralph Prescott, and his mother, the dowager, Lady Penelope Prescott.

In the early afternoon, on the first of September, 1820, a young couple sat on a bench in the rose garden at Wilverton. The gentleman relaxed, as comfortably as the bench could afford, on one end, while the young lady arranged roses in a basket placed between them.

"Lord, it's hot," muttered Lord Ralph Prescott. "I am so fagged."

"Just from sitting around on a bench, while I have been cutting flowers?" asked Miss Emily Sidford. "Pray what have you done to tire yourself?"

"Just bored, is all" replied Lord Ralph. "Wish Ponsonby didn't have to go off to his Aunt's like that. It's so dull now he's gone."

"I'm quite relieved that Mr. Ponsonby has gone. I didn't quite take to him."

"What? He's my friend and a dashed good fellow. When we are married you will have to be prepared to entertain him."

"Well that won't be for a couple of years yet. Maybe he will have learned civility by that time."

"A couple of years? No, it will be sooner than that. My mother will be out of mourning for her old aunt in six months. And what was it that Ponsonby did that was uncivil? Call you Emily? We are all old friends. Don't be so missish."

"I hope that I am not being missish. I just find that he is too forward and uncouth. Never mind." Emily sighed. She could not bring herself to tell Lord Ralph that she did not like the look in his friend's eyes when he looked at her, or the way he held her hand too long when he led her out to dance or handed her into her carriage. "Your mother told me she would wear black for a year, and then partial mourning for six more months, and that on no account would she put on the wedding until she could dress in the very best and most beautiful fabrics. And after all, what does it matter if we wait another two years."

"It doesn't matter in the slightest. I am entirely at my mother's disposal. I only thought that you might wish it sooner."

"I am quite content to wait. It is only my mother who grows impatient."

"She wants to order the clothes, no doubt."

"She is always studying fashion plates. I have no interest in it. I will leave it to her when the time arrives. Come, Lord Ralph. Let us go in to our mothers. The roses need to be put in water, and your mother wants me to play for her."

"Emily can you not call me Ralph, just as you used to when we were younger?" asked Lord Ralph as he picked up the basket of roses for her and they started to slowly walk back to the house.

"I do not feel comfortable doing so. When we were children it was different, but now you are Lord Prescott, and I know we have been betrothed all our lives, but it sounds so improper somehow just to call you Ralph."

"Sounds damn natural, I should say. When you are my wife what shall you call me?"

"I shall call you by your first name, of course. Let us talk of it no more for the present."

"Well, you shall not have me Miss Emilying you," Lord Ralph said sulkily as they entered the house.

Emily was spared answering by the servant coming to take the flowers. She hurried to the drawing room where her mother and Lady Prescott were already drinking their tea.

"You have been a long time over picking a few roses," called out Lady Prescott as soon as she entered the room. "Why did it take so long? Where is Ralph?"

"I had thought he was right behind me," said Emily looking behind herself. "I can't think where he has got to."

"So you have misplaced him?" Lady Prescott laughed at her own joke and her friend, Mrs. Maude Sidford joined suit. Emily smiled slightly, and stood in the centre of the room, waiting. "Well answer me child. Why did it take so long to pick the roses?"

"I'm sorry, Lady Prescott. You must know that the sun is so hot today that the roses are all in full bloom and very wilted. I had to search in the shade for the very best blooms."

"Thank you, child. Now don't just stand there like a lump in the middle of the room. Take your bonnet off and play for us."

"Yes, please Emily dear," put in her mother. "Penelope and I have been so wanting to hear that Mozart piece this last half hour."

"Yes mama," said Emily seating herself at the pianoforte. She arranged the music and started to play softly, but deftly.

"A little louder, child," called Lady Prescott. "That piece needs more volume. Maude, your daughter continues to perform quite well, but she has a habit of playing too quietly. And she chooses the most melancholy pieces too. Do you not know something more lively, child?"

"Emily, play something more lively. Penelope and I don't want to slip into the doldrums with you. Oh Penelope, I don't know why it is, but that girl has a liking for such mournful airs."

"You must see that her music master encourages brighter pieces. It must be his doing. She has always been a cheerful, biddable girl. When Emily and Ralph are married, I shan't want her to be playing any sombre tunes about the house."

"To be sure. I shall speak with him. Emily thinks she no longer needs instruction, and does not want his lessons any longer, but I can quite see that we must have him continue and encourage her in a livelier taste."

"On no account must he stop instructing her. She has a lovely light playing style, but there is certainly room for improvement. And there is nothing I love more than music. But well played. It must be well played."

Lady Prescott drank her tea and kept a lively conversation going with Mrs. Sidford all through the piece, and when Emily finished, demanded more. As Emily started her second piece, Lord Ralph finally entered the room.

"Where have you been, Ralph?" enquired his mother. "The tea has become cold waiting for you."

"I do not want to maudle my insides with tea," said Lord Ralph, sitting beside his mother and stretching out his long legs. "What else do you have here? Ratafia? Good God! The tea shall have to do."

"And there are these lovely cakes," offered Mrs. Sidford. "Your cook has such a way of making them. They are so light . . ."

"They are blessed small," said Lord Ralph, taking three. He sipped his tea and choked. "Mother, this tea is cold!"

"I already informed you of that fact, my dear."

"What I would not give for a draught of ale!"

"Not in the drawing room!" said Lady Penelope in a shocked voice.

"It is so blessed hot today, mother. Ah well, cold tea it is. I have had worse. But the cakes are quite delicious. Are there more, Mrs. Sidford?"

Mrs. Sidford was only too happy to oblige him. She placed the plate at his elbow and watched indulgently as he emptied it.

"The weather is untimely hot, to be sure," said Lady Penelope. "Why is it that you and Emily took so long about the roses?"

"We were not enjoying being out in that heat, I do assure you. I did have to hurry Emily as she must smell every bloom upon the trellis."

"And why came you not inside with her?"

"I had some business to attend to, and you know I can't abide being cooped up in this room listening to Emily plonk away on the piano for hours on end as you do."

"Emily's playing is very fine," said Mrs. Sidford, bristling in defense of her daughter.

"I meant no disparagement of her accomplishments, ma'am. I do assure you. Forgive me, but I do not have the musical appreciation of my mother. One tune is the same as another to me. This heat has given me a vile temper. I am afraid I am not good company at present."

"Dear boy," said Mrs. Sidford in consoling accents. "It is of no account. This heat is indeed the culprit. You must know that for my dear Emily and I your company is always a pleasure. Do not think that you must always be on your best manners with us. We are quite family you know, and before long that blessed event shall take place that will make you more beloved to me than you are already." She smiled upon him graciously.

Through all this, Emily continued playing. Their rudeness at talking throughout her performance did not bother her. She was so accustomed to it that she didn't give it a thought. If no one else enjoyed the music, she did, and indulging her pleasure in playing delivered her from the boredom of another afternoon in Lady Penelope's drawing room. Lady Penelope's comments on her playing she ignored likewise. They were too familiar to be offensive. They were just a normal part of her life that she accepted without question as the way it was meant to be. After she finished playing there were no cakes or tea left, and no one thought to ask if she wanted any refreshment or to send for more. She sat in silence, her hands folded on her lap, as Lady Penelope informed her as to the various pieces she preferred, and would like her to practice for the coming Saturday. Finally her mother stood up, calling an end to the visit, the carriage was ordered, and bonnets and shawls were put on.

Lord Ralph came out and handed Mrs. Sidford and Emily up into the carriage. "Oh, I have just remembered, I will be unable to take you next Tuesday for Sophie Farquar's bramble expedition. I have sudden business that I must attend to."

"I am sure we can manage just as well on our own," said Emily. "Your business must be more important, and I'm sure you do not really desire to pick brambles."

"No indeed. But Miss Sophie had set so much in store for me to come, if you recall. Do make my apologies to her. I shall try, however, to drive you home if I can manage it."

"You have no need to bother."

"Well then I should be able to see Miss Sophie, so she will not be too put out. Tell her so."

"I will. Goodbye."

The carriage took the mother and daughter the two short miles down the hill and over the bridge to Barstow Hall. General Sidford met them in the drive, having just come from a ride in the oak wood.

Chapter Nine

Mrs. Sidford, of course, had been Miss Maude Winston, dearest friend to Miss Penelope Bridgeview, who had become, as predicted, Lady Prescott. And, true to her word, Lady Penelope invited her pretty friend to stay with her after her marriage, and found her a husband among her own husband's friends. He was not titled, and didn't have twenty thousand pounds a year, but he was a General with ten, and with an estate which bordered upon Lord Prescott's lands. Lady Prescott delivered a baby boy a year after her marriage, fulfilling her duty to produce an heir, and five years later, after two stillbirths, her friend Maude finally produced a healthy baby girl. The two young children were duly betrothed, as Lady Penelope had half jokingly suggested at Lady Devenham's party, and the two estates were destined to become one. The match was maybe not the best that she could have hoped for her son, who could have looked to the nobility for a bride, but the family lines were impeccable, and Lady Penelope Prescott liked the idea of joining the two estates. She had also put a great deal of influence into the education of the young Miss Emily. She was not as pretty as Lady Prescott had expected, her parents both being exceedingly handsome, but she was biddable, and Lady Penelope wanted a daughter-in-law that she could manage. After all, Lady Penelope had no intention of removing to the dower house upon her son's marriage, nor giving up her control of Wilverton.

Though Miss Emily had not turned out beautiful, as nature should have ensured, in all other respects she was just what Lady Penelope required in a wife for her only son. She was a quiet, agreeable girl who excelled in music and needlework. She was poised and elegant, and, though she appeared to have no personal interest in finery, was content to be guided by Lady Prescott as to dress. The betrothal had other benefits as well. Lord Ralph was extremely handsome, and wherever he went young ladies were throwing their caps at him. He did not appear to be averse to the attractions of empty-headed blondes, or cunningly flirtatious fortune hunters. Lady Penelope acknowledged that the betrothal had prevented him more than once from making a fool of himself in that department.

Lady Penelope seemed to have the perfect wife for her beloved son except for one very big drawback of which she was completely unaware, and which her dear friend, Maude Sidford, intended to keep from her at all cost until the wedding was at last performed. General Sidford was done up. He and his lovely Maude lived in a style well beyond his means. She loved fine clothing and jewellery, and seasons in London. He had a taste for horse racing and cards, and his tastes went further than the hallowed establishment of Whites. He frequented gaming dens with high rollers. The estate was mortgaged and the fifteen thousand pounds that was to be Emily's dowry was no longer intact. The most she could hope for was two or three thousand pounds. The General lived in the confident belief that his finances would come around, and Maude Sidford knew that she had to keep up her same level of expenditure if the secret was not to come out. If any whiff of economy should reach Lady Penelope, all would be lost, so Maude suffered under the necessity of throwing large dinner parties, and redecorating her parlour every spring.

Of all this Emily had no knowledge. She was not interested in finery and rich living, but she accepted it as a part of her daily life that she had no control over. Lady Penelope curbed her mother's desire for her to be overdressed, and for this she was grateful. She appreciated simplicity above all things but was surrounded by all that was ornate and overdone except in her own set of rooms. Here the draperies were plain damask, not rushed or flounced or billowing with gauze and satin bows. The furnishings were understated and elegant, and she enjoyed sitting in the still silence of the room, in the embrasure of a long window, reading a novel. There were few things more important to her. Her music she loved, and she could lose herself in the notes, or, more accurately find herself, and lose the life she was born to. The life she did not question, but could not relish. Her aunt Letty, her father's elder sister, a dependant spinster who sewed all her gowns and was her most constant companion, was her solace, and her friend Ruth, the vicar's daughter, was her eye to a different world that she was not a part of, and didn't understand.

The next afternoon, Miss Letitia Sidford returned from a shopping expedition to London. There was much bustle in the entrance as all her trunks and bandboxes were unloaded and brought inside. She was very occupied with directing the footmen as to which rooms these articles were to be sent, but soon she had organised the lot and was greeting her sister and niece in her usual flustered style.

"Maude, so nice to see you. Do not go to London in the summer, heavens what was I thinking!! The brocade for the drawing room had to be got, to be sure. I have sent it up to your suite, or have I? No, I have sent it to the drawing room for you to judge. Your muslins and silks have gone up to your bedchamber. Yes that's it. How have you been faring in this heat? You will find the new colours just what you have wished . . ."

"Come into the parlour, Letitia dear, and I will order some tea. You must be tired after such a journey," said Maude, leading her to that compartment as they spoke.

"I am totally done in, as you can quite imagine. Emily, my dear, come and give me a hug. We shall be busy, you and I. I have such bolts of cloth as you cannot imagine, but you shall see it all soon. I have sent it up to your apartment, to our sewing room as I like to call it. Why, you are looking peaked and thin. What have you been up to?"

"I am well, Aunt Letty. This is how I always look. You have been away so long that you have forgot."

They settled themselves in the parlour, and Letty took a long look at Emily. The room was well lit from the sun that streamed through the long windows that opened on to the pleasure gardens. "You do look thin, my love. In one month I cannot forget so very much. I am not so much of a scatter-brain as you would have me think. Have you been too much time with your instrument? You must walk out more and visit your friends."

"Indeed, you are mistaken. I have been out in the garden every day. Mama was afraid I would get too much sun. And I have done a great deal of visiting as well."

"We are at Wilverton at least twice a week, as you well know Letitia," said Maude in reproving tones. "And the young people are always visiting. Emily has called on Miss Sophie above five times, Lord Ralph has taken her out in his curricle, and she has even insisted on walking to the parsonage once a week to visit the Chesterton girl."

"Ruth Chesterton is my very good friend, mama."

"I am sure she is a very deserving sort of girl, but you know that Sophie Farquar is more your sort."

"Is not the parson's daughter our sort, Maude?" asked Letty. "He is a gentleman, and of very good family. I have been exceedingly pleased with his sermons. He reads very well and he is always most attentive. His wife is a sweet and unassuming lady, and Miss Ruth is a sensible young girl. Much more sensible than Miss Sophie, who can be quite a little goose."

"Verity Chesterton's grandfather was in trade. I have it on good authority, for Mrs. Trumble, in the village, had it from her sister who chanced to visit the town where Mrs. Chesterton was born, and discovered it was all over the town what a good match she had made."

"Her grandfather may have been a wool merchant. I have heard that story. But her father was raised a gentleman, and was himself a clergyman of the utmost respectability."

"Ruth is my friend, and that is all that needs to be said," said Emily. "Now tell us about London. Was it terribly hot and flat?"

The tea was brought in and Letty told them of the city in summer, thin of company and entertainments, the air stifling, the heat exhausting. She did not mind the lack of society, because she went to shop and search out new patterns and fabrics, visit the libraries and museums, and see old friends who had as little time for high society as she had.

After tea, Letty was revived, and rather than repairing to her room to rest, she wanted nothing more than to unpack all her purchases and show them off. First they inspected the new brocades for the drawing room settle and chairs, then they unpacked Maude's muslins and silks, laces and ribbons, and listened to her transports over the patterns of the coming season's new styles.

"To think that the waists will be that much longer! It shall seem very strange, but how elegant!"

Emily and Letty left Maude fingering the fine fabrics, and draping them about her person in front of the mirror in her dressing room, and went on to Emily's apartments to unpack the various bandboxes that were piled there. Maude had no interest in seeing the cloth that had been chosen for Emily because she knew it would all be in colours drab compared to hers, and the lace and ribbons nowhere near as elaborate and pretty. But it was how Penelope liked Emily to dress, and pleasing Penelope was of the utmost importance to Maude.

Emily was happy with her aunt's choices. There were muslins, the dusty green of the open moors, the silvery brown of cherry bark, the ochre of freshly harvested hay; taffeta the slate blue of summer storm clouds; and dove grey silk, all for new gowns. There was a bolt of woollen superfine, for a new pelisse, the colour of dried beech leaves, and a ream of green, dark as the oaks in Barstow woods, for a spencer.

"You see, my dear, that there is enough for me to make myself a pelisse as well, and the colour is called dead leaf, which I find so droll. And the green will give a new reticule after we have cut out the spencer. And this powder blue ribbon will brighten up the blue, which I was afraid might be too dark."

"Aunt Letty, it is all lovely. You know me so well."

"And I have a little something by way of a present for you, Emily. It is the novel you have been wanting. The one by that lady writer, you know the one I mean. I was at the milliners and just chanced to stop at a book sellers on my way home and I just had to purchase it for you, when I saw the two volumes displayed in the window." She held out a small oblong parcel.

Emily carefully unwrapped it, and held the small volumes in her hand, "Persuasion, by A Lady. It was the last book that she wrote. Aunt Letty, thank you so much. I have been wanting to read it ever since I had heard it was published."

"And now you have it. I will leave you to peruse it now. I must rest a little before dinner."

"Oh Auntie!" Emily gave Letty a big hug as she left the room, and then settled into her favourite window seat, opened her new book, and read until the light faded and her maid came in to light the candles and help her dress for dinner.

© 2002 Copyright held by the author.

Next

Back

Back to Novel Idea