Authors: Christianna Brand
‘Oh, entirely, entirely, what could be wrong with it?’ cried poor Lady Jones, bewildered at having apparently offended. She burst into a nervous paean of not very sincere compliments, full of little bobs and bows to the young lady’s rather intimidating gathering of relatives—at the prospect of having dear Lyneth at Plas Dar as their daughter. ‘So long we have known her as a—most welcome—visitor. Have we not, my dear?’
Lyneth wore her prettiest dress for the evening, white frills and flounces frothing out over tight little bows of pink ribbon, holding all in place. Christine wore white also, devoid of all colour so that it was she who looked like a ghost, while the real ghosts hovered, effulgent in the evening dress of Lyn’s elegant imagination. Lady Hilbourne sat at the head of the table, stiff and grim as ever in her rich brown velvet, beaded in self-colour, the scar running in its narrow bleached chasm down her cheek. Above the murmur of well-mannered dinner-table conversation, rose Sir Thomas’s complacent boom and Lady Jones’s twitterings. ‘And you’ve always been so fond of the house, of Plas Dar—have you not, my dear?’
‘Though not exactly as a two-family mansion,’ said Lyneth, looking down her pretty little nose; for across the room, Richard, having removed himself from over-close association with Lady Jones, was going through a pantomime of horror at this threat of the bride’s removal. But she felt her step-mother’s scandalised face turned towards her, heard the little gasp of Christine’s indrawn breath and amended, faltering: ‘I mean, it is not such a very
large
house…’
‘As large as Aberdar,’ said Sir Thomas, riled by any reflection upon his extremely imposing mansion. ‘More self-contained, perhaps, less spread about. A Palladian design,’ he confided somewhat grandiosely to the assembled table, ‘by the architect Sir John Soane—must have got a mint of money bringing him all the way up here, but that was no consideration…’ He broke off slightly abashed and leaned back to allow Tomos (very grand these days in a uniform ordained by Tante Louise, complete with tight white cotton gloves) to place his soup plate. ‘Well—I don’t speak of myself—it was built before my time.’ What was there in the air, he wondered, that had inspired him to so rare a show of vulgarity?
‘You forget, my dear Sir Thomas, how often we have visited you there,’ said Henry Hilbourne, smiling, ‘delivering over to her ladyship’s kind hospitality, your Lawrence’s friend, our unregenerate small son.’
‘Not so small these days! And now gone off abroad, poor Arthur,’ said his wife, striving to speak light-heartedly, ‘we can only assume for a spell of big game hunting.’ She dipped a pretty little inclination of the head to the happy future mother-in-law. ‘Your ladyship’s gain is alas!—our loss.’
Along the high mantelshelf, Lenora’s white fingers worked their way in a heavy plodding movement; and, ‘Perhaps he will bring back a pair of elephant feet,’ said Lyneth pertly, ‘to console both the mamas—Arthur’s for her loss and Lawrence’s for what she so kindly refers to as her gain.’
Lady Hilbourne sat aghast: what on earth had come to the girl? She said with little pretence at concealing her repressive intention: ‘Such trophies more often than not are worked into waste-receptacles, my dear. Have a care that neither of these ladies develops an inclination to consign you to hers.’
‘Will you keep me in a corner of your drawing-room, Lady Jones?’ said Lyneth archly, refusing to be crushed, ‘—in an elephant’s foot. I’m sure I should be as well accommodated there as—’
‘Soup, Miss?’ said Tomos deftly interrupting.
‘You are serving the ladies out of turn, Tomos,’ hissed the hostess,
sotto voce
. He gave her back a look from his bright, dark Welsh eyes that returned her rather smartly to her neighbourly civilities.
Lady Jones, increasingly tempted to betray indignation, was restrained by an anguished glance from her son and controlled herself sufficiently to suggest that it would be much nicer to have the little bride in the more commodious accommodation of the west wing, where they were planning a separate home for her reception. ‘Quite to yourselves, my dears!’ She outlined its promise to the politely attentive guests. ‘The place was evidently built with some such possible future in mind: there is already in the west wing an entrance which may very well serve as their front door, leading into quite a nice little opening for a hall; so that the young people may come and go as they will.’
‘It will be perfect, Mama,’ said Lawrence, watching in an agony of embarrassment the clouds gather upon his lady-love’s white brow. ‘I’ve told you about it, Lyn?’
‘Yes, indeed. Actually to go in and out from our own home, without first seeking permission to pass through your parent’s house. And the nice little hall! But what other cupboard will accommodate the household stores which I believe your ladyship keeps there now?’
‘The stores would be removed before you were asked to use the space for any other purposes,’ said Sir Thomas; the tone of his voice clearly adding, ‘—if, indeed, after this, you are ever invited to.’ The three Hilbourne ladies burst forth all at the same time, with comparisons as to the convenience of smaller hallways. ‘And we thought we might contrive a charming little salon for you, Lyneth—’ pursued poor Lady Jones, doggedly.
Lyneth interrupted. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess! The salon will be in what is now Sir Thomas’s gun-room?
‘It is very good of my father to think of giving it up to us.’
‘Shall we still have your trophies hanging round the wall, Sir Thomas? The antlers and the pigs’ heads—oh, dear, the boars’ heads, I think I ought to say…’
Sir Thomas was by now beginning to look as though he would by no means object to featuring the young lady’s head among them. The cousins exchanged scandalised glances, her family were looking daggers but helpless to stem the tide of something too much like sheer insolence to be for much longer endurable. And yet how to stem it without a positive overt reproof, embarrassing to all? And Lady Jones was plunging wretchedly on, unable to bring the terrible conversation to a graceful end. ‘The room can be made quite nice, dear, I am sure: you must choose your own brocades and then with a plain gold stripe in the wallpaper, I thought, to give height—’
Across the room, Richard hopped up and down with wings bent inwards, flapping. ‘I shall feel like a canary bird, Lady Jones, in a gilt cage—a rather
small
gilt cage.’
Shall I be taken faint? thought Christine; what can I do to stop her? But that seemed too obviously a trick, and her mind was a blank. At the head of the table, Lady Hilbourne sat in an agony: we have not yet finished the soup course, how can we get through this terrible evening, if she continues like this? She dared not make too overt a sign of disapproval for fear of the lengths that Lyneth might go to yet. And suddenly Tomos was leaning over her, murmuring under cover of removal of her soup plate, ‘Your permission, m’lady?’
She bowed her head silently. He passed over Christine, next in line and moved on to Lyneth. Her soup was as yet untasted. ‘You have finished, Miss?’ the unaccustomed cotton gloves were uncomfortably tight perhaps, for it was not like Tomos to be unhandy; or his eyes at the critical moment were lifted to those of his mistress. He gave a startled exclamation: ‘Oh, Miss, I beg your pardon! Miss Lyn—I’m very sorry!’ and tipped the whole plateful into the young lady’s lap.
Fish quenelles followed, a variety of entree-dishes covered the corners; a pair of fine roast fowl were carried in by a Tomos outwardly wearing an aspect of abashment, inwardly complacent in her ladyship’s covert gratitude.
So far, Lyneth had made no reappearance; upstairs, changing into a different dress, struggling without assistance from a maid, since she must secretly converse with her ghosts. ‘Don’t come back to the dining-room! Please, please leave me alone! They will never forgive me. You make me say such dreadful things—’
‘The look on your face when Diccon sat down in that silly old woman’s lap!’
‘Yes, but—truly! The Jones’s will make Lawrence break off the engagement.’
‘What could be more desirable?’
‘Now, Richard!’ warned Lenora.
‘Well, well, I suppose she must marry the clod. But she shall not go to that other house. She remains here with us.’
‘If I didn’t live here, you couldn’t continue to haunt here,’ said Lyneth, caught by a new thought.
‘By the time all these decisions are made, Lyneth,’ said Lenora with an edge to her voice, ‘you will be in our—’
‘In your power?’ she said quickly, frightened by the ugly word.
‘You will be ours,’ said Richard, ‘that is all. You won’t
want
to escape from us.’
Escape! ‘I could just go to Plas Dar; it would be my home. I need not come back—’
‘Not come back? To this house, to your friends and your family?’
‘They could come to me.’
‘Bringing the whole household with them—your pets, the little dogs, all the beasts in the stables—?’
‘Of course, I should take Mr Rochester with me. Anyway—for the sake of half a dozen dogs and a pair of riding horses, am I to submit to being haunted all the rest of my life? A short life, I know that: many things out of the past are becoming clearer to me now.’
‘Why do you struggle?’ said Lenora, in the cold voice she had come to dread. ‘You know very well you can never leave Aberdar Manor. The house wouldn’t let you go.’
Richard came over to where Lyn stood, her arms up behind her neck, the last hook fastened. ‘Don’t let her frighten you, my sweeting! You provoked me and I am such an intolerant devil! I’m sorry we teased you. Go down now, go back to them, we’ll leave you alone—make your pretty little speeches, win back their good graces, agree to all their hopes and dreams about the west wing of Plas Dar. When the time comes, it will be soon enough to get your own way. Once you’re married to your clodhopper as it seems you must be—they can do nothing to force you to live there: we shall keep you safe here with us…’ And he put his chill wraith hands on her shoulders and gently urged her towards the door. ‘Go down and make it up with them and be happy. Make them all your friends again.’ To his sister, as the shivering girl slipped out of the door, closing it behind her, he said: ‘Poor sweet thing—with friends like us, she will need all the true friends she can keep!’
She went slowly downstairs: stood a moment outside the door, bracing herself; went into the dining room. No one could behave more prettily than Lyneth, when she pleased. She went straight up to Lady Jones, bobbed a little curtsy. ‘I’m sorry! Please forgive me! I have such a headache, I hardly knew what I was saying.’ And she reached across the table for Sir Thomas’s thick red hand and held it for a moment in her own. ‘I’m so sorry! You know I didn’t mean it. You know I love Plas Dar.’ To the assembled table she bobbed a general curtsey. ‘I apologise to everyone. I behaved dreadfully badly, and darling Tetty, I’m so sorry I spoilt your lovely dinner-party.’ And she looked across the room with a twinkle, ‘Tomos was quite right to spill the soup in my lap!’ She slipped demurely into her chair and looked round at them all with a comic air of penitence. ‘We shall be as cosy as anything, dear Lady Jones, in our darling store-cupboard and the gilded cage.’
‘That child is an enchantress,’ said the various husbands to their wives, in their pillow-talk that night.
‘She is a minx,’ replied the wives unhesitatingly. What soft fools men could be!
Despite all these
amendes honorables
, it was not to be expected that she could escape an inquest. The aunts and uncles had stayed the night, but as soon as they had driven away, she was sent for to Lady Hilbourne’s sitting-room; and now her tormentors were in attendance again. ‘Well, really, Tetty, I know I was naughty but to be expected to live in a broom-cupboard!—a young married lady to consider herself lucky to go in and out of her home without seeking permission… Was I to bear it like a simpering miss from a book by Charles Dickens?’
‘It was a strain,’ said Christine loyally. ‘She was naturally shy.’
‘Shy! She has known them all from her babyhood. If I had not brought you up to know better, Lyneth, I should suspect you of having drunk too much of Mr Weston’s good wine.’
‘Well, well, how literary we become! You top my Dickens with Miss Austen. You’ll accuse me next, I daresay, of behaving like a Trollope—without the final letter.’
‘Lyneth, how dare you—?’
‘Well, don’t nag at me, Tetty. We had just sat down to table, how could I have drunk too much wine? It was not at all easy, all those massed relatives looking me over, and Lawrence all eyes and anguish to see his loved one behave so ungraciously, his mama so horrified. But when she sat down on Diccon’s lap, oh, dear, I thought I should have died of…’ She broke off, looking scared. ‘On that wobbly chair, of course I mean.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you. The chair is as safe as any other. You are talking sheer nonsense.’
‘I am talking nonsense to take the black look off your face. I behaved like an angel as soon as they left me alone—as soon as you and Christine left off, I mean, with your covert hints and nid-noddings.’ She caught sight of Christine’s face, the doubt and dread on it, and thought she must escape from one moment more of questioning. ‘This has all brought on a headache and I’ll forego eating up last night’s left-overs, if you will excuse me now, Tetty, from any more lecturing, and go to bed early…’
And they will come again, she thought, and last night’s terrors will be forgotten… But she knew that by herself they would never now be entirely forgotten: that a knowledge had entered her soul of what was yet to be: that behind the laughter and the flattery and the petting—lay the seeds of her doom.
That night, however, Lady Hilbourne descended to listen outside Lyneth’s door. Christine, bent upon the same errand, found her there. ‘Tetty?’
‘I was just hoping she’d got off to sleep. Really, last night and again this evening when I spoke to her—she was not herself.’
They spoke in whispers. ‘Well, darling—it’s been a trying two days for her. One can only hope,’ said Christine, ‘that Lady Jones gets over it. I don’t think she quite accepted Lyn’s pretty little apologies. Suppose she doesn’t really forgive her, suppose she refuses to have her living at Plas Dar!’