Authors: Angel
“Should you care to go for a ride, Miss Sutton?” Sir Gregory asked Catherine. “You have not yet taken advantage of my uncle’s stables, and if it is fine tomorrow we might perhaps go up to Braddock’s Force. It is not very far, and I think you would enjoy it.”
“What is Braddock’s Force?” demanded Angel. “Is it named after Saint Braddock?”
“You will have to ask Beth,” he told her. “I know only that it is a delightful spot at the end of a pleasant ride.”
“‘Force’ is our local word for waterfall,” revealed Lady Elizabeth. “Saint Braddock is supposed to have lived beside it and practised exorcising frogs and newts before he attempted to drive the monster from Rosshead Tarn.”
“Then the picture in the church is not of Ullswater?” asked Catherine. “I am so glad! I quite thought I should have to forgo boating on the lake, for I’ve no wish to be swallowed by a sea-serpent. A visit to the Force does sound like an attractive outing. Should you like to go, Lyn?”
“If my aunt and uncle permit,” said Angel, a show of submission that impressed no one.
“As long as Sir Gregory will be present there can be no objection,” the vicar decided. “But does Lady Elizabeth wish to go?”
“Oh, yes! It seems like forever since I was up there, and it was always one of our . . . my favourite places. Miss Sutton, are you able to come up to the Hall now to choose a mount?”
Angel and Catherine changed into their riding habits and the four of them walked up the lane, John Applejohn having been sent ahead with the horses. As usual when the four were together, Angel and Beth soon had their heads close, leaving Catherine to entertain the baronet. Angel had qualms about letting her cousin bear the whole burden of conversation with that disagreeable gentleman, but she simply had so much to say to her friend that there was no alternative.
Seeing the girls deep in a discussion of the novel that Beth had just finished, Sir Gregory turned to Catherine.
“‘Come, Mistress Kate, I’ll bear you company,’” he said.
“Why, sir, you are out of character. It was never Petruchio who said that.”
“No, it was Hortensio, I believe, but I must seize my lines where I may.”
“Shakespeare had other Katherines, I think.”
“But only one worth knowing: the princess of France in
Henry the Fifth.
And I’ll not woo in broken French. Besides, the relevant bit is not in verse and therefore devilish hard to remember.”
“You prefer verse, sir?” asked Catherine, passing hurriedly over the first part of this speech, which was obviously meaningless.
“If I am to get it by heart. Not for reading. Miss Brand mentioned that you are engrossed in a history of Richard III?”
“I am, but I cannot imagine why she should comment upon it.”
“Merely to decry your taste in literature.”
“I must point out to her that it would do my reputation as a bluestocking no good to be found reading the kind of novel she enjoys.”
“You
wish
to be known as a bluestocking? Fie, fie, Miss Sutton!’’
“One must have some sort of reputation, I suppose, and that will do as well as any. You have your own, sir, I am sure.”
“Certainly. Ask your cousin and she will tell you I am a starchy, cross-grained slowtop with a deplorable tendency towards antiquated notions of propriety. In short, a horrid creature, and stricken in years to boot.”
“Politeness bids me deny that she would say so, but honesty forbids! I hope you do not mind it. She does not know you well.”
“If you do not share it, her opinion is nothing to me.”
“That is not how I should choose to describe you, no.’’
“Then how?”
Catherine laughed. “There are many possibilities. How like you ‘a mad-brain rudesby’? Or perhaps ‘one half lunatic, a mad-cap ruffian’?”
“Hoist by my own petard,” he sighed. “I believe you have been studying in preparation for just such an opportunity. Away with the Shrew! Let us talk of Hunchback Richard.”
When they reached the Grisedale Hall stables, they found Lord Welch there, on the point of departing. He gladly turned back and offered his advice on the most suitable mounts for the young ladies. At the sight of him, Sir Gregory’s mask of boredom had descended once again, and as he declined to voice his views, the viscount’s suggestions were accepted. Miss Sutton was soon mounted on a safely sluggish bay hack and Miss Brand on a rather more lively roan, and they trotted through the park accompanied by Lady Elizabeth and his lordship. A suddenly remembered errand had called Sir Gregory into the house.
Once more Catherine was left with the gentleman, and this time Angel had no qualms about abandoning her. She had few opportunities for winning Lord Welch’s regard away from Beth, and Angel hoped she was making the best use of every moment with him.
The viscount rode beside Catherine and made sporadic comments with perfunctory courtesy, but it was plain to her that his thoughts were riding ahead with Lady Elizabeth. Her dislike of the man spurred her to attempt to aid the girl by drawing his attention to herself, and after several false starts she found that the subject of gambling was one in which he was passionately interested. This, she suspected, must be the root of his need for Beth’s dowry. In fact he spoke, complainingly, of large losses at the gaming tables.
“Of course there are no end of card-sharps in London,” he explained to her, “and I’ll wager half the ivories at Watier’s are loaded. Otherwise I must have won. I challenged a pair once, but somehow they substituted good dice and I was forced to apologise. I got my own back though.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Revenge, I took my revenge. I hired a bunch of bully-boys and had that cheating liar beaten half to death.”
The cold-blooded satisfaction with which he said this chilled Catherine and drove all possible responses from her lips. Lord Welch did not seem to notice her silence. He rattled on about games of hazard, macao, whist, and faro, long past and surely forgotten by the rest of the participants, congratulating himself on his minor successes, blaming his losses on trickery.
Angel, looking back, was delighted to see the couple deep in conversation. Later, as she and Catherine walked homeward, she asked what they had talked of.
“Nothing of interest,” said her cousin shortly.
Something private, thought Angel, satisfied. “And what did you speak of with the odious Sir Gregory? Why does he call you Kate? Not even Aunt Maria calls you that.”
“It is a silly joke, my dear. I wish he would stop it but he will not, and it is not worth teasing myself over.”
“He is quite the most provoking man I have ever met! I am very glad I thought to invite Lord Welch to come with us to the waterfall, are not you?
He
is a true gentleman.”
Chapter 8
To Angel’s relief, Saturday was not merely fine but cloudless. She sang over her morning chores, trying to sound as she imagined a linnet might, until her uncle thrust his head around the study door and begged her to stop.
At midday Sir Gregory and Lady Elizabeth arrived. Angel and Catherine joined them, and soon they were riding up a bridle path between bracken thickets, then into the dappled shade of the woods. The plash and tinkle of an invisible stream mingled with the songs of a multitude of birds.
A keen horsewoman, Angel was content just to feel the animal moving beneath her and to soak in the green-tinted sunlight, the odours of growing things and leaf mould. A lizard skittered from a rock beside the path; a jay flashed blue from tree to tree, screeching a raucous warning of their approach; a pair of red squirrels chased each other through the gnarled branches of an ancient oak. The theatres and ballrooms of London seemed far away.
In spite of her father’s huge estates in Kent, Angel had spent most of her life in the metropolis. The marquis’s involvement in politics had never allowed him to absent himself from the seat of government for long periods, and her mother could not bear to be parted from either husband or child. Angel had always enjoyed her brief stays in the country but thought it would be dull to live away from the amusements of the city.
On this perfect day, she began to wonder if it would really be so tedious. Beth seemed perfectly content and was never unoccupied, and
her
life was exceptionally circumscribed. Angel compared the beauty of her present surroundings with her memories of dusty, grimy London in July, where the only place to ride was the over-familiar parks, or streets full of smells from gutters and back alleys that made one gasp for fresh air. She breathed deep, filling her lungs with the scent of a honeysuckle vine running rampant over rocks and bushes.
Sir Gregory, who was in the lead, called back that he could see Lord Welch waiting for them ahead, and soon Angel saw him, standing beside his horse at a branching of the ways. Once again she noted his smartness, in contrast to the baronet’s casual dress. In fact he was the most fashionable gentleman of their acquaintance in Westmorland, precise to a pin. It did seem a pity that Beth could not return his regard.
The viscount broke the spell of the quiet woods with his inconsequential chatter. Angel responded, and the two of them soon fell behind.
“Let’s catch up,” she suggested. “I don’t want to be last to see the waterfall.”
“It will wait for us. We don’t want Lady Elizabeth to think we are hurrying after her. In fact, I’d rather she thought we were dallying together.”
“You mean you want to flirt with me to make her jealous? I don’t believe you will succeed. She has not the least idea of marrying you.”
“Oh, she’ll come around. After all, she knows no one else in the least degree eligible, though she pretends to be in love with some imaginary fellow. To make herself interesting, I suppose. She’ll get tired of it and then we’ll tie the knot quick as winking. Won’t hurt to make her worry a bit.”
Angel was dubious, but he seemed very sure of himself, and he had known Beth forever while she had met her two short weeks ago. Perhaps she did intend to marry him in the end. No one could blame her for inventing a romance to brighten a dull life.
But what then of Mr Marshall, who had been so anxious to see her? Though he had not mentioned the matter when they met by the lake. Was it for Beth’s sake that he wished her to teach him to pay compliments to ladies?
Angel shied away from the thought and urged her horse faster up the slope.
Braddock’s Force was a series of falls, none high, which tumbled from pool to still, brown pool. The banks were set with mossy rocks, their crevices green with maidenhair ferns, while over the white foam of the cascade leaned a rowan tree laden with scarlet berries. Angel was delighted with the scene.
If St Braddock had indeed lived here, it was so long ago that his dwelling had merged back into its surroundings. They found a number of flat stones which might once have been part of the hermit’s modest shelter. Seated on them in comfort, they consumed the excellent picnic provided by Sir Gregory.
The baronet had apparently made up his mind to tolerate the viscount for the duration, and his lordship avoided harassing Beth by either his attentions or deliberate neglect, so they had an agreeable time.
Lord Welch was in fact somewhat in awe of Sir Gregory, who in spite of his lower rank had years and inches in his favour. He found Sir Gregory’s usual air of cynical boredom intimidating. As long as the earl favoured his suit, a mere cousin was not a serious stumbling-block in the way of his possession of Beth’s fortune, but he thought it only commonsense to take every opportunity to turn him up sweet. It was always possible that the old curmudgeon would pop off the hooks before he persuaded my lady to toss her cap over the windmill, and then the baronet would hold the pursestrings. In fact, if she did not soon abandon her freaks and fancies, Lord Welch would find himself without a feather to fly with. He needed that dowry and he needed it soon.
Exerting himself to please, Lord Welch succeeded to the extent that Beth lost most of her nervousness, Sir Gregory and Catherine for once found his company pleasant, and Angel, denied her usual throng of admirers, went so far as to wonder momentarily whether she should pursue him on her own account. He would not have been pleased had he known how quickly she dismissed the notion. It seemed laughable when she recalled how recently she had rejected Damian Wycherly’s offer.
The trouble was, she thought, that of the four young gentlemen known to her in this part of the world, none showed signs of admiring her wholeheartedly. Which led to the lowering reflection that her charms were more solidly based on rank and fortune than she had supposed. Perhaps she should purchase a feather, just a small one, for her bonnet?
As they rode back down the hill, Angel announced that, since Lord Welch was going that way, she wanted to ride up Dowen Crag.
“Should you mind riding further, Miss Sutton?” Sir Gregory asked. “It is not more than half a mile, but the way grows steep.”
“Fortunately it is my horse’s limbs and not mine which must bear the burden,” said Catherine. “I should like to see the view.”
So they accompanied Lord Welch up the track, which soon left the trees and grew rocky. On one side rose a grassy slope, while to the other the gently falling hillside became steeper as they proceeded, until the path skirted the rim of a precipice.
At last they reached the top. For the last hundred feet the cliff had grown shallower, till there was a drop of a mere fifteen feet or so, with a steep bracken-grown slope at its base. At the very highest point of the path, partly concealed by bushes, a huge slab of rock hung out over empty air. Lord Welch dismounted and walked out on it, followed by Beth and Angel.
“That looks shockingly dangerous,” Catherine said. “Lyn, stay away from the edge, I beg of you.”
“It has been here throughout living memory,” Sir Gregory reassured her. “I suppose one day it will succumb to wind and rain, or rabbit burrows perhaps, but we must hope it will hold yet a while.”
“Do come, Catherine,” urged Angel. “You cannot see the view properly from there.”
“Will you live dangerously?” asked the baronet with a smile, and when she nodded he helped her dismount and tied the horses beside the others.