The Imaginary Gentleman (9 page)

The rest of the party climbed the sides of the Hollow, with Elspeth last of all.

“Laura! What on earth is the matter?” Elspeth swept across the grass to her sister and gave her face a most penetrating inspection. “Are you not well, dearest?” she said sweetly. “Richard, we must get her to the house. Shall I send for a footman?”

“I shall be perfectly able to walk, Elspeth.”

Sir Richard said, “I will help my cousin to the house.”

“I thought I heard Laura call out Mr. Templeton's name,” Elspeth whispered. Sir Richard nodded.

Elspeth saw the advantage of continuing as if all were normal, and led the rest of the party away.

When they were out of earshot, Laura said, “Whose was that third voice I heard, Richard? I heard three men in the Hollow.”

“Nay, Laura. It was but Mr. Woodruff, play-acting.”

Laura gasped, her eyes questioning his, while he looked crestfallen.

Miss Woodruff watched in concern as Laura returned to the house. Elspeth said, “Would you like to see the flower gardens?” It seemed to Jane that Mrs. Evans wished to distract the guests.

Mrs. Evans faced Mr. Woodruff, saying, “I am more than a little afraid of you, sir, for you have frightened my sister and she is never afraid.”

“Am I a dangerous fellow, then, Mrs. Evans? I like that very much.” They walked away, Elspeth giggling in a way young Woodruff enjoyed, leaving Miss Woodruff to follow behind them, with her sister.

Before they turned the corner of the house, Miss Woodruff saw how Laura stopped and looked strangely at the baronet.

Evalina came to her side. “Jane,” she said, “who is Mr. Templeton?”

T
HERE WAS NO PRETEXT ON
which Laura could remain in her room for the entire evening. She wished only to gather her wits for half an hour, but her sister's bustling was very trying on her nerves.

“Sarah! How slowly you answer the bell!” Elspeth said, when the girl ran in, panting for breath.

“I were at the bottom of the house, madam, pressing Miss Laura's dinner gown.”

“Close the curtains! Turn back the bed covers! No!” Elspeth said, as Sarah went to the window. “The bed first!”

“Pray lie down, Laura,” she said. “We dine at five o'clock. I trust you will be in command of yourself by then.”

“I am perfectly well, Elspeth.”

“Lavender water, Sarah! You can manage that, I suppose.”

“She has only one pair of hands, Elspeth,” said Laura.

Sarah rolled her eyes at Jonathon as she scurried out, and he grinned.

“A right fuss!” he said, from the side of his mouth, as he shut the door.

Laura sat in her armchair. “Listen, Elspeth. That deep voice—unlike Richard's or Mr. Woodruff's—merely confused me for the moment so that I felt a little faint. I wish you would not make so much of it!”

Elspeth turned at the door and stared icily at her sister. “Is it
I
who makes much of this? You called out the name of that
wretched
Mr. Templeton, who is as likely to be here at Oakmont as Bonaparte. Your behaviour must appear very odd to our guests—but what else can I expect nowadays?”

“I will not tolerate—” Laura's reply was cut off by the door opening on the return of Sarah and the footman, carrying in jugs of hot water, cloths and a box containing Elspeth's supply of scents. Elspeth left the room and the servants put their remedies on the table.

“Leave me, please,” said Laura, and they went out, only to hover in the corridor, fearful of Mrs. Evans's return.

Laura remained, lost in thought. How could she have mistaken Mr. Woodruff for Mr. Templeton? She could bring to mind the very sound of that shout. “Ah, take that, you scoundrel!” The young man, dropping his usual affected manner, had used the deepest register of his voice. On reflection, Laura realised that it had not otherwise resembled the tone of her friend from Lyme.

She pictured Mr. Woodruff rising from the Hollow with his back to her, when first his hat appeared, followed by his narrow shoulders. The posture he had assumed was unlike his usual foppish carriage. Of course, Mr. Woodruff was play-acting, she thought. Yet why did I think of Mr. Templeton at that moment? I ought not to have cried out his name.

Laura sat at the table and took out her sketchbook. With light pencil strokes, she began to sketch the scene, indicating the edge of the forest and the downward slope of the grass. She drew the outline of a woman, walking down towards the Hollow; then closed her eyes to bring back her sense of the shape of the young man's torso as it rose from the ground. She sketched Mr. Woodruff in the act of sweeping off his hat, half-turned towards the lady, the elaborate folds of his cravat swathing his entire neck.

She smiled ruefully and closed the book, slipping it into its special place in her desk. It was time to dress for dinner.

 

Laura entered the drawing room to find everyone assembled. She saw that Elspeth had trimmed a black silk gown afresh, lowering the bodice and fitting it with black lace cunningly trimmed with lilac ribbon so that the eye of the beholder dived towards her décolletage.

Going in to dinner on Mr. Woodruff's arm, Laura wondered if the uncertainty that had entered his fashionable nonchalance was caused by his awareness of her height. She thought how her behaviour at the Hollow must have seemed so strange. His awkwardness was more likely to be about that. How awkward and uncertain she felt herself!

The colonel did his utmost to be all that was charming to his hostess, providing a contrast with the pitiful performance of his heir, who answered every question of Laura's with “Indeed” or “Indeed not”, and seemed quite unable to raise a new topic himself. On the other hand, it must be admitted that young Woodruff did pay very polite attention to his plate, accepting offerings of meat, roast potatoes, pie and vegetables served the Italian way.

After a silence, Laura said, “I do hope I did not alarm you, sir, by all but fainting when you appeared before me in the meadow.”

“No, no,” he said, swallowing a mouthful. “I was ashamed of myself for leaping up in that thoughtless fashion.”

“If you are to blame, sir, it is your excellent acting at fault. I had no excuse for alarm because everyone likes to play at Loyalists and Rebels, and I have seen many others leaping out from the Hollow.”

“I am happy you are not angry with me. My sisters have scolded me severely,” he said. She found him oddly endearing at that moment, as sincerity seemed to creep through the cracks in the armour of his knowingness.

They got along much better after this explanation, and conversation flowed along the imaginative lines of how long they had lived here or there and what they thought of the society to be found in those places.

With the arrival of the second course, young Mr. Woodruff was in heaven. His eyes darted here and there among the dishes—he spotted fish pie and mutton ragout set forth among some new sweet dishes. He wondered if undoing the bottom button of his waistcoat might go unnoticed.

As if these delights were not enough, he had now the opportunity to converse with the lovely Mrs. Evans.

“You haven't sampled the fish pie, dear lady,” he said.

“I could not eat another morsel, sir, no matter how I might wish to gratify you,” she said. She shuddered slightly and he noted an interesting little heave of her white bosom, displayed in a froth of black lace. His attention so divided among treats for his mouth and
eyes, Mr. Woodruff only took in the words “I might wish to gratify you”.

He asked her about her estate in Cornwall, a county he frequently visited. With an exclamation of pleasure, he announced that he had a particular friend living beyond St Austell. “I must have passed your house a score of times,” he said.

“Won't you try the vinegar pie?” she said. “Cook always prepares my favourites.”

“If it is your favourite …” he said, accepting a slice of the tangy pie from the footman, where it joined a generous serving of fish pie, a slice of roasted partridge and the remains of some raspberry fool.

 

The ladies withdrew to the drawing room. Candles in the sconces on the old stone walls, and two candelabra on the mantle, lit the area around the fire. Mrs. Woodruff accepted a seat in an old oak armchair of the same antiquity as the house, its elaborate carving softened with silk cushions. Mrs. Evans took a seat opposite her, while Laura sat with Miss Woodruff on the sofa.

Miss Evalina was not to be so easily settled. She darted first to the watercolour portraits of the family that hung beside the fireplace.

“How well Sir Richard looks!” she cried.

“It is a wonderful likeness,” said Elspeth. “My sister painted it, as with all but one of the watercolours you see there. Laura's own likeness was taken by the celebrated Mr. Foley, when the baronet invited him to Oakmont to paint my brother's portrait.”

Miss Evalina examined the picture. “How beautifully he has captured your eyes, Miss Morrison!”

“It is hard upon me that a professional portrait is displayed so near my own efforts,” said Laura. She noted that Evalina's eyes constantly returned to the large portrait of Edward, painted when first he appeared before the family in his captain's regalia.

However, Evalina said, “This is a lovely likeness of Mrs. Evans.” The lady was pictured in a white muslin gown, with her hair tumbling in artfully arranged curls down her back. Evalina touched her own deceptively simple-looking coiffure of plaits wound around
a chignon. How comical and old-fashioned Mrs. Evans looked in her picture, she thought.

“Who is this lady?” she asked, moving on.

“That is our Aunt Morrison. She gave up everything to take care of us when we were left motherless,” said Elspeth.

Laura almost laughed out loud.

“Look, Mama,” said Evalina. “She wears such an old-fashioned gown.”

“Evalina, my dear,” admonished her mother.

“It is true, Mrs. Woodruff,” said Laura. “Our aunt refused to raise the waist on her gowns. She called the Empire style ‘nasty French ways'.” The ladies laughed. “She wore a long bodice, over an old-fashioned tight corset, with long stomacher and four petticoats, to the end of her days.”

“That shows consistency, at least,” said Jane Woodruff.

Elspeth said, “Our aunt was rightly proud of her consistency. She never budged in her opinion on anything—such was her strength of mind.” She spoke indulgently, as of an eccentric but much mourned relation.

Some secrets might never be revealed. How Aunt Morrison had paraded her young niece before Mr. Evans, when she saw how the girl caught the old man's fancy. The old lady might wear all the layered coverings of yesteryear, but the girl was presented in muslin, with one petticoat. When told she must sing for him, smile for him, Elspeth did not disobey, for Miss Morrison had bullied and pinched her, leaving bruises where no one might see. Elspeth's duty was drummed into her, that she owed it to her sister to make her a comfortable home. In any case, Aunt Morrison had it on excellent authority that Mr. Evans had a weak heart and could not live a twelve month. This comforting prophecy, along with her suitor's promise of a very generous marriage settlement, turned Elspeth's resistance aside.

Miss Evalina quickly tired of looking at the old-fashioned aunt, and moved to the larger portrait in oils, on the wall on the opposite side of the fireplace. Painted at the age of seven and twenty, the
captain looked down seriously at her, his eyes the same clear green as Laura's. Evalina admired the chiselled effect of his upper lip, well captured by the artist. The past five years had added one or two lines around his eyes, not unbecoming, she thought, for he was exposed to all weathers aboard ship.

The other ladies could not hold the girl's attention, as they discussed Laura's skill in catching a likeness. The girl's eyes moved to the captain's shoulders, well-filling his uniform. She looked carefully at his left shoulder and at the arm below it, where it ought to be, in the days before it was struck off in the service of his king.

Her mother's voice cut into her reverie. “What think you, Evalina?”

She turned her head to the three ladies seated still by the fire. “Of what, Mama?”

“Come here, child.” Evalina crossed the carpet and stood before her mother, who said, “Miss Morrison has most kindly consented to take your likeness.”

Evalina clapped her hands. “Miss Morrison, you are generosity itself!”

Her mother frowned, noting that the neck of Evalina's gown seemed to be slightly lower, exposing more of her bosom than Mrs. Woodruff thought appropriate in a girl of eighteen at a country dinner. She surmised that her daughter had pulled the bodice down while she had her back to them.

“Miss Morrison, might I be portrayed at one of the small high windows of Oakmont?” said Evalina. “Perhaps in dress from the times of the knights in armour?”

“Miss Morrison will be laughing at you, Evvy,” said her sister Jane, and Laura was indeed struggling to keep her countenance.

Mrs. Woodruff said, “Your father will wish your portrait painted at home.”

Miss Evalina pouted, but soon recovered her spirits. “You must not come alone, Miss Morrison. It is above three miles to Lewton Hall. Your brother could escort you.”

Elspeth hid her laughter behind her fan. “You are thoughtfulness
itself, but my sister's footman never fails in his duties—he is devoted to his mistress.”

Mrs. Woodruff said, “Mrs. Evans, I do hope you will give me the pleasure of coming to Lewton Hall with your sister. The gentlemen will be very welcome too.”

On that note, the guests departed, attended by the baronet to their carriage.

 

The Morrisons went back into the drawing room and Elspeth laughed. “Mrs. Woodruff no doubt sees a great advantage in Laura taking her daughter's likeness. She seeks more opportunities to dangle her pretty daughter under the unseeing eyes of the baronet.”

“Do you mean me?” said Sir Richard. “Why should she do that?” His cousins all smiled.

“Perhaps she has more than one match in mind,” said Edward.

Elspeth looked surprised. “You think Laura ought to make a match of it with the son? He is off to an excellent start by so resembling …” she broke off. Laura was staring coldly at her, and Elspeth paused a moment, before saying, “Perhaps Mr. Woodruff plans to enrapture Laura by terrifying her out of her wits.” No one joined in her laughter.

Edward said, “She may be hoping for a match between
you
and her son.”

Elspeth laughed again. “I imagine she came here well-disposed to liking my fortune, if not my person! That puppy cannot be thinking of marriage yet, poor babe.”

Sir Richard joined Laura on the sofa, sitting side-on to her and giving her a long look. His spaniel waddled over to him, flopped down on his feet and gazed up at Laura also.

Laura said, with affectionate humour that she hoped covered a touch of irritation, “Richard, I beg you not to bend such a mournful gaze upon me until I am declared—quite definitely—to be dead. You resemble Spotty more every day.”

He picked up her hand and held it between both of his. “Woof!” he said.

She pulled her hand away, laughing.

Elspeth gave one of her tiny shivers of revulsion and looked for sympathy to her brother. She found him to be laughing too. She rubbed her forehead, gently so as not to encourage wrinkles. “How I long for elegant amusement,” she said.