The LadyShip (14 page)

Lucy had often playfully accused her sister of ideas above
her station, but now Elinor felt her ambitions for her sister fully justified. She had known her to be far too lovely and sweet-tempered to be allowed to waste her life in the back
rooms of a public inn, and had therefore sent her to the
best school she could afford, pressed her for details of her friendships there, and encouraged her to cultivate particu
larly those young ladies of privileged families who might extend their friendships into a season at Bath.

Now, on the
evidence of the letters, Elinor was more than ever deter
mined to provide a better life for Lucy. Had Ned been
there, she might have confided the story of the letters to
him—but on further thought it seemed better to keep their
secret to herself. Neither Ned nor Lucy, she suspected,
would wish her to act upon the evidence contained in
them, but there was no need to make their contents
known. They served best to prove, at least in Elinor’s mind,
her assessment of her younger sister, and they hardened her determination about the girl’s future.

Returning the chest to its hiding-place, Elinor caught
sight of
Guy Mannering
on her bedside table, and smiled.
The heroine of that novel was also named Lucy, and in the end she proved to be the sister of a long-lost heir to a Scot
tish laird. If that was not an omen, Elinor thought, she did
not know what was—and if now was not the time to begin
opening doors to a better world for her own Lucy, she did
not know when the opportunity might come again!

Changing her old gown for a soft green china crape with
velvet trim, which she had been saving for her first Christ
mas with Ned, she fastened a gold locket around her throat,
draped her best Norwich shawl over her shoulders, and
went looking for her sister to tell her to make herself presentable, for she was about to be honoured with an introduction to Lord Vernon Dudley.

“But does he wish to meet
me?”
Lucy asked uncertainly,
having glimpsed Lord Vernon’s imposing person when he
stomped into the inn clutching his cloak to his sides from
the cold.

“Yes, of course he does,” Elinor blithely assured her.
“Don’t be anxious, darling—he is the most ...
comfort
able
sort of person. I am certain you will like him.”

Waiting only to see that Lucy had gone up to her room,
Elinor then took a deep breath and entered the parlour
again. There she found Mr Allingham and Lord Vernon at
the fire lighting up, respectively, a cigar and a pipe. Lord Vernon blew out his taper, and Allingham straightened
himself, laying the cigar down. Elinor motioned them to be
seated.

“Pray, do enjoy your smoke. My father always insisted
that his guests do so, and I am perfectly accustomed to the
aroma of tobacco smoke in these rooms—indeed, I rather
like it.”

“Your father must have been a fine host,” Lord Vernon
said when they were all comfortable again and Elinor had accepted a glass of sherry from Mr Allingham.

“Yes, he was famous for it. This was his inn, until his
death three years ago. It has been in my charge since, al
though my sister, Lucinda, is responsible for the graceful
touches you see in this room—and of course, the inn really
belongs to my brother, Edward, who is in military service
abroad. I beg your pardon, I should say
was,
for he has
quite recently returned to England and will be home again
shortly.”

This naturally led to a discussion of Ned’s illustrious
career, Allingham being aware of it in a general way and
considerate enough to ask the appropriate questions. Lord
Vernon’s interest was warmer, and Elinor needed no urging
to sound her brother’s trumpet for him—particularly since
Ned was not there to scold her for doing so.

Lord Vernon, somewhat to Allingham’s surprise, was able to coax much freer confidences from Miss Bennett
than he himself had ever succeeded in doing. He supposed, rather
ashamed of himself, that Vernon had been right to say that
he failed to observe such details as Miss Bennett was now
divulging.

He began deliberately looking about the room— Elinor and his lordship being increasingly caught up in their
conversation—as if seeing it for the first time. It was really
an exceptionally comfortable inn, he realized, wondering
that he had been taking it so for granted up to now. Even
this parlour should have been more familiar to him than it
was, from the brightly polished brass fender to the black earthenware flower vases that he had not noticed before.

He had always been at ease at The LadyShip, so it should
have come as no surprise that Vernon would feel the same way. Not that Vernon, in spite of his crotchets, did not en
joy life’s small pleasures—there he was, in fact, dis
cussing with Miss Bennett the delights of mulled wine on
winter afternoons. Allingham supposed that Vernon had
acquired this way of looking at things from Sarah, and for
that he envied him. He wondered if Clarissa knew how to
make mulled wine.

Watching Lord Vernon, he began to see himself as he
must have appeared over the years he had been stopping at
The LadyShip. Had he ever thought to compliment Miss Bennett on the excellence of her wine cellar, for example?
Surely he must have done so at some point! He had always
been aware, at least in the way he was unconsciously aware
of the quality of the roads leading to Newbury when they
were not in such a state as to make him curse them, that
Miss Bennett knew her business; but it only now occurred
to him how difficult it must have been for her to achieve this atmosphere of unobtrusive excellence. Such perfec
tion must be the result of just the kind of skill, even art, that
he admired in the wrights and craftsmen of Brookfield.

Looking at her, he observed that she displayed the same virtues in her person. Her gown was simple but of superior
workmanship; she dressed her hair in a neat, serviceable,
yet feminine style; and she used no artifice to enhance her
fine eyes or the bloom in her cheeks. Allingham found him
self watching the way her full, mobile mouth moved as she
smiled and answered some jest of Vernon’s. Suddenly, he
found it irksome to have been left out of the conversation.

“Do you know, Miss Bennett,” he said, interrupting Lord
Vernon’s discourse, which had somehow progressed to
Lady Dorothea Allingham’s collection of enamelled snuff
boxes (none of which was ever put to any practical use),
“there have been flowers of some sort in this room for as
long as I can remember. I don’t believe they can have been Miss Lucinda’s doing at all.”

“Why, Mr Allingham—did I say they were?”

“Yes, ma’am, only a moment ago you suggested as
much, and I recall that in the past you went to some trouble
to tell me how much at home Miss Lucinda is in the garden.
However, I also remember that she has been away to
school for some time, which makes it unlikely that she
could have been here as well to accomplish these little
touches.”

“You are very observant, Mr Allingham,” Elinor said, her
eyes smiling at Lord Vernon as if there were some joke be
tween them at Allingham’s expense.

Marcus disregarded her smile and Lord Vernon’s raised eyebrows. “Not at all—as Vernon keeps reminding me—but neither am I a complete block. What is more, I believe
you put that ribbon on your cat,” he said accusingly, less to
her than to Boney, who had despatched his own midday
meal belowstairs and was now in search of a warm place for
his afternoon nap. “You have been telling me bouncers,
Miss Bennett!”

Lord Vernon laughed at this. “So you have been caught
out, Miss Bennett!”

“You may laugh, Vernon, but observe Miss Bennett, the
model of efficiency. Would you have imagined a woman so
straight of back and firm of chin capable of these sorts of
frivolities?”

“Frivolities?” Elinor assumed an offended air. “Oh, sure
ly not so bad as that, sir. This is a most respectable establish
ment!”

“Frivolities, ma’am!” Mr Allingham insisted, upon which
Boney looked up at him from the carpet and with an impe
rious
mmrau!
demanded that he cease talking nonsense and attend to more important matters.

Allingham allowed Boney to jump up onto his lap, under
cover of Lord Vernon’s hoot of laughter, and settled back into his chair. His eyes met Miss Bennett’s and he smiled.
She, unaccountably, flushed and lowered her eyes. Lord
Vernon, thoroughly enjoying himself, watched with fascination this brief exchange and Miss Bennett’s subsequent
somewhat flustered offer to refill his toddy and, his having
refused that, her sudden urgent need to replace the splut
tering candles from a supply kept in a cupboard behind the
door.

Miss Bennett was finding it not a little discomforting to
be obliged to sit quietly, “straight of back and firm of
chin”—not to mention to maintain her intended aloofness
—beneath Marcus Allingham’s disturbingly intent gaze.

Happily, Lucy soon joined them, providing a fresh focus for the conversation, and—after curtseying shyly to Lord
Vernon and snatching an indignant Boney out of Mr Allingham
’s lap, where he had been purring contentedly and hav
ing his ears rubbed—she acquitted herself very well. Her
natural modesty, good manners, and quiet demeanour, ac
companied by an expression of candid interest in every
thing that was said, drew admiring attention to her as much
as did her flaxen curls artlessly bound up with a blue rib
bon, her ivory complexion, and her slim figure youthfully
attired in a pale blue cambric afternoon dress with a high
neck and double rows of ribbon at the hem and cuffs. She
made a very pretty picture, although Allingham considered
the impression made by her sister to be no less pleasing. He
found himself watching Elinor again, after the first charmingly girlish glow of Lucy’s entrance had worn off, and lik
ing what he saw.

Time and weather and everything else outside their cosy
retreat were forgotten as topics of mutual interest came to
mind instead. It was only when, during a pause to lay fresh
logs on the fire, the sound of an incoming carriage was
heard, that Elinor returned to a consciousness of her lamen
table fall from duty.

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, glancing at the mantel clock.
“I had no notion of the time! Will you stay the night, gen
tlemen? You have more than sufficient time to reach Lon
don yet today if you wish, but you would be most welcome
to stay.”

It was then, just as Allingham’s eyes met Lord Vernon’s
to decide this question, that they became aware of other
outside noises, and in particular the sound of footsteps on
the stairs. A masculine voice saying hurriedly, “Yes, yes,
thank you—I’ll find them!” became louder, and in another
minute its owner had flung open the door and come to an
abrupt halt just over the threshold.

Felix Dudley, mud-spattered, his pale brows in alt and
his fair hair whipped by the wind, stared at them each in
turn until his gaze fell on Allingham, whom he regarded
with a look that was at once accusing and apprehensive.

“Well, sir,” he said finally, catching his breath, “you will
be interested to learn that while you have been making
yourself comfortable here, my sister—your betrothed—has
eloped!”

Lord Vernon was
the first to catch his breath, and he used
it to remark, in the tone of one who had expected as much,
“Silly chit.”

“But that’s impossible!” Elinor exclaimed involuntarily.

“Not at all, ma’am,” Felix said, “for she has done it.”

This impertinence brought Allingham back to reality,
and he adjured Felix not to let the agitation of the moment
betray him into incivilities. He presented him to Elinor,
upon which Felix was forced to make a civil bow and wait
for the lady to speak.

Elinor said nothing for a moment, finding her mind in
something of a muddle. Her first thought was for Mr Allingham
, but when she glanced tentatively at him, she saw not
the shock and pain she would expect of a man whose heart had been dealt a numbing blow, but quite a different look. Instead of blighted love, the scowl that crept over his forehead seemed more indicative of wounded pride; in fact, he
looked more exasperated than hurt. He must be in a state of
shock, Elinor told herself; something would have to be
done before he recovered from the initial blow and felt
fully the grief that would surely be his when he had ab
sorbed this news—or so she told herself.