The LadyShip (2 page)

Elinor knew, however, that Mr Allingham’s looks were
deceiving; he was wealthy enough to be able to array him
self in the height of foppish fashion if he so chose, and to
travel with an entourage of outriders and baggage coaches.
She was also aware, from occasional glimpses afforded her,
over the years that he had been stopping at The LadyShip on his way from London to his estate in Wiltshire, that his nar
row, rather stern mouth could relax into a charming smile,
and that behind the cool blue-grey eyes lurked a guarded
warmth. Allingham dealt firmly with subordinates, getting
what he wanted not by rapping out orders but with a look
suggesting that his claim to attention was more pressing
than anyone else’s; however, he acknowledged any service
with his disarming smile and a sincere thank-you.

Elinor, aware of her ambiguous relationship to him—not
quite a servant, yet not an equal—treated him with an
amiable civility that she hoped did not err to either the too-
forward or the over-reserved, and she was from time to
time rewarded by a softening of his habitual reserve. She
had, indeed, convinced herself that this reserve was as
sumed, much as was her own, for the sake of dignity and
general convenience in dealing with persons with whom he did not require, or desire, a more intimate connexion.
With these he could be ruthless, slaying an encroaching
mushroom with exquisite politeness or mocking what he considered stupidity with a bland malice. But Elinor remained firm in her conviction that a still-active sense of
humour lay in reserve behind Marcus Allingham’s outer defences.

“Miss Bennett,” he said to her, pausing on the step be
side her and shaking her hand, “how do you do? I seem to have arrived at an auspicious moment—which is to say, I
am not in competition with a coach-and-four for the atten
tion of your ostlers nor with a party of schoolgirls for the
use of your coffee room.”

Elinor glanced at him to see if he was in one of his sar
donic moods or merely quizzing her. He had occasional
ly—almost unconsciously—seemed to do so in the past, but his eyes were just then on his horses being led away,
and she could not read them. When he turned back to her,
however, it was with a friendly smile, and she breathed
easier, knowing now how to respond.

“You are never inopportune, sir,” she said, with an answering smile. “Will you take some refreshment before
continuing on your way?”

“I thank you, ma’am. A glass of wine might be pleasant
before I must execute a small errand in the village. I daresay
the estimable Evans will be ready to serve me a nuncheon
later on.”

Mr Allingham insisted that his hostess join him in this re
freshment and, after handing his hat and coat to Petra, fol
lowed the maid into the parlour that was generally reserved
to Miss Bennett’s private use, just off the lobby. When Eli
nor had decanted a bottle of wine and returned to the
parlour with it and two glasses on a tray, she found him
stroking a large tortoise-shell cat that was curled up on a
round table next to a porcelain bowl of potpourri, its tail wrapped around its well-cushioned haunches. The after
noon light entering the leaded windows that looked out
onto the street, together with the crackling fire in the grate,
lent a warm glow to the low-beamed room. Elinor ducked
her head slightly to enter the room, and when she looked
up, she found him smiling at her.

“This is very prosperous-looking animal, Miss Ben
nett!”

Elinor looked away from him on the pretext of setting
the tray cautiously down on the other side of the table, and poured out the wine. “Do you not recognise Boney, sir? I
believe you were introduced shortly after Mr Thomas
Raikes left him here for me—as a favour, he assured me, but
I thought it prudent not to enquire into what it was I had
done to deserve it.”

“Good heavens! Can this be the same creature? That
Boney was the scrawniest excuse for a kitten I’d ever
seen.”

“Indeed, yes. We named him after Bonaparte, of
course, who was equally famous hereabouts at the time. We have taken to calling him the Emperor now—for he
has prospered quite as eloquently as his namesake has
fallen—but he is certainly the same cat. You see—he re
members you.”

“I must be flattered,” Allingham said, rubbing Boney’s
ears and eliciting a smug purr for his efforts. “That is—he is
not a toadeater, is he? I would not have expected it of this establishment, but if he was raised under Dandy Raikes’s
auspices, there is no knowing what sycophantic tendencies
he may have acquired.”

Miss Bennett laughed at this, and Mr Allingham’s eyes
lighted companionably. “That puts me in mind of some
thing,” he said. “I hope you will allow me, Miss Bennett, to
make you a very small gift. I have recently read Mr Scott’s
latest book, which is called
Guy Mannering,
and remem
bering that you have a taste for his works, I have brought it
along. The tale is commonplace, but one or two of the char
acters are well drawn, and it is said that the hero is a portrait
of the author himself.”

He said all this in a conversational tone, as if there were
nothing out of the way in it. And indeed, Elinor supposed
that among Mr Allingham’s London circle, books and
manuscripts were exchanged much as if they were daily
pleasantries—but she had some struggle with herself to fol
low his example.

“Why... thank you, sir!” she said, sounding to her own
ears like an embarrassed schoolgirl. “How kind you are to
think of
...
that is, to bring a copy with you.”

“I should perhaps confess that it was given me by an acquaintance who is a bookseller,” Allingham said, making
light of her gratitude, “so do not imagine that I went very
far out of my way. I shall retrieve my coat, if you will
pardon me for a moment, for I believe I left it in the
pocket.”

He bowed to her and made a movement towards the
door, but his attention was just then arrested by a sound
from the stairs leading to the bedroom above, and the sud
den appearance at the bottom of the staircase of a young
woman.

“Nell, darling, all the candles in the left front bedroom have been burnt down to stubs! What
can
that young man
have been doing—  Oh! I do beg your pardon! I did not
know anyone was here. That is
...
I did not hear a car
riage …”

An exceptionally pretty girl of that age just verging on
womanhood paused in momentary indecision on the last
step but then came into the room to charmingly beg Mr Al
lingham’s pardon for interrupting. She was dressed in a
round gown of green cambric that had obviously seen
more elegant surroundings but had now been relegated to
household chores; that the young lady had been engaged in
these was further evidenced by the white apron on which
she hastily wiped her hands. But her bearing was ladylike,
and her confusion stemmed from the unexpectedness of
the encounter rather than from any lack of training in the
social graces. That she was related to Miss Bennett was re
vealed more by her straight back and self-possessed man
ner than in her golden curls and hazel eyes, which caught
the attention sooner than her slight facial resemblance to
her sister.

“It’s quite all right, my love,” Elinor said. “You did not
hear Mr Allingham’s curricle because he arrived some
time ago, and I fear I have been prattling on to him much
too long. Mr Allingham, I believe you are not acquainted
with my sister, Lucinda. Lucy, make your bow to our
guest.”

Lucy made a pretty bob and shook Allingham’s hand. “I
am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”

Returning Lucy’s steady gaze, Allingham said politely,
“How do you do, Miss Lucinda? Are you on holiday? I
believe your sister once told me you attend school in
Bath.”

“Yes, sir—that is, I did. I have come home now.”

Allingham noted a certain satisfaction in the younger girl’s voice and in her smile when she spoke of “home,” but her sister then added, “Lucinda will return to Bath shortly, to have her first season in society.”

“You must be looking forward to that,” Allingham said
to Lucy, who glanced at her sister and then cast her eyes modestly downwards.

“Yes, sir. I thank you. I shall enjoy it if Ned is able to es
cort me.”

He raised an eyebrow at Elinor. “Your brother?”

“Yes. We await his return daily. Since the victory at Wa
terloo he has written that he plans to leave Sir John Byng’s
staff, on which he now serves, as soon as Sir John may
spare him. Lucy, why do you not go and finish your letter
to Lady Lorimer? I will restock the candles myself.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you, Nell—Elinor. Good-bye, sir. I hope
your stay here is a pleasant one.” Lucy held out her hand
again to Allingham—who took it gravely—and then left
quietly, if a little hastily, by the way she had come.

Elinor waited for Allingham to speak. He had resumed his
closed, rather distant, manner when Lucy first came into
the room, but it seemed to her that he had soon warmed to
her sister’s ingenuous charm. Allingham’s manners were
not to be faulted, but Elinor knew that he was generally no
more than coolly civil to unexpected strangers; if he ap
proved of Lucy, it must be thought a feather in her cap.

“How long
has
it been since I was last here?” he said, in
such dumbfounded accents that Elinor could not help but relax her guard and smile.

“Not so long as that, sir! It is only that you have not
seen Lucinda—or Boney either, for that matter—for some
time.”

“Your cat I can overlook, Miss Bennett, but your sister is
an accomplishment. Modest and mannerly, as well as a beauty. You should have no difficulty seeing her respectably settled in her first season. Have you some acquaint
ance in Bath—an older lady, for example—who may take
Miss Lucinda in hand? You are aware by now that I do not entirely approve of your solitary state here at The LadyShip.
You should have a man about the place, and now that Miss
Lucinda is at home, you ought certainly to have a compan
ion for her. I don’t believe I am acquainted with Lady
Lorimer—is she someone to whom you might send your
sister for a season?”

“She is the mother of one of Lucinda’s school chums,
who has kindly invited her to spend the Christmas holidays
with them. But as for there being no gentleman to run The LadyShip
with me—why, sir, I am as much a bachelor as
you are, insofar as this establishment is concerned. I am re
garded as quite a formidable personage here, I will have
you to know! And when Ned comes home, there will then
be two of us elder Bennetts—more than sufficient protec
tion for Lucy, I think!”

Mr Allingham smiled at her attempt to turn his reproach
into a joke, and the spark of warmth that Elinor always
looked out for came back into his blue-grey eyes—only to
make more devastating the words he spoke next.

“You will never convince me that an attractive young
woman is a suitable chaperone for another attractive young
woman,” he told her. “And I may as well tell you that it is a
matter for purest conjecture which of us will remain the
bachelor longer. I had fully anticipated it to be myself, but I
have every expectation of leaving that state shortly. So do
not talk to me of protection, Miss Bennett—never mind of
elderly.
You had best hurry your brother home from the wars.”

Elinor felt herself to be staring stupidly at Mr Allingham,
and tore her eyes away. Moving mechanically, she picked a somewhat startled Boney up to rub his back and murmured something to Allingham about being certain that her family
would be together again shortly. Perhaps they would all
three go to Bath together, she added, and then Mr Alling
ham would have no ground for any further animadversions
on her conduct.

“We must learn Ned’s plans, naturally, before Lucy can
accept Lady Lorimer’s invitation or indeed make any other
designs for the future.”