The LadyShip (5 page)

“I also recall her being the bane of nurses and tutors and
the mistresses of that school of hers,” Allingham said, to
turn Lord Vernon’s mind to happier reminiscences. “She was continually undermining their authority with sweet
meats and toys.”

Lord Vernon smiled. “She never liked to see anyone un
happy,” he said, “particularly not on account of an ancient battle date or an insignificant Latin verb. She used to say
she’d forgotten all she’d ever learned but
amo, amas,
amat.”

There was a pause, during which Allingham was struck
by the suspicion that he had done himself no service in
turning the conversation to Sarah. Vernon and Sarah’s had
been a love-match, and Vernon was consequently much in
favour of love-matches.

“Look here, Marcus,” his lordship began, predictably.
“Are you perfectly sure you want to go through with this
foolishness?”

“It seems perfectly sensible to me,” Allingham said, but
his friend did not rise to that bait.

“Oh, aye. Well, I’ve been through this with your mother
already, and once a day is as much as I’m up to. She told me
you aren’t romantical. I told her you may surprise us all
one day by coming home with an opera dancer on your arm.”

Lord Vernon peered closely at Allingham. “Do you
know
any opera dancers?” he asked. “Heaven knows those literary mandarins you keep company with in London
may never have produced a presentable-looking daughter among them, but have you considered
any
other women?”

Allingham’s expression was enigmatic, but after a mo
ment he said, “They’re not at all the same thing, you
know—opera dancers and women like Sarah.”

“Of course they’re not! No one said they were.”

“What I mean is, the other kind are easily enough come
by, but women such as Sarah are rare. One comes upon
them only by the sheerest good fortune and indeed may
not even recognise such a woman for what she is, her vir
tues being chiefly quiet ones.”

Lord Vernon conceded the truth in this.

“So that if I were to go out looking for such a woman, I might look for the rest of my life and still not find her. True?”

“Aye, blast you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Vernon, old friend, but I don’t believe I
can chance it. You have your brother’s family—”

“Such as they are.”

Allingham let that pass. He tossed the end of his cigar into
the fire and drained the last of his brandy. “I have only my
mother, however. I must marry, and if I do not have the
good fortune to marry for love—and indeed, I believe I do not have the temperament, either—then I must marry for
duty. Please do not feel sorry for me, Vernon. I assure you,
I am perfectly willing to do so.”

Lord Vernon shot him a penetrating look. “Is that true?”

Only the slightest hesitation preceded the answer, as Al
lingham, not meeting Lord Vernon’s eyes, rose to bid him good-night.

“Of course. It must be.”

Marcus Allingham rode
down the lane to Oakwood the
next morning trying to avoid thinking about the ordeal
ahead of him. He did not succeed. In any event, he had not
expected to be able to get the thing out of his mind until it
was settled, and he was determined for that reason to get the necessary preliminaries over and done with.

It was not that he had not already given a good deal of
thought to the matter—he had thought of little else for the past month, ever since he had told his mother of his plans.
He had told her because, having once said the words aloud, he knew he would not take them back. He deplored the ne
cessity for these little stratagems to force himself to do things he would eventually have to do in any case, but of
late—even without Vernon’s raising uncomfortable ques
tions and his mother’s unexpected lack of sympathy for his mental travails—they had become increasingly necessary.

Even his servants had been aware that his purpose in rid
ing out today was an unusual one. Henley, his bailiff, had been waiting to speak with him as soon as he had finished
breakfast, saying he did not wish to intrude on Mr Alling
ham...er,
later.

“Why, Henley, what is so urgent that it must be attended
to
...
er,
now?”

Henley, who had been William Allingham’s bailiff for
many years before coming into his son’s employ, was a
rough-hewn personage who nevertheless carried himself
with dignity and spoke in more cultured accents than might
be expected to issue from a heavy-set gentleman of advanc
ing years. In fact, his large nose and slightly protruding eyes
gave him more than a passing resemblance to several royal
dukes which, Allingham alleged to his mother, must account for Henley’s regal air.

“I beg your pardon, sir, if I implied anything presumptu
ous by my speech,” said Henley primly. “I meant only to
inform you as soon as possible that while you were away, those twenty acres that lie between our southern boundary
and Sir Henry Rodgers’s lands have come up for sale.”

“The piece with the hunting box on it?”

“Yes, sir,” Henley confirmed, with a sniff. “I daresay the
owner has discovered at last that this is indifferent country
at best for hunting. Anyone could have told him so. I took
the liberty of telling the agent in charge that you would be
interested in acquiring the parcel, sir.”

“Quite right, Henley—I’m obliged to you. What are they
asking for it?”

A short discussion of the possible uses to which the land
in question might be put ended with Allingham’s authorising Henley to make an offer for it, and after a few minutes
more of reviewing estate matters, Henley excused himself,
saying again that he did not wish to keep Mr Allingham
from his business.

“Henley!” Allingham called out, as the older man was
closing the door on this remark.

“Sir?”

“I collect that the entire household knows what my busi
ness is this morning. Would you mind telling
me
what it
is?”

Well acquainted with his employer’s punctilious set-
downs, Henley replied blandly that he was sure he couldn’t
say.

Allingham laughed. “Very well, damn you! Oh, but on
your way out, Henley, have them put the bays to. I’ll take
the curricle—no never mind,” he amended, eying his bailiff, “I can see by your expression that I ask too much. I’ll
ride. I’ll even saddle my own horse.”

“Certainly, sir,” Henley said, leaving some doubt as to
which of Mr Allingham’s remarks he was addressing, and
went out, closing the door with exaggerated care behind
him.

Not much later, Allingham found himself taking the
longer route to the Dudley mansion. Instead of riding
across country, he had elected to follow the leisurely
winding lane that skirted the wood separating the Oak
wood lands from Brookfield. It was a fine day after all. Sun
light filtered through the bare branches of the trees to his
right and made golden patches on the sandy lane. Then,
through a break in the trees, Allingham caught sight of the real reason for his determination to put himself through the
trials of the next several hours.

A fine view of his own home, softened by a low-hanging haze, presented itself to his view. The mellowed grey stone house, nestled in a grove of trees, was the focal point of the
picture; a stream wandered through the trees and around
the house. Spreading out from this were a well-manicured
lawn, now silvery in the haze, and then smooth fields
stretching in all directions, broken only by orderly hedgerows and occasional patches of woodland. Allingham had grown up with this land, and loved it—not with the fierce
attachment some men felt for their blessed plot, but with
the more binding affection of a man for a loved sister or
mother. It was the kind of feeling that required no loud demonstrations or declarations, which were anyway for
eign to Allingham’s nature, but that incorporated a sense of
both past and future and of his place in the scheme of
things.

It was the future he was thinking of now. He had been a
docile child, taking his home for granted in the all-encom
passing way children have, and later a rather solemn boy whose interests were confined more to the library than to
the fields or the stables. At Harrow and Cambridge, he had
been a firm favourite of the masters, and later, in London,
he had been taken up by a circle that included Sydney
Smith, Lord Greville, the publisher John Murray, and even
the poet laureate, Mr Southey, on those occasions when the poet journeyed south from Greta Hall. Allingham’s value to
these men was less as a colleague than as an audience,
which naturally led him to be much valued and, by the age
of twenty-one, to have turned himself into something of a
pedant.

From this fate he was rescued by the sudden death of his father and the subsequent necessity to look after his inheri
tance, which was a good deal richer than he had antic
ipated, William Allingham having been a cautious man
about advertising his wealth in earshot of encroaching relatives. As a result of this sudden windfall, the young Mr Al
lingham found himself much sought-after in other London
circles as well—particularly by mothers of eligible daugh
ters, who quickly discovered in the taciturn young man re
serves of wit and amiability to which they had hitherto
been blind. To this particular fate, however, Mr Allingham
soon found the attractions of managing an estate and providing for his widowed mother infinitely preferable.

People at Brookfield were, rather to his surprise, altogether different from the narrow London society he knew
—or for that matter the one into which he was subse
quently thrust. He admired a good poem or a stirring
speech in the Commons, but he came to appreciate equally
a fine piece of craftsmanship by the estate carpenter and the
ancient knowledge of a rustic seer. As brilliant as had been
the balls and soirées he attended during the Season, he
found himself much more at ease taking dinner with the
local squire or joining in at a harvest fair.

Back into his desk
drawer went the rather dry essays and political analyses he had once written (pseudonymously, of course) for London
periodicals; even his correspondence suffered as he took a
greater interest in the crops being grown on his lands and the home industries of his tenants. It was not very long
before he had become well enough liked that servants, ten
ants, and neighbours even declared—sincerely, if forgetful
ly—that nothing could have been more natural than the
transfer of masters at Brookfield.

Of late, however, Allingham had felt a stirring of the rest
lessness generally associated with extreme youth or appre
hensive middle age. He thought he had been spared the former, and at thirty he must be too young for the latter,
but at last he had concluded that it was not so much his
own future that concerned him as that of the home so close
to his heart. There must be another to take care of it after him, as he had followed his father. He must have a son.

He had not been entirely sanguine in his explanation to
Lord Vernon of his choice of a future mother to such a son,
for he understood better than his friend imagined the kind of love he was missing—the kind that Sarah and Vernon
had shared and that made Vernon the kind of man Alling
ham could admire—but he was firmly convinced that such a love was not for him. It was not that he had not observed cases, apart from Lord Vernon’s, of such love-matches, but
no young woman, however lovely or accomplished, had ever inspired in him any desire to throw prudence to the
winds and declare himself a slave to her every whim.

He had certainly looked over several crops of London
debutantes very carefully, but he had found the majority of them silly, avaricious, simpering, painfully shy, overly
assertive—or a combination of these things. None, despite
the lavish compliments showered on them, had ever had
the quiet self-assurance of, say, Miss Bennett of The LadyShip
—with whom he could at least converse sensibly—and
very few could have been described as well-suited to be
come mistress of Brookfield.