The Regency (101 page)

‘
Ah, Uncle Ned,' she said, 'I'm glad you're here — there's
something I want to ask you. Those two geldings that were
sold last year, a three-year-old and a four-year-old, to the
Earl of Carlisle — they don't seem to be in the books. Why is
that?'

‘
Of course they're in the books,' Ned said. 'All the blood-
stock is registered at birth. I wrote 'em in myself.'

‘
No, I mean they don't appear as sales,' Fanny said. 'The
price they fetched ought to have been written down in the
ledger, but I can't find it.’

Ned smiled. ‘Ah, that's because they were my own horses,
not the estate's. I don't write my private sales in the estate
ledgers, obviously — or your father's.'

‘ Your horses?' Fanny frowned.

Ned began to feel nervous. ‘To be sure, Fanny: Ember and
Gypsy Prince, the colts I bred out of my mare Firefly. You
remember.’

Fanny's frown dissolved into a smile which made Compton
excuse himself hurriedly. 'If you've finished with me, Miss
Morland, I'll get back to my work.'

‘
Yes, Compton — and you may take these books with you.
I've seen all I want for the moment.’

The steward gathered them up and beat his retreat. When they were alone, Edward began, 'Fanny, there's something I
wanted to ask you — a sort of hypothetical question.'

‘
Just a moment please, Uncle Ned. We haven't dealt with
the matter of the colts yet. As I remember, you sold them for
three hundred guineas. Have I got that right? I heard you talking to Papa about it.'

‘
Yes, that's right,' Ned said. Fanny's memory for figures
was formidable. 'What of it? It was a fair price for them. I
thought Ember was going to be fast, but he got too heavy
once he started putting on bone; and Gypsy —'

‘
But Uncle Ned, you've paid nothing into the estate
accounts at all,' Fanny interrupted, still smiling. Ned stared,
perplexed. 'I know they were bred out of your own mare; but
she was covered in both cases, according to the stock book, by
Icarus, a stallion owned by the estate. Did you pay any stud
fees for either breeding?'

‘No, of course not! But —'

‘
And then there's the question of their keep all these years
— food, stabling, shoeing, farrier's bills. That amounts to
quite a lot.'

‘
Now wait a minute, Fanny! I'm entitled to the keep of my
horses,' Ned said angrily.

‘
Certainly you are — horses for your own use, that is. But when you are breeding and selling horses for a profit, I think
it becomes a different matter, don't you?’

Ned glared at her. 'Is that what your grandfather's teaching
you in Manchester? Is this how you mean to run the estate
when it's yours?'

‘It is mine,' Fanny retorted. 'You seem to forget that.'

‘
Oh no it isn't,' he snapped. 'Be very clear about that,
Fanny — while the estate is held in trust for you, I am the
sole arbiter of how it is run. All decisions are taken by me,
and you have no right, no right at all, to question what I do.'

‘Even if you attempt to defraud me?' she asked sweetly.

‘Even if —? How dare you! Why, you impertinent minx —!'
Edward was almost speechless with rage. 'If I were your
father I'd box your ears, and teach you some manners, not to mention gratitude! When I think of all I've done for you over
the years —'

‘
And you've been handsomely paid for it,' Fanny said, her
eyes narrowing into green-gold slits as she lost her temper. ‘You've taken a good living for yourself off my land, and I
dare say you've laid up a tidy sum of money for yourself
somewhere as well! Well you'll need every penny, for I
promise you, you won't stay here a day to cheat me after I'm twenty-one!’

The moment the words were out, Fanny was sorry, for she
knew how hard he worked, and had no real doubt about his
honesty. But on the other hand, he had spoken to her dis
respectfully, and seemed to behave as though Morland Place
were his, not hers. She wondered how much of her inheritance
was wasted, lost, frittered away, because of his unbusiness
like attitudes. It might come to thousands of pounds. No:
she was sorry, and uneasy as a child must be who defies an
adult for the first time, but she would not apologise.

Edward for his part felt murderous, and close to tears. To
be accused of dishonesty, and by his own niece, for whom he
had been working himself to a shadow for years, was too
much to be borne. Little use now, he thought, to broach the
question of marriage. It was all too plain what the answer
would be! He would do better to leave straight away, and get
himself a paid employment somewhere as steward, than to
stay here and be despised and abused.

Yet even as he thought it, he knew that no paid employ
ment would keep him in as much comfort as he enjoyed here.
Not only that, but he was fifty years old, and he didn't want
to leave his home now, and start again amongst strangers.
And what about Mathilde?

‘
You may be sorry for those words one day,' was all he said,
and he turned abruptly and left her.

*

Lizzie Wickfield was occupied in her favourite pursuits of
eating sweetmeats and staring at her new baby, who was
sleeping in a basket at her feet. She had grown very fat since
her marriage, and seemed quite contented with her lot, and
this contentment had finally tempted Mathilde into confiding
in her over her increasingly worrying situatiom

‘
I think you're very foolish,' Lizzie said frankly. 'He's
much too old for you. I don't know how you can even think of
i
t.'

‘
Mr Wickfield is
a
great deal older than you,' Mathilde
pointed out stiffly.

‘
Yes, but he's well-to-do, and that makes all the difference.
I have a nice house, and servants, and my own carriage, and plenty of pin-money. Your Mr Morland has nothing, has he?
Suppose you did marry him, you'd have to go and live in a
hovel, and do everything for yourself, and never had any newclothes or anything nice to eat.'

‘
Don't be silly,' Mathilde said shortly. 'In any case, I
should still love him.'

‘
No you wouldn't,' Lizzie said with a shrewd look. 'I've
been thinking about it while you've been talking, and
imagining my Mr Wickfield poor. And you know, without nice
clothes, and a servant to shave and dress him, and a barber to
cut his hair, well, I don't think I would care to be touched by him. After all, fifty is old, whichever way you look at it, and
without comforts and luxuries, he would just be a poor old
man, like those you see stone-picking in the fields.'

‘
Of course he wouldn't,' Mathilde said. 'His mind would
still be the same wouldn't it? And his character.'

‘
Well, I don't know. I should think poverty would change
those, too. You can't be nice and bookish and all those things
when you haven't enough to eat. And old men don't smell
very nice, dear. Think of that. Without lots of servants, you'd
never be able to keep clean.'

‘
You are silly, Lizzie,' Mathilde laughed, but uncomfort
ably, unable to help feeling that there was some truth in
what Lizzie was saying.

‘
If your Mr Morland were rich, or even if he had a reasonable income, I'd be happy for you, 'Tilda. But as it is, I think
you ought to release yourself at once from this engagement,
or whatever it is.'

‘It isn't an engagement.'

‘
Then there's no difficulty, is there? You're young and
pretty, and you could easily find yourself a nice young man to
marry. That clergyman we met at the Phillipses the other
night — what was his name?'

‘Mr Rattray,' Mathilde said absently.

Lizzie looked approving. ‘So you did notice him! Well, I thought he was very much struck with you. Why don't I ask
Mr Wickfield to ask him to dinner? I'm sure a little trouble on
your part would secure him. Wasn't he saying he's just come
into a very nice living somewhere? And if he has his living,
he'll be looking for a wife next.'

‘
Oh Lizzie,' Mathilde sighed, 'life isn't that easy, you
know.'

‘
It's as difficult as you make it,' Lizzie said plainly. 'If you
go making silly promises to old men with no money, it's
bound to look difficult. I shall ask Mr Wickfield tonight about
Mr Rattray. And you must put Mr Morland out of your head.
I know you love him, and that he's a splendid person, but he's
no right wasting your life with promises he can't keep,
and,'
she prevented Mathilde from interrupting, 'I'll go bail he's
said the same thing himself, hasn't he?'

‘
Something like it,' Mathilde admitted. 'He's a gentleman,
Lizzie. It's what you'd expect.'

‘
There are other gentlemen in the world,' Lizzie said
implacably.

*

A ball at the Mansion House was considered a grand occasion
in York, but Fanny decided her French ivory silk with the
silver acorns quite good enough for it, especially as no-one in
York society had seen it yet. She had two rows of plaited silk
ribbon added around the hem, for ribbon trimming was all
the rage that year, and it would be tiresome to have people
think she didn't know. She also wheedled Madame's maid
into doing her hair, for Marie had a better touch with it than
Beaver, to whom she gave the hint that she had better learn
a thing or two from the Frenchwoman, or find another
position.

All in all, she thought as she looked critically at her reflec
tion when Marie had finished, she looked as well as she ever
had. Her figure had filled out beautifully, and though she was
not particularly tall, she was so well proportioned that she
made taller girls look too big. Her high colour and thick hair
gave her a look of healthy vitality, which her cool and sophisti
cated air redeemed from any charge of rusticity; and her eyes, she knew, were fascinasting. They had an exciting, dangerous
gleam to them which confident men found irresistible, and
she preferred the company of confident men; though she
danced a great deal with shy men, just to keep the confident
ones in their place.