The Regency (55 page)

‘
What, because he wants Fanny to stay with him?' James
said indignantly.

‘
No — though as to that — but however, I mean his letter
sounds very odd. Listen to this: "I think your plan an excel
lent one" he says. My plan? And this: "As previously discussed
— at my expense I may add —". What can he mean by that?
What do you make of it?’

James perused the letter, frowning, and then said, 'I believe
we must apply to Fanny for the answer. I always find,
wherever there is a mystery, Fanny knows more about it than
anyone in the house. Shall we go and ask her? Where is she
this morning?'

‘
You should know better than I,' Ned said shortly. 'You're
her father.’

They found her in the day-nursery with Miss Rosedale,
reading a book of Italian essays in a listless manner, and it
would be hard to say which of them looked the more relieved
at the interruption.

‘
Fanny, we've had a letter from your grandpapa which
rather puzzles us, and we wondered if you could shed any
light on it,' James said, thinking how pretty Fanny looked,
now she had begun to turn up her hair. Her schoolroom dress
of dark green cambric became her very well, its very plainness
setting off her prettiness, and shewing up the green lights in
her wide hazel eyes. She would be a killing little witch in a
year or two, he thought, not without wistfulness.

‘
I, Papa?' she said now, looking up, but a faint flush
betrayed her.

‘
Yes, chick, you. Don't look at me like that, all dewy
innocence! Your grandpapa asks for you to go and visit him,
and seems to think that
we
have already proposed the matter
to
him,
so either he has taken leave of his senses, or —'

‘Well, yes, Papa, I did write to him,' Fanny said. She looked
quickly round the adult faces gauging their reactions. 'But it
was Miss Rosedale's idea.'

‘Mine?' Miss Rosedale exclaimed, astonished.

‘
Yes, ma'am, don't you remember? You told me to com
pose a letter framing "a Delicate Request to an Older Person
of Uncertain Temper",' Fanny said brightly. 'In our English
composition lesson. So I wrote a letter to my grandpapa
asking if I might come and visit him. Well, I didn't precisely ask
him that. In the first letter I asked if he remembered the last
time I visited, and what he promised then.’

Miss Rosedale looked at her askance. 'I remember setting
you some such task, though I don't precisely remember what
you wrote. But that was just an exercise, Fanny. Do you mean
to say you sent it off?’

Fanny looked ever more innocent. 'Didn't you mean me to?
It seemed a waste to throw it away, especially when you'd
ruled the lines for me.'

‘
Just a minute, what do you mean by the
first
letter?' James
said suspiciously.

‘
Well, Grandpapa wrote back to me, so I had to reply, didn't
I?' Fanny said. 'It would have been impolite not to.'

‘
And so you wrote and he wrote — Fanny, you're imposs
ible!'

‘
He seemed to like it very much,' Fanny said judiciously,
'only he did ask why the devil I couldn't get Uncle Ned to
frank for me, and save him having to pay for my letters.
Well,' she said defensively to Miss Rosedale, 'those were his
words.’

Ned looked at James. 'That accounts for the bit about his
expense. Well, go on, Fanny.'

‘
That's all, really. In my last letter I said that I'd like to
come and visit him, and I suppose he thought it best to write
to Uncle Ned about it.'

‘
That isn't quite all, is it?' James said quietly. 'Did you let
him think we had put you up to it?’

Fanny looked down at her hands. 'Well, I don't know that I mightn't have said that you would like me to get to know him
better.' She looked up. 'But that was true, wasn't it? You've
said so to me sometimes.’

Ned, however, was pursuing a different line of thought. 'I
just don't understand how you could get letters delivered into
your own hand without anyone knowing about it. It's always William who goes down for the letters, and he gives them to
Ottershaw. I can't believe either of them would so far forget
his duty as to —'

‘
No, I don't believe that either,' James said. 'Come on,
Fanny, own up. How did you get the letters?’

Fanny met his eyes fearlessly, even with a glint of humour.
'It wasn't William's fault, Papa. It was Mr Pecky at the post-
office. He put them aside for me, and Foster fetched them
while he was exercising the carriage horses, and gave them tome when I went out riding.'

‘
Well, I know Foster is your faithful lieutenant; but how on
earth did you bribe the good Pecky into such a dereliction of
duty?’

Fanny lowered the fans of her lashes over her bright eyes.
'Oh, I didn't bribe him,' she said modestly. 'He did it for me.
I think he must like me.’

James roared with laughter, but Ned looked angry. 'He had
no right to do such a thing. Whatever possessed him? I shall
have to have him removed from his position. He can't be
trusted, that's plain to see.’

Fanny's eyes flew open. 'Oh no, please Uncle Ned! He
didn't do anything wrong!' she exclaimed. 'The letters were addressed to me, after all. And he wouldn't agree to do it at
all, until I told him they were from my grandfather, so you
mustn't blame him.'

‘
No, you mustn't blame him, Ned. What could he do? She
gave him a melting look, and he couldn't help himself, poor
idiot. No, it's Miss Minx here who has made fools of us all.'

‘
Well, I didn't think you'd ask Grandpapa for me, so I had to ask him for myself,' Fanny said frankly. 'And how he has
said he wants me, I may go, mayn't I, Papa?'

‘
Shameless,' Ned growled. 'If she were mine, I'd lock her
up.

James ignored him. 'Why do you want to go, chick?' he
asked curiously. 'I should have thought you'd find it dull.’

Fanny put on her pious look. 'I think I ought to get to
know my grandpapa better. I think he's lonely, and it would
cheer him up to have me there, because he loved poor Mama
so much, and I am her only child.’

James cocked his head at her, and she met his look unflinch
ingly. He began to have a shrewd idea what was behind it all,
and if he was right, he had no intention of shewing her up
in front of Ned. Indeed, why should he try to prevent her, or
spoil her plan? There was nothing wrong or immoral about it.
If anyone was going to inherit the mills, why not Fanny? If
she could get round the old tortoise, then good for her.

‘
Well, I see no reason why you shouldn't go, if you really
want to,' he said. 'What does Miss Rosedale think?’

Miss Rosedale had been looking very thoughtful all this
while. 'I wonder, sir, if the invitation mightn't have come at
exactly the right time. Fanny's grandfather — forgive my
asking, but is he a very strict man, a man of regular habits and
serious disposition!’

James grinned. 'Yes to all of those! When I tell you he
heartily disapproves of me, you will have the measure of the
man! But why do you ask?'

‘
Well sir, I, too, have received a letter recently. It's from
my brother-in-law who lives in Derbyshire. My sister is
increasing, but she has been very unwell recently, and she's
finding things rather too much for her to manage, with the
other five children to care for as well. It had occurred to me
to ask if I might have leave of absence to go and take care of
her and the children until after her confinement, but I put it reluctantly from my mind. How could I leave Fanny? But if
Fanny is to go and visit her grandfather, perhaps my request
might not be impossible to grant after all?’

Fanny was trying hard to suppress a gleam of joy in her
eyes, and had either her father or her uncle looked at her at
that moment, they might have vetoed the scheme at once. But
they were looking at Miss Rosedale, who glanced appealingly
from one to the other.

‘You want this very much?' James asked.

‘
I wouldn't ask it otherwise, sir. Reading between the lines
of my brother-in-law's letter, things are very bad, and my
sister in great anxiety. As I said, I wouldn't normally think of
leaving Fanny, but at her grandfather's house, in his charge,
and perhaps better amused than she is here at home —’

A great deal, necessarily, had to be left unsaid, but the three adults visualised Fanny, on her best behaviour as a
visitor, and under the stern eye of her grandfather, enjoying all
the novelty and consequence of being shewn off around the
neighbourhood and being no trouble at all. The picture in
Fanny's mind's eye was a little different, but they were not to
know that.

‘I'll talk it over with Madame,' James said.

*

Héloïse was eager to be able to grant Miss Rosedale's request.
‘She has worked so hard, and has never had a holiday since
she first came to us. But will Fanny behave herself at her
grandfather's?'

‘Oh, I think so, Marmoset,' James said with an airiness
which was meant to disguise his feeling of hurt that Fanny
was always so much mistrusted. 'She is different now, so
much more grown-up. Miss Rosedale has done wonders with
her, you must admit. And why should she want to misbehave?
Going on this visit was her own idea; it's something she
wants. She'll go round the neighbours, and everyone will fête
her, and her grandather will pet her. She'll purr like a cat,
believe me. Nothing will be further from her thoughts than
getting into trouble.'

‘
Very well, James, I have nothing to say against it. But
someone must go with her. She must have a chaperone — a
maid at least.'

‘
She shall. She can have one of the housemaids go with her, one of the steady ones. And we'll send her in our own
carriage, with our own coachman and a footman to make sure
she gets there safely.’

They talked a little more over the details of the arrange
ments, and then Héloïse said, 'You know my James, with
Mathilde away, Sophie at school, and Fanny going to
Manchester, it occurs to me that it might be a good time for us
to go away as well.'