The Regency (64 page)

‘
You mean you don't know how to frame your answer? You
must know whether you want to accept him or not.'

‘That's just what I don't know. Rob, you must advise me.'

‘
Lucy, I can't,' Roberta said with an exasperated smile.
‘How can anyone tell you what to do in such a case? You must
make up your own mind. What is your problem?’

Lucy stared ahead of her, trying to assemble words. 'It was
such a shock when he asked me,' she said at last. ‘I'd never thought of him in that way. I never supposed he thought of
me that way. But when he asked — suddenly I felt as though
he was a stranger. It frightened me —' She paused, and then
didn't seem able to go on.

‘
But it was a pleasant sort of fear?' Roberta offered after a
while.

Lucy glanced at her, a little pink, relieved and ashamed.
‘Yes! Dear Rob, you know! You
do
understand.’

Roberta smiled. 'Yes, I understand. That was the most
natural feeling in the world, and it proves that you are not
indifferent to Major Wiske. You felt suddenly strange, because
he is a man, and you were responding to him as a man. That's
all.’

Lucy frowned. 'But I never felt like that with Weston.’

‘
Didn't you?' Roberta was doubtful.

‘
No!' Lucy said certainly. 'With Weston I felt — oh,
excited, and happy, and restless sometimes, but never strange!
He was — I
knew
him, you see. And yet I've known Danby
much longer.'

‘
But you've never thought of him as a man, perhaps,'
Roberta said, feeling she was getting out of her depth.

‘
Well of course I haven't — not like that. The first thing I
felt when he asked me to marry him was panic — why was
that? And if the idea frightens me, why didn't I refuse him at
once? Why don't I know what to do?'

‘
Lucy, if you don't know, how should I?' Roberta said, and
yet she did know, in a way. Lucy's relationships with her
husband and her lover had been those of a child with an adult
— parent or older brother. But in Danby Wiske she had
suddenly met someone on her own level. He had surprised her
out of her extended childhood, and made her feel a woman's
feelings. Her fear of the idea of marrying Danby was because
she knew subconsciously that it was possible.

But how to say such things to Lucy? How to make her
understand herself, when she had no more self-awareness
than a fox?

‘
If you didn't refuse him at once, it must be because the
idea was not wholly repugnant to you,' she said carefully.
‘You didn't burst into laughter or cry "Ridiculous!", did you?'

‘No, of course not! I like Danby. I'm very fond of him.'

‘
Well, then, start from there. You like him, you are fond of
him, the idea of marriage does not fill you with horror. You
enjoy his company?'

‘I suppose so. I go everywhere with him, after all.’

A deep blush began under Roberta's collar. 'Does — does
the physical side of things trouble you?' she asked bravely.
Lucy had not particularly contemplated it. She thought
about it now, conjuring Danby's face before her, and a faint
blush troubled her, too. 'It doesn't — doesn't
repel
me,' she
said faintly.

‘
Well, then,' Roberta said briskly, 'you have a good begin
ning. There's no reason why you shouldn't marry him, is
there?’

Lucy thought. 'Wouldn't it be, well, disloyal? After Weston,
how
could
I marry anyone else?’

Roberta smiled. 'Life doesn't work like that. I loved
Charles dearly; nothing can change that, or lessen it. Now I
love Peter, and it's quite different.'

‘
I see,' said Lucy doubtfully. It didn't seem to her that she
had got much further along. She had hoped Roberta would
give her a clear answer, tell her what to say and how to think.
Roberta looked at her with sympathy, having a pretty clear
idea what was in her mind.

‘
Lucy, dear, would the idea of never seeing Major Wiske
again upset you? Suppose he should be killed in the war —’

‘
No! Don't say it,' Lucy said quickly, and looked around
for some wood to touch.

With a private smile, Roberta offered the handle of her
whip, and Lucy touched it with a guilty blush.

‘
I think you perhaps like Major Wiske a great deal more
than you know.' Roberta said.

*

The Misses Pendlebury and their governess called for Fanny
at Hobsbawn House one morning in the family barouche,
complete with a footman and an elderly coachman in a cauli
flower wig. Miss Imber, a small, retiring creature with fright
ened, fieldmouse eyes, who always looked somehow dusty,
as
though she had been standing in a corner neglected for a long
time, removed to the backward seat with the air of one who
deserves no better of life. The barouche having been built on a grand scale, like most new things in Manchester, there was
sufficient room for even Fanny not to think herself ill-used in
sitting three across.

The day was cool, and it looked as though it might rain
later, so a trip to the new bazaar in the Exchange Hall, where
they sold gloves, stockings, ribbons, purses and other
delightful nothings, was exactly what was wanted.

‘If we have time, we might go to the library afterwards, too,' Prudence suggested.

Agnes bounced. 'Oh yes, they have ices there! Oh excellent creature, Pru!'

‘I meant to look at books. But you may do as you please.'

‘
What did you think of the supper-party last night, Fanny?'
Agnes asked. The girls had all been on first-name terms for
some time now. 'Wasn't Percy Droylsden a perfect fiend at
Lottery Tickets? He cares for nothing but winning! And that
monster Jack Withington came straight from ogling you in
that ridiculous manner, and put on a sentimental face and
told me he had writ me a verse for my album!’

Fanny laughed. Was it a verse about your fine eyes?
Yes,
I
thought so! He had just that minute told me the same thing!'

‘
Had he? The impudent scrub! And I'll bet my hair that he
never wrote it at all. It will have been his sister's work, for he
can hardly write his own name. Libertine was
mad in
love
with a poet last year — or fancied herself so.'

‘
Oh Agnes, Miss Withington's name is Albertine,' Miss Imber protested in a faint voice, her brow furrowing with
distress. 'Libertine means — well, it means something quite
inappropriate, for Miss Withington is a very nice young lady
indeed.'

‘She's a languishing ninny!' Agnes retorted smartly.

Prudence said wisely, 'She knows what libertine means,
Imby, you may depend on it. Annie, don't talk so shocking, it
isn't becoming.’

Fanny was only half attending, engaged in looking about
her. It was still strange to her to be in a new town, where
building was going on everywhere, and everything had an
unfinished look, but it was oddly invigorating, as though
there were more possibilities for things to happen here than in
an ancient city like York. All around there were new, fine
buildings going up, while between and behind them, one
could catch glimpses of the other world, the dank, dirty, and
odorous lanes and courts where the mill-hands lived.

It occurred to her that there seemed to be more of the
inhabitants of that half-world on view than was usual. Of
course, as Grandpapa had said, most of the mills were on three-
day working, and the mill-hands were idle, but even' so, the
ragged and dirty people seemed more visible than usual. She
found herself remembering the time at home when the new
stables were being built at Twelvetrees, and a derelict barn
had to be pulled down to make space. Hooks had been set into
the ancient and pitted stone walls, and the horses harnessed
up; and just as they were about to be set in motion, to
pull the structure down, suddenly there had been a flood of
rats come boldly into the daylight, frightened out of their
usual hiding places in the walls by some foreknowledge of
destruction.

The barouche was held up at a crossroads by the press of traffic making turns, and while they were stationary, Fanny
found herself within feet of a member of the lower orders,
who was standing at the side of the road, waiting to cross.

They were about the same age, Fanny thought, and the
same height, but otherwise there was no similarity between
them. The mill-girl was thin, so thin that the cords were visible
in her neck, and in the claw-like hand which clutched the
edges of her shawl — a dirty bit of blanket — together at her
neck. Her skin was pale, but not with the clear pallor of a
lady. It had a greyish, cloudy look, like brackish water. From
under the blanket-shawl, a rough brown dress hung to her
ankles, below which her dirty feet were thrust into crude
wooden clogs. She wore no hat, and her hair was a sour and
matted brown rat's nest.

And yet, Fanny could see, she was not absolutely ugly. If
she had been clean and well-fed, she might even have been tolerable to look at. Why doesn't she at least wash herself? Fanny thought in disgust, noting the black grime under the
fingernails and the mud-splashes on the legs. And she might
wash her clothes, and brush her hair.

The road ahead cleared, and the carriage jerked as the
horses threw themselves against their collars; and in that
instant Fanny's eyes and those of the mill-girl met. The girl's
eyes were tawny, like Fanny's, bright and long-lashed: they,
and they alone about her, were beautiful. A strange, unwilling
sensation of sympathy passed between them. If we ever met
again, Fanny thought, we should know each other, however
many years had passed.

The girl's lips parted, as if she began to say something. One
hand released the blanket-shawl, and moved towards Fanny,
turning palm upwards and uncurling like a sea-anemone; and
with a sensation of disgusted horror, Fanny saw that the
other hand, clinging to the girl's throat like a maimed animal,
had only three fingers.