The Youngest Miss Ward Read online

  The exception to this was Burnaby, who had been hired in the first place by Mr Ward, and had never taken any particular pains to conceal her scorn for Aunt Polly’s undecided, unhappy, unfixed feelings regarding the twins, or her disapproval of the amiable, easy-going system by which the rest of the household was conducted. Hatty, these days, had little time to spare for visits to the nursery and though, in theory, her authority over Burnaby was now greater, she did not attempt to try out such increased powers, wishing, at all costs, to avoid trouble or hostility in the house, which would be certain to have its impact on the invalid. Burnaby’s sway in the nursery therefore continued unchallenged, and though Hatty worried a great deal about the twins – who seemed even paler, lower in vitality, and more dejected, when she did have time to pay them a hasty visit – she could only console herself by resolving to give them a great deal more attention as soon as Aunt Polly recovered, which everybody in the family felt sure she must somehow do within a few weeks. Or months, at least.

  In the meantime Hatty besought Ned to devote more of his time to his small sisters.

  ‘If you would but play a game of chess with them every day.’

  Ned, quenched and melancholy, agreed without protest. Since Hatty’s inadvertent intrusion on his secret assignation with Nancy Price, followed so swiftly by his mother’s seizure and indisposition, he had appeared exceedingly low-spirited and subdued. Of the boys he had always been his mother’s favourite – ‘My little quiddity, my little nonesuch,’ she used to call him. Now that she had time and strength for no more than a loving smile and faint pressure of the hand during his daily visit to her bedside, he hardly knew what to do with himself, and Hatty, though she felt very sorry for him, was herself so harassed with her additional household responsibilities that she had little time to help or comfort him.

  Once or twice he nervously reminded her of her promise, as they passed on the stairs or in the herb garden.

  ‘You won’t tell – will you – ever, Hatty?’

  ‘Of course I won’t, Ned – you may trust me. But do, please, please, be sensible!’

  He nodded, but she had no means of knowing whether he followed her anxious admonition, or whether the secret meetings in the graveyard continued. Nancy Price, Hatty believed, was a headstrong, heedless creature, to whom the serious illness of Ned’s mother would be of little consequence except insofar as it kept his cousin Hatty conveniently indoors, and occupied with household responsibilities. But winter weather, icy rain, and gales, besides the early dark of December, must make the graveyard, Hatty hoped, an uninviting, cheerless trysting-place; it seemed hardly probable that Nancy would wish to subject herself to much cold and discomfort for the chance of a clandestine encounter with Ned.

  A fortnight after Aunt Polly’s collapse, Hatty was called to the parlour to greet ‘a young lady, asking for you, miss’ who proved to be her sister Frances, very stylishly dressed in salmon-pink velvet and brown fur.

  Frances was in a great hurry.

  ‘Lord, child! I was so sorry, sorry as can be, to hear the news of my aunt’s illness. May I perhaps see her, just for a moment or two?’

  With regret, Hatty was obliged to report that at this time her aunt was sleeping, and the poor lady was so weak that it was thought important not to rouse her when she fell into a natural slumber.

  ‘Well, perhaps it is no great matter after all – but, pray, do give her my love and say all that is proper. The fact of it is, Hatty, that I am eloping – well, you know how things are at home, now, Papa married to Lady Ursula, nothing on this earth would drag me back there to be subject to all her sour-grape whims and dictates; and Agnes just as bad, probably worse by this time – unless Lady U has pushed her off on to that Norris—’

  ‘But, Fanny, what can you mean? Eloping? With whom?’

  Fanny’s face broke into a happy, confiding smile.

  ‘Oh, he is the dearest fellow! My Sam!’

  ‘Is he – is he one of Mrs Price’s sons?’

  Hatty began to have a slightly nightmarish feeling, that the whole Price family were rising up to tangle round her, like some active, encroaching weed.

  ‘No, a nephew – the son of Mr Price’s brother, Mr James Price.’

  ‘What is his profession – Mr James Price?’

  ‘Oh, he is no more than a corn-chandler – but very rich, Hatty! I know Papa will not approve – my Sam is only a lieutenant of marines, though so handsome, lively and active – but all that will soon change, I am sure. Mr Price will soon arrange for his promotion – or his father will soon find him a position in his business – or my father will come around and endow us with something, once the knot is safely tied. So we only have a comfortable house over our heads there can be no occasion for any trouble, we shall be happy as the day is long.’

  Hatty was aghast. She could see, only too plainly, Fanny’s very sufficient reasons for not wishing to return to Bythorn, but her hopes of a secure future with Sam Price seemed built on frighteningly insecure foundations.

  ‘Oh Fanny! Do not you think you should wait a while – consider a little longer? Continue staying with the Prices – or, or, you could perhaps come back to this house?’

  But Hatty’s voice faltered. In the present state of the Ward family she hardly felt entitled to make such an offer; she felt sure that her uncle Philip would not endorse it.

  In any case, Fanny threw these suggestions aside.

  ‘No, child, no; the Price household is in uproar at this moment; two of the maids have just come down with the measles; one of them went home for a day’s holiday to her family in Gosport and picked up the contagion there, and the other one, Sukey, shares a bed with her and has but today thrown out a rash; so Mrs Price is clean distracted. I am off to Bristol with my Sam directly, for we are to be married there by special licence (I sold the diamond brooch that Aunt Winchilsea left me) and Sam has procured a transfer, so we shall live in Bristol until the commotion has died down. I daresay it will not be so very bad. Papa is probably too taken up in his new marriage to kick up a dust or bear a grudge against Sam – and very likely my sister Maria Bertram will come across with a handsome present – she is so wealthy now after all! So soon as we are settled and my Aunt Ward is better you must come and visit us, Hatty, I am wild for you to see my handsome Sam! He is unpolished in his manners, but so sweet and comical and gamesome!’

  One of the maids here came in and said, ‘Could you come and talk to Cook about the grocery orders, Miss Hatty?’

  ‘Yes, Prue, I will come directly.’

  Hatty looked in despair at her sister, who was already gathering up gloves and muff.

  ‘I must be off, Sam is waiting at the end of the road. It is too bad, child, that you are now so occupied with all this housekeeping. I can see they are making a sad drudge of you. But wait, just wait a little time, until Sam and I are settled, and then you shall come to us – and we shall all be so merry.’

  Frances kissed Hatty warmly and whisked out of the room, calling back: ‘Oh, and do give my love to the boys—’

  Hatty had fallen into the habit, after dinner, of playing the piano for half an hour while the boys prepared their next day’s lessons and her uncle drank his tea. Some day, she supposed, she must become a governess, and it behoved her to keep up her accomplishments. Whether he listened to it or not, the music appeared to soothe Mr Ward, and she felt that it made for a more comfortable relation between them. He never thanked her for her activities about the house, but his manner to her these days, though not precisely cordial, was calm and matter-of-fact, considerably less chilly than it had been when she first arrived.

  ‘When does my cousin Sydney return home for the Christmas holiday, uncle?’ she asked that evening, after having played a couple of sonatas. While Ned was his mother’s special son, Sydney was by far his father’s favourite among the boys, since he worked hard at his law studies, had bec
ome ambitious, and was keenly interested in making a name for himself in his profession. (‘Which is just as well,’ grumbled Mr Ward, ‘now that my brother has married again and Sydney is likely to lose the Bythorn property.’)

  Sydney had of course been informed of his mother’s grave illness, but it had not been thought necessary to summon him to her bedside until the regular Christmas holiday brought him home to Portsmouth for a few days.

  ‘Sydney? He will return on the twentieth. He can bring some papers for Lord Camber, who by that time will probably be making his final arrangements for departure. A sad, hare-brained business, that – sad, hare-brained business,’ Mr Ward muttered.

  Hatty thought Sydney a very poor exchange for Lord Camber, whose intermittent, unexpected appearances in the house over the past few weeks had sensibly brightened her life. The news of his imminent departure filled her with such deep dismay that she thought: I could hardly entertain a greater regard for him if he were my own brother. And then, taking a survey of the three proxy brothers she already possessed: rather less, indeed – for Sydney is spiteful and conceited, Tom good-natured but very slow-witted, and as for Ned – oh, if Ned is really bewitched by the charms of Nancy Price – then Ned is lost indeed.

  Only that afternoon, stepping into the conservatory for some lemon leaves to garnish a flower-piece for Aunt Polly’s sickroom, she had been surprised to come upon Ned carrying a very choice little posy, which he had evidently put together himself with considerable taste and care, combining purple michaelmas daisies with a late marigold or two, brilliant rose-hips and a sprig of yew covered with coral berries.

  ‘Why, Ned!’

  ‘It – it is for my mother!’ he stammered, but he had turned a deep red, almost as scarlet as the rose-hips, and though she later saw the posy by Mrs Ward’s bedside, Hatty could not help wondering if it had originally been destined for another recipient; and then scolded herself for her ungenerous suspicions.

  ‘Uncle Philip,’ she said, seizing a moment when both the boys were safely out of the room engaged upon their own concerns, ‘I fear I have a dreadfully disagreeable piece of news to communicate to you.’

  He looked up, frowning over his newspaper.

  ‘My sister Frances has run off with the Prices’ nephew.’

  Mr Ward required a full minute to assimilate this information. Then his wrath was cataclysmic.

  Scurvy, ill-conditioned, low-class behaviour! The hussy! Taking advantage of a time when her poor aunt was so very unwell – when he himself was constrained to remain at home due to his wife’s ill-health – playing such a disagreeable trick on her unfortunate hosts the Prices, who must feel in some sort responsible. How could she be so lost to all sense of propriety? The Prices’ nephew? Yes, for sure, he knew the fellow – a curst, stupid, cocksure, popinjay – a lieutenant of marines who would never, in his whole life, rise higher than captain. Well, Frances had done for herself now, with a vengeance, a most shocking waste, considering her handsome looks. There would soon enough be an end to them, after she had endured a few years trying to bring up a family on a lieutenant’s pay – she certainly need expect no help from him – and he doubted very much indeed whether his brother Henry would advance a guinea to the miserable pair. Bristol, they had gone to, had they? Ha! Well, let them remain in Bristol, he washed his hands of them, and so would all their respectable connections.

  ‘I wonder, very much,’ he concluded, ‘that we have not heard from the Prices on this matter.’

  A note received on the following morning at breakfast explained this omission. The Price household was in a shocking state of disarray (poor Mrs Price wrote) for not only the two maids and Nancy, but now Mr Price himself, were laid low with the measles, and a very severe form of that troublesome complaint, furthermore, involving a high fever and much pain as to eyes and ears. Mrs Price – though fortunately not stricken by measles – was clean distracted with worry. She blamed herself acutely for not being a more attentive chaperon to Miss Frances, but who could possibly have expected such an eventuality? Naturally she was deeply shocked and distressed over the disgraceful affair, but hoped that the young couple might in due course be forgiven, and the best be made of a bad business, and some reasonably steady, moderately paid position found for her nephew, Samuel Price, who, she could at least say, was the most good-natured young fellow to be met with anywhere and would soon, she doubted not, by the influence of a sensible, well-bred young woman, be cured of a few rough, unmannerly ways and turns of speech and a slight tendency to tippling. Now she begged to conclude, for the doctor was in the house waiting to attend his four patients – Mr Price would indubitably have sent regards but was delirious at present, and she was his very sincerely, etc, etc.

  ‘Measles! Measles!’ muttered Mr Ward. ‘I wish the whole Price family were carried off by the measles.’

  Ned choked on the slice of bread-and-butter he was eating, and found himself obliged to quit the breakfast parlour. He looked unwontedly pale and had black circles under his eyes; Hatty wondered if some of his state derived from worry over Nancy’s illness. If they had been continuing to meet in secret, as she half-suspected, and as the sight of the posy suggested, this infection of Nancy’s must prevent any further intercourse for many weeks, months even, now that a hard winter had begun to assert its grip over the country. Nancy would not be well enough to go out of doors.

  Later that day Sydney arrived off the London stage. His father could still deplore Sydney’s stylish mode of dress, from his beaver hat and elaborately tied cravat to the brilliantly polished boots, more suited to a member of the haut ton than a hard-working young lawyer; but Sydney himself was very completely satisfied with his appearance, and combined this satisfaction with a tendency to hold the rest of his family in slight contempt, writing off his younger brothers as scruffy whipper-snappers, his parents as old fogies, and the twins as something too unmentionable to be even called to mind.

  By the appearance of Hatty, however, after a six months’ absence, he was quite taken aback.

  He came upon her when she was discussing Mrs Ward’s rate of progress with the surgeon, and making a list of medicines to be purchased.

  Mr Filingay had taken his departure.

  ‘Is my mother very ill, then, Hatty?’ Sydney asked in a subdued tone, impressed by the gravity of the surgeon’s demeanour.

  Hatty sighed, tucking the memorandum she had made into a notebook which travelled at all times in her reticule.

  ‘Yes, cousin; it seems that she has been over-tasking herself for years past.’ She did not go on to tell Sydney Mr Filingay’s explanation for her aunt’s disability, that the birth of the twins had put too severe a strain upon her heart, which, at the time, had passed unregarded. She did not think Sydney would find this information of particular interest. Indeed he sighed and said, with more than a touch of irritability: ‘Does that mean that she will be laid up in bed over Christmas? And we all have to tiptoe about the house? I had hoped to invite some of my friends in.’

  ‘You had better speak to my uncle about that,’ Hatty said, feeling quite certain that Mr Ward would veto any such proposal.

  ‘Shall I go up and see her? Perhaps I can cheer her – make her feel more the thing with a few London tales.’

  ‘Better wait for half an hour – the nurse is with her now.’

  ‘The nurse? Good heavens,’ said Sydney discontentedly. He glanced again at Hatty, taking in her appearance more carefully. ‘So you rule the rookery now, hey, Cousin Hatty? You have properly got the reins in your hands, I can see! And I won’t deny it suits you – you must have grown a couple of inches since I saw you last – filled out, too and looking as smart as ninepence. That is a deuced smart way you have found of doing your hair – upon my soul it is! I recall when I was here last what a sight you had made of yourself with Cousin Frances – how we did laugh at you! By the bye, is that right, what Tom tells me, that she has
thrown her bonnet over the windmill with that oaf, Sam Price? If that is really so, she has properly done for herself – might as well go upon the town at once.’

  Hatty stared at him in silent, astonished disgust, but was spared the need for making any reproof, as Mr Ward came in at the front door, returning from his place of business, and said, ‘Ha! Sydney! I am glad to see you. Have you brought those papers for Lord Camber?’

  The law office in London where Sydney was now employed also handled business for Camber and his father the Duke; indeed it was through Camber’s influence that Sydney had obtained the position.

  ‘Yes, sir, I have them here.’ Sydney smartly pulled from his portmanteau a bundle of documents, tied with blue tape.

  Hatty slipped away towards the pantry to confer with the housekeeper. As she crossed the hall she heard Sydney say, ‘Cousin Hatty is turning into a deuced fine girl, is she not, sir? I suppose she will soon have a prodigious deal of beaux coming around?’

  And his father replied in a tone of deep disapproval, ‘Beaux? Why, no, sir. I should hope not, indeed!’

  At dinner-time Mr Ward remarked to Hatty, with something of a return to his old style of chilly censure: ‘Hatty. Among the documents Lord Camber dispatched to me by Sydney, I find there is a note addressed to you. I am somewhat surprised, and not best pleased, I must aver, to discover that there exists a correspondence between you and his Lordship.’