The Youngest Miss Ward Read online

  ‘Hatty?’ suggested Mrs Ward, who looked flushed and tired, as if she heartily wished the next few days were over.

  ‘Hatty?’

  If a lady with Lady Ursula’s elegance of manner could be thought to sniff, and shrug her shoulders, Lady Ursula did so. ‘Hatty is a feather-pate. I see remarkably little future for her. But I daresay Mr Henry Ward will be reasonably satisfied if one of those Price lads is promoted captain and Frances secures him. Mr Ward is most anxious to get those girls off his hands. I may tell you there is now a tolerably advantageous connection talked of for Agnes: the new incumbent at Mansfield, Mr Norris; a most respectable man (or so I am informed); Agnes herself is not over-eager in the matter, regrettably; the foolish creature had conceived a wholly ineligible fancy for a bailiff – a young man with nothing to recommend him except a smooth face and a plausible manner; Mr Ward soon had him removed from his post and sent about his business. I have informed Agnes I do not know how many times, that Mr Norris’s offer is the best – if not the only acceptable one she is likely to receive. She had better make the most of her chances, bestir herself (as I am continually telling her) and agree to receive his addresses. “Come, now, Agnes my dear,” say I, every time that we are together, “Come now, Agnes, put that ridiculous partiality out of your head, once and for all.” “But I love him,” she declaims, with a countenance like a tragedy queen. “And he loved me, I am sure of it.” “Stuff and nonsense,” say I, “a young man, five years younger than yourself? He was only after your portion. Come now: forget him; in your position, my dear, with your lack of looks, and countenance, and so unfortunately circumstanced as you are, an elderly husband is all that you are entitled to expect. And Mr Norris, I am sure, is no more disagreeable than many another. You may be sure, with him, at least, of a comfortable living, since he is a friend of your sister Maria’s husband. Come now!” I have told her, innumerable times, “I shall think you a fool, and worse than a fool, if you do not make haste to fix him. He is a widower, he is looking for a sensible person to manage his household, he cannot be expected to wait for ever.” But Agnes, for whatever reason, is most tiresomely reluctant to alter her situation. I believe she still, in secret, pines for young Daggett. (Daggett! I ask you! What a name!) And, to make matters worse, she is falling into all the crotchetty, opinionated, self-consequent ways of an old maid, which plagues Mr Ward beyond bearing, and so I have told her, I do not know how many times . . .’

  ‘Dear, dear – poor thing – yes, I daresay she had much better follow your counsel at once and have done with it,’ sighed Aunt Polly, nodding politely to signify agreement, feeling a great deal of sympathy for Agnes, and deciding within herself that, if ever there was an example of a crotchetty, opinionated, self-consequent old maid, Lady Ursula was that example. No wonder that poor Agnes was in no hurry to take her advice.

  Aunt Polly went on, ‘How very fortunate it is that we do not need, yet awhile, to be in a worry about launching little Hatty in the world. Her time to look around for an establishment will not be for another two years or so. And I am glad of that, for she has entered with true goodwill upon the task of putting my poor twins in ways of occupying their minds and hands. She has taught them such skills as I would not have thought possible.’

  Lady Ursula, however, could never endure to hear Hatty praised.

  Sourly, she remarked, ‘Well, I am mighty surprised to hear that, Mrs Ward – though, of course, very glad – for, if ever there was a conceited, whimsical, affected, vain fanciful little madam who needed to be kept down, Hatty is the one; my poor cousin Isabel was quite worn out, I truly believe, fatigued to death by all Hatty’s quirks and nonsense; unfortunately by the time I had become apprised of the situation, and was able to take a hand in the household, and to seek a remedy, it was by far too late for Isabel; but let me warn you, my dear Mrs Ward, you cannot be too strict, or too watchful, in your treatment of Hatty; she is one who likes to go her own way, think her own thoughts, she has a strong spirit of secrecy and wilfulness, believes herself by far superior to all about her, has no notion whatsoever of conforming to the opinions of her friends and governors. No, no, Hatty is one to be supervised and coerced at all times.’

  ‘Gracious me, Lady Ursula!’ was all Mrs Ward had to say.

  ‘Where are your nieces at this time?’ inquired her guest.

  At this time Frances and Hatty were still upstairs, somewhat hilariously engaged in dressing each other’s hair. Their sister Maria, now become Lady Bertram, had, Frances informed Hatty, acquired a very smart lady’s maid, Chapman, who, when working for a previous employer in Paris, had learned a vast number of new and remarkable modes of hair-dressing; and by attentively studying her methods, Frances, during her prolonged visit to Mansfield Park, had picked up a number of useful tips; with much laughter she was attempting to pass on these tricks of the coiffeur’s trade to her youngest sister.

  Fanny’s hair, long, smooth and golden, was easy and rewarding to dress, and could be piled, swept, ringletted and plaited into countless different impressive creations; but Hatty’s shorter, dark, vigorously curling locks were by no means so easily disciplined. Frances was still in the middle of attempting to coerce them into a Grecian cluster at the back when the dinner-bell rang.

  ‘Never mind it, Fanny! We had better go down directly. My uncle greatly dislikes it if we are late, especially when there are guests in the house – ’

  ‘I will just fasten your hair with these.’

  The two sisters hastily ran down the stair to the dining-parlour.

  Mr Ward had taken the arm of his titled guest, and his wife followed them from the parlour. The two girls demurely passed into the dining-room, walking behind their elders, ahead of the three boys, who had been at the back of the house preparing lessons for the following day. At the sight of Hatty’s hair, twisted into a small black knob with two ivory pins protruding from it, the brothers burst into subdued giggles, causing their father to direct a cold, inquiring eye at them.

  ‘It is Hatty, sir,’ explained Tom. ‘Her hair. She looks just like a Hottentot.’

  Lady Ursula’s lorgnette was at once trained on Hatty and her face assumed an expression of extreme severity. ‘Girl! How dare you presume to come to the table in such a ludicrous fashion? I am wholly amazed!’ she declared in her coldest, deepest tones, and added, ‘It is fortunate indeed that your poor dear Mama is not living at this time to see you make such a disgraceful exhibition of yourself – I do not know what she would say.’

  The last sentence was too much for Hatty, who blushed miserably and felt hot tears prick at the back of her eyes. Frances, slow-witted and never very agile at responding to a situation, sat mute and open-mouthed, unable to explain her own part in the affair. But Aunt Polly remarked mildly, ‘The two girls, I conjecture, have been amusing themselves with hair-dressing. Fanny’s coiffure is most becoming. And Hatty does not usually appear in such a trim. Was not that it, Frances?’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Polly. I am very sorry.’

  ‘Well, it is by no means the day, or the occasion, for such foolish pastimes,’ pronounced Mr Ward, frowning at Frances. ‘And I think, Hatty, that you had best retire from the room and take your meal in the nursery. That may teach you, another time, to come to the table in a proper manner, especially when we have guests. Make your apologies to your aunt and cousin.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Aunt Polly, Cousin Ursula,’ muttered Hatty, half-strangled with tears, and she swiftly made her escape from the room. As she left, she heard Lady Ursula remark to Mrs Ward, ‘You see, ma’am, what I mean?’ in a grim, self-justificatory tone.

  ‘My dear, why in the world does your cousin Ursula dislike you so much?’ inquired Mrs Ward the next day, before the funeral, when Hatty came into her room to be equipped with black gloves.

  ‘Does she, Aunt Polly?’ asked Hatty in surprise. ‘I thought that was just her manner with everybody.’

  �
��It seems to me that she is especially severe with you.’ As if she were your enemy, Mrs Ward thought, but did not say aloud.

  ‘Well, I do not know the reason for it,’ remarked Hatty after some thought. ‘Unless it is because I broke my sister Agnes’s toilet things.’

  ‘That, surely, would not be sufficient cause? Here, this pair fits very well. You may have some drops of my lavender water for your handkerchief, my love. Now run down to your uncle and tell him that I will be with him directly.’

  Pondering, while she adjusted her black veil, as to the underlying reason for Ursula’s very apparent strong dislike of her young cousin, Mrs Ward wondered if it could have sprung from jealousy. Despite an age gap of sixteen years between Isabel Wisbech and Ursula Fowldes, the two had grown to be very devoted friends when the former was a young married woman and the latter a girl in her teens; could it be that Ursula had felt displaced by her friend’s last, best-loved child, who had come by degrees to occupy almost the whole of her affection and attention?

  No, no, that is by far too fanciful a notion, thought Aunt Polly, fixing her funeral veil with a jet brooch; a grown woman would not pursue a vendetta against a child for such a flimsy, trifling reason. At all events, it is fortunate for Hatty that she resides here with us; she might have a hard time of it at home, should Ursula Fowldes really marry her father . . .

  The funeral of Lady Pentecost was conducted at St Thomas’s church in Portsmouth because of the large congregation expected. This consisted mostly of naval persons who had had connections with the Admiral. The Ward family made their way quietly to the rear of the large church as befitted such humble connections, but Lady Ursula was escorted with due ceremony to a front pew to sit with Miss Pentecost, the Admiral’s daughter, who had come with the Dean of Romsey. Hatty’s quick eye soon detected Lord Camber, again unexceptionable in black garb, by the church gate exchanging remarks with various unimportant-looking persons, preferring, apparently, to remain outside on the pathway, despite drizzling rain, until the last minute before the ceremony should begin. Where he sat during the service Hatty did not see, but she noticed him later at the graveside.

  The large church of St Thomas, in Lombard Street, was not very far removed from Mr Ward’s residence. Waiting outside, for the last part of the obsequies, Hatty was moved to wonder whether the little neglected graveyard that adjoined her uncle’s property had once formed the earliest part of this larger burial-place. Trying to frame in her mind’s eye a map of the whole district, with the streets enclosing it, she had given scant heed to what was taking place around her, until she suddenly began to realize that something had gone very much amiss with the proceedings at the grave.

  ‘Oh my gracious – the poor thing!’ Aunt Polly was exclaiming softly. ‘Somebody should go to her aid – Philip my dear, do you not think—?’

  ‘Not our place!’ hissed Mr Ward disapprovingly. ‘Let one of the clergy – or Lady Ursula – she who is always so ready to lead the way when it comes to behaviour—’

  For – Hatty now saw – the daughter of the deceased, Miss Pentecost, a thin, unimpressive figure in trailing black draperies, had apparently succumbed to a severe fit of hiccups when required to scatter a handful of earth on the coffin – hiccups which quickly graduated to hysterical laughter and then to violent sobs; she appeared to be on the point of casting herself bodily into the grave, on top of the coffin.

  ‘Stop her! Oh, why won’t somebody stop her?’ whispered Hatty in dismay, her eyes and total sympathy trained on the weeping, distracted figure. But all those nearest to Miss Pentecost seemed quite paralysed by horror or embarrassment.

  ‘Mama! Mama!’ called Miss Pentecost to the black box in the grave. ‘Wait – wait for me – I am coming too – I will follow you—’

  But before the disastrous act which seemed imminent, another black-clad figure stepped forward, kindly but firmly clasped the distraught lady’s arm with both hands, guiding her away from the grave, and from the group of horrified bystanders.

  ‘Come, my poor dear, come with me,’ Hatty heard, in Lord Camber’s cordial, calm, reassuring tones. ‘What you need is a cup of hot negus, and to step indoors out of this wretchedly cold rain.’ And, without more ado, he led her away.

  A soft, collective sigh of relief arose from the graveside, and the ceremonies were reverently, but without loss of time, concluded.

  Back at Mr Ward’s house, Lady Ursula was stringent in her condemnation of the hysterical Miss Pentecost.

  ‘Making such an exhibition of herself! Shameful! Before the whole company! And she an Admiral’s daughter! I was never so shocked.’

  ‘Lord Camber acted very promptly and considerately,’ suggested Aunt Polly. ‘It was just as one would expect of him – he is so good-natured and quick-witted. I wonder where he took her?’

  Lady Ursula looked as if she hoped it was to the bottom of Portsmouth harbour . . .

  ‘I am rather surprised that the Duke did not attend the funeral,’ remarked Mr Ward, hoping to lead the talk away to a more innocuous topic. ‘He was a great friend of the Admiral’s, I understand.’

  ‘My uncle? He is by far too pickled in sherry these days,’ snapped Lady Ursula. ‘He—’

  The door opened and Lord Camber was announced. He came in just as usual, smiling and at ease.

  ‘Forgive me, my dear sir, for not being with you sooner,’ he said to Mr Ward, ‘but you saw how it was – I had to escort that poor lady back to her lodging – fortunately she has an old nurse, a Mrs Griffin, who always accompanies her.’

  ‘I hope she felt some proper shame at having made such a show of herself,’ coldly remarked Lady Ursula to Mrs Ward, but in a tone intended to carry as far as Lord Camber.

  He looked across the room at her and said mildly, ‘Perhaps you did not know, Ursula my dear, that Miss Pentecost is suffering from a malady which, it is known, will terminate her own life in a few months’ time?’

  Lady Ursula was silenced. She turned her head away with a sharp movement, and Mr Ward made haste to engage her in a dialogue with Canon Ramsgate, a cousin of the Fowldes family who had helped to conduct the funeral service.

  Hatty thought: Lady Ursula has such a great notion of manners and deportment, yet Lord Camber, it appears to me, is much more truly courteous and thoughtful of other people’s feelings. He is my idea of the perfect knight – like King Arthur, or Sir Galahad, or Richard Coeur de Lion . . . I should wish, when I am grown, to marry somebody like Lord Camber. Only handsomer, of course . . .

  On this occasion, Lord Camber did not remain long in Mr Ward’s house. Something seemed to have depressed his spirits. He talked little, and soon made his adieux. To Hatty he addressed only one short, friendly sentence before taking his leave: ‘I hope, Miss Hatty, that your Muse continues hard at work?’ She nodded shyly and he left, explaining that he had an engagement in Winchester. To Lady Ursula he offered a civil bow, raising his brows and proffering his hand; but her only response was, pointedly, to turn her head away and fix her eyes on the person standing nearest to her.

  V

  Mr Ward had lost no time in enrolling the younger members of his household as members of Monsieur Lamartine’s weekly classes in the Terpsichorean art. These classes took place in the draughty Assembly Hall of the Crown Inn, and were very well patronized by the more prosperous families of the town, whose offspring were expected to benefit by an application of Gallic elegance and polish. M. Lamartine (or so he asserted and there was none to contradict him) was descended from an impoverished but blue-blooded French titled family tracing its origins back to the Emperor Charlemagne and beyond. Anticipating calamitous social upheaval in the near future, he had left France and come abroad to earn a living in the British Isles, where life seemed to promise greater security at least. And the scheme had answered remarkably well: attendance at his classes increased, week by week, and they were spoken of as far afield as Salisbury and Winch
ester.

  Escorted by Aunt Polly, Hatty and her cousins lingered in shyness and diffidence by the door of the large bare room with its highly waxed floor, gazing at the animated spectacle that presented itself to their nervous vision.

  M. Lamartine, a short square-built man with a whole series of blue-stubbled chins and a wide, smiling mouth shaped like the blade of a sickle, was bounding about the floor with a rapidity astounding for a man of his girth, amending the posture of some thirty pupils of all ages who were marshalled down the room in a long double set. He flew from side to side, demonstrating, commending, reproving and instructing. His wife, meanwhile, a lady built on the same stocky and serviceable plan, her girth further augmented by layers upon layers of draped muslin and cambric and Flanders lace, performed alternately upon the piano and on a miniature violin, and frequently herself stepped in among the dancers to correct the position of an arm, a spine, or a shoulder. Observing the new arrivals she swam towards them, like a tugboat crossing a harbour full of tossing dinghies, and gave them a most affable welcome.

  While she was doing so, a curly-black-haired girl bounded forward out of the crowd, all smiles, and ran up to Ned.

  ‘Ned Ward! Capital that you have come! Take my hand, and I will soon show you the way!’

  In a moment Ned and Sydney were swept off to the set, Tom was taken in hand by a robust girl with a yellow topknot who appeared to perform the role of assistant teacher. All of a sudden Hatty found herself alone, deserted at the edge of the floor, with everybody else in the room dancing. She felt unexpectedly conspicuous, forlorn and foolish, as if she had been obliged to take part in a game whose rules were familiar to all the players except herself. Yet, on the way to the Crown, she had been comfortably certain of her power to help her cousins, especially Ned. And now he was twirling round, quite happily, in the middle of the set, with the black-haired Nancy Price, while Sydney, frowning in concentration, followed the directions of Madame Lamartine. Hatty who, till one moment past, had felt secure, hopeful, and at ease, now underwent all the pain of an odd-man-out, finding, or believing herself the target of scornful or pitying glances. To make matters worse, she was wearing one of the most unbecoming gowns of Aunt Polly’s choice: an orange-tawny muslin with bright yellow trimmings which, she privately considered, made her look like a jelly dessert.