CHAPTER TWO
Deerswell was a neat Palladian mansion of tidy proportions approached by a driveway that curved through a park that no longer held deer.
In some ways she felt it was welcoming, for she had spent a happy enough childhood there, and, unlike the rambling, sixteenth-century Dembleby family seat, it was light, and had few draughts.
It was, however, about to become her ‘prison’ during her months of enforced social seclusion, and she had no illusions that, thereafter, their neighbours would be eager with invitations.
A widow, especially one with a small child and nothing in the way of inherited estates, was an embarrassment and an odd number.
If invitations included her, then one could be sure that they would be grudging.
‘We have made all necessary preparations, my lord.’ He turned slightly towards Louisa. ‘The nursery has been thoroughly aired, your ladyship, and your own bedchamber prepared. If I might be so forward, although the circumstances are tragic, it is nice to have your ladyship home again.’
‘Thank you, Linslade.’
He bowed them into the large, marble-floored hall, from which ascended a broad staircase that bifurcated at a half landing, upon which the slightly battered bust of a tight-lipped Roman dignitary, a memento of her grandfather’s Grand Tour, stared from his rouge marble plinth.
Louisa’s smile broadened. The figure was nameless, but her uncle Edward had christened him ‘Horace’ a generation ago, and so he had remained.
He felt as welcoming as Linslade. She relaxed.
Perhaps life would not be so bad after all.
‘I shall lie down for an hour,’ said Lady Felmersham, pulling off her gloves. ‘Travelling is so very tiring, and I simply could not eat a thing at present.’
‘Well, I am hungry and I daresay Louisa is also.’ Lord Felmersham looked at his daughter, who was now passing Emily into Betty’s care.
‘It felt too momentous to have breakfast, but I would most certainly find food welcome now.’
‘I will have a repast prepared immediately, my lord.’ Linslade bowed and went to arrange this, while the family 20went to change, and, in Lady Felmersham’s case, retire to her day bed.
Father and daughter therefore partook of chicken and fruit in companionable silence until such time as the servants withdrew.
‘You know, my dear, it is good to have you home, as Linslade said. If you make the necessary adjustments I am sure you can be … content here.’ He paused for a moment.
‘Your mama feels it very keenly, having you once more under our roof. Not because it is in any way a reflection upon you, or indeed us, but because she worries about your future.’
‘My future, Papa, may not be very exciting, but it is secure. Dembleby could not take that away from me. My only concern is for Emily, when she is grown.’
‘I will do what I can, you know that.’
‘You should not have to, Papa.’
‘I know that too, but there is no point in raging against what we cannot alter, nor in looking back in bitterness.’
‘No, sir, no point. Were it not for Emily I would elide the last five years from my memory, I assure you, in their entirety.’
‘Yes, but you have … matured. You have had the running of your own house. You cannot simply take up your previous life as if waking from a sleep. I am not unaware that it will be difficult for you, but I ask that you try and curb your frustrations with regard to your mama’s indecisiveness.’
‘I … shall try, Papa, truly I shall.’
‘And you have to realise that she will not cease to hope 21that you will remarry. I know that your experience of marriage has not been … good, but in general it does provide advantages. She is acutely aware of that.’
‘Yes, alas, she is. But she is destined to be disappointed. Now, let us not be so serious. Tell me what I ought to know about your … our … neighbours.’
It was strange, thought Louisa, during the first weeks back at Deerswell, how one could adapt to inactivity.
Whilst her fresh widowhood imprisoned her, the weather conspired to ensure that she was not alone in her confinement.
Heavy snow made venturing outdoors impossible, even as far as the church on one Sunday, and any socialising with neighbours was out of the question.
Lord Felmersham sought solace in his library, Louisa in the nursery, and Lady Felmersham in changing the menus for the week upon a near daily basis.
Thankfully, the cook was so used to her ladyship’s ‘mind flits’ he did not throw up his hands and threaten to pack his bags and trudge to a freezing death in the snowdrifts.
He did not even mutter Gallic imprecations carefully culled from his mentor’s extensive vocabulary, for the cook hailed not from Paris but Peterborough.
However, by Easter, which fell at the end of March, the snow had dwindled to sad, icy patches cowering in hidden corners, and spring was emerging in leaf, flower and birdsong.
Lady Felmersham took out paper and pen, and celebrated by asking the squire and his wife to dinner, artlessly including their son and unmarried daughter, and old General Cowley, who had been a friend of Lord Felmersham’s for many years.
As she said to 22Louisa, it was nothing that her blacks would preclude her attending, being small, private, and all people whom she had known since childhood.
This was perfectly true, but the idea that her mama was actually inviting Sir Daniel’s son to dinner would have made Louisa laugh, had it not been so annoying.
There was no great fault of character patent in Frederick Brailes except that he had, inexplicably to Louisa’s mind, developed a ‘passion’ for her when she had emerged from the schoolroom.
This had resulted in some execrable verse, posies of flowers and a tendency to adopt a fawning manner whenever he encountered her.
She had found it, at seventeen, mildly flattering and then very silly.
He was three years her senior, but had lacked the assurance of manhood, being very much still upon its cusp.
He also had a tendency to speak in a succession of disjointed phrases rather than sentences, as his thoughts tumbled from his lips without any noticeable structure or arrangement.
He reminded her of a persistent, buzzing fly.
Had he been such, Lady Felmersham would have swatted him.
Back then, dreaming of a stunning marriage for her daughter, she had done everything in her power to keep him at a distance, short of instructing the gamekeepers to set traps at the gates.
Louisa had not seen him since her marriage.
Dembleby had never visited his parents-in-law, and had entertained them but twice, reluctantly.
She was not quite sure what to expect when the squire and his family were announced, for she was honest enough to admit that the callow youth of twenty might be approaching a man of sense by twenty-eight.
23In Frederick Brailes’ case, this was not so.
Sir Daniel was a kindly man with slightly bulging eyes and ruddy cheeks who might, in other garb, have passed for a yeoman farmer.
He looked the sort of man who laughed loudly at his own witticisms, but in fact he was quiet, courteous and one who listened rather than spoke.
His wife made up for this, being a lady with the ability to take a conversation through a wide variety of topics without ever apparently needing to draw breath.
Frederick, upon whom she lavished excessive maternal devotion, took after Lady Brailes in looks, as did their second daughter, now successfully married.
Their other surviving daughter took very much more after her sire in colouring, to her mama’s distress, and no amount of applying lotions to her cheeks and restricting her diet could make her other than rosy cheeked and buxom.
In an age when young ladies were attired to exhibit a slender form, her more hourglass figure did not show to advantage.
Miss Caroline Brailes had, at only one and twenty, already resigned herself to being ‘the support to her parents in their later years’.
Louisa felt some sympathy for her. She greeted them all with the ease of many years’ acquaintance, to which was added the assurance of the married woman.
General Cowley was over seventy, ramrod straight, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose.
His eyes held a twinkle, and his laugh was a sharp bark, which never failed to make Lady Felmersham jump.
Louisa could remember him from when her papa had taught her to play chess, and had permitted her to stand beside his chair when he and the general had battled with pawn and bishop.
He 24might be aged, but he was astute, and the woman before him was very clearly not one in the depths of grief.
‘You look in good health, ma’am,’ he said, ‘and I am delighted to see you again, despite the circumstances.’ He did not offer insincere and unwanted condolences.
‘Thank you, sir, but if you persist in calling me “ma’am” you will be in my black books. Why, you are almost family.’
‘Very kind of you … my dear.’ His voice dropped to merely a penetrating whisper. ‘One ought not to say it, but you look very fine in black.’
‘I think I will be glad to wear colours again, though, at the end of my mourning. It is rather depressing having no choice but black every morning.’
‘I rather enjoyed not having to worry about what to wear every day when in uniform.’
‘Yes, dear sir, but you are a man. We females find little things like selecting a gown far more interesting.’
‘Hmm, well, if you say so, but I doubt very much whether your mind revolves about such issues.’
‘Alas, I have little more to consider now. The running of a house was a position of command, you might say, and I miss that, as I am sure you understand.’ There was a touch of regret in her voice.
He nodded, and moved on to speak with Sir Daniel.