CHAPTER TWO #2
Lady Felmersham had pondered over the seating at dinner.
With so few, and of such long-standing acquaintance, it felt acceptable to be informal.
She eventually placed Louisa between General Cowley and Frederick Brailes.
Conversing with both, Louisa found the contrast stark.
25The general was in good spirits, happy to make her smile, and to talk about his son, at present upon the staff of the recently knighted Sir Rowland Hill in the Peninsula.
Upon her right-hand side, Frederick Brailes spoke in vaguely hushed tones that he felt suitable for her bereaved state, and when he heard the old gentleman chuckle, he actually winced.
‘I must apologise,’ he murmured, when Louisa turned to speak with him.
‘Apologise?’
‘For the general, Lady Dembleby. He fails to see that such … levity and … how could you be interested in a war?’ He shook his head. Louisa bit back a swift retort.
‘I hardly think any apology is needed, sir, and even if that were the case, you are not the one to make it.’ She spoke evenly, containing her annoyance, but he took it another way.
‘No, I suppose I cannot be held responsible for … but as a gentleman, ma’am, I can only …’
‘… curb his tongue,’ the general barked, ‘and I said to him …’ It was some story he was recounting to Miss Brailes, but Louisa had the distinct impression he had overheard the comments.
Frederick Brailes either could not or would not believe that, but he paused for a moment.
‘Your situation, ma’am, left as you are … with an infant …’ He made it sound a burden too heavy to bear. ‘The responsibility … and none to guide you …’
Louisa wondered if he had ever finished a sentence, and her hand gripped her fork rather tightly.
26‘Of course none of it could have been foreseen, and your poor husband … if I may mention him without distressing you …’
‘I would rather that you did not mention him,’ managed Louisa, controlling herself.
‘Oh yes … my profuse apologies … thoughtless of me … Your desolation … So tragic.’
‘What exactly are you attempting to say, sir?’ Her voice was crisp, not, as he had expected, upon the verge of tears.
‘Why … er, that no man would wish to leave a young wife alone, as you are.’
‘I am not alone, Mr Brailes, please observe. I am surrounded by my family.’
‘But it is not the same as having that guiding hand of a husband, one man upon whom you might rely in all matters.’
‘You think a woman incapable of making decisions?’
‘No, no, not within her sphere, but the important ones—’
‘I once knew an officer of engineers,’ said the general, suddenly turning to Louisa with slightly narrowed eyes, ‘and he dug this enormous hole into which he placed a mine, lit the fuse and then fell over within five yards of it. That is the trouble with digging holes.’
Louisa was looking directly at him, and their eyes met and held. Her lips twitched, and she bit them to prevent herself from grinning at him.
‘I am thinking of having a whole border dug over and filled with white roses,’ declared Lady Felmersham, trying to steer the conversation.
27‘But my dear Lady Felmersham, do they not spoil terribly in the rain? I am convinced that they do so more than the red ones,’ Lady Brailes picked up the thread, ‘and I simply cannot get roses to last well in water, no matter what I do. They are meant to be romantic, I know, but they are not at all practical. It is perhaps the combination of colour and perfume that makes the rose so popular, and can you imagine our history having “the Wars of the Carnations”? It would sound perfectly silly, not but that fighting people in your own country, one’s own countrymen, not invaders of course, is both sad and really very shortsighted.
I never liked that Cromwell man. I saw a picture of his portrait in a book once, and he made me positively shudder.
Not, of course, that I am bookish, but my governess was determined that we, my sisters and I, ought to have a grasp of English history, for what is history but the present when it is a bit older.
’ She scarcely drew breath between sentences, and General Cowley gazed at her in stupefaction, his wine glass raised halfway to his lips, for a full half minute.
‘Might I interest you in some of the raised pie, General,’ suggested Louisa, breaking the spell.
‘Wha— Oh, yes, yes, thank you, my dear.’
The ladies withdrew, leaving the gentlemen to their port. The two older women sat upon a sofa to enjoy local gossip, leaving Louisa and Caroline Brailes together.
‘I do so like General Cowley,’ said Miss Brailes. ‘He does not actually treat one as if lacking any sense.’
‘Very true.’
28‘Unlike my brother. The awful thing is that he is completely sincere. I ought not to say it, but there.’ She sighed.
Louisa had not known her very well, other than as Harriet Brailes’ little sister, there being four years between them at a stage when that was quite important.
At fourteen, Caroline had still been very much in the schoolroom, when Louisa was making her curtsey to Society, and she had only been about to leave it when Louisa married.
It came as something of a shock that she was as unlike her siblings in character as she was in looks.
‘He, um, means well,’ offered Louisa, weakly.
‘And could anything be more damning, ma’am?’ Caroline still looked embarrassed.
‘Oh, please, do not stand upon formality with me, for it makes me feel positively ancient, and I fear in the next months nearly all those whom I meet will be at least twice my own age. Your sister and I were upon quite close terms, even if we have but corresponded little since our lives diverged.’ She laid a hand upon Caroline’s arm, and the deep pink cheeks reddened even more.
‘Thank you. It is perhaps not so strange, but once others have also decided that one is never going to marry, there is a distancing, as though spinsterhood were infectious.’ Caroline gave a twisted smile.
‘Well, in my case, widowhood is remarkably similar. Had I “behaved correctly” and produced a son, I would still run my own home, or rather, his, and be treated as an adult. As it is … I feel closer to being a spinster than married.’
‘“Behaved correctly”? Goodness me, what a way to put it.’
29‘That was the view of my mama-in-law, and also my husband.’ Louisa kept her voice even.
‘I do not know what to say.’
‘There is nothing. Now, let us not think of such things, and instead let me, without even asking my mama’s permission, invite you to come to take tea with me. Would next week be suitable?’ Louisa smiled conspiratorially.
The gentlemen did not linger over the port, for which Mr Brailes was probably very grateful, since the other three were all of at least a generation older than himself.
Added to which, the general was inclined to give him looks that had caused many a junior officer to quake in his boots in the distant past, even if the eyes were now a little rheumy.
It had been his intention to position himself for conversation with ‘poor Lady Dembleby’, but the old gentleman was remarkably spry, and beat him to it.
‘There,’ murmured the general, with a grin at Louisa, ‘cut him off. Saved you from any more of his da— shed foolishness. What are men come to these days? I may be old, but I am still able to outflank the enemy.’ He twinkled, and gave a bark of laughter, which made Lady Felmersham give a start.
‘You are indeed, for which many thanks, although we should not be saying any of this, dear sir.’
‘Rubbish. Cannot bear to see a woman treated as though she were incapable of anything beyond … flower arranging. My own dear late wife followed the drum when we were in the Americas, and was more competent and decisive than half the staff officers. Now, tell me, have you kept up with your chess playing?’
30‘Alas no. My husband did not play, although I have been soundly beaten by my papa upon several evenings since my return to Deerswell. I fear I am no fit opponent.’
‘Well, I am not as nimble brained as once I was. Cannot see as many moves ahead as I would wish. If you are permitted to visit a lonely old fellow without a chaperone, then do come over to Stamhill some afternoon and perhaps we can play chess as badly as each other.’
‘That, General, would be a real pleasure. If I send a note to see if you are in …’
‘In? Why should I go out, beyond my morning constitutional now the weather is better? I will be in, never you fear, and I rarely have visitors, and most certainly not beauteous ones.’
‘You put me to the blush, sir.’
‘Ha! What would be impertinence in the young is tolerated in the very old, and anyway, I am being perfectly honest, not flattering. Men flatter to get what they want, and I am too old to want more than an hour of good company and a game of chess. Look at me straight. When a man gives you truth, my girl, you will see it in him, not hear it. Words are just … words. There, that is the advice of this old soldier, and far too solemn for the evening. The fool is hovering, and all words. Do you want me to retire from the field and let him gabble at you?’
‘I think the tea tray is being brought in, so the party will break up shortly. I ought, I know, to let Mr Brailes have his speech with me. This way it will not be for long. Thank you, General. I know I can rely upon you for strategy.’
‘Tactics, my dear. Strategy is the planning of a campaign, 31tactics for the battle and skirmish.’ He rose from the sofa, very slightly unsteady. She stood also.
‘I stand corrected.’ She smiled, so broadly it might almost have been described as an unladylike grin, took the old man’s hand and squeezed it, curtseying as she did so.
He bowed, not deeply, but that was the constriction of an aged back, and stepped away.
Mr Brailes, seizing his chance, very nearly thrust himself in front of her, and saw the smile fade to cool hauteur.
‘At last, ma’am … I feel you do not comprehend how … I am so very aware of your unfortunate position … how difficult it must be …’
Louisa’s responses became automatic and anodyne, and she longed for her bed.