CHAPTER THREE
Lady Felmersham felt that the evening had gone rather well, though she gently admonished her daughter for spending so much time with ‘old General Cowley’ rather than ‘young Mr Brailes’.
‘He is a dear man, of course, but you must think of the future, Louisa.’
‘I was. He has invited me to go and play chess with him. Is that not nice?’ Louisa smiled.
‘I do not mean the immediate future. You will not be in your blacks forever. I am not suggesting that you do anything so unladylike as set your cap at him, but …’
‘Oh no, I would never do so. He is old enough to be my grandfather.’ Louisa kept a straight face.
‘What? No, no, not the general, Mr Brailes.’
‘Mama, please. You do not listen to me. I have no wish to remarry, and least of all would I consider Frederick Brailes.’
‘He is not perfect, I grant you, and we would never have considered him for you back then … but he may be all you can get, Louisa.’
Louisa gave up. Her mama did not.
33Miss Caroline Brailes, far more welcome than her brother, came to take tea the following Wednesday.
Lady Felmersham, with rare tact, withdrew after a single cup of tea, and a very small cake, to give ‘the girls’ the chance to chatter, although neither were the sort to only discuss fripperies and the latest edition of La Belle Assemblée.
Having had to be reminded just once that it should be ‘Louisa’ and ‘Caroline’ between them, the squire’s daughter stirred a small lump of sugar in her tea, very thoughtfully, and broached the subject uppermost in her mind.
‘When we spoke the other evening, you seemed to think widowhood and spinsterhood much the same thing, but surely that is not the case. You are not pitied, the way the unmarried daughter is pitied.’
‘No, I am not, but what I see is merely a different form of pity.’ Louisa grimaced.
‘You at least found a husband. That is “success”, and the reverse is “failure”, in the eyes of the world.’
‘I will admit that to be true, but if marriage is a victory I found it to be a very hollow one.’ She sounded bitter.
‘But there are marriages where there is contentment, even … passion.’ Caroline frowned.
‘Yes.’ The admission was grudging.
‘So at least there is a chance of happiness if one marries.’
‘Yes, that must be so.’
‘And I cannot see that there is such a chance if one is without means, and dependent upon one’s family.
I will be there to care for my parents when they grow old, but I will always be something of a child to them, not a real adult.
Thereafter, my future will lie in the hands of my brother, 34and presumably his wife.
I will be surplus.’ Caroline paused and took a deep breath. ‘It is not a pleasant thought.’
‘Tell me, do you think I make too much of my own trammelled state, Caroline?’
‘I would not be so presumptuous, but, forgive me, although you speak from experience, I cannot believe it to be a universal one.’
‘I will admit my position, since I will have some form of monetary independence, is not as bad as the one you paint of your future, but the price was high, too high.’
‘But when you married, did you have no idea …?’
‘I entered the married state as full of hope as any bride, no doubt, and if not subject to the pangs of love, then anticipating affection. I blinded myself to the truth in the hope of a fantasy.’ Louisa sighed.
‘Perhaps that is why I am so bitter, and bitter I am. I feel I was cheated, duped. Do you know, dear General Cowley said something to me after the dinner that I so wish I had been told years ago. He said that when a man speaks truth to me, I will see it in him, not hear it in the words.’
‘Goodness, that sounds very deep and philosophical.’ Caroline blinked.
‘But I think he was very right, and he, I promise you, is a man who speaks true.’ Louisa smiled. ‘If he were but twenty years the younger and I twenty older, I think I really would set my cap at him.’ She giggled. ‘Shameful, am I not?’
‘He is such a dear, though he would hate to be thought that. He does not treat one as …’
‘Vapid? I put it in part down to his late wife, who must have been a very resourceful lady, from what he has said 35of her. I think if ever he believed ladies weak, then she disabused him of the idea.’ She sighed. ‘If only more men were like him.’
‘Perhaps we ought to put an advertisement in the newspaper, “Wanted: Sensible, single military man who does not think ladies are weak and useless, interested in having a wife.”’ Caroline grinned. ‘You see, I am as bad as you. It does sound very prosaic, and not at all romantic.’
‘Romance is an illusion. Prosaic would do far better, I am sure. Now, do take another biscuit. It is so much easier than choosing men.’ They both laughed.
Louisa was rather surprised, and certainly pleased, to have found two friends to visit, and when she went to see Caroline, the improving weather gave the two young ladies the chance of delightful walks, thus escaping from both her fussing mama and irritating brother.
Visits to the general were confined to within doors, of course, but she never found them boring.
Their chess game was of a sufficiently similar standard that one person was not always going to win, and if the general was sometimes distracted from the pieces on the board, his stories were always interesting, frequently humorous, and only very rarely not fully expurgated for a lady’s ear.
However, by the time the old gentleman realised he was deep in a tale that was a little too colourful for his guest, he had usually gone so far that Louisa told him she would only guess something far ‘worse’, and then promised not to reveal their conversation.
For his part, she was a breath of fresh air in his somewhat 36lonely life, and the presence of a young and beautiful woman who left a scent of roses in his study was something for which he would have got down on his knees and given thanks, had he had any chance of then getting up again without assistance.
Spring glided into summer, as the leaves lost their newly unfurled brightness, and the swallows and house martins returned to the eaves.
Louisa could not claim she was discontented, but her mama did not run the house as she had run hers, and things that she had not noticed as an unmarried girl of nineteen jarred upon the widow of twenty-five.
At times she had to walk away, and when she did so it was nearly always to the nursery, where little Emily was perfectly content and adding to her vocabulary by the day.
It was enough, or rather she kept telling herself it ought to be enough.
She had a few correspondents, ladies she had known during her presentation Season who were now married, and her old governess, but she did not receive many letters.
It was therefore a surprise to receive one in a very neat hand from a firm of Bath solicitors.
Upon opening it she sat down hurriedly, read it three times, and went in search of her father.
‘Good grief! Well, there is no doubting the truth of it. I believe your mama was always hopeful that your godmama would leave you some piece of jewellery or other, but this … this is far more than anyone would expect. You will be able to put plenty by in funds and secure your future very nicely from the sale.’
37‘Sale? Papa, if she has left me a house, an estate, might I not live in it?’
‘But you live here, Louisa.’
‘I am living here, yes, Papa, but this would be a place of my own, a house to run again.’
‘I do not think your mama will approve.’
‘I doubt it very much, but, Papa, I do not wish to be forever powerless, never taking decisions for myself, and in the years to come what would a widowed sister be to James other than a nuisance, if he were married?’
‘You could buy somewhere if that happened, with the money.’
‘But it is within little more than an hour’s journey from Bath, and a house intended for me.’
‘I am sure old Lady Frampton did not mean it quite that specifically, my dear child.’
‘But I would like to consider it, Papa. I really would.’
‘We shall see what your mama says.’
‘Unthinkable.’ That was Lady Felmersham’s reaction. ‘You cannot imagine how isolated you would be, and you are too young to be on your own, even as a widow.’
‘Then I will engage a companion of suitable years. I cannot see that I would be more isolated than I am here.’
‘We are not keeping you cooped up, Louisa.’ Lord Felmersham frowned.
‘No, Papa, but the majority of people I know and meet here are those I have known all my life. Most of the young women have got married and moved further away. I would find myself among new people, and, although I had not 38mentioned it, I had already thought that perhaps I might rent a house in Bath next year and …’
‘People will say we cast you out,’ bemoaned Lady Felmersham, and wrung her hands, ‘and Heaven knows what you may do without someone to guide you.’
‘Why should they say so, if I have inherited an estate?’ Louisa ignored the idea that she was incapable. ‘It is hardly setting myself up in some out-of-the-way cottage. I do not recall an awful lot about the house but …’
‘It is probably falling down by now. It is quite old.’
‘Mama, Dembleby’s house went back to the Tudors. Queen Anne seems almost modern to me.’
‘Can you mend a roof?’
‘Er, no, Mama, but then nor could Papa. We would find a man to do so, he and I both.’
‘Yes, but he would not be duped. They would all think to hoodwink you, being a mere woman.’
‘If they thought that they would be in for a nasty surprise,’ declared Louisa, with some heat.
‘I cannot think why you would want to live on your own in the middle of nowhere.’ Lady Felmersham was nothing if not persistent.
‘Elliston Court is but a mile or so from the town of Frome, Mama, not in the middle of a moor, or up a mountain.’
Despite this, Lady Felmersham was most distressed, and her lord took his daughter aside and requested that she think hard about the decision.