CHAPTER THREE #2
“She said nothing of that,” Mrs. Marsh replied, then, perhaps reading censure in her daughter’s expression, added earnestly, “but she expressed her gratitude in very civil terms, saying all and more than was proper to the occasion while conveying her sincere desire for our continued good health and fortune.”
“And equally conveying by what she did not say her disinclination to continue, or prolong an acquaintance with, persons she deems beneath her notice.”
“No, Laura, it is unfair to assign such sentiments to Lady Hastings on the evidence of what is really a very pretty and cordial expression of a mother’s gratitude for the disinterested kindness of strangers to her son. You may read the letter yourself. It is on my desk in the morning room.”
“Who was the second letter from?” Laura asked, losing interest in the Hastings family.
“Your uncle Oswald.”
“Since Sir Oswald has rarely deigned to acknowledge my existence in the last twenty years, I prefer to think of him simply as your half-brother, Mama. Would I be mistaken in believing this to be the first communication since he wrote to inform us of his wife’s demise a year ago?”
“No, I have had no correspondence with Oswald since my sister-in-law died. I cannot claim that the emotional attachment between us was ever as close as I would have liked, but I hold the ten-year difference in our ages largely to blame for that. I cannot fault Oswald’s sense of family responsibility on your father’s death.
You must allow that he was prompt to come to our support even though his own wife was ill at the time. ”
“If ‘support’ includes copious criticism of all the arrangements and our entire style of living, then I cannot deny it,” Laura said hardily; then, repenting her uncharitable tongue, she swallowed her spleen and asked with spurious interest, “What news did your brother have to impart, Mama?”
“The family has put off its black gloves in the last month and they are already established in Mount Street. Oswald intends to introduce Sophia to society this spring, but a … a problem has arisen.”
“And what might that be?” Laura prompted after a pause in which her parent’s glance stayed on the fork she was pushing aimlessly around her plate.
“Oswald had counted on his aunt Lady Grantly’s assistance in the matter.
You are aware that his mother’s sister moved into his home to look after the children following his wife’s death.
” Laura nodded when her mother turned questioning eyes on her.
“Well, it seems Lady Grantly has declined the office of playing chaperone to Sophia on the grounds of failing health. She feels her constitution will not support the added strain of all the social activities associated with a girl’s first season, so Oswald is constrained to find another sponsor to help him launch Sophia.
He has asked that I — we — pay them an extended visit this spring so that I might chaperone you and Sophia as you make you come-outs together. ”
Her mother’s tale had gained momentum in the telling and demanded increased concentration from Laura as she finally announced the startling proposition.
She should have seen it coming; she had seen it coming, but Laura remained utterly still while she battled against the heartfelt protest that rose to her lips at the mere thought of giving up the freedom she’d enjoyed since her father’s death to place herself under the rule of the almost unknown uncle whose overbearing manner had raised instinctive demons of resistance in her at the time of her father’s obsequies.
As a young girl she’d dreamed of the glamour of a London season, but in the aftermath of the bitter contest with her father over his prospective marriage plans for her she’d lost all desire to take part in the thinly disguised annual ritual of parading marriageable girls before eligible men at numerous social events with the object of matrimony in everyone’s mind.
Truth to tell, she’d rather lost interest in marriage as the only desirable goal for a woman.
She found life on the farm with her mother quite satisfying and she would resist any course that would curtail the precious autonomy she currently enjoyed.
Having admitted this to herself, Laura found her eyes drawn to her mother’s lovely face, its customary serenity replaced at the moment by an inner excitement that was all the more compelling for being under firm control.
Her heart sank as she realised how much her mother really did wish to go to London for the season, even though she would be under a roof that was not her own.
With a sickening sense of swimming against the tide, Laura felt obliged to make one attempt to avert this from happening.
“Mama, do you not feel that I am rather too long in the tooth for the sort of social circus my uncle Oswald envisions for Sophia?”
The astonishment on Mrs. Marsh’s face demolished that argument even before she opened her mouth.
“You talk as though you were in your dotage, my love,” she protested.
“You are just turned twenty, which means that Sophia will soon celebrate her nineteenth birthday. I hold this to be an advantage over the seventeen-year-olds who have not yet acquired your poise and assurance. In any case, I am persuaded no female is ever at her last prayers, since many gentlemen do not find fluffy-headed misses barely out of the schoolroom quite to their taste.”
“But I am not at all certain that I wish to marry, Mama. I am perfectly content with our life on the farm, and I must be here during the spring planting. However, I should not wish to stop you from doing this favour for your brother and niece if you would like to go to London,” she added swiftly.
“It would make a pleasant change for you, no doubt.”
The result of this conciliatory speech was not what Laura would have desired.
Tears sprang to her mother’s eyes and she cried, “If you have no thought of marrying, it is because of me, because your father and I made such a failure of our marriage. I know how disappointed you were when your father would not permit you to visit your godmother in London after that unfortunate business about Chester Hamilton. I thought … I hoped this offer from my brother would make it up to you, but if you do not wish to go, then of course we shall stay home.”
“But, Mama, I am persuaded there is no reason that you may not go to London without me,” Laura argued, feeling like a heartless monster at causing her parent so much distress.
“That is out of the question, my child. You cannot remain here without a respectable woman to lend you countenance, nor would I ever consider leaving you to slave on the farm while I whirled around London with a niece I scarcely know. We will say no more about it; the subject is closed. I shall write to Oswald tomorrow. He must find someone else to chaperone Sophia this spring.”
“Oh, Mama, I would not for the world deny you what I know would give you pleasure — I am not such a selfish beast as that! You have not been away from the farm since my grandfather died and Uncle Oswald inherited your family home. If you really wish to perform this service for your half-brother, then of course we will go to London for a few weeks. I daresay I shall enjoy the city excessively.”
Laura tried to infuse her capitulation with enough enthusiasm to drive away the doubt writ plainly on her mother’s face at first. By dredging up memories of famous places that she then professed to be dying to visit in the capital, she thought she had succeeded by the time they left the dining room.
Laura was still reeling from the realisation that, for the second time in less than a year and a half, her life had been dramatically changed from one moment to the next.
For all practical purposes her father’s sudden death had left her with the responsibility for running the farm that would belong to her outright on her twenty-fifth birthday, though her mother had been granted the life tenancy.
She relied on Mr. Judson’s long experience and informed advice, but the final decision was hers to make in all matters apart from the day-to-day management of the household affairs, which had always been her mother’s provenance.
That she had assumed this responsibility by default of specific instructions left by her father had only gradually become apparent.
It had happened one small practical decision at a time, adding up to a tacit governance accepted by her mother and acknowledged by all who had worked for her father.
And now a letter had arrived that had to all intents and purpose stripped her of her accustomed responsibility and independence for the immediate future, at least as far as daily decision-making was concerned.
She would not be present to oversee the planting, purchase supplies or direct the activities of those who worked on the property.
She would be residing in a London town house, subject to the will of a man who was little better than a stranger, and one not particularly well disposed in her favour.
Dawning comprehension of what her sacrifice would entail threatened to cast her into a fit of the dismals.
Something akin to panic set her stomach churning as she sought to make sense of her mother’s conversation, which degenerated into a fragmented monologue detailing a myriad duties to be performed before leaving for London, plus a list of essential items to be added to their wardrobes for the new life they would be leading in town.
Laura’s contributions were less than minimal; her reading matter in the past year had been concerned mainly with crop rotation and soil enrichment, and had not included any fashion journals that came into the house unless she was specifically directed to an article by her mother.