Читать книгу A Strange Likeness - Paula Marshall - Страница 6

Temple Hatton, near Brinkley, Yorkshire, 1839

‘O ne of these days Eleanor Hatton, you will go too far,’ sighed Mrs Laura Hatton to her daughter. She was trying to comb Eleanor’s glossy black hair into some sort of order.

‘Really, Mama, if you say that once again I shall have the vapours,’ retorted Eleanor angrily, twisting in her chair.

‘Do sit still, child. You look like an unbrushed pony. No one would think that you were nearly eighteen.’

‘Well, I hate the idea of being eighteen. I’m sure that when I get there Grandfather will start making plans for my marriage to Stacy. He knows perfectly well that I don’t want to marry him. I don’t wish to marry anyone, ever.’

‘I thought that you liked Stacy Trent,’ sighed her vague, gentle mother, who found it difficult to understand her strong-minded daughter. However had she come to give birth to such a hoyden?

‘Oh, I do, I do, as a friend—or as a brother—but not as a husband. Besides, I don’t want a husband chosen for me by someone else. You chose to marry Father, I know.’

Her mother sighed again, and did not need to tell Eleanor that it was the worst mistake she had ever made, Eleanor’s father having been an unfaithful, spendthrift rake of the first water.

‘Really, Eleanor, I think that your grandfather did you no favour when he arranged that you should be educated with Stacy and Ned until they went to Oxford.’

Worse than that, not only did the three of them share a tutor, who had taught them Latin and Greek, but Sir Hartley, her grandfather, had insisted that they should be instructed in Natural Philosophy, or Science, as it was coming to be called, as well as in Mathematics.

Eleanor had been as quick and bright as Stacy, and far more so than her older brother, Ned who hated all forms of learning. She had a mind like a knife, said her grandfather proudly; he secretly wished that her brother, Ned, his heir, was more like her.

Her mother, though, deplored what education had done to Eleanor. It had made her, she frequently and despairingly said, a boy in girl’s clothing, everything which was unfeminine. Besides, her wickedness was all the cleverer for her having been educated. It really served to show that girls should never be taught very much more than how to play the piano a little, paint a little, read a little and the proper way to conduct themselves in public—something which seemed beyond Eleanor.

Her frequent complaints to her father-in-law simply resulted in him saying gently, ‘I have no wish for Stacy to marry a fool.’

Which was all very well, but neither should he wish Stacy to marry a freak. This thought was so painful that Mrs Hatton gave a little moan and dragged the comb through her daughter’s hair more forcefully than she had intended. Eleanor twisted away from her again.

‘Do sit still, child. You will never look like an illustration from The Book of Beauty at this rate.

Eleanor pulled a face. ‘I shall never look like those simpering creatures if I live to be a hundred.’

‘Well, you certainly won’t look like a beauty if you do live to be a hundred! Concentrate on looking like a beauty at seventeen. There, that will have to do. And remember, you must be ready for tea. The Lorimers and some of their friends are coming.’

Eleanor ignored this, racing out of the room and up the stairs, two at a time, shouting as she went, ‘I’ll be back in an instant. Don’t worry so, Mama.’

On reaching her bedroom, she hung out of the window, calling down to one of the stable boys working in the yard below: he was her frequent companion in naughtiness. ‘Nat! Nat! Did you get it?’

‘Yes, Miss Eleanor, you can see it later…’

‘No, I want to see it now. Wait there. I’ll be down presently.’

She shot down the stairs even faster than she had mounted them and ran through a side door into the yard, where she found Nat cuddling an animal which was squirming beneath his jacket.

Nat Swain was a stocky youth from a family which had worked for the Hattons for generations. Although he was three years older than Eleanor he was not much taller than she was, but he was broad and strong, the perfect shape for a stable lad. He, Ned, Stacy and Eleanor had birds-nested and played together as children, and until recently the four of them had been companions and apparent equals.

But then Ned and Stacy had left for Oxford and the wider world outside to which Nat had no access. Ned, nearly four years older than Eleanor, was now a young man about town, and Stacy, almost the same age, was growing up fast, too.

Eleanor, once the two boys had gone, had been forbidden the stables and Nat’s companionship by both her grandfather, who was also her guardian, and her good-natured but ineffectual mother. She had responded by apparently agreeing with them—and then doing exactly as she pleased when no one was about. Sir Hart’s warning that her friendship with Nat must be a thing of the past went unheeded.

Nat showed her his prize: a ferret. Eleanor exclaimed delightedly over it and was impatient to see it running free.

‘No, Miss Eleanor, it’s not safe; it moves so quick we might lose it.’

‘Well, then, at least allow me to hold it.’

Nat looked doubtfully at her. He was well aware that Miss Eleanor was, as Ned, young for her age and that he was not. He had already pleasured one of the village girls out on the moors which surrounded the great house, and had pretended that it was Miss Eleanor in his arms, that grey eyes were really deep blue ones and russet hair was black.

He knew that to desire Miss Eleanor was crying for the moon, but there were times when his longing for her grew unbearable. He also knew that Sir Hart—as everyone called him—had forbidden them to associate with one another once Ned and Stacy had left, and that their recent return had not lifted his prohibition. If Miss Eleanor continued to ignore it, though, then so would he.

Unable to refuse her anything, he handed the wriggling creature over to her. Eleanor, ignoring her fine clothing and recent toilette, cuddled the feral thing, exclaiming over it until she almost drove Nat mad with desire for her, thus justifying all Sir Hart’s prohibitions.

She petted and stroked the little creature, holding it up so that it hung slack from her hands, but her raptures were cut short when the impudent beast bit her finger. With a sharp cry she relaxed her grip. It leapt out of her arms and, before she and Nat could recapture it, the little animal scuttled away in the direction of the house.

Nat’s desire for Eleanor was replaced by an even greater desire to catch the ferret before he could be in trouble for involving Eleanor in this escapade!

Alas, it was more nimble than they were. Scurrying and flowing along, it turned the corner of the house, found the tall glass doors opening on to the Elizabethan knot garden and ran through the drawing room, where Eleanor’s mama was entertaining the Lorimers, the Harshaws and other gentry of the district to tea.

Feminine screams bore witness that the arrival of the ferret had devastated the party.

In the middle of the noise Eleanor’s mama appeared at the doors to face her daughter and Nat, who were both transfixed by the enormity of a prank which had gone sadly wrong.

‘Run, Nat, run,’ Eleanor had said, once the outcry had begun. ‘It was my fault, not yours.’

Too late! Even as he turned her mama said, in a voice severe for her, ‘Miss Hatton, did you release that animal? Shame on you. Is that Nat Swain with you?’

‘Yes, but it was my fault, Mama, not his. It was an accident. I did not mean to upset the tea party. I am sorry.’

‘Sorry! Yes, you should be sorry, Miss Hatton. Swain, you had better come and rescue the tea party by taking the animal away. Sir Hartley must be informed of your misbehaviour once you have removed it. Having done so you will report immediately to him. And you, Miss Hatton, will go to your room at once. At once, I say.’

Her mother was rarely firm, but today she showed no signs of relenting.

Obedient for once, Eleanor, her head hanging, walked to the stairs, where she met Ned and Stacy attracted by the uproar.

‘Well, you’ve really done it this time, little sister,’ said Ned, grinning.

Stacy, just behind him, was more serious. ‘Oh, Eleanor, you’ve got poor Nat into trouble again! You know what Sir Hart said last time.’

‘Oh, Stacy, don’t preach,’ exclaimed Eleanor sharply. ‘It wasn’t deliberate. It was an accident.’

‘Which will cost Nat a thrashing,’ returned Stacy bluntly. ‘It will cost you, as well. Sir Hart won’t be best pleased. You’re not fair to Nat, you know.’

He was not referring to the prank, but Eleanor was too immature to grasp his real meaning—that she was a temptation to him.

‘Oh, Nat’ll take it in his stride,’ said Ned carelessly, nearly as blind as Eleanor. ‘Best you go to your own room, Nell. Mama was really in a taking this time.’

It was nearly an hour before her mother’s maid came knocking on her bedroom door to tell her that her grandfather wished to see her in his study. By then Eleanor had begun to regret her recent rash behaviour and the tears were not far away.

She made her way slowly downstairs, through the long picture gallery and past the giant Gainsborough portrait of Sir Hart’s father, Sir Beauchamp. Sir Beauchamp always frightened Eleanor: he was so cold, so stern and so handsome. It was strange that Sir Hart resembled him so much in appearance but was so different in his kind goodness from his redoubtable and severe father.

Sir Hart’s goodness was legendary; Sir Beauchamp’s ruthless will was equally so. Even in the days when Sir Hart had been a member of Lord Liverpool’s government his virtue had been a byword. It made it difficult to oppose him.

What was remarkable was that Sir Hart had always stuck to his principles first in his difficult youth, under Sir Beauchamp, and then with his equally difficult problems with his two worthless sons, one of whom had been Eleanor’s father. Both of them had died young as a consequence of their dissolute lives.

It must be hard, thought Eleanor, to have had someone like Papa to contend with. And for the first time she felt guilt at her own thoughtless conduct. She wondered how Sir Beauchamp would have dealt with her.

Her great-aunt Almeria, Sir Beauchamp’s only daughter, had said once to Eleanor’s mama that he had never suffered nonsense from anyone. She had added that he’d had the coldest heart she had ever encountered. Eleanor thought that her great-aunt resembled Sir Beauchamp—but was a little kinder.

By the time she had reached Sir Hart’s study door Eleanor was in a mood which was new to her. Seeing Sir Beauchamp as though for the first time had set her thinking of how unsatisfactory Ned was. With his easy charm and his heedlessness of the consequences of his rash actions, he was behaving exactly like their dead father.

Worse than that, she was suddenly unhappily aware that she was following the same path as Ned—and that would never do. The deeper implications of her friendship with Nat and her own thoughtless conduct were presenting themselves to her for the first time. Later she was to think that her life changed fundamentally on that afternoon—and all because Nat Swain had brought her a ferret!

She found Sir Hartley Hatton standing by the window looking out over the moors: his favourite position. He was in his late seventies but was still a handsome man, nearly as straight and tall as he had been in his prime.

‘Pray sit down, Eleanor.’

She chose a high-backed chair opposite to his desk, clasped her hands loosely in her lap and hung her head. Sir Hart thought that she might be so subdued because for the first time she was questioning her own conduct, and was wondering, perhaps, why she had behaved so wildly. It was plain that she was feeling shame for more than the silly prank itself. It was a good sign.

He came straight to the point. ‘I don’t often give you an order, Eleanor, but I gave you one over young Swain. Why did you disobey me?’

His voice was so kind that the tears threatened to fall immediately.

‘Oh, I don’t know, Grandfather. I thought that it was unkind of you, when I was lonely once Ned and Stacy had gone, to deny me Nat as well.’

‘Why do you think I gave it?’

Sir Hart’s voice was still kind, but there was a hint of sternness in it.

Eleanor twisted her hands, and said painfully, ‘I suppose it was so that I shouldn’t play a silly prank, as I did with the ferret. It wasn’t intended, though, Grandfather, and it wasn’t Nat’s fault. Please don’t punish him for it.’

Her grandfather waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, the business with the animal was stupid, and caused distress, but that was not the fault, only the symptom. Pray answer my question.’

Her eyes full of tears, Eleanor murmured, ‘I suppose because I’m too old to play childish tricks and run wild…’ She faltered to a stop.

‘Indeed, but more than that you are being unfair to young Swain. He is not of your world, Eleanor. What was innocent and passed the time when you were children became less so as you grew older. It was positively wrong once Ned and Stacy had left and you were on your own.’

Sir Hart paused. It was plain to him that Eleanor did not know what a temptation she presented to the lad now that she was growing into a beautiful young woman. What she must also understand was that he could not agree to young Swain going unpunished.

‘You must be aware that you have left me with no alternative but to instruct Hargreaves to give him a thrashing. He was expressly ordered not to associate with you once Ned and Stacy had grown up. He disobeyed me, so he must be punished as well as you. How shall I punish you, Granddaughter?’

‘In my grandmother’s day they did not hesitate to thrash naughty young ladies,’ she said steadily, her face white.

‘That is true, but it is not the fashion now, and I do not think that it is required. I believe that you understand that you have done wrong, and worse, I suspect, than you intended. No, what I have in mind for you is both more and less severe. I propose to send you to your great-aunt Almeria Stanton in London—without your mother. She cannot control you, I know, and that is bad for you, for you can control her. Almeria will teach you to be a young lady and prepare you for life. She is strict, but kind. You shall have your come-out, and she will make you ready to marry young Stacy—which is, as you know, my dearest wish.

‘Stacy is both good and steady, which is what you need in a husband. You have a fine mind, Eleanor, but you have been misusing it. On the other hand, apart from this folly with young Swain, you do not lack application. I have no wish for you to go the way that Ned is going.’

Eleanor was now crying bitterly. ‘Oh, no, Grandfather, I don’t wish to live in London. I’ve always hated it there. Please let me stay here. I promise to be good in future.’

‘No, Eleanor. You would have had to leave soon in any case, with or without your mother. You are merely going earlier than I intended. Your mother has been told and she does not like this, either, but she lost control of both you and Ned long ago, and we must all, I fear, pay for our failings as well as our sins.’

That was the end. There was no use in pleading—and no dignity, either. Kind Sir Hart might be, but he was also firm, and what he decreed was law.

‘You may go, Granddaughter. Tomorrow you must prepare to leave.’

Eleanor rose and walked to the door, where she turned and looked at him. Her face was white but the tears had stopped falling.

‘I will be good, I promise. I don’t want to be a fine lady, I despise them, but I will become one for your sake, Grandfather.’

‘And for yours, too, Eleanor. For yours, too.’