A Woman of Consequence

the nursery, young Georgie was at his Latin lesson with Mr Portinscale, and Mrs Harman-Foote had not yet returned from Woodman’s Hollow. So Dido had come to sit awhile with Harriet and her patient.

Outside, the morning had turned dark and rain was pattering on the windows; but within the bedchamber everything was pleasant and comfortable. There was a good log fire in the grate and lavender had been burnt upon it to cleanse the air. A jug of pale pink roses stood upon a dark oak chest, and Harriet was sitting upon the window seat beside it, her head, in its all-engulfing cap, bent over her tambour frame. In the wide bed Penelope was sleeping peacefully – a half-smile on her lips – as if the book, just slipping from her fingers, had amused her and was now supplying very pleasant dreams.

‘Your sister,’ said Dido looking earnestly across at Harriet, ‘wishes me to … plead Captain Laurence’s cause.’

Harriet gave a start. Her hand went to her mouth. ‘He has made an offer to Lucy!’

‘No, not quite. But she seems determined that he will. And I am commissioned to tell you that it will break her heart if you oppose their union.’

‘Oh dear!’ Harriet sighed heavily, but showed no particular sign of jealousy. She put a hand to her brow. ‘I had hoped,’ she said, ‘that if Lucy was out of the house … Out of sight out of mind, you know. I hoped … Well, I hoped the hare would run another way, as the saying goes.’ Her eyes strayed to the bed and its sleeping occupant.

‘Yes,’ confessed Dido, ‘I too thought he would choose Penelope.’

‘And she thinks it still,’ said Harriet drily. ‘And there she lies her silly head just full of the navy! Do but look at what she has been reading.’

Dido stepped to the bed and looked at the book in Penelope’s hand. ‘The Navy List?’ she cried. ‘I would not have thought that provided much entertainment for an invalid!’

‘But she is an invalid in love, Dido. All morning she has done nothing but read about the ships Captain Laurence has served in.’

‘I see.’ As Dido bent over the sleeping girl she saw something written upon the book’s cover. She gently disengaged the book from the drooping hand, and read, in strong, looped letters: To Miss Lambe, wishing her a pleasant study and a very rapid recovery. James Laurence.

‘She asked most particularly for it,’ said Harriet. ‘And you may be sure the captain was eager enough to supply it.’

‘Was he indeed! So it would seem that Penelope has good reason to think him attached to her.’

‘Oh yes! Though I do not doubt he has encouraged Lucy too.’

‘This then,’ said Dido thoughtfully, ‘is why there has never been any symptom of jealousy between the two girls. They have both felt secure of the gentleman!’

‘I fear the captain means to have his cake and eat it too.’

‘You do not have a very high opinion of Captain Laurence?’

‘Papa would not have liked him. This attachment of Lucy’s will not do at all, you know,’ said Harriet firmly. ‘Here at Madderstone we hear only what the Captain wishes us to know about himself. He is always singing his own praises. But when we were in Bath last month we saw him in his true colours.’

‘Why? What did he do?’ cried Dido eagerly.

‘Oh, it was not so much what he did, as who he consorted with,’ said Harriet. ‘I saw him again and again in the company of such dissolute men! It would seem he has recently become acquainted with Lord Congreve, who was divorced after his wife ran away on account of his abominable behaviour; and Sir James Dearing, who eloped with an heiress two years ago, broke her heart and gambled away her fortune – and other men of the same stamp. Men such as …’

‘Such as Papa would not have approved?’

‘Well, no, he would not.’

‘And you fear the captain might be inclined to follow the example of his acquaintances?’

Harriet primmed her lips and bent her head over her work. ‘Birds of a feather fly together,’ she said.

Dido studied her friend’s averted face for a minute or two. What exactly did she suspect the captain of? When Harriet began to talk entirely in proverbs it was not easy to distinguish her meaning. Even ‘Dear Papa’ was to be preferred to an endless parade of proverbs.

‘She is very beautiful,’ Dido mused turning away to look down upon the lovely, faultless oval of Penelope’s face where long dark lashes curled on soft white cheeks.

‘And very poor,’ added Harriet, her eyes still fixed upon her work. ‘Penelope has nothing at all beyond a small allowance.’

‘Do you suppose then,’ said Dido carefully, ‘that the captain is mercenary in his pursuit of Lucy?’

Harriet laid aside her work. ‘I love my sister dearly,’ she said quietly, ‘but I am not blind. I cannot help but see that she has not one half of Penelope’s beauty. If such a man as the captain truly means to give up Penelope for Lucy, I must suspect him of being mercenary. Money, as they say, gilds a woman’s features – and Lucy has twelve thousand pounds.’

‘Twelve thousand pounds!’ The words burst from Dido before she could check her surprise. She stopped. Apologised.

‘Oh, there is no need to be sorry!’ said Harriet. ‘I can see you are full of curiosity, Dido. You are no doubt wondering how the Ashfield estate can supply such a claim – and I tell you honestly, I do not know how it can. But it must! For that is the provision which Dear Papa made in his will for Lucy’s marriage portion – and mine.

We are entitled to twelve thousand pounds apiece, you see. And if Lucy marries a man who insists upon her rights, then Ashfield must be ruined to pay him as much of that twelve thousand pounds as it can. The roof would remain unrepaired, money would have to be borrowed; the mill at Great Farleigh sold, every inch of alienable land mortgaged. And I would be left …’ She began to wring her hands. ‘Oh, poor Papa would be so distressed to know we were got into such a muddle.’

‘But why …’ Again Dido bit back her curiosity.

‘Why did Dear Papa arrange things so ill?’ Harriet smiled fondly. ‘Because he was a very remarkable man, Dido.’ There was a sad shake of the head. ‘I do not believe there are many men who love their wives and daughters as he did. He wished us to have an equal share, you see …’ She stopped, sighed again. ‘His intention was that, as soon as Silas came of age, they should join together in cutting off the entail. Then the estate could have been broken up and the value of it divided among his three children.’

‘But the entail was never cut off?’

‘No.’ Harriet shook her head sadly. ‘Dear Papa died before Silas was one and twenty. They were never able to undertake the legal process necessary for ending it. For that process, you know, requires the consent of the present owner and the legal heir. So now the estate must remain entire.’ She turned back to the window. ‘The only safe possibility of marriage for Lucy or me would be to find a man who is rich enough or …’ there was a moment’s hesitation, ‘or good enough to be indifferent to money. It is of course of no consequence to me, but Lucy …’

The shadows of water streaming down the window shimmered like a veil of tears on Harriet’s pale cheeks. Perplexity lined her brow, and yet there was a half-smile on her lips – no doubt a tribute of affection to Dear Papa – a man Dido remembered only indistinctly from one or two meetings in her earliest days at Badleigh: a big man with a large, slightly purple nose, a blue coat, silver buttons, very strong opinions and a doting fondness for his daughters. His beloved wife had died giving birth to Silas; and after that his children had been all the world to him.

‘I do not suppose,’ Dido ventured gently at last, ‘that your sister could be persuaded into seeing things as you do – I mean, might she be brought to suspect the captain’s motives?’

Harriet raised her head with a sigh. ‘Oh I can never make Lucy understand money matters,’ she cried bitterly. ‘Her sensibilities are too delicate! And now she is in love. Love conquers all, you know, and there are none so blind as those that will not see.’

‘She cannot conceive that the captain might be mercenary?’ Asked Dido in an attempt to cut through maxims to meaning.

‘No. He has told her of course that he cares nothing for her fortune – and she believes him. But once they are