‘Get to it, Brine, and quickly,’ I said impatiently. ‘What did the woman tell you?’
Now, to spare you any more of John Brine’s ramblings, I intend to present my own account of what happened on that fateful evening, when Josiah Pluckrose came to Evenwood in the company of Phoebus Daunt, and Mr Carteret and his daughter fell out with each other for the first time in their lives. It draws directly on the recollections of the Carterets’ housekeeper, Mrs Susan Rowthorn, and of John and Lizzie Brine.
Once returned to the Dower House, having been bumped and blown all the way, Miss Carteret ran inside, with her father calling after her, and went straight up to her room, slamming the door behind her. She had barely had time to ring for her maid, Lizzie Brine, when there was a short knock at the door, and her father entered, still in his greatcoat, and still in an extremely agitated state.
‘Now this will not do, Emily. Really it won’t. You must tell me all, or you and I shall never be friends again. And that’s the long and the short of it.’
‘How can I tell you all when there is nothing to tell?’
She was standing before the window, her travelling cloak over her arm, her hair disarranged from the wind, which continued to howl all around the house. Dismayed and still angered by the turn of events, and feeling that she had been humiliated by her father, she was in no mood for conciliation.
‘Nothing to tell! You can say that? Very well. Here it is. You will have nothing further to do with that man, do you hear? We must of course observe the decencies of social intercourse with our neighbours, but there must be nothing more. I hope I make myself clear.’
‘No, you do not, sir.’ Her anger was now uncontained. ‘May I ask of whom you speak?’
‘Why, Mr Phoebus Daunt, of course, as I said before.’
‘But that is absurd! I have known Mr Phoebus Daunt since I was six years old, and his father is one of your most valued and devoted friends. I know that you do not esteem Phoebus as others do, but I own myself amazed that you should take against him so.’
‘But I saw you, at dinner. He leaned towards you, in a distinctly …’ He paused. ‘In a distinctly intimate manner. Ah! You say nothing. But why should you? That’s your way, I see, to let me think one thing while you are doing another.’
‘He
‘So you deny, do you, that you have been secretly encouraging his … his attentions?’
He had placed his hands in his pockets, and was rocking back and forth on his heels, as though to say, ‘There! Deny it if you can!’
But deny it she did, and with a kind of cold fury in her voice, though turning her head away as she spoke.
‘I do not know why you treat me so,’ she went on, angrily throwing her cloak on the bed. ‘I have, I hope, been ever attentive to your wishes. I am of age, and you know that I could leave here tomorrow, and marry anyone I pleased.’
‘But not him, not him!’ said Mr Carteret, almost in a moan, passing his hand through his hair as he did so.
‘Why not him, if I so chose?’
‘I beg you again to judge him by the company he keeps.’
She stood for a moment, waiting to see whether her father intended at last to elaborate further on his statement. Just then came another knock at the door. It was Lizzie Brine, who found her mistress and Mr Carteret facing each other in silence.
‘Is anything the matter, Miss?’
She looked at her mistress, then at Mr Carteret. Of course she had heard the door slamming, and the sound of angry voices. Indeed, she had been lingering in the passage for some time before making her presence known. And she was not alone, for the housekeeper, Susan Rowthorn, assiduous as ever in her duties, had already found a pressing reason to climb the stairs as quickly as her short legs would carry her, in order to inspect the room adjacent to Miss Carteret’s, which contained a connecting door, against the key-hole of which Mrs Rowthorn had felt obliged – no doubt for good housekeeping reasons – to place her eye.
‘No, nothing is the matter, Lizzie,’ said Miss Carteret. ‘I shall not need you tonight after all. You may go home. But be here sharp in the morning.’
And so Lizzie bobbed and departed, slowly closing the door behind her. But she did not go home immediately. Instead she tip-toed into the adjacent chamber to join Mrs Rowthorn, who, crouching down by the connecting door, turned and placed a finger on her lips as she entered.
Left alone once more (or so they thought), father and daughter stood awkwardly for a moment or two, saying nothing. It was Miss Carteret who spoke first.
‘Father, as you love me, I must ask you to be plain with me. What company is Mr Phoebus Daunt keeping that appears to be so abhorrent to you? Surely you do not refer to Mr Pettingale?’
‘No, not Mr Pettingale. Though I do not know that gentleman, I have no reason to believe anything ill of him.’
‘Then whom do you mean?’
‘I mean the other … person. A more loathsome, villainous creature I have never seen. And he calls himself an associate of Mr Phoebus Daunt’s! You see! This swaggering brute, this … this Moloch in human form, comes here, to Evenwood, in the company of Mr Daunt. There now: what do you say to that?’
‘What can I say?’ she asked. She was calm now, standing framed by the curtained window in that characteristic pose of hers, hands crossed in front of her, her head tilted slightly back and to one side, her face devoid of all expression. ‘I do not know the person you describe. If he is, indeed, an associate of Mr Phoebus Daunt’s, well then, that is Mr Daunt’s affair, not ours. There may be perfectly good reasons why it is necessary for him, perhaps temporarily, to have dealings with the person you describe. You must see that we are not in a position to judge on this point. As for Mr Daunt himself, I can assure you, on my dear mother’s life, and before Heaven, that I can find no reason – no reason at all – to rebuke myself for any dereliction of the duty that a daughter owes to a father.’
