Agnes Or The Art 0f Friendship Read online

  AGNES

  OR

  THE ART OF FRIENDSHIP

  by

  CATHERINE BOWNESS

  Copyright © 2018 Catherine Bowness

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1717566812

  ISBN-10: 1717566812

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With love and gratitude to:

  Sophy and Ben for invaluable technical and emotional support

  as always

  and to

  Janis and Lyn for their endless patience, helpful advice and continuing encouragement.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 1

  When Agnes Helman and Lady Armitage first met they were both in mourning - Agnes for her father and Lady Armitage for her husband. This was not the only melancholy similarity in their situations which made them, according to the mutual friend who introduced them, so uniquely suited to offer each other companionship.

  They had also lost their homes: Agnes, because the house in which she had lived with her father, the Reverend Helman, had reverted to the Church; and Lady Armitage because it was only when Sir James died that the full extent of the family’s debts became apparent. The house must be let without delay and her ladyship must move to a smaller abode.

  Since living alone was not to be thought of for either woman, Lady Armitage’s friend, a Mrs Lewis, suggested Agnes as a suitable companion. She was, the friend asserted, an agreeable girl who had never been known to put herself forward in an immodest fashion and who had provided her father with all the love and attention a man of the Church deserved. She had been to a select seminary in Bath and was, as a consequence, a not ill-educated young woman who could be relied upon to provide intelligent - if not scintillating - conversation when required and to remain silent when that was desired.

  “Why has she not married?” Lady Armitage asked.

  “I do not suppose she has had much opportunity,” Mrs Lewis replied. “She does not strike me as a young woman who seeks attention from the opposite sex; I have the impression that she was perfectly content living with her father and will no doubt be equally happy to live with you – once you have both recovered a little from your grief.”

  “I see; she is, though, very young and I wonder what we could find to speak about when there is such a vast difference in our ages,” Lady Armitage said. She was so inconsolable that she could see no avenue for hope and thought that she would be irritated by a young woman who, if she was not married, ought to be; and what could such a female want with her? Surely there was something more positive that she could do with her life than settle in a miserable cottage with an old woman?

  Agnes was three and twenty which, while certainly young, was nevertheless an age at which it might be supposed that a young woman would have given up seeking a husband. Since she prided herself on being a realist, this was precisely what Agnes had done. She had once or twice attracted the attention of young men in her papa’s parish but, as she had little to offer apart from a gentle manner and an ability to execute charming little drawings, none of them had persisted in any meaningful way towards either party forming an attachment. Agnes did not consider herself either pretty or accomplished. She could play the pianoforte competently but without brilliance, she could sew a fine seam diligently and embroider with some talent – but gentlemen were not very interested in such things.

  She was a connexion of Mrs Lewis’s on the distaff side but was not well acquainted with her. Mrs Lewis was the sort of female who did not like to think of other women finding themselves abandoned without sufficient funds to enable them to lead a respectable life and, aware as she was of poor Lady Armitage’s unfortunate situation, believed that she could, as it were, ‘kill two birds with one stone’ by uniting the pair.

  “Will you let me introduce you? Then you can make up your own mind about whether she is the sort of young woman with whom you would find it agreeable to share your house. She has a well-off friend who lives in a large residence in Sussex which has a number of smaller cottages on the estate, one of which she is considering letting to Miss Helman. In my opinion, it would be quite improper for Miss Helman to live alone at her age.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Lady Armitage agreed at once. “So, in point of fact, you are not so much suggesting Miss Helman as a companion for me as me as a companion for Miss Helman?”

  Mrs Lewis had the grace to laugh at this neat conclusion, which was not so very far from the truth. She said, “Well, would it not be helpful to have a residence lined up so that you can vacate your house without too much delay and begin to receive rent from it? And Sussex is not so very far from Kent that you would be quite cut off from your old friends.”

  “Where is Miss Helman residing at present?” Lady Armitage asked. She was not very interested in the answer but felt that her friend deserved to receive at least a show of attentiveness towards her suggestion, which she realised was made with the best of all possible intentions.

  “With the school friend in her mansion, but she cannot remain there for long. The other girl is to go to London again in the spring, I understand, for what might be termed a ‘re-presentation’ and Agnes can hardly be left there by herself.”

  “No. The rich girl is not married either then, I take it?”

  “No. I am not altogether certain what is the matter with her for she has a sizeable fortune to sweeten any potential suitors’ palates but I daresay she is an antidote. Her father, I believe, is a businessman so that there is an unwholesome smell of trade about her.”

  “If the fortune is large enough I do not suppose that will put many gentlemen off,” Lady Armitage mused. She knew about fortune-hunters – or thought she did – for she had two sons, neither of whom had inherited a penny piece from their recently deceased parent. She did not hold her husband responsible for this unfortunate state of affairs except in so far as it was he who had so weakly opened his purse to the elder of the sons with such incontinent frequency that it was found, upon his death, to be not only empty of money but stuffed with bills from a number of creditors.

  The mention of the unwed heiress in connexion with the impecunious Miss Helman made Lady Armitage a great deal more interested in the cottage in Sussex for she could see no way out of the disagreeable circumstances in which she found herself – and in which both her sons were also entangled – other than for one of them to marry an heiress. The elder, who had inherited the Baronetcy together with the encumbered estate, must marry money if he were ever to be able to reclaim his patrimony. The younger, who was a more serious young man, had found himself a job in the Government. As a consequence, he earned enough to keep himself in London but was unable to he
lp his mother beyond giving her a very small allowance – nothing like enough to pay the creditors who beset the estate.

  “Are you thinking that Miss Newbolt – I believe that is the name of the heiress – might be just the female for John?” Mrs Lewis asked bluntly.

  Lady Armitage blushed. “I own I was,” she admitted. “He is a different man now, truly he is, but the money has all gone so that it is of no use. He has joined up.”

  “Was there enough to buy him a commission?” Mrs Lewis asked, surprised.

  “No; he has joined as a soldier. He does not complain but it must be very disagreeable – and of course he is in much more danger than he would be if he was an officer.”

  Mrs Lewis thought that an honourable death for the young man who had ruined his parents – and many a young woman in a different sense – would perhaps be the most desirable outcome. It would not, of course, help to pay off the debts or remove the mortgage from the estate but it would enable the younger son, who had never been anything but well-behaved, to inherit the Baronetcy at least. She did not, of course, voice this opinion. She made a sympathetic noise without discernible words and pressed her friend’s hand.

  “You must be thankful that we are no longer at war with France,” she managed after wracking her brains for something positive to say about the black sheep of the family.

  “I suppose I should be glad,” Lady Armitage agreed on a sigh, “but he has been sent much further away – almost to the other end of the world – and letters are infrequent.”

  “Where is he then?”

  “In Africa somewhere. It sounds quite dreadful and I’m sure the people he’s fighting there are even more bloodthirsty than the French.”

  “He is in Africa?” Mrs Lewis repeated. “What on earth is he doing there?”

  “I think – I understand there is some dispute about the frontier so that the settlers are constantly under attack. I own I cannot conceive why anyone would wish to settle in such a very out-of-the-way place but there you are. The troops have been sent to back them up although I can’t help feeling that, if we were still at war with France, they would not have had to go quite so far away.”

  “No, indeed,” Mrs Lewis agreed. “You mean, I suppose, that if one becomes a soldier, one has to be sent somewhere, but it does seem a very long way to go.”

  She thought that perhaps, after all, they had overestimated the danger of facing Boney for at least that had not involved travelling thousands of miles before even beginning to engage in battle. She also thought that the long sea voyage must have been excessively disagreeable and was convinced that most of the soldiers – as opposed to officers – would very likely die of disease during the journey. It seemed to her that the return of the tiresome young man was unlikely.

  “I shall never understand men,” she said flatly. “Why must they be forever fighting?”

  “I do not know,” Lady Armitage answered, “but I suppose I should be thankful that at least it has provided John with a job.”

  “Yes. Perhaps Charles may form an attachment to Miss Newbolt. He is a delightful young man.”

  “Indeed,” Lady Armitage agreed, not missing the positive adjective describing her younger son where none had been vouchsafed for the elder, “but he is not looking for an heiress and, indeed, swears that he would be reluctant to marry a young woman for her money.”

  “I’m sure such an attitude does him credit, morally, but it will not help you, my dear.”

  Mrs Lewis wondered if the younger son was in fact as odious a character as his brother, although his fault appeared to be a distasteful sort of moral superiority which she, Mrs Lewis, would, frankly, have found even less appealing than the decadence of the elder who, when he wished, had certainly been capable of exerting enormous charm.

  “I cannot expect poor Charles to provide for me,” Lady Armitage said. “He works dreadfully hard and lives in rooms in the Albany, which is not what one wishes for one’s children. I do not see that he will ever be able to afford to marry.”

  “He will if he forms an attachment to an heiress,” Mrs Lewis pointed out. “My dear Harriet, pray allow me to introduce you to Agnes, who will, I am certain, prove to be a delightful companion.”

  “Very well,” Lady Armitage conceded without enthusiasm.

  “I will bring her to visit some time next week,” Mrs Lewis promised.

  Chapter 2

  Agnes Helman was eating breakfast with her old school friend, Louisa Newbolt, when she received the letter from Mrs Lewis inviting her to meet Lady Armitage.

  “ … I am persuaded that you will want to secure a position as soon as possible now that you find yourself on your own in straitened circumstances for, while I am certain it is a great comfort to you to be able to stay with your friend on a temporary basis at this time of sadness, it cannot be a permanent arrangement, as I am sure you must realise.”

  Agnes did realise that she could not trespass upon her friend’s generosity for much longer without incurring disapproval from all sorts of people who thought they knew to a nicety the proper way to conduct oneself and one’s affairs when one became, at whatever age, a pauper. If Louisa had been in a similar situation, it would not have been so difficult to remain under the same roof but, as she was quite as rich as Agnes was poor, this division between their circumstances troubled Agnes considerably more than it troubled Louisa.

  Agnes, who had been exceedingly well brought up even if she had not the wherewithal to live in the kind of society for which she had been prepared, did not need the reminder from Mrs Lewis to prompt her to make a move.

  “I wish you would stay for ever,” Louisa said warmly, convincing Agnes that no one had warned her of the dangers of opening her home to a pauper, but then Louisa, for all her wealth and generosity, was not of equal rank; her father was in trade. “We get along so well and this is such an enormous house that we could, if we ever do grow tired of each other, live at opposite ends and never meet from one year’s end to the next.”

  “People would think that rather odd,” Agnes suggested with a small smile.

  “People hold a great many opinions on subjects about which they know nothing,” Louisa said. “I always think it a mistake to pay any heed to other people and their ill-thought-out judgments.”

  “I wish one did not have to take any notice,” Agnes said gently, “but one does, particularly if one is still quite young and unmarried.”

  “I do not intend ever to be married,” Louisa said.

  “Do you not? I own I should like to have a husband – and a houseful of children,” Agnes said, “but I assure you I no longer expect it. Indeed, if I become a companion to this Lady Armitage, I should think it would be impossible for how would I ever meet any gentlemen? And then, because I am neither pretty nor in any way provided for, I cannot conceive who would want to marry me.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Louisa said, smiling fondly at her friend. “You are wrong on several of those points and the ones where you are right can, I am persuaded, be turned to good account if we put our heads together and think things through.”

  “Apparently Lady Armitage has also been left destitute,” Agnes confided as she continued to peer at Mrs Lewis’s long and largely illegible missive. “Her husband died very recently – about the same time as Papa – and it turns out that he had mortgaged the property and borrowed a great deal of money against it in order, I gather, to prevent one of their sons from ending in a debtors’ prison. Perhaps I should be glad I am unlikely to have any children after all for it seems they can be dreadfully expensive and not at all the comfort one might hope. In any event, she says – Mrs Lewis – at least I think she does – that poor Lady Armitage must let out her house and rent a cottage in its stead – and she wants me to share it with her.”

  “It sounds rather dismal,” Louisa said. “What, live in a cottage with a grieving widow who was unable to control her son and now has nothing? What, pray, would you live on?”

  “The Lo
rd knows,” Agnes replied, and it was not altogether a blasphemy for certainly she did not know.

  “I suppose the rent from the other house,” Louisa said after applying her mind to the matter. “Has she taken a cottage already?”

  “She doesn’t say so but then this is from Mrs Lewis, who is merely trying to find a companion for her friend; I suppose Lady Armitage may have found a suitable place. Why do you ask?”

  “Because, as I have already told you, we have any number of cottages on this estate and I am certain some of them are empty. I think that would be a partial solution, would it not, for then you would not be far away and we could still see each other?”

  “Oh, that would be the very thing!” Agnes exclaimed, her face brightening.

  “I will ask Papa at once,” Louisa promised although this was impossible just at present as her father was in London and, even if she wrote to him, she would not receive an answer immediately. “When does Mrs Lewis propose to take you to Lady Armitage?”

  “The day after tomorrow. She would like to fetch me tomorrow, take me home with her and introduce me on the following day.”

  “Then there is no time to be lost in locating a suitable cottage. I don’t think we want one that is too small, do we, because I suppose Lady Armitage will have a dresser, and she will want to employ at least three servants; after all, she must have a large number at Armitage Hall. Do you think she will be able to manage without a butler? Her husband was a Baronet, was he not, so I suppose they must live in a manor house of some sort.”

  “One could not, surely, have a butler in a cottage? Why, where would he have his room? I am persuaded he would not be at all happy to muck out in the servants’ hall with the others – and, in any event, there would not be room for a servants’ hall, would there? No, I should think she would have to make do with a housemaid, a cook and her dresser.”