Agnes Or The Art 0f Friendship Page 13

  “Yes; and it was only then that we discovered how encumbered the estate was.”

  “So what can be done? Is it your opinion that the tenants should be turned out of the house and your brother take up residence there again?”

  “I have not the least idea but I should think it would be a more sensible choice than everyone running away and trying to manage on a pittance. It is horrid to see my poor mother forced to live in such a small place with only one maid, a cook and Paul. If she seems disgruntled with John I imagine it is because she holds him responsible for the ruin which stares them both in the face.”

  “Yes,” Agnes said slowly, thinking that it would not be wonderful if Sir John were displeased with his mother and her high-handed letting of his house. “Did you speak of this while you were upstairs just now?”

  “No; he is too ill at present to consider the future in any serious way.”

  Agnes did not answer and the pair continued to walk until they came to a stile. Mr Armitage helped her over although it was apparent that she neither needed nor expected assistance.

  “I come this way several times a week,” she pointed out, jumping down and shaking out her skirts.

  “I know but it would not become a gentleman to stand back while a lady negotiates a stile by herself.”

  “I daresay you are wondering why I permitted Mama to let the house,” he said as they continued. “The truth is she did not ask for my advice; the first I knew of it was when she wrote to tell me that she had found the tenants, they were moving in by the end of the week and she was removing to this cottage – which she described as charming.”

  “It is,” she said. “Would you have advised against the move if she had put it to you?”

  “Yes; apart from any other consideration, in point of fact neither the house nor the land is hers; they belong to John.”

  “Does she not have anything of her own?”

  “I am by no means certain that she does; she brought a sizeable dowry to the marriage but I believe that has been spent, along with everything else. There is no dower house so that, if John were married – or when he does take a wife –she will in any event be obliged to find another home unless he permits here to remain at the Hall. But she should not have let the house without his permission. He will not castigate her because he has always been reluctant to find fault with her, although she has for many years been exceedingly critical of him.”

  “I think she was very much shocked by your father’s sudden death, followed immediately by the revelation of the magnitude of the debt. I suspect she simply wanted to escape from the burden she perceived the house to have become. She seemed, when I first met her, to be excessively low but she had begun to rally. It was when she received the letter from General Lord Somerset that she was cast down again and then, almost before she could draw breath, your brother was delivered to the door in the most dreadful condition. I can assure you that he has improved vastly since he arrived.”

  “I know you do not want to be likened to an angel,” he said, “but I cannot help agreeing with my brother that, if her spirits were beginning to improve, it was due to your being with her. We – I – am greatly in your debt.”

  Chapter 16

  By the time Louisa returned to her house, all the guests had arrived. She was soon absorbed into the crowd and it was thus some considerable time before she informed her mother that Agnes would be joining them for dinner.

  “Oh, you had better let Potts know; he can lay another place and tell Monsieur Lefevre that there will be one more although, so far as I recall, Agnes eats practically nothing. Where, by the way, is your protégé, Mr Armitage?”

  “Oh, he is not precisely my protégé, Mama. I am afraid I could not prevail upon him to return with me; he was in the throes of shaving his brother, apparently.”

  “Good Gracious! Is there no one else to do that? Are we expecting him too?”

  “No; he has not been invited and is, in any event, far too unwell to go anywhere just at present.”

  “Well, that is a relief; I own I was not looking forward to protecting you from his blandishments.”

  “You would not have to; I have already rejected him.”

  This little exchange naturally irritated Louisa so that, with something of a flounce, she broke away from her mother and sought the butler, who was weaving his way amongst the guests with a plate of very small cakes. She took one and told him that an additional cover would need to be laid for dinner.

  While she was speaking, the Marquess sidled up to her, saying, “I see you have completed your errand and are safely returned.”

  “Oh yes, I am returned but unfortunately my errand is by no means completed and I shall be obliged to set out again quite soon.”

  “Good lord! Are you then running a cab service? How far are you obliged to go?”

  “Not far – only a mile or two.”

  “Would you like me to go next time? Oh, do not look so surprised! I wish to satisfy my own curiosity for I suspect you are running off to keep a tryst of some sort!”

  “No such thing, I assure you. I have invited my dear friend to join us for dinner and have promised to fetch her.”

  “In that case, I would be delighted to go in your stead. Is she pretty?”

  “Yes, of course she is; but I think she would be a little surprised to have a Marquess turn up to convey her a few miles up the road. Also, since she has never met you, I am afraid she might refuse to get into your carriage for fear that you meant to abduct her.”

  “But am I not right that there is a man involved too?”

  “Where ever did you get such an idea?” she asked, no longer amused and raising her brows with some hauteur.

  “When I spoke to you earlier you admitted that you were about to rush off to collect a young man – Mr Armitage, I think you said - from somewhere or other. But when you returned he was not with you. I naturally drew the conclusion that he had somehow or another defaulted and that you would therefore feel obliged to set out again later.”

  “Well, there is some truth in that,” she conceded, giving him a disapproving look. “But there is nothing havey-cavey about it. She, my friend, is living with the young man’s mother. I have never met him before today but, since I suspected he was unaware of the proximity of his parent, I offered to convey him thither – and collect him later. However, unfortunately he was not quite ready to leave when I turned up earlier.”

  “I see. In that case, will you allow me to drive you?”

  Louisa, thinking that she would, in any event, be unable to carry both Mr Armitage and Agnes in the curricle and would as a consequence be obliged to order a larger vehicle to be made ready, accepted this offer.

  Seemingly content with the progress of his connexion with Louisa, the Marquess wandered off to speak to another young woman, a pretty creature who had come with her mother. Louisa, in spite of despising herself for such paltry behaviour, could not help keeping him under observation. Miss Harrison, whose ton was unexceptionable but whose pockets were not deep, so far as anyone knew, seemed much taken with his lordship if her sidelong glances from under her eyelashes and rapidly changing colour were anything to go by.

  As for his lordship, although he bent towards her in a conciliating manner and clearly took considerable pleasure in causing the frequent changes in her complexion, Louisa did not think that Miss Harrison should take him seriously. He had been on the town for more than twenty years and must, in that time, have met a vast number of simpering beauties without as yet having cast himself on bended knee to any of them. He was the most senior unwed peer present and Louisa was in no doubt that her parents hoped he would decide that their daughter’s thousands were more attractive than any of the charms displayed by prettier – and younger – females.

  As for her: she had proclaimed several times, both to her parents and to Agnes, that she was not seeking a suitor. And she was not. However, in spite of that, she found that the Marquess’s air of barely contr
olled power was hard to resist. The fact that he had, for a moment or two, seemed to be taking an interest in her, even going so far as to question her on the subject of Mr Armitage, made her wonder if she had made a conquest. With that feather in her cap, she was reluctant to cede the prize to Miss Harrison a mere five minutes later.

  It wanted ten minutes to the hour she had told his lordship that she was to collect her friend when he appeared at her side.

  “I believe it is time we set forth. I have ordered my carriage to be at the door in less than a minute’s time and do not wish my horses to grow impatient.”

  “Indeed; we must not keep them waiting,” she agreed cordially.

  “Nor, more importantly, your friends,” he replied smoothly.

  But, as they approached the door, it opened to admit Mr Armitage, somewhat mud-stained.

  “Mr Armitage!” Louisa exclaimed, rather taken aback.

  “Yes; I walked because I was a little anxious that, since all my clothes are here, I would not have time to change for dinner if I waited,” he said apologetically.

  “I assume you have come across country,” the Marquess said, raising an eyebrow and fixing a derisive eye upon Mr Armitage’s boots.

  “Yes, indeed. It is much shorter than going by the road but, as you see, not without a degree of inconvenience. Miss Helman showed me the way,” he added to Louisa.

  “She did not bring you the whole way, did she, and then turn round and go back?” Louisa asked.

  “No, but I could not prevail upon her to abandon me until we could see the house in the distance.”

  “I hope you had a maid with you,” the Marquess said.

  Mr Armitage, knowing that there were not enough maids to perform the necessary functions of the household without sending one of them on a walk, said, “No; I did point out the dangers inherent in Miss Helman returning to her house on her own but she would have none of it.”

  “Of course she would not; it would have been absurd,” Louisa agreed robustly. “I am on my way now to collect her – with Lord Danehill.”

  “Oh, I see; I should have waited but I thought that, if I did, I would keep everyone hanging around for their dinner while I changed.”

  “That was thoughtful,” Louisa said, sweeping Lord Danehill through the door. She had not yet put on her own evening gown but was beginning to think that Mr Armitage made a habit of being in the wrong attire and keeping people waiting.

  The door of the cottage was opened by Jess, who said, “Miss Helman is upstairs. Shall I tell her you are here, Miss?”

  “No; I will tell her myself,” Louisa replied and ran up the stairs, remembering just in time that her friend was now in the maid’s room.

  She found Agnes already in the black silk and engaged in pinning up her hair.

  “Oh, Louisa,” she said, “This is the only evening dress I have. I am sorry that it is black, but I thought if I draped myself in a colourful shawl I would not lower the atmosphere too drastically.”

  “You do not look in the least lowering,” Louisa said at once. “Shall I do your hair for you?”

  “Yes, please do. I own I am not good at achieving anything out of the way with it; I had thought that if I could somehow incorporate this ribbon the ensemble would not look quite so funereal because, although of course I am still in mourning, it doesn’t seem altogether appropriate to come for dinner in unrelieved black.”

  “I do not think you need refine upon that too much but jonquil is a colour excessively well-suited to hair as dark as yours,” Louisa said enthusiastically, taking the brush from her friend and beginning again by removing all the pins Agnes had inserted.

  “Mr Armitage turned up, covered in mud, just as I was setting forth,” she said.

  “Oh dear, I was afraid he might but he was of the opinion that, if he did not leave when he did, he would not have time to put on his evening dress. But you are not yet dressed. You had much better leave my hair. I will pin it up as best I may and try to deal with it myself when we reach your house.”

  “It will not take me above five minutes to change,” Louisa assured her. “My dress is already laid out and Annie will be hanging around waiting to do my hair. By the way, I have not come in the curricle – I thought there would not be room for us all.”

  “Oh, you should not have troubled to get out the carriage,” Agnes exclaimed, watching, fascinated, as Louisa threaded the yellow ribbon through her dark locks.

  “I did not. It is Lord Danehill’s coach and he is waiting outside for us.”

  “Good God! Should we not have invited him in? He could be taking a dish of tea or a glass of Madeira with Lady Armitage. Is he dressed for dinner?”

  “No, and judging by the way he wears his clothes and the look of them - from Schultz, I should not be surprised – it will take him an age! But he would come – I could not prevent him.”

  “Is that because he is developing a tendre for you?”

  “If that was not so extraordinarily unlikely, I would say yes,” Louisa admitted. “He has been hanging around me ever since he arrived and took such an interest in Mr Armitage that I could not help wondering if he was becoming a touch jealous.”

  “It would no doubt please your parents,” Agnes said thoughtfully. Even she had heard of the Marquess of Danehill and how eligible he was – and how difficult he had proved to attach in the past. “Do you like him?”

  “It is hard to say,” Louisa admitted. “I own that when he is close my heart beats faster and – and I cannot help teasing him – just to see the effect, you know.”

  “And does he like your teasing?”

  “I think he must because he keeps coming back, although I did see him talking to Miss Harrison, who is an excessively pretty girl – barely nineteen I should think.”

  “In that case she is by far too young for him. How old is he? He must be past forty.”

  “I do not know precisely. Yes, I believe so but, you know, a man improves with age.”

  “Does he?” Agnes asked doubtfully. “Like wine? But I believe that depends upon the quality of the wine in the first place. What did you think of Mr Armitage? He is a young wine - has he a great deal of improving to go through, do you suppose?”

  Louisa laughed. “What did you think of him that you ask? I thought him agreeable as a matter of fact. He is very different from his brother.”

  “Yes, indeed. He seems pleasant enough but I cannot help wondering why he has not visited his mother before and why he permitted her to let the house and move.”

  “Yes; I own I do think that remiss of him. One would not have expected such consideration from the elder but the younger, as you say, strikes one as a bird of another feather altogether.”

  “I rather think neither of them consulted Sir John on the matter. He was repatriated originally to his own house and then sent away – like a mis-delivered parcel – by the tenants.”

  “Was he angry about that? Have you a necklace, Agnes? I think you would look prettier without a scarf to hide your shoulders but with a necklace to draw attention to your bosom. And, now that you have a bright ribbon in your hair, you no longer look as though you’re in deepest mourning.”

  “No; I look like a person who cannot decide whether she is in mourning or not and very likely only possesses one dress which must do for everything. Was he angry? I think, rather, despairing.”

  “He only has himself to blame if his mama and brother try to pretend he doesn’t exist. To me, you look like a sophisticated person – one who eschews the usual pastels. Mr Brummell would no doubt admire your appearance.”

  “I have never heard that he particularly favoured females dressed all in black and white – and look what has happened to him now. Perhaps we should send Sir John to France after him – although I do not know what he would live on.”

  “The proceeds of the estate, I suppose. Bring the shawl; if a gentleman – Mr Armitage perhaps – invites you to walk in the garden after dinner you may need it.”

>   “It would be no use Mr Armitage becoming interested in me – I doubt if he could support a penniless wife on his salary.”

  “Do you think he is looking at my thousands?” Louisa asked.

  Agnes rose and, picking up the predominantly yellow silk shawl, wrapped it around her shoulders. “No, I do not think he is that sort of person. What of Lord Danehill? Are his pockets plump?”

  “I never heard that they were to let,” Louisa said. “And I do not think Mama would have invited him if he was impoverished; she does not wish me to marry a fortune-hunter.”

  When Lady Armitage had admired Agnes’s appearance and they had bid her adieu, the two young women went out to the waiting carriage, on whose side the Danehill arms glinted in the late afternoon sun.

  The Marquess himself opened the door and jumped down to greet Louisa’s friend, bowing over her hand in a gratifyingly gallant manner. He seated himself between them and the coach set off towards the big house.

  “Miss Newbolt was most insistent that she must accompany me in case you took fright at being bundled into a strange man’s carriage,” he said in an avuncular manner.

  “I hope I am not so spiritless,” she replied. “A note in the lady’s own hand would have sufficed to convince me that you are her guest and not simply pausing in your journey at a humble abode in the hope of finding an innocent female to abduct.”

  “I own I would never have thought to pause at such an excessively humble abode,” the Marquess countered, curling his lip.

  But his put-down fell on deaf ears for Agnes laughed. “You might be surprised at the sort of people forced to live in such a humble style,” she told him. “And, without in any way wishing to insult you, my lord, you have the air of a man who suffers more from boredom than any other discomfort.”

  “In spite of your youth it seems you are an unusually perceptive young lady,” he said. “A very pearl amongst swine indeed.”

  “There are no swine in the household in which I reside,” she replied. “I fear you are succumbing to prejudice, my lord. The poor, after all, are promised the Kingdom in time.”