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The vicar coughed. “Lady Cotton is an example to us all.” This was oil on the flames—as he was perhaps not unaware.
“I should visit.”
“That would be excellent.”
“It is that visiting always so distresses me.” The vicar was unhelpful. “I know it is wicked of me.”
“Come come.”
“Yes. Very wicked.”
A long silence followed, in which the vicar meditated on his di
“If you knew of some lady, some refined person who has come upon adverse circumstances…”
“I am not quite clear what you intend.”
“I wish to take a companion. I have difficulty in writing now. And Mrs. Fairley reads so poorly. I should be happy to provide a home for such a person.”
“Very well. If you so wish it. I will make inquiries.” Mrs. Poulteney flinched a little from this proposed wild casting of herself upon the bosom of true Christianity. “She must be of irreproachable moral character. I have my servants to consider.”
“My dear lady, of course, of course.” The vicar stood. “And preferably without relations. The relations of one’s dependents can become so very tiresome.”
“Rest assured that I shall not present anyone unsuitable.” He pressed her hand and moved towards the door. “And Mr. Forsythe, not too young a person.” He bowed and left the room. But halfway down the stairs to the ground floor, he stopped. He remembered. He reflected. And perhaps an emotion not absolutely unco
“An eligible has occurred to me. Her name is Sarah Woodruff.”
5
The young people were all wild to see Lyme.
Ernestina had exactly the right face for her age; that is, small-chi
When Charles departed from Aunt Tranter’s house in Broad Street to stroll a hundred paces or so down to his hotel, there gravely—are not all declared lovers the world’s fool?—to mount the stairs to his rooms and interrogate his good-looking face in the mirror, Ernestine excused herself and went to her room. She wanted to catch a last glimpse of her betrothed through the lace curtains; and she also wanted to be in the only room in her aunt’s house that she could really tolerate.
Having duly admired the way he walked and especially the ma
Nobody could dislike Aunt Tranter; even to contemplate being angry with that i
However, Ernestina did her best to be angry with her; on the impossibility of having di
The poor girl had had to suffer the agony of every only child since time began—that is, a crushing and unrelenting canopy of parental worry. Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim summoned decorators and dressmakers; and always her slightest frown caused her mama and papa secret hours of self-recrimination. Now this was all very well when it came to new dresses and new wall hangings, but there was one matter upon which all her bouderies and complaints made no impression. And that was her health. Her mother and father were convinced she was consumptive. They had only to smell damp in a basement to move house, only to have two days’ rain on a holiday to change districts. Half Harley Street had examined her, and found nothing; she had never had a serious illness in her life; she had none of the lethargy, the chronic weaknesses, of the condition. She could have—or could have if she had ever been allowed to—danced all night; and played, without the slightest ill effect, battledore all the next morning. But she was no more able to shift her doting parents’ fixed idea than a baby to pull down a mountain. Had they but been able to see into the future! For Ernestina was to outlive all her generation. She was born in 1846. And she died on the day that Hitler invaded Poland.
An indispensable part of her quite u