24 Lessons In Latin

Bertram woke in better heart. Mr Franklyn's calm good sense soothed the worst of his fears for John Whyte. His disappearance would prove to be some trivial mishap — a wrong turn somewhere, a miscalculation on distance, or a lost shoe necessitating the finding of a smith or farrier. There was no need to imagine anything more serious.

Breakfast proved to be a pleasant meal, with only Bea and her father present. Bertram did not dislike Lady Esther, but her regal manner and unbending dignity were not conducive to a relaxed atmosphere. He could not imagine telling jokes in her presence, or speaking disparagingly of the government, as Franklyn did that morning. She often had a suffocating effect on her stepdaughter, as well, and Bertram far preferred Bea lively and bouncy.

That day she was full of the joys of spring, and when Bertram enquired why, she lowered her voice melodramatically and said, "What do you think? I am to be allowed to learn Latin after all!" Gurgling with merriment, she went on in her normal voice, "Papa has decreed it, and Mama has graciously agreed that it is of no consequence what I do, since I am clearly destined to be an old maid. No more netting purses, Bertram! No more trying to paint flowers that end up looking like some strange kind of fruit. No more aching fingers from practising scales on the pianoforte. It is glorious. Do you want some coffee? It is not very good."

"You are not going to be an old maid, Bea," he said confidently, reaching for the jug of ale.

"Oh, you need not pity me. I shall go on admirably, I assure you, but I have given up trying to find a husband. I have reached the conclusion, which I ought to have seen years ago, that I am very bad at it and would only make a terrible mistake. Take Lord Grayling, for instance. You tried to warn me against him, but I would not listen."

"He has a great deal of charm," Bertram said. "It is very easy to be drawn in by such a man."

"Is he very wicked?" she said, turning innocent eyes on him.

A difficult question to answer without delving into the matter of seductions and mistresses. "Well… he does not always behave as he ought."

"And I foolishly went into the garden alone with him, but you and Mr Fielding heroically came to my rescue."

That made Bertram laugh. "There was nothing heroic about it."

Franklyn, who had been listening intently while steadily working his way through a plate of ham and cold beef, laid down his knife and fork at this point. "I think it was in fact rather heroic, Atherton. You were looking after my daughter better than my wife or me. We are both grateful to you."

"And so am I," Bea said, smiling at him so warmly that he felt himself flushing. "I was very cross at the time, but I understand now that you were protecting me from… Lord Grayling's wickedness. His misbehaviour, as you put it, which I was too stupid to consider. No, no, do not protest. I was stupid, but no more. I am leaving off all thought of a husband, and will devote my life to ablatives and vocatives and gerunds and deponent verbs and the subjunctive — whatever that is. I shall need to obtain a new primer, but that should not be difficult. Will you help me, Bertram? Answer my beginner's questions and correct my pronunciation, that sort of thing?"

"Of course! I should be delighted… if Mr Franklyn permits?"

"I have no objection. We will consult with Lady Esther as we wend our way home to devise a suitable schedule."

"May I not devise my own schedule, Papa?"

"No, because your stepmother will still expect you to receive guests and pay morning calls with her, and there will be domestic duties to attend to. Latin merely replaces the netting of purses, Bea, it should not consume every waking hour. And it would not surprise me if her ladyship still harbours other plans for you, in the matter of the acquisition of a husband."

"I have given up all of that, Papa."

"But your stepmother has not. You may have evaded the dire prospect of Bath, but if you will not seek out a husband yourself, he must seek you. You may be thinking that your stepmother is taking an unusually long time to dress this morning. You are mistaken, however. She is already dressed, and fully engaged in making lists of suitable young men to invite to Highwood Place this autumn. The house will be full to the rafters of eligible suitors, if she has her way."

Bea's face fell so dramatically that Bertram's heart twisted in the most painful way. He had managed to protect her from Grayling, but he could do nothing to protect her from her own stepmother.

But Franklyn only laughed at her chagrin. "Not to worry, I give you my hearty support to reject them all. In fact, you may greet every one as he arrives with the words, ‘Welcome to Highwood Place, and no, I shall not marry you.' Or perhaps that should be, ‘I shall not even consider a proposal unless spoken in Latin.' And you should say all that in Latin, too. That should deter all but the hardiest souls."

"All gentlemen learn Latin at school, Papa."

"So they do. Not being educated as a gentleman myself, I had forgotten that."

Bertram chuckled. "I have a better test. No suitor will be considered unless he can propose in the form of an original poem in Latin, using dactylic, iambic, Aeolic, and anapestic metres, one verse for each."

"Oh, excellent!" Franklyn said. "That sounds sufficiently formidable an obstacle. Could you do that?"

"I could scrape something together, but it would not be very good. The only person I know who can produce high quality Latin poetry of any form is the Marquess of Embleton."

"Then I am perfectly safe," Bea said happily.

Bertram instantly resolved to begin work on a suitable poem. Surely that would convince her to change her mind about marriage?

***

Bertram was relieved to be at home again, a place where he could hide in his library and consider his future. For once, he had no urge to retreat into the past, for the present was heavy with delicious possibilities. He had never before understood the wonder of being in love. He must have read about it and heard a thousand different interpretations of it, yet the nature of the experience had been beyond his comprehension. But now, all he could think about was Bea. Even as the carriage drew up at Westwick Heights, as the steps were let down, as he stepped onto the drive, his eyes turned to her, unwilling to lose even one second of that precious sight.

His whole family came out onto the steps to greet the Franklyns and thank them for conveying Bertram home. The Franklyns would not stay, however, being keen to reach their own home. As soon as Bertram's boxes were unloaded, the steps were folded away, the door was shut and the coachman urged his team into motion.

"Goodbye for now, Bertram," Bea said with a cheerful smile and a wave, her curls bouncing as she leaned out of the lowered carriage window. "I shall see you tomorrow at noon. Don't be late!"

"I will be there," he said, laughing. The carriage rolled away down the drive, Bea waving energetically until a turn of the drive hid her from view.

"Come inside, dear," his mother said. "Goodness, you look pale! Have you been at your books for the whole month? A little fresh air every day, if there is no dampness about, is not at all harmful. I expect you have been eating too much rich food, so I have asked Mrs Place to boil some chickens for you, and prepare some clear soup. That will do you all the good in the world."

"Excellent. I am very tired of turtle and lobster."

"Turtle! Lobster! Bertram, how many times must I tell you that any kind of shellfish is injurious to the health? Oysters, perhaps — I might allow that oysters are harmless, but turtle! Lobster!"

Julia and Penelope took one of his arms apiece and towed him up the steps and into the house, with the beaming Emily in their wake. "Never mind the lobster, Mama. He is only teasing you. What we want to know is whether he is betrothed to Bea Franklyn yet."

"Of course not," Bertram said, with an uneasy laugh. After all, he had in fact proposed to Bea just three days earlier. If she had accepted him… His heart lurched in sudden delight at the thought. But it would have been so awkward! After all he had said, and all the jokes about Bea's forwardness, to have come home and confessed that she had caught him in her web after all, and he had walked into it willingly… joyfully… No, it would have been too difficult. It was better this way, for now he had all the time in the world to change her mind about marriage.

"Then why are you going to see her tomorrow morning?" Julia said. "You have seen her every day for a month, you travelled home with her and now you are rushing off to see her the very next day. That sounds very close to a betrothal to me."

In the entrance hall, with the servants hovering nearby, Bertram was silent, but when they entered the drawing room, he said, "Miss Franklyn is learning Latin, and I am helping with the irregular verbs."

"Bertram is too clever to be ensnared by Bea Franklyn," said his father. "But where is Catullus? I thought Whyte was to be travelling with you."

"He took a different route, and failed to meet up with us at Bawtry, so I suppose he encountered some minor mishap."

"That is a valuable horse he has in his charge," he said, frowning.

"He knows that well enough, Father," Bertram said. "He has met with some delay along the way, undoubtedly, but he cannot be far behind us. It is no great distance from Landerby, after all. Mr Franklyn thinks there is no cause for alarm just yet."

"Still, if Whyte is not here by Monday, I shall send Morton out to make enquiries at the turnpikes and staging inns."

And that was all the allowance the ladies would make for horses, for they had news of far greater import to deliver — Winnie Strong's mysterious suitor had arrived from London, had proposed and been accepted.

"Such a fine man!" Penelope said, almost bouncing with excitement. "Handsome and tremendously fashionable, and he has four thousand a year, and an estate in Oxfordshire. And Winnie all but an old maid, too. Is it not wonderful?"

"It is," Bertram said. "I am very happy for her, for no one deserves a good match better than Winnie."

There were visitors in the house, Bertram discovered. A widowed friend of his mother's, a Mrs Vaughn, an insipid woman with nothing to say for herself, and two friends of Julia's, the Miss Pailthorpes, who had all too much to say for themselves, and very loudly. With so much news to exchange, the evening passed in animated discussion of all the doings of the North Riding, or the small part of it that surrounded Westwick Heights, and questions about the distinguished occupants at Landerby Manor, and not another word was said about Bea Franklyn.

***

Bea was happy. In fact, she could not recall a happier time since they had left the old house and set out to become gentry. Even her betrothal to Walter had been more a matter of relief, that after all her efforts he had finally succumbed to the inevitable, and she was not, after all, to suffer the ignominy of a rebuff.

Now there was no more worrying whether she was to be nothing but a dried-up spinster. Who cared whether she ever married or not, for she was going to be a Latin scholar like Bertram and his friends, and read Virgil and Horace and the war-minded Julius Caesar instead of sewing stupid roses onto handkerchiefs.

Papa threw himself with enthusiasm into the project. The library was reorganised to accommodate two desks, one in front of each window, so that Papa could act as chaperon while Bertram was present. He usually spent the morning hours in his more modest study in the old part of the house, but he would watch over the lessons in the library.

"I might even learn something myself," he said, winking at her.

A shelf was cleared for Latin books, although it was depressingly empty.

"I am only sorry that I have no books of my own to contribute," Papa said, "but I never learnt more Latin than was necessary for my work, and not from books. I shall write to the booksellers in York and see what they can suggest, Bertram will bring you some of his books, and Mr Dewar may have some suitable works."

"Oh, I forgot about him," Bea said excitedly. "A clergyman is bound to have lots of Latin books."

"Perhaps, but he is not wealthy enough to have many."

Bea sighed. "Such a pity I could not keep the duke's primer! That was lovely to work with."

"We shall obtain another primer for you," her father said. "I like this new enthusiasm, Bea. Will it last, do you think?"

"Oh, yes! When I set my mind to something, I keep going."

He laughed. "That is true enough. Ah, is that a rider approaching? Your tutor, perhaps, arriving exactly to time."

Bea bounced from her chair and rushed to the window, waving vigorously. "It is Bertram! He is going straight round to the stables. He has a bag over his shoulder, so he's brought me something to read. I can't wait to get started. May I go and meet him?"

"No, you will wait for him here like the lady you are," her father said, but his smile took the sting from his words. "Hobbs will show him in here. And slow down your speech a little. You are slipping into Newcastle again."

"May I go to the stairs to—?"

"No. Sit, wait, be patient."

Being patient was not Bea's strongest suit, but she managed it until she heard footsteps outside the door and then the door being opened. She shot across to intercept Hobbs and Bertram before they had even crossed the threshold.

"There you are, Bertram! I thought you were never coming!"

He looked startled. "But I am not late… am I?"

"No, not at all, but the morning has been interminable. I cannot wait to get started. Come and see what Papa has done. He has arranged everything so neatly. I have my own desk, look!"

She towed Bertram across the room. He laughed, and said to Papa, "Good morning, sir. Pray forgive me for not bowing but you see how it is."

"I do indeed. Your pupil is keen to begin, and let us not hinder her learning by such trivial matters as the conventions of polite society."

"Oh, Papa! Must I pretend not to be excited?"

But it was Bertram who said, "Miss Franklyn, you and pretence are strangers, and long may it remain so. If I may disengage my arm for a moment, I have something for you."

"Books? Have you brought me some books?"

"I have and one in particular. May it bring you great pleasure."

Released from her grip, he opened his bag and pulled out a small parcel, neatly bound up in ribbon-tied cloth, and handed it over with a little bow.

Unwrapping it, she exclaimed in wonder. "My primer! You have brought my primer from Landerby."

"I should have given it to you the instant you were permitted to take up your lessons again, but it was at the very bottom of my box. I did not expect to be able to present it to you quite so soon."

"But it is the duke's. I cannot keep it."

"Read the inscription."

Opening the cover, she read the words, ‘To Miss Beatrice Franklyn. May this volume bring her great pleasure, so that in the future she may regale her friends at Landerby with many more magnificent recitals and join in the learned discussions. Wedhampton.'

"How kind," she breathed, trying very hard to banish the tears that lurked close to the surface. "How very, very kind of his grace. And how kind of you, Bertram, to think of it."

"Well now, we cannot have you separated from your primer, can we? I thought we might continue where we left off, with pronouns and questions, and then I have a piece to dictate to you, so that you may practise writing in Latin, and another piece for you to read for discussion purposes. If Mr Franklyn permits?"

"You are her tutor, Atherton," Papa said. "I am going to work on my accounts over here, and you may sit opposite Bea. You have precisely one hour, and if I see or hear or even suspect the least impropriety between the two of you, these lessons terminate immediately. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, Papa."

Bea sat down, opened her primer and the lesson began.