4 A Proposal Of Marriage

Bea was practising rather laboriously on the pianoforte, for Mama insisted on an hour a day to improve her skills, when her father came into the music room.

"Papa!" Bea cried, spinning round on the stool and clapping her hands excitedly. "Have you come to listen to me play?"

"Beatrice, a lady does not break off in the midst of a performance," her stepmother said in her well-modulated voice. "She brings the piece gracefully to a conclusion."

"I believe this is a matter worthy of interruption, just this once," he said. "A proposal is surely important enough to warrant it, would you not agree, Lady Esther?"

"Is it Bertram?" Bea said, suddenly dizzy with happiness. So soon! She had not expected—

"It is not Mr Bertram Atherton, no. It is Mr Eustace Atherton."

Bea groaned in dismay, and Lady Esther said sharply, "Not again!"

"You would censure him for returning a third time," Papa said, "but for myself, I find such devotion pleasing. It speaks to a sincere attachment."

"His only attachment is to my forty thousand pounds, Papa," Bea said.

"There is nothing wrong with a man seeking to better his position. It is not as if he were penniless himself, for he has a very pretty estate at Welwood, and an income of fourteen hundred a year."

"Welwood is so old-fashioned!"

"That is hardly an insuperable problem. Besides, it is not the house that matters, Bea. Eustace Atherton is a man of impeccable lineage, and even if the unfortunate circumstances of his father's marriage have rendered him illegitimate, he is still an earl's son, and a gentleman of independent means. With your fortune—"

"I cannot marry Eustace."

"Why not?"

"He has no title, and is not likely ever to get one."

"Bea, this obsession with a title at all costs is most unbecoming. Neither title nor wealth nor blood is any guarantee of good character. A title will not make you happy."

"Marriage will not make me happy, Papa, for it is merely to exchange one form of servitude for another. The lowliest washer-woman or labourer's wife may be a Mrs, but I can be a Lady, and I shall, too. Bertram will make me Lady Rennington, Papa, and how can Mrs Eustace Atherton compare with that?"

He sighed. "Very well. I shall send Atherton away."

"No, no. I shall see him myself. It is only civil to allow a man the opportunity to make his speech."

"Very well, but be kind to him, Bea."

"Of course. I am always kind to my rejected suitors."

Which was a grand parting remark, and allowed her to leave the room with her head held high, but it was sheer bluster, for all that. How many suitors had ever reached the point of a proposal? Eustace, twice — three times, now. That cheeky brewer's son. A younger son destined for the church and a stammering honourable in her first season. And that was all. No one at all in her second or third season, except for the usual fortune hunters sent packing by Papa. Even Walter had had to be pushed into it — in fact, she had all but proposed to him.

And here was Eustace again, another fortune hunter, but not one who could be easily turned off by Papa. Well, she had no intention of accepting him, but she did not intend to turn him off, either.

He looked rather smart, his boots polished to a high shine and his neck cloth arranged just so. The Atherton men were generally careless of their appearance, but Eustace always made an effort.

"Miss Franklyn."

So, he was choosing to be formal. He bowed, she curtsied and then, to encourage him just a little, she gave him her hand. He raised it to his lips and dipped the lightest of kisses on it. That was prettily done!

"Here I am again," he said, with a little laugh. "I thought my goose was cooked after the last time, and naturally I was very happy for Walter when you accepted him but… everything has changed. He has lost everything he expected to inherit and since you are free again, I thought this might be an opportune moment to remind you of my own circumstances, which have not changed. I still have my house. I still have my estate. I still have a good income, more than enough to support a wife. In fact, it has increased somewhat since the last time I approached you. I flatter myself my circumstances are such as to make the offer of my hand not disgusting to you. Bea, I have the sincerest and deepest attachment to you, and that has not diminished over the years. Will you not make me the happiest of men and become my wife?"

"You are very kind, Eustace. I am flattered and honoured, but these are difficult times for me. When you approached me before, I felt I was too young to make such a momentous decision. Then there was Walter and I felt obliged to accept such a good offer. Now, I am all at sea. My future appeared to be settled, and I have not yet come to terms with the very great change that has been wrought. It is a great comfort to me that your feelings towards me remain unchanged — the one constant in my life at present! Yet I cannot but feel it is too soon to make any decision about my future. I need time to come to terms with all that has occurred. Do you understand?"

"Of course, and I would not for the world importune you. I shall withdraw for the present, but be assured that my offer stands, and you may call on me at any time, whenever you feel ready. I bid you good day, Miss Franklyn. Accept my good wishes for your future, wherever it may lie, and pray convey my regards to Lady Esther."

He bowed and was gone, leaving Bea to reflect with satisfaction on the interview. Not that she had the least intention of marrying him, oh, the delight of a proper offer! It was a balm to her soul to have such a persistent admirer.

***

Bertram's days had become rather full. The time was rapidly approaching when he would depart for Landerby Manor in Lincolnshire to present his paper on Horace, and it was as yet only half written. Worse, he had not even completed his reading and formulated his conclusions. Yet he could not deny his father his company, if nothing more, on his mission to discover the state of the earl's financial affairs. Each day they rode together to Corland Castle, and sat in the study while the earl looked bemused and Clarke, the land steward, waved his hands vaguely in the air and tried to explain about sheep farming or coal mining or the ownership of canals, while the earl, his brother and his nephew attempted to make sense of it without falling asleep. Bertram had been used to think of himself as a reasonably intelligent man, but Clarke made him feel inexpressibly stupid.

"Why is this so hard?" he said to his father one day, as they rode away from Corland in the now familiar fog of ignorance.

Mr Atherton chuckled. "Imagine yourself explaining the intricacies of… oh, The Aeneid, say, to someone unfamiliar with it. Clarke understands his work very well, but it is so ingrained in him that he finds it difficult to explain. What we need is someone with a more methodical approach to make it simple for us."

"I suppose we cannot simply leave Clarke to get on with it?" Bertram said. "Do we need to know about sheep farming?"

"We need to know enough to know that Clarke is doing what he should, that is all," Mr Atherton said. "In the old earl's day, it was all left to Nicholson and… well, no one knew what was going on. When your uncle inherited, the lawyers insisted on Clarke, and on your uncle taking an interest in his affairs."

Bertram's eyebrows rose. "Was there a suspicion that Nicholson was lining his own pockets?"

His father chuckled. "That was precisely the problem, no one knew what he was doing, or whether it was all correct or not. Most of what went on was in his head. At least with Clarke, it is all written down. Or mostly, anyway."

After three days, however, they were summoned to the old schoolroom, where the investigation into Mr Nicholson's murder was proceeding. There they were introduced to a lawyer by the name of Willerton-Forbes, a fearsomely fashionable man in the London style, who reminded Bertram of Mr Franklyn, another dandy. Willerton-Forbes, being at a loose end, offered his services to disentangle the earl's financial affairs, and since his first words were, "Let us make a complete list of all his lordship's holdings, with all that is known of them, shall we?", Bertram's father fell on his neck with delight. In no time, sheets of paper filled in the lawyer's neat hand grew to a sizeable pile, and Bertram's father's frown lifted somewhat.

With his father somewhat happier, Bertram felt easy about returning to the delights of Horace or, for light relief, Virgil. The disadvantage of this plan was soon discovered, when Carter crept into the library and coughed discreetly.

"The Lady Esther Franklyn and Miss Franklyn have called, sir."

Bertram, writing furiously in a notebook, chose not to reply.

Carter coughed again. "The mistress and the young ladies are entertaining her ladyship and Miss Franklyn in the drawing room, sir."

With the sentence in his head satisfactorily set down on paper, Bertram sighed, laid aside his pen and removed his spectacles. "And this is of interest to me in what way, Carter?"

"Her ladyship asked for you most particularly, sir."

Another sigh. He had had a great-uncle once who dealt with intrusions by ordering his butler to, ‘Tell him he may go to the devil for all I care. I am busy.' And the butler would relay this uncompromising message word for word to the hapless caller. Bertram wished with all his heart that he could do the same. One day, perhaps, when he was old and, he hoped, famous throughout the land for the intellectual rigour of his work, he would perhaps do so, but at the age of twenty-five, and still living under his parents' roof, the tug of good manners was too strong.

He sighed yet again, rose and donned his coat before making his way to the drawing room. Miss Franklyn bounced across the room before he had even completed his courtesies to Lady Esther. Tucking her arm in his, she said cheerfully, "There you are, Bertram! At last you are at home when we call! Were you hiding away from me?"

"Not at all," he said politely. "I have been much engaged with my father at the castle."

"Preparing for when you are an earl, I dare say. Well, you are here now, so let us sit and talk. We will get a refreshing stream of air from that window, so we shall sit there."

She towed him across the room to a window seat just wide enough for two, sat at one side of it and patted the seat invitingly. How was a man supposed to deal with such forward behaviour? He could hardly snub her outright, not in his mother's drawing room, and if Lady Esther saw no need to reprimand her stepdaughter for her unbecoming manners, it was not for him to do so. He glanced at the clock. Ten minutes he would allow her, then he would return to Horace.

"Now then, Bertram," she said, taking his arm again so decisively that he did not feel he could well disentangle himself, "tell me all about it. Is the earl teaching you how to wear your coronet and robes? How to bow to the king?"

"Nothing of the sort!" he said, discomfort at her closeness making him speak more sharply than he intended. "The earl has invited my father and me to learn about his estates and investments."

Her eyes visibly became glassy. "Oh, money! How horrid! And very dull, I should think."

"Not dull, but… complicated."

"Oh yes, because he must be vastly rich, of course. Eight thousand a year, is it not? Although that is not so very much for an earl, is it? Papa has far more than that. How is Lord Rennington? He has sent Lady Rennington away, I hear, poor lady. She must be very sad."

"I do not think he has sent her away," Bertram said. "She has gone to stay with her sister, I believe."

"Oh, Lady Tarvin? Is that where she has gone? I did not know. Mama was wondering about it only this morning as we drove here." She raised her voice to carry across the room. "Mama? Mama! Did you hear that? Lady Rennington has gone to Lady Tarvin at Harfield."

Lady Esther winced at the raised voice and nodded an acknowledgement, but declined to conduct a conversation across the full width of the room.

For a little while, Bea seemed content to talk about the inhabitants of Corland Castle, as Bertram surreptitiously watched the hands of the clock marching slowly onwards to the time when he might consider duty done and withdraw.

But then Bea said, "Mama is planning an evening entertainment — dinner, music, a little dancing and so on. You will come, I hope?"

"It depends when it is."

"Early next week. Tuesday, I believe."

"I shall still be here then, so—"

"You are going away?" Her voice rose to a squeak. "When? Where? For how long?"

He could not help laughing at the astonishment in her face. "I do have friends who invite me to stay occasionally, you know. I shall be going to Landerby Manor in Lincolnshire in two weeks, to stay for a month."

"A month! Two weeks! Goodness! That does not give me much time."

"To do what, Miss Franklyn?"

"Why, persuade you to marry me, of course."

He shook his head in bemusement. "I do wish you would give up this idea, ma'am. I am not at all minded to marry at present… perhaps never. I should not like you to waste your time. Why not try Lucas? He would be far more amenable to your charms, being less distracted by poets dead for two thousand years."

"Horace, you mean? I asked my father about him, and he found me a book about him in the library, but it is mostly dry stuff. I liked some of his writings, though. The translation, that is, for I cannot read the Latin."

"You read Horace?" Bertram said, diverted.

"Why should I not? He is very funny sometimes. But that is nothing to the point. Lucas will not do, for he will not become the Earl of Rennington — not unless you die, of course, and I should not like that."

"Neither should I," he said, with the faintest quiver in his voice.

"Quite so. It must be you, and in all honesty, Bertram, what could be more sensible? We are old friends, after all, and I have forty thousand pounds, which is a great sum for you to bring into the estate, and if you marry me, it saves you all the bother of trying to find a wife for yourself. Men make such a great fuss about the business, and dither and dawdle over it, and you would not enjoy the season, I am sure. This way, you will have a wife without the least trouble, and think how convenient that will be. I shall not rush you to the altar, you may be sure. The autumn, perhaps, or even next spring if you should prefer it, but we should become betrothed before you go away to… wherever it is."

"Landerby Manor, in Lincolnshire."

"Who lives there?"

"It is one of the homes of the Duke and Duchess of Wedhampton, but they will not be present. One of his brothers, Lord Thomas Medhurst, hosts a gathering of friends from Cambridge every summer, who sit about and discuss long-dead poets. It is great fun, and I look forward to it all year."

"Heavens! You have a curious idea of fun. Are they all as clever as you are?"

"Now how am I to answer that?" he said, amused. "Whether I say yes they are, or no they are not, I sound abominably conceited. Let me say only that we all have a great interest in the Latin poets, and some are cleverer than others."

"And are there ladies in the company?"

He frowned, for it was something of a sore point. "The original intention was to keep it entirely a male gathering, the better to focus on our subject of interest. However, there were those right from the start who proposed that female company would provide an agreeable diversion from intellectual pursuits, and several of our number have now married and wish their wives to accompany them. Last year, several unmarried ladies attended, too — sisters and cousins and such like. Such a mingling of the sexes does indeed change the atmosphere of our gatherings, but not all would agree that the change is for the better."

"Do the ladies discuss Latin poets with the gentlemen?"

"I never came across one who did so. Very few ladies know Latin, I fear. Mostly they keep to their feminine pursuits during the day, leaving the men to their Latin, and the sexes mingle again in the evening."

"And is there music in the evenings? Dancing? Theatrical performances?"

"No theatrical performances, but the ladies like to perform on their various instruments, and sing for us, and there are cards, naturally. Last year, three of the ladies created a tableau of a scene from Julius Caesar, which they thought would amuse the gentlemen. Unfortunately, they based their work on Shakespeare, and several of our members took issue with the details. Mr Shakespeare may have been a brilliant dramatist, but his grasp of history was shaky at times. Oh… are you leaving?"

Lady Esther had risen, and was making her refined farewells around the room. Bea jumped to her feet too, and curtsied demurely to Bertram. "Good day to you, Bertram. We shall meet again very soon, no doubt." Then, leaning forward, she whispered in his ear, "Since I have only two weeks."