The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [279]
‘His intellect’, Gilpin said cautiously, ‘is strong, although perhaps too rigid. But I should need to know him better.’ Which, while interesting, wasn’t quite what she’d meant.
‘He’s damnably rich,’ said Edward. ‘I can tell you that.’
Later, in their room, she had asked Louisa what she thought. She always enjoyed discussing things with Louisa. Her cousin and she were very close, perhaps because they were so different. They both had a good eye and enjoyed painting; but while Fanny would take time to seek some particular effect of the light or weather on the landscape, Louisa after a while would content herself with a few quick dashes of colour and say she was done. Or sometimes, when Mr Gilpin was instructing, she would make some flippant addition to the scene and, as the distinguished artist passed, point to it and ask: ‘Do you like my rabbit, Mr Gilpin? It has floppy ears.’
But as it was done in a cheerful way and was so in tune with her character, he would just smile and say, ‘Yes, Louisa’ and not take offence.
Louisa had a talent for mimicry – her imitation of Mr Grockleton was beyond praise – but she was not malicious. She read books, as much as she wanted to; she spoke enough French to amuse the French officers in Lymington. With her lovely eyes and dark-haired good looks, Louisa had long ago concluded that her role as a pretty daughter of Lymington’s richest merchant suited her ambitions very well. And if she could have been cleverer or more hard-working if she wished, then she must have concluded that it was not in her self-interest. ‘What do I think of Mr Martell, Fanny? Why that he is a great catch and he knows it.’
This was clearly true.
‘But what of his character and his opinions?’
‘Why, Fanny, I hardly know. It was you who spoke to him.’ Fanny had not thought of it, but she realized now that, unusually, Louisa had kept almost silent through their walk with Mr Martell. ‘I did observe one thing, Fanny,’ her pretty cousin continued with a smile.
‘Tell me what, Louisa?’
‘That you liked him.’ And now Louisa burst into a laugh.
‘I? Oh, no, Louisa. I do not think so. Why do you think such a thing?’
But Louisa refused to discuss the matter further and instead went and sat in a chair by the window and, taking up a book, started to make a little drawing for herself upon the flyleaf. She busied herself in this way, refusing all conversation for some time, while Fanny began to prepare herself for bed, until finally she called Fanny over and, quietly handing her the book, let her look at the drawing by the fading light.
It was of a rutting stag: a great red deer, on the twilit forest heath, his head with its magnificent antlers thrown back about to emit his roar. It really was a very good likeness of the creature and well observed. With this one alteration: the face was that of Mr Martell.
‘It is as well we are not to see him tomorrow,’ said Fanny, ‘as I should be afraid of laughing.’
They did not see Mr Martell, or even think of him, the next day, which passed delightfully. But the following morning he was at the door of the inn, wearing a brown coat and riding breeches, and a tall brown hat to match. While they rode in the carriage, he mounted a magnificent bay, explaining that, as the day was fine and his horse had now been stabled for two days, he thought it best to give it some exercise. While this made perfect sense, Fanny could not help but reflect that it also meant that he was spared the need of talking to them on the journey.
With Mr Martell riding easily beside the carriage, the journey nonetheless passed very pleasantly. Of the Oxfordshire countryside Mr Gilpin had a poor opinion. ‘It is too flat. I can describe it’, he told them, ‘only as a cultivated dreariness.’ But if the landscape was sadly wanting in the picturesque, its history was more encouraging. At Woodstock, the vicar reminded them,