The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [334]
Her heart was beating faster, though. What if he appeared now and bumped into her? She would be polite but cool to him. She would certainly rebuff him. If there were any lingering doubts in his mind about her attitude towards him she would be able to settle them. Fortified with this intention, she walked casually in the direction of the big wheels of the carriage.
The door of the house was closed. The coachman was sitting calmly but very smartly in position. He was wearing an elegant chocolate-brown coat and cape. She looked up at him and smiled. ‘You have a very handsome carriage,’ she said pleasantly. He touched his hat and thanked her kindly. ‘And who does it belong to?’
‘To Mr Markham, My Lady,’ he replied politely.
‘Markham, did you say, or Martell?’
‘Markham, My Lady. I don’t know any Mr Martell. Mr Markham just stepped into the house.’
‘Oh. I see.’ She forced another smile, then walked on. Had she made herself look foolish? She didn’t think so. Was she relieved? She thought she must be. So why was it, then, as she turned the next corner, that the energy she had experienced in the last few minutes seemed to drain from her? Her feet suddenly felt heavy. Scarcely knowing it was doing so, her head hung forward and her shoulders seemed to wilt. Ahead of her, up the steep stone hill, the sky inadvertently grew a duller grey.
When she got back she went up to sit with a book by the window of the drawing room and when Mrs Grockleton suggested a drive she excused herself, saying she had a headache. And there she sat for some hours, doing nothing, wishing for nothing. That night she slept badly.
Fanny’s curiosity as to the whereabouts of Mr Martell was to be satisfied early the following week by a letter from Louisa.
It informed her that as Mr Martell was expected at the Burrards’ in a few days, she and Edward had decided not to come to see her in Bath.
Indeed, Fanny, I’m sure you will be glad to hear that Mr Martell is to go to London afterwards and has proposed that Edward and I should travel with him. Great as the delights of Bath must be, I’m sure they cannot compare with London, so I fear we shall not be seeing you and Mrs Grockleton there.
That was it. Louisa had forgotten to enquire after her health or even to seem sorry at their not meeting. There was something else, too, about the letter. At first Fanny could not quite put her finger on what it was, but gradually, as she pondered it, she saw the intention clearly enough. A note of triumph: her cousin was telling her plainly that she had done better. A coldness: behind the brief, throwaway regret at not seeing her, Louisa was really saying that she had more exciting things to do and she didn’t care if Fanny knew it.
So, Fanny thought grimly, my cousin and close friend doesn’t love me. Apart from her father and Aunt Adelaide, did anyone? Mr Gilpin, perhaps, but it was his duty to love. Maybe there was little to love about her anyway. And the sense of her worthlessness and the pointlessness of all things overwhelmed her, so that life itself seemed like a great, grey winter wave breaking and then receding upon an empty shore.
The incident that took place at the end of February in the fashionable spa city of Bath was, you might think, an almost trivial event. Yet it was not seen in that way at the time. Within days there was hardly a person in the whole of Bath, despite the fact that practically no one knew the unfortunate young lady in question, who had not taken sides. The matter was of such curiosity because it was so hard to explain. Theories abounded. It cannot be said that all this talk, none of it even known to the unfortunate young lady, did anyone much harm or good. Except, that is, for the impoverished major who had danced and talked with her at the Assembly Rooms. For on the strength of this intimate knowledge of the subject, he was soon much in demand, invited to dine in houses where he’d never been asked before, with his chances of finding a rich widow enhanced considerably.
Fanny Albion, meanwhile, was in gaol.
‘Mrs Pride must