Nicola Cornick - A Companion Of Quality

The door of the drawing-room closed behind them. Caroline felt an uncharacteristic urge to stamp her foot. It was not that she had wished to take dinner with the family, but overhearing Julia’s misrepresentations was too much. Even as a schoolgirl, Julia had had an uncanny knack of twisting the truth to present herself in the best possible light, and it seemed that this ability had not diminished in time.

Caroline vented her feelings by slamming her bedroom door behind her. It was childish but it made her feel better. Normally she was capable of dismissing the slights and irritations of her working life. After all, she had endured many such in the time since she had left the Guarding Academy. For some reason, however, working at Hewly Manor was proving more difficult. Perhaps it was because she and Julia had once been friends but were now effectively mistress and servant; perhaps it was because of the memories stirred up by being in Steep Abbot again. And now, Caroline thought honestly, it was because of Lewis Brabant. Now that she had met him, she found she did not like the thought of Julia’s plans of entrapment, which was odd, since she had dismissed the man as the veriest rake.

On impulse, Caro went across to her bed and pulled out the old carpet-bag that was hidden beneath. In it she kept her most treasured possessions. There were scant few: her book of sonnets, a fine gold pendant and matching brooch inherited from her mother, her grandfather’s fob watch. There was also a pile of letters received from Julia over the years.

Julia’s communications had been erratic. After she had married and moved from Steep Abbot she had not written for several years, but in her widowhood she had struck up a correspondence again. Caroline often wondered why she had bothered to keep the letters and had come to the conclusion that it was because they constituted a link with Steep Abbot and her childhood. Added to which, Julia’s writing, whilst no great prose, was as entertaining as it was malicious.

Caroline turned to the early letters, the ones that Julia had sent when Caroline had taken up her first post as a governess in Yorkshire, and Julia had left the Guarding Academy and was living at Hewly under the chaperonage of the Honourable Mrs Brabant. She scanned the closely written lines until she found the bit that she was looking for.

“…Life is so dull now that you are gone, dearest Caro. Mrs B., whilst very amiable, is the most idle of creatures and will scarce take me anywhere! I am desperate for a season in Town! How else shall I find myself a husband? I shall end up setting my cap at Andrew, though he is the dullest of them all with his hunting and his fishing…”

Caroline raised her eyebrows. Andrew Brabant’s dreariness had not prevented Julia from contracting an engagement to him at a later date. But that was not the bit that interested her—at least, not yet. Here it was:

“Lewis is down from Oxford,” she read. “I believe he fancies himself as a poet, for he is most romantical, with a lock of hair falling into his eyes and a dreamy air. He is forever quoting verse and striking a pose. It would be fun to see if I could make him fall in love with me! That would be just the thing for a poet and might even improve his bad verse! Perhaps I shall try…

“You must remember Mrs Taperley, the farrier’s wife? The on dit is that her new baby was fathered by none other than the Marquis of Sywell—they say the little boy is the very image! Mrs B. takes great care to keep me out of Sywell’s way, as you might imagine, but I should rather like to catch a Marquis!

“The Admiral talks of nothing but this horrid War, and is very dreary…”

There was more. Reams and reams of Julia’s news and gossip. Caroline skipped a couple of letters and found another:

“Dearest Caro, the most diverting news! Lewis has asked me to marry him! I knew I could bring him up to scratch and indeed he is head over ears in love with me! He is to go to sea and wished us to become betrothed before he left. He is sure that the Admiral will make no demur, and indeed he might not, for have I not twenty thousand pounds? For my part, I fear that Lewis may be away some time and cannot imagine how I shall go on…I persuaded him that the engagement should remain secret…I saw Hugo Perceval in the village last week and thought him most handsome…”

Caroline sighed. She stuffed the letters back in the bag and pushed it out of sight under the bed. It seemed that Lewis Brabant had only been the first of Julia’s conquests. It was not long before the Admiral’s ward had transferred her affections to the older brother, and had entered into a more formal engagement. Julia had confided that the Admiral and his wife had not liked the match above half, but that she was determined to cut a dash in the neighbourhood as Mrs Andrew Brabant. Alas for Julia, the plan had been thwarted by the fever that carried off both Andrew and his mother, but it was not long before she had received an offer from Andrew’s best friend, Jack Chessford…Jack had been handsome and rich, and Julia had achieved her aim of going to London at last. There had been no more letters until the one telling Caroline that Jack was dead in a carriage accident, the money was almost exhausted and Julia intended to make her home with her godfather, whose own health had deteriorated so markedly in recent years. Of Lewis, there had been no further mention at all.

That was until Caroline had come to Hewly to be Julia’s companion. She shifted a little uncomfortably as she remembered how quickly she had got the measure of Julia’s plans. As soon as Julia had discovered that Lewis Brabant was returning home, she declared that she intended to set her cap at him once more. Nor did she seem to see anything wrong in her plan to entrap him for her own amusement. Caroline sighed. Natural delicacy gave her an aversion to the idea, no matter how much she told herself that Lewis Brabant probably deserved such a fate, but she could scarcely warn him. Besides, Julia’s feelings might be rather shallow at present, but it was not for Caroline to say that a deeper affection might not develop. She felt unaccountably depressed at the thought.

There was a knock at the door and Nurse Prior stuck her head round the door. A diminutive Yorkshirewoman, she had been nanny to all the Brabant children and had come out of retirement on the estate to nurse the Admiral after he was taken ill. Caroline and she had taken to each other quickly, each recognising the other’s virtues. Mrs Prior had confided in an unguarded moment that Julia was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard, and had been appreciative of Caroline’s help in the sickroom.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Whiston, but would you be so good as to sit with the Admiral for a little whilst I take my meal? The poor gentleman has not been so good today, and I don’t like to leave him…”

Caroline jumped up. Over the past few weeks she had become accustomed to sitting with the Admiral whilst Mrs Prior took a rest. Julia never went near her godfather if she could help it, proclaiming herself too delicate for such unpleasantness, but Lavender, the Admiral’s daughter, often took a turn to read to her father. Whether the Admiral was aware of any of them or not was a moot point. Often he would lie with his eyes open for hours on end, neither moving nor speaking. Sometimes he was voluble, but the words made little sense and he had to be soothed into a calmer frame of mind. If he were feeling well, he might get up and take a short turn about the garden, or sit in the drawing-room for a little, but he never gave any indication that he knew where he was or what was happening around him. Caroline, who remembered him from her youth as a strong, upright and active man, thought it a terrible pity.