“That need not occupy more than an hour or so in the mornings; Mamma does not concern herself about their education so long as they leave her in peace.—As I say, I do not at all comprehend or enter into this wish to write works of a fictional nature—or, furthermore, what you will find to write about—but I conclude you must have some design in your own mind—”
Alvey nodded. She did not divulge that she had a novel already two-thirds written.
“The house is solitary, neighbours are too scattered to come calling. Whereas, if you returned to America, you would, I assume, be obliged to teach in a school, your time would be governed by the requirements of your calling—I understand that you have no resources, no income—”
All this was so unarguable that Alvey made haste to lead the discussion in another direction. “But suppose, when you arrive at the Indies, that you find yourself mistaken? That you are homesick, disappointed? That the life of a missionary does not, after all, please you? What then?”
“Such an eventuality is quite impossible. Wholly, wholly out of the question.”
“Suppose you fall sick, are obliged to relinquish your plans and come home? Suppose you find that you miss your parents, your family?”
Miss Winship’s wooden expression conveyed her opinion as to the utter unlikelihood of this.
“Well—suppose one or other of your parents were to fall sick—how old are they?”
“Mamma is approaching fifty—I do not know how closely; she is in excellent health; Papa is some fifteen years older. She is not his first wife,” explained Miss Winship. “James’s mother died in childbirth.”
“So your Papa is in his mid-sixties—suppose he were to contract a fatal illness? You might never see him again?”
“He would be in the hands of his Maker,” said Miss Winship flatly. Her face was set in a mask of unalterable intention; her eyes had a fixed, fanatical stare.
Miss Clement studied her with a mixture of impatience and diffidence. How to breach that bastion of blind selfwill?
She said, “There is another matter, Louisa, that must be taken into account. Were you ever—did you—had you, before you left home, any suitors? Did you ever consider marriage?”
“Of course not!” Louisa gave her an impatient glance. “Have I not told you that from the age of—”
“Yes, yes, I know, I know, from the age of six you dedicated yourself to a missionary’s career. You met an old lady who had heard John Wesley give a stirring address at Felton forty years before; her one aim was to go out to Serampore, and now it is yours. So you have never entertained the thought of matrimony?”
“Never!”
“But still there might have been a suitor? You were—what—sixteen when you came away from home—were there no boys that you had played with as a child—lads, partners at country balls?”
Miss Winship curled her lip.
“We went to the Assemblies at Hexham—there were local young men. Red-faced boobies. One of them—John Chibburn—approached me before he put the question to Meg—and there was Robbie Carey—but I soon sent him about his business.”
“I see. But suppose there should be others?”
“Others?” echoed Miss Winship. Her tone was vague. It was evidently almost impossible for her to stretch her imagination so far as to embrace another person’s point of view. Devising this scheme must have cost her days of mental endeavour, weeks of sleepless nights. No wonder she looked so pale and racked. I daresay she will make an admirable missionary, thought Alvey Clement, it will be so easy for her to ignore any possible arguments on the side of the pagans.
“After all, Louisa, you and I—I may say this without vanity since the gift was administered with such impersonal equity—you and I share a certain degree of good looks. There may, probably will be other applicants for your hand. Your parents may—doubtless do—expect you to marry?”
“Certainly they have such expectations. But I have made plain to them repeatedly—on every occasion when the matter was canvassed—my unalterable resolution never to embark upon the married state. My life is dedicated to Another. So far as I am concerned, you are at liberty to refuse all such offers, if they should be repeated, during your sojourn at Birkland.”
“I thank you!—But suppose I should be minded to accept?”
At this, Miss Winship looked a little blank.
She said, “I thought your purpose was to be an authoress? Why should you wish to enter into matrimony?”
“The two conditions,” Alvey suggested, “are not mutually incompatible. There have been married authoresses. There is Madame d’Arblay—Mrs Radcliffe—”
“Oh—well—as to that, if you should care to contract such an alliance, you will, of course, suit yourself. I can have no concern, no implication in any such connection that you may resolve upon—though, I must say, I should have thought—”
“But do you not see,” Alvey pointed out patiently, “that if I were to take such a step, if I were to enter into an engagement with some person, it would raise a whole host of problems, both moral and legal? Your father—should you marry—would, I daresay, endow you with a portion?”
“Meg is to have five thousand pounds when she weds John Chibburn; I think Papa intends the same for all of us.”
Alvey reflected that Mr Winship must be quite comfortably circumstanced.
Louisa went on, “But I renounce the money! Without the least hesitation. It is of no importance to me. Nor, I am glad to say, is it to my co-workers in the missionary field, who are prepared to take me without a penny.”
“But don’t you understand—I cannot possibly be receiving your father’s money, on which I have not a shadow of a claim?”
“If I don’t want it, why should not you accept it?”
“Well,” said Alvey, “let us simply say that I do not want it either. I will not argue with you on that head, Louisa. But if I enter into this Gothick scheme of yours—which I have by no means definitely undertaken to do, mark you!—but if I do, then it must be for a term only.”
“A term?”
Miss Winship’s tone was one of strong displeasure, but Alvey repeated, “A term. Let us say a year—one year. At the end of that period I should feel myself at liberty to disclose the true state of affairs to your parents.”
“You would be mad to do so!” Even Miss Winship’s composure was shaken by the thought. “It would very likely kill Papa! And Mamma—I—I really do not know what she would do. For a start, they would not believe you—you would possibly be consigned to Bedlam.”
“Not if your sisters corroborated my story,” Alvey pointed out.
“Oh.” Louisa digested this in silence for a moment. She murmured, half to herself, “I would not put it past them to have my sisters set under medical restraint also in such a case—”
Good God, thought Alvey, what kind of an establishment am I proposing to enter? But, after all, I have not the slightest intention of taking part in this crazy charade—how in the world could I have permitted the argument to go on as far as it has?
Curiosity, I suppose, to discover how far she has planned it.
Curiosity was indeed Alvey’s besetting sin. Despite all her sober resolutions now, she could not prevent her mind from engaging in speculation about this unknown family of Winships—the proxy parents, sisters, brothers—the home in that faraway northern county, the whole unfamiliar region that she would be allowed to enter, as by right—how she might affect them, and they, her—
“Certainly no longer than a year,” she repeated firmly. “At the end of such a period I must have succeeded in completing my novel, and I should therefore be able to discover whether I have the necessary talent to pursue a literary career.” (Like all beginning writers, Alvey had not the least conception of the length of time that publishers frequently take to make up their minds about manuscripts). “And you, b
y that time, would have come to a similar conclusion as to your eligibility for a missionary career.”
“Oh, upon that head there can be no doubt whatsoever,” pronounced Miss Winship. “My mind—as I have several times observed—is made up irrevocably on the matter—besides having already taken pains to acquire a great quantity of Hindostanee grammar.”
“Oh, have you indeed done so? Well, to be sure, that was quite a practical step.” Alvey’s tone may have betrayed some slight indication of doubt as to the other’s actual ability to carry out her scheme; Miss Winship, with the acute sensitivity of the true egotist, fired up at once.
“You think that is all just a whim, a childish whim—do you not? A fairytale dream that will fade away when I first encounter the hot sun of Bengal! But you are mistaken—quite mistaken! You do not know so much about human nature as you fancy—sitting so quiet and poker-faced in your corner day after day, watching us all, thinking yourself so superior! Life at home—up there in Birkland Hall—should suit you well. There you can watch and watch to your heart’s content, and make up as many stories as you please. And I hope that life there satisfies you—I can tell you, it would never satisfy me! One more month of it—one more week—and I should throw myself into the Hungry Water!”
She was half crying with indignation; Alvey had never seen the usually composed Louisa so agitated.
“Softly—softly! Don’t fire up so—pray! Why in the world should you think that I feel myself superior? It is quite the other way round, I assure you. I sit silent because I have no confidence in my power to interest others in my conversation. All you English girls learn that from your governesses. I never had a governess.”
“Oh well,” said the other, still trembling and tearful. “Never mind! But you will help me—won’t you? You can’t—you cannot—having come so far—having raised my hopes—you cannot withdraw now! It would be too cruel and wicked—too monstrous and un-Christian!”
Her lip quivered, her eyes pleaded. She looked, suddenly, far younger than her twenty years . . .
Chapter II.
The journey to the north of England lasted four days. It was taken by ship, and the leisurely pace of the passage was further retarded by calls at various ports along the way—Yarmouth, Grimsby, Hull, Whitby—and partly by early autumn gales, which would have made the voyage almost unbearably disagreeable, had it not been for the cheerfulness and good spirits of the Winship sisters.
Meg and Isa had travelled south, under the chaperonage of the departing Miss Waskerley, to meet their sister Louisa and return with her. Meg’s secondary errand was to buy clothes in London for her wedding next month, Isa’s to pay as many visits to museums and art exhibitions as their hostess, Lady Matfen, a cousin of Mrs Winship, was prepared to countenance.
“Which would have been about three,” said Isa with a chuckle, “but luckily my cousin’s maid Brierley is of a more persuadable nature—”
“Bribable, you mean,” said Meg.
“Well—I gave her two lace collars and three little drawings, one of herself, and for that I believe she would have accompanied me to the dungeons of the Bastille. She did not, I must say, care for the Elgin Marbles, but apart from that her taste was far superior to that of Cousin Caroline—”
“Who cares for nothing but fashion—luckily for me. I shall be able to lead the mode in Northumberland for the next three years.” Meg glanced down with satisfaction at the new drab green pelisse, part of her trousseau which ought to have been packed away in her trunk, had not the sharpness of the wind furnished her with an excuse for putting it on.
“But now, attend to me!” said Isa.
The three girls were on the cluttered deck of the coastal freighter Bethia, watching the cliffs of Whitby disappear from view as the ship bounced through the choppy waters of the North Sea. Mrs Girvan, their chaperone, a friend of Lady Matfen’s on her way to Newcastle, was lying down in the cabin being ministered to by her maid with sal volatile and Tintagel Water.
“It is fortunate that Mrs Girvan is such a bad sailor,” Isa went on, “for we have a most important matter to discuss. What can we call Alvey when we get back to Birkland? We really cannot address her as Louisa—I am sure she would not care for that—would you, Alvey?—and I myself would find it an uncomfortable reminder of our deception—”
“It is odd that you do not jib at the deception itself, yet scruple over such a small point as that,” remarked Meg.
Alvey studied the older sister thoughtfully.
Meg was better-looking than either of her sisters: slighter than Louisa, and shorter, with the same dark hair and eyes, but a finer skin, a rounder face, a more feminine air and cast of countenance. She wore her glossy curls in a cluster on her brow, had a short delicate nose, and a coolly conspiratorial smile. Yet there was a touch of Louisa’s resolution and trenchancy about her—which, in general, she managed to conceal, taking some pains over it, Alvey noticed. With such looks, it was not surprising that Meg would be the first of the Winship girls to marry. Poor Isa’s chances of matrimony seemed slender indeed; she had said as much herself, with a rueful air.
“I am the plain one, you see, expected to remain at home and carry out the various tasks that Mamma has no time for. This is why I have been indulged with a London trip and a sum of money to purchase drawing materials—it is to be in lieu of matrimony.”
Yet Isa, thought Alvey crossly, would not be so very plain—if something could be done about her complexion, which certainly was a disaster. And about her bunchy, round-shouldered figure—and if her hair were to be dressed in a different style—But her warm brown eyes had a direct and friendly regard; her voice was low, musical, and imbued with surprising humour and certainty—perhaps because her destiny lay so plain before her?
“It is easy for you to take a lofty moral tone about the deception—since you yourself are so soon to leave Birkland,” she told Meg briskly. “In a month’s time you can dismiss us and our consciences from your mind.”
Alvey reflected that the discomfort and embarrassment of her situation was rendered far less acute by the dispassionate way in which the sisters were prepared to canvass it. They had accepted, without the slightest surprise, Louisa’s disclosure that she planned an immediate departure on an East Indiaman with Mr and Mrs Tothill; had said a long, perhaps permanent goodbye to their sister and accepted Alvey in her place with the calm and temper of admirable breeding. Louisa must for some time, Alvey guessed, have been contriving to prepare them for such a development by hints in her letters.
“I do not receive the impression,” Meg told Isa, “that your conscience troubles you too deeply on this matter.”
“Oh! Well—no!—I weigh it in the balance against the benefit of Louisa set free to convert the heathen—and thus my conscience is made to seem a very trifling consideration. Besides, think what a pain Louisa would have been at home, cross and thwarted! I think we need not tell the younger ones about it at all, do you not agree? Nish and Betsey and little Kate can have no recollection of Louisa; and Parthie, if told, might fall into one of her sanctimonious, tale-bearing fits—”
“Like the time when her sense of duty impelled her to inform Mamma that James had gone to Blaydon Races. Well; we shall have to keep an eye on Parthie. Luckily she is greedy for notice and attention—”
“Having been ignored all her life by Mamma—”
“Like the rest of us; but she seems to have taken it harder. Perhaps because of her legs, poor child. Very likely a little notice paid her, a few opportunities to be in with ‘the big ones’ will win her goodwill—”
Alvey listened with attention to these lights on her substitute family; she was a little startled by the detachment in gentle Isa’s tone, and her expression showed it.
“Don’t be alarmed, Alvey! I promise you that we are very happy to acquire a new sister.” Isa tucked a friendly hand through Alvey’s arm. “Only,
what are we to call you?”
“Louisa’s close friends at school called her Emily—I believe that is her middle name? You could call me Emily, perhaps? It was my mother’s name, it would seem familiar.”
“Why yes, that will do very well. Our mother’s great-aunt was an Emily; I daresay Mamma will be pleased to hear the name brought back into use. Louisa’s name came from my father’s side of the family.”
“Emmy, we shall call you,” said Isa. “Names become abbreviated in our family.”
At that moment Mrs Girvan’s maid clambered up the companion ladder, calling, “Miss Winship, Miss Winship, pray will you come down to missis? She feels low and poorly and wants your company.”
Sighing, Meg followed her below to the stuffy cabin.
“Poor Meg!” said Isa cheerfully. “Because she is so pretty, people believe she is goodnatured as well.”
“Is she not so?” Alvey was surprised. “She has been very amiable to me.”
“Oh yes, because, finding herself the object of such expectations, she is obliged to take pains to fulfil them. But it does not come by nature.”
While Alvey digested this, Isa, still holding her arm, gave it a little shake.
“Don’t look so dejected! Louisa, in her selfish way, has thrust you into a most equivocal situation. You wonder, I daresay, why she did not just abscond with the Tothills. But then there would have been lawsuits—scandal—she would have been haled back with ignominy. That would not suit her book at all. But I assure you, we shall manage it all very well between us. And indeed I am delighted that you are coming to Birkland. Think how agreeable for me to have a new companion—Lou and I never agreed. But I think that you and I will become excellent friends, I feel it in my bones. You like to laugh at things, I fancy, do you not?”
How did you guess that? wondered Alvey.
“I had a sister Maria, who was closest to me in age, with whom I used to share a great many jokes, but she died of a typhus fever two years ago—there was an epidemic at the Hexham school.” Isa spoke composedly, but it was plain that her composure came from resolution, not any lack of feeling. “Meg is always too busy for jokes—she takes after Mamma; and Louisa—well, you have seen Louisa for yourself.”