‘It might work, you know,’ said Meg, torn between incredulity and amusement. ‘I think he’s rather lonely, and certainly nobody could be kinder and more generous. He’d make a lovely husband for a woman capable of appreciating all his many good qualities. I hope Primrose will choose quite the best of her sisters for him, and perhaps we can throw them together in a natural sort of a way, and see what comes of it. It may quite easily not answer, of course, if they should happen to dislike each other.’
‘Nonsense, why should they? A great number of extremely pink children will come of it, if I am any judge,’ said Lady Nightingale ruthlessly. ‘But I think it’s an excellent idea: well done, everyone. We should certainly dispose of the dear boy sensibly ourselves, if we can, rather than allowing him to blunder about choosing for himself and bringing goodness knows who into the family. How much more smoothly the world would run, to be sure, if women of good will had the organising of it instead of men.’
Meg sometimes found her mother a trifle alarming, and was suddenly and strongly reminded of Maria, when she had blithely informed her that it was a perfectly simple matter for Meg to assume her identity and marry Sir Dominic. Perhaps Maria would grow to be as formidable as Lady Nightingale over time. Perhaps she herself would, come to that. The thought made her smile. She thought that Dominic would be perfectly able to cope with it, and she had already decided that Primrose was equal to anything.
It was agreed among them that Lady Nightingale would not remain in Grosvenor Square, where she could not be comfortable, but would accompany Maria back to the Duke’s house, once she had delivered her precious manuscript to her publisher in Leadenhall Street, putting it directly in Mr Newman’s own hands. Another guest would make no matter in the Fernsby household, she was assured, and everyone was aware that mother and daughter had five long years to catch up on. Meg suppressed a desire to go with them; they must be allowed some time together without her presence, she thought, in order to mend their own relationship quite apart from her. And besides, it seemed most unlikely that Sir Dominic would finish his business with Francis and the legal gentleman and leave the house without seeking her out.
‘I am conscious,’ she mused, ‘of a slight sense of anticlimax. Was my father always to be so easily defeated? He put up no fight at all, but gave in more or less instantly, greatly to my surprise. And yet, though I have spoken boldly of not being afraid of him in the past, in truth I have always been a little in awe of his sheer unreasonableness, and scared what he might do if I defied him over anything serious.’
‘I too, I think,’ agreed Maria readily. ‘I’ve always found it so much easier to evade him than confront him: to smile and agree, while doing more or less exactly what I wanted behind his back. That can only take one so far, as I recently discovered. But it’s this matter of my marriage that brought everything to a head. If he hadn’t decided to try to conceal his fraud by arranging a match for me with a man he thought he could control, it might have been years before I’d have plucked up the courage to try to escape from him. Perhaps I might never have done so. My aunt never has.’
‘Oh, I think you would,’ Lady Nightingale assured her, smiling. ‘You are after all my daughter, and besides you had a strong enough incentive, I should hope.’
‘It was all caused by his fatal flaw, just like a tragic play. Francis would tell us that there’s some dashed Greek word for it,’ Meg said mischievously.
‘Hamartia, dear,’ her mother replied. ‘You should know that, if he does not. And it’s quite true – Augustus brought it all on himself, if can only be made to see as much. But I doubt it – it’s far too late for him to change, in my opinion. What use is it to read the great writers all one’s life, if one does not learn wisdom from them? But what caused him to crumble so completely, I believe, was the sight of us all united against him. Where could he turn? He’s just a foolish blustering bully, when all is said and done, and I wish I had realised as much many years ago, and stood up to him then, and not allowed my children to be so cruelly separated. I remember that dreadful day when we left, and how you both cried so pitifully… But it does no good to speak of such painful matters, I am aware.’
‘It’s all water under the bridge now, Mama. It seems that Meg and I find ourselves exactly where we need to be now, with exactly the right people, and that’s what matters. We may have been separated physically, but you have helped to make sure that we have stayed as close as we could be. And now nothing can keep us apart. Just let anyone try!’
Meg echoed her sister, and now it was her turn to weep joyful tears. ‘Just let anyone try!’
39
When her mother and her sister left, after many more tears and fond embraces, Meg went to see her aunt, after informing the butler that she required speech with Sir Dominic before he too departed.
Mrs Greystone was alone in her dreary sitting room, wringing her hands and looking extremely anxious. ‘I almost thought that I heard your mother’s voice in the hall a while ago, but naturally I told myself that I must be imagining it, Meg dear,’ she said faintly. ‘I am so overset I scarcely know what I am seeing and hearing. And did we not have a great many visitors earlier? But we never have visitors, certainly not groups of visitors with ladies among their number, so I have no idea who it could have been. I fear your father will be very much displeased, if anyone came unexpectedly to disturb him, and you know that he will make us suffer for it, quite as though everything was our fault when of course it is not; how could it be? Well, I dare say you don’t know, though Maria would, but you will find out soon enough how very uncomfortable he is able to make the whole house, if only he should be in a bad temper. Oh, I do hope he is not! It quite puts me in a state of nervous collapse. I shall have a spasm!’
‘There is no need for you to fear his temper any more, Aunt,’ Meg said soothingly. ‘He has no more power to make you uncomfortable, nor anyone else for that matter.’
‘He isn’t… he isn’t dead, is he, dear? Because if he is, I really do think you should have told me straight away, however disagreeable it might be. There’s dinner to be thought of, you know.’
It was quite striking, how unconcerned Mrs Greystone seemed to be by the prospect of her older brother’s demise. A cynic might even have imagined that she welcomed the possibility. ‘No, he’s not dead, ma’am, but he is shorn of all his power. I promise you he is. Francis has done it – Francis was one of the visitors you heard earlier, and you’re quite right, my mother was here too, and asked me to tell you how sorry she was not to see you. But she’ll be back tomorrow, and very much looks forward to spending time with you then and having a comfortable coze.’
‘Hermione, under this roof, after so many years? I do not understand how it can be so!’ said Mrs Greystone, trembling. ‘Tell me everything, instantly, before I go off into strong hysterics!’
Meg sat down and explained almost everything that had happened – Lord Nightingale’s fraud and theft and forgery included – and ended with Francis’s plans for Mrs Greystone’s support, and Lady Nightingale’s offer of a home under her roof for as long as she should wish it. Her aunt stared at her in growing astonishment, and when she had done said slowly, ‘Is it really true? Oh, not that my brother has done these dreadful things – I don’t have any trouble at all believing that, I am sure he is capable of anything! But that I need no longer live with him, and can go into the country with your dear mother?’
‘Quite true,’ Meg assured her. ‘Should you like to do so? Mama hoped you might, but she was not quite sure. She will be glad of your company, you know, for as long as you would be so good as to give it to her, since I believe I shall be leaving her to be married quite soon.’
‘To Sir Dominic, dear child?’
Meg blushed. ‘Yes. Maria… My sister could not like the idea, but I confess that I do.’
‘I don’t understand it at all, but I suppose it doesn’t signify as long as you are happy. It’s like a dream,’ her aunt said wonderingly. ‘A good dream, not one of those cheese ones. Is your mother’s house quite small?’
‘I’m afraid it is. It is a fine little Queen Anne house, built in Bath stone, just on the edge of a village, with an orchard full of old fruit trees. It’s where she grew up, and it has just two bedrooms for guests. You will take mine, though, I hope – it looks out over the gardens at the back of the house, and then down the hill to a stream. It’s very different from here,’ she said a little dubiously. The house in Grosvenor Square might be neglected, but it was undeniably grand, and so very large.
‘You don’t understand, Margaret,’ Mrs Greystone said fiercely and unexpectedly. ‘I hate this house!’ This extraordinary statement was almost hissed, so vehemently did she utter it. ‘I hate this house, I hate London, and I hate having to manage everything for my brother when he is – and has always been, ever since he was an unpleasant little snuffling boy who bullied me and cut the head off my favourite doll – so excessively unreasonable about absolutely everything! To live in quite a small house, without great numbers of servants to instruct, and in a place in the country that is clean and free of this nasty London climate with its smoke and fogs in winter and stifling heat in summer – I can’t imagine anything better. When shall we be able to leave, do you think, dear girl?’
‘I am sure that matters may be arranged in a few days or so. If the household is to be broken up, there are the servants to be thought of,’ Meg said, rather taken aback. ‘They cannot simply be turned off, naturally; careful provision must be made for them. I wonder if Hannah will wish to go with Maria, or with my mother, or with me? Or alternate between us, perhaps.’
‘I dare say you will be astonished how many of them will have their own plans,’ Mrs Greystone said, surprising Meg once again. ‘Many of them are quite advanced in years, and if a decent pension can be found for them – which I should hope it may be, for anyone who has put up with your father for any length of time deserves to be amply compensated for it – I should not wonder if most of them will wish to retire and never more be sworn at, nor have another boot or cup thrown at their heads again. And those who do not wish to stop working, or who are not yet old enough, must be helped to find good new situations, of course.’
This new energy and decisiveness in her aunt made Meg’s head spin, and she could only agree. She left the older lady to her dreams of a life in the country, far from Lord Nightingale’s unreasonable demands, and began to climb the stairs to her bedchamber, wondering how much longer the legal negotiations could possibly take.
She’d almost reached the upper landing when a door opened below, and masculine voices were heard in leave-taking. She stopped, hoping that nobody would think to look up and see her, and heard the door open and close again as some at least of the visitors took their leave. ‘Meg?’ said an amused, beloved voice from below. ‘Did you tire of waiting for me at last? I am sure I cannot wonder at it – we have been an unconscionable long time, and I am so sorry!’
40
