Adele Varens 16

 

 

Chapter 16

 

“We were a trifle shocked at first, when Tony told us,” said Marianne – my new Mama – when we were alone together. “But as Tony pointed out, you were in danger, and yet managed to avoid falling into the trap young girls on their own so often find.  I tried to imagine myself in your shoes, and I could not think of a better way to do things. But we will not tell George – my older son – as he is very conventional.”

“I am astounded, but truly gratified that you can accept me,” I said.

“You make Tony happy; and you have stopped him from becoming pompous,” said Marianne. “I love my boy dearly, but I despaired for a while of him managing to avoid becoming an alderman before he was twenty.”

“We were known as the three swots,” I said. “But we did not hold back on pranks if people went out of their way to annoy us.”

 

Marianne was a marvel.

She managed not to encroach on Miss Thwaite’s position as my chaperone and lady of the household, whilst simultaneously quietly running her. They became ‘Prudence’ and ‘Marianne’ to each other, and set about organising a harvest ball with an aplomb which left me breathless.

I watched, and learned, however, to Marianne’s approval; one day I would be doing this for Tony, in whichever position he ended up. Tony was enjoying being a country gentleman, and I introduced them to my bailiff, Buckeridge, who was a bluff northerner who fortunately took to Geoffrey, who told him that his son would need a good man to help him take a proper interest in his wife’s holdings.

Buckeridge informed him that his lady was no fool, and knew to ask questions, and check what he was about, and loftily condescended to help the lady’s husband-to-be to be of some use.

Geoffrey played him like a fine violin.

 

 

I was gratified that all the neighbours turned up for the Harvest Ball, even those I did not really want. The Eshtons came early, assuring me that they had made sure everyone knew about his bad behaviour.

“He does not live in the same world as the rest of us,” I said. “He lives in his chateau de carte, his castle of cards, where all things are perfect for him, and everything is right and according to his beliefs. I wonder what he tells himself about his wife leaving him.”

“Doubtless that she was flawed and that he is well shot of her,” said Mrs. Eshton, dryly. “Poor Mrs. Rochester, and with small children, too. Do you know where she has gone?”

“I believe she is staying with her cousins, Diana and Mary Rivers, who also reside in Yorkshire,” I said. “I was considering asking if she would like to make a home with me, so that I may get to know my little half-siblings better.”

“She would be a fool not to jump at it,” said Mrs. Eshton. “Though if her cousins are convivial, there is an argument for choosing the company she knows over the young woman she no longer knows. I could not bear to think of being estranged from Victoria or Amelia for so long, yet she has made no push to find you.”

“We cannot know that,” I said. “I did cover my tracks well; she was harbouring the belief that I was at school, for I left for London on my way to school, and my head preceptress of the time labouring under the impression I had been withdrawn.”

“Oh, I see; that would make it harder for you to be traced. Were you then so very miserable?”

“I was afraid of him,” I said. “Not just his temper, but… I could tell his sight was returning, and he would be gazing at me. I… I did not like it.”

“Oh, my dear!” said Lady Eshton. “I have often thought there was something not quite wholesome about him. After all, what man keeps a madwoman in the attic? There are private houses with specially trained nurses, after all.”

“He has always been a man who seeks to control,” I said. “To oversee all that is his, acknowledged or not, a man who likes to watch those he owns. I think Miss Eyre as was mistook the intensity for love. I do not think he understands love, me, who have the French instinct for l’amour, yet I know that the English do know love, but they do not speak of it, for it is considered vulgar to show too much feeling. And him, he makes love to Jane in the same way they say the notorious Romeo Coates died. It is intense, it is full of protestations, it is… false. Me, who watched them with the curiosity of a child could see this. But the child also wanted a mother and a father, and hoped. Pauvre petite Adele! I did not speak of my feelings to her, I was a little fool.”

“I doubt she would have taken any notice, my dear,” said Mrs. Eshton, kindly. “A young woman in love, and in such a precarious position does not look for flaws in her lover. Poor Mrs. Rochester! Still, at least he married her, and did not leave her with an illegitimate child.”

“More possession. ‘My heir; my son’ he always said. Not Ned.”

Mrs. Eshton tutted.

“Alas, it has been a sad business,” she said. “But we all support you in your brave lawsuit. I should be quite terrified.”

“He has also laid doubt upon my schoolfellows, and my head preceptress,” I said. “What can be endured in a personal attack cannot be endured for those one loves. But that also impacts on my intended, who hopes for a career in parliament. His parents, if I may make you know, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Rawlins.” I drew her over to Geoffrey and Marianne.

She was disappointed that I had an intended; but her George would soon get over it, having met me just the once.

“Is your brother going to attend?” she asked.

Geoffrey answered for me.

“No, Ned’s working for me, and he is seeing if Rochester scattered any other children about the place,” he said. “Adele has a portrait of him in the salon.”

On Marianne’s suggestion, I had let her paint me in my academic robes, and legal wig. It made a difference to wear the wig, I have to say, and though the likeness was apparent, ‘Ned’ was every inch an earnest young man.

“I think all the young ladies were hoping he would visit,” said Mrs. Eshton. “But of course, searching for any other siblings is an important work.”

The whole neighbourhood came; Sir George and Lady Lynn, and their son, Mr. Henry Lynn, a depressed-looking man with his tall and elegant black-haired wife. The erstwhile Blanche Ingram plainly wore the trousers in the relationship.  Her brother, Lord Theodore Ingram, was there as well, married, as I understand it, to the older Eshton girl, who was running to plump, but still with a sweet blonde prettiness, and was plainly the sun and moon of her husband’s existence. Ah, I thought, that is a true love story.

Mr. Frederick Lynn was still unmarried, and he and George Eshton, as well as Luke Bissett, were possible prey for my friends. Colonel Dent and his lady were nice people, and Geoffrey and Marianne gravitated towards them. Sir George, too, very much the country gentleman, was happy to discuss politics and current affairs. I threw in a fox amongst the pigeons, by adding, as they discussed the railways, “Me, I have sold that untidy piece of land they call a ‘covert’ to the railway company, so that they might run a branch line through. It will be more convenient, and make use of useless land spoiled by too much undergrowth and noisy birds.”

“Why, Miss Varens! You cannot think that a good idea!” cried Lord Ingram, who had been ignoring the other men somewhat. “Why, think! You may wish to marry, and then, where will your husband shoot?”

“Why would he want to shoot?” I said. “I employ bailiffs to shoot trespassers.”

“Well, to shoot the birds!” said Ingram, shocked.

“I expect they will move on once the trees are grubbed out,” I said. “I don’t suppose we shall have to shoot them.”

Reader, I had given instructions that the covert was for the use of the villagers, but a corner of it would be going when the railway came, because we must be friends of progress, and better to negotiate with the railway company than have them produce a compulsory purchase order on an inconvenient part of the property. However, it was fun to watch the outrage on the faces of the assembled men who consider it manly to murder harmless birds, not because they need the meat to feed their families, but for so-called ‘sport.’

“But dash it all!” persisted Ingram. “A railway line will stop the hunt coming through as easily.”

“Oh, I will put up fences to prevent the hunt,” I said. “Me, I mean to marry and have children, and I will not have a pack of ill-disciplined fools on horses riding across my lands without due care and attention, wasting time running down vermin which can be shot if it is a nuisance. I do not plan to permit the hunt on my lands at all.”

The uproar!

“But, it is traditional!” cried Sir George.

“Not for me,” I said. “I remember once when I was a child, and I was by a hedge, watching a fox, and then, a load of horsemen and women came over the hedge, and it was by the greatest miracle, for which I thank Le Bon Dieu that none of those terrible hoofs struck me. I was terrified, and I will not have such yahoos, lost to all shame as they are in their whooping and screeching, like the women at Billingsgate, but armed with vicious horses, and uncaring of all about them.  I do trust that none of you give up your gentlemanly manners to be members of such a mob? Why, I cannot think the sans-culottes of the revolution could be more unmannerly.”

Reader, I left them silenced and with their mouths at half-mast, sincerely mourning the manhood I stripped from their antics so ruthlessly.

I had waited years for revenge for my fright, for I had wet myself and been in trouble for it.

And if the reader curls a lip in scorn, you try being under the belly of a jumping horse, and then consider what it is like to have a dozen and more go over you.

“I concur, my dove,” said Tony. “I am to marry Miss Varens, and the hunt is banned from our lands. An Englishman’s home is his castle, and so is that of an Englishwoman, even when she is part French, and trespassers are not welcome, especially those who have no decorum.”

I believe the hunt had been happily trespassing all over the grounds of Thornfield since the house burned down, as well as some incursions before; and it was going to stop. Let them have their own lands churned up and their own children terrified.

“Perhaps we can negotiate,” said Ingram.

“I don’t see that there is anything to negotiate,” said Tony. “My betrothed wife is afraid of horses charging about. I won’t have the love of my life frightened. How would you feel if I was to do something to terrorise your own lovely bride?”

“I don’t like horses very much either, especially so many all in a mass together,” spoke up Amy Ingram. “I have been afraid you will call me silly, Tedo, but if Miss Varens is not afraid to admit to being afraid, why, I would rather the hunt did not cross our own closer lands. And the tenant farmers complain of damage to their crops.”

“Aye, and that’s in my mind as well,” said Tony. “I’m not much of a farmer, so I listen to the farmer who runs the home farm. You’re all land owners; what would you do to some peasant who tore up crops, killed pigs, and broke walls and hedges? Yet when it’s the hunt that does that, suddenly this is acceptable? What about damages, and loss of earnings? If you damage our crops, shall I come onto your lands, and take away equal measure to make good my losses? Who should pay for the farmhand crippled by a horse landing on him, something which so nearly happened to Adele as a child?”

“Well, he is only one of the commons…” said Ingram, with an uncomfortable laugh.

“Yes, but Adele is not getting a full day’s work from him, because someone else damaged him,” said Tony, using the oratorial skill we had learned studying law. “If someone damaged your carriage, you would be wrath, and justly so. And if someone damaged your coachman? It is not reasonable to replace a man as one might replace a carriage wheel.  As for negotiations, perhaps the use of the watermeadow, and the remains of the covert may be used to cross our lands, but certainly not the ride, or the farm, or the gardens. It is not reasonable to make children stay within on a fine day, for fear of their impending doom at the end of the plunging hoofs of those who make a mockery of the law of trespass and property by insisting on riding roughshod over the lands of others for their own sport. Shall I tear up your garden to build a tennis-court to play there, sir?”

“He is right,” said Amy. “Why should our children and I have to stay indoors because other people want to act like yahoos, and spoil our gardens? What would you do, Tedo, if little Teddy sneaked out of the nursery, as he will do, and ends up being trampled?”

Ingram looked stricken.

“We… we must decide as land-owners where to permit the hunt,” he said.

“The hunt has always had the freedom to go where it wills,” said Blanche.

“Not so,” I said. “The first pack of hounds to hunt the fox was in the mid seventeenth century, and it became popular when the enclosure acts made it harder to hunt deer. Going over the lands of others was a gentleman’s agreement, to make more of a chase. But if there are gentlemen who do not agree, there is pressure brought.  There should be more agreement about where the hunt is permitted, and where it is not.”

“We must get together with maps,” said Lord Ingram, who had plainly had a revelation about his own hopeful offspring being killed.

On this note of agreement, the door burst open, and Edward Fairfax Rochester, in impeccable if old-fashioned evening clothes appeared at the door.

“The little whore forgot to invite me to my own house,” he said.