|
Chapter 22
CHARLOTTE had every intention of spending her day -- and perhaps several succeeding days -- with Mrs. Parker in her new greenhouse. Though lacking her husband`s general enthusiasm, Mrs. Parker had developed a quiet fanaticism of her own in becoming a dedicated gardener. She grew all her own flowering plants from seed, experimented with new varieties, and was rarely content to hand anything over to the gardener till it became too large for her to house or for him to damage by ill-treatment. She was always busy transplanting small seedlings from crowded boxes into a succession of ever larger pots, where she watered them, tended them and coaxed them into the flourishing bushes she was prepared to abandon. Happy enough in her greenhouse to pass all her mornings in solitary cultivation, Mrs. Parker welcomed any genuine offers of useful assistance; but her mild countenance assumed its nearest approach to a frown whenever she was interrupted in her own labours. Charlotte observed this frown and a gentle sigh, both being suppressed, as Lady Denham pushed open the greenhouse door that morning. "Lord bless me, here you are at it again! Morgan told me I should find you here. No, no, leave your gardening gloves on, Mrs. Parker. I am not one to stand on ceremony with my neighbours. I will not have you regarding this as a morning call -- just taking you in on my usual walk and come to pass the time of day; no need at all for me to sit down, I assure you. Miss Clara is off to change her books again, and I did not choose to walk so far. Well, it is a pity you have no room for a little bench or two in here! Oh, my dear Mrs. Parker, I can just as easily stand. Do not, I beg of you, come back to the house on my account.` But Mrs. Parker had already laid down her tools, taken off her gloves and nodding pleasantly to Charlotte to follow, was leading the way out of the greenhouse. `Your young visitor is not such a gadabout, I see,` said her ladyship approvingly as they walked towards the house. `Her head seems in no danger of being turned to giddy nonsense like others I could name. With all these young people making merry in Sanditon nowadays, Miss Clara is become so fidgetty and restless -- never settling down properly at home as she ought. And where she finds time to read all these books she borrows from the library is beyond me! I declare one and twenty is a most trying age for young ladies -- their minds full of nothing but clothes and social pleasures. The Miss Beauforts, I can see, are cut from exactly the same piece of cloth.` Mrs. Parker made one of her amiable remarks on the happiness and high spirits of young people in general which did nothing to distract Lady Denham from her own particular grievance. "Oh aye, that`s all very true, I dare say. But I tell you what Mrs. Parker, some young people consult nobody`s pleasure but their own. However, I am not a woman who minds owning to making mistakes. I should have seen from the first that one of my older nieces would prove more of a steady companion to me. But it`s clear enough now Miss Clara is too young and flighty to settle down with me forever. Still no harms` done that can`t be mended. My original invitation to her was for six months only, you know; and you may be sure I mentioned the probability of one of the other girls coming to take her place after that. Yes, yes, it is high time I made the exchange.` "Indeed!` said Mrs. Parker with some surprise. "You are contemplating an actual exchange among your nieces? This is surely most unexpected. I had no notion Miss Brereton would be leaving you.` "Oh, that is still quite between ourselves. I have told her I will invite her cousin, Miss Elizabeth, for a few weeks. And then, you know, I am still free to make up my mind between them,` with a self-satisfied smile at her own sagacity. `You may be sure, Mrs. Parker, I am not one to be pushed into anything against my will; and those persons who fancy they can pull the wool over my eyes will soon find they are mistaken! I can`t be expected to be feeding and housing two nieces where one is enough for my own convenience. So if Miss Elizabeth makes herself useful and takes over all Miss Clara`s little duties -- well, then we shall see.` This sudden eagerness of Lady Denham`s to exchange one niece for the other made Charlotte wonder if some inkling of Sir Edward`s partiality for Miss Brereton had at last penetrated that suspicious but oddly insensible mind. Her keenest attention was aroused but she knew no useful purpose would be served by taking part in the conversation herself. She would have to rely on Mrs. Parker to extract all the particulars from her guest. But as Lady Denham had settled herself into a comfortable armchair for a lengthy visit, a full airing of both her suspicions and her selfish schemes seemed likely to follow without much encouragement. "I had always understood Miss Brereton had now made her home with you,` Mrs. Parker observed after a little hesitation. "Will she not perhaps be somewhat upset at being thus turned back on her relatives?`` "Oh, as to that, I cannot say. She may even be glad to make the change. She has hinted often enough Miss Elizabeth would suit me much better than herself. But I can`t be worying myself over Miss Clara`s views on the matter. I am on the lookout for a fixed -- a permanent -- companion for myself; and who`s to say Miss Clara may not even decide on marrying one of these days? And what shall I do then, I ask you, if I have made no other arrangements? I can`t be left at a moment`s notice to run all these errands and do all the tasks I have been busy teaching Miss Clara to perform." Why the possibility of Clara`s eventual marriage should never have occurretl to Lady Denham before puzzled Charlotte as much as this tardy recognition of the problem now. "Naturally, Miss Brereton is bound to marry some day," Mrs. Parker said very sensibly. "Good-natured and gentle as well as beautiful -- who can doubt she will not be sought after as a wife?-` "I was certain you would think so," replied Lady Denham, with one of her shrewdest glances. "It was that brother-in-law of yours who first put me in mind of it. To be sure, Sir Edward plays at gallantry with Miss Clara too; but I know he can mean nothing by it. He must marry for money! But when a young man who can afford to marry where he chooses starts smirking in her direction -- " ` You refer, I collect, to my brother-in-law, Sidney," said Mrs. Parker, who did not like this type of gossip. "I do not think you should refine too much on his behaviour. His manners, I am afraid, are sometimes over-insinuating but he seldom means anything by them. Can I offer you some refreshment, Lady Denham?" And she rang the bell as though putting an end to this subject. "Well there may be nothing in it, as you say; but it put me in mind of the danger all the same," continued Lady Denham, impervious to hints of such subtlety. "And I have no scruple in owning I have taken a great fancy to Mr. Sidney -- his manners do him no harm in my eyes. On no, his manners are very civil indeed, most obliging and respectful; he even insisted on stepping in to pay a farewell call on me last night when he drove Miss Clara home. Upon my word, he always says and does everything that is proper. On my merely happening to mention my latest plan of writing to invite Miss Elizabeth to Sanditon, he most kindly offered to collect the letter on his way to London this morning. So many days saved in the usual correspondence by post! She will now receive my letter by this evening -- may even be able to arrange her journey within a week or two. For as Mr. Sidney pointed out, he himself will be back in Sanditon before then and can bring me her reply." Charlotte was interested to learn Sidney was still involved in this scheme of bringing Miss Elizabeth Brereton to Sanditon; and his connection with the affair intrigued her considerably. To what extent his determined sponsoring of Miss Elizabeth had weighed with Lady Denham she could only surmise; and she wondered whether this new amendment of allowing her to supplant Miss Clara entirely would take him by surprise. But she had observed enough of Sidney`s methods by now to recognise his contriving hand in the whole arrangement of the visit. Lady Denham, however, seemed unaware that Sidney had directed her in any way at all; her own views on his skill at management had taken quite a different turn, as became obvious a few moments later when she observed gleefully, "Oh yes, Mr. Sidney has already been very useful to me. And I intend to turn his talents to even better account when he comes back to Sanditon! I honestly think I can rely on him to help me in carrying out any scheme I have in mind. That quickness he has of understanding any ticklish little situation has quite delighted me," dropping her voice and rushing on with an even greater burst of confidence. "For you know, between ourselves, the main reason I agreed to the use of my coach and horses yesterday on that excursion to Brinshore was to throw Sir Edward and Miss Lambe together for the whole day. He cannot afford to let such an heiress slip through his fingers; and so l told him! Oh, he knows well enough he must marry for money, but he has too high an opinion of himself and thinks he can take his time about it. He won`t make a push and fix Miss Lambe in a hurry unless I help him into it! So I just gave Mr. Sidney the merest hint of my plans -- told him I wanted Sir Edward to take charge of my coach and suggested Miss Lambe as one of his passengers. And now I hear from Miss Clara how discreetly it was all arranged -- not the slightest suspicion seems to have crossed her mind that Sir Edward and Miss Lambe sat together by my arrangement or that Mr. Sidney Parker was contriving it all to please me." This additional complication in Sidney`s seating arrangements for the drive to Brinshore surprised Charlotte as well; and on consideration, she was bound to admit it had been carried out with such subtlety as to have aroused no curiosity at all. She was not, however, inclined to think Lady Denham`s schemes were likely to have prospered by it. Neither at Brinshore nor anywhere else had Miss Lambe or Sir Edward ever appeared to show the slightest interest in each other. "And I have another scheme in mind which is just as good," announced Lady Denham in a tone of great exultation. "But I won t go dropping such broad hints about that to Mr. Sidney. He is exactly the right age for settling down himself. And I have decided he would do equally well for either Miss Clara or Miss Esther. Both of them lack any fortune of their own so they need to find a husband in comfortable circumstances. But" -- very generously -- "I will leave him to make his own choice between them. Young men in positions of easy independence like his do not like to be guided to quite such an ettent." The trend of this conversation was now making Mrs. Parker extremely impatient. She was used to humouring Lady Denham and very much in the habit of allowing her to ramble on about all her own petty concerns. But her forbearance towards near neighbours stopped short of encouraging them in idle speculations about each other. After pointedly changing the subject several times, she was distinctly relieved when their visitor finally arose to depart. "What a tiresome way of spending our morning!" she said to Charlotte as they walked back to the greenhouse. "Well, thank heaven she is gone and we can settle down to be comfortable again. For, between ourselves," with a gentle smile as she parodied Lady Denham. "I much prefer to talk about flowers than about people. In perfect accord with one another, they pulled on their gardening gloves and aprons and resumed their stations at opposite ends of the long shelf, each busy with her own array of pots and her own arrangement of thoughts. Charlotte`s were almost entirely given over to reflecting on what she had just heard. She regarded Lady Denham`s plans for a marriage between Sidney and Miss Denham as ridiculous as her expectations for Sir Edward and Miss Lambe. But her discernment of some attachment between Sidney and Clara Brereton required more serious consideration. There was certainly admiration on one side and a great wish to please on the other, but Charlotte herself had distinguished little beyond this. The rest appeared to her merely the suggestion of Lady Denham`s interested wishes. And she was less inclined to believe in these from the very fact of their influence operating in a contrary direction when Lady Denham dismissed Sir Edward`s much greater partiality for Miss Brereton in so arbitrary a manner. "I know he can mean nothing by it. He must marry for money!" Such wilful blindness in one direction did not encourage credibility in another. Charlotte decided she was having rather less success in discounting her own interested wishes. Though rendered suspicious from the first by Sidney`s warm commendation of Clara, she had not of late been observing them so intently whenever they were together. Her early surmises had all been on the side of Sidney`s developing a decided preference for Clara; but recently she had been content to accept his own explanation for the interest he had always shown in Clara, and to believe his own assertion that he was merely enlisting her sympathetic cooperation to console his friend. She tried now, most resolutely, to remember what she had actually seen and to separate it from both his statements and her conjectures. There was that first walk through the woods to old Sanditon and the mutual understanding Sidney and Clara had very quickly established; his frequent calls during the following week at Sanditon House; Clara`s readiness to oblige him in taking Pains over Henry Brudenall; and the recurrent meetings and conversations both in Sanditon and Brinshore. But none of these offered conclusive proof for supposing any sincere and serious regard on one side or the other; and all had been openly conducted in full view of the entire Sanditon community. Against this, and from her own private knowledge, Charlotte could produce one definite clue, which seemed to disprove the existence of any such attachment: Clara Brereton`s confession to her of a possible elopement. So desperate a plan indicated little hope of Lady Denham approving her intended match -- and she clearly had not the slightest objection to an engagement between Sidney and Clara. Had Charlotte known nothing of Clara`s plans for an elopement, she might have been inclined to agree with Lady Denham and the Miss Parkers. Even as it was, she was certain some connection -- some secret understanding -- between Sidney and Clara did exist. That they were somehow both concerned in persuading Lady Denham to invite Clara`s cousin Elizabeth to Sanditon she could not doubt. Had Sidney perhaps promised Clara his cooperation in that direction in return for her services in respect to Henry Brudenall? It was a subject on which reflection would be long indulged and must always be unavailing. And Charlotte determined she would think of something else as she set about her tasks under Mrs. Parker`s directions. She enjoyed the monotony of this work and the soothing, desultory conversation which accompanied it. "This new strain of dahlia, I am told, comes from Chile -- or was it Peru? Next year, I will be able to start them off earlier from root cuttings." "Yes, of course." "I am so pleased with my fuchsias. How healthy they are looking already. Such a profusion of buds. Be careful of the leaves as you lift them." "Yes, of course." But Charlotte had scarcely got beyond deciding there must be something in the very air of Sanditon which -- sooner or later -- caused everyone`s behaviour to be dominated by some wild, leading passion, and everyone else to ignore it in preoccupation with their own concerns -- and had scarcely firmed the earth in two of the new pots -- when Arthur`s chubby features appeared round the door of the greenhouse. "Ah, you are only gardening, I see, Mary, so you will not mind my interrupting you," he said, unwittingly offering Charlotte further confirmation of her new theory. "I have come to ask Miss Heywood if she will join myself and the Miss Beauforts on a seaweed-collecting expedition." "Seaweed collecting? I have never seen any seaweed on our Sanditon shore." "Not enough to wash up on the beaches," agreed Arthur, "but Miss Beaufort thinks there may be some over by the rocks if we search for it." "But what does one do with io You search, you collect, and then whao" This latest of seaside crazes bewildered Mrs. Parker. "Can you transplant io Would it grow anywhere else but the sea?" "The Miss Beauforts intend to frame it. And Sir Edward Denham has promised to write some verses for the seaweed pictures they are going to make. But I should like to identify it first," explained Arthur. "Everything is decided and we are all waiting to set out. But you see, I am supposed to wade out if it is under water, so of course I must take an extra pair of shoes -- and some towels and dry socks. Miss Beaufort and Miss Letitia are very obliging over all this; but I did think as Miss Heywood -- well, as she is staying with you -- and we are already friends -- " Charlotte saw his anxiety. He wanted protection from the enthusiasm of the Miss Beauforts. Left to their direction alone, he might easily be persuaded into catching an unnecessary cold. But with her to watch over his interests, with her as a guarantee the expedition did not involve him in futile exertion or foolhardy enterprise, he would feel more comfortable. "And I am sure Miss Heywood will be very glad to accompany you," said Mrs. Parker understandingly. "You are quite right, Arthur. A very sensible notion of yours. Miss Beaufort and Miss Letitia, from what I have observed, are very good-humoured, charming girls -- but not perhaps very practical. Miss Heywood is exactly the addition you need to your party. And my plants are always here. She can help me with them another day." So, rather unwillingly, Charlotte took off her gardening apron for the second time that morning and allowed Arthur to escort her down the hill to the Terrace.
|
