Free An Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan Page A

need
above all is a kindly summer and a good harvest. The hay and clover promise
poorly, but one must hope.’
    ‘How is Mr Durrant? I
have some news for him from London — well, not news precisely. Probably a
confirmation of what he already knows. I saw Hugh Hanley: very agreeable, very
dandified, and very pleased with himself, and seemingly bent on every
extravagance that may bring his uncle to grey hairs. A commission in the Prince
of Wales’s Own is the latest.’
    ‘Ah! Poor Mr Durrant had
more than a hint of it, in his latest letter from the young man. He told me
about it when he dined here last week.’ (Well, anyhow, Lydia thought, dining
alone most of the time.) ‘I fancy his nephew’s conduct has become
something more than an irritation to Mr Durrant now: it seems to be preying on
his mind most vexingly. He has been here often of late, and seeming to wish to
talk.’ (Very well, alone some of the time.) ‘And loquacity, as you know,
is not his habit.’
    ‘I am sorry for Mr
Durrant — and would be more sorry, if I did not suspect he enjoys being
miserable. But if the thought of Mr Hanley as his heir is so very detestable,
there must surely be some remedy — some legal recourse.’
    ‘I fear not. Culverton
is entailed; and though there is some part of Mr Durrant’s property that is
alienable, I know he is loath to break up what he has worked so hard to
consolidate.’
    ‘Then there is only one
answer. He must shut up the house, take up residence in London, and become a
great swell: apply himself to running up vast tailors’ bills, fribbling away a
nightly fortune at the gaming-tables, and driving a high-perch curricle through
Hyde Park. With a good hand at the ribbons. You see, I am up in all the new
slang. Now that, I think, would put Hugh Hanley’s nose thoroughly out of
joint.’
    ‘I’m sure it would,’ her
father smiled, ‘and I might suggest it to Mr Durrant, if I thought he could
endure such a life for a moment. But I believe he has something in mind
to, as he put it, “make the little coxcomb sit up”.’ He laughed at Lydia’s
expectant look. ‘My dear, I don’t know what. He did not say, and I did not
ask.’
    ‘To be sure — though you
have been friends for years, you are men after all; nothing short of torture will
make you give a confidence, or solicit one. Well, I must ask Mr Durrant myself:
he takes everything I say as an impertinence, so it won’t signify.’
    ‘I do have thoughts of
asking him to dine, perhaps the day after tomorrow. I did not wish to inflict a
dinner on you too promptly after your return. But I am thinking of your friend
Mrs Paige, who has her sister staying with her, and is, I think, finding her
entertainment rather difficult.’
    ‘Not again. Poor Emma.
Is Mrs Vawser — is she much as she ever was?’
    ‘Even more so, if you
take my meaning,’ Dr Templeton said, wincing: to speak ill of someone cost him
a physical effort. ‘I thought if we held a dinner it might dilute Mrs
Vawser, at least for an evening, and relieve Mrs Paige a little. And, of
course, you will have the opportunity to hear all the news of the
neighbourhood.’
    ‘Well, you must tell me
it first: you will make it more amusing.’
    ‘Oh, there is very
little. Miss Beaumont’s brother had one of his turns, but there was not much
damage done.’
    ‘Did he keep his
breeches on this time?’
    ‘Approximately . . . But
come, you must have much more to tell than I. London can be ghastly, but never
dull. What are the latest fashions, and the latest scandals — or are they one
and the same?’
    ‘At Queen Anne Street,’
Lydia said, after an undecided moment, ‘there is just now a fashion for
marrying people off: but I declined to adopt it.’
    ‘Ah,’ said her father,
and applied himself to his dinner for a tactful moment. ‘Well, I have always
believed that one should wear just what is comfortable and suitable; and I
think the same holds good for fashions of another