Page 7 of The Book of Lost Stories
Lady Basset and Pug snored on obliviously as Alys utilized her aunt’s papier-mâché desk and violet-scented notepaper for the next exciting instalment of Malvina’s adventures:
‘He will never marry me while you live,’ hissed the woman, her beautiful face wild with jealous anger. ‘My birth is too lowly – I cannot give him the advantages he seeks through an alliance with you … or from your death. So, let it be death!’ The curved blade of a great knife flashed angry light from the wall sconce as she flung herself upon the hapless captive, her intention writ clear upon her livid countenance …
*
On leaving her aunt some time later, before she reached the front door, Alys had the good fortune to encounter her cousin, a stolid, worthy and rather pop-eyed young man some few years her senior.
‘James, the very person of all others I wished to see!’ she exclaimed, her luminous large grey eyes lighting up, and immediately she begged him prettily for some paper.
He always had a ready supply, since he had a keen interest in, if little understanding of, modern scientific advances and so maintained a large correspondence on the subject with numerous like-minded acquaintances and learned societies.
At Christmas he had bestowed upon Alys a large and handsome notebook in which to record the various wildflowers of the local countryside, but on whose invitingly blank pages she instead inscribed all the minutia of her daily life.
Now, if James somehow gained the impression that she and Miss Grimshaw were compiling recipes and household hints, he was fortunately too stupid to be surprised at the volume of manuscript required. However, he was always kindly and generous when asked for such little favours, so in return Alys let him hold forth about his current pet subject of magnetism for quite a half-hour before making her excuses and returning to the Dower House with her booty.
‘Letty,’ she said, ruefully, when she got home, ‘I am afraid I have agreed to let James try a little experiment in magnetism on us tomorrow, when he has set up the apparatus in the small summer house.’
‘Magnetism?’ Letty echoed, looking up from the handkerchief she was hemming.
‘Do not worry. From what I can discover, it will not harm us in any way and may even do us some good.’
‘Well, if you say so. What have you there?’
‘A large quantity of paper and a book about the Lake District, which came to my aunt by mistake.’
‘And did you ask Lady Basset if she knew why any mention of the Rayven family, especially the new heir, rendered Major Weston so irate?’
‘Yes, as I was coming away, for she was asleep most of the time I was there. She thought, from something Sir Ralph once let drop, that Papa and the father of the new Viscount Rayven were in the army together and fast friends, until they fell out. Crooked play was mentioned, so I expect it was gaming: I know Papa was an inveterate gambler, or we would not be living in such reduced circumstances now.’
‘But I believe, Alys, that gambling is a fever in the blood and those in its thrall cannot help themselves.’
‘AndIbelieve it is a great piece of self-indulgence that can lead to nothing but hardship and misery for the families of those concerned,’ Alys declared roundly. ‘Excuse my father’s nature as you will, but you will never succeed in convincing me of the worth of his character, for you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, embroider it as much as you please.’
*
James had omitted to inform Alys that he had also invited one of his friends to be present at the experiment in magnetism, although since Mr Yatton was cast in the same stolid and commonplace mould as himself, this discovery did not send her into transports of delight.
But Mr Yatton, on being introduced, took an unaccountable fancy to her and paid a morning call at the Dower House next day.
It was unfortunate that Mrs Franby, the wife of the rector, had also condescended to pay one of her rare – and unwelcome – calls at the same time, for she scented a clandestine romance and immediately sent the rector up to tell Major Weston.
‘Papa, the young man came to call from courtesy only, and Miss Grimshaw was present throughout,’ Alys told him when the inevitable rage ensued. ‘Pray, do not fret yourself into one of your fevers over it, for I assure you I found him as staid and uninteresting as my cousin James.’
But, of course, the major, fired by a purely selfish fear that she would leave him, ranted on until he quite wore himself out. A moment’s sane reflection would have told him that the chance of a serious suitor turning up at the door, prepared to overlook Alys’s penniless state, lack of ladylike accomplishments and lowly situation, was negligible.
It was not even as if she was a great beauty, Alys reflected later, examining her face critically in the mirror. Her abundant hair was a dark and glossy chestnut and curled without any help, it was true, but her eyes were an unremarkable grey, her mouth too wide and she was quite tall – nearly as tall as her cousin – a grave defect in a woman.
Still, at eighteen most girls had something of beauty about them, she supposed, if only the dewy freshness of youth, and if they were going to get a husband they had better do it before the bloom rubbed off. Unless their papas decreed that their destiny was to flower and fade alone …
Only in poetry and novels did perfect, gentle knights beat a path to the beleaguered maiden’s door.
The Travails of Lady Malvinaadvanced apace, and Miss Grimshaw, impressed if rather appalled by the worldly andpassionate tone of the story, said she did not know where Alys got the half of it, but she was sure it was much better than anything she had read in print.
Alys believed it read well, but resolved to send a sample of her work to Sir Walter Scott, whoseThe Lay of the Last Minstrelthey both so much admired, for his opinion.
‘Although perhaps, being a poet, Sir Walter is not the right person to send such a work to?’ suggested Letty. ‘Might not some genteel lady novelist be more suitable?’
‘But I would value his opinion above all others, and I dare say even if he does not write novels, he reads them.’
