Physically her ladyship resembled her brother. She was a large woman, with aquiline features, and a gaze of lofty unconcern. Like his, her voice was loud and authoritative; and to some extent she shared his disregard for convention. There the resemblance ended. Lord Lynton’s free and easy ways had sprung from a jovial nature; his sister’s had their roots in a sublime conviction of superiority, and were so incalculable as to have earned for her the reputation of being eccentric. She said and did what she chose on every occasion, and granted a like indulgence to those who had been fortunate enough to win her favour; but she had reared her daughters to a rigid pattern, and would condemn any breach of etiquette committed by persons she disliked.
She had brought with her to Fontley, besides her husband, a spare man of few words and a harassed mien, her third son, the robust sportsman whom she had offered to Adam as his best man. “Quite right not to have had him!” she told Adam. “He’s such a dolt I dare swear he’d have made a mull of it, or gone to Church stinking of the stables.”
Adam wondered what entertainment could be offered to Osbert during a week at Fontley at this season; but Lady Nassington besought him not to trouble himself, since it was impossible to interest Osbert during the dead months.
“But the poor fellow will be bored to tears!” he protested.
“He can as well be bored here as anywhere else,” replied her ladyship. “Never mind him! I must tell you, Adam, that I am agreeably surprised by this wife of yours. No countenance, of course, and dresses badly, but she seems a sensible girl, and she don’t play off any airs of sham gentility. You might have done a great deal worse for yourself. I don’t object to presenting her, and you may bring her to my rout-party on the 20th: that should launch her pretty well. It’s a pity your mother has chosen to be thrown into gloom, but just what I expected! She don’t like Charlotte’s match either: not a great one, I grant, but if a girl flouts the chances she’s offered she must be content with a respectable marriage in the end. I fancied myself in love with his father once,” she added reminiscently. “It wouldn’t have answered, but what I didn’t consider beneath my touch I’m sure your mother need not! But she always was a wet-goose. Upon my word, I wonder that you should have turned out so well — I do indeed, my dear nephew!”
A laugh escaped him, but he shook his head at her. “You know it’s most improper to say such things to me, ma’am!”
“Oh, I say nothing behind Blanche’s back I don’t say to her head!” she replied.
When Charlotte brought Jenny into the Little Drawing-room, Lady Nassington had scanned her appraisingly, and commanded, as soon as she had greeted the Dowager: “Come here, child, and let me take a look at you! H’m! Yes, it’s a pity you’re not taller, but I’m glad to see you hold yourself up. How did you like Rushleigh? I hope my people made you comfortable?”
“Yes, that they did, ma’am. I liked it excessively, and have been wanting to thank you for lending it to us. It was all so beautiful, and interesting! I had never stayed in the country before.”
“Town-bred, are you?”
“Yes, though my mother was a farmer’s daughter, and came from Shropshire, ma’am.”
“Good yeoman stock, I daresay: you have the look of it yourself. Take my advice, and study to dress plainly! Frills don’t become you. Are those real pearls you have in your ears? Yes, they would be, of course, and a thousand pities your neck’s too short for them. Lynton! Buy a neat little pair of earrings for your wife! She can’t wear these.”
“Well, I know my neck’s too short,” said Jenny, “but I shall wear them, ma’am, because Papa gave them to me, and I won’t hurt his feelings, no matter what!”
“Very proper!” approved her ladyship. “I’ll speak to your father myself.”
Lady Lynton here intervened, and bore Jenny off to her bed-chamber, saving as she led the way through a bewildering series of rooms, galleries, and corridors: “You must excuse my sister-in-law: her blunt manners are beyond the line of being pleasing,”
“Oh, no!” Jenny said. “I mean, I didn’t dislike anything she said, for it was all in kindness, and — and I like blunt people, ma’am!”
“I have often wished that my own sensibility were less acute,” said her ladyship.
Daunted, Jenny relapsed into silence. Passing through a doorway into a broad corridor Lady Lynton informed her that they were now in the modern wing of the Priory.
“It seems to stretch for miles!” said Jenny.
“Yes, it is most inconvenient,” sighed the Dowager. “No doubt you will make a great many alterations. Adam’s room is here, and that door leads into a dressing-room. The next is yours, quite at the end of the passage, which I hope you won’t dislike.”
“Oh, no! How should I? Oh — how pretty it is!”
“I am afraid it is sadly shabby. It should have been done-up before your arrival, but, not knowing your tastes, I thought it best to leave it to you to choose what you like.”
“Thank you — but I shan’t! I like it as it is. I don’t wish to change anything, ma’am!”
“Don’t you, my dear? No doubt it is foolish of me, but I cannot help hoping that you may not. It is so full of memories! Alas, so many years since I too entered it as a bride!”
Dismayed, Jenny stammered: “Is it your room? Oh, I would never — Pray let me have some other!
But the Dowager, smiling at her with gentle resignation, merely completed her discomfiture by saying that this was the room always occupied by the mistress of the house. She said that Jenny must not be in a worry, since she herself cared nothing either for her comfort or her consequence. As she managed to convey the impression that she was now housed in one of the garrets it was not surprising that when Adam presently came into the room he found Jenny looking rather troubled.
She was standing beside a table in one of the windows, dipping her hand into a bowl filled with pot-pourri, and allowing the dried petals to sift through her fingers. She looked up when Adam came in, and smiled, saying: “I couldn’t think what makes the house smell so sweet, but now I see it must be this.”
“Pot-pourri? Yes, my mother makes it. I believe she had the recipe from some Frenchwoman — one of the emigrées. You must ask her for it, if you like it.”
“I wonder if she will tell me? Adam, you shouldn’t have permitted her to make her own room ready for me!”
“I didn’t know she meant to. I’m glad she did, however: it was very proper in her.”
“Well, it makes me ready to sink!” she said. “She told me that it had always belonged to the mistress of Fontley, as though she had been deposed, which I hope you know I’d never do!”
“My dear Jenny, if you are going to take all my mother says to heart — ! My grandfather built this wing, so you are only the third mistress of Fontley to occupy the room!”
She was obliged to laugh at this, but she said: “Well, I’m sure it must be disagreeable for her to see me in it, at all events. Thank goodness I told her I didn’t wish to alter anything in it! She had been dreading that, you know, which I can well understand.”
He looked a little quizzical, but said nothing. Lydia, coming to pay her respects to Jenny a few minutes later, was much less reticent. “What a bouncer!” she exclaimed. “Why, it was only last year that Mama had the curtains made, and she had meant to have had new ones this year, because these faded so badly, as you may see! She only said that to make you feel horrid!”
“Lydia!”
“Well, it’s true, Adam. For my part, I think someone ought to explain Mama to Jenny! The thing is, you see, that she positively delights in being ill-used, Jenny, and making us all feel guilty for no reason at all. Don’t heed her! I never do!”
This frank exposition of her mother-in-law’s character startled Jenny, but by the time she had spent two days at Fontley she had begun to see that there was a good deal of truth in it, and began to feel much more at ease.