Cousin Prudence Read online

  Cousin Prudence

  Sarah J. Waldock

  Copyright © S. J. Waldock 2013

  Dedicated to Alison for all the wonderful debates about Emma and her father

  Chapter 1

  Mr Woodhouse was supping his thin gruel for breakfast whilst Emma and George Knightley partook of a more substantial repast with which to set them up for the day.

  Mr Woodhouse regarded the sealed letter that sat by his place with some malevolence.

  “Sixpence, really! For a letter from I know not whom,” he said indignantly, “really one should be permitted to read the mail before having to pay for it!”

  “You did not have to accept it dear papa,” said Emma mildly, spreading thin toast with a thick layer of conserve.

  “But it might be important!” declared Mr Woodhouse “Oh the agonies of deciding whether to accept mail or not! And the postboy quite rude if one decides to refuse!”

  “Well IS it important?” demanded Emma, “you will never find out unless you open it!”

  “Your father doubtless wishes to finish his gruel before embarking on the perilous course of opening unknown mail,” said George mildly. Emma shot him a look; George was so good to her father, sometimes it was difficult to suppose that occasionally he might be guilty of the mildest of irony when speaking about and to him.

  “Well I shall open it,” said Mr Woodhouse, “and then I shall at least know the worst.”

  Mr Woodhouse read the letter giving little gasps of surprise and – it may be said – some dismay.

  “What is it, papa?” demanded Emma impatiently.

  “Perhaps a trouble shared, sir…..” said George, hardly less impatiently.

  “Well well!” said Mr Woodhouse “Not a trouble exactly my dear George, not exactly a trouble….” he paused. Emma was almost ready to leap to her feet in exasperation. “My dear, I think I have never mentioned my sister to you,” he went on, “poor Lizzie… such a shame, such an unfortunate wedding. Poor Lizzie was

  headstrong, my dear, a bit like me lovely Emma,” he smiled fondly at his daughter, “but without the advantage of a good friend like George to guide her steps. Poor Lizzie! so pretty!” he sighed.

  Emma sighed as well. When poor papa was in the throes of nostalgia getting information from him could be hard.

  “You have heard of sad tidings about her sir?” asked George.

  “Alas! Poor Lizzie died many years ago,” said Mr Woodhouse, “leaving a daughter who is a few years younger than you, Emma, my dear; but of course that poor child growing up in such a way….” he glanced at the uncomprehending faces of his daughter and son-in-law “Because of what her father is…. Did I not tell you?”

  “No sir,” said George with commendable restraint.

  “Oh!”said Mr Woodhouse,“it was a dreadful mésalliance….. he was a weaver. Still is I suppose! Poor Lizzie! And poor little,” he consulted the paper, “little Prudence! This is a letter from her father…. One has to credit him with working hard, he has saved a considerable sum that he sends by note of hand to provide his daughter – my niece, and your cousin, Emma – with a Season in London as he cannot undertake to bring her himself – I suppose the poor fellow would be sacked – and because we are likely to know the more genteel sorts of people, he says, that he would wish her to meet. It’s a shame that it can’t be done,” he gave a melancholy sigh.

  “But why can’t it be done papa?” asked Emma “Why, my poor little cousin! It’s our plain duty to give her a season, and as a married woman I can quite properly chaperone her!” she added eagerly.

  Fortunately she did not see George raise a slightly cynical eyebrow over the picture of his madcap Emma in the role of a sober matron and chaperone.

  “But London!” declared Mr Woodhouse “My health will never permit me to travel to London! Why it is quite sixteen miles! Such a distance in a coach would surely shatter my fragile constitution! And for you, Emma, to undertake it…..” he shook his head “Besides, the poor child will be a laughing stock; we don’t even know if she is used to wearing shoes or merely…” he shuddered, “clogs!”

  “Why then I have a splendid scheme!” said Emma, her eyes sparkling, “let Prudence come a few weeks before the season starts and we shall see to all her necessary education and have her clothed appropriately and then Isabella and John shall come to stay here to keep you company dear papa, and George and I shall reside in their house and introduce her to Society!”

  There were, naturally many objections to that – poor Emma did not wish for such a fatiguing charge upon her time, surely, and having to attend tedious balls and routs and other such terrible iniquities that society inflicted upon the system, argued Mr Woodhouse. George would have preferred to have stayed at home; but he could see that the idea of a Season in London was something his beloved wife had now set her heart on; and in all honesty if the Woodhouse family had shunned ‘poor Lizzie’ and her daughter is really was no less than their duty to see that she had the opportunity to make the sort of respectable marriage that her mother appeared to have eschewed.

  Somehow George privately doubted that any woman of liveliness and vivacity such as Emma displayed would have married some uneducated oaf with clogs and a hovel with a dirt floor as Henry Woodhouse seemed to be picturing; and suspected that the girl’s father was somewhat more advanced in the mill than a mere weaver. For a girl of the same gentle birth as Emma he doubted

  that virtue would have been a sufficient attraction without intellect and the ability to keep a wife in comfortable circumstances. Besides, he had seen the note of hand; and it was NOT the sort of sum a poor man, however thrifty, would save up. Somehow George doubted that it would take long for Prudence to be equally ready for society as Emma already was.

  Whether Society was ready for Emma and a cousin of hers might however be doubtful.

  Emma took over the arrangements, naturally; of course her scheme could not work unless John and Isabella were prepared to visit and keep Mr Woodhouse company – and to permit George and Emma to use their house during the Season!

  However, in the meantime, making arrangements for Prudence to visit kept Emma perfectly well occupied, writing to Mr Blenkinsop to invite Prudence to stay for a few weeks ‘to get to know the family’ before embarking upon the Season. Emma agonised over making a room look nice but without too many things that a girl of poverty stricken background might not find usual and begged George what he knew of the accoutrements of his tenants for example.

  “Emma,” said George, “your desire to please Prudence is admirable; and I find your generous nature in wanting to make others happy quite one of your most adorable features. But may I break into your all too usual habit of leaping to assumptions?”

  “Why, what can you mean – Mr Knightley?” Emma liked still to tease her husband with formality.

  “Why, – Mrs Knightley – only that I somehow doubt that your cousin is in any wise poverty stricken nor in need of teaching how to live in a room with a china article under the bed.”

  “But papa said that Aunt Lizzie made an unfortunate marriage to a pauper!” said Emma.

  “Actually he said she made a mésalliance with a weaver,” said George dryly. “A poor weaver does not manage to sport the kind of blunt that was included in that note of hand. Nor does he bank with a prestigious banking house. I do not in any wise suggest that the man your Aunt Lizzie chose was a gentleman; I would say that he is not, for the way he writes is unpolished and somewhat uneducated. I think you will find that the young lady’s father is if not a Croesus certainly a very warm man indeed and well able to afford governesses who have given his only child the semblance of a lady. We might need to add some polish; but somehow I doubt it. And I cannot think how insulted the poor
girl might be if you assume her to be any less ladylike that your friend Harriet!”

  Emma flushed.

  “Do you really think so? Well of course you do, or you would not say so…. I assumed papa had met him and had seen where he lived and knew…..”

  George laughed.

  “I really cannot see your father, even twenty or thirty years ago, wishing to make the long journey to Yorkshire! No, if you want my opinion, my very dear Mrs Knightley, he repeats but the words his own father used without examining the implications of the same. It will be hard to show him that Cousin Prudence is anything but what he believes but I hope her own demeanour will do so!”

  “Oh George! How dear is Mrs Knightley to you?”

  The young bride was easily sidetracked still.

  Fussing over the visitor’s room was postponed for a while whilst Mr Knightley explained in great detail.

  Deciphering Isabella’s letter which arrived within a few days of Emma writing to her was not an easy matter. Isabella had crossed and re-crossed her writing and the diagonal recrossing made the rest extremely difficult to read.

  “And,” said Emma crossly, “it’s not as though we can’t afford the extra sixpence for her to write on a second sheet. I think she’s had a conniption….. no, she’s asking what papa knows of this connection…. Oh, she doubts Prudence’s bona fides. Well Papa knew all about her existence so I can’t see why she should be making such a goose of herself over it as though it were a Banbury Tale. I wish you will write to John and tell him not to permit Isabella to make such a to-do over nothing!”

  “Here, let me see if I can decipher it,” said George.

  Emma handed her sister’s letter over at once; there were no secrets between herself and her husband and this was not the sort of sisterly letter that one might hesitate to let a man read. It was a thoroughgoing diatribe. George squinted and winced, turned the paper to read each direction of writing and sighed.

  “What?” said Emma.

  “I don’t think she is writing about an elephant,” said George, “ah, no, I think she’s asking if this girl is to be our dependant….she is making a bit of a Cheltenham Tragedy out of it” he added “Perhaps she…. “

  “What?” said Emma suspiciously.

  George flushed.

  “I have heard it said that some women may be a little…..volatile…..when they are in an interesting condition,” he said.

  Emma stared.

  “OH!” she exclaimed “Well that would explain a lot…. But Isabella is a little inclined to be a little er, volatile about things sometimes at the best of times.”

  George reflected that this was true. Isabella lacked the vivacity of Emma but she could be relied on to read a lecture readily enough.

  George wrote promptly to his brother John, and reflected that at least his brother respected his opinion and would, with the clues to Miss Blekinsop’s probable fortune

  laid out before him, manage to recognise them for himself. He explained carefully that Mr Woodhouse had known of Prudence Blenkinsop’s existence before this time and had himself no doubts in the matter of her identity; and that any impostor was scarcely likely to send a note of hand to the extent that showed him under no illusions as to the cost of a Season.

  He sent the letter prudently several days before riding up to town himself to cash the note of hand and speak to Mr Blenkinsop’s banker so he might have given John time to quieten any hysterics Isabella might manage to produce from the discovery that she had a genuine cousin of less than genteel origin. He called in to see the couple – and spent time playing with his nieces and nephews – before riding back to Highbury. He found Isabella full of shrewd questions but much calmer once she knew that this was not some designing Female hoping to hang on her poor papa’s sleeve and take advantage of his kind and sentimental nature. The idea of an extended visit to her childhood home pleased her greatly and John was happy to run up and down to town as he required.

  “So long as poor Emma will not feel too fagged and blue devilled having to care for this chit,” said Isabella. “I should not like to have the fatigue of launching a girl on the season myself, even though we do not move in the sort of circles that would require attending Almack’s or any of the more exhaustingly prestigious functions!”

  “Oh I fancy Emma will contrive to enjoy herself,” said George, smiling.

  Emma would throw herself into it heart and soul and would doubtless apologise to Prudence that the family did not move in such circles as to make it likely to obtain vouchers for Almack’s.

  Chapter 2

  Prudence Blenkinsop, unaware of the mental anguish her birth was causing certain of the Woodhouse family, wrote a polite and enthusiastic acceptance of their kind invitation, which, together with her father’s postscript on the same sheet to save postage, was sent forth in front of Miss Blenkinsop.

  Prudence was exceedingly glad that her father had purchased a fine chaise fitted with Mr Elliot’s patent elliptical springs for greater comfort in travelling, and a safer ride too. Mr Blenkinsop had bought it originally to squire his daughter to functions in York and Harrogate; but as he said, the Mill was down the road and he needed no carriage for his own purposes for if he had to travel he might Post. Mr Blenkinsop held strong views about young females of any station having to travel by Postchaise and his opinion was more marked where his own daughter was concerned.

  Indeed so marked were his views that Prudence and her maid had a slightly less comfortable ride for the first part of their journey than they might otherwise had done for carrying two of the family maidservants to their parent’s village for a visit that they have a safe journey; their return to be effected by farm cart. Prudence indeed had no objection; her views were coloured by her father’s ideas, which held that if you took care of your dependants, they would take care of you. It was one reason that he had received no trouble from Luddites at the mill; since the mill workers staunchly defended the place. Their jobs were in no jeopardy from the exciting new developments of mechanisation; for Mr Blenkinsop saw such as a means to expand, not a means to cut down on the workforce. Prudence wished Annie and Kate the best as she set them down and continued on her way.

  Her maid, the faithful Hester was heard to comment that life would be a bit more comfortable with those heedless fidgetsome widgeons out of the way.

  The journey might be expected to be tedious; and Prudence, who was a mettlesome girl who disliked tedium, got out some knitting to occupy herself. One might not readily sew in the rocking, swaying carriage but knitting, so long as it was quite plain, might be carried out readily even in adverse conditions. She was knitting herself some fine cotton stockings; Hester was knitting herself some sensible woollen ones.

  The sudden jarring of the carriage and its slump to one side accompanied by the shout of anger by Joseph the coachman was a shock. The coach came suddenly to a halt leaning dramatically towards the left.

  Prudence opened the door. The ground was further away than was comfortable, but little deterred she jumped down, and turned to help Hester scramble out, grumbling that her knitting was now tangled.

  “We ha’been run into the ditch bah yon muttonhead in tha’ phaeton sithee” said Joseph in his own idiom. “Eeh, Miss Prudence, art tha all right?”

  “A trifle shaken but otherwise undamaged,” said Prudence, “and here comes another! I have a good mind to give him a piece of my mind!”

  She stepped into the road into the path of the oncoming horses.

  By a piece of consummate skill the driver pulled the horses to a halt. He was an imposing figure, tall and broad of shoulder, the outline of his figure further exaggerated by the large number of capes on his driving coat. He was swart of complexion with black hair and surprisingly light grey eyes that flashed with angry fire.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

  “What is the meaning? Why, sir, I should ask you the meaning of the reckless race you seem to be having with the fellow who has ti
pped me into a ditch! You idiots who think you are dandies or Corinthians or whatever are a danger to the public driving without due care and attention and with no idea how to respect the road! And,”

  she added severely, “I doubt it can be much good for your horses either.”

  Gervase, Lord Alverston, noted Corinthian and member of the Four Horse Club, gaped in outrage.

  “Madam,” he said coldly, “I have never been accused of being a dandy.”

  “Then,” said Miss Blenkinsop with spirit, “you should look upon it as a new experience; new experiences are, they say, good for one. And perchance it will have a salutary effect on your wild behaviour.”

  “Madam,” said Lord Alverston grinding his teeth, “I am pursuing my nephew – who appears to have caused your accident – because he is in danger of committing an indiscretion. It is imperative that I catch up with him.”

  “That’s all very well, but if you are responsible for this nephew of yours, you are then also responsible for my predicament and that of my dependants,” said Prudence.

  Alverston reached for a roll of soft.

  Prudence gave him a look of disgust.

  “What, pay me off like some discarded mistress of yours in a different sort of predicament?” she said scornfully, “I do not think you grasp the realities of life, sir! I shall expect a hand to my groom getting the chaise back on the road and a written apology from your nephew as satisfaction!”

  Alverston flushed. The girl was plainly gently bred; it was an insult to try to pay her off.

  “One might look upon the new experience as educational,” he said a trifle flippantly to cover his embarrassment. Miss Blenkinsop pursed her lips.

  “One might; my dependants hardly so,” she said.

  He flushed again.

  “Very well; my groom will assist you,” he said harshly “John climb down. To whom should my nephew address his apologies and where?”