Extract from The Accidental Marriage
CHAPTER ONE
- 'I need a new situation now,' Julia Marsh said, pushing aside the teacups and spreading the contents of her purse on the small table beside her. 'Look, five pounds, six shillings and threepence – and don't let's forget the halfpenny, that will make a tremendous difference!'
- 'You need a husband,' her sister Fanny, Lady Cunningham, said briskly. 'You had your chances during your Season.'
- Julia shuddered. 'Only desperate old men wanting a nurse or a mother for broods of children offered for a girl with no dowry, dependant on her sister and her rather unwilling brother-in-law for the very clothes she stood up in. If I have to be a nurse or governess I prefer to do it for a wage, and to be able to walk away if the people are uncongenial.'
She glanced down at her dull gown, at least two years out of date. It was appropriate for a companion to elderly ladies, being pale grey with no trimmings, but not very fashionable. Fanny wore a gown in a pretty pale apple green, trimmed with darker green ruffles and braid. It suited her blonde fairness to perfection, and would have looked equally good with her own slightly darker honey-blonde hair. But she did not envy Fanny the husband who paid for such finery.- 'Frederick was not unwilling,' Fanny said, but her tone was doubtful. 'He did rather hope you would become respectably established, though.'
- Julia smiled. 'Well, I did have an offer to become unrespectably established,' she said, and chuckled. 'What would your starchy Frederick have said if I'd accepted that offer?'
- Fanny frowned. 'Your flippancy does not help. Will you apply for another post as companion?'
- Julia sighed faintly. Poor Fanny had no sense of humour. She shook her head. 'I'm bored with reading tedious books of sermons to old ladies, and taking their irritating dogs for strolls in Sydney Gardens. I'm tired of Bath. I prefer the country, in any event, so I thought I'd apply for a position as governess. Young children would be a pleasant change. I have seen two advertisements today, and written letters. I'm praying I'll find something before you have to leave Greystones Manor.'
- 'You can stay here,' Fanny offered.
- She was always kind, but she clearly hadn't considered what her husband would say about keeping his house open for the sake of an indigent sister in law. 'No, I can't stay here on my own. You'll want to close the house. You'll be away for several months.'
- 'I meant at the Dower House. It's not been used since Frederick's mother died last year, but the Harpers are there, they can easily look after you, until you find a suitable position. You mustn't take the first one that offers if it isn't what you'd like.'
- Julia shrugged. She'd have to find something soon, whether it was what she wanted or no. Her last employer had been kind, and had promised to leave her some money, but she had died before changing her will, and her son declared he had no obligation for his mother's promises, if indeed she had made them, he'd added with a sneer.
- Even a few pounds would have permitted her to take her time while seeking another post. She disliked being beholden to Sir Frederick Cunningham, who always gave the impression of disapproving of her. Perhaps this was because she was so very different from Fanny, who was gentle and pliable, always ready to believe Frederick knew best.
- 'How long does it take to travel to Vienna?' she asked, to change the subject.
- 'Three or four weeks, I expect. Probably more. It rather depends on how well the girls travel. We haven't ever taken them more than a dozen miles from home, and I'm dreading them developing travel sickness, and becoming bored and fretful. Thank goodness we have Miss Clarence to help keep them occupied.'
- Julia gathered the coins together and slid them back into her purse. 'Do you have to take them?'
- 'It's an opportunity, now that odious Boney is safely locked away on Elba. Frederick wants to go to the Congress, and his grandmother has not seen the children. She wrote to say she hoped she would do so before she died. She is over seventy, so I suppose that's natural. And I've never met her either. But it seems a long way to go for just a few weeks. Frederick says the Congress will only last a month or two.'
- 'Why is he so anxious to go?'
- 'You know he has political ambitions. He feels that with so many rulers and ministers there he might find patronage.'
- Julia did not reply. She had no great faith in her brother-in-law's political acumen, which she considered less than her own, and thought his chances of impressing someone with influence were remote. But Fanny loved and believed in him, and Julia, knowing her sister's lack of confidence, tried not to criticize Frederick too often. Fanny was pretty, but far too self-effacing for Julia, who frequently had to bite her tongue in an attempt not to annoy Frederick. If he felt offended by her he was liable to complain to Fanny, sying she ought to control her sister better.
- Fanny went on, her voice wistful. 'If times had been normal when we married, we'd probably have gone to visit her on our wedding journey, but the war was starting again, Europe wasn't safe. I just wish we had a son.'
- Julia nodded. In nine years of marriage Fanny had produced only two girls, and after several miscarriages it seemed unlikely she would ever provide him with an heir. She knew Frederick blamed his wife. He frequently made fretful remarks about the lack of a son to inherit his title. Julia blamed him, for he spent a great deal of his time in London while Fanny was left alone in Hampshire, moping. On the one occasion she'd had the opportunity to observe him there, during her unsuccessful Season three years ago, she had been astonished, and then disgusted, at the manner in which he had neglected his wife in order to pay lavish attentions to other ladies. When she had protested to Fanny, her sister had merely said it was fashionable, it was not serious, and married couples did not sit in each other's pockets. Sometimes, Julia thought, Fanny seemed younger than she was, despite the six years' difference in their ages. If she ever married, which seemed unlikely, she would not tolerate such inconsiderate behaviour from a husband, whatever the fashionable world might say.
- Copyright © 2007 Marina Oliver
