The Counterfeit Husband by Elizabeth Mansfield

Author:Elizabeth Mansfield [Mansfield, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101568439
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-03-13T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Lady Sturtevant had been quite right in predicting that her little Sybil would prove to be too much for Lady Ethelyn to handle. Ethelyn took a dislike to the child from the moment of their arrival, a reaction not much to be wondered at, for Sybil had three traits which were immediately manifest and which seemed to be specifically designed to drive Ethelyn berserk: one, she never walked down the stairs—she slid down the wide bannister of the main stairway as if it were her personal passageway; two, she peppered every sentence with such vile epithets as “Hang it all!” and “Egad!”; and, three, she ran, skipped or jumped about the house but never walked. And no one, not Miss Townley, nor Philippa nor Ethelyn herself seemed able to restrain her.

But what Ethelyn most disliked about the child was her influence on Philippa. It wasn’t that Philippa had changed in any fundamental way—she was still perfectly ladylike, affable and polite. But she showered the most unaffected and warm-hearted admiration on her friend, seeing nothing reprehensible in any of Sybil’s pranks. “Don’t take on so, Aunt Ethelyn,” she would say to her aunt in her soothing, mature way. “It’s only high-spiritedness. I think Sybil is wonderfully energetic and imaginative. She means no harm at all.”

As a result, Philippa was led into the most shocking misdeeds which would never otherwise have occurred. For example, when reading to Sybil a book about the Red Indians of America, Pippa agreed to Sybil’s “imaginative” plan to paint their faces Indian-style with the pigments in Pippa’s old box of watercolors. When they appeared in the drawing room to show the result to Aunt Ethelyn, the poor woman shrieked in fright. Another time, when the two girls went out riding, they outraced the groom, managed to escape from his supervision and rode off the property. They didn’t return for four hours, during which time every servant in the household was enlisted to scour the countryside for their bodies, while Ethelyn took to her bed in hysterics despite Miss Townley’s assurances that the girls were excellent horsewomen and would probably come to no harm. By the time the girls reappeared, perfectly safe and in time for dinner, Ethelyn was in need of the ministrations of a doctor.

But the straw which broke Ethelyn’s spirit was the occasion of the curricle ride. The two girls stole into the stable, harnessed the curricle to a pair of chestnuts and tried to teach themselves to drive “a curricle and pair.” Before anyone in the household even realized they’d gone out, they managed to drive the vehicle into a ditch, cracking the curricle beyond repair. (Fortunately, the chestnuts were a placid pair and didn’t bolt.)

But the incident threw Ethelyn into trembling disorder. Please send your carriage for the girls at once, she wrote to Camilla, for my nerves will not endure another day of their misconduct. I would send them home in my own coach if their behavior was the least bit reliable, but I cannot face shouldering the responsibility for their safety.

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