to soften the line. No, no. I don’t mean those dreadful corkscrew twists. You must keep the pure, sculptured line. You have such beautiful bone structure, it will look lovely.’
No one had ever told Vilia she had beautiful bone structure before. Momentarily diverted, she peered at herself in the glass.
But when she tried clasping her hair on the crown, she reported that she thought the result commonplace.
Days afterwards, however, she discovered that Lucy was not as easily defeated as she had thought. Vilia’s very own maid, brushing her hair one morning, stopped in mid-brush, the silver-gilt mane trailing gracefully from her fingers. ‘How becoming it looks, just so!’ she exclaimed. ‘I wonder if we could persuade it to stay like that?’ It took a moment for Vilia to spot the stratagem. When she did, she began to wonder if perhaps she had underestimated Lucy.
Now and then, somewhat to her annoyance, Vilia found her sense of humour tickled. Lucy was terrified that Vilia might be mistaken for a blue-stocking. Fatal when she came on the marriage mart! People might excuse her for not playing on the pianoforte or the harp, provided she was seen to appreciate other ladies’ music. And many women of the highest rank were clumsy with their needles. It was a blessing that she could draw so elegantly, and a mark of high civilization that her French should be flawless. But Lucy had been horrified to discover that Vilia had a naturally mathematical turn of mind. Also, she was quite unacceptably well read, and in the most recondite subjects! One couldn’t, after all, go around explaining to everyone that there had been no children’s books in the library of the house where she had been brought up. With the greatest seriousness, Lucy told Vilia that she must never let it be known that she had a firm grasp of such things as ancient Christian heresies and the use of triglyphs in Greek architecture.
The conversation at St James’s Square became more frivolous every day as Lucy tried to instil into Vilia the principles of social small talk, and it was only by exercising the sternest self control that Vilia maintained her equanimity. It was a very real relief when, in February, Lucy abandoned her gentle persecution and relapsed into an absent-minded daze. Quite against her will, Vilia was intrigued.
She was still more intrigued when Luke’s new tutor arrived and Lucy promptly reverted to normal.
The tutor’s name was Henry Phillpotts, and how anyone as wildly unsuitable as he had found his way into the Telfers’ favour Vilia could not at first imagine. Possibly the fact of his having been recommended by the Duke of Argyll had helped to outweigh his many and obvious imperfections.
Vilia, wiser in the ways of the Highland aristocracy than her hosts, suspected that the Duke of Argyll had never set eyes on Henry, or Henry on the Duke. All Scots peers had dependants, and some felt compelled to do what they could even for distant connections of their stewards, or third cousins twice removed of their most junior footmen. The Duke of Argyll, hearing that a London neighbour was in need of a tutor for his son, might well have recommended someone like Henry, especially if the neighbour was only a nodding acquaintance and couldn’t hold it against him.
When he came to St James’s Square, Henry Phillpotts had been ordained for a year but had not found a parish. Nothing, he implied, would have persuaded him to accept a living from some fox-hunting squire in Leicestershire or some clothwitted manufacturer in Leeds. Oxford or London he would have considered – or even Cambridge – but how could a fine mind expand in the mud of the Shires or the weaving sheds of Leeds?
Henry’s dinner-table conversation was very good value, far more amusing – if no less silly – than Lucy’s small talk.
‘Stimulus!’ he would exclaim. ‘That is what the mind requires! How otherwise to nourish that originality that is the greatest of all
No one had ever told Vilia she had beautiful bone structure before. Momentarily diverted, she peered at herself in the glass.
But when she tried clasping her hair on the crown, she reported that she thought the result commonplace.
Days afterwards, however, she discovered that Lucy was not as easily defeated as she had thought. Vilia’s very own maid, brushing her hair one morning, stopped in mid-brush, the silver-gilt mane trailing gracefully from her fingers. ‘How becoming it looks, just so!’ she exclaimed. ‘I wonder if we could persuade it to stay like that?’ It took a moment for Vilia to spot the stratagem. When she did, she began to wonder if perhaps she had underestimated Lucy.
Now and then, somewhat to her annoyance, Vilia found her sense of humour tickled. Lucy was terrified that Vilia might be mistaken for a blue-stocking. Fatal when she came on the marriage mart! People might excuse her for not playing on the pianoforte or the harp, provided she was seen to appreciate other ladies’ music. And many women of the highest rank were clumsy with their needles. It was a blessing that she could draw so elegantly, and a mark of high civilization that her French should be flawless. But Lucy had been horrified to discover that Vilia had a naturally mathematical turn of mind. Also, she was quite unacceptably well read, and in the most recondite subjects! One couldn’t, after all, go around explaining to everyone that there had been no children’s books in the library of the house where she had been brought up. With the greatest seriousness, Lucy told Vilia that she must never let it be known that she had a firm grasp of such things as ancient Christian heresies and the use of triglyphs in Greek architecture.
The conversation at St James’s Square became more frivolous every day as Lucy tried to instil into Vilia the principles of social small talk, and it was only by exercising the sternest self control that Vilia maintained her equanimity. It was a very real relief when, in February, Lucy abandoned her gentle persecution and relapsed into an absent-minded daze. Quite against her will, Vilia was intrigued.
She was still more intrigued when Luke’s new tutor arrived and Lucy promptly reverted to normal.
The tutor’s name was Henry Phillpotts, and how anyone as wildly unsuitable as he had found his way into the Telfers’ favour Vilia could not at first imagine. Possibly the fact of his having been recommended by the Duke of Argyll had helped to outweigh his many and obvious imperfections.
Vilia, wiser in the ways of the Highland aristocracy than her hosts, suspected that the Duke of Argyll had never set eyes on Henry, or Henry on the Duke. All Scots peers had dependants, and some felt compelled to do what they could even for distant connections of their stewards, or third cousins twice removed of their most junior footmen. The Duke of Argyll, hearing that a London neighbour was in need of a tutor for his son, might well have recommended someone like Henry, especially if the neighbour was only a nodding acquaintance and couldn’t hold it against him.
When he came to St James’s Square, Henry Phillpotts had been ordained for a year but had not found a parish. Nothing, he implied, would have persuaded him to accept a living from some fox-hunting squire in Leicestershire or some clothwitted manufacturer in Leeds. Oxford or London he would have considered – or even Cambridge – but how could a fine mind expand in the mud of the Shires or the weaving sheds of Leeds?
Henry’s dinner-table conversation was very good value, far more amusing – if no less silly – than Lucy’s small talk.
‘Stimulus!’ he would exclaim. ‘That is what the mind requires! How otherwise to nourish that originality that is the greatest of all
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