Belgrave Square (24 page)

Gracie observed her as carefully as the continuing story of the evening would allow.

And then there was the starching to do, or more correctly the stiffening, Fine muslin was treated with isinglass, of which she had three half sheets. She broke them up carefully and dissolved the pieces in water, and dipped the lawns and muslins and hung them up to dry, before ironing them. The chintzes would have to wait for another day. She was certainly not boiling rice water as well.

When all the laundry was finished, in the middle of the
afternoon, she set about cleaning the smoothing irons by melting fresh mutton suet and spreading it over the still-warm irons, then dusting them with unslaked lime tied in muslin. For some time now they had had a woman come in to take the household linen, and return it two days later clean and ironed.

By evening she was exhausted, and thoroughly complacent with virtue.

The following day she was sitting at the kitchen table trying to decide whether to have a little fish roe on toast for luncheon, or a boiled egg, when Gracie came tripping down the hall to say that Mrs. Radley was here. Emily herself followed hard on her heels in a swirl of floral muslin and lace, with an exquisite parasol decorated with blush-pink roses.

“I’m going to the Royal Academy exhibition,” she announced, sitting down on one of the other chairs and leaning her elbows on the scrubbed wooden table. “I really don’t want to go alone, and Jack is off to see someone about factories and new housing. Please come with me? It will be entertaining if we go together, and a terrible bore alone. Do come.”

Charlotte wrestled with temptation for a moment or two, then with additional encouragement from Gracie, gave in to it. She ran upstairs and changed as quickly as she could into a spotted muslin gown trimmed with green, took up the best hat she had, decorated with silk roses Emily had brought back with her from her honeymoon, and came downstairs again. She was not quite as immaculate as if dressed by a ladies’ maid, but nonetheless very handsome.

The Royal Academy exhibition was every bit as formal and hidebound as Emily had said. Elegant ladies with sweeping hats and flowered parasols moved from one painting to another, looking at them through lorgnettes, standing back and looking again and then passing their instant opinions. Gowns were gorgeous, etiquette absolutely precise and the social hierarchy unyielding.

“Oh, I don’t care for that. Much too modern. I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

“Quite vulgar, my dear. And talking of vulgarity, did you
see Martha Wolcott at the theater last evening? What an extraordinary shade to wear. So unflattering!”

“Of course she’s fifty if she’s a day.”

“Really? I would have sworn she said she was thirty-nine.”

“I don’t doubt she did. She’s been saying that for as long as I’ve known her. Presumably in the beginning it was quite true, but that was a dozen years ago. Well I declare, did you ever see anything like that? Whatever do you suppose it means?”

“I’m sure I have not the faintest notion!”

Charlotte and Emily overheard many such snatches of conversations as they passed between the crowds, speaking to someone here, passing a compliment there, exchanging small politenesses, but above all being seen.

They were at least halfway around the exhibition, and they felt compelled to see all of it, when they ran into Fitz and Odelia looking charming, courteous, and most of the time interested.

Emily made a little growling noise in the back of her throat.

“There are times when I loathe that man,” she whispered, forcing a brilliant smile to her face as Odelia caught her eye. “And her,” she added, inclining her head graciously. “She is so terribly certain of everything.”

“
Complacent
is the word,” Charlotte elaborated, smiling and nodding also. “The way she condescended to Miss Hilliard the evening at the opera, I was longing to be thoroughly rude.”

Emily’s eyebrows shot up. “And you weren’t? My dear, I am sensible of your sisterly loyalty. I shall tell Jack; he will be overcome.”

“You will spoil it if you tell him I only overheard the conversation, so I was not in a position to say anything at all.”

“You always ruin a good story by being overheard, Charlotte. Is that Miss Hilliard over there? I was so tired by suppertime I don’t remember what she looked like.”

“Yes it is. I liked her spirit. She gave as good as she got, I thought, and she was at a definite disadvantage.”

“Good. They are about to encounter Fitz and Odelia again. This time I shall be there—and you hold your tongue.” And
so saying she hastened towards Fitz and Odelia as if their simple smile of acknowledgment had been an urgent invitation.

They arrived precisely as James and Fanny Hilliard stepped back from a picture the better to consider it, and were so close Emily could very easily bump into James and apologize with devastating sweetness. A moment later they were all exchanging greetings.

“How charming you look, Miss Hilliard.” Odelia smiled. “Such a lovely hat. I meant to compliment you on it last time, and somehow it slipped my mind.”

Fanny colored faintly, quite aware that the meaning of the remark was not that it was especially handsome, but that she had worn the same hat on the previous occasion also.

“Thank you,” she said simply. “How kind of you to say so.”

“Such an attractive quality, don’t you agree?” Emily said quickly, turning to Odelia. “I admire it above all others!”

“Remembering hats?” Odelia’s eyebrows shot up incredulously. “Really, Mrs. Radley. I cannot think why?”

“Kindness,” Emily corrected. “I admire kindness, Miss Morden. The ability not to take advantage, to find generous pleasure in someone else’s success, even when you are not finding particular success yourself. That takes a truly fine spirit, don’t you think?”

“I was not aware that I was being particularly kind.” Odelia frowned, a spark of suspicion in her eyes.

Emily’s hand flew to her mouth in a delicate gesture of embarrassment.

“Oh—your own hat is charming. I simply meant your generosity in admiring Miss Hilliard’s hat with such candor.”

Charlotte stifled a giggle with difficulty, and avoided meeting anyone’s eyes.

Both James Hilliard and Fitz looked a trifle puzzled.

“Are you enjoying the exhibition?” Fitz asked quickly. “Have you seen anything you would buy?”

“I like the roses over there,” Charlotte answered instantly, struggling for anything that would fill the silence. “And I thought some of the portraits were very fine, although I am not sure who they are.”

“The woman in the white gown with the lace is Lillie Langtry,” Fitz said with a broad smile.

“Oh is it?” Charlotte was interested in spite of herself, and the pucker of disapproval between Odelia’s brows did nothing to discourage her. “If it is a good likeness, then she is very lovely. Have you met her?”

“One meets everyone sooner or later. Society is very small, you know.”

“Do you not find that, Mrs. Pitt?” Odelia asked with a spark of interest.

There was no purpose in lying; she would only be caught in it and look even more foolish. And she did not hunger for social rank enough to pretend to it.

“I did before I was married,” she said with a candid stare. “But since then I have spent far more time at home with my family. I only departed from it this season to be what help I can to Emily, in the circumstances.”

“Very generous of you,” Odelia said politely, having established a certain superiority. She linked her arm in Fitz’s and leaned a fraction closer to him. “I am sure she will feel greatly eased in her mind for your company. It is something of a disadvantage that the selection of a candidate should occur just now, however I am sure it will not influence a decision.” She lifted one slender shoulder slightly. “You have met many of the most important people. I saw you with Lord Anstiss at the opera. Such a fine man. Most of us will never know how much he gives away to all manner of deserving causes. Some of the artists here are only able to exhibit at all because of his patronage, you know.”

And the conversation moved to the much safer subject of Lord Anstiss’s benefactions in many fields, Fanny and James Hilliard joining in where a pleasant but uninformed opinion was acceptable.

Charlotte glanced at Emily and saw with a flash of understanding that she was equally bored. Fitz caught the look.

“Who cares?” he agreed with a laugh. He turned to Fanny, and her face flooded with relief and humor. “Let’s talk of something more fun,” he said quickly. “What is the latest scandal? There must be something entertaining?”

“I don’t know of anything,” Odelia said with regret. “It is all a matter of who may marry whom, and unless you know
them it is all very tedious, and probably quite predictable anyway.”

They moved a few steps to the next picture without looking at it.

“There is the matter of Mr. Horatio Osmar,” James said tentatively. “That seems to have elements of the ludicrous about it.”

“Horatio Osmar?” Fitz seized on it. “Isn’t he a minister in the government? Do tell us: what has he done? Or, to be more accurate, what do they say he has done?”

“He used to be a junior minister of sorts,” James corrected.

“Oh dear—I should know that, shouldn’t I?” Fitz said ruefully. “What about him? Is it money?”

“Nothing so dry.” James smiled. It was a gentle, diffident and very warm expression which lit his face, giving him a charm he had lacked before. “He was arrested for indecent behavior with a young woman—on a park bench!”

They all burst into laughter, making several heads turn and causing a few elderly ladies to frown and mutter to themselves on the indelicacy of the young, and their increasing lack of decorum. One lady dressed in gray with a stuffed bird on her hat glared fiercely, and held her head so high the bird wobbled violently and appeared as if it were attempting to fly, and she was obliged to reach up with her hand to make sure it did not overbalance.

“Very out of date,” Fanny whispered a trifle too loudly.

“What is?” Charlotte asked.

“Stuffed animals on your clothes,” Fanny replied. “Don’t you remember—it was all the rage a couple of years ago. My mother’s cousin had a hat with flowers with all the beetles and spiders in them.”

“You are twitting us!” Fitz said with wide eyes.

“Not at all! And I have a friend whose aunt had a gown with stuffed mice on the hem and up the outer fold of the skirt.”

“Ugh!” He was staring at her with delight. “Really?”

“I swear it.”

“How disgusting!”

“Worse than that. We have a domestic cat—” She was
giggling as she said it. “She was an excellent mouser. It was a disaster.”

“A mouser,” Fitz said quickly. “Oh do tell us.”

Odelia pulled a face of distaste but Fanny was looking at Fitz and was totally unaware of her.

“Aunt Dorabella had been asked to favor us with a song, which she did with some enthusiasm. It was the Kashmiri Love Song, you know?”

“Pale hands I love,” Fitz said quickly.

“Yes, that’s right. Well she swept across the space we had cleared for her, swirling her skirts behind her, raising her hands to illustrate the song—and Pansy, the cat, shot out from under the drapes ’round the piano legs and bolted up Dorabella’s skirt after the mouse. Dorabella hit a high note very much higher than she had intended—and louder—”

Fitz was having trouble keeping his composure, and Charlotte and Emily were not even trying.

“Pansy took fright and ran down again,” Fanny went on, “with the mouse between her teeth, and a sizable piece of the skirt with it. Dorabella tripped over the rest and fell against the pianist, who shrieked and overbalanced off the stool.”

Fanny shrugged her shoulders and dissolved into giggles. “We disgraced ourselves so utterly,” she finished, “that my friend was cut out of Uncle Arthur’s will. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. I was so sorry, but if it had been my fortune at stake, I could not have helped myself. Fortunately, it would have been only two rather ordinary chairs—and Uncle Arthur lived to be ninety-three anyway! Of course I apologized profoundly, but Aunt Dorabella did not believe a word, and neither of them ever forgave us.”

“How marvelous,” Fitz said sincerely. “I’m sure it was worth it.” He looked around to each of them. “Is there a great deal more you wish to see here?”

“Not I.” Emily shook her head, still smiling, but Charlotte had a good idea she had had enough of standing for a while anyway.

“Nor I,” she agreed quickly.

“Then let us find some refreshment,” Fitz suggested. “Come, James, I shall take you all to tea, and you shall tell us what befell poor Mr. Osmar.” And he offered his arm to
Fanny, who accepted it with a quick smile. James escorted Odelia, and Charlotte and Emily were left to bring up the rear.

They took both carriages, and met up again inside the hotel, where they were served a most delicious tea in a large, softly lit room with the most flattering pinks and apricots. They began with thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches on brown bread, cream cheese beaten with a few chopped chives, then smoked salmon mousse. There were white bread sandwiches with smoked ham, egg mayonnaise with mustard and cress, and finely grated cheese. When these had blunted the edge of appetite, they were served scones so fresh they were still warm, with plenty of jam and cream, then lastly cakes and exquisite French pastries, choux and puff pastries filled with whipped cream, lacelike icing and thin slices of fruit.

During all this James Hilliard entertained them with the story of Horatio Osmar, his trial and unaccountable acquittal, without mentioning the name of the magistrate, which apparently he did not know.

“What did the young woman say?” Charlotte asked.

“Nothing,” James replied, setting his cup down on its saucer. “She was not asked.”

“But that’s absurd!” Charlotte protested.

“The whole thing is absurd,” he answered. “And now I hear they are talking of police perjury—”

“Oh! Which station did you say it was?”

“Bow Street.”

She drew in a deep breath. Under the table Emily reached out and touched her. There was nothing she could say. She forced herself to smile.