Jane Ashford (5 page)

The two sisters went out shopping again on the following morning. They visited Hookham’s Library as well, and made use of Laura’s new subscription to procure the latest of Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances. Clarissa bid fair to become addicted to novel reading, which had been forbidden by Aunt Celia.

They did not return until early afternoon, and they found that a number of ladies had left cards during the morning. Clarissa picked them up from the silver tray on the hall table and ruffled through them as she walked up the stairs. She read the names to Laura excitedly. “Lady Darley, the Viscountess Cranleigh, Mrs. Cooper. Oh we have missed a great many people, Laura. How vexing!” They reached the drawing room, and Clarissa tossed her pelisse onto the sofa. “Well perhaps there will be others this afternoon.”

Laura shook her head. “For my part I hope not. I am worn out with standing about in the shops and hurrying from place to place. I shall tell Mr. Dunham I am not at home this afternoon.”

At this moment Mr. Dunham came in and said, “There are two gentlemen below, ma’am. They say they wish to pay their respects.” Silently he held out two cards, his expression stiff.

Laura read. “Clarissa, it is Lord Timothy Farnsworth. And a Sir Robert Barringfors. A friend of his, I suppose.”

“Ha,” said Clarissa. “He did come. Please, let us see them.”

Laura nodded to Mr. Dunham. “It seems you have an admirer, after all.”

“It is about time. I am eighteen years of age and have never had a beau.”

Laura’s eyes twinkled. “You forget the curate.”

Clarissa put a hand to her cheek. “I did. Oh how funny. How could I forget poor Mr. Wigmore? Do you remember his ridiculous little moustache?”

“Yes. And his watery blue eyes and his greatcoat.”

Clarissa giggled at the memory of this preposterous garment.

“Poor Mr. Wigmore.”

Thus, when the two gentlemen entered the drawing room, they found themselves facing two pairs of twinkling eyes and two merry smiles. Such enhancements on the faces of such lovely ladies more or less sealed their fates. Lord Farnsworth stammered as he said hello and introduced Sir Robert. “B-brought a friend,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind. H-he didn’t wish to intrude, but I said you l-like to meet new people. Strangers in London, that sort of thing. Hope it’s all right.” Sir Robert bowed rather nervously and said nothing.

“Of course,” replied Laura. “Please sit down.”

With obvious relief, the gentlemen complied. A silence fell.

“It is interesting to meet new people,” said Clarissa. “We have had more visitors already than we would have seen in a month at Eversly. Some friends of our aunts called. Perhaps you know them?” She named the ladies.

Lord Timothy seemed to shudder. “Lady Quale,” he echoed. “Friend of m’mother. In fact all four of them are thick as thieves. Terrifying woman. Makes me quake.”

His friend nodded in agreement. “Dashed acid tongues they have. Always makes a fella feel he’s said something stupid.”

Privately thinking that this feeling might not be too far off the mark, Laura nodded sympathetically. “They certainly are formidable.”

“And extremely inquisitive,” added Clarissa. “I nearly told them to mind their own affairs and leave ours to us.”

Lord Farnsworth looked frightened. “Mustn’t do that,” he said urgently. “They’d put it about town before you could blink. Talk nothing but scandal, you know, and slander. You’d find yourself in the basket before you knew it.”

Clarissa smiled. “I shall try to be careful. Perhaps you are fonder of the Rundgates? Mrs. Rundgate and her daughter also called.”

“Anne Rundgate?” Sir Robert was heard to murmur. “Taking little thing.”

“Do you like her?” replied Clarissa. “I thought her quite nice.”

Greatly taken aback, the man stammered, “Oh no. That is, hardly know the girl. Just out, ain’t she? Saw her at a party, I believe. Never spoke.”

Clarissa appeared a bit exasperated by this disjointed speech, so Laura intervened. “Perhaps you are better acquainted with Mrs. Allenby then? She was our final caller and completes the catalog you have endured so patiently.”

But this attempt to put Sir Robert more at his ease failed miserably. In fact both gentlemen now showed signs of agitation, and Sir Robert’s eyes bulged alarmingly. “V-vera Allenby,” he choked out finally. “She called
here
? But ain’t she… That is…” He floundered in confusion, then put a hand to his mouth. “Pardon me, got something in my throat,” and he began to cough weakly.

“Fine day today, what?” put in Lord Timothy at this moment. The ladies turned puzzled faces to him, and Sir Robert gazed at his friend with gratitude and awed respect. Lord Farnsworth faltered under this wholesale scrutiny but continued gamely. “Sunshine, you know. Quite warm for April too. I took my team out to Richmond.”

Taking pity on them both, Laura said, “Did you? To the park? I have not seen it yet, but I have heard that it is very beautiful.”

“Oh yes,” responded their visitor. “Flowers, that sort of thing. And it makes a good workout for the horses.”

“I should like to see it,” said Clarissa. The smile she bestowed on the gentlemen contained an unmistakable message.

“Worth a visit,” was Lord Farnsworth’s only reply. His friend nudged him, but he merely looked at him vacantly.

“Be honored to escort you,” added Sir Robert then. “Take my curricle out.”

Lord Farnsworth started. “Dash it, no. I shall take you, Miss Lindley. Honored. Didn’t think of it. That is, meant to ask, that is…”

Clarissa smiled. “I’d be delighted.”

Once this was settled, the gentlemen appeared to have exhausted their fund of conversation. Clarissa made several attempts to draw them out, but she met with little success, and both ladies were relieved when their callers rose to depart.

When they were safely gone, Laura said to her sister, “Do you really wish to go?”

“Not particularly. But I must have some beaux, you know—as many as possible in fact.”

Laura shook her head. “Those two reedy, dandified
boys
?”

Clarissa giggled. “Oh that is too harsh. They are a little thin perhaps, but it is rather an elegant slenderness, do you not think so? I admit that Sir Robert’s waistcoat was a trifle florid, but…”

Laura interrupted her. “Don’t try to bamboozle me, Clarissa. And if you call that waistcoat a
trifle
florid, I wonder you would not allow me to purchase the red ribbons this morning. Too arresting, you said, I believe.” She gave her sister a quizzical look. “Lawks.”

Clarissa burst out laughing. “Very well, I admit you have the right of it. They are not first-rate specimens.
But
they are the only young men I have met, and who am I to dance with if I do not become acquainted with some? It is purely practical. And Lord Farnsworth is a little handsome. I like blond men.”

“And bulging blue eyes and a receding chin, no doubt?”

Clarissa laughed again. “Stop, stop. You are too hard.”

Her sister joined her laughter. “Perhaps. If they were very clever and witty, one could forgive the rest, but they are such loobies, Clarissa.”

The younger girl nodded. “Did you see Sir Robert when you mentioned Mrs. Allenby? He looked just like a fish out of water.” Her laughter faded as she recalled something. “That was odd, was it not? Why do you suppose he did so?”

Laura looked down and shrugged. “Who can tell with such a shatterbrain? I wonder if he knew himself?”

Clarissa frowned. “Oh I think he did. He was at great pains to turn the subject. What can it be about?”

“Well I for one am too tired to wonder,” answered Laura, rising. “I think I will lie down for a little while. Remember, we go to Vauxhall tonight.”

“Yes, I shall be along directly,” replied the other absently, but she remained seated, regarding the fire with narrowed eyes.

Laura hesitated, then went upstairs. She really was tired, but as she lay on her bed, her mind was busy. What had Sir Robert been about to say? She had an idea, and it did not please her overmuch. Was Mrs. Allenby in some sense her rival? And exactly what was the contest and her chance in it?

These conjectures did not make it easy to rest, but Laura lay lost in thought for quite some time, staring up at the canopy over her head. She was so engrossed that it was time to change for the evening before she knew it, and she had to hurry.

Nonetheless she was the first down to the drawing room. She surveyed her appearance in the mirror over the mantel, checking yet again the cut of her new gown. It was made of crepe of a clear, pale violet shade and fell in soft folds to the floor. She had refused any complicated trim, and the small puffed sleeves were adorned only with small knots of darker ribbon. Another tied the high waist, and she wore a necklace and earrings of amethyst that her Aunt Eleanor had pressed upon her before the wedding.

“I shall never wear them again, child,” her aunt had said sadly. “And they will look so lovely on you. You can wear such things now that you are to be wed, you know.”

So she had taken them, and she was glad now. Her black hair was again pulled up in a knot to show the earrings, and she had draped a diaphanous wrap over her elbows. Altogether, she thought as she looked in the mirror, it was an elegant outfit.

“Lovely,” said a voice from the door.

Laura turned, wide-eyed, to see Eliot standing there. For a moment she found it difficult to breathe; he looked so very impressive in his evening clothes. His dark, hawk-like face was set off to perfection by the snowy linen, and his tall elegant figure was at its best. He came over to her and raised her hand to his lips. “You will do me great honor tonight,” he said.

“Thank you,” replied Laura. “It is a pretty dress, is it not?”

He smiled. “Yes… but it is not the dress I meant.” To himself he was thinking that he had been fortunate in his choice. His wife was beautiful and everything he could wish in terms of birth and breeding. He had been right to use rational judgment in this matter and not allow his emotions to sway him. The accident of their union, in which he had acquiesced because it suited him, had been a happy one.

Clarissa hurried into the room. “Am I late?” she said. “I am sorry. That silly Nancy dropped some Denmark Lotion on my dress. We had to sponge it out.”

Eliot laughed. “Are you a devotee of facial nostrums? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

Clarissa had the grace to blush. “Nancy bought it for me. But I do not think I shall use it. What a smell!” They both laughed at that, and in good humor started down the stairs to the waiting carriage. Clarissa wore peach-colored crepe this evening, and Eliot remarked on the charming picture the two sisters made as they sat together in the rear seat.

***

When they arrived at Vauxhall, Clarissa exclaimed at the trees hung with colored lanterns, the tiers of boxes about the stage, and the winding paths through the gardens adorned with statues and pavilions. She had only one complaint about the evening’s entertainment. “I think you might have asked one of your most charming friends to accompany us,” she told Eliot. “Am I to be without an escort?”

He smiled. “I might say that I hoped to keep two such lovely ladies to myself,” he replied, “a compliment which should silence your objections. But in fact I have arranged that Lord Anthony Trilling meet us at our box.” He directed a conspiratorial glance at Laura as he added, “He is a baron, I fear, not a duke. I could not provide a duke on such short notice.”

Laura stifled a gurgle of laughter and looked a bit guilty, remembering what she had told him about her sister when they first met.

Clarissa merely looked puzzled. “Why should you want a duke?” she asked. “Most of them are quite old, I understand. What is Lord Anthony Trilling like?”

“That, I shall let you judge for yourself. I see he is before us.” And Eliot ushered them toward the box where a man sat alone waiting for them. When he saw them approaching, he rose and bowed. Eliot nodded in response. “Laura, this is my friend, Tony Trilling. My wife, and her sister, Miss Clarissa Lindley.”

The gentleman said everything that was proper, and they sat down around the table in the box. Lord Anthony had already procured some of Vauxhall’s famous rack punch and the paper-thin slices of ham for which it was famous, and the ladies sampled the latter. As they ate, they looked about them with great interest. The lights, the brilliant crowd, and the music formed an almost hypnotic combination to observers so unused to the gaieties of London. Their escorts watched them with appreciative amusement for a while, until Laura turned back and caught her husband’s eye. She blushed a little.

“You must think us quite countrified, gazing about like children,” she said.

“On the contrary. Are you enjoying the spectacle?”

“Oh yes. What a beautiful place this is.”

“It is splendid,” added Clarissa. “This is just how I imagined London would be. I want to go all around the gardens.”

Eliot laughed. “Well, if you are finished, we might stroll about a bit.”

“Oh yes.” Clarissa was on her feet in a moment.

“Would you care for it?” Eliot asked Laura. She nodded, and the four made their way down to the paths.

Clarissa took Lord Trilling’s arm and walked on ahead, leaving Laura to stroll beside her husband. It was soon evident that the first couple was embarking on a very spirited light flirtation.

Laura shook her head. “Clarissa is so excited by this trip to town.”

“That is only natural, I think. She is very young and has had no taste of the diversions so common to most girls.”

Laura agreed. “It is not that I am really concerned, you understand. Clarissa is sensible, and her principles are sound. I am only afraid that her high spirits may cause some misunderstanding or… oh I do not know. I have never acted as a chaperone before.” She sighed.

He laughed. “I am sure all will be well. You are an exemplary guide.”

Laura made a face. “How dreadfully dull that sounds. I feel much too young to be any such thing.”

Eliot looked down at her. “You have, I think, an innate good breeding that outweighs those factors. I have no worries on that score.”