Keeping the Castle (5 page)

My stepsisters burst into derisive laughter. “Really, Althea!” said Charity. “An ‘enchanted palace’! What a phrase!” And she in turn leaned forward and whispered, “
Such a naïf!
A mind like a child’s.
The poor thing!”

“In fact,” said Lord Boring, “I quite agree with Miss Crawley. Those are almost the exact words I used myself to my mother not more than an hour ago.”

My eyes traveled over the brightly lighted scene. I was accustomed to spending my evenings in a state of near total darkness only slightly relieved by the light of one cheap tallow dip. But here the night had almost been entirely banished by rank upon rank of beeswax candles; I could see everything as tho’ we stood under a noonday sun. “Yes,” I said, remembering the former state of the house, with dust and dead leaves and little clots of dog hair from the former Lord Boring’s Irish setters drifting down the hallways and settling on the stairs and behind doors, “it is so much cleaner than it used to be, for one thing.”

Shrieks from both my stepsisters alerted me to the fact that they regarded my words as ill-advised.

“Thoughtless, heedless Althea! We are so sorry, Lord Boring. Our deepest apologies, but you see how she is!” they cried in a confusion of voices. And, “Of course, the former Lord Boring was never very well, was he? Quite
naturally
he—And a single man, without a wife to see to the servants!”

Belatedly I realized that they were in the right. Would I never learn to tame my tongue and keep imprudent thoughts within my heart? I sighed. There went yet another young man, within moments of meeting him, and this one was far and away more desirable than Mr. Godalming, with his receding chin and his forward mama.

Lord Boring laughed. “Quite right, Miss Crawley. It
is
much cleaner than it used to be. Well do I remember it on the occasions I came to Gudgeon Park to see my uncle. My dressing room always smelled odd, for instance,” he said reminiscently, “and I could never quite identify the odor. I shall pass your words of commendation on to my mother and her staff.”

My stepsisters shrieked again and begged him to do no such thing.

“I shall make a point of it,” he said, and put an end to their horrified protestations by engaging all three of us, in order of age and precedence, to dance, after which he bowed and moved off to fulfill his duties to his other guests.

4

“. . . ALTHEA? ARE YOU THERE?” Mama was attempting to introduce me to the lady with whom she had been conversing. “Prudence, Charity, would you be kind enough to step aside so that—ah! There you are, my dear! Your stepsisters are so tall, and their headdresses are so . . . imposing, that for a moment you quite vanished behind them.”

My stepsisters moved away with an ill grace. The lady, it proved, was a Mrs. Colin Fredericks, late of London, now come to live among us.

Miss Clara Hopkins leaned forward and said something to Prudence, who in turn whispered loudly in Charity’s ear, “
A merchant’s widow, or so Clara tells me!”
Charity’s eyes grew round and she shied like a nervous filly in a thunderstorm.

Quite frankly, I too was surprised to see someone whose income derived from vulgar commerce here at the Boring ball. I knew nothing of His Lordship save that he cut an elegant figure in evening attire, but even my slight acquaintance with his mother made me believe she was unlikely to harbor egalitarian impulses; on the contrary, she struck me as a woman who, having married into the nobility from a wealthy but undistinguished family, was determined to turn her back on her own less exalted origins. I thought she would be acutely alive to the finer distinctions of rank and consequence.

“And she is, of course, the present Lord Boring’s aunt and the sister-in-law of Mrs. John Westing,” added Mama, thereby making all plain.

I regarded Mrs. Fredericks with interest and sympathy. It was an old tale from before I was born: a sister of the former Lord Boring, apparently bewitched by a handsome face and form, had bestowed her hand in marriage on a man in a position much inferior to hers and had, in Lesser Hoo, at least, never been seen or heard from again.

“Ah!”
My stepsisters also had made the mental connection and recollected the existence of this almost mythical creature, who had been so willful in her affections as to abandon a Baron’s seat in order to live above a shop in London’s Cheapside.

Prudence had called Mrs. Fredericks’s husband a “merchant,” but I suspected that the word was a piece of embroidery on some very plain cloth. We had always been told that Mr. Fredericks was a man of no fortune or property; he was not even the proprietor of the small business where he labored for a living, but a mere hireling. And now, it seemed, he was dead, and she had returned to her childhood home.

“Oh, I
see
!” said Prudence, wagging her feathered head vigorously and making it clear to all present that the relationship alone explained the otherwise inexplicable, namely, Mrs. Fredericks’s appearance at this august gathering. Still, by birth Mrs. Fredericks
was
the daughter of a baron, so Prudence and Charity curtsied, rather stiffly, and then began slowly to edge away. Only a short time ago her neat figure and graceful bearing had raised such admiration in their hearts that they had resented any attentions she might pay me. Now, as tho’ fearing that such unwisdom in matrimonial matters might, like an inflammation of the lungs, prove infectious through standing near her too long, they were only too pleased to leave the three of us in peace to improve our acquaintance.

“Mrs. Fredericks was telling me that Mrs. Westing has invited her to come and live here at Gudgeon Park,” explained my mother.

“We are both widows now, you see,” said Mrs. Fredericks, “and she has kindly offered me a home. Then too, there is a great deal to be done to Gudgeon. My brother had not the health or spirits to oversee the estate. I believe I can be of real assistance to Fanny—my sister-in-law, you know—and to my nephew.”

“I am sure you can,” I said. Her clever, sensible countenance and ready smile suggested that Mrs. Westing had reason to congratulate herself on procuring both a companion and a domestic drudge of a high order, with no need for wages or an afternoon off. “How delightful that we are to have another new neighbor at Gudgeon Park,” I said, with perfect sincerity, for my mother appeared quite pleased with her company and she would be a pleasant addition to our circle of friends. A long immersion in the world of commerce did not appear to have coarsened Mrs. Fredericks’s taste or weakened her intellect, and the two ladies soon were launched on a knowledgeable and detailed discussion of the latest in poetry and literature.

I left them to it, having no leisure to join in; Sir Quentin was approaching with a long string of young men craving an introduction. As I began a series of curtsies so numerous as to make me quite giddy, I had only a moment to reflect that the simple elegance of Mrs. Fredericks’s toilette was no doubt due to her sister-in-law’s anxiety that she not shame her in public. She wore no jewels, and that pretty gown was no doubt a hand-me-down. Mrs. Fredericks’s early training and natural good taste had done the rest.

The first dance was to begin, and I could spare no more attention for Mrs. Westing’s sister-in-law, however pleasant. Several of the gentlemen had managed to avoid being introduced to my stepsisters and were therefore able to ask me to dance immediately instead of having to work their way through my relatives first, so I was quite well occupied. I danced first with my most exalted admirer, the Marquis of Bumbershook. He was not the “young man” we had been promised (Lord Boring’s sister also proved to be apocryphal, and his party numbered only the original five Miss Clara had suggested), being fully five-and-forty, but nevertheless an agile and accomplished dancer and a person of some wit and great kindliness. During the moments when our attention was not required for the execution of the dance, we conversed, and I soon found myself speaking to him with the ease and comfort of long acquaintance.

“And so here I am,” he said, “come to join my young friend Boring in his new home, thinking that it would be a generous act to support him in his sad removal from the gaieties and fine society of London to the duties and dullness of the countryside, far from civilization up here in the North of England. And what do I find? A handsome house, a fine property and”—bowing—“new neighbors so superior to anything I could have expected—some of them indeed positively sparkling with intelligence, elegance and beauty.”

“Fie, sir,” I said. “I fear that ‘sparkling’ is not a term one may, with propriety, apply to my dear friends and neighbors.” Here my eyes strayed to Sir Quentin, who was engaged in loudly blowing his nose on an enormous handkerchief, quite as large as a small tablecloth, and his lady, who was equally loudly scolding him for his bad manners. The Marquis noted where my gaze had fallen and smiled, but without a hint of malice. “We are a quiet, homely set of people, my lord,” I chided him, “and we do not deserve to be made fun of, even by a marquis.”

“I should not dream of doing such a thing,” he protested. “Perhaps my eyes were dazzled by present company, but in truth I do believe that the society to be had in your village and outlying areas is most agreeable, and the countryside hereabouts is attractive, as well. Boring is far more to be envied than pitied.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Indeed, my lord, you are in the right
there.
I shall save my pity for a more deserving object than a handsome young man who has joined the ranks of the aristocracy and inherited a great fortune in the process.”

“Oh well, as to
that
 . . .” the Marquis began, but then thought better of it, and fell silent. Immediately afterwards we found ourselves swept back into the dance.

After the Marquis I danced with Majors Dunthorpe and Simpson, and then once more with Lord Boring.

I must confess I was delighted with Lord Boring. His dancing was not as good as the Marquis’s but to tell the truth, the Marquis was so good as to make my own efforts seem slow and stumbling in comparison, at least in my own eyes. Lord Boring moved gracefully and well, but without the fire and brilliance of his guest, for which I was thankful.

I enquired how he was enjoying his new home.

“Very well indeed,” he replied. “I am fond of Town in the season, but once the hot weather sets in, who would not rather be in the countryside? Now that I have left Oxford, I have every expectation of becoming a thorough-going countryman and making the best of my rustication.”

I smiled, acknowledging his jest—“rustication” was more often used in the sense of having been expelled from college, of being exiled to the country rather than going to live there of one’s own choosing.

“I hope you will not find our company a punishment,” I said. “Your new neighbors are pleased to have a larger, and perhaps more lively, household than your late uncle’s established here at Gudgeon Park. We hope to please and entertain you enough to keep you here for much of the year. I believe your mother is fond of whist and hazard and other games of chance. I fear she will find few partners here, at least not for high stakes. We do not gamble more than sixpence at a time in these parts.”

Lord Boring agreed that his mother was a great card-player, but confessed he himself was but an indifferent one. He preferred to be out of doors, he said.

“Are you a keen horseman?” I enquired.

“I am, and I look forward to exploring the neighborhood. The cliff walks along the sea appear to be very fine, as are the great stretches of moorland I see about me—my horse and I are anxious for a good gallop.”

“You are city-bred, my lord?” I enquired. When he agreed, I suggested that perhaps he should have a groom show him the best places for his gallops. “For your tenant farmers will not thank you for trampling their crops, or for leaving gates open. And some parts of the moor can be dangerous, not to mention the cliff paths. Fog is always a concern on those narrow tracks above the sea.”

“I can see I shall require a guide—my new life has rules and consequences I cannot guess at. But no groom could advise me as well as you—will you not put your local knowledge at my service? It would be a great kindness to a new, and ignorant, neighbor.”

I smiled and said I would do all I could, and then the dance claimed our attention.

At last I returned to my mother’s side—she was alone, as Mrs. Fredericks had been obliged to go and see to some arrangements in the kitchen—and she demanded an account of my time.

“I saw you standing up with the Marquis. It was an honor that he secured you as a partner so quickly,” she said, “tho’ of course
that
is no great cause for amazement, you being by far the prettiest girl here.” Having heard my demurral and my favorable opinion of the Marquis, she then enquired about my other partners.

“Why, then it was Major Dunthorpe, and after that his friend Major Simpson, then Lord Boring, and then both the Hadleigh twins—one after another, of course—and then a Mr. Pultney, and after that—”

“You shall tell me about each of them by and by, but I am anxious to know if you have danced with Mrs. Fredericks’s son. He is here, she tells me, and is excessively handsome, agreeable, and clever and just the sort of young man you would like.”

“No, I don’t believe we have met.” The only man with whom I had danced who struck me as excessively handsome, agreeable, and clever was Lord Boring, and my eyes wandered for a moment, seeking him in the crowded room. Recollecting myself, I returned my attention to my mother and continued, “Certainly none of my partners so far has been named Fredericks.”

“I am sorry to hear it. She was so sure you would like him.”

I smiled. Mrs. Fredericks had seemed like a sensible woman, but she could not help being prejudiced here, and she did not know
me
at all. And whether I liked her son or no, my business was matrimony, and that to a man of means. The son of a shop assistant did not seem like a good prospect, however agreeable he might be.