Mr. Darcy's Daughters (11 page)

“Only one Silvestrini,” remarked Alethea.

Signor Silvestrini’s face creased into a smile. “That is so, that is so. Come, let us begin.”

Alethea sang scales,
la
-ed and
me-ma
-ed up and down and in and out of chords, and finally sang a simple ballad in Italian.

Camilla listened, musing on the nature of musical talent. Most young ladies of her acquaintance learned to play an instrument and to sing. These were necessary accomplishments. They indicated to a censorious world that a girl was properly brought up, and were of benefit in providing music to entertain a private party.

Yet there were those to whom music was not simply part of a limited education. What hope was there for those like Alethea, for whom music was a passion and a necessity? She doubted if many men could appreciate or tolerate that in a wife. Alethea’s musical fate would rest entirely in the hands of her future husband, whoever he might be; she hoped from the bottom of her heart that her sister would find and marry a man who had a real love of music. It sent a cold chill through her to think of Alethea deprived of music.

She could glean nothing from the singing master’s countenance. He was animated in explaining what he wanted, thoughtful while he listened, active while he corrected and demonstrated some point. Yet she had no notion what opinion he had formed of Alethea’s voice. Even when she had finished, and stood there in the centre of the room while he prowled round and round her, caressing his chin between thumb and forefinger, it was impossible to judge what he was thinking.

Finally he broke the silence, breathing out with a long sigh as though he had been holding his breath. “So,” he said. “Remarkable. You are English, you are sure you are English?”

Alethea nodded.

“I should not have believed it possible.” He swung round to Camilla. “You are her sister? Where are her parents? Who arranges her lessons?”

“My parents are abroad at present, sir. My older sister and I are charged by them to see to Alethea’s musical education.”

“And why do you come and not this other sister? No, do not answer, it does not matter.”

Alethea addressed Signor Silvestrini directly. “Will you teach me?”

He looked at her with intense surprise. “But naturally! It is only a matter of the arrangements.”

The arrangements made Camilla stare; she could not have believed that a singing master could command such a price for his services.

“And because she is so young, and it is not a matter of entering the profession at such an age, I reduce my charges, I bankrupt myself to teach her!”

That was coming it a little strong, but Camilla couldn’t help smiling, liking his high opinion of himself and of Alethea, his good humour and his vigorous personality. Entering the profession? She should think not, indeed, not at sixteen or any age, he must realise that, but since there was no question of it, there was no need for any discussion about the matter.

Alethea danced down the stairs, in raptures over the signor and her lessons. As she bounced off the bottom step, the front door opened, and a tall, fair, very beautiful and fashionably dressed woman came in, a small, pink-cheeked girl at her heels. Seeing strangers, the child seized her mother’s skirts. The signor, coming down the stairs with great rapidity, swung the child into the air, whereupon she shrieked and let out a cascade of Italian.

“The Signora Silvestrini,” he announced to the sisters, catching the woman round the waist despite her laughing protests. She spoke to him in Italian, her voice low and with a rich quality to it that made Alethea look hard at her. Then she greeted Camilla and Alethea in pretty, broken English.

Camilla was surprised to find her an Italian, with those looks, and Signor Silvestrini’s sharp eyes noticed the surprise; another crinkling smile came over his face. “You expect her to be dark, like me and the bambina, and every other Italian. But no, she is from Lombardy, and the Lombards are blond and big. She is a singer, a famous singer, from Milan, but now my wife and mother of my cherub.”

Camilla summoned Figgins and they went out into the grey, foggy day, feeling they had come away from a brighter, warmer world. On an impulse, she directed the coachman to drive them to Gunters. “You may eat some pastries and have a dish of hot chocolate,” she said to Alethea, who was always hungry.

Once arrived at Gunters, Camilla dismissed the carriage; they would walk home, she said, it was no distance. They went inside, assailed by the wonderful aromas of chocolate and coffee and baking, and sat at a little table near the window.

Alethea made a careful choice from the splendid display of the pastry cook’s art, and sipped with great contentment at her big bowl of chocolate. They had insisted that Figgins come in with them and have some chocolate, too, and she sat in a state of bliss at a stool towards the back of the shop, in the company of several other servants, who appeared to be gossiping every bit as busily as their mistresses.

The place was a hubbub of conversation and activity as people went in and out and servants went through to the back to collect the long orders of desserts for grand dinner parties—few Londoners kept their own pastry chefs.

As Camilla drank her own chocolate, she looked about her at the people talking at nearby tables, greeting friends, waiting for their orders or making their choices, and found herself wondering, with an interest she had never felt before, which of the couples she was watching were man and wife, which lovers, which no more than friends.

She noticed the warmth of a look passing between a man and a woman, indicative of an understanding or rapport that she herself had no experience of. Then there were smiles, little attentions, a clear desire to be closer to a companion. Others were not so sure of their situation and so sent different messages, with an arch tilt of the head, a flirtatious glance followed by immediate lowering of eyes on the woman’s part; the tipping of a hat, twitch of a stock, slapping of gloves on a masculine thigh from the man.

The door opened once more, and in walked their cousin Sophie, accompanied by Mrs. Gardiner. Greetings, exclamations of surprise and pleasure, explanations. The twins had gone on to a lunch engagement with friends—with which friends? Camilla wondered—and the men had gone off somewhere on their own pursuits.

“Although I dare say Mr. Wytton at least will call round this afternoon; he had little enough time with Sophie this morning, and she was attending more to buying shoe roses than she was to him. We have called in here to collect some sweetmeats, and then we are going home.”

Sophie was eyeing Alethea, who was tucking into yet another pastry.

“La, cousin, how can you eat all that? You will get monstrous fat.”

“Not I,” said Alethea. “I never put on weight.”

Mrs. Gardiner was urging them to come home with her to Albemarle Street. “Fanny can spare you. We have not had the pleasure of Alethea’s company this visit. I wanted to say this morning, only I could see it was not quite convenient, how much she is grown, and she is quite the young lady!”

This earned her a glowering look from Alethea, which she wisely chose not to see. “And the twins are become great beauties, everyone talks of them, but I had not seen for myself how lovely they are.”

“I hope everyone does not talk of them.”

“They do,” said Sophie, with a shrug. “They call them Day and Night, one being so fair and the other dark. The gentlemen are all mad for them.”

“That can hardly be true,” Camilla said, “since they have scarcely put their noses out of doors except to do some shopping. They have been to no parties, and Fanny does not think it right for them to go to balls.”

“Lady Fanny was talking to Madame Lapierre about ball gowns for them, however,” said Sophie, her angelic countenance taking on a slightly shrewish expression. “I heard her.”

“A private dance, perhaps,” Camilla said, with a sinking heart. “They may be allowed to go to a private dance or two.”

Sophie looked unconvinced, and did not seem pleased when Alethea announced that she would like to go back to the Gardiners’ house. Could not Figgins be sent home with a message for Fanny? They would not be wanted at home, especially if the twins were out.

“Cousin Fanny can have a peaceful time without the four of us. And as for Letty, she was planning to tidy her writing desk, the travelling one she takes everywhere. It is stuffed full of letters, you know, and I dare say there may be one or two there from Tom; Lord, only think what a state she will work herself into if there are any letters of his. Not that there can be anything so very much, though, when one thinks about it, since he was always a poor hand with a pen.”

Camilla had to agree, although she did not say so. Tom, delightful though he was in so many ways, had passed unscathed through his education, and were he not a gentleman, must count as an illiterate. A scrawl regarding a gun or a dog was his limit; there was nothing unusual in that, however. Most men were poor correspondents. Even a scrawl, though, might be enough to set Letty off again.

The Gardiners did seem a better prospect, and she must just hope that Letty would burn any scribbles from Tom that she should find. More likely she would indulge in an orgy of might-have-beens; if so, she would bore herself into a rational frame of mind more quickly if left on her own.

“Mind, Figgins, when you have passed our message to Lady Fanny, you are to reassure Miss Darcy that we are well and have had no mishap on our outing. Tell her we are quite safe in the care of Mrs. Gardiner, she need have no concern for us.”

“Say also that I shall send Miss Camilla and Miss Alethea home in my carriage,” added Mrs. Gardiner. “Come along, girls. Sophie, you may carry the box of sweetmeats.”

At Albemarle Street, Camilla had another opportunity to ponder on marriage and courtship. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were a contented couple, easy together and grown in some ways very alike. She was struck by this, for her parents, she considered, were equally affectionate, but they had retained their own, different personalities. Would Sophie Gardiner and Mr. Wytton grow to be like the Gardiners after many years of married life together, or be more like Mr. and Mrs. Darcy?

These reflections came as a result of the promised afternoon call from Mr. Wytton, accompanied once more by Mr. Layard, whose face brightened as he saw her. He came over to sit beside her, and she asked him his opinion on this matter.

“Why, Wytton will never grow like anyone else, so if they are to become alike, then Miss Sophie will have to become a connoisseur and an antiquarian.”

He had spoken in a low voice, but not so low that Mrs. Gardiner did not hear. “Such an idea, Mr. Layard, how can you say such things? No woman can be a connoisseur, nor yet an antiquarian; the very notion is absurd!”

Camilla was surprised by the vehemence of these words. Mrs. Gardiner turned away to speak to Mr. Wytton, and, giving Mr. Layard a speaking look, she said, “I fear we have upset Mrs. Gardiner.”

Mr. Layard dropped his voice until it was the merest whisper. “The very word
connoisseur
carries a dangerous meaning to that generation.”

She would have liked to know more—she had never thought of
connoisseur
as an especially incendiary word—but good manners forbade her to persist, or to continue to hold a whispered conversation with Mr. Layard, so she smiled and changed the subject, asking him if
Frankenstein
had yet come his way. It was the strangest book, only just out.

“Lord, there you go, Camilla, talking of books again,” cried Sophie. “You will be called bookish, they will say you are a blue-stocking if you do not take care. And how can you speak of that abominable book? It is altogether nonsense, no one reads it, and those that have cry out against it. I am sure I don’t want to read it. And I heard that it was written by a young woman; she should know better, indeed she should.”

“They say Mary Shelley is the author,” said Mr. Wytton laconically.

“I do not believe it,” said Layard. “No woman could write such a book—or would want to.”

Wytton agreed with him. “I do not myself believe it is within a woman’s scope to write so powerful a narrative.”

“You are very harsh in your judgements.” Camilla had no wish to be drawn into an argument, but she could not let such a remark go unchallenged. “Maria Edgeworth is a novelist with considerable powers of expression.”

“That is different, one expects women to write that kind of thing.
Frankenstein
is quite another matter. I dare say Shelley wrote it himself.”

“You mean the poet Shelley,” said Sophie, with a pout. “I do not care for poets.”

“Not even for Lord Byron?” asked Mr. Layard, quizzing her.

“Oh, he himself is so dashing, so romantic, but his poetry is such stuff! There is no doing with it. Everyone goes on about
The Corsair
and quotes all those lines, but it is not to my taste. I tried it once, and how it made me yawn.”

Her contempt for the works of Europe’s most famous poet brought extra colour to her face, and she gave a little shake of her shoulders.

Mr. Wytton was looking at her with a kind of hunger in his eyes that made Camilla go quite cold. It was a look that combined affection with a predatoriness that was almost shocking. She had seen ardour in men’s faces, had noticed it with the disinterest of an untouched heart, but this look of Mr. Wytton hit her with particular force, and she was at a loss to know why.

He had moved closer to Sophie and stood now behind her chair. His hand fell carelessly on her shoulder, touched a loose curl that had strayed down her neck, and she looked up at him with a smile and moved her face slightly so that his hand brushed her cheek.

She averted her eyes, felt her face burning, was amazed at how this was affecting her. Did she long for such a touch? She supposed she might, with a particular man—

“Daydreaming, Miss Camilla?” Mr. Layard’s words broke into her thoughts. “I was speaking of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster and the chase across the ice, and you do not attend to a word I have been saying.”