Supervising Sally (13 page)

‘As for you, Miss Kingston, you don't look capable of controlling my daughter, but I will have to put up with you, for now. If I find you are performing your duties inadequately, I will employ some older lady who will know how to do it.'

‘Miss Kingston may look young and pretty and fragile, but she is fully capable of making Sally heed her,' the earl said, his tone amused.

Phoebe shot him a startled look. He had given no indication he thought her pretty, and as for her capabilities, this
was not what he had given her to understand he believed. She was nevertheless grateful for his support. Sir William was, she considered, an odious man, and Sally was greatly to be pitied, having him and her uncaring mother as parents.

Telling them he had to go out, he was late for an appointment and would see them in the morning, Sir William departed. The earl also took his leave, promising to call on the following day to see how they did. A maid was summoned to show the girls to two small bedrooms on the third floor, where someone had already put their trunks. Phoebe, slightly hysterical, wondered where on earth Sally was going to put all her clothes, there was so little space.

‘There is a meal in half of one hour,' Jeanette, the maid, told them, her accent so strong they had to concentrate hard to understand it. When Phoebe spoke to her in French she smiled in relief, said she would show Annie where she was to sleep, and would then bring up hot water for them to wash.

Phoebe expected Sally to be downcast by the reception her father had given them, but when they had been served supper in the ground-floor dining-room the girl was cheerful.

‘Papa has always been stern, but he does not mean half his threats,' she confided. ‘He will introduce us to people, and take us to parties, for he does not want to have to keep me for too long. But I will not marry anyone just because he wants to be rid of me.'

‘Who is Aunt Sophronia?' Phoebe asked. ‘And what can she do to you?'

‘She's mad. She lives in the Scottish Highlands, in a very isolated and cold castle,' Sally explained, shivering. ‘We only went there once, when I was about ten years old, but it was dreadful. It's dark and gloomy, with almost no furniture and no hangings. Most of the windows have no glass, just shutters. It's on a cliff at the edge of a lake. They call it a loch in Scotland. It's so close I was afraid the castle would fall in.

The only fire is the kitchen one, for cooking, and it smokes dreadfully. She goes to bed when it grows dark in winter, and will not permit anyone to have candles, so we had to go to bed too. And she does not eat anything but fish and oat cakes and porridge. She never drinks wine, or even milk, just some horrid fiery spirit that makes you choke. She only has two servants, an old couple who are as crazy as she is, even though she is supposed to be very rich, because she inherited a fortune but never spends a penny if she can help it.'

‘Why does she live like that? What does she do to occupy herself?'

‘She weaves endless shawls, and in winter wears half a dozen of them to keep warm. She spends the rest of the time fishing in the loch. Papa says she was crossed in love when she was sixteen, and has never recovered, never left the castle since then.'

Phoebe reflected that Sally herself, deprived of George, did not seem unduly concerned. Being crossed in love was clearly not going to make her lose her wits.

‘Did she not have parents?'

‘I think they died when she was quite young. They were dead when I went there to visit.'

‘Then if you don't want to be sent there again you must not annoy your father.'

Sally grinned. ‘Don't worry, Phoebe. He won't know where we are half the time, if we are careful. He'll get some dowager to take us to parties, and if we keep out of his way he won't know what we are doing.'

Sir William may have found their presence unwelcome, but Phoebe had to admit he did his best for them, during the first week, at least. He took them to visit many of the
fashionable people staying in Brussels, and they were soon deluged with invitations to parties, balls, receptions, routs, the theatre, and rides and drives in the Park and the surrounding countryside.

The entire town seemed to be given over to social activities. Besides the English there were many people of other nationalities, though most of the French aristocracy, she was told, had returned to France after Napoleon's abdication the previous year, when King Louis XVIII had been restored to the throne.

She was eager to explore the town, but Sir William knew nothing of its history and dismissed the buildings as old and uninteresting. Phoebe planned to explore on her own, perhaps when Sally was occupied with some of her new friends. They had both been made welcome, and Sally was soon engaged with several girls of her own age, riding, shopping, or just trying on their new gowns and experimenting with different ways of arranging their hair. After a while, when Sally had behaved impeccably, Phoebe felt justified in permitting her more freedom on some of these unexceptional occasions.

They saw nothing of the Bradshaw sisters for more than a week, and then met them at a ball given by Lord and Lady Corby, the parents of Sally's new friends Jane and Deborah. The Corbys, Sally explained with a grimace, lived in Yorkshire and Deborah had told her Mr Bradshaw had called on them and asked Lady Corby to keep an eye on his sisters while he travelled to Ghent to see the man who was building a textile industry there. The sisters were wearing the same gowns they had worn at Ridgeway Park, but they had added more rosebuds so that, Sally said with a giggle, they looked rather like a flower garden.

Phoebe was wearing one of her new gowns, of cream crepe Lisse, which she had bought in London, and a coral necklace her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday.

Hermione, the moment she saw Phoebe and Sally enter the ballroom, came across to them.

‘We were devastated, missing you at Dover,' she said, ‘and you did not give us your direction here. We have been trying to discover it ever since we arrived. Will you come to tea with us one day soon?'

They had to accept, but escaped as soon as they could. Rather to her surprise, Phoebe soon found her dance card full. She had, when she accepted the position of companion, imagined she would have to sit with the chaperons while Sally danced, but Beatrice had made her promise she would not refuse invitations to dance.

‘Sally needs to think of you as a friend,' she had said, ‘someone she can trust and confide in. She won't do that if you sit with the dowagers and remind her you are older.'

Phoebe wondered whether the Earl of Wrekin would be at the ball. They had not seen him since their arrival in Brussels, and Phoebe assumed he was only too thankful to be rid of responsibility for them. He was probably immersed in diplomatic duties. Even if he did attend any of the balls or parties they had been invited to, she did not expect him to do more than give them a polite greeting. So far, however, they had not met, and despite telling herself not to be ridiculous, she could not help feeling just a little disappointed.

When the guests went in to supper, Phoebe saw Sally with a group of young people, including a couple of cavalry officers stationed with the British expeditionary force which had been in Flanders since the end of hostilities. They were all clearly in high spirits, and making rather a lot of noise as they talked and laughed. The wine was flowing freely, and Phoebe hoped Sally was being sensible and not drinking too much. She doubted it, however, and when she saw one of the young men repeatedly refilling Sally's glass, decided she had to intervene. Sally would resent it, but it was her duty. She
was pondering the best way of approaching it when the earl suddenly appeared and after a brief word of apology to her partner, joined their group and sat beside her.

‘How are you enjoying Brussels?' he asked. ‘Sally seems to like it.'

‘Too much,' Phoebe replied, frowning. ‘She's too excited. I have to detach her from that group, before she disgraces herself.'

‘And she will hate you for it. Leave it to me.'

He strolled across to the group, joined in the talk and laughter for a few minutes, and then brought Sally across to her.

‘Phoebe, may we go riding in the morning? The earl says he will escort us and show us where the French bombarded the town in – oh, I don't know! Years ago.'

‘Twenty-one years since, child. Well, Miss Kingston, have we your permission? Sally tells me her father has provided you both with riding horses.'

‘It – that would be delightful,' Phoebe said, casting him a look of gratitude. The musicians were starting to play again, and people were drifting back from the supper-room.

The earl picked up Phoebe's dance card and glanced at it. ‘I was hoping for the pleasure of a dance with you,' he said, ‘but I can see I will have to arrive early in future. Is Sally behaving herself, not dancing more than she should with one man?'

‘Yes, of course. She has been taught the proper way to behave, and I am confident she has no wish to flout conventions here. Her father has threatened her with Aunt Sophronia.'

He gave a crack of laughter. ‘That should keep her in line! Lord Drayton went once with his sister to visit the lady, and Beatrice has not stopped shivering whenever she is reminded of the visit.'

‘Is she as bad as Sally says?'

‘I don't know what Sally has told you, but she is probably worse!'

Phoebe's next partner, a young man a couple of years older than herself, then appeared to claim her. The earl moved away, and she did not see him again during the evening.

Zachary, back at the embassy where he had reports to read, wondered why he had invited the girls to ride. He had gone to the ball for a short while, obliged to appear because the Corbys were acquainted with his sister. He had seen how Sally's high spirits were leading her into potential indiscretions, and sensed Phoebe's reluctance to spoil her relationship with the girl. It really would have been better if Beatrice had employed a more mature woman to control Sally. It was not fair to give Phoebe the responsibility. She was hardly more than a girl herself.

Despite his reluctance, he found himself enjoying the ride the following morning. It was the end of February, a lovely spring day, Sally comported herself calmly, and Phoebe, clearly delighted, asked sensible questions about the recent wars.

They rode out to the ridge to the west of Brussels, from where the French had bombarded it before occupying the town.

‘Why did they come?' Phoebe asked.

‘Some supporters of the revolutionaries led a revolt against the Austrian rulers. The town was occupied by the French until last year. In the beginning, they stripped it of whatever they could because their finances were in trouble. Then, a year or so later, they made the Southern Netherlands part of France.'

‘I assume they were not popular!'

Zachary heard Sally heave a great sigh. She was clearly bored with the history lesson, but he had no intention of stopping his conversation with Phoebe, who was genuinely interested.

‘Indeed not. They took land from the Church and sold it, but what really offended the people was the conscription of their young men into the French Army. Napoleon at least realized how they felt, and restored some of the Church's privileges, but began to pay the priests wages instead of the tithes they had been used to.'

‘Oh look,' Sally interrupted, ‘there are Jane and Deborah Corby.'

She waved vigorously and the two girls, together with some friends, men as well as girls, rode across to join them. The same two cavalry officers who had been with Sally at the ball were there, and Phoebe wondered whether they ever had military duties to perform. Zachary dropped back, and he and Phoebe, excluded from the chatter and laughter of the younger people, were able to converse as they followed.

‘Have you seen much of Sir William?' he asked.

‘He took us to meet his friends at first, but once we began to receive invitations, he said he had other things to do. We sometimes see him at parties, but he is with older people, and usually he goes to the card-rooms.'