The Regency (102 page)

Fanny was going to the ball in the company of the Sales
and Polly Haworth, who were staying at Shawes. Lady
Barbara Morland's daughter, Barbarina, was seventeen, and
to avoid being obliged to bear most of the expense of bringing
her out by offering Chelmsford House for the ball, Roberta
had hastily made up a party to go to Shawes for Easter,
thereby making sure she was out of London for the Season.

As her party consisted of the Ballincreas and the Greyshotts,
Roberta thought it a good excuse to invite the Sales, for she
was curious to see how Flaminia was adapting to her new life.
She hadn't seen her since the wedding.

After their honeymoon in Isleworth, Lord Harvey, appar
ently in need of company, had taken his bride and her
companion up to Northumberland to stay with the Ballincreas
for the shooting, and stayed on for Christmas and the hunting.
After that they had gone on an extended tour of various
relatives scattered around the country. When summer arrived,
Flaminia, who was in an interesting condition, had been
packed off to Stainton with her cousin, while Lord Harvey
had gone down to Brighton to enjoy the company of old
friends. Flaminia miscarried at three months, and remained
in the country. Sale spent the Little Season in Town, Roberta knew, though she hadn't seen him herself, but had gone back
to Stainton for the Christmas season, taking a party with him. The invitation to Shawes was readily accepted, and
Roberta thought that Minnie and Polly must be in need of a
change of scene.

When Roberta extended the invitation to Lucy, she seemed
indifferent to the prospect of seeing her daughter again.
Having married Flaminia creditably, she seemed to have
cancelled her out of existence.

‘
But don't you want to see how she's doing?' Roberta
asked, puzzled.

Lucy raised an eyebrow. 'Why should I? She's doing well
enough, I'm sure. And if she isn't, there's nothing I can do
about it, is there?'

‘Oh, Lucy,' Roberta said reproachfully.

‘
Oh, Rob!' Lucy mocked. 'The reason I arranged a match
for her, simpleton, was so that I could stop worrying about
her. She's Lord Harvey's responsibility now, not mine.'
When the young people arrived, Roberta could see at once
that there was no need to worry about Flaminia. She looked
as healthy and untroubled as ever, plump and placid, dressed
in fine style, and with a taste Roberta suspected owed some
thing to Polly's direction. Even her disappointment of mother
hood did not seem to have troubled her. When Roberta
asked her, very carefully, if she had been very unhappy, she
replied quite cheerfully, 'Oh, dear no. To be sure, Lord
Wyndham wanted us to have a son, but Harvey doesn't mind.
I dare say we will have a child some time. For the moment I
am just as happy as I am, for being in the family way is
tiresome, and uncomfortable.’

Roberta was more surprised at the change in Polly: she
seemed somehow to have faded. Though she had always been
grave and reserved, it had never been possible not to notice
her; but now her startling beauty was somehow less. After a
closer study, Roberta realised that it was at least in part
because of the way she was dressed, and had arranged her hair,
which were dull and self-effacing. She seemed to have given up any idea of attracting a husband, to be content to dwindle
into that most despised of creatures, a lady companion.

But she seemed pleased to be back in Yorkshire. Roberta
had a word with Héloïse, and Héloïse drove over to tell Polly
that she must feel free to come and go at Morland Place
just as she liked, and that she had put a horse and groom
specifically at her service. Minnie, similarly prompted by
Roberta, assured Polly that she did not need her at all while
she was staying at Shawes, and Polly needed no more per
suasion to spend most of every day riding out alone, enjoying
the freedom of solitude, and letting the fresh Yorkshire wind
blow some colour into her cheeks.

Lord Harvey was more of an enigma. He treated his wife
with courtesy, and with the sort of casual affection one might
bestow on a rather foolish pet dog, but he spent as little time
with her as possible, and seemed to forget all about her as
soon as she was out of sight. Polly he ignored, never speaking
to or even looking at her if he could help it. Roberta guessed
that he had married because he had to, but rather resented
the intrusion into his life of two females, and did his best to
limit the intrusion as far as possible. His long sojourn first in Brighton and then in London, while his wife was at Stainton,
seemed to confirm that.

He seemed to have lost weight since his wedding, and had a
rather hectic, spent look about him. Roberta suspected he was
drinking too much, and also probably philandering, perhaps
seeing other married women, or consorting with the Muslin
Company. It was a pity, she thought, that a married man
could not satisfy himself at home; but of course all people
were not as lucky as she and her two husbands had been.

When Roberta mentioned the Mansion House ball to her
guests, she had not really thought they would want to attend,
but to her surprise, Harvey Sale at once proclaimed himself
eager to go. She had thought he would be too sophisticated to
want to attend a ball in provincial York.

‘
Nonsense,' he said, 'why should York balls be less delightful
than London ones? Minnie must have some dancing! She
has been too much confined lately. She ought to have a little
pleasure. Come, love, what do you say? You would like to go
to the ball, would not you?’

Minnie smiled placidly. 'Oh, dear yes,' she said. 'I should
like it of all things, if you wish to go.'

‘Then it is settled,' Sale said firmly. 'Who else will join us?’

Lord Greyshott shuddered. 'Not I, I could never see the
pleasure in dancing; and these country balls have nothing
going on in the card-room but chicken whist and silver loo.'

‘
You are a monster of selfishness, Ceddie,' Maurice
Ballincrea laughed. 'You know Mary cannot go, frail as she is,
and I will not leave her; but you do not think of your own wife.
Poor Helena must long for a little dancing.'

‘She may go if she wants; I shan't stop her,' Greyshott said indifferently.

Helena shrugged. 'I had rather play billiards. I will play
you, Maurice, for that ten guineas you won from me last
night.'

‘
Paltry!' cried her brother. 'Make it fifty, Nell, or it's not
worth standing up for.'

‘
Then it is just we three who are to go?' Sale said. 'You will
all be sorry, when you hear what a splendid time we've had!'
Polly, her eyes averted, murmured that she did not want to
go, but Sale turned at once to her, his eyes glittering a little
unnaturally.

‘
Nonsense! You of all of us have the best right to go. Balls
are especially for unmarried females; pleasure and dancing
and falling in love are their property! I insist upon it, in your case. You
shall
go to the ball, Cousin Polly, and dance every
dance. We shall chaperone you, and examine all the young
men who offer for you, to make sure they're worthy.’

Polly looked distressed, but would not argue any further,
and so it was decided; with the addition to the party of
Fanny, to save Héloïse the task of chaperoning her. Fanny
was content with the arrangement, for she considered her
cousins had both altered so much for the worse since their
joint come-out, that they could only enhance her beauty by
contrast. Well, to be fair, Minnie had not changed so very
much, only she was plumper, and now that she dressed as a
matron, she looked ten years older; but Polly had grown
scrawny and plain, Fanny thought with some surprise, and
seemed to have lost her taste in dress. She was dressed for this
ball in the one shade of blue which did not become her, and
had arranged her hair in such a strange way, as if she actually
wanted to make herself look ugly!
As soon as they had shed their outer wraps and walked into
the ballroom, Fanny was besieged by her usual group of
admirers, the most faithful of whom were Horace
Micklethwaite, Jack Appleby, handsome Henry Bayliss, whose father owned the newspaper, and Jack Dykes, the banker's son.
They clamoured around her, complimented her appearance,
begged for dances with her, and to be allowed to take her
down for supper. Fanny charmed them all, a little absently,
while looking around the room to see who else was there. The same old faces! she thought. No-one new to captivate; no-one
she had the slightest chance of feeling a
tendre
for, to liven up
her evening. She supposed she might dance with Lord Harvey
Sale, just to annoy her suitors. Even the red coats scattered
here and there did not raise a
frisson,
for she knew the wearers
ers all too well.

She suddenly realised that she didn't see Tom Keating any
way. He was usually one of the first to approach her, and
though he was growing more and more impossible, and
drinking too much into the bargain, he was an amusing rattle while he was sober enough, and she didn't like to lose any of
her following.

‘
Where is our friend Tom?' she asked abruptly, breaking into Henry Bayliss's rapturous admiration of her eyes. 'I do
not see Tom Keating anywhere. Nor Edmund Somers,' she
added with a frown. Another defection? It would not do! They looked at each other a little awkwardly; then Horace
Micklethwaite said, 'You haven't heard then? About Tom's
sister?'

‘
Patience Skelwith? No, what of her?' Fanny said indiffer
ently.

‘
She's dead,' said Micklethwaite. 'She died this morning.
Tom's heartbroken — he was very close to poor Patience.
And of course Edmund's her cousin — he wouldn't come to
the ball with a black ribbon.'

‘
But what did she die of? She was perfectly healthy last
time I saw her,' Fanny said in astonishment.

‘
Apparently she was taken ill a few days ago, with vomiting
and cramps in the stomach,' Henry Bayliss said. 'My Uncle
John, the physician, was called in, and treated her, but she
just got worse and worse, and she died this morning.'

‘
Not a very good advertisement for your Uncle,' Fanny
said. Her remark was greeted with a shocked silence, and then
Jack Appleby giggled nervously.

‘They say old Mrs Skelwith poisoned her. She always hated Patience,' he said.

‘
There's always a lot of loose talk about poison when some
one dies of this sort of thing,' Henry Bayliss said, looking at
him sternly. ‘If I were you, Jack, I wouldn't repeat it, or you'll
find yourself in trouble.’