The Stanbroke Girls

by Fiona Hill

  “Is that so? Well, it was a lucky coincidence for me. I’ve found out who was responsible for the five pounds I lost in that fight between Neate and Cribb a couple of weeks ago. Did you bet on that, Marchmont? Did you know it was—”

  “Halcot, this is important. Since you met him in my house, I feel responsible. I want you to know that Sir Jeffery is not the sort of man you can trust. Not at all.”

  “Well, I must say you take a very odd view of your own kin!” said Charlie, his wide red smile fading.

  “It hasn’t anything to do with his being our kin,” Emilia said gently. Lord Marchmont had said nothing to her of the scene in the corridor that night, but she objected to Jeffery strongly enough on general principles to back up her brother with a whole heart. “He is simply a dreadful rake.”

  Halcot looked surprised. “Is he? Upon honour! Well, nothing to be done about it now. I’ve already invited him to the ball we’re giving on Thursday. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

  Lord Marchmont sank into an armchair and covered his head with his hands.

  “Oh dear, he’s not that bad now, is he?” asked Charlie, then added wistfully, “I wish you’d told me before. I wouldn’t have mentioned it to him. But Bella and Lizzie are pretty sensible girls,” he comforted himself, while Marchmont groaned quietly, “and—Oh dear, maybe Bella isn’t so sensible after all,” he amended. “But Miss Lewis will keep an eye on her. She’s as reliable as they come. And after all, they’ll be in my father’s house! It isn’t as if one couldn’t keep an eye on the fellow. Anyhow, I have a feeling he doesn’t like me above half. He rushed off pretty quickly this morning. Said he had an errand, but I got the feeling he was just doing the pretty, and only wanted to get away from me. Maybe he won’t even come on Thursday. I dareswear a ball like ours is not much in his line.”

  He had finished on a hopeful note, but the look he gave his auditors was full of doubt.

  “Perhaps I can drop a word in his ear and encourage him to stay away,” said Marchmont. “In any case I shall try.”

  “Oh, I say, old fellow, it isn’t an emergency after all!” protested Halcot, whose idea of a rake’s methods was pretty fuzzy.

  Lord Marchmont did not trouble to correct him, but he disagreed. Since the doors again opened at that moment to admit Lady Elizabeth Stanbroke, the subject was allowed to drop. Lady Elizabeth was followed presently by her parents, both of whom liked the earl and his sister very much and reckoned them well worth cultivating. Miss Lewis, it developed, had gone out with Lady Isabella to visit some shops, but had come home alone fifteen minutes ago with a sudden sick-headache. She was upstairs nursing it, the visitors were told, but she sent her compliments down to them.

  7

  For a while conversation in the Oriental Saloon was general. Lady Trevor addressed the other ladies on the subject of the huge drawing-room Queen Charlotte was to hold a week later; and when that topic had been exhausted the rumours of Beau Brummel’s being about to flee his creditors were once again dusted off and exchanged. Lord Trevor asked Lord Marchmont his opinion on the Lavalette affair, then proceeded to a rather smug examination of the income-tax question. At this point the butler arrived and whispered into Lady Trevor’s ear of some obscure domestic crisis which required her attention, and since a few moments later Lord Trevor in his turn excused himself and vanished, Lady Emilia had but to draw Lord Halcot aside in order to leave her brother on his own with Elizabeth. Emilia had a reason for wishing to speak to Charlie apart in any case, and she easily contrived that he should follow her over to one of the long narrow windows, where she could address him quietly.

  It was Amy Lewis’s situation that concerned her. An unmarried woman of thirty is frequently suspected by the world of being an enemy to romance: with Lady Emilia this would have been an unjust accusation. She had been touched by Miss Lewis’s self-effacing devotion and was determined to awaken Lord Halcot if she could to the gentle warmth that sunny disposition had for so long directed at him. Sly intimation was not in Emilia’s style. Had she been allowed a free hand she would have told Charlie straight out that Miss Lewis loved him, but she was obliged to be subtle for Amy’s sake, and so she tried to strike a middle ground between tactfulness and candour. “I am glad Miss Lewis did not come down,” was what she said by way of an opening, “though naturally I am not glad that a headache prevented her.”

  Lord Halcot was surprised and confused. “Do you mean, ma’am, that you do not care for Miss Lewis’s company?” he inquired.

  “Oh no, hardly that! Only…I am happy to have this opportunity to speak to you uninterrupted.”

  “Were you afraid Miss Lewis would interrupt us if she were here? You have a very odd idea of her, Lady Emilia. She is the quietest thing imaginable.”

  “But that’s just it,” said Emilia. “Her very quietness is doubtless the heart of the problem.”

  “Problem?”

  “Well, it is not a problem per se, I suppose. Except perhaps to—in any event, what I wished to point out was—oh, this is difficult. Lord Halcot, have you ever been in love?”

  “I believe so,” said he, thinking of Susannah Lemon.

  “Then you know how difficult it is to make your feelings known. It can be—frightening,” she brought out carefully, “even for a man, who is by custom the one to take such risks at first.”

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “Well, imagine how much more frightening it might be,” she went on, “for a woman. She might well never find the courage to make a declaration. Particularly if she were a timid sort of woman.”

  Lord Halcot was slightly bewildered. “I am sure that is true, ma’am,” said he, “but—with all due apologies—I do not quite see what that is to do with me. Perhaps I am being obtuse,” he suggested gallantly.

  Lady Emilia, feeling frustrated, looked frankly into his blue eyes. “My dear sir,” she said, “it may be I am not making my meaning sufficiently plain. My point is, sometimes one does not see what is taking place under one’s very nose—perhaps because it is under one’s nose. Sometimes a solution is so simple that one fails to arrive at it on account of the simplicity itself. Do you understand?” she asked, fearing that she had not reached him at all yet.

  Lord Halcot, silly young man, had begun to have a faint notion of her drift—but he had got it all wrong. Was it possible, he was asking himself, that Lady Emilia had somehow fallen in love with him? He looked under his nose, as she suggested—and there indeed she stood. The poor woman was getting on in years…perhaps she was so desperate as to fancy her esteem might be returned. He glanced at her with a critical eye. She wore her age pretty well, it was true (thought he), but she couldn’t hold a candle to, for example, Susannah Lemon. Anyway, he didn’t really care for that brainy sort of woman. A little too much like Lizzie, as a matter of fact: a good sort underneath, but all too likely to lash out at one in moments of pique. In truth he was a little surprised Lady Emilia should take to him in such a fashion; ordinarily these witty types did not. But then Love was ever a mystery. And Lady Emilia was not, as he had observed, growing younger. He determined to let her down gently. “Dear ma’am,” said he presently, “I think perhaps I do. I know it cannot have been easy—I mean, I imagine it would indeed be frightening—for a woman to, er, declare herself, as it were. But perhaps—after all, certain people are not suited to certain people, don’t you know. While perhaps we may feel, temporarily at all events, that our happiness lies in some particular direction…nevertheless, reflection will doubtless inform us that it was but a momentary illusion which…er, which made us feel, um—” His voice trailed lamely into silence.

  “Lord Halcot, am I to understand you do not care for—the lady in question? If so, please tell me, and I will let the matter drop at once. I had had the impression the possibility had never occurred to you. That was why I mentioned A—I mean her quietness.”

  “Oh! Indeed? Well, I should not say I did not care for her,” he replied with what he supposed was a kind,
chivalrous smile, “but the kind of esteem we are discussing is, if I follow you correctly, so very special that, er…it is not enough simply to care for the person in question. One must feel a particular kind of ardour—”

  “Please, it is not necessary to say anything more,” she broke in. She felt badly for Miss Lewis and gave a sad little smile. “Of course such a thing as this must be wholly mutual.”

  “I am very flattered,” Charlie remarked sweetly, distressed at what he supposed to be her crestfallen smile. “After all, it is not every day a man—”

  “Dear, dear!” sighed Emilia lightly, while he floundered. “Why is it life is always setting us at odds with one another? Naturally there is nothing for it but to push ahead regardless…But one could wish it otherwise. Now tell me, Lord Halcot, if you think the frock-coat will stay in fashion long. It is a little extreme, don’t you agree?”

  Moved by her brave attempt, as he supposed it, to turn the conversation, Charlie pursued the trivial topic she suggested and stood speaking to her upon it for several minutes longer. The only thing he could not understand, when all was said and done, was what any of it had had to do with Amy Lewis. For Emilia had begun her remarks by mentioning Amy; in fact, by saying she was glad Miss Lewis was not with them. Was it possible she supposed little Amy a rival? What a remarkable idea! It was the first time he had ever so much as thought of Amy in such a light—and despite the fact that he immediately disposed of the notion as absurd, it may be that Emilia accomplished more by her discussion with Charlie than the sound of it might lead one to conclude.

  Lord Marchmont and Lady Elizabeth had, all this while, also been tête-à-tête—just as Emmy had promised. They sat on a confidante, green and gilt and ornately carved, with clawed feet meant to suggest those of a Chinese dragon. Lady Elizabeth sat at a far end, Lord Marchmont only a few inches from her. Lizzie, though she had given permission for the earl to call upon her, had later regretted the decision. It was true that his lordship was very handsome; and a little gossip she had chanced to overhear apprised her that he was, and had been for years, extremely sought after. Nevertheless, she could not get away from a sense that his lordship was continually, in some way not altogether clear to her, judging her. The fact that she was for her part most certainly judging him did not prevent her from disapproving of him on this count. Quite the contrary, in fact: it made him all the easier to dislike. It was a shame, too, for she had been greatly drawn to him at their first encounter. She had come down to sit with him chiefly because she’d given her word he might call, but her mother’s departure from the saloon had seemed a betrayal to her, and her father’s disappearance minutes later had discomfited her greatly. Lady Emilia so adroitly engaging Charlie’s attention, there was nothing Lizzie could do but sit with the gentleman and hope he would leave soon. To say truth, the frankness she herself had shown him at the dinner-party two days before was as much a factor in her new prejudice against him as anything he himself had said or done: she just did not like the company of someone to whom she’d revealed herself in that way. Perhaps Lord Marchmont guessed this, for it is certain he did not mention their interchange on that night, nor in any way allude to the topic they had then discussed. He began, indeed, by discussing the ball the Trevors were to give that week, and led afterwards to what he expected would be the safe, only mildly stimulating topic of Lord Byron’s latest writings. But it seemed as if Providence meant them to debate important issues whenever they met, for this seemingly innocuous subject led, as night to day, to the much more flammable question of Lord Byron’s latest romantic escapades. All London was in fact chattering of his separation from his wife of only a year—and so soon after her accouchement. What could it mean?

  “I fear the bonds of matrimony, as they are called, are being manufactured of gossamer these days,” the earl observed, adding with a smile, “These are wicked times.”

  “Do you think so, sir?”

  He had come determined to like her, for her forthright speech a few nights before had left a deep impression on him, but he could not help feeling she was being a great deal more reticent with him now than he had believed was her nature. “I do,” he forged ahead, inquiring, “Do you disagree?”

  “Can one time really be more wicked than another?” she asked. “It seems to me the opportunities of good and evil stay pretty equal through the years.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” said Marchmont, “but when I think of such a man as Napoleon, I am persuaded that the ordinary course of history can be changed—that placid times can be made wretched and grim—by the actions of a single person.”

  “You fought against Bonaparte, my lord?”

  He nodded.

  “What is it like to be in battle?” she asked, her dark-blue eyes widening with interest. “Are you sorry the war is over?”

  Lord Marchmont waited a moment before speaking. Then, “Dear ma’am, while the war continued not an evening passed when I did not pray most fervently for its end. When peace seemed sure I cried for very joy; I do not hesitate to admit it. My only prayer now is that you and your sister and the thousands like you continue as ignorant of war and its effects as you are today.”

  Elizabeth regarded him with surprise. “That was feelingly spoke, my lord. Did you find it so very arduous, then?”

  He smiled. “Were it only a question of arduousness I should make very little of the ills of war. But there is more than discomfort involved, more even than courage, or pain. Lady Elizabeth, people do not speak of war honestly, not in the general way. There is a deal of horror involved, of anger and disgust, and great waste through the actions of petty minds. It is a subject on which I have strong ideas. Though perhaps idea is not the correct word,” he amended. “It is a subject that pursues me, of which my impressions are strong, I ought to say.”

  Elizabeth had not expected anything like so detailed a response to her question. Hers was a skeptical mind, yet she entirely believed his emotions ran as deep in this area as they seemed to do. It was impossible to hear his tone and not believe it. She did not like to press him, but her curiosity was piqued. “I beg you will not discuss the question further,” she began in answer, “if it pains you, but I cannot help wondering just what you saw in Europe that left you with such strong convictions. Were you at Waterloo?”

  Marchmont nodded again. “But this is not proper drawing-room conversation,” he said. “You must encourage me to speak of something more agreeable.”

  “But I wish to know what has made you feel so strongly.” She was starting to like him again and was suddenly glad after all that he had come.

  “Have you ever seen a cat kill a mouse?” he asked at length.

  Elizabeth said she had.

  “Then you know how slowly it is done—with what an appearance, at least, of deliberate cruelty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well, then, a war is like that—only it is men who torment one another so miserably, and the scope is millions of times larger. Do you understand?”

  Lady Elizabeth was so much struck by his look and voice that involuntarily her hand reached out and for a moment covered his, as it were in compassion. The moment passed. “I hope I have not occasioned you any unhappy memories,” Lizzie murmured presently, her hand withdrawn.

  He smiled again. “Unfortunately, those memories are always present to me. I cannot seem to rid myself of them. But this is really monstrous; I must not bore you any longer with such melancholy accounts.” He shook his handsome head as if to chase the thoughts away and continued resolutely, “How does your first season among society suit you? Are you sorry to be away from home, or charmed with the gay whirl?”

  “May I be somewhere in between?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then I should have to say that while London is continually new and interesting—to me, at least—I shall be very happy to see my home again.” She gave a winning grin and went on, “You know, last year Lady Emilia assured me that when I was finally out, as the s
aying is, I should want nothing so much as to be allowed to stay in. At the time I was incredulous, but I am almost ready to believe her now.”

  “Emilia is a wonder,” said her brother.

  “Goodness, I should like to hear Charlie say such a thing of me! What a very fond brother you are, my lord.”

  “I dareswear Lord Halcot is just as fond of you,” he answered. “He simply isn’t old enough yet to realize it.”

  Elizabeth remained unconvinced. “Perhaps there is more to admire in Emilia than in me,” she suggested, continuing before he could protest, “for I must agree she is a marvel.” Lizzie was in fact very partial to the lady under discussion, though perhaps she was not quite in the habit of calling her a wonder or a marvel.

  “I have been trying to persuade her to marry,” the earl went on a little distractedly, “for I am certain Lord Weld would like to marry her—”

  “Then I was right!” Elizabeth exclaimed before she could stop herself.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “At your dinner-party—do you not recall it? We saw him speaking to her, and I said he was trying to win a smile from her. And you said—”

  “Oh yes,” he interrupted, “pray do not remind me any more. I was an idiot not to realize it then.” He looked chagrined and added, “It will seem very strange to you, no doubt, but I find it is still difficult for me to see Emilia as anything other than my younger sister. I mean, I do not think of her as quite a woman, with a life of her own. Yet I am very eager for her to marry. Perhaps if she married I could realize better that she has grown up.”

  “Oh dear,” said Elizabeth, smelling trouble but plunging in nevertheless. “Here we are again. You see how deviously the institution of marriage threads itself through a woman’s life? If she does not marry she is perpetually a child—until she is suddenly an old woman, that is. Whereas if she does marry…but we have already had that discussion.”