April Lady

by Georgette Heyer

  As far as Nell was concerned, this supplied all that was needed to set the crown on a singularly disastrous day. She begged Letty with great earnestness not to attempt to argue her case that evening; and when Letty, with a toss of her head, declared that she was not afraid of Cardross, warned her that his back had already been set up by Lady Chudleigh’s letter.

  A thoughtful silence descended upon Letty. After a few moments she said, with a nonchalance that would have deceived no one: ‘It is not of the least consequence. I shan’t regard it if he does give me one of his scolds. Is he very angry, Nell?’

  ‘No, but – oh, a good deal displeased, I fear! I believe he won’t speak of it to you, if only you won’t vex him!’

  ‘Well, I won’t say anything to him tonight,’ Letty decided. ‘What a fortunate thing it is that we are going to the play! I had meant to ask you if we need, because I haven’t any inclination for it. Still, it won’t do to fall into a lethargy, even though Cardross is determined to break my heart. He will be very well served if I go into a decline, for although I daresay he doesn’t care a button what becomes of me I shall leave a letter to be opened after my death, saying that it was all his doing, and he won’t like that!’

  Slightly heartened by this reflection, she then went off to change her dress. With rare tact she selected from her wardrobe a very demure half-dress of French muslin, and further heightened its modesty by arranging round her shoulders a lace fichu. This led her adoring abigail to look upon her with anxious concern, but upon the matter’s being explained to her Martha entered at once into the spirit of the thing, and contributed her mite by substituting a pair of silk mittens for the elegant kid gloves she had previously laid out. Letty eyed them with disfavour, but consented to wear them; and presently burst upon her half-brother’s sight as the embodiment of virtuous maidenhood. The effect of this modest ensemble, though not what she had expected, was good. When she entered the drawing-room Cardross was looking stern, but after one glance at his pious little sister his countenance relaxed. He put up his glass, the better to study her appearance, and said dryly, but with a quivering lip: ‘Doing it rather too brown, Letty!’

  Her saintly expression melted into one of engaging mischief. She twinkled roguishly, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ‘Dear Giles! What an agreeable surprise, to be sure!’

  ‘Turning me up sweet, my pet?’

  She giggled. ‘No, no, it is the luckiest chance that you have come home, because the case is that we mean to go to the play tonight, and have no one to escort us!’

  ‘What an abominable girl you are!’ he remarked.

  ‘Yes, but don’t be cross!’ she begged.

  ‘It would be a waste of time. I entertain serious thoughts, however, of sending you to stay with Aunt Honoria. She may take you to the Assemblies at the Upper Rooms now and then – by the by, they end punctually at eleven! – but only if you are excessively well-behaved.’

  ‘Oh, what a horrid notion!’ cried Letty, shuddering. ‘Aunt Honoria! Bath, too, of all places! But of course I should run away – to become an actress, I daresay, just to serve you out!’

  ‘Nonsense! She will have you in subjection within a week! She frightens me to death!’ he retorted.

  ‘Very likely! There is more steel to my nerves, I promise you!’

  He laughed, and upon dinner’s being just then announced bowed both ladies out of the door, and followed them downstairs to the dining-room. Bent on charming him into an acquiescent mood, Letty kept him amused by a good deal of nonsensical raillery, in which Nell took little part, merely smiling mechanically at Letty’s more outrageous absurdities. Her spirits were oppressed; and she was on tenterhooks lest Letty, encouraged by her brother’s indulgent mood, should think the time opportune to broach the subject of her marriage. Dinner seemed interminable, though it was, in fact, shorter than usual, his lordship not having been expected. The artist belowstairs had had time only to fling together the merest travesty of a second course, supplementing the soup, the pigeons, the poulard à la Duchesse, and the morels of the first course with a grilled breast of lamb with cucumber, prawns in a wax basket, and some cheese-cakes. This very commonplace repast had not escaped censure from the steward; and Farley, who maintained a guerrilla warfare with the Gallic ruler of the kitchens, prophesied that his lordship would send a pretty sharp message downstairs. His lordship, however, made no comment; and as for her ladyship, although she rejected most of the dishes, and ate very sparingly of the others, this abstinence seemed to arise from loss of appetite rather than from any particular distaste of what was offered her.

  When they rose from the table the Earl, who had glanced rather narrowly at his wife several times during the course of the meal, asked her quietly if she was feeling quite the thing.

  She said hurriedly: ‘Yes – oh, yes! A little tired, but nothing to signify!’

  Letty, interposing in a helpful spirit, said that they were both of them quite fagged with balls and routs; and when Cardross suggested that they should remain at home, instead of going to Drury Lane, she at once lent her support to the scheme, reminding Nell that there had been no play put on for months that had been worth seeing. For her part, she said, she would as lief stay at home, and enjoy a comfortable coze. But as Nell was well aware that her comfortable coze would speedily develop into an extremely uncomfortable altercation with her brother, she said that she wanted very much to see the play. Cardross at once bowed his acquiescence, but gone was the gentler note in his voice when he replied, with civil indifference: ‘As you wish, my love.’

  The play was neither better nor worse than any other that had been performed at Drury Lane that year, and even Letty, who was young enough to think herself hardly used if brought away from a theatre before the final curtain, greeted with approval Cardross’s suggestion that they should not stay to see the farce. London was passing through a dramatic doldrums, and with the exception of an occasional appearance of Mrs Siddons, in charity performances, and the promise of a new melodrama by Charles Kemble, to be produced at the end of the month, under the intriguing title of The Brazen Bust, there was really nothing in prospect to lure the most inveterate playgoer into any of the theatres. The Haymarket Theatre being closed, owing to the preoccupation of the management in the Court of Chancery, the Surrey, on the south bank of the river devoting itself to burlettas that were not at all the thing for ladies, the Regency fast sinking into decay, and both the Lyceum and the Olympic staging displays that resembled Astley’s circuses, lovers of the drama were obliged either to stay at home, or to attend a succession of indifferent plays put on at Drury Lane, or at the Sans Pareil.

  ‘I can’t think what made you wish so particularly to see such a stupid piece!’ said Letty frankly, when Cardross, having conveyed his ladies back to Grosvenor Square, had gone off to spend an hour or two at White’s Club. ‘I did my best to save you from it, too, for I could see you were not in spirits.’

  ‘I didn’t wish to see it,’ replied Nell, rather wearily. ‘I said so only because I was in such dread that you would begin to tease Giles about your marriage, and I thought that anything would be better than that!’

  ‘How can you be so nonsensical?’ demanded Letty, quite astonished. ‘Why should you care if I did tease him? He would not blame you for that!’

  ‘No, very likely he would not – until you had dragged me into the quarrel, which you would have, if I know you! And in any event I can’t bear to be obliged to listen to you driving Cardross into losing his temper, which no one can wonder at his doing, for you must own, Letty, that as soon as you are cross you express yourself in the most improper way to him!’

  ‘Pooh! why shouldn’t I say what I choose to him?’ said Letty scornfully. ‘He is not my father, after all! I don’t wish to distress you, Nell, but I warn you I mean to speak to him tomorrow morning, before he goes out. And, what’s more, I shall continue to pres
s the matter every time I see him, until he yields, which I don’t doubt he will, because I have frequently observed that gentlemen dislike excessively to be continually teased, and will do almost anything only to win peace again!’

  Upon hearing this pleasing programme, Nell expressed the fervent hope that providence might see fit to strike her down with influenza during the night, so that she would be obliged to keep to her room for several days, and went off to bed, a prey to what her sister-in-law was uncivil enough to call the blue devils.

  There was no intervention by providence, but Nell very prudently put in no appearance at the breakfast-table. Since it was Sunday, and she liked to breakfast before attending Morning Service, this was served earlier than on weekdays: early enough to afford Letty ample time to launch her preliminary skirmish.

  That she availed herself of the opportunity Nell soon knew. She was seated before her dressing-table, while Sutton arranged her shining ringlets in a fashionable mode known as the Sappho, when Letty erupted into the room, out of breath from having rushed upstairs in pelting haste, and with her eyes and cheeks blazing. ‘Nell!’ she uttered explosively.

  Well aware that she would not be deterred from pouring forth the tale of her wrongs by Sutton’s presence, Nell at once dismissed her stately dresser. She would probably learn the whole from Martha presently, since that devoted and uncritical abigail was deeply in her mistress’s confidence, but that couldn’t be helped, and at least Nell would be spared the embarrassment of her presence while Letty gave rein to her first fury of indignation.

  Hardly had the door closed behind Miss Sutton than the storm broke. Pacing about the room in a fine rage Letty favoured her sister-in-law with a graphic and embittered account of what had taken place in the breakfast-parlour. The preliminary skirmish had clearly developed rapidly into a full-scale attack. Equally clearly Letty had been beaten at all points. Her recital was freely interspersed with animadversions on Cardross’s character, cruel, callous, tyrannical, and odious being the mildest epithets she used to describe it. After one quite unavailing attempt to check her, Nell resigned herself, listening with half an ear to the various measures (most of them, happily, impossible) Letty was prepared to resort to if Cardross should persist in his uncompromising attitude; and wondering whether either of them would be in time for Morning Service. Not surprisingly, considering the overwrought state of her nerves, Letty’s diatribe ended in a flood of tears, violent enough to make Nell entertain serious fears that she was about to fly into a hysterical fit. This danger was averted by a mixture of hartshorn and common sense, and the sufferer from fraternal persecution presently subsided into milder weeping. Nell had just succeeded in soothing her, and was bathing her temples with Hungary water, when Cardross, after the curtest of knocks on the door, walked into the room. At sight of Letty, languishing upon the sofa, he stopped short on the threshold, and said cuttingly: ‘An affecting spectacle!’

  ‘Oh, Giles, pray hush!’ begged Nell.

  The stricken maiden on the sofa bounced up, and in a husky voice of loathing promised to go into strong convulsions if Cardross did not instantly leave the room.

  ‘By all means do so if you have a fancy to be well slapped!’ retorted Cardross, looking as though it would give him considerable satisfaction to carry out his threat. ‘If you have not, stop enacting Cheltenham tragedies, and go to your own room!’

  ‘Do you imagine,’ gasped Letty, ‘that you can order me to my room, as though I were a child?’

  ‘Yes, and carry you there, if you don’t instantly obey me!’ he said, pulling the door open again. ‘Out!’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Cardross!’ expostulated Nell, in the liveliest dread that Letty would relapse into hysterics. ‘Do, pray, go away, and leave her to me! This is my room, and really you have no right to order Letty out of it!’

  ‘You have an odd notion of my rights,’ he said grimly. ‘I don’t question that she is more welcome in your room than I am, but you will own that I at least have the right to be private with you when I choose!’

  She whitened, but said quietly: ‘Most certainly, and if it is the case that you wish to speak to me, shall we go into my dressing-room?’

  ‘You need not put yourself to so much trouble!’ declared Letty, trembling with anger. ‘I would not for the world, love, expose you to the sort of ill-usage I am compelled to suffer, and to spare you I will go!’

  This very noble speech wiped the thunderous look from Cardross’s face, and made him burst out laughing: an unlooked-for event which exacerbated Letty, but considerably relieved Nell. Letty, pausing only to inform her brother that his manners were as disgusting as his disposition was malevolent, swept out of the room, sped on her way by a recommendation to go and take a damper. Cardross then shut the door, saying: ‘Little termagant! I shall be sorry for Allandale, if ever she does marry him.’

  ‘She is very much overset by this news that he must leave England so soon,’ Nell replied excusingly. ‘One cannot but feel for her, and for my part – But I don’t wish to tease you any more.’

  ‘Thank God for that! I have had as much as I can support in one day, I assure you. At breakfast, too!’

  ‘I must say, I think that was a very foolish time to choose,’ admitted Nell.

  ‘Very! But she would not have found me more persuadable at any other hour.’ He added, as she sighed: ‘Yes, I am aware of what your sentiments are, but I didn’t come to enter into argument with you over this lamentable affair. What I did come for was to discuss with you what will be the wisest course to pursue now. We may be sure of one thing: until that regrettable young man is out of the country there will be no peace for either of us. I shall no doubt be subjected to endless repetitions of today’s scene; and you, I suppose, will be obliged to sustain the exhausting rôle of confidante. Well, I know of no reason why you should be called upon to endure Letty’s tantrums, so tell me frankly, if you please, if you would wish me to pack her off to Bath?’

  ‘Upon no account in the world!’ she said quickly. ‘Surely you were only funning when you made that threat?’

  ‘I was, but I didn’t then know that Allandale was to leave England so soon.’

  ‘No, no, don’t think of it! It would be so dreadfully unkind to send her out of town when she has so little time left before Mr Allandale sails! I am persuaded, too, that she would run away – perhaps to Mrs Thorne, and you would very much dislike that. Only think how it would look!’

  ‘If I know my Aunt Honoria, she would be given no chance to run away,’ he said, with a wry smile. ‘Don’t imagine, however, that I wish to send her there! She’s a tiresome little wretch, and when she starts brangling and brawling I could willingly wring her neck, but so much must be laid at the door of her upbringing that I can’t feel she deserves quite such a fate as to be delivered up to that dragon of a female. But I don’t wish you to be worn to a bone by her nonsense.’

  ‘Indeed I shan’t be, and I beg you won’t dream of sending her to Lady Honoria! One thing you may be sure of: you have no need to fear an elopement.’

  ‘No, very true!’ he agreed. ‘Allandale’s inability to support a wife must put that disaster beyond the range of possibility!’

  ‘Yes, but that is not quite just, Cardross!’ she said reproachfully. ‘He may be an ineligible match for poor Letty, but you cannot doubt that his principles are high, and his sense of propriety too great to allow of his entertaining the thought of an elopement, whatever might be his fortune!’

  ‘His principles and his propriety may be as high as the moon, but I have no great opinion of his resolution!’ Cardross replied. ‘Had that been on the same level he would never, as his affairs stand, have allowed his fancy for Letty to carry him to the length of applying to me for her hand! She can be an engaging little devil when she chooses, and I will own myself astonished if he is not being led about with a ring through his nose, like
a performing bear. My dependence is all upon his straitened circumstances. We will keep Letty in London, then – and you won’t blame me if she drives you to distraction!’

  He left the room on these words, and after a discreet interval Miss Sutton returned to it, to complete, with lofty dignity, her task of presenting her mistress suitably coiffed and gowned for an appearance in the Chapel Royal.

  In the event, Nell decided that the hour was too far advanced to admit of her making anything but an undesirably spectacular arrival at the Chapel Royal; and she presently dismissed her carriage, setting out on foot for the Grosvenor Chapel, which place of worship, though frequented by persons of ton, was hardly worthy of Miss Sutton’s best efforts. She was accompanied by Letty, having coaxed that injured damsel to go with her in the hope that religious exercise would bring her to a more proper frame of mind. Unfortunately, the officiating cleric announced as the text for his sermon a verse from the Epistle to the Philippians. ‘Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory,’ he pronounced sonorously, ‘but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.’ Nell felt Letty stiffen.

  Nor was there anything in the discourse that followed to produce in either lady any thoughts suitable to the Sabbath. So apposite to the events of the morning was the sermon that Nell, far from being edified, was hard put to it to stifle a shocking fit of giggles; while Letty, swelling with wrath, could not afterwards be persuaded that Cardross had not suborned the blameless cleric into choosing a text aimed directly at herself.

  Upon their return to Grosvenor Square Nell found a note from Dysart awaiting her. No, the porter informed her: his lordship had not called in person, but had sent it by the hand of his groom. Nell bore it upstairs to her dressing-room to peruse it in private, but its contents were disappointing. The Viscount had scrawled no more than a couple of lines to say that he had received her warning, and would take care to keep out of Cardross’s way. He remained her affectionate brother, Dysart. It was only by the exercise of all the resolution at her command that she was able to refrain from dispatching another letter to him then and there, reminding him of the urgency of her need. Lady Sefton called during the course of the afternoon, and stayed for an hour, uttering cryptic remarks, and peeping at Letty through her fingers as she did so in a roguish manner that caused that young lady to apostrophize her later as a nasty creature, which was unjust, since beneath her tiresome affectations she was the kindest of creatures. From having been acquainted with Mrs Allandale for many years she was pretty well aware of the state of affairs in Grosvenor Square, but even Nell, who liked her, could not acquit her of having come to discover, if she could, any interesting circumstances which had not reached Mrs Allandale’s ears. Hardly had she departed than a much more unwelcome visitor arrived, in the person of Lady Cowper, who came with the ostensible object of begging dear Lady Cardross to lend her support to a charitable organization of which she herself was a leading patroness, but lost little time in trying to ferret out, in the most caressing way possible, all the details of Letty’s romance. Nell was mortified indeed to realize that her lord’s little sister had become one of the on-dits of London, and glancing towards her, thought that she too looked to be rather struck. Lady Cowper, like all the Lambs, was possessed of a degree of charm that too often lured the unwary into reposing confidences in her which would later provide her with matter for her witty tongue; but her insinuating manners won her nothing from the two Merion ladies but a stoney stare from Letty, and from Nell a gentle civility that rebuffed all hints and enquiries, and caused her later to tell her numerous acquaintances that it was a sad pity that so beautiful a creature should be so insufferably insipid. As for her hostesses, no sooner had she taken herself off than they spent an agreeable half-hour abusing her, and in trying to decide whether her worst fault was cutting at people behind their backs, or paying visits in dresses trimmed with positively dirty lace.