As the fiddler swung into a reel--most of the dances at Almack's were antiquated--she curtseyed to Johnny Dyott and bobbed to the rhythm. Elizabeth and Featherstonehaugh, at the head of the set, began their romp down the length of the line. Featherstonehaugh, a portly man, was red in the face. The rooms were hot.
If only she were dancing with Owen. He danced very well.
Johnny whirled Jean round and they, too, slid to the end of the set. As she bobbed along, she gave Maggie a quick grin and her twin's eyes sparkled. Maggie was clearly at ease. That was a little surprising. Maggie was shy of strangers and the hail was filled with the worst kind--haughty matrons and gentlemen with quizzing glasses primed to censure one's least slip.
The twins had been well coached. They knew the rules. They might not waltz until the Patronesses approved their Ton. They mustn't dance with the same partner more than once. And so on. Hedged about by rules. It occurred to Jean that knowing the rules--and knowing she knew them--had given Maggie confidence.
Jean tried to tell herself that she found the strictures stifling, but the musick was gay and the gowns brilliant and, if none of the gentlemen could hold a candle to Owen, their interest was flattering. Presently Jean gave herself up to enjoyment of what Owen must surely consider mere tribal ritual.
Later, as the orchestra began a waltz and she and Maggie watched Clanross lead Elizabeth onto the floor, Jean had leisure for reflection. She had promised Maggie she would enjoy their come-out. Maggie's loyalty deserved no less. Compared to the ordeal of presentation, Almack's was tolerable. At least in the Assembly Rooms one wasn't required to kiss the hand of the oppressor.
A plump gentleman who would be needing Colonel Falk's macassar oil in a few years brought her lemonade. She smiled and thanked him politely. She had forgot his name. She dropped her fan. Another gentleman leaped to retrieve it. She thanked him. Maggie was listening to a dandy in blue superfine and starched shirt-points who was deprecating the quality of the work hung at this year's Royal Academy exhibition. On the floor Clanross and Elizabeth dipped and whirled.
Vanity, of course. It was all vanity and would be swept away like spindrift in the coming gale. Jean allowed a pitying smile to play upon her lips.
"Permit me to commend Mr. Holtby to you."
Jean bobbed a hasty curtsey to Lady Jersey. "Silence" rattled on. Jean and Maggie were to be allowed to waltz, it seemed. Mr. Holtby was a bored-looking Corinthian who had been pointed out to Jean as a notable exponent of the waltz. He was reputed to spend most of his time in the gaming rooms. Jean supposed she ought to be flattered he had sought her out.
She said what was correct and allowed herself to be led onto the floor. Presently Maggie whirled past in the embrace of the connoisseur of paintings. Was he Lady Jersey's son? Jean did not remember. When she caught sight of her sister Anne among the chaperons, Anne smiled at her. They had been approved.
18
Fresh from a walk in the park, Tom entered the bookroom to find his friend sprawled in a wing-backed chair by the long table. He eyed Richard, surprised to find him back from the City so early. "Have they settled with your lawyers?"
Richard nodded. "Settled and signed."
Tom sat down. "Did you give it all away?"
"Don't be daft. I tossed a few bones to the hounds, that's all."
"Hounds? Jackals, more like."
"Very well, jackals.".
"Tell me about it."
As Richard described the dispersal of the Duchess of Newsham's estate, Tom felt his indignation swell. When his friend wound down, he said as calmly as he could, "You needn't have been so generous."
Richard rose and walked to the window. "I kept more than half."
"Prudent of you. Does it occur to you, Richard, that you've contravened your mother's express wishes? If she had meant to divide her properties among your brothers and sisters she would have done so."
Richard turned. Back-lit by the brilliant midday sun, his face was a dark blur. "I declined to play her game."
"Game?"
"I couldn't decide, you see, whether she meant to reward me or to punish them."
Tom drew a breath.
"They are my brothers and sisters, and they were her children. Apart from Sarah, I've no feeling for them and no desire to know them. The thing is, I found I was taking too much pleasure watching them squirm. So I decided not to play the role her grace cast me in."
"Avenging Angel?"
"Her Fool, more likely." Richard returned to his chair. "I never understood her motives. So I had to consider my own."
"What of Newsham?" Tom burst out. Newsham, the eldest half brother, had persecuted Richard.
Richard's lip curled. "The duke bribes easily. I settled a house in Bath on his daughters."
"Bath!" Tom spluttered.
"I can't imagine my daughters wallowing among valetudinarians, so I thought his might as well. Sarah says the duchess was fond of Newsham's girls."
"Newsham is Newsham."
"Long may he rot," Richard agreed amiably. "Let it be, Tom. I'm satisfied."
"You may be, but what of Emily?"
"I shall purchase an estate for Emily where she may keep me in my accustomed style."
"You're moon-mad."
"I never felt saner."
"A common delusion of lunatics." There was no point in further protest. "Where do you mean to take your family until the will is proved?"
"After our stay at Brecon?" Richard shrugged. "A larger house in Winchester perhaps. I go down to Mayne Hall in the morning."
"Desertion! Elizabeth and the girls leave for Brecon tomorrow, too."
Richard smiled. "Not Dyott?"
"He'll ride with them as far as Lincoln. I believe his father has summoned him."
"Ah, the good dean. Probably doesn't want Johnny hanging about in a den of Radicals."
Tom cocked a snook at him. "Too late. I've already corrupted the boy's principles."
"Are your matched pair pleased with their social adventures?"
"Maggie is. I can't tell what Jean thinks these days. She affects boredom."
"Affects." Richard tasted the word. He was apt to side with the twins when Tom described their peccadilloes.
"It's certainly possible to find Almack's dull--not my idea of amusement--but I'd swear Jean was pleased with herself last evening. When she remembered to, she looked haughty but it was an unconvincing performance. Maggie sparkled." Tom rose. "We're for the theatre tonight. Do you care to join us?"
Richard shook his head. "The mail coach leaves at two."
"Morning dawns early these days."
"It's nearly midsummer night." He regarded the toes of his outstretched boots solemnly. "And I can't decide whether I'm Theseus or Puck."
"Or Bottom the Ass?" Tom rejoined.
Richard laughed. "Very likely."
"Sir!"
Tom started.
Johnny Dyott stood in the doorway. "The queen's business has been deferred!"
Tom said slowly, "Has it, indeed?"
"I beg your pardon for bursting in on you, but I thought you might want to make arrangements."
"For how long?"
"Perhaps forever!" Johnny blushed at the verbal extravagance. "A fortnight, at least. Wilberforce means to negotiate a compromise. A handsome allowance if the queen will agree to the omission of her name from the liturgy. They mean her to live retired. The House have voted not to open the bag."
The "bag" was a green diplomatic pouch containing evidence of the queen's misconduct a commission of enquiry had gathered in 1817. Tom frowned. "If she's innocent, she'd be a fool to agree."
"Still..."
"Still, I shall be able to go to Brecon, too. I'm obliged to you, Johnny. I feel like a schoolboy let out on an unexpected holiday. Will you come on to us when you've seen your father?"
"If I may."
"Certainly. I'll work you like a dog."
Johnny grinned.
Tom turned to Richard, who had watched
the interchange with lazy attention. "I'll see you off tonight, Richard."
"After the theatre?"
"To be sure. I'll direct my coachman to keep the carriage poled up, so don't bother to summon a hack. What inn? The Angel?"
Richard nodded.
"I'll share a noggin with you there before you go." Torn did not approve the settlement Richard had agreed to, but he could see his friend was relieved. Time for a small celebration.
* * * *
"Thank you, I'll take it now." Johnny paid the porter he had hired to carry his traps up the steep hill. Lincoln cathedral, its close tucked behind it, loomed over the bustling market town like a fortress, a besieged bastion of the church militant. Johnny sometimes thought the clerical inhabitants had taken on a siege mentality.
He drew a deep breath, gripped the handles of his valise, and walked toward the familiar close. Apart from the bishop's palace, his father's house was the most imposing residence in the precinct, as his father was the most imposing personage. Johnny hoped the dean would not reduce him to stammering incoherence. That was what usually happened.
His mother's greeting was sufficiently subdued to tell him he was for it. Mrs. Dyott submitted to her husband's judgement in all things as a matter of principle. She was a woman of principle and not subdued by nature.
Johnny washed the dirt of the journey from his person and dressed in garments suitable to bearding deans in their dens. His father meant to grant him an audience before dinner, and Johnny had no desire to be cut down for slovenliness. He intended to enter the study well armoured.
By the appointed hour, his palms were sweating and his throat clogged. The butler announced him and held the door open.
When the ceremony of greeting was over and the dean had permitted his son to sit, he took out a paper and tapped it. Johnny recognised his own handwriting. "I should like an explanation of the meaning of this...this outrageous defiance."
Johnny cleared his throat. Ha-hmmm. "Sir, it wasn't intended as defiance. Indeed, I'm grateful for your, er, attention to my future."
The dean tugged at his hands and settled in behind his wide mahogany desk. "You have an odd idea of gratitude."
"I cannot take Holy Orders, sir. As I writ in my letter, I have doubts and scruples a clergyman ought not entertain."
The dean's lips pursed. "You subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles when you went up to Oxford."
"I didn't question them." Johnny had no wish to be trapped in a theological debate. His father was a leading defender of dogma, impossible to best. "Merely I cannot see myself as incumbent of a parish. I haven't the pastoral temperament."
"Temperament!" If so dignified a person could be said to snort, the dean snorted. "I have no patience with such notions. You were bred for the church, sir, and we have already indulged your quirks of 'temperament.'"
That was an allusion to the ill-fated army commission. Johnny gritted his teeth.
"When you went up to Oxford, you meant to take your degree and enter the church. It was a settled thing. I cannot ask Sir Edward Hollins to hold the living for you indefinitely. You will take orders, settle into your parish, and do your duty."
Johnny steeled himself. He thought of Maggie and the article he had sent off to the Quarterly Review. "No, sir, I will not. With all due respect."
"Respect!" The dean's rather red face darkened to purple. He launched into a denunciation that took into account all of Johnny's shortcomings from the moment of his first word--"pudding"--to the latest evidence of insubordination. The speech was laced with general comments on the depravity of the present generation, and the likelihood of Judgement, both personal and global, sitting not far off.
The dean's words had a curious rehearsed quality. Perhaps he writ them out, Johnny reflected, as he writ out his sermons. Johnny was surprised by his own detachment. It was as if the dean were describing some other miscreant.
"Well, sir? Well? I am waiting on your word."
"I mean to pursue a political career," Johnny said politely.
The dean stared at him, goggle-eyed. "Then I wash my hands of you."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, sir."
"If you were sorry," the dean said majestically, "you would not persist in your ingratitude. Leave me. I am not well."
Johnny went. He was trembling as he reached his room. He was not so innocent as to take the dean literally and went down to dinner at the usual hour. It was an unpleasant meal. Prudence and Egeria, his unmarried sisters, reproached him with their eyes. His mother uttered careful commonplaces. His father ate in silence and retired to his study as soon as the covers were cleared, taking the port with him.
Johnny caught the coach to Earl's Brecon next morning. He had astonished himself by sleeping the sleep of the just.
* * * *
"I cannot delay showing you this, Lady Jean;" Owen thrust a printed sheet into Jean's hands. Maggie peered, too. They had been walking by the lake and now stood on the ornamental bridge.
"Anthem for the Ploughmen of England." Jean read the title aloud. "Oh, Owen, how splendid! It's in print!"
Owen's mouth twisted. "Without my name." The poem was signed "A Patriot."
Jean was a little disappointed at that, though it was probably a wise precaution. Also, the broadside printing did not please her. Owen's poem ought to have been bound in a tasteful pamphlet.
"It must be gratifying to see it in print, all the same," Maggie offered. "My congratulations."
"Thank you. Lady Jean--"
Jean cocked her head.
"I've had a letter from Carrington."
Her stomach knotted. "I thought he said you couldn't trust the mail."
"It was delivered by messenger to my parents' house." A breeze lifted Owen's fair hair from his brow. His eyes were intensely green. "He says he did not see you, that you gave the manuscript over to his landlady."
Jean swallowed. "Well, yes. He was off with the rioters, and we had no time to wait."
Owen's eyes went dark with reproach. "You should not have shown it to anyone but Carrington."
Jean bit her lip. "But I told you we were hard put to get away long enough to deliver it. If I hadn't given the manuscript to that woman, it wouldn't have seen print at all. After the riot we were too narrowly watched. And Maggie's head--"
"The landlady might have informed on me. Carrington writes she is not to be trusted."
Jean blinked back tears. "I'm sorry. I did my best."
He took her hand. "Pray don't cry. Indeed I'm grateful to you, but I wish you had told me how it was."
"I meant to," Jean mumbled.
"I'm a cad to reproach you." He raised her hand to his lips. "Forgive me?"
Jean gave him a watery smile. "Of course."
"I'd sooner be transported to Van Dieman's land than cause you a moment of pain."
Jean's heart contracted in a love pang so sharp she nearly gasped. He was so noble, so forgiving, the prospect of Van Dieman's land so appalling. "It's a fine poem, Owen. Worth any risk."
His eyes shone. "My dear, gallant lady--"
"I say!" Maggie interrupted. "Isn't that Johnny?" She pointed to a small figure trudging up the long carriageway.
It was indeed Johnny Dyott. Jean and Owen exchanged glances.
Owen grimaced.
"Let's catch him up and walk with him." Fresh colour brightened Maggie's cheeks and her eyes glowed. "I hope his father was not too harsh. Oh, I am glad he's come." She danced down the bridge to the. lake edge. At the gravelled path she turned back and said impatiently, "Come on, or he'll reach the house before we do."
Jean cleared her throat. "Go ahead, Mag. We'll follow you."
Maggie hesitated, then began to run. The two setters, who had been waiting by the water, chased after her, yelping with excitement.
"We cannot lose this moment," Owen said in an urgent undertone.
Jean blinked at him. "What is it, Owen?"
"Too long have I held my tongue." He retained his grasp
of her hand. "You must permit me to tell you how very much I love you."
Jean's pulse hammered. She could not have spoken for a thousand guineas.
"I know I've no right." Owen dropped her hand and turned, leaning on the rail. "I know what the world will say. I have no right to love you, but a kindred spirit leaps over false barriers of rank and wealth. Dare I hope? Tell me, I pray you, whether I may live or die."
Jean gulped. "Oh. Yes, of course you may hope. I admire you more than any man of my acquaintance."
"Admire me? I adore you." He clutched at his disordered locks. "You may walk on my heart."
"Oh, Owen, my dear, do not. I cannot bear to see you unhappy. I love you."
He turned back to her, his vivid features alive with hope. "Do you say so?"
"Yes. Yes, I do," Jean said firmly. "You are my lodestar." She heard Maggie calling in the distance. "I love you," she repeated desperately, "but do you not think we should rejoin my sister? If we don't, they will part us." "They" were Clanross and Elizabeth, Maggie, Johnny, society, the stars--all the forces bent on prudence and caution. Although she could not quite throw caution to the winds, Jean yearned for Owen, longed to receive his homage.
It was not to be. When Johnny saw Maggie, he dropped his portmanteau on the carriageway and waited for her. Although Jean and Owen still stood on the bridge, he saw them, too. Jean was almost sure of that.
"We must join my sister." She tucked the printed sheet in her reticule. "For now."
"Yes." Owen's voice throbbed with emotion. "Yes, we must go. Perhaps we may not have many such moments. I shall cherish them, my lady. My consolation must be that when you look at me, your eyes speak of love."
"Oh. Yes, they do." Jean choked on tears. It was so sad, so romantic. She would love Owen till the end of time.
* * * *
Coming back to Brecon was far more like coming home than visiting the cathedral close had been. Johnny settled into the Conway circle happily. The warmth and spontaneity of the earl and his lady among their family contrasted sharply with the severe formality of the dean's household.
Johnny respected his father. He knew some part of him would always hold the dean in awe, but he no longer felt he must submit to his father's judgement. He would make his own life and hope someday that his father approved it. If not, well, there were others to applaud him.
Love & Folly Page 19
