A Marriage Arranged

by Mira Stables

  “So?” he asked amusedly.

  She looked down thoughtfully at her clasped hands. “I know exactly what I want to do,” she said simply. “Exactly what suits my colouring, how far to follow fashion, when to risk a daring originality. I think I have studied every fashion magazine that has been published in this country these two years past, and a number of French ones as well. I know all the mercers who supplied Papa with the materials for his collection and have already chosen a number of lengths suited to my needs. I shall buy more when we reach Town. Meanwhile Cicely and the sewing maids are already at work on my new dresses. I could not endure to reach London after all this time only to have to stay indoors because I had nothing to wear. So that is all smoothly arranged. But there are two things on which I would like your advice.”

  Julian supposed that he should have expected efficiency in organisation from one whose training had been supervised by Mr. Morley, but he had not in fact done so. He was therefore thankful to discover that the first problem was simple enough. Even in London one must have fresh air and exercise. But gentle strolls in the Park and decorous expeditions to the shops held small appeal for the country bred Anna. She already rode—rather well, she told him, with that calm evaluation of her various talents and failings that he was beginning to accept as characteristic—but astride. Would her husband advise her to learn to ride side-saddle, or to drive—perhaps a phaeton?

  “Both,” returned Julian promptly. “We are not just thinking of this one Season, remember, but of our whole lives. Perhaps you may not always wish to spend the whole of the spring and summer in Town, but you are bound to want to come up from time to time for shopping and the theatres and to parties. Once we have our own house it will be simple enough, but when we are in Town we must subscribe to Town notions. If you already ride pretty well you will soon adapt to the side-saddle. To be honest, I agree with your father that side-saddles are an invention of the Devil. But in this case the Devil must be served, for you cannot ride astride in a London park. Fortunately you are not permitted to gallop, either, and with a little practice you will soon achieve a creditable canter. I will charge myself with the responsibility of acquiring a mount that is accustomed to carrying a lady without being totally lacking in character and paces. Also a phaeton and pair warranted to take the wind out of the eye of any other lady with social aspirations that match your own.”

  She nodded gratefully. “It sounds horrid when you put it bluntly like that, but it is precisely what I meant. And perhaps you could put me in the way of handling the reins in form? For I have never driven a pair.”

  “It’s a pity that this place is so uncomfortable,” said Julian reflectively. “These arts would have been better acquired in the seclusion of the country. But I daresay you will be wanting to take dancing lessons, too, and for those you will have to return to Town. Well,” as she nodded, “there is no help for it then. We shall just have to get up very early so that you can practise before the rest of the world is astir. This promises to be an uncommonly strenuous Season! What was your other problem?”

  “You mentioned dancing lessons,” she said slowly. “And I have been planning all kinds of parties, from informal breakfasts to a grand ball. But has it occurred to you that we might find our rooms remarkably thin of company? Neither of us has a wide acquaintance to draw upon. We shall make friends gradually, no doubt, but I don’t think people will call as they do in the country. Especially as we are only hiring the house.”

  It was a difficulty that had not occurred to him but he could see that it was a real one. He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully with one knuckle, but no immediate solution came to mind.

  His wife said tentatively, “Would you permit me to engage a—a sort of companion, I suppose is the best description? The thing is, I had already engaged her to come in daily as my secretary. I thought there could be no objection to that, because I shall need someone, you know, to deal with all the arrangements for our parties. But now I think it would be better if she came to live with us, and came as soon as she is free to do so.”

  Fortunately Julian was a tolerant creature. He supposed, with a hidden grin, that he should be thankful to be consulted at all for there seemed to be a good deal of decision about his wife at the moment.

  “Tell me about her,” he invited.

  With that unexpected sensitivity to what he was thinking rather than what he had actually said, she prefaced her account with an awkward apology.

  “I’m sorry that I should appear to be such a managing female. I suppose Papa has spoiled me, permitting me to have far too much of my own way, and I have not yet grown accustomed to being married and having someone else to consider. But at least I would not invite anyone to come and live in your house without consulting you.”

  “Our house,” he smiled at her. “And I will undertake to do as much for you. But I am consumed with curiosity. Who is this social oracle? And why have I not heard of her before?”

  The meeting had been accidental, it emerged, Mrs. Kingston having slipped and twisted her ankle on the steps of the theatre just as Aunt Sarah and Anna were descending them to the waiting carriage. They had conveyed her to her home in Hill Street and that would have been the end of it, but Aunt Sarah had decided that they should call next day to enquire how the sufferer did. Hill Street, she explained, was not only fashionable but exclusive. Mrs. Kingston, for all her plain dress and lack of jewellery, had the air of one born to the purple. Aunt Sarah might have been moved, in emergency, by her natural kindly instincts. Further consideration had suggested to her that Mrs. Kingston’s accident might prove downright providential. How if it were to give her that entrée to the world of the well-born which she had sought so long?

  But the visit had proved disappointing. Mrs. Kingston—the Honourable Mrs. Kingston—was certainly well connected. So much Aunt Sarah had been able to discover by diligent enquiry. But she was a widow in straitened circumstances and had largely withdrawn from society. Her father had dissipated a fortune that was never more than moderate long before she made her débût and had been thankful to dispose of his three daughters to any respectable suitors who offered. Margaret had been fortunate. She had been permitted to marry a childhood friend, a hopelessly ineligible younger son, with whom she had shared five years of cheerful hand-to-mouth existence before he had been killed in a fall from a half-broke horse that he was schooling.

  “I had one stroke of good fortune,” she had told Anna, much later in their acquaintance. “Christopher’s Godmother”—Christopher was her husband—“had taken a liking to me. She invited me to make my home here with her, and when she died she left me the house and a tiny annuity. It is scarcely sufficient to keep the place up, but I have found one or two means of adding to it.”

  Aunt Sarah had abandoned this blind alley after her first visit. Anna, with time on her hands and attracted by the quiet charm of the woman who had emerged in such a pleasant guise from the buffetings of fate, had called again, to leave a nosegay of flowers and offer to exchange library books while the injured ankle was still painful. She had been kindly received, and gradually an undemanding friendship had grown up between the pair. When Anna went home they had kept up a correspondence. That was how the girl had learned that Mrs. Kingston occasionally took charge of débutantes who had no relative in a position to do so, introducing them into Society and, in certain cases, arranging for presentation at Court.

  “She wrote the most delightful letters,” Anna went on. “Full of comical tales of her various charges but affectionate and understanding, too. And I know her and like her. I thought she would be just the person to advise me about entertaining, because it will be quite different from acting hostess for Papa. His guests were either business acquaintances or friends who shared his interest in antiquities. All I had to do was house them comfortably and feed them well. When it comes to planning parties with music or dancing or cards, I am an absolute ignoramus. Only now it is a little more than that. Who is to come to our parties?
If Margaret were to live with us for a little while she could take me about as she did her débutantes, so that I should meet people. That would be a beginning. And I daresay you will make new acquaintances at your club.” She chuckled unexpectedly. “Margaret says there will be no difficulty in filling our rooms with young gentlemen. Since we are newly wed and there are no marriageable daughters on the catch for them we have only to provide good wine and excellent refreshments and they will be perfectly happy to seek refuge with us.”

  The shrewd good humour of this comment appealed to him. He began to think quite favourably of Mrs. Kingston. Undoubtedly Anna needed someone with experience to advise and support her, and if she preferred paid help to the casual services of Caro Holroyd, she should have it. It might work out pretty well. Come to think of it, he was not at all sure that he wanted Caro in and out of the house for ever. He had found her slightly embarrassing, with her huge, yearning eyes and her gentle hints at the great love that had linked them in the past. Star-crossed, she had sighed. And it was no such thing. He could recall the whole business perfectly clearly, and admittedly, at seventeen, he had been tail over top in love with her ethereal prettiness. She had been very lovely. But he could remember just as clearly the way that she had laughed at him when he had begged her to wait. To wait until he could persuade his father to let him take over the home farm and turn it into a profitable concern.

  “I suppose you think that I could milk the cows and feed the pigs. Churn the butter, too, I make no doubt. Perhaps even sell eggs in the market.”

  A stripling of seventeen did not fall out of love with his idol for one shrewish speech, but he had been sadly disillusioned that their ideas should be so far apart. At least it had in some sort prepared him for the day when she had broken to him the news that she was to marry Sir Marmaduke Holroyd. A decent enough fellow, by all accounts, but old enough to be her father.

  “He can give me a house in Town and pretty dresses and horses and a carriage. Jewels, too,” she had sighed contentedly. “I am sorry for it, Julian, but after all it would never have done. You are younger than I. Close on two years, which is a great deal when it is the wrong way round.”

  He wondered how she would like it if he were to remind her of that speech now. ‘Star-crossed’, indeed!

  He accorded Anna’s tentative suggestion his sincere approval with an enthusiasm that quite surprised her.

  Chapter Nine

  Anna’s long-planned programme moved smoothly into action. Housekeeping presented no difficulties, though the variety of tempting viands presented by the London provision merchants was something of a trial to a young lady who was watching her figure. Bailey—the butler—and Mrs. Ellis were competent and seemed to have established harmonious relations with their underlings, and there could be no denying that Lady Holroyd’s house was equipped with every modern convenience. The kitchen boasted an enclosed stove, which not only provided vastly improved cooking and baking facilities but also heated water. There was even a bathroom. To be sure the water supply was temperamental, varying from a trickle to a gush, and hot water must, of course, be laboriously carried from the kitchen. But it was a great luxury, as was the indoor closet, which enjoyed the distinction of being flushed out by that same temperamental water supply.

  For the first week of their sojourn the sewing room was a hive of industry. A number of dresses were almost finished, requiring only the final adjustments that would ensure a perfect fit. The capacious cupboards in Lady Wellasford’s room filled steadily.

  Margaret Kingston was their first caller, coming in response to a note from Anna announcing their arrival in Town. From the start, Julian was inclined to like her and to think that his wife had chosen wisely. She was plainly but fashionably dressed and had a quiet air of assurance. Probably in her early forties, he judged. She wasted no time in polite small talk but began at once to suggest various ways in which they could meet people.

  “I shall take you calling with me,” she told Anna, “and we can drive together in the Park. What kind of carriage do you keep, and do you propose to drive yourself?”

  They discussed this from every aspect and finally decided that it would be best to use the landau with the coachman to drive the two ladies. “In state,” pronounced Mrs. Kingston cheerfully. “And I’ll not pretend it won’t be a treat for me, as well as a good way of introducing you informally to my friends. You’ve no idea how much you miss the comfort of having your own carriage until you’ve had to depend on hirelings,” she told Julian. “In fact I will frankly confess that I am looking forward to spending a few months in the lap of luxury. I can think of nothing more delightful than to enjoy all the pleasures of the Season in supreme comfort and delightful company. I shall feel positively guilty in accepting the handsome salary that your wife insists upon paying me. It seems wrong to be paid for such pleasant service. But I can be helpful over all the tiresome details of entertaining, and I can introduce her to a number of pleasant people. I promise you, milord, that I will take good care of her and do my utmost to promote her interests.”

  Yes, confirmed Julian. He liked her very well. She was straightforward and unaffected. It would be no penance to have her living under his roof. It might even help to ease the occasional awkwardness of being married and yet not married. This had already cropped up in the business of allocating bedchambers. Mrs. Ellis had naturally caused the principal suite of rooms to be prepared. Unfortunately it consisted of one large bedroom with two dressing rooms opening off it—and these could only be reached by passing through the bedroom. Julian had hastily made up a tale about the dressing rooms being too small. His wife would need them both to accommodate the quantity of clothes that she intended to buy. He himself would occupy one of the guest-rooms, across the corridor from his wife, which had its own slightly larger dressing room. He had tried to make this lame story sound jocular and light-hearted, and Mrs. Ellis had not blinked an eye-lash, but he still felt hot under the collar when he recalled the incident. Give Anna her due. She had expressed penitence for having overlooked the possibility of such a situation arising and begged his pardon very prettily.

  They discussed arrangements for a card party and a musical soirée to be held as soon as possible and a fairly large rout party to take place before the set ball, which Mrs. Kingston advised them to defer until after Anna’s presentation. Then Anna carried her friend off to look at her new dresses and to decide which of the rooms she would prefer for her personal use. Margaret had outstanding engagements which would prevent her from moving in with them for one or two days, but was quite ready to embark on a round of morning calls, taking Anna with her, on the very next day.

  Time flew. Mrs. Kingston was indefatigable. Julian found himself escorting the ladies to a play or a concert, accompanying them on a strolling shopping expedition, where they did not seem to buy very much but met and chatted with a great many other ladies similarly employed. Meekly he sought out former acquaintances from his school and army days, some of whom he could scarcely remember, and suggested that they should bring their wives to call on his. An old friend of his mother’s, met by chance at Tattersall’s, took a kindly interest in him and volunteered to put his name up for Boodles and Almack’s, an offer which he accepted with becoming gratitude though he had little taste for games of chance, Like his wife he came to know a great many people by name, though there was scant opportunity for acquaintance to ripen into friendship. The reception rooms of his London house were no longer thin of company. And Julian was beginning to wish that he had never hired the place. For Caro Holroyd haunted it. Naturally they invited her to all their parties, and inevitably she accepted. Perhaps it was equally inevitable that she and Anna should take an instant dislike to one another. Anna was coolly courteous. Caro—when Julian was at hand—was all wide-eyed admiration for the changes that Anna’s artistic taste had wrought in her former home. When he was not, her manner could only be described as insolent. In some subtle feminine fashion she managed to convey to h
er fellow guests the impression that she was especially privileged. She assumed the airs of a hostess, pressing them to partake of this or that delicacy, directing their activities as though this was still her house and it was her hospitality that they were enjoying.

  Margaret Kingston was outspokenly indignant. “I’m just waiting for her to coax me into accepting a piece of cook’s special Nun’s cake, with her deprecating smile and her big beseeching eyes and her assurance that the recipe has been in her family for generations, and I shall ask her how it comes that nuns have families. I will! I vow to do it.”

  Anna had to laugh, even though she shared Margaret’s anger. “It is she who loses dignity,” she said soothingly. “You must have seen how people look at her a little sideways, trying to work out where she fits into the family. I have yet to see one succumb wholeheartedly to her wiles.”

  “Little she cares for surprised faces and sideways glances so long as she is in the centre of the picture,” retorted Margaret. As for succumbing to her wiles, she thought savagely, you need look no further than your husband. For as far as she could see, Lord Wellasford was wholly hoodwinked. He accepted Lady Holroyd’s outrageous demands on his time and attention without complaint, appeared to find her quite charming, and was at some pains to ensure that she was never neglected.

  As Julian had prophesied, his wife had taken readily to the side saddle and presented a charming picture in her severe dark green habit. She admitted that she did not feel quite so secure as when riding astride, but pointed out without a blush that she certainly looked a good deal more elegant. Learning to drive took rather longer. Her teacher was strict, the time at their disposal limited. Once or twice he took her out to Richmond where he could hand over the reins with the reasonable assurance that they would not be overlooked by any of their new acquaintances, and it was on her return from one such afternoon excursion that she found the usually even-tempered Margaret awaiting her in a positive fury of wrath.