by Mira Stables
“That woman!” she almost spat. “That insinuating snake! I am deeply sorry for it and feel that I have been shockingly at fault, but indeed I could never have guessed what she meant to do. You had not been gone above an hour when she was announced. Quite distracted, she informs me, because she has lost a locket that held a portrait of her husband. I assured her that nothing of the kind has been found here and that the servants are perfectly to be trusted. She apologises for disturbing me—I was writing the invitations for the ball—and will see herself out. That was where I made my mistake. Disliking her as I do, I was in no mood to show her any excessive civility, so I let her do so and went on with my work. Some little time later in comes Mrs. Ellis, very much ruffled, wishing to know if she is to order a room to be prepared for Lady Holroyd, she having found her ladyship strolling about upstairs apparently inspecting the bedroom accommodation. As you may guess I was absolutely furious and would have told the wretch precisely what I thought of her vulgar curiosity, but by the time I reached the hall she was on the point of departure and Bailey was there listening to every word. Her ladyship all sweet dissemblance, of course. She was so sorry. Had just stepped upstairs to look for her locket, not wishing to be a trouble to any one. And in searching for it and in admiring the charming decorative schemes, she had not realised how the time had sped. I am ashamed to have let myself be gulled so easily—but who could have dreamed that a woman of breeding would sink so low?”
Anna felt a little sick. She had come hurrying in happily, eager to tell Margaret that she had been learning how to loop a rein and had actually earned one or two words of praise. Now the happy mood was blighted, the bubbling words died on her lips. There was something peculiarly distasteful in the thought of an intruder wandering at will through her private apartments. Nor could she set Lady Holroyd’s behaviour down to idle curiosity. The lady’s malice had been shown too plainly for that. She did not know quite what she feared but she shivered a little and for a moment her usual easy poise was shaken so that she said bitterly, “Not being a woman of breeding myself, I am scarcely qualified to judge.”
She repented at once, seeing the hurt in Margaret’s face, swiftly as it was controlled, and putting out one hand in a gesture of appeal. “That was horrid of me. No need to rip up at you, just because I have allowed that woman’s actions to cut up my peace of mind. It is my turn to beg pardon, and indeed I do. And of course you could not guess what she intended. No woman of principle would behave so, be she gentle or simple.”
The subject was allowed to drop and they reverted to discussion of the arrangements for the rout party. But the shadow of unease was not wholly lifted from Anna’s mind and she began to pay more attention to Lady Holroyd’s unpleasant skirmishings. She could not imagine what the woman hoped to gain by being actively unpleasant and could only suppose that her ladyship found it galling to see another playing hostess—and very successfully, too—in the rooms where she had always been queen. How could she guess that Lady Holroyd, having exercised her prying instincts to the full, had gone away full of curiosity about the domestic harmony of the Wellasfords? She found it very odd that a couple so recently married should occupy separate apartments. Admittedly only a corridor separated them—but still! She gave the matter a good deal of thought.
She was no more in love with Julian than she had been when he had made her the object of his clumsy calf-love years before, but she hated the thought that another woman had snapped him up now, when he had inherited the title and his uncle’s fortune as well. If only she had met him first! It was easy to see that he had only married this stolid provincial in order to regain Wellasford, and she rather thought that her charms would have outweighed the appeal of a fusty old house. As a frail, pathetic widow it should not have been a difficult task to re-animate his feelings towards her. He had always fallen an easy prey to any call upon his chivalry and in that respect he did not seem to have altered very much. She could twist him round her finger with no difficulty at all. How infuriating, then, that he should have married just before they met again. However, there might still be some amusements to be found in trying if one could drive a rift in the marriage. It would be something of a triumph to attach Julian, his honeymoon scarce finished, to her train of admirers, and it would give her considerable satisfaction to lower the crest of the girl who was bidding fair to be London’s latest toast. She set herself to devise one or two pinpricks which should spoil young Lady Wellasford’s pleasure in the approaching rout party.
These did not succeed quite as well as she had hoped. Anna, having now taken the lady’s measure, was more than a match for petty spite. When Lady Holroyd, having carefully waited until her hostess was within ear-shot, informed her companions, “Oh, yes. I suppose one might call her handsome. And I will allow that her hair is natural. But I would swear that she darkens her eyebrows,” Anna made no pretence of not having heard. She joined the little group with her friendliest smile, passed a handkerchief over the maligned eyebrows and held it out for their inspection, saying on a note of apology, “Actually you are mistaken, ma’am. But I assure you that I would not hesitate to do so if I thought it was necessary. Why not? After all, a great many older ladies use such arts to restore a youthful glow to fading locks.” Which caused one or two of the group to look remarkably wooden-faced, while one surprised maiden emitted a nervous giggle. Lady Holroyd coloured angrily. The delicate tinting of her hair cost her a pretty penny and she had not thought that any one was privy to her secret.
Perhaps this reverse clouded her judgment, so that in her next essay she blundered badly. She found herself in converse with an elderly dame who was unknown to her, but whose easy arrogance undoubtedly denoted the bluest of blue blood. In such company she was usually at her most innocent and insinuating, rarely delivering herself of any definite opinion lest it clash with the views of her companion. But when the lady chose to comment on the Wellasford marriage, she allowed ill humour to lead her into error. ‘An unusual match’ the lady had called it. “Do you think so, ma’am?” returned Lady Holroyd with an angry titter. “I would call it commonplace enough. An arranged marriage—birth and title on one side, wealth on the other.”
The stranger turned her head to look at her in regal fashion, raising a glass that hung at her bosom to do so the more impressively. “Indeed!” she said gently. “An interesting view. Though I should have thought that Wellasford had no need to hang out for a rich bride. Not, in any case, since he inherited his uncle’s fortune. While as for the bride, she appears to me both well-bred and well-mannered, which is more than one can say for some of her guests. Personally I am in favour of arranged marriages, provided there is no great inequality in age or fortune. I look forward to closer acquaintance with Lady Wellasford. No doubt I shall meet her frequently at Almack’s.”
It was a crushing rebuff. The real sting lay in that final sentence. Lady Holroyd had never been admitted to that exclusive gathering that was gradually becoming known as the Marriage Mart. Her own birth was no more than respectable, and although she had expected her marriage to Sir Marmaduke to admit her to the inner circles of the ‘ton’, her expectations had not been fulfilled. Sir Marmaduke was an easy-going, middle-aged gentleman, more addicted to the pleasures of the table and the vine than to the observation of social niceties. He did not so much resist his wife’s efforts to bring the pair of them into fashionable prominence as permit them to slide over him. He was a kind husband, but no efforts of hers could turn him into one of the smarts.
The discovery that the elderly lady was none other than Lady Penmarston, one of society’s most formidable dowagers and quite the most exclusive hostess in Town, did nothing to lessen her discomfiture.
“Oh! That fusty old thing,” she said, with a would-be indifferent shrug. But very soon afterwards she decided that she was developing the headache, and excusing herself to her hostess with a brusqueness that was barely courteous, had her carriage summoned to bear her back to North Audley Street, there to lick
her wounds and plan anew.
Chapter Ten
If Anna cherished the hope that the encounter at the rout party would persuade Lady Holroyd to keep a respectful distance, she was sadly disappointed. The unwelcome guest haunted the house more assiduously than ever, until her reluctant hostess’s courtesy was sorely strained and she admitted to Margaret that she was almost tempted to instruct Bailey to deny her.
“But how can I, when she and my husband are such old friends?” she said resignedly.
“And the lady as sweet as honey when he is within hearing,” rejoined Margaret tartly. “No. It does make things difficult. Frankly I abominate the woman. But I do not see that she can do you any harm, however willing she may be. Jealous of your success, I must suppose. But do not under-rate her. She would serve you a back-handed trick if she could.”
Anna concurred. Privately she thought there was a little more to it than jealousy—at least jealousy of social success—though no doubt that added substantially to Lady Holroyd’s dislike. For Anna’s success was more marked with every passing day. Thanks to Margaret’s unofficial sponsorship she met all the right people. Thanks to her own straightforward simplicity and total lack of pretension she was accepted for what she was—a pleasant-mannered girl of good disposition, wealthy and well-educated if not well-born. Gradually her sincerity and her natural warmth had their effect. Acceptance blossomed into liking, so that she felt she had a number of real friends, even if they were of recent standing. As for admiration, even adulation, she had that in full measure. If she had taken all the compliments that were showered upon her at their face value she might well have become intolerably conceited. Fortunately her own good sense and Margaret’s dry comments convinced her that the whole thing was no more than an air-ball, growing with every heedless breath and just as easily deflated. If one gentleman chose to praise her lovely hair or her graceful carriage, his friends would immediately strive to out-do him in graceful metaphor. Dozens of posies were sent to her, poems were written in her praise, the house was besieged by morning callers and two young gentlemen almost came to fisticuffs in the ballroom because one vowed that the other had claimed the dance that Lady Wellasford had promised to him.
Margaret’s lighthearted prophecies about the popularity of the Wellasfords with the younger gentlemen had been amply fulfilled. They flocked about this charming new hostess, and after a little initial shyness Anna found them, in general, very likeable. She was rather older than most of them and, since she was married, no one could suspect her of being on the catch for them. So she was able to be her natural self. She chuckled over their various escapades, sympathised with their disappointments and occasionally scolded them for reckless folly. In short, as one admiring young reprobate confided to a select group of his cronies, “She’s just like the best kind of sister, only prettier and more amusing and far more interested in our affairs.”
As Margaret had predicted they ate her excellent refreshments and drank perhaps more of her wine than was quite desirable, but they had their own code of conduct and in return she was never without a band of attentive escorts to supply her least want wherever she went. It might be no more than the provision of a glass of lemonade or the summoning of her carriage when she wished to leave a party early, but it gave her the sense of being cossetted and cared for. Behind the occasionally clumsy gallantries, the rather laboured compliments, lay a genuine if mild affection, and the girl who had never enjoyed the comradeship of brothers and sisters revelled in the easy, undemanding society of these youngsters.
She was well liked, too, by her own sex, a much more difficult achievement. Her own disastrous first season gave her an insight into the difficulties of the callow fledgings and she was able to help some of the more nondescript girls in a number of unobtrusive ways, thus earning their passionate gratitude and, incidentally, that of their mothers. By the time of her presentation at Court even the haughtiest of dames allowed her to be quite a pretty-behaved female, and there was a general feeling that young Wellasford had done very well for himself.
The presentation passed off smoothly enough. Privately Julian thought that his wife looked magnificent; a good deal more regal than any of the royalties to whom she made her successive curtseys. Hoops were still de rigeur at Court and Anna had been glad of her new slenderness as she watched the great white bell of her skirt swing out from the tiny waist. On Margaret’s advice she had chosen to wear white, and her husband, much pleased with his own knowledgeableness, had exclaimed, upon seeing it, “Samite!”
“Specially woven?” he enquired next.
Anna nodded. “And shockingly expensive, too,” she confided ruefully. “But I mean to wear it for our own ball, so you mustn’t scold me too harshly for extravagance.”
“I don’t care what it cost,” declared Julian largely. “It is worth every penny to see you look so becomingly. And that is the Roman necklet that you wore at dinner the first time we met,” he finished triumphantly. “Nothing could sort better with the fabric of your gown.”
Anna blushed to the tips of her ears and murmured something slightly incoherent about fine feathers. It was an odd thing. In the general way compliments no longer set her heart fluttering, but her husband’s praise was very sweet. Perhaps it was because she had had her fill of well turned phrases. Julian was neither glib nor particularly fluent, but he always sounded entirely sincere. Maybe that was why his rare praise stirred her pulses where the smoothly worded admiration of others left her with no more than a mild satisfaction.
She pulled herself together to explain that Papa had travelled up to Town especially to bring her the necklace and to see her in all her Court finery. He and Margaret were to have a quiet dinner together. On the day after that memorable rout party Lady Penmarston had come to pay a formal call, in the course of which she had most obligingly offered to present the bride. Margaret had strongly recommended acceptance of such a distinguishing attention.
“Nothing could be better,” she had said at once. “Yes, of course I could do it, as we had arranged, but I would not put it beyond your dear friend Lady Holroyd to set it about that I had been well paid for the undertaking. Oh! I would willingly forego a month’s salary for a sight of her face when she hears that Lady Penmarston is your sponsor.”
She was not, rather naturally, granted that privilege, and by the time that Lady Holroyd put in an appearance at the Wellasfords’ ball, she had presumably swallowed any feelings of chagrin, for she was at her sweetest—even to Anna—and in quite her best looks. She had put off her blacks some weeks before, and on this notable occasion there was no pretence of even half mourning. Her dress was an ethereal creation of finest guaze in shades of blue and green, and with pearls about her throat and twisted among her fair curls she looked like some sea nymph who had strayed from her natural element, the wistful, heart-shaped face somehow conveying the impression that she sought a warm human love. It was a little unfortunate that Anna should chance to overhear her husband gallantly informing the lady that she did not look a day older than she had done on her seventeenth birthday, and that her gown put him strongly in mind of the one that she had worn on that occasion. A harmless courtesy. How was Anna to know how skilfully its recipient had angled for the compliment, nor how carefully she had directed her strolling progress with her host to a point where his wife could not help but hear? She knew that it was foolish to refine too much upon so trivial an incident, but it slightly dashed her pleasure in an otherwise highly successful function. Nor did she feel much enthusiasm as she seconded her husband’s acceptance of Lady Holroyd’s invitation to dinner on the following Thursday.
“Just a small party, I am afraid. One simply cannot move if there are more than eight people in the room. But Sir Aubrey Drysdale is so anxious to meet the latest belle. Quite a connoisseur, you know, and perfectly unexceptionable. Not the most rigid of husbands could take exception to his making you the object of his admiration. He is much too great a gentleman to go beyond the line. It is reall
y a great compliment that he should be so eager to meet you.”
This singularly inept speech restored Anna’s good humour. It struck her as amusing that any one could be so clumsy even when obviously trying to be pleasant. She wondered if the gleam in Julian’s eye meant that he shared her view, but he made no further reference to the invitation or its giver.
Margaret, however, had a good deal to say, especially about Sir Aubrey Drysdale. “Turning you up sweet,” she remarked, with a regrettable lack of regard for elegant diction. “He’s quite a catch. Never made one of her court, though I daresay he would be pretty well acquainted with her husband. Now why should she wish to thrust him upon your notice? I’d not trust that woman if she offered me the Crown Jewels and said the King himself had sent her. Up to mischief of some kind, you may be sure. But as for Sir Aubrey, he is pretty well what she said. A bit of a stick, to my way of thinking, but undoubtedly a paragon of perfection. Well-born, wealthy, handsome. A leader of fashion but not given to ridiculous extremes. Does everything well—rides—drives—fences—shoots. I don’t know if he boxes, but if he does I am sure he does it neatly and with admirable discretion.”
Anna gave a crack of laughter, “Heaven forfend that you should ever favour any one with a description of me,” she exclaimed. “Not a word of dispraise have you uttered, but the picture you have painted is devastating. The man is a self satisfied prig.”
But Margaret was quite serious. “Then I have done him an injustice,” she said. “He has considerable charm of manner and is thought to be an asset to any kind of party, being reliable, punctual and punctilious in all the small courtesies that help to smooth the paths of social intercourse.”
