Cecilia Or Flight From A Shadow

by Catherine Bowness

  “Some may – and they frequently live to regret it - but Lord Waldron is neither young enough to behave idiotically nor old enough to be bamboozled by someone like Phyllis – or you, Mama. I don’t presume to know why he is not yet married – perhaps there is someone after whom he hankers. Indeed, in point of fact, we do not know that he is not already in love – or married.”

  “He seemed very taken with Phyllis while you were out of the room begging for a servant’s job,” Mrs Moss snapped.

  “Yes, for an hour or two. But for a lifetime? There needs to be a little more than a pretty face for that, Mama. You have done well with Charlotte: her husband seems steady and is clearly attached to her, but pray do not abandon hope of finding one for Phyllis – although you must not let ambition blind you to reality. Phyllis is lovely – prettier than Charlotte – but we both know that her intellect is impaired. She will never appeal enough to a man like Lord Waldron for him to put a ring on her finger – and it’s my belief that he would hesitate to seduce her precisely because he is a kind, responsible man who would baulk at taking advantage of a girl like Phyllis.”

  “Now I’m sure you’re jealous; when you begin to talk about Phyllis’s intellect, it’s always a sign that you’re setting yourself above her. What man cares about that?”

  “One or two, I imagine! Of course, it’s painful that the admiring glances no longer linger on my face, but I hope I am enough of a realist to understand the reason.”

  “I think – have always thought – you’re a fool,” Mrs Moss said. “You may think you’re clever and Phyllis is not, but in my opinion clever women are often fools. You’ve had plenty of chances and you threw them all away.”

  “I don’t recall many offers of marriage,” Cecilia said. “Two, I think – but neither was precisely glorious in worldly terms and I could not have contemplated spending my life with either.”

  “You were always too proud.”

  “Perhaps.”

  There was a knock upon the door followed by the ingress of Ernesto.

  “Lord Waldron would like you and your family to join him for dinner, Signora,” the servant announced with some pride, quite as though he had engineered the invitation himself.

  “There!” Mrs Moss exclaimed with a satisfied glance at her daughter. “Pray inform him that we will be delighted.”

  When the servant had left the room, she nodded at her elder daughter and said, “You had better go and do whatever you have to do in the kitchen so that you’ll have time to wash the smell of chicken off your hands in time to eat the dinner.”

  Cecilia nodded and left the room without another word.

  She found Signora Valdini in the kitchen and lost no time in telling her of the invitation.

  “Indeed?” the proprietress asked, not amused. “You’d better leave the chicken then and be off to prettify yourself.”

  “I will wash the dishes later,” Cecilia said.

  The Signora greeted this with a scornful look and said, “Perhaps you can persuade him – or your sister can – to pay for your rooms as well as your dinner.”

  Cecilia did not deign to reply to this decidedly improper suggestion. It was not unusual; unfortunately, no one supposed for a moment that Phyllis was not a pretty sweetmeat that a gentleman might wish to enjoy after his dinner. She was not quite sure why it was so glaringly obvious to every man they met that her little sister was for hire, although she suspected it had something to do with her mother’s assessing eye and tendency to push the girl forward.

  “Where is my brother?”

  “Still out in the stables. Are you sure you want him to join you for dinner? He might put a lid on his lordship’s plans.”

  Cecilia, who made a practice of ignoring the first instance of innuendo, was by no means prepared to allow Signora Valdini to continue in this manner.

  “I will not pretend I do not understand your meaning, Signora, but I will thank you to refrain from making any further remarks in like vein. My sister is exceptionally pretty, a fact which seems to prompt females to cast aspersions upon her propriety. If his lordship has any improper plans, he will find them frustrated.”

  “If she’s still an innocent – which I doubt,” the Signora retorted, “I can only applaud the care you have taken of her. You know as well as I do that your mother has put her on the market and will take a fair price – and your sister is unlikely to quibble. I can’t think how you belong to the same family for you strike me as entirely respectable.”

  “What else can I be at my age?” Cecilia asked ironically.

  “Almost anything, I should think,” the Signora replied. “And you must have had your chance to become a plaything for you are prettier than your sister – but somehow you’ve managed to steer your course away from that sort of career – and into slaving as a skivvy.”

  “I’m quite good at cooking and mending,” Cecilia said, opening the door.

  “It doesn’t pay so well though, does it?” the Signora called after her.

  She found Phyllis, together with her mama, in the small bedchamber at the top of the stairs which had been assigned to them.

  Apart from the fact that neither snow nor sleet was falling, there was little to distinguish the temperature from that outside. There was an exceedingly small fireplace but unfortunately no fire and nothing with which even the most enthusiastic pyromaniac could have made one for the coal scuttle beside the dusty grate was empty. Cecilia wondered if properly employed maids would have been vouchsafed a small ration of wood or coal to take some of the bitterness off the atmosphere and decided that the absence of such creature comforts might explain the Signora’s difficulty in keeping staff.

  There were two narrow beds, presumably designed for the missing maids but, at least as yet, no provision for the third person. If Phyllis could be prevented from spending the night with the Earl, it seemed only too likely that she, Cecilia, would be the unfortunate assigned to the floor.

  Mrs Moss and her youngest child had opened the trunk, which now held all the female Moss clothes, and were hunting through it to find something suitable for an evening dining with an Earl. They had thrown out most of the contents on to an otherwise bare and somewhat dusty floor and were loudly comparing one garment with another.

  “What do you think?” Mrs Moss asked, holding up two dresses. One was a pale green merino, expertly darned in several places, the other a cream silk, trimmed with pale blue ribbons.

  “I think the merino more suited to the weather,” Cecilia said, “but it is not an evening dress. Will you freeze to the bone, do you think, Phyllis, if you wear the silk? I will lend you my Norwich shawl, if you like.”

  “Oh, thank you, dearest Cissy,” Phyllis exclaimed, delighted.

  “What will you wear?” Mrs Moss asked her elder daughter.

  “The blue,” Cecilia replied at once, rummaging in the trunk for her gown. She, like Phyllis, had only one evening dress.

  “But will you not be cold if you give me your shawl?” Phyllis asked with a touching show of consideration.

  “I daresay it will be quite warm downstairs for I’m persuaded his lordship will have had a proper fire lit. I can sit close to it, but I do not want you to lest it burn you.”

  “Thank you!” Phyllis cried, flinging her arms around her sister. “You are always so kind to me. I will try to make him like me.”

  “I hope you will do no such thing,” Cecilia replied repressively. “I will be amply repaid if you have an enjoyable evening, but I do not, cannot, allow you to feel obliged to seek his lordship’s approval. Promise me you will be just as you always are for he is bound to like you in any event.”

  “Such a silly remark only goes to show how little you know about anything!” Mrs Moss said, irritated. “Gentlemen always like women who try to please.”

  “They like them much as they like a glass of brandy,” Cecilia snapped. “That is to say, they find them enjoyable for the duration of half an hour or so and forget them almost immedi
ately afterwards. Pray do not encourage Phyllis to throw herself at his lordship, Mama. Truly, it would be wrong – and cruel.”

  “Pay no heed to your sister,” Mrs Moss adjured her younger daughter with something of a flounce. “She has signally failed to attach a gentleman herself – and she has had opportunities in the past. If you do not show interest, he will not show his.”

  “Has it never occurred to you that he may not have any?” Cecilia asked. “I would suppose him to be past thirty, a man of the world and unlikely to be bamboozled by a chit of seventeen - or indeed by any wiles employed by her mama to throw her in his way. If you want him to like you, Phyllis, pray behave modestly – and just as you do with us.”

  “I should think he’s set to marry the rat-faced girl – his cousin,” Mrs Moss said. “That’s probably the reason they’re making this journey. I don’t suppose he’s shown much interest, so her family have thrown them together in a last-ditch attempt to force his hand.”

  “You’re probably right,” Cecilia agreed, buttoning her sister’s dress. “Sit down, Phyllis, so that I can do your hair.”

  There was no mirror provided but Cecilia was perfectly accustomed to attending to her sister’s – and indeed her mother’s – coiffure and did so, achieving a charming knot, which she tied with a matching ribbon, in no time. She wrapped her own shawl around the girl’s shoulders and pronounced her ‘perfect’.

  Before she herself changed, she arranged her mother’s hair as well. Mrs Moss had very thick, almost black, hair which had been much admired when she was young. Now, left alone, it was laced with grey, which Cecilia assured her was both dignified and becoming, but Mrs Moss insisted upon dyeing it in a bid to retain its original appearance. It did not answer: the dye made it dull and far too startlingly black against a complexion which had, as a result of many years of over-indulgence in strong liquor, become distressingly empurpled and much marked with broken veins. Mrs Moss strove to obliterate these signs of advancing age with quantities of powder, but the result was patchy and, to Cecilia’s mind, worse than if she had left it alone. The quality of what had once been her crowning glory had deteriorated so far that it was now coarse to the touch, but Cecilia said nothing of this. She brushed out the tangles and bundled it up with almost as much expertise as a proper dresser would have been able to achieve, inserted a horn comb to hold it in place, and helped her mother to change her woollen dress for a crepe one. It was not a flattering colour, being a somewhat bilious yellowish green, but the older woman had no more choice of evening apparel than either of her daughters.

  With black hair and dark eyes, Mrs Moss had it firmly fixed in her mind that green became her so that, forced to dispose of a large part of her wardrobe as poverty bit deeper, she had retained this one in spite of her eldest daughter’s attempt to jettison it.

  Handing her a black shawl and pointing out how chilled she would become if she did not use it, Cecilia was at last able to change her own dress. It too was fashioned from crepe, in this case a discreet bluish grey, not unlike an English sea on a day when there is a strong wind and little sun. It was trimmed with cream lace, now much mended, which, according to Endymion, made her look remarkably like the sea, the lace taking the place of foam as the waves crashed against the beach.

  She did her own hair and was inserting the last pin when there was a knock upon the door. The person outside did not wait for permission to enter but burst into the room almost before his knuckles had left the wood.

  Chapter 5

  The dinner invitation issued, Lord Waldron found himself subject to censure from the elder of his companions. The younger, rather pleased than otherwise, kept her own counsel.

  “Must we sit down with those vulgar persons?” Miss Godmanton enquired.

  “I am hoping they may be able to provide us with some new topics of conversation,” the Earl said, “and, even if the subjects prove familiar, their opinions will no doubt shed a new light on old matters.”

  “Bound to, I should think,” the older lady retorted. “Persons of low rank always hold ignorant views; the question is, rather, whether we wish to hear them.”

  “Oh, I daresay we will find it interesting to spend an evening with a new set of people,” he said lightly, no doubt thinking that anything would be preferable to being obliged to listen to Miss Godmanton airing the same opinions night after night.

  He turned to his cousin with interrogatively raised brows. “You have not expressed an opinion, Helen. Will the presence of the Mosses spoil your dinner?”

  “I don’t suppose it will be a very good dinner in any event,” she replied dismissively, unwilling to admit that she was looking forward to sharing a table with young Mr Moss.

  He smiled. There had been some discussion with the Signora about what she might be able to provide for the Earl’s delectation. He had gained the distinct impression that, not only was there a paucity of staff in the inn, but also a shortage of food.

  The hostelry was familiar to him from previous visits when he had found it a convenient spot to pause for the night as it nestled amongst a copse some way up the mountains which ran between Piedmont and Switzerland and was the only inn for several miles. He had liked it, at least partly because it struck him as unpretentious but, since their arrival earlier that afternoon, he had wondered if some ill-fortune had befallen the management or if it was simply that it was late in the season. Few people would be travelling such a mountainous route now that autumn was well advanced and snow beginning to fall.

  The Signora, who had previously been backed up by a signor, appeared to be alone now. She had remembered him and greeted him warmly, assuring him that the best bedchambers would be made ready and a suitable dinner prepared, but he had thought her much aged since his last visit and was a little anxious lest his arrival might add to her worries, not so much on account of preparing a number of bedchambers as because he was certain she would feel it incumbent upon her to serve such a distinguished guest a rich and complicated dinner. He had, as a consequence, enjoined upon her the importance, from Miss Godmanton’s point of view in particular, of a simple meal served early.

  “It was an excellent dinner last time I was here,” he said, “and I am persuaded that whatever you give us will be delicious, but pray do not go to a vast degree of trouble for us.”

  The Signora, while appreciating the kindness of the Earl in seeking to make things easier for her, did not find his remedy particularly helpful for, if you find yourself unexpectedly entertaining an English Earl, it would be very odd indeed not to make every effort to provide for his needs in an appropriate fashion.

  “Well, we can only hope they won’t serve it too late,” Miss Godmanton said. This was not so much because she wished to be difficult, although it was her companions’ belief that she did - more often than not - or because she found it disagreeable to change her habits, but more because she had reached an age where a late dinner disagreed with her internal machinery. The Earl understood this perfectly although, for his own part, he was rarely eager to eat his dinner at the hour which Miss Godmanton deemed suitable. They had, since they had met in Venice, come to some accommodation over this matter, with him bending a little further in her direction than he had demanded she incline.

  “I hope not indeed,” he agreed, “and I have made the point to Signora Valdoni that we would like to eat early, but I suppose they will have to find something first, which may take a little time.”

  “I trust it will not require anyone to drive down the mountain,” she said. “In spite of your recommendation, Horatio, it’s my belief they were not expecting guests at all. The place looks uncared for and has the air of having been largely abandoned. Was there a man here when you visited before?”

  “No, I am persuaded it will not necessitate driving down the mountainside, and, yes, there was indeed a man – Signor Valdini. I am much afraid he may have gone to meet his Maker in the interim. Certainly, she is shrouded in black.”

  “Don’t all wome
n in this part of the world wear black all the time anyway?” she asked.

  “Only, I think, when a member of the close family has died but I daresay, as one gets older, there is always bound to be someone dying.”

  “They look quite dignified,” Helen put in. “Should we offer our condolences?”

  “I have been wondering that and believe I should ask after him. Perhaps he is only unwell. If she is taken up with nursing him, it might explain why the place has a neglected air.”

  He put the question to the waiter who came in shortly with a bottle of sherry and some ratafia.

  “Oh, no, he died in the summer,” the waiter said at once. “Very suddenly. The Signora closed up for a few months and has only recently reopened, although it is not perhaps the best time of year to be hoping for many travellers.”

  “No, indeed. I am sorry to hear that; pray offer the widow my condolences.”

  “Oh dear,” Miss Godmanton said when the waiter had retreated. “Was he responsible for the cooking?”

  “I have no idea; I don’t believe I enquired. We shall see what we are offered, but I must beg you not to complain if the food turns out to be unpalatable. I am persuaded we can survive one night’s bad dinner without too much discomfort.”

  “Well, I certainly hope so. I give you fair warning, Waldron, that, if it proves as disgusting as I fear it may, I shall not eat it.”

  The Earl bowed sympathetically but his expression indicated that, so long as she managed to keep her thoughts to herself, he was not particularly exercised about either the quality of the food or whether she managed to eat any.

  Half an hour later the party went upstairs to their respective chambers where their servants had already unpacked their valises, hung up their clothes and made a preliminary choice of what they considered suitable for the evening.

  The Moss women, still in their attic room, were not much surprised that the person who burst in without waiting for permission proved to be Endymion.