by Joan Smith
The ladies dressed for dinner, which reminded Jane she would also have to have a few evening gowns made up. She would not choose black, but subdued colors that honored Lord Pargeter’s passing without actually going into mourning for this gentleman she had met only once.
When the door knocker sounded at eight-thirty, she was sitting with her aunt, discussing her new gowns. Fay had not begrudged the cost of mourning, and she had not settled for bombazine either. She wore a black crape gown and again the pearls. Jane wore a modest navy lutestring gown that was used on those rare occasions when evening wear was required at Miss Prism’s. Miss Grundy herself could have found no fault in its neckline, which revealed no more than the clavicle. The sleeves came to just below the elbow. Miss Prism did not approve of her schoolmistresses flaunting their charms. She insisted they all wear similar navy gowns and identical white muslin caps. The outfits robbed them of their individuality.
Both ladies looked lively at the sound of masculine voices from the hall. Broome soon appeared at the doorway to announce Lord Fenwick, Messrs. Swann and Gurney. Gurney made a dash toward Lady Pargeter and the wine decanter. Jane, in a turbulence of happy confusion, was left to entertain the younger gentlemen. She felt her eyes turning more than once to admire Lord Fenwick’s elegant black evening suit. A diamond of just the right size, neither ostentatiously large nor meagerly small, twinkled in the folds of his immaculate cravat. She tore her eyes away to examine Scawen, who looked, as usual, like an unmade bed. The black of his jacket was liberally sprinkled with dust. His cowlick rose like a jay’s crest at the back of his head. He had nicked his chin while shaving, and not bothered to remove the daub of powder he had put on to stanch the flow of blood.
It was Swann who delivered the dinner invitations. Lady Sykes, always a high stickler for the proprieties, had written up separate cards for the two ladies. Jane read hers and looked to her aunt for guidance.
“Thank you, Scawen,” Lady Pargeter said, setting the card aside. “It happens Jane and I are free tomorrow evening. We shall be happy to attend.”
“Not really a party,” Scawen said apologetically. “Just ourselves and one or two neighbors.”
“Then we need not write a formal reply. You will tell Lady Sykes.”
“Told her she need not write cards. But that is Phoebe all over. She actually enjoys writing cards and letters.” He shook his head in wonder, his cowlick wobbling.
Jane girded herself to do the pretty by her guests. “Did you arrange with your gardener to put extra food out for the swans?” she asked Scawen.
“I did, and they went at it as if they were starving, poor souls. It is as Fenwick said, the large flock ate up all the water plants. Now that we are down to the smaller number, the plants will grow back. The lake can’t accommodate two dozen. I aim at one dozen even. Once the grass grows back, I shall buy a pair of black swans.”
The swans having been discussed, she rooted around for something to say to Fenwick. Her life at Bath had been so narrow that she couldn’t think of a thing. She did not attend plays or balls, routs or concerts. She knew none of his friends. He wouldn’t be interested to hear Miss Prism was raising her charge to parents, but not raising her teachers’ salaries accordingly. That and Fortini’s unwanted advances had been the main items of interest in her life for the past month. After ten minutes’ uneasy conversation about how she was enjoying life in the country, Lord Fenwick came to the rescue.
“Do you play the pianoforte, Miss Lonsdale?” he asked.
“A little. I’m a bit rusty, I fear.”
“Then you didn’t teach music at Miss Prism’s?”
“No, we had a music master who came in twice a week,” she said. Her eyes glittered and a light flush suffused her cheeks at the mention of Fortini.
Fenwick noticed her animation, and wondered at it. Had there been a romance between the two? “I expect the music master caused quite a flurry in the dovecote,” he said.
“No! Why do you say that?” she asked in alarm.
“They have a reputation that way. Did I touch a nerve?” he asked archly.
“No, not at all,” she said firmly, but the color in her cheeks heightened noticeably.
“If you’d care to give the piano a try, Fenwick and me will sing,” Scawen said. “I know all the words to ‘Green Grow the Rushes, Ho’ and the chorus of ‘The Maid of Lodi.’ Mind you, my pipes are a bit rusty as well, but I’m game to give her a try.”
Jane cast a grateful little smile on her rescuer and rose at once. They went to the Music Room, a stately chamber that held a hundred seats arranged as in a theater. The walls were embossed and the ceiling was painted to resemble the sky, with cherubs frolicking amidst the clouds. The pianoforte sat on a raised platform. The late Lord Pargeter had enjoyed music, and often held musical soirees. There were also a clavichord and two harps on the platform.
“This is rather intimidating,” Jane said, gazing around at the large room as she took her place at the piano bench.
“At least there’s no one but ourselves to hear if we hit a sour note,” Swann said.
Jane played a few tunes and the gentlemen sang. She enjoyed Fenwick’s firm baritone. Swann sang surprisingly well, too, but the interlude was strained. Her playing was indeed rusty, and with Fenwick standing at her shoulder, her fingers refused to behave themselves. It was not a room for intimate music. The notes seemed to echo like ghosts from the high rafters and bounce mischievously from the walls and windows.
“It’s those empty chairs that defeat us,” Fenwick said, after the second song.
“Thank God they ain’t full,” Scawen added.
“I know how the actors of a poorly attended play feel now. Unappreciated, unwanted, and soon unemployed. Let us go,” Jane said, glad to have it over and done with.
“I expect you’ve been perusing the library,” Fenwick said to Jane as they left the room. She had claimed an interest in books. He had observed her lack of ease, and wished to strike some subject that interested her. He was rewarded with the first real smile he had seen all evening. Her lips had an enchanting way of trembling when she was happy, almost as if she feared her moment of pleasure would be snatched away from her.
“Yes indeed. My favorite room. It’s a wonderful library, but not quite up-to-date. I fear the late Lady Pargeter was not one for novels. I can find nothing by Edgeworth or Fanny Burney.”
“Now, there is a project to fill your idle hours—bringing the library up-to-date,” he said. “Let us go and see what is missing.”
Scawen disliked books nearly as much as he disliked large parties and overbearing females. He accompanied them to the library, another room as big as a barn, with racks of books running up to the ceiling, and marble busts of old writers glaring superciliously from their perches atop pedestals.
As the talk was all of books, he soon said, “I shall just nip back and see how Lady Pargeter goes on.” What he meant was that the tea tray might be there by now, but he disliked to reveal his keen interest in tea and plum cake.
“You have a deal of buying to do, Miss Lonsdale,” Fenwick said, perusing the shelves that held novels. “There is nothing here from this century, not even the Walter Scott novels. Posterity will condemn your aunt; they will have no first editions to sell when they run into dun territory. Have you tried Scott?”
“Yes, I didn’t care for him,” she said.
Fenwick stared. “You’re out of step with the rest of the nation. What did not please you?”
“They were too full of wonders for me. Like Lord Byron—I cannot warm to him either.”
“That is literary heresy of a high order, ma’am, to denigrate our top-ranking novelist and poet. Next you will claim to dislike roast beef, and I shall know you are a rebel.”
“I’m quite fond of roast beef, I assure you.”
“What writers do you like?” He listened with interest, rather surprised at this modest lady’s daring to express an original opinion. Oh dear! Her prim lips tol
d him she was going to say Hannah More, that sanctimonious purveyor of religiosity.
“More down-to-earth stories, with real-seeming people. I cannot relate to the corsairs and banditti and self-indulgent heroes, wallowing in their vague guilt, that Byron gives us, nor to the kidnapping and smugglers and gypsies of Guy Mannering. They are too far from anything I’ve known in life.”
“Yet it is hard to capture a reader’s interest with writing in which nothing exciting happens.”
“I prefer Mrs. Edgeworth, and Fanny Burney. For lighter reading, I like Mrs. Radcliffe. Just for a diversion, you know, at the end of a hard day’s work,” she said apologetically.
Fenwick gave her a teasing smile. “You prefer the more down-to-earth trials of Emily de St. Aubert, I see. An orphan, a wicked guardian, kidnapping; the appurtenances of melodrama are all right, so long as they center around a young lady. I take leave to tell you, Miss Lonsdale, you are a fraud. You are shamming it. You like exactly the same sort of nonsense I like myself. Your only preference is that a lady be the main character of the tale.”
Jane gave him a sly smile. “I see you are familiar with Mrs. Radcliffe as well, milord.”
“I love her—and unlike some, I don’t hesitate to admit my vulgar taste. We all enjoy that vicarious sense of adventure and romance that is missing in our own lives.”
“I cannot think romance is missing in your life!” she exclaimed, before she had time to get a rein on her tongue.
Fenwick’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He had not thought Miss Lonsdale would be so forthcoming. He saw he had been keeping a bothersome and needless guard on his tongue. The evening promised not to be a dead loss after all.
“Oh, romance! I know plenty of ladies, but no put-upon orphans or interesting kidnap victims. My friends are all demmed ordinary when you come down to it. You are the only lady worthy of the name heroine I have ever met.”
“Me?” she asked, staring as if he had run mad, then she laughed. “Oh, you are funning, milord. I am as ordinary as suet pudding.”
“No, a good deal more—appetizing. I believe you have a few romances up your sleeve as well?” He directed a brightly quizzical look at her.
She blinked in astonishment. “No, not one. Wherever did you get that notion?”
“Despite your quick denial—or perhaps because of it—I suspect the music master. I noticed a certain sparkle in your eye when he was mentioned. A rosy flush suffusing your cheek—quite in the style of Mademoiselle de St. Aubert,” he said playfully. The same manifestations of excitement were on her face now, adding charm to her modest beauty.
“Oh no, there was nothing in that!” she exclaimed, and blushed as red as a rose. She immediately rushed away from the subject. “I thought you meant Scawen Swann. He has asked me out a few times, and now this dinner party ...”
“He finds you ‘dashed pretty,’ but you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick regarding the dinner party. It is not Scawen who is courting you there. It is Lady Sykes, on behalf of her son, Nigel.”
“Why would she do that? I have no dowry.”
Fenwick bit his lips to keep them steady. It was unusual to hear the truth expressed so bluntly. “And they call you a clever minx! Your wits are gone begging, Miss Lonsdale.”
“What is amiss with him?” she asked suspiciously. “Is he a moonling, or hideously deformed?”
“Not hideously, no. And not quite a moonling either. He could find a lady to have him, I think. But you are Lady Pargeter’s only living relative. You will outlive her by a decade or two. You’re bound to come into a tidy fortune.”
Jane laughed aloud. “Talk about a pig in a poke. Who is to say Fay will not marry herself? She is still youngish.”
“As Scawen would be the first to tell you, a lady cannot marry herself.”
“No, but she can marry a gentleman—say, Lord Malton. He has been calling recently.”
“Lord Malton!” His brow furrowed in surprise. “Is that the way the wind blows?”
“There is no saying. He is an excellent oiler. Gurney doesn’t hold a candle to him in the butter department.”
“Aha! The plot thickens. We now have that romantic figure beloved by gossips and mathematicians, the amorous triangle. And another triangle as well.”
She cocked her head to one side and looked at him. “What is this second triangle?”
He waggled a well-shaped finger and perched on the end of the table, settling in for a flirtation. “For shame, Miss Lonsdale, and you call yourself a schoolmistress. Or at least Lady Sykes calls you one—endlessly. I mean your charming self, Nigel, and Scawen. We ought to be able to make up some sort of theorem out of all this material. Let me see, now, the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled— No, that requires a triangle and a square. We are short an angle. Ah, I have it. It is a deduction we are looking at here, not a theorem. What we must prove is that—”
“The matter requires no deducing. It is simple arithmetic we are dealing with, for it is plain as the nose on your face—and that, if you do not mind my saying so, milord, is very plain—that two fortune hunters cannot be divided into one fortune.” Jane’s color heightened at the brashness of her reply. Had she really accused Fenwick of having a big nose? It was too ridiculous—his nose was perfect. She meant it in a metaphorical sense, for he did seem to be encroaching into very personal matters. He revealed no offense, however, but only gave her a bold smile.
“Well, not without committing bigamy,” he allowed.
“I believe we can rule that out. The fortune is my aunt’s.”
“I assume you don’t teach higher mathematics, ma’am? Two can be divided into one. The result is one half. One half of fifty thousand is twenty-five thousand, and a very respectable sum it is, too. A lady with twenty-five thousand might make a pitch for a duke without overreaching herself. Nigel will not thumb his nose at it. And by the by, that remark about my nose was unkind and gratuitous.”
“Quite uncalled-for, and I do apologize.” Then she peered up at him through her lashes and added daringly, “Your nose is not out of keeping with the size of your head.”
He gave a mock scowl. “And my heart. I forgive you for yet another gratuitous slur on my person. A big head indeed! There is no offending me, you see. Like the hound I am, I thrive on injury. Watch out, or you will add another point to your triangle and have a square on your hands. Then we can get on with the Pythagorean theorem.”
Scawen came ambling in. “Square on the right triangle of the hypotenuse angle—something of the sort. Why the devil are you badgering Miss Lonsdale with algebra, Fenwick? Or is it geometry? No matter. You are boring the poor girl to tears.”
Fenwick turned a laughing eye on Jane, who had never been less bored in her life, and looked it. “Brave little woman that she is, I see she is laughing through her tears.”
“Are you always so ridiculous, Lord Fenwick?” she said, half scolding, half laughing.
“Certainly not. I have been known to discuss the Corn Bill for a whole weekend without falling asleep—except in bed at night—and once discussed the nature of the Trinity with a bishop at Longleat for hours on end. At least I think it was the Trinity we were discussing. Or perhaps it was the Marquess of Bath and his son, the viscount. The father, son, and the ghost of Longleat—the famous Green Lady. I suit my conversation to the company. That will teach you to denigrate my nose.”
Swann looked from one to the other in confusion. “Get a grip on yourself, Fen. You’re bosky. The Green Lady of Longleat ain’t a holy ghost. She ain’t a nun. In fact, she was nothing else but a trollop, carrying on behind her husband’s back.”
“I stand corrected,” Fen said.
“The reason I came,” Swann continued, “the tea tray has been brought in. Some dandy-looking plum cake there, if you would like to get away from Fenwick’s ridiculous stories and give it a try, Miss Lonsdale.”
“An offer too good to refuse. From the ridiculous to the sublime—plum cake,” Fenwick
said, and offered Jane his arm.
Scawen took her other elbow and she was led back to the saloon in high style. There was no more bantering between her and Fenwick. They took their tea and plum cake in near silence, but something had changed between them. Fenwick looked at her in a different way, with quiet, intimate smiles, the way a gentleman looks at a lady he admires. It proved so disconcerting that Jane accidentally sugared her tea, when she had learned to like it with only milk at Miss Prism’s.
After the gentlemen left, she could hardly believe she had spoken so freely with Lord Fenwick in the library. What had come over her, to say such things to a lord? What had come over him? Their conversation bordered on the flirtatious. At times it crossed the border. And she had enjoyed every moment of it. Was this how ladies with a fortune lived? It was lovely.
But it was only an amusement. Lord Fenwick might flirt with her when his own friends were not about, but he would never offer for a dowerless lady, even if she might inherit something from her aunt. She was just a pig in a poke, and Fenwick would look for a blue-blooded heiress.
Chapter Nine
“So she is coming,” Lady Sykes said the next morning over breakfast. “And not even a written reply, when I made a point of writing ‘RSVP’ on the bottom of the cards. Just what one would expect of a housekeeper, but I own I am surprised a schoolmistress from Miss Prism’s Academy does not know the proper way to reply to an invitation. I have had a written answer from Mr. Parker, you see,” she said, holding up a note.
Swann frowned at this. “Why did you invite Parker?” he asked. Parker was a schoolteacher, and therefore a potential competitor for Miss Lonsdale’s hand.
“I needed another gentleman to round out the table. I invited Mrs. Rogers, from Bibury. She has had me to tea twice. One must repay social obligations, Scawen.”
“She has not had me to tea!”
Lady Sykes always repaid her social obligations on the backs of her friends when she could.
