A Lady’s Point of View
by
Jacqueline Diamond
For Fern
This digital edition published by
K. Loren Wilson
P.O. Box 1315
Brea, California
978-1-936505-13-5
Copyright 1989, 2011, 2012 by Jackie Hyman
Lightly reedited for this edition
Philippine copyright 1989.
Australian copyright 1989.
First Edition published 1989 by Harlequin Books
All rights reserved
Chapter One
Miss Margaret Linley was variously known as high in the instep, a dull piece of business, and a great gawk. None of these terms was meant to be flattering, despite her passingly fair figure, soft brown hair, and large blue eyes. For if she was not slighting a gentleman altogether by her inability to see him properly, she was tripping over his boots or ignoring his conversation in her attempts to avoid collisions.
On this particular night the young lady, in her second season and garbed in cherry-red silk, stood holding a glass of lemonade in her gloved hand and trying not to squint. The month was May, the evening was Wednesday, and the place, as any of London’s elite could not have failed to discern, was the fashionable if plain assembly rooms known as Almack’s, in King Street.
Through the tapestry of the gathering wove gentlemen in finely cut coats in subdued colours as decreed by the master of style, Beau Brummell. Ladies, each the proud possessor of a voucher that permitted her entry to the premises, danced and laughed and flirted behind painted fans, displaying an almost shocking amount of bosom above their lace-trimmed, embroidered gowns. Those in their first season wore white, while their older sisters displayed themselves in lilac, apricot, peach, and primrose.
The anxious mamas formed a dark border of blues, greens, and purples as they hovered about the dance floor, each hoping for her daughter to make a fine match. The assemblage overall presented a fabric of rich colours that delighted Meg, who could perceive little beyond the bright hues.
Several ladies strolled by, nodding politely, and Meg nodded and smiled back. But when the ladies turned away without speaking, she wondered if she had mistaken headshakes for nods.
She felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Her mother, Lady Mary, had insisted on dampening her petticoats to make the gown cling to her slender form, and Meg wished fervently that she might change into the old, modest bombazine she wore about the house. Dampened petticoats might be alluring, but they felt deucedly clammy.
Meg’s musings halted as a figure in black approached and asked for a dance. She agreed with enthusiasm until, after setting aside her lemonade, she recognized her partner as a confirmed old bachelor who had no doubt made the offer out of respect for her late father.
Walking across the floor took far more courage than others might suspect, for the whole of the room posed a giant blur for Meg. She attempted to move forward with grace, dreading one of the hideous stumbles that plagued her life.
She must keep her weak vision a secret. No one, so Lady Mary insisted, would marry a chit who at nineteen already required spectacles, although Meg suspected this was more a fancy of her mother’s than a dictum of society. Men were known to use quizzing glasses, often raising the single lens to gaze in a quelling manner at those of whom they disapproved. A few fashionable ladies wore lorgnettes, a pair of framed lenses with a handle. Still, Lady Mary was not a figure her daughter cared to cross, even when, with the unconscious arrogance of one who could spot a paste jewel or hennaed hair across a ballroom, Meg’s mother insisted that anyone could see well with a bit of effort.
She refused to permit her daughter any sort of lens, and had it not been for the generosity of the nearsighted housekeeper, Mrs. Pickney, who was willing to share her eyeglasses, Meg’s needlework would have been speckled with blood from her pricked fingers, much the way her life in society thus far had been blotched by her bumblings.
“Are you enjoying the season, Miss Linley?” her partner asked as he guided her awkwardly through an approximation of the waltz, that daring new dance which permitted a man and a woman an almost indecent amount of intimacy.
“Indeed.” She gave a silent prayer of thanks for this new dance, however it might distress her elders. With a man’s hand on her waist and the other palm-to-palm with her own, she felt far safer than trying to navigate unaided through the intricacies of a quadrille.
“Have you not a sister in town this season?” the man continued. For the life of her, Meg could not recall his name.
“Yes, Angela.” Meg bit her lip as her heel brushed the ankle of another whirling young lady and won her a reproving glare. “She’s but eighteen months younger than I.” Being halfway through one’s second season and still unmarried was not yet cause for alarm, but neither did one wish to appear any older than one was.
“Is she here?” he asked.
“Oh, no, she’s not yet out,” Meg said.
“Not out? Then surely her ball must be due soon, and I’ve not received an invitation,” the fellow complained. Mr. Crotchety, she decided. That name would do as well as any.
“It’s not set,” she admitted. “Angela turned eighteen only last week, and it may be she won’t enter society until next spring.”
Mr. Crotchety seized upon this statement to elaborate at length on the desirability of ladies marrying early and the foolhardiness of keeping them in the schoolroom past the age of sixteen. Meg was tempted to ask him why he felt so strongly about the subject, but she managed to refrain.
Privately she agreed that Angela should be brought out this year, but debuts into society were expensive. The painful truth was that the Linleys could not afford it.
Anthony Linley had been the eldest son of a viscount, and Lady Mary the daughter of an earl. Who could have foreseen that he would die in a carriage accident before succeeding to the title, and who would have guessed that his widow would be left with only a small pension and the remainder of her dowry?
The family fortunes might yet be saved if Meg were to make a wealthy match, but young men with full purses had a way of preferring ladies of equally substantial means. Moreover, Meg did not think she could bear a loveless marriage, perhaps to some old man such as Mr. Crotchety, with his cracked voice and onion-laden breath.
For herself, she would not have minded suffering through half a dozen seasons without a husband, but Lady Mary could not afford to have two daughters out in society at the same time. The cost of gowns alone was prohibitive, and until Meg married or retired from the field, her flaxen-haired and much more comely—to Meg’s mind, as well as her mama’s—younger sister must wait at home.
“Meg!” The music had scarcely ended when Helen Cockerell was at her side, pulling her away from Mr. Crotchety. “I haven’t seen you all night.”
“And I most certainly haven’t seen you,” Meg returned with a laugh, for her friend was privy to her closest secrets.
“Wait until you hear...” Helen possessed a talent for gathering the latest on-dits like spring flowers in a bouquet. As the two girls adjourned to the refreshment table for lemonade, Helen kept one arm linked helpfully through Meg’s and her tongue buzzing with gossip of engagements, fallings-out, and scandals of every sort, all of which she relayed without a trace of malice.
As they strolled, Meg kept a vague smile playing about her lips, for she dreaded giving offence and knew that she often did so by failing to see a gesture of greeting.
“There is Lady Jersey, nodding to you,” murmured Helen, and Meg bowed her head politely. One dared not antagonise the patronesses of Almack’s. They held the power to deny one a voucher, a punishment that meant exile from the cream of London’
s ton.
“Now here is my favourite titbit,” Helen continued. “Do you recall my cousin, Germaine Geraint? The Friday-faced chit who liked to race her carriage in Hyde Park?”
“No, but she sounds enchanting,” Meg teased, nibbling at a bit of stale cake. Almack’s was noted for its poor refreshments.
The response failed to make a dent in Helen’s monologue. “No, of course you wouldn’t, but she had a season seven years ago, for she is five and twenty now, and created such a scandal with her carryings-on that she was sent away to rusticate.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Well, she has a suitor!”
This bit of news did little to excite Meg, who had never met the lady in question. “How fortunate for her.”
“But you haven’t heard who it is!” Helen cried. “Lord Bryn!”
The marquis was known to Meg by reputation, for he often figured in the general gossip. Formerly a rake and a hell-raiser, he had changed considerably after joining Wellington’s forces on the Peninsula and suffering a gunshot wound to the leg.
The injury had left him with a limp. Furthermore, the gossips had faithfully reported, he declared upon returning to London that after what he had seen on the battlefield he had no patience with the empty frivolity and wasteful excesses of the fashionables. With that, his lordship had retired to his country home near Stockport in Cheshire, where he lived with his orphaned niece and nephew and had for the past two years ignored the world in general.
“I’ve heard that he’s quite handsome,” said Meg, who could rarely tell whether a gentleman was attractive or no. “Why should he court your cousin, if she’s as plain as you say?”
Helen shrugged. “Needs an heir, I daresay. Besides, Germaine’s a great gun in her own way.”
A gentleman appeared at Miss Cockerell’s elbow, claiming the next dance, and Meg watched regretfully as her friend departed. In the battlefield that masqueraded as the social season, it was rare to find an ally, she reflected as Lady Mary bore down on her.
The widow wore a black dress that she often complained was frayed around the edges, although Meg was unable to determine if this was so. A small silver turban sporting a single ostrich feather topped Lady Mary’s elegant head.
“Let me see your dance card,” she commanded, and Meg handed it over reluctantly. “What? But this is blank!”
“Mother,” she said, “I’ve been giving the matter some thought. Perhaps it would be best if I left London for the season and gave Angela a chance. If she were to make an advantageous match, it might help me, as well.”
“Nonsense!” Lady Mary returned the offending card to her daughter. “The first must be married before the second, unless she is unmarriageable, of course. And you are not.”
“But why?” Meg protested. “I don’t mind. I like Derby, and even though the cottage is rented to our cousins, surely the Barkers could spare me an attic room.”
“Hush!” Her mother stared about to see if anyone had overheard. “You have more hair than brains, girl!”
A rotund fellow stumbled against them, alcohol shading his breath during his stammered apology. Lady Mary pretended to misunderstand. “Why, of course you may dance with my daughter, Sir Manfred,” she proclaimed, and stepped aside. The two unhappy young people had no choice but to comply, and so Meg bounced her way through a country dance in uncomfortable silence.
Toward the end of the dance, she heard voices calling out and a general stir from afar, and concluded that someone of note had arrived. It was nearly eleven o’clock, after which time even the Prince Regent himself would be denied entrance.
Meg glanced toward the doorway, but as usual could make out only indistinct forms. She blushed, remembering one humiliating occasion on which she had crossed a room in full public view, only to find herself greeting a valet.
The music ended with a flourish. “Thank you, ma’am,” said her partner, sweeping into a bow. Meg bobbed a small curtsey, to discover when she lifted her head that Sir Manfred had vanished, leaving her stranded in the midst of assorted bodies that were already forming sets for a Scottish reel.
If only Helen would appear! But there was no sign of her. With a sigh, Meg lifted her skirts and stepped carefully across the dance floor. She must make her way to safety on her own this time.
Using great care, she approached the haven of the sidelines. As Meg well knew, it would be impossible to concentrate on her path if she observed those around her, and so she could only hope that no one was nodding a salutation.
Where was Lady Mary? Meg lifted her head for a moment, seeking her mother’s aid without success. But even if her parent had been watching, she might have refrained from helping her daughter in the belief that, under duress, Meg would suddenly acquire the necessary vision.
With an exhalation of relief, Meg stepped past the last of the couples now contorting on the dance floor. Vaguely she noted a cluster of gentlemen ahead and swerved to make her way around them.
A collective gasp of horror from these same gentlemen was her first clue that she had committed a major faux pas. Meg turned abruptly, hoping against hope that whatever had occasioned this outpouring of shock had nothing to do with her.
That was, unfortunately, not the case. The assemblage broke into fluttering fans and gossiping voices that lingered over such phrases as “I never!” and “The brass of that girl!” Worst of all, from a massive woman with a voice like a trumpet: “I daresay there will be no more vouchers for that miss, or her family!”
Lady Mary approached. “What have I done?” Meg pleaded, near tears.
Her mother stared at her reproachfully. “You have cut Mr. Brummell! He nodded to you and you swept by without so much as a word.”
“But I didn’t see him!” Meg protested. “I was too busy trying not to bump into anyone. I shall go back and apologise.”
“Too late.” It was Helen, joining them at risk of bringing scandal upon herself. “He has gone off in a temper.”
Nothing remained to be said or done, save gathering their pelisses and walking with bowed heads through the throng. Meg knew her disgrace was complete. Everyone would say she had always been arrogant, slighting even her closest acquaintances, and finally she had gone too far.
Meg and Lady Mary forced their way through the crush of carriages until they reached their faded barouche, taking refuge within on the velvet squabs.
“I don’t know what we shall do,” cried Lady Mary once they were under way. “We are ruined. There will be no more vouchers for you or for Angela.”
Her own shame Meg could bear well enough, but it hurt her beyond measure to have done harm to her sister. “Perhaps all is not lost,” she said. “I could send round a note of apology to Mr. Brummell in the morning, explaining about my weak eyesight.”
“Then you will be the laughingstock of the town!” lamented her parent. “That is scarcely better.”
“Well, I shall write a note to say I did not see him,” Meg said without much hope, for she recognised that a mere letter could never atone for creating a public spectacle.
“No one will believe it, for he was directly in front of you, but perhaps he will spare us the worst of his anger,” Lady Mary said. “Still, had I not already rented the cottage to the Barkers, I should consider packing up the three of us posthaste “ The older woman’s voice trailed off with an unaccustomed tremor.
Leaving London would greatly distress Angela, Meg knew, for the younger girl eagerly anticipated entering society. And where was the guarantee, once they departed, that next year they could afford to return?
The time had come to renew her earlier suggestion, Meg decided as the carriage rattled through the dark streets. “I shall go back to Derby alone, after penning my apologies to Mr. Brummell and the patronesses. Under the circumstances, surely no one will condemn Angela for my actions. We might even be spared the expense of a ball, and Angela can come out quietly at a tea party. Everyone will think we are acting with discretion.”
Lady Mary frowned as
she considered this notion. Meg hoped her mother would see it was by far the most expeditious solution.
Angela was not so easily persuaded when they arrived home and told her of the night’s catastrophe. On hearing of their contemplated course of action, she cried out, “You cannot! Meg, how can you go to live with our cousins? The Barkers are a pair of old grumbletonians. They’ll stuff your ears with Fordyce’s Sermons until you run screaming down the street.”
“I’ll never run screaming down the street,” said Meg. “I would collide with a milk cart.”
“You’re not so bad as that!” objected Angela loyally.
“To your beds,” said their weary mother. “We’ll discuss this in the morning.”
Seeing the sleepiness of the little maid, Karen, who attended them in addition to her other duties, the girls sent her off with assurances that they could make their own toilet. As she allowed her sister to brush out her hair, Meg reflected that what she would miss most was not the balls or outings to Vauxhall Gardens, nor boxes at the Opera, but her family’s companionship.
“Is it truly so difficult for you to see?” Angela asked, gently untangling a knot in Meg’s curly locks.
“In spite of what Mother believes, I can’t simply force my eyes to function properly.” Meg toyed with a pink velvet ribbon on the dressing table. “If only she didn’t insist it’s so shocking to be seen with a glass.”
“I can’t imagine what good it would do,” said Angela. “I looked through Mrs. Pickney’s spectacles once and they gave me the most frightful headache.”
Impossible to explain to someone with good vision how a few tiny lenses could open up a new world of sharp edges in place of fuzzy ones, where furniture and faces no longer faded to obscurity, Meg mused as she climbed into bed. How she longed for the simple freedom of movement that others took for granted.
Despite the silence that fell over the premises, no one slept well that night in the Linley household.
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