by Carola Dunn
Not waiting for assistance, the girls bounced down to the gravel drive. Sir Lionel descended next, and turned to help Chloe. As he handed her down, he smiled at her and waved at their nieces, already several paces away, their heads together, chatting busily.
“You see, ma’am, with those two I have a choice of bombardment with babble or silent solitude. By combining our interview with their excursion, I have, I trust, pleased everyone.”
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you contrived to prevent my brother’s finding out we had already met. I was dreading—”
“Oh ma’am!” Miss Molesworth turned back. “You will not mind if Georgie and I go ahead? We want to see everything, but pray do not trouble to follow us. If you grow fatigued, there are benches everywhere.”
“You are a ninnyhammer, Bella!” Georgie said scornfully. “Looking at flowers will not tire Aunt Chloe. At home, at Dene, we walk for miles. I wager your uncle is more likely to grow tired.”
“Wretches!” said Sir Lionel. “Go away, do, and leave us old folks in peace.” As the laughing girls scampered off between two elms and down a walk, he continued, “I scarcely dare offer you my arm now, Miss Bannister, lest you should take it as a reflection upon your stamina.”
“Thank you, sir, but I cannot think even my aged bones need support when the path appears perfectly smooth,” Chloe said, trying not to sound regretful. She could not recall when last a gentleman had offered her his arm.
Side by side they strolled after Georgie and Miss Molesworth. “Not a single puddle to be seen,” said Sir Lionel mournfully. “I shall not even be able to emulate the gallantry of that other Ancient Mariner, Sir Walter Raleigh.”
“You have no cloak, and besides, I am no Queen Elizabeth.” Chloe gazed down at the toes of her shoes as they appeared alternately from beneath the hem of her dress. “She would never have behaved as ill as I did yesterday. I must apologise for making such a cake of myself.”
“You were ill, and besides, I am not one of those males who affect to despise sweet things.”
For a moment she pondered this in silent perplexity. What did he mean? Could he possibly think she was sweet? No, “sweet” was a word for lovers, or children, not maiden aunts. He was just indulging a penchant for plays on words.
She peeked up at him, to find him looking down at her with an enigmatic light in his eyes. “Well, I assure you,” she said hastily, “I am not usually so caperwitted nor so shockingly wanting in conduct. I am still mortified by the memory...,” she hesitated, “...though I confess I have no very clear memory of exactly what I said to you.”
“No wonder! By the time I took you home you were talking in your sleep.”
“I did not... Surely I did not refer to you as the Ancient Mariner?”
“Good Lord no. I very much doubt whether even in your sleep you are capable of such a want of conduct.” He laughed. “No, that is an epithet I applied to myself. You merely informed me that Miss Georgina had described me to you as an elderly gentleman.”
“Oh dear!” Chloe raised her hands to cover her hot cheeks. “It is true, I fear, but I might have put it more tactfully had I been more compos mentis. I did explain why I came to Town? Why I came to see you?”
“You did,” he said dryly, “but do you know, I find I don’t want to waste a fine afternoon in a beautiful garden with a charming companion discussing such a painful matter. Let us postpone it till a dull day.”
“I cannot. My brother expects me to return to Dene tomorrow.”
“Disappoint your brother’s expectations for once.”
“I dare not.” She could not help the waver in her voice. “You cannot imagine what he is like when he is angry.”
Sir Lionel’s face hardened. For the first time, Chloe could picture him as a resolute, authoritative sea-captain, in command of his crew and responsible for his ship through calm and storm, peace and war.
Yet he spoke mildly, coaxing not commanding. “You have already braved Mr Bannister’s anger by coming to Town,” he pointed out, “and I have freed you, at least for the present, from the confrontation over his daughter. Take the courage you had stored for that battle and use it instead to defy him as to the date of your departure.”
“Courage! I only wish I possessed any.”
“On that subject, you may recall, we have agreed to disagree. Well, will you do it?”
“I wish I could.”
“Look at it this way,” he said persuasively. “If you choose to avoid conflict over your wish to stay a few more days, you condemn yourself to an immediate fight over Miss Georgina’s marital prospects, since you have not yet dissuaded me from offering.”
“You will not let me try?”
Sir Lionel was adamant. “Not today.”
Nonetheless, Chloe ventured to set before him the most formidable side of her predicament. “If it were only a question of when I am to leave London, I might nerve myself—as my nephews say—to face Edgar’s wrath, though I would not encourage anyone to wager on my victory. But if I stay, what am I to do about the gowns?”
“Gowns?” he asked blankly.
“Georgie did not tell you that Lady Chingford took me to the dressmaker this morning? She has ordered dozens of new dresses for me, I cannot guess how many. I am sure they must be horridly expensive. If I go home to Dene, Edgar will be able to cancel the order and save a great deal of money.”
“And if you stay?”
“I daresay I could cancel it anyway,” Chloe said hesitantly, “but Lady Chingford was most insistent that I must have a new wardrobe for London. I should not wish to offend her when she has been so kind, and I doubt Edgar is willing to cross her.”
Sir Lionel smiled. “Then your course is clear. Don’t inform him in advance, but when the gowns and the bills begin to arrive, refer him to her ladyship. Now enough of that. You have not yet spared a glance for the flowers. I rely upon you to tell me what I am admiring, for we mariners are ignorant fellows when it comes to gardens.”
Chloe had indeed been totally oblivious of her surroundings. She looked around now and exclaimed in delight. The extensive gardens were laid out in lawns, walks, and avenues, with statues and bowers here and there, and flowerbeds everywhere.
As they walked on, Chloe named the flowers they passed. Narcissus, hyacinths and stocks scented the air; violets and forget-me-nots clustered in shady nooks; marigolds blazed in the sun; pansies raised their funny faces; the pure white of candytuft offset clumps of vivid purple honesty.
“Honesty? Why so?”
“The seedcases look like silver coins. It is sometimes called penny-flower.”
“Have you all these in your garden?”
“Many of them. The old-fashioned ones which grow easily. New varieties can be quite expensive and...and I have little time to cosset delicate plants.”
“And your brother has no interest in flowers.” Sir Lionel sounded angry.
“Edgar is more interested in the kitchen garden,” Chloe admitted. “I thought all men were.”
“A kitchen garden has its merits,” he mused.
“I do not want to bore you with looking at flowers,” she said anxiously.
“My dear Miss Bannister, I am enjoying myself no end. Look, those are tulips, are they not? What a splendid array.”
The tulips stood stiffly ranked like soldiers of a score of regiments in multicoloured uniforms, pink, scarlet, yellow, and white, glowing flame and a crimson so dark it was almost black. Beyond their orderly bed, daffodils sprawled in careless drifts across the lawns beneath the trees.
“‘I wandered lonely as a cloud,’“ Sir Lionel quoted, “‘That floats on high o’er vales and hills.’“
Surprised, Chloe continued the verse. “‘When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils.’“
With a smile, he jumped to the end: “‘And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.’ There is little to beat Mr Wordsworth’s poetry when one is far from home.
”
“Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, and now Wordsworth! I should not have supposed sailors to be great readers.”
“It is not uncommon. I claim no particular merit. We have long hours at sea with little choice of occupation.”
“Like the long winter evenings at home in the North. Georgie and I read a great deal together.” Chloe recalled her niece’s conviction that gentlemen do not like intelligence in a wife. “Georgina is very clever,” she said. “Indeed, in my opinion she would have profited more from proper schooling than my nephews.”
Sir Lionel confounded her. “It is a pity that society as presently constituted fails to utilise the talents of women. You taught your nieces yourself?”
“Yes, to the best of my poor ability. Though my father sent me to school when my mother died, we were taught little beyond housewifery and a few genteel accomplishments. What else I know I learned from my own reading, and I flatter myself I have passed on a love of books to Georgie, if not to Dorothea.”
“A love of books is the best gift any teacher can give. What do you like to read?”
They talked of books as they wandered on, until they came to the bank of the Long Water, the continuation of the Serpentine, where they found the girls.
Georgina and Miss Molesworth had made the acquaintance of a nursemaid and her two charges who were feeding the ducks and gulls. The young ladies had joined in and were having a wonderful time, grown-up decorum forgotten, tossing crusts to the voracious flock. They were a charming sight in their coloured muslins beside the sparkling waters, surrounded by the mallard drakes with their glossy blue-green heads.
Charming also in their childlike delight, Chloe thought, hoping Sir Lionel would take note of Georgie’s youthful behaviour and decide he was too old for her.
He sighed. “I would not deprive them of their pleasure by begging a few crumbs,” he said, “but we shall have to come again bringing our own supplies. So much for birdlike appetites—look at that seagull! Did you see? It caught the bread in midair. When I was a midshipman I used to throw scraps to the gulls. Beneath the dignity of a captain, alas.”
“But not beneath the dignity of a baronet?” Chloe teasingly enquired.
“Good Lord, I’d forgotten. I suppose I ought not?” he said with a wistful air.
“Why not? As captain you had to uphold your authority, but if a baronet cannot please himself in so small a matter, what is the use of being one?”
“Well said, Miss Bannister!” Which was all very well, but did not in the least advance Georgie’s cause. “When shall we come? Tomorrow morning? Do you ride?”
“Yes, but I don’t think—”
“Come now, ma’am,” said Sir Lionel sternly, “if we don’t meet, how are you to plead Miss Georgina’s case?”
* * * *
Georgie followed Chloe into her chamber and closed the door. “Thank you, dearest Aunt,” she cried. “Was it horridly embarrassing?”
“Don’t thank me too soon.” Untying her bonnet ribbons, Chloe turned away to set it on the dressing table and tidy her hair.
In the looking-glass, she saw Georgie’s face fall. “Why? What did Sir Lionel say? Oh, don’t tell me he insists on marrying me?”
“No, no, my dear, nothing so definite. He said the day was too fine and the gardens too beautiful to address so painful a subject.”
“Painful? Then he truly loves me?”
“So it appears. Does that change your mind?”
“Not a bit. It is very flattering, of course, but it does not cut a single day from his age.” Tears filled Georgie’s eyes. “Aunt Chloe, what shall I do?” she wailed. “A husband with grey hair and rheumatism!”
“Hush, love.” Chloe put her arms around her sobbing niece. “Sir Lionel has not refused to listen to me, only postponed it. I am to ride with him tomorrow in Hyde Park. His brother-in-law has a mare he thinks will suit me. I only hope it is not a dreadful slug! Is it not fortunate that I brought my riding habit?”
Georgie’s tears dried like magic. She went to the clothes-press, saying in a voice full of foreboding, “Let me see it.” Taking out the plain, dark brown cloth habit, she spread it on the bed and shook her head. “Oh dear, it is even shabbier than I remembered. You cannot wear that to the park, Aunt Chloe. All the Fashionables ride and drive in Hyde Park.”
“We shall go early in the morning,” Chloe argued. “Sir Lionel said few people are about then. Besides, it is not as if I am an eligible young lady trying to fix his interest. Rather the reverse—if he should take me in dislike, perhaps he will change his mind about marrying you.”
“No one could possibly take you in dislike,” Georgie said absently. “I have some gold braid...yes, and Doro has a bonnet with gold ostrich plumes.” Seizing the habit, she dashed from the room, calling, “Dorothea!”
With the aid of Dorothea’s abigail and the sacrifice of Dorothea’s bonnet, Chloe’s well-worn riding dress and hat were rapidly refurbished. Chloe thought they looked quite smart, but Georgie was still dissatisfied as she hung it in the wardrobe.
“Did Lady Chingford bespeak a new habit for you?” she asked.
“I cannot recall. I was quite bewildered by the whole business, and that reminds me, what am I going to say to your papa?”
“Never mind Papa, you need a new riding dress. You will have far more use for it when you go home than any number of ball dresses.”
“Ball dresses!” said Chloe, aghast. “Surely her ladyship did not order a ball dress for me!”
“I expect so. I have three, and she thinks it not half enough, but Papa put his foot down.”
“You came to London to go to balls and dance. I do not need a ball dress! What will Edgar say?”
“Just tell him you dared not gainsay Lady Chingford. I am sure she expects you to relieve her by chaperoning me to balls while you are here. She says Doro is too young and far too scatterbrained to be a proper chaperon.”
“I meant to go home tomorrow,” Chloe moaned.
“You cannot,” Georgina pointed out. “You are to ride with Sir Lionel and convince him I should make him a terrible wife.”
“I told him you are clever, Georgie, but it did not deter him, I fear. He thinks women’s brains are wasted for lack of proper education.”
“Truly? What a shame he is so old!”
“If you married him, I daresay he would buy you any books you wished for. Are you beginning to change your mind?”
Georgie merely shook her head. “It is time to change for dinner,” she said. “Maybe by tomorrow evening you will have one of your new gowns.”
“Unless Edgar packs me off on the Lancashire stage,” Chloe said pessimistically. She had not wanted to come to London, yet now she was here, she found she had no desire to leave.
* * * *
“The dressmaker promised to deliver an evening gown for you tomorrow, Miss Bannister,” said Lady Chingford at dinner. “We are engaged to attend a musicale, I believe. It will be the perfect occasion to make you known to a few people.”
Edgar opened his mouth—and closed it again. His glare, however, promised Chloe a reckoning at no distant date.
To her relief, he went off to a ball with the rest after dinner. Georgie said he always watched her like a hawk, to make sure she did not encourage any gentleman he considered ineligible.
Chloe read for a while, a book about Brazil Georgie had borrowed from Hookham’s Subscription Library, but she retired to bed long before the others came home. Snuffing her candle, she lay in the dark trying to plan what she was going to say to her brother.
With Edgar already in a state of simmering fury, he was going to boil over as soon as he got her alone, whatever she did, she thought with a shudder. No argument would save her from a tongue-lashing, though his awe of Lady Chingford might stop him actually ordering his sister to leave. But Chloe suspected she herself might depart in defiance of the countess’s wishes rather than stay in defiance of her brother’s.
Where was th
e courage Sir Lionel was so sure she possessed? He did not understand how intimidating Edgar could be. Boys were taught to be bold and fearless as surely as they were taught Latin and Greek. Girls learned needlework and to be meek and compliant. At an age when Chloe had barely set the last stitch in her first sampler, Sir Lionel had been a midshipman sailing around the world.
Drowsily she wondered whether he had ever been to Brazil. She must ask him. She would like to hear about his adventures.
* * * *
“I don’t know how adventurous a rider you are, Miss Bannister,” said Sir Lionel, gesturing to the street where a groom held three horses, “but Molesworth assures me the mare is possessed of both a docile nature and a fair turn of speed. I hope you will be satisfied.”
“She sounds ideal.” Chloe approached the pretty dapple-grey mare with a white blaze on her nose. Offering her a lump of sugar, she asked the groom, “What is her name?”
“Opal, ma’am.”
“She has superb shoulders and quarters.”
The man nodded approving agreement. “But a tad long in the back, ma’am.”
“A trifle, perhaps.” She rubbed Opal’s nose in apology for this criticism.
“Will she do?” Sir Lionel asked. “We sailors are notorious for our ignorance of horses.”
“A pretty mount with a pretty name,” said Chloe, laughing as she took Opal’s reins from the groom. “What more can a lady demand?”
“I can see your expectations are higher! She was purchased for my niece, but Arabella is nervous of horses and only rides when not to do so would mean missing an outdoor party.”
The groom grinned. “That’s right, sir.”
“What a shame! Well, Opal, shall we try your paces?”
Sir Lionel lifted Chloe into the sidesaddle. The firm clasp of his hands at her waist flustered her, and of course Opal picked up her perturbation. The mare sidestepped and tossed her head, but Chloe quickly curbed and soothed her.
