by M C Beaton
Lucy then collapsed into tears and only Isabella’s gentle voice reminding her that Captain James would not like any female with swollen red eyes caused her to make an effort to become calm.
“And my maid has brought my jewel case,” said Isabella, “and you may take your pick, Lucy.”
The volatile Lucy immediately beamed with pleasure and soon the two girls were sitting in Lucy’s bedroom going through the contents of Isabella’s case. “See,” said Isabella, “there is a cunning little tiara of silver thread and pearls and a fine necklace to go with it.”
And as Isabella tried the tiara on Lucy’s head and Lucy was admiring herself in the mirror, she suddenly noticed the sadness in her friend’s eyes.
“I have been so taken up with my own worries,” said Lucy, “that I forgot to ask you how you were faring? You look so sad. Is it because Harry is going back to the battle front? Can you have some feeling for him?”
“I do not like to think of any man going to war.” Isabella’s voice trembled.
“Isabella, I love my brother dearly for all his nonsense. He is not the type to put himself in the way of getting hurt. Besides, I have often noticed that men enjoy wars, although one is not supposed to say so, for they are doing it for king and country.”
“I cannot understand what your brother is doing in the army anyway,” said Isabella wretchedly. “He is the sort of man who would surely fear any activity that would spoil the line of his coat more than the cannon’s roar.”
“He was not always so,” said Lucy. “Besides, we have little money, so what else could he do? The only alternative is the church. The gentry go to the navy, the aristocracy to the army. It has always been thus. Now we are both sad. Isabella, this is a ball, a great event, and we are both going to be as fine and sparkling as your jewels.”
Isabella smiled. “I shall make a great effort, to please you, and to trounce your brother who pointed out that I had been looking sadly provincial!”
The Chadburys and Tremaynes sat down for dinner before the guests were due to arrive. Lord Harry was determined not to appear a coxcomb before his neighbors in the county, and so he looked as strangely remote and elegant in his dress uniform of red coat and gold epaulettes, white waistcoat and white breeches, as did Captain James, also attired in dress uniform. The only sign of Isabella’s continuing guilt and distress were light shadows under her large hazel eyes, but she was exquisitely gowned in white muslin decorated with a gold key pattern. Around her neck was a heavy antique gold collar and on her head an intricate headdress of leaves and ears of corn, all made of beaten gold.
Lord Harry looked across at his little sister and thought she looked very fine. Her gown of white silk ornamented with silver thread had been cleverly shaped to flatter her plump figure, and a pearl and silver tiara gave her an air of dignity.
His mother was dressed in scarlet silk. Diamonds shone round her neck, and a large diamond tiara was perched slightly askew on her improbably golden curls. “Fakes,” said the countess, noticing her son’s glance, “but good fakes.”
“Haven’t you anything real left?” asked Lucy.
“Not a gem,” said the countess cheerfully. “Stokes sold all the genuine stuff over the years.”
“You don’t need gems to enhance your beauty,” said her husband, giving her a fond look, and the countess simpered and flirted her eyes at him over a large fan made of osprey feathers that was so old it looked as if it had the moult.
Mrs. Chadbury was gowned in dove gray trimmed with lilac, and her plump hand flew up to the very fine sapphires she wore about her neck, almost as if to cover them. She was very fond of the countess and often felt guilty that the Chadburys were rich compared with the Tremaynes.
To Isabella’s distress, her father began to talk about that letter in The Times; The general opinion of the party, with the exception of Isabella who sat in a strained silence, was that this Colonel Ferguson, if he existed, should be horsewhipped.
“What shall I do with this ‘ere?” demanded the old retainer, shuffling in with a post bag. “Tripped over it in the hall.”
Mrs. Chadbury looked amused. “My dear Sophia,” she said to the countess, “don’t you read your post?”
“Not if we can help it,” remarked the countess. “Nothing but bills.”
“Give it here, Biddle,” said Lord Harry. He began to take out a pile of letters and then to sift through them. “Not all for you,” he said at last. “One for me and one for you, James.”
Both men cracked the seals of their letters and read them.
“Good heavens,” said Lord Harry, “I’ve been summoned back to Portsmouth. Sail next week.”
“I’ve got the same,” said James.
“Damn that Colonel Ferguson,” growled the earl.
Lord Harry opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it and flashed a warning look at James, but James did not see that look and exclaimed, “But this letter was sent a week ago! So we were going to be asked to go back anyway.”
Isabella’s face became suffused with a delicate pink. “Guilt removed,” thought Lord Harry. “Damn James! I think she deserves to suffer.”
But the relief Isabella was feeling was very great. If anything happened to either of them, she would not be tormented by guilt for the rest of her life, for they had been ordered back anyway.
The relief grew and grew, and Isabella became quite merry, teasing Lucy on her appearance and saying she would break hearts that night. Lucy replied that she did not see how anyone with freckles could break even one heart, to which Captain James said he had always found freckles entrancing. Lucy’s spirits rocketed and infected the whole party.
They finished their dinner, and then all lined up in a smaller hall that led into the great hall to receive the guests. “Oh, no,” exclaimed Lucy, looking through the open door. The sky outside was as black as night, and a sudden rumble of thunder heralded the arriving storm.
“I think it will hold off for long enough,” said the captain reassuringly. He turned round and looked into the great hall. It was magnificent. The tiles were highly polished, and huge displays of roses had been placed at strategic points around the room. On a gallery that ran over the hall, the orchestra was tuning up. The huge chandelier, released from its holland covers for the first time in years, he had learned, shone and sparkled amazingly.
Just as the first guests alighted from their carriages, the orchestra struck up a jaunty air. Lucy felt tears of sheer joy coming to her eyes.
Carriage followed carriage, all the guests eager to reach the shelter of the castle before the storm broke.
Faintly from the servants quarters came the sounds of merriment. The Appleton House servants were on duty at the ball, and so the castle servants were having a party.
Isabella found herself wondering inconsequently how it was that the aged servants of Tregar Castle managed to drink so much, day in and day out, and stay alive.
And then one young man who had just walked into the ballroom said loudly to another, “Faith, Lady Lucy has grown into a little charmer, has she not?”
Isabella gave Lucy an impulsive hug and whispered, “There! You see?” and Lord Harry found himself smiling at Isabella with affection and then reminded himself about that cruel letter. Well, he would have his revenge. He planned to jilt her in the most public, the most humiliating way possible.
As the last guest scurried into the castle, there was a great clap of thunder and the storm broke.
Somehow, the crashing rolling storm outside added to the air of gaiety and splendor inside.
“When do you want me to make the announcement, Harry?” asked the earl.
“After the second waltz, which is just before the supper bell,” said Lord Harry. “But I shall make the announcement myself, Father.”
“As you will, but it will look deuced odd.”
Lord Harry felt a qualm of guilt. He all at once realized that he would not only be hurting Isabella but shaming Mr. and Mrs. Ch
adbury and distressing his own family.
Lucy was swinging between elation and misery: elation when Captain James danced with her, misery when he danced with anyone else.
At last the waltz before supper was announced, and Lord Harry looked about for Isabella who was supposed to dance it with him, but he could not see her anywhere. The great entrance door to the hall had been closed for the evening as the ghests had come in by another entrance. Lord Harry went out into the smaller hall.
Isabella was standing by the open door, looking out over the rain-washed lawn. He went silently to join her. She half turned and saw him. “I was looking at the moon,” she said quietly.
The storm was over, and a great round moon was rising in the sky.
“Our dance, I think,” said Lord Harry.
She gave a little sigh as if reluctant to leave the moon-washed scene, and before he knew what he was doing, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her.
Isabella was too surprised to protest. His lips were firm and warm and very sweet. The kiss was brief, but when he raised his head, he looked down at her with surprise on his face. Then he tucked her arm in his and led her into the ball room and into the slow, dreamy steps of the waltz.
He forgot about that announcement he had to make. The feel of her in his arms, the scent of her hair was playing havoc with his senses.
Isabella correctly followed his steps while all the time her mind raced. She had been kissed. And for the first time. And … and … it had been strange but wonderful. She looked up into his tanned face and clear blue eyes. He was dancing beautifully. He was not mincing or parading. For the first time, she realized he was exceptionally handsome. He looked down into her eyes and smiled, a slow caressing smile, and in confusion, she looked above his head to the crystal chandelier that was blazing and sparkling and glittering like …
“Diamonds!” cried Isabella. “Diamonds!”
“What? Where?” demanded Lord Harry irritably, for he felt she had broken some spell.
Isabella broke away from him and pointed up at the huge chandelier. “Those are diamonds, I swear,” she said. “Your grandmother’s diamonds. What a wonderful place to hide them.”
Lord Harry looked up, his eyes narrowed, and then he began to laugh. He clutched hold of Isabella, and both stood hugging each other in delight.
Captain James came up with Lucy, demanding to know what was wrong.
“The diamonds,” said Lord Harry. “Up there! The chandelier. A king’s ransom in diamonds.”
Lucy capered with excitement and then threw her arms around Captain James. One by one the other dancers stopped beside them until the ball room was full of people gazing up in amazement at the great glittering chandelier.
The earl called for a ladder and pushing the servants aside, began to climb. The great crystals were just that—plain crystal, but all the smaller tears strung out along the arms of the giant chandelier were diamonds. He broke one off gently like a connoisseur collecting some exotic fruit and slowly backed down the ladder and presented the diamond to his wife with a courtly bow. “For you, my own, my very precious diamond,” he said.
Isabella felt sentimental tears coming to her eyes. There was something so very grand about the normally shabby and indolent earl.
“Let the music start again,” shouted the earl, “and we will all dance by the light of the Tremayne fortune.”
Isabella moved back into Lord Harry’s arms, into a dreamy state, looking occasionally up at his face as the diamonds in the chandelier cast prisms of light over the circling dancers.
When the music finished, the earl came up. “What about that announcement, m’boy,” he said anxiously. “This,” he pointed to the chandelier, “changes things. Saving your presence, Isabella, but you don’t need to marry if you’d rather not, Harry. No official announcement has been made.”
Lord Harry looked at Isabella. It was, she thought, as if one moment a very attractive, handsome man was looking at her, and the next had been taken over by a mincing fop.
“La, Papa, do not be worried. I will make an announcement.”
He said something to a footman, who called to the guests to be silent for Viscount Tregar.
Lord Harry stood up on a chair. Then he placed one hand on his hip and looked down at the guests with an insolent stare.
“You may have heard rumor that I am to wed Miss Isabella Chadbury,” he said in that high mincing voice that so grated on Isabella’s nerves. “Well, I am, so you may all congratulate her. Miss Chadbury, you must agree, ladies, has stolen the prize.”
“And that,” commented Lucy to James as he led her into the supper room, “should go down in history as the most ungracious speech any gentleman ever made about a lady.”
“Perhaps he is teasing her,” protested James.
“In public? In such a way? And he doesn’t need to marry her now.”
“No,” said James slowly, looking back over his shoulder.
Lord Harry was leading Isabella, holding her by the fingertips of one hand, both their hands held high. He was smiling happily. Isabella’s face was averted from him.
Well, she deserved all the misery he could give her, thought James savagely as he remembered the letter Isabella had written. He was grateful there were still pretty little girls like Lucy in the world. She would mature and make some man an excellent wife.
Chapter Six
AS IF IN mourning for the departure of Captain James and Lord Harry, the good weather never returned. A gray June moved onto a bleak July where great waves pounded the base of the cliffs below the castle, and the workers, recently hired to shore up and restore what was left of the east wing, kept complaining they could not work in the gales that battered them daily. August was calmer, but unseasonably cold and misty and the only thing to brighten Lucy’s days was that she was to go to London for the Little Season with Isabella as a sort of training for her debut.
Lucy wrote regularly to Captain James, or rather Isabella wrote the letters for her, Lucy’s being sadly deficient in spelling and grammar. A change had come over Isabella. All those dreams of love and romance that she had firmly put away were creeping back, as if awakened by Lord Harry’s kiss. She did not think of him romantically. How could she, after that disgraceful speech at the ball? But vague ideas of some hero would occasionally come into her mind with a longing to meet some man, strong and pure and clean, not like those satyrs of the posting house. She worked hard at composing letters for Lucy to send to Captain James, giving little pictures of day-to-day life in Cornwall, of the weather, of the repairs to the castle, of how the Tremayne family were thoroughly enjoying their newfound wealth.
Isabella privately wondered whether the letters would ever reach Captain James, but a letter from him finally arrived for Lucy at the end of August. To Lucy’s disappointment, it was very short, but in it he begged her to keep writing to him, saying her letters were a breath of English air.
Both girls were looking forward to going to London. Mrs. Chadbury wanted them to be there ahead of the start of the Season so as “to nurse the ground” for Lucy, that is, to make sure she received enough social invitations. Lucy had lost her fears, for it had been made plain to her that as this was not to be her debut, she need not feel any pressure about finding a husband. And the pressure on young ladies to find a husband was immense. Parents made it all too plain that the expense of a London Season must not be wasted. Any husband was better than none. Even heiresses such as Isabella, who might have been expected to be free from such expectations, were not. Old maid, ape leader, spinster—dreadful names holding the knell of social doom. The failures could be seen visiting spas about England and Europe, thin, nervous women with all their frustrated mother love turned toward animals or extreme religions, for in most cases their brains had never been furnished with enough education to make them mentally self-sufficient. And so all the training of a young girl was toward one end—to please some man: to laugh charmingly, to sew beautifully, to lisp platitud
es, to study every little air and grace that might entrap from “killing” glances to a fluttering fan. Then she must be able to play the pianoforte or sing, for the gentleman had to be entertained. And when the goal was finally reached, the husband caught, the heir produced, the once lively girl was left with an empty brain to pass long days in gossip with other empty brains. The reading of novels was frowned on, but for many it was a lifeline.
Isabella had read widely, and that long summer, she introduced Lucy to the pleasures of books of all descriptions. Lucy privately preferred the romances that fueled her dreams of Captain James, while Isabella began to read articles on the rights of women in The Lady magazine, which did not encourage her disgust of men, but rather exercised her brain with a number of new ideas. With the threat of finding a husband removed from her because she was betrothed to Lord Harry, who, with luck, might not return for some years, during which time he hopefully would have changed his mind and found someone else, Isabella lost a great deal of her frozen elegance and laughed and giggled with Lucy and planned all sorts of exciting things to do when they reached London.
