by Karleen Koen
"Carr Hervey has a younger brother…"
"What are you thinking about, Mama? Are you really going to try to stop the marriage? Aunt Diana would never give Bentwoodes to Tony, not unless he married Barbara himself—"
"Bite your tongue, Fanny! I would sooner see Tony married to the Devil than to anything of Diana's!" Abigail gathered her thoughts together. "She might be amenable to certain arrangements, if they are presented properly. I think a group of us ought to see her, not just me. I seem to bring out her worst…not that she has a best…Hervey…."
"Why not Carr himself, Mama? He is due to inherit an earldom."
"Nonsense! A second son will do quite adequately for Barbara. The Alderleys are not what they once were. Cash…or an allowance…a yearly allowance against the property…. the Newcastles might have a cousin hidden away in a village somewhere…"
"Mama, whatever are you planning?"
"Tony and Harold could sponsor the divorce…I wonder exactly what Roger is offering her…It must be a pretty penny…Fanny, you look pale. Have you been resting as you should?"
Fanny sighed. "Yes, Mama. But somehow, this time, I cannot seem to regain my strength—"
"Three babies in three years would make anyone tired!" Abigail spoke sharply. The square, stubborn line of her jaw, hidden by youth when she was a girl, and by flesh now that she was a woman, was apparent at this moment to anyone who might look at her. She loved her children, and she worried about them all. But only Fanny had to face death each year. Tony would never have to, and Mary was years away from marriage. She remembered the pain of her childbirths. Time blurred some of it but enough remained seared on her mind, a throbbing cord that only had to be touched to vibrate.
"I hope Harold understands your tiredness."
Fanny looked away. This was not a subject she and her mother agreed on, but she did not have the strength to argue.
"He should have more regard for you," Abigail was saying, her mind now completely off Diana and the marriage. "You cannot, you must not go on having a baby every year. It will ruin your health, your looks—it has already begun to ruin your figure. Has your maid been making the green tea caudle recipe your grandmother sent?"—The Duchess had recommended a quart of strong green tea poured into a skillet set over a fire. Added to this were four beaten egg yolks mixed with a pint of white wine, grated nutmeg and sugar. The mixture was stirred over the fire until very hot, then drunk out of a china cup.
"Yes, Mama."
"Do as I did, and make him understand that his attentions are not welcome—for your own sake, Fanny."
"Mama, please."
Abigail looked at her daughter. Fanny reminded her so much of herself, except that she had never been that gentle. "I do not want you to die," she said softly.
Fanny smiled at her. "I will not die, Mama. You did not."
"A part of me did," Abigail said. Fanny reached out and took her mother's hand and pressed it against her cheek. Abigail was silent. All her planning, all her plotting would not protect her daughter from death. She had to leave that to the Lord. And she did not trust Him. "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow," He had told Eve, "and thy conception; in sorrow. thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." A poor way to handle things, Abigail had always thought, particularly for Eve.
* * *
It took Abigail only a few days to construct her strategy, days which she knew worked to her advantage. It had been easy to learn that Diana was living on the last of her resources, that she had not yet signed the marriage contracts, but was holding out for more money. Nor will she sign them, thought Abigail, confidently. She had already instructed Tony and Harold to begin a counterrumor that the Tamworths were distraught over Diana's sense of false pride, that they had offered their home and been refused. Tony and Harold were to talk about it at the various coffeeshops: Tom's, Will's, Button's, White's, St. James's. They were to mention it on their club nights, casually, to a friend or two, in between eating their beef steaks and drinking their ale and singing their club songs. Enough people would overhear and repeat it. Aunt Shrewsborough and Lady Cranbourne were to shake their heads regretfully and talk of it in front of their servants. They were to mention it to various friends in the strictest confidence. This meant so many different versions of the same rumor would meet and collide that no one would know what the truth was.
She also decided that Aunt Shrewsborough was right: there was strength in numbers—and in surprise. As her famous father–in–law had always believed, attack the enemy before he can attack you. That way you choose the time of battle and the place.
Four days later, Abigail's troops were assembled in her blue drawing room, drinking tea, eating toast and biscuits, and arguing amongst themselves: the aunts, Tony, Fanny, and Harold. The braver members of the family bolstered the faint of heart.
It took two carriages to settle everyone comfortably. There was much running to and fro by the footmen for hot bricks and more fur throws. The aunts were argumentative and kept ordering everyone about, so that people were colliding with each other and undoing what the others had done. And it had begun to snow. But nevertheless, Abigail kept calm and managed to coax everyone in. The carriages started with a lurch. They would not stop until they reached Covent Garden.
Barbara and her mother were playing cards when the knock sounded at the door. It was Aunt Shrewsborough, rapping at it firmly with the handle of her cane. She and her sister, Elizabeth, had been frail, pale, porcelainlike beauties in their youth. Now they were tiny, wrinkled women fond of wearing too much makeup and too many jewels, and they were as delicate as iron hitching posts. Both had buried several sets of husbands and birthed numerous children and were as strong as oxen in spite of it all. They wore their rouge and black patches as boldly as they had done twenty years ago, oblivious of the fact that they were like caricatures of themselves. The rouge might crust inside the wrinkles, the powder might cake. They did not care. In their own minds, they were still twenty and beautiful.
All of the women had on cloaks or tippets trimmed with soft furs. Pearls peeked from their ears, around their necks, around the fingers of their soft, fragrant, crushed leather, fur–lined gloves. There was enough money represented in jewels and lace and furs to support several families for a year. Harold and Tony were dressed more quietly, though both of them wore new wigs under black hats with broad brims and gold lace hatbands. Each of them had the fashionable snuffbox (a picture of a popular actress painted on the inside lid of Tony's, while Harold's had a mirror) inside a pocket. And each of them had an expensive gold watch, with its seal and watch key and handsome outer ornamental case attached to their breeches with gold chains. Everyone looked sleek and prosperous and powerful. Abigail had almost dressed Tony herself. And she had carefully coached him on what he was to say. (Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—he surprised her. This morning he had said, "Always thought Aunt Diana should be here with us." "Why did you not tell me?" demanded Abigail. He shrugged. "Thought you would be angry.")
At the sound of the knock, Diana had become perfectly still. She and Clemmie exchanged a long look. Barbara knew what this all meant now. Diana lived in fear that her numerous creditors would finally track her down, like hounds running the fox to earth. She expected no visitors, received no one but the lawyers, and their visits were never unannounced. But then again, there was Meres. It was his job to skulk around outside and keep an eye out. If someone was knocking at the door, it was because Meres thought it safe—or because he was down the street, drinking in a tavern. Diana nodded abruptly. Clemmie went into the hall and opened the door, and when she saw the crowd of relatives before her, her mouth hung open.
"Announce us, you fat slug!" snapped Aunt Shrewsborough, moving past her.
Clemmie came to the parlor door. "It is your family," she got out, before they began to spill around her into the room. The family stood clustered at the parlor door, their eyes taking in the condition of the
room, which was once more bare. Barbara felt herself blushing.
Diana stood up. "My trick. You owe me five shillings," she said softly to Barbara. "Stand up and smooth out your gown. And for God's sake, smile."
"I do not have any money—"
"I will take it out of your dowry. Aunt Lizzie…Tony…Harold… Fanny… Abigail." Her husky voice grew flatter and flatter as she enumerated the names. She made an ironic curtsy. Aunt Shrewsborough held a handkerchief scented with orange water up to her nose and looked around the room again. It was worse than she had imagined.
"To what do I owe this visit?" asked Diana, still standing by the table. No one had yet moved to close the space separating them. Clemmie stood off to one side, her eyes barely visible inside the fat of her cheeks, moving back and forth between the two groups. "Surely it is not a welcome to London, for I have been here nearly a month. Will you not all sit down—no, I do not have enough chairs. We burned them to keep warm. I will not offer you refreshments. As you see, my facilities to entertain are quite limited."
"Diana," said Aunt Shrewsborough, walking across the space and embracing her niece. At first, Diana was stiff in her arms, but then suddenly, she melted and hugged her aunt. Aunt Shrewsborough stepped back, her hands still on Diana's shoulders, and looked her over. She sniffed.
"It is all right now, girl," she said roughly. "The family is here."
Behind her, Aunt Cranbourne followed and she, too, embraced Diana. Harold and Tony and Fanny came forward. The two men bowed. Fanny kissed Diana's cheek. Only Abigail remained by the door. She watched the scene being played before her without any expression. Diana smiled across at her. It was a pointed, cat's smile.
Now the two aunts and Fanny were clustered around Barbara. Fanny kissed Barbara's cheek and said, "I am your cousin Fanny. Do you remember me?"
Barbara smiled at the pretty woman whose cheek was so soft and fragrant. She had seldom seen these people since her grandfather's funeral, but none had changed so much that she did not recognize them. Of them all she herself was the most changed. She had been a thin, coltish ten–year–old. Now she was on the verge of young womanhood. The ten–year–old was still there—behind her eyes, in the impatient, long–legged way she moved, in the way her hair still rioted out of place. But her body and face were poised on the brink of adulthood, and she was both familiar and unfamiliar to all of them.
"Of course she does not!" snapped Aunt Shrewsborough, pushing Fanny aside with her cane. "Move over, girl. Let me look at this child! Ye gods, kiss your great–aunt, Barbara! Look, Lizzie, she looks like Brother!"
Her Aunt Cranbourne enfolded Barbara into her furs and laces. Her thin old shoulders were bony and she smelled of stale perfume and snuff. The two old women were looking her up and down as if she were a horse they were about to purchase. Aunt Shrewsborough poked at her with her cane, and Barbara obediently turned around for her.
"God bless me," said Aunt Cranbourne, "but she will be a beauty! She is too thin now, but put some flesh on her and I swear she reminds me of myself forty years ago! Look at that hair!"
Barbara, caught between them, smiled. She vaguely remembered these two old women. They were tinier and more wrinkled than her memory of them, and they looked distinctly odd with their big bright spots of rouge on their sagging cheeks and the red drawn crookedly around their lips. But they were family. They poked and prodded at her like family. There was something in them that reminded her of her grandmother. She felt suddenly enfolded in safety, the safety of family, who might criticize you and speak about you for all the world as if you could not hear, but still accepted you. It was something she never felt with her mother. With Diana, there was nothing but coldness.
"I am so glad to see you," Barbara said, impulsively throwing her arms around them and hugging them. She kissed their cheeks with a hearty smack.
"That voice," cried Aunt Shrewsborough. "Say something else!"
Barbara blushed.
"I am Tamworth—"
Barbara looked at the plump, grave, tall young man before her. Yes, of course, it was Tony. The face might be older, the form taller, but those pale, shy blue eyes still belonged to the same fat boy she and Harry used to tease so. And beat upon. Except that now, it seemed he had forgiven her her childhood excesses, for he was staring at her with something like admiration and surprise in his eyes and saying, "Awful of me not to have called sooner, Bab. You—you are looking very well."
Diana had been watching the cluster around Barbara with narrowed eyes. She looked as if she might be amused. Actually, she was relieved. She felt like a cat that has been rescued from a tree it thought it could climb only to find the limbs too high, the drop below too far. And like a cat, though she was glad to be rescued, she had no intention of making any of it easy on her rescuers.
Abigail cleared her throat and looked across the room at Tony. He was staring at Barbara. She cleared her throat again. Harold nudged Tony in the ribs. He started and turned to Diana.
"Aunt Diana. Offer you the hospitality of my home, and beg that you and my cousin make it your own—" He paused and glanced toward his mother. Abigail mouthed the word "duty." Tony bit his lip.
"Duty!" said Harold and Aunt Shrewsborough and Abigail at the same time. Barbara laughed. Diana did not. She stood there, staring haughtily at each of them in turn, her beautiful face stern and, without its usual allotment of rouge, pale. She might have been a queen receiving penitents, rather than a desperate woman in a stained gown and no stockings.
"Been remiss in my family duty, Aunt Diana," Tony said quickly, trying to spit the words out while he still remembered them. "Ask your forgiveness. As does my mother."
"It is true, Diana," said Abigail, choosing now to sweep forward and join the others. "I allowed my temper to overcome my sense of responsibility, and I heartily regret it. From the bottom of my heart, I ask you to forgive me, and I join the duke in welcoming you and Barbara to my home."
The speech was well done. There was just the proper amount of sincerity in it, but no warmth. Warmth would not have been Abigail. Everyone looked hopefully at Diana.
"You may all of you just turn yourselves around and go home—" Diana began coldly.
Oh, no, Barbara said to herself. She was standing next to Tony, and somehow his hand found hers. and he squeezed it. She felt like crying.
"I have no need of your charity—not at this late date. Where were you months ago when I was almost begging in the streets? Where were you when the bill collectors chased me out of my own home? You have been waiting to see if I would fail or succeed before you chanced having anything to do with me. Well, I am going to succeed and I have no need of any of you now."
There was a silence. Fanny was staring at Diana, her soft mouth a trembling O. No one ever spoke so to her mother. Harold looked embarrassed. Tony stared down at the buckles on his shoes. Aunt Shrewsborough raised one eyebrow. She sniffed. She looked at her sister.
"I read no mention of a marriage in any of the papers," she said to everyone in general. "Did you, Lizzie?"
"I did not," said Aunt Cranbourne.
"Which means," continued Aunt Shrewsborough, in a hard voice, "that your negotiations are not final. I would not look a gift horse in the mouth if I were you, niece. From the sight of you and this place, Roger Montgeoffry can have you for a song if he waits long enough. Is that what you want, Diana? Because if it is, we will all walk back out that door! You can bargain from a position of power—at Saylor House—with the family firmly behind you. Or you can take your pride and stay here with it. It will not keep you warm at night. Accept Abigail's offer. Overlook its tardiness. Think with your brain, not your temper, girl!"
Diana looked around her. Not a muscle in her face moved to give any indication of what she was feeling.
"Think of Barbara, Aunt," Tony said suddenly into the silence. His speech had not been rehearsed, and Abigail turned to look at him, her face relaying her surprise. "Granddaughter of a duke. Lived all her life at Tamwort
h Hall. To come to London to—to this! Not used to it. Can see it by looking at her. Let her come to Saylor House, Aunt Diana, please!"
"Well said, boy!" exclaimed Aunt Shrewsborough, rapping him on the arm with her cane. Barbara smiled up at him, her gratefulness in her eyes. Tony was beginning to act like a friend. She had a feeling that she could count on him to help her. Suddenly, she felt ashamed for all those times she and Harry had tormented him. He had just been slow. He could not help that his mind did not match theirs in the speed of their thinking and their speech. And they had made him pay for it. How they had made him pay. She linked her arm through his and squeezed it.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Aunt Shrewsborough was not finished. Like the expert card player she was, she had saved an extra trump.
"I have a letter from your mother," she said, shaking her cane in Diana's face. Again, Diana did not move, but this time her face changed slightly, and Aunt Shrewsborough nodded, satisfied with the reaction, minute though it was. "She wrote me over a week ago wanting to know what the devil was going on here, Diana. She says she has not heard a word from you. She asked about Barbara—about the marriage. She said she would come up here herself if she did not hear from me. Now, I wrote her back that everything was under control, but I can just as easily post a special messenger and tell her to pack her bags and bring herself up here. And if I do, Diana, I do not have to tell you what will happen, do I?"
