Through A Glass Darkly

by Karleen Koen

  Diana was silent. She bit her lip. No one said a word. No one had to. Each of them had dealt, at one time or another, with the Duchess when she was angry. No more needed to be said.

  "Perhaps you are right," she said slowly. "Perhaps we might come to some accommodation."

  Barbara hugged everyone around her. After she hugged Tony, he stared after her with a dazed expression on his face. Abigail walked forward calmly into that last bit of space left between her and Diana. Their cheeks touched. With the edge of her apron, Clemmie wiped the perspiration that had gathered on her upper lip in spite of the cold. For a moment, she thought Diana had overplayed her hand, but Diana had been born under a lucky star. She always landed on her feet, always. Even now, she was allowing the men to kiss her hand and the women to hug her as if she were conferring a personal favor on them, when Clemmie alone knew that last night she had come close to sending a letter to Aunt Shrewsborough begging for money. Clemmie had been all set to send Meres to deliver it. Diana had not done it at the last minute, just as she had not given in on the negotiations, trusting somehow that her luck would change.

  Amid the hugging and kissing, Abigail was informing Diana that she would send footmen and a carriage tomorrow. Aunt Shrewsborough and Aunt Cranbourne were arguing over which of them Barbara had gotten her white complexion from.

  "You just see you protect it, young lady!" Aunt Shrewsborough said. "There is not a mark on it, and a white complexion is a lady's first beauty. Balm of Mecca. I use balm of Mecca nightly."

  "Grandmama gave me her milk of roses—"

  "What!" cried Aunt Cranbourne, her tiny body quivering with outrage. "I begged Alice for years to give me that recipe, and she always refused. What is in it, Bab? What?"

  "We must go," Harold said, coming up to them.

  Both of them turned on him like tiny, vicious harpies. He backed off. They turned back to Barbara.

  "You be sure you come to see us," Aunt Shrewsborough told her sternly. "I will tell you a thing or two about handling this Lord Devane of yours—"

  "A handsome man!" said Aunt Cranbourne. "If I were ten years younger, I would give you a run for your money, Bab. Come along, Louisa, they are waiting for us. Diana, you did the right thing. I want that recipe now! Do not forget it!" There was more kissing and hugging and talk, and then the room was bare and empty again: the babble of talk, the scent of powder and snuff and perfume, the swish of heavy skirts and petticoats, starched linen, gone. They might never have been there, except that Barbara felt so relieved inside.

  In the silence Diana sat down suddenly, as if she had lost strength in her legs. She looked at Clemmie, still against one wall, shapeless as a huge, silent leech, and began to laugh. Clemmie shook her head and grinned, the gaps in her teeth black as night.

  Outside, Tony said, almost to himself, "Barbara has grown up." Behind him, Harold winked at Fanny, who giggled. Behind them, Abigail said nothing. She had not heard.

  * * *

  Saylor House was all Barbara had expected and more. From the moment the carriage Abigail had sent wheeled them between the gate towers and into the courtyard, Barbara's heart swelled with pride. The house was massive, symmetrical, solid, rising three stories to a hipped roof, punctuated at regular intervals with dormer windows and massive chimney stacks. In the center of the roof was a marble cupola used by the family in the hot summer for al fresco dining and entertaining. Behind the chimney stacks, a white stone balustrade ran along the roof's perimeter to protect anyone who might wish to stroll on the roof and enjoy the view, still a lovely one—even though the surrounding property was rapidly filling with buildings. It was possible to see St. James's Square to the west and across the Marlborough House gardens to St. James's Park on the south. There were stone benches carved into the balustrade so that guests might sit down, and when the Duchess had lived there, she had huge pots of blooming flowers and shrubs placed all about so that the roof was like another garden, but closer to the sky. The front of the house had matched windows blinking evenly across each story. A simple outside stair curved upward to the double doors of the entrance, encased in marble and topped by a pediment.

  Two footmen ran down the stairs to open the carriage doors. A butler, short and plump, with a pouter–pigeon–like chest and stomach, stood majestically before half of the entrance doors that opened to welcome them. Barbara followed her mother up the stairs.

  "Lady Saylor awaits you in the great parlor," the butler said.

  "Thank you, Bates," said Diana. "Bates, this is my oldest daughter, Mistress Barbara Alderley. Barbara, this is Bates. You have been with Saylor House since its beginnings, have you not, Bates?"

  "I certainly have, Lady Alderley. I am happy to make your acquaintance, Mistress Alderley. May I say that you have the look of your grandfather, and may I say how pleased we are at Saylor House to welcome you."

  Barbara smiled at him, but all her attention was on the great hall she now was standing in. It was the most beautiful room she had ever seen; all its proportions were perfectly equal. The floor was cut into great, even, alternating squares of black and white marble. The hall itself rose up into two stories, and the tall windows cut across the front of the house kept it from being dark or closed in. An intricately carved wooden staircase rose along each far side of the wall to meet directly ahead of her on the second floor as a spacious landing. Each arm of the staircase balustrade was carved in the shape of a pineapple, the fruit being the base, the leaves flowing upward to join the top railing. The carver had captured every seam, every crevice of the fruit. Barbara walked farther into the hall. In front of her was a great central door cut into the wall, its position exactly matching the entrance door behind her. And above her, on the second level, was a door that exactly matched the one on this floor. The frames of all the doors were surrounded with marble columns that met above the doors to form pediments. Into the walls on this and the floor above were cut evenly spaced ovals, outlined with laurel wreaths, in which sat marble busts. Barbara did not yet know it, but they were busts of the most famous men in Queen Anne's reign: Marlborough, Godolphin, Prince Eugene, Prince George, Sunderland, Somers, and Cowper. To know who they were was to begin to realize the extent of her grandfather's power. Two huge portraits hung on the side walls, in the shadows created by the staircase. The portraits faced each other across the room. Walking forward to look at the busts, Barbara noticed and went to the one of a woman.

  "This is Mother," said Diana, coming to stand beside Barbara.

  "Grandmama?" breathed Barbara, looking up at a slim young woman with dark, glowing eyes and hair and a masterful nose. Her face was not pretty in any usual context, but so lively, laughing, and intelligent that the viewer was intrigued. She stood in a garden near a marble fountain. She wore a dark green velvet gown, and puppies and three children played at her feet. "Dicken, Will and Giles, my brothers," said Diana. One hand in the painting rested on her hip, the other held a bouquet of roses, fat and full, their petals falling softly onto the ground among the animals and children.

  "She was lovely!" said Barbara, enchanted at this unexpected vision of her grandmother when she was young.

  "Her nose was always too big," Diana said. "Here, this portrait is Father."

  Barbara walked across the marble floor to the other side, where the portrait of her grandfather hung. It seemed fitting that he and Grandmother should stare into eternity at each other, captured forever in their youth. The man before her was handsome and smiling, his wide blue eyes gazing at the viewer serenely. He wore a great, full, old–fashioned periwig and a military uniform of red and white, and leaned against the side of a black stallion, fully saddled and bridled. Behind him were trees and blue, blue sky, but no bluer than his calm eyes.

  Bates was holding open the door to the great parlor. Diana and Barbara walked in. Abigail, sitting in a chair near the massive marble fireplace, rose and came forward. Tony, staring pensively out the windows into the wintry, bare gardens, pulled his hands out of his po
ckets and followed his mother. Mary, Tony's younger sister, sitting on a stool, remained where she was. Barbara had a confused impression of men charging toward each other, their mouths forever open in silent cries to victory and death on the walls around her dwarfing all else in the room, from the huge cabinets filled with red and blue and yellow china to many small tables and chairs. Above the fireplace was a portrait of Abigail and her children, gazing serenely toward the opposite panels of charging horses with their mouths pulled against bridles, and torn flags and men fighting.

  "There used to be a portrait of me," Diana said to Barbara. "I wonder where Abigail hid it—ah, Abigail—" She and Abigail coldly touched cheeks. Barbara kissed her aunt.

  "Stayed to greet you," Tony told her, pumping her hand up and down. Barbara smiled at him, and then reached upward and quickly kissed his cheek. His plump face turned red.

  "We are cousins, Tony. It is allowed," she teased.

  "Mary!" called Abigail. "You remember your cousin Barbara and your Aunt Diana." Mary stood up quickly and made a fluttering little curtsy. She smiled timidly at Barbara. Her eyes were pale blue, as pale as her brother's, and she looked as if the slightest word would send her scurrying for cover. Barbara smiled back, calculating that she must be ten or eleven, older than Charlotte, but if Barbara was any judge, as serious and shy. Oh, I am glad to be here, she thought, not only because the house was all she had imagined and more, but because of Mary, who was someone she could care for, just as she had always cared for her brothers and sisters. Someone to ease the ache she felt in missing them. Yes, she understood shy, serious little girls, and she would understand Mary. And love her.

  "Mary, take your cousin to her rooms," Abigail said. "Barbara, I have allotted you a suite of rooms on this side, which overlooks the gardens, so much more cheerful than the street in winter. I hope you find them comfortable." She smiled coldly at Barbara, not really seeing her.

  Barbara followed Mary's solid little body out of the room. Tony watched her until the door closed behind her. Even after the door closed, he stared at it, as if she might once more materialize before him.

  "What are you looking at?" his mother said irritably.

  He started and turned back to his mother and aunt.

  "Only stayed to welcome you, Aunt Diana. Pressing business elsewhere, you know. Treat this house as your own."

  "Since it once was, I certainly shall," Diana drawled. "Of course, I can make myself at home anywhere. Father used to say I would have made a perfect soldier's wife." She smiled at Abigail. "But then you were a soldier's wife, were you not, Abigail? Though hardly perfect—"

  Tony coughed, glanced at his mother, and left the room. Diana sat down in an armchair near the fire. She stretched her hands to the fire. Abigail, watching her, bit her lip. She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for patience.

  "I have every intention of going and coming as I please, Abigail," Diana said. "Do not think you can rule my activities because I sleep under your roof. And I may not always choose to sleep under your roof. I have no intention of offering you any explanation when I do not do so."

  "None will be needed," Abigail snapped, forgetting for the moment her good intentions.

  Diana, pleased to have drawn blood, sat back in the chair and relaxed, for all the world like a sleek, overfed cat. She held her shoes to the fire, turning her ankles around and around to admire their trimness. "I love this house," she said "I was a girl here. I danced many a dance, kissed many beaus. One of the Cavendish boys proposed to me right in this very room. Where did you put my portrait?"

  Abigail was irritably noting how smooth Diana's skin still was, and so did not hear the question. Diana, only five years younger than she, was still a beautiful woman. Abigail had been pretty but she had known her limits, known that with her fortune and family name she could have been as ugly as a stone and still marry well. But Diana had been beautiful, beautiful in an amazing, rare way. Men had instantly fallen in love with her. One look was enough. It did not matter how she acted, who she was inside. Her beauty changed her in their eyes into something so desirable that they had to have her. What power she had had—the young Diana—a power not of her own creation, not because she was good or kind or intelligent, but because of an accident of nature. She could have married anyone in the kingdom; yet she had married Kit. Here she sat, at thirty–four, her fortune lost, her reputation something Abigail would have died rather than borne, at an age when most women had gone to fat, lost some of their teeth, been disfigured by smallpox, illness, continual pregnancies, and she was still beautiful. Not the perfect, innocent dewiness of her youth, but even more sensual with the lines of experience marking her eyes and mouth and figure. Would she always be beautiful? Would nature never demand its due?

  "I asked where you put my portrait."

  "What portrait?"

  Abigail knew exactly the one Diana meant. It had been the first thing she bad moved when she and her children had come into this house. Diana had looked like a goddess in that portrait. Of course she had moved it.

  "The one of me in my wine–colored gown, the one by Lely. I wore diamonds in my hair, around my neck and arms, sewn to the lace at the sleeves and throat of my gown! Lely said I reminded him of a blood-red rose, rich and beautiful and fragrant—he was in love with me—"

  "One only wonders how he knew how you smelled!"

  Diana laughed.

  "I moved it into another room; it did not seem to fit this one." In spite of herself, Abigail sounded defensive.

  Diana looked upward at the portrait above the fireplace. In it, Abigail sat smiling, plump and fair in a blue gown and pearls, her children beside her. She in no way resembled a blood-red rose.

  "And yours fits better, I suppose. But, you live here now —where shall you go when Tony marries, I wonder? You will miss this house, its grandeur, all it stands for. The new Duchess will then take down your picture and put up her own and thus life goes on."

  Tony marry…Abigail had not even thought of it. No, that was not true. She thought of it often, weighing this girl against that one, wanting Tony to have only the best, a sweet girl bringing much property with her, but she had never really thought about the fact that she would have to leave Saylor House, that it would belong to Tony and his wife. Diana was smiling at her, that nasty, pointed, cat's smile. How like her to drag her completely away from the topic she wished to discuss—Tony marry! Well, of course he would. And she would be the one who chose his bride. And Abigail would be a welcome guest in their home, an honored guest.

  "I want some of my own things," said Diana.

  "I beg your pardon—"

  "Something from my house, some furniture and a portrait or two. My clothes. Do you think you can send a footman around to gather them without attracting attention? Just a few things, Abigail, to make me feel more at home—here in this house I was raised in."

  "And I thought you were at home anywhere!" Abigail snapped before she could help herself. Once again, as if she knew exactly what she was doing, Diana laughed. Abigail had the most terrible urge to cram her fist into that open mouth, break out all those sharp little white teeth. But above and beyond all of that, she wanted Bentwoodes for Tony. For that, she could be patient. Let Diana play with her like a cat does a half–dead mouse. She was neither half–dead nor a mouse, as Diana would well know.

  "My—Tony's house is at your disposal, Diana. If you require some things from your home, I am sure we can handle that, which brings me to something which I have been wanting to say to you. I know, of course, that you are already in the midst of your negotiations with Roger Montgeoffry. I have told you how I feel about the marriage, so I will not repeat myself. But I have had my bankers do some preliminary figures, purely speculative, of course, on what Roger stands to earn on the long term from Bentwoodes. And I thought you ought to know—"

  "Ought I?"

  "Of course you should. I realize your immediate need is for cash, but you need not sacrifice something that
could pay handsomely in the future—with a little patience and time."

  "I have no time, Abigail. I have no holdings, no securities, no cash, nothing other than the Alderley estate, which is entitled to Harry and mortgaged to the limit. I cannot even enter the door of my own house in Westminster for the bill collectors wanting their money. Patience is a virtue I have no time for."

  "If someone were to lend you the money to tide you over, give you breathing space…"

  Diana allowed none of the triumph she must be feeling to show on her face.

  "Roger has already lent me money."

  The words took Abigail's breath away. Rapidly, she refigured the amount of cash she had been going to suggest to Diana. She felt sick.

  "Of course, it was not enough. Nothing is enough to fill the hole I am in. Damn Kit to hell and back—how I hope he is dying from the pox in Lorraine!" She glanced quickly at her sister–in–law. Abigail was thinking about money and did not see her look. Diana looked back at the fire. Her husky voice was pensive, soft.