The Dreadful Debutante

by M C Beaton

  That hope died when he snatched off her cap. Her frizzy hair sprang out about her face like an aureole. Wide green eyes stared helplessly up into gray ones.

  “So, Miss What’s-your-name, explain yourself.”

  Mira hung her head. “I was amusing myself,” she said.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Mira Markham, and I am in London for my first Season.”

  “And is this the way you go about trying to find suitors?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “So you do know who I am?”

  “I overheard your name. But I did not know who you were in Grosvenor Square.” Mira put her head back and looked up at him bravely. “I was not tricking you in order to attract you, my lord. My heart belongs to another.”

  “Indeed?” The voice was warmer now, amused. “I trust you will be very happy.”

  To Mira’s horror a large, fat tear rolled from one of her eyes and slid down her cheek.

  “Get back in the carriage,” said the marquess. “I would like to hear your story.”

  He drove sedately back to the main road and then stopped at an inn outside Knightsbridge. He told Mira to put on her cap and then ushered her inside. He ordered wine for himself and lemonade for Mira.

  “Now, Miss Mira,” he began, “what is all this about?”

  He was very handsome, with golden hair curling under a curly brimmed beaver. He was tall and powerful, with a trim waist and long legs encased in leather breeches and top boots. But Mira could think only of Charles, and for the first time in his privileged life, the Marquess of Grantley was facing a young female who was not interested in him in the slightest.

  Mira glanced up at him fleetingly. She had beautiful eyes, he thought, like jewels. In a halting voice she began to tell him about Charles, her voice warming as she talked about the old days, when she had still been a child and they had gone hunting and fishing together. Never had anyone, not even Charles, listened so intently to Mira before. She told him of her desire to please her father by trying to be a son to him. And then she told him about Drusilla and the disastrous ball and then about her social disgrace. His eyes sparkled with laughter. “You are a terror, Miss Mira. So when do you come out of seclusion?”

  “There is another ball to be held at Lord Monday’s. I am to go there.”

  “But not Almack’s Assembly Rooms?”

  Mira shook her head. “Mama had applied for vouchers, but the patronesses are so very strict, and because of my disgrace the vouchers were refused. Drusilla is furious with me. Oh, all this marriage-market business is so silly.”

  “And yet you would not find it silly if it secured Lord Charles for you.”

  Her face looked wistful. “I am not beautiful. I have no hope now.”

  The marquess found himself bitterly damning Lord Charles and the Markham family. This girl had character, a piquant face, and a beautiful mouth. “You yourself,” he realized Mira was saying, “have escaped marriage.”

  “Not at all,” he replied. “I was married young, but my wife died after we had been married only two years. She died in childbirth.”

  “How sad! I am so very sorry.”

  “That was some time ago.”

  “Are you going to tell my parents what I have done?” asked Mira.

  “No, it is up to you to return unobserved.”

  “I do not know how to thank you. You are most… tolerant.”

  “You amuse me, Miss Mira. I shall be at the Mondays’ ball. I will dance with you if you promise not to push me into any fountains.”

  “I will never do such a thing again!”

  “Good. And I shall be interested to see the dramatis personae in this comedy.”

  “Comedy to you, my lord. Tragedy to me.”

  “Everything is a tragedy at your age, my chuck.”

  “But everyone will be looking at me and whispering.”

  “Society loves characters, although, I admit, it has to be the men who are the characters. But if you remain pleasant and do not extinguish that liveliness of spirit you obviously possess, you will attain a certain notoriety, and that is no bad thing.”

  “Charles will not even look at me.”

  “If you consider yourself deeply sunk in disgrace, then Lord Charles and society will take you at your own valuation. It seems to me you have a great deal of physical courage. Now is the time for you to find reserves of moral courage. You are far from plain. You have a neat figure, splendid eyes, and good skin. Remember that.”

  Mira looked at him in humble gratitude. “I had become used to thinking myself plain.”

  “If you think yourself plain, then that is how you will look. Now I must get you home, for I fear if this adventure is discovered, then you will be in the suds and confined to your room for the rest of the Season.”

  They drove back to London in amiable silence. When they reached the corner of St. James’s Square, where he had planned to drop her, Mira let out an exclamation of dismay. Her parents’ carriage had just arrived.

  “My family is returned,” she wailed. “What am I to do?”

  “Is there a back way into the house?”

  “Yes, there is a door from the garden at the back.”

  “Off with you. I will find someone to guard my horses and then create a diversion.”

  Mira scampered off across the square. The marquess found one of the grooms from the nearby mews to hold his horses. He went up to the Markhams’ house, rapped on the door, and said to the surprised butler who answered it, “Fire on your roof! Get everyone out.”

  The butler promptly turned and began shouting, “Fire!” at the top of his voice. “Everyone outside,” urged the marquess as scared servants followed by Mr. and Mrs. Markham and some beauty he judged to be Drusilla came crowding into the hall.

  Meanwhile Mira had scrambled over the wall at the back. She heard the commotion coming faintly and cries of “Fire!” She quietly slipped in by the garden door, ran up the stairs to her room, tore off her masculine clothes, and with shaking hands put on a gown. She tidied her hair with trembling fingers and then ran back down the stairs and out the front door with the last of the servants to where everyone else was gathered in the square. She stared up at the roof in time to hear the marquess say, “I am most sorry to have alarmed you. It must have been a brief chimney fire. Still, it is better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Indeed, yes,” agreed Mr. Markham, who had just learned the identity of his would-be deliverer from danger. Marquesses must always be believed; it was only the common people whose word one doubted.

  “We are most grateful to you, my lord,” said Drusilla, dimpling up at him.

  He smiled at her and said, “Alas, no beauty in distress to rescue. No knight errant, I. Good day to you all. You are fortunate, Mr. Markham, in having two such beautiful daughters.” He bowed before Mira and whispered, “Your boots are showing under your gown,” straightened up, and with a casual wave of his hand strolled off.

  Mira turned and hurried indoors so that she could get rid of her boots before her parents noticed. It was only much later that day that she reflected on the happenings of it and realized with a little surge of gratitude that she had found a new friend.

  All that the marquess had said to her about moral courage turned over and over in her brain, and Mrs. Markham said with some surprise to her husband that little Mira was taking an interest in clothes at last.

  And it was Mira who said she did not want to wear feathers in her hair to the Mondays’ ball, those tall osprey feathers dyed different colors. She said she was too short and that she had read that a garland of fresh flowers was considered very fashionable and she would prefer that. Drusilla gave her a little, curved, complacent smile. She knew she herself had the height to carry a headdress of feathers, and besides, when had little Mira had any idea of how to go on?

  Mr. Markham ordered that Mira was to have her way. But Mira, who had been feeling confident, for she knew she would see the marquess there
, began to feel uneasy again. For when she made calls with her mother and Drusilla on the various London hostesses, the talk was suddenly all about the Marquess of Grantley, how handsome he was, how rich, how he had never “done” the Season since the death of his wife, and how he was rated the best catch on the marriage market. Mira was all too aware of Drusilla’s increased interest in this marquess and saw how eagerly she regaled the ladies with a story about how the kind marquess had warned them of a fire and how warmly he had looked at her. And the ladies smiled indulgently, for Drusilla was already being talked of as the belle of the Season. Despite her beauty the hostesses, with daughters of their own to puff off, treated her with indulgence, for she prattled on in a light manner about all sorts of trivial things, and that was their idea of the perfect young lady. Mira they regarded with suspicion. There was, they said to one another, something of the caged animal about the girl. Farouche, yes definitely farouche.

  But Mira clung grimly onto the idea of moral courage and for once told the lady’s maid that she shared with Drusilla to allow plenty of time to prepare her for the ball. Then came the first battle. The lady’s maid, Betty, complained that it would be too difficult to arrange fresh flowers in Mira’s hair and that she should wear a turban, a Juliet cap, or feathers. To Mrs. Markham’s amazement Mira promptly demanded the services of a top hairdresser, saying that if she was to salvage her reputation, then she ought to appear at her best.

  Drusilla waited for Mr. Markham to tell this unruly daughter to behave herself, but to her mortification Mr. Markham said in an amused voice, “Then order one, Mira, and let us all have some peace.”

  Mira grandly summoned Monsieur Duval, the court hairdresser, unaware that if that temperamental artist had not had his services canceled by the Duchess of Rowcester at the last minute, then he would not have been able to attend.

  And so Mira had a wreath of ivy and camellias, the latest hothouse flower, decorating her head. Her gown of white muslin had a green sprig, and her evening gloves were a soft green kid. The high waist of the gown was bound by a broad green silk sash. There was something almost fairylike about Mira, thought Mr. Markham in surprise. Drusilla glared at her sister, trying to tell herself that Mira looked like a guy but not quite succeeding. Her own headdress of tall feathers gave her a stately air, or so she told herself, although she was already beginning to find it cumbersome. The feathers were admittedly light, but it was the heavy gold fillet to which they were attached that made her head ache a little.

  Another grand house, another grand staircase, another ballroom full of staring eyes. This must be what hell is like, thought Mira, eyes and eyes and more eyes, all calculating and disapproving.

  She was standing with her mother and Drusilla at the edge of the floor when the marquess came up to them. He smiled at Mira and said, “The honor of this dance?”

  Before Mira could speak, Drusilla said, “Most certainly, my lord,” and put her hand on his arm.

  “Miss Markham,” he said gently. “A mistake. My invitation was meant for your sister.”

  Drusilla blushed painfully and retreated to her mother’s side. Beside them, listening avidly to every word, was a Mrs. Gardener, one of London’s greatest gossips. Mira tripped off lightly with the marquess, and soon they were dancing a waltz, Mira demonstrating to society and to her jaundiced sister that she was an exquisite dancer. But at one moment her steps faltered, and the marquess pressed her hand tightly. “No, don’t tell me,” he said. “I can guess: Lord Charles is arrived, so now you must dance your best, not trip over my feet. And, no, you must not look at him even once!”

  Lord Charles went straight up to Drusilla and bowed before her. “Will I be lucky to secure the next dance?”

  “What? Oh, yes, I suppose so,” said Drusilla, her eyes fastened on the dancing Mira.

  Lord Charles turned away from her and put up his quizzing glass to see what was claiming her attention. He saw Mira dancing with an exceptionally handsome man, whom she seemed to be keeping well amused.

  “Who is Mira’s partner?” he asked.

  “The Marquess of Grantley,” said Drusilla sulkily.

  “Indeed! He is said to be the catch of the Season.”

  “I don’t see why. He is quite old,” said Drusilla sulkily. And Lord Charles, who judged the marquess to be not much older than he was himself, looked at her in surprise.

  “It is a good thing he has chosen to dance with her before anyone else,” said Charles, unwittingly putting another log on Drusilla’s already smoldering anger, “because he will give her some much-needed social cachet.”

  The waltz finished, Mira was promenading round the ballroom with the marquess. “You dance very prettily,” he said.

  “Thank you, my lord,” replied Mira in an abstracted way. “You dance very prettily yourself.”

  “Now you are not to sit out and cast languishing looks at Lord Charles,” he said severely. “Try for a bit of dignity.”

  Mira gave a little sigh. “If only he would look at me the way he looks at Drusilla.”

  He experienced a stab of irritation. He had always been courted and feted. He was not used to spending time with any young female who was plainly sighing for someone else. On the other hand he was sorry for her. He would secure her for the supper dance, take her in to supper, demonstrate to the fashionable world that he found Miss Mira Markham charming, and then forget about her.

  And Mira would have remained relatively happy that evening had not Charles, after his dance with Drusilla, asked her to dance. It was the quadrille, something she usually danced very well, but his very presence distracted her so that she stumbled several times. It was like a poison seeping back into her blood, her longing for his attention. She hated the way the elegant figures of the dance separated them and made conversation impossible. When she promenaded with him at the end of the dance, she searched to reestablish the old camaraderie with him, but she noticed his eyes kept straying to where Drusilla was walking with her partner.

  He delivered her back to Mrs. Markham, and Mira sat down primly, back very straight, trying to look cheerful but feeling only loss and misery welling up in her.

  But where the great Marquess of Grantley led, others followed, and to Mira’s surprise a gentleman immediately approached and asked her for the next dance—and so it went on until the fact that she was demonstrating not only to Charles but to her father how popular she had become raised her spirits. She was intelligent enough to know the reason for her sudden popularity, and when the marquess secured her hand for another waltz, this time the supper one, she smiled up at him with open friendliness and said, “Thank you for restoring me to the good graces of society.”

  “You are welcome. Are you enjoying the ball?”

  “I would enjoy it better if Charles would stop pining after Drusilla.”

  “I will talk to you about this at supper.”

  Mrs. Markham looked at Mira in startled surprise as the marquess led her younger daughter into the supper room. Other mothers of hopefuls were congratulating her rather sourly on Mira’s “success.”

  “Now,” began the marquess severely, when Mira had been served with food and wine, “pay attention to me, and stop letting your eyes wander past my shoulder in case your beloved Charles should hove into view. It strikes me that the amiable Charles amused himself by being kind to a child. For some immature reason you expected that friendship to go on. But now you are a young woman and must put away childish dreams. You are not going to get your childhood companion back, no matter what happens. You should begin your bereavement now and stop wasting time hoping that he will pay attention to you. You probably do not even think of him as a woman thinks of a man. You do not dream of kisses but of days on the hunting field. So it should be easy for you to forget him. You are not in love.”

  “I am deeply in love,” protested Mira. “You cannot see inside my head.”

  “So are you going to ignore my advice and waste a whole Season not seeing any other man bu
t the one who quite patently does not want you?”

  “There is still hope,” said Mira defiantly. “He danced with me. And Drusilla can be such a bore. She has no intelligent conversation.”

  “I haven’t heard a word of intelligent conversation from you yet, miss. You are supposed to be flattering me and entertaining me.”

  “But we are friends… I hope.”

  “Try. You need practice. What operas have you seen? What plays? What gossip?”

  “I have not been to the opera yet or the playhouse. Gossip? Mr. Brummell is fled to France, but everyone knows that. Lady Farnham ran off with her footman. Everyone knows that as well. I cannot find anything intriguing in the fact that a lady I don’t know has run off with her footman. It is not very interesting.”