Regency Belles & Beaux

by Michele McGrath

  “Thank you for coming for me, Grandmother,” Lucy said in a small voice.

  “We will not speak of this until this evening,” Lady Mary replied with a nod at the servant’s back. “Time enough after you have met your uncle, Sir Edgar, your father’s eldest brother.”

  Lucy did not know what to expect when the family gathered together that evening. Lucy was still wearing the gown of Mrs. Warren’s providing. She had washed her hands and face and redone her hair but she knew that she was not elegant enough for a formal dinner party. She entered the drawing room with a feeling of anxiety but she need not have been afraid.

  Sir Edgar was rather a surprise, looking nothing at all like Lucy’s father. He was small and tubby. The most noticeable thing about him was a fine set of whiskers that seemed to cover most of the lower part of his face without actually meeting in the middle. He greeted Lucy kindly, remarking on her beauty and presenting her to his wife, Lady Ridgeway. This lady shot a quick glance at her husband before begging Lucy to call them ‘Aunt Agnes’ and ‘Uncle Edgar’.

  “Tomorrow you will meet our children, your cousins,” she said with a smile, as if she was conveying a great favour.

  “Tell me about them,” Lucy begged, happy to be given a subject of conversation which was not controversial.

  “There are five, although Charlotte and Maria are married. They are to meet us in Dublin in January at the start of the season. Dear Tom is away at school but our other son, Peter, is not well enough to leave and is studying at home. He is eleven and Helena is nearly fourteen.”

  Lucy exclaimed suitably and the conversation continued during dinner. Lucy was aware that Lady Mary was saying little but observing her closely. Lucy hoped that she did not eat with wrong knife or something equally stupid. Fortunately the family were dining alone although Lady Ridgeway told her this was unusual.

  “We decided it was best for you to meet your relatives before you encounter our neighbours, then you will be more comfortable.”

  And my grandmother can judge whether I am fit to be brought into their company, Lucy thought. I wish she would stop staring at me. Lucy tried to ignore her but it was difficult. The family were sitting at one end of a long dining table, with Sir Edgar at the head and his mother and wife on either side. Lucy was seated beside Lady Ridgeway and at first kept strictly to the rule about not talking across the table until her grandmother asked her a question.

  “What do you think about Ireland?”

  “I have seen very little of it, ma’am, but it seems like a beautiful country.”

  “Too wet,” Sir Edgar growled. “One season out of three the crops rot in the fields.”

  Lucy learned that her uncle was a keen agriculturist, hampered by the quality of the land he had inherited. A discussion on the subject carried them through the various courses of the dinner. It could not be said to have enlightened Lucy greatly since her head was swimming with all the unfamiliar terms. In one sense she was pleased when dinner ended, in another she was dreading the tête-à-tête to come. She followed her aunt and grandmother out of the room with apprehension.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sir Edgar did not linger long over his port and soon joined the ladies in the drawing room. This was tastefully decorated with straw-coloured chairs and curtains of fine damask. Lucy recognised it as being in the first stare of fashion, having seen a similar décor in Lady Westmore’s salon. A log blazed in the fireplace which Lady Ridgeway informed her was in the style of Robert Adam. She said it with such pride that Lucy responded with suitable praise and drew her chair as close to the blaze as was polite. She was shivering from both cold and fright in her thin dress, becoming though it was.

  “Well, my dear, are you going to tell us all about your adventures?” Sir Edgar asked.

  “I’ll try, Uncle, but please stop me if I bore you,” Lucy replied, taking a firm hold of her inner doubts and beginning the narrative. It was not all true, of course. O’Rourke’s part in the affair was glossed over as was the real Mr. Anselm’s. O’Rourke had warned Lucy to be careful of what she said about Captain Dupré and their escape from the Matou. They may think you did not behave as you should and encouraged his advances, his voice rang in her ears. Say as little as possible about that part of the story. You landed on Jersey because the ship went off after other prey. Your ransom wasn’t as important to Dupré as plundering another rich ship. It also accounts for the fact that you did not bring your trunk. Everyone was in too much of a hurry to put it into the skiff because the other vessel was getting away. Lucy took his advice, even ending her story with a little piece of fiction.

  “The only things I have left of my own are these pearls and the locket which were my mother’s,” she concluded looking defiantly into her grandmother’s eyes.

  “You are so brave,” Lady Ridgeway said. “I’m sure I would not manage half so well in such difficult circumstances.”

  Lucy glanced at Lady Mary who made no comment but Sir Edgar said,

  “Very true, my dear, Lucy has done well. It’s quite a relief to welcome her here after such a hair-raising journey. Fortunately we did not know anything about it until just now, so we were saved the worry.”

  “Thank you for setting me free, Uncle.”

  “It is what Charles would have wanted me to do. Tell us a little about him. We know almost nothing about what happened to him from the time he left here until we learned of his death.”

  Lucy did her best, but she had not seen her father often and he had been more interested in talking to Mrs. Beckwith than with her when he visited. She told them a few of the incidents she remembered, especially the day when she had danced with him around the salon. He had complimented her on her knowledge of the steps and said how much he enjoyed the exercise.

  “One day he told me that I would soon have a baby brother to keep me company. It didn’t happen because my mother died and my brother did too. Papa went away and he didn’t live in the same house with me any more after that. Becky, Mrs. Beckwith that is, said that he never recovered from losing Mama,” she concluded.

  A silence fell and then Lady Mary broke her silence,

  “Tell me how your father died.”

  Lucy looked at her. She saw a mistiness in the old lady’s eyes.

  “He died in battle, ma’am, at Talavera, which is a place in Spain.”

  “I know where Talavera is,” Lady Mary snapped. “News of the battle was in the newspapers.”

  “His Colonel wrote that he was a hero, leading his men in a charge against the enemy. He was shot and died immediately.”

  “Where is this letter now?”

  “All of his papers were left with Mr. Soames the solicitor.”

  “I will write to Mr. Soames, Mama, and retrieve the letter and the other papers for you,” Sir Edgar offered.

  The evening was a trying one for Lucy and she was glad when it became late enough for her to retire to bed. One of the maids, Ellen, had been directed to look after her and she was waiting outside to show Lucy the way to her room. At the foot of the stairs, Lucy realised that she had left her gloves in the drawing room. Bidding the girl to wait, Lucy hurried back. Her hand was on the door knob when she heard her uncle ask,

  “What do you think of her then?”

  She froze, waiting for the reply. Then her grandmother said,

  “Prettily behaved. She has been schooled in manners at least, but she is nervous and ill at ease. She should not put us to the blush although I cannot believe she is Charles’s daughter. She is so unlike him in both looks and temperament.”

  Lucy whirled on the spot and hurried back to the maid.

  “I made a mistake,” she told Ellen. “I must have left them in the dining room because I didn’t have them when we were drinking tea. Would you ask someone to fetch them up to my room when they are found?”

  “Of course, miss,” Ellen replied looking rather surprised.

  Lucy cried herself to sleep that night and awoke with a headache in the mo
rning. The sunlight streaming through the long windows made her feel a little better. Ellen pulled back the heavy curtains and Lucy sat up in bed, sipping a glass of hot chocolate and thinking hard.

  I must have courage, she thought, whatever the day brings. These are my only relatives, whether they want me to be or not and I like my uncle and aunt. I will do nothing to offend them and please them as much as I can. She grimaced. Her past life had been spent pleasing herself, not other people. She had been heedless and now she would have to be careful, which did not come naturally to her. I won’t make the same mistakes again! She kept hearing Mrs. Beckwith saying ‘have some consideration for others, Lucy, do’.

  In the end, the day proved easier than she expected. Lady Ridgeway was alone when Lucy entered the breakfast room and explained that her husband had already finished and her grandmother always took breakfast in her own room. Lucy hoped that her aunt did not notice her sigh of relief. Nervousness would not allow her to eat much, so she was happy to leave the table when her aunt offered to introduce her to her cousins. It seemed to Lucy that Lady Ridgeway considered this to be a high treat and smiled at the fond mama. The schoolroom was situated on the second floor of the house, right at the end of the corridor.

  “So we are not disturbed by the noise,” Lady Ridgeway, “although it is much quieter at present than it is when Tom is at home.”

  As she followed her aunt, Lucy made up her mind that, no matter what her cousins were like, she would not treat them the same way as her schoolfellows. Here she was the poor relation, she would try as hard as she could to be friends. The schoolroom was a large, pleasant room filled with worn furniture and a small fire burning in the grate. A lady, wearing a dark round gown rose at their entrance, putting down her needlework and coming forward to greet them. Even without her Aunt Agnes’s introduction, Lucy realised she must be the governess. Miss Reynolds reminded Lucy of one of her own teachers who had appeared pleasant but had an eye that missed nothing, especially mischief.

  The young boy who had been writing at the desk, proved to be Peter, the second son of the family. A small, thin child with a white face, Lucy imagined how much he would suffer at boarding school, if some of the tales were true. His sister, Helena, was quite different. She had the peaches-and-cream complexion of a true English rose, big brown eyes and a quantity of guinea gold curls.

  “Why you are a beauty,” Lucy was surprised into saying and so immediately won her cousin’s heart. Lady Ridgeway beamed with pride but Miss Reynolds tutted.

  “I have taught the children never to make personal remarks,” she pointed out in a stifled voice.

  Lucy repressed the first words that jumped to her lips and tried to be tactful, “You must forgive me for speaking my thoughts aloud. I have never seen any girl as pretty as my cousin, but I will not say so again.”

  When the teacher opened her mouth to reply, Lady Ridgeway forestalled her. “I think Miss Reynolds that it would be nice for Lucy to become acquainted with her cousins. Will you excuse them for their lessons for an hour or so on the strict understanding they will work twice as hard when they return?”

  “If you wish it, Lady Ridgeway, of course, although Master Peter is in the middle of his Latin exercise.”

  “I’m sure he will work better later on, won’t you, Peter?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Come along then, children.”

  A little further along the corridor was an apartment which had once been the children’s playroom and had been converted to a sitting room now they were growing up. No fire burned in this grate and the atmosphere was rather chilly but both children were well prepared for such conditions. There was a quantity of cloaks lying over the back of the old settee. Helena gave one to Lucy saying,

  “This is an old one of Tom’s and not very clean, I’m afraid, but you’ll freeze without it. They don’t light the fire in here until tea time.”

  “Thank you, Helena.”

  “Call me Nell, everybody does except Mama when she is being formal. Even Miss Reynolds does so, unless I am naughty. Am I really pretty?”

  Lucy nodded. “You’re very pretty indeed. You’re certain to become all the rage when you make your debut.”

  “That’s so long in the future! I have been begging Mama to let me come with you to Dublin. I know I won’t be able to go to the balls or the parties but I could go out with you in the daytime, if you let me. You’ll be able to tell me what has happened and how I must behave when it is my turn. It would be so exciting!”

  “I don’t know if I am going to Dublin or not. No one has spoken to me about it yet.”

  “Oh, you are. Mama is quite decided about that. When she brought out my sisters, she enjoyed herself so much. She didn’t go last year or the year before because Tom is not yet of age and Papa prefers not to leave here.”

  “And our grandmother?”

  “Ever since she found out about Uncle Charles’s death, she’s become stiff and quick tempered. She isn’t like that usually.”

  “Are you both finished?” Peter piped up. “Girls! Fancy talking about the silly old Season when we could find out what happened to Cousin Lucy on the way here. I don’t suppose any of it is true, is it?”

  “Any of what?”

  “The servants have been saying you were captured by pirates, Cousin.” he replied breathlessly, his eyes shining.

  Lucy smiled. “That’s quite true.”

  “Tell us, please! Before Mama comes in to snatch us away.”

  “Yes, tell us,” Nell echoed.

  So Lucy told them a part of her tale and afterwards they told her about the things that had happened to them. She found out that Peter, in spite of his illnesses, was adventurous and could tell funny stories in a way that made them all laugh. They were in fact laughing when the door opened and Lady Ridgeway returned. The laughter stopped. Lady Ridgeway looked startled at the sudden guilty silence but she said,

  “I’m glad you are becoming so well acquainted, my dears. Now I must bear Lucy off and it’s time for you two to return to your lessons,” she said. “Remember I expect you to work hard for Miss Reynolds to make up for the time you have lost.”

  “We will, Mama, but can Lucy have tea with us when we’re finished?”

  “Lucy is rather old for schoolroom teas, Peter.”

  “But they’re so good. Mama! Cook makes scrumptious cakes!”

  His mother laughed. “Would you like to join them, Lucy?”

  Lucy surprised herself by saying, “If you please, ma’am.” She would never have wanted to attend something as childish as a schoolroom tea in the past but she did now. She liked her cousins.

  “Very well then. Come with me, Lucy. Ellen tells me that the dress Mrs. Warren gave you is the only one you have. You need more than that if you are to go out into society or to dinner with our guests. Since it takes a little time to visit a dressmaker and have dresses made, Mama and I have been looking at those we have here.”

  Lady Ridgeway led the way along the corridor and down the stairs to her own room. This apartment was dominated by a large bed. One its silken counterpane, a number of dresses had been laid out. Lady Mary sat in an armchair by the fire and a rather stout lady wearing a servant’s unrelieved black dress stood waiting for them.

  “This is Morgan, my dresser,” Lady Mary told Lucy. “She has brought these clothes to see if any can be made to fit you.”

  Lucy looked at the bright colours and rich fabrics. How tempting they looked but then caution intervened. Could this be another test?

  “Am I allowed to wear such dresses, ma’am? I am still in mourning for my father.”

  Lady Ridgeway shot a quick look at her mother-in-law who asked in a calm voice,

  “Talavera was in July, was it not?”

  “Yes, but we did not learn that Papa had died until some time after the battle.”

  “That does not affect the issue. It’s now the middle of December, so five months have passed. I believe you may go into half mo
urning in January.”

  “That’s fortunate, Mama,” Lady Ridgeway said. “Do you remember how difficult it was for Maria to make her debut while we were still in full mourning for Papa? She couldn’t go to the public balls or even dance at the private ones.”

  “I remember. A sad time for all of us. I always believed that her come out should have been postponed to the following year.”

  “If it had been, she would not have met dear Jonathan, so I am glad it was not,” Lady Ridgeway replied. “But Lucy is right; these colours will not do even for half mourning.”

  “There are these two, madam.” Morgan turned over the dresses and held up a white one and a grey walking dress.

  “If I may suggest something else, madam?”

  “Yes, Morgan?”

  “I have some dresses put away which Miss Maria wore during her come-out. She is almost the same size as Miss Lucy. They are mainly in pale coloured muslins. Shall I fetch them, madam?”

  “Yes, do so please. Did Charlotte leave anything behind her also?”

  “I believe so, madam. I will check.”

  “Will Maria’s do, Mama?”

  “For now, if they are worn with black gloves and a black sash. There may be some which can also be dyed into darker shades.”

  Morgan came back carrying several dresses over her arm and laying them onto the bed. She held up the first one against Lucy.

  “I remembered this black dress was left in Miss Charlotte’s press. She wore it after the master died. Would she mind if we altered it, madam?”

  “I doubt it. She prefers silk to crêpe, now she is married.”

  “You are a little smaller than Miss Maria,” Morgan turned to Lucy and said,