Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  For the first time she was actually glad she had been stuck wearing her old mourning gowns for Papa, with the seams let out. Perhaps Henry’s lady would take her to London for her come-out clothes, once mourning was got over. A thousand times preferable to making them herself, as Emily had insisted she must do—not that getting anything made up by old Miss Reed, the local dressmaker, looked any better.

  As she sat, controlling her impatience while Polly brushed out her hair, she reflected that fun as it might have been if the new Lady Northcote had been some low wretch, talking vulgar and flashing diamonds all over, as Emily and Mrs. Squire Elstead and Penelope had expected, this lady was infinitely preferable. Everything about her was beautiful.

  So Henry had not only neglected to write home, he had not told his bride about his family. “And I know who is to blame for that,” Harriet muttered under her breath as she scowled into the mirror.

  Polly nearly dropped a pin. “Did I prick you, miss?”

  “No, no, I only had a disagreeable thought,” Harriet said. “About a disagreeable person.”

  Polly understood at once, and maintained a prudent silence.

  25

  One of the servants showed Anna where the family gathered before dinner. There she found an attractive man dressed in the height of fashion, his hair the color of wheat in the candle light. His smile was easy, his manner friendly as he bowed over her hand when presented to her as “Mr. Elstead.”

  This must be Mrs. Elstead’s husband. When the butler announced dinner, he offered Anna his arm. She remembered her lessons in rank. “Should not Lady Northcote lead the way?” she asked, turning to the elderly dowager.

  The dowager pinked. “A bride always leads the way.”

  Anna hesitated. She was not a bride in the sense that she understood it, a woman newly married. But she would not keep dinner back.

  They proceeded into a dining room done in the Egyptian style popular a few years before. Anna took in the gleaming, glittering table setting. She would learn that Mrs. Diggory had put out the finest Meissen Blue Onion, and the crystal Waterford.

  “If it is not too disagreeable,” the dowager said as soon as they had been served, “may I ask how you left my son?”

  Anna gave them an exact description of his wounds, and what the physician had said, and finished with, “Lt. Sayers promised to write to me if there was any change.”

  “Lt. Sayers? Did you go aboard Henry’s ship?” Harriet asked.

  “I was there from Cadiz to when we landed at Gibraltar,” Anna said.

  Mr. Elstead’s silver clattered to his plate. “Was you at the battle?”

  “Yes.” Anna gave a little Gallic shrug. “But I saw nothing.”

  Mr. Elstead then took over as principal talker, to Harriet’s private disgust. She liked her brother-in-law very much, but she had read every word written in the newspapers about the battle, which he now insisted on retailing to the family, and she had heard his droll stories about stitchers at fences, and other hunting mishaps, time and again.

  She wanted to hear more about Henry’s lady’s mysterious past, but the lady herself spoke no more than fifty words from the white soup through two complete sides and four removes to the towering dessert of savory jelly a la Bellevue.

  Anna watched carefully for the clues to the mysterious custom of English ladies retiring. As the servants carried away the dessert trays, Anna saw Lady Emily Northcote make a motion as if to rise, then sit back, her brow constricting and her mouth pressed in a line. A heartbeat later her face smoothed.

  Anna smiled at the dowager. “What is your custom on retiring?”

  The dowager blinked rapidly, flattered to be asked, which her daughter-in-law never had done. “It is your place to choose when we go.”

  So Anna rose. The other ladies rose with her, and because she had no idea where they were to go, Anna offered her arm to the dowager, who led the way through two doors to the drawing room.

  This room was pleasantly warm, with branches of candles set at every wall. Anna took in the paintings, the fine paper above the wainscoting, but her eye lingered on the fortepiano in the corner, with a harp set up next to it. She remembered the captain’s love of music. For the first time she began to look forward to her stay: surely she was come into a musical family?

  Mr. Elstead sauntered in from the dining room, laughing as he said, “I am a very sad fellow. I cannot abide sitting alone.”

  On his last word the tea things were brought through the unobtrusive servants’ door and set upon a fine Pembroke table. A servant poured. Once again the talk was general.

  After the tea things were taken away, Mr. Elstead genially said, “How about a round of whist?”

  Anna was about to admit that she did not know these games when Emily said in her sweet, soft voice, “Must I remind you, brother, that we are a house of mourning?”

  That statement had the effect of breaking up the family party, the dowager saying that her head ached and she must retire.

  Before she left, she turned to Anna, peering in her near-sighted way, and said kindly, “You must be very tired from your travels. Pray rest tomorrow, if you wish.”

  Anna then remembered that today was Saturday, and she would be expected to attend church on the morrow. Yet another requirement for manners she barely remembered.

  She did not have to pretend to exhaustion. She was grateful to retire to that room with the blue flowers, and yes, the bed was not only aired, but a warming pan had been inserted between the sheets.

  She fell asleep trying to remember if her mother had ever mentioned how very, very cold England was. All Anna remembered hearing about was the beauty and the green.

  o0o

  Sunday was a long, slow, cold day during which the sun never seemed to rise at all.

  Anna woke late to discover the family gone. She heard women’s voices in the mid-afternoon after they had returned from church, but the clearest one was high and sharp, so unpleasant on the ears that Anna retreated to her bed, coming out when she could not bear her own company any longer. Outside, rain fell steadily.

  In the dining room, cold food was set out, unappetizing to Anna, who craved warmth. At least the family had dispersed to various parts of the house. But no sooner had she thought that than Lady Emily Northcote appeared, and set about filling a plate. The dowager appeared a moment later, sending Anna a tremulous smile as Anna rose yet again to curtsey.

  The talk was polite yet desultory. Anna ventured no questions, or even observations. Her head ached; now that she was downstairs, she longed for her room, which at least did not require her to listen to quick speech, and formulate properly spoken answers.

  She clutched her tea cup to her hands as the door opened once again, and a primly dressed woman brought in two little girls and a baby. The girls were told to curtsey to “Lady Northcote.”

  The girls stared fixedly at Anna, neither speaking, and Anna stared back, wondering what to say.

  But she discovered she was not expected to say anything. Lady Emily Northcote said only, in return for their polite little curtseys, “I trust you are being good girls for Nurse.” She did not look at the baby at all.

  The girls were led to the dowager, to whom they performed their curtseys for the third time, and then they made their escape; before they vanished, Anna saw the youngest one’s little fingers steal into the hands of the nurse.

  The door shut upon them. Lady Emily Northcote turned to Anna. “It is time to ring for the carriage, but if you do not feel well enough to attend evening service, pray do not feel obliged.”

  Anna said, “Thank you.”

  She retired to bed, oppressed by the cold, the heavy silence, the unappetizing cold food.

  She shivered under the covers, and daydreamed wild plans. She must get away, perhaps leave for London, and try the theaters. But even her imagination weighed her down with disagreeable realities. She had not worked with her voice for weeks. She did not know the season’s new operas, or
what the English might be partial to.

  She fell asleep at last, and dreamed of arguing pointlessly with some faceless man at Covent Garden, which looked vaguely like the Feydeau.

  o0o

  Anna woke the next day relaxed and warm under the bedclothes, but when she sat up the cold air rushing beneath the covers caused her to lie flat again. It had to be too early. She was going to turn over and attempt to return to sleep when she became aware of small noises through the open door to the wardrobe.

  She lifted her head. “Parrette?”

  “Ah! I was about to send Polly in to make up your fire,” Parrette said. “A very good girl.”

  “Who is Polly?”

  “You will meet the staff after breakfast,” Parrette said. “The family is sitting down to it now.”

  “So early?”

  “It is half-past nine,” Parrette stated.

  Anna gasped, glancing at the dim blue light in the windows. “I thought it was sunrise!”

  “And so it was, a little while ago. The sun rises late here. Very late. But I am told that all the hours stolen from you now will be given back in long twilights come summer. I have a bath waiting. The water will chill fast,” she warned.

  Anna had no trouble believing that and whirled out of bed.

  A short time later she arrived at breakfast, reflecting that she thought she understood why the English cumbered themselves with gloves and hats as well as extra layers of clothing. In spite of the many chimneys and well-tended fires, the house was full of cold drafts along the floors and stairways.

  The dowager, Harriet, and Emily stared when Anna appeared wrapped in the second of her cashmere shawls, the one made of blues, greens, and gold.

  She said, “I hope you will forgive me. I chose the least colorful of the two. It is just that I am so very cold.” As Harriet reached a cautious finger to touch the silken fringe, and the dowager blinked rapidly, Emily looked blank. “If it is offensive, I will have breakfast in my chamber,” Anna offered.

  “No, no,” the dowager said faintly, hands fluttering. “We quite understand, don’t we?” She cast a look of appeal at her daughter and daughter-in-law.

  “We are only among ourselves,” Emily said smoothly. “And in point of fact, the required period for mourning could be said to be ending soon.”

  “Six days,” Harriet stated.

  “Harriet, dear,” the dowager began.

  Harriet said, “Mama, begging your pardon, but I have been in black clothes this ten ages. John wore a black hatband for six months after Papa was gone. I think if anyone would understand giving over the black after the expected year and a day, he would. Except that I have nothing fit to be seen in.”

  No one responded to that sally, and the dowager turned to Anna, peering near-sightedly at her shawl. “Did Henry give you that, Lady Northcote?” the dowager asked. “It is very, very beautiful.”

  “Thank you! No, I bought it in Spain,” Anna said as she helped herself to eggs and toasted bread. “It is said the fashion for these shawls began with the new empress of the French.”

  “Yes,” Harriet spoke up. “I read about them in a magazine at Jane’s. It is said that Josephine has hundreds and hundreds of them.”

  Emily sent Harriet a glance, and Harriet sat back with a sigh.

  Anna turned her gaze away, not liking to see the only talking person suppressed so coldly. She had spied little silver trays beside the plates: this had to be the post. Lady Emily Northcote’s bore a slim pile, and the dowager one or two. Anna’s tray at the foot of the table was bare.

  She suppressed a sharp sense of disappointment, the captain, and his ship and crew foremost in mind. She cleared her throat, and made an effort to speak into that cold, formal air, but it felt as if her words fell dead. “I hope I may come to you for advice on how to go into the town. Where is a path that I may walk? I must needs make a call.”

  “You are spared the necessity of social calls until the hatchment is taken from the door,” said Emily.

  “You will meet the neighborhood at church Sunday next,” the dowager put in with an air of offering a compromise.

  Anna thanked them both, but then: “This is a call of necessity. I promised a certain midshipman that I would visit his family, and I mean to do that straight away. I feel certain no family would care to wait a day longer than necessary for news of their son.”

  “A middie?” Harriet asked. “From the neighborhood? Who is he?”

  “His name is Bradshaw. He told me he lives in High Street. I believe I glimpsed the shop when we arrived. What is the proper time for this call? What is correct in England?”

  “I should think customs are very different from what one is used to, living in a royal palace,” the dowager said.

  Royal palace? Parrette had obviously been talking! Anna strictly suppressed the urge to laugh.

  “Royal palace?” Emily repeated, and Anna wondered at the avenues of communication in the household, especially as Harriet did not express any surprise, but looked down at her plate with a half-hidden smile.

  The dowager blinked at Anna. “I did hear correctly, you lived in a royal palace?”

  “That is correct, Lady Northcote. In Naples,” Anna said, and to them all, “And so? If I walk out along this road in front of the house, will that take me into the town?”

  Harriet began to say, “It’s faster to go through the meadow—”

  A glance from her sister-in-law caused her to subside.

  Emily’s expression shuttered, her beautiful face smooth as marble. Then she said in her sweet, precise voice, “Speaking strictly upon point of etiquette, you need not call at all. There is of course the matter of our mourning, but there are also our differing spheres of life. I have no notion, of course, of what is deemed proper in royal palaces of foreign places, but here, it might appear . . . That is to say, sending a letter would meet the case as well, do you not think, Lady Northcote?” she turned to the dowager.

  “I am sure I do not know.” The dowager was very much flustered. She turned her weak eyes to Anna. “Did dearest Henry request this of you?”

  Anna was almost tempted to lie, which caused a pulse of irritation. She felt a moral right to make this call, though she did not particularly expect any pleasure from it, which ought to supersede the niceties of social expectations. But did it in these people’s eyes? She had no intention of hiding what was right behind the captain’s name, but what would he expect?

  She remembered him staggering out of the orlop wounded, because his duty was most important, even more than his life. “He did not, but I believe he would want me to carry out my promise,” she said, seeing a slight stir in Emily. No more than the tightening of a shoulder, the turn of her head, but she sensed currents here impossible for her to penetrate.

  “At all events,” Anna said. “While my husband was unconscious, and unable to be consulted, I did promise this boy, wounded in service of his kingdom, that I would call upon his parents directly to convey his words. I said nothing of writing a note.”

  Emily said, “Then of course you must keep your promise. But, if you will permit me to observe, there is no necessity for walking into town through the dirt in the lane. We have riding hacks. Do you ride, Lady Northcote?”

  Anna was obliged to admit that she did not.

  “You may take the little gig,” the dowager said. “Noll is a very safe driver, if you do not drive. He takes me about quite comfortably.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said. “And the time?”

  “No doubt they sit down to dinner very early,” Emily said. “You will not wish to put them out, so you might make a morning call.”

  “Then I had better put myself right,” Anna said, but then she looked as bewildered as she felt. How to go about getting the gig?

  Harriet bounced up. “I will go tell Noll to hitch up the gig. Would you care for company? I would be happy to point things out.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said gratefully.

  Dig
gory bowed Anna out the front door, where Noll was waiting, at the same time that another carriage drove up. Diggory recognized the squire’s carriage, and with a flick of his eyes sent the footman running outside to the carriage door. For the squire’s wife, he would not go himself.

  He withdrew to await her arrival so that he could announce her, while outside Mrs. Elstead—known with her full approval in the neighborhood as Mrs. Squire Elstead, now that her son was married to Mary Duncannon as was—stepped out of her carriage. Rendered curious by her son and daughter-in-law’s accounts of the bride, she’d decided on the pretext of calling on the bereaved widows to see this person for herself.

  Spying an unfamiliar bonnet and a very elegant French jacket cut from subdued black cloth on the lady just climbing into the gig with Harriet, she bustled with more haste than she might have. Anna thus met the gaze of a handsome woman in her forties whose vivid blue eyes glanced pointedly at her waist before raking up to her face.

  Harriet said hastily, “Lady Northcote, may I present Mrs. Squire Elstead?”

  Two wary curtseys, and Anna’s soft, accented voice was heard, “I trust you will forgive us, but we were this moment departing.”

  “Pray, do not stand upon ceremony with me, Lady Northcote!” Mrs. Squire Elstead’s high voice was curiously grating on Anna’s ear. “I am one might say almost in the family, with a daughter widowed in this house, and my son having married Miss Harriet’s elder sister Mary.”

  She appeared to be contemplating more speech, but Anna curtseyed again. “Thank you. Fare well.”

  She climbed into the carriage. That insinuating glance she could interpret very well. She struggled to understand and to forgive. It was probably a natural assumption, given that no one here had ever heard of her, that she had married the captain out of hand. But she could not bring herself to forgive that avid look at her waist.

  The gig began to roll. Anna saw Harriet studying her, and to get past an uncomfortable subject she said, “I noticed the instrument in the drawing room. The harp as well. I hope that I am got into a musical family?”