Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  On the beautiful damask tablecloth the Meissen and the Waterford had once again made their appearance, though Henry could not see them.

  Anna, delighting in the beauty, reflected on the fact that she could give the order for these to be seen everyday. The thought gave her pleasure, but she decided that it, like so many matters could wait until she and Henry understood one another better.

  Dinner was a long affair. Henry successfully interpreted the servants’ welcome by the number and quality of the many dishes served. He tried to eat something of every one, inured by years of service dinners, and he found the lingering headache from the chaise diminishing to bearable proportions.

  Frederick introduced the topic of food on shipboard, and they discussed similar matters until, over dessert, Frederick exclaimed, “Hey day, Henry, it is a capital thing, your being back. I hope you mean to stop on?”

  Frederick, though closer to Henry’s elder brother in age, had been his friend. John had preferred his Eton and London acquaintance, in particular those with money and rank. Though the Elsteads’ wealth was by no means trifling, Henry well remembered that Frederick had been kept on short commons (as was he), his mother hoping that he would seek a bride with a larger dowry and more exalted relations than Mary.

  But Mary and Frederick had had an understanding from childhood, exactly the same way Henry and Emily had. Or Henry had thought they had. Distinctly recollecting Frederick’s honest dismay after Henry discovered that his brother had secretly cut him out, with Emily’s willing connivance, At least I was not altogether the last to find out what everyone else had seen.

  Henry did not reply as he might have. Frederick was not to blame for anything that had happened, but neither had he helped. Frederick, when trouble loomed, was apt at playing least-in-sight.

  So Henry said only, “I cannot make any decisions until this bandage comes off. I cannot even attend Nelson’s funeral.”

  Frederick’s polite mumble of commiseration—he could not imagine anyone wishing to attend a funeral—was muted by his sister’s composed, well-modulated speech. “I believe I speak for us all in admiring your wish to honor the fallen hero, but we can unite in expressing consternation at the idea of your taking such a risk. The crowds no doubt will be vast, and unregulated, made up of mariners and other rude persons. And though many of your peers will be there, indeed, the very number suggests a rational attitude: one more or less will not be missed. You are better safe among us again.”

  The dowager, whose primary emotion was relief at having her son home again, agreed fervently, echoed by her elder daughter. Anna observed Henry’s bent head, the tight line to his shoulders down to his hands, and sensed something amiss. She kept silent.

  Frederick said encouragingly into the pause, “And there is plenty to do here. And you know, m’father begged me to say that he will be along to offer any help he might be called upon.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, he might take on the duties of the J.P. That has rather fallen behind. We were forced to hire a stipendiary magistrate for a year, but all that can wait until Father calls upon you.”

  Henry was struggling to get a rein on his emotions. From Nelson’s funeral to justice of the peace! He had not thought past striving to get to that memorial if he could. But he knew he would not be able to endure the coach ride again, much less the jostling. So it was time to force his attention to the duty before him.

  John had taken the place of their father as justice of the peace? Another thing to look into. But he became aware that the clink of eating utensils against porcelain had ceased. He put down his own utensils, and sat back.

  The rustle of cloth and the moving of chairs indicated the ladies were rising, and next came the sound of the footmen removing the covers. Henry was left with Frederick, who chattered amiably about the shooting season and similar inconsequentials. Yes, Frederick still seemed to prefer the safety of least-in-sight, and Henry decided not to interrogate him. He would do his own investigations, beginning with John-Coachman, whose opinion he had trusted as a boy.

  “Shall we join the ladies?” Henry asked.

  Henry did not have to see the company to know that he would be expected to be principal speaker. Diggory brought the packet to him, as instructed. “Permit me to begin by saying that events being what they were, I have not had an opportunity to bring gifts, save this music for the fortepiano. Mother, the top sheets are an arrangement by a German fellow named Beethoven. The sonata is his eighteenth, in case you decide you like him. There are seventeen before it. This one is called The Hunt. If your tastes have not greatly changed, I believe you may like it. The rest are some airs I found in Italy and other ports.”

  “Henry! You could not have found anything I wanted more! Bless you, dearest.”

  “Oh, Mother, it is as well you have those spectacles now,” Harriet called out.

  Henry waited until the exclamations died down. His head panged anew at the sharp voices, the clatter of tea cups and spoons, and he fought to master the annoyance that had followed Emily’s complacent words about Nelson’s funeral. One more or less might not be missed.

  She was not to be blamed. Her attitude would be regarded as rational, just as she had said. But there was something he could speak about, as soon as he sensed that the servants were out of the room. Get it over, he told himself, once convinced the room had cleared. “While I was in London waiting upon tailors, I took the opportunity to consult our man of business.”

  He waited as his mother exclaimed softly, Harriet sighed with satisfaction, and the infernal clink and clatter halted. He said, “It will come as no surprise that the family’s affairs are left in wretched order.”

  He curbed his patience as everyone had to exclaim or protest yet again. On board a ship, no one spoke unless asked a question by their superior officer, and he found himself longing for those days.

  His head ached anew, and his temper got the best of him. “I am certain of your expectation that I will execute my duty, as my own inheritance from my great-uncle, the admiral, has lain largely untouched in the funds. I have also been lucky enough to do well in prize money. But I do not intend to throw good money after bad.”

  The complete silence following these words caused him to wish he could see their faces. Silences, he had discovered, possessed a surprising degree of qualities. He could not quite parse this one now. “Beginning with the sale of that expensive house in Hallam Street,” he stated, and inwardly was pleased when he detected a short inward breath that had to come from Emily.

  Then Harriet wailed, “Then I am not to go to London again?”

  “Harriet, dear,” the dowager began nervously.

  Henry hated to hear that worry in his mother’s voice. “Not at all,” he said in Harriet’s direction. “Your making your bow to London society was at the forefront of my mind, which occasioned my decision. Handsome as that house might be—I could not see it, but I am assured of that—it was quite unsuitable in every other way.”

  His voice sharpened. Anna’s neck prickled at the undertone of anger that she sensed more than heard, and then gazed in surprise as Emily reddened.

  “It appeared that my brother and his wife preferred a house in town that admitted no more than two comfortably, but the place is altogether unsuitable as a family house.”

  Anna gained sudden clarity then: the former baron and baroness had spent time in London, leaving the rest of the family in Yorkshire. With Harriet underage, and their daughters mere babes, it made sense. The question was, had Emily expected to return to London alone this coming spring, if the place was unsuitable for presenting Harriet?

  “It should bring an excellent price, and as for your visit to London, Harriet, your Grandmother Dangeau wishes nothing better than to launch you from Cavendish Square.”

  Emily listened with growing horror, so surprised she forgot to mask her emotions, and Anna thought, She did. She had expected to return to London on her own.

  In this, she w
as incorrect: Emily had expected to return with Henry.

  He, it seemed, was not done. “That puts me in mind of another thing. Why is it that the stable is crowded with a landau and a park phaeton, besides the family coach and my mother’s gig? Where was this newly ordered barouche-landau, which was the first item I was dunned for on my arrival in London, to be fitted?”

  Emily said with a calm she did not feel, “It was to be kept in London. I need scarcely point out that they are the fashion nowadays.” As Henry’s frown only deepened, “And as for selling them off, I did cause to be sold all my husband’s carriages and the main of his horses. As for what remains, my thought was only of your wife. A lady must not be perceived to be dowdy. It is positively fatal.”

  “Am I to understand that my mother is dowdy when she goes about in her gig?” No answer was made to that, and Henry turned in the direction he believed Anna to be sitting. “Do you drive, Lady Northcote?”

  “I do not,” she said, but her heart smote her at the undisguised shock in Emily’s face, and she added, “I would like to learn.”

  “That can be arranged,” Henry said, his voice cool again, his smile strained, curving tightly on one side. “But even after you do, I feel certain you will not be driving three carriages.”

  Henry stopped himself. Though he had been appalled at just how badly his brother had run the estate into the ground, he knew his response was splenetic, that John was responsible for most of the bad decisions and waste. John had clearly thought only of his own convenience, and perhaps he enjoyed the éclat gained from the spectacle of his beautiful wife driving about in the handsomest equipage, but Henry was certain that Emily was behind the order of that devilishly expensive barouche-landau.

  He forced himself to pause, to finish the tea he had not wanted, and then to say, “Perhaps it is best to leave this question for another time. I apologize for my disagreeable mood, caused by tiredness from the long journey.”

  Everyone rose. He heard Anna’s step, smelled her elusive perfume, and then came her quiet voice. “Shall I accompany you upstairs?”

  “Please,” he said, holding out his arm.

  Neither spoke until they reached their sitting room. Her heart had quickened its beat; and she sensed by the angle of his bent head that he was deep in thought.

  As for Henry, by then he had had time to thoroughly regret his ill-temper. When he heard the door close, and knew they were alone, he kept her hand in his as he said, “Anna. I beg your pardon. I promise my manners will improve on the morrow.”

  The morrow. Between that and now was a night.

  All his rational, sensible questions went out the window, leaving him standing there blind, painfully aware that he had no experience of courtship whatsoever. And yet he had come to England fully intending to court his wife if he was lucky enough to find her there. She deserved that much.

  But he sensed her waiting, and though the back of his neck prickled with embarrassment, he forced himself to get the words out. “We have begun our married life, so to speak? That was not entirely a dream.”

  ‘Married life’. As if one night in a swinging cot meant anymore than . . . one night in a swinging cot. But these were the polite words to be used, she expected, and she guessed in the flat line of his mouth, and the redness of his face below the bandage that he was uncomfortable.

  She suppressed the memory of that breathed word Emily, and said, “We did.”

  His voice dropped low. “I—I am so confounded . . .” He gestured, his fingers tense, his palm up in supplication. “With your permission, I would so rather wait until we can see one another. To begin with one another the right way. I know I was . . .”

  Her fingers closed on his. “You were a ship captain facing a war. We can wait as long as you wish.”

  He let out his breath. “Thank you. We have had the damndest beginning, and it’s entirely my fault we know too little of one another. But this I apprehend so far, you are a woman of sense, and kindness. Good night.” He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it. Then he lifted his voice. “Perkins?”

  The dressing room door opened. “My lord?”

  Henry and Anna parted, Perkins leaving the room last and blowing out the candles.

  Out in the hall, Emily, who had followed them upstairs after a suitable period, stood where she could observe the glow of light under the separate bedroom doors, and smiled to herself before she passed quietly to her own room.

  30

  The next morning, Anna sensed a different atmosphere in the house. She had begun a habit of rising after her room warmed, but that morning she got up before the fire had been lit. She dressed in haste, her breath frosting between her lips as she wrestled into her clothes. Even those sturdy kerseymere spencer jackets were not warm enough, and she wore her thickest cashmere shawl over all, still shivering, when she went down to breakfast.

  Early as she was, she saw by the empty eggshells on a plate being carried out by Ned, the first footman, that Henry had risen long before, and was already gone. She sat down and thanked young Thomas Akers, the second footman who was carefully pouring tea. Of course she ought to have expected that. Early rising being another shipboard habit.

  Emily appeared before Anna had drunk her first sip of tea. She was dressed exquisitely—and disappointment tightened her face when she saw only Anna at the table.

  But she murmured a pleasant greeting to Anna, and to Harriet, who burst in a minute later, dressed for riding.

  Emily stayed only long enough to drink a single cup of tea, then she left. Harriet, alone with Anna, was in tearing spirits. She too rushed through breakfast, then hurried off, pausing only to kiss her mother, and to mutter, “Cicely and I are riding to meet Jane and Thomas Rackham, to ride over to the Colbys’.” Where she intended to get a glimpse of Robert Colby.

  The dowager smiled cheerfully. Even her spectacles seemed to gleam, in spite of the dull gray light outside. “Pray tender my respects to Mrs. Squire Elstead and Mrs. Rackham, dearest. Where is Henry?”

  “I saw him with John-Coachman,” Harriet said before she closed the door.

  The dowager nodded, and she turned to Anna to ask what she thought Henry might want for dinner.

  After breakfast, Anna went upstairs to the schoolroom, where Eleanor was waiting for her. She surprised Harriet there, her hat swinging on her arm by its ribbons, as she spun the baby Amelia about the room, dancing the Boulanger as Justina mimicked her steps. The infant laughed, waving her hands.

  Eleanor sat at the side with a put-upon air, but when she perceived Anna, she advanced, all smiles, and they began their lesson.

  When they finished, Harriet had gone, and Justina danced around alone, waving her arms. Nurse had Amelia on her lap. Until now, the infant had been either asleep or looked at Anna and cried, which Nurse had said was common with babies presented with a new face.

  Perhaps Amelia had seen Anna often enough by now to regard her as familiar, for this time the baby gave Anna a pink-gummed grin, and waved her fists. Anna approached cautiously, uncertain what to do. She held out a hand, and the baby grabbed her finger and tried to convey it to her mouth.

  Anna gently freed her finger, looking uncertainly at Nurse, who laughed silently. “That’s what they all do, straight to the mouth. You did, too. We all did.” She patted the low bench on which she sat. “Come. Take her upon your lap.”

  Anna obeyed, listening to Nurse’s easy voice instructing her. It occurred to her that, just as she gave lessons to Eleanor, she was receiving lessons about infants. Amelia stayed quietly on her lap for a short time, then leaned toward Nurse, arms out, making fretful noises.

  While all this was going on, behind the stable, Henry stood next to John-Coachman, whose slow Irish lilt reached back into childhood. John-Coachman had always seemed this enormous, wise older man, but Henry reflected now, there was no sign of age in his voice. When he had been hired at the Manor, and shortly after had thrown Henry onto his first pony, he could not have been much
older than Harriet was now.

  He had just finished giving Henry a succinct report on the state of the stables. No personal observations, only demonstrable facts.

  Most of it Henry knew already from the bills at the solicitor’s. There were no surprises, but it was good to have it all corroborated.

  He had always trusted John-Coachman’s opinions. And so, at the end, he said, “What did happen to my brother?”

  A brief silence was followed by the crunch of gravel, as if the coachman shifted position, and then came the slow murmur. “It was given out as an accidental fall while riding. Which was true enough, it was, but you should probably know that he crammed the fence.”

  Henry winced. “Sounds like my brother never changed. Was the horse damaged?”

  “Knees. Chest. I was afraid we might have to shoot him, and sorry I would have been, for Champion is a great-heart, and I had the training of him. Her ladyship would have had him shot, but I could see the welts on his flanks. When I pointed them out, she told me that if he healed, she would sell him off. I did, and she did.”

  “Did he go to a good stable, at least?”

  “Oh, yes. Sir Robert Colby wanted him for his eldest boy, who is a good rider, though at present thinks himself a blood. But he is well up to Champion, have no fear.”

  “Robert? He was a schoolboy when I left. I cannot picture him in a gaudy waistcoat and pantaloons like some Bond Street beau. Anno domini, eh?”

  “Will you be riding again, then, my lord?”

  “Depends what I find when these damned bandages come off. Thanks, John-Coachman—though I suppose if I am ‘my lord’ now, it ought to be Mr. Cassidy.”

  John-Coachman uttered a breath of a laugh. “John-Coachman will do fine. It’s an honest living, and I wear the title with pride.”

  “That’s more than I can say for mine, right now.” Henry smiled, and gestured to Perkins, who he knew was waiting out of earshot to conduct him back to the house.