An Unmarried Lady Page 9

  The next day Elaine and Anne set out together in the barouche to go to St. James Square to leave their card at Alicia’s. The carriage stopped before a narrow but cheery red brick house fronting a small side street, and they went up the steps and rang the bell. A maid took their card and informed them that her mistress was in. Alicia was alone in a small, comfortably furnished drawing room and delighted to receive them.

  “Elaine! My dearest friend, how happy I am to see you again. And to meet your dear sister at last. Edmund has already given me a report of you and tells me that Anne is to ride my mare in the spring. You have no notion what a relief that will be for me, for indeed Edmund is much too heavy for her.” She eyed Anne carefully, and then added, “If you will not be offended by the suggestion, my dear, I wonder if I might give you my riding habit, for I suspect you and Elaine have not anticipated that you would need one. We are much the same size, and the habit is nearly new. I’ve worn it only twice. It is a most becoming style, but my mother tells me that the color is too bold a blue for one of my complexion and insists that I have another made up in green. It is a very pretty shade of blue and I think it would be most ravishing on you.”

  Anne was understandably not at all offended by Alicia’s suggestion and thanked her warmly while Elaine gave a sigh of relief.

  They sat down and Alicia rang for refreshments before saying, “Edmund tells me that you will be leaving town soon.”

  “Yes, we leave tomorrow. We came only to get Anne fitted out for Court. We are staying with my Aunt Katherine, Lady Benton that is. She has most generously agreed to sponsor Anne’s Season.”

  Alicia turned to Anne with a broad smile. “Anne, my dear, you are blessed, for with Lady Benton you will have an instant entre to every fashionable salon in town.”

  “Is she so very fine?” Anne asked.

  “Oh she is all the rage and has been these many years. She is so used to being admired, you see, that people can’t help themselves but to fall in with her expectations and admire her immensely. I do myself. She has a kind of warmth that makes her charm near irresistible, whatever she may be about.”

  Elaine, who had spent the past days experiencing the full force of that same charm, had to laugh at this description of her aunt, for indeed, she could not disagree. “Yes, and the ton had better be prepared, for unless I miss my guess, her Maura is another such a one and her mother intends to launch her into Society in just a few years more.”

  “Oh yes,” Anne declared. “Maura is quite set upon it. I believe she would be coming out this Season if her mother would but allow it. However Lady Benton says that fifteen is still too young and that Maura must wait her turn.”

  “Good God, yes!” Alicia exclaimed. “Much too young. Though we were positively ancient when we came out, were we not Elaine? For I was nineteen that spring and you must have been all of twenty.”

  “Very old indeed!” Elaine replied. “Almost on the shelf. Well that is where I find myself now, and I must say I find the prospect not at all unpleasant.”

  “So you say,” Alicia said. “And I must admit that spinsterhood might have suited you very well, but surely now with this legacy at stake you will reconsider?”

  “The fact is that I cannot escape the feeling that marriage would more likely impoverish than enrich me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Anne protested. “How can you be impoverished?”

  “If I marry, dear Anne, who is it who will take responsibility for all that money? Do you imagine that I would be allowed to decide how to invest it and what to purchase and how to live on it?”

  “Why, your own husband would do that, would he not, since men are best suited for such tasks.”

  Elaine hesitated, glanced at Alicia and then continued. “And is it your observation, Anne, that men are invariably best suited to handle money? Did Papa make wise investments and careful decisions on how to invest and what to purchase and how to live?”

  Anne did not respond, but the dawning distress in her face provided a clear answer.

  Elaine continued. “Forgive me Alicia, for saying such things before you, but I am not saying anything after all that the whole world does not already know. And even our dear brother Giles, for that matter, before he went into the army, was not so very much different from our father in matters of expenditures. I had once hoped he would marry you, dear Alicia, but he went into the army instead, and indeed, I am sure you are more comfortable and far happier now than you would ever have been as his wife.”

  “Indeed I am comfortable and happy and very pleased with my Harry,” Alicia said, smiling broadly.

  “And now just think,” Elaine continued. “As things stand, I have my small competence, and look forward to a quiet life of satisfaction and friendship. If I were to marry, not only my fortune, but also that competence would likely move to my husband’s control, or at the very least I would feel obliged to confer with him as to its usage and expenditure. In effect I would have no money of my own at all, save what allowance he should choose to grant me.”

  “But aren’t there settlements or some such thing?” Anne protested. “Our Mama’s settlement is the reason you and I have our marriage portions.”

  “Oh yes, indeed, I could contrive to have a sum set aside under my control and to assure myself a handsome allowance. In our Great Aunt Agatha’s day such a thing was fairly common, and I’m sure that must have been what she was thinking when she made the bequest. But in truth, that sort of arrangement is occurring less frequently these days, for in general, you know, gentlemen find themselves averse to having a wife a great deal wealthier than they are and so tend to resist such arrangements. And, you see, for the comfort of the marriage tie, I would likely find myself obliged to grant by far the largest share into my husband’s control. It is bad enough to be forced to rely upon trustees, which I assure you inevitably accompany any large fortune bequeathed to a mere female, but to have to depend upon the prudence and devotion of a husband, and to be subject to his judgment in all matters of finance and property, requires exactly the kind of blind faith in which I am most deficient. So no, I cannot think it would be at all wise for me, or for that matter for any female to marry only for money.”

  “But if you were in love?” Alicia inquired.

  “That is quite a different matter, of course,” Elaine conceded. “Yet I believe our Mama was very much in love with Papa when they were married, and that did not alter his predisposition for gambling nor prevent him from wasting his fortune in any number of follies. But yes, I suppose if I formed a great attachment, I might consider marriage, although I hope I would consult my head as well as my heart when it came to making such a decision. I am certain of this, that if ever I do choose to marry, I will enter the matrimonial state knowing it is a gamble as big as any our father ever took on the exchange or at the racecourses in Newmarket.”

  There was a brief silence while the three ladies contemplated this severe and heartfelt statement.

  Then Anne asked, “And if one has no competence?”

  “Well that is a different matter,” Elaine said. “For there are few occupations available for a young lady of quality, and in general, you know, they do not provide one with sufficient income. So without a competence, unless a lady wishes to hire herself out as a governess or a companion to an elderly lady, she must consider matrimony and hope for the best. And for some, like you, my dear, I am sure marriage could be most agreeable, for you are very different from me. Why you have been in and out of love a dozen times since you reached the age of thirteen, and most ineligible young men they were, all of them. Your disposition is warm and loving, and despite the evidence of your youthful infatuations, I believe your judgment to be superior. No, you are more like my dear Alicia here than ever you were like me. I have no doubt you will end up loving and marrying a kind and responsible gentleman not unlike Alicia’s dear Mr. Wentworth, and that your husband will be your dear friend and watch over you most carefully.”

  Alicia
laughed at that. “Yes my Harry is a good kind husband, and I couldn’t wish better than that for you, Anne, nor for you Elaine, should it come to that, for though you have painted a most gloomy picture indeed, there are as many steady gentlemen in the world as there are scapegraces like your dear Papa. It only wants a little common sense, and some luck as well, to be sure, and a lady can choose just the right man for her life partner.”

  “A partner! I like the sound of that,” Elaine mused. “It sounds to me that you at least have chosen very well. Copy her, Anne dearest. Find someone who can be both a friend and a partner and I’m sure you cannot choose wrong.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT: In which Captain James Howard gives in to Persuasion.

  The Viscount Lord Derring sat at his ease in the small front sitting room of his friend’s makeshift bachelor’s quarters, a low cost rental on the upper floor of the less than fashionable Pelican Inn. He lifted his quizzing glass, and cast a disapproving gaze over his companion’s attire. “Really, James, I can’t understand you. You are hardly fit to be seen anywhere, and yet you would have me introduce you into Bath’s most elegant society. Your neck cloth is much too narrow, and tied helter-skelter almost as if it were no more than a kerchief twisted around your neck. Your collar is positively limp and your coat, though very well cut, sadly needs padding added at the shoulders. And what, may I ask you, is that Contraption you have perched upon your nose?”

  Captain James Howard grinned. “That ‘contraption’, as you well know, is a pair of spectacles, Charles, which I purchased only yesterday, after weeks of searching for a good fit. And a happy man you see before you, for it is the first time I have seen anything father away than the length of my arm at all clearly since my other pair got smashed last June.”

  The Captain was tall, but of a slight – almost one would say a frail – physique. His hair was dark, his face somewhat narrow, and his mustache trim, and for all of his friend’s fastidious criticism, he thought himself turned out quite tidily enough in an expensive new coat by Scott, buckskin breeches and shiny black Hessian’s. The offending spectacles had round frames of a silver hue, hinged bars at the temples, and a blue cord fastening them snugly around his head. He was currently on half-pay, waiting to be called back to the front and chafing under the delay caused by a slow healing wound acquired at the Battle of Vitoria on the same occasion which had rendered his former eyeglasses useless.

  “What is so worth seeing that you must needs go about with those queer things tied upon your nose? You look most dreadfully unfashionable,” the Viscount complained.

  “Do I? Well no matter. I never had any patience for all your finer points of fashion. You, on the other hand, I can now (thanks to my new spectacles) perceive quite clearly are as fine as five pence, with your collar points tickling your ears like that. I believe those are actually pearl buttons I see on your coat, your waistcoat is something like, and I’ll wager you spent at least an hour tying on that neck cloth.” He regarded his friend with something close to awe.

  Though he and Charles had been loyal friends since they had been school boys indulging in outrageous pranks together at Harrow and had reconnected when they joined the same regiment and went to fight in Spain, their tastes and temperaments had always differed as widely as had their circumstances. James was the solitary child of a late-in-life marriage between an Oxford Don of moderate means and a genteel, but impoverished gentlewoman, while the Viscount was the rather spoiled scion of a noble and sadly extravagant family burdened with six daughters and blessed with just the one son. James, whose parents had both died within a fortnight of each other soon after he reached his majority, leaving him no more than a small competence and virtually no close relatives or responsibilities, had a long established habit of frugality. Charles, who had inherited full responsibility for his mother and four unmarried sisters along with his title and mortgaged estates, was unacquainted with economy and thrift.

  Out of uniform, where James’s bent in clothing was towards what was both neat and restrained, it seemed to him that Charles had embraced the most extreme and fanciful whims of the Dandy set. Where James’ dark hair was trimmed close to his head, Charles’ fair locks were carefully arranged into a deliberately windblown effect. James wore but one modest signet ring on his hand, while Charles sported a jeweled ring on three or more fingers on each hand. Indeed Charles was a remarkably handsome man, almost pretty one might say, and one who would look very well no matter what he wore, but James could not help but reflect that a simpler style of dress would suit his lordship’s straightened circumstances far better. “Spent your wad already, Charles?”

  “Oh, I’ve still a bit of the ready left about me. I wish you would sell out, too. We could seek our fortunes together.”

  “I will do so quick enough once old Boney is pushed back into France for good.” Captain Howard walked over to the small writing table, displaying a slight limp, which he would have readily disregarded were it not responsible for keeping him on half-pay duty far away from the front. “In the meantime I’ve been given another month’s leave while I wait for this cursed leg to heal, so I thought I might as well go look into this,” and he picked up one of two letters that lay on the table and handed it to his friend.

  The Viscount read it through and whistled softly. “No need for you to seek a fortune after all, my friend. Here it is right before you. May I offer you my most heartfelt congratulations?”

  “No, but tell me, am I understanding him rightly? Is the old man truly offering me his daughter? And her fortune as well?”

  “So it looks to me, although he has phrased it most cautiously. But why not? It seems you are his presumptive heir.”

  “Yes, that other Captain Howard we met – some sort of cousin, Giles his name was – it seems he died last year from a wound that didn’t heal properly, and the old gentleman’s lawyer informs him that I am next in line, though they had to trace back three generations to find the connection.”

  “Lynnfield Manor in Hertfordshire. Well it’s not the first time we’ve contemplated that grand old estate! Do you remember when we looked it up in the guidebooks? If I remember, it’s quite a respectable place, situated nicely, not so very far from the town of Luton. And now you’re to inherit the place? Well, that is something wonderful, indeed!”

  “I doubt it much resembles our old imaginings. Mr. Howard’s letter warns me that much of the property is mortgaged.”

  “And heavily so, or he’d not feel obliged to mention it. No doubt sadly neglected, too. More’s the pity, for you won’t be able to squeeze much out of it – short of stumbling across some ancient hidden treasure trove.” Lord Derring laughed and then added somewhat ruefully, “No, I’d say the property itself is not much of a windfall. It would likely cost you a pretty penny, which we both know you haven’t got, and some years of hard work before you could get it into a condition that would provide you with a respectable income. I ought to know, for my lands at Challon are in just as bad a state. If I hadn’t sold out I wouldn’t have a feather to fly with right now. Your heiress, however is altogether more promising.”

  “Not much hope for me there, I’m afraid. You know I’ve never been much in the petticoat line. I shouldn’t know how to go on.”

  “It’s true, you have no address. I’ve never seen anyone get more tongue-tied than you are when confronted with a fashionable female. Still, we can hope she is not fashionable, else she’d be married by now. You can be certain she’s plain and probably fat as a flawn.”

  “Or bad tempered?” suggested James.

  “No, for that never stopped a man bent on marrying a fortune. You will have to face up to it – the best you can hope for is a very bad case of spots, or perhaps a squint.”

  “Well, I’m not thinking of marriage right now anyway, Charles, but I do think I ought to go up to see this place, for there seems to be no doubt that I will be saddled with it sooner or late. My rootless days are at an end, and no doubt that will be a good thing, all in all.
The thing is, the old gentleman’s sent me another letter only a few days after the first, and I’m not at all comfortable with what he proposes.”

  He handed his friend the second letter. Lord Derring read it and burst out laughing. “It seems you’re right. She’s a bad tempered wench after all.”

  “Well, he doesn’t say that precisely, but it does seem that she was not pleased when he told her his intentions, and now she has become quite firmly set against the idea. Really Charles, I cannot be a party to such a freakish prank! Indeed, I cannot help but wonder if the old gentleman is perhaps not altogether respectable, to propose such a thing.”

  “And yet, you showed this to me, and I cannot think of a reason for your doing so unless you are thinking of going along with his game.” The Viscount laughed and, with a sudden burst of energy, leapt to his feet waving the letter. “He writes that you are to bring a friend and exchange identities. So I’m to go and play you, and you are to be me and woo her all incognito. Tell me, have you the look of the Howards? Will you have to wear a disguise?”

  “No, that is not a consideration. I have been told I am the image of Professor Thomas Merrival, who was my maternal grandfather. The Howards tend to be of a more muscular physique and fair like you if we are to go by the appearance of Captain Giles Howard. Your features are not at all like his, but we are many generations removed and an obscure branch of the family, so there is nothing in that. Indeed, my family has had no regular intercourse with the Lynnfield cousins for several generations – some falling out no doubt, the origins of which have been lost to memory since long before I was born, though I believe my father did encounter this Giles when he was at Oxford and may even have met his father once when they were very young boys.”

  “Well, this is beyond anything wonderful! Now you and I will go to Lynnfield together, seeking our fortunes. Why, this quite brings to mind our childhood adventures!” The Viscount spoke gleefully. “I have often fancied I would be a great hand at acting and would have taken to the stage long since were it not for my mother’s overly sensitive disposition and my father’s tyrannical one.” And he made a deep and dramatic bow.