A Banbury Tale (6 page)

Maddy obediently moved to the side of her aunt’s sofa and suffered that lady’s intent regard. “Passable,” announced Letty, and waved her away. “Don’t look so glum. You will not be forced to wed someone who is repugnant to you.”

“I did not think I would,” Maddy replied, resentful at this treatment.

“Then why,” inquired her aunt, “do you look so sour? I am very sensitive to moods, you know. A glum countenance can send me into the dumps. Strive for a smile, if you will.”

Maddy tried, with little success. “I had hoped to see London,” she said. “To go to balls, and routs. The Duchess of Marlborough told me of all the things that I might do. Now it seems, instead, that I am to be immediately wed.”

Letty was, fortunately, distracted from this indication of rebelliousness. “The Duchess of Marlborough?” she repeated, and there was nothing for it but to explain.

“And the Earl of Wilmington!” Letty’s good temper was miraculously restored. “The Duchess has expressed a wish to see you again? Nothing could suit our purpose better! With her patronage, you may marry well, indeed. And if Wilmington should take you up, your success will be ensured.”

Maddy’s expressive eyes darkened. “Don’t pin your hopes on that, ma’am,” she retorted. “The Earl, I fear, took me in dislike.” A pity: Maddy greatly liked those romantic effusions that dealt with wicked villains and persecuted heroines, and the Earl had reminded her forcibly of that sort of gentleman whom her favorite novelists referred to consistently as “a noted profligate.” Maddy’s previously sheltered existence had included in it no rakes, and Wilmington perfectly suited her notions of how such a creature should look and act. Alas, instead of being forcibly stricken by her beauty, a reaction to which Maddy had grown accustomed, he had been aloof and almost rude, as if he resented her intrusion into his affairs. Maddy did not find such cavalier treatment at all to her liking, and thought she would greatly enjoy teaching his lordship a lesson, were the opportunity to come her way.

Letty, no stranger to the emotions that beset young ladies, studied Maddy dubiously. “You must not set your cap at him, my dear. Wilmington will never make you an offer. I trust I do not shatter your hopes, but he’s a devilish high stickler and will never wed where there is no fortune, if he weds at all.”

Maddy blushed furiously and protested that such a thought had never entered her mind. The Earl might be an extremely handsome man, with his dark curling hair and side-whiskers, and those green-flecked eyes that sat so strangely in his tanned face, and he was decidedly a leader of fashion, if in a somber style, but Maddy could only consider his manner arrogant and ungentlemanly. Besides, he was quite old, having reached at least his thirty-fifth year. Maddy put the Earl out of her thoughts. It became increasingly clear that Letty considered her niece’s marriage a monumental task, despite the Duchess’s comments to the contrary. Maddy thought regretfully of the country, where she’d been a belle.

Letty surveyed her niece’s downcast countenance. “Of course, you shall see London, child,” she said, for she was not a heartless woman, “and have your season, as I promised. Even now your cousin Kenelm waits to take you for a drive.” She paused to pour herself a draught. “To wed with undue haste would give rise to scandal, but we must keep our main objective in mind. I’m sure you would not wish to see your father put a period to his existence because of your lack of cooperation.”

“No, ma’am.” Maddy couldn’t imagine her feckless sire engaging in any such act.

“And I am sure,” her aunt continued, “that you are too good a girl to either throw your hat over the windmill or form a lasting passion for a gazetted fortune-hunter.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Maddy contemplated the irony of the latter suggestion. “You may make yourself easy on that score.”

“Then we are in accord.” Letty sank back onto her pillows and passed a frail hand across her eyes. Maddy understood that the interview was at an end.

* * * *

It was a source of some relief that Maddy’s cousins did not seem to share in the knowledge of her circumstances. “Mama was in one of her takings this morning,” said Alathea Jellicoe, a plump damsel with light brown hair and eyes. “Was she still cross when she spoke with you? She gave Kenelm a terrific scold, for one of Mama’s friends reported that he was seen entering a house of vice.”

“It was no such thing!” retorted her brother. “I trust I may attend the theater without falling into dissipation.” He flicked his horses smartly with the reins.

“Not according to Mama. I daresay she’d feel differently if you’d chosen to escort her.” Alathea giggled, and turned to Maddy. “Mama quite despairs of Kenelm. He has no liking for Society, and even worse, wastes his time on useless inventions and in rough company. He was even privileged to assist Richard Trevithick, who is considered one of the greatest mechanical engineers of our time, with his steam engine, which runs on rails.” Alathea’s tone was spiteful, for she had not been among those privileged to witness the exhibition of the locomotive “Catch Me Who Can.” “Mama’s displeasure is often so great that she is forced to take to her bed, but Kenelm has no understanding of her exquisite sensibilities.”

“Mend your tongue,” growled the object of these sentiments, intent on the handling of his reins.

“You’re a beast, Kenelm Jellicoe,” retorted his sister. “And if you continue to treat me so shabbily, I shall go straight to Mama and tell her what I know!”

Maddy thought that Kenelm’s hands tightened on the reins, and wished that her cousins would stop squabbling long enough to allow her to enjoy her drive. Although Alathea had not inherited her mother’s fragile looks, she could lay definite claim to Letty’s sharp tongue. Kenelm was a pleasant-looking man in his mid-twenties, brown-haired and blue-eyed, whose careless attire proclaimed him a sporting gentleman. Maddy overlooked, with effort, the Belcher handkerchief, blue spotted with white, that Kenelm wore as a neck cloth.

The West End streets were crowded with elegant carriages, and the clatter of wheels assaulted Maddy’s ears. She stared entranced at tilburies and curricles, tandems and phaetons, all drawn by nervous, glossy steeds. London was a great collection of diverse building materials:  soot-darkened bricks of brown and yellow and aging red; streaked yellow and white and gray stone. Maddy gazed at superb townhouses, some of which boasted Greek pediments and porticoes and colonnades, huge statuary and handsome reliefs. Street sellers hawked their wares. She wondered if the city’s inhabitants ever grew accustomed to the incessant din.

“Mama,” whispered Alathea, “thought that you might do for Kenelm, since he shows so little inclination to choose a wife, but I suspect she’s changed her mind. You would not make a notable hostess, and she means him for a political career. In any case, you should be warned: his interests lie elsewhere.”

Maddy stared at her cousin and thought she’d never met such an abominable girl. She was to learn further that Alathea was not the biddable creature she had first appeared, and even so far forgot her station as to converse freely with her little maid. “There, I’ve made you blush!” Alathea exclaimed with glee.

“What cockle-brained thing have you said?” inquired Kenelm in tones that boded ill for his sister’s well-being.

“I told her about your actress!” retorted Alathea, in high spirits. “And she is shocked, as any person of understanding must be.” She turned again to Maddy. “The creature is hardly out of the ordinary way, I’m told, with various oddities of manners, but Kenelm’s affections have become fixed on her. Even were she well connected, it would be unthinkable for a gentleman of Kenelm’s station to ally himself with one who treads the boards.”

“You’re making a Jack-pudding of yourself.” Kenelm cast an apologetic glance at his cousin. “My sister has not enough with which to occupy her thoughts, and must therefore indulge in wild fantasies. I beg that you give the matter no further thought.”

“Gammon!” Alathea cried. “You have been seen on several occasions, dangling at her heels like a lovesick calf, and making a great cake of yourself.” Maddy wondered that Kenelm would accept such insults with equanimity, but Alathea’s next words provided the explanation. “I am surprised that word of this has not yet reached Mama’s ears!”

“No small thanks to you,” Kenelm retorted. “Someday you’ll go your length, my girl!” The matter of Kenelm’s actress did not greatly exercise Maddy’s mind; life with her particular father had led to the early awareness that gentlemen had an inexplicable fondness for such creatures. According to the Lady Henrietta, such popularity did the damsels no lasting good, for they invariably met with unhappy ends. Maddy gazed at the black and maroon mail coach, and neither its scarlet wheels nor the royal coat of arms emblazoned on its doors could brighten her sudden gloom. It was foolish to forget, even momentarily, the uncertainty of her own fate.

“I doubt,” Alathea said smugly, “that it shall come to that. The creature is casting out lures to all who come near her, and Kenelm has fallen neatly into the trap, but she continues to hold him at arm’s length. I suspect she seeks even richer game.”

“You malign the lady.” Kenelm wore a rapt expression. “She is an angel, dark and fair, who has been held down by circumstances, and has no other view but that of making her way in the world.”

“You are quick.” interrupted Alathea, “to take up the cudgels on her behalf.”

“She is little more than a child,” continued Kenelm, ignoring this interruption. “She is mischievous, with an innocence that leads her to view herself, and her circumstances, as a delightful game. Clemence has no idea where such a path as she follows must lead her in the end.” Kenelm spoke the name in tones of such reverence as are normally reserved for the Deity. Maddy glanced at him, startled, for she had once had a school friend by that uncommon name.

“She is but newly on the stage,” Kenelm added, “and has already attracted much attention. Nothing is known of her background, though she is believed to be of good family.”

“And if Mama learns about your
tendre
for her,” Alathea interposed, “there’ll be the deuce to pay. Must we speak of nothing but your actress? I find her tedious.”

“Not ‘my’ actress,” Kenelm protested. “I have not the most distant reason to suppose that I am at all the favorite in that quarter.” Maddy found this unexpected humility endearing. Kenelm prepared to escort his charges into Gunther’s, the celebrated Berkeley Square confectioner who specialized in ices, cakes, and biscuits, fine and common sugarplums. “And you, my girl,” he said sternly as he took firm hold of his sister’s arm, “will cease your gabble-mongering or it’ll be bellows to mend with you!”

Had Maddy not been engrossed in her own thoughts, she might have been privileged to view Kenelm’s actress, for that fashionable damsel was an interested witness of their alightment from Kenelm’s well-sprung equipage. The dazzling Clemence impatiently tapped a shapely foot, and appeared likely to accost the small party, but her pale, dark-haired escort dissuaded her. Nor did Kenelm, ushering his charges inside the august establishment, notice this byplay. It was as well; Kenelm had no great love for Alastair Bechard. Clemence, a distracted expression on her mobile features, allowed herself to be led away.

Chapter Four

Maddy was bored. True, she’d learned a great deal about the Jellicoe family since her arrival in London, and had a much better notion of how to properly comport herself, but she was tired of being confined to her aunt’s luxurious, overstaffed home. She thought wistfully of the Duchess’s gentle soliloquy on Pall Mall and St. James Street, Piccadilly and Bond Street, those main thoroughfares of the fashionable world. Kenelm’s promised tour of London had not as yet materialized, and her few outings had been unbearably sedate, for Letty did not wish her niece to be seen racketing around London until after her debut. Maddy vacillated between elation and dejection. She wished to hear no more of her aunt’s strictures on how she must behave, yet what young girl could remain nonchalant when she was about to take her place in Society?

Maddy was yet innocent enough to be dazzled by those illustrious personages whom she had been privileged to glimpse, among them Lord Alvanly, the celebrated wit who almost rivaled Brummel, and Lord Petersham, as famed for his equestrianism as for the strange, voluminous pantaloons that he affected. Maddy had also been privileged to view Hariette Wilson, the much-discussed lady of leisure known by her countless admirers as the Queen of Hearts, but refrained from mentioning that particular incident in any of the lengthy missives that were dispatched with faithful regularity to Whipple House. Maddy glanced warily at her aunt. Claude de Villiers, in a postscriptum to his wife’s latest letter to their only offspring, had expressed strong displeasure that his sister was taking an unconscionable long time to see the thing done.

Blissfully unaware of her brother’s displeasure, Letty was in an excellent mood, a happy state prompted not so much by gratification that the gala evening that she’d organized promised to be a triumph, as by the successful application of a concoction known as Emulsion of Roses. This restorative, which claimed to return the skin to the fresh bloom of youth and to correct the evils of town life, contained such rejuvenating ingredients as Valentia almonds (blanched), rosewater, alcohol (over 60 proof), otto of rose, white wax, oil soap, and spermaceti.

“A young lady,” said Letty, “is the most innocent being in existence.” She frowned at the two girls. “I trust you will remember that. Maddy, your upbringing has been deplorable. I cannot think what your mother meant by allowing you to run wild.”

Maddy suffered this slur in silence. It was not the first time her aunt had maligned her mother’s character, and objection only brought further criticism of her manners.

“Daughters of well-to-do parents with high aristocratic connections,” Letty continued, “are expected to comport themselves becomingly at all times. You will remember that this evening, and will conduct yourselves with the modesty that becomes your station. Sally Jersey and the Princess Lieven will attend, and you cannot hope for vouchers to Almack’s if your demeanor is not all that is proper.” Letty paused to savor her triumph in securing two of the most prominent of the Lady Patronesses for her gala, a feat that would cause a number of aspiring hostesses of her acquaintance to turn green with envy. Alathea’s plump countenance bore signs of boredom, and her mother reflected that at least this one of her offspring would never upset her peace. It was a great pity that the girl had inherited her father’s rather stolid looks. She did not pay for dressing; even in her gown of gossamer satin, with bodice and slashed sleeves of pink, Alathea did not show to advantage. Letty sighed. “Alathea, you may go.”