Althea (5 page)

Although Althea justly maintained that she needed no
schoolroom lessons in manners, she received them will-or-nil-she, and
discovered what Maria called manners she would have labeled flirtation.

“For one thing, you must not laugh all the time. Some tender
gentleman will believe you laugh at him, and who will offer marriage if he
thinks to be made a guy of all his life — by his wife! A gentle laugh is very becoming,
but you take such a pleasure in it, it is positively unladylike!”

And every day there were fittings and more fittings, until
Althea’s shoulders ached and she felt like a puppet jerked for the amusement of
Maria and the indefatigable Madame Helena. Francis was likely to stroll in now
and then to approve a new dress or take a turn with her while the dancing
master yapped shrill instructions at her, but Althea noticed that most of the
time he was from the house, and she wondered if it was her presence that kept
him away.

“Never heard such a deuced silly idea. Maria doesn’t much
like my hanging about, so I stay busy. There’s Jackson’s and Tat’s, Manton’s
Gallery, Cribb’s Parlour, the clubs — any number of places ready to entertain a
fellow with some blunt to sport. Bought a stunning pair of matched bays last
week. Prime blood. Like to ride, Ally? If you do, we can mount you and you can
go out with one of the grooms. Mary doesn’t care much to ride, but once you
know some folk, there ought to be plenty of people who’ll want to ride with
you.”

Althea smiled at this gentle compliment and would dearly
have loved to take him up on his offer of a mount immediately, but to ride, one
must have a habit. She suppressed her longing for one good wild gallop and
submitted again to the hands of the dressmakers. It seemed as though she must
escape to Hooking if she was ever to be allowed a moment’s peace. But from what
Althea had heard from Miss Banders, newly arrived from Suffolk, even at home
she was not likely to find much peace. And despite Maria’s halfhearted attempts
on two occasions to satisfy her sister’s curiosity as to the sights of London,
Althea sighed and pined to see more. Maria threw up her hands and told her
sister she would be taken for a country nobody, to which Althea replied that
that was exactly what she was.

And still the fittings continued.

Lady Bevan arrived at her sister’s door one morning, at such
an unusual hour that Althea was still abed.

“What in heaven’s name can you be at, abroad at this hour,
Maria? I’ve not known you to rise so early since we all had the chicken pox,
and that was all of fifteen years ago.”

“Wretch! What an odious thing to remind me of, especially
when I’ve come a-purpose to give you such good news.” She held out a sheet of
notepaper, but before Althea could begin to decipher the tiny scrabbled script,
the paper was snatched away as Maria executed a neat waltz around the end of
the bed. After another moment of dancing under Althea’s sleepy but cheerful
gaze, Maria came to a halt and said impatiently, “Goose! It is from dear,
kind
Lady Sefton herself, who has promised as a favor to me to procure for you a
voucher to Almack’s. It is of all things most fortunate that she should, for I
am not wholly in charity with Sally Jersey just now, and the Countess Lieven is
from town.” She began her dance again. “Only behave as I have taught you to,
and I shall be most proud.”

“Maria, do you remember that you a speaking to a woman of
three and twenty years, and not some schoolroom chit of seventeen? You sound as
though I cannot be trusted out without Miss Brandywine! But I promise
faithfully that I shall not arrive after eleven, dance until I have been
presented, waltz until I am given permission, nor wear pantaloons in favor of
breeches! See now, how well I have learned the codes of Almack’s!”

“Pantaloons! Oh, Ally, do not dare to say such a thing at
Almack’s or anywhere else in company. I shall die!” cried the tormented Lady
Bevan in despair. But she did settle herself at the foot of Althea’s bed and
begin to plan.

The following night was to mark Althea’s first appearance
among the ton, and Maria was full of dresses and Norwich silk shawls, jewels
and Valenciennes veiling, and how best to wear one’s hair. As she gabbled on
happily, she was caught up by a thought of such apparent force that for a
moment it appeared to have rendered her speechless.

“Althea, we have done nothing about your hair! We must have
Philippe here immediately, for it is not something that can be done at the last
minute. You must sleep upon it at least one night before going out in public,
and Banders must be taught to dress it between times. Oh lord, if only he will
consent to come here as a favor to me!” Maria rang sharply and gave Banders
orders to send the redoubtable Debbens in search of Monsieur Philippe, to
entreat him to come at once, as a favor to Lady Bevan.

Some three hours later Monsieur Philippe and his small
retinue arrived, and Althea was whisked from the arms and metronome of the
energetic Signore Francesco and removed upstairs to Lady Bevan’s dressing room
to be abandoned to the hairdresser’s hands for the better part of the
afternoon. When at last he had departed, Althea had to admit that the
transformation was quite astonishing. Her front hair had been clipped and
curled to frame her large, steady gray eyes, while her back hair had been
trimmed and swept up and carefully confined within a series of ribbons. “I hope
you recall how all this was done,” she said to Banders, who had spent an
exhausting half-hour with the maestro, learning the styling of hair in the
classical mode.

“I look like a figure from a Grecian urn,” Althea said to
Maria.

“Well, of course, as that style is called the Sappho, and I
think that she must have been a Greek — Ally, whatever have I said to send you
into such gales?” Lady Bevan was bewildered.

“Mary, I begin to feel that my education must be the death
of me, but when you scold me for saying something as innocuous as ‘pantaloons’
and then tell me that this styling is called Sappho, I feel that it is just too
unjust!” She gurgled. “Yes, my dear, the lady was a Greek, and a most improper
one at that, and a lady author to boot! I was much given to reading at Hook
Well, for indeed what else had I to do? And I came across some of her writings.
I only thank God that Papa never came across
that
. No, dear, I’ve
finished laughing, I think.” Maria could only offer up a silent prayer that her
sister would not alienate any possible suitors by laughing at improper Greek
tales.

“Really, Ally, you must not appear a bluestocking. It would
be the outside of too much after all the work I’ve done on you. You look quite
ravishing as you are, and I am no end pleased with the way you have turned up.”

“Of course, Pygmalion, how could you feel else? You and
Madame have done nothing but predict my success from my arrival in town. I only
wish that Helena could witness my triumphant entrance at the Fforydings’ ball
tomorrow night. But was I really the rude barbarian you called me?” Althea’s
voice dropped a little on this last, for to be truthful, at times she reflected
upon what had been so very ineligible about her former appearance and manners,
that Maria had made all these efforts to change them. Maria assured her sister
that she was her own dear Ally and quite wonderful. She, Maria, had only added
the town polish to make her perfect.

“Even without Madame and Philippe and Francesco, you are
something like, and besides that, you are the dearest sister in the world. Now,
shall we consider your slippers?” With a decidedly businesslike air that was
most becoming, Maria turned her attention to the matter of dress again, and of
course Althea’s attention must follow.

o0o

When the next evening at seven o’clock Maria knocked upon
her sister’s door, Althea was fully dressed and only wanted a decision as to
which scarf to carry.

Maria silently owned herself remarkably pleased with
Althea’s appearance. While her sister’s new style was not much to her own
taste, it was decidedly becoming on Althea. Out of the common way. Althea wore
an evening dress of cherry silk muslin over a slip of gray satin, sashed with
gray ribbons and beaded at the hem with tiny crystal shots. The bright cherry
of the dress brought out Althea’s clear coloring, reddened her lips, and was a
foil for the dark hair worn in its fashionable style. At her throat and ears
were her mother’s pearls, and on her wrist a set of silver bangles Francis had
presented her that afternoon. Upon the dressing table lay a posy of flowers in
a wonderfully wrought ebony holder, and spread across the bed was a profusion
of silk and lace shawls and scarves that Althea surveyed with indecision.

“I think this is the best, do you not?” She held up a simple
scarf of white silk. “Though I did consider the black lace mantilla.”

“No, Ally, that is just right. You are a very picture! You
shall
stand over the milk-and-water misses
and
take the town by storm! Madame
was quite right,” Maria said with satisfaction and a little surprise. Busy with
her own images of Althea as a debutante, she had never understood that Madame
had been quite correct in dressing her differently from the schoolroom misses
who flocked to assemblies in the shadows of their mamas. Althea was in no one’s
shadow.

“Well, Mary, have you not said I should all along?” Althea
asked comfortably. “You look quite becoming yourself. That blue and white suits
you admirably. What a pair we shall make of it: the Amazon and the Fairy
Princess. Very like a sprite you look, too.” With this exchange of compliments
and another glance in the mirror for each, they left the chamber and descended
to the drawing room.

Lord Bevan was awaiting them, and his reaction to their
appearance was gratifying indeed.

“Here, you look grand out of all mention, Ally. Scarcely
dare talk to you.” He bowed in her direction.

Althea fell back a pace. “Oh, you’d do better to talk to my
sister, sir. She’s far better at your town talk than I.” She slipped by him as
he advanced to greet his wife and went to the bookshelf, occupying herself with
the titles there.

“Looking devilish pretty tonight, Mary. Don’t know why I
haven’t seen you in that dress before. I’ll have the best-looking wife at the
ball.” He bent his head attentively and Maria, seemingly overwhelmed by this
attention, focused her gaze on the third button of her husband’s coat.

“I cannot think why you have missed this rag, sir, for it is
quite an antique. But I suppose we so rarely go to the same parties, and now,
with Althea here, and —” Her voice trailed off, and Lady Bevan found herself
blushing like a nursery chit.

“Must begin to frequent the same parties, then. Can’t have
some other fellow dashing off with the most beautiful woman in London when
she’s my wife.” Francis’s voice grew lower, his head dropped still more toward
his wife’s, and there was no telling what scene might have been enacted had not
Debbens entered at precisely that moment to announce the serving of dinner.

Maria and Francis looked up and realized that Althea was
still behind them, tactfully engrossed in a Latin grammar. Maria was pale, Francis
was flushed, but both were in excellent spirits when he offered his arms to
sister-in-law and wife and the three went in to dinner.

With an experience limited to the neighborhood of Hooking,
Althea was totally unprepared for the rather vulgar and very expensive
furnishings of Fforyding House, and for the very vulgar and rather expensive
furnishings of the Dowager Baroness Fforyding herself. She had followed the
classical mode in her decoration of both herself and her house, and while the house
withstood the treatment tolerably, no one would say that Lady Fforyding had
been so fortunate. This evening her ladyship wore a gown of yellow silk
calculated to be trying to a woman ten years younger, considerably slimmer, and
with a far better complexion. The toilette, completed as it was by a topaz set
and knots of yellow and white ribbons, had the effect of making Matilda
Fforyding look like a particularly ornate mushroom. Fortunately the lady was
blithely unaware of this, and she
did
give excellent parties to which
all the
ton
came. It was fortunate that Althea was to make her curtsy to
Polite Society in those grossly overdecorated hallways.

After they had been kindly welcomed by their hostess and her
oldest son, Lord William Fforyding, a plump and somewhat somnolent young man in
the regimentals of the King’s Guard, the Bevan party advanced into the hall.
Maria and Francis were still mightily absorbed in each other, so that Althea
was afforded an opportunity to gape at her surroundings without reproach. The
main ballroom had been draped entirely in pink silk, the effect of which —
though pretty — was to increase the normally warm atmosphere of a ballroom to
hothouse proportions. By the end of the evening Althea suspected that most of
the people present would be done in more surely by the heat than by the dancing
or the ratafia punch. Lady Fforyding had added a few mock Grecian statuettes to
the great room, cunningly draped in pink silk for the sake of modesty. In the
arms of one marble nymph was a huge and wholly inappropriate spray of hothouse
flowers. Althea rather liked the gesture, for it showed to her a rather
whimsical mind. Turning from her perusal of the hall, she found her sister and
brother-in-law still enthralled with each other. But as they stood directly in
the doorway, blocking those coming to and from the room, she felt that they
must be moved from harm’s way
— and said so.

At the sound of her voice, both Maria and Francis started
guiltily. Maria recalled to herself as they moved across the room that she was
here as chaperone to Althea, with the result that she began, with Francis’s
interjecting helpful words, to indicate notables present. Their progress was
halted by their hostess soon enough, as she advanced upon them with a young man
following close behind her.