Joan Smith (17 page)

“I doubt we will be home for luncheon, Lizzie,” she announced upon leaving, and added less affably to her husband, “Horace, you behave yourself while I am gone.”

Then she strode out, wearing a feathered bonnet so broad she could hardly get into the carriage, and a fur-lined cape with such lavish fox trim from collar to hem that it had denuded a dozen foxes.

“If you will steer me to the library, I will get out  of your hair,” Horace said apologetically to his hostess.

No one knew whether his wife had told him of the altercation belowstairs the night before. His air of apology was even more pronounced than usual, but that might have been due to his having drunk too much the previous evening. He was directed to the library and did not appear again until luncheon.

Nick said, “I am riding over to Milsham’s farm this morning to have a look at his herd. I am exchanging two of our donkeys for a couple of his heifers. His children want a donkey cart.”

Jane said to Pelham, “We shall go over the wedding service, Pelham.”

Pel gave a meaningful look to Nick, as if to say,
What did I tell you?
He cleared his throat and said, “Actually, I have promised Nick I would go with him.”

He hadn’t, but Nick seconded him in this untruth. “Good. You can lead Miranda,” he said.

“Eh? Who the deuce is Miranda? Have the guests for the party begun arriving already?”

“Miranda is a donkey.”

“That is no way to speak of— Ah, just so. A real donkey. Let us go.”

Mrs. Lipton had recovered sufficiently to rejoin the party. She had a deal to get caught up on, and passed a most enjoyable morning being informed of Mrs. Huddleston’s many vulgarities, as the ladies sat around the grate in Lizzie’s private parlor, sewing.

“Nick would have done better to marry Jane after all,” Emily said, “despite .the money and tied houses.”

“The devil take the tied houses. They are nothing else but taverns, Emily, where Townsend forces everyone to drink his ale. Did you hear what she said when she left? ‘I doubt I will be home for luncheon.’ What the devil does
that
mean? Will she be here or not? I’ll be demmed if I will hold lunch for her. You must excuse my profanity, but really if I don’t swear, I shall explode. I had no notion of letting Goderich come to the party, but he will be there now, if I have to have him hauled down on a litter. I am sorry Nick made him get a shave and a haircut. He looks nearly respectable.”

Jane already knew of Mrs. Huddleston’s behavior at first hand, which left her mind free to wander. Mostly it wandered to the long hallway abovestairs, where she relived again that magical waltz with Nick.

The Huddleston party did not return for luncheon. In fact, they were late for dinner. Amberley was so poorly able to fill Mrs. Huddleston’s needs that she had taken a dash to Brighton, and came sailing in the front door just as the dinner gong sounded. She was followed by three footmen, each loaded down with parcels. Willie was pressed into service as well, but his burden was light: only a bandbox.

“I see you are back,” Lizzie said, with a pointed look at the long-case clock. “I shall ask Cook to hold dinner until you have had time to change, Mrs. Huddleston.”

“I had forgotten you keep such odd hours,” Mrs. Huddleston retorted, “but you must not let us detain you. We shall not bother to change. We shall just remove our bonnets and pelisses and be with you as fast as a cat can lick its whiskers.”

Some twenty minutes passed before the bonnets and coats and pelisses were stowed, and Mrs. Huddleston had done a quick count of bags and boxes to determine that none of her parcels had been left behind. The scurrying around left her coiffure so disheveled that she must dart abovestairs to give it a brushing.

“For I would not want to appear a savage in front of Lizzie,” she said, with an ingratiating smile.

“A little late for that,” Lizzie said in an undertone to Emily after the woman had departed.

Aurelia spoke to Nick while this was going forth. “I am sorry we are so late, Nick. I told Marie from the beginning we might as well go to Brighton, but she wanted to see Amberley before we left. We might still have been home in time if she had not lingered so long by the prince’s pavilion, hoping for a sight of him.”

“And did you see him?”

“No,” she said sadly. “Oh, by the way, Marie says Norman’s little church would not begin to hold all the people we are inviting to the wedding, so it seems we cannot be married there after all. She suggested that if you spoke to some archbishop or some such thing, he might allow Mr. Vickers to marry us in London, if you have your heart quite set on your friend’s marrying us.”

He was saved from replying by Willie, who came forward to join them and add his apologies for the lateness of their arrival.

“There was no dragging the ladies away from the shops,” he said. He looked so weary that Nick hadn’t the heart to berate him.

Dinner was an uncomfortable meal, not the strained sort of discomfort wherein no one can think of anything to say, but the other sort, wherein the loudest talker allows no one else to get a word in edgewise. Mrs. Huddleston’s notion of conversation was to describe every item seen in the shops and reveal which of her acquaintances had a bonnet or lamp or chair just like it. These ladies were all unknown to everyone but the Huddlestons and Aurelia. Marie’s chatter did not prevent her from cleaning her plate, after first sniffing at every dish.

During the performance, Jane peered down the table to see if Aurelia was flirting with Willie. She could not see her, but she did observe the silk fan sitting by her plate. She also saw the expressions on various faces. Poor Horace Huddleston wore a look of utter tedium, occasionally varied by shame when his wife crossed the line from poor taste into outright vulgarity. She pitied Nick. This was his future she was looking at. Yet when she glanced at him, he seemed perfectly content. He was smiling. When he looked up and caught her eye, he lifted his glass in a silent toast, and drank. He didn’t wink, but something in his look gave the same impression. It was the way his eyes sparkled mischievously and his lips moved unsteadily, as if trying not to laugh.

That look angered her. Here was she pitying him, and he hadn’t even the wits to realize what he was getting himself into with this marriage. It must be true, then, that love was blind, and apparently deaf as well. Of course, none of this bothered Pelham. He ate his way stolidly through the two courses and removes, adding another few pounds to his ever-spreading girth. Strangely, it was Willie Winston who seemed disconcerted. It was he who winced when Marie poked her goose and said, “A bit tough, is it not? I would have left it hanging a few more days if I were you, Lizzie.”

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Huddleston,” Lady Elizabeth riposted. “I was sure your jaws were up to anything.”

“Did I mention we ran into Cousin George in Brighton, Lizzie?” Willie said, and diverted any further exchange of fire between the ladies.

The meal lasted an hour, which seemed much longer, but eventually it was over and the ladies retired to the Gold Saloon, where Mrs. Huddleston went to the sofa and began rooting about amongst her parcels, opening them to show the ladies her purchases.

“It looks as if this might take a long time,” Lizzie said, not without interest. Like any lady, she was curious to see what was in the parcels. “Would you mind going up to sit with Goderich, Emily? He was asking for you in particular.”

Mrs. Huddleston looked sharp at this, but eagerness to get into her bags and boxes prevented an argument.

“I would not tire the poor soul out, Mrs. Lipton,” she said. “Just see if he wants anything.”

“Oh, dear Emily never tires Goderich,” Lizzie said. “Quite the contrary. Her visits have a most beneficial effect on him. We hold Mrs. Lipton responsible for the improvement in his health.”

“Show them the lace, Marie,” Aurelia said, and Mrs. Lipton escaped without further ado.

There was a great rustling around to find the lace. “Now, which parcel is it in? Is it that gold box, ‘Relia? No, that is the muff I got for Mama for the wedding. It was a bag, was it not? You remember I had to tell that stupid clerk to put paper between the layers. The blue bag, that’s it. Hand it over, dear.”

She drew out a length of lovely blond lace from Belgium and held it up. “What do you think of that, eh? That will go on ‘Relia’s wedding gown. It cost me a fortune, but of course, Papa has given me carte blanche to do the thing up in style. You need not fear I will land the bills in on Nick,
Lizzie”

The lace, a beautiful piece of work, was passed around and praised. Other items were also examined, until, as Lizzie told Emily Lipton later, “the saloon looked like a drapery shop.”

That was precisely the effect when the gentlemen joined the ladies. Ells of silk and merino hung from the back of the sofa, with cards of buttons and ribbons everywhere. The ladies had so enjoyed their vicarious shopping spree that they had not noticed the time passing, but when Jane glanced at the clock, she saw it was nearly nine o’clock. The gentlemen were called to admire the haul from Brighton, glanced in confusion at the lace, fur muff, assorted ells of this and that, said, “Very nice,” and promptly changed the subject.

“You don’t think there might be money to be made from the donkeys?” Willie asked Nick.

“I don’t intend to lose on them,” Nick replied. “They are cheap enough to feed; they will eat anything, but they take up space. I am not interested in breeding them. I shall sell them off to anyone who will take them.”

“Ass’s milk is valued by invalids, I believe,” Horace said.

His wife was reminded of her husband’s existence by this speech, and told him he wanted to go to bed, but he might wait until the tea tray had come in.

“I expect you are waiting for Mrs. Lipton to rejoin us,” she said to Lizzie. “Surely it has not taken her this long to say good night to Goderich. Should you not send up to see if she is coming down again?”

“We shan’t wait for Emily. She sometimes takes her tea with Goderich. They are such good friends,” she said, smiling placidly at Mrs. Huddleston.

“Then what are we waiting for?” was the snappish reply. Of course, it was not an eagerness for her tea, but the possibility that Emily Lipton was inveigling herself into a ladyship that bothered her.

When the tea tray finally arrived, Marie took her cup and sat with Nicholas. “If you are wise, you will send that Mrs. Lipton packing,” she said, “now that she is out of her bed.”

“I doubt Lord Goderich would permit it. She is his special guest, you must know. It is not for me to turf out his company.”

Jane, who sat with Pel, did not hear any of these
sotto voce
conversations. She saw only that her aunt was missing her tea, and went abovestairs to get her. As soon as she left the room, Nick also rose.

“Perhaps you are right,” he said to Mrs. Huddleston. “I shall ask Mrs. Lipton to join us.”

“Now you are talking sense!”

He caught up to Jane at the top of the stairs. “If you are going to fetch your aunt, it is not necessary,” he said. “I asked Pillar to take a tea tray up to her and Goderich.”

“Oh! I shall say good night to him while I am here, then.”

They went together to the room, where Goderich and Emily had just interrupted a game of cards to take their tea. No air of romance hung about them. In fact, Mrs. Lipton looked weary, but when Jane and Nick entered, her eyes brightened.

“Has something happened belowstairs?” she asked eagerly.

“No, we are just having tea,” Jane said, wondering at her aunt’s strange eagerness. “I came to tell you, but I see you are having yours here. What did you think might have happened?”

“Why, nothing, to be sure.”

“We have been looking at all the things Mrs. Huddleston bought in Brighton.”

“And discussing asses,” Nick added. Again that eager look seized Mrs. Lipton’s face. “Four-legged ones,” he added, smiling.

“I have assembled a dandy herd of donkeys, Ronald,” Goderich said. “I mean to send them to
...
” He frowned. “They use them in Spain, you know.”

“Yes, but the war is over, Uncle.”

“I know it. We won. But that is why I bred them. For Wellington! That’s it! My memory is improving, eh, Lily?”

“Much better,” Emily said.

“Are you going to waltz for me tonight?” Goderich asked the young couple.

“Not tonight, Lord Goderich,” Jane said firmly.

“Goderich has been telling me about your waltz,” Mrs. Lipton said. She had thought he imagined it, and wondered now that Jane had not mentioned it to her.

Nick took Jane’s fingers and smiled at her. “Not tonight, unfortunately, Uncle. But you shall see us waltz at your New Year’s party.”

“I am looking forward to it. Rogers has taken my evening suit down to be pressed.”

Jane twitched her hand away from Nick’s grasp.  Why had he done that? This flirtatious behavior was quite improper in an engaged gentleman. He answered her scowl with a bold, teasing grin.

“I shall go belowstairs now,” Jane said.

“Yes, we will leave you two now,” Nick added.

“There is no need for you to rush away,” she said to Nick.

“You must know how eager I am to return to our company.”

She could think of no sensible reply to this except a scold. As soon as they were out of the room, she delivered it.

“Don’t think to engage me in any disparagement of your future in-laws, Nick. It is quite horrid of you to poke fun at them behind their backs.”

He assumed a mask of astonishment. “Disparagement? Did I not say I was eager to rejoin them?”

“Yes, said it in that smart-alecky way. I know comparisons are odious, and you will not like to be compared to Willie, but he is behaving more properly than you, with regard to your company.”

“Meaning he is trying to beat my time with Aurelia?”

“Certainly not! That was not my meaning at all. I mean he tries to smooth out any little difficulties that arise between the two families, to change the subject when ...”

He looked at her, with a slow smile stretching his lips. “Do go on. I am all ears to learn a lesson from Willie.”