Lady Elizabeth's Comet (2 page)

Sir William and Miss Herschel had writ in the most heartening way about my dark
nebulosity--or was it merely an irregular blank, a hole or tunnel in the vacancy above me? I felt
the familiar tingle of anticipation and applied myself to the eyepiece. Below, Harris sniffled with
cold. I scarcely heard him.

It was an excellent session. At three or so the cold penetrated even my awareness. I
called it a night. My notepad was covered with sketches and scratchings. I folded the pad and
bestowed the instrument. Descending the ladder, I caught a glimpse once more of the bothersome
light. A lamp, clearly, and no curtain drawn. Smollet would hear from me next day.

Mrs. Smollet was suitably distressed.

"Oh, dear, Lady Elizabeth, your work! I clean forgot. I'm that sorry."

"Fortunately I wasn't aiming my instrument in that direction last night, but don't let it
happen again." I was about to unbend and indulge my curiosity with a few discreet questions
about her new master when I was struck by something in the housekeeper's manner. "What is it,
Smollet?"

"The thing is, my lady, that's the room his lordship is using." She wrung her hands.
"He's made it into his bedchamber."

"What!" At last count there had been forty-one bedrooms in Brecon.

"He specified that room, my lady, and caused Jeremy and Mr. Jenkins to move a bed in,
and two of those chairs from the small drawing room. And a clothespress and a cot in the next
office for Mr. Sims. What Mr. Moore will be thinking I can't say." She sniffed.

"Sims?" I asked at random. I have seldom been more bewildered. Could Lord Clanross
be mad?

"Sims is his lordship's man."
A twitch of her nose indicated Mrs. Smollet's
opinion of Sims's probable antecedents.

"Good heavens," I muttered.

That was feeble and Smollet knew it. "I don't like to raise objections," she said in pious
tones. "At least not so soon."

"Never mind, Smollet. I'll speak to his lordship myself."

She looked somewhat mollified and presently regaled me with an account of the new
earl's arrival. The man had not even bothered to inspect the State Apartments. The servants were
offended by that.

When the housekeeper had finished her tale of woe, I said, "It's early days to be making
judgements, Smollet. Is Lord Clanross in now?"

She sniffed again. "Closeted with Mr. Moore. I daresay they'll be through with their
business soon. They've been at it since ten o'clock and it's past three now. Mr. Moore does like a
nuncheon. Shall I have Jenkins announce you, my lady?"

I hesitated. Five hours at the account books? "Yes, let's rescue Moore from starvation,
by all means."

She showed me into the small study my father had had furnished years ago for my
mother's brother, Harry Whinyeats. The bookshelves were lined with studbooks and old bound
volumes of
The Spectator.
I picked one up idly. It smelled of must.

"I've put her la'ship here, my lord."

"Very well." The earl entered with the same stiff, slow gait he had shown at our meeting
the previous afternoon. Perhaps he thought it stately.

We exchanged formalities, and he added on a note of impatience, "How may I serve
you, Lady Elizabeth?"

"By drawing your curtain nights," I said tartly, setting
The Spectator
aside.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I daresay you've been told of my eccentric avocation, Clanross."

"You're an astronomer."

Well! At least he didn't invent an obnoxious neologism--astronomeress, astronomette.
Small blessings.

"Last evening was favourable for my observations. On such nights your servants have
been kind enough to avoid showing lights on the east face of Brecon. You are using the accounts
room, I believe."

"And my lamp distracted you? I'm sorry."

"Fortunately the interference wasn't significant last night. In the future, if you'll kindly
draw your curtains..."

"When the sky is clear?" He gave a short, sharp nod. "Yes. Very well."

"I'm obliged to you."

He made one of his stiff half-bows--an oddly formidable person.

* * * *

Thomas Conway--that was his name--was my father's second cousin and none of us
knew him. There had never been any thought of his inheriting the earldom. My father's brothers,
George and William, intervened between him and the title, even if my stepmother failed to
produce the expected heir. It had seemed probable that my vigorous father would sire a son who
would live to succeed him. Then we were visited with disaster.

Stepmama, whom I loved dearly, died in childbirth. Two years before that my Uncle
George, whose marriage had been childless, had died of an inflammation of the lungs. Then, in
1813, shortly after stepmama's death, William, a bachelor and a rasping rider to hounds, took a
header on Pytchley Common and stunned us all by breaking his neck.

I believe, though he wouldn't have said so to me, that it was Uncle Will's death that
persuaded Papa it was his duty to remarry. He had mourned the twins' mother very sincerely.
Nevertheless, within the year he married Miss Bracknell, and a sixmonth later, on their Swiss
bridetrip, the fatal storm arose on Lake Lucerne and both were drowned. Hence Thomas
Conway, sixth earl of Clanross.

No one had thought of him as the heir to an earldom, including, one supposed, himself.
My father had despised his. I could recall Papa speaking of Thomas Conway only once. On the
occasion of Uncle William's burial my aunt, Lady Whitby, was so tactless as to ask Papa who
was heir now.

I expected Papa to explode. He looked for a moment as if he might, then shrugged and
said indifferently, "Henry's brat and after him Willoughby Conway-Gore, but it won't come to
that." Papa turned to Willoughby. "Well, boy, what d'ye say to that?"

Willoughby took a pinch of snuff one-handed. "That I ought to make my cousin's
acquaintance." The remark drew a smile. Willoughby was an urbane man, a Pink of the Ton, and
a great favourite with my father.

Papa said, "I shipped the brat off to the army at seventeen. Short of outright
assassination that's the best I can do for you, my boy."

That provoked general laughter, chiefly because we were all relieved to see Papa pulling
out of the dismals.

When my father died, his heir, far from being respectably with the Army of Occupation
in France, was found to be employed in a menial capacity--as estate agent to another nobleman.
We didn't know which nobleman, but the title was recent--a shipping magnate, some said, or a
brewer. I favoured the brewer myself.

"Only think, my dears. Ledgers! Accounts! Rents! One almost wishes his new lordship
had taken to gaming or whoring like his father. At least those are noble vices." That was
Willoughby, his nose out of joint. I hope I wasn't so unreasonable, but I, too, felt a stir of
revulsion for Thomas Conway.

* * * *

"May I speak with you of your sisters?" His bourgeois lordship spoke sharply, as if he
had had to repeat the question.

I started back to the present. I had been wondering if Lord Clanross slept in the accounts
room because he felt at home there. "Er, my sisters?" I have seven sisters, all told.

"Lady Jean and Lady Margaret."

"Oh. To be sure. Do you wish to meet them?" I kept my annoyance in control with an
effort. Why hadn't he asked to see them yesterday?

"I'd like to discuss their education with you. Lady Katherine told me they have no
governess."

"At the moment," I snapped. Thank you very much, Kitty dear. Kitty, Lady Kinnaird,
had the three youngest with her in Scotland. "Jean and Maggie are a trifle lively. Which is why
Kitty got rid of them."

Clanross's brows, really his most expressive feature, rose.

"Kitty thought I might be able to deal with them better than she," I added in colourless
tones. "I have tried...am trying. M. Leblanc tutors them in French, and they go twice a week to
Squire Vernon's, where they take dancing lessons with his daughters."

"And French and dancing seem to you sufficient accomplishments for young
ladies?"

I believed I detected a sneer--in his eyebrows. I bristled again. "Of course not. My
bookroom is well stocked with improving works. The girls are encouraged to read, and the rector
hears their catechism."

"Religion, novels, French, and dancing."

Put that way it did sound meagre. "Maggie and Jean have not yet been in my charge for
six months."

"Haven't you been able to find a suitable governess in that time?"

"I've tried." I was really nettled by then. "I do have other matters to deal with."

Lord Clanross did not move from his station near the door. "Perhaps, if they're an
inconvenience to you, Lady Margaret and Lady Jean should be sent to a school."

I thought of Thomas Conway's bourgeois connexions and responded, with too much
heat, "To a Dissenting Academy where they'd be taught religious enthusiasm and accounts?
What a wonderful idea."

The corners of his mouth twitched as if he were repressing a grin. Or perhaps not. He
did not seem overendowed with humour. "That would prove a novel experiment."

I cooled down a bit. "The ladies of the family are educated at home. So, for that matter,
are the boys, until they are ready for Oxford."

"Then it behooves you to set up a proper schoolroom. Soon."

"You're in a tearing hurry."

"Yes," he said, very flat. "I want the matter settled as soon as possible." He still had not
moved from his post near the door.

"Very well. Anne, my sister, Anne Featherstonehaugh, that is, will be back in London
by now. I'll write at once and ask her to choose another governess."

"And I'll direct my man of business to enquire into suitable schools."

I stared at him. The grey eyes met mine without a hint of amusement. He wasn't
joking.

"What does Mr. Brown know of the sort of establishment that would suit an earl's
daughters?"

"Are you of the opinion they should associate only with earls' daughters? A rather
narrow social circle."

"I meant nothing of the sort. They dance with Squire Vernon's children now.
Nevertheless, their condition isn't common, and they'll learn to deal with it best at home." I
added, again betrayed into excessive heat, "What do
you
know of such matters? If you
went into the army at seventeen, your education can't have been very thorough."

He said evenly, "Perhaps I've had reason to regret that. In any case, I won't be
responsible for the lack of an adequate education in any child I'm charged with."

I wondered if Papa had had anything to do with Thomas Conway's education. Papa had
certainly bought the man's--boy's--commission. I felt myself treading deep water and groped for
a rejoinder. "Then you wish the girls to be taught logarithms and Greek..."

"If it suits them," he snapped. "Good God, Lady Elizabeth, a woman of your
accomplishments can surely not be indifferent to the education of her own sisters. Or do you
perhaps consider yourself a nonpareil?"

I blinked at him, dumbfounded.

I ought to have been angry, I daresay, for he was clearly goading me, but his left-handed
compliment was so unexpected I could only gape.

My scholarly bent had never been considered a thing to boast of. Kitty and Anne, my
married sisters, had always claimed my bluestocking ways frightened off all my suitors. That
wasn't quite true. I had had suitors enough. Nevertheless, I'd always assumed I was odd. Had I
begun to pride myself on my oddity? Nonsense. The man was merely trying to catch me off
balance.

I took a mental breath and said, in carefully reasonable tones, "Let's not come to cuffs,
my lord. I
have
concerned myself with the girls' education, but you'll allow that their
driving off three governesses in four months was a trifle discouraging. I'll have Anne send
governesses from London in relays, if you like."

"One will do." He seemed to consider the matter closed, and I took my leave of him at
once.

Formidable was the word. Hostile? I couldn't tell. We'd have to deal with him. At that I
began to feel real fear, an emotion I rarely acknowledge.

Clanross had no hold over me. I had the house and the income Papa had left me for life.
There was nothing Clanross could do to harm me. Maggie and Jean? I had lived with them so
short a time I felt only a mild affection for them. I still could not always tell them apart. Why
fear, then? I did not know, but the feeling oppressed me all the way down the long, frosty path to
the Dower House.

In the next week we did not suffer further visits from Lord Clanross. The weather was
uncommonly fine, so I worked a great deal at the telescope and lay abed until noon. Anne writ
me that she would try to find a governess intrepid enough to put up with the twins, a retired
admiral perhaps, and how did I like his preposterous lordship?

I did not like his lordship at all, but I found him far from preposterous. The thought of
having to deal with him forever sent me into the dismals. Fortunately, my nebulosity was
troublesome enough to occupy most of my waking hours, and I thought of Clanross as seldom as
possible. He kept his curtain carefully drawn at night, so I had no need--or inclination--to
confront him.

The week passed. Maggie took a cold and was sent to bed, with Alice and my old nurse
hovering over her. Jean wandered about underfoot and finally took to spending long hours off by
herself somewhere. She appeared for meals looking rosy, so she must have been enjoying
herself.

The post brought letters from Mr. Brown, full of particulars of three Select Seminaries
for Young Ladies, all of which sounded dreary, and from Anne, who writ glumly that she was
sending one Miss Bluestone to me at the beginning of the month. She also enquired as to where I
planned to spend Christmas this year.

As Kitty had charge of my three youngest half-sisters, I supposed I ought to go up to
Scotland, but I didn't want to. I meant to stay right where I was and continue to scan the spacious
firmament on high so long as it was in a cooperative mood. Surely Alice could take the twins to
Scotland. I hoped Clanross would leave, because if he were still in residence over the holidays I
could not, in propriety, remain in the Dower House alone. I did see that.