Lisbon (53 page)

As unrepentant as her mother had been! Rowan took a deep breath. “I have already decided what to do with you,” he said pleasantly. “I have found another school for you—the strictest this isle affords!”

Cassandra was not even allowed to stay in London for Christmas. Instead she was promptly bundled up and the very next day sent in a closed coach to Colchester.

Mistress Effingham’s school was very different from Mistress Endicott’s easygoing establishment in Cambridge. The building was a picturesque wattle-and-daub affair with great blackened timbers and leaded bay windows. It had steep roofs and tall fancy brick chimneys and its second story protruded, medieval-style, perilously over the street. No one had ever been known to enjoy a single day in Mistress Effingham’s rigidly austere establishment. Cassandra’s room looked out at the towering Norman keep that dominated this ancient Roman city, and she sometimes thought life must be more enjoyable in that grim fortress than it was in the school, where the girls were required to keep their eyes downcast and pray a great deal.

Unabashed by her own treachery—after all, it had all worked out to her advantage!—Phoebe wrote to her: 
Jim’s family won’t believe you weren’t running away with Jim; they hold you responsible for his death. I tried to see them and explain, but they wouldn’t receive me. And the serving wench brought out word that his mother had burned your letter unread. I haven’t told anybody where you are because one of them—Tony Dunn perhaps—might be mad enough to follow you there, and what Father would do with you then, I can’t imagine!

He would probably lock her in a dungeon at that point, thought Cassandra with a sigh.

The letter went on to say:

The next time we meet, you must call me Lady Houghton. For Clive’s title is Lord Houghton. His mother is the dowager Marchioness of Greensea. She hasn’t received me yet—but she will! We were married in Fleet Street. Father doesn’t know yet—just as well he doesn’t, he’d be furious!

Lady Houghton. Cassandra put the letter aside in amazement. Didn’t Phoebe realize that a Fleet Street marriage certificate didn’t entitle one to a title? Lady Houghton indeed! And then she reread the part about Jim’s mother burning her letter, and the guilt she had felt when she saw Jim’s inert body lying there crushed beneath the big dray returned again to haunt her.

Jim’s mother had every right to blame her!
She had dragged Jim into something that wasn’t his affair, and Jim had died of it. It was something she was going to have to live with the rest of her life.

When, in early February 1750, Mistress Effingham suffered a stroke, and died, her assistant and next in command, Mistress Peterson, felt herself unequal to the task of running the school. She simply bundled up everybody, bag and baggage, and sent them home.

And so it was that on February 8, Cassandra Keynes found herself once again entering London in a coach, this time through driving snow. And even though she would 
never forget what had happened the last time, when the buildings of the city rose up before her, half-seen through the snow, she could not but feel her spirits rise too.

Of a sudden, as the coach negotiated the snowy cobbles, it gave a lurch. Cassandra thought later that she had almost
felt
the horses stagger. Simultaneously there was a muffled rumble that seemed to come from somewhere below. At this point the coach s window flaps were hastily snatched back, letting in not only a shower of snowflakes but also the sight of a nearby chimney toppling and crashing down into the street below.

“It’s an earthquake!” shrilled the elderly lady from beneath her thick dark velvet French hood. "It’s a judgment on us!” She glared about her at the coach’s other occupants— sinners all, she had no doubt—and found them as upset as herself, for earthquakes were popularly believed to be the firm hand of God shaking up sinners and bringing down their houses upon their evil heads.

Atop the coach, the earthquake had even rattled the driver. "Everybody all right?” he roared down.

There had been only that single rippling motion, the earth had settled down, and Cassandra was feeling that someone should call back, "You shook us up worse all the way along the road!” when she realized that the elderly woman was pointing a shaking finger at her.

"I’ve no doubt you’re a young harlot with sins aplenty,” she accused. "Young girl like you, traveling alone!”

"I’m a schoolgirl, returning home because the school’s headmistress has died and the school disbanded!” was Cassandra’s stiff reply.

"Here, here,” muttered someone testily. "We re all frightened, but let’s not have words. We all know London’s a sinful city that’s been shaken before—no need to blame one of us for it!”

The elderly lady subsided, but her gaze on Cassandra was still suspicious. And stayed that way through the mild aftershock that shook them before they reached the warmth of the coaching inn.

Perhaps, Cassandra thought uneasily, she deserved that look. For had she not led a man to his death outside 
London? And now on her return to the city she was greeted by an earthquake!

It was a great relief to her to hear the gentlemen talking in the common room of the coaching inn where she went to drink hot chocolate before again venturing out into the weather. Their conversation was all about the earthquake. Above somebody’s excited cry that her sister’s chimney had been brought down by it—and why should it strike her sister, who had always led a blameless life?—Cassandra could hear three well-dressed gentlemen at the next table trying to explain the quake as caused by something in nature.

"I tell you it will turn out to be this electricity in the air that has just been discovered,” said one sagely, toying with his wine.

"And do not forget that just before the ground shook, the air pressure was quite low,” chimed in one of his companions.

"Nonsense!” The third man struck the table with his fist. “ ’Tis the near proximity of the planet Jupiter.” He downed his ale as if that settled the matter.

Cassandra was fascinated. So there were those who felt that earthquakes had a
natural
cause! And why not? When frost split open a boulder in winter and sent it rolling down the mountainside, no one suggested that Cod was punishing sinners, even if the roof of some unfortunate cottage was caved in by the stone!

With more confidence she finished her hot chocolate, called a hackney coach, and headed for Grosvenor Square and the confrontation with her father that she dreaded.

She found he was not at home. Yates let her in and gloomily told her that the master was out on one of his wild-goose chases for young Phoebe, who had been reported seen in Oxford. Cassandra was surprised that her sister had been able to elude her father all this time.

"She hops about like a flea,” was Yates’ aggrieved explanation.

So Cassandra would be mistress of the house—at least until her father came home. And after that? She winced. She would not consider what might happen then.

Cassandra’s bags had not even been brought up before the heavy iron knocker sounded.

“That will be the fellow who’s called here every day for a week,” predicted Yates, heading for the door.

Curious, Cassandra waited with one foot poised on the stair.

“And would Rowan Keynes have returned from his trip by now?’’ inquired a courteous voice with a distinct Scottish burr.

“Not yet, sir.” Yates was about to close the door in the caller’s face when Cassandra said, “Wait. Ask the gentleman to come in, Yates.”

Looking surprised, Yates held open the door, and a heavyset graying man stamped the snow off his boots and came into the hall. The candlelight flickered on pink cheeks, bright eyes, and a very merry smile.

“Your servant, lass.” He swept her such a lighthearted bow that she judged him to have been a rake in his youth.

“It’s very cold out,” said Cassandra. “Won’t you have a cup of tea—or something stronger—before you venture back into the snow?”

The caller would. While she drank tea and he sipped brandy, she learned that he was Robert Dunlawton, a Lowland Scot from the Cheviot Hills, and that his business with her father was that, having learned that Rowan Keynes was in effect an absentee landlord, he was desirous of purchasing Aldershot Grange.

“Oh, you can ask him, but he won’t sell,” said Cassandra confidently.

“And why not?” asked the smiling gentleman she was already calling “Robbie.”

“Because long ago he promised that Aldershot Grange would be my dowry because I loved it so, while Phoebe should have her dowry in money because she didn’t like it there and was always pining for city life. ”

“D’ye mind if I ask him?”

“No, of course not.” Indeed, if Aldershot Grange was not to be hers, she could think of no nicer owner than the man who sat facing her. She said as much.

Across from her Robbie Dunlawton’s eyes kindled. “Since 
you’ve just arrived, I take it you did not know that Lady Merryfield’s ball is being held tonight despite the snow?”

“No, I didn’t know. Cassandra was visibly disappointed, because Lady Merryfield was one of the few people she had met on a previous visit to London and she felt sure she would have been invited. She told Robbie that, sounding crestfallen.

“No need for regrets, lass,” he told her staunchly. “Lady Merryfield is one of the few people I know in London too, and she’s invited me to her ball this night. Dash upstairs, lass, and change to a ball gown—I’d be honored to squire you.”

And why should she not? There was no one here to gainsay her! A smile of such brilliance broke over her face that the Scot was dazzled by it. She set down her teacup and rose.

“Pour yourself another drink—I’ll be right down,” she told him, and blew him a kiss from the door.

The Scot chuckled.

He stopped chuckling when his lady came down the stairs. Her chaste white velvet ball gown—indeed it was the only ball gown she owned—had been bought in Cambridge so that Jim might squire her to a ball being given by one of his sisters to announce her betrothal. But on the very night she was to wear it, Cassandra had mysteriously slipped on the top step of the school’s main stairway and cascaded down the entire flight. She was never to know that Phoebe, bored and annoyed at not being included in the party, had surreptitiously smeared the top step with butter—and even as her gleaming dark eyes watched Cassandra’s fall, was leaning down quickly to mop up the evidence with her kerchief. With Phoebe’s bright gaze upon her, Cassandra had landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Her high heel had caught in her dress and torn it. The rip was mended, but not the sprained ankle that had accompanied it. Cassandra had missed the ball and lain in bed for a week. But Phoebe had not missed the ball. She had asked Cassandra breathlessly if Jim might not squire her instead, and Cassandra had sent down word asking him please to do so. The dress had never been worn.

But now at last she was wearing it—and to a far more glamorous occasion than the betrothal party in Cambridge. She had struggled into the gown without help, and realized at once that the tier on tier of tiny white lace ruffles with which the Cambridge dressmaker had filled up what should have been a low-cut neckline, “for modesty’s sake,” was a mistake. A pair of scissors ruthlessly applied took instant care of that and left Cassandra with a dazzlingly low-cut gown. The bodice was too tight—Cassandra was anxious about that, and quite breathless as she struggled with the hooks in the back—but a little push to her breasts brought their temptingly rounded tops above the neckline and gave her a little more room to breathe.

Her hair she could do little about, so she simply combed out its gleaming length and swept it upward, twining in it a cheap necklace of white brilliants she had bought at a fair in Cambridge—in the candlelight they would look like diamonds! She could not make it all stay up, so she let a single lock of it dangle down over one white and almost bare shoulder.

Despite the fact that the velvet was somewhat crushed and the entire gown smelled strongly of lavender, having been laid away so long, her color was high, her emerald eyes sparkling, and the entire effect was such, as she swept down the main stairway with her huge skirts billowing out behind her, that the Scot drew in his breath sharply.

“You’re a vision,” he said, his voice a bit husky.

“Oh, I do thank you.” Cassandra’s mind was occupied by other, more important things. “Robbie, would you mind—I don’t think I got my top hook fastened properly. ”

She turned her lovely back. Robbie’s strong hands trembled ever so slightly as he fastened the top hook, and again when he bent down to affix the tall pattens, really a kind of platform shoe almost six inches tall, to her white kid dancing slippers. He rose with the scent of lavender wafting through his lungs and gazed down in wonder on this sixteen-year-old beauty who seemed to have changed from charming child to dazzling woman right before his eyes.

“I will go find us a hackney coach,” he announced, reaching for his hat.

“Nonsense. Yates will take us in our own coach,” said Cassandra recklessly.
In for a penny
,
in for a pound! 
“Yates!” she called. “I desire the coach to be brought round. Robbie and I are attending Lady Merryfields ball!”

Yates gave her a disapproving look and seemed about to refuse.