Magnificent Devices [5] A Lady of Resources (9 page)

“It is a lucky thing the chickens are not in the house,” Lady Claire said quietly. “One might be tempted to roost upon your lower lip.”

Maggie giggled, and to Lizzie’s disgust, a smile flickered on her own lips—the lower one included. “It’s just not fair,” she mumbled.

“I remember many things not being fair when I was sixteen, which was not so long ago. Are you so anxious for this visit, darling, despite what you know?”

There was hope! “Yes, Lady, ever so much.” Lizzie leaned forward, pushing the pile of circulars out of the way. “Mr. Seacombe has never been anything but kind and generous to me. I want to make friends with them—with Claude’s set. There might be girls there who are going to Geneva, too, and I would have friends when I arrive. Don’t you see?”

“I do see,” Claire said slowly. “I see that this is a means to an end that you seem set on. It is to be finishing school, then, despite Maggie’s and my feelings on the subject?”

“I want to go, Lady.”

“A woman is not restricted merely to being an ornament to society, dear one. She can fill a useful place—it is still possible to use one’s mind while making the world better for others.”

Mr. Seacombe, man of the world that he was, had said he looked forward with pleasure to society’s newest ornament. “But being an ornament does not mean being brittle and shallow, with conversation that means less than the tinkle of a music box. A woman can be an ornament to society in good ways—encouraging others, supporting her friends, creating places where people can shine and enjoy themselves.”

The Lady addressed herself to little Lord Nicholas’s letter once again. “And while she is making life beautiful for others, what is she doing for her own?”

Which was just so completely puzzling that Lizzie was sure the Lady, for once, had missed the point.

Maggie squirmed, as if her corset were not sitting comfortably. Finally, she burst out, “But Lizzie, you don’t mean for me to go with you to finishing school, do you? Because I am quite sure I should hate it.”

“You must make your own choice, Maggie,” the Lady said. She slit open another envelope and began to read. “Be influenced by nothing other than your own heart and mind.”

A fine thing to say, when the Lady herself was trying to influence Lizzie away from the choice of
her
heart and mind!

“I want to go back to Munich with you, and complete sixth form,” Maggie pleaded. “What should I do without you, Liz? Who will I sit with in the park, and laugh with about Sophie Bug Eyes?”

“Sadly, it seems Sophie is going to Maison Villeneuve, too. If you came with me, we could do those things still.”

But Maggie only shook her head, staring blindly at the pile of invitations on the table. Never mind. Lizzie still had the whole summer in which to convince her sister that they needed to make this decision together, and choose a path together, the way they always had.

She would succeed. She and Maggie had never been separated before, and there was no reason to begin now.

The letter that had arrived as they were sorting the week’s mail turned out to be a note from Lady Dunsmuir inviting their entire household to dinner the next evening, with cards and charades to follow. Lizzie suspected that, before they flew to his estate in Scotland for the summer and stayed for the shooting in August, Lord Dunsmuir wanted to come up to scratch on all the latest hands of Cowboy Poker. And who better to teach him than the boys who had been covertly running the card rooms of London for the last several years?

Besides acting as the Lady’s secretary, Lewis had built quite the empire. He even owned the building in which the Gaius Club was housed, though he was careful never to appear in any guise there but messenger boy or general factotum. It would not do to let the up-and-coming Wit gentlemen who played there know that the young man who occasionally cleared their empty glasses or carried messages between floors was a former alley mouse building a comfortable life for himself and one or two of the other boys who had gone in with him on the investment.

Since the Lady’s steam landau would only carry four, and Hatley House was not far away, they walked to dinner as the soft summer twilight brought out the electrick lamps on the streets of Belgravia.

“I’m not sure it’s quite the done thing to walk,” Lizzie murmured to Maggie, making a detour around what were clearly bird droppings under one of the trees in the square. “We should have taken a hansom cab.”

“We’d have made quite a parade, with Snouts, Lewis, you and I, the Lady, and the younger ones. Three cabs, at least.”

“We didn’t have to bring the younger ones. The Lady never brought us when we were that age. Where did Snouts find them?” He was given, occasionally, to bringing street sparrows home, but now and again it had turned out badly. The one girl whose light fingers had been caught in the Lady’s jewel-box had been escorted to the local orphanage with enough cash to keep her for a year, and she had not been back.

“Same place as he found us, Liz. Have you forgotten so soon?”

“You sound like Tigg. His ragging on me about forgetting where I came from got me blown up by a pocket watch.”

“Your picking Mr. Seacombe’s pocket got you blown up by a pocket watch, you goose. Don’t blame Tigg for your actions.”

“If he hadn’t ragged, I wouldn’t have done it, would I?”

“It was a choice—and you chose to be contrary. You could have just disagreed and gone away and had dessert.”

No. At the time, she could not. That contrary spirit had taken hold of her and it had not even occurred to her to simply disagree and have dessert.

“You’d have done the same, in my place,” she said, though that wasn’t completely true. Maggie thought first and acted second—the opposite of Lizzie herself. The good thing was, between the two of them, things got done … just not quite the way one often expected.

The Dunsmuirs welcomed them with hugs and kisses (on her ladyship’s part) and firm handshakes (on his lordship’s part). Willie barreled into the Lady and flung his arms around her waist in a hug, as if he hadn’t just seen her a day or two ago. When he turned to Lizzie, she realized that he had been growing again.

“You’re nearly up to my chin, now, Your Weediness,” she said, laughing, as he hugged her. “You’ll be as tall as your papa before long.”

“I hope so.” His eyes shone and the dimples in his cheeks came and went as he smiled up at her. “I need to be able to see over the wheel on
Lady Lucy
before papa will let me take the helm.”

Lizzie made big surprised eyes at him. “And what does Captain Hollys say to that?”

“He is not saying very much,” Willie confided to her, standing on tiptoe to whisper. “The Lady has declined to be his wife and he is very unhappy.”

“
Has
she.” Now her surprise was real. Lady Claire had not said a single word on the subject—which meant that perhaps she was just as unhappy. “Then you must be extra kind to him.”

“I am.” The boy nodded. “I made him a sextant out of my mathematical compasses and some of the gears out of the mother’s helper. He said it cheered him immensely to know that there was hope of a right course in the end. What did he mean, Lizzie? What else would he use a sextant for?”

She laughed—he was turning out to be as literal-minded as she was herself. “You will have to ask him in about ten years, Will-Be-Famous.”

“Wilberforce.”

“Right. I forgot again. Your Weediness.” And she tickled him in the ribs, which made Maggie join in, and they all tumbled laughing into the big receiving room. It had been set up with supper tables and card tables and sofas and chairs, all jumbled together so that one could do whatever one liked whenever one liked to do it.

That was the lovely thing about the Dunsmuirs—they tailored their parties to the needs and enjoyments of their guests. And no one could say that Lady Davina Dunsmuir had no influence in the world, could they? Why, she practically held the western half of the Canadas in her soft palm, and was considered one of the principal advisors to the Queen, though she held no official post in the government. How could the Lady think that such a course was not the right one for a young girl like Lizzie, when she had such a marvelous example right in front of her?

When they had finished a delicious dinner of prawns and roundels of pork with lingonberry sauce sent by special post from Lord Peterborough in Charlottetown, Lady Dunsmuir rose from her seat. Such was the power of that gentle gaze that the room fell silent in expectation.

What news?
Lizzie telegraphed to Maggie in a glance.

“I am so glad to have you all with us tonight,” Lady Dunsmuir said, gazing over them fondly. The youngest ones gazed back, awestruck at her quiet grace and the way she could control a room with just her eyes. “His lordship and I have some wonderful news, and there is no one we should like to first share it with, than you.”

Willie wriggled and finally leaped out of his chair. “Mama, may I tell? May I?”

“I think that would be most appropriate, darling.”

Willie faced them, his face red with the importance of the announcement. “I’m going to be a brother!” he cried.

The Lady clasped her hands. “Oh, Davina! Can it be true?”

“It is indeed.” The countess beamed, her hands clasped in front of her stomach under a gown that Lizzie suddenly realized was cut in the new artistic style, falling from the shoulders instead of from the waist. “Willie will become a big brother in November, and he is already preparing. Whether it is a girl or a boy, he has already modified a mother’s helper to come and fetch me or his lordship whenever there is a sound over a certain pitch from the nursery.” She gazed upon her son with love, and tousled his hair. “Is he not the cleverest child?”

“I’m not a child, Mama,” he mumbled into her robe. “I’m a
big
brother
.”

The room erupted in congratulations, Lady Claire embracing her friends again and again, and it was some time before everyone could settle to cards or charades. Lizzie watched her ladyship, taken anew by her earlier thoughts. Here was a woman who could do the things Lizzie herself had said—create an environment where others were at their best—have an influence for good upon them—and yet fill a woman’s natural sphere with confidence and joy. What was her secret?

Lizzie was not as skilled a mathematician as some, but even she could see the equation falling into place. Her whole future, it seemed, hung on the Dunsmuirs’ joining them for this country house visit. And the Dunsmuirs’ doing anything, as everyone in the room knew, hung on Lady Dunsmuir’s approval. Therefore, her future depended on getting Davina to agree to come.

And she had not a moment to lose.

Lizzie was a dab hand at looking harmless and decorative while practicing the art of deception and outwitting her opponent. These skills had served her well over the years, and she called them up now. As Lady Dunsmuir rose gracefully and went in search of a book for Claire in the library, Lizzie slipped out of the small audience watching the charades and followed her.

Of course, what she didn’t expect was to find Davina locked in a kiss with his lordship in the history section.

She must have made a sound, because the couple pulled apart and Davina, looking rather flustered, patted her pompadour into place. “Lizzie, darling? Was there something you wanted?”

“I’m sorry, I—no indeed—I mean—” Well, she couldn’t very well say
Carry on
and back out of the door now, could she? “Your ladyship, I do beg your pardon. I did want a word, but obviously this isn’t a good time, so—”

His lordship laughed. “I’m afraid one has to expect the unexpected in this house. Willie has become quite used to seeing his parents exchanging tokens of affection. We forget it can be disconcerting to others. Is this a conversation to which gentlemen are welcome?”

“Oh, yes indeed, sir. In fact, it affects you directly.”

“Does it, now? In that case, do come and sit down.”

Lizzie settled into a comfortable upholstered chair opposite the couple on the sofa. Both chair and sofa were clearly for the purpose of whiling away a rainy afternoon with a good book. She took a breath and plunged in, conscious that anyone could walk in on them just as she had done herself. “I would like to ask your help concerning my future.”

His lordship looked a little taken aback, and exchanged a glance with his wife that Lizzie could not read. “Is that not the province of Lady Claire, Lizzie? Though that is not to say that we are not deeply interested in the futures of all of you, as friends would be, considering what we have all experienced together.”

“It is, and I have spoken with her about it, but she believes that it is your opinion that will prevail.”

Lady Dunsmuir leaned forward. “Can you be more specific, Lizzie?”

“As you probably know, Mr. Charles Seacombe has invited the Lady and Maggie and me to his estate in the Cotswolds for a brief visit—only four days. But the Lady says it is not proper for three unmarried females to visit a house occupied by two—or more—unmarried men.”

Lady Dunsmuir’s lips twitched. “I can see the reason for her concern. It will not do, Lizzie, as I am sure you can see.”

Here was the crux of the matter on which all else depended. “But it
would
do, your ladyship, if you and Lord Dunsmuir and Willie were to join us there. He has specifically invited you all as well, has he not?”

“He has,” Lady Dunsmuir allowed. “Though I had not given it much thought before now. We hardly know him, and I had planned to decline.”

She must not let that happen. “But this is how we might get to know him better.”

“Why should we do that?” his lordship asked. “You know my opinion of the man, Lizzie.”

She must tread carefully here, and at all costs avoid the appearance of arguing. “I do, sir, but do you not feel that a few days in his company might change your mind? In any case, my eyes are fixed on a more distant horizon. I have learned that his son, Claude, has invited several of his classmates from the Sorbonne, some of whom have sisters attending Maison Villeneuve in Geneva. I cannot help but feel that making the acquaintance of these girls will allow me to feel more at home there when I begin in the fall.” She allowed her earnest gaze to fall. “I fear I shall be alone, you see. Maggie has almost certainly decided to go back to Munich with the Lady.” Her voice broke with real emotion, as if this course had truly been decided. The reality was that she could not face it if that were true.

Lady Dunsmuir extended a hand in distress. “Oh, Lizzie, please do not cry. But how dreadful for you, to be separated by such a distance from your sister!”

Lizzie gulped down her tears, bravely lifting her head. “I shall bear it if I must, because I would not deprive her of her education for the world.”

“And what of your education?” his lordship asked. “I cannot believe that there will be experiments in physics and engineering in Geneva.”

No, there would not, thank goodness. “I have been observing your wife’s example for many years, your lordship, and have concluded that I would be happiest following it.”

“
My
example?” Lady Dunsmuir said in surprise.

“You have a gift, my lady, for making others feel welcome and comfortable in your home—for planning things that would please others while attaining your own goals—for, oh, I can’t express it—for creating places where others become their best. You have influence and grace and the respect of the most powerful in the nation … and physics and engineering did not assist you.”

“You are in the right of it there.” She glanced with affection at her husband. “I believe, however, that it was my aim with a bow which began my career.”

She must not let them drift away on a tide of reminiscence, the way older people tended to do.

“I want to emulate the best of men and women,” she said earnestly, “and I believe I must begin in Geneva. What better foundation could I have than with friendships that began here, under your eye? That is all I ask, your ladyship. Your protection and chaperonage as I take my first steps along a path that, while they may not bring me to the heights you have scaled, at least may give me the kind of influence and respect that a lady deserves … who has not been born to such a sphere.”

Another glance between husband and wife. “How eloquent you are, Lizzie,” her ladyship said. “And you have the right of it—I was not born to the sphere I occupy, either. Have you presented your case to Claire?”

“I have, and she says that you must be the arbiter of it.”

“Then it appears that world peace hinges on our making an appearance. John, darling, do you object to five days in Warwickshire?”

“Only four,” Lizzie interjected, as if less time in the company of Mr. Seacombe would be a benefit. “Lady Claire must return to London a day early. She is to be invested by the Royal Society of Engineers on the twentieth of July.”

“In support of a young lady’s aspirations, I suppose I can endure anything for four days,” his lordship conceded with some reluctance. “It would break the voyage to Scotland quite nicely, Davina. I do not want you becoming fatigued.”

“An air journey does not fatigue me in the least, and you must not fuss, dearest. But I confess that I do enjoy the Cotswolds, and do not forget that the Prince of Wales will be traveling thither at about the same time.”