Polly and the Prince (8 page)

Though Kolya noticed Bev and Fitz exchanging a martyred look and a murmured “devilish flat company,” John unsurprisingly gave his fond approval. Kolya offered to deliver an invitation to the Howards on the morrow.

The invitation was received by Mrs. Howard with complacency, by Ned with misgiving, and by Polly with pleasure.

“I should like to know Lady John better,” she said when they discussed it at dinner that evening.

“You cannot expect to be on intimate terms with her ladyship,” Ned pointed out. “Don’t forget that her husband is a duke’s son, and way above our touch.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Howard. “Polly is the daughter of an officer and a gentleman, and I understand that Lady John was once a governess. It is not as if Lord John will ever be duke. Mrs. Wyndham says that his elder brother has two sons. Still,” she added, “it will not do to appear encroaching.”

“I don’t see why I can’t go,” Nick grumbled. “Mr. Volkov says Lord Fitzsimmons and Mr. Bevan are top-o’-the-trees Corinthians. I want to meet them. Are you sure the invitation was not for me too, Mother?”

“No, dear, of course not.”

“But I…”

“Pray do not be forever arguing, Nicholas. Polly, is your blue silk fit to wear? Oh dear, it must be new trimmed at least, I’m sure, and the village shop has nothing fit for it. What are we going to do?”

Ned came to the rescue. “Don’t worry, Mother, I can drive you into Billingshurst tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you, dear. Miss Pettinger told me that Billingshurst has a very adequate haberdasher, and Mrs. Bruton patronises an excellent seamstress there if ever we have need of new evening gowns.”

“Why, Mother, I’m always quite content with gowns of your making. Ned, shall you leave Mr. Volkov on his own tomorrow? Is he a good pupil?”

“He’s enthusiastic and learns very quickly, and he has a natural air of authority. He is quite capable of supervising the men for an afternoon. Everyone likes him in spite of his being a foreigner—in fact, he is very popular with the tenants
already. He never forgets their names and he’s always ready to pick up a fallen child or carry a heavy basket for an old woman.”

“Then you think he will be a good bailiff?”

“One day, certainly. He’s making an excellent start. It’s knowing what crops to plant in which fields, where drainage is needed, when to send cattle to market, and so on that takes years of experience.”

Polly sighed, she was not sure why. She wondered whether Kolya realised how long it would be before he was ready to run an estate on his own.

Chapter 7

Polly let her mother choose the new trimming for her evening
gown. Mrs. Howard had an eye for colour and style which could have done justice to a far larger budget for clothes than she was ever likely to see. The elaborate ruffles and rouleaux that were coming into fashion suited her very well, but her daughter’s taller, fuller figure required simplicity.

The midnight blue silk looked most elegant with ivory lace stitched around sleeve and bodice and in deep, narrow, reversed V’s rising from the hem almost to the high waist. No one could possibly guess that Honiton lace, and not the finest Brussels, adorned the gown. The only trouble was, Polly was not there to put it on.

Mrs. Howard’s grey satin gown rustled agitatedly as she pattered once more to the window to peer into the lane. She even opened the casement and leaned out, conduct she would normally have stigmatized as shockingly vulgar.

“Ned, where can she be?” she wailed. “Surely Nick must have found her by now.”

“I really think I had better go and search, too,” he said patiently, not for the first time.

“No, you are already dressed, and very fine you look.” She spared an admiring glance for his black swallow-tailed coat and pantaloons, modestly striped russet brown waistcoat and well-starched, neatly tied neckcloth with the captain’s carnelian pin. “Much good it will do if Polly does not come soon. We cannot go without her.”

“Perhaps we should.”

“Even if she arrives this minute, we shall be shockingly late. I do not know which is most ill-bred, to arrive late, to go without her, or not to go at all.”

“You had best go on your own, Mother, so as not to upset Lady John’s numbers.” Ned’s attempt at humour fell flat.

“We shall never be invited again.”

“Mother!” Nick’s halloo rang through the quiet evening, followed by the sound of the church clock striking six.

“At last!” Mrs. Howard leaned out of the window again, then sank back onto the nearest chair. “Alone!” She buried her face in a handkerchief.

Nick pounded up to the window. “Can’t find her anywhere. And here’s the carriage,” he added as the duke’s barouche turned the corner. “I’ll have to go instead.”

His mother did not appear to find any consolation in the notion, for she burst into tears. Nick was speaking to the coachman and failed to notice this evidence of maternal affection. He returned to the window, grinning.

“Message from Mr. Volkov. He says to try the mill.”

“Polly did mention the reflection of the setting sun in the mill pond,” Ned said, going over to him. “You might as well try. And ask the coachman if he minds waiting.”

“Right, I’m off, but…” He stopped as the drawing room door opened. Ned swung round.

“I’m on time for once,” said Polly, looking pleased with herself.

“On time!” screeched her mother, dropping her handkerchief and surging to her feet.

“Yes. You said six o’clock and the church clock just struck six.”

“Six o’clock the carriage was to pick us up. It is past six, and look at you.”

Polly looked down at her serviceable brown walking dress and muddy half-boots. “Oh,” she said blankly. “I forgot I have to change my gown.” She raised a hand to tuck in a bothersome wisp of hair.

“Don’t touch your face! You have paint on your fingers. Upstairs with you at once.” She shooed her daughter out, calling, “Ella, hot water to Miss Polly’s room, quickly.”

Nick returned to the window from another consultation with the coachman. “He says he was told he might have to wait.” He laughed. “It looks to me as if Mr. Volkov has everything well in hand.”

Above-stairs, with Ella and Mrs. Howard getting in each other’s way, Polly split a seam in her hurry to take off her dress. She washed, scrubbing most of the Venetian red off her hands. The church clock chimed the quarter. Her mother pulled the blue silk over her head and started doing up the tiny buttons down the back as Ella eased her feet into the blue kid slippers. She sat down at the dressing table and Ella unpinned her hair, brushed it, and replaited it.

“No time for a fancy coyffer,” she mumbled through the hairpins in her mouth, fastening the braids into the usual coronet. “Too late for ringlets.”

“So ill-mannered to be so late,” Mrs. Howard moaned. “What will her ladyship think!”

Polly stared at herself in the mirror. Her dark eyes were wide with apprehension. They were going to be late. Lord and Lady John would be offended. But what really mattered was that Kolya would be vexed with her for offending his friends.

Mama fastened around her neck the gold locket with Papa’s dark hair curled inside. Ella draped about her shoulders her cloak of blue
velours simulé,
put her bonnet on her head and tied it, and handed her her gloves. Pulling them on, she followed her mother down the stairs as the clock chimed the half.

Late, late, late, late, sang the bells. Late, late, late, late.

“Don’t look so down-pin,” Ned whispered as he handed her into the barouche. “You did your best.”

She squeezed his hand, grateful but uncomforted.

The horses trotted along the winding lanes with agonizing slowness. Polly imagined messages being sent to the kitchen, the cook getting hotter and crosser, the fowls on the spit drying out and blackening. Only a sunset which swirled across the sky in swathes of rose and lemon distracted her, and it was over all too soon.

At last the carriage turned into the
long avenue leading up to Five Oaks. Polly had only seen the Palladian mansion from a distance, impressive and beautiful but merely part of a wide landscape. As they approached, the vast building loomed in the twilight, its pillared façade stretching endlessly ahead. And its inhabitants were all being kept waiting by Polly’s tardiness. She cringed.

The entrance hall was a marble cavern. The stately butler met the Howards with no hint of disapproval, but then his face might also have been carved in marble for all the expression it showed. An equally impassive footman in green livery trimmed with red was divesting Polly of her cloak, when Kolya strode into the hall.

He was grinning. Even, Polly thought indignantly, on the edge of laughter. Bowing, he welcomed them to Five Oaks.

“What is so funny?” she hissed as her mother, looking distinctly nervous, and Ned followed the butler across the echoing chamber.

He offered his arm and urged her after the others. “You are early, Miss Howard. This I did not expect.”

“Early!”

“Not too early,” he quickly soothed her ruffled feelings. “One guest is not here yet. But I thought I had planned all so that you will come at precisely twenty to eight o’clock, and it is only half past the seven.”

“You planned it?” She was puzzled.

“I arranged that the coach came at six o’clock, with the message for young Nick to find you by the mill pond in plenty time. You were not by the mill?”

“Yes, I was. But I remembered to listen for the church clock and I was home by six.”

It was Kolya’s turn to be puzzled. “Then why you are not here even earlier?”

“I forgot I needed time to change my dress.”

He burst into laughter. “This I forgot also!” He stopped and turned her to face him. “I did not look before—was looking at your face only. Is most elegant gown, with the beautiful woman inside.” His slanting eyes were serious now.

Polly felt hot all over, hot enough to melt inside. Fortunately, at that moment the butler opened a door and announced the Howards, and she and Kolya hurried to catch up. In the swarm of introductions which followed she forgot her embarrassment—and the peculiar sensation which had accompanied it.

Far from overwhelming with splendour, the drawing room was a comfortable apartment, though several superb pictures hung on the walls. Polly recognized a Canaletto, and she thought one of the portraits might be a Van Dyck. She tore her eyes away and concentrated on the introductions.

She had scarcely taken a seat when the gentleman who had been presented as Lord Fitzsimmons materialized at her side. Of middling height and slight build, he had classically perfect features and golden locks which might have been envied by Apollo. Though his bottle green coat and brown pantaloons were elegantly restrained, a green satin waistcoat embroidered with daisies, a profusion of fobs, and an intricately tied cravat hinted at a sternly repressed tendency to dandyism. His bright blue eyes held an expression of ingenuous enthusiasm.

“May I join you, ma’am?” Receiving permission, he sat down at her side. “Understand you paint. M’sister Julia was a dab at watercolours before she married. Expect she would have had a go at the river here. I daresay you have painted it?”

It soon became apparent that what he really wanted to talk about was the splendid fishing to be found in the River Arun, which ran through the Five Oaks park. Polly reciprocated with stories of Nick’s angling prowess, which all the family had heard so often they could have repeated them word for word. She also told him that she had seen several large fish in the Loxwood mill pond, jumping for flies at dusk.

“I say, ma’am, good of you to mention it,” he said, and as he took her in to dinner she heard him mutter approvingly to Mr. Bevan as he passed, “Sensible female!”

To her disappointment, she was not seated next to Kolya at the dinner table. He sat opposite, but remembering her mother’s instructions Polly made no attempt to converse with him. Though she had never before attended a formal dinner party, she was not at all apprehensive of making mistakes. It seemed unlikely that she would do anything truly dreadful, and everyone was surely too amiable not to forgive any minor errors of etiquette.

The elderly vicar of Billingshurst, on her right, was a gentle, vague man who probably would not have noticed if she had eaten her fish with a soup spoon. On her other side, Lord Fitzsimmons was flatteringly eager to converse, and to pile her plate with interesting and irresistible delicacies. Polly enjoyed both her dinner and his inconsequential chatter.

She caught Kolya’s eye across the table and smiled at him. He winked. He was having a difficult time with the vicar’s daughter, a spinster of uncertain years who seemed to speak in homilies. Polly was glad to see him laughing with his other neighbour, Lady Graylin, a dark, striking woman whom she would have liked to paint. The Graylins, however, were leaving for Paris on the morrow. Along with Polly’s disappointment at losing a prospective model, she felt an odd, inexplicable sense of relief.

When Lady John led the female exodus from the dining room, leaving the gentlemen to port and brandy, Polly found herself beside her hostess.

“As I mentioned the other day, Miss Howard, I do not know much about paintings,” said her ladyship apologetically as they entered the drawing room. “However, I understand his Grace has an excellent collection. I hope you will feel free to come and inspect them one day soon. We shall be here for another fortnight or so before we remove to Loxwood Manor.”

“Thank you, my lady, I should love to. You do not mind if I take a closer look now at those in this room?”

“Not at all. Let me hold a light for you.” Lady John took up a branch of candles and they went to stand in front of the Canaletto.

The Grand Canal of Venice stretched before them, busy with gondolas and schooners, lined with palaces and churches stretching into the distance.

“It reminds me a little of St Petersburg,” Lady John said, and she shivered as if struck by a sudden chill. “There are canals lined with palaces there, too. I was imprisoned in a fortress on one of the islands, you know,” she went on doggedly, her soft voice shaking. “Nikolai Mikhailovich rescued me—that is why he was exiled.”