The Lady Next Door (16 page)

“Is your aunt the only relation you have other than your father and cousin?”

“The only close one. I have some distant cousins in Hampshire.”

Latteridge’s face was unreadable when Marianne turned to smile at him, in an effort to alleviate the seriousness of their discourse. He was weighing the merits of offering her some assistance, divided by the knowledge that she would refuse it, and the certainty that his mother’s actions had, as much as her father’s, brought her to the pass in which she now struggled. As though she could read his thoughts, her frank eyes clouded and she turned away. With a mental shrug he dismissed the problem for the time being. “Shall we have a run, Miss Findlay? Trooper is itching to stretch his legs.”

Chapter Twelve

The cavalcade which arrived bearing Lady Latteridge and her household included liveried outriders and postilions, two carriages in addition to that in which she rode, and mountains of luggage strapped to each. When William informed the earl that the carriages were arriving, Latteridge promptly presented himself at the front door where his sister, oblivious to her mother’s scowl, rushed up to hug him, murmuring, “You will be so pleased with our news! Sophia Everingham was unable to accompany us, owing to having a bilious attack yesterday.”

“I hope it is nothing serious,” the earl pronounced solemnly, as his mother was handed down from the carriage and stiffly joined them.

“Most unfortunate,” the Dowager proclaimed, allowing him to place a salute on her worn cheek. “On the other hand, it is better to know beforehand if a woman is inclined to be sickly. I don’t hold with illness myself.”

Her companion, Madame Lefevre, grunted, her black eyes darting contempt until they came to rest on Lady Louisa. The affection she held for the young lady never failed to compensate for her days of trial as the Dowager’s companion, and was probably the only reason she remained at her post. She gave a curt nod to the earl, who acknowledged it with faint amusement, and bundled her charges into the house with a lack of ceremony nicely calculated to raise the Dowager’s ire, without being exceptional enough to call for a rebuke.

Lady Latteridge looked about the hall with a critical eye, in an attempt to find something or someone out of place, but all was in order, and precisely as she had left it the last time she came to York. As luck would have it, however, a footman coming out of the dining parlor, swung the door wide to allow for his burden of a large silver epergne, and she caught a glimpse of the new wallpaper, only just completed. With an agitated finger she pointed accusingly to the room. “What have you done with the dining parlor? That is not what I had on the walls.”

Her family obediently trooped behind her as she stalked to the door, flung it wide with a dramatic gesture, and glared on the improvements. “Well?” she demanded, her piercing eyes on her eldest son. “What is the meaning of this?”

Unmoved by her belligerent attitude, Latteridge surveyed the completed work with satisfaction. “Don’t you like it, Mother? Due to an unfortunate accident, it was necessary to replace the wallpaper, and, though I regretted the necessity, I am perfectly content with the results.”

“It was the servants!” she declared, ready to launch into a tirade.

“Not at all. A rather boisterous supper party, I’m afraid. Come, you must be tired from your journey. Let Madame Lefevre show you to your room.”

“I know where my room is!” she grumbled, but permitted her companion to lead her from the room and up the stairs, where she called from the head, “Come along, Louisa.”

“I’ll be up in a moment, Mama.” Louisa made no attempt to move from where she stood until her mother had disappeared from view, and then she linked her arm with her brother’s. “She’s very annoyed with Sophia for succumbing to this illness, Press. She had great plans for Miss Everingham.”

Latteridge regarded his sister’s twinkling eyes and said with suspect gravity, “Yes, I thought as much. Are you as eager as Mother to see me married, Louisa?”

“Not to Sophia Everingham! In fact, not at all, unless you are so inclined, my dear.”

“I went to visit a number of county families once Mother put the idea in my head,” he confessed as he seated her in the library. “A glass of wine?”

"Thank you, no. Who did you visit?”

“Haxby, Condicote, Winscombe, Tremaine, and Horton.”

Louisa gave a gurgle of laughter. “Poor Press. Were you
aux anges
with Sarah Winscombe?”

“I’d forgotten what you told me of her fan trick,” he retorted mournfully, “but it is Clare Horton you will have to contend with. She’s come to town.”

“Oh, Press, how could you? Well, it will do her not the least good to flutter her devout eyes in Mama’s presence; Mama cannot abide her.”

“You relieve me.” For a long moment he was silent, his eyes abstracted, as he regarded the elegantly wrought standish on his desk. “Louisa, does the name Marianne Findlay mean anything to you?”

“Lord, yes.” The girl stared at him wonderingly for a moment. “Susan was so wretched over the whole affair. I was very young at the time, but she confided the entire story to me in her distress, and over the years she has recalled the name in her letters, always saying she could not discover what had become of her friend. I’m surprised you should ask; you were abroad when it all happened.”

“She lives next door.”

“Here? Have you met her? Do you know what happened?”

“Yes, I wrote to Susan and had her answer a few days ago. Miss Findlay’s father has obviously abandoned her and she lives with an aunt, Miss Effington. In order to make ends meet, she takes lodgers. I’ve been riding with her.”

“Have you?” This simple statement seemed of no little interest to Louisa, and her bright eyes scanned his handsome face searching for further enlightenment. “I remember her, you know. What would I have been—ten? She was very kind to me and once brought a little doll for my collection. Will you take me to see her?”

“Certainly, but I would prefer Mother didn’t know of her presence unless it’s unavoidable. Our esteemed parent is unlikely to reverse her previous position, and I feel that Miss Findlay has suffered quite enough at her hands.”

“Indeed yes.” Louisa rose and brushed out her crumpled skirts, not meeting his eyes. “Do you like her, Press?”

“Yes, my dear, I do. Bear in mind, though, that in spite of her generous attitude toward Harry and me, she has suffered a great injustice from our family. And her aunt,” he said dryly, “never forgets for a moment.”

* * * *

Aunt Effie had been gratified when Dr. Thorne called. The romance, she felt, was progressing well, when one considered that Dr. Thorne was a busy medical practitioner and could not call every day. Feeling that she could not, with propriety, withdraw and leave the young people alone, she nonetheless dropped out of their conversation and pointedly busied herself with the fringe she was knotting. The intrusion of Mr. Vernham and Miss Sandburn was, in her opinion, superfluous and uncomfortable; there were not enough chairs. Their guests seemed unaware of any awkwardness, and Miss Effington had at last decided that the best approach was to hurry them off as soon as possible, when the Earl of Latteridge and Lady Louisa Derwent were announced. She fixed them with glowering eyes.

Having a room full of standing guests was not Marianne’s idea of a proper way to entertain, but she had sent Roberts in search of chairs from the bedrooms, and she was enchanted to see Lady Louisa grown from a child into a young woman. “How kind of you to call, Lady Louisa! I think I would have known you on the street, but there is a vast change in eight years.”

Louisa approached with outstretched hands and clasped Marianne’s warmly. “When Press told me you were living here, I could hardly believe my good fortune, Miss Findlay. I have not forgotten your goodness to me when I was but a child.”

“I remember the time you stomped into the back parlor wearing Lady Susan’s finest hat and announced you were the Princess of Ackton Towers, and nothing would do but for us to address you as ‘Your Highness’ for the whole of the afternoon.” Marianne laughed. “Let me introduce you to my aunt and our friends.”

Though Miss Effington was disarmed by Lady Louisa’s youthful spirits and almost shy acceptance of the introduction, the old lady was ever-mindful that this was yet another Derwent of whom to be wary, and her greeting was gruff. And not even Marianne’s admonitory shake of the head could make her more than civil to Lord Latteridge, who accepted her brusqueness with equanimity. As Roberts brought in more chairs, Lady Louisa was seated beside Janet, with Dr. Thorne standing at her side. Latteridge was making polite conversation with Miss Horton’s cousin, and Louisa fell into a discussion with the cheerful medical man.

“How did you choose to practice in York, Dr. Thorne?” she asked, ever inquisitive as to people’s motives.

“I was raised near Good. London is fascinating but overrun with the products of their medical training, who are forever scratching at one another to get ahead in their profession. York has more need of practitioners and there’s not such rugged competition.” His grin lit the cherub face with self-mockery. “I enjoy being prominent as well as the next man, and it is a great deal easier to do here than in London.”

“When I was in London as a child I loved the continual racket—everyone ringing bells and hawking ribbons and hot pies, fresh spring water and quack medicines. I bought a charm from an old crone who promised that it would make me the most beautiful woman in the world if I wore it around my neck for five years.” She giggled. “It fell apart after five days!”

“Nonetheless, it seems to have worked,” he teased, meeting the gray eyes with appreciation, but instantly turning the subject. "Have you been to the theater or the Assembly Rooms?”

“Not yet; we’ve only just arrived. Years ago I went to see a pantomime at the theater here, but everyone took to singing ‘God Save the King,’ and we missed the farce entirely. I was frightfully disappointed.”

Dr. Thorne grinned at her. “That’s nothing. When I was in London at St. George’s, we made a party to go to the Haymarket Theater one evening, being the going-away party for a young surgeon who had joined the navy, Mr. Thomas Denman. Unfortunately, we had all drunk deep at the Devil Tavern beforehand, and the tragedy was most appalling, where an uncle killed his niece in the very first act. One gentleman of our party cried stoutly for the watch, when the uncle hired a highwayman to kill the niece’s gentleman friend, and in leaning over the box, my friend’s wig slipped onto the stage. The audience glared on us, but the fellow merely wrapped the curtain about his head and went to sleep. Alas, when he woke he took someone’s cane to fetch the wig, his head being chilly, you see, but as luck would have it, he accidentally caught the ghost’s robe and it fell off. The little actress who played the ghost was dressed only in a shift and the common folk and gentry made quite a whooping.”

“You’re quizzing me,” Louisa protested, her eyes dancing.

“Not a bit. The highwayman was furious, and crossed the stage to shake his fist at my friend, who rose to make a leg and apologize to the actress, but being foxed, he pitched right onto the stage and the highwayman caught him on the seat of his breeches and tossed him into the orchestra where he broke a cello and a fiddle. Another friend, St. Clair, haloos and jumps onto the stage to fight the highwayman, giving him such a blow that he crashed into the scenery and brought the moon down—it being only a lantern hanging from the ceiling. Then everything became confusion."

“I don’t wonder,” Louisa murmured.

“Blumenfield popped onto the stage to comfort the actress and she scratched him; the audience set upon us, though the gentry rose in our defense, having to do battle not only with the actors, but the carpenters and workmen of the theater. The fellow who started it all retrieved his wig and fought back with the broken cello, but we were all eventually landed in the gutter outside the theater.”

Dr. Thorne finished his tale to the delight of the whole company (not least Miss Effington), who had all turned their attention to him when Lady Louisa had succumbed to giggles. "And did your friend get to the navy after all the excitement?” she inquired in an unsteady voice.

"Lord, yes. After all the gruesome sights we saw, that was but a bit of letting go.'

“What sort of things did you see?”

Dr. Thorne shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other; he could not very well tell her of the grisly amputations and the long hours of dissections. “Working in the hospitals is rather harrowing.”

“Yes,” Louisa said thoughtfully, “I can see that it would be.” She could also see that several eyes were on her, alarmed that she would pursue her line of questioning, so she pulled the discussion back to the York Theater, determined that in the future, she would question Dr. Thorne further when she was not in a position to upset a group of people by his, hopefully frank, answers.

Meanwhile, the earl had managed to gain Miss Findlay’s attention, noting that the new bellpull with its center of enameled roses, apparently was complete. “Is the system working?”

Marianne bit her lip to stifle the chuckle which bubbled in her. “Well, after a fashion, my lord. We were to test it last evening, and sure enough, when I pulled it Roberts appeared. Unfortunately, Mr. Geddes had planned to test it at just the same moment and Beth answered his call. But there was a crossover of wires to the bell board, so that it was Mr. Oldham’s bell which showed, and when Beth went in response, without knocking of course, she found him . .. ah . . . quite unprepared for her entrance.” Marianne’s eyes danced wickedly. “I’m afraid Mr. Oldham may not stay here long.”

“Very embarrassing, I’m sure,” he agreed solemnly. “And such a pity, with the dual enticements of a baronet and an earl next door.”

“He is sadly torn,” she admitted, thinking of Mr. Oldham’s blustering fury, tempered by his profuse protestations that he did not hold her to blame. Beth had stood giggling in the lower hall, whispering to Roberts that Mr. Oldham wore pads on his calves to give his spindly legs the proper appearance in his elegant clocked stockings, and Mr. Geddes, all apologies, had attempted to placate his neighbor by interesting him in one of his clever walking sticks. Aunt Effie muttered of newfangled contraptions, and Mr. Oldham, through it all, attempted to maintain his dignity so that Miss Findlay would recognize what a worthy man he was, though he had the most dire suspicions that the maid would inform her employer about his calf pads. All in all, it had been a very entertaining evening.