Read The Magnificent Masquerade Online
Authors: Elizabeth Mansfield
The Magnificent Masquerade (6 page)
Then she whispered, awe-struck, "Good
heavens, Miss Jessup, is that me?"
They exchanged seats (with Kitty riding
backward this time) and tried to adjust their minds to their new roles.
Emily's hand caressed the soft lustring of her
new skirt while she tried to drill herself in the proper (for a lady) use of
names and titles. She must not, she warned herself, let herself slip and call
Miss Jessup miss. Miss Jessup must, from now on, be called Emily.
"And say it arrogantly," Kitty
reminded her. "You're the mistress, and if I don't come at your beck, you
must be very severe with me."
The maid cast her employer a look that combined
doubt with reproach. "Easy for you to say," she muttered.
They arrived at
windows to see the manor house. Once inside the estate's massive gate, they
drove down a long avenue lined with old rhododendrons and thick, dark yews that
hid the view. When the carriage made a final turn and the mansion burst into
view, they both gasped. The house was enormous, with a wide, three-storied
facade and two lower wings. It was built in the grand Palladian manner, with
window arches and a beautiful Corinthian portico topped by the most impressive
pediment Kitty had ever seen. The whole structure seemed to be set upon three
massive stone platforms that formed a multileveled terrace extending several
feet beyond the front doorway.
While they gaped, the front door opened and the
butler emerged, followed by two footmen. The butler made his way across the
terrace with measured dignity. He bowed to the faces in the coach window
without the flicker of a smile, although anyone else would have found the
girls' ingenuous awe amusing. The Edgerton butler was famous among his peers
for his lack of facial expression; he'd long ago trained his face in
impassivity. The butler was proud of the fact that he'd never been caught in a
smile.
While the footmen let down the carriage steps,
the butler himself opened the carriage door and helped Emily to climb down.
Kitty waited for him to do the same for her, but he quite ignored her. For a
moment, Kitty was nonplussed by the seeming rudeness, but a nervous glance from
Emily reminded her that there were some niceties she would have to learn to do
without.
The butler bowed again to Emily. "Welcome
to Edgerton, Miss Jessup," he said. "I'm Naismith, his lordship's
butler." "How do you do, N-Naismith?" Emily managed. Kitty
jumped down from the carriage just in time to see a tall gentleman emerge from
the doorway. They all watched in silence as he approached. He wore a casual
coat of gray corduroy and a pair of country boots, but he seemed to the two
goggle-eyed girls to be the most elegant creature they'd ever set eyes upon.
Kitty realized at once that this gentleman could not be her betrothed. She had
the distinct impression from her father's letter that Tobias Wishart was still
a youth; this gentleman was quite old-thirty at least. He must be Lord
Edgerton, Wishart's older brother. But a fleeting thought crossed her mind that
if the younger Wishart resembled his brother it would be no bad thing.
"Miss Jessup!" Lord Edgerton said,
striding up to Emily and taking her hand. "What a delightful surprise! We
didn't expect you 'til nightfall. Your coachman has made good time."
Kitty felt her heart jump. She'd forgotten
about the coachman! Her father had sent Gowan, who'd known her since childhood.
He was now occupied with untying the luggage, but at any moment he could notice
what was going on and give the game away!
"Yes, your lordship," Emily was
murmuring shyly. "I am very p-pleased to meet you."
Kitty noted with relief that Gowan had gone to
the back of the coach to help the two footmen unload the trunks and thus would
be unable to see whom his lordship was greeting. Edgerton, meanwhile, was
offering Emily his arm. "May I show you inside?" he was asking her,
looking at her face with a slightly upraised brow. "I believe Naismith has
a tea table ready."
"Well, I ... er..." Emily threw Kitty
a look of terrified desperation. ". . . the luggage, you know..."
Kitty glared at her. "I'll see to the luggage, miss," she said
pointedly, while at the same time-playing with her role by giving herself a
tinge of Irish in her speech. "Sure you've no need't' worry yerself. Go
along with his lordship." She gave
Emily a little nudge and grinned widely.
"You don't want the nice tea gettin' cold, now do ye?"
"Your abigail is quite right," Lord
Edgerton said, firmly drawing Emily's arm through his. "We can't have you
drinking cold tea. Besides, my mother is awaiting us. She's most eager to make
your acquaintance."
"Th-thank you, your lordship," Emily
murmured, taking a deep breath and proceeding across the terrace on his arm.
"You know, Miss Jessup," Kitty heard
him say just as they moved out of earshot, "you're not quite as I
expected." But Emily's response could not be heard. The pair, followed by
the impassive butler and both the footmen, soon disappeared from sight. Kitty
frowned, not at all certain about Emily's ability to carry this off. To make
matters worse, she was equally uncertain about her own role in this affair. For
instance, what she was supposed to do next?
She looked about her uneasily and found Gowan,
with a trunk hoisted on his shoulder, staring at her curiously.
"What're you up to, Miss Kitty?" he
asked disapprovingly. "Up to?" she responded with pure innocence, her
brain bubbling with the joy of challenge and adventure. "Whatever do you
mean?"
"Y're up to somethin', I kin tell. Those
ain't yer clothes." Kitty put out her chin. "They are now. I made a
wager with my abigail and I won. Not," she added, tossing her head coolly,
"that it's any of your business."
The wizened coachman, with the familiarity that
comes from years of association, sneered at her. "It's a queer winnin'
that trades gold fer dross. Somethin's brummish
about this. An' I might make it my business to tell yer da' that ye went to
meet yer betrothed wearin' muslin an' a mobcap."
"Do what you like," Kitty retorted,
striding away across the terrace, "but you'll only be making a fool of
yourself. Muslin and mobcaps are all the rage in
"All the rage?" The coachman stared
after her for a moment and scratched his forehead with his free hand. The girl
was probably trying to tip him a rise, he thought. It was very like her to try
to pitch him some gammon. But on the other hand, it was just possible that
housemaids' garb had become stylish for the nobs. After all, weren't the sprags
who liked to drive coaches for sport always trying to buy his overcoat from him?
The bemused fellow shook his head. The ways of
the gentry were beyond him. His best course of action, he decided, was to put
the matter out of his mind. This he did with a sigh and a shrug, and, without
troubling his head about it further, he trudged off to deliver his load.
Chapter Six
Lord Edgerton led the way to the Blue Saloon, a
room of relatively modest proportions that his mother preferred at tea time to
the much larger East Drawing Room which, his lordship explained as they entered
the house, was the more suitable room for tea parties. Emily, scurrying to keep
up with his lordship's long stride, was awestruck at the magnificence
surrounding her. They'd entered the mansion through a double door at least
fifteen feet high, passed without a pause through a domed, round entrance hall
called the Rotunda, whose marble floors gleamed richly in the light of six
windows cut into the base of the dome, and then proceeded down a wide corridor
which was wainscoted in gilded oak and boasted a ceiling gorgeously decorated
with painted cherubs disporting themselves on painted clouds. Wide-eyed Emily
had never seen the like.
The Blue Saloon was not, in Emily's view, the
least bit modest. It was at least thirty feet long and contained three blue
velvet sofas, a dozen chairs of all sorts, a tea table elegantly set with
silver service and platters of sandwiches and scones, several lamp tables, and,
in the far comers of the room, two magnificent Chinese vases atop matched
pedestals of sculpted marble. The room's four recessed windows reached from
floor to ceiling, each recess containing a jardiniere covered with plants and
topped with swags of ecru satin with a blue floral print. The blue flowers were
also visible in the design of a Persian carpet that almost completely covered
the floor. If this room was modest, Emily couldn't imagine what the Drawing
Room would be like.
They found Lady Edith seated behind the tea
table, her attention not on the approaching guest but on a brooch she was
attempting without success to pin to the left shoulder of her gown.
"Here's Miss Jessup, Mama," Edgerton announced informally. "Miss
Jessup, this is our mother, Lady Edith Wishart."
Emily dropped a curtsey. "How do you do,
your ladyship?" Lady Edith glanced up at her guest with a nervous little
smile. "How do you do, my dear? Excuse me for a moment from further
conversation. I seem to be having difficulty with this catch."
Lord Edgerton gave an imperceptible sigh before
leading his guest to a chair beside the tea table. "You must forgive Mama,
Miss Jessup. I'm afraid she's often abstracted. She always has difficulty with
anything the least bit mechanical. Although why she is struggling with that
bauble herself, when she has a perfectly competent dresser to help her out of
just such difficulties, is quite beyond my comprehension."
"That's because you know nothing of the
difficulties we women face," his mother responded, a tinge of
querulousness in her voice. "The brooch was perfectly in place when I left
my room. But a moment before you entered, I reached for a scone-which of course
I shouldn't have done until you'd come in and I'd served the tea, but I hadn't
had a bite since breakfast and I was famished-and just as I reached out I felt
a prick in my shoulder. When I looked down, I saw the pin had come undone. How
it managed to undo itself in the short time since I came downstairs I just
can't explain."
"I'd be happy to do it up for you,
ma'am," Emily volunteered without thinking. "I'm quite handy with
pins and catches and-Oh!" She looked up at his lordship in horror.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, wide-eyed. "I suppose that was not.
. . I mean I shouldn't have said. . ." Her voice faded away in hideous
embarrassment.
"On the contrary, my dear," Edgerton assured
her, hiding his puzzlement at her strangely diffident behavior with a smile,
"I'd be most grateful to you if you could help Mama. If you don't, she'll
be fussing with that brooch forever, and we shall never get our tea."
Relief flooded Emily's chest. She jumped up
from her seat and ran eagerly to Lady Edith's side. Kneeling down beside the
dowager, she managed, despite the fact that her fingers were still shaking, to
lock the pin in the catch.
Lady Edith tested the brooch, found it secure,
and beamed.
"Oh, my dear child," she cooed,
"I most sincerely thank you.
You do seem to be a treasure." She turned
to her son and pointed an accusing finger at him. "I thought you said,
Greg, that the girl was a hoyden. She doesn't appear the least bit hoydenish to
me."
"Nor to me, Mama, nor to me," his
lordship said, shutting his eyes and shaking his head in mock despair. Leading
Emily back to her chair, he explained calmly that his mother's lack of tact was
more than made up for by her charming ingenuousness. "I did describe you
in those terms," he admitted, "but only because that's how your
father described you to me."
"Yes, I suppose he would. I ... I am often
described in that way," Emily responded, realizing how well the word did
de scribe Kitty.
"Are you indeed?" He pulled up a
chair beside her. "Judging from the impression you've made on us thus far,
Miss
Jessup, I would have chosen hoyden as the least
appropriate word for you in the entire dictionary."
"I quite agree," said his mother,
still beaming as she poured the tea. "You don't seem to have a hoydenish
bone in your body. Though I don't suppose bones can be hoydenish, can they? Do
you take two lumps, my dear? No, I suppose only one. You could not have kept
such a tiny waist if you were in the habit of taking two. Oh, dear, the tea is
quite strong. What is keeping Naismith, I wonder? I sent him for some more, hot
water and a plate of those raisin biscuits everyone likes. Well, never mind.
Here, Greg, give the child her tea. The tedious journey from
the tea is strong it's bound to give the child a lift. There's nothing like tea
to bring one's spirit back, I always say."
"Yes, Mama," his lordship said
obediently, throwing Emily a conspiratorial wink as he handed her the cup.
Lady Edith, having decided that the girl her
eldest son had so abruptly thrust upon the household was not going to be at all
troublesome, leaned back in her chair, sighed contentedly, and stirred her tea.
She was an artless woman who often found life intimidating. Anyone whose
motives she didn't understand frightened her, so early in her life she
developed a simple method by which to protect herself. She evaluated everyone
she encountered by holding them up to a shallow witted yardstick which measured
only one characteristic: kindness. People, she decided, were either kind or
unkind. She kept a safe distance from those she judged unkind, but to those who
seemed kind she gave instant affection and intimacy. This intimacy she was
eager to offer to Emily at once, without requiring any further evidence of the
girl's character than she'd already seen. And what better way could she find to
show her warm feeling to this lovely child who was to become part of the family
than to disclose a confidence that her son had warned her not to reveal?
"Dear child," she began, leaning forward in her chair and smiling at
Emily fondly, "has Greg explained to you why Toby will be a bit
late?"