Without a Summer (2 page)
He released her hand to tend the fire. “I had hoped to send Melody to London for the Season. She is…”
“Depressed.”
“Yes.”
Jane had the uncomfortable sense that her father was waiting for her to offer a cure for her sister’s depression. She had none. “Perhaps Bath? It is not so expensive, and might offer her some prospects.”
“Do you think? The last trip went so poorly that I fear a trip to Bath might revive her wounded sensibilities.”
Jane bit the inside of her lip. She had not considered that at all. The road to Bath was where Melody had lost all hope for the man she had loved. “We are both resolved, though, that a change of scene would do her good?”
“Indeed.” Mr. Ellsworth shifted his chair closer to the fire. “But perhaps we are showing unnecessary alarm, and London will be possible after all.”
Outside the window, the snow continued to fall. Jane could not allow herself to hope that her father’s optimism was correct.
Jane entered the parlour carrying the morning mail, eager to show her husband the letter that they had received from London. She stopped in surprise in the doorway. The snow had ceased during the night, and the morning sun made a dazzling wave across the parlour. It cast Vincent’s form into severe relief as he stood next to the fireplace, scratching his back against the corner of the mantelpiece. His eyes were closed and his brow furrowed in concentration. In spite of his blue coat of superfine wool, tan trousers, and tall boots, Vincent looked like nothing so much as a bear come in for the winter. Jane half expected him to produce a honeycomb and begin eating it. She laughed, covering her mouth in delight at the image.
Vincent opened his eyes in alarm, springing away from the mantelpiece. He blushed charmingly. In an instant, his aspect changed from that of a bear to that of a schoolboy caught out. “My back itches.”
“So I see.” Jane crossed the room and set the letters on the side table. “If you remove your coat, I can scratch it for you.”
She helped Vincent shrug out of his coat, admiring once again her husband’s fine form. How had a woman as plain as she attached such a figure of a man? She did not understand it, but any doubt she might have held of her husband’s deep love for her had long since vanished. It was the source of her greatest happiness.
Jane curled her fingers and applied them to Vincent’s back. Even through his waistcoat, she could feel the knots and ridges of scars where he had been flogged by Napoleon’s men. They had healed without infection, thank heavens, but the cold weather often caused the new skin to itch.
He heaved a sigh of relief, leaning into her hand. “Thank you, Muse.”
“Shall I fetch some liniment from Mother?” Jane managed to keep the smile out of her voice and offer the question with sincerity.
“No!” Vincent straightened, shuddering. “I mean, thank you, but—” He turned to regard her and broke off as he saw the smile she had been unable to keep from her countenance. “Muse. You are wicked at times.”
“Me? I thought you were the one who was not a nice boy.”
“But I am a nice man, whereas you are cruel and heartless.” Vincent rubbed his hair, mashing it against his head. “Can you imagine what your mother would do if I were to actually admit of an infirmity? Even one so small as dry skin?”
Laughing, Jane wrapped her arms around her husband and pulled him close. Her mother was peculiarly good in a real crisis, but, in the absence of difficulties, tended to create them. A sliver could promote thoughts of gangrene. “I promise that I will protect you from her remedies. When I go to town next, I shall pick up some liniment, though. Until then … turn around and let me continue.”
He complied, letting his head hang forward with a grunt of contentment. Her bear had a sweetness beneath his grumbling exterior. “You are very good to me. Even if you are wicked.”
“Hush.” Jane slipped her hand around his chest to brace him as she dug her fingernails into his back. He relaxed into her embrace, the warmth of his chest serving as a balm against the chill. Outside, the snow sparkled in the sunlight. With luck it would begin to melt soon, though that would leave the roads dirty and unpleasant for a while yet. “Oh. I nearly forgot why I came in. We had a letter in the morning mail.”
“Is it Major Curry? I am wanting his answer to more than a few questions about percussion glamours.” The military glamourist had been assigned to tend to them while they recovered from the Battle of Quatre Bras, and had become a great friend due to his kind and attentive care. Afterwards, Vincent continued to trade letters with him, comparing techniques that could be shared between ornamental and military glamours.
“It is a request to commission us.”
Vincent’s head rose with curiosity. “Anything of interest?”
After they had created the glamural for the Prince Regent’s New Year’s fête for the second year running, the Vincents had received scores of commission requests, but most had been from parties who could not afford them, or who lived in parts of the country they had no wish to visit, or were simply banal. Now, though, Jane was restless and wanted to be doing something. “I think so. It is from the Baron of Stratton—sent by Sir Lumley—which gives me hope that he has some taste. It is on the table if you want to read it yourself.”
Vincent lifted Jane’s hand from his chest and kissed it, before pulling away to fetch the letter. He carried it to the window for better light and stood reading it, a shade against the snow. “He offers excellent terms. I suspect Skiffy informed them.”
Jane still could not bring herself to call Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington by his college appellation, but then he and Vincent had known each other through their connections at Eton so could be allowed that familiarity. “Do you think he is trying to draw you to London?”
“Doubtless.” Vincent pointed to a line near the top of the paper. “I must say that their notion of hiding a musicians’ gallery behind a glamural of songbirds is appealing. I wonder … we might scatter birds throughout the room to carry out the theme.”
“Perhaps we could experiment with a variation on the
lointaine vision
to transfer the sound to other parts of the room so that the music comes from the various birds.”
Vincent canted his head to the side and stared into the middle distance with a look that Jane recognised, and she knew they were going to London. Vincent had already begun drawing plans in his head. Jane, too, had plans that she had begun sketching, but they did not involve glamurals—or, at least, not directly. Her plan involved her sister.
“Vincent … do you think we might take Melody with us?”
He straightened his head and regarded her. “Would she enjoy it?”
“I think the change of scenery can only do her good, and her marriage prospects would be brighter with London’s social season.”
“I suppose. But would she not prefer a husband who could keep her close to your family?”
“Who?” Jane waited for Vincent to see that there was no one in their neighbourhood with eligible sons.
He nodded slowly. “Then, by all means, she should come.”
“Thank you, my love.” Jane traced a hand along his arm. “Would you issue the invitation?”
Under Vincent’s sleeve, the muscles of his arm tightened. “Me? Would she not rather have it from her sister?”
“It would be natural coming from me, but I think it would mean more if it came from you.”
A minute whine of protest escaped him, as though he had imperfectly held his breath. He was, to the best of her knowledge, unaware that he made this sound when afflicted with contrariety. Jane had not enlightened him, as it proved useful to know with what he struggled. She waited as he thought, watching until the lines between his brow smoothed. He nodded. “Of course. Though I shake at the thought of your mother’s answer to our departure.”
“Particularly for a glamural.” Taking pity on her husband, Jane said, “Well, I will relate that much, at least.”
“Thank you, Muse.”
With that settled, she helped him back into his coat and led him down the hall to the breakfast room, where the rest of the family still sat at table.
Mrs. Ellsworth had a volume of correspondence before her from acquaintances likewise afflicted with nerves. Mr. Ellsworth kept his newspaper up as a shield, making the occasional noise in answer to his wife’s exclamations.
Melody had his discarded pages. As Jane and Vincent entered, she clipped an item from the paper—likely a description of London fashion. She alone glanced up. “You look as though you have news.”
Mr. Ellsworth folded his paper with interest. “I suspect so, the way you hurried out with that letter.”
Smiling at her father’s discernment, Jane nodded. “Indeed. We have received a commission from the Baron of Stratton for his London house.”
“London?” Her father raised his brow. His gaze darted toward Melody, demonstrating a wish that she might accompany them.
Before Jane could reply, Mrs. Ellsworth exclaimed, “Oh! Oh, I do hope that you will decline it. I hardly see how it is possible, with your troubles. Sir David, say that you will not accept.”
Vincent shrank at the sound of his title. He had been simply Mr. Vincent when they met, and seemed more comfortable that way, but her husband had become Sir David Vincent when he was raised to the honour of knighthood last year. He felt it was ostentatious and would have avoided the title altogether if he could, but one did not say “no” to the Prince Regent. Jane had attempted to explain his preference to her mother, but he would always be Sir David to her.
Jane stepped in to save her husband. “Mama, you must see that we have already been performing glamours.”
“But you should not try your strength so soon after your troubles. Indeed you should not. Why, last night, you were exhausted after a
tableau vivant
. What might a glamural do?” Mrs. Ellsworth shook her head, the lace of her cap fluttering. “I am shocked that you would attempt to work glamour at all. Who knows what could happen? Why, the house might explode!”
Vincent coughed and covered his mouth. Though she was used to her mother’s hysterics, even Jane found it difficult to not laugh outright at this notion. “That is hardly possible, as glamour is largely ornamental. If it could make something explode, then that technique would be used in the military.”
“But it does! What of Major Curry? And I do not see why, if coldmongers can make things cold, you could not make something explode.”
“Coldmongers may only chill things a few degrees, and it is an—” Jane stopped herself from saying ‘unstable,’ which her mother would misconstrue. “—a purely temporary effect.”
“No, no!
They
are what is making the weather so unseasonably cold. I have a letter here from Lady Worrick, who explains it all. She got it from a lecture in London by a Professor Van Reed. If that is the case, then I see no reason why glamour could not explode.”
“I am afraid the lady misunderstood what she heard. The thermal transference alone—” Jane broke off again, recognising the impossibility of Mrs. Ellsworth comprehending the full scientific reasons that her fears were unfounded. The notion that coldmongers could affect the weather was so far from truth as to be ridiculous, and glamour causing explosions was even more so. While it was
possible
to warm things with glamour, the effort was so great as to be impracticable. Moreover, that form of glamour took an unhealthy toll on its practitioners, and resulted more often than not in death. No one used heat glamours for that very reason. But knowing her mother, invoking the mere hint of death would only serve to heighten her fears. “You may trust me that coldmongers cannot affect the weather.”
Melody slid the paper she had cut out closer to Jane. “I read something of that! Here it is: ‘Though it is too much to state that the Worshipful Company of Coldmongers is the cause of the current weather, many educated gentlemen of our city have raised the question of whether they might be, at least unintentionally, the cause of the alteration in our climate.” She squinted at the page. “Oh, but wait … the writer goes on to say that it is not possible.”
“There. You see, Mama?”
“What can a writer know?” Unrelieved, Mrs. Ellsworth sank back in her chair. “Oh! It is too much. And in your state!”
“My state is one of general health.” Jane glanced at Vincent, who shifted anxiously, as if he were about to quit the room. She had no wish to revisit the subject of her miscarriage. Vincent still felt it was his fault, when he had been as much a victim as she. Though it had happened eight months previous, it seemed as though her mother would fix on nothing else whenever Jane or Vincent picked up a thread of glamour. As they were professional glamourists, this presented a few challenges. “Truly, I have been quite well for some time now.”
“But you are so pale. I cannot believe that you are in good health if you are so pale, especially with such an unhealthy flush to your cheeks.”
Melody laughed and set her paper down. “La! She cannot be both pale and flushed.”
“But of course she can! Look at her, poor dear. I fear Jane’s health will never be the same if she continues on in this manner.”
Jane said firmly, “There will be no difficulty in going at once, as we are both quite well. Indeed, Mama, to decline a connection such as this would be to our detriment. Being in London during the Season has every advantage.”
Vincent cleared his throat. “In fact, with the Season approaching, we were hoping that Miss Ellsworth might accompany us.”
“Oh.” Melody’s blue eyes widened with astonishment. “Oh!”
“Unless you do not wish to, of course.” Vincent offered her a bow.
“Not wish to? I should adore going to London above all else.” The anticipation already restored some of the bloom to her features.
The prospect of London appeared to affect the sensibility of more than one person in the room. Mrs. Ellsworth clapped her hands together and bounced in her chair like a girl a quarter of her age. “Oh! London in the Season! We shall have such a merry time.”