Amanda Scott (8 page)

Simon wore no jewelry other than his carved gold signet ring, refusing to adopt the prevailing fashion for wearing a number of rings, fobs, and jeweled stickpins scattered about one’s person. He even refused to carry a snuffbox, saying that he thought the habit a filthy one.

Once, when Diana had acquired a snuffbox of her own from Friberg and Tryer’s and had cajoled Lord Petersham, the acknowledged snuff expert of the polite world, who was actually said to possess a different snuffbox for each day of the year, into mixing a recipe for her called Lady Andover’s Sort, Simon had promptly pitched the lot of it onto the nearest fire.

Since she had privately practiced the delicate art of taking snuff for untold hours until she knew she could carry it off with flair no matter who was watching her, Diana had been properly incensed to have her first public attempt so ignominiously spoilt by her domineering husband. That the stench caused by Simon’s precipitous action had called everyone’s attention to them both had not helped the matter, and the row that erupted between them on that occasion still rated among their friends as one of their most fiery efforts.

With a reminder to make all speed, Simon left the room as soon as the maid arrived to help Diana dress. Since the girl had overheard his curt command, Diana was tempted to dawdle just to teach him that he should not issue his orders to her so peremptorily in front of mere servants, but she knew his temper to be uncertain, and she had no wish to initiate a further dispute beneath her brother’s roof. Thus it was that she joined the others in the morning room some moments before her appointed time.

Breakfast was soon over and farewells said, and by ten o’clock the Warrington chaise, followed by Ned Tredegar in charge of Diana’s horse, was bowling along through the streets of Devises. Two hours later, they were driven into the yard of the Castle and Ball, the lovely sixteenth-century inn in central Marlborough where the Marlborough Highroad intersected with the main London-Bath Road. A mere thirty miles lay before them now, twenty-six to Bath and then four more along the Bristol Road before they would reach the abbey.

Luckily the side-pocket of the chaise contained a traveling chess board, so after refreshing themselves and the horses at the Castle, they settled down to while away the slowly passing miles over several games of chess. As Simon had predicted, they reached Bath in time for supper at the York House, and less than an hour after they had finished their tasty repast, they arrived at the gates of Alderwood Abbey.

The sun was setting almost directly behind the great house as they approached it along the broad, tree-lined avenue, throwing the shape of the magnificent building into bold relief against the reddened western sky. There was nothing churchlike about the outline.

As Diana had learned during her first visit to the abbey many months before, Alderwood was indeed one of those remarkable country houses made out of the monastic buildings shut down by Henry the Eighth when he closed all the religious houses in England between 1536 and 1540; however, in the case of Alderwood, the actual church had been demolished. The present house had begun its life as a rather select and very influential convent, founded in 1232, which because of its influence was one of the last of the religious houses to be dissolved.

In 1539 the church, convent, and surrounding lands had been sold for seven hundred thirty-eight pounds to Sir William Warrington, who had excellent connections at court. Warrington had immediately pulled down the church for fear of committing sacrilege. In its place he had built a magnificent courtyard and an elaborate hedge garden with meandering pathways that eventually led to the stableyard.

Sir William had moved himself and his belongings into the upstairs rooms of the convent and had put the downstairs rooms, which had been the nuns’ main quarters, to more menial use. The calefactory or warming-room, which had originally contained the only fireplace accessible to the nuns, had been converted to a kitchen, and the series of vaulted rooms off the cloister were used for storage, the laundry, and for servants’ bedchambers. Succeeding Warringtons had made various changes in the main house, and Sir William’s hedges had grown tall and stately, but the cloister, roofed by an exquisitely graceful fan vault of the fifteenth-century, had remained untouched throughout the centuries of change. It was now considered to be one of the finest examples of its kind in England, and the Warrington family, as Diana knew well, were justifiably proud of it.

Their pride in the interesting Sir William was another matter and not, in Diana’s opinion, quite so justifiable. Sir William, though he possessed exquisite taste, as could be seen in his many remaining contributions to the present-day abbey, had undeniably been a bit of a crook. As a result of his misdeeds, however, he seemed to be quite the Warrington’s favorite ancestor. Since, as they cheerfully explained to anyone who had not yet heard the tale, Sir William had earned his fortune as vice-treasurer of the Bristol Mint by the simple expedient of clipping the coinage—that was to say that he actually clipped the edges off the coins and re-smelted the clippings while the remains of the original coins, which bore the mint’s impression, were returned to circulation.

As if that were not enough, Sir William used the proceeds of these activities for various questionable enterprises, not the least of which seemed—from information still extant among the many documents in the abbey’s vast muniments room—to have been a plot against the crown. Warrington had actually been arrested for this interesting crime in 1549, but he had wisely turned king’s evidence, putting all the blame for their activities upon his cohorts, who were subsequently hanged. For such signal service to the crown in this matter, Warrington got off with his life, a fine, and the loss of his property. Undaunted by the setback to his fortune, he had recouped his losses, including the abbey, in what Diana, for one, thought to be a disgracefully short period of time. He then returned to his home, wealthier than ever, as the first Earl of Andover, and had lived to enjoy a ripe old age.

His grandson, another enterprising gentleman, whose portrait graced the library just off the great hall, was created first Marquess of Marimorse some forty-five years later by Henry’s younger daughter, Elizabeth, for services which were not, so far as anyone had yet discovered, documented by anything in writing among those endless records in the muniments room, Since that time, the Warrington family had continued to prosper, each succeeding generation displaying, when necessary, that same gift as their ancestor had shown for eluding disaster at royal whim.

Diana glanced at Simon as the chaise rolled to a halt before the impressive east entrance to the abbey. He was certainly involved in a good many political affairs, not all of which met with royal or, for that matter, family approval. But times were safer now. She had no fear that he would be clapped up in the Tower for his efforts, or that he would lose his head as a result of any disagreement he might have with the King.

The footman, Fairburn, opened the chaise door just then and let down the steps. Diana accepted his hand and stepped gracefully to the ground. By the time Simon had followed her, the front doors had been opened and flunkies appeared to deal with the trunk strapped onto the chaise. Mounting the lefthand side of the broad, split stairway leading to the entrance, Simon and Diana stepped into the great hall to be greeted by Figmore, my lord’s elderly butler.

The great hall, with its magnificent grand, winged staircase, still bore such reminders of its ancient origins as a stone floor and iron wall sconces that had once held torches but which had been adapted to contain branches of candles. To the left of the entrance was a pair of double doors leading to the large book-lined library. To the right was a matching pair of doors, and it was to these that Simon and Diana were directed by the butler. An obsequious footman leapt forward to open the doors.

The gothic chamber thus revealed, having served a number of Warringtons as a grand saloon, had been redesigned some fifty years earlier for the eighth marquess by Sanderson Miller, the Warwickshire squire who carried a taste for architecture so far as to become an amateur architect, providing designs for friends and friends’ friends. The so-called “new hall” at Alderwood was considered by many to have been his greatest contribution to the Gothic movement, comparable to some of the gaudier highlights of Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill.

Miller had been greatly influenced by the Kent school, but the hall showed evidence of his own tremendous originality of thought, including such minor touches as the pierced parapet and the rose window at the southern end, and more noticeably, the walls plastered to imitate stone and provided with many ornate niches filled with amusing Rococo terra-cotta statues by an Austrian sculptor whose name Diana could never remember. The ceiling was painted with the coats of arms of many of the eighth marquess’s friends (all of whom, according to his detailed diary, had been invited to a great dinner in the hall when it was completed). With a crackling fire in the huge marble fireplace, the cheerful furnishings, and the bright red Turkey carpets dotting the marble floor, the new hall provided a cozy place which had long been the family’s favorite place to assemble.

The persons in the room when Diana and Simon were announced numbered three—a plump, gray-haired dame swathed in an awe-inspiring gown of purple satin, who sat comfortably ensconced in a wing chair near the fire with her feet propped up on a gros-point footstool; a thin, elderly gentleman in a white periwig, tied at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon, seated at a large Buhl desk near one deep, gothic-arched window; and a dark-haired young lady in a long-sleeved, cream-colored wool gown cut primly high to the throat and unfashionably tight at the waist. At their entrance, the latter leapt to her feet, casting her tambor frame and silks aside, and ran to meet them, chattering as she went.

“Simon! Diana! Oh, I told Papa I was sure it was you when we heard the carriage, but he would have it that you were in Wilton or some such place and would not so much as draw back the curtains to look out, though he might perfectly well have done so, sitting by the window as he is. Oh, how perfectly delightful to see you both!”

So saying, she flung herself into Simon’s arms and he caught her, giving her a hearty hug. “So, you’ve missed us, Susanna, have you?”

“A proper lady,” declared the stout dame near the fireplace, lifting her long-handled glasses to peer at them all and speaking in damping tones, “does not shriek, nor does she leap about like a gypsy, nor fling herself into a gentleman’s arms. I cannot think how you come to do such things, Susanna.”

“No, aunt, I beg your pardon,” Lady Susanna Warrington said quickly, her cheeks reddening at the rebuke, as she freed herself from Simon’s embrace.

“Hoydenish manners,” said Lady Ophelia. “You put me to the blush. Whatever will people think of your upbringing an you behave so in company?”

“I shan’t do it again, Aunt Ophelia,” said Susanna in a small voice.

“How do you do, Simon?” inquired the elderly gentleman from his place at the desk.

“Well enough, thank you, sir,” Simon replied, putting a protective arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Come, come now, child, don’t be downcast. There’s naught amiss with a little enthusiasm. No one would think the worse of her for it, Aunt Ophelia, I assure you. You certainly look to be in fine fettle, I must say, ma’am,” he went on hastily, thus forestalling any rejoinder her ladyship might have made. “That cap becomes you mighty well.” He released Susanna then and moved to take his father’s hand. “You’re looking well, too, sir.”

That was certainly true, Diana thought, as she stepped forward to take her part in the amenities. The Marquess of Marimorse was approaching his sixtieth year, but he was still a fine figure of a man. His dress was neat and precise, and if he wore a deal more jewelry than his son, he wore it with a dignified grace. Though he retained his wig, he had traded in the brocades and silks of his salad days for the more sober-hued attire now becoming fashionable among the masculine social set, but he still had something of the air of an exquisite, and his manners—when his temper was not aroused—were very refined. He did not rise, but he inclined his head, greeting both his son and Diana and begging her pardon for not getting to his feet to greet her properly.

“My rheumatism, you know,” he told her. “’Tis a sad fact that the cooler months seem to make a martyr of me, my dear, and by the way my old bones have been complaining these past two days, I fear the mild weather is about to desert us to make way for a more wintery chill. Susanna, girl,” he added more tardy, “either sit yourself down with your sewing or take yourself off to bed. You’re fidgeting me.”

“I beg pardon, Papa,” that young lady said, quickly retiring to the chair she had so precipitately forsaken and gathering her silks and tambour frame into her lap.

Diana, feeling, as she often did, a sympathy for the young girl, left Simon to enjoy a chat with his father and settled herself into a chair near Lady Ophelia, intending to draw Susanna into their conversation but knowing that she would offend her ladyship if she did not make her overtures first to that punctilious dame. Obedient to Diana’s signal, Susanna moved her chair closer to the other two, folded her hands primly in her lap, and held her tongue.

Diana smiled at her. Lady Susanna Warrington, just on the point of emerging from the schoolroom, showed all the nervousness of a young filly and none of the poise that Diana thought the daughter of an influential marquess ought to possess. Susanna’s experience of the world was very small and came, for the most part, from the animadversions cast upon it by her aunt, who spent much of her time deploring modern times, and from the caustic remarks of her father, who criticized everything and everyone in the political world. Diana felt sorry for her.

“What have you done with you shawl, Diana?” Lady Ophelia demanded suddenly in the midst of one of her own sentences. “You young things, always showing yards of gooseflesh, then denying that you feel the least bit chilled.”