Cousin Cecilia (2 page)

“Dear Cousin Cecilia must take credit for the whole affair. She is a wonderful matchmaker. If ever you run into difficulty in getting your girls popped off, you cannot do better than invite Cecilia Cummings for a visit. She knows just how to manage these affairs—a regular little wizard.”

Her eyes rested on the paper. It seemed almost an omen, that she had remembered the letter and found it, for in the usual way, one could never find anything when she wanted it.

She returned to the saloon and reread the letter from Mrs. Dorman, pausing over the name Cecilia. “They had had a falling out you must know,” she read, “but Cousin Cecilia patched the whole thing up in jig time. She is such a dab in that line. She is not the sort to be sponsoring foolish and romantical love matches where there is inequality of position or fortune. She is very nice in all her requirements.” Confirmation, if confirmation were needed, of the efficacy of Cousin Cecilia in arranging matches.

How she could use a Cecilia Cummings to patch the dissolving matches together here in Laycombe! But really, she hardly knew the lady. She was no more than a connection. After ten minutes, she had figured out that Cecilia Cummings was her husband’s second cousin once removed. Reference to the Dorman letter told her that Miss Cummings would be returning to Hampshire from Kent in a week’s time, to prepare for the London Season. She would be passing within a few miles of Laycombe. What was more natural than that she should be invited to stop in en route? The Season was two weeks away.

Mrs. Meacham went to her study and dashed off a letter in care of Mrs. Dorman, earnestly begging Miss Cummings to spare them a few days. She was uncertain whether or not to mention her own girls’ desperate plight and decided to do so in a joking manner. It might be just the thing to tip the scales if Miss Cummings were undecided whether or not to stop. The letter was sent off at once, before she changed her mind. Her next job was to speak to Cook about Sunday dinner. “A nice joint of mutton, but not too big,” she said gloomily. The days when she was likely to have two strapping young gentlemen at her Sunday table were long gone.

* * * *

In Kent, Miss Cummings read the letter, smiled and said pertly to Mrs. Dorman, “She has taken the hint. How glad I am I talked you into giving it. I was afraid I should be bored to flinders at home waiting for the Season to open, for I have got everyone there married off, you know, and shan’t have a thing to do till my cousin Jennie is old enough to need a husband.”

“You could always look about for a match for yourself, Cecilia,” Mrs. Dorman suggested archly. “Going on three and twenty...”

“I haven’t time for that,” Miss Cummings said airily. “I am too busy arranging matches for all my friends and relatives.”

“It is odd, as you are such a friend to matrimony, that you avoid it yourself.”

“Yes, it is strange, but the cobbler’s child always goes unshod, you know, and the matchmaker goes unmatched herself. I enjoy marriage only vicariously. I value my freedom more highly. Only think, I could not have come here to you had I been encumbered with a husband, and nor could I stop at Laycombe and make matches for my cousins there. It is fine for some, probably most, but I confess I have never met a gentleman worth giving up my freedom for.”

“But have you never been in love?”

Miss Cummings gave the question a moment’s consideration. “I have been temporarily infatuated. But it would be a sad mistake to marry while in love—unless the man was unexceptionable as to position and fortune and so on. Lovers are blind, they say, and there seems to be some truth in the matter. And the children can blind their parents, too. That is why I think it wise to have an objective third person involved in making the matches.”

“So you say now, Cousin. I doubt you will remain so reasonable when Cupid points his arrow in your direction.”

Miss Cummings smiled and paid no heed to the warning. It was old news to her, but she had no fear on that score. She had never loved an eligible parti and had had the wits not to marry any other sort. She was quite content that fate had chosen her to settle matches for others.

Chapter Two

Mrs. Meacham’s hopes for seeing her daughters established had sunk low, but not so low that she intended admitting to a soul that she had sought outside help. Even her own daughters were to be kept in the dark, and she must therefore have a private coze with Miss Cummings as soon as she arrived. Miss Cummings’s letter said she would come at four. Mrs. Meacham told her girls she would not be arriving till evening, and she sent them off to the vicarage to visit Kate and take dinner there.

Miss Cummings was a prompt visitor. At five minutes before four, she alighted from a very handsome traveling carriage with her abigail, a tall, fierce-looking dame who answered to the unflattering name of Miss Miser. Miss Cummings came tripping in, embraced her hostess as if they had been bosom bows forever, and said with no preamble, “Where are your girls, Cousin? I am dying to meet them.”

Though she was top of the trees herself, Miss Cummings realized at a glance that her hostess was a deep-dyed provincial. The saloon, with every tabletop holding a gaudy assortment of bibelots, told her; Mrs. Meacham’s gown and coiffeur and manner told her. None of it mattered in the least. She had no doubt the prospective bridegrooms would be cut from the same bolt, and equality of position was the thing that insured at least a chance of happiness.

Mrs. Meacham led her guest into the Gold Saloon and closed the door to disclose her business in private. As her eyes roamed over her husband’s second cousin once removed, she deeply regretted that so little of the family elegance had been transmitted to Henry’s daughters. Before her stood a tall, fashionable lady with smooth black hair, wide-set, heavily fringed gray eyes of unusual brilliance, and an enviable complexion. She looked a trifle willful about the mouth, but the voice that issued from the mouth was low pitched and pleasantly musical. Even after the horrors of travel, Miss Cummings appeared completely relaxed, with a blush of pink on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes.

She wore a very dashing bonnet and a deep cherry traveling suit that was surely the work of a French seamstress. It clung to high bosoms and a tiny waist. With such an Incomparable as this in their midst, Mrs. Meacham could not think the local beaux would be inclined to offer for their former flirts. She feared she had made a dreadful error, till she recalled the relatives who had received help through the marital machinations of Miss Cummings.

They were seated, a glass of wine offered, and, taking a deep breath, Mrs. Meacham unfolded her tale. “I have purposely sent the girls out visiting that I might have a private chat with you first, Miss Cummings.”

“Do call me Cousin Cecilia, ma’am,” the dasher invited. She liked to establish a footing of intimacy as soon as possible, as the truth was more likely to be forthcoming then.

“I have formed the decision that the girls must know nothing of the reason for your coming. That is, you are just here to visit, of course, but...”

“No, no. I am come to make a match for Martha and Alice,” she said quite frankly. “It will be a great pleasure for me. You have not told the girls why I am here then?”

“To be sure, I have not. They are such rattlepates they would tell the whole world, and what a paper-skull I should look.”

A furrow creased Miss Cumming’s broad white brow. “It will be difficult to get them to cooperate if they do not know why I am here.”

“As to that, they will do anything you tell them.”

“Biddable, are they?”

“Greenheads, both of them.”

“That is a mixed blessing,” Miss Cummings remarked, idly drawing off a pair of black kid gloves to reveal shapely white fingers, with a fine diamond ring on her right hand. “If they will be bidden by us, they will also be led by their beaux. I comprehend from your letter you already have two gentlemen in mind?”

“The girls have, and their papa approved before he passed away.”

“How are the gentlemen situated as to fortune?”

The affair was outlined in an open manner. Cousin Cecilia accepted her reason for being here so nonchalantly and spoke so calmly of it all that before Mrs. Meacham quite knew what she was about, she had taken Cecilia into her complete confidence. Cecilia nodded, satisfied that the matches were suitable in all external details. Over dinner, every folly was gone into, and it was soon clear to Cecilia that Lord Wickham was the maker of mischief in the case. The beaux had behaved properly in the past, therefore their natures were good. Wickham was leading them astray. She must learn more of this troublemaker.

“I recall the name, though I cannot say I have ever met Wickham,” she said pensively. “I believe he married the year before I made my curtsy at St. James’s. There was some scandal in the family, was there not?” This, too, was told in colorful detail.

“I have not had a case of just this sort before,” Miss Cummings admitted. “When an older gentleman of such high rank is ape-leading youngsters, they will look to him for guidance. My first move must be to meet Lord Wickham and take his measure.”

“Well now, that you won’t, my dear, for no one visits him, and he never goes anywhere that you might bump into him in the regular way.”

Miss Cummings looked surprised. “The young gentlemen met him; he cannot be such a hermit as that.”

“Hermit! Ha, if he is a hermit, I am a duchess. What I meant is I cannot introduce you, nor can anyone else. He only visits the Lowreys, and they hold themselves very high. Lord Wickham just rackets around the countryside with all the young bachelors at his heels like hounds after a fox, and how a young lady might make his acquaintance, I am sure
I
don’t know. Are we dished before we begin?” she asked, with a helpless look.

Miss Cummings smiled calmly. “Certainly not. The case may be difficult, but it is not impossible. Your daughters know the gentlemen, and the gentlemen know Lord Wickham. If something cannot be contrived to bring us all together, then I shall go riding up to the Abbey myself and ask an interview with him.”

Mrs. Meacham’s face turned bright pink. “You must never think of such a thing!”

“I have already thought of it, ma’am. Desperate cases require desperate remedies. That is not to say I shall be obvious. My carriage shall lose a wheel, or I shall be so foolish as to go gathering flowers when a storm is about to break, or do any of half a dozen things that will get me into the Abbey fast enough,” she explained nonchalantly.

“But would you get out again unharmed?” Mrs. Meacham demanded, with a sage look.

Again Miss Cummings looked surprised. “I thought the problem was that Lord Wickham had no interest in ladies. Do you mean he is a womanizer? That will require a different approach entirely.”

“He has no interest in
proper
ladies; as to the other sort, he is a regular Don Juan.”

“I see what it is,” Miss Cummings said, nodding her head. “He dislikes marriage. His wife’s running off on him would account for that. Having made a botch of it himself, he is determined to stamp out the institution. I doubt he would ban horse racing if he took one tumble. What an idiot the man must be.”

“I have nothing against
his
not marrying, but why must he go sticking a spoke in Martha’s and Alice’s wheel?” the irate mother demanded.

“I really must meet him to satisfy myself how to approach the matter,” Miss Cummings said. “Now, help me to decide how it is to be done.”

“I fear it is impossible.”

Miss Cummings realized that the meeting would have to be a highly irregular one, and said no more of it to her hostess. She inquired after the girls instead, and this formed their conversation till a bustle in the hall announced the daughters’ arrival in person.

Cecilia observed them with the sharp eye of a horse trader. She saw at a glance that their charms were provincial charms, as she had anticipated. Martha, the elder, taller, and prettier of the two, was not an ill-formed girl. Her hair was sadly frizzed to be sure, and her gown not well chosen to compliment her pale complexion. A washed-out yellow gown never became anyone, and on a pale blonde it was a catastrophe. The blue eyes were fine, though, and but for an unfortunate tendency to bite her fingernails and speak very little, she would do well enough for a country buck.

Alice was not so well built. She was of short and stocky proportions, with Martha’s blond hair shading into red. Worse, a smattering of freckles decked her snub nose. But her smile was sweet, and there was a certain gamine charm about her. Of the two, she had more liveliness, more conversation, more ease of manners. Strange that the prettier girl was less at ease. With the dowries their mother had mentioned, Cecilia thought the gentlemen must be hard cases, indeed, to be so dilatory in their courting.

After answering the requisite inquiries about her trip and the recent wedding, Cecilia began an adroit quizzing about the girls’ beaux, to learn how they managed the situation.

The names Henley Dallan and George Wideman were elicited with no difficulty, and from the blushes that accompanied the admissions, the girls’ state of infatuation was evident. This infatuation must be diluted a little, to let them see their gentlemen more objectively. Cecilia couched her questions in a manner that implied she took the gentlemen to be older, richer, more handsome, and in every respect more desirable than she knew them to be.

“Only a small estate,” she said when Martha mentioned Mr. Dallan’s inheritance. “But then he is running so hard after you that you cannot escape him, I daresay,” she laughed lightly. “He will do well to get you. He is fortunate, indeed, that you, with fifteen thousand pounds, look no higher for a match. In London, ten thousand usually gets a baronet,” she said. “But those terribly handsome men are spoilt from having all the girls chasing them. Lord Byron was the same, in London. Mr. Dallan is a regular corsair, I collect?”

Martha thought perhaps Lord Wickham might be a corsair. A generous viewer might call Mr. Dallan handsome. No one who knew him had ever called him “terribly handsome.” She was beginning to wonder what her cousin would think when she met him. “He is not so terribly handsome,” she said, with an air of apology.