Hidden in the Heart

‘Pink satin! It must be pink satin - with cocquelicot
ribbons.’

Louisa’s cheeks were alarmingly hectic, her mouth a thin
line of mutinous determination. It was plain to Lydia that,
if they were not careful, one of her sister’s famous tantrums
was about to break over them.

‘Muslin is less expensive,’ Mama suggested hesitantly,
‘and white is quite the thing for a young girl in her first
season.’

‘Oh Mama!’ Louisa wailed. ‘It will be but too shabby. I
shall look a veritable pauper.’

‘We are not precisely wealthy, my dear,’ Mrs Bramwell
reminded her eldest daughter.

‘Punting on River Tick,’ Lydia added, ‘in a decidedly
leaky vessel.’

‘For Heaven’s sake, mind your tongue, Lydia!’ Her
mother pressed a hand to her forehead in exasperation.
‘Such cant terms are not at all the thing, and never used by
persons with the least pretension to gentility.’

Louisa sniffed loudly. ‘Lydia cannot open her mouth without something vulgar coming out of it.’

‘I am sure I do not
sound
half so vulgar as you will
look
in that pink satin horror you wish to wear,’ Lydia
protested. ‘People will take you for some dreadful creature
from the stage.’

Louisa’s face turned a shade remarkably like that of the
dress she so desired. ‘Why you stupid little—’

‘Enough!’ Mrs Bramwell’s unusually stern tones halted
her before anything too shocking could issue from her lips. ‘The pair of you will drive me to bedlam yet! My nerves
cannot endure any more of your quarrels.’

‘What does Lydia know of fashion, in any case?’ Louisa
hunched up a delicately curved shoulder. ‘I am sure the
only color she cares for is blue - as her stockings must be.’

‘It would do you no harm to read something more
edifying than
La Belle Assemblée,
’ Lydia retorted, stung by
the condescending accusation.

She glared at her elder sister, who was twirling about in
front of the gilded mirror in their small parlor. Louisa, she
considered, was a pretty ninnyhammer. Blue eyes, pink cheeks and golden hair she had in abundance. However, beneath the gold was a mind which never bothered about
anything but fashion and frivolity.

On the other hand, Lydian acknowledged that perhaps she
was
guilty of envy
where her sister was concerned. The family was generally
considered to be very good-looking, but Lydia knew
herself to be the plainest of them. Her hair was mouse-
colored rather than golden; her
retroussé
nose might be
considered charming by some, but was scarcely out of the
common way. And as for her grey eyes, if they sparkled at
all, it was usually with contempt at the follies of those
around her.

‘You should not speak so to your sister, Lydia,’ Mrs
Bramwell interrupted her thoughts. ‘Louisa knows what
she is about. Book-learning is all very well, but it is of little
use in catching a husband.’

‘But suppose,’ Lydia countered mischievously, ‘that one
does not want a husband?’

‘It is as well if
you
do not,’ Louisa answered her. ‘You
would have a hard enough task getting one!’

‘I see no ring on
your
finger yet,’ Lydia answered back,
poking her tongue out at her for good measure.

Louisa returned the favor, adding, I’ll have a rich
husband by the time I return from London. You may be sure of that.’

‘It is essential that you marry well, dearest,’ Mrs
Bramwell said - somewhat grimly, it seemed to Lydia. ‘How
else are we to restore the family fortunes?’

Lydia frowned at this. ‘I think you must be mistaken,
Mama.’

‘I assure you, Lydia, I am not! Louisa must make an
advantageous match. And,’ she conceded, eyeing her eldest
child indulgently, ‘I am convinced that, with her looks, she
cannot help but achieve her goal.’

‘So I shall!’ Louisa asserted confidently.

‘That was not what I meant,’ Lydia explained.

‘Then what
did
you mean, brat?’ Louisa snapped.

‘It is just that you said we must
restore
the family’s
fortunes.’ Lydia shook her head. ‘That implies that we at
one time had a fortune to be restored. If anyone in our
family ever had any wealth, I certainly never heard of
it.’

It was Mrs Bramwell’s turn now to frown. Her
daughter’s practical observation clearly did not sit well
with one whose ambition was to attain social distinction
for her daughters, even if she could not procure as much
for herself. The Bramwells were quite a respectable
family, after all, and looked up to in the village as some of
its most ancient inhabitants. There had been Bramwells
at Laburnum Lodge for as long as anyone could
remember. If they had little wealth, they had a certain
degree of distinction. The present occupant was a solic
itor, and of considerable standing in his small community.
However, this was not enough to satisfy the mistress of
the house. Her husband might be content with an obscure
and quiet life in the country, but she was determined that her children should not be allowed to decline into mere
bumpkins.

Mrs Bramwell had a cousin in London with her own
pretensions, who had graciously consented to assist Louisa
with her presentation into polite society. For this long-
anticipated event, Mrs Bramwell had been saving and
planning many years. Now at last the time had come.
Louisa was almost nineteen. Who could tell how long it
might take for her to attach an eligible gentleman? Time,
as all women knew, was not their friend in such matters. Better to strike while youth and beauty still had power to
entice those who looked no deeper than the surface of
things.

Lydia could not see the thoughts jostling about in her mother’s head, but she had wits enough to guess most of them. However, she had little expectation of any great
match for her sister. Wealthy and influential men,
she considered, rarely allied themselves to penniless nobodies from the country - however pretty they might
be.

Still, she looked forward to visiting London - a place she had heard much about but never seen. It would be quite an
adventure. Alas, for her it was not to be.

* * * *

The very next day, a letter arrived. This was an event
unusual enough to capture Lydia’s interest. She observed
her father pay the charge before carrying the folded and
sealed paper into the parlor to examine its contents,
and immediately followed him to see what she might
learn.

‘Who is it from, Papa?’ Louisa was quite as curious as
Lydia. They rarely received mail. When they did, papa had
been known to mumble words which his children did not
comprehend but which surely were not kindly. Without a
frank, one had liefer not hear from one’s relations rather
than having to pay for the privilege of reading their almost
illegible prose.

‘Is it from my sister in Sussex?’ Mrs Bramwell asked her
husband.

‘So it seems.’

Lydia eyed both her parents suspiciously. Papa’s head
was bent over the missive, so that she could perceive how
the hair on his crown was noticeably thinner than that
which fell across his brow. That same brow was furrowed now in
the effort of concentration, and his lips compressed.

‘Is it what we have been waiting for?’ his wife persisted.

‘It is what
you
have been waiting for, my dear,’ her
husband answered wryly. ‘I, like Pilate, am eager to wash
my hands of this awkward business.’

‘What awkward business?’ Lydia demanded before
Louisa could ask the same question.

‘Lydia, my dear,’ Mrs Bramwell hesitated a trifle, ‘you
know that our poor resources will be stretched to their absolute limit by Louisa’s presentation.’

‘I am amazed that they can stretch as far,’ her youngest
daughter admitted bluntly.

‘Indeed.’ Mama seemed strangely pleased, rather than
pained by her perspicacity. ‘You do understand, don’t you,
dearest child?’

Lydia stiffened at once. Mama never referred to her as
her ‘dearest child’ unless she was about to do or say something particularly unpleasant. On all other occasions, it was plain that Louisa was her favorite - just as
Lydia knew herself to be papa’s favorite child. Not that
either of her parents would have admitted as much, of
course.

‘What is it, Mama? What is wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ Mrs Bramwell giggled nervously, fingering her
lace collar and looking in every direction at once, save in
the direction of her daughter. ‘Nothing is wrong, dearest.
But you must see that, in the circumstances, it is impos
sible for all of us to go up to London.’

‘Lydia is not coming with us?’ Louisa squealed with mali
cious delight. ‘Oh, that is too bad!’

‘Try, if you can, to stifle your grief, Louisa,’ Lydia
answered.

‘I’m afraid it is a matter of strict economy,’ Papa said, his
tone displaying more real dismay at the prospect.

‘That I can well believe,’ Lydia admitted.

‘I am sure you do not mind,’ Mama said reassuringly.
‘You do not care so much for balls and parties as Louisa
does.’

‘True, true,’ papa put in, with a proud glance at his
youngest. ‘You have a head on your shoulders, my dear.’

‘And what have I, Papa?’ Louisa demanded. ‘A cabbage?’

‘A cabbage might be more to the purpose,’ Lydia said
sweetly, ‘in our impecunious state. At least it would be
edible. And most cabbages, I warrant, would have more
sense.’

‘Now do not start quarrelling again, girls,’ their mother said with weary perseverance.

‘Indeed I envy you, Lydia.’ There could be no doubt of Mr
Bramwell’s sincerity. ‘I should much prefer the pleasures of
Sussex to the noise and nothingness of London.’

‘I am to stay with Aunt Camilla?’

‘She has graciously offered to take you in for the next
eight weeks,’ Mrs Bramwell elucidated.

‘Offered!’ Mr Bramwell’s snort indicated that this was
not precisely the way he understood the matter. Lydia
easily - and quite correctly - inferred that the idea had
been entirely her mother’s, and that it had taken a great
deal of persuasion before her aunt would consent.

‘Poor Lydia!’ Louisa shook her head in mock sympathy.
‘But when I am married,’ she added with conscious superiority, ‘you shall often visit me in my London house.’

‘Not
very
often,’ Lydia muttered grimly, only just
managing to refrain from reminding her that both her
marriage and her London house existed only in her imagi
nation.

‘Perhaps my sister may be able to arrange a brief visit to
Brighton,’ Mrs Bramwell suggested.

‘Brighton!’ Louisa was not so elated at this. Brighton was
the most fashionable resort for sea bathing, and a haunt of
the Prince Regent himself.