Lady Incognita (20 page)

The supper finished, Atherton glanced at his timepiece and then smiled at Harry. “There, we have finished in admirable time. We shall all have full stomachs and should be able to enjoy the fireworks.”

Harry nodded, “Yes, sir. I have never seen any fireworks, sir, and that is why I am so frightfully eager.”

“I quite understand, my boy.”

Atherton shepherded them toward the area where the fireworks would be displayed and they joined a growing crowd of people. They had not been there long when the fireworks display began.

Louisa, her arm still tucked through Atherton’s, stood watching the rapt faces of the children as the rockets exploded and the showering sparks came cascading down. The beautiful colors shone against the dark sky, making another magic world. Louisa heaved a great sigh. Never in her life, she thought, had she been so happy.

Chapter Twelve

Louisa, in the days that followed their excursion to Vauxhall, found herself often feeling intense joy. Thanks to Aunt Julia, who never tired of discussing phrenology with Lord Harvey, she was able to bear the regular visits of the pomposity with more aplomb. She discovered that she could be smiling brightly and nodding in rhythm with the pomposity’s remarks while part of her mind was engaged in plotting the further adventures of her characters.

And as the days passed, Louisa began to think that perhaps Atherton had been mistaken in his man. About the exquisite he had undoubtedly been correct. For Lord Reardon, after several visits which he had spent mumbling, shooting his cuffs, and staring at her through his quizzing glass, had never returned - to Louisa’s inexpressible relief.

  Several ladies, whose main occupation in life appeared to be carrying bad news, shortly took it upon themselves to call and inform her with the sad countenances and sparkling eyes of scandal-mongers that the little man had become a regular caller upon one of the heiresses newly come out and was expected to speak for her very soon.

Louisa, controlling her laughter with difficulty, had solemnly assured the ladies of her pleasure in the heiress’s good fortune. Of course, she was well aware that neither of them believed a word she said. Their important news disgorged and her reply recorded for transmission to the waiting ears of their clientele, the ladies suddenly remembered another engagement and hurried off, leaving behind a Louisa convulsed with laughter.

Yes, Atherton had been right about the exquisite, but Louisa could not be sure about Lord Harvey. Certainly, aside from the merest forms of courtesy, she had done nothing to encourage the man. And many times Aunt Julia engaged his full attention. The thought did cross Louisa’s mind that perhaps Aunt Julia was the object of Lord Harvey’s partiality. But then she laughed at herself.  She was beginning to think matrimonial thoughts about everyone.

Lady Constance appeared quite often, and Atherton too was in and out regularly. He was, as he said with that quizzical lift of his eyebrow, seeing to young Harry’s education as a gentleman.

One night in early June, Louisa again descended the staircase in the gown of cream silk. With Aunt Caroline and Naomi’s help she had slightly altered it and hoped it would now serve for an evening at Drury Lane.

Lady Palmerton had sent round her footman with the message to be ready. She and Atherton would stop with the carriage. Lady Constance had not
asked
if Louisa desired to attend the theater; quite probably the thought of doing so had not occurred to her. But for this time at least Louisa was glad of the invitation.

She had the payment for
Love in the Ruins
and the writing of
The Spectral Hand,
the tentative title of the story of Percival and Corrine, would soon put another one hundred pounds in her pocket. And even if things had not been going well, Louisa admitted to herself, the prospect of an evening in the company of Atherton was too good to resist.

  At the bottom of the staircase, the Viscount stood waiting. Louisa’s heart fluttered at the sight of him, so lean and dark. His corbeau-colored coat stretched so tautly over his broad shoulders that she could see the muscles ripple as he turned. His cravat had that look of elegant haste that took the beaux so long to achieve. His breeches of black florentine silk and his black silk stockings set off well-muscled legs. Her heart beat erratically at the sight of him.

He had turned at the sound of her footsteps on the stairs, and Louisa, feeling those dark eyes on her so intently, knew that the color was flooding her cheeks. Every time he looked at her in that intimate way she remembered how she had surrendered her body to him in the waltz.

Then she reached the bottom of the stairs and the Viscount took the shawl from her arm and put it round her shoulders. “Constance is in the carriage. I’m afraid she is rather in a huff with me,” said his lordship with a lazy smile. “I insisted upon us being at the theater in good time. Since this is your first appearance there and since I take it you wish to attend to the performance, I wanted you to see it from the beginning.”

“Thank you,” said Louisa, as tucking her arm through his, he escorted her to the carriage and helped her in.

“Good evening, Lady Constance,” said Louisa with a smile, hoping that her patroness’s ire would not extend to her.

“Good evening, Louisa,” replied Lady Constance petulantly before she turned to her brother. “Really, Philip, you are absurd. No one will be at the theater at this unfashionable hour.”

The Viscount merely smiled good-naturedly. “Jonson’s
Every Man in His Humour
has not been acted these fourteen years,” said he. “Except during the Old Price riots when no one could hear it. I do not think it extremely unkind of me to wish to see it in its entirety. You know that I attend the theater to watch the performance, not to ogle and be ogled.”

“Nevertheless,” began Lady Constance, and then seeing the Viscount’s face darken, apparently thought better of it and lapsed into sulky silence.

“If you wished to arrive late, you should have asked Palmerton to accompany you.”

The snort that issued from Lady Constance’s well-bred throat at this comment sounded very like one of Aunt Julia’s. “Philip, you are absolutely abominable. You know that my Palmer-ton abhors the theater. I should never get there at all had I to depend upon his escort.”

“Then,” said Atherton with a slight twinkle in his eyes, “perhaps since you wish to depend upon mine it might be wise for you to observe my wishes in this matter. Abominable as I am, I am a very useful brother.”

  Lady Constance broke into reluctant laughter. “Oh, Philip, you always could wrap a woman around your finger. Beware of him, Louisa, my dear, he is like a little boy when he wants his way.”

“Rather like a hero,” whispered Atherton for Louisa’s ears alone.

“Well, Philip,” said Lady Constance, “since you are dragging me to Drury Lane so insufferably early you might at least tell me something about the play. I suppose I shall be constrained to watch the beginning at least. There will be no one of the first diamond there this early.”

  Atherton smiled. “It is simple enough to understand. In the play every man behaves in his own humor.”

“Philip!” said Lady Constance plaintively. “You know I am not a literary person.”

The Viscount chuckled. “You have learned about phrenology from Aunt Julia.”

“Yes,” replied Lady Constance with such a heart-rending sigh that Louisa had to stifle a giggle.

  “Well, when Jonson wrote this play at the end of the sixteenth century, humors were a way of explaining man’s character. It was perhaps the phrenology of its age, though rather more widely accepted than Aunt Julia’s science. It was held that there were four fluids entering into the constitution of the body and deter-mining by their relative proportions a   person’s health and temperament.”

“Rather like Julia’s four types,” said Lady Constance.

“Rather so,” agreed Atherton. “The four fluids were blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. They were closely related to the four elements: blood to air - hot and moist; yellow bile, to fire - hot and dry; phlegm to water - cold and moist; and black bile to earth - cold and dry.”

Atherton smiled mischievously at Louisa. “The sanguine man, with a dominance of blood, was beneficent, joyful, and amorous. The choleric man, overwhelmed by yellow bile, was easily angered, impatient, obstinate, and vengeful. The phlegmatic man was dull, pale, and cowardly. And the melancholic man, overcome by black bile, was gluttonous, backward,  unenterprising,   thoughtful, sentimental, and affected.”

“I see,” said Lady Constance with a sparkle in her eyes. “Much of Julia’s science is not so very new after all.”

Atherton chuckled again. “Quite true. But let me counsel you, sister dear, not to advise
her
so.”

“Yes, please. Lady Constance,” added Louisa hastily. “Her science is all she has.”

  Lady Constance chuckled. “If either of you believes that I would venture to contradict the inestimable Julia, you have something missing in your upper story.”

“My upper story is quite well-supplied -with bumps,” said Atherton, sending the other two off into a fit of the giggles. How was it, Louisa wondered momentarily, that she should so often feel lighthearted in Atherton’s presence?

Suddenly Louisa was startled by the stopping of the carriage. The ride had seemed so very short. As Atherton helped her descend, she glanced around her. In spite of Lady Constance’s fears of being the only person there, Drury Lane was crowded with carriages. The street echoed with the voices of coachmen, the clatter of hooves, and the rumble of wheels. Smart equipages disgorged ladies and gentlemen, all dressed to the teeth, and glittering with jewels and decorations that blazed in the light of the lamps.     Unconsciously Louisa cast a glance at her gown; and, Atherton, seeming to understand her fears, said quite softly, “You have nothing to fear from the competition tonight. You look quite becoming.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, very glad that Lady Constance had still to be helped from the carriage.

  Then, offering them each an arm, he guided them deftly through the crowd and inside to their box. The pit was rapidly filling up, Louisa saw as she looked down. She was eager to take in everything for she had never before attended the theater. Mama had often spoken of it, but as she would never go without Papa and as Papa was most often in India, Louisa had never been given the chance to attend.

With curious eyes she regarded the blue and white colors of the boxes. Curiously she looked at the front of the box across the way, trying to make out the figures in the scene of the cameo raised on it in white on a cornelian background. As she was carefully considering the scene, trying to decide if she could place it, she became aware that a man in the box, a man dressed simply and yet having a decided aristocratic bearing, was staring at her through his quizzing glass. In surprise Louisa drew in her breath.

Beside her, Atherton chuckled. “If you are going to ogle Castlereagh, you must expect to be ogled back.”

“But I wasn’t,” protested a blushing Louisa. “I was trying to decide if I knew the scene on the front of the box.”

  “The scenes are from Ovid, painted by Rebecca,” said Atherton. “But I much doubt that Castlereagh would believe such a Banbury tale.”

“Philip!” Louisa found herself blushing again and was very much aware that, in the light of the great cut-glass chandeliers that hung from wrought-iron branches between the boxes, her countenance must be clearly visible.

“Come, Louisa,” said Atherton gravely. “If you are going to be one of the
ton,
you must accustom yourself to be ogled. Besides, in that gown you are quite the first stare of fashion. Castlereagh is no novice in the butterfly line. He knows quality when he sees it. Ogle him back.”

“Philip! I cannot.”

“Come, come,” said he with a grin. “You must learn to stare a man down. Every lady learns to do it. It may some day serve you a good turn with the pomposity.”

Louisa shook her head. “I doubt that
he
would notice.”

“Well,” suggested Atherton, “if you cannot ogle him back you might at least regard our invincible foreign secretary.”

  In spite of herself Louisa’s eyes strayed back to the box across the way. Fortunately, Lord Castlereagh had directed his attention elsewhere. He appeared to be tall and handsome, Louisa thought, with hair brushed simply. As she watched he turned to the woman beside him and spoke with such charm that Louisa, though she could not hear his words, felt sure they had contained a compliment.

“Does he not look like a hero?” said Atherton softly.

Louisa jumped, startled. “I ... I do not know.”

“He is not popular with a great many people,” observed the Viscount. “But he served us well in the matter of the Irish Rebellion in ‘98. And even more so in his selection of Wellington as the man to crush Boney. They say that he never loses his temper. In negotiation his manner is one of courtierlike suavity and invincible resolution. And he is a man of principle. No amount of coercion, of talk of expedience, of pressure from any area, can swerve him.”

Louisa looked at the statesman again. His position, she thought, was not an enviable one.

The noise from the pit rose higher and higher; the sound of squabbling voices, of catcalls, of men cracking nuts, rose to assail her ears. “Is it always this noisy?” she asked.

  Atherton nodded. “Always. Most of the
ton
have as little regard for the performance as those in the pit. But eventually you may learn to disregard their clamor.”

“Have you seen Kean before?” asked Louisa.

Atherton nodded. “He has a great talent, that man. If only he does not burn out.”

“What have you see him do?” asked Louisa with interest.

“Oh, just about everything he has essayed. Earlier this year I saw him as Bajazet in
Tamerlane,
Duke Aranza in
Honeymoon,
Sir Giles Overreach, the Duke in Massinger’s
Maid of Milan.
He is very good with Shakespeare’s creations. I’ve seen him as Shylock, Richard III, Othello, Iago. Hamlet, and Macbeth. I have followed his career from its beginning.”