Lady John (10 page)

“Good. Now, I mean to give a ball and several smaller
parties for Bette, and they shall serve to bring you out as well. It will not
be remarked upon in the least; indeed, it is a very proper thing to do. And if
you should meet with Menwin in Town I trust that he will remember how to
comport himself. You will have my backing, after all, and Susannah’s, and
Katherine’s; if Sophy is in Town I make no doubt she will take you up and
patronize you scandalously as well. You must ignore her as much as you can. As for
Julian—”

“With all respect, your Grace, I suspect that so long as
Tylmath remains infatuated with my poor mamma, I will have little to fear from
him. He cannot say anything injurious about me without he puts himself in Mamma’s
bad graces.”

The Duchess smiled. “I more and more see why John married
you. You are not at least bird-witted, and you have a nice streak of malice in
you. Now, we must begin to plan for the Season this very day. You and Bette and
Susannah and I must sit down—with your mamma as well, of course. I should
dislike to have her feel that I was encroaching upon her province. In any case,
we shall sit down together and decide formally on the date of our ball. You
will of course have appeared in society before then, but the ball had best occur
shortly after Almacks opens, for the maximum effect. I only hope the best dates
have not all been taken already. But that’s hardly likely, is it? And in any
case, it will give Emily a chance to publicly show her approval of you and
Bette when Almacks opens. I think we should all arrive in London sometime in
January, late in the month. That would give us time to do our shopping at our
leisure.” The older woman stopped herself abruptly. “You will say something if
I am riding roughshod over plans you have made, won’t you, child? Sue says I am
the most overbearing woman who ever lived.”

“And the kindest,” Olivia added, and leaned to kiss her
mother-at-law’s cheek. “I promise to say so at once if I feel—uh—infringed
upon. Do you promise to listen?”

“If I’m in that sort of mood,” the Duchess sniffed. “We can
look forward to Christmas here with you, I hope?”

Olivia considered. “If we are to be in London in late
January, well, Mamma and I had best pay a call of duty on my aunt and uncle. My
uncle would not care if we made no appearance, but my aunt would refine upon it
till there was no bearing with her: my Aunt Cuppentrice in a fit of ill temper
is a horrid sight, I assure you. She and my mother cannot abide each other, so
we shall spend a pleasant holiday and arrive in London pantingly eager to get
away from my aunt’s condescensions. If we go to Kelleshall in December we can
leave there in January in time to meet in London, and thus Miss Weedwright’s
cousin would not have to vacate his house until January.”

“Splendid. I cannot think why all my sons have not been so
obliging as to present me with daughters-at-law as sensible as you, Livvy.”

“Give them time, ma’am. After all, John is the only one of
your sons yet married, and perhaps he was only lucky!”

o0o

Mrs. Martingale, apprised of the planning which had taken
place in the Duchess’s chambers that morning, far from feeling slighted had
professed herself highly gratified. “I knew she had only to meet you, Livvy.
Indeed, I could not have borne it if you had had no Season in London. And think
what fun we shall have in the warehouses beforehand—thank heaven your year will
be up in December and you can lay off those blacks at last.”

Since Lady John was, at that moment, attired in a becoming
half-mourning gown of dove-gray muslin, she assumed her mother to be speaking
metaphorically.

“And I do think you were right, my love,” Mrs. Martingale
continued. “We shall have to visit Martin and his family at some time, much as
I dislike the thought. But there, perhaps Cordelia Cuppentrice will be so in
awe of your Ladyship that it will stop her nasty tongue altogether. Not that I
think it very likely.”

By the fourth of December, when Lady John and her mother had
been dispatched from Catenhaugh in one of the Tylmath chaises, with the effects
and belongings following after on a heavy-laden fourgon, the Duchess had the
satisfaction of knowing that a notice had already appeared in the
Gazette
announcing a ball to be held by Judith
Honoria, Dowager Duchess of Tylmath, at Tylmath House, Portman Square, in honor
of her youngest daughter, the Lady Elizabeth Temperer, and her daughter-at-law,
the Lady John Temperer (formerly Miss Olivia Martingale, of Hants). The
ton
was urged to save the specified evening for
this important event, and the Duchess was already, happily in contact with any
number of London merchants regarding provisions for the ball.

Both Olivia and her mother, upon comparing notes, found-that
they were genuinely sorry to leave Catenhaugh. Olivia realized that she had grown
very fond of all her new family, always excepting the Duke, and Mrs. Martingale
agreed that they had had a very pleasant visit, and was surprised to find that
she had grown attached to everyone, even, through sheer accustomedness, his
Grace. After a long look back at the house as they drove away, the two women
stared stolidly ahead in their carriage, looking forward to a whole month spent
in the company of Mrs. Martingale’s retiring brother and his all-too-shrewish
wife.

Mrs. Martin Cuppentrice was so awed at the sight of the
chaise that delivered her sister and niece to Kelleshall that for nearly a
fortnight after she was deprived of the ability to nag or quarrel with either
visitor. This did not, however, markedly improve the comfort of their visit, as
the natural pain afforded to a woman married to a gentleman worth £1,000 a
year, when deprived of the ability to condescend to the widow of a man worth
only £900, was expressed by a good deal of muttering and ill-tempered
stompings. Mr. Cuppentrice spent the majority of the Christmas season closeted
in his bookroom, where he would read or occasionally take a hand of bezique
with Lady John. Olivia and Mrs. Martingale ignored, as best they could, Mrs.
Cuppentrice’s ill-natured remarks, consoled themselves in playing with and
amusing the children of the household, all of whom were extremely agreeable
little scamps, and in quiet conversation between themselves and, occasionally,
Mr. Cuppentrice. Several times during their stay at Kelleshall envelopes bearing
the frank of the Duke of Tylmath arrived for Olivia, much to Mrs. Cuppentrice’s
disgust, and it was with a sense of relief that Olivia read the last of these
missives, in which she was informed that Lady Susannah, traveling en route to
London, would come to Kelleshall to take the two ladies to Town with her.

Mrs. Cuppentrice, given this news, was torn between
insincere expressions of sorrow at the brevity of their visit, and frantic
preparations for the arrival of Lady Susannah. Not all Olivia’s persuasion, nor
her mother’s, could convince Mrs. Cuppentrice that the visitor would stay only
so long as to load up the fourgon with their baggage, but, “At least it gives
Aunt Cordelia some occupation,” Olivia sighed to her mother.

Lady Susannah, large and elegantly clad, arrived at
Kelleshall on the twenty-third of January, was ‘my-ladied’ a great many times
by Mrs. Cuppentrice, was introduced to the four oldest Cuppentrice children by
Olivia, was pressed to take a glass of wine while the baggage was being loaded,
and at last bore Olivia and Mrs. Martingale up with her in the chaise and set
off for London.

“Good God, Livvy, did you spend all of a month with that
woman?”

“Nearly two,” Olivia answered ruefully. “And Sue, she was on
her best behavior with you.”

“No.” Lady Susannah shook her head in denial.

“I’m afraid so.”

“We shall have to give you a splendid time in London to make
up for the trials you have suffered, then. Mamma told me to suggest to you that
you come to Tylmath House for the first few days; then you can hire a butler
and cook in comfort, and move into your house in Queen Anne’s Street all
complete. And Tylmath,” she added significantly, “will be from Town until the
end of February.”

Mrs. Martingale blushed.

“It sounds wonderful,” Olivia said, accepting the
invitation.

A whole month, it seemed, could quite easily be taken up in
purchasing some small furnishings for a residence already furnished, and in
visiting warehouses and modistes, plumassiers, shoemakers, milliners,
glovemakers and jewelers, and in finding small items for one’s toilette. Olivia
was shocked to find that the Duchess’s rouge cost four shillings the box, and
even more scandalized when she received the accounts of the butcher, the
chandler, and the grocer. Mrs. Martingale, equally scandalized, took over the
superintendence of household purchases from the butler, who had been used to a
higher standard of living in his old post with a spendthrift baronet now living
abroad to escape his creditors. “No wonder,” Mrs. Martingale sniffed to her
daughter, and by and by she confessed that she was enjoying her tasks as
housekeeper, and had had many long talks with the English cook they had
engaged. Olivia reflected thankfully that there would be no need to soothe Mrs.
Catteral’s feelings in the matter of roasted beef, and allowed her mother to
meddle in the householding to repletion.

And in this fashion March was upon them, more suddenly than
Olivia would have thought possible. Whatever the Duchess and her children had
said, London even out of Season was not dull, and as the opening of Almacks and
the start of the formal Season neared, Olivia and her mother were more and more
engaged. Even through the Lenten season there were dinners and small
receptions, and the week before Easter (and thus the week before the Season
officially commenced) was full of preparations. After all the things she had
heard concerning Almacks Club, Olivia was depressed to find the reality
somewhat flat. Lady Cowper had, with only a little urging from her Grace of
Tylmath, taken a liking to Olivia and given her leave to dance; she had not
lacked for partners; there were murmurs about Tylmath’s beautiful
sister-at-law, and a great many callow young men seemed interested in setting
up flirtations with her, but Olivia owned to Bette the next day that the whole
evening had been a disappointment.

“Thank heaven, I thought I must be out of my mind.” Lady
Bette plumped down in the chair at Olivia’s side with a huge sigh. “All my life
I have heard of Almacks-this and Almacks-that, and I vow, I have been to public
assemblies in Cambridgeshire which were more interesting. All of those stupid
young men—”

“Elizabeth Temperer, not one of those ‘young men’ was under
two-and-twenty,” Olivia reminded her roundly. “At eighteen, you ought not to
give yourself elderly airs.”

“Fiddle. Even Kit is more intriguing...” Bette flounced her
skirts about her petulantly. “I only hope that Mamma’s ball on Monday proves
more interesting, or I shall go back to Catenhaugh and be an old maid and raise
horses!” Lady Bette dropped her chin defiantly onto one upraised palm and
glared into the air. “Livvy,” she said, sometime later, her voice somewhat
changed, “did you see Menwin there?”

Since Olivia had been trying to put the thought of Menwin
completely behind her, without much success, her reply was curt and not very
gracious. “Certainly I saw him. He cut me dead, or very nearly. He was with a
tall, prettyish woman with a very strange air: I could not tell if she was
dreadfully proud or dreadfully bored or dreadfully tired, or possibly all
three. I misdoubt that she saw me, but I assure you Menwin did.”

“What did he do?”

Olivia’s expression was eloquent with disdain. “Saw me,
started to speak or nod at me, then thought better of it and turned his back
upon me completely. And when I saw him later, without the lady, he fixed me
with a glare as if I had come to Almacks specially to put him from countenance.
I loathe him,” she added simply.

“And then?” Bette breathed.

“And then that silly blond boy with the bad teeth and the
outrageous waistcoat came to collect me for the quadrille, and that was that.”
Olivia gave a savage twist to a piece of braid she was making.

“The silly boy is Lord Stoke, and a marquess, Livvy. Menwin
didn’t even speak to you?”

“Not a word.” Olivia wondered briefly if this was perhaps
why the evening at Almacks had seemed so flat. “I wonder who she was.”

“What? Who?”

Olivia fixed her sister-at-law with an exasperated glance. “Haven’t
you heard anything I have said? The tall blond woman with Matthew Polry.”

“You didn’t say she was blond. Anyway, I thought you hated
him.”

“I do,” Olivia agreed firmly, and destroyed the braid with a
final twist.

Eyeing both her friend and the braid doubtfully, Lady Bette
suggested that perhaps they ought to call the carriage out and go to Bond
Street, where Livvy might find some made-up braid which would suit her purpose.
Realizing that Lady Bette was doing her best to cheer her, Olivia assented with
good grace, and shortly the two girls, accompanied by Bliss, were strolling
down Bond Street, looking idly in the windows.

“My dear Lady John!”

Olivia, torn from contemplation of a straw bonnet lined with
green silk and trimmed with apple blossom, turned quickly, seeking the source
of the voice.

“Madam,” it came again. The crowd of passersby contained any
number of exquisites in wasp-waisted coats, high-starched collar points, and
sugarloaf hats, and it was a moment before Olivia realized that her summoner
was the very plainly dressed, extraordinary man standing not five feet away.

“Mr. Haikestill!”

“Lady John, I am happy to see you in such obvious health. I
hope you are enjoying your visit to the Metropolis?”

Olivia’s initial pleasure at recognizing an old acquaintance
from Brussels was dimmed somewhat as she recalled how weary one might become of
Quincy Haikestill’s worthy, wordy manner. However, he had ever done his best to
be a friend to her and her mother, and for that reason if for no other she
resolved to be friendly.