Miss Fellingham's Rebellion (21 page)

Catherine stood there looking at her for one more moment, silently considering her will-o’-the-wisp sister who suddenly seemed made of steel. She laid a kiss on her cheek. “You are a dear sister,” she said before slipping out into the hallway, down the stairs and out of the house.

Unused to being on the streets of London without her maid, Catherine decided to go straight to the lending library after all. It was a route she was familiar with, and as much as she longed to explore the city, she knew it wasn’t safe for a woman alone, even in the middle of the day.

She had been looking through the stacks for twenty minutes when she heard a voice say, “Why, there’s my new friend, Miss Fellingham. Come along, Cecilia, you simply must meet her.”

Recognizing the musical trill of the beautiful Clarise Menton, Catherine turned around with a ready smile on her face. “Hello,” she said, happy to have a distraction. As she browsed through the books, she had contemplated running home and confronting Deverill, an impulse she knew she’d regret should she indulge it.

“What do you have there?” Miss Menton asked, looking at the novel in Catherine’s hand. “
The Mysteries of Udolpho
. Really, my dear, I must insist that you put that right back. Atrocious book.”

“I liked it,” said the woman next to her. She had blond hair and brown eyes in direct contrast with her sister’s appearance, but they looked enough alike that one could tell they had the same parentage. “And I think you should read it, Miss Fellingham.”

Miss Menton took the book from Catherine’s grasp. “Don’t listen to my sister. She positively adores the gothics. The silly thing loves being frightened by ladies hiding under ethereal veils of lace.”

“Oh, pooh, you’re going to give away the whole book.”

Catherine listened to this interchange with a growing sense of amusement. The two sisters had the easy affection that she and Melissa shared. “I think I shall leave the book for now since I still have
The Italian
at home.”

The younger Miss Menton cheered. “There, you see, Clarise, she has taste after all. I knew I would like you from the moment I laid eyes on you. You have such pretty hair. We haven’t been introduced, but I am Cecilia. It is very nice to meet you.”

Catherine assured her that the pleasure was likewise hers and asked them what they were doing there.

“We just stopped in on the way to the milliner. We are going to buy Cecilia a new bonnet by a Madame Claude, I believe she’s called. To be honest, I am not quite sure where we are going. I just follow Cecilia around. All our shopping excursions consist of my following Cecilia around,” Clarise explained amiably. “Though I don’t know why she needs a new bonnet. I could have sworn she already has a million.”

This drew a laugh from Catherine. “I know. My sister is exactly the same.” Thinking of Evelyn and being more in charity with her than she’d been in years, possibly ever, she asked if she may come along.

“That would be delightful,” Clarise said.

“It shall be like a party,” added her sister. “I do so love shopping parties.”

“Well, if Catherine is ready…” Clarise looked at her inquiringly.

“Oh, yes, I am not taking any books.”

“And your abigail?” Clarise asked.

Catherine blushed and confessed in a whisper, “I didn’t bring one.”

“Good for you,” applauded her new friend. “I hate having to bring one everywhere, and as soon as I can unload this piece of baggage on some unsuspecting young man, I am going to stop. I maintain the proprieties only for Cecy’s sake.”

“That’s very good of you,” said her sister good-naturedly as they climbed into the coach. “I know how trying this must be for you, to go to parties and balls and picnics in the park.”

“My sister thinks I’m a curmudgeon,” Clarise said.

Cecelia shook her head in denial. “Not curmudgeon, a misanthrope.”

Once they arrived at the milliner, Catherine watched with amusement as the two sisters bickered happily about gaily colored hats. After Cecilia had picked an assortment and Clarise agreed to choose one for herself, Catherine asked for their help in selecting an ostrich-plumed bonnet for Evelyn.

The two women had impeccable taste, and Catherine left with a crowned bonnet in the Coburg style, adorned with jonquil-colored ostrich plumes that she thought Evelyn would adore. She paid for the hat with her pin money and collected her package.

On the way out to the carriage, Clarise said, “Catherine, why don’t you let our footman drop the hat off at your house and you come for tea at ours?”

Catherine fell in with the plan wholeheartedly, causing Cecilia to cheer. “Oh, what a perfect day it has been. I’ve got several new hats that make me look ravishing, and our new friend has agreed to have tea with us.”

Catherine gave over her direction and the packages to an eager footman and climbed into the coach.

“I noticed, my dear,” said Clarise, “that you paid for the hat out of your pin money. It is not safe for a woman to walk around with such a large sum, especially if she is unaccompanied.”

“I realize that, of course, but I forgot I had so much with me,” she said before explaining the origins of her ill-gotten gains. “I won it gambling, you see.”

To Cecilia, her confession was the best of all things wonderful. “How marvelous. I’ve never gambled. I’ve only played whist for ha’penny a point, but that’s such a trivial amount it might as well be nothing. Clarise, however, is a great gambler.”

Catherine looked at the pretty blond woman, shocked by the idea of her frequenting gambling dens like the hell she went to. “You are?”

Clarise laughed. “I assure you, it’s not what you think. I’m an investor. I buy stocks in companies on the ’Change—that is, the London Stock Exchange—and when they do well, we get paid dividends. I tell Cecy that it’s like gambling.”

Although she had thought Clarise was interesting before, Catherine now found her fascinating. She had never before met a lady who was capable of creating her own income. Indeed, she didn’t know that such a marvelous thing was possible. “How do you do it?”

“When I find a company that interests me, I ask my solicitor to gather as much information on it as possible,” Clarise explained. “Then I read through the materials, and if I decide the company’s policies are sound, I go to the man at the bank in the City and have him transfer the funds.”

Catherine was agog at how easy she made it sound and could scarcely credit that anyone, let alone a gently bred female like Clarise, could effortlessly pull off such an arrangement. “And this is how you supplement your income?” The question, of course, was decidedly unbred, and if Lady Fellingham were in the carriage, she would be appalled by her daughter’s lack of etiquette. At the same time, she would lean in to hear the answer and shush anyone who impeding her listening.

“Not really supplement,” Clarise said. “By and large, it is our income.”

“Clarise is so very good at it,” Cecilia said proudly.

To Catherine, the independence provided by the successful purchase and sale of stocks seemed fantastical. She could not imagine attempting such a scheme, and yet she couldn’t imagine
not
attempting it either. “Do you think you could teach me how to buy stocks?”

Clarise nodded her head. “Of course. It is naught but a trifle to buy them. The challenging part is selecting the right companies to invest in. It requires a copious amount of research and a lot of dreary reading, but in my experience, the reward of picking correctly more than makes up for the drudgery. It does take some practice, however, to get a feeling for which companies are good and which are bad,” she cautioned. “I made some rather egregious mistakes in the beginning and brought us very close to Dun territory.”

Considering how close her family already was to Dun territory, Catherine was not much alarmed by Clarise’s warning and thought that the ’Change might be the answer to all their problems. If she could make enough money trading stocks to compensate for her father’s losses at the gambling table, then her mother could stop worrying and she could save for her own establishment.

These happy thoughts were almost enough to banish Deverill from her mind completely and, much diverted, Catherine went to tea with the Menton sisters.

Lady Fellingham had been keeping watch at the drawing room window, so it was no surprise that she met her daughter in the hall the second she crossed the threshold. Catherine had barely a moment to remove her pelisse before she was dragged into the parlor by her irate mother. Although she knew a long tirade was forthcoming—indeed, she couldn’t remember seeing her mother so angry before—she kept to her original plan and professed complete ignorance.

“But, Mama, what can the matter be?” she asked as she watched her devoted parent pace agitatedly back and forth. “Is something wrong with Melissa or Evelyn? Freddy hasn’t gotten into one of his scrapes again?” She took a seat, tilted her head and waited for an answer.

Lady Fellingham looked at her daughter for a long moment, seemingly incapable of coherent speech, then resumed her pacing and muttering under her breath. At one point she raised a fist into the air as if trying to plant a facer on an imaginary opponent. At least Catherine hoped it was an imaginary opponent and not she.

“Speak up, Mama,” she said. “I can’t hear you.”

“You ungrateful child,” her mother screeched, finally abandoning her frenzied movements and throwing herself on the divan with a hefty sigh. “I was asking God why I must be so afflicted with such ungrateful daughters.”

Catherine considered her mother’s pose for several seconds while thinking of what to say. Of course she didn’t want to distress her mother further—Lady Fellingham had been through a trying and no doubt tragic day—but she could not alter reality to appease her mama, as much as she wished she could. She therefore stayed with the course of action already begun. “Please, tell me what has happened.”

Lady Eliza Fellingham snorted. “As if you don’t know!” she cried, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes. “As if you don’t know.” Her tone was more wretched than angry.

“Really, Mama, I am all at sea.” She sat down next to her on the divan, patted her shoulder in comfort and held out a handkerchief. “Please dry your eyes and we will talk about this. I am sure whatever Evelyn has done, it can’t be that bad.”

“Evelyn?” Lady Fellingham applied the kerchief to her tears. “Why, that girl was a perfect angel. I won’t have you saying one word against her.”

Now Catherine was terribly curious about what had transpired in her absence. “Very well then, tell me what has happened.”

“Lord Deverill happened,” said her mother angrily, “just as he said he would. Imagine my surprise and horrified dismay when Caruthers told me you were nowhere to be found. That you must have gone out without telling anybody.” She threw her hands into the air as if pleading with God again to explain her misfortune. “Gone out. You wretched, wretched child. What could you have gone out for?”

“Lord Deverill,” Catherine asked quizzically, impressed by her own skill as a thespian. One would never know she’d spent the entire afternoon dreading this conversation. “Lord Deverill was here today?”

“Well, of course he was,” her parent snapped. “He said he would come last night. How can you not remember? He returned you to my side after you danced, and he expressly said that he would see you tomorrow. I don’t know what to do—”

“Where is she?” Melissa burst into the room with no regard for her mother’s nerves. “Caruthers said she was— Oh, there you are, Cathy.” Her bright eyes found her on the divan. Melissa grabbed her sister’s hand and dragged her to the door. “Come, we must talk.”

“You are not taking your sister anywhere.” Lady Fellingham rose swiftly to her feet and planted herself in front of her daughters. “She and I are not done talking.”

Melissa’s lips pursed in disgust at having to wait for her conversation with Catherine, but she ceased her tugging and dropped onto the settee.

Witnessing this display, Lady Fellingham, her patience already worn thin, said sharply, “Melissa, a lady does not toss herself around as if she were a rag doll. It is unbred.”

“I’m sorry,” she said sweetly, then made a face as soon as her mother’s back was turned.

Catherine hid a smile, then straightened as her mother launched into another lecture about disobedient daughters who don’t stay where they are put. Lady Fellingham was in the middle of reciting for the third time the awful moment when Caruthers had made her understand that Catherine was gone when Catherine reached the end of her tether. She simply couldn’t listen to the narration yet again.

“Mama, I am so very sorry that I forgot Lord Deverill was calling today. Somehow it completely slipped my mind.” She wrapped her arms around her mother, enveloping her in a hug. “Please don’t be cross with me. I didn’t mean to cause you such distress.”

But Lady Fellingham wasn’t having any of it. She remained rigid in her daughter’s embrace and refused to unbend even the slightest. “I’m afraid that’s paltry and inadequate, and we shall stay here until you provide an explanation that satisfies me.”

That her mother would hold her ground so staunchly was an unexpected development. The kindhearted lady was usually swayed easily by shows of contrition and affection. She’d rant and rail, of course, and howl like the roof had come off the building, but show her a little love and all was instantly forgiven. Catherine had seen Freddy do it a hundred times. “Very well,” she said, releasing her mother and sitting down next to Melissa. “But I have no explanation other than Lord Deverill’s visit slipped my mind, as I said. You aren’t usually so untrusting of me.” She directed her eyes to the floor in an attempt to look repentant but peeked at her mother out of the corner of her eye. Was she beginning to relent just a tiny bit?