Mrs. McVinnie's London Season (24 page)

Lord Smeath looked at
him in surprise and shook his head. “An excellent thing, then sir,
an excellent thing. We may need you more on the water than in the
theater, and soon. Come ’round to the Admiralty tomorrow.”

“
My
lord?”

“
It
may be that you will put out to sea again sooner than any of us
supposed. What, cat got your tongue, boy? I seem to recall in the
not-so-distant past a fiery letter from the HMS
Venture
,
asking me what in bloody hell I was doing sending you to
London.”

“
My
lord, I would never be so heedless of your station,” Captain
Summers protested.

It was Lord Charles’
turn to laugh. “Belay it, my boy, and well away somewhere! I never
read a letter so full of unspoken irritation, let us say. And who
can blame you?” He leaned forward and whispered, “We know what
Agatha Smeath is, do we not, and I would rather face a broadside
than escort my sister-in-law to more than one party a year.”

He patted Jeannie’s
hand and released it finally. “How lucky for me that Captain
Summers was not stationed in the West Indies for Larinda’s
come-out, or the Baltic, God spare us! And now, sir, I bid you good
evening. It is time to find my box and fall asleep.”

With a nod to William
Summers and another pat of Jeannie’s cheek, Lord Charles turned and
was gone, making his ponderous passage through the crowd which
parted before him like the waters of the Red Sea under Moses’
advice.

Lady Smeath waited for
them by the stairs, her face full of irritation. She waved a
playbill at her brother-in-law. “It is too bad, William,” she
exclaimed, thrusting the paper under his nose. “Only look there.
Some nobody from the provinces is playing Shylock. Look, brother.
Edmund Kean! Whoever is he?”

“
I am
sure I do not know,” said the captain. “Where is that dratted niece
of mine, now? Ah, yes, Larinda, be so good as to join
us.”

Larinda left her circle
of friends, who clustered about the stairway, their heads together,
arms about one another’s waists. Jeannie ignored them resolutely
and fingered the captain’s necklace.

Larinda hurried to her
aunt’s side and took the lady by the arm in her excitement. “You
cannot imagine, Aunt Agatha,” she said, her voice soft. “Everyone
is buzzing with it. The Beau has arrived at the theater.” She
paused for dramatic effect. “And do you know what?”

“
I
feel endlessly confident that you will tell us,” said the
captain.

“
Do
you know, he is wearing a red rose in his lapel.” She looked about
her in triumph. “I wonder what it can mean. Don’t you wonder, Mrs.
McVinnie?”

Jeannie gritted her
teeth and forced herself to smile back. “I cannot think of a topic
that interests me so little as the color of a rose in a gentleman’s
lapel, Larinda. Surely everyone is not so deeply involved as you
might think.”

“
Oh,
but they are,” Larinda contradicted. “Everyone is aching to
discover what the Beau is up to.”

The captain took Lady
Smeath upon one arm and offered the other arm to Larinda. “Then
perhaps, dear niece, it is a good thing that the unknown Edmund
Kean is performing Shylock tonight. Obviously no one will be
watching.”

“
I am
convinced you are right,” Lady Smeath said seriously as she made
her stately way up the stairs. “This strange turn of events will
occupy everyone’s attention tonight.”

Jeannie could only hold
her tongue and walk in Lady Smeath’s wake, eyes ahead, head high.
The captain looked back at her once and winked. It’s easy for you
to be amused, she thought. You’re not headed for social ruin. You
weren’t so unwise to criticize the entire dandy set to Beau
Brummell’s face.

She was acutely aware
that she was being examined up and down, even though no one stared
at her. There were darting glances from behind fans and the casual
perusal of men in high, starched collars who took her measure
without appearing to go beyond a languid glance about at nothing in
particular.

Well, sirs, let me give
you something to look at. Jeannie removed her cloak and draped it
over her arm. She gave the necklace one final pat and raised her
chin up, secure in the knowledge that if Captain Summers thought
she looked as fine as five pence, then she must. She did not look
down at herself; such an expanse of bosom would only cause her to
quake and blush, and be grateful that the Reverend McDougal of her
Kirkcudbright parish church was not there to huff and puff and tell
her, for the Lord’s sake, to put some clothes on.

Her thoughts very much
centered upon the things of the world, Jeannie followed the others
into the dress circle, down the highly polished corridor, with the
chandeliers winking and turning slightly from the motion of the
strollers passing by, each candle a tiny star in a constellation.
The paneled walls were dark with age and lined with pictures.
Playwrights, poets, and players, Jeannie thought as she moved
along.

The usher bowed them
into the Marquess of Taneystone’s box and left them to their own
devices. Larinda went immediately to the front of the box, preening
herself in studied unconcern where all could see her. Lady Smeath
joined her there, nodding and bowing to her friends in other boxes,
pointing out acquaintances of merit to Larinda.

“
That
gentleman there, Larinda,” she said, and gestured with her chin, as
she smiled at another. “Twenty thousand a year.”

“
But,
Aunt Agatha, he is ancient,” protested Larinda.

“
Only
thirty-four, if memory serves me,” Agatha said as Captain Summers
growled from the back of the box and slung off his cape.

Lady Smeath continued
her perusal of the brightly lit theater. “And do you see that young
man in those ridiculous biscuit-colored pantaloons?”

“
He is
so handsome,” Larinda said.

“
He is
also heavily in debt. Avoid him as you would the
plague.”

Jeannie listened in
silence, thinking of Tom, with no fortune to recommend him, army
pay, and a small house in Kirkcudbright. It was always sufficient,
wasn’t it, Tom? she thought.

Lady Summers concluded
her inspection of the evening’s prospects finally and motioned to
Jeannie to come forward. “Mrs. McVinnie, such a magnificent sight,”
she exclaimed, her mood expansive. “I cannot imagine its equal
anywhere.”

Jeannie approached the
front of the box and looked across the other boxes, her heart
captured by the winking diamonds in tiaras and necklaces, the
shimmering dresses, the waistcoats of various patterns,
crisscrossed by heavy gold fobs, seals, dangling monocles. The air
was heavy with the odor of candle-wax. She looked down. Standing
below in front of the orchestra were others, women in dresses that
appeared molded to their legs, and men who jostled them and
laughed, their eyes looking up to the tiers above, as if searching
for a way out.

“
The
scaff and raff,” Lady Summers said, following her glance. She made
an impatient gesture with her hands. “I do not know why they are
allowed in the theater. They can have no interest in the
play.”

And you do? Jeannie
thought.

Larinda clutched her
mother’s arm. “Look there! To the royal box. Is that not the Prince
himself? And there beside him, Brummell?”

Others had noticed the
arrival of the Prince Regent and Mr. Brummell. For a moment, the
audience hushed its chatter. There were ragged cheers from the pit
and then the hubbub recommenced.

Jeannie looked where
Larinda had gestured, in time to see Beau Brummell raise his
quizzing glass to his eye and train it upon her. Her first instinct
was to step back out of his range of vision, but she did not.
Instead, she dropped a slight curtsy in the Beau’s direction, and
was immediately torn between amusement and exasperation at
herself.

“
Look,
he sees me,” Larinda declared. “Oh, and he does have a red rose in
his lapel. How incredibly droll.” She executed a deep curtsy and
continued to look about. “Over there, do you see? Lord Wassom has
removed his white rose from his coat. And Sir Peter Winthrop also!”
She clasped her hands together. “I would almost be willing to wager
that during the first intermission, they will bolt the theater in
search of a red rose.”

“
They’ll never find one,” Captain Summers said from the back of
the box. He chuckled. “I vow that London’s entire arsenal of red
roses resides at Wendover Square now.”

Jeannie scarcely heard
him. She gazed at Prince George, marveling that a man of such
immensity could stand there so precisely and look so perfectly at
home. And why ever not? she thought. No one would dare snub this
man, surely.

Almost against her
will, Jeannie directed another glance at Beau Brummell and
discovered he still stood where she had last seen him, his glass
trained upon her person. As she held her breath in amazement, the
Beau removed his red rose from his lapel, kissed it, and replaced
it.

Other eyes turned
toward the Taneystone box, and the conversation ebbed and flowed
like waves on a beach. The Beau, unmindful of the chatter about
him, nodded again in her direction and then turned his attention to
some comment from the Prince Regent beside him.

Larinda darted to the
door of the box and let herself out as Lady Smeath watched
fondly.

‘‘
Surely she should not be out there by herself,” Jeannie said.
Lady Smeath only smiled. “Larinda is a high-spirited girl.” She
snapped open her fan. “I am sure you cannot imagine such a thing,
Mrs. McVinnie.”

Jeannie leveled a stare
of her own. “Madam, I have not always been a widow.”

“
Bravo,” came the captain’s voice from the shadows in the back
of the box.

Lady Smeath ignored
him, even though a high flush spread across her neck. She slammed
the fan shut and sat down.

In another moment, just
before the great chandeliers were slowly raised and the lights
dimmed, Larinda swept back into the box. She sat down next to her
aunt. “You cannot imagine it, Aunt,” she said, her eyes dancing,
“but on the curb below is Sir Peter Winthrop, rummaging through a
poor flower girl’s basket, tossing flowers right and left,
searching in vain for a red rose. The man is practically in tears.
And the flower girl is crying and tugging at his sleeve and calling
upon any number of Hibernian saints to stop him.”

“
How
sad,” Jeannie murmured as she sat down.

Captain Summers came
forward and dropped onto the settee beside her. “Sir Peter or the
flower girl?” he asked.

“
Oh,
both,” Jeannie said. She scooted herself forward to the edge of the
settee and looked across at the royal box again. To her
ever-enlarging surprise, Beau Brummell caught her eye again and
blew her a kiss.

The captain watched the
graceful gesture, humor evident in his eyes. “I wonder what he can
be plotting.”

“
We
will likely find out soon enough,” Jeannie replied, her voice
quiet. She leaned back then, focusing her attention on the stage,
where the curtain was slowly pulling back. As Venice slowly
revealed itself before her eyes, her uncertainty lessened. She
thought again of the Beau and his red rose, and she began,
unaccountably, to hope.

I
n a shimmer of light and sound that reverberated like
the tinkle of tiny bells, the chandelier rose higher and higher
until the audience was in semidarkness. A young man, clad in the
rich stuff of a Renaissance merchant, strolled down to the brightly
burning footlights.

“ ‘
In sooth, I know not why I am so sad,’ ” he said, and
gestured toward his friend.

Jeannie sighed. Then
you must be the veriest slow-top, she thought as she unconsciously
edged closer to the captain.

“ ‘…
and such a want-wit sadness makes me,

That I have much ado to
know myself.’ ”

I thought I knew
myself, Jeannie considered. I used to be sensible and modest,
carefully planning out everything, mothering my father-in-law like
an old-maid aunt. She glanced down at her bare expanse of bosom.
Good Lord, I used to wear more than this to bed, she thought, even
when I was married! She forced her attention back to the stage as
Salarino took his turn. “ ‘Your mind is tossing on the
ocean ….’ ”

The captain sighed.
With a quick look at his sharp profile, Jeannie shoved aside her
own dismals. She raised herself up and whispered in his ear. “Did
you ever see two mopers worse than we?” she asked. “I sigh, and
then you sigh, as we wish ourselves elsewhere.”

He did not take his
eyes from the stage as he reached for her hand and raised it to his
lips. “Guilty as charged, madam,” he said finally, “and yet …”
He left the thought incomplete and then he released her hand. “Oh,
I do not know about that.”

Jeannie dragged her
eyes toward the stage again. Likely this time tomorrow evening she
would be on the mail coach again, headed north. Galen had pocketed
the key to the house on McDermott Street, but he had left a spare
with the Reverend McDougal. The reverend would protest and argue
about her being alone, but he would let her in. And he would insist
that she write to Galen, whose sense of honor would compel him to
abandon trout streams far to the north and come to her rescue. I
cannot do that to so kind a man, she thought. Galen has as much
need to forget as I.

She would go instead to
Edinburgh and drop herself on her sister’s doorstep. Agnes would
invite her to stay, of course, and all her nieces and nephews would
be glad to see her, at least until the one whose bed she had
appropriated began to chafe at sleeping on a pallet, or until
Jeannie found herself standing by the window and wishing herself
elsewhere. But where would that be? she asked herself as she
stirred restlessly.