Smugglers' Summer (3 page)

Ada, a red-cheeked, middle-aged woman whose grim face hid her absolute devotion to her mistress, riffled through the row of gowns.

“There’s the dark blue,” she offered, “though with your dark hair and brown eyes, miss, ‘tis not the best colour. Or this grey figured silk that Miss Julia wore when her great-uncle died and left her all that money. There’s a pelisse goes to it, of lutestring as I call to mind, grey and white striped. Aye, here it is.”

“It is certainly more practical. But can you spare it, Ju?”

“Certainly. I have no more rich great-uncles waiting in the wings.”

“Let me take your measure, miss. ‘Twill be done in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

In her petticoats, a large, warm shawl wrapped about her shoulders, Octavia watched the abigail bear the gown and pelisse off to the sewing room, and with them a grey velvet bonnet with white ostrich feathers which needed new ribbons. She joined her cousin by the fire.

“It is very smart,” she said with a sigh, “but at least the colour is unobjectionable. Mama would have accused me of setting up for a Bird of Paradise in that yellow. She has worn black as long as I can remember.”

“Enough to give you the megrims. Octavia, is Mr Wynn often at your house?”

“Often enough for Papa to wonder whether he might take his last daughter off his hands.”

“Oh, no, cousin, has he indeed shown a decided preference for you?” Julia was horrified.

“Not in the least. Nothing beyond common courtesy. He knows how to make himself pleasant in company, and as he is younger than most of Papa’s friends we have seen a deal of each other. I do not consider him as a suitor, I assure you. Nor ought you, my dear, for he has certainly no more than a modest competence which must be quite unacceptable to the family of an heiress."

“Fustian! I did not look to hear you talk so. I have enough for two to live on in perfect comfort, so why I should marry a fortune I cannot understand. I suppose you will not call Mr Wynn a fortune hunter?”

Octavia laughed. “No, no. I acquit him of that. He has less interest in money even than Papa, who you know gave up a lucrative legal practice to enter politics because he thought it his duty to fight for the oppressed.”

“That is just how Mr Wynn feels. I had never considered, but he says most gentlemen in politics are looking out chiefly for their own interests, or at least those of their class. He instanced Papa’s support of the Corn Laws.”

“Certainly Lord Langston, with his vast acreage of arable land, must benefit largely from the Corn Laws. On the other hand, why should not Mr Wynn oppose them if he does not?”

“You are too cynical, Tavy. I am convinced Mr Wynn acts only from principle.”

“Let us not quarrel. Tell me who danced with you at Almack’s last night.”

Julia allowed herself to be distracted and regaled her cousin with descriptions of her partners and with the latest gossip. Octavia listened with interest, but was on the whole glad never to have been displayed at the Marriage Mart like a prize heifer at an auction. Not that it would have been of the least use, for even if she had paraded before the cream of the Ton dressed in cloth of gold, none of the gentlemen would have given her a second glance.

Just as she was reaching this lowering conclusion, not for the first time, Ada returned with the grey silk over her arm.

“‘Tis all tacked up, miss,” she announced. “If you will try it on, I can check the fit.”

Octavia cast aside her shawl and stood obediently still while the maid slipped the gown over her head and buttoned it up. It was a little tight about the bust, though less so than her old dress. When she mentioned it, Ada assured her that the seams were wide enough to let out.

“Stand straight now, miss, while I check the hem.” There was a knock on the door. “Ah, there’s the pelisse. Bring it in then, girl. Hold still, Miss Gray, while I stick a pin here, and another here. Now the pelisse. Turn around, if you please. No, don’t look in the looking glass till we’re all done. Off with it all, now. I’ve five girls working on it, Miss Julia. Give me another half an hour.”

“You can stay half an hour, can you not, Tavy? You must. Since clothes are our subject, tell me why Mr Wynn dresses so oddly. Has he not enough income even to dress with propriety?”

“I should be surprised if he even notices what he is wearing, in general. His mind is on matters of greater import."

“He admired my gown most particularly.”

“Oh, dear, he must be more smitten than I’d have thought possible after only two meetings. Pray do not encourage him, Ju. He is not the sort to take a flirtation lightly, and there can be no hope of anything more.”

Julia fell silent, gazing into the flames. Octavia lounged back in her chair and enjoyed the unaccustomed sensation of doing nothing. Rain still beat against the window panes. She would have to take a hackney home, and that would save enough time to allow her to go by Hookham’s and borrow a volume of
Rob Roy.
On Thursdays, being the day she visited Julia, she was not expected to help at home, so there would even be time this evening to read a little, if she could escape early from her parents’ inevitable guests.

All too soon, Ada returned with the altered garments.

“I took the liberty, Miss Julia, of adding this goffered lace down the front,” she said, draping the skirts to fall gracefully over Octavia’s petticoats. “Very slimming, I think, and I’m sure we have a hundred yards of it about the place.”

Julia laughed. “True. I cannot resist lace and cannot use half I buy. How do you like it, cousin?”

Octavia was gazing at herself in the mirror. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “I don’t know if it’s the lace, or just that it is well cut, but I do look a little thinner. Do you not think so?”

“Definitely. Now only think what the yellow would do for you! I wish you will take it.”

“I must not. Let me try the pelisse.”

The grey and white stripes were still more flattering, and the plumes on the hat added an impression of height. Octavia twisted and turned in front of the glass, studying her reflection from every angle.

“It might almost be worth going on a diet of biscuits and vinegar,” she said at last. “I never thought I could look so elegant. Bless you, Ada.” She dropped a kiss on the surprised abigail’s cheek. “Will you ask Raeburn to call me a hackney? I shall go home in style today.”

Chapter 3

The next two Thursday mornings brought notes from Julia with apologies for being otherwise engaged in the afternoon. Octavia was not surprised. The exigencies of fashionable life not infrequently interrupted their longstanding arrangement.

She seized the opportunity to visit Hookham’s, retiring with her spoils to the chamber she had once shared with two sisters but which was now all her own.
Rob Roy
finished, she started on
The Heart of Mid-Lothian,
and discovered the novels of Miss Jane Austen.

Absorbed in her books, and thinking about them when she was not reading them, she found the constant coming and going in the little house in Holborn less irritating than usual. It was easier to resist the temptation to nibble, and though she did not go so far as to try drinking vinegar, she managed to eat less at the endless dinners her parents provided for their acquaintance.

She took in the seams of her new dress where Ada had let them out.

By the third week, the first Thursday in May, she was anxious to see her cousin. She wanted to discuss what she had read with her only intimate friend, and she had missed their walks in the park.

She donned the grey silk, so far worn only to church. Her mother had not even noticed the addition to her wardrobe. It was a sunny day, the sky a clear, pale blue, but the breeze was cool enough to make the pelisse welcome.

Before putting on the bonnet she tidied her hair before the mirror. What would she look like, she wondered, if she had the dark masses, so heavy and difficult to manage, cut short in one of the new styles? Her cheeks were a little thinner, but too pale, almost sallow. She pinched them to give them some colour. Brown eyes gazed into deep brown eyes and she shook her head at herself. No use dreaming of being as beautiful as Julia, but it was amazing what a difference a pretty dress and a few lost pounds made.

Julia was distrait. She listened with half an ear, could not decide whether she wanted to walk in the park, and made no comment on Octavia’s appearance.

Octavia decided sadly that the improvement she had detected must have been imaginary. She could not make out whether Julia was in a pet, in the mopes, or in alt. Sometimes a dreamy smile crossed her lips, sometimes her eyes filled inexplicably with tears, and once or twice a frown creased her smooth forehead.

“Are you unwell?” Octavia asked at last. “I have never known you behave so oddly. Perhaps you have a fever.”

“Am I behaving oddly?” Julia blushed. “I beg your pardon, dear cousin. My thoughts are wandering, but I will call them to order and attend to what you are saying, I promise. You are reading
Sense and Sensibility?
A delightful book. I quite dote on Jane Austen.”

“I told you that at least half an hour ago. Will you not tell me why you are so agitated?”

“I am so happy, Tavy! And so miserable. No, do not press me. I cannot, indeed I cannot talk of it now. I know what your advice must be and I do not want to hear it! Forgive me. Pray say that you forgive me, and let us go to Hyde Park at once. You will not tell Mama?”

“Of course I forgive you,” said Octavia, adding reluctantly, “and I will not tell Aunt Millicent if you swear that you are not ill.”

“Not in the least.”

“But, Ju, whatever you suppose my advice would be, you know that if you are in the briars I will do everything in my power to help you.

Julia hugged her. “I know. I’m not in trouble, not yet. Is it cold out? Wait here a moment while I put on my cloak.” Puzzled and alarmed, Octavia was forced to be satisfied with that meagre reassurance.

The following week, their meeting was again cancelled. Octavia had hoped to persuade her cousin to confide in her; she wrote to her, pleading for an explanation.

Six days passed before she received any response. A footman in the familiar olive-green Langston livery brought a sealed package, and announced that he had orders to wait for an answer. He condescended to grace the kitchen with his presence, an honour which set the Grays’ cook-maid “all of a flutter."

Octavia was in something of a flutter too, as she ran up to her chamber. The package was both larger and heavier than a mere letter might explain. With trembling fingers she opened it.

There was an almost indecipherable note from Lady Langston, begging her to come at once. She could not make out where she was to come to.

There was a line from Lord Langston, enclosing thirty guineas to pay the fare of herself and her abigail to Plymouth.

But she had no abigail, and why was she to go to Plymouth?

And lastly there were several pages in Julia’s hand, liberally sprinkled with blots which, she decided as she read, must be caused by tears.

“Dearest Octavia,

“Your unhappy cousin has been Banished to the dreary wilds of Cornwall. Oh say you will come to lighten my Exile! You are the only Companion my unrelenting father will allow. Little does he know how closely concerned you are in my Downfall, for I have not told him, and Never shall, that it was you who introduced me to my beloved James!”

Octavia paused to admire the style. She had never guessed that Julia had such a turn for the melodramatic. So James Wynn was at the bottom of the mystery. No wonder her advice had not been wanted: it had already been given. She read on.

The rest of the first sheet detailed the growth of Julia’s attachment to Mr Wynn. Remembering the waiting footman, Octavia skimmed over the list of supposedly chance encounters, followed by clandestine meetings attended only by Ada.

“All this time,” the letter continued, “Sir Tristram Deanbridge grew ever more particular in his Attentions until, the evening before I saw you last, he asked Papa’s permission to address me. I told Papa I must have time to consider. He strongly urged Sir Tristram’s suit, and but for James I believe I had accepted him without ado. He is everything one might look for in a Husband, but I do not Love him!

“Papa gave me a week to make my decision. James was Eager to approach Papa in his own behalf but I Dreaded the event and persuaded him to wait. The day came; I told Papa I did not wish to marry Sir Tristram. He asked, did I hold him in aversion? No, said I, but I cannot love him! What is that to do? he asked. You will come to love him after you are married. You do not whistle such an offer down the wind for so feeble a reason!

“Alas, I Weakened! I confessed that I loved Another! How he Stormed when he learned the Object of my Affections! He called my Beloved a Fortune-hunting Scribbler, a Revolutionary, a Penniless Coxcomb, and many other Names, while your Unhappy cousin was an Ungrateful girl who would bring her father’s grey hairs to the Grave.

“I will not weary you with all the Ranting and Tears. Suffice it to say that I am sent down to Cotehele, in Cornwall, an ancient and isolated house belonging to Papa’s relation, the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe. There is no Road hither but the river; I have no companion but Mama, who is laid down upon her bed with the Palpitations since we arrived yesterday; my Beloved I have not seen since that Dreadful Day and he knows not where I am.

“It is given out that I am on a repairing lease in the country, being worn down with the gaieties of the Season. I promised Papa that if he permitted me to write to you, I would not ask you to pass any Message to James, but oh! it breaks my Heart to think that he may suppose I have Cast him Off!

“Dearest cousin, do not leave me to fall into a Decline alone in this Dreadful place. There is no Society here that my aunt might object to. Pray come, Tavy, if you love your Unfortunate

Julia.”

There was one more missive, a twice-folded sheet addressed to “My Sister Gray” in Lady Langston’s hand. Octavia sat tapping it against her hand as she thought.