The Dreadful Debutante (7 page)

Ordering Mrs. Anderson curtly to carry her fan and shawl, she made her way to the ballroom.

To her annoyance the first dance was claimed by some elderly colonel who bored her with military matters when they met during the figure of the dance. During the promenade she reminded him gently that talk of wars and battles was not suitable for gentle ears, to which the elderly colonel glared at her and said, “Forgot. Beg pardon. Trouble is, I was talking to a vastly intelligent girl the other night, Miss Mira Markham. Forgot the rest of you were dim as parish lamps.”

With irritation coloring her cheeks Lady Jansen sat down again. But her heart surged as the marquess approached her and asked her to dance. And it was the waltz. For a few moments she was so wrapped up in rapturous dreams of being the next Marchioness of Grantley that it was with a start she realized he was actually talking to her. “Why did you spread that gossip about Mira Markham?” he was asking.

Her eyes flickered uneasily. Useless to deny it. Mrs. Gardener would say firmly that she had been the source. She manufactured a light laugh. “It was too amusing an on-dit, my lord, and Mira Markham has already been socially damned.”

“I had your word you would not gossip,” he said roundly. “Fortunately no one believes the gossip. My mother wishes you to cease calling on her. You nearly ruined the reputation of one young lady.”

She could not think what to say. She felt absolutely wretched. Misery made her movements wooden. He did not promenade with her, but as soon as the waltz was finished turned and walked abruptly away.

Then she found herself confronted by a very angry Mrs. Gardener. “How cruel of you to tell me such lies,” cried Mrs. Gardener in her shrill, piercing voice. And then over her shoulder Lady Jansen saw that the dowager marchioness of Grantley had arrived.

“I did not lie,” she said. “Come with me and hear the truth from his own mother.” Not only did Mrs. Gardener follow her to where the marchioness sat but a curious little group of fellow gossipmongers tagged along as well.

Lady Jansen confronted the elderly dowager marchioness. “Do tell Mrs. Gardener, dear Marchioness, that your son did admit to going on a curricle race with Mira Markham as his tiger.”

It was between dances. Her voice carried. Suddenly it seemed as if everyone was listening avidly. The dowager’s old voice was as clear as a bell. “Nonsense,” she said. “I have never heard such a farrago of lies. Be off with you. Our friendship is at an end.” She looked about her and shook her head. “Poor woman. It’s the laudanum, you know. Addles the wits.”

Mrs. Anderson, standing behind her employer, felt a surge of pure glee. Heads were bent, whispering and whispering. Mira Markham was beginning to appear in the eyes of society as a fascinating figure. After all, she was someone who had excited enough jealousy in Lady Jansen’s bosom to make that normally staid lady tell terrible lies about her. Debutantes eyed Mira’s hitherto despised cheekbones and decided to throw away their wax pads and perhaps go on the fashionable diet of steak, potatoes, and vinegar.

The marquess was beginning to feel sorry for Lady Jansen. He felt he had been too hard on her. It had, after all, been a delicious piece of gossip that Lady Jansen had innocently repeated. All society gossiped, and it was his own fault for having told his mother about Mira in front of a lady to whom he had been newly introduced. That Lady Jansen had used the gossip to try to ruin Mira was a Gothic idea. One had only to look at her. Such a respectable and sensible lady could not stoop to such depths. And much as the marquess, like everyone else, despised Mrs. Gardener, it was still very unfair to damn the woman so. After a shamed Lady Jansen had resumed her seat, the marquess joined his mother. “I fear I have been too harsh on Lady Jansen. I presented her with an irresistible piece of gossip.”

“Well, you have shamed her in public, and so have I,” said his mother, “and I do not feel comfortable about it at all.”

The marquess made up his mind. “I shall take her in to supper and look so well pleased with her that society will begin to think it was all a joke.”

Mira danced with partner after partner but never with either Charles or the marquess. The one would have enchanted her and the other reassured her, she thought, feeling suddenly friendless. But the marquess would no doubt take her up for the supper dance, and then they would eat together and chat away, and she would bask in the envy of less fortunate debutantes and be able to forget about Charles for just a little.

When the supper dance was announced, she waited hopefully, but Charles asked Drusilla, and to her amazement the marquess approached that stately lady whom the gossipmongers had told her had been the real source of the gossip against her, that Lady Jansen, and took her onto the floor. She forced a smile on her face when elderly Colonel Chalmers bowed before her. “I don’t see why the young fellow should have all the fun,” he said. Mira liked the colonel and so forced herself to dance prettily and to entertain the old boy so well during supper that she succeeded in looking as if she did not have a care in the world.

The marquess, for his part, was enjoying the undemanding company of a grateful Lady Jansen. She was experienced enough to draw him out and get him to talk about himself and his estates. She appeared to have a great knowledge of agriculture, a subject she actually loathed but quickly divined was close to the marquess’s heart. The marquess gallantly apologized for having been so rude to her, saying that he should have known a lady of such good nature and good sense would never deliberately set out to destroy the reputation of a “little girl” like Mira.

But the evening for Mira was not a total disaster, for Charles said he had secured permission to take her driving. She barely slept that night, wrapped up in rosy dreams of soon being alone with Charles as in the old days.

How long the next day seemed before that precious drive! Gentlemen she had danced with the night before called to pay their respects.

She fussed over her dress and kept running to the window to look anxiously at the sky, which was cloudy and overcast. An irritating little wind was blowing straw along the street.

When it was time to descend to the drawing room, she felt quite exhausted with lack of sleep and the effort of trying on one outfit after the other. Charles looked incredibly remote and handsome. She could feel her newfound confidence ebbing. She tried to remember what the marquess had said about moral courage and not focus on petty things, like how the damp air would make her wretched hair even more frizzy.

Charles talked politely of this and that as he drove her to the Park. She tried to tease him in the old way, but he appeared not to hear what she was saying or he chose not to. When they reached the Park, he bowed to various acquaintances and friends, and Mira fell silent. But when they were making the round for the second time, he said, “The reason I asked you to come with me, Mira, is because I wish to talk to you privately.”

Her mercurial spirits soared. She turned shining eyes up to his face. “Oh, and I have longed to be private with you, dear Charles,” she said.

But he went on in a flat, even voice. “The fact is this, Mira: I am about to propose marriage to Drusilla. I worship her and can think of no greater happiness in life than that she should be my bride.”

A spot of rain fell on Mira’s cheek. It felt like a tear. She found her voice. “I hope you will be very happy, Charles.”

“I hope so, too. Now your sister is a gentle creature, delicate as a flower. She has told me how worried she is about your behavior. You must try to be supportive to her, Mira, and put your hoydenish ways behind you. There is still a boldness about you that can do nothing but displease. I am sure you will not mind my speaking to you like this, for I have always regarded myself as an older brother to you. Try for a little more maidenly modesty. And do not take the flattering attentions of Grantley too seriously. He was merely amusing himself by bringing you back into fashion. I notice he did not dance with you last night. There are plenty of young men at the Season more of your age.”

“The marquess is not much older than you, Charles.” Mira bit her lip to fight back the tears.

“But too worldly and experienced and sophisticated a man for a child like you, Mira. It is threatening rain. So I am soon to be your brother-in-law, Mira. Think of that!”

And Mira did think of it all the way home as her poor head ached and the alien and hostile world of London lay all about her. She realized that despite Charles’s interest in Drusilla, she had hoped and dreamed that he would marry
her.
Before they reached home, she said in a small voice, “I cannot see Drusilla as an army bride, Charles.”

He smiled complacently. “Nor I. Such a gentle flower must not be bruised by a barracks life. I am selling out.”

Perhaps it was that simple statement that made Mira suddenly realize how ridiculous her dreams had been, for Charles had loved his life in the army, and here he was, prepared to sacrifice everything for the love of Drusilla.

She thanked him politely for the drive. He said he would not accompany her indoors but would probably see her on the following day after he had proposed to Drusilla—and, hopefully, he said with a shadow of his former boyish grin, been accepted.

Mira curtsied low and then ran up the steps. She went straight to her room, slumped in an armchair by the window, and stared unseeingly in front of her. She wished now that the gossip about her had stuck and that she had been banished to the country. There she could ride and go on walks and talk to the townspeople.

They were to go to the playhouse that evening. Mira knew that Charles would have asked her parents’ permission to call the following day to propose to Drusilla and that they would talk of little else during the evening, and so she roused herself to call the maid and say she had a headache. Then she allowed the maid to undress her and put her to bed.

But she lay awake, listening to the sounds of the house and then the sounds of departure. When she heard the family carriage drive off, she roused herself from bed. She manufactured a dummy of herself from the bolster, a cushion, and a nightcap. She had sworn never to wear masculine clothes again, but she was hurting badly and craved the marquess’s comfort and advice. She would change and go round to Grosvenor Square and perhaps catch him as he was leaving for the evening.

Somehow, to her, her masculine dress did not feel at all disgraceful in the evening, for London had that hectic nighttime feeling it always had in the West End as society set out to drink and dance and gamble the night away.

She had expected him to be there, perhaps just getting into his carriage or walking out to his club, but his house had a shuttered air. She walked slowly round to the mews at the back and shoving her hands in her pockets approached a loitering groom and asked him which was the marquess’s carriage. “Several of them,” said the groom. “Taken the closed one out tonight to the playhouse.”

Mira ambled off, feeling more miserable than ever. If she had gone to the playhouse with her family, then she might have had the opportunity of a few words with him. Still, she might be able to see him after the performance. She began to walk in the direction of Drury Lane.

She walked up and down the waiting carriages until she recognized the marquess’s tiger, Jem. He was lounging against a closed carriage, talking to a coachman. Mira crept around the far side of the carriage and opened the door. She crawled inside and gently closed the door behind her, wrapped a huge bearskin carriage rug about her, and lay on the floor. The time dragged on. There was the play, and after the play there would be a farce or a harlequinade.

The misery of the day overcame her, and she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The marquess entered his carriage and then started in surprise as his foot struck the bearskin rug on the floor and it emitted a startled yelp. He pulled it aside, and in the flickering light of a parish lamp outside the carriage, he saw the white face of Mira Markham staring up at him.

“What are you about?” he growled. “Are you hell-bent on ruining yourself?”

Mira’s eyes filled with tears. “I am so miserable.”

“For heaven’s sake. Get out if you can without being seen, and wait for me at the corner.”

He waited impatiently until Mira had quietly crept out and shut the door behind her, and then he opened the trap in the roof with his sword stick and called to his coachman. “I have decided to walk. Take the carriage home.”

“Raining again, my lord,” called the coachman.

“Nonetheless I will walk.”

He joined Mira at the end of the street and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find somewhere out of the rain where we can talk. I hope you have a good explanation for this scandalous behavior. Will your parents or the servants not miss you?”

“I said I had a headache, my lord, and left a dummy in my bed. They will not notice.”

“Thank goodness for small mercies. Just let us hope no one recognized you. Pull your hat down more over your face.”

Home-going carriages from the playhouse passed them. Lady Jansen looked out, recognized the marquess a little ahead walking in the rain, and debated whether to call to her coachman to stop and then offer him a lift. But her eyes sharpened as she saw the “boy” walking next to him. Surely there was something familiar about that lithe figure. The couple walked under a lamp as her carriage came alongside them. For a brief moment Mira turned her face up to the marquess’s, and Lady Jansen recognized her.