The Great Christmas Ball (11 page)

“Dash it, we ain’t going to live there. The whole town is talking about the new farce at the Coburg. No wonder she hasn’t a beau to her name, when you keep her wrapped in cotton wool.”

“Your sister has made an eminently suitable connection, Gordon. It is Lord Costain I am thinking of. He might dislike to think she is running about town like a hurly-burly girl.”

“If Cathy is a hurly-burly girl, I am a monkey. Costain ain’t such a toplofty article as you seem to think, Mama. He knows a thing or two.”

“Article?” she said, her color rising. “You call the Duke of Halford’s son an
article?”

Rodney scowled and said, “Learn to speak English, my lad. It is what distinguishes man from the animals. In the Foreign Office—”

“I ain’t so sure I will be a diplomat after all.”

“You might do your country a greater service by refraining,” Rodney said with awful sarcasm.

The meal continued in this somewhat fractious manner. Before leaving for the theater, Cathy said, “By the bye, Mama, I have learned a little more of Mrs. Leonard. Her first name is Helena, and she was married once before.”

“How long ago? What was the first husband’s name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Helena,” Lady Lyman said, furrowing her brow. “The name rings a bell. I might remember, given time. Remind me in the morning, dear. I don’t know how it is, but my memory is leaking away on me day by day. It is better for the past than the recent present, however, so there is hope.”

“Ask Rodney,” Gordon suggested. “He hasn’t lost his mind yet.”

“Memory, dear,” Lady Lyman pointed out. “The young are really very poorly spoken these days.”

She closed the door on her youngsters and went to the saloon to prepare for an evening of cards with her close circle of friends, mostly diplomatic widows like herself. It was a Mrs. Leadbeater who remembered Helena Johnson.

“She made her bows the same year as my daughter, Anne. She had no fortune to speak of—two thousand, I think it was. Less than ten thousand ought not to be presented, unless it is a noble family. And she was certainly not noble, but very pretty and forthcoming. She nabbed an aging M.P. Fotherington was well enough off, but an unreliable sort. I seem to recall there was some scandal attached to his death. In fact, he committed suicide, if memory serves.”

“What sort of scandal?” Lady Lyman inquired.

“I believe it happened abroad, so I am not familiar with the details, but I think it had to do with gambling debts. It was around 1802. He was sent to France—what could it have been?”

Lady Lyman ransacked her fading memory and came up with something. “The signing of the Peace of Amiens, perhaps?” she suggested. “We were the only country at war with France then. Boney had been trying to persuade the Russian emperor to form a League of Armed Neutrality with Prussia and some other countries. But then, the emperor, Paul the First I think it was, was assassinated before it came to anything. Nelson had a good success at Copenhagen, and we all thought the war would continue, but Britain was tired of it, and the peace was signed at Amiens.” She looked hopefully to Mrs. Leadbeater.

“Fotherington must have been mixed up in it,” the dame said, nodding. “Several M.P.’s went along to help out with clerical duties. Perhaps he was giving away secrets to the enemy for money to pay his debts. He never came back to London—we heard later he shot himself in the mouth to avoid the shame of prosecution.” A collective frisson went around the table at the image this called up. “Helena disappeared from the face of the earth. I had not heard her name again until tonight.”

“And she is married again, is she?” one of the ladies asked.

“Back, and married to a Mr. Leonard, at the Horse Guards,” Lady Lyman said.

“I don’t know any harm of the lady except that she is forthcoming,” Mrs. Leadbeater said forgivingly. “I mean to say, it is not her fault if Fotherington went astray. Poor gel, left without a penny to fly with. I remember everyone felt sorry for her. She was quite popular. That is my trick,” she said, and scooped up the cards. “Your deal, Lady Lyman.”

The card game continued, and the gossip turned to Lord Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb.

The Royal Coburg lacked the finer amenities of Drury Lane, but it had boxes, at least, and it was to one of them that Gordon planned to take his sister.

“What do you mean, they are all sold out?” he demanded when the ticket seller told him this was the case.

“I could let you have a place in the gallery.”

“The gallery! My good man, I am with a lady!”

“Never mind, Gordon,” Cathy said with a sigh of disappointment. “Perhaps you could buy a seat now for tomorrow night.”

“Dash it, we have had the horses put to. We have crossed the demmed slippery bridge in this filthy cold weather. You cannot expect me to devote every night of the week to obliging my sister. You stay here, Cathy, I shall take a peek into the boxes. I know for a fact Edison and Swinton have a box, for they invited me to go snacks on it with them. They may be able to squeeze us in.”

He nipped upstairs, and Cathy stood alone, feeling more conspicuous than she liked, with the crowd pouring in. The audience was a somewhat motley crew, but there was a good sprinkling of the ton arriving. Before long, Gordon was back.

“It is just as I thought. Edison insists we join him. There is only one empty seat in the box, but I shan’t mind standing. Parker is bound to leave before half an hour. He cannot go a whole night without gambling. Come along. They are waiting for us. You know Edison and Swinton.”

She recognized two of the young gentlemen who rose to make their bows as chums of Gordon’s. Swinton insisted on giving up his seat in the front of the box to Cathy. Three other gentlemen were introduced, but in the confusion she did not catch their names. It felt a little strange to be completely surrounded by black jackets. Cathy feared her presence was restricting their merriment at first, for the most often heard speech was “Watch your language, my good man. There is a lady present.”

The gentlemen soon forgot she was a lady and the box echoed with the boisterous sound of England’s gilded youth, snickering, teasing, and abusing each other in language fit for an Irish chairman. The responsibility of behaving properly fell to her immediate partner, Edison. He was a portly blond with a round face, wearing a cravat that looked as if it had been put on with a pitchfork, and a jacket with padded shoulders. He civilly inquired if she was comfortable two or three times, and when she convinced him she was, his conversation dried up. He turned his glasses on the other boxes and forgot her.

Cathy feared he might fall over the railing when he discovered Miss Stanfield across the hall. In his excitement, he forgot not only his manners but the law of gravity as well. Cathy had to snatch at the tails of his jacket to keep him from tumbling out of the box.

The farce being enacted was an inane thing with less plot than shouting and running about, making faces at the audience. As the females wore daring gowns and the dialogue was not far from lewd, however, the gentlemen enjoyed it very much. Cathy soon became bored and turned her glasses on the other boxes.

She first examined Miss Stanfield, to discover what it was about her that had all the young gentlemen acting like moonlings. She was a petite blond lady with full cheeks, lustrous eyes, and a permanent pout. Her gown was a marvel of lace and ribbons, and her hair was tightly curled. She worked her fan very fetchingly, but for the rest, Cathy found nothing outstanding in her. She supposed it was some spoilt beauty like Miss Stanfield that Lord Costain would marry one day.

When she had looked her fill at Miss Stanfield, she turned her glass along to the next box, and the next, assessing the ladies’ toilettes and the gentlemen’s faces and shoulders. In the farthest box on her left, she discovered Mrs. Leonard, and spent some time examining her.

She really was something quite out of the ordinary. Her palely beautiful face was designed on classical proportions, but it was the expression that caught Cathy’s interest. She was one of those rare ladies whose beauty is enhanced by repose. The evening before she had looked only pretty, but sitting so still in the shadowed box, she looked beautiful, and ineffably sad. Were it not for the diamonds glittering at her throat, she might have posed for a painting of the Madonna by some Renaissance master. She wore a plain dark gown that added more distinction than all of Miss Stanfield’s embellishments. Cathy wished she had such countenance, such poise. Mrs. Leonard was accompanied by an elderly lady.

Cathy wondered if the chaperone might be French. She was about to nudge Mr. Edison and ask for the dame’s name, when a black sleeve came forward from behind Mrs. Leonard, proffering her a box of bonbons. Cathy trained the glasses to see the man’s face. Presumably it would be Harold Leonard. She discovered he was a completely undistinguished man with gray hair. He might have been her father. She espied another man beside the elderly man, and focused her gaze on him. This was more like it! She caught a gleam of black hair, and a handsome profile.

Then the younger man turned, and she recognized the unmistakable features of Lord Costain. He was sitting in Mrs. Leonard’s box! How was it possible? No wonder he never gave herself a second look. What a perfect couple the two of them made. Cathy stared for a long time, then she nudged Mr. Edison’s arm and said, “Who is the chaperone with the beautiful black-haired lady in the corner box? Do you recognize her?”

Mr. Edison trained his glasses in the proper direction and emitted a soft sigh of pleasure. “I haven’t a notion, but the brunette is certainly an Incomparable. I shall ask Swinton. He might know.”

A moment later, Edison leaned over and said, “He don’t know the old lady, but the Incomparable is a Mrs. Leonard. The old duffer behind her is her husband. What a waste!”

“Thank you. I was just curious. I thought I recognized the chaperone.”

“Swinton knows all the beauties. This one ain’t exactly top drawer, but she has them all beat for looks. Caro Lamb is nothing to her.”

“Yes,” Cathy agreed, in a daze.

“I say, Miss Lyman, are you feeling all right?”

“I am fine, thank you,” she said, and attempted a smile. She set her glasses in her lap, in case Costain should see her spying on him.

The shouting from the stage and the laughter of the audience whirled around her unheeded. Costain and Helena Leonard, together. What did it mean? Had he been fooling them all along? Why had he set Gordon the task of following her, since he made little of Gordon’s startling discovery? As she sat, thinking, the answer came to her.

He was Helena’s lover, and he had chosen this underhanded way of having her followed. He wanted to know if she was being unfaithful to her lover as well as to her husband. Well, he had found out, and it served him right!

At intermission she told Gordon what she had discovered. He elected to remain behind with her while their companions went out to strut the halls. It seemed at first that the Leonards and Costain were not going to leave their box. They had arranged for wine to be brought in. The four of them sat sipping their wine and chatting. Cathy and Gordon moved to the shadows at the rear of their own box and watched through their glasses. They noticed that the older lady talked to Mr. Leonard, while Costain entertained Helena. Occasionally Mr. Leonard said a word to them. Poor man. He did not suspect he had a viper in his bosom.

Suddenly Mrs. Leonard stood up. Costain rose and took her arm to lead her from the box. Mr. Leonard and the elderly female companion remained behind.

“Costain has been making fools of us!” Cathy said angrily. “He is her lover, and he suspects she has another. That is why he set you to watch her, to find out who the man is.”

“We don’t know that. You are jumping to conclusions. He wouldn’t be brazen enough to join his lover and her husband. It has got to be innocent.”

“He has the gall for anything. Why did Costain not tell us about this when you asked him what we should do tonight? He felt he was safe, since you told him you would be at your club, and I said I would stay home and write letters. I begin to wonder just why Cosgrave does not trust him with any important work, Gordie. Perhaps Lord Costain put that translation I did for him to some evil use. I have abetted the enemy.”

“If you did, and I don’t believe it for a moment, you were an innocent dupe. They won’t lob off your head for that. I shall nip out and have a word with Leo,” Gordon said.

“No! He must not discover we are on to him.”

Gordon’s youthful face pinched to slyness. “We’ll play a covert game,” he said. “I shall edge up close behind them and see if I can overhear what they are saying. Pity I left off my disguise.”

Cathy felt a nearly overwhelming compulsion to go along with her brother, but common sense deterred her. One black jacket was much like another. Gordon might manage to overhear them without being noticed among the crush of black jackets, but a couple would be more noticeable.

“I cannot stay alone in the box, Gordon. Take me out to join Mr. Edison.”

“I will then, but be quick about it. The intermission is half over.”

They nipped smartly out into the corridor. If Mr. Edison was unhappy to be saddled once again with the chore of escorting Gordon’s sister, he was too polite to show it. In fact, Cathy took the notion he was happy to have a lady to flaunt in front of Miss Stanfield. They strolled past Miss Stanfield and her court for the remaining length of the intermission. Mr. Edison was seized by an unfamiliar streak of jollity each time they drew near the Incomparable. Cathy’s slightest remark set him off in peals of merry laughter.

“What a squeeze” is all she said, and he drew to a full stop just two yards from Miss Stanfield.

“Ha-ha, you are a regular jokesmith, ma’am. You have hit it on the head. A squeeze is exactly what it is. I feel like a lemon.” His eyes veered off to see if he was being noticed.

“You will be happy to hear you do not look like one, Mr. Edison.”

“I should hope I am not yellow! Ha-ha-ha. I may be a little green, but time will cure that.”