To this rather surprising monologue, the other occupants of the drawing room could add little, for there seemed, in light of Mrs Harris’s great omniscience, nothing to be added. But then Isabelle, a little flushed of cheek, broke the brief silence which had descended over the room, and said placatingly, ‘To be sure, Mama, I shan’t go out in the rain, unless George or one of my sisters is with me to hold the umbrella over me. It is not so very wet, you see, if the rain is but light, and there are so many places we have not yet been to, and George and I have ever so many grand engagements to attend, and you are to come with us, Mama, you know, so you shan’t mind a very little rain, shall you?’
George, somewhat eager to make a friend of his wife’s mother added, ‘Oh, yes Ma’am, we have several engagements of some - shall I venture to describe them - ‘importance’, and we of course wish your company. A little rain won’t signify for we have a very good, dry carriage; why it was repainted only last month; paid a pretty penny too, four guineas, for the work, quite as much as the new harness I have got for—’
‘Yes, yes,’ inserted his Mama-in-law, ‘but I hope it don’t rain every day, or I shan’t get a wink of rest; I could never sleep with the infernal rain drumming about me, you know; Eliza always has to bring me a little drop of sherry about two or three in the morning, when I am not able to sleep. I hope she is not put far from my room, or I will be obliged to have her sleep on the floor, not that but she will feel it for she is quite strong in her limbs and so slight of figure that she can withstand any amount of punishing by a hard floor!’
Clemence exchanged a look with Isabelle, and repressed the urge to suggest Mrs Harris sleep upon the floor and see how she withstands the punishment to her limbs, but seeing Isabelle’s anxious face, she sipped her tea and schooled her countenance.
Isabelle remonstrated gently with her mother that Eliza could not be expected to sleep on the floor but that she would have a little bed made up. ‘And Mama, George knows ever so many important people here in Bath, that you shall be in such splendid company, and enjoy yourself so excessively, that you shan’t notice it raining at all!’
Mrs Harris patted her daughter’s hand fondly, nodding a little, and said if she was obliged to accompany them, why she would do so in good spirits, and not mind at all, but she did to hate to be out late, for she liked to take to her bed early, to give ease to her poor legs, to which Clara, who was staring in open-eyed fascination at their guest, innocently replied, ‘What is wrong with your legs, Ma’am? Do you have varicose veins like Grandmama?’
To cover her sister’s sudden coughing fit, Seraphine quickly offered more cakes to the lady, and hoping to turn the conversation to something more congenial, said, ‘When you guessed so cleverly that I must return to Sir Duncan, you were quite correct, Ma’am. I cannot remain here very long, since my husband has written enquiring after my return into Devonshire. I can only stay a day or two more. The children have been asking for me and Sir Duncan is quite out of sorts with their naughtiness.’
‘I see! Ah well, children can be quite a handful these days!’ Mrs Harris cast a stern look at Clara, who looked back at her ingenuously. ‘And you will, I hope George, take Isabelle home to Grandacres by her seventh month, for her confinement? It is only two months distant.’
‘We intend to return in six w—’ George began eagerly.
‘But of course you shall. And Miss Hurst,’ she added, now finally turning Clemence, ‘I hope you will take the waters with me, for I forbid Isabelle to take them on account of how I distrust mineral waters when one is with child. It is quite well known that taking strong mineral waters when expecting can bring on child birth before time.’
‘I rather think that is in regard to bathing, Ma’am,’ replied Clemence, surprised. ‘I collect there is no inherent danger in merely sipping the waters.’ She noted that Isabelle’s eyes were wide open. She stifled an urge to roll her own eyes heavenward. Isabelle might be awed by her mama, but Clemence was not so timid!
Mrs Harris continued firmly, ‘No, indeed, you are quite mistaken, child! Bath’s waters are known to be so vigorous that my dear Mr Harris, when he was alive, made a point of forbidding me even to take a mere sip, for fear of their overcoming me. I have such a sensitive constitution, you know. And so does Isabelle. And Mr Harris had a great knowledge of such things. No, my dear, I am quite certain of my facts.’
‘Is that so, Ma’am? I was not aware of the fact. I wonder it can be so well-known, if no one has mentioned it to me since I have been in Bath! But then, I never listen to idle gossip, Ma’am. I feel sorry then, for all the women who are to lose their unborn children, who are taking the waters at this very moment! Perhaps we ought to go to the Pump room directly and warn them!’ At least, that is what Clemence said in her head. Suppressing her impudent little bees, all she truly said aloud was a docile, ‘Yes Ma’am, I should certainly be glad to take the waters with you. Perhaps we can go tomorrow, to the Pump room.’
True to her word, Mrs Harris did not move her bulk until the dinner was called, and even when the other three women went to dress, Isabelle’s mama was content to sit upon the chaise and wait for them. ‘I cannot, at my age, be moving about the way you young things do; it fatigues me to dress for dinner if we are only at home, and besides that, such a fuss is only for younger people. I am sure it don’t signify what I wear in my own daughter’s house, to eat my vittles!’
When they had gone upstairs to dress, Isabelle was apologetic. ‘She is quite determined upon her course, and her way of thinking, that I cannot alter her path, once it is taken. Heavens, she quite persuades me to her own way of thinking, even when I begin on some other path! Sometimes I get quite confused as to what I ought to think! But I am sure she means well!’
Clemence patted her sister-in-law’s hand gently. ‘Dearest, don’t make yourself anxious. We are very pleased to have your mama to stay. I only hope she will enjoy herself and go home feeling as if she has been very much amused while she is here. I daresay a good sleep and an outing will have her quite at ease before the end of tomorrow!’ She only hoped that the three weeks of Mrs Harris’s visit would pass quickly, or she would be sure to combust from being obliged to be polite!
Three
The following evening, the whole family was to attend a masquerade ball, to which both Isabelle and Clemence were looking forward with great expectations of amusement and diversion. Isabelle was to go as an Empress to George’s Emperor, while Clemence was to go dressed as Red Riding Hood.
The costumes had been ordered the previous day, and arrived the next morning. Immediately the girls rushed to try them on, Seraphine in the background, ready to assist. She smiled as she pulled the Red Riding Hood costume from its tissue. ‘That gruesome tale was always your favourite,’ she remarked indulgently, as she handed the red fabric to Clemence. ‘Do you remember Mama reading us, over and over again, ‘Petit Chaperon Rouge’, in her perfect accent, trying to improve our pronunciation?’
Lady Hurst, the daughter of a French family of some distinction, had fled to England with her parents in order to escape the revolution, and had married a young Englishman shortly thereafter, a wealthy tradesman by the name of Joseph Tremayne. Despite the transfer of her outward allegiance to her new country, she had, naturally, retained her patriotic spirit, and taken it upon herself to educate her own daughters in the language, along with the other requisite studies appropriate for young women.
Now, Clemence laughed and flicked her loose auburn hair over her shoulder so she could pull on the little red hooded cape over her white muslin. She surveyed herself in the glass with her mask at her face. Her pale skin was an ill-chosen foil for her spattering of light freckles and she made a ridiculous face at her reflection. ‘Even now, Mama clings to her French ancestry. But you have been a better student of the language than I; you are vastly more fluent!’
‘Nonsense! You are just as fluent, it is only that you don’t bother to practice, dear.’
It was Mama’s
insistence, too, that they had been given French names, much to Papa’s chagrin, suspected Clemence. Seraphine’s real father had made no objection to a French name for his daughter, and then, when Mama had remarried after his untimely death, to Sir Edward Hurst, and delivered of yet another girl child, Clemence’s father had given his wife licence to name the child anything she liked, for as the infant was not a boy, he had announced offhandedly, her given name could have no real significance for the family.
Mama pronounced her name, Clemence, with perfect French accent, so that it sounded like ‘Clomonce’, but Papa, being at once a great patriot, and harbouring bitterness toward Bonaparte’s repeated advances upon the English, did not care so much for a French pronunciation, and she had always been ‘Clemence’ or just ‘Clem’, to the rest of her family, just as Seraphine had become ‘Sophie’ at home. Clemence penetrated that her father viewed the French side of his children’s ancestry as an annoying but irrelevant detail.
~~*~~
Seraphine, who was to remove back to her husband and children the following day, declined to be of the evening party, crying a need to pack her gowns, and organise Clara’s trunks for their early departure. Clara herself was allowed to be of the party, although she was full young for it, but she was a good, obedient child, and never gave her mother a care, and Seraphine, who remembered her own childhood as being devoid of such amusements, gave her leave willingly, to attend in costume, so long as she stayed with either her aunt, or Aunt Izzy and Uncle George. Subsequently, the little girl was allowed the joy of donning the costume of a little Empress, and was to be Izzy’s ‘daughter’ for the evening.
The affair was to be held at the Upper Assembly rooms, and though it was but a short walk, they were to take George’s carriage, on account of Mrs Harris’s insistence at being unable to walk far. That lady had not required much encouragement to give her assent to attending with them, seeming to have forgotten her dislike of evening outings, and with even less resistance, was to wear a mask depicting Columbine, and then insisted also upon a hat with a great many tall feathers! Thus it was that, at around nine o’clock that evening, a Columbine, a Red Riding Hood and an entire Emperor’s family crammed themselves into the carriage and made the short journey to Bennett Street.
The crush was quite overwhelming, as they slowly made their way up the grand staircase in company with several dominos, and a vast many peasant girls, emperors, and devils. In the great ballroom they found themselves sandwiched between a party of Harlequins, a devil holding a rather alarming pitchfork, and Turkish Sultan and his Sultana. There was nowhere to sit, for all the benches had been claimed, and people were standing about in any space they could find to place their feet, booted, hooved, and otherwise.
‘Heavens! Whatever shall we do?’ squeaked the Empress, holding onto the Emperor’s arm for dear life.
‘I simply must sit down!’ declared Mrs Harris in some alarm. ‘Let us proceed to the tea room. There surely must be room there! Follow me!’
In retrospect, Clemence decided that Mrs Harris’s scheme of going ahead had a very desirable effect of clearing a wake behind her, so ample was her figure, and the party found that they could all move forward as if in a human train before the crowd closed in again. Clemence, however, was the last of the party, and followed with some difficulty, the crowd already eager to jostle and reclaim their territory.
Very soon, before she had reached the supper room, she found herself separated from her party, and stood still, in some consternation as to how to follow them when she could but see only devils and dominos on either side. Pulling her red, hooded cloak closer about her pale pink silk gown, she tried to push gently towards the tea rooms. Silently congratulating herself for thinking of giving Mrs Harris tall feathers, she looked for, and spotted, some bright feathers moving above the heads of the crowd. She tried again to move forward but was jostled rather ungently against one of the ornate columns which formed the back wall. She made an involuntary noise as the air was expelled from her and she would have doubled over if it were not for the crush of people around her. Someone pulled a little of her hair from its long auburn braid down her back and she gave a small cry of alarm.
A white-sleeved arm, masculine in its strength, and ending in a long, brown hand, came around her waist and firmly guided her. She was so surprised, she could not utter protest, and allowed herself to be removed from the thronging crowd. She felt herself drawn through a crimson velvet curtain, and found herself in a second, much smaller room. It was almost empty except for a Pierrot and a Chinaman, who were conversing in a corner. And a wolf.
Continued…
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Other Books by Kate Westwood
A Scandal at Delford
A Bath Affair (Coming Soon)
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