“Does he, now?” Sir John pursed his lips in something like annoyance. “What gives him that kind of privilege? Is he interested in marrying one of you?"
This was blunt talking. But I could be just as blunt. “He thinks to marry Amanda, but he is wide of the mark.” Even I would not undercut Amanda by pretending that she liked Cousin Bret. No man of intelligence would believe something so ludicrous. “Amanda thinks he's a great coxcomb and a dead bore. In fact, we can't think why he comes to visit at all. When he was a child it was a matter of family honor with my father to have him visit, as it gave the cousins a chance to know one another. But it has been many years since anyone on this side has gotten any pleasure from the contact."
He ate another roll and an egg before continuing his observations. “He seems to have something of a penchant for riding off on one of your horses. Thunder, I believe his name is. Yet the stable lads are convinced he's not a good enough rider to manage the beast."
I sighed. “I suppose I could ban him from Thunder. He's going to ruin the horse's mouth, if he doesn't get himself thrown and killed. Robert was wonderful on Thunder, but he's not an easy horse to ride."
“Don't you ride him, then?” Sir John asked, amused. “I thought you were the expert on horses."
“I don't ride horses I cannot manage. You don't have to kill yourself to be able to judge the quality of an animal, you know."
“Yes, I do know. I'm surprised you do.” He eyed me with a bit more respect. But he didn't say anything except, “If you'll excuse me, I'll go out to the stables and see that the curricle is made ready. Why don't you join me there?"
Which was all to the good, because I had every intention of picking up the picnic basket in the kitchen and hauling it out there myself, before he could object. He couldn't easily refuse in front of the servants.
Mrs. Cooper had been delighted to be of service to me. When I came to fetch the basket, she lifted the cloth and pointed to a good bottle of wine. “Sir John is obviously a connoisseur. I won't try to pass off the everyday wine with him, but don't you go swilling the stuff down like it was lemonade, my girl. This is as powerful as it comes, and you'd do well to cultivate your palate by sipping it slowly and learning just how good it is."
Mrs. Cooper has always been good at giving me reasons for doing things she wanted me to do. I think she picked the habit up from my mother, who always knew how to deal with me. My father was forever laying down laws that I chose to ignore because they seemed to have little rhyme or reason. Mrs. Cooper's suggestion that I develop my palate seemed eminently sensible. Mama hadn't the least interest in spirits, except the kind that talked to her. Mrs. Cooper added a corkscrew and a stock of horseradish to the basket before I left.
In the stableyard I found Sir John talking with Jed as the boy adjusted the neck collar on one of the chestnuts. When the baronet looked up and saw me with my basket, a dark scowl descended on his brow. “Hinchly Farms is farther away than Overview,” I explained. “We'll need sustenance before we head back, and I know just the spot where we can stop."
“I was under the illusion we planned to return here for luncheon,” he muttered as he took the basket from my hands.
“We can't expect Hinchly to offer us so much as a sip of water, and checking out carriage horses is thirsty work. Mrs. Cooper put in a good bottle of wine."
He twitched back the cloth. “Well, that's some comfort. Not that I don't appreciate small beer, but it's nice to have some variety."
After handing me up into the curricle, he went around to the other side and made some pretense of speaking to Jed. I could see his real purpose was to pretend that he had forgotten the picnic basket where he had set it down on the path, but I was not about to let him get away with that, no matter how unflattering his attempt. His own groom, Bill, eyed the basket doubtfully, and I said to him, “You'd best put it in now, or we'll forget it."
Sir John watched in silence as his groom did my bidding. I tucked the basket neatly under the seat to keep it out of the sun. The baronet climbed into his place beside me and I felt the carriage shift perilously. “I told you it was carefully balanced,” he reminded me. “The slightest thing could overset it, so mind you don't get excited and jump about."
As if I would! “I'll remember.” And I glared at him.
He gave his horses the office to start and they moved off at a pace so swift and smooth that I wondered Amanda had been able to tolerate it. We've had great carriage horses but none to match this pair. I would have given anything to have my hands on the reins, but I decided I'd have to bide my time before I asked that particular favor.
The narrowness of the seat and the precarious balance of the curricle made it necessary for Sir John to sit right up against me. I could feel the solidity of his thighs and the strength in his arms as he exerted pressure on the reins to guide his pair through the gate and left onto the lane leading to the Newmarket Road. His strength rather captivated me.
And I wasn't one to be lightly captivated by that sort of thing. I've driven out with any number of the local boys—they think of themselves as men—and I had yet to experience this particular sensation of awe. It might have been his hat tilted at a rakish angle, or the power in his forearms, or even the speed at which we drove. In any case, I was feeling decidedly in charity with him.
“We'll want to turn onto the Newmarket Road and travel on it for almost an hour,” I said.
He nodded, then turned his head to say, “Your brother once told me you had a remarkable Season in London. I should like to know how many well-placed gentlemen you put to the blush."
“I did no such thing! My parents were there with me, and you may be sure that my behavior was as decorous as the next young lady's."
“Hmmm. Robert mentioned that you once had Lord Findlay positively in a rage after he had spent but an hour driving with you."
“Lord Findlay! The fellow is an odious beast. He would not let me touch the reins, though his nags were nothing to brag about. And then he had the temerity to ask me to marry him. Marry him—when I had seen how he treated his horses! Well, who would not put a bee in such a one's curly beaver?” I sniffed self-righteously. “Where were you that spring? I'm sure I would have remembered if you had been in London then."
“That was the spring my father had a serious bout with his heart. We thought he was recovering when he suddenly died."
I murmured my sympathy.
Sir John was frowning off into the distance. “I was several months in the country. It must have been midsummer by the time I returned to town. And, by God,” he said, switching his incredulous gaze to my face, “they were still talking about you."
“Nonsense. No one noticed me at all.” That was not precisely true, but the thought of all those people gossiping about me nearly put me to the blush.
But Sir John hadn't heard me. He was obviously trying to piece the story together for himself. “I was the only one in town who hadn't been there to witness your assault on the capital. Poor Robert. No wonder he took to me, the only one who couldn't remind him of your escapades."
I turned away so he wouldn't see the quick tears that pricked at my eyes. How unkind of him to revive that disastrous Season.
The good baronet was as oblivious to my distress as he could be. “What an opportunity you give me, Miss Ryder, to hear the stories from the other side,” said Sir John. “Perhaps you would tell me how Augustus Thornside came to overturn his phaeton immediately after he'd left you off in Grosvenor Street."
Being reminded of my time in London was the last thing I could have wished for. Everything had seemed to get out of hand so very quickly once we arrived there. I had expected London to be a place of delight, overflowing with excitement and diversions one could scarcely picture in the country. In fact, the atmosphere was stifling, every girl was expected to behave precisely as every other girl. And all those sharp-eyed mothers watching for a chance to guide their chicks toward the showy roosters. Ugh! It was not for me at all.<
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Sir John had not given up. “Or tell me what happened to William Carstairs? They say he's never been the same since you agreed to ride in Hyde Park with him on a particularly drizzly morning."
It was William Carstairs’ mother who had made things so unpleasant. She had been a girl during my mother's Season, and she made it her task to let everyone in London know about the events that had happened then. And before long people were comparing me with her. Whenever I did anything out of the ordinary, such as speak before someone had spoken to me, they would shake their heads and say knowingly, “It's Penelope's daughter, you know. What else can you expect?"
Wisely, my mother ignored these comments, and I wouldn't for the life of me have asked her what they meant, but I became anxious to know, nonetheless. Apparently Robert was in more of a position to hear such tales than I was. And they say women gossip! He had the story from more than one source, and the most wicked version of it was from the Earl of Stonebridge, naturally.
No wonder Mama had been agitated as we prepared to travel down to London for the Season. She knew that the old tales would not be forgotten. How very brave of her to have managed to force herself to face those awful accusers.
My companion had finally noticed that I wasn't saying anything. “I should think you would wish to speak of your triumph after setting London on its ear,” he teased me.
It was too much. “I did no such thing. I was merely the object of everyone's attention. They expected something terrible of me from the start."
“But why?” Sir John looked genuinely curious and I felt sure Robert had not told him the whole truth. Had Sir John not heard the rumors about Mama? If he hadn't, surely he should have been more surprised by her eccentricity the other night when she talked to a ghost? I felt it necessary to set him straight on a few things, for Mama's sake and my own.
“From the first moment we arrived in London it was apparent something was wrong. I kept catching whispers about my mother's Season, accompanied by half-concealed smiles or frowns of disapproval.” Instinctively I raised my chin and took a firm grip on the seat. “I don't know how she bore it."
“Your mother strikes me as a woman who would scarcely notice such talk,” he suggested kindly.
“Oh, she could bear it for herself with relative ease. But how could she bear it for her daughter? She apologized to me. Imagine!” I dashed away a stray tear and continued with all the fierceness that still raged in me. “My mother apologized to me for making my Season so miserable. It was not Mama who made my Season miserable, but all those people who insisted on having their fun pretending that Mama had done something reprehensible."
Sir John drew the horses in slightly, so that he could pay more attention to what I was saying. “Do you want to tell me what it was that they said? Being out of town at the time, I didn't hear anything of this. Only if you wish. I wouldn't want you to think I was satisfying some unnecessary curiosity."
The injustice of it all burned in me still and he was a surprisingly sympathetic listener, with his head cocked to me even as he kept an eye on the chestnuts. “Mama had only an aging aunt to see her through her London Season, to provide her with the necessary information about customs and manners. She was sadly out of date, and there wasn't much money. Considerably less than most girls have for their stays in town. She had to be especially careful with her clothing allowance. They could only hire a chaise for the most important occasions. Mama learned to improvise with her bonnets and slippers, but one couldn't wear the same dress more than twice or people laughed at you."
“I can imagine.” Sir John laid a comforting hand on my arm and I shivered.
“But she's such a clever woman,” I exclaimed, to disguise my reaction from him. “Within a week she had spotted two other girls with insufficient funds and she had joined them in a very small conspiracy.” He lifted a questioning brow and I had to laugh at the sheer audacity of my mama's plan. “They exchanged gowns! Truly. Mama was a remarkable seamstress even then and she was able to alter sizes and change the adornments so that no one would suspect the same gown had already been worn by another girl. It was marvelously inventive."
“Very ingenious. I suppose there are those who would have disapproved. But surely that wasn't enough to get her into real trouble."
“She couldn't just do it out in the open, you understand. When she had broached just the smallest detail to her aunt, the old lady was horrified, so Mama decided she must carry out her scheme in secret. And doing it in secret led to some rather strange adventures."
“Such as?"
I found myself gripping the seat again, with the wind cool on my flushed face. “She would get up before dawn and wrap the gowns carefully in a blanket to spirit them to one of the other girl's houses. None of the others was able to summon up such courage, I suppose. Though one or two of them could help with the sewing, Mama was always the delivery person. Mama was wonderfully spirited and unusually fearless for her age, I hear. It didn't bother her in the least to be out in London when dawn was breaking and there were no others abroad except farmers bringing their vegetables to Covent Garden and brewers delivering their ale to the public houses."
“Did she go alone?"
“She took her maid, a girl she'd known all her life, who thought nothing of their escapade. They were quick about their appointed rounds, always returning before the household was up."
“So how were they found out?"
“One morning, when they were on their way back from Upper Brook Street to Mount Row, they were waylaid by a band of reveling gentlemen who were just then returning home from their night's excesses. I don't suppose the men meant any real harm, but they were teasing my mother and the maid, insinuating that they were ladies of ill repute. Young blades, I understand, are likely to do that.” I gave him a stern look.
“I've never accosted a woman in the street in my life, no matter how bosky I was,” he protested.
I sniffed. “These fellows were not so high-minded. When one of them grabbed for the maid, to put his arm around her, she gave him a great crack on the skull with her only weapon, a knotty walking stick. And Mama was forced to fend off another with a few well-placed kicks..."
Sir John was laughing by this time. I heard the merry sound with a most welcome relief. “How wonderful!” he crowed. “I shall have even greater respect for your mama, knowing this."
My face fell and I pushed my bonnet forward a little to shade my eyes. “It did not end as one might have wished. The watch was called and all of them were dragged before a magistrate. The men insisted that the women had led them on, and my mother was forced to tell the whole story. It was a great scandal and was even written about in all the papers."
“I see.''
I could tell that he did. “Of course Mama was in complete disgrace, even though sensible people knew her actions were perfectly innocent. But there are always people who will make more of a scandal than there really is. What made matters worse was that the Earl of Stonebridge wrote one of his infamous letters to the newspapers about the incident. He suspected that my father intended to marry my mother in spite of the hoopla, and he tried to shame Papa out of it. Nothing of the sort! My father was not so fainthearted, you may be sure. He offered for her the very next day. And not out of pity! He had already determined upon it, and this only further convinced him to act."
“Your father must have been a brave man to take on such an unconventional miss."
The hedges alongside the road swayed in the summer breeze, and a whitethroat fluttered in and out, singing its gushing, jerky little song. “He loved her dearly, but I think it was not so easy for him to live with her wild starts. My recollections, even as a child, are of him gently but firmly insisting that Mama behave with more discretion. Sometimes I think they might both have been a little less proscribed in their behavior if they had not had their family so soon. Mama has often remarked on how very responsible Papa became when Robert was born. Before that ... Well, Mama says that there wa
s just the tiniest bit of wildness to him, in those early days. Papa's lessons in decorum worked with Amanda, but with me they didn't take so well. I fear I've inherited a bit of my mother's nature."
I shrugged and gave him a rueful little grin. “I don't think Mama minds so much that I haven't Amanda's uprightness. And I know Papa loved me, even when he didn't approve of things I did. So it's worked out all right, except during my Season. Everyone was waiting for me to do something outrageous. Actually, I behaved quite within reason—as even my father would have told you. It was just that the earl wrote another of his letters to the newspaper..."
Sir John's brow furrowed with annoyance. “Surely not. What could he possibly have had to say?"
“Poor Robert. The burden fell on him. Though the earl hinted that my father had no control over me, the letter was more of a tirade about my brother lacking the proper background to ascend to such distinction as he would one day. Stonebridge always believed that he would outlive my father, but he knew that chances of his providing his own heir were nil by then. So he attacked Robert's character and diligence."
Sir John snorted. “There's no question which of them is the truer gentleman. But Robert does seem to have allowed himself to be in the old fellow's pocket since then. I've noticed that myself."
“Each time he's come down to visit us, there has been a letter to the newspaper. The earl's last one was about our missing horse. It's a threat Stonebridge holds over my brother, that he will make him and our family even greater objects of ridicule if Robert doesn't toe the line. I've tried to assure him that it doesn't matter so much, but he's convinced that Amanda and I will never find suitable husbands if our name is continually dragged through the parlors of London as a source of amusement and scandal. If the earl continues his mean-spirited attacks on us, I'm convinced Robert won't ever come down to visit at all. As the earl gets older, he becomes more and more unbalanced. I hate to think that his threat will hang over Robert's head until the old geezer sticks his spoon in the wall."
Miss Ryder's Memoirs Page 7