“I recall telling you when we first came to London that I wished my daughter to marry a man she liked; I wished that because I am perfectly aware that obliging her to marry one she does not care for will be difficult and will likely lead to a great many tiresome scenes. However, perhaps I did not make it entirely clear that my wish for her to like the man she marries is merely that: a wish. She will marry the man chosen for her by my lord and me. I expect an offer from his grace within the next few days and my lord will accept it. Melissa will be guided by us and your opposition will merely result in your being dismissed instantly. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly, my lady.” Sylvia dropped a little curtsey and turned away towards the door.
“I do not recall telling you that you might leave my presence,” Lady Sullington said sharply, her high voice becoming positively shrill.
“I thought you had said all you had to say, my lady,” Sylvia replied quietly, pausing and turning back to drop another little bob in her employer’s direction.
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk, my lady. Do I have your permission? I thought to take a short turn outside while Melissa went for her fitting.”
“You waited until you thought we were both out of the house and then hoped to slip out yourself? Is that not the case?”
“Yes, it is. I thought that, if you were neither of you here, you would not require my services. If you are not going for the fitting, I will of course postpone my walk.”
“I have sent Melissa to her room to compose herself,” Lady Sullington explained. “We shall be going for the fitting later. You may go for your walk, Miss Holmdale. When you return, I shall expect you to persuade my daughter of the benefits of his grace’s suit as well as the importance of heeding her parents’ advice.”
Sylvia bowed her head and stepped backwards towards the door as though she had been leaving the presence of the Queen. Lady Sullington saw nothing odd in this and waited in disapproving silence while the governess backed away from her.
When she emerged from the house, Sylvia’s mind was in turmoil and her temper on edge. She set off at a brisk pace in the direction she had taken previously.
When she saw the jeweller’s shop on the other side of the road, she was in such a hurry to complete her business that she stepped off the pavement without looking. No sooner had she gained the road than there was the screeching of horses pulled up sharply, the clatter of wheels locking and a series of curses directed at her as at least one carriage was brought to a sudden halt. The next moment, her arm grasped roughly, she was pulled out of the road.
Chapter 14
Cassie, wearing a dress borrowed from Mrs Farley, returned to her own house after breakfast. The two women had arranged to meet again that evening and carry out, a day late, the visit to the opera which they had half-promised Lords Furzeby and Marklye that they would make the previous evening. Both had forgotten since Cassie had been far too busy indulging in hysterics to think coherently about anything and it had slipped Mrs Farley’s mind that she had in fact already invited the cits and their wives for dinner that evening.
Although both ladies enjoyed music – and were indeed, or had once been, opera singers themselves – they did not pay a great deal of attention to what was taking place on the stage, being entirely occupied in scanning the other boxes in the hope of seeing Lord Marklye – they were a great deal less interested in Lord Furzeby - and the dread of seeing the Duke.
Both Furzeby and Marklye were there, together with a very young man. There were no females in the party, which Mrs Farley accounted a stroke of luck. The older gentlemen soon noticed the two women and acknowledged them with a nod and a raised hand.
“Good, they have seen us. Now they will be obliged to order refreshments to be sent in the first interval and perhaps come and join us, provided they are not diverted by someone else,” Mrs Farley said, keeping a close eye on her quarry and noting how many other people they acknowledged.
She was proved right although it was only the two older gentlemen who presented themselves at the box.
“You may have noticed,” Lord Furzeby said after greetings had been exchanged, wine poured and the first sip taken, “that my nephew has not accompanied us to pay his respects. That is because his eye has alighted on the girl for whom he is fast developing an attachment – although I am afraid he is destined to be disappointed. Indeed, I should think he will receive a rebuff as soon as he presents himself at the door.”
Both women greeted this sally with a titter, designed to imply understanding as well as sympathy with the emotions of young men.
“Who is the young lady upon whom his fancy has alighted?” Mrs Farley asked.
“It is Miss Sullington; she is, I think I can safely say, well on the way to becoming the rage of the Season: a prettily behaved and charming girl but I should not suppose that her parents will look favourably upon a young man of my nephew’s rank dangling after her. Their ambitions are set very much higher.”
He stopped abruptly and Cassie, guessing that the ambitious parents must have set their sights upon the Duke and that Furzeby, knowing perfectly well in what capacity she had known Rother, had put a curb upon his tongue to save her distress, asked, “Which is the delightful Miss Sullington? Can we see her from here?”
“Unfortunately not; their box is directly beneath this one. If you want to see what she looks like you had better come to ours. James has been staring at her ever since they arrived.”
“As we have been staring at you,” Lord Marklye put in. “We came last night in the hope of seeing you but were disappointed. Will you do us the honour of eating supper with us?”
The invitation was accepted with every appearance of restrained delight, a promise was made to collect them from their box after the performance and the gentlemen returned to their own seats, leaving the ladies well pleased.
Once they were out of earshot, Mrs Farley clasped her friend’s hand and said, “You see, we are well on the way now.”
Cassie smiled faintly. “Do you suppose the nephew will come too?”
“Quite likely, I should think, because the Sullingtons will have sent him away with a flea in his ear and he will be in need of cheering.”
“I recall Lord Sullington from my come-out,” Cassie said slowly. She did: he had been one of her most assiduous suitors although, as far as she could recall, her parents had not favoured him; she could not now remember why. In any event, she had not found him appealing, her heart having already been bestowed upon the rake.
“Indeed? What kind of a man was he?”
“Rather dull, as I recall. But then in those days I was much fêted, as perhaps Miss Sullington is now. I daresay she is the one after whom Robert is dangling and, if that is so, I should not think that Lord Furzeby’s nephew would stand the smallest chance of prevailing with his suit.” As she spoke, she remembered the Duke’s admitting that the girl he had chosen had already given her heart to an indigent young man.
“In that case, if you wish to know what she looks like, we will visit someone on the other side of the theatre in the next interval. Then we shall be able to see who is in the box beneath ours. We could try Sir Henry Talbot. I have a long acquaintance with him and he is accompanied by another man, so that would do very well, would it not?”
Mrs Farley, although her past career had almost been obliterated by her marriage, remained a vulgar person whose manners marked her out as a person of low rank; Cassie, as a nobleman’s light o’love, was wholly unacceptable to every married woman. Neither could have presented themselves at a box housing a refined female.
The second act of the opera – which was not well performed in her opinion – was endured with impatience by Cassie, whose mind had become filled with a pressing desire to know what Miss Sullington looked like – and the identity of her mother.
As soon as the curtain came down for the second interval, she and Prue made their way to the other side of the theatre, knocked
upon the door of Sir Henry’s box and went in, when bidden, to greet the two gentlemen there. Sir Henry was not young and had known Mrs Farley many years before. If he had admired Cassie in the past, he had made no move towards her since everyone knew that she was the exclusive property of the Duke of Rother. His companion was an elderly roué, whom Cassie immediately took in dislike because of the way his eyes raked her up and down. The way he ogled her made her realise that Society probably already knew that she had been deserted and was once again fair game for any man prepared to take on an ageing ladybird in need of a protector.
For the first time she appreciated her friend’s insistence that she should find a husband. Although respectable women would not receive her when she was with the Duke, she had been safe from other men’s roving eyes, wandering hands and disagreeable propositions. She knew that, although her value was at present enhanced by her previous lover’s rank, it would diminish rapidly, particularly if she did not find a replacement soon.
Damn Robert to hell, she thought savagely, turning a cold shoulder to the roué and directing her gaze across the theatre in search of Miss Sullington.
She saw the girl, dressed in white, noted her fair hair and what, from this distance, she took to be a pretty enough countenance, but it was the mother whose face caused her to freeze.
She had not seen that haughty, sharp-nosed visage for a quarter of a century but recognised it at once. The woman who was Lady Sullington had been Sally Forster when Cassie had last seen her. She remembered having been subjected to a tirade from that acidic voice one evening at Almack’s; she had not known what she had done to provoke the other girl’s spite. Now she thought that perhaps Miss Forster had seen her as a rival for Lord Sullington’s affections. Well, in the end, the shrewish Miss Forster had been successful.
His lordship, she knew from hearsay, was a man who spent most of his time in gaming hells, while his wife remained in the country with their numerous progeny. That the fêted Miss Sullington was the daughter of a man regarded as something of a loose fish was not, of course, a surprise, but that her mother should turn out to be the odious Miss Forster was an unpleasant shock. Miss Forster, she now recalled bitterly, had, although quite without beauty, been in possession of a considerable fortune. This fact explained not only Lord Sullington’s eventual choice of bride but also, if a good proportion of that fortune had subsequently been tied up in a trust for the daughter, some of the girl’s meteoric rise to prominence amongst the other débutantes. She did not suppose that the Duke would be attracted by a fortune; he, she suspected, would be more amused by the contest: he would enjoy snatching the Beauty of the season from under other men’s noses. But poor Mr Harbury, whose prospects were not promising, so far as she could tell, would not stand a chance when pitted against such competition.
It was a considerable relief when the interval came to an end and they returned to their own box.
“You look as though you have seen a ghost,” Prue said.
“Unfortunately she is only too real,” Cassie replied. “Miss Sullington’s mama is a perfectly odious woman. She came out the same year as I; she was always as sour as a lemon in both appearance and nature; as a girl, she would stop at nothing to achieve what she wanted – and she wanted Sullington. I see she has him.”
“Well, I daresay they deserve each other,” Prue returned comfortably, adding, “Now, pray be quiet and listen to the singing. It has improved: probably the thought of being able to go home soon has cheered up the cast.”
But Cassie was now so on edge that she was quite unable to appreciate the singing or make any kind of judgment as to whether it had improved or not. It seemed to her that everything was against her at the moment; it had been quite bad enough to be discarded by Rother without having to endure the awful triumph of a woman she recalled with extreme disfavour.
When the opera finally came to an end, Lords Furzeby and Marklye escorted the two women to a restaurant nearby for the promised supper. Mr Harbury, looking distinctly down-in-the-mouth, made an unenthusiastic fifth until he saw Cassie, when his spirits revived wonderfully. She might be old enough to be his mother but she was ravishingly beautiful and directed a smile of quite overpowering sweetness at him when they were introduced. He blushed fierily and mumbled something incoherent which Cassie, touched and flattered in her own misery by his evident admiration, took to be evidence of his pleasure in meeting her.
Arrived at the restaurant, Mrs Farley endeavoured to place Lord Marklye beside her friend but, although she did succeed in placing him beside Cassie, she was unable to force her to pay him any attention. She herself sat between the two lords and was obliged to spend most of the evening dividing her attention between them because Cassie and Mr Harbury were oblivious to anybody else.
Lord Furzeby found the situation amusing. “My poor nephew was dreadfully cast down by the reception he received from Lady Sullington during the interval,” he explained. “I am delighted to see him enjoying himself now.”
Mrs Farley looked surprised. “Would you not prefer him to be making love to Miss Sullington than falling for Cassie’s charms?” she asked.
“No, not at all. He is very young – much too young to be thinking of plighting his troth – and a little flirtation with an experienced beauty like your friend should do him a power of good.”
“She might break his heart,” Mrs Farley suggested without much hope.
“That would do him no harm,” the uncle replied. “She is a lovely woman. Has she, so far as you know, quite broken with Rother?”
“Oh, yes, most definitely. I believe him to be dangling after Miss Sullington.”
“Apparently, but his manner could scarcely be described as lover-like in spite of his standing up with her at least twice whenever there is dancing.”
“Perhaps there is someone else whom he prefers,” Mrs Farley suggested.
“I should not be surprised. The trouble with men like Rother is that they can pick and choose too easily; it makes them proud and careless of the feelings of others.”
“What is Miss Sullington like? Would she make Rother a suitable bride, do you think?”
“I’ve no idea; she has only recently arrived in London and seems to be a prettily behaved girl, although I own I find that surprising given her parentage. I cannot quite understand why Rother should have lighted upon her. She is a taking little thing but there are countless others more so. It may, of course, be that he is inspired by the fact that she seems quite uninterested in him. I daresay he likes the chase.”
“Yes, that is only too probable.” Mrs Farley thought that by this time Lord Marklye had been sitting neglected for quite long enough and, with a smile at Lord Furzeby, turned to him.
“Are you acquainted with Miss Sullington?” she asked. “I understand Mr Harbury to be quite smitten.”
His lordship smiled. “I had thought so too but, since meeting your friend, I have begun to wonder if he has not transferred his affections to her.”
“Oh,” Mrs Farley said lightly, wanting to disabuse his lordship of any tendency he might have to abandon his own pursuit of her friend, “I think she is merely trying to alleviate the snub he was administered earlier by Miss Sullington’s parents.”
“If she is not careful she will do too good a job; a woman like that is only too attractive to youths. She will break his heart.”
“Do you think so? But surely not only to youths: I would have thought most men would find her appealing,” Mrs Farley murmured.
“She is undeniably a Beauty,” Lord Marklye agreed, “but perhaps a little too ‘knowing’ for many people’s taste. For myself, I am by no means certain that I should be able to amuse her sufficiently.”
Mrs Farley’s hopes were somewhat dashed by this confession although there was some small ground for optimism in that he acknowledged Cassie’s beauty. “I think you say that only because she is not in her first youth. She is quite unspoiled, you know.”
“Indeed? I own I had thought ra
ther the reverse.”
Mrs Farley realised, too late, that she had chosen an unfortunate turn of phrase to describe Cassie’s character. Everyone, including presumably even the unsophisticated Lord Marklye, knew her history but, in Mrs Farley’s opinion, Cassie’s emotional incontinence and poor self-confidence rendered her almost as naïve as a débutante. It was true that she had been rather better acquainted with a good many gentlemen than was seemly but, in spite of that, she had retained what Mrs Farley considered a rather charming simplicity.
“I meant,” she said, floundering a little, “that she is not over-sophisticated. She is entirely straightforward, which is, so far as I can tell, most unusual these days.”
“Indeed?” he said again, the amused grey eyes meeting Mrs Farley’s bright brown ones with a look which she could not misinterpret. If she had thought Lord Marklye an innocent abroad and ripe for the plucking, she had made a grave error.
“I thought, when we met at the Hanover Square Rooms, that you admired her looks excessively,” she said a little accusingly.
“I did – and I do. She is a very great Beauty, and is no doubt perfectly agreeable, but I must warn you that I am looking for neither a wife nor a mistress.” He saw her startled look and added gently, “Have I been too blunt?”
“Yes, you have.” Mrs Farley felt a strong desire to hit him but, biting her lip and clasping her hands tightly together in her lap, was able to resist.
Chapter 15
“You little idiot!”
Sylvia’s rescuer was still holding her by the arm as though he were afraid that she would cast herself in front of another vehicle if he did not forcibly prevent her.
Sylvia Or The Moral High Ground Page 13