Sylvia blushed. “Thank you, but you do not need to pay me extravagant compliments.”
“I have not done so. You must know how very pretty you are; if you do not, I cannot see why you feel it necessary to scrape back your hair in such an uncompromising manner. Why, you must have a headache all the time!”
“I did at first,” Sylvia admitted, “but I have grown accustomed to it.” She added after a moment, during which she finished another slice of bread and butter, “I cannot quite rid myself of the suspicion that you are doing all this for your brother.”
The Countess, whose repast had consisted of nothing more than half a dozen grapes, pushed her plate away and dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “You are quite right: I am doing it for Robert, but not, I assure you, because he has asked me to. He is my little brother and I would like, above all things, to see him happy. That is all.”
“And you think that serving me up, all primped and prettified as a member of the ton, will make him happy?” Sylvia was half amused, half insulted and wholly disbelieving.
“I should imagine that he will derive a deal of pleasure simply from looking at you,” the Countess replied. “Not to put too fine a point upon it, you broke his heart seven years ago, as a result of which he has become positively disagreeable, as you pointed out earlier. I think it absurd. He is a handsome man with every advantage, including a dukedom; he could have had almost any girl he wanted but, no, he must needs pine for you. I own that I could not comprehend it until I met you; now I begin to see something of what has affected him so deeply: you are a most unusual young woman. Your rejection has been eating away at him from inside like a slow poison; every year he is less amiable – and I cannot bear it. He was used to be lively and joyful.”
“I know; that was why I fell in love with him. But I cannot conceive how I can be held responsible for his becoming so odious; do you not think that is perhaps how he always was, only it was not so apparent when he was younger?”
“It is, I suppose, possible, but I am determined to leave no stone unturned to restore him to happiness. I am hoping, you see, that, if he sees a little more of you, he may realise that he has been wasting his life dreaming of a person who belongs in a fairytale, but who, in point of fact, is no more special or unique than anyone else. There! That is my purpose. Do you feel happier now? Were you feeling uncomfortable because you felt that you would be obliged to marry him for my sake?”
Sylvia smiled with more genuine warmth than she had yet shown towards this strange woman who had taken possession of her. “So, if I understand you aright, you hope that he will find me boring?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, had you not better dress me in ill-fitting and dull clothes?”
It was the Countess’s turn to laugh. “No; ill-dressed as you are now, you resemble Cinderella before she went to the ball and I daresay he wants to rescue you. Dressed like everyone else, I hope he will be able to see that you are no more interesting than the next woman.”
“Of course I am not – and it is perfectly possible that he will find me boring; but the thing is that he has whipped himself up into such a degree of hatred for me that I doubt if he will be able to see me as a common or garden person. For him, I am no longer Snow White but the wicked witch – the stepmother, I suppose.”
“She must have been dreadfully tedious, always asking her mirror the same question and excessively preoccupied with what she looked like. I wonder – if I could make you vain – if that might do the trick.”
“I think you are the wicked witch: you wish me to be despised, do you not? Discarded?”
“I do not in the least care how it is achieved, but I wish my brother to be happy,” the Countess said, rising from the table and putting an end to a conversation she was finding increasingly disturbing. The more she argued with Sylvia, the more she understood her brother’s fascination with the woman.
After nuncheon, Sylvia, dressed in one of her ladyship’s outgrown gowns, was conducted by her hostess to a fashionable modiste, where she was soon arrayed in a variety of up-to-the-minute outfits. Her ladyship, once she saw the modest little governess transformed, could hardly prevent herself from ordering a vast number of clothes. Sylvia, hanging on to what remained of the moral high ground by the skin of her teeth, declined most of them, pointing out that she would never be able to repay her kind benefactress for all the expense.
“You shall do so, if you will, by teaching my girls and imbuing them with a smidgen of your own moral fibre,” the Countess said.
“I shall not have any left if you lay so much temptation before me,” Sylvia argued. “Truly, dear Marianna, I do not need a dozen ballgowns; one will be adequate.”
The Countess smiled indulgently. “You will need at least two for you cannot wear the same one to every event. It would be bound to give rise to the sort of gossip we most want to avoid and,” she added as a clincher, “people would think I was a skinflint if they were to see me escorting you everywhere in the same gown.”
Sylvia laughed at this but could not argue with it as she could see that her ladyship had a point: it was all very well her being prepared to appear in public in the same dress every day but she realised that it would indeed reflect poorly upon her ladyship’s sponsorship of a poor relation.
“I have an excessively pretty lavender silk bonnet which your brother bought me the morning I met him on Bond Street. I assure you that he did not do so out of the kindness of his heart,” she added as the Countess’s eyes kindled. “But it is, nevertheless, a charming confection. There was a pelisse a few doors down which matched it perfectly.”
“But you are not in mourning, my dear,” the Countess pointed out. “People might get quite the wrong idea if you were to be dressed entirely in lavender.”
“I own I had not thought of that. I wonder if he did and meant something disagreeable by it, although in point of fact it was Melissa who led me to it; she wanted it herself until she observed that it matched my eyes.”
The Countess peered at her protégée more closely. “What a perceptive child! Is it trimmed with bunches of lavender, including leaves?”
“Yes. Are you thinking that it could be matched with green? But lavender leaves are more grey than green.”
“Perhaps, but a greyish green would become you very well and will be most unlikely to be mistaken for mourning so long as there is enough green. Although your hair is so dark, your complexion is pale and soft colours look well on you. You shall show me later.
“Now, I think we should look at undergarments. Although not seen, they are of vast importance, are they not, Madame, if my cousin is to do justice to your creations?”
Sylvia laughed. “In order, you mean, to give me a figure to do justice to Madame’s gowns.”
“Oh, my dear, you already have an almost faultless figure, but each year there is a slight variation in the proportion of bosom to waist and so on, which one’s own shape, no matter how perfect, cannot be expected to adapt to without the tiniest help from well-made undergarments.”
Sylvia was reduced almost to hysteria by this remark. “Oh, this is such fun!” she exclaimed. “I had no idea it would be so entertaining to be dressed up. I am afraid,” she added, with a rather sad little pout, “that I am well on the way to falling into the most shaming vanity. I have spent so long striving to judge clothes as entirely trivial that I am ill-equipped to curtail my joy. Pray do not let me become puffed up – although you have already admitted that that is, at least partially, your intention.”
“Well,” the Countess admitted, “I believe a woman is enhanced by a little vanity. I own I can hardly wait to see you in a ballroom – and to observe Robert’s face when he beholds you.”
But here the Countess had made an error for, no sooner had she mentioned the Duke and his supposed pleasure in seeing his former love decked out to please, than Sylvia’s expression underwent a change. “He will think me ‘fallen’ indeed and will not hesitate to tip me into the
ditch you have so carefully constructed,” she said, flushing.
“Pray do not be foolish! Do you truly believe that a woman who dresses well – and one, moreover, whom the good Lord has endowed with every gift in the looks department – is sinful? Your upbringing must have been quite dreadfully punitive! I think God would be disappointed were you not to make the best of those talents He has seen fit to bestow upon you. And do not, pray, accuse me of blasphemy! There is no need to be afraid that you will topple from what must be the most chilly and uncomfortable pedestal on which you have somehow marooned yourself. If you do not like Robert’s expression – you have only to tell him so!”
“And he will wipe it from his face?” Sylvia asked in a suffocated voice.
“Probably he will be unable to,” Marianna retorted. “And why should he? Every man who looks at you will admire you. I should not have mentioned Robert – his name is like a red rag to a bull, is it not? Before I was so incautious as to let my tongue run away with me, you were enjoying yourself.”
“Yes, I own that I was. I am sorry; you are being extraordinarily kind to me and I am deeply grateful.”
“Well, there is no need to be grateful and I am not in the least kind. I am doing it for my own purposes, as I told you. Now, let us go to Bond Street at once for the lavender pelisse and another bonnet or two. Then, Madame, if you will send whatever is ready as soon as possible, we shall be able to go to the Park this afternoon. And, later in the week, I believe you will be ready to go to Lady Barnaby’s ball. I am invited and I shall say that, since you have this moment arrived from the country, I cannot leave you behind.”
Chapter 24
Later that afternoon, Cassie, who seemed to have acquired a new friend in Lord Furzeby, was bowling along in the Park beside him when she saw an elegant phaeton approach. It was driven with some skill by a fair woman, beside whom an ebony-haired beauty was seated.
“Good Lord!” his lordship exclaimed, momentarily startled.
“What is it?”
“There, if I am not mistaken, sits the governess we have all been talking about beside the Countess of Wey.”
“She is Rother’s sister,” Cassie faltered.
“Indeed! And the way the former governess is dressed leads me to suppose that she is no longer a governess.”
“Do you think …?” Cassie’s voice trailed off. She felt sick. Unless they were to veer off so suddenly as to draw the kind of attention which she particularly wished to avoid, they were bound to meet the phaeton in the next few minutes.
“She is not with him,” Lord Furzeby pointed out, noticing and understanding his companion’s anxiety instantly.
“No – but his sister …”
“Courage!” Lord Furzeby said, reaching across to take Cassie’s hand and squeeze it. “We will stop and greet them and you will meet her at last.”
“I do not – oh I cannot! She is too horridly beautiful!” Cassie exclaimed, shuddering.
“No more so than you!” his lordship replied in an undertone, raising his hand in greeting and driving forward.
“Good afternoon, Lady Wey – Miss Holmdale: how delightful to see you again!” He swept off his hat with one hand and executed a graceful bow.
“Indeed! Driving in the Park is all new to me!” Miss Holmdale replied, amused.
“The first time I met you, you were hobbling down Bond Street, leaning upon my arm,” his lordship went on. “You look a great deal more comfortable now. I hope you are quite recovered from your injuries. Allow me to introduce you to my companion, Miss Minton.”
“How do you do?” Sylvia said politely.
“Miss Minton?” the Countess said coldly. “We have not met, have we?”
“No; it is a great honour to be introduced to your ladyship,” Cassie murmured, her colour rising.
The Countess nodded graciously but icily before directing her gaze at Lord Furzeby. “Fancy your having met Miss Holmdale already! She is a cousin of mine who has recently come on a visit to London.”
“Ah!” he said. “I hope you enjoy your stay, Miss Holmdale. Where is Miss Sullington this afternoon?”
Sylvia said, “I daresay you are wondering, but are too polite to ask, how I have risen so far in such a short time that I am being driven by Lady Wey and that Miss Sullington is nowhere to be seen.”
Lady Wey interrupted. “When I discovered that my cousin was employed by Lady Sullington as a governess, you may imagine my shock. I still feel ashamed that I allowed such a thing to happen. I can only say by way of excuse that I have been so taken up with my nursery for the last few years that I was unaware that she had taken such a post. As soon as I found out, I removed her from such a degrading position and have brought her to stay with me.”
“So kind,” Sylvia muttered, hanging her head modestly as she believed an indigent relative rescued from the degradation of employment should.
“But what will Miss Sullington do without her?” his lordship enquired.
“She will no doubt be taken about by her mama. She is, in any event, past the age where she needs a governess,” Lady Wey answered shortly.
“Just so. My nephew will be disappointed.”
“Why is that?” her ladyship asked. “Is he looking for a governess? He will be obliged to look elsewhere for such a position is wholly unsuitable for my cousin.”
“No, he is too old to need a teacher himself and too young to employ one. He has also come to London recently and is being shown around by me. He has taken quite a fancy to Miss Sullington; unfortunately her mama does not favour him and does her best to discourage him, going so far as to send him away with a flea in his ear whenever he tries to speak to her.”
“Most unwise for that will probably only make both parties the keener,” her ladyship observed. “I do most devoutly hope I shall not be so foolish when my daughters reach that age. Well, I daresay it will make a man of him to be obliged to run the gamut of Lady Sullington; he cannot expect Miss Holmdale to intercede for him.”
During this conversation between what might almost have been viewed as the ‘seconds’ in the duel that was being fought silently between the two beauties, Cassie – aware of the competition – was staring boldly and critically at the woman she wished would disappear into thin air, while Sylvia – unaware that she was in the company of the woman whose existence had caused her to break off her engagement – was listening with some amusement to the seconds’ beating about the bush. She saw how skilfully the Countess had explained the situation in a way that not only made her responsible for the break with the Sullingtons, undermining at a stroke any gossip that Lady Sullington might try to put about, but at the same time secured a higher rank in Society for her ‘relative’.
“No, indeed,” Lord Furzeby agreed. “I do not think he expected Miss Holmdale to intercede; it is only that, when she was present, it was easier for him to speak to Miss Sullington. I have advised him to hold his horses for the time being; there is nothing to be gained from boxing above his weight, so to speak.”
“No,” the Countess agreed. “By waiting, he may find that certain competitors will have retired from the ring. I am glad we met you, Furzeby. Will you be at Lady Barnaby’s?”
“Do you know, I think I shall? Will Miss Holmdale be there?”
“Oh, yes; we are both planning to attend.” Lady Wey smiled benevolently upon his lordship whilst contriving to avert her gaze from his companion.
“She did not know who I was, did she?” Cassie asked as Lord Furzeby drove on.
“No, but I daresay Lady Wey will be obliged to tell her.”
“I should not have consented to come out with you. It is all very well driving in the Park with Prue because, if people wish to cut us, it is easy for them to do so. But she could not very well cut you.”
“She could perfectly well have done so by pretending to look somewhere else as we passed but she could not, without great incivility, when I greeted her. That was why I did so.”
“Oh, I wis
h you had not. Now she will take me in dislike and everyone will know that Robert’s sister was obliged to say how do you do to me – and that the hateful governess was there too.”
“If I were you, I would not refine upon it too much,” Lord Furzeby said gently. “It is of no use for you to pretend to be a shrinking violet: everyone knows you, almost everyone can recognise you for you are so very beautiful, and, if you wish to become respectable, you must behave in a respectable fashion, which means driving in the Park with an unexceptionable person such as me.”
“Is that why you invited me?”
“Only partially. I enjoy your company and I own I wanted a different companion; my nephew’s conversation has become tediously repetitive since he met Miss Sullington.”
“They will say that you are looking to take on Robert’s leavings,” she said in a low voice.
“No doubt, but if I do not care nor should you. Or am I so vastly inferior to him that you would be ashamed to have aught to do with me?”
Cassie flushed to the roots of her hair. “I am sorry; I should not have said that; it was uncivil.”
“Nevertheless it was true. I am, in every possible sense, except perhaps my character, inferior to his grace – as, much to his annoyance, is my poor nephew. No, Miss Minton, I am not looking to take Rother’s place. I hope that I am your friend. I daresay he has left you provided for, has he not?”
“Yes.”
“Do you wish to find a replacement for him?”
“No, never. I have hated every moment of my career, if you can call it that.”
“That was what I thought and why I, perhaps foolishly, hoped that, if I showed my approval of you, you might in time be accepted into at least a portion of Society.”
Sylvia Or The Moral High Ground Page 21