by Mira Stables
Aunt Sarah Woodstock came to keep New Year with her brother, accompanied by her husband and daughter. Julian had the grace to feel slightly ashamed of himself for finding all three of them sadly boring. Perhaps, having found the society of Miss Morley and her father both pleasant and stimulating, he had expected too much. Mrs. Woodstock, alas, was distinctly commonplace. Kind-hearted she might be but she was totally lacking in force of character. Deference to the superiority of the masculine mind was possibly an admirable attitude in a female. Carried to extremes it could make her appear devoid of even common sense, the more so since her husband and her brother frequently expressed contradictory opinions and she found herself in the awkward position of trying to subscribe to both. Mr. Woodstock—Uncle William—was a hide-bound Tory. He quoted Dr. Johnson’s dictum that ‘the first Whig was the Devil’, and was firmly convinced that any measure designed to ease the lot of the labouring classes was a step on the road to revolution. Consequently he was often at outs with the more humane Mr. Morley.
Julian’s chief discomfort arose from the exaggerated respect in which Aunt Sarah held the nobility. She made it plain that she thought her niece had captured a matrimonial prize of the first stare, and her conversation was so liberally punctuated with ‘milords’ and ‘Lord Wellasfords’ that Julian had to restrain an impulse to bow his acknowledgements every time she addressed him. She was for ever instructing her daughter as to the proper way to speak and behave in his presence, and when he actually heard her advising Anna to use more deference towards him he was hard put to it to keep his tongue.
So far as an opinion delivered mainly in grunts and snorts could be interpreted, Mr. Woodstock appeared at first to share his wife’s view that Anastasia was doing very well for herself, but this comfortable state of affairs was short-lived. On a wet afternoon when escape out of doors was impossible he subjected the bridegroom elect to a searching interrogation as to his past life, his present occupation and future plans that might have been thought presumptuous even in the bride’s father. Julian endured it as best he might until Mr. Woodstock, having failed to unearth anything discreditable, summed up pompously, “Can’t think why ever you sold out of the army. Best life in the world for a man of spirit. Not even as though you was needed here at home.”
That final jibe was the last straw heaped on Julian’s mounting indignation. He longed to ask Uncle William if this opinion was based on his personal experience of military life, but to match the fellow in discourtesy could only reflect on himself. He swallowed his wrath, though the cutting drawl that marred his usually pleasant voice would have betrayed him to his intimates. “Do you know,” he said silkily, “I think it must have been because I got tired of killing Englishmen.”
“Englishmen?” snorted Mr. Woodstock, whose understanding was not of the swiftest.
“Oh—I daresay there may have been a few Scots and Irish among them,” elaborated Julian helpfully, “for all they called themselves Americans.”
“English! Americans! Why, you impudent young dog, they were rebels. Damned traitors! And deserved a traitor’s end. A clean, honourable death in battle was too good for them. Should have been hung, drawn and quartered. And you to complain of killing a few when it was no more than your plain duty. Just the sort of sloppy sentiment that will be the ruin of the army, same as this Frenchman, Rooso or whatever his name is—the one that Nat is for ever on about—will be the ruin of sound government. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Julian was. Though not for the reason that Mr. Woodstock had suggested. He returned a soothing answer but it did not serve to appease Uncle William. Thereafter he was treated with coldness, Mr. Woodstock avoiding him as far as possible and keeping any necessary conversational exchanges brief. Julian was divided between relief and penitence, but on the whole relief won.
Apart from this small breeze the days passed uneventfully. Aunt Sarah fussed over Anna, taking her aside for little confidential talks and trying to persuade her to change her mind over the ‘very peculiar’ dress that she had decided to wear for her wedding. For Anna, to her Papa’s intense gratification, had chosen one of the gowns from his collection. Julian and Mr. Morley spent a morning closeted with Mr. Edgewick over settlements, Uncle William remained frostily aloof and young Corinna hung adoringly around the bridegroom until Anna laughingly declared that if the child were a few years older she would have cause for jealousy.
“But don’t grow too puffed up in your own conceit,” she added mischievously, “for I fear that it is chiefly the glamour of your rank that holds her entranced. Even I have risen considerably in her esteem now that I am betrothed to a ‘real live lordship’,” and slipped away to answer a call from Aunt Sarah before he could favour her with his views on toad-eaters and tuft-hunters.
Chapter Seven
Johnnie Merridew obligingly consented to act as groomsman to his old friend, undertaking to escort him to church in good time on the fateful day and to see the knot well and truly tied. He apologised diffidently that he did not care to ask for longer leave of absence since his employer was already over-generous in that respect, and added that he looked forward with much pleasure to making the acquaintance of the bride.
In his new knowledge of the Morley family’s standing in the neighbourhood, Julian was not really surprised to find the little church packed to the doors and a group of village folk gathered outside, daring the January chill in order to see the bride arrive. What did a little surprise him was Johnnie’s startled and patently admiring, “By Jove!” as Anna came up the aisle on her father’s arm. There was no time for him to take note of her appearance, though he recognised the gravity in the clear grey eyes as he smiled down at her and guessed that she was finding the ceremony more of an ordeal than she had anticipated. Then he himself was caught up in the solemn opening phrases.
There did not seem to be any logical cause for the odd sense of guilt that possessed him as he listened. The agreement which he and Anna had made was only temporary. Sooner or later they meant to fulfil all the purposes for which, said the Church, marriage had been ordained. So why feel uneasy about it? He spent so long pondering this point that a sudden pause in the proceedings caught him unprepared. Johnnie was looking at him anxiously, the priest enquiringly. The echo of words dimly heard roused him to full awareness. Hastily he said, “I will,” in a very determined way, and thereafter succeeded in keeping his mind on the business in hand.
It was not until they came out of church that he understood Johnnie’s irreverent, “By Jove!” It was then that the admiration writ plain in the faces of the bystanders as they pressed about bride and groom to offer their congratulations and good wishes, made him take his first real look at his wife.
Man-like, he could not have attempted to describe her gown. He did notice that her hair was dressed in a different fashion, because it made her look taller, and that the smooth fair skin was flawless in the searching January sunlight. But it was her serene dignity that caught the imagination. It was difficult to say just how the impression was achieved, but in her silken bridal robes with her head held high she moved like a queen; a queen at ease among her friends, relaxed and beloved.
Settling himself beside her in the waiting carriage, he tried, rather awkwardly, to express his sentiments. “That is a magnificent gown, my dear,” he told her, supremely tactless. “I have never seen you look better.”
He was somewhat taken aback to hear her gasp of laughter, hastily stifled, but in fact his ineptitude served him well. She said demurely, “It is naturally an object with me to please your lordship’s fastidious taste. I am gratified that my dress finds favour in your eyes.”
His lordship eyed her thoughtfully. “Dear me,” he said. “What a shrew I have married. Yes. I see. I should rather have praised your looks first and the gown second. But you must remember that I am not practised in the arts of gallantry. I will study to improve.”
That won him an engaging twinkle. “At least you are not dull-witted,” she t
old him kindly. “And after a week of Uncle William—”
It was his turn to laugh. He flung up one hand in mock surrender as he exclaimed, “Cry Pax! You have certainly had the better of that encounter and I will concede victory. Let me see if I can do better. You look quite delightfully. So much so that your appearance startled my groomsman into a most unbecoming expression of admiration. In church, too.”
She flushed vividly. “Truly?” she breathed, her face alight with pleasure.
“Yes indeed. And he is quite a connoisseur, you know, because his sisters are extremely pretty.”
She said shyly, “You will think me very foolish to refine so much on what was probably only Mr. Merridew’s kindness. But you see no one has ever admired my looks or paid me compliments, and I find it quite a delightful sensation.”
“Well that is quite your own fault for shutting yourself away from Society,” he told her briskly. “And we are going to put an end to all that. As for kindness—no such thing. The fellow positively licked his lips over you. Most improper!”
Perhaps that was a little exaggerated, but Johnnie would not mind. And he must do what he could to brighten the day for his bride. So much at least he owed her.
Fulfilling his duties manfully, Johnnie did his best to enliven the wedding breakfast by entertaining Aunt Sarah and Uncle William, but it was an uphill task. Conversation does not flourish when one participant agrees with everything that is said and another flatly contradicts most of it. Unfortunately, too, Mr. Morley was in subdued mood, the realisation having come to him that, with Anna’s going, his life would be vastly changed. It was in an attempt to give his father-in-law’s thoughts a more cheerful direction that Julian introduced the topic of the bride’s dress. Johnnie seconded him nobly, enquiring with genuine interest about the material from which it was made, saying that he had never seen anything quite like it before.
Mr. Morley revived splendidly under this stimulus. “Nor you wouldn’t,” he nodded with mild triumph. “Specially woven for me. And I’d not like to count how many pieces were spoiled before I was suited. It’s samite.”
His audience studied the beautiful fabric in respectful silence, though none of them had heard of it before; a thick silk, its texture slightly roughened by the fine threads of gold that were woven into it. The dress was loosely cut so that it hung in heavy folds from the shoulders, bearing some resemblance to a modern sacque. It was this that had finally reconciled Aunt Sarah to Anna’s choice, though she had taken strong exception to the band of glowing embroidery that bordered the rounded neck and matched the colours in the jewelled girdle. Barbaric. Oriental, said her brother. Aunt Sarah shuddered delicately. A bride should wear only white.
“It was copied from a dress thought to have been worn by Berengaria of Navarre,” explained Mr. Morley, now happily mounted on his hobby-horse. “Stand up, my dear, and let us see it properly.”
Anna obeyed him, turning about with that total absence of self consciousness that Julian had come to expect of her, so that they could all study the beautiful thing.
“It has always been quite my favourite,” she said gently, touching the white silk with loving fingers, “though I have never worn it because it would soil so easily, so I thought I had best make the most of this opportunity.”
She narrowed her eyes engagingly at her father, who said cheerfully, “We could always have it copied again. But I do regret that you refused to complete the picture by wearing your hair loose.”
She chuckled. “Aunt Sarah would have washed her hands of me if I had done anything so outlandish. She found it quite difficult enough to resign herself to my wearing colours. Didn’t you, love?”
Uncle William felt that he had been left out of the conversation for long enough. In any case his wife’s views were of no interest.
“And who was Berengaria of Navarre?” he demanded belligerently. “What has she to say to anything?”
“She was a Queen of England,” said Mr. Morley. “The only one who never set foot in the country.”
“Oh! History,” exclaimed young Corinna, greatly daring in this adult assembly but eager to draw attention to herself. “Fusty old stuff!”
Maternal devotion impelled Aunt Sarah to intervene before her husband could express his views or the desirability of children being seen and not heard, and preferably only rarely seen.
“Which one was she?” she asked brightly.
Mr. Morley sighed. “She married Coeur-de-Lion,” he said patiently. “And he was too busy crusading and subduing rebellious vassals to look after a wife.”
“But undoubtedly England’s greatest king,” concluded Uncle William in a voice that brooked no argument.
Since no one wished to mar the harmony of the wedding feast, this statement was allowed to pass unchallenged, Mr. Morley merely saying in a resigned sort of way, “He was certainly a brave soldier,” and Corinna creating a diversion by jumping up and going to stand beside her cousin to show off her own pretty dress of tabby silk and the pearl pendant that ‘Cousin Julian’ had given her to mark the occasion, a piece of forward behaviour that earned her a sharp rebuke from a father who did not hold with young things getting above themselves. It was left to the good-natured Johnnie to soothe her mortification, drawing her attention to some of the delicacies that composed the second course and supplying her with a heaped dish of fairy butter and some Naples biscuits, “Just as though I was quite grown up,” she later confided to her mama.
Talk turned to the wedding journey. Julian was deliberately evasive, causing Aunt Sarah to wax sentimental over his obvious desire for solitude in which to enjoy wedded bliss, and Uncle William to remark with sour triumph that if he meant to take his wife gipsying about the country-side staying just where the fancy took them at this season of the year, he must be all about in his head. Since for once Julian found himself in entire agreement with the speaker, he could only be grateful when Anna came to his rescue, saying that it was time she changed her dress if they were to reach Town before the darkening, and adding that, although they would probably spend some days in Portman Square, they naturally did not wish this fact to be generally known. If the weather proved kind—and despite Uncle William’s gloomy prognostications there were such things as crisp, clear January days—they might make one or two short excursions. In any case a message to Portman Square would soon catch up with them.
“And we might indeed spend tonight in Town,” she repeated, as the coach bore them away at last. “I am rather tired and I daresay you are, too. I did not give Wayney a precise date, so she will not worry over our non-arrival, and it will be pleasanter to drive down to Bletchingley by daylight, as well as serving to pacify that absurdly tender conscience of yours.”
He had to laugh, although the jibe about his conscience annoyed him. Men did not take to deceit so easily as females he thought, rather smugly. Moreover the lady’s total lack of embarrassment in an unusual situation rankled slightly. She was, of course, relying upon his given word, as was only right and proper, but need she make it so very plain that she was interested only in the furtherance of her ridiculous schemes? The glamorous trappings of a long dead queen had dazzled him for a little while. He could still recall quite vividly the picture that his wife had presented as she showed them her gown, one hand holding out her spreading skirts, her head a little on one side so that the ringlets which had been carefully coaxed to fall from the intricate top-knot to frame her face had swung loosely about her throat. It was beautiful hair. The exact colour of the delicate golden circlet that had held her veil in place. He had felt proud of her. Proud of her self-possession, her poise and her intelligence. Perhaps after all he had not done so badly for himself in the marriage stakes.
But the girl who sat beside him in the carriage, neat but unimpressive in her warm travelling mantle, was a very different creature from the glowing bride. There was nothing gentle and vulnerable about her to appeal to a man’s protective instincts. She was a shrewd and competent campaigner,
bent on her plan to dazzle society. He had a strong desire to ruffle that cool composure. A little teasing would not hurt her.