“The only legacy I should have accepted from him.” Tom turned to smile ruefully at his mother. “I never thought to be grateful to Papa, for neglecting to mortgage this cottage, so we could rent the manor, and save such expense.”
“We must all be grateful.” She dropped her eyes, unhappily aware of the truth that the only good Bertram Breckinridge had done for his family was to die before he had sold or mortgaged every brick and stone to his name.
Tom sat brooding, and his mother perceived in the following silence that the mood must be lightened if she wished to broach the subject of London. “If you do not wish for a change, I do, my love. I wonder if we could bear the expense of a holiday.”
“You wish for a holiday, Mama?” asked Tom, a note of anxiety in his voice. “It would be the very thing! It’s a shame we can’t afford much at present, but you could—you could take Lenora to Bath, I suppose.”
“But what of you?” she asked, smiling at his ready willingness to humor her. “For all you say of enjoyment, you work very hard. But the farm will be quiet during the winter, and you needn’t stay. We may go somewhere as a family.”
“But I am perfectly happy at work, Mama! And my accompanying you should only add to the expense. I have more than enough to occupy me at home.” He caught the skepticism in her gaze and said on a laugh, “What must I do to convince you? I’d as lief stay here and tend to the estate than traipse around the country on muddy roads, staying in second-rate inns.”
She raised an eyebrow, blinking imperiously at him. “If that is the extent of the holiday Lenora and I are to have the pleasure of anticipating, then you’d best not consider it at all.”
“Mama!” he cried, throwing up a hand. “It is only the truth! But if you cavil at it, then I can promise you a lovely holiday, perhaps to Brighton, in the spring, when travel is easy and accommodation moderately priced.”
She laughed, a musical ripple of sound. “Here is Bertram Breckinridge’s son, preaching patience and economy! What a glorious irony!”
His lips twisted in a smirk, but his eyes danced as delightedly as his mother’s. “Well, I intend that you will have your housekeeper, and will make what shifts I must to do so.”
“I know it, dearest Tom,” she said, reaching a hand impulsively toward him. “Forgive me for twitting you. But I think we may contrive a holiday of sorts this winter after all, and with very little expense.” At his interested look, she gathered her courage and threw herself into the close. “My dear, I’ve had excellent news from my school friend, Lady Cammerby. She—” She faltered as his countenance became wary, but determinedly pursued. “She has ever so kindly offered to present Lenora this season.”
“Mama!” cried Thomas, setting his glass down in dismay. “You didn’t ask her—you couldn’t!”
“Well, I did, for you have borne the burden of this family alone for long enough, and it is not uncommon for able friends or relations to give this kind of assistance. It was the only way I could think of to help.”
“It does nothing to help me, Mama! It mortifies me!”
“Oh, Tom, you must be reasonable—”
“Mama, I’ve done my utmost to bring this family about, and you must needs go like a beggar to your rich friend, and have it out that we’re still all to pieces!”
“But we still are all to pieces, my love.”
“Not for long! The weather this year was the strangest we’ve ever seen, and set us back, but it must be better next year. We are so close—we will come about!” He pushed out of his chair. “I can conceive of no reason why some rich old tabby I’ve never met must bring out my sister, like she’s some dashed charity child, when I can manage it well enough in a year or two!”
“But Tom, your sister is already eighteen, and a year or two—”
“Will hopefully bring her more commonsense and countenance!” he cried, throwing over his shoulder, “She’s a feather-headed pea goose and you know it, Mama.”
“Oh, she can be silly, and she reads far too many novels, but I shouldn’t call her a pea-goose.”
He stalked toward the fireplace, biting out, “She would be better-served if we waited until she is older.”
Mrs. Breckinridge watched her son pace stormily about the room. “Oh, dear. I’ve made a muddle of it, haven’t I?” He did not respond to this rhetorical question, and she sighed. “Of course, you must be right, dear, that Lenora is too young. I suppose I felt she was not, because she is two years older than I when I married your papa, but we know how well that turned out.”
Tom stopped his pacing abruptly, turning to gaze in consternation at his mama.
She tipped her head in acknowledgement. “Lenora is rather foolish, but she is also a very good girl, and I have begun to question whether keeping her home to fill her head with gothic romance and tragic fantasies is truly wiser than bringing her out into the real world. Our society in the country is so limited that I cannot but be convinced that a wider range of flesh and blood gentlemen, with the accompanying lessons of town life, would turn her head in a more proper direction.”
“Your head was turned in your season, Mama, but not for the best,” Tom said quietly.
“To be sure,” she answered, without rancor, “but I was much stronger-willed than Lenora, with the encouragement of a guardian who cared little what sort of man I married, as long as the dibs were in tune.”
He lowered his eyes, but said only, “You sound like Papa.”
“Yes, I know,” she sighed. “I’ve expunged so much of the heartache, but the habits still remain. It seems no matter how I try, little bits of him refuse to disappear.” She glanced ruefully up at him. “I suppose it is my reminder, every day, just like your mirror.”
With a sigh, Tom came to sit with her on the sofa, taking her hand in both of his own. “Dear Mama, forgive me. I know you love us dearly. You are anxious to provide for Nora, and you are persuaded that marrying her off will relieve me of a great burden, but I should never forgive myself if she were to end unhappy—” Here he paused, as if searching for words to express himself. “If she should be hurt, simply because I could not afford to protect her.”
His mother brought his hand to her cheek. “My dear son, nor could I, and it horrifies me that you think I mean to give her to the first man who will have her. Marriage from this season is not even in my mind. I wish only to give her the experience, and the care, that was denied me.”
“But it mortifies me to not be allowed my right to provide the experience.”
“Oh, Tom, you will be allowed! Young girls hardly ever have just one season. In giving Lenora a season this year, she realizes the wish of her heart, and there is nothing to keep you from giving her a second season, which would be in earnest. This season, she will be brought up to snuff, acquire a little town-bronze, and perhaps even lose her taste for those horrid novels!”
He shook his head, but smiled. “You are, as ever, wise, Mama, and I anticipate your prognostications will be fulfilled. But I suspect even greater depths to your reasoning.” He gazed knowingly at her. “Elvira Chuddsley comes out this season as well, does she not?”
A dimple peeped in Mrs. Breckinridge’s cheek. “She does, and you know life would be unendurable if Lenora were forced to wait after Elvira.”
“Very well.” He kissed her cheek. “My pride is checked, and you may have your season in peace. I may even come up for a week or two and squire you to the assemblies.”
“But I depended upon your coming with us!”
“My dear Mama, the farm will not wait for an entire season! And I shall only be in the way,” he insisted, patting her hand. “A week or two will be enough holiday for me, and will satisfy me of your comfort.”
Seeing the wisdom in accepting this generous compromise, she threw her arms around him. “Oh, Tom, you are the best of brothers and sons!”
Lenora Breckinridge flut
tered into Miss Elvira Chuddsley’s bedchamber, her countenance aglow. Her hostess, following in her wake in a state of almost painful anticipation, pressed the door closed behind her.
“Well?” Elvira demanded of her rapt visitor, who was presently engaged in the singularly needless—not to say frivolous—task of loosening the ribbons of her hat. Receiving no response, she stamped her pretty foot. “Lenora, if you do not instantly tell me what has sent you into transports, I vow I shall choke you!”
The offending maiden turned wide eyes upon her. “I declare I know not how to begin!”
“Then you must try, Lenora Breckinridge!”
Lenora gave a delicious chuckle and cast her hat onto the bed. “Elvira, I am the happiest person alive!”
Perceiving from her guest’s faraway look and rapturous sighs that more information was not immediately forthcoming, Elvira expostulated, “And I am the most mystified, for I am persuaded I shall never know the reason for your sudden elevation of spirits!”
“Oh, Elvira, you goose!” relented Lenora. “Pray, forgive me, and content yourself that you shall presently know the whole! My mama received a letter today. She has a dear friend, Lady Cammerby, whom she knew at school, oh, ages ago, in Bath. You know she attended a select seminary there, of course—”
“Lenora! What do I care for select seminaries?”
“Oh! Well, Mama had written on my behalf to this excellent female—for her husband is quite rich, you know, and has a large house in Berkshire, I believe—”
“I wish he lived at Jericho, so you had nothing to say of him and could get to the substance of the letter!”
Lenora giggled. “Oh, Elvira, the cream of it is that Lady Cammerby lives in the first style of elegance in London—” Elvira gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth and staring round-eyed at her friend as the truth began to dawn. Lenora continued, “And she has answered my mother’s letter today, and says that she always wanted a daughter to present, and—and to be plain, I am to come out this season after all!”
“She will sponsor you?” asked Elvira breathlessly.
Lenora, speechless with joy, nodded, and her friend squealed, running forward to clasp her to her bosom. “My dear,” cried Elvira, “we shall have the grandest adventure! The beaux we shall have, the balls we shall attend, the gowns we—” Elvira abruptly stopped as a distressing thought occurred to her. “But dear, what shall you do for—how will you—the expense—”
Lenora pressed her hands reassuringly. “My mother has a dozen lovely gowns from her London season—”
“What!” exclaimed Elvira. “You’ll never wear those fusty things!”
“But they’re perfectly good, for they’ve been stored up in camphor all these years—”
“Exactly! For a hundred, million years!”
Her friend giggled. “Stupid! What a quiz I would look! Of course, I shall not wear them as they are! We shall make them over. To think I should wear gowns from the last century!”
“Oh!” Elvira pressed a hand to her thankful bosom. “I had such horrid visions of you!”
“Frightening away all your beaux, no doubt!”
“I simply should not have acknowledged you,” said Elvira, her nose in the air. “Of course, I was a goose to suppose that you would be so nonsensical as to ruin your one chance to cut a dash.”
“Yes, you were! Even if I am buried out here in the country, I have at least enough sense to know what is dowdy and what is all the crack.”
“Well, you would not, if I did not share my periodicals with you!” rejoined Elvira tartly.
“You know very well that I should be nothing without you, dearest,” Lenora said in a coaxing tone, and taking her friend’s arm. “It is precisely for that reason I’ve come to see you. For, when it comes to making up the gowns, you know, between Mama and me, with a little assistance from Sanford, we shall do very well with the hand-sewing, but may I borrow your fashion plates, for the patterns? Mama said I might, if I returned your novel.” She pulled the book from the pocket of her pelisse and handed it, somewhat wistfully, to her friend.
Elvira’s annoyance was not proof against such a sacrifice. “But Lenora! You can’t have finished it! I only gave it you yesterday!”
“No,” admitted Lenora, gazing longingly at the book. “I had just reached the unveiling of Father Caraggio, and Stephania had fallen into a swoon, when my mother interrupted me.”
With great resolution, Elvira gave the book back into her friend’s hands. “Then you must keep it, if your mother will allow it, for I could not bear for you to be denied the satisfaction of such an ending as it has!”
“Oh, Elvira!” cried Lenora, pressing the book to her heart. “I had despaired of ever discovering the identity of the prisoner in the oubliette, and I declare I should have died for the suspense!”
“None of my friends shall despair at my hands,” declared Elvira, then waved the book away impatiently. “Enough of Caraggio and Stephania! We have more pressing matters!”
The all-absorbing story was tossed onto the bed as Elvira towed Lenora into her dressing room, where a pile of periodicals lay tucked into a corner. Elvira sifted through them, muttering to herself. “Those are nearly a twelvemonth old! If only Mama would allow me to bind them—” She sneezed. “I must remind Mary to dust here... But where are the—oh, here. They’ve slipped behind.” Emerging triumphant from the corner, Elvira spread the latest issues of The Ladies’ Monthly Museum on the floor.
Lenora pounced on them, flipping through to the illustrated descriptions of ladies’ fashions. “Peach silk under white sarcenet, and split sleeves, how interesting. That would do well with cornflower blue I think, do not you? What a quantity of beading, and look at all the rosettes!” She set the periodical to the side and flipped open another. “Oh, Elvira, isn’t this stunning! Peacock plumes! And Chantilly lace? Oh, how shockingly expensive it would be!”
“Yes, and you’ll never wear it, in your first season, goose! What a show you would make, and have only the rakes admiring your brazenness.”
“To have a rake admire one!” Lenora shivered deliciously. “Oh, but how romantic if he were to seduce me!”
“Lenora!” cried Elvira, staring wide-eyed at her. “What a wicked thing to say!”
Lenora shrugged a heedless shoulder. “I daresay there are several rakes among the ton, for my papa knew ever so many, and they were used to move in the first circles! So even if Lady Cammerby is not acquainted with any, we are sure to meet some!”
Elvira pressed a hand to her mouth as Lenora mused on. “I’m sure they are, in general, very handsome, for rakes always are, and charming, too. And I am sure to attract their attention, for a rake loves nothing better than a penniless girl, without a father to protect her.”
Elvira blinked in bewilderment. “But they always try for heiresses, Lenora! It’s in all the books!”
“Oh, only for marriage, my dear,” Lenora remarked carelessly. “A rake loves to dally with girls for whom he cherishes no honorable intentions.”
Elvira gasped, her eyes alight with terrified excitement. “Oh, it is true, Lenora!”
“And I, being innocent, will suspect nothing when he makes me an object of his gallantry, for rakes, you know, are subtle, else they should have no success among genteel females.”
Her friend nodded solemnly, leaning breathlessly forward to catch every word that fell from her friend’s lips.
Lenora continued blithely, “But when he presses his ardor far enough, and I am forced to give him a rebuff—for my heart would never respond to such impropriety as he would show, and would detect him as soon as he pressed for my favor—he is thrown into a towering rage and resolves then and there to have me or die!”
“Oh, no!” cried Elvira, her eyes round.
“He must be an evil Duke, of course,” pursued Lenora, “and will, as a matter of course
, carry me to his castle tower, where he vows to keep me until I allow him to steal my virtue!”
“But you have an admirer, a poor and handsome gentleman—with a stammer” supplied Elvira, entering into the spirit of the story, “whom you have held dear, but for whom you have never known your true feelings. He follows after you and, bravely enduring hardship and suffering untold, he reaches the castle and climbs the ivy vines to the tower window, rescuing you from the evil Duke’s clutches at his own peril!”
“And when he has vanquished the Duke, he kneels at my feet,” said Lenora in tragic tones, “and with his pitiful stammer, claims undying love for me, revealing that he has always loved me from afar, but his impediment and his poverty have kept him from a declaration!”
Elvira’s eyes fluttered sympathetically closed. “But you cannot be wed, for you are both too poor, and you part in great sorrow.” Then her eyes flew open again, dazzled with hope. “But when it is discovered that he is the long-lost heir to a vast fortune, he returns to throw himself at your feet!”
Lenora threw out a staying hand. “But he finds me in a decline, for love of him, and all despair of my recovery. But not he! Tenderly nursing me, he is rewarded with my return to health, and though I am fragile ever after, we are wed in a gothic cathedral, as my hero stammers out his vows of everlasting fidelity!”
“Oh!” cried both girls together, falling to the floor in rapture.
After Lenora had recovered herself sufficiently to rise, she propped her chin on her elbows and regarded her friend. “I don’t suppose any Dukes shall seduce me, Elvira, Chantilly lace or no, for my mama has such stuffy notions of propriety that I am persuaded she would never countenance such a thing.”
“Well,” admitted Elvira, if reluctantly, “I should think she would not.”
“But if you had known how she was when she was just out, dear, you would not think it!” Lenora leaned close to her friend, lowering her voice. “My mama was the most shocking flirt, and had so many beaux on a string that all the other girls positively hated her!”
Two in the Bush Page 3