An Unmarried Lady

by Willman, Anna

  She showed rather more interest in her sister’s admirers who continued to visit daily and was in general pleased with what she saw. Anne, she noted with some amusement, seemed impervious to their many charms and was as likely to smile at one as another, showing no partiality for any of them. Indeed Anne seemed to prefer her sister’s company to that of any gentleman in attendance, saying that since her dear Elaine was only there for the week, she would rather stay at home and talk with her than go to any ball or entertainment. Elaine laughed at that but said for her part, she’d rather go to a ball or attend a theatre performance with her sister than merely sit about the house idly, which she could as easily do at Lynnfield as in London, and so the two of them went out every evening escorted by any number of willing gentlemen.

  Captain Howard made a duty call the day after she arrived, plunging her secretly into the deepest gloom, but she showed him a smiling face and a quizzing manner that clearly disgusted him and sent him flying (red-faced) away from the place as soon as could be decently managed.

  “What a strange young man, to be sure,” her Aunt Katherine commented. “It is a pity he has no address, for he is not really a bad looking young man for all that he dresses so plainly and wears those peculiar spectacles on his nose. Still, he is generally well-liked, for he is good-natured and always civil, so we need not be at all ashamed of the connection.”

  Lord Derring also called upon her, audaciously plying his most gracious manners and assuring her of his continued desire to be of service to her. It was from him that she learned that the two friends had re-established regular contact, and if they weren’t so close as once they had been, they were at least more comfortable together.

  “Well, I am glad that is past you,” was all that she said, but there was something in her manner that sent him pell mell round to James’ quarters to declare that he would be a bacon-brained gudgeon if he didn’t go over to the Berkeley Square this very minute and propose marriage to the lady. “For she’s pining away for you. Any fool can see that.”

  “What, Charles? And here you have been telling me that you worship her. I would not have thought you would encourage me to pursue her.”

  “Nor would I, but the fact is that our Diana will never love me. I never had the least chance of winning her, though I thought at the time I could charm her into matrimony. But I’m not at all in her league. No, you’re the man for her and she knows it. You saw her for what she was from the beginning, and I daresay she saw you too. It is only your damned pride that is blinding you now, I tell you, she loves you!”

  “I thought when I saw her perhaps, but then she laughed and flirted with me. Charles, it was more than I could bear!”

  “Never tell me the lady flirted with you, James. It’s not in her to do so.”

  “Well, she did and I was never more humbled. I thought she liked me better than that.”

  “Well, if she did, and I’m not crediting it one bit, mind you, then I’m sure she regrets it. More of a nervous gesture, most probably, than a true flirtation, I’d say. I’m telling you I only had to say your name and her whole face lit up like one of those chandeliers at Prinny’s palace in Brighton, and then just as suddenly, it was as if the light had been put out again. You’re ruining her happiness, blighting her soul, and damn me if our friendship can survive your destroying the life of the woman I adore.”

  James smiled, but said, “I’ve learned the hard way not to let myself be persuaded by your certainties, Charles. I thought, no I knew once that she cared for me, but we’ve already traveled down that path and cannot go back. She’ll never trust me, and if she’s unhappy for it, I am very sorry, but I’ll not inflict more damage. I’m done.”

  Lord Derring was not a man to take “no” for an answer, especially when the happiness of his goddess and the woman he loved was at stake, but he knew James was not to be persuaded, so he began to ponder ways in which he might bring the two of them together. There was little time, for he knew Elaine was planning to return to Lynnfield in only a few more days, so, it being a Wednesday, he went to Almack’s that same evening, knowing that he would be sure to find Anne there.

  “Oh don’t waste that sour look on me, my dear girl,” he exclaimed when he had at last managed to separate her from her attendant flock of admirers. “I haven’t time to persuade you I mean well. Isn’t it enough for you that your sister acknowledges me? I’m here on her account, for she’s in a sad state and I need your help to bring her about.”

  Anne could not help but laugh at his unconventional approach and said more kindly than she had intended, “What can you mean a sad state? She is right over there dancing with one of her many devoted followers and looking as if she is having a grand time.”

  He eyed his goddess across the room with a doleful eye. “That is exactly my point. Surely you know your sister well enough to know that dancing with a hapless suitor is not at all her idea of a high time, and yet there she goes smiling and laughing and misleading that young hopeful into thinking he has her fortune practically in his pocket. I’m telling you she is miserable beyond measure, and it is up to you to put a stop to it.”

  “Well,” said Anne thoughtfully, “she will be going back to Lynnfield soon, and I would imagine that will pretty quickly end his pretensions.”

  “But will it make her happy? Use your eyes, my dear. Your sister is in a steep decline, going to hell in a hand basket. She deserves better from you than that you should ignore her pain while you enjoy your Season.”

  “You are right that she has of late been somewhat, er, disordered. But what can I do? I don’t know what is the matter.”

  “Well of course you don’t. She’s not likely to spoil your Season with her troubles. The woman’s in love with your Cousin James, that’s what it is. It’s clear as the nose on your pretty little face. Just mention his name to her and you’ll see it at once. Well, it stands to reason you will, for I saw it right away myself, and I’m not one to look so deep as some I could name. But here’s the rub. He loves her as true as any man ever loved a woman, but he won’t listen to me, having got out of the habit of trusting me. So he’s keeping his distance. We’ve got to find a way of getting them together in the same room, talking to one another. That is what she had James and me do, and we are friends again. Now is it up to us to make the same thing happen for them.”

  Anne looked at him thoughtfully. “You’re a queer one, aren’t you, My Lord. I find myself quite changing all my opinions about you, and I have already done that once before.”

  “It’s your sister. She’s a goddess. I thought at first Athena, but no, she’s more like Diana – gentle and fierce all at once. She’s changed me forever, and though it’s sometimes downright uncomfortable, I daresay it is for the best in the long run.” He shook his head. “Will you help me?”

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll mention Cousin James to her and see what happens. I thought all of that was behind her. But if I am wrong, if I agree with you, then I’ll have a talk with her friend Alicia and see what she advises. I can promise no more than that.”

  “Bless you, my dear. Would you like to take this next dance with me? If we do not your sister will wonder what we’ve been discussing and suspect something.”

  Anne laughed at his anxiety but agreed to the dance. That night when she was undressed and ready for bed she went into her sister’s room and sat down to watch while Mary Hastings was brushing her hair. She had a clear view of her sister’s face in the mirror when she started talking about their cousin. “Cousin James has come here only that once since you arrived in town,” she said musingly. “I wonder what could be keeping him away? He is usually quite at home here at Berkeley Square. Did Papa have you bring him more business to attend to, so that he has no time for us or the pleasures of society?”

  She stopped then, aghast, for Elaine’s face had taken on a grim pallor and Mary Hastings shot her a quick warning look – a glare actually. Well how is one supposed to know these things if no one bothers to
say anything?

  “You’re in love with him!” She heard her tone as accusing but could not help herself. Elaine’s eyes stayed fixed on hers in the mirror. Then she gave a tiny nod. No more! the nod said. I admit it but ask me no more!

  Anne looked into her sister’s steady gaze and then nodded in return. She got up quietly and went to bed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: In which Great Aunt Agatha has the Final Word.

  Anne consulted Alicia the next day, leaving the Benton household early in the morning a good two hours before her usual morning cup of chocolate. She took a footman with her and called a hack, with the intention of returning to the house before Elaine came down for breakfast.

  “It is true Alicia. There can be no question that she loves him and that he cares for her, only they are both so stubborn that they will not even see one another.”

  Alicia laughed. “That sounds so much like my dear Elaine that I must indeed believe you. How like her to fall for a man as idiotish as she is herself! I must agree that she seemed a bit – shall we say brittle? – when she called the other day, but I put it down to worries about your Papa’s health and the risks of being away from him. My dear Elaine in love! How I relish that thought! We shall find a way to manage, you can be sure of that. Can your Lord Derring find a way to get his friend here to this house tomorrow, do you suppose, for a morning call say at one o’clock?”

  “He will do so. Have you a pen and paper? I will send him a note right away. And I will undertake to bring Elaine here tomorrow as well, which will be no difficulty, for she will want to bid you adieu before she returns to Lynnfield.”

  Indeed, Elaine was agreeable to the visit, for she had noticed that Alicia’s house had an attraction for her sister that went beyond her friend’s good counsel or her charming baby. Alicia had confided to her that Sir Edmund Pace had become quite in the habit of frequenting her house at just the hour of the day that Anne was most likely to call, for at his sister’s house he was able to enjoy her company undisturbed by rivals for her attention, whereas at the parties which they both frequented, he seldom had a chance anymore for more than a few moment’s conversation before some younger gentleman would whisk her away for a dance or a game of charades.

  Sir Edmund was not there, however, that day, and no sooner had Elaine sat down in the parlor, but Anne begged a few moments alone with Alicia, saying she had something in particular she wanted to ask her. Elaine was not left alone for long. Hearing a step in the doorway, she turned and froze, even as the person poised there stood arrested, his face flushing to a familiar shade of red.

  “Oh, this is too bad of Charles!” He exclaimed at last. “Do forgive me, Cousin. It seems that people are never tired of meddling with what they do not at all understand.”

  “Charles, is it?” she asked, her voice quavering slightly. “And my own sister in league with him. My dear friend, we are undone.”

  He eyed the tears slowly sliding down her cheeks and the laughter quivering at the corner of her mouth.

  “It appears to be a habit of yours, Dear Heart, to combine laughter with tears. Can you never be wholly serious?”

  “Oh do be quiet and give me your handkerchief!’ Elaine snapped. “I warn you, no good can come of this!”

  “So I had thought, but I find your combination of tears and laugher irresistible. Have I your permission to sit down?”

  “Oh will you never stop hovering there? Of course sit down, but stop looking at me while I dry these stupid tears. I cannot think why they persist.” Then she added as an after thought, “And I have told you before that I am not your Dear Heart!”

  “Oh but you are, you know, for I cannot help but love you no matter to what lengths I go to pretend otherwise.”

  “Well I don’t love you and I am not going to love you, and I refuse to care about you in any way at all, so you must forget this obsession and leave me alone!”

  “I beg your pardon, my Dear Heart, but you are being most shockingly untruthful, you know, for one who sets such great store by veracity.”

  “If you think that makes us even, you are far off the mark!” She retorted, and wiped at her eyes as a new flood of tears emerged from her disobedient eyes. “Oh pray, do not look at me, I’m sure I look most wretched when I cry.” And then she laughed at her own absurdity.

  “To the contrary, you are one of those rare females who looks charming whether your face is covered in tears or wreathed in smiles, and I remain quite in awe of your facility at combining both effects at the same moment.”

  “But you are absurd!”

  “But no more so than you, Dear Heart.”

  “Oh what shall I do? What shall we do?”

  “Why marry of course. That is the conventional thing to do when two people love one another to the point of madness.”

  “But I can’t. I won’t marry you. I would never know for sure. It will ruin our happiness if even the smallest part of me thinks that perhaps you only married me for the fortune. Oh, indeed James, I could not!”

  “But I am not proposing for your fortune, my dear. I am asking you to marry me on the day after your twenty-fifth birthday.”

  “On the day after?” She dropped the handkerchief into her lap and stared at him.

  “Yes, my little love, and not one day sooner.” A grin was starting at the corners of his mouth.

  She let out a whoop of laughter then. “But this is absurd! The whole world will think us mad!”

  “They will be quite right, Dear Heart, for I have already told you that I love you madly.”

  Anne and Alicia came back into the room a short time later to find two smiling faces, and Miss Elaine Howard striving with very little success to pin back her hair which had somehow become disarranged.

  “Oh let me do that, Elaine. I’ve watched Hastings do it often enough, I’m sure I can manage, ” Anne said, with so much smugness in her voice that Elaine was half minded to inform her that she was being disagreeably pert. But then finding herself smiling too broadly to make any kind of a scold convincing, she wisely said nothing at all, but instead gave herself up to her sister’s ministrations and in a few moments was once more restored to respectability.

  Alicia was standing just inside the doorway looking somehow expectant, and suddenly Elaine realized what she was waiting for. “Alicia, may I present to you my cousin, Captain James Howard. Or perhaps I should say my betrothed. James dear, this is my good friend Mrs. Harry Wentworth. You are required to love her as I do. And Anne dear, Alicia, I am very pleased to tell you that the date of our wedding is already determined, for James insists that we be married on the day after I turn twenty-five.”

  Anne shrieked, “You’re going to throw away the fortune?”

  Alicia gasped, “How improvident!” and then added with a shout of laughter, “Indeed you have found the very man for you, my dear Elaine. I am so very glad.”

  “I always said I thought that a school for girls would be a very fine thing,” Elaine said, her eyes twinkling with delight. She turned to her beloved, and asked with deceptive meekness, “Would you mind very much if I applied for a position teaching in this school of Great Aunt Agatha’s?”

  “I would not dare to object. I assure you I know very well that I have just committed myself to becoming leg-shackled to a veritable shrew, and I am quite prepared to live under the sign of the catsfoot for the rest of my days.”

  Elaine smiled broadly and, very catlike, came close to purring. “Odious man!”

  Anne looked from one to the other, a smile of comprehension on her face. “You don’t want the money, either one of you. You just want each other!”

  Lady Benton heard the news with considerably less comprehension and spent the rest of Elaine’s visit trying in vain to convince her to advance the wedding date. She relented only when she kissed her rather too original niece good-bye before sending her back to Lynnfield, and then she said, “I wash my hands of you, my dear. Tell your father that I did what I could with you, but to no ava
il.”

  Charles was as astounded as Anne had been, but finding his beloved Diana in a state of high gig, he resigned himself to wishing her a life of great happiness and warned his friend not to disappoint her.

  Mr. Lambert Howard laughed so hard that he nearly induced heart failure and just barely avoided dying on the spot and ruining the rest of Anne’s Season. It took him four days to recover, but he told Elaine fondly that the joke was so good he could not regret it.

  The engagement and the projected marriage date quickly became the latest on dit, with the ton in general agreed on taking a dim view of such extravagant gestures. Mr. Norton, getting wind of the news, came calling at Lynnfield Manor to inquire politely if she had quite understood the terms of her Aunt’s will. Assured that she had, and that she knew the money would go into a school, he merely nodded and returned to London, saying quietly that he would call upon her again once the date of her birthday had come and gone.

  Anne, finding her sister once more at the center of a good deal of gossip, tended to retreat even more regularly to Alicia’s cozy home, where one afternoon Sir Edmund came to find her sitting in the small garden watching two starlings fight over a piece of string. Her heart did its usual foolish start as he came and sat down beside her.

  “You are alone this afternoon, my dear,” he commented, smiling.

  “Little Maria Elaine was fussing, so Alicia took her up to the nursemaid. I am sure she will be back down soon. Shall I go ask the maid to bring us some tea?”

  “Later perhaps,” he forestalled her. “I have come on purpose to speak with you.”