by Joan Smith
“What a memory you have, Aunt,” Daphne complimented her. “And what a lot of interesting stories.”
“My memory begins to fail me, dear. I’m not sure yet whether it was Mr. Pettigrew or Robert— but in any case I have been reading those stories over in my memoirs these past months I have been so alone, and that’s why they are fresh in mind now."
“Oh, you have kept a diary! What a splendid idea! I used to myself, but it seemed pointless to write each day that I had helped hem up a pair of curtains, or went for a ride in the woods, or drove to the village, so I stopped.”
“I shouldn’t bother to start till my life got a little more interesting, if I were you, for there’s nothing makes one so peevish as reading a book where nothing happens."
“Nothing of the sort you have been describing is likely to happen in my life, Auntie.”
“Never say never. It is something I learned long ago. I used to say I’d never hold up my head again when Standington walked out on me, and never be poor again when I married Mr. Eglinton, and never marry again when he died. But all my nevers came back to taunt me, and now I hardly ever say it, for I shan’t even say I never say never. It is, perhaps, unlikely I shall remarry and be rich again, but there—who is to say? But as to yourself, the case is quite different. You are young and attractive and in London. Oh, I know I can’t present you as I should dearly love to do, my dear, but there are gentlemen with eyes in their heads for all that, and I had not been presented yet when Standington saw me, looking in at a shop window, and followed me. He was so clever. He came to the door not five minutes after I got home and said he’d seen me drop a trinket—a watch fob it was— and followed me home to return it. I’d never seen it before in my life. How should I, for he took it from his own chain for the purpose, and it served as an introduction. Before long he was calling every day. What a handsome man he was—so straight and with shoulders as wide as a door.” The blue eyes took on their glazed “memory” look.
Daphne was already beginning to have some understanding of her aunt. Of all her husbands, it was only the first who brought this certain smile to her lips. He was the great love of her life—no doubt of that. Her fondest and most frequent memories were of her life in England with him, and they were only married for eighteen months. Even the divorce had not soured those memories. Daphne was curious to have a look at the memoirs. “Did you write that episode up in your memoirs, Aunt? It seems to me from that date on your life was interesting enough to record.”
“It was interesting enough a month before that. I started it the day I came to London to visit the Elders. That was their name, not age. Relatives on Papa’s side. Yes, there was a very interesting month even before Standington wangled his introduction. You must have a look at my diary one day, if you can read my scratching. I haven’t kept it since I married Mr. Pealing, but now that you are come, I think I’ll start it again, for with such an attractive young lady in the house, I have a feeling things will pick up. I am very good at feelings.”
She was off on another tale having to do with a premonition that Lord Alvanley would escape unscathed from a duel with Morgan O’Connell, as indeed he had. “And now I have the feeling that things are going to start to happen again. It’s hard to describe what I mean. The blood quickens and there’s a feeling of excitement inside my head. Mary would know what I meant. She used to get feelings, too.”
“I hope you may be right, Ma’am,” Daphne said, with the secret thought that her aunt’s manifestations of feeling might be due to Mr. Fox’s excellent wine.
“Oh, I am never wrong about my feelings.”
“What, never?” her niece teased.
“Hardly ever,” Effie corrected herself, and together they went off to their chambers.
Chapter 3
Aunt Effie’s premonition of great things about to happen did not come to pass immediately. Nothing occurred during the first three days of the visit. The lavish dinner of the first evening was not repeated, and Daphne soon learned that her aunt kept no carriage. “Actually I have a carriage,” Effie told her, “but I don’t keep horses. In the first place, they charge extra for the stable that goes with the apartment, and in the second place, it requires a groom and such a ton of feed, for horses do nothing but eat their heads off all the time you’re not using them. And I don’t go about enough to make it worth my while.”
“Then why don’t you sell the carriage?” her niece asked.
“Well, it is the carriage Standington gave me for a wedding present, and I wouldn’t like to part with it. I had the crest painted over, of course.”
Daphne had to repress a sigh at this foolish streak of romanticism. Her aunt obviously needed the money, and she also felt that Effie would hire a team for the months of her visit if she could afford it. The quality of the wine had been inferior after the first night, and the general state of creeping decay in all the furnishings, such as drapes and carpets, was further evidence of a lack of funds.
One day Daphne found her aunt in a little study—the one which held the memoirs, often dipped into to pass the time. She was frowning over a fistful of bills and shaking her head. “Bills,” she said in accents of loathing. “I’m sure I don’t know how I managed to eat up five guineas worth of meat in a month, but here is the bill from the butcher, and Cook confirms it. And look at this, Daphne, three guineas for candles, in spite of using tallow ones in the kitchen. I certainly didn’t used to spend so much for candles. And here are more bills just come. I don’t believe I’ll bother to open them.” Setting the bills aside she went on, “I’m sure they’re making the days shorter.”
“That one doesn’t look like a bill,” Daphne said, pointing out an envelope of a superior quality.
Effie eyed it suspiciously, but at last opened it and pulled out a letter. “It’s from a Mr. Henry Colburn,” she said. “I never heard of him. Who can he be?”
“Read the letter and find out,” she was advised.
"Good gracious me! Was there ever such nonsense? He wants me to write a book,” she said, laughing.
This sounded such a bizarre request to come out of the blue that Daphne reached out her hand for the letter. It sounded less bizarre after she read the letter’s contents. Mr. Colburn knew Aunt Effie’s history and had suggested she write her reminiscences of the great people she had known. He mentioned her travels abroad, which were of interest to those who stayed at home.
“It’s a stunning idea!” Daphne said, thinking of the revenue that might come from such a book. She also saw the editing of the memoirs as a useful and amusing occupation after she returned home and her aunt would be again alone. Effie would meet some new friends, have somewhere to go and someone to visit her.
“It is not to be thought of,” the aunt said, setting the letter aside with the bills. “I’m sure I would never sink so low.”
“There is that never again!” Daphne roasted. “It is not in the least low, Ma’am. Many of your reminiscences are unexceptionable. They show no one in a poor light. Your soliciting votes for Fox, for instance, would harm no one and be of interest to many. Your experience in France where you lost your diamond necklace and it turned up next day in the pot-au-feu, too, was most unusual and amusing. You would not, of course, put in those sections where certain people took advantage of you. No need to tell how many you helped with money only to be spurned when they were in a position to return the favour; and, of course, it wouldn’t do to brag how you had to fight off the men with a sledge hammer.”
“But if it is announced that I am to write a book, people will expect to read about—you know, the divorce and all that. I would never—there I go again—but I never would write a word about that, and that is what people would expect: Scandal.”
“Let them think what they like, Auntie, if it will make them buy the book. You needn’t fulfill their lurid expectations. Write about what you wish. There is enough material in your diaries to write a good long book without resorting to any shameful revelations to you
rself or anyone else.”
“James wouldn’t like it,” was the answer.
“James who?” Daphne asked, trying to recall if James was one of the husbands.
“Your father,” Effie replied, startled. “You know what a demon for propriety he is. Methodist. Why, he won’t let Mary walk in the village without an abigail to this day. He wouldn’t care for it at all.”
“Aunt Effie! My father may go to the devil. This has nothing to do with him. Mama knuckles under to him too easily nine times out of ten. If he were my husband instead of father he wouldn’t be so overbearing. As he does not see fit to ask you to come to us, as he should do, you need not consider what he will think. Anyway, it isn’t nearly so dashing as some of the other things you’ve done.”
“Well, Arthur wouldn’t care for it either.”
“Pooh! I don’t suppose you much cared to be divorced. He could have made it a separation, as he didn’t wish to remarry, and saved you a lot of disgrace.”
“But then I could never have married Mr. Eglinton, and, really, he was quite amusing, too, though not the fine figure of a man Arthur was. But there is another problem as well. I have no style for writing. I just jotted my notes down any old higgledy-piggledy way. You know what a mess they are. I can’t spell, and never know where to put semi-colons and all those dots and dashes real writers use. I always found writing very confusing.”
“Mr. Colburn must have some sort of a person who will dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s.”
“Oh well, I can do that much myself.”
“Aunt Effie, you goose! I didn’t mean... But never mind. I am fairly good at a semi-colon myself and will give you a hand while I am here. We have nothing else to do. It will be great fun.”
“What a flat time I am showing you, when you are ready to tackle writing to get the days in.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. Oh, do it! You had the feeling something was going to happen, and this is the first thing that has promised any excitement.”
“Well,” Effie said, considering the matter. “I’ll just write Mr. Colburn a little note asking if he would care to drop around and discuss it. I’ll let him know what kind of a book we have in mind, and if he isn’t interested in that, I shan’t do it. You must help me with the note, Daphne. Put in some of those semi-colons, and a few commas, too, so he won’t think I’m illiterate.”
The note was written with pertinent punctuation, Mr. Colburn came two days later, and it was very pleasant to at last have a caller. He was a small, dandified gentleman with pink cheeks and a fringe of brindled hair. He took to Effie immediately and she liked him also, having been deprived of all masculine company but servants for a year. In fact, he stayed so long Daphne began to wonder whether there wasn’t some romance in the air. But his main concern was to urge a little livelier story on Mrs. Pealing than she intended. He did not insist on any record of the divorce, however, and before he left they had come to an understanding that she would begin her book immediately, to be ready for publication within the year.
Mr. Colburn intended to pay many calls at Upper Grosvenor Square and lure the unsuspecting lady into greater revelations than she had any intention of making. She couldn’t be as straight-laced about her past as she let on. And there might be a bit of lovemaking to be done as well, in the way of business and pleasure. With luck, he’d get a hand on those memoirs himself and do a proper job once she came to trust him.
Through a friend in the newspaper business he managed to get an article inserted in a social column mentioning that Mrs. Pealing, with all her other names, was to publish her memoirs. Neither Mrs. Pealing nor Daphne Ingleside saw the notice, but it was read by those whose chief literature was the social columns and received with joy or dismay, depending on past dealings with the author.
A certain Lady Elizabeth Thyrwite read it and turned pale. “That woman! I hoped—thought she was dead!” she said to herself and dropped the paper to the floor, trembling. Her husband, Sir Lawrence Thyrwite, was a Member of Parliament and making great strides in his career. After having sat with the Tories for twenty years, speaking in the House three times, and never voting against his party, he was in line for promotion. He was a pillar of rectitude, his one lapse from virtue having occurred the year before their marriage, when he, in common with every other gentleman in London at the time, had thrown his heart at Mrs. Pealing’s (then the widowed Mrs. Eglinton’s) feet.
It was being discussed that he was to be given a folio in the Cabinet. It was within an inch of his grasp, and now this! If that woman published how Larry had begged her to marry him, had broken his engagement to a Miss Marmon, a stupid little chit who had only ever got hold of him by letting on that she was related to the Sussex Marmons (and it was no such a thing)—if she told the world how he had a ring-round fight with his family, and threatened to renounce his inheritance, he would be ruined! Such unwise, unpolitical, unministerial behaviour!
All that was past and forgotten when he had had the good taste and luck to fall in love with herself, after being turned down by Mrs. Eglinton. Not a whisper of an opera dancer or an actress had sullied his name from that moment on, and it was too bad for a Mrs. Pealing to ruin a man’s life for cheap sensationalism and a bit of money. She must be stopped, and Sir Lawrence must not go near her to do it, for he still had a loose-lipped smile on those rare occasions when her name arose. Dickie, Lady Elizabeth’s brother, must be sent as emissary to buy off the hussy. Lawrence must not hear a word of it. If anyone mentioned the matter to him, he would be met with innocent looks; Larry was such a ninny he would be only surprised and not shaking in his boots as he ought to be, for he still claimed that Effie had a heart of gold and wouldn’t harm a fly.
Dickie was quite a different matter. Though he was only a younger brother, he was wide awake on all suits. No one would pull a trick on Richard. Lady Elizabeth was accustomed to apply to him in all her various difficulties, and he had never let her down yet.
Whether it was getting a job for Larry’s brother or a ticket for a play when she had cancelled her box for the Season or a safe seat in Parliament for Larry when his own was in jeopardy, Dickie always came through. He was very tyrannical, of course, and insisted that you follow his orders to the letter; but, really, he was very efficient and exactly the right person to handle this touchy business. He would certainly be ready to help on this occasion, for he had the greatest dislike of low persons who would spread gossip. He was very proper in all of his dealings and very discreet in those that weren’t so proper. As the nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury— Mama’s brother—he was aware that propriety was expected of him. He could be taken as a model of decorous behaviour.
Richard Percival, the Duke of St. Felix, duly received a hastily scribbled note from his sister requesting his immediate attendance on her. Accustomed to the minor matters that Bess considered urgent, he tossed the note on a table and reminded himself to drop in the next day. In other households, similar plans were afoot to drop in on Mrs. Pealing, who sat all unaware, smiling over her memoirs and reading aloud a paragraph here and there to Daphne, who was busy with a pencil ticking off likely items for inclusion in the book. At eleven they retired and had the last night of easy sleep either was to have for the next several weeks.
Their door knocker started banging early the next day. Who should drop in but Lady Pamela Thurston of the pawned diamonds. Effie hadn’t seen her in over twenty years but recognized her at once. Lady Pamela’s face had sagged half an inch, but the hair was the same insouciant shade of pinkish-orange, achieved with the same dye that had first wrought the minor miracle a quarter of a century before. There was no one else in London with hair the shade of Pamela’s.
“Pamela Thurston, I declare!” Effie exclaimed, and her blue eyes opened wide in shock. “Where have you come from after all these years?”
“Effie, is it you!” Lady Pamela asked. The blue hair was not so easily recognized, nor the full pink cheeks. The surroundings were so altogeth
er different from what Mrs. Eglinton used to enjoy. The carpet underfoot was positively thread-bare and the drapes tatty. All was seen in one room-encircling gaze, then the eyes went back to Mrs. Pealing.
“To be sure it is. Wouldn’t you have known me, Pamela?”
“I would have known her!” Lady Pamela replied, pointing to Daphne, and then she laughed, a deep, throaty gurgle. How good it was to hear the sound of laughter again. “The spit and image of you, Effie. I had no idea you had a daughter.”
“This is my niece,” Effie said, and made the introduction.
Daphne realized she was in the presence of a life previously unknown to her. The hair, the furs, the perfume, the polish—all were new. Wealth and self-confidence exuded from Lady Pamela. Here at last was a creature from the enchanted kingdom of Aunt Effie-land, and Daphne waited with baited breath to hear her speak on. All that she heard was a great deal of senseless chatter of “Do you remember?” this one and that one. She was disappointed, but at length some sense began to emerge from the chatter. “And I said to Sammie when I saw the notice in the Observer—you remember my darling Sammie—’Effie Eglinton! Why, I didn’t know she was still in London! I must pay her a call.’ And then I remembered—dear Effie, you must think me the most mindless person the good Lord ever created, but not till that very instant did I remember your having got my diamond necklace back from the pawn shop for me twenty-five years ago. I never paid you back a penny. Five hundred pounds, wasn’t it?”
“I do believe it was. Yes, five hundred wasn’t it, Daphne? We were reading of it in my memoirs last night,” Effie said.