Salt Bride

by Lucinda Brant

  Jane hid her shock but she must have appeared stunned for the girl offered her comfort and an explanation.

  “Oh, Uncle Tony doesn’t mind living abroad. He told me so. And Mamma says Cousin Caroline is much too young to be married.” The girl frowned in thought. “But she’s soon to turn eighteen. I should like to be married when I’m eighteen. Eighteen isn’t too young to be married, is it?”

  Her brother added, because Jane was looking confused, “We’ve always called Uncle Salt uncle, even though he is our cousin. And we call Cousin Caroline cousin, even though she’s Uncle Salt’s sister, because she’s much too young to be called an aunt. It’s simple really.”

  “But not too young to be married, is she, Ron?”

  Her brother shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that, Merry. But if you want to get married at eighteen, I’ll not object.”

  Merry beamed to receive such praise, and feeling generous asked Jane, “Would you like to join us?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But you must be very quiet because we’re hiding from Uncle Salt. He always finds us but not today, whatever he says to the contrary. He’ll never suspect we’re under his dining table!”

  “You’re such a slow top, Merry!” accused her brother, an embarrassing glance at Jane. “You can’t invite one of Uncle Salt’s guests to come under the table. What would Mamma say?”

  “Oh, I’m not one of the guests,” Jane assured them with a smile and dropping to her hands and knees crawled under the table.

  She found it surprisingly spacious between the turned legs of the chairs, and tucking her stockinged legs up underneath her silk petticoats she was able to sit comfortably with the two children; being small and slender helped. She smiled at the boy, who was regarding her with wary fascination. No doubt he had never seen an adult under a table before. It was a new experience for Jane, too, but she was enjoying herself and felt far more comfortable in the company of these two children than she had with the tedious company and incomprehensible conversations in the Yellow Saloon.

  “I should’ve introduced myself. It may come as a bit of a shock to you both, but I’m your uncle’s wife. We were married yesterday.”

  “You don’t look old enough to be anybody’s wife, least of Uncle Salt’s wife,” Ron blurted out then immediately recanted. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Oh, I assure you I am older than I look,” Jane said encouragingly. “It’s just because I’m not very tall and have small bones and all the Sinclairs are tall and rather large by comparison.”

  Merry nodded. “Except for Cousin Caroline. She’s short like you and has pretty red hair. But I think you’re very beautiful; like a fairy at the bottom of the garden. I like your shiny black hair particularly.”

  Jane blushed. “Do you? Thank you. Then I suppose you won’t mind having me for an aunt? You may call me Aunt Salt, although that makes me sound very old, so Aunt Jane would be nicer. But only if you wish to. I won’t be offended if you don’t. After all, you don’t know me.” She stuck out her hand to the boy. “But I should like you both to get to know me better.”

  Both children looked at one another before the boy willingly shook hands. “I’ll call you Lady Salt, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “I’m going to call her Aunt Jane,” the girl said confidently, shaking hands with Jane as she glared at her brother, “because I like her and she’s too beautiful to be called Aunt Salt or Lady Salt which sounds stuffy, and because Uncle Salt would want us to. You know he would, Ron!”

  “It’s perfectly all right for…Ron? For Ron to call me Lady Salt, and for you to call me Aunt Jane.”

  “If you want the lot it’s the Honorable Aubrey Vernon Sinclair St. John,” the boy reluctantly volunteered. “Aubrey after my father and Vernon after Uncle Salt’s papa, the fourth Earl. Friends call me Ron. You can call me Ron.” He pushed his sister’s silken arm in a friendly fashion. “This is Merry. Actually it’s the Honorable Magna Diana Sinclair St. John. Named after Uncle Salt. Well, his Christian name is Magnus but I guess you’d know that being married to him. We all call her Merry. We’re eight and three-quarters and twins, if you hadn’t guessed.”

  Jane had not guessed. Ron was smaller and much thinner and very pale, with dark circles under his eyes, and he didn’t appear very robust. He had a serious demeanor, which could be a consequence of his poor health. Yet, his brown eyes, sandy hair and long, thin straight nose gave him a great look of his Uncle Salt, which was even more interesting given the quivering nostrils and the conversation she had overheard in the Royal Tennis Court Gallery. Merry was very different. Merry glowed with vitality, had pink to her cheeks and a bright smile. In every way she was a contrast to her twin. Both were dressed in the height of adult fashion, Ron in lace cravat, richly embroidered waistcoat and black silk breeches. Merry wore a restrictive bodice of blonde silk and layers of petticoats embroidered with tiny rose buds. Her hair, thankfully, was not powdered or pomaded, so that her auburn ringlets bounced about her shoulders. Jane couldn’t help thinking that they would have been more comfortable in simpler, looser fitting garments that allowed for play and movement, as worn by the parish children near her home village, but supposed that their mother dressed them this way when they went out into company.

  “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” Merry asked, gingerly touching Jane’s fingers.

  Jane readily held her hand.

  “I have one brother Tom. He’s here today. He was at the Tower Zoo with me that day. I’ll introduce you both at dinner if you wish.”

  “We don’t eat dinner with the adults,” Merry confessed. “We eat in the nursery. Mamma says it shouldn’t be called a nursery because Uncle Salt isn’t in expectation of having any children to put there. It upsets her to hear it called a nursery. Doesn’t it, Ron?”

  “Yes, but Lady Salt isn’t interested to know where we’ll be eating our dinner, or cares what Mamma thinks about the nursery,” Ron chastised his sister. He looked at Jane with a selfconscious frown. “Still, it’s too bad we have to eat up there alone when all the fun’s down here.”

  “I agree. But perhaps your Mamma thinks it best because you’ve been unwell and you need to rest?” Jane suggested.

  “Unwell? Rest?” Ron pulled a face of disgust. “I’m not ill!” Then revised this declaration by saying meekly, “Sometimes I get stomach cramp—”

  “—but Mamma gives him medicine and when he throws up he feels better again.”

  “Merry.”

  “It’s true,” Merry assured Jane, snuggling closer and looking earnestly into Jane’s blue eyes. “Mamma says Ron’s unwell, even when we think he’s well, and makes him swallow a horrid tasting medicine to make him better. But you don’t like taking the medicine, do you, Ron? But if he refuses to do Mamma’s bidding, she has him strapped to the bed and forces the—”

  “Merry.”

  “—medicine down his throat. That only makes you worse, doesn’t it, Ron? Because you vomit and vomit. And then Uncle Salt has to come and give Ron a different medicine which makes him feel so much better, when he wasn’t really ill in the first place.”

  “Merry! Stop it!” Ron demanded with angry embarrassment. “Lady Salt isn’t interested in Mamma’s medicine cabinet!”

  “Oh, dear, what a very unpleasant ordeal for you, Ron,” Jane said with an understanding smile, hiding her alarm. “Do you know, my brother Tom used to suffer the same fate at the hands of his mother. Mothers worry at the slightest sniffle or sign that their child might be poorly. But you shouldn’t be too hard on your mother, either of you. She must love you very much to be so concerned. I’m sure she’ll grow out of it and leave you alone soon enough.”

  “At least Ron can’t be blamed for the physician’s visit last night,” Merry volunteered.

  “Oh?” Jane moved closer and tried to sound disinterested. “Were you the one with the high temperature?”

  Merry giggled and shook her auburn ringlets. “Me? No! Uncle Salt says I
have the con-constitution of an ox,” she announced proudly.

  “It was Mamma with one of her sick headaches,” Ron explained reluctantly.

  “She’s always suffering from sick headaches,” Merry interrupted cheerfully. “Clary and Taylor say we give Mamma headaches all the time. So we have to be quiet about our house and tiptoe in the passageways.”

  “But last night’s headache was a terribly awful one,” Ron said in defense of his mother. “Mamma’s suffering woke the whole house and there was nothing any of the servants could do to help her, so the physician had to be called out in the middle of the night.”

  “Clary said she was in a raging temper,” Merry confided in an awed whisper. “And when that happens no one can go near Mamma for days. But in this house we don’t have to tiptoe at all,” she added with a beaming smile. “Uncle Salt lets us run about as much as we want.”

  “But not in the public rooms,” Ron added seriously, “where just anybody can come and see Uncle Salt. And most particularly not on Tuesdays, when there’s all sorts of beggars sitting about wanting Uncle Salt to do things for them. Then we must be on our best behavior because we are Sinclairs and it wouldn’t do for a Sinclair to be seen to be common. But as most of the rooms in this house are empty there’s plenty of places to run about and play hide and go seek. That’s the arrangement we shook hands on with Uncle Salt, isn’t it, Merry?”

  “Yes.

  Ron sighed. “But it’s the nursery for us tonight because Mamma couldn’t bear the disturbance at dinner after her raging temper last night. As it is she could hardly stand up to make it into the carriage to come here.”

  “But there’s so many people here today making much more of a disturbance than we ever would so it’s hardly fair,” Merry complained.

  With thirty guests sitting down to a huge dinner and intent on having a good time, Jane didn’t think it fair either. And if their mother could survive the continual thud of the tennis ball hitting the roof of the Gallery without reviving her headache of the night before then why couldn’t she tolerate her two children eating their dinner surrounded by feasting adults? But far be it for her to interfere in a mother’s edicts. Yet Jane knew she wouldn’t be able to sit through such a dinner, least of all eat anything, with the thought of these two children eating alone in a cavernous, ill-lit and possibly freezing room, if the nursery was anything like the rest of the rooms in this house. She had eaten so many dinners cold and alone that it didn’t bear thinking about.

  “My lady, the gentlemen have now joined the ladies in the Yellow Saloon,” Willis the under-butler informed Jane, squatting to peer under the table. “Would you care for me to help you out of there?”

  “No!” the children said in unison, a pleading look at Jane.

  When the tutor and the governess dared to peer under the table either side of the under-butler, glowering at the two children with every expectation that they follow Jane out from under the table, Jane saw the little faces crumple and she didn’t have the heart to ruin their game of hide and go seek.

  “Thank you, but I shall remain here until his lordship discovers us,” Jane replied evenly. She looked deliberately at the tutor and the governess to ensure they were included in her edict. “And I would be pleased if you would forget we are here, or you will give the game away, and that would give his lordship an unfair advantage.”

  The under-butler bowed his head in complete acceptance of this order but the tutor and governess had jaws swinging that, had they been able, would’ve dropped to the floor when Jane added to the blanked-faced Willis, “If you can manage it, and it isn’t too much bother, would you find space at the table for two more covers, next to me, of course.” She smiled at Ron and Merry. “It’s only fair all the Sinclairs be present at my first dinner, don’t you agree?”

  With the children nodding their delight, the under-butler went away to do his bidding with perfect composure and the governess and tutor departed to await the first opportunity to inform Lady St. John of surprising developments. It was not many minutes later that amongst the usual toing and froing to the table of soft-footed servant activity, the three under the table heard the measured tread and voices of two gentlemen in conversation. The gentlemen came further into the room. In fact, they strolled right up to where the three under the table were huddled. Merry took the unnecessary step of putting a chubby finger to her smiling lips to ensure her co-conspirators remained silent and hunched her shoulders in delight. Even Ron’s eyes lit up and he hugged his knees and wiggled his toes in his black polished shoes.

  The two gentlemen in conversation came to stand close by the table. It was the Earl of Salt Hendon and Sir Antony Templestowe. Ron and Merry were in such an ecstasy of expectation of being discovered by their much loved uncles that they swiftly and silently pushed themselves further back along the length of the polished floor to hide amongst the tangle of chair legs, leaving Jane behind, with the possibility of being the first to be caught out. Yet, she couldn’t help but get caught up in the children’s excitement. That is until she heard whom the two men were discussing and then she was glad the children had scampered out of earshot.

  She wished herself a hundred miles away.

  “Her brother is a fine fellow,” Sir Antony was saying. “And not a bad tennis player for someone who professes to have played only the odd game at Oxford. Are you certain I’ve not met his mother?”

  “Absolutely,” was Salt’s clipped response.

  “Odd. When she came swaning into the library yesterday, I was convinced I’d met her before. There’s something… Are you sure she’s never been to Salt Hall?”

  “Tony. If you’re going to bore on about the vulgar Lady Despard I’ll sit you beside Jenny Dalrymple, who has the brain the size of a pea and about as much conversation.”

  “Is that so?” Sir Antony laughed. “But what about that stocking and garter business down on the court?”

  Salt put his wine glass on the table, just a foot away from where Jane sat huddled. “No doubt Diana thinks Jenny’s ideal mistress material. Just like Elizabeth before her and Susannah before that. No brains and all breasts.”

  “Diana? Yes, I’d heard she took an interest…”

  “A diplomatic understatement, dear fellow. Your sister is under the misguided belief that she has control over my life, in and out of the bedroom. What she doesn’t realize and never will is that I permit her good-natured interference only in matters I deem of little consequence.”

  Sir Antony laughed again. Jane heard the nervousness in his voice. “Well you’ve definitely got her fooled, not to mention half of society. Diana plays the part of Countess of Salt Hendon by proxy to the hilt. May I ask why you let her get away with it?”

  “It gives her something to do. She was born to be a political hostess. In fact, had she been born a man she would’ve made an excellent politician. Much more successful at wielding the political dagger than you ever could be.”

  “Thank you very much!” Sir Antony said, offended.

  “I mean that in the nicest possible way, Tony. You have a conscience and I trust you implicitly. That doesn’t bode well if you hope to claw your way to the top of the political manure pile here at home. But I will help you rise to Ambassador precisely because of your shortcomings. We need more men like you in positions of influence and I will continue to do what I can to see this is realized.”

  “Your faith in my abilities overwhelms me,” Sir Antony commented dryly. “Though I’m not sure your speech was entirely complimentary.”

  “My dear Tony, my ancient pedigree entitles me a seat atop the political poop where I am best able to put your abilities to good use,” Salt drawled with exaggerated emphasis. “To state the obvious: an earldom and more wealth than I know what to do with gives me unlimited influence. I was being complimentary. You under value yourself.”

  “But what of Diana?”

  “If she were a man…” Salt replied, an edge to his voice and with the slightest of pauses
before he continued in a more conversational tone. “She’s very good at organizing my social calendar, something that, quite frankly, bores me beyond belief. But you know as well as I that social calendars are a necessary evil for a man in my position. I will be forever grateful to her for taking on the task, though I did not ask it of her. But I’m not blind to her motivation. That she has overstepped the mark by taking on the role of procuress, I will stop—Oh? So you knew? God! Is nothing sacred?”

  “For Diana? About you? Afraid not,” Sir Antony apologized.

  Jane heard Salt huff his annoyance and watched him take a step closer to the table so that the toe of his shoe tickled the hem of her petticoats. She quickly gathered the silk layers closer, and in the process knocked a chair leg. The two children drew in quick breaths and Jane held hers, but when the Earl and Sir Antony continued talking, those under the table silently breathed easier.

  “I’ve tolerated your sister’s interference in my life since the death of St. John because it has given her widowhood occupation and meaning,” Salt said flatly. “I had hoped that in time she would remarry. The fact that she has, as you so bluntly informed me at White’s, held out in the expectation that I would ask her to marry me, has made me realize that allowing her to organize my social engagements and play hostess at my party political dinners was an error of judgment. To be blunt,” he added on a sigh of admission, “I permitted your sister such license because it stopped her interfering in matters that are far more important in my life.”

  “Such as your marriage?” Sir Antony asked too quickly and could’ve bitten off his own tongue. Why was it that he could be the consummate diplomat with others but with Salt he just blathered like schoolboy? He tried to make a recover. “If it’s any consolation, Diana’s taken the news better than I expected. Of course she pretended she already knew you were married and practically spat in my face for daring to tell her to be on her best behavior. I dare say having guests here today has helped temper her mood. That was a good tactical move on your part.”