‘Dearest!’ she was saying to a young girl wearing a dreadful stuff dress under a dull pelisse and carrying an ancient carpet bag, ‘Your mama has bade me fetch you.’
The man beside the girl was touching his hat. ‘Countess Overton!’ he said, smoothly.
‘Driscoll.’ She replied with little attention.
Felicity, shocked and confused, was looking between the two, and her eyes met those of the Countess and read a message in them. ‘So kind!’ she just managed to say. The lady grasped her arm and drew her to the carriage, where a small young man, had sprung from the back stand and now held the horses heads. The groom remained on the box, his eyes towards his master.
‘Let me take these, my dear,’ said the lady’s companion, a handsome gentleman of middle age who had a great air of fashion in his dress. He relieved her of her baggage and handed Felicity into the carriage, and then his wife. He threw a look behind him, but Driscoll, as his wife had called the man, was gone. The fashionable gentleman nodded to the small servant who leapt back on his perch and soon the coach wove its way through the streets.
‘Countess?’ ventured Felicity.
It was the gentleman who answered, ‘It is no longer Countess. She has fallen in the world to become a mere Mrs Fenton,’ his voice was wryly amused. ‘I should say, as a daughter of a peer, Lady Aurora Fenton.
‘I declare I like to be Lady Aurora again,’ she smiled fondly at her husband. The lady looked like Felicity’s idea of a countess, she thought. Very grand and glamorous, wearing the most wonderful bonnet she had ever seen (even rivalling Lady Letitia’s), her scent filling the carriage. And better that that, unlike the other ladyship she had met today, she smiled kindly.
‘Let us go to my house and we will talk there soon enough, my dear. I should just say, in case you failed to guess, I do not know your mother and she did not send me.’
‘I did guess that, Mrs Fenton, for my mama has been dead these many years.’ Felicity smiled at the great lady. ‘I suppose this means that I am being abducted!’
‘You do not seem afraid, my dear,’ said the amused tones of Mr Fenton.
Felicity’s eyes danced merrily. ‘Oh, I have been abducted once already today!’
‘Intriguing!’ his eyes laughed back at her.
‘I fear you might not have been so amused had you become further acquainted with Mr Driscoll,’ remarked Mrs Fenton, dryly.
Felicity looked a little graver, but she still could not ignore her inner excitement. Never had she driven in such a carriage. She was quite happy to sit against the rose velvet squabs and look out of the carriage windows, a little shy and wondering how to explain her predicament to the most magnificently fashionable pair she had ever met. It did not occur to her to be worried about being driven away who knows where with strangers. She knew they were kind, and really she had nothing better to do this evening.
It was only a few streets further, but the difference in the respectable houses like the horrible Mrs Hennessey’s to the grand London Squares was marked. The carriage stopped outside a large house, with stairs leading to an imposing door.
She was aware that Mr Fenton, he of the drawling voice, was looking at her profile. She looked over at him and found his eye intelligent, and perhaps a little kind. He too, was very grand. He wore a dark cutaway coat over crisp white linen and a rather startling brocade waistcoat whose high neck supported higher shirt points. His cravat seemed to be tied in an impossibly complicated knot.
She was staring like some gawk-pot, next she’d be saying, ‘What a swell!’ just like their groom used to say of any visitors from London. She hadn’t found her voice yet, so she looked her apology and a lazy smile told her that the swell Mr Fenton completely understood.
‘Come my dear,’ said Mrs Fenton, ‘let us have some refreshment.’
Felicity could not but think, despite all the awkwardness of her situation, that she was having a more exciting adventure than she might have had, if she was only now meeting the horrible Mrs Hennessey’s children.
Chapter 2
Lady Aurora Listens
‘Well my dear, now that we are a little more comfortable, I beg you will tell me how you came to be walking the streets of London on your own.’ Her ladyship was looking even more beautiful now that she had removed the wonderful bonnet and had shown her hair, so cunningly confected as to make Felicity die with envy. She wore a gown of chartreuse silk with a daringly low neckline and a cut becoming to her slender, energetic figure. Felicity was entranced by her every move, so graceful and sophisticated was she.
‘Well, I came from Shropshire to London to be a governess to the Hennessey family, but I did not suit.’
Mr Fenton, sitting with crossed legs on a chair, sipping something of a different colour than the ratafia she had been offered, looked interested in this.
‘Why ever not?’ he asked innocently. His wife caught his eye and frowned.
‘I really do not know,’ answered Felicity honestly. ‘She did not tell me. I did not get a chance to say that my own dear governess complimented me on my understanding of the globe, my grasp of Latin, and said that I was truly gifted at needlepoint.’
‘What about drawing and music - are not all young ladies in need of those accomplishments, too?’ asked Mr Fenton, avoiding his wife’s eye.
Felicity blushed. ‘Well, yes. But I could never sketch convincingly. And I play appallingly,’ she confided. ‘But she cannot have objected to that, since I had not yet told her.’
Mr Fenton laughed. ‘Very true!’
‘She sent you out onto the street with no aid at all?’ said Lady Aurora in a cold tone.
‘No, she seemed very annoyed and simply had me escorted out.’
‘What is her address?’
Felicity recited it to her.
Lady Aurora walked to a little table beside one window where she extracted some paper, took up a plume and wrote a few lines. Her husband joined her at the table and took it from her hand before she sealed it.
‘Ha!’ he laughed. And he read:
Dear Mrs Hennessey,
I’m sure that you will be relieved to learn that the young lady you caused to come from Shropshire as a governess, but whom you found did not suit, was found by myself and my husband this day and is now safe. Did you know that she was quite without resources? I’m persuaded that it must have been an oversight as no lady would leave another female, who was in some way her responsibility, to find her own way in a strange and dangerous city.
Lady Aurora Fenton.
Her ladyship rang a bell and the sealed missive was sent to Mrs Hennessey. She then turned towards Felicity. ‘And now my dear, you must tell me your story.’ The cold look had quite gone from her eyes and Felicity managed to say, ‘With pleasure, your ladyship, but I’m a trifle worried about the time. The only acquaintance I have is my aunt, Lady Ellingham, in Half Moon Street. It might soon be too late to visit her.’
‘Ellingham — Nell, I think, though I have not heard of her in an age. Does she expect you? I think it rather late now.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Felicity.
‘Perhaps it would be better if you stayed here for the night and went to see your aunt after breakfast. Unless that also suggests abduction?’ said the lazy tones of her host.
‘Oh, sir, if it is abduction it must be the loveliest abduction ever. Thank you — it would be so kind. And,’ she said obscurely, ‘I have been abducted today already.’
An altercation could be heard from the hallway, but Lady Ellingham had no fear of being interrupted at her breakfast, for the butler knew she did not choose to be disturbed before it was consumed, even if it were now twelve of the clock. There were three other occupants of the room, a tiny lady sitting to one side of the table disconsolately sticking a needle into a piece of work, a footman who served at the table and a dark tall maid, standing behind her ladyship with a resigned look on her face, ready to deliver herself of any of the medications her ladyship might demand.
> Her ladyship’s most startling item of attire was her bonnet. It was because of this bonnet that her ladyship was generally known by the epithet ‘mad’. Lady Ellingham’s bonnet was a large brimmed flat affair from another era. It sat upon her wig at a forward tilt with a broad scarlet ribbon round the brim tied behind the head. It was her favourite bonnet, worn over a cap of Brussels’ lace, but not generally the customary wear for breakfast in one’s own home. It might then be speculated that her ladyship was about to go out and had just sat down to a mouthful in her rush to go — but no. There was no rush in her ladyship’s consumption of her very lavish breakfast, and moreover, her ladyship was otherwise dressed in nightwear. A copious lace peignoir of a yellowing shade (which pained her ladyship’s personal maid every time she looked at it, since she could not get her hands on it for long enough to re-establish the colour) and a nightdress of the same bountiful source as the peignoir and the same ageing hue.
To her shock and disapprobation, the butler entered. ‘Excuse me, your ladyship, there is a lady here to see you, along with a Miss Oldfield.’
‘What! Go away Beatty! Shoo!’ she made an angry motion with her hands, ‘Send them off — my nieces are not in town.’
‘It is not Miss Amity or Miss Charity I speak of, your ladyship, but a Miss Felicity Oldfield.’
‘What! Still here? Go, man I—’
An elegant lady, wearing a velvet pelisse, over a froth of French muslin and carrying a sunshade with long ribbons, pushed the door open and strode into the room a little way, followed by a tall but shrinking girl in dull attire. ‘Lady Ellingham,’ she was saying as she walked in, I am sorry to—’ she stopped dead, before she had gone four paces and added, as if awestruck, ‘What a stunning bonnet!’
The older woman, who had been flushed with rage and about to issue an edict, answered instead, ‘I had it from France on my wedding trip. It was much admired.’
‘It would be. I am Lady Aurora Fenton,’ she said holding out a hand that the elder took automatically, pressing a smear of butter onto Lady Aurora’s new kid gloves. ‘I must introduce your niece to you, I understand. Miss Felicity Oldfield.’
Felicity stepped forward a pace and bobbed a curtsy.
‘Nonsense — there were only two. And I sent them back after one of them had made a match —’ she gave a crack of laughter, ‘to a pinch-paring clergyman, curse her. And after the chances I gave her! There is no third.’
‘My sisters’ must have talked of me, aunt,’ protested Felicity.
Her aunt’s dead eye was upon her again, ‘No.’ she said determinedly. Felicity stepped back. Her aunt turned again to Lady Aurora, who was now holding out her hand to the small figure who had been sewing, saying, ‘How do you do?’ causing her so much shock that she stood up and knocked over a table with silken threads upon it to the floor. She took the hand however, curtsied, and squeaked, ‘Miss Fleet!’
‘Oh, that’s just Fleet,’ said Lady Ellingham, ‘Nobody talks to Fleet.’ Felicity shot a glance at this lady and smiled pityingly. As Lady Aurora took up another seat and sat down, gracefully disposing her skirts, the old lady frowned. ‘What are you—?’ she began, but Lady Aurora leaned forward and grasped her arm confidentially.
‘It is a cruel world, your ladyship.’ Despite herself her ladyship nodded and Lady Aurora continued. ‘Only yesterday, your niece arrived in London, and was cast out on to the streets, with no resources, by a woman who calls herself a lady. An Oldfield of Oldfield. What an insult to you my lady.’
‘Nonsense. I didn’t know there was a third — why should she, whoever she is?’
‘Well, the resemblance for a good beginning —for to see Felicity is to see again your youthful beauty.’
Lady Ellingham, who had thus far spared Felicity only two frightful glances now gestured her forward and regarded her closely. ‘My build, perhaps, but who can say under those awful clothes.’
‘And the eyes, your ladyship. My husband was just saying, when we fortunately saw Felicity in the street, and recognised her as dear Oldfield’s child, that he had only ever remarked that beautiful colour once before — your own.’
The old lady’s eyes filled. ‘Cinnamon, my lord called it!’
But Felicity was looking at the peignoir. Unconsciously taking a leaf from Lady Aurora’s book, she said, ‘Aunt, is your nightdress made entirely of lace?’
‘Brussels’,’ said her ladyship proudly, looking down and touching it. ‘Bought for me as a present for my wedding trip by Lord Ellingham.’ She focused from her reverie, ‘It has turned sadly yellow. Maria!’ she said, turning to her maid, ‘I should turn you off to let it get into this state.’
The maid’s face betrayed no reaction. Lady Aurora guessed that she was “turned off” twice a day, but no one bothered to pack a valise.
‘What am I supposed to do with her?’ said Lady Ellingham to Lady Aurora. ‘I have done my duty by the other two. You really cannot expect me to give another one a season. And those clothes! At least those other little dabs were dressed. I cannot be seen with a beanpole with no more style than a chambermaid.’
Lady Aurora turned to smile at a shaking Felicity. ‘My dear, could you let my husband know that I will not be many minutes? And keep him company in the carriage for a while until I return.’
Felicity bobbed another curtsy and said, ‘Aunt!’ leaving the oppressive presence of Lady Ellingham as soon as she could.
While Felicity was handed into the carriage to sit with Mr Fenton, she explained her mission to him.
‘I suspect that her ladyship is trying to persuade my aunt to have me stay. There was even mention of a season, but I don’t at all expect that. If she could just let me stay until I find another situation—,’ she confided to him.
Mr Fenton looked at her fabulous eyes and reflected that any male from fourteen to eighty, if even a little unhappy with his situation, was bound to find solace there, and might be a threat to that innocence. Besides being ill qualified, Felicity was too lovely to set loose anywhere but a convent.
‘I’m sure Aunt Ellingham will deny me. I didn’t think it possible, but she did not even know I existed…’
‘There is a great deal in life that Nell Ellingham does not trouble to know- or pretends not to. ‘
Felicity giggled, looking at Mr Fenton a little shyly. ‘She is most fearfully rude. I think she has a talent for it.’
‘I’m glad you found it amusing.’
‘Oh, no, inside her house I was quaking in my shoes, but here with you, sir, I feel quite safe.’
Assuredly she must never be let out on her own, thought Mr Fenton, looking into her trusting eyes. But he merely said, ‘My wife is very persuasive. We shall have confidence in her.’
It was indeed so. Lady Aurora arrived in but a few more minutes, smoothing her gloves with a satisfied smile.
‘Your aunt awaits you my dear.’
‘Oh Lady Aurora! Thank you so much, and Mr Fenton too. You have been so kind. I shall be so sorry — that is, I hope —’
‘I shall see you tomorrow, my dear. We ride to the park,’ said her ladyship.
Felicity smile was radiant. ‘Thank you!’ she said again.
As Felicity left, Lady Aurora sat back in the squabs.
‘And you decided what?’
‘She has agreed to house her once she knew that the cost of her wardrobe would not fall on her. She does not want to attend parties or give one, she does not wish to house her either, but she does not wish it to be known that she turned away her brother’s child. I suggested that while I would never say anything, it was amazing how these things become known.’ Her husband smiled. ‘I told her that her house is so large she would barely have to see her, and that I would arrange for her to go out suitably chaperoned. She is not quite out of the world for she told me that she did not think me a fitting chaperon, what with my dangerous past.’
‘The old trout!’ said Wilbert and held her hand.
‘She is quite right, my dear.
I am well enough in society now to gain entry almost everywhere, but a young girl under my aegis would be tarnished by my slightly unsavoury reputation. If she was an heiress it might not matter, but a girl without a portion…,’ she smiled sadly. ‘If I had not thought so myself, I should have kept her with me. I would have loved to bring out a daughter.’ She shook herself.
‘And who shall you find to chaperon?’
‘Well, I would ask Honoria if she was not on her belated wedding trip. And Serena, though an old married lady of two months, while she would oblige in a pinch, is hardly—’
‘—someone who could be trusted to keep any young lady in line, given her own propensity for crossing it.’ He smiled at this summation of his younger niece, who had recently married Mr Allison, a leader of fashion.
‘So I’ve had a thought — I’m going to invite Lady Sumner back to London.’ Genevieve, Lady Sumner was a close family friend of the Fentons, who was recently widowed.
‘She won’t come. She is happy amongst her horses. And to come all the way from—‘
‘I happen to know she is planning on visiting the city soon.’
‘Perhaps. But, my darling, Lady Sumner is not fond of balls.’
‘Oh, under the horrible eye of her husband, of course not. But she will be saved from dancing — I expect she is still wearing black gloves for her lord. She merely has to sit and watch her charge, and prevent any interference with her. I think she would enjoy that!’
‘So would you, my lady. Aurora, my dear, — the girl did not expect to be given a season at all — you would be an admirable duenna.’
‘And so I will be. With the widowed Lady Sumner for respectability. And as she is lodging with her aunt, Felicity will be set up with not a stain on her character. If only I can persuade her not to ask every matron she meets if she is in need of a governess. It is quite impossible to explain to her that besides the fact that she is hardly qualified, no mother would take such a luscious beauty into her home while her husband still lives.’
Felicity and the Damaged Reputation: A witty, sweet Regency Romance Page 3