Lady Elizabeth's Comet

by Sheila Simonson

  My melancholy swept back. Even Miss Bluestone could share her thoughts with Clanross, but I could not, and it was my own stupid fault that Bevis stood between us. I said, rather crossly, "Clanross certainly spoilt the twins' joy with his last letters."

  "Oh, they'll make a swift recover when his next ones come."

  "It cannot be right that they should depend so greatly upon his approval."

  "Whom else have they to depend upon for masculine approval? Their father and uncles are dead and they have no brothers." She added cautiously, "My lady, may I ask what it is that disturbs you in your sisters' friendship with Lord Clanross? It has troubled you before, I believe."

  I did not roar, "I'm jealous of their friendship!" which was the truth. As I could think of nothing else to say I must have looked quite blank.

  "There's nothing at all improper in it, my lady, I assure you."

  I stared. That thought had not crossed my mind.

  She went on, earnest, "Indeed, if you'll reread his letters to them you'll see for yourself how careful he is to write nothing at all that might make them self-conscious."

  "That must be rather difficult in Jean's case," I snapped. "She fancies herself in love with him."

  Miss Bluestone said tranquilly, "Oh, that's nearly over. I thought you must have noticed. The next object of her affections will be the new curate. So it is with calf love, my lady."

  "I know," I muttered. "I remember."

  "His lordship enjoys Jean and Margaret because they remind him of his own sister."

  I drew a startled breath.

  "He told me he finds it very hard to think of his sister at five-and-thirty, for she died when they were ten, but when he sees your sisters' antics he can imagine what his twin might have been like at fifteen. It gives him great pleasure."

  I burst into tears.

  I wept for Clanross and his lost sister, but after the first generous outburst I fear I wept mostly for myself--because I felt like weeping. I couldn't stop. I buried my face in my hands and blubbed like a baby, completely oblivious to the sunshine, our startled groom, and Miss Bluestone.

  She was very wise. Beyond handing me one of her large useful handkerchiefs, she did not attempt to intrude on my grief until it had exhausted itself and I sat shaken by an occasional hiccough and sniffling into the square of linen.

  "Jean and Margaret will be returning very soon, my lady," she ventured at last. "Come for a walk with me. I'll direct John here to tell them where we've gone and to ask them to prepare our nuncheon. That will allow you time to compose yourself."

  "Th-thank you." I hiccoughed and indulged a last sad sob.

  I heard her giving crisp instructions to the groom and then she extended her hand to me. "Come, my lady, there's a cool stream beyond this little hillock. You can bathe your eyes."

  I struggled to my feet and stumbled along beside her.

  The stream was so cold the water stung my hot face. It felt wonderful. Miss Bluestone soaked the faithful handkerchief for me and made me sit quietly holding it to my eyes until she was satisfied that the puffiness had begun to go down.

  "There. That's much better."

  "Miss Bluestone."

  "Yes, Lady Elizabeth?"

  "You must think me a great fool."

  "I think you've been very unhappy," she said gently.

  "It's worse than that. I love Clanross, and I've made such a m-mull of things." My mouth quivered, but I'd had quite enough of crying so I waited for it to stop.

  "Oh my word, what a relief!"

  "I b-beg your pardon?" I looked up. I thought I could not have heard her aright.

  She flushed. "I don't know what came over me, Lady Elizabeth. Pray disregard my remark."

  "I should say not. I've opened my budget. It's your turn."

  She sighed and came to sit beside me. "Very well. Mrs. Finch thought...that is, you must know your well-being is important to the members of your household. Alice speculated that you would finally wed Lord Bevis. I could not help feeling some anxiety. Lord Bevis is everything that is amiable, but Clanross is worth ten of him." She closed her mouth with a snap and looked surprised at her own vehemence.

  I noticed that in her agitation she omitted Clanross's style, a lapse she would not have allowed herself under other circumstances. I wanted to hug her. I repressed a mad urge to defend Bevis and smiled. "Explain, please."

  "It wouldn't become me to be anatomising either man's character. Lady Elizabeth, but I know you were troubled as to whether Lord Bevis approved your work."

  "Whether he would allow it, if I married him."

  She nodded. "Lord Clanross would not merely allow it. He would be proud of it, and of you. He is a very unusual man."

  She was right, of course. I said ruefully, "Should I shock you if I said that I'd take Clanross on any terms, whether he approved my work or no?"

  "Yes, my lady, it would shock me. You must not betray your gift. Besides," she added reasonably, "he wouldn't ask you to give it up, so the question doesn't arise."

  I gulped. "It won't arise at all. Clanross knew of my promise to Bevis, and I've sunk any regard he might have had for me by throwing Bevis over. They are friends."

  "If you quarrelled with Lord Bevis about your telescope, his lordship will understand."

  "Perhaps that's true." I was, briefly, comforted. "But he would never be able to see how I could fancy I loved Bevis at one moment and find myself head-over-ears in love with him the next. No man could think that anything but ficklemindedness. I'm not sure I credit it myself."

  "It's not at all difficult for me to understand, my lady."

  I stared. "It isn't?"

  "No. Though you may be correct in thinking no man could understand. Lord Bevis was known to you. Clanross was a stranger. You understood Lord Bevis and knew how far to trust him. When you learnt to trust Clanross you became aware of your feelings for him."

  "Yes, even if knowing my feelings doesn't solve anything. Clanross regards me as a worthy opponent at chess and a meddlesome nurse."

  "I'm sure he likes you very well, my lady."

  "Likes!" But I was comforted.

  "That's surely a step in the right direction."

  I sighed.

  She said carefully, "You mustn't imagine me deep in his lordship's confidence, my lady. I'm sure I would never have known of his dead sister had we not been thrown on each other's sole company at Christmas. I was puzzled when he encouraged me to talk about Jean and Margaret, for gentlemen are rarely very interested in schoolroom misses. I think he sensed my wariness, and that's why he explained."

  "He could have chosen no better confidant."

  She flushed. "Thank you. Indeed, I'd never have told you had I not believed you unnecessarily worried for Jean and Margaret. He is a reserved man, and he spoke in confidence."

  I assured her that no one could doubt her discretion.

  We sat quietly for a time. Presently she said, "Clanross has a fear for your sisters. I'm not sure he is even aware of it."

  I stared. "What is it?"

  "He thinks they're too dependent on one another. If something should happen to one of them..."

  "The other would be lost. Oh lord, Miss Bluestone, he said something to me..." My mind raced. There was one thing I could do for Clanross, after all. Indeed, I should have drawn the connexion sooner. I was ashamed of my self-absorption, but at least there was a remedy to hand. "Should you object to taking on more pupils, Miss Bluestone?"

  She cocked her head.

  "Lady Kinnaird has charge of the three littlest girls, Caroline, Frances, and Georgina. They are ten, eight, and seven now and certainly ready for instruction. I could bring them south at Christmas."

  "An excellent plan. The great difficulty in dealing with girls your sisters' age--Jean's and Margaret's, I mean--is that they grow up too soon."

  I looked at her. Her eyes gleamed. I believe she was already planning lessons.

  I surveyed my crumpled walking skirt ruefully. "I
daresay I look a fright. And my face!"

  "Your face will do very well when you've tied your hat on again." She turned briskly and dipped the kerchief in the stream once again. "Press that to your brow occasionally, my lady. We'll say that the heat was too much for you."

  I smiled. "Ingenious. I hope it works."

  "It will," she said tranquilly. "The girls will be too full of their beastly cavern to pay much heed."

  "Miss Bluestone..."

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you. We must speak further of my little sisters."

  She brushed off her skirt and tidied her own hair. "I daresay something can be contrived, Lady Elizabeth, though I must warn you that the level of noise in the house will rise."

  "That's to be expected. And you'll need another maid as well as Miss Mackey--she's their nurse." We walked slowly back up the hill, planning as we went. I felt much better, and I resolved not to despair of Clanross until I saw him at the altar with someone else.

  Chapter 21

  It is usual for a wedding to take place in the bride's parish, but Cecilia, understandably, refused to go home. She was to be wed from Briarlea. It fell to Aunt to entertain the wedding guests, and she did so in old-fashioned style. I brought my entourage from Brecon in the carriage, and we meant to stop the night, a plan the girls regarded as a high treat. My feelings were more ambiguous.

  I do not know how it is, but when one has been looking forward to something with desperate eagerness, one sometimes feels a revulsion of mood just as the long-awaited moment arrives. So it was with me, and suspense did not improve my temper.

  Clanross came late to the wedding. Perhaps he made a habit of coming late to weddings. He had been expected at Briarlea the previous night, and Aunt was seriously displeased with him, for he had sent no messenger to excuse his absence.

  The Briarlea party was large, consisting of Cecilia's mother in full feather, her married sisters and their uninteresting spouses, two or three of Aunt's cronies, Miss Whitby, and a black-haired beauty of my own age whose lavender half-mourning suggested both taste and affluence.

  I scarcely recall the ceremony. Cecilia, on Willoughby's reluctant arm, looked ravishing. Charles was goggle-eyed with importance and nerves. I daresay they said their vows. My attention was wholly occupied fancying Clanross drowned in a Scotch loch or struck down by assassins on the Great North Road.

  In brief intervals of sanity I found myself peering over the old-fashioned box pew at Aunt's party and speculating as to the dashing widow's identity. I could see the back of her bonnet. Very likely she was a kinswoman of Mrs. Conway-Gore's, I assured myself, or some connexion of one of Aunt's cronies along for the ride, or one of the late Lord Whitby's by-blows. In fact, I began to suspect she was Clanross's Intended.

  Aunt had by no means given up her design to marry Clanross suitably, but she could not very well mount a full-fledged campaign while he was in Scotland. I ought to have foreseen that she would seize on Cecilia's wedding as the opportunity it was. Aunt had laid a handsome trap for him and meant to spring it. I saw it all very clearly.

  Charles and Cecilia having said all that was proper, and Willoughby having bit back whatever impulse he may have had to announce an impediment, the ceremony wound to its destined end. The bridal pair frisked down the aisle, beaming, and their connexions followed them at a more sedate pace. Waiting impatiently for the Briarlea party to move on, I glanced down the aisle to see what was slowing our passage and caught sight of Clanross.

  I did not betray myself to the company, but my heart thudded in my throat, my knees wobbled, and for a moment I saw and heard no one else.

  Maggie poked me.

  I made my feet move. How inconsiderate of him to be putting everyone in a pelter of anxiety and then to be sneaking in the back. Had he no sense at all of what was owing to his position? He was standing in the rear of the church with the lesser guests from the county and, good God, the Chactons. I cringed at what Willoughby would make of that.

  For my part I thought Clanross might be a little less free of his favours. Charles and Cecilia would have every right to resent his singling Chacton out in public. After all, it was their day. They had counted on him. Aunt had counted on him. He could at least have come in with the Family. I was fuming, I daresay, because I was so relieved to find that he had not drowned or been stabbed by footpads or overturned on the high road.

  I stole another glance. He was standing beside Chacton, head bent, listening to the mill owner. As we drew nearer, Maggie and Jean also saw him. Jean emitted a stifled squeal and Maggie giggled. Clanross looked up. Catching sight of them, he flashed them a grin and returned to his conversation. The girls twittered like sparrows.

  Hoydens. My cheeks burnt but I hadn't the heart to reprove my sisters. I wished he had smiled at me. Covered with unreasonable embarrassment I kept my eyes cast down and crept the interminable distance out to the porch and into our carriage, Maggie and Jean chattering excitedly in my train.

  When we finally reached Briarlea, I made the girls go up to their room with Miss Bluestone to tidy their hair. Mercifully, Alice had been given a bedchamber of her own, and once I had dismissed my abigail, I had time to compose myself. I stood in the center of the cool green room. My reflection, dim and also rather green in the shadowy light, stared back at me from the gilded mirror above the vanity table. "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?" Definitely not. There was a burst of girlish giggling in the hall and an impatient knock.

  "Come."

  "We're ready, Liz. Come on." Maggie, pink-faced.

  "In a moment."

  "Lizzie!" Jean's soprano wail.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, go down with Miss Bluestone. I'll follow you. And try to behave conformably."

  Miss Bluestone stuck her head in the door. "Are you feeling quite the thing, my lady? I thought you looked pale."

  "I'm all right," I snapped and bit my lip. "I beg your pardon. Please, Miss Bluestone."

  She hesitated, then said gently, "Very well. I'll collect Mrs. Finch, too."

  "Thank you," I whispered. I doubt she heard me for the door closed on her words.

  This will not do, my girl, I told myself grimly. You are not eighteen and a milk-and-water miss. Collect your wits and your courage and march straight downstairs. I wondered what I would do if I were to bump into Clanross on the stair. Faint?

  I swallowed my self-disgust and made myself walk slowly three times round the room. I looked in the press at my gowns. Neatly bestowed. I tidied my hair. I went to the window and peered through a crack in the drapes at the line of carriages, curricles, and phaetons inching up the drive. I did not see Clanross.

  Presently, my nerves steadied, and I felt sufficiently in command of myself to open the door. The hallway was deserted except for Sir Ainslie Pettigrew, one of Aunt's ancient beaux, who was creaking to the head of the stairs. I startled him very much by demanding his escort.

  When we finally creaked out onto the terrace, most of my maidenly flutterings were subdued and I felt mature, even slightly antique. Clanross I still did not see.

  Aunt had caused the reception line to extend across the terrace to the steps. I progressed down it, gaining in confidence as I uttered the expected fatuities. I felicitated Cecilia sincerely and Charles somewhat less sincerely, for I thought she had the better of the bargain. They were both too daffy with happiness to be critical-minded. Willoughby was not.

  "My heartiest congratulations, Willoughby dear."

  He twitched his upper lip. "Dear Elizabeth. You're looking a trifle hagged, Liz. Shall I call for a cordial?"

  "My, my, is it feeling spiteful? I perceive you decided to bestow your blessing upon Charles after all. How very sensible of you."

  Willoughby rolled his eyes expressively in Aunt's direction. "A little softer, Liz, if you please."

  "All is forgiven?"

  "Yes." He cleared his throat. "Well, well, I daresay you've spent these past months worthily, Elizabeth. Discovering planets an
d so on."

  "And so on," I said affably. I almost began to enjoy myself.

  Aunt Whitby extended a jewel-encrusted hand. "Elizabeth--in good time." She turned her head and emitted a stentorian roar. "Bella!"

  I jumped.

  The dark-haired dasher strolled over from a clump of matrons, brows lifted.

  "Elizabeth, I believe you are acquainted with Arabella Forster--Mrs. Digby Forster, Bella Haverford that was."

  Light broke. Of course. She had changed somewhat--grown more beautiful. I ought to have recognised her at once. Bella Forster. I gulped. She was not only beautiful. She had every possible qualification to be Countess of Clanross--breeding, wealth, wit, exquisite taste, and a wide acquaintance among the Ton. What was worse, I liked her.

  I composed myself and held out my hand. "How pleasant to see you again. It's been an age."

  "So it has, Lady Elizabeth. How splendidly you look."

  I met her guileless blue eyes. We both smiled. "I think we were on easier terms than that, Bella."

  "So we were, Liz. I'm very glad to see you, for I don't mind admitting I'm lost in a sea of strangers. Excepting Willoughby, of course."

  "And he doesn't count?"

  Willoughby made an indignant noise.

  Bella cast him her famous smile. "Willoughby's presence must guarantee the worth of any social gathering. Dear Lady Whitby, shall you pardon us? Liz and I have several years' gossip to catch up on."

  We wandered down the wide steps. The lawn was dotted with bright silk tents, marquees, topiary phantasies, and handsome people, and looked rather like a panel from a tapestry of the Ancien Regime--a scene from Aunt's prime. One half expected to encounter Marie Antoinette (with her head, of course). It was a tribute to the force of Aunt's character that it was the guests' modern dress that looked out of place, not the decorations.

  In the middle distance a bewigged orchestra played an Italian air. Aunt's staff were serving up punch, and the great marquee sheltered a linen-draped table laden with sallats, whole salmon in aspic, fancifully arranged platters of cold meats and fowls, caviar (red and black), puptons of jellies, flans, and every conceivable sort of pastry case, savoury and sweet. Huge silver tureens of chilled soups dripped beads of moisture on the white cloth. There were also, I believe, two enormous bridecakes and an entire vintage of champagne. It would be wonderful if half the guests did not conclude their afternoon by falling in the river.