by Jane Ashford
“There you are, my lady,” said Crane. She surveyed Anne’s cloud of red-gold curls critically. “All set to rights.”
“Thank you,” replied Anne absently.
“You’d best go down. It’s nearly nine.”
“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”
Charles, Laurence, and Mariah were waiting for her in the drawing room, and the group departed soon after. The viscount’s presence was unusual enough to draw a comment from his brother, especially since the rout party was not an event he would customarily have attended, but Charles passed it off with a joke. They had, of course, said nothing to Laurence about Lydia’s perfidy, but he seemed in low spirits as they drove the short distance to the Archers’. Only Mariah was as usual, and since she was habitually silent unless she had something important to say, the ride was quiet. Anne saw Charles glance at his brother several times, as if wondering what was the matter. She had an idea she knew, and could not decide whether to be glad or sorry.
The Archers’ town house was brightly lighted, the pavement thronged with arriving guests, chairmen, link boys, and other attendants. They made their way in and greeted their host and hostess along with a stream of other fashionables, then moved on into the drawing room. As soon as they entered, Edward approached Anne and took her arm. “Come,” he murmured, “all is ready, but you must be there.” He drew her away from his brother.
“Ready for what?”
“For the introduction,” he answered impatiently. “Hargreaves is there, and the Branwells came in five minutes ago. I was only waiting for you.”
Anne drew back. “I can’t. You…you go on; do it without me.”
“What?” Captain Debenham looked disgusted. “That will look strange. It’s well known I’m not overfond of the Branwell; I daresay she knows it herself. Why would I go out of my way to present her to anyone?”
“Edward, I can’t face her. You don’t know what she has done!”
“Nor do I care. If she has been up to her tricks again, all the more reason to go forward. Come!”
Slowly and reluctantly, Anne followed him across the floor. He was undoubtedly right; it was more important than ever that they carry out their plan. But she hated the idea of facing Lydia Branwell. And she did not want to present her to a potential husband; she did not want her to marry at all. No man deserved such a mate. No, she hoped Lydia would sink into a miserable crabbed old age and… At this point Anne remembered that it was much more likely that Lydia would marry Laurence, unless something was done, and she tried to gather the resolve to do it.
Harry Hargreaves greeted her ponderously. He was standing alone in the corner where Edward had left him, making no effort to speak to anyone. “I was observing the behavior of what is, I suppose, the haut ton,” he told Anne. “There is much to deplore here, and little to admire, I fear.”
“You may be right,” agreed Anne. “But I should like to present you to some friends of mine who are quite different—Bishop Branwell and his family.”
Mr. Hargreaves was immediately at her service. “I should be delighted to meet the bishop,” he replied.
The three of them made their way to the Branwell party. Laurence had already joined them and was standing—rather forlornly, Anne thought—at the edge of the group. Lydia was talking animatedly to another girl.
Anne performed the introductions. Both parties seemed extremely pleased. At the mention of the archbishop, Branwell’s eyes sharpened, and he moved forward to engage Hargreaves in conversation. Lydia at once abandoned her female friend and sidled close to the newcomer, gazing up at his freckled face with a sweet smile. Anne, satisfied and glad to escape without speaking to Lydia, edged away with Edward. When they had definitely disassociated themselves from the group, he grinned widely and sauntered off into the crowd.
“What is the matter with Edward?” Laurence asked Anne.
She started; she had almost forgotten him. “Matter?”
“Why was he grinning in that idiotic way?”
“Oh, just a joke. I am going to find the Castletons, Laurence. Why not come with me?”
He swallowed, glanced back at the Branwells, and shook his head. “No. I must stay here just now.”
“But they are very busy talking.” Indeed, the trio had become engrossed in a discussion of the poor rates.
Laurence shook his head again and turned away. Anne did not press him further; she was rather pleased than otherwise with his reaction.
Arabella and her mother were not far away. They greeted Anne cordially as she sat down beside them, but the former was frowning. “I just had the oddest encounter with Jane Thorndale,” she said, referring to the daughter of one of the highest sticklers in the ton. “She went right by me without speaking, though I am certain she saw me. I wonder if she has the headache again? She is horridly plagued by them.”
Anne stiffened. Had the gossip already begun to have an effect? As she returned some light answer, she scanned the room carefully. It did seem that an unusual number of people were looking in their direction. She clenched her fists. What could she do? She looked for Charles. He was chatting with friends and appeared blithely unconcerned. How could he?
“Oh, there is Alice Worth,” said Arabella. “Let us go and speak to her, Anne. She told me she had some beautiful new dress patterns.”
Anne obediently rose, praying that Bella would not meet another snub, but as they walked across toward Miss Worth, they encountered Laurence coming in the opposite direction with a glass of lemonade.
He could not avoid greeting them, but he looked rather self-conscious as he said, “Good evening, Miss Castleton.”
“Good evening.” Arabella had flushed a little, and now she looked at the floor. A silence fell which Anne made no effort to break; she was busy observing the reactions of her two companions. They seemed to have forgotten her presence. They were too aware of one another to think of anything else. But they were also embarrassed and uncomfortable. Anne could not restrain a small smile.
“Have you taken to drinking lemonade?” she asked Laurence to relieve the tension.
“What? Oh, no. It is for Lydia. I must take it to her. Pray excuse me, Anne, Miss Castleton.”
He hurried away. Arabella watched him, and Anne watched Bella’s face. She did not look happy, and if Anne had not already determined that Laurence should not marry Lydia Branwell, she might have done so in that moment. “I like Laurence more and more,” she ventured. “He is not at all what I expected a Debenham to be.”
Arabella continued to gaze in his direction. “He is charming.”
“Do you think so? I’m glad you like him too.”
The other girl started and turned to Anne, her flush deepening. “Indeed, he is all one could wish in a…a brother.”
Anne raised her eyebrows but made no reply. It was unfair to tease Bella this way.
They chatted with several acquaintances and had a long satisfying conversation with Alice Worth about dress patterns. Then Mrs. Castleton summoned Arabella to be introduced to someone, and Anne started across to speak to Edward. But Mariah stopped her before she reached him, saying, “Come over to that sofa. I want to speak to you.”
This was so unusual—for Mariah always spent social evenings in a quiet corner—that Anne hastened to comply. The sofa was vacant, and no one stood near it; they were completely private.
“I have been hearing some disturbing stories,” Mariah began as soon as they were seated. “Everyone seems to be talking of your friend Miss Castleton.”
Anne stiffened and clenched her fists.
“I assume they are not true?”
“Of course not!”
Mariah nodded. “That is what I thought. She seems a nice sort of girl to me. What am I to say?”
Anne gazed at her blankly.
“In response to the gossip,” added the other impatiently. “How
shall I refute it? You must know all about Miss Castleton. Surely you can provide evidence to contradict the rumors.”
This was a new idea. Anne frowned. “What are they saying?”
“Oh, a host of things. But the chief tale seems to be that she was entangled with some unsuitable young man while still at school. Her parents rejected him; there was an elopement, and she was dragged back by her father. Setting aside various absurd embroideries, that is the gist.”
“It is a lie!”
Mariah sighed. “Yes, dear, but what am I to say? It is not enough to insist the story is false. One must have some convincing proof to offer.”
“Any of her fellow students knows it is not true.”
“Yes. Well, we might refer to them.” She looked around the room. “Which are they?”
Anne looked down. “Only me.”
“Oh. And you are known to be her dearest friend. That won’t do.”
“How can one stop these dreadful stories once they are started? It is horrible!”
“Yes, I’ve never cared for gossip. I can’t imagine how this rumor was started. It is unusual for a young girl like Arabella, so polite and quiet, to be singled out.”
Her heart swelling with rage, Anne told her precisely how it had happened. As she spoke, Mariah’s gray eyes hardened and her thin mouth turned down. She showed more emotion than Anne had ever seen her display for anything outside her garden. “That young woman badly needs a lesson,” she said when Anne had finished. “Either she does not understand what harm her malice can do, in which case she is a ninnyhammer, or she does.”
“She knows,” put in Anne. “She knows quite well.”
“Then she is contemptible.”
“That is what Charles said.”
“He was right. But what is to be done?”
“Charles said he would think of something.”
Mariah nodded and rose. “I will do my best to discourage the gossip. But we must take decisive action soon.”
“I know.” Distracted, Anne searched the room for Charles. As Mariah walked away, she saw him. He was still with his friends. They were all smiling, and as she watched, she saw Charles throw back his head and laugh heartily. She clenched her teeth. Despite what he had said about Bella, it was obvious he did not care a straw about her. Anne had wondered lately if Charles was changing—he seemed so much more pleasant than before—but now it seemed to her that he was the same callous, cold man she had hated through her school years. But he had promised to help Bella in this instance, and Anne was determined to hold him to that. This was not a case of mere slights to herself; Bella was in real trouble. And Charles was better equipped to get her out of it than anyone else Anne knew. He would do it. Her eyes sparkling with rage, Anne walked across to where Charles stood with his friends. She did not wait for a pause in the conversation, but interrupted, “Charles, I must speak to you!”
They all looked surprised. Charles turned slowly and met Anne’s eyes. “To me?”
“Yes!”
“You’re certain you have finished with everyone else—Edward, Laurence, Mariah, Miss Castleton?”
She gazed up at him, astonished. He sounded almost annoyed. What sort of game was he playing now? “Charles…” she began in an ominous voice.
Seeing her expression, he put a hand under her elbow. “Come, there is a terrace just outside these windows. We can talk there.” He opened one of the French doors behind them and urged her outside.
The flagged terrace overhung an uncommonly large garden for a town house. The evening was warm, and a full moon hung in the sky above the nearby rooftops. A climbing rose had flung its branches across the balustrade, filling the air with perfume. But Anne was too preoccupied to notice any of these things. “I am sorry to take you away from your friends,” she said. “But something has happened. The gossip about Bella has begun; Mariah heard the story, and Bella has been snubbed once already. This will not interest you overmuch, I know, but I came to remind you that you told me you would help.”
“Did you indeed? But only after you had consulted everyone else in the ballroom, evidently. Edward must have been a great help! I never thought I should see the day that his opinion would be preferred to mine.”
“Have you run mad, Charles? And how, may I ask, was I to consult you when you were so engrossed with your friends that you had forgotten my existence, let alone Bella’s? The way you were laughing—as if you hadn’t a care in the world!”
“Certainly I was. Did my advice make such a small impression on you that you do not see why?”
“Advice?”
“I see.” He turned away from her and looked out over the garden. “I suppose you have shown the whole ballroom your distress; that will have redoubled the gossip. My help appears to mean very little to you, since you ignore it at the first test.”
Abruptly Anne remembered what he had said about putting a brave face on things. “Oh.” She was immediately filled with despair at the thought that she had added to the talk surrounding Bella. “Oh, what a fool I am.” Tears formed in her eyes. “What can we do? No one will believe it is a lie now. Poor Bella.” A tear slid down her cheek and onto the stone balustrade. “And it is all my fault. If it weren’t for me, this would not have happened to her in the first place.”
“No,” agreed Charles equably. “It probably would have happened to some other girl, someone you didn’t know well. That would have been all right, I suppose?”
Startled, Anne looked up at him.
“I am convinced that Laurence would have noticed the difference between the rather formidable Miss Branwell and other young ladies sooner or later,” continued the viscount. “And when he did, she would have taken some similar action. It is too bad that the victim happened to be your friend, but I believe things would have developed in much the same way without your intervention.”
“You do?” He nodded, and Anne heaved a great sigh.
Her drooping pose softened him. “I don’t know if you still care for my help?”
Anne looked up sharply. “Care for it? Are you joking? I am relying upon it, almost solely. I don’t know what you were talking about before, but I certainly do not expect Edward or Mariah to think of anything. Edward does not even know about this yet. Without you, Bella is lost—and so am I.”
He moved a little closer to her. “I shan’t let that happen.”
“But what are we going to do?”
“It is a delicate problem. I have not yet thought of a solution.”
She leaned against the balustrade and stared unseeing out over the garden. “There is none, is there? There is no defense against gossip. If you protest, people merely take it as an admission of guilt, as you said before. We are helpless.” She pounded on the stone with her fist.
“It is not like you to give up, Anne.”
She turned to look at him. “I cannot fight all of society. And even if I could, there is nothing to lay hold of, nothing real. It is all talk.”
He moved to stand beside her. The helpless, broken look in her eyes touched him more than anything he could remember, and his momentary pique vanished. At that moment, she seemed to him a wild gallant creature harried by a host of petty, despicable attackers. Something within him protested violently against this unequal battle. He had no thought of responsibility; he did not see it as his duty to rescue Anne. Indeed, he hardly recognized his impulse. He knew only that that look must be wiped away and replaced by her old blithe mischief. “I know something about talk,” he replied, “and about the ton. I will think of a way to stop the rumors, and to end Laurence’s engagement at the same time.”
Anne gazed up at him, surprised by the vehemence of his tone. “Do you really think you can?”
“Yes.”
“It seems so hopeless to me.”
“Have you no faith in my abilities?” he asked, in an a
ttempt at lightness.
She considered the matter. She had never seen Charles fail at anything he truly wanted to do. If he was serious about wanting to help—and, unexpectedly, he seemed so—then perhaps something could be done. Slowly she nodded, gaining confidence. She took a deep breath.
“That’s better,” he responded, seeing the violet shadow in her eyes lighten. “I shall devote all my time to plotting our revenge.”
She smiled a little. Their eyes held, and he put a hand over hers on the balustrade. “Don’t worry,” he added.
For some reason, Anne suddenly found breathing difficult. She wanted to make some move, but she seemed frozen in place, her hand immobile under his. After a long moment, he smiled and drew it away. “Shall we go back in? It is getting late. Mariah will be wanting to go.” He offered his arm. “And do not, under any circumstances, tell her there is a garden here, or we will never get away.”
With a self-conscious laugh, Anne took his arm, and together they walked back inside.
Fifteen
When Anne entered the drawing room after breakfast the next morning, she found Laurence there, bent over a sheet of writing paper at the desk in the corner. When she spoke to him, he started, and turned to stare as if she were a stranger, then hastily folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Anne had only time to see that it looked like a list of some sort. But Laurence’s appearance drove the matter from her mind in a moment; his expression was so strained and his skin so pale that she could feel nothing but pity. “Are you all right?” she could not help but ask. “You seem ill.”
“No, no,” he replied distractedly. “I am perfectly healthy, only a bit anxious.”
“Why?” Anne eyed him, wondering if he would mention Lydia Branwell.
“I heard some disturbing, er, gossip last night at the Archers’. Manifestly untrue. It concerned… That is…”