by Joan Smith
She underestimated Lady Dempster. It wasn’t often that she was outspoken by anyone, nor was she now. “What a famous joke! Your barging in and catching Belle out the first time she brings her new beau into public. That will teach you, sly puss,” she added, turning to wag a finger at Belle.
“You misunderstand the matter,” Oliver told her, while his wife waited with her heart in her mouth to hear what he would come out with.
“What do you mean?” Lady Dempster jumped in, her eyes bright with joy to be in on a secret. “It was all planned—is that it?”
“There is a divinity that shapes our ends,” Oliver went on, looking about the room in a bored way. “You’ll just have to be patient and see what the divinity has in store for us.”
“But it is all your doing,” she persisted to Avondale. “It was no accident?”
“My doing? No, no, I am monstrously flattered, ma’am, but I did say a divinity. I am only human.”
“What then, was it an accident?” the inquisitive dame pressed on, not to be put off in this fashion.
“A happy accident,” Belle said, and tried to get away before Oliver said something worse. She was detained by Lady Dempster’s bony fingers on her wrist.
“Did you put Kay up to it?” she asked in a voice that was intended to be hidden from Oliver.
“Lizzie, you wretch!” Kay laughed, trying nobly to hide her chagrin. “How dare you badger my guests? It was accidental, and pray let us not make a mountain of a molehill. There is Ralph Ponsonby, Belle. You will want to say hello to him.”
Grateful to get away, Belle went off with Kay, but she noticed that Oliver remained with Lizzie Dempster. Now what was he saying to her? Something nasty, from the satirical face on him. “You caught her red-handed,” Lizzie continued to Oliver, wishing it were Belle she had detained. She’d get no news from this clam.
“Mr. Henderson is a neighbor of my wife’s, and a connection of Kay’s. There is no romance in it.” He longed to give the nosy creature a leveler, but wanted even more to keep her gossip-mongering to a minimum.
“They came together,” Lizzie went on. “I drove up right behind them, and mighty happy they looked too, your grace.”
“But they are not returning together,” he said rashly.
“Is there to be a reconciliation? That’s what I want to know.”
Oliver bent his head close to the old hag’s face and said in a hushed voice, “She hasn’t got me back yet, Liz. This is your chance. Shall we rendezvous at midnight? I may not be available much longer.”
He meant to insult her, but she laughed merrily. She hadn’t thought she would get a thing out of him, and was happy to have a nice repeatable joke at least. “I might take you up on that!” she threatened, and let him escape, for she was eager to pass the conversation on to Lord Eldon.
Oliver caught up to Kay and Belle just as they turned away from Mr. Ponsonby. “Why do you have that harpy here?” he asked Kay.
“To amuse the ladies. It is but a dull crew of gentlemen I have managed to collect, with Raffles not showing up. A gossip will keep the ladies nearly as well entertained as a flirt.”
“Guess what they’ll be gossiping about,” Belle added her complaint indirectly. “What did you say to her by the way, Oliver, to set her cackling?”
“I honoured her with a brief, a very brief, flirtation.”
“You’re good at that,” Belle said, and turned to welcome Marnie Delford, who had come back to talk. She joined the Delfords and Sloanes, who discreetly refrained from speaking of accidental meetings and reconciliations, and she passed the time till it was the hour to dress for dinner pleasantly with them. She didn’t give Arnold a thought till she was in her room changing, but then she wondered where he had been, and was just a little grateful that he hadn’t been in the saloon, trailing around after her with Oliver watching him.
Strange that Oliver had taken him in such strong dislike. He hadn’t used to mind it in London if she had a puppy sitting at her feet. He had been wonderfully tolerant. If he voiced any complaint at all, it was that she had served her admirer the wrong beverage, or had worn a dress that was not stylish enough.
She thought he would have no complaint of her gown this evening. She made her toilette with even more care than she had intended, and she had not planned being a dowd in her first public appearance since her estrangement. Her marriage gowns had been left in London at Avondale House, but since removing to Easthill with her father she had continued wearing the more modish fashions discovered in London. She had found in Amesbury a woman capable of making her up the styles she now favored, and wore on this occasion an ensemble adapted from La Belle Assemblée by herself—a dark-green silk underdress covered over with ecru lace. It was straight-cut, almost of a widowish severity, but on a young lady it appeared sophisticated rather than austere. That was one trick she had learned from Lady Hasborough. “Don’t be afraid to tackle matron’s gowns, Belle. They look like the deuce on us matrons, but lend you young girls a bit of chic.”
She had simplified her hairstyle too. Her curls were no longer worn loose, but bound back to make her look older, and at her ears she wore the pearl ear drops her father had given her for her birthday. They bounced and jiggled playfully at every movement of the head, counteracting the severity of the hairdo. She knew she looked well as she revolved in front of her mirror, and smiled at how differently she appeared from the little quiz that had invaded London a year ago.
The change was not only on the surface, either. She was on to them now. Their superficial good nature and friendliness covered a wicked malice. Not all of them, of course. The Delford set was not like that, nor was Kay, but Liz Dempster and her crew, and it was a large one, were all bent on making mischief, making a scandal to have something to talk about. Their whole life was devoted to it. They wanted to cut everyone down to their own insignificant size. They must be bitterly unhappy, to want to see everyone else miserable too. And she had been like a newborn chicken to that gathering of hawks. They had made short shrift of her.
She went downstairs with her head high, ear drops dancing against her cheeks to remind her she was sophisticated. She needed the reminder, for she felt very much like Miss Anderson, with her insides quaking at her first ball. She was greatly relieved to find Arnold lingering at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her. There were a few others loitering about the hall and entrance to the green saloon as well, but it was to Arnold she walked straightaway, smiling to see him there to protect her. Having stationed himself within view of the grand staircase, Avondale saw both her descent and her reception by Henderson, and was on his feet in a flash. Kay, with her ears pricked for trouble, had seen it too, and was after him like a shot.
“Oh, Oliver,” she said, drawing up to him, then she lowered her voice for her message. “Lady Dempster is positively goggling to see what you will do. Do act with a little discretion, my dear.”
“Yes, Kay, I’ll take him outside to murder him. Don’t worry I plan to spill blood on your nice carpet.”
“Nor on my nice lawn either, if you please.” She laughed a merry laugh that hid her terror pretty well. “Get Mrs. Ponsonby a glass of wine, will you, please?” As Mrs. Ponsonby was situated close enough to hear this polite command, delivered in a loud voice, Oliver had little option but to do so, thus allowing Henderson to greet Lady Avondale without interference.
“Where have you been all this time?” was the first question Belle put to him.
“I took a little dash over to see Dr. Hutchison,” he told her, trying to make it sound natural. “You know he is a good friend of mine. It is half the reason I came, to have a chance to see him.”
Dr. Hutchison had been the minister at Amesbury until a year ago, and a close friend of Arnold’s. Certainly Arnold had mentioned visiting him while at Ashbourne, but Belle doubted it was an eagerness to see his old friend that had got him out of the house within an hour of his arrival, and with only an hour till dinnertime. It must have been no more
than hello and goodbye. She had the sinking feeling amounting to a certainty that he was only trying to get away from herself, because of Oliver.
“He is my friend too, Oliver,” she chided. “I had meant to go with you when you called on him.”
“I’m going back. We hardly talked a minute. I plan to return tomorrow, and he especially asked that I bring you, when he learned that you are visiting Lady Hathaway too.”
“Fine. We’ll go to see him tomorrow then. In the morning or afternoon?”
“We’ll go in the morning, if that’s all right with you. Unless you have made other plans. I don’t mind making your excuses to Dr. Hutchison if you can’t get away.” He was eager in the extreme to make her excuses, or do anything that would put a safe distance between the two of them.
“Yes, that will be all right. I haven’t made any plans,” she said, and waited for Arnold to offer her his arm, as he was always doing, even to go from one room to the next, or from a chair to a table in the same room for that matter. It was the only physical intimacy between them, and he put it to good use.
She would have welcomed the support on this occasion, for her knees felt amazingly watery, but Arnold spaced himself a careful foot away from her side and said, “Well, shall we go in?” He also glanced about the hall for a nice neutral third party to go with them, but found none.
They went into the green saloon, and though a few heads turned to see them, there was no hubbub, as when she had entered with Avondale. She breathed a little sigh of relief, thinking it wasn’t going to be so bad after all, getting back into the swing of things. She introduced Arnold to a few people he had not met, due to his absence when everyone was getting acquainted earlier.
She was aware of Oliver over toward the far corner of the room alone. She disdained to look at him directly to see what held his interest, but no direct look was required to see when he began to walk forward. Before two seconds it became clear he was approaching herself. Arnold’s shrinking off would have told her if the black shoulders fast advancing had not. She could sympathize with Arnold, but she could not do without his support, and turned to speak a question to him, to ensure his remaining with her.
“You don’t have a glass of wine, Belle,” was all her husband said when he reached her, but into it she read a hundred insults. Nobody had bothered to get her one. She didn’t know enough to have a glass of wine when the party has met for a drink before dinner. In short, “You lack polish, my dear.” The old familiar charge.
“I just got here,” she pointed out defensively.
“Kay has gone whole hog and is serving us champagne. Let me get you a glass.” Looking around, he crooked a finger, and a footman came with his tray. Footmen, waiters and servants came at his glance. It piqued her. Oliver removed a glass of wine and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said, but didn’t immediately take a sip, as she had no idea of letting him think she had been waiting for it.
“How is everything at Easthill? How is Sir Donald going on?” he asked next, carefully turning his shoulder at an angle that pretty well cut Arnold off from the conversation, but in no pointed way. It could be read into thoughtlessness, and Arnold was eager enough to be unthought of that he immediately faded off into the sidelines.
“Everything is fine. We are busy, of course, at this time of the year.”
“How did that new ewe he got work out? Has she been bred yet?” he asked and for five minutes they discussed, to Belle’s amazement, farming.
Oliver was only slightly acquainted with Sir Donald, and not even slightly acquainted with Easthill, so that he soon ran out of questions. To maintain this unemotional subject, Belle asked, “How is everything at Belwood?”
“The lands are fine. The house, of course, needs a woman’s touch. I would like to redo the main saloon, but want your advice on how you would like it.”
This statement she could only assume was said to annoy her. She had told him more than once that she had no notion of returning to hell. “I suggest you suit yourself,” she replied in icy accents.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Belle, but what suits myself—having my wife back—doesn’t seem to suit you.”
“Don’t start that,” she said, feeling all her little bits and pieces of courage and sophistication falling away from her.
“We must talk.”
“Not here. Not now,” she said, and had no idea how desperate she sounded.
“After dinner. We’ll find some quiet corner and talk about it.”
“All right.”
“Good, that’s settled then. You aren’t drinking your wine. You like champagne.”
She drank a long gulp to settle her nerves—nearly drained her glass, in fact. “I am not about to make a scene, my dear. There is no need to fortify yourself with false courage,” Oliver commented.
“You just told me to drink!” she replied sharply. How did it come that she always appeared so awkward in front of him?
“I only mentioned you were not drinking. I had no idea my simple word was your command. Certainly in other spheres it is not the case.”
“Stop nagging at me!” she said in a voice rising above the normal. She was more peeved with herself, at her absurd sensitivity to him, than with Oliver, but he was the goad that made her appear childishly ill at ease.
A hot retort rose to his lips. Frustration that all his encounters with Belle turned out so poorly infuriated him, but he reined in his temper to try once more to be polite. “That’s a nice gown. Very stylish,” he complimented, running his experienced eye over it.
Had it been the first thing he said it would have pleased her, but coming in the middle of an altercation, it was taken as being sarcasm. “I shall do better when I get to town. Don’t worry I mean to disgrace you by my countrified get-ups this time.”
“All your gowns are at home. You might as well take them.”
She had no intention of ever putting one of them on her back again, and no intention either of arguing about it at a party. “Oh, there is Mr. Ponsonby. I must ask him how his book goes on,” she said, and dashed off. As Mr. Ponsonby was an unattractive gentleman nudging sixty, Oliver made no move to go after her, but turned aside and fell into conversation with Lord Eldon and a Mr. Higgins, the cabinet minister.
Kay relaxed visibly when no loud torrents of abuse resulted from the tense meeting between Belle and Ollie. She had other problems than the quarreling lovers to worry about. As foreseen, La Travalli had decided to be a guest, and come down to the saloon rigged out in a shocking-pink chiffon tent, to swill champagne as though it were water, and to wander from group to group chattering a mile a minute in Italian. The woman didn’t speak a single word of English. How did one get rid of her? And upon Oliver’s word that a paid entertainer was not a guest, she had laid no place for her at the table. Better send word to have one set, for it would be too farouche to have to have her lifted bodily from someone else’s chair and carried away, laughing and babbling Italian. She went to leave the room, and Mr. Higgins nabbed her to ask whether she was related to Anne Hathaway.
“No, it is not the same family. No connection at all. Anne Hathaway was from Warwick, you know. Alfred was not related to the Warwick Hathaways.”
Now, where to seat the singing sorceress? Not beside Oliver. She was rolling her big black eyes at all the gentlemen. Eldon—she’d put her next to Lord Eldon, and let’s see how far she gets with that courtly gentleman. Oh dear—and that meant moving Belle. She must not be put near Arnold Henderson or Oliver—give her Ralph Ponsonby, poor soul. She’d know more about Roman ruins than she wanted to before the meal was over. Precedence was never a major consideration with Kay, but it went completely by the boards that evening. A hired entertainer to be Lord Eldon’s dinner guest, and a duchess sitting below the salt with Mr. Ponsonby! She had a good mind to crawl under the table herself till it was over. Let them throw her bones, like a dog, and if Oliver took it into his head to start teasing Belle or making mischief
with Henderson, she’d bite his ankle. Why did she bother with these dos? It wasn’t worth it.
The dinner went well enough. Travalli was having a little more luck with Lord Eldon than imagined. At least he hadn’t taken a pique with getting her for a companion. Kay retold her Raffles’ story about the Susanan of Mataram and the forged letters, and from there Eldon went on to amuse them with some cabinet esoterica that set the ladies yawning, till Lady Dempster twisted the conversation around to the private lives of the same gentlemen, which was much more interesting for everyone.
Really she was amusing, the old rascal. Libelous, every word that left her mouth, but to see her imitate old Queen Charlotte and then Castlereagh in turn was as good as a show. The ladies soon left to discuss in the green saloon the approaching marriage of Princess Charlotte to Prince Leopold, and the gentlemen remained behind to try to pump secrets from Lord Eldon for an hour. He would admit nothing, not whether the prince regent was really in danger of dying, nor whether the Duke of Cumberland’s wife was finally enceinte, and whether the child, if a son, would put Princess Charlotte’s reign in jeopardy.
The hour passed quickly, and was the sort of harmless interlude in these parties that Belle enjoyed. Gossip about a princess hardly seemed like gossip at all. It couldn’t hurt her, sitting far above them all on her lofty majestic pinnacle. The Signora Travalli too was isolated on a pinnacle, due to her lack of speaking the language of the party. She spoke, and she laughed a good deal, but she did not communicate. She occasionally pointed a finger at Lady Dempster and laughed in delight. She had a very pleasing voice, clear and bell-like. She was marvelously amused at the conversation she did not understand.
“What does she say? What does she mean?” Lady Dempster would inquire at each outburst of merriment from the foreigner. No one could enlighten her. “What has she got to laugh at, hyena? That gown would fall off her body entirely if it weren’t for that prodigious pair of breasts holding it up. Did you ever see such an outfit?”