by Joan Smith
Scawen began counting up numbers on his fingers. “You are out in your reckoning,” he said. “We have four ladies without Mrs. Rogers.”
Lady Sykes was very seldom out in her ciphering. She knew numbers as a sawbones knew a body, from the inside out. “Nonsense. The housekeeper, the schoolmistress, and myself. That is three.”
“You’re forgetting Mama. She plans to attend.”
Lady Sykes looked at him as if he had announced he was inviting the rat catcher. “On a litter, I assume? I trust that is your idea of a joke, Scawen. Your mama has not left her bed in a decade.”
“Yes, she has. She often hobbles along to the end of the hall to look out at the swans. Anyhow, I told her you are having a party, and she says she must attend.” A look of unusual severity seized his features, and he added, “Only fitting, as she is the hostess. It’s her house.”
“Nothing of the sort. It’s your house, and it is your duty to see she doesn’t come shambling in to spoil my party. I won’t have it. She is eighty-five years old. She drools.”
“Only eighty. Mama is a little vain about her age. She lies. She wants to come down to meet the ladies.”
Scawen was a rock in the matter. He loved his mama. She had been in her forties when he was born, and as a consequence, he had been raised as if he were her grandson, with very lenient and loving care. Mrs. Swann would attend the party. She not only planned to attend, she had Swann and Fenwick carry her downstairs that morning to oversee the dinner preparations.
She sat in a Bath chair, a wizened little crone in a gown from the last century, missing half her teeth and half her hair. What hair remained was pretty, as white as the driven snow and inclined to curl, but the wisps were not enough to hide her shiny pink scalp. She had dispensed with caps some twenty-odd years before. Caps made her head itchy. Her voice was weak, but it was not querulous. It laid down the law in a breathless, childish tone that brooked no interference.
“I want no promiscuous seating, Scawen,” she said. Her lack of teeth caused a slurring of her speech that was not quite a lisp, but it tended in that direction. She did not deign to discuss her party with Phoebe.
“What the devil is she talking about?” Phoebe demanded. “There will be no promiscuity. It is a dinner party we are having, not an orgy.”
“Gents on one side of the table; ladies on t’other. That is how it was done in my day,” the little lady declared.
“Is she trying to make a fool of me?” Phoebe asked.
“Ladies proceed to the table first,” Mrs. Swann continued, ignoring Phoebe. “Highest-ranking lady leads. That will be Lady Pargeter. I, as hostess, go last, followed by the gents. And I get to carve.” Her trembling little hands gave a foretaste of the shambles she would make of carving.
Phoebe decided to try guile. “Oh, my dear Lavinia!” she laughed. “Your dainty little hands couldn’t handle a carving knife. It would be too dangerous.”
“In my day, ladies went to carving school. I came top of the class. I remember perfectly how to unbrace a mallard and unlace a coney, to rear a goose and allay a pheasant. I hope we are having pheasant, Scawen. We will want two courses, and I think four meat dishes and side dishes will suffice for a simple dinner party. And of course, a savory.”
“Just as you wish,” Mama,” Scawen said.
Mrs. Swann’s rheumy eyes turned to Fenwick. “Who is this young Adonis?” she demanded. “And why have you not been up to pay your respects to your hostess, eh?”
“I visited you the morning after I arrived, Mrs. Swann,” he said. “Do you not recall, you told me I was a brass-faced monkey?”
“Ah, so that was you. Of course I remember. You brought me marchpane. It pulled out a molar, but it was loose anyhow, and it was worth it. Do you have any more marchpane for me?”
“I shall buy some the next time I am in Bibury.”
“Why don’t you go now? You have plenty of time. My party is not until this evening.” She turned to Scawen. “Who is coming, Scawen? Who am I having this party for? Is it the Pargeters? Why am I entertaining them? They never have me to dinner. I haven’t seen Wildercliffe in a decade, except for the chimney pots.”
“We are inviting Miss Lonsdale and Lady Pargeter, Mama. You remember Miss Rampling?”
“Of course I remember Rampling. Is she coming? She used to call with Lizzie. No one calls on me nowadays. Push me toward the window, Scawen. I want to see the road. I cannot see the road from my window, just the chimney pots and the lake and those demmed swans.”
Phoebe threw up her hands and went below stairs to speak to Cook, to see that the meat was carved when it arrived at the table. With luck, Lavinia would tire herself out before dinner, and be in her bed when the guests arrived.
* * * *
At Wildercliffe that morning, Jane was also making plans for the dinner party. She examined her gowns, wishing she had one that was more stylish. Miss Prism did not permit the empress style that was all the crack in London. “Decadent!” she said, condemning them with a word. With great trepidation, Jane took the scissors to her evening gown and scooped out the neckline. Fay supplied her with Belgian lace to finish off the border. Sewing was a necessary skill for a vicar’s daughter, and the job was done well. It did not look in the least homemade, but quite stylish. She would wear her one piece of good jewelry, the small string of pearls Papa had given Mama for a wedding gift.
Next she went to work on her hair. She customarily wore it bundled back in a bun, but it was naturally curly. She brushed it out at her mirror and tried arranging it in various styles. She and her friend Harriet often used to arrange each other’s hair in their bedroom at night, to pass the time. But without Harriet to help her, the job proved difficult. The best she could do was to loosen the front curls somewhat, and pin the rest up in a roll across the back of her head. It looked rather elegant. Fay lent her a small diamond pin to set amidst the curls at the front. Before going below stairs for lunch, Jane resumed her usual coiffure.
By early afternoon, she sat at the desk in the Blue Saloon, writing a letter to Harriet Stowe. Her gaze often turned to the window toward Swann Hall, as she wondered if she would see Fenwick and Swann riding forth to visit her and Fay. They did not come, but at about three o’clock, Lord Fenwick called. He came not through the meadows but by the road, driving a spanking yellow curricle whose silver appointments twinkled in the sunlight. The rig was drawn by a pair of blood grays.
“I am just off to Bibury to buy Mrs. Swann some marchpane, and thought you might like to come with me,” he said to Jane, after a few words of greeting to the ladies.
Jane’s heart beat faster. She had never been in a curricle. She and Harriet used to watch them fly by, driven by the out and outers in Bath, and wish they might have a drive in such a dashing rig. And with Lord Fenwick by her side! She positively ached with pleasure, yet her voice, when she spoke, was calm.
“You don’t mind if I go, Aunt Fay?”
“Run along, dear. There’s little enough to amuse a youngster here. I shall have a rest.”
“You really ought to have a walk about the park,” Jane said.
“We’ll do that after you return.”
“I mean to hold you to that!” Jane said, in a scolding way. Then she ran for her bonnet and pelisse.
The drive was everything she had imagined, and more. Fenwick drove at a fast pace to impress her, when she admitted she had never been in a curricle before. She clung for dear life to the edge of the precarious perch, and could not restrain a little squeal of fearful delight when he took the corners at what seemed to her a reckless speed. Stone houses and fields of sheep spun past in a blur. Conversation was virtually impossible with the wind whistling in her ears, and so many new sensations to be enjoyed.
When they drove into town, heads turned to ogle them. Jane felt she was living in a dream. For this one brief hour, she was the pampered lady in the curricle with the dashing gentleman by her side, and not the poor creature gazing enviously as the rig
whizzed past. She would include an account of the outing in her letter to Harriet.
“I look a quiz!” she exclaimed, clutching at her bonnet, when at last Fenwick drove into the inn yard to stable his rig.
He reached out, tucked a wanton curl back in place, straightened her bonnet, and said, “There, now you look like your proper little self.”
The speech was at odds with the intimate gesture. Was that how he saw her, as a “proper little” lady? She felt she had grown beyond that. But then, what should he think, when she was wearing the horrid old round bonnet that Miss Prism insisted on? He hopped down and threw the reins to a stableboy, then assisted Jane down from the perch. He didn’t offer his hand; such mild gestures were for old men, in Fenwick’s view. He put his two hands around her waist and whirled her to the ground in a flurry of skirts that showed her ankles. His sharp eye noticed the lack of any lace on her petticoat. It also noticed her slender, well-turned ankles. His strong hands held her as easily as if she were a flower. She gave a little gasp of surprise, then laughed to cover her embarrassment.
“You should smile more often, Miss Lonsdale,” he said, gazing at her upturned face. Lovely long lashes, she had, and such a delicate complexion. “You don’t have to frighten your pupils now.” He felt a stabbing ache for that plain muslin petticoat. A lady deserved lace.
“Oh, I never frighten them. Miss Prism is in charge of scaring the poor things to death.”
“A shrew, is she? Did she frighten you, too?”
“Well, she is rather a Tartar, but let’s not spoil this wonderful outing by talking about her.”
Chapter Ten
“Which way shall we go?” Jane asked, looking around. On an impulse she said, “I should like to buy a new bonnet while we’re here.” Then she added artlessly, “My aunt is paying me a shocking salary for doing nothing but enjoying myself.” He looked a question at her. “Two hundred pounds per annum,” she announced, her eyes large with pleasure, verging on disbelief at her good fortune. “I feel a very bandit taking it from her.”
Fenwick felt a pang at the modest sum mentioned. He spent more than that on his boots. And she spoke of this simple jaunt as “a wonderful outing.” Lord, he was fortunate. Never had to work a day in his life, and had more money than one man could wisely spend. Free to come and go as he wished, while other, no doubt more worthy, folks toiled their lives away under the thumb of petty tyrants such as Miss Prism.
“I love helping ladies choose their bonnets,” he said. “I, being nothing else but a fashionable fribble, shall advise you on all the latest London modes, and you shall help me choose some marchpane for Mrs. Swann.”
“I recommend the one with nuts and cherries. It’s lovely! Harriet—she’s my friend at Bath—bought me some for my birthday.”
“It won’t do for Mrs. Swann. She has difficulty in chewing,” he said discreetly, for it seemed rude to say she was missing half her teeth.
“Then you already know what you must buy. You don’t need my help.”
“I didn’t invite you to come with me because I need help, Miss Lonsdale, but because I enjoy your company,” he said, and tucking her hand under his arm, they set off down the High Street.
They stopped at the first milliner’s shop they came to and looked in the window.
“That one is rather pretty,” Jane said, admiring a navy glazed straw bonnet with a low poke.
Fenwick shook his head. “You’re out of the classroom now, ma’am. Let us go for something a little more dashing. This is a shop for older ladies. Why, it doesn’t even have a French name,” he said, pointing to the sign that read Miss Daly, Purveyor of Millinery to the Quality. “All the better milliners pretend they’re French, you must know.”
“Yes, and charge twice the price for the honor of being able to say the bonnet came from Mademoiselle Dubois, instead of Miss Wood.”
“But one is also allowed to call the bonnet a chapeau. That is worth something. A bonnet is like perfume. One pays for more than the actual product. It should make you feel feminine and alluring. What price can be put on that?”
“About a guinea, I should think. Bonnets are double the price in those pseudo-French shops. I like value for my hard-earned money.”
“Actually, that was a rhetorical question. I see I must watch my words with you. You are literal minded. I meant that no price is too high to pay for the satisfaction of knowing you look your best, being in style. You have two hundred pounds in your hot little hands. Don’t be such a skint.” When he saw her staring at him, he stopped. “God, I sound a fool!”
“You are the one who said it,” she chided.
Jane didn’t think he sounded foolish; only rich, and spoiled. Perhaps she would splurge and try a more stylish shop. They strolled along, stopping at various windows to look at the goods. Fenwick bought an enameled snuffbox from France, decorated with a copy of a Fragonard scene of a lady in a swing, because she reminded him of Jane. Its cost equaled a week of Jane’s wages at the academy.
“I’ve never seen you use snuff,” she mentioned.
“I don’t,” he admitted sheepishly, “but I happen to adore Fragonard. And it will make a handy container for headache powders or some such thing.” He had a weakness for snuffboxes. A dozen of them sat on his toilet table at home, empty.
They stopped at the confectioner’s, where Fenwick bought a box of plain marchpane for Mrs. Swann. While Jane chose some sweets as a present for Fay, he also bought a box of cherry and nut sweets for Jane, and had them both put in one parcel to keep hers as a surprise when they parted.
“Shall we get your bonnet next, or shall we pay our duty visit to the church first? Let us visit the church. Duty before pleasure, and I shall be carrying a hatbox once you have made your purchase. That is not a complaint, by the by.”
“We don’t have to visit the church,” she said.
“Very well, let us save that treat for another outing and go to see the river instead.”
The River Colne was hardly more than a stream, but it was pretty, with a couple of picturesque stone bridges spanning it. Across the bridge, the Arlington Row almshouses and the mill, built of stone like most of the local buildings, were the main features. The young couple strolled along in the sunshine, with a light breeze fanning their cheeks. As they returned, they stopped midway across the bridge to look at the water.
“Oh, look! There are fish!” Jane exclaimed, as the silver bodies flashed in the stream.
“Trout. By Jove, I wish I had my fishing rod. We would have fresh trout for dinner. But then that would spoil Mrs. Swann’s menu,” he added with a teasing laugh. “You are in for a rare evening, Miss Lonsdale.”
“What do you mean?”
“I shan’t spoil it by telling you, but I have a feeling Miss Prism would approve of how things are done chez Swann.”
“How provoking you are! Do tell me.”
“No, no. It’s to be a surprise.”
Jane gave a sigh. “If Miss Prism would approve, then I daresay we are having minced mutton and bread pudding.”
Again Fenwick felt the familiar stab of pity. “Good Lord! Is that what she fed you?”
“Yes, and she charges such shocking prices. Imagine, feeding the daughters of gentlemen such wretched food.”
“Imagine feeding Miss Lonsdale such a diet,” he said, squeezing her fingers consolingly. “At least the gentlemen’s daughters can eat properly when they go home.”
“I, too, am a gentleman’s daughter,” she said with a rebukeful look.
He said hastily, “I was not implying otherwise. The other gentlemen’s daughters, I should have said. I meant the students.” He wondered at her leaping on his little slip, until it occurred to him how tenuous her hold on gentility had been, when she was left alone in the world. She guarded it fiercely, for without it she would be sunk beneath social redemption, reduced to some menial labor.
She accepted his explanation and said, “I shall never eat bread pudding again, as long as I
live. I don’t care if I starve, I shall never eat bread pudding again.”
“You will not be offered it tonight, at any rate. It was not the food I meant, but—” She looked at him expectantly. “Never mind batting your long lashes at me, minx. I’m not going to spoil the surprise. Now, let us go and choose your bonnet.”
They went to the other millinery shop in the village. Jane held that “long lashes” to her heart as though it were golden.
“Miss White’s,” he said, peering in the window. “Bibury is a decade behind the times. This should be Mademoiselle Blanche, for I see the chapeaux are a cut above Miss Daly’s wares.”
The prices were higher than Jane was accustomed to paying, but they were not exorbitant. She quelled down the urge to try on the more dashing bonnets Fenwick suggested, and chose a bonnet with a medium poke and a small rim, which just suited her modest style of beauty.
“It is you,” Fenwick conceded, with more resignation than pleasure, as his eyes flickered over her plain serge pelisse.
“In other words, you think it’s dowdy,” she said.
“Don’t put words in my mouth! I think it is eminently sensible, yet with a touch of distinction. Not a bonnet to turn heads, but a close examination shows its quality.”
“I expect you mean well, but I would have preferred a flattering lie,” she said, with that artless candor that he found amusing. “I’m tired of being sensible.”
“Always happy to oblige, ma’am. That is the most ravishing bonnet it has ever been my privilege to set eyes on. It puts London bonnets to the blush.”
“Thank you for the effort, but a compliment is no good when you have to pry it out of a gentleman.”
“It really looks very nice,” he said uncertainly.
She gave a tsk of disbelief, although he did think it looked nice. “Let us go back now,” she said, when Miss White handed Fenwick the hatbox. “I want to make sure Aunt Fay takes some exercise. She’s too idle, and she eats more than she ought, out of boredom. She’ll fall into flesh if I let her.”
Fenwick just shook his head. “Still a schoolteacher at heart, eh, Miss Lonsdale? You can take the teacher out of the schoolroom, but you cannot take the schoolroom out of the teacher.”