by Edith Layton
Catherine smiled politely at him and at Jenkins, and said, she noticed, without the usual fast beating of her heart or dryness in her mouth, “Certainly. There is nothing to apologize for.”
It was amazing, she thought, now that she understood what all his sly references to her meant, her feelings of confusion in his presence had fled. It was as though she were a different person he was speaking to, and as though they both were part of an amusing play. Newly confident, she only smiled demurely when he gazed thoughtfully at her.
“I understand that we are both to be guests at Sir Sidney’s little house party.”
She knew nothing of the sort, but only said carelessly, “I am sure it will be most pleasant.”
“Oh, delightful, I’m sure,” he said, with a puzzled look at her. “And I shall be envied, for I think that Jenkins and I are the only gentlemen to have made your acquaintance as yet. For I see that you do not join your companions.” He gestured toward Rose and Violet, who were chatting with a group of gentlemen.
“No,” she said a little nervously, “but please excuse me, as I think the duchess requires me now.”
She nodded and fairly flew off toward the duchess, who, she was sure, had forgotten her existence entirely, for the moment.
She had convinced herself that the world’s opinion did not matter. But yet it seemed, despite her best efforts, that one gentleman’s opinion mattered very much. She discovered she could not bear the contempt in his eyes.
“Oh, there you are, Catherine,” the duchess said, seeing her slip into the outskirts of the impromptu circle that had formed around her.
“This is Catherine Robins, my newest companion,” the duchess said to the general interest of the group of elderly persons around her. “Rose and Violet you know of old. But Catherine here has only just joined me.”
There were several murmurs of introduction and interested looks in Catherine’s direction. A moment later, she found herself forgotten as the discussion turned to accommodations that were considered acceptable in Paris these days. Catherine had a good chance to covertly study the group that surrounded her employer.
They were all old, she thought with relief—indeed, some seemed ancient. A few of the gentlemen still sported periwigs, and the women were either thinned by age, as was the duchess, or blatantly plump. Some were dressed in high style and others sported garments that seemed to have come straight out of museums. One poor old gentleman, Catherine noticed, sat trembling in his bath chair, attended by an impassive valet. It was he who was going on, in a high, tremulous voice, about how the conditions of travel had deteriorated since his last journey to the City of Light.
“Of course,” said the thin, pale old gentleman at Catherine’s side, “that was before the flood, you know. Poor old Richard used to dance attendance on Pompadour herself, when they were both in nursery, I believe,” he said, laughing. “And Cleopatra as well, I’ll warrant.”
Catherine turned to the speaker. He bowed and then looked at her with frankly approving eyes. She did not mind his obvious interest, because he was so very old and innocent looking. He had been tall, she guessed, in youth, but age had shrunken him, and now he appeared slender and almost translucently fragile. He had a thin coating of gray hair and his face was gentle and lined. His whole attitude, from the sober hues of his clothes to the quietness of his voice, gave her the impression of a gentle, kindly old fellow. So she smiled wholeheartedly at him.
“Ah, the duchess has picked herself a lovely this time,” he said. “I hope you do not mind me being so personal, but at my age, alas, all I can do is admire loveliness in all its forms.”
In truth, Catherine was growing weary of hearing nothing but references to her physical person, but it was impossible to mind anything this kind old gentleman said.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Hah, look at the Vicar,” cried the duchess. “Just got in a new flower and he’s already buzzing around her.”
“But never fear, little lovely,” cackled one old female in a dizzying collection of shawls and scarves, “for he’s lost his sting.”
The assembled old people began laughing, and Catherine noticed that the man they called “the Vicar” laughed along with them.
“That is true,” he said ruefully, “but Miss Robins seems to be a perceptive child, and so suffers my attentions nonetheless. We shall meet at Sir Sidney’s, my dear, and show these doubters that I can still, at least, dance to a tune or two.”
Catherine nodded her agreement, and further sounds of merriment were stilled as the vessel, now tied securely to the dock, began to let its passengers off.
The duchess debarked in state, leading her ensemble of four females—Gracie directly behind her, and then Rose, Violet, and Catherine—carefully picking their way down the gangplank.
“So exit the old hen and her delicious chicks,” the marquis remarked to Jenkins from his observation point against the rails.
“I tell you, Jenkins,” he said, in low tones, dispiritedly, “I cannot like this employment. Pitched into the midst of these posturing, empty, pleasure seekers. I’d rather be in the thick of some action or in any other company but this. Having to play at their games, play at being one with them is wearing. Fiend seize the old chap, I’ll gather whatever I can and be quit of this charade as soon as possible. I cannot think I can learn enough of import for this trip to be worthwhile. I boarded this packet just to be in step with them. And what have I discerned so far? That Lady Scofield has left her lord for a dancing instructor. That he does not care so long as she takes care not to return too soon. That Lord Hunt is on the prowl for a French mistress, that old Bertie expects to make a killing at the gaming tables, and old Philip has to, else he cannot return home at all. That the Dirty Duchess has three females for hire in her train, one of them with the airs of a lady—oh, all of this, I am sure will thrill the old chap and save our dear country.”
“Aye,” Jenkins said softly, “but you’ve not set foot on La Belle France yet. And you’ve not put your eyes or ears to work yet. It’s in Paris where the meat of the matter lies.”
“And I have to stop off at Sir Sidney’s and prattle with the lot there first,” the Marquis sighed.
“That you do,” Jenkins nodded. “For if you pass up an invitation such as that, they’ll surely smell a rat. You’re a pleasure-loving lad, and no pleasure lover would pass up such a treat.”
“Then let’s haul ourselves off there instantly,” the marquis decided, uncoiling his long frame, “for the sooner it’s over, the sooner we can go on. And,” he said, eyeing the duchess’s party as it disposed itself into a coach in the quay below, “I might just seek some pleasure there as well.”
*
“Well,” said the duchess, with satisfaction, “now we’re off. Sir Sidney has rented a house, and a great many good people are to be stopping off there before Paris. And so shall we. You’ve done well, Catherine,” she said with pleasure. “The Vicar’s an astute man, and he likes the cut of you. And I noticed that everyone is bowled over by my three companions, Rose, you were quite right. Now, I shall take a brief rest and hope that it is not too long till we reach Sir Sidney’s. I grow weary of so much travel, but I think it is best not to chance some local hostelry this night. Far better to spend the first night at Sir Sidney’s establishment. For while it may be a foreign house, it has an Englishman in residence.”
And, so saying, the duchess gave a satisfied grunt and closed her eyes. Rose, Violet, and Catherine sat rather closely together on the seat opposite the duchess and Gracie. Their luggage traveled in one vast heap in the coach behind them.
“I saw you in conversation with Sinjun, Catherine,” Violet whispered, when she thought enough time had passed for the duchess to have found the slumber she sought.
“Sinjun?” Catherine asked, confused.
“The Marquis of Bessacarr, the handsome lord you were chatting up, on deck,” Violet answered. “For his friends call him so.”
�
��Go on with you,” Rose tittered. “Sinjun. Don’t you just wish you called him so?”
Violet sniffed. “Well, I had quite a nice coze with him earlier. And he did ask after the new ‘chick,’ as he called her.”
“But ‘Sinjun’ indeed.” Rose snickered. “As if you two were bosom bows.”
“He’s too high in the instep for me,” Violet said calmly.
“All he’d have to do is crook a finger, Vi, and you know it. But he never does. He chats with us, and he says such lovely things so charmingly, but there’s an end to it,” she told Catherine.
“Not,” Violet put in, “that he’s a hermit. But when he has the like of Gwyn Starr in London. And Belle Fleur, and almost any female like that, he doesn’t tarry with us.”
“And Lady Spencer last season, I hear. So don’t be alarmed if he says things to you, Catherine, for he’s only tarrying. And don’t bother yourself about the Vicar’s attentions either,” Rose whispered, “for he’s old as the hills. I hear he was a terror years ago, but now he just sits back and watches like the duchess. So rest easy about him as well.”
Catherine nodded, both pleased and a little embarrassed about her two fellow companions’ new solicitude on her behalf. But before they could offer her any further advice, the duchess opened one sharp eye.
“If you ladies want to prattle all the way, kindly let me know. I shall ride with the baggage.”
And the three of them fell to guilty silence as their coach rolled on through the city and outward, into the unknown center of France.
Catherine was stiff in every limb by the time the coach rolled into the great courtyard. She did not know how a woman of the duchess’s years could wake so quickly, and look about so brightly, as they reached their destination. It was true that the dowager had slept soundly for all the hours that Catherine had been looking out her window, trying to get glimpses of the life and people in this new land. But still, she seemed more alert and rested now than the girl who was decades her junior.
It was night, yet the great house seemed to blaze with light. Liveried footmen leaped forward to greet them and Catherine could see that other coaches were unloading other newly come passengers as well. In the gloom dispelled by the torches the footmen were bearing, Catherine could make out familiar persons from the boat, alighting from their carriages. The house itself, she saw with wonder, as she stepped stiffly out onto the circular drive, was massive. Gray and distinguished, it seemed a palace to her. She had never beheld so old and imposing a residence.
But neither her employer nor her companions seemed impressed. They had seen English country seats before, and this monumental old château was simply another stopping-off place for them. It had been the proud home of a French duke, who had fled during the revolution. Sadly, when the Bourbon had been placed back upon the throne and Napoleon left to lord it over only a small island, the duke was too impoverished and defeated by age to return. Instead, he hoped to better his heirs’ conditions by letting the château out, for an exorbitant fee, to those who could afford it. And Sir Sidney and his shocking wife could afford it well enough. They had come over to France the moment hostilities had ceased, much to the relief of Sidney’s more correct relations, and lorded it there in the ancient manner ever since. They never needed to journey to Paris at all for gaiety, Sir Sidney often said happily, since all those who mattered in Paris would be sure to come to him, either before or after they visited the great city. And so life in the great house had been a constant party since they had arrived.
Sir Sidney and his blatantly beautiful wife (an actress who had been lucky beyond her deserts, Violet whispered to Catherine as they went up the great steps to the front portals) were busily greeting their new guests.
“Ah, Duchess.” Sir Sidney, a portly little man, beamed. “So you have come to grace our halls as well. And dear little Violet, and this must be Rose,” he chortled, chucking Rose under her chin. “You see, we hear all here at Beauvoir. But who is this little darling? Never say, Duchess, that you have three exquisite companions now?”
The duchess permitted herself a little smile. “I do say it, Ollie. Good evening, Lady Sidney. So good of you to have us,” the Duchess said, knowing quite well that Lady Sidney had nothing to say about who shared her house with her.
But her host and hostess had already turned to greet other arrivals, Sir Sidney chuckling that every time the packet came from France, he sent orders to his servants to make up the beds, for the British were coming. It was with relief that Catherine followed in the train of the duchess up the staircase, off the huge stone hall to which no amount of torches or candles could lend warmth.
A flustered housekeeper showed them to spacious, lavish rooms that Catherine was too weary to admire. Before settling in, Catherine scratched softly on the duchess’s door. Being told by a perfunctory Gracie, already in her night shift, that the duchess was going to retire, Catherine was happy to wash and slip into bed. She had time only to murmur a silent thanks that she had gotten so far without difficulties before sleep took her far from the duchess, the château, and France.
*
Catherine knew that her employer never rose before noon, and in the hours that she wandered through Sir Sidney’s house, she came to understand that no female of rank did otherwise. Only the lower servants and she herself were up and about in the morning. A few gentlemen, she heard, had gone out early to ride with Sir Sidney over his countless rented acres. But she was well used to being alone, and contented herself in prowling the halls and investigating the premises, storing up details to regale Jane and Arthur with on some later, quiet country evening.
Still, she thought crossly much later on, as she struggled to do up her buttons while changing for dinner, if she could only get into the habit of sleeping the day away, her state would be vastly improved.
Rose tapped and entered her room just as the early dusk of a winter’s day descended. Catherine stared at her in awe. For the comfortable, companionable Rose of the day seemed vanished. In her stead stood a startlingly beautiful woman. Rose wore a low gown, the color of her namesake. Her blond hair was swept up in a flurry of ringlets, a sparkling necklace sat upon her ample breast, and she glittered when she walked. A heavy perfume hung over her, and her bright eyes seemed heavily lidded and glistened in the candle’s glow.
“Oh, don’t you look fine?” Rose said happily, turning to Violet, all in flaming red, with red plumes twined in her curls, as she stepped into the room behind her. “Don’t Catherine look lovely? I told her to get rigged out fine, and so she did.”
“And she didn’t even ring for a maid. And so you should have, Catherine, to help you dress. Even though mine couldn’t get out a ‘how do you do’ in English, and just chirped ‘wee-wee’ whenever I asked her anything.”
Catherine could see nothing exceptional in her looks beside her two co-companions. She wore the simplest of light-green garments that she could find in her wardrobe, with a sash of darker green beneath her breasts. She had built up Madame Bertrand’s bold bodice so that only some of her white shoulders and breasts showed above it—not at all like Violet and Rose’s deep expanses of exposed breast. At the last moment she had bound up her dark hair with a green fillet, and the only ornament she wore was a simple gold pendant that her mother had left her. She felt she looked the servant to Violet and Rose’s great ladies.
But they saw, tentative and graceful in the candlelight, a slip and sprite of refreshing girl, so simple and refreshing as to overwhelm their finery and make them seem tawdry.
Violet sighed. “You’re either the boldest thing in creation or the most innocent. I’m not sure I want to know. Come, we’re dining in state with the ‘great lady.’ After that, simply stay away from darkened corners or stay at the old dame’s side if you wish to escape trouble.”
“Don’t rally with Sir Sidney, dear,” Rose cautioned as they went on slippered feet to the duchess’s room, “for he’s a right old caution. And don’t dance with Lord Lambert, nor Jim
my Crawley neither. And don’t flirt with Sir Harold, for he’s up to no good, and don’t agree to see Viscount Hightower’s collection of snuffboxes, because he hasn’t got any, and, no matter what he says, don’t offer to help Jamie Prendergast when he comes all over faint, for he’s fit as may be, whatever he says.”
Rose’s admonitions went on, with Catherine losing track of her whispered warnings and only vowing fiercely to herself to avoid all members of the opposite gender, footmen and waiters included. At last the duchess appeared in her doorway, nodding complacently at her entourage and quite taking their breath away. For she was in her best looks, all in lavender, tall, erect, and stately. She breezed down the stairs, as regal as a visiting dignitary, with her three companions behind her and her devoted Gracie watching from an unobtrusive darkened part of the upper stair.
They dined in a great room with a blazing fireplace that was big enough, Catherine thought, to accommodate a forest full of logs. Their table was set up under two huge chandeliers whose candles lit their plates and faces as daylight, but left the shadowy retainers who filled their dishes and glasses as faceless as wraiths. Catherine might not have been able to swallow a morsel if it were not for the fortuitous fact that she had been seated next to the gentleman she had met on the ship whom the duchess had called “the Vicar.” He was actually, he admitted, the Baron Watchtower, but his intimates called him Vicar because of his quiet, cautious ways. Catherine found him a dear, gentle old fellow and enjoyed his calm good humor and his easygoing ways.
She wondered what he was doing in this ribald company, for all about them the other guests, led by their host and hostess, were laughing loudly and drinking freely and calling to each other from all parts of the great table, in a manner, she thought, that was not at all seemly. But the Vicar spoke no more than the truth when he told her that though he was too old for such pleasures, still he enjoyed being part of such merry company. She could not know that in his time, the Vicar, so named because all his actions had so outrageously belied his manner, had been one of the most absolute dissolutes of his era. There had been no pleasure of the senses that he had not engaged in, no deeds too outrageous for him to attempt. He had never married, never having been so inclined toward women. And when he had noted an excellent nephew coming of age, he had decided the fellow would do a great deal better with his title than he ever had, and so had gone happily on with his own proclivities. Now he was truly burnt out and content, at last, to be just an observer of the scene. But since he had nothing in common with the tame socially correct world, he traveled in the duchess’s set, preferring to spend the last of his years among those who understood his past rather than those who pretended to ignore it.