Marchington Scandal

by Jane Ashford

“Do sit down,” said Katharine, doing so herself.

  They all sat.

  “I am so happy to see you, Cousin Katharine,” exclaimed Elinor. “It has been so long. Indeed, I don’t believe we have met these six years. You must remember me as a silly schoolgirl.”

  This clearly called for a demur, but since it was precisely what Katharine did remember, she replied, “It has been a long time. And now you are quite grown up. I must offer you my felicitations on your marriage.” She included them both in her glance. “I am so sorry I did not return to England in time to attend the ceremony.”

  “Yes, we so wanted you to come,” said Elinor. “But we couldn’t put it off because Tom and I were determined to do the season, and we wanted all that out of the way.”

  Raising an eyebrow very slightly, Katharine looked at Tom Marchington. “This is your first visit to London also?”

  “Yes. M’father never cared for town life, so he put me off whenever I asked to come. But now that I’m a married man, I suppose I can do as I please.”

  Katharine’s eyebrow moved again.

  “Tom is just like me,” added Elinor. “He has always longed to see the ton and the season. You cannot imagine how disappointed I was last year when all the children came down with the measles just as Mama was about to bring me up to town for my come-out. I cried for days. And I still think she might have found someone else to… But that is all over now. We are actually in London! We mean to have a perfectly splendid time and go to every party there is!”

  “Hah!” put in Tom. “I shan’t spend every moment doing the pretty in some drawing room, Elinor. I have told you I mean to see some other sights as well.”

  The girl grimaced. “Oh, all those horrid gaming hells and boxing saloons. I cannot imagine why you want to waste your time there. But you must do as you like, of course.”

  “I shall start with a good tailor,” replied the man unheedingly.

  “Oh, yes! Cousin Katharine, we both mean to buy completely new wardrobes before the season really gets started. Can you tell me where I should go?” She looked over her cousin’s elegant gray morning dress. “I want to be the height of fashion!”

  Katharine smiled a little. “If that is your aim, you must go to Madame Gervase in Bond Street; she is all the crack, I have heard.” She turned to Tom. “I fear I know nothing about Savile Row.”

  Mr. Marchington reddened slightly. “That’s all right. Have the name of m’ father’s snyder.”

  “Isn’t it thrilling?” Elinor clasped her hands before her bosom. “I can hardly bear the excitement. And, oh, Cousin Katharine, we want to ask you to present us to everyone. Mama says that you were a tremendous hit when you came out six years ago, and I mean to be the same. You must know all the haut ton.”

  This was the remark Katharine had been warily waiting for, and now she could not restrain a slight grimace.

  “Your mother exaggerates, Elinor. I had a very modest success, I assure you, and most of that was due to curiosity, I daresay. I was the oldest deb in living memory because we waited for Father to return from France.”

  The younger girl shook a playful finger at her. “Now you are being modest, Katharine. Mother told me you took the town by storm, and refused scores of brilliant offers for the sake of Robert Adams.” She sighed audibly. “I have always thought it the most romantic story.”

  Acutely embarrassed, Katharine clenched her fists in her lap. But she made a great effort to pass this appalling remark off lightly. “Hardly scores, Elinor. Not even several. And you know I have been out of the country for years. I really know almost no one in London now. However, a friend of mine, Lady Eliza Burnham, is familiar with all the people you wish to meet. I will ask her to present you to some of them. Indeed, she is giving a ball next week, as it happens, I will have her send you a card.”

  “Oh, that will be splendid. And perhaps you will permit us to go with you? I mean, uh, perhaps you will dine with us before and go on to the ball.”

  “Thank you, but I’m not attending.”

  “Not…? Oh, of course. Katharine, your father. I meant to say how sorry we are right away, but I…I forgot. Your blacks…that is…”

  “I’ve left off full mourning. It has been nine months, and Papa always loathed black. But I must tell you straight out, Elinor, that I am not going out. The activities of the ton bore me unspeakably, and I greatly prefer remaining at home, seeing a few friends occasionally. I fear I will be of little help to you during the season. But I will ask Lady Burnham to do what she can.”

  “You don’t want to go out?” Elinor appeared to puzzle over this astonishing fact for a while; then her face cleared. “Oh, of course, dear Katharine. How could I be so stupid? You cannot forget Robert. You do not wish to relive moments that you shared with him.” She sighed again.

  Katharine made an exasperated sound. Her cousin was really impossible. If she had in fact been wearing the willow for a man more than four years dead, this reminder would certainly have depressed her spirits. As it happened, she had recovered from the death of her first love some time ago, but this did not excuse Elinor’s thoughtlessness. She was about to deliver a blistering set-down when it occurred to her that here was an excuse to avoid Elinor’s further importunities. She knew that the younger girl would never accept the simple fact that she preferred being alone to “society.” But if she thought a broken heart was behind her solitude, surely she would leave Katharine alone with her “sorrow.” Katharine raised soulful eyes to Elinor’s, sighed, and dropped them again. Mary looked at her with astonishment.

  “Poor Katharine,” exclaimed Elinor. “Naturally, I understand. I will do nothing to intrude upon your grief.”

  “Thank you,” answered the other brokenly.

  “I say, Elinor,” put in Tom Marchington. “We must go. I promised we’d look in on my great-aunt this afternoon.”

  “Oh, dear. I am positively terrified of Lady Steadly.” But Elinor rose and held out a hand. “I shall call again, Cousin Katharine, when we can truly talk.”

  Katharine’s heart sank, but she shook hands and said, “And I shall speak to Eliza Burnham. You may expect a card for her ball.”

  “Thank you!”

  The Marchingtons took their leave, and Katharine and Mary sank back down on the sofa. “What an abominable girl she is!” said the former.

  “Perhaps it is a family failing,” retorted Mary tartly.

  Katharine looked up, met her cousin’s censorious gaze, and, reprehensibly, giggled. “Don’t scold me, Mary. Indeed, it was the only excuse I could think of that she would accept.”

  “But, my dear, you can’t have thought. You know Elinor has a…well, a weakness for gossip. She will spread this ridiculous tale throughout the ton as soon as she is given the chance. She will revel in it!”

  “Let her. I don’t care a straw what the ton thinks of me. My own friends will know better, and the rest may prattle of my broken heart all they like. They have little enough to amuse them.”

  Mary shook her head. “I’m afraid you will be sorry, Katharine.”

  “Nonsense. I am never sorry for myself.” She dimpled. “But at least I have got you to admit that Elinor is an abominable girl. For that, I will forgive her her untimely visit and her apparently doltish husband.”

  “Katharine!”

  “Did you conceive a tendre for him? No, I cannot believe it. He is pure country squire come to town to see the sights.”

  “You really mustn’t speak so of your own family, Katharine. He seems a very pleasant young man. And I do not admit that Elinor is abominable, only a bit unwise and inexperienced, perhaps.”

  Katharine laughed. “Doing it too brown, Cousin. You cannot say at one moment that she is a terrible gossip and at the next that she is an innocent child. It won’t do. And as for me, if I cannot malign my own family, whom can I blacken? It is everyone’s privilege to bemoan the family eccentrics.”

  “You do so enjoy your jokes, Katharine. It is one of the thin
gs I find so puzzling.”

  “My joking? Pooh, Mary, you are one of the few people I know who does understand them.”

  “I don’t mean that. I simply cannot understand why someone who loves witty conversation as much as you refuses to go out. I know that I am no wit. I cannot keep pace with you for three minutes together. Yet you will not search out more amusing talkers. It is unaccountable.”

  “I amuse myself more than anyone else possibly could,” laughed Katharine.

  But her cousin shook her head. “You are so animated when you have a proper partner. I remember thinking so when your father’s friend Sir Giles Overshaw visited us on his way from Vienna to take up the ambassadorship in South America. I had never before seen you so gay. Why not make a push to meet other such people, Katharine? I know you would enjoy it.”

  Seeing that Mary was not going to be put off with a light answer, the younger girl sighed and said, “And where do you suggest I begin?”

  “Why, among the people you are acquainted with in London. We are in the midst of England’s most fashionable society. There must be many fascinating people who would be delighted to talk with you.”

  “Do you think so?” Katharine gazed into her cousin’s kind, narrow face. She remembered, as she often forgot, that Mary had been reared very strictly in a country parsonage and had never been to a town larger than Grantham before she herself summoned her. “I fear I must disagree with you,” she told her gently. “You know, Mary, I had two seasons before I went to India with Father. I met no one I liked enough to marry during the first, so they insisted I should have another, even though I didn’t want it at all. I have seen a good deal of fashionable society.”

  “Yes, dear, I know.” Mary eyed her anxiously. “And I know you didn’t care overmuch for it. I understand completely. I am sure a great many fashionable people are quite shallow and silly. But there must have been some you liked.”

  “Of course there were. I still see them now. You have met them all.”

  “But, Katharine…”

  “No, Mary. I am sorry, but I must insist that I understand this subject better than you can. Let me tell you something. I was quite as eager as you could wish when I first came out. I thought, as you do, that I should meet all sorts of wonderful people and have splendid conversations every night. But it simply wasn’t so. Why, the man whom the ton calls the greatest wit alive is the most arrogant, unfeeling creature on earth! I have not the least desire to see any of them ever again.”

  The older woman gazed at her, still looking anxious. “Well, my dear, I must suppose that you are right. I have no experience upon which to base any argument. But, Katharine…” She hesitated.

  “What is it? You look so worried. There is no need to be, I promise you.”

  “I’m not so sure of that.”

  “Why?”

  Mary Daltry hesitated again, then said, “I don’t wish to seem prying, or…or impertinent, my dear, but I can’t help wondering what you mean to do with your life?”

  “What I mean to do with my life?” repeated Katharine in an astonished tone.

  “Yes. Twenty-seven is still very young. Do you mean to stay here in this house and grow old, chatting with me and painting and perhaps traveling to Bath in the summer? Is this to be your life?” She stopped, started to add something, then fell silent.

  Katharine seemed genuinely struck. She did not reply for a long time, and her cousin was very satisfied with the expressions that followed one another across her face. Clearly she had never really considered this question before, and her companion astutely left her to visualize the future it implied.

  At last Katharine looked up. Mary met her amber gaze. For a moment their eyes held; then, abruptly, Katharine laughed, throwing back her head. “You have planted me a facer, Cousin. I admit it. You are right. I shall not be content to do what I have been doing the past four months for the rest of my life.”

  Mary nodded.

  “But,” continued Katharine before she could speak, “that does not mean that I shall break down and embrace the haut ton. It only means that I must do some thinking.”

  “That is all I ask, my dear.”

  Katharine laughed again. “And a jolly good thing, too, for I shan’t promise any more.” Her smile faded. “But I must do that, clearly. I see suddenly that independence might be a very daunting thing. When one can do whatever one likes…” Her voice faded; then she murmured, “What do I like, I wonder? Besides painting.”

  Silence fell again, but it lasted only a moment before Katharine stood up. “That is all very well, but it cannot be decided in a moment. Now, I must write the promised note to Eliza Burnham, and then I am going back to my studio until luncheon.” And she strode over to the writing desk and sat down.

  Her cousin watched her scribble the note, smiling slightly as she finished and sealed it with her customary haste. But Mary’s eyes showed concern, not amusement, and they did not change even when Katharine had hurried from the room and left her alone.

  Three

  The season opened with its customary brilliance, and Katharine Daltry resolutely ignored it. She passed her days in the quiet routine she and her cousin had established since their arrival in London—reading, walking, painting, and occasionally seeing friends at small private gatherings. Mary did not bring up the question of the future again, knowing that Katharine would puzzle over it in her own time. Elinor Marchington called on several occasions, but she was not encouraged to stay long, and she was never permitted what she called a “real talk” with Katharine, who was far more socially adept than her younger cousin and well able to deflect her rather obvious curiosity. Elinor was so excited by the new experience of going into society that these mild rebuffs hardly touched her. Lady Burnham’s invitation had been only the first of many, and Elinor was thrilled beyond measure by the ton and the nightly parties and concerts she attended.

  Thus, it was with some surprise that Katharine received her on an afternoon early in May, for as soon as Elinor entered the drawing room, it was clear that she had been crying. The younger girl looked around the room, then heaved a deep sigh. “Oh, good, you are alone. I must talk to you, Cousin Katharine. I don’t know what I am to do.”

  “What has happened? Come and sit down.”

  Elinor sank onto the sofa next to her cousin and groped in her reticule for a handkerchief. Katharine saw with concern that tears had started in her eyes once again. “Oh, Katharine,” she sniffed. “I wanted so much to come to London. I never imagined it would be like this.”

  “What is it? Has someone snubbed you? You know, Elinor, there are all sorts of odious snobs in the ton. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Elinor shook her head, her voice momentarily submerged in tears. Katharine waited as she struggled for control. “It is Tom,” she blurted finally. “He has gone mad, I think. I don’t know what to do.”

  For one vivid instant, Katharine pictured this statement as the literal truth. She saw the stolid Tom Marchington run mad, and her lips twitched. But she sternly controlled this lamentable reaction and said, “What do you mean, Elinor? Has Tom done something silly?” Various explanations occurring to her, she added, “You know, gentlemen are interested in the oddest things. If Tom has been to a cockfight or lost money in a gambling hell, it is no more than dozens of young men do every day. Quite unaccountable, of course, but I believe they get over it.”

  “Oh, if it were only that.” Elinor took a shaky breath. “I know about gaming, and boxing, and all those horrid things. Indeed, Tom told me he meant to go to Jackson’s and Cribb’s Parlor and…and those sorts of places. It is not that.” She looked at Katharine with wide tragic eyes. “It is a…a woman.”

  Katharine stared at her.

  “He has become utterly infatuated with Countess Standen. He positively hangs over her at parties, and I know he goes to her house. Everyone is talking. Katharine, what am I to do? You must help me!”

  “But…but, Elinor, you must be mistaken.
You are not used to town manners. Perhaps you misunderstood some remark, or…” Katharine trailed off, unconvinced by her own feeble excuses. She had heard of the countess. The woman was notorious for her indiscretions, and for her complete indifference to both the world’s opinion of her and the feelings of others. She had been pointed out to Katharine during her own first season, and though they had never met, she had seen the countess at more than one ton party behaving in a way to make any observer blush. Thus, even considering Elinor’s inexperience, it was possible that she was right. Katharine could imagine that it might amuse the Countess Standen to entangle a twenty-year-old boy fresh from the country, and though she certainly would not remain amused for long by dazzled innocence, it might well be long enough to ruin Tom Marchington’s marriage.

  “I am not mistaken,” said Elinor, hanging her head. “Other people have noticed it, too. Your friend Lady Burnham came to speak to me at Almack’s last night, expressly to warn me. I nearly sank with embarrassment. I didn’t know what to say to her. Katharine, you must help me before it is too late.”

  Katharine’s eyebrows drew together. If Eliza Burnham had noticed this indiscretion, it must be real. She met her cousin’s tearful brown eyes. But whatever could she do about it? She had never spoken to Countess Standen in her life, and she hadn’t the least idea how to wean a young man who was nearly a stranger to her away from a dangerous older woman. Katharine had an uneasy suspicion that the countess would be up to any stratagem she could think of, not that she could come up with any at this moment.

  “You will help me?” repeated Elinor. “There is no one else I can turn to. Mother is so busy with the children, and besides, she would never understand. She would only tell Tom’s father, and then there would be a great scandal.”

  Katharine brightened. “But, Elinor, surely that is the answer? Tom’s father is the proper person to deal with this. He will be as anxious as you to keep it quiet. I think he should be told at once.”

  Her cousin stared at her. “You don’t know Sir Lionel!”