Though Harriet tried to emulate them, she couldn’t help glancing at the doorway rather more often than she ought. But she also kept a smile pasted to her face, even when Kitty’s admirers made the most fatuous comments, and pretended to be interested in what they had to say. And to her surprise, she reaped the rewards at once. One of Kitty’s more bashful admirers, a Mr Swaffham, who’d been thrust to the back of the queue by his rivals, gave Harriet a rueful smile when Kitty informed him that she regretted being unable to dance with him and asked if she wouldn’t mind standing up with him instead.
Mr Swaffham did not give any sign that she was a less acceptable partner than Kitty. Even though he would much rather have been dancing with her cousin. He was unfailingly polite. And yet by the end of the dance, she couldn’t say she’d enjoyed it half so much as she had done when Lord Becconsall had been so rude he’d goaded her into colliding with another lady in her set.
Not that she gave Mr Swaffham the slightest hint how she felt. This time she could see the point in disguising her true feelings. After all, Mr Swaffham had concealed his, so that he wouldn’t hurt her. The least she could do would be to return the favour.
* * *
She must have done so convincingly, because later on another of Kitty’s admirers, a Lord Frensham, also asked her to dance and appeared to be perfectly content with the arrangement until the very moment he returned her to Aunt Susan’s side and abandoned Harriet to return to the pursuit of her cousin.
* * *
On their return home, Aunt Susan gave Harriet the first completely unqualified compliment she’d received since the Season had begun.
‘You are finding your feet in society at last,’ she said, with a satisfied smile. ‘I am proud of you.’
Harriet basked in that compliment all the way home.
But all her pleasure evaporated the moment they set foot in Tarbrook House, to find Uncle Hugo once again pacing the hallway, waiting for them to come back.
‘Hugo, surely, not now,’ Aunt Susan protested, indicating the girls.
‘Right now, madam,’ he replied.
‘But, I’ve already told you—’
‘My study,’ he said implacably.
And far from voicing any more objections, Aunt Susan trudged wearily in his wake. And Kitty hustled Harriet up the stairs.
Poor Aunt Susan must have been exhausted already, after a full day out in the countryside, then a good hour’s scolding before hastily preparing for a ball where she’d sat watching over both her young charges all night.
Yet Uncle Hugo had no pity.
* * *
In fact, she could still hear him shouting at her the next morning, the moment she emerged from her bedroom. The only difference was that now his angry voice was filtering through Aunt Susan’s bedroom door, rather than through the one to his study.
Good grief, had he been shouting at her all night? No, surely not. Even Uncle Hugo would have needed to sleep at some point.
Though Harriet could just imagine him leaving his study and marching Aunt Susan up the stairs so that he could continue accusing her of whatever it was she was still insisting she hadn’t done, in more comfort.
She was just passing Aunt Susan’s closed bedroom door, on her way to the staircase, when something shattered against its other side. She flinched, before scurrying along the corridor to the head of the stairs, out of range. If Uncle Hugo had opened the door at the moment Aunt Susan had thrown whatever it was at his head, she might have been struck by a flying porcelain shepherdess.
That was another thing to be said for her own parents. They might not have what she would describe as an ideal marriage, she reflected as she reached the stairs, down which she needed to go to arrive at the breakfast parlour, but each was content to let the other go their own way. There were never any scenes such as the one Uncle Hugo had enacted last night and Harriet had certainly never felt the need to run and hide from Papa at any time, the way Kitty had advised her to do from Uncle Hugo.
Nor did Mama ever reach the stage where she felt her only recourse was to throw breakables about.
But then...oh, good heavens! Harriet came to a standstill in the doorway to the breakfast parlour, wondering if it was possible to conjure someone up just by thinking about them. For there sat her mother, scattering toast crumbs in all directions from behind the pages of whatever obscure publication she’d brought to the breakfast table with her.
‘Good Lor...I mean, good heavens, Mama? When did you arrive? I had no idea you were coming to stay.’
‘Hmm?’ Mama peered up at her with a distracted air, as though she couldn’t quite recall who she was.
‘She got here late last night,’ said Kitty, who was standing by the sideboard, where a gargantuan breakfast lay spread out.
Since Mama was engrossed in her paper once more, Harriet went over to her cousin.
‘Was that,’ whispered Harriet, since Peter, the second footman, was standing close to the sideboard, in case anyone had need of him, ‘what started the...um...discussion? Between your father and mother?’ What a silly question. Harriet felt like kicking herself the moment she’d asked it. Kitty couldn’t possibly have heard what the argument had been about. But instead of pointing that out, Kitty shook her head, and leaned close, lowering her voice.
‘Not directly. Though Papa did say something about it being the last straw. Though I have to say your mother was absolutely splendid in the face of his accusations,’ she said, darting her mother a glowing look.
‘Mama was?’
‘Oh, yes, she said that if it was a question of him being in the basket,’ said Kitty, clattering the dome over a dish of eggs, in order, Harriet supposed, to prevent the nearby footman from overhearing, ‘he ought to send all the bills for our come-out to your father, who was ready to stand the nonsense. Which practically sent him off into an apoplexy on the spot.’
Golly. It sounded as though, having advised Harriet to steer well clear of Lord Tarbrook, Kitty had crept back downstairs and put her ear to the keyhole.
‘I cannot quite see why,’ Harriet began. ‘I mean, if your father is having money troubles, why on earth did your mother insist on sponsoring me for a Season?’
‘Because he isn’t having money troubles at all,’ hissed Kitty indignantly. ‘It is just that Mama,’ she breathed, her eyes suddenly lighting up with excitement, ‘seems to have pawned off a lot of jewellery and had it copied. Papa found out when he took an old family heirloom to the jewellers to be re-set for my engagement ball.’
‘Your engagement ball? I didn’t even know you had received a proposal. When did that happen?’
‘It hasn’t happened yet, silly,’ said Kitty with a giggle. ‘But when it does, I was dreading being weighted down by the hideous parure that has been worn by all the Tarbrook daughters for the past two centuries. And Papa knows how much I detest it. So he sent it off to be put into new settings. As a surprise for me when I do finally choose a husband.’
‘My...my goodness,’ said Harriet, absentmindedly scooping a spoonful of scrambled eggs on to the plate Kitty had just pressed into her hand.
‘Yes, and now everyone is whispering about Mama,’ said Kitty, glaring round the room at the wooden-faced servants. ‘They must have all heard Papa shouting at her last night.’
‘And this morning,’ said Harriet. ‘I heard him myself as I was coming down.’
‘What, still?’
Apparently not. For at that moment, the door opened and Aunt Susan herself came in, red-eyed but straight-backed as she swished to her place at the foot of the table. Even before she sat down the butler snapped his fingers and Fred, the first footman, brought her tea and a plate of toast cut into fingers, the breakfast which she habitually consumed every morning.
Harriet’s mother peered at her sister over the top of her paper, frowned and lai
d it aside.
‘Never say the brute is still refusing to listen to sense?’
Aunt Susan stuck out her chin, her cheeks quivering as though with the effort of not bursting into tears again.
‘I cannot comprehend why he should think you would rob your own daughter,’ said Mama with exasperation. ‘You have no need of the money, after all. He gives you a very generous allowance, doesn’t he?’
‘He won’t believe a word I say,’ said Aunt Susan indignantly. ‘Not one word. After all these years.’
Well, that explained the sound of shattering crockery. Or at least, it was probably one of those funny little statue things that Lady Tarbrook kept handy on every available surface. If someone had accused her of theft, Harriet thought she might very well be inclined to throw something at her accuser’s fat head.
‘It would serve him right if you did start going to gaming hells and taking heavy losses,’ said Mama, startling Harriet so much she put her thumb in her eggs. ‘In fact, if it was me in your shoes, that is exactly what I’d do.’
‘Not all husbands are as easy to tame as yours,’ said Aunt Susan bitterly, as Peter deftly took Harriet’s plate from her, walked to the table, set it at her place and pulled out her chair.
‘To think of all the years I have been the perfect wife...’
Harriet and Kitty crept to the table while Aunt Susan began enumerating the dozens of ways in which she’d borne with her husband’s odd tempers over the years. The servants all adopted carefully bland expressions as they went about their work, though some of the tales about Uncle Hugo’s doings were so risqué they made Harriet’s cheeks burn. It wasn’t long before she started to wonder whether she ought to send the servants from the room. But then she remembered what Kitty had said and reasoned that not only was it too late to prevent them learning more than they should, but also that it wasn’t her place.
‘And now,’ Aunt Susan was complaining, ‘the first time something inexplicable occurs, instead of trusting me, he accuses me of...of...’ Her lower lip wobbled. She raised her napkin to her eyes and hid her face for a moment.
By the time she lowered it, Mama was looking thoroughly annoyed.
‘Do you know what you should do?’
‘I feel sure...’ Aunt Susan sighed ‘...you are about to tell me.’
‘Well, in your place, I think I might get some Bow Street Runners on the case. To see if they can find out what happened to the rubies.’
Aunt Susan froze, a finger of toast halfway to her mouth. But then she shook her head and sighed.
‘I would not know how to go about hiring them. Do you?’
Harriet’s mother shook her head. ‘It is a great pity James did not wish to come to Town with me. He may be a bit of a dunderhead, but it is the sort of thing even he would know, I dare say. Or if he didn’t, he could find out.’
Harriet grabbed a piece of toast and slapped it on to her plate. Then hacked off a slice of butter to spread on it, wishing Mama would not speak of Papa in such a derogatory fashion all the time. Why couldn’t she appreciate what an absolute lamb he was? In comparison with the tyrannical Uncle Hugo, particularly?
‘I don’t think Hugo would like that,’ said Aunt Susan, confirming Harriet’s opinion of him. ‘He might regard it as interference in his private business.’
Harriet’s mother curled her lip in scorn at what Aunt Susan believed her husband might think.
‘If anyone could find out how to hire such a person,’ said Aunt Susan, reaching across and patting her sister’s hand, ‘I feel sure it is you, Mary.’
‘Me? Oh, but I only came to Town to—’
‘Attend some important lecture and speak to some genius who has written some paper that has a bearing on what you yourself are looking into at the moment, I know, dear, you told me all that last night. But don’t you think you might find the time to...’
Mama withdrew her hand swiftly. ‘You know I won’t. I told you, that is why I didn’t even have Stone House opened up. I don’t have time for distractions of that sort. My work is important,’ she said firmly. ‘Not that I expect you to understand...’
‘Oh, I understand perfectly,’ snapped Aunt Susan, the brief moment of harmony between the sisters shattering. ‘If your work is more important to you than your own daughter’s future, not to say well-being, then naturally the troubles of a mere sister must fade into insignificance.’
‘There is no need to take that attitude—’
‘You were always a selfish little girl,’ said Aunt Susan, her blood clearly up. ‘But after I’ve gone to all the effort of making up for your neglect, teaching your daughter all the things you should have done, dressing her, taking her about and all the rest of it, and you will not even—’
‘Well, nobody asked you to do any of those things,’ replied Mama, unperturbed. ‘She—’ she glanced across the table at Harriet, who promptly buried her face in the cup of tea which had been sitting beside her place ‘—was perfectly content living quietly in the country.’
‘And what would have happened to her when Charles took a bride and brought her home? What would she do then with another woman taking the reins of Stone Court? Where would her place have been then?’
It felt as if someone had just jabbed a knife into Harriet’s gut. She’d never looked that far into her future. She’d never wondered what her role would be, once a woman came to live at Stone Court who would be entitled to take on the duties her mother shirked.
But Aunt Susan had.
Harriet lowered her half-empty cup to its saucer with a snap. Once again, Aunt Susan was the only person who’d considered Harriet’s welfare.
The scraping of the chair next to her alerted her to the fact that Kitty was getting to her feet.
‘If you will excuse us, Mama, Aunt Mary,’ she said, dropping a curtsy as both women’s heads whipped round and treated her to almost identical glares. ‘But we need to attend to some, um, mending.’
Harriet gave her half-eaten plate of eggs and toast just one rueful glance before getting to her feet as well. Because she would rather go without breakfast than be a witness to any more quarrelling. Let alone revelations about what went on within such a stormy marriage as her aunt and uncle were conducting. It had been the most uncomfortable mealtime she’d ever endured. No wonder Kitty had suggested a way of escape.
Aunt Susan gave a wave of her hand, dismissing them, and the girls scuttled out of the room, their breakfast abandoned.
Fred darted before them to open the door, and, as they heard their respective mothers take up the cudgels once again, followed them out into the hall.
‘Shall I send some fresh tea and toast to the drawing room, Miss Kitty?’
‘Yes, thank you, Fred,’ said Kitty as though it was the most natural thing in the world to resume breakfast in another location. Which, in this house, it probably was, Harriet reflected as Kitty took her by the elbow and steered her across to the stairs.
‘Your poor mother,’ said Harriet as they started up the stairs. So far, though she’d been grateful for all the things Aunt Susan had tried to do for her, she rather thought she’d taken her for granted. To start with she’d seen her, she realised, in the light of a fairy godmother creature, who existed only to grant her wishes. But since coming to London she was coming to know her as a real woman, who, though having plenty of troubles of her own, had a heart big enough to constantly look out for her lonely, socially awkward niece. And take practical steps to ensure she had a comfortable future.
Aunt Susan had never once counted the cost. Neither financially nor in terms of the potential for embarrassment.
Whereas Mama had done nothing to prepare her for life outside Stone Court. Which she would have to leave when Charles found a bride. At least, once Papa left the place to Charles, that was. Which would hopefully be a long way of
f. But...ugh. The thought of lingering in the place, with no real function, once Charles brought a wife in to run the place the way she saw fit. It was bad enough as it was, feeling as though she had to earn her place to win anyone’s notice by running the household, rather than just taking it for granted, the way Kitty did. But once they no longer needed her to stand in for Mama, she would be nothing. Worse than nothing—an encumbrance, that’s what she’d be. Hanging about the place with no real purpose and no value.
It would be unbearable.
‘Come on, Harriet, this way,’ said Kitty, making her realise she’d come to a standstill at the head of the stairs.
‘Beg pardon,’ she said, setting off again along the landing in the direction of the drawing room. She only wished she could beg Aunt Susan’s pardon so easily. For all the times she’d let her down. For rebelling against the strictures, even if she’d only done it inwardly. For wasting the chance Aunt Susan was giving her by comparing perfectly eligible men to Lord Becconsall, who’d told her outright he didn’t want to get married at all.
Well, no longer. From now on she would stop mooning about, wishing for Lord Becconsall, or some other man, to come into her life and turn it into something that only existed in the pages of a storybook. She would focus on the things that mattered. On making it up to Aunt Susan, somehow, for what she was going through. Because it was terribly unfair that all she was getting, in return for her generosity, was half-hearted compliance from her niece, and indifference from her sister, whilst enduring such persecution from her husband.
‘Kitty, we have to do something,’ she said, penitence for being so self-centred in the face of her aunt’s unhappiness making her stomach squirm.
‘Yes. I know. I only said that about sewing to get us out of the breakfast parlour because I couldn’t think of anything better. What would you like to do?’
‘No.’ Harriet felt like stamping her foot. ‘I mean, to help your mama.’
Kitty frowned. ‘Like...rubbing her temples with lavender water, do you mean?’
‘No. Though I suppose we could. Would she like that? But, no, actually, what I meant was finding out what really happened to those rubies and clearing her name.’
The Major Meets His Match Page 8