Connie was tempted to reply in like manner, but she bit back her retort, for it occurred to her that Cousin Vivienne had the intent of angering her and she therefore determined to deprive her of the satisfaction. She smiled instead and sat down, although not too near the visitor.
“I trust you had a good journey from France,” she said, in her most polite voice. “Were you staying in Paris?”
“France? Paris?” Cousin Vivienne hooted with laughter. “Whatever gave you the idea that I was in France? No, I have been living in Manchester, in a very poor neighbourhood, since my husband keeps me so short of money. It is a wonder I have not been forced to—” She clucked, with a shrug of one shoulder. “Well, never mind that. Ah, Henri! There you are!” Her gaze passed rapidly over the faces of those who accompanied him, lingering for a moment on Mary, before passing on. “Who are all these people, and why are they in my house?”
“Not your house, Viv,” he said. “This has not been your house since the day you walked out of it, fifteen years ago.”
“Not yours either,” she shot back. “You have a tenant now, I hear. So where are we to live?”
“We?” He gave a rueful smile, and shook his head. “We are not living anywhere, Viv. I shall be living at the Dower House, with Mary, Mark and Hugo. Remember Mark and Hugo? Your sons? And James — your other son — is living at the lodge cottage with his wife and son. I neither know nor care where you live.”
“But I am your wife!”
There seemed to be no answer to that, and Cousin Henry wisely attempted none.
The servants had already laid out refreshments for the visitors in the dining room, and without further discussion, the party made its way there and settled down to eat. Connie had a thousand questions, and she could see the speculation in the faces around her, and hear the whispers, but neither Cousin Henry nor Cousin Vivienne said another word, to each other or to anyone else.
Not long afterwards, Ambleside deemed it appropriate to draw the visit to a close. As the carriages were being brought round, he said to Connie, “Will you ride with us, Miss Connie? Miss Allamont has already agreed to give us the pleasure of her company. Mrs Ambleside would appreciate it, I know. We will take you all the way to the Hall, so you need not have the inconvenience of changing carriages in the village.”
Connie agreed with relief. At least she would not have to watch Jess Drummond flirting with the Marquess. As she was handed into Ambleside’s carriage, she caught a momentary glimpse of the Marquess’s displeased face watching her. Good! Let him be disappointed, if he would.
The four could talk of nothing but the return of Mrs Henry Allamont.
“Even Mary was astonished to discover that her step-mother had not been in France all these years,” Amy said. “Manchester! She could have come to see her children whenever she wanted, yet she did not. How shocking!”
“But why has she returned now?” Connie said.
“Only she knows the true answer to that question,” Ambleside said. “However, we could hazard a guess. Allamont must have been supporting his wife financially all this time, to the ruin of the estate. I am no judge of clothes, but that pelisse looked vastly expensive to me.”
“And that sealskin muff!” Amy said. “Quite delightful, but so modish that it must have cost a great deal.”
“Should you like one, my love? We must see what we can find of that style in Brinchester. Yes, she was always extravagant. I recall my mother being scandalised by the number of gowns she seemed to need. And now the supply of money has dried up, so here she is again.”
“So Cousin Henry has been sending money to Cousin Vivienne?” Belle said with a frown. “But then… all these years, he must have known exactly where she was. Yet he pretended she was in France. Why would he do that?”
“Embarrassment, perhaps?” Ambleside said. “He may not have wanted the world to know his wife preferred to live alone in Manchester to being Mrs Henry Allamont of Willowbye. Telling everyone she had gone home to France suggests a benevolent husband with a care for his wife’s homesickness.”
“I wonder if he even knew where she resided,” Belle said. “If the money he sent to her passed through a third party, he may have had no notion where she was. He seemed quite shocked to see her.”
“Oh dear,” Amy said. “This will be so unsettling for everyone.”
And on that point they could all agree.
~~~~~
The time came for the next assembly in Brinchester. Their mother took Belle and Connie to the town at an early hour, so that they could visit the warehouses and select silks and muslin and cotton for Belle’s wedding clothes, and wallpaper and paint for Willowbye. Connie had been established as the authority on colours and styles for the house, and she made rapid, confident choices which even Lady Sara approved.
“You have surprisingly good taste, Connie,” she said, as they made the short drive to their hotel. “I am happy to discover that you have inherited something from me, after all.”
“I wish I had looked more like you,” Connie said quietly.
Lady Sara looked askance at her. “Do you really? Dark hair is much more fashionable.”
“I should love to have natural curls like you, Mama.”
“Ah, yes, that is a blessing, it is true. Yet you do quite well with curling papers. None of you have an appearance such as to disgrace me in public, for which I am thankful, and now that you no longer wear identical gowns — such a foolish notion! — I find you all much more presentable. And one married and one betrothed! Excellent progress. Now it is your turn, Connie. I hope you will try for the Marquess. That would be a son-in-law I could be proud of.”
Belle said nothing, but Connie could not let such a slur pass. “Surely you have nothing against Ambleside or Burford, Mama? They are both respectable gentlemen of good fortune.”
“Oh, I have nothing against either of them, but Ambleside’s family is nothing at all, only two generations from trade, and Burford — he may be a wealthy man now, but he was merely a country curate with very poor prospects before that.”
“And he was quite content to be so,” Belle said, in her calm way, not at all offended. “He is not ambitious.”
“Exactly,” Lady Sara said. “That is precisely my point. A man of good family should always aspire to improve his position in society, by increasing his income and taking care to mix with the best company available to him, whether he has a career or not.”
“Papa did not do so, did he, Mama?” Connie said, fascinated by this blunt speaking from her very proper mother.
“No, he did not,” she said with sudden fire. “He never mixed well in any company, and deeply resented persons of rank, and as for increasing his income, you all know how tightly he tied his purse-strings and kept us on a tight rein, and all the while supporting this Barnett woman and her son in luxury.”
“He left us very good dowries, however,” Connie said. “That was generous.”
“Yes, and it puzzles me exceedingly,” her mother replied. “Whenever I enquired of him how much he planned to give each of you, he would say only, ‘Let us see how far their faces alone will get them. Then we might see.’ So I never expected him to give you anything, frankly. As a rule, he saved his generosity for his base-born child. But I do not think even your father could have expected his by-blow to try to claim the Hall. That is beyond everything. I should have liked to see that boy in court, so that the law might have dealt with him as he deserved.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, Mama,” Belle said with a smile. “Had Mr Burford known your wishes, I am sure he would never have paid Jack Barnett to drop his claim.”
“Well, I am very glad he did,” Connie said. “I feel much more comfortable knowing that we need never have anything to do with him again. I am sorry it cost Burford twenty thousand pounds, but I daresay he will scarce notice the loss, for he is as rich as Croesus.”
They turned into the hotel’s yard at that moment, and all conversation was at
an end.
~~~~~
The sisters were late in arriving at the ball, for a sudden downpour of sleety rain meant that sedan chairs were in short supply, and they had to wait. Then there was only one available, which would have to run backwards and forwards to convey them all to the Assembly Rooms, and it was no simple matter to arrange the journey in such a way that all the Miss Allamonts were properly chaperoned at both ends of the journey. It was fortunate that Amy was now married and able to chaperon them, or they could not have managed.
So it came about that the Assembly Rooms were full to overflowing when they arrived, and they had to wait to be announced, with more people forming a snaking queue on the stairs behind them. At last it was their turn, their names were pronounced, and they made their way down the short flight of steps to the dance floor.
Connie always loved this moment. The floor was filled with movement and colour and shimmering silk, sparkling jewels at every throat and feathers in the dowagers’ turbans. Faces flushed with the exertion of the dance beamed with happiness. Who would not be happy at a ball, and especially so at this moment, the entrance, with the whole evening stretching out like a rug at her feet. She was so light-footed as she skipped down the steps, it was almost as if she were dancing already, the music sweeping her up and propelling her forward.
But tonight it did nothing of the sort. They had barely reached the bottom of the steps when they were accosted by Cousin Vivienne, wearing the most exquisite gown Connie had ever seen. She had not realised that modistes in Manchester had such talents. She was so busy admiring the embroidery and delicate seed-pearl designs that she almost missed Belle’s gasp of horror.
She could not, however, miss her outraged cry of, “Oh no! What is he doing here?”
“Who?” Connie said, but she had only to follow Belle’s eyes to see the cause of her distress. A young man paused beside the master of ceremonies waiting his turn to be announced. His appearance was undistinguished and his attire gave the impression that he wished to be fashionable, and had perhaps paid a great deal to attempt it, but had not quite mastered the art. His coat was not quite the correct fit, the stockings were an odd colour and the ribbons on his shoes were tied in a most peculiar manner. As for his cravat, Connie had never seen the like.
“But who is he?” Connie whispered to Belle.
“I can scarce believe my eyes! It is that Jack Barnett, strutting about in society as if he were just as good as anyone else.”
“But who are the two women with him?” Dulcie said.
The older woman, with a smirk of self-satisfaction on her face, was dressed in an expensive but unfashionable style, with an excessively ugly turban on her head. On Jack Barnett’s other side, her head drooping as if to avoid notice, was a girl who looked to be no more than sixteen, dressed in the plain white of a debutante.
As they watched, the little group stepped forward, and the master of ceremonies intoned, “Mrs Algernon Barnett, Mr Jack Barnett, Miss Barnett.”
Belle groaned audibly. “He has a sister!”
5: Ambition
A sister! How many more of them might be lurking at home waiting their turn to parade themselves in public, as if they had not the stain of illegitimacy about them.
Barnett’s eye fell on their group, still standing in shocked silence just inside the room. His smug grin widened.
“Why, if it isn’t Belle! How are you, sister? And Burford, my friend — how pleasant to meet you again! And this must be Lady Sara. How do you do, madam. I have heard such a great deal about you.”
Lady Sara looked him up and down with aristocratic hauteur. Without a word, she spun on her heel to turn her back on him. “Come, girls,” she said, walking away without haste. It was magnificent, and in that moment Connie was completely in charity with her mother. Barnett’s expression darkened, but he recovered admirably, and as she followed her mother, Connie’s last view of him before he was swallowed by the throng saw the smirk fully restored.
As they reached a less crowded part of the room, Lady Sara turned to her daughters. “You will none of you speak to them, or have anything at all to do with them,” she said. “Amy, you will of course be guided by Ambleside, but I hope that, for my sake, you will cut them.”
“Of course, Mama,” Amy said. “Oh, I wish they had not come!”
“So must we all,” her mother said. “However, these assemblies are public affairs, and anyone may pay to attend, even such people as that. Dressed up like their betters, they look almost respectable.”
“I will go and see what I may find out about them,” Ambleside said. He returned no more than ten minutes later. “It is being put about that the mother is the widow of a man in trade, which may be true for all I can tell. The son has two thousand a year, and the daughter a portion of three thousand. And there is another daughter, still in the schoolroom.”
“Two thousand a year?” Burford said. “I find that unlikely. Having seen the late Mr Allamont’s will and talked to Mr Plumphett, I have a very fair idea of Jack Barnett’s income. I would put it at fourteen hundred at best, if he invests wisely and conserves his capital, and he does not strike me as the sort to manage either of those.”
Connie tried to put the Barnetts from her mind and enjoy the evening as best she may. She found herself an object to the two brothers from High Frickham, who arrived at her side squabbling over which of them should have the right to ask her to dance first. Since they were identical twins and she had never been able to tell them apart, she had no particular interest in the outcome. Thus she was rather relieved than disappointed when Alex Drummond materialised at her side and carried her off to the dance floor while they were still arguing. The twins watched her go, open-mouthed.
From then on, Connie was in continual demand. After Mr Drummond, she danced with Sir Osborne Hardy, who was an excellent dancer, and then his friend Daniel Merton, who was less so, although not so bad as Grace for turning the wrong way. By that time, the Marquess and Lady Harriet had arrived, and Connie was gratified to be the Marquess’s first choice of dancing partner.
Mindful of her plan to make him fall in love with her, she said, “Do you enjoy poetry, my lord?”
“Of course,” he said. “Everyone likes poetry, I believe. I find it very soothing. The words trickle through my brain like a stream, and then trickle out again, for I never can remember them after.”
“You must learn them by heart,” she said. “My father always insisted that we learn a new poem every week, and recite it to him on Saturday morning.”
“Really?” the Marquess said. “How extraordinary! Although, now that I consider the matter, I recall being asked to do something similar at school. One of the masters was quite keen on the idea. Not that I ever did, of course.”
“You never did? Do you mean that your schoolmaster set you work to do, and you refused to do it? And were you not punished for such disobedience?”
“I was the Earl of Deveron, nobody dared to punish me,” he said loftily. “Now history — that I enjoyed, especially a good battle, or a whole series of them. The Peloponnesian Wars were wonderful. And the middle ages — the Hundred Years’ War! Can you imagine, Miss Constance, how delightful it must have been to be always fighting, so that one might gallop from one battle directly to another. Such fun! I should have liked to be a knight in those days, defending the Kingdom and saving fair maidens in distress.”
“I do not think it was quite as romantic as that,” she said faintly. “Besides, even in the Hundred Years’ War, there were long gaps between the battles.”
“Really? Well, what is the point of that?” he said in disgust.
“So the poets could commemorate the last battle, of course,” she said quickly, trying to get him back to the point. “There must be a proper celebration for each glorious victory.”
“You are quite right, of course. The poets — and the painters. The victors would want to have their portraits painted, showing them triumphant, and their enemies ground i
nto the dust, their entrails scattered for the crows.”
She pulled a face.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Miss Constance,” he said. “Oh, look, there is Miss Drummond. How high she leaps! She is as light-footed as… as a bird, do you not agree?”
Connie gave it up, and resigned herself to listening to a recital of all Jess Drummond’s virtues, which were manifold, it seemed. The Marquess took her into supper, and regaled her with the many exploits of his ancestors, who had all had the good fortune to be born into an age when wars were to be had at frequent intervals.
“I wonder you do not join the army, my lord, if you enjoy war so much,” she said in exasperation. “You could perhaps knock some sense into the French. All Europe would be grateful to you, I am sure.”
“Not my place,” he said firmly. “I am the eldest — responsibilities, you know, Miss Constance, responsibilities and duties. Cannot be shirked. No, the army is for Reggie, although he seems reluctant, for some reason. Personally, I think it would suit Gil better, but there you are. I have not the least notion what we are to do with him. Nothing but trouble, but I daresay he will settle, in time. Even so — not the church, I think. Now Humphrey…”
She sighed, and smiled. She supposed that in the unlikely event that she found herself the Marchioness of Carrbridge it would be helpful to know something of her husband’s brothers, so she listened and nodded from time to time and tried to get them straight in her head, but it was no good. There were just too many of them.
A group of diners moving away just then, Connie and the Marquess were joined by Cousin Henry and Mary, who was escorted by Daniel Merton.
“Where is Cousin Vivienne?” Connie asked.
Cousin Henry made a noise in his throat, his face darkening, but Mary answered calmly, “She is about somewhere. She still has a few friends in the neighbourhood.”
“She is making mischief,” Cousin Henry said, his anger barely restrained. “It was always her greatest delight to cause trouble. She is engaged in spreading the word that certain people here are kin to the Allamonts.”
Connie (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 3) Page 4