Once they arrived at the milliner, Catherine watched with amusement as the two sisters bickered happily about gaily colored hats. After Cecilia had picked an assortment and Clarise agreed to choose one for herself, Catherine asked for their help in selecting an ostrich-plumed bonnet for Evelyn.
The two women had impeccable taste, and Catherine left with a crowned bonnet in the Coburg style, adorned with jonquil-colored ostrich plumes that she thought Evelyn would adore. She paid for the hat with her pin money and collected her package.
On the way out to the carriage, Clarise said, “Catherine, why don’t you let our footman drop the hat off at your house and you come for tea at ours?”
Catherine fell in with the plan wholeheartedly, causing Cecilia to cheer. “Oh, what a perfect day it has been. I’ve got several new hats that make me look ravishing, and our new friend has agreed to have tea with us.”
Catherine gave over her direction and the packages to an eager footman and climbed into the coach.
“I noticed, my dear,” said Clarise, “that you paid for the hat out of your pin money. It is not safe for a woman to walk around with such a large sum, especially if she is unaccompanied.”
“I realize that, of course, but I forgot I had so much with me,” she said before explaining the origins of her ill-gotten gains. “I won it gambling, you see.”
To Cecilia, her confession was the best of all things wonderful. “How marvelous. I’ve never gambled. I’ve only played whist for ha’penny a point, but that’s such a trivial amount it might as well be nothing. Clarise, however, is a great gambler.”
Catherine looked at the pretty blond woman, shocked by the idea of her frequenting gambling dens like the hell she went to. “You are?”
Clarise laughed. “I assure you, it’s not what you think. I’m an investor. I buy stocks in companies on the ’Change—that is, the London Stock Exchange—and when they do well, we get paid dividends. I tell Cecy that it’s like gambling.”
Although she had thought Clarise was interesting before, Catherine now found her fascinating. She had never before met a lady who was capable of creating her own income. Indeed, she didn’t know that such a marvelous thing was possible. “How do you do it?”
“When I find a company that interests me, I ask my solicitor to gather as much information on it as possible,” Clarise explained. “Then I read through the materials, and if I decide the company’s policies are sound, I go to the man at the bank in the City and have him transfer the funds.”
Catherine was agog at how easy she made it sound and could scarcely credit that anyone, let alone a gently bred female like Clarise, could effortlessly pull off such an arrangement. “And this is how you supplement your income?” The question, of course, was decidedly unbred, and if Lady Fellingham were in the carriage, she would be appalled by her daughter’s lack of etiquette. At the same time, she would lean in to hear the answer and shush anyone who impeding her listening.
“Not really supplement,” Clarise said. “By and large, it is our income.”
“Clarise is so very good at it,” Cecilia said proudly.
To Catherine, the independence provided by the successful purchase and sale of stocks seemed fantastical. She could not imagine attempting such a scheme, and yet she couldn’t imagine not attempting it either. “Do you think you could teach me how to buy stocks?”
Clarise nodded her head. “Of course. It is naught but a trifle to buy them. The challenging part is selecting the right companies to invest in. It requires a copious amount of research and a lot of dreary reading, but in my experience, the reward of picking correctly more than makes up for the drudgery. It does take some practice, however, to get a feeling for which companies are good and which are bad,” she cautioned. “I made some rather egregious mistakes in the beginning and brought us very close to Dun territory.”
Considering how close her family already was to Dun territory, Catherine was not much alarmed by Clarise’s warning and thought that the ’Change might be the answer to all their problems. If she could make enough money trading stocks to compensate for her father’s losses at the gambling table, then her mother could stop worrying and she could save for her own establishment.
These happy thoughts were almost enough to banish Deverill from her mind completely and, much diverted, Catherine went to tea with the Menton sisters.
Lady Fellingham had been keeping watch at the drawing room window, so it was no surprise that she met her daughter in the hall the second she crossed the threshold. Catherine had barely a moment to remove her pelisse before she was dragged into the parlor by her irate mother. Although she knew a long tirade was forthcoming—indeed, she couldn’t remember seeing her mother so angry before—she kept to her original plan and professed complete ignorance.
“But, Mama, what can the matter be?” she asked as she watched her devoted parent pace agitatedly back and forth. “Is something wrong with Melissa or Evelyn? Freddy hasn’t gotten into one of his scrapes again?” She took a seat, tilted her head and waited for an answer.
Lady Fellingham looked at her daughter for a long moment, seemingly incapable of coherent speech, then resumed her pacing and muttering under her breath. At one point she raised a fist into the air as if trying to plant a facer on an imaginary opponent. At least Catherine hoped it was an imaginary opponent and not she.
“Speak up, Mama,” she said. “I can’t hear you.”
“You ungrateful child,” her mother screeched, finally abandoning her frenzied movements and throwing herself on the divan with a hefty sigh. “I was asking God why I must be so afflicted with such ungrateful daughters.”
Catherine considered her mother’s pose for several seconds while thinking of what to say. Of course she didn’t want to distress her mother further—Lady Fellingham had been through a trying and no doubt tragic day—but she could not alter reality to appease her mama, as much as she wished she could. She therefore stayed with the course of action already begun. “Please, tell me what has happened.”
Lady Eliza Fellingham snorted. “As if you don’t know!” she cried, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes. “As if you don’t know.” Her tone was more wretched than angry.
“Really, Mama, I am all at sea.” She sat down next to her on the divan, patted her shoulder in comfort and held out a handkerchief. “Please dry your eyes and we will talk about this. I am sure whatever Evelyn has done, it can’t be that bad.”
“Evelyn?” Lady Fellingham applied the kerchief to her tears. “Why, that girl was a perfect angel. I won’t have you saying one word against her.”
Now Catherine was terribly curious about what had transpired in her absence. “Very well then, tell me what has happened.”
“Lord Deverill happened,” said her mother angrily, “just as he said he would. Imagine my surprise and horrified dismay when Caruthers told me you were nowhere to be found. That you must have gone out without telling anybody.” She threw her hands into the air as if pleading with God again to explain her misfortune. “Gone out. You wretched, wretched child. What could you have gone out for?”
“Lord Deverill,” Catherine asked quizzically, impressed by her own skill as a thespian. One would never know she’d spent the entire afternoon dreading this conversation. “Lord Deverill was here today?”
“Well, of course he was,” her parent snapped. “He said he would come last night. How can you not remember? He returned you to my side after you danced, and he expressly said that he would see you tomorrow. I don’t know what to do—”
“Where is she?” Melissa burst into the room with no regard for her mother’s nerves. “Caruthers said she was— Oh, there you are, Cathy.” Her bright eyes found her on the divan. Melissa grabbed her sister’s hand and dragged her to the door. “Come, we must talk.”
“You are not taking your sister anywhere.” Lady Fellingham rose swiftly to her feet and planted herself in front of her daughters. “She and I are not done talking.”
> Melissa’s lips pursed in disgust at having to wait for her conversation with Catherine, but she ceased her tugging and dropped onto the settee.
Witnessing this display, Lady Fellingham, her patience already worn thin, said sharply, “Melissa, a lady does not toss herself around as if she were a rag doll. It is unbred.”
“I’m sorry,” she said sweetly, then made a face as soon as her mother’s back was turned.
Catherine hid a smile, then straightened as her mother launched into another lecture about disobedient daughters who don’t stay where they are put. Lady Fellingham was in the middle of reciting for the third time the awful moment when Caruthers had made her understand that Catherine was gone when Catherine reached the end of her tether. She simply couldn’t listen to the narration yet again.
“Mama, I am so very sorry that I forgot Lord Deverill was calling today. Somehow it completely slipped my mind.” She wrapped her arms around her mother, enveloping her in a hug. “Please don’t be cross with me. I didn’t mean to cause you such distress.”
But Lady Fellingham wasn’t having any of it. She remained rigid in her daughter’s embrace and refused to unbend even the slightest. “I’m afraid that’s paltry and inadequate, and we shall stay here until you provide an explanation that satisfies me.”
That her mother would hold her ground so staunchly was an unexpected development. The kindhearted lady was usually swayed easily by shows of contrition and affection. She’d rant and rail, of course, and howl like the roof had come off the building, but show her a little love and all was instantly forgiven. Catherine had seen Freddy do it a hundred times. “Very well,” she said, releasing her mother and sitting down next to Melissa. “But I have no explanation other than Lord Deverill’s visit slipped my mind, as I said. You aren’t usually so untrusting of me.” She directed her eyes to the floor in an attempt to look repentant but peeked at her mother out of the corner of her eye. Was she beginning to relent just a tiny bit?
“That may be so, my dear, but if I could only understand how you could have forgotten what could possibly have been the most important meeting of your life. You might have been a marchioness, my dear. A marchioness.” At these words Lady Fellingham dissolved into a fit of tears.
Catherine found that she actually wanted to explain her odd behavior to her mother, but she knew it would be of no use. Lady Fellingham would not believe her or would assume she had misunderstood the situation or would insist that even if her understanding of the situation had been accurate at one time that surely was no longer the case. Her mother would simply not be able to believe that all her hopes and fine dreams would come to naught.
She was still considering her next words when the drawing room doors opened again, this time to admit Evelyn.
“You are returned,” she said, smiling at Catherine. “Lord Deverill called in your absence, but we explained to him that you had gone out for the afternoon.” Then she winked. Melissa saw this and broke into a fit of giggles.
“If you would just tell me what was so important that you had to go out today of all days,” Lady Fellingham pleaded, with a disapproving look at her youngest daughter for her inappropriate display of humor. As if anything could be humorous on a day like today! “You who spends all her days sitting in her father’s study. The one day I come to look for you and you are gone.”
“I went shopping,” she explained to the group at large.
Even Melissa and Evelyn, who were aware of her scheme, were shocked by this statement.
“Shopping?” her mother echoed. “What on earth for?”
“I bought the most darling— Wait, I’ll show it to you.” And she opened the doors and called into the foyer. “Caruthers. Caruthers. Where is he? Ah, there you are, my good man. Could you please get me my package? It was dropped off earlier.”
“Very good, Miss Catherine.”
Caruthers disappeared for a moment, and while he was gone, Lady Fellingham said, “Evelyn, did she really say shopping?”
“I believe so, Mama.”
The butler returned with the tall box, and Catherine took it from him with a thank-you before shutting the door behind her. She presented the case to Evelyn with an elegant flourish. “I don’t quite understand it myself, Mama. For some reason I woke up this morning with one thought in my head. I know I am not given to impetuous behavior the way you and Evelyn are, but you will forgive me, won’t you just this once, for being so weak as to follow an impulse.”
Now Lady Fellingham’s resolve to stay angry at Catherine began to weaken. Nobody knew better than she how unimpulsive her oldest daughter was. Perhaps the errand had been too important to delay. “But why must it have been today of all days. Why today?” she asked again.
Her children were no longer listening to her. Melissa and Evelyn were looking at the box in amazement. “Go on, open it,” Catherine said.
Evelyn eagerly untied the pretty pink ribbon, pulled off the top and she shrieked, “It’s my bonnet. It’s my bonnet!” She leaped up and hugged Catherine with so much force that Catherine had to anchor herself against the settee lest they both tumble to the floor. “It is a Madame Claude original and quite the most beautiful one I have ever laid eyes on. And yellow! You dear sweet thing, yellow is quite my favorite color for a bonnet.”
“Let me see,” Melissa pleaded.
Freeing the bonnet from its box, Evelyn placed it carefully on the top of her head, as if it were made of eggshells, and tied the ribbons under her chin. “How does it look?” she asked, swiveling her head this way and that. “Do say it looks splendid.”
Catherine looked fondly at Evelyn in the ostrich-plumed confection. “It looks splendid.”
“I want to try it.” Melissa tried to grab the bonnet, but Evelyn danced away before she could establish a grip.
Lady Fellingham also showed an interest. “Come here, dear, let me take a look at you.” She fluffed Evelyn’s curls that were revealed by the bonnet. “You do look splendid. How thoughtful of Catherine to have bought you such a becoming present.”
“Cathy, tell Evelyn that it’s my turn to try the hat now,” Melissa said, determined to have her chance.
But Catherine had no intention of disturbing her mother’s tête-à-tête with Evelyn. “Let’s us retire to the study and have a chat,” she said, causing her sister to clap her hands in delight. “Don’t. Make no loud noises and no sudden movements. Back out of the room very slowly. Here, I’ll get the door.”
Melissa complied with her instructions, though she had to cover her mouth to stop from giggling, so funny was it to her the notion of stealing out of the room under the nose of her mother.
Once they were alone in the large dark room, Melissa said, “Oh, Cathy, you should have seen it. Evelyn was magnificent. I had no idea she could be such an out-and-outer.”
Neither had Catherine and even hearing the claim from her sensible youngest sister, she could scarcely credit it. “Tell me what happened.”
Melissa needed no further inducement and she pulled her legs under her in the big armchair as she launched into her tale. “As instructed, Caruthers sent a boy up to inform me that Lord Deverill had arrived and I came down directly. Poor Mama, she really had no idea what to do. She kept insisting to poor Caruthers that you were in the study and that he must have overlooked you. Examine all the chairs, she ordered, and check behind the curtains. Every time he came back to tell her you weren’t in the study, she sent him back again. I can’t recall how many times he walked back and forth between the drawing room and the study. She was completely baffled and had no real understanding of what was happening and finally left the drawing room to check the study herself. When she came back, she was terribly pale and explained to Julian that you had caught the headache and had retired to your room for a rest. He was very polite about it and said he’d be on his way, but Mama insisted that he stay. I suspect she thought you might walk through the door at any moment. And when she noticed that he had forgotten to bring his drawings w
ith him, she insisted that he send a footman to fetch them. Nothing he could say would dissuade her, even his sworn statements that he didn’t have any drawings, and a footman was dispatched posthaste regardless.”
Although she knew it was unkind, Catherine could not help but smile at the picture her sister painted. Poor Caruthers, sent to inspect an empty room over and over again. The study was large, but there were few places to hide, as she knew from personal experience. Once she had concealed herself behind the heavy red drapes—it had been the morning of her come-out and she simply wanted a few moments of peace and quiet after so many weeks of frenzied preparation—and her mother had found her with little difficulty.
“Julian was still trying to make his excuses when Evelyn came in,” Melissa said. “Oh, she was something. She came in and sat down and started talking to Julian about the most boring subjects. She devoted twenty minutes to women’s hairbands alone. I have never seen anyone talk so and about such inconsequential things. By the end of the two hours, he looked like he was ready to strangle someone. Oh, it was fun. ’Tis a shame you couldn’t be here to witness it. Afterward I said to Evelyn that I didn’t know why you had done him such a rotten turn, and she told me that he had treated you poorly and had made you sad. I thought he was a very nice gentleman, but if he’s going to hurt you then he’s not a gentleman at all, and I’m glad Evelyn bored him to flinders.”
Evelyn entered the room still wearing her new bonnet despite the fact that it didn’t match her afternoon dress.
“Evelyn,” Melissa cried excitedly, “tell Cathy what you told Julian about evening gowns.”
“I simply explained how the newest designs from Paris have lower waistlines.” She smiled. “Nothing to get excited about, dear.”
“Oh, but she didn’t,” she told Catherine earnestly before turning back to Evelyn. “You really didn’t. You went on and on about it, meticulously detailing every time in the last two decades that the waistline has moved more than a half inch in either direction. She was marvelous, I tell you. Simply marvelous.”
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