The Slightest Provocation

by Pam Rosenthal

  The girls were driving back from Rowen through midday air so heavy and moist that they’d loosed the strings and allowed their bonnets to slide to the backs of their necks. The sky was overcast; a rainstorm was on the way. With the sun so well hidden, they’d agreed there could be no risk of their becoming brown or freckled. Unfortunately, there was no one to correct them in this misapprehension. Miss Kimball had jammed herself behind them in the cart, along with the album of Mr. Brown’s original landscaping plans that Fannie had borrowed from the marchioness; her loud snore rose from the seat where Aunt Jessica was given to piling up her charity baskets.

  The morning’s expedition had proven at least a partial success, not counting the loan of the fascinating drawings. They hadn’t discovered when Viscount Sherwynne was expected to return from his tour, but Lord Christopher had stopped into the young marchioness’s sitting room, which event was far more interesting to Elizabeth-and even to Fannie, as evidence of her cousin’s precarious emotional condition, and (she couldn’t help affording) it had constituted an agreeable encounter in itself.

  Congratulating them on how merry they made a dull morning, he’d beamed with pleasure to see his brother the marquess smiling and even attempting to pronounce a few halting phrases. “You have my deepest gratitude, ladies,” he’d told them, “for sharing your presence and your esprit with us.”

  “But it’s no more than the family at Rowen should expect,” Elizabeth had responded. “For we are your nearest neighbors, after all,” she’d added, in an indignation so purely sincere, Fannie thought, that no one could accuse her of putting herself forward. Well, perhaps just a little, but in the main the effect had been extremely pretty.

  Lord Christopher had laughed and said that at his advanced age, one could remember when relations between the families had been otherwise. Sadly, though, he must beg to be excused from the young ladies’ company; he’d been occupied all morning and had a busy afternoon ahead of him.

  He’d moved quickly to the doorway, but halted there in response to a remark of his sister-in-law’s. Glancing back over his shoulder-“Ah yes,” he’d exclaimed, “I’d quite forgotten.” With his eyes glittering so green, Fannie thought, and his smile curving so provocatively that one might even forgive him his mediocre stature.

  Of course. For he and the Marchioness Susanna would be seeing their nearest neighbors, he’d told the girls-and their neighbors’ charming guest, he’d added-quite soon again. In just two days, wasn’t it, at the upcoming assembly at Cauthorn?

  “We’ll be stopping very briefly,” the young marchioness had interjected with her characteristic caution. “Just to bid the company good evening.”

  “Perhaps for an hour or so,” Lord Christopher had agreed. He’d nodded at his sister-in-law. “Just to afford this good lady a dance or two, a change of scene and a brief respite from the ceaseless and splendid attention she’d been paying her husband.”

  Whereupon the girls had fairly twittered their approbation for her ladyship’s devotion, their sad disappointment that they were to lose Lord Christopher to his business this morning, and their delight at the advent of the upcoming assembly-only in two nights, just fancy.

  What sort of business can he have, Fannie wondered, when he’s so recently arrived from the continent? For charming and attractive as he’d been, Fannie couldn’t help thinking that he’d looked pleased enough to get to whatever he was obliged to be doing and to go wherever he was going.

  He hadn’t mentioned his destination. The omission had troubled Elizabeth as well. “He walks out every afternoon,” she said now. Her cheeks were pink, and Fannie wondered whether it had been such a good idea after all to take off their bonnets.

  She hated to be the one to suggest putting them back on again. Well, what was the point of being young if one had to set curbs on one’s own freedoms? But there was the upcoming assembly to consider; reluctantly, she covered her head and nodded for her cousin to do the same. Provoking how remiss in her duties Miss Kimball was; the least the old bat could do was keep a lookout for their complexions, leaving Fannie at liberty to attend to her cousin’s interesting and volatile emotions.

  Astonishing that no one else had noticed the flutter Betts was in. I’ll have to take charge of her myself, Fannie thought. For someone had to.

  Anyway, it was always instructive to watch someone fall in love, particularly because Fannie didn’t intend to do it herself. Well, perhaps in a number of years, after she’d safely and successfully discharged her obligations to herself and her profession.

  For like a dutiful son directed toward the army or the church, Helen Francesca Grandin had had her career charted out for her almost since birth. Or at least since the inspiring moment when she’d smiled her deeply dimpled smile, fluttered her long lashes, and executed a wobbly but promising fourth position, a three-year-old prodigy of Mayfair femininity at her first dance lesson.

  Fannie’s profession was to come out brilliantly and marry splendidly; any suitor below the rank of viscount would be turned away at the Grecian portico of Sir Edward Grandin’s house in Cavendish Square. But this long-cherished project (Lady Grandin’s life work, if truth be told) must be put by until a reasonably acceptable husband was found for Philamela, the eldest of the family’s two daughters. The younger wouldn’t be out until next season at the earliest, which would have been a boring and provoking situation for anyone-even a young lady as good-humored and interested in the world around her as Fannie was.

  How foolish of her parents, she thought, to exile her from London, merely because Lieutenant Birney had tried to kiss her while dear, timid Phila was upstairs retying her sash for the eleventh time.

  At least that was the official story; in actuality the lieutenant had tried and succeeded quite brilliantly (in his own estimation, at any rate), the week before in the Grandin library. For her part, Fannie reserved some doubts, along with a firm conviction that her family should have been grateful for the assistance she’d rendered them. Well, how else, she’d argued, should they weed out suitors of questionable character?

  Her mama hadn’t been swayed by her logic. And so Fannie had been banished-under the tutelage of one of those pokey relatives a wealthy family collects like scraps and patches from worn-out gowns-to rusticate and romp and giggle at Beechwood Knolls with her cousin Betts-become-Elizabeth.

  She’d been sorry to be interrupted in her researches. And her sister, Philamela (who was as deeply in love with the curate in their country neighborhood in Buckinghamshire as the curate was with Philamela), was equally sorry to see Fannie go.

  “Without you around, to remind her how much fun she could be having, dressing you up and setting you pirouetting across a dance floor, she’ll simply redouble her efforts to find me someone who’s more the thing than Adam.”

  Fannie afforded that she’d been careless-not to speak of ungenerous-to have given way to girlish curiosity, especially in the company of a gentleman with such a pronounced overbite.

  “It is awkward,” she agreed. Surely there was more to this kissing business, but sadly, all that would have to wait for a more propitious time and a less toothy partner.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll write every other day from Derbyshire, lacing and spangling the prose of my letters with illustrious names and titles, to remind Mama that I haven’t forgotten my purpose in life.

  “After all, we shall be calling upon the Stansells at Rowen; surely they’re splendid enough-perhaps if I’m very lucky, the Viscount Sherwynne will have returned from his tour. Lord Ayres is moderately acceptable as well-and who knows, it could turn out that Aunt Jessica has invited someone else Mama would approve of. That Penley family Uncle Arthur married into has such quaint, random notions of who’s worth knowing, a few peers must occasionally creep into their circle of acquaintance, if only by statistical probability.”

  Sta-TIS-ti-cal. She smiled as she clicked her tongue over the word she’d recently learned. Such a piquant way to look at the world, she thought: g
entlemen and ladies bowing and smiling, marrying, conceiving heirs, and going to war-an entire population moving as though in a dance, through the figures of bloodless mathematics. She’d picked up a text that explained it all quite clearly-reading it absentmindedly, as she read most things, while she stood in a bookshop, waiting to purchase her own copy of Debrett’s. For it had been her plan to sprinkle a few additional names and titles through the correspondence she’d be sending home. Wisely, Phila had cautioned prudence; their mama (who was as quickwitted as Fannie, but more single-minded) maintained her own inner calendar of the comings and goings of at least nine of the nation’s upper ten thousand. Fannie had nodded soberly and promised to be careful.

  “While all I can fairly promise,” the elder sister told the younger, “is to bore her to tears in your absence.”

  “Yes,” the younger replied, “boredom is best. Spectacular failure at Almack’s would be a sad miscalculation-she’d only take it as a challenge. Mediocrity is what you want, Phil; you must dance with cousins whenever possible, or with debt-ridden nobodies. A pity Fred had got into his scrape when I got into mine; he’d have queued ’em up for you. Still, I’ll insist he write to his least impressive schoolfellows and solicit their help in the service of true devotion. If they intend to dance with me next season, they’ll do as they’re told for the remainder of this one.”

  For Fannie was of that happy race of mortals who enjoy arranging matters in the simultaneous interest of as many people as possible. She was rather like her universally lamented uncle Arthur in this, but blessed with superior initiative and originality. Loving her sister dearly, she sincerely hoped to marry her to Adam Evans as soon as could be managed-both in the service of true devotion and in her own self-interest, being impatient to get on with the career she’d been prepared for. It was a pity, Fannie Grandin sometimes thought, that she hadn’t been born a boy; she might have liked to be a bishop, a diplomat at the Congress of Vienna, or perhaps (given her secret penchant for figures and equations) Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  But in the meantime (and like her uncle Arthur as well), she continued to find herself entertained by the family he’d connected the Grandins to. How oddly passionate they all were, even Betts. Just see, at this moment, her erstwhile hoyden of a cousin becoming so lost in her romantic imaginings that she was making the horse skittish. Fanny took the reins from her.

  “He goes in the direction of their farms, and I keep hoping that I’ll encounter him when I ride through the meadows near there.” Elizabeth’s eyes were soft and clear as early morning skies reflecting back the dew on the grass. “I’ll be cantering by, with my hair untied. It’s rather a bother when one’s riding, but I think it looks best that way, don’t you? And there he’ll be, striding across the land like Mr. Knightley in the book Aunt Mary lent me.”

  How passionate and how annoyingly like a novel reader.

  Still, Elizabeth did look best with her hair untied.

  While Fannie’s hair was beginning to frizzle in the heavy air. Impatiently, she pushed an auburn tress back from her moist forehead. When they returned to Beechwood Knolls, she’d have her maid rinse it with rosemary water, of which they’d brought a large supply from London. Enough for Elizabeth too, if she wanted-not that those loose ripples of pale spun gold ever seemed to need extra attention.

  How amazingly pretty her cousin had become these past months. Which might have grown irksome, if Fannie hadn’t already assigned Elizabeth a part in a strategy she was planning: next year, when they came out, the two of them would join forces with the Honorable Mariah Plummer, a redoubtable raven-haired beauty from the Misses Duxbury’s. Three was a good number: comparisons to the Graces inevitable, if boring; their various colorings a point of fascination; together, the little battalion of them would be unstoppable.

  Strategizing kept one busy and cheerful; what was more difficult was maintaining patience with Elizabeth’s nattering on about the book she was so taken with, about a country gentleman who’d spent a good portion of his adult life ogling the little girl next door. Fannie, who preferred books with facts in them, could nonetheless understand why Elizabeth might find that particular novel so apposite to her fancies.

  I should be more sympathetic, she chided herself, to someone who hasn’t had my advantages. Because although Fannie and the other girls from the Misses Duxbury’s had recovered from their own cases of novel reading and other literary hero worship by the age of sixteen or so, poor Betts had spent that particular year of her life grieving over Uncle Arthur’s death. No wonder her cousin was having such trouble making her way to young womanhood-and now that she had, no wonder she’d chosen a handsome older neighbor to focus her feelings on.

  Simple enough to construe-but then, Fannie had always enjoyed so many advantages over Elizabeth.

  Or had she? Fannie still wasn’t sure of how to resolve the conundrum of the tender solicitude and violent envy she bore her adored childhood friend.

  Rather as though one life wasn’t enough for a young woman; the more you appreciated and enjoyed what you had, the more tempting you found the things you lacked. When they’d been younger and Fannie the unrivaled beauty of the pair, she used to wish for Betts’s freedoms to romp, ride, and run about the estate, to speak her mind at a dinner table whose conversation was a fascinating jumble of books, poetry, food, fashion, and even politics-often with the ladies’ opinions taking precedence.

  Mama and Papa used to shake their heads in distressed amazement in the carriage on the way home from the midsummer festivities at Beechwood Knolls, reviewing the proceedings and concluding that Arthur’s wife and her sisters had as little propriety as guinea hens, and less ton. Of course, Mama was sure to concede that Mrs. MacNeill was extraordinarily well dressed. But Glasgow… now, really. While as for Lady Christopher, her scandalous separation from her husband, her raffish, radical friends…

  How delightful to have such an aunt, Fannie would think-usually at the inevitable moment when Lady Grandin would nudge her husband, put a finger to her lips, and nod at the two girls in the backward-facing seat, eyes glued to their embroidery while they pretended not to listen.

  She laughed now at the memory, loudly enough to jolt Elizabeth from her reverie. “I was just thinking how dreamy and bookish you sound. A veritable Penley after all-and how surprised your mama would be, to hear anyone call you that.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Don’t tell her, please. I can’t abide it when she gets so taken with her own cleverness-she and her sisters too. You can’t imagine how tiresome it gets, their self-regard when it comes to their precious educations, their self-congratulation for not being like most silly women, and their insistence that I be grateful for being included in their little sisterhood.”

  None of which sounded so awful to Fannie.

  “Your aunt Mary’s all right, I think. And she’s still even rather pretty-for her age anyway. Lord Ayres is quite excessively smitten with her, or has decided to be, since you pay him no attention. Of course, you haven’t noticed this, but it’s clear as day. A pity she won’t be going to the assembly; it would be fascinating to watch him pine after her in a public venue. And it gets other gentlemen’s attention as well, you know, but I believe I’ve already explained that to you. Still, I gather your aunt only cares for her man of business Mr. Bakewell. Do you know, if I were a man, I might find business and manufacturing quite fascinating…”

  Elizabeth shrugged.

  “And your mama’s quite correct,” Fannie continued, “about most women being silly. Most women are, and so are most men, especially in exclusive society. Perhaps you’ll be permitted to come spend Christmas with us in Buckinghamshire, and you’ll see for yourself.”

  There had been a time, little more than a week ago, when Elizabeth’s heart would have leaped with delight at just such an invitation. What perfect happiness, she would have thought, to spend time in a family where outrageous demands weren’t always being made on one, and where being pretty, well dressed, and
otherwise quite ordinary was to be quite as one should. To dress, to dance, to meet new people, to think of nothing but looking one’s best, and to let one’s precious interior life go to the devil if it chose to-all quite splendid, she would have thought.

  But now… “I don’t know. If he’s still stopping at Rowen, perhaps I’d better remain at home. Even if it becomes awkward while they’re divorcing, I could nod good morning at church, and give him a little smile to show him that I, at least, don’t bear him any ill will for wanting to remove himself from his marriage. A modest, subtle smile of… admiration. Good cheer. And… encouragement, I was rather thinking.”

  Her cousin’s eyes had grown very wide, their clear hazel lit by sudden disapproving surprise.

  But I don’t care, Elizabeth told herself. She may think she understands a great deal, and I suppose in some ways she does. But it’s different when one is in love. One becomes more mature, more… womanly, I expect.

  “I’ve begun to wonder,” she continued, “whether I should come out next year after all. I might just remain at home while they get this divorce over with. Perhaps he’ll continue helping his brother-apoplexy is awfully difficult to recover from, isn’t it? And if I wait another year… well, in any case, I needn’t hurry as I’d planned to, to be out.”

  Fannie had never seriously considered how one went about marrying a gentleman who’d been divorced-or even if you legally could, in case of a divorced uncle. The situation was so rare, the laws governing property and consanguinity so much more difficult and correspondingly less logical than the laws of statistics. Of course, the complexities of the thing could be understood; from time to time she’d thought it might also have been interesting to become a barrister or a parliamentarian. She’d puzzle out the law in her papa’s library, when next she had a moment free.