The Golden Season

by Brockway, Connie

  “Dear Lord, if we enter before midnight it will be a miracle,” Lydia said to Emily, snapping the curtains shut over the windows of the hired hack, Eleanor’s ducal carriage having broken an axle that afternoon. Lydia’s own famous barouche had succumbed discreetly to the auctioneer’s hammer last week.

  They had been en route for over two hours, though the distance between Eleanor’s home and Spencer House was less than three miles. Lydia’s nerves had frayed during the long wait on roads packed with other carriages. “And then we’ll be obliged to wait for hours at the top of the stairs to be announced and five minutes later the ball will be over.”

  The crush of carriages arriving for the masquerade ball given in Wellington’s honor had caused traffic to back up for a mile in and about the area, not only due to the hundreds of coaches carrying guests but from the hundreds upon hundreds of pedestrians choking the thoroughfares and lining the streets in hopes of glimpsing those arriving in their fancy dress, a free spectacle for a population plagued with economic hardships.

  “All for the good,” Eleanor replied. “Five minutes spent trying to find space enough to breathe is quite enough.” She picked up the child’s toy broadsword she carried and swung it warningly.

  Eleanor had elected to attend the ball as Joan of Arc, a role that suited her attenuated form and aesthete’s countenance. She’d clubbed her hair at the nape of her neck and wore a deceptively simple shift of unadorned white mull. When Emily had suggested she did not look very warriorlike, Eleanor had countered that she was depicting Joan after the Catholic Church got hold of her, as virgin sacrifice not as a battle maiden. Though she did carry a small silver broadsword, she claimed it was not as a concession to the martial aspect of the story but simply in anticipation of the overheated crowds, to be used on anyone standing between her and an open window.

  “With this large a guest list, no one will leave until dawn,” Emily reassured Lydia, patting her hand. Emily had finally succumbed to Lydia’s pleas that she quit her self-imposed exile from Society and join them tonight. “And even if the time is curtailed, there will not be one person who does not think of you long after the ball.”

  Thank heavens for Emily, Lydia thought. She understood the pressure for Lydia to perform well. And that’s what it was, a performance. Before when she had arrived at a fete or ball, it had been with anticipation of pleasure in the company she would see and the conversations they would have. Not tonight. Tonight she felt only a fevered sort of anxiety she would have to mask.

  Lydia turned her hand, catching Emily’s and giving it a squeeze.

  Emily was as close to family as she had, an acquired convenience that had become a valued friend and beloved confidante. If she lost all else, she would still have Emily. She could think of nothing that could alter that, no change in circumstances of rank, wealth, or reputation that would compromise Emily’s loyalty. She should have been so good a friend to Sarah. . . .

  “Thank you, Emily,” Lydia said.

  Emily blushed, dipping her head and almost dislodging her wig and enormous mobcap. She had dressed as Mother Goose in old-fashioned black bombazine, a simple lace-edged kerchief draped across her plump shoulders, and a white wig with ringlets atop her head. On one hip, she’d affixed a papier- mâché goose that dangled rather haphazardly without the support of her arm. Lydia only hoped it was not hollow, lest she be obliged before they left the party to empty its paper gullet of items Emily might secrete away inside.

  “Childe Smyth at least will stay until the last,” Eleanor purred from her corner of the carriage.

  Yes. Childe would be waiting for her. He had sent her a gift this morning, a fan fashioned of gold lace, the ribs holding it together also gold. It was an expensive trifle, suggesting a warmer regard than mere friendship that nothing else in his manner had indicated. She’d never caught Childe looking at her with the sort of warmth Ned . . . She looked away, her vision abruptly shimmering, and collected herself.

  She prayed Ned would be attending the party.

  She prayed he would not.

  Not that Ned would ever let it be obvious that his interest was no longer keen. He would trade pleasantries with her. They were, after all, such good friends. But she would know that she was no longer the focal point of his attentions. That place would go to another. Younger? Prettier? Definitely more wealthy.

  Dear God, she prayed, let him not be there!

  “His grandfather is purported to be failing fast,” Eleanor drawled.

  Lydia’s head swung around in confusion until she recalled they’d been discussing Childe. The unusual terms of the older Smyth’s will were on the lips of the entire beau monde.

  “Yes,” Lydia agreed. “I believe his situation is dire.”

  “I have heard a rumor,” Eleanor went on mildly, watching her closely, “that Mr. Smyth carries on his person at all times a special license to marry from his godfather, the Archbishop of Canterbury, so that when he receives word that his grandfather’s last minutes are approaching, he can pop off with some likely female and checkmate the old man on his deathbed.” She gave a little sniff. “How convivial for Mr. Smyth that he has a godfather with such power.”

  “Why doesn’t he simply wed and be done with it?” Emily asked as she pushed her slipping mobcap back into place.

  Eleanor’s gaze slipped to Lydia. “Who can tell? Either simple spite or some juvenile resistance to having his life orchestrated by another. Really, I would think a man of Mr. Smyth’s age would know better. All of us eventually must submit to the will, either singly or collectively, of others.”

  “I heard he hadn’t wed because his mistress threatened to leave him if he marries,” Emily piped in.

  Then Emily had heard a great deal more than she. Lydia turned to her, startled. “Mistress?” she asked incredulously. This was the first time she had heard anything of a mistress.

  She looked at Eleanor, who knew everything, for answers. Eleanor was glaring at Emily. Emily was looking about the carriage with an expression of feigned innocence.

  “Childe Smyth has a mistress?” Lydia asked.

  Emily nodded. “And has had for, oh, nigh on a decade, I believe.”

  Lydia’s mouth nearly fell open. She turned to her other friend. “Eleanor?”

  Eleanor shifted with a touch of impatience. “Of course he keeps a mistress. Many men do. But it is only to Childe’s credit that you did not know about her. He is most discreet. Unlike some whom we shall not name.”

  Her glare failed to embarrass Emily. Having volleyed this bit of verbal cannon fire into their midst, the older woman wriggled back into the corner of the carriage, folding her hands over her round tummy and closing her eyes.

  “Who is she?” Lydia asked, more intrigued by the notion that Childe Smyth kept a mistress than offended by it. “What sort of woman would she be?”

  “No one knows,” Eleanor replied. “No one ever sees her. He keeps her well away from Society in her own house with her own servants. Some say a Spanish lady of noble antecedents, others a French émigré.”

  “He must care for her very much.”

  Eleanor waved a hand. “Come now, Lydia. Childe is notoriously fastidious. He would keep a mistress only out of convenience and an assurance against an unpleasant contagion.”

  Lydia felt the heat rise to her cheeks, but she would not be gainsaid. “If there is no true affection between them, why would she threaten to leave him if he marries?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “It is a game, Lydia. She is angling for a new protector. By leaving Childe before he dismisses her, she can present herself as not being cast aside. Emily’s unnecessary speculation notwithstanding.” She shot a glare in Emily’s direction.

  “Childe’s failure to marry has no more to do with his mistress than yours does with Ned Lockton, barring the fact that you wasted precious time with him that could have been better spent acquainting yourself with other gentlemen.” Eleanor had met the news of Ned’s poverty with all the outrage Lyd
ia lacked, roundly cursing him for his deception while conveniently ignoring Lydia’s own.

  “Acquainting myself? Is that what we’re calling it?” Lydia asked. “After being so forthright regarding Childe Smyth’s personal situation, I think we can do no less with mine. You mean seducing marriage offers.”

  “Yes.”

  Her momentary indignation evaporated. Eleanor was right. She had wasted weeks. She had been complacent, so sure of herself. And Ned.

  The carriage slowed to a halt again, but this time the driver shouted. Lydia glanced out the window. They’d turned onto the drive leading to Spencer House and now waited in a long line of vehicles inching toward the gate. The fence surrounding the grounds was hung with dark crowds of sightseers calling for the occupants of the carriages to let down their windows and be seen. More than a few did so and were cheered roundly for their efforts.

  “For heaven’s sake, Lydia, oblige them so we might have some relative quiet,” Eleanor said.

  Lydia did not know why she hesitated. She had been in this situation many times and had always been flattered by the crowd’s attention. But today she was impatient with their demands, hearing in their shouts and bellows not adoration, but insistence, the same sound the mob made at a horse race or an opera house or a theater. She had become a spectator’s sport.

  “Lydia, please. They shan’t be quiet until someone in the carriage shows themselves and that shan’t be me.”

  Dispiritedly, Lydia pulled back the curtain and drew the hood of her gold domino from her head. The crowd burst into cheers, hooting their approval, and Eleanor leaned forward and flicked back the curtain. “That’s quite enough,” she said.

  The carriage passed through the gates and in a short while rolled to a halt, swaying as the tiger jumped from his perch. The boy opened the door and hauled out the stairs, situating himself at the bottom so Eleanor could use his head as a newel post.

  “Be careful of your reputation tonight, Lydia,” Eleanor cautioned her before disembarking. “One never knows with whom one is conversing at these affairs. I have already heard tattle that several of the gentlemen’s mistresses will be presenting themselves under the anonymity of masks and veils. Brazen creatures, but I suppose that sort of thing is to be expected when you allow people to pretend to be something they are not.”

  “That’s the fun of it,” Emily said, glumly patting her goose. Poor Emily. She tried, but she could not hide her fear that her compulsion would once again overwhelm her.

  “And so it begins,” Eleanor murmured, alighting gracefully from the carriage. Emily followed, but Lydia stayed behind in the carriage, reluctant to start the evening, to risk seeing Ned, to know the disappointment of not seeing him.

  She watched as Eleanor and Emily entered Spencer House through the wide set of double doors, vacillating. She was being ridiculous, she knew, hiding in the carriage like this. She had never before been a coward. She would not begin now.

  She drew her enveloping domino close and stepped out of the carriage, following Robin Hood and Marian up the stairs and into the opulent entrance hall.

  Eleanor and Emily were already being greeted by the earl and countess, both wearing identical expressions of fixed and polite interest. She took her place at the end of the line of guests, still wearing the black cloak that covered her costume, her hood still covering her hair. And then she was before them, thanking them and curtsying.

  “How good of you to come . . . er, Riding Hood, I assume?” the earl asked without much interest and they were on to the next in the seemingly endless reception line.

  She caught up with her companions in one of the anterooms reserved for the ladies’ use, where ranks of liveried servants collected armloads of cloaks and great-coats and mantles, exposing the costumes beneath: all manner of flora, fauna, and famous personages both real and imagined, some wearing masks, as did Lydia, others bare-faced or with feathers and paint applied. Lydia had decided that drama best served her purposes and so refused all offers to take off her domino.

  After a quick readjustment of Emily’s goose, the trio followed the chattering crowds out of the antechamber. Few paid much heed to Lydia’s still-cloaked form, being more concerned with last-minute fine-tuning of their own costumes.

  They traveled up the grand staircase, its banisters twined with thousands of white roses, petals strewn over the marble steps. At the top, they were once more obliged to stand in line, awaiting their turn to be announced into the ballroom.

  Impatiently, Lydia rose on her tiptoes to see inside. Behind her mask, her eyes widened with appreciation. The room had been transformed into a fantastical garden bower. Silk bunting of varying rich green shades draped the walls while paler green gossamer billowed lightly over the open windows leading to the terrace beyond. Long ropes of woven roses, gardenias, and other hothouse flowers hung from the ceiling while the marble columns had been enveloped with mats of mosses, snow-drops, and violets sprouting from the downy growth.

  Tables set at irregular distances from one another lined the interior wall, artfully draped with thick green velvet. Centered on the wall was a larger table groaning under a fountain of punch cunningly emptying into a silver-lined creek that coursed amongst the light dishes provided to sustain the guests until dinner. Hundreds of servants transported trays loaded with wineglasses, performing astonishing acts of dexterity to avoid spilling anything on the jostling masked and costumed mob.

  People dressed as swans, peacocks, leopards, and deer formed part of an astonishing menagerie of animals while Othellos and Cleopatras, infamous Medicis and red-cloaked cardinals bent their noble heads in conversations with the fantastical and allegorical. The music from an orchestra comprised of rabbits, hedgehogs, and foxes could barely be heard beneath the din of human voices. But amongst them, Lydia could not find one gold head rising above the rest. Relief warred with disappointment and relief won.

  On the threshold of the doorway, Eleanor hesitated, eying Lydia.

  “Love you though I do,” she said, “I am not yet of an age to willingly let myself be cast in the shade. Go in, my dear. I shall arrive later.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts.’ Emily, what say you and I begin the evening with a game of whist?” Eleanor asked. She and Emily dearly loved their card games. “Lydia does not need us.”

  “Indeed, I should be most pleased to accompany you,” Emily said. “But wouldn’t you find the conversation of a friend more convivial?”

  “I am currently with my friends, Emily,” Eleanor replied.

  Emily’s face pinked with pleasure at the compliment.

  Eleanor turned to Lydia and her autocratic expression softened. “We will meet you later, Lydia. Go along, my dear. Bring them to their knees.” She paused. “But do not let them announce your name. Let them guess a while. Mystery is a powerful stimulant.”

  Before Lydia could protest, the hall master’s aide was bending close to ask how she wished to be announced. She told him and by the time she had done so, Eleanor and Emily had left and she was alone.

  She heard the hall master announce, “Princess Aurelia, daughter of King Midas. In Transitus!” She peeled back her hood and pulled the tie at her throat, her cloak dropping into the unseen hands of a footman as she stepped out of the doorway into the brilliantly lit ballroom.

  Those around her grew hushed, their silence spreading like a reverse whisper through the crowd. And then abruptly someone applauded and then another as voices rose in approval and admiration. She curtsied, drawing the moment out.

  It was too bad Miss Walter could not be here to witness the reception of her creation, Lydia thought. She well deserved the accolades. The modiste had fashioned her slip of thin gold tissue embroidered with gold lama in a subtle trellis design and the overgown of the sheerest net of fine gold thread. She had cut the bodice in a daringly low vee and edged the décolletage with amber and gold beads, as she had the puffed sleeves of gold gauze.

  Lydia’s maid had plaited
her hair into a loose coronet at the back of her head, threading the seal-brown locks with thick gold satin ribbons and bright gold wire. Her three-quarters mask was made of thin hammered gold, the shadow it cast on her face disguising the telling color of her eyes. But the most arresting aspect of her costume was not what she did wear, but what she didn’t.

  She had eschewed jewelry of any sort, instead liberally dusting her shoulders, neck, arms, and bosom with gold dust so that reflected light glinted with her slightest movement. Rather than white gloves she’d had ones made of thin gold lama so that her hands and forearms looked like solid gold. This coupled with the shimmer of gold dust on her bare flesh gave the pronounced effect of being in the throes of an alchemist transition, already more than half the gold statue Midas’s daughter was to become.

  She appreciated the irony, even if no one else could.

  She glided into the room, murmurs following her.

  “Who is she?”

  “Lady Anne Major- Trent, I’ll lay my favorite horse on it.”

  “I say Aurelia is Jenny Pickler.”

  “Hair’s too light, gown’s too low for a girl who’s just made her bow.”

  “Mrs. Dallyworth?”

  “Lady Lydia.”

  “She’d never hide her eyes. She’s too famous for ’em.”

  “ ’ Spose you’re right.”

  “Who is she?”

  Why . . . she hadn’t been recognized.

  The realization washed over her like cold, clear water, unexpected and bracing. No one knew her. No one had any expectations of her. The notion was intriguing. Even stimulating . . .

  She had no obligations, no role to play other than one she scripted for herself. She could be mute or musical, a tartar or a tart, stiff- rumped or loose in the haft or anything in between. She could greet strangers as old friends and ignore those that only duty made it necessary to acknowledge and no one would take offense, because no one would know unless she chose to tell them.