Clarissa and the Poor Relations

by Alicia Cameron

  Clarissa pulled them away. ‘It is his behaviour that is at fault, not yours. None of us would have guessed his intentions. He thought he was dealing with a weaker willed woman than you, Oriana. He will not be able to show his face in town with those marks on him for a sennight.’ She looked at her friend’s distress with a mixture of sympathy and an explosive rage that men could act in this way. Petersham, Thorne, du Montaigne, she thought; all the same. Using their power to achieve their own ends with no thought of us.

  ‘It is not like you to blame yourself, Oriana,’ said Clarissa. ‘Get angry with M. le Duc, not yourself.’

  Oriana’s lovely face looked raw with emotion. ‘Oh, I know,’ she said, brokenly, ‘it is just that Grandiston must have thought…’

  Clarissa was puzzled. ‘Grandiston has shown him to be too much our friend to think meanly of you…he saw you attack the Duc…he has been your friend for such a long time…’ As she watched her friend wipe her streaming eyes with an inadequate lace handkerchief, she stilled suddenly. ‘Oriana, why have you let Grandiston continue to believe that you consented to that ludicrous engagement?’

  Oriana’s eyes flew to Clarissa’s shrewd grey ones, then her eyelids lowered. She sniffed, ‘He should know…’ she wailed, striving for control between anger and despair.

  Clarissa grasped her hands, ‘Oh dear, you love him very much, don’t you?’ she said gently.

  ‘I do not.’

  In her second outburst of feeling that day, Oriana threw herself into Clarissa’s arms and cried her heart out.

  Chapter 15

  Dinner for Friends

  Over the next few days, spirits returned to normal. Mr Thorne was much improved by the thought of the imminent arrival of his wife, whilst Clarissa and Oriana found a new warmth in their friendship, in which they gladly included Juliana.

  Mercifully, Oriana was spared the necessity of meeting the Earl, for she did not know if she would give away her feelings. How could she not have known that she had loved him all along? Grandiston still called, but merely to invite Mr Thorne to go riding or to lunch, claiming to miss the society of his friend Booth. The ladies felt the relief, and thus his real intentions.

  Clarissa was thus able to meet with Mr Elfoy in the library on a morning that she had instructed Sullivan to deny them to visitors. She met him with her usual friendliness, and an air of conspiracy.

  ‘We may not have a great deal of time, sir,’ she said briskly, ‘so I beg you look at this.’

  It was a set of plans for the closure of the West Wing, sent off, on her instructions, from the Architect (mercifully still alive) who had been called in by her uncle when he considered restoring the damaged building.

  Elfoy was excited as he bent over the desk with her.

  ‘It looks so simple to close off, just the three doorways to brick up. It is a shame that we cannot begin immediately, but I fear your brother…’

  ‘But we can.’ she interrupted excitedly. She turned towards him impulsively. ‘I have thought of a way. If we do not begin soon the work can never be completed before winter sets in. If we keep all the work to the back of the house for now, there is no reason for John to find out. ‘

  ‘Yes, it could be done.’ he said thoughtfully, ‘We shall only need a small proportion of the stone and slate after all. But though Mr Thorne does not have the power to order the estate, when he finds out what you wish to do - forgive me, he may simply order you away with him. If only there were any way I could stop him.’ This last he said almost to himself, his brows went down and he made his hand into a fist.

  Clarissa was amused. ‘But we already settled that you cannot,’ she said lightly, making fun of their old discomfort. As his eyes flew to hers she felt them sear her and she laughed a little more tremulously, ‘Why Mr Elfoy, Tristram, you look quite fierce.’

  He lowered his eyes a second, lest all his feeling became naked. ‘I beg your pardon, it is just the way he speaks to me of you as though you were little more than the village idiot. Does he not know you? And do not say that it is merely that he speaks of all women thus - for of his wife he can say no ill. I have not met her, but it is easy to see who rules the roost.’ He had been pacing the floor whilst Clarissa observed him, her hand to her bosom, but he stopped suddenly. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Thorne. That was completely…’

  ‘Insightful.’ finished Clarissa. She was a little flushed herself but she laughed and placed a calming hand on his arm. ‘No need for apologies between such friends as us. Please call me Clarissa, and give me leave to call you by your name. We are too much in union now to stand on ceremony.’ He grasped her hands speakingly and looked his gratitude with his eyes.

  ‘It would not be fitting’ he said, with resolve.

  ‘As to that - perhaps not in public. But between ourselves and the ladies I see no harm. Now let me tell you my plan to begin at once, without John’s knowledge.’

  An hour later, she went gleefully upstairs, pleased with her secret plotting and with a little more that the interview had delivered.

  Miss Appleby was coming down, dressed in bonnet and pelisse. ‘Dear Appleby, going out again?’

  Miss Appleby flushed slightly, ‘If you do not need me, my dear. We have no visitors now until dinner with this evening. I am going to give Sir Mortimer some of my mother’s tisane, which is most efficacious against gout.’

  ‘Give him my regards and tell him I shall call next week, if it is convenient.’

  ‘Oh, yes, dear.’ she said a little vaguely. ‘Good day.’

  She found her two friends in her room, curled onto the bed, looking at back numbers of the periodical La Belle Assemblée, thoughtfully sent over by Lady Staines.

  Juliana looked up, her face full of mischief. ‘My dear, Oriana and I have calculated that it is time for you to wear colour again. We have been looking at these periodicals and we have seen the very dresses for you.’

  Clarissa joined them willingly enough, but laughed outright at one of the illustrations. ‘I will not be seen in a Turkish bonnet. Lady Staines looked quite odd enough when she greeted us à la Turque the other day. I do not intend to join her.’

  Juliana looked serious, ‘Oh, yes, but I truly have seen ladies in Turkish dress who look unexceptionable. It is just her ladyship’s sense of colour is a little…. But it is not that dress, but the next. Those simple lines, and in blue, such a good colour for you.’ Her gentle voice and artist’s eye made Clarissa laugh again.

  ‘That is all very well, but how will I manage? Oriana knows how much work it took to contrive my mourning. A whole other set of clothes is more than I bargained for. Why did I not think? We do not have the leisure to raid what is left of mother’s trunk.’

  Juliana looked a little conscious. ‘Well, as to that… I have two gowns with me that have never become me. You know that you and I cannot wear the same colours, but I was so impulsive as to cause my dressmaker to make me a French dress in a heavenly blue muslin and another evening gown in white. And I cannot wear white, whatever my mama says is fashionable, I look positively ill.’

  She produced the gowns from behind her and Clarissa gasped. The celestial blue was dazzling, a very fine muslin overdress with a silk petticoat, sewn all over with same colour flowers. The white heavier satin evening gown was covered by the almost classical drape of white sarcenet embellished in silver.

  It was all she could do to refuse, ‘I cannot.’ she cried.

  Oriana began to speak, but Juliana just held the white dress up under her own chin. ‘Will you really make me wear this?’ she said, eyebrows raised. The others gasped; it seemed all the warm light had faded from Juliana’s complexion, to take on the blue tinge of the consumptive.

  Oriana giggled, ‘Have pity, Clarissa.’ she said.

  ‘The blue’s worse,’ sighed Juliana and soon all three were giggling and Clarissa had agreed to take the gowns. It did not seem so difficult then, to accept some more fashion errors from her beautiful friend Oriana. A jonquil day dress o
f fine cambric and a muslin gown sprigged with pink peonies, plus some shawls, a blue velvet spencer that went well with several of them, to wear on chill days.

  ‘How fortunate I am not a blonde.’ she said

  Oriana moreover recommended that they raid the trunk once more, but this time take its contents, along with some of these illustrations, to the dressmaker in the village whom the useful Lady Staines had already recommended. It seemed, too that it was not beyond their expenses (now that they had the rent from the Dower House) to buy some lengths of muslin and perhaps a little silk to make a few more gowns ‘befitting the first lady of the county’ as Juliana reminded her.

  This put Oriana in mind that her dresses were over a season old and must need a new touch. So the next few hours were spent in planning what ribbons, trims, reticules, collars and slippers could be dyed, bought or exchanged amongst them to bring the ladies right into fashion.

  Dinner that evening was to be cosy affair, with the Vicar, Dr Chancellor and his amiable wife and daughters, Grandiston, Mr Thorne, the ladies and (at Miss Micklethwaite’s invitation) Mr Elfoy and his mother. Mr Thorne had not been best pleased with this last, since his dealings with Mr Elfoy led him to suspect that young man’s manner. The agent had replied civilly to Mr Thorne’s orders and questions but he had failed to agree to act or to answer. When John had exploded that Elfoy had had a different attitude when first they met, the young man had coolly replied, ‘When you acted as Miss Thorne’s representative, I did of course give you every aid. Now that Miss Thorne may order me, I am not at liberty to discuss her business.’

  The answer may have been blandly business like, the tone mild, but there was a little steel in the eyes that Mr Thorne did not care for from one beneath him. It gave him pause however and he did not mention it to Clarissa as he meant to. If Elfoy were not also a gentleman, he might have crushed him thoroughly but as it was, he held his tongue.

  ‘Why did you invite Elfoy, ma’am?’ he said peevishly to Miss Micklethwaite, as they awaited their guests.

  Miss Micklethwaite gave him the condescending look that she had reserved for him since his youth and said, ‘I wish to consult with Mrs Elfoy on household matters and as I believe that he and his mother are both friends of Dr and Mrs Chancellor it seemed natural to invite them. From your tone I perceive you have an objection. Out with it, if you please.’

  ‘Well, it is just that that fellow seems always to be here…’ He caught her eye. ‘…no objection, none at all.’ he finished, lamely.

  Miss Micklethwaite returned her eye, mercifully, to her needlework.

  Clarissa came in wearing the blue gown; her hair caught up in a pretty striped ribbon, in the Grecian style. With Oriana in sea-green gauze and Juliana in pink silk they created a picture as they moved forward.

  John cleared his throat to comment, his brows knit at her appearance, but before he could, the guests were announced.

  Finally seated beside Grandiston, he glowered at Clarissa across the table. He was really unable to tell how a mousy, plain young bluestocking had transformed into this ever increasingly pretty young lady. Her confidant charm with her guests, whilst not appearing too pushing, also alarmed him. Things appeared more and more out of his control, even though he knew of course that they could not be. Clarissa had never minded him, but he thought that with the death of his stepmother he would finally have the upper hand. He knew that he did, but he as he sat and watched Clarissa exchange some village gossip with Mrs Chancellor, or turn a compliment on the dinner towards Miss Micklethwaite, he did not feel it.

  Her gown this evening (no doubt wildly expensive) must have been bought with money that had best have been cared for by him. The young Misses Challoner were complimenting her, whilst themselves wearing simple round gowns of muslin: more seemly, in Mr Thorne’s opinion. This is what came of young girls having charge of their own finances - it was spent on fripperies. He looked again at the fine muslin and wondered if his own dear wife owned one half so fine.

  Grandiston leant over to him and murmured, ‘Your sister is at last out of mourning. Charming.’

  Mr Thorne’s soul warmed a little. Perhaps the Earl’s unaccountable fancy for Clarissa might deepen.

  There was a lull at the table when Mr Chancellor said, ‘Do you mean to go to London next season, Miss Thorne? Our little social gatherings are not enough for the young, I fear.’

  Clarissa was about to speak, when Mr Thorne cleared his throat, ‘Ah, I rather think my sister’s plans, any plans, are uncertain.’

  Mr Chancellor, sensing the rebuke, coughed discreetly.

  Grandiston, however, charged into the opening. ‘You must give us your presence in town, indeed, Miss Thorne. The season would not be complete without you.’

  ‘It is kind of you to say so sir, but I fear I have little London acquaintance,’ said Clarissa lightly.

  Oriana raised her eyebrow slightly in Grandiston’s direction, too distracted by curiosity about his tactics to be shy, as she had been earlier. He grinned slightly.

  ‘Nonsense, my dear.’ said Grandiston bracingly. ‘Why, half of London has been parked in your morning room this past week. Miss Petersham’s extensive London acquaintance is now yours, quite apart from Miss Sowersby and her family, Mr Booth and I. You cannot want for visitors. Is not that right, Mr Thorne?’

  John received his pat on the back with forced good humour. ‘Indeed, yes, but no doubt my sister may wish to visit myself this winter.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear man, you cannot wish to deprive us Miss Thorne’s first appearance in society. The owner of Ashcroft must be seen.’

  This did not seem the place to announce that his sister would not long own the estate, so John took refuge in vagueness. ‘It would be pleasant dear sister, but then again I believe London lodgings are scurrilously expensive.’

  The good, round faced Mrs Chancellor, who had never been further than twenty miles hence, shook her head wisely in agreement.

  John was about to turn the subject when Mr Elfoy, seated beside his mother and Miss Micklethwaite at the other end of the table, said clearly, ‘Well, there is Ashcroft House.’

  John, the wineglass to his lips, paused. ‘A London House? I did not know of this.’

  Clarissa looked at him blandly. ‘I had it up for sale, but I suppose I might keep it for one more season.’ then seeing that he was most seriously discomposed, she began to back track. ‘However, I’ve always thought that without a presentation at court and so on, there is no point in a London season. I have no London family to present me, so it looks like I shall have to forfeit the whole idea.’

  Mr Thorne’s wineglass continued to his mouth.

  ‘Not necessarily.’ said Mr Elfoy clearly. His third glass of wine was making him a little reckless, he felt, but he enjoyed Thorne’s face losing that self-satisfied look. He watched, with satisfaction, as it changed colour now. Then he turned to the lady whom Mr Thorne had hardly acknowledged this evening, ‘Mama?’

  The sweet lady beside him raised her serene head and said, ‘Of course.’ As the company, bar Dr and Mrs Chancellor, looked astonished she smiled deprecatingly. ‘It is just that my sister, Lady Carmichael, is a Lady-in -Waiting to dear Queen Charlotte.’ Grandiston’s brows raised and Thorne’s jawed dropped, ‘I am very sure she could procure an invitation to the presentation for dear Miss Thorne. And present her, of course.’ She smiled warmly across the table at Clarissa, who looked dumbfounded.

  ‘You are too kind, my dear Mrs Elfoy. I must admit that I am astonished that I have such a very varied acquaintance.’

  Grandiston’s brows knit, ‘Ah, you are a Darlington then, a fine Staffordshire family. I knew your brother well and his son a little. Do you travel to town much?’

  Mrs Elfoy looked a little conscious. ‘When my health permits: short visits only to the family. When I married Tristram’s father, I chose the quiet country life and I have never regretted it.’

  John Thorne looked dumbfounded, ‘But a court presentatio
n...’ he spluttered, ‘... surely it is not possible…’

  Mrs Elfoy looked at him and for a second Clarissa could see a hint of some distaste cross her face but her tone was gentle as she said, ‘Nothing could be simpler, I assure you.’

  Miss Appleby, who had been a little quiet, this evening, became enlivened at this news.

  ‘Oh, dear Mrs Elfoy - how wonderful. A presentation at court for my dear Miss Thorne - just as her mamma should have wished. Well… that is to say…’ she coloured a little, and came to a halt.

  ‘What Miss Appleby means, Mrs Elfoy, was that my mother might have wished it if she had given a thought to anything but books.’ said Clarissa with humour.

  ‘Clarissa.’ said her brother sharply, but the conversation had overtaken him.

  ‘Scholarship is a very laudable activity,’ said Mr Chancellor, ‘and there have been throughout history many examples of women scholars…’

  ‘Yes.’ Clarissa, ‘mamma referred to them often.’ She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully, ‘But I do think that though a pattern of womanhood in many ways, it would have been more practical if Mama had remembered to arrange things like my coming out, or a court presentation.’

  Anyone choosing to look at Mr Elfoy at this precise moment (as it happened Juliana was) could not help but see the look of glowing admiration he cast at the unaware Clarissa. Tonight, in blue with blue beads dripping from her naked shoulders she was even more beautiful than before. Miss Sowersby was pretty, Miss Petersham a cool beauty, but neither had the animation and vivacity that Clarissa exuded. And today she had called him friend. Then he grinned. She was so impulsive and honest in a way young ladies had been taught not to be. Even his mother smiled behind her napkin at her latest speech, whilst her brother was once again enraged.