The Dreadful Debutante

by M C Beaton

  “Can you not flirt?”

  She raised her fan, and those green eyes flashed a languishing look at him over the top. “Like this?”

  “Exactly like that, minx. I fear you were not made for fashionable society.”

  She gave a little sigh. “You have the right of it. I would rather be in the country. I love the changing seasons and the feeling of freedom one gets surrounded by woods and trees.”

  He smiled. “There is always Hyde Park. I will drive you there tomorrow at the fashionable hour—with your mother’s permission, of course.”

  “I should like that,” she said. “Charles drives Drusilla there a lot.”

  “I shall not take you if you are going to make sheep’s eyes at Lord Charles!”

  “I will be good,” said Mira meekly. “I may as well use you to make myself fashionable.” She suddenly looked at him in consternation. “How rude of me! I meant—”

  “Ever practical, Miss Mira Markham. I know exactly what you mean. But you must pay attention to the other gentlemen about. Over there is young Mr. Danby. He danced the cotillion with you. He appeared charmed. You appeared indifferent. He comes from a good, solid, wealthy country family. He is near to you in age. This is his first Season as well. Should he ask you to dance again, do try to be a little more aware of him.”

  Mira let out a gurgle of laughter. “How like a governess you sound! Is there anyone else I should be getting my little hooks into?”

  “There is Viscount Falling, the tall, thin man at the same table as your sister. He may look like a heron brooding over a pond, but he is kind and amiable. About my own age, which must seem ancient to you, but a good prospect. If you cannot have love, settle for an amiable man.”

  “And what of yourself, my lord?” asked Mira curiously. “All the gossip is that you have come to the Season to find yourself a bride.”

  “Perhaps after tomorrow, when I consider I have paid you enough attention to set your steps on the right path, I shall turn my attention elsewhere.”

  “Are… are you, too, attracted to my sister?”

  “She is a handsome creature, I will allow, but spoiled. I would require more strength of character.”

  Mira looked at him in amazement. She reflected it was the first time she had heard any criticism of Drusilla at all. An odd loyalty to her sister prompted her to say defensively, “She has been sadly indulged. But, you see, when one is so very beautiful, people do not worry whether one is unkind or… or…” She bit her lip, feeling that what had started out as a defense of her sister was degenerating into a criticism.

  “Let us change the subject.” He looked at her empty plate. “Would you like some more?”

  “Yes, please, and may I have some more wine?”

  “By all means.” He signaled to a waiter. “Do you usually eat so much?”

  “I have a healthy appetite. Besides, I have had nothing to eat since eleven o’clock this morning. There was tea and cake and things when we made our calls, but I was so nervous about this ball that I could not eat anything.”

  “In future, Miss Mira, remember you are supposed to eat like a bird—and not a vulture either. Most ladies have plenty to eat before they go out for an evening to maintain the fiction.”

  “It seems very rude to one’s hosts to shun all the food they have arranged for us.”

  “You will note the gentlemen more than make up for the deficiency. Now we have talked long enough to each other. You must engage the gentleman on your other side in conversation. He is Colonel Chalmers. You will have a difficult time, as he lives and breathes army life.”

  The marquess turned away, and Mira said to the elderly gentleman next to her, “I am interested in finding out, sir, whether anyone ever really believed Napoléon would actually invade.”

  “He is still a threat, and invasion may happen yet,” said the colonel. “But you are too young to remember the fuss. We had tunnels dug into the cliffs at Dover so that several regiments could hide in there.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Don’t you see,” he said eagerly, “the idea was simple. If Boney invaded with his armies, then these regiments would stay hidden until the French troops moved inland. Then they would emerge from hiding and take them in the rear. And that’s why we still have the cannon in Green Park, in case of invasion. Everyone used to drill every day in the parks. Then there was the threat of invasion from the sky.”

  “I read about that,” said Mira, green eyes sparkling. “The emperor had hundreds of balloons massed outside Boulogne.”

  “But he decided to invade Russia,” cried the colonel, thumping the table in his enthusiasm.

  The marquess, making polite conversation with the lady next to him, experienced amusement mixed with irritation when he realized Mira had temporarily forgotten his existence as she discussed military matters with the colonel.

  In fact, as supper finished, he had to try several times to catch her attention until she turned at last to him with a glowing face and said, “Is not the colonel a famously interesting gentleman!”

  “I am glad you enjoyed your conversation,” said the marquess. “I shall escort you back to the ballroom.” As they left, the marquess heard the colonel say in a very loud voice, “Now that is the prettiest and brightest girl I have ever met!”

  Perhaps, he reflected, Mira’s very unconventionality might gain her a place in society’s notoriously flinty heart.

  Mira entered the ballroom on his arm with a brand-new confidence, and then her heart soared as her mother approached her and said, “Lord Charles has kindly asked my permission to take you driving tomorrow.” And before she could reply, her spirits were dashed when the marquess said firmly, “I must insist that I have the prior claim. Miss Mira has already promised to accompany me, subject to your approval, Mrs. Markham.”

  Even forthright Mira knew it would be in the worst of taste to protest. The marquess moved off, and Mira was immediately claimed by a gentleman for the next dance.

  Between dances later that night Drusilla said to her mother, “I am to drive with Lord Charles tomorrow. I assume he asked your permission.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Markham vaguely, still mulling over the unexpected success of her younger daughter. “Lord Charles asked at first to take Mira, but the Marquess of Grantley protested that he had asked her first, and so Lord Charles, when I told him, said he would escort you, Drusilla.”

  Two angry spots of color burned in Drusilla’s cheeks. “Then I shall not go driving with Lord Charles, and so you may tell him, Mama. I do not like being second-best.”

  “As to that, you must not be silly, Drusilla. Lord Charles is vastly taken with you. But he said to me that he felt he had been cruel in neglecting Mira, as he had always felt like an elder brother to her. He kindly volunteered to take her driving so that he could lecture her on how to go on.”

  “In that case,” said Drusilla, mollified, “I shall go with him. But you should warn Mira about making a cake of herself over the marquess. He is merely amusing himself with her, rather in the way that Charles was wont to do.”

  Mrs. Markham said, “That is possible. But she appears to have developed a freshness and charm that are somewhat appealing.”

  For the first time in her young life, Drusilla began to fret about her own appearance. The feathers waving on her head restricted her movement, unlike Mira, with her garland of flowers, who could spring through country dances, her head moving this way and that. She tried to copy Mira’s liveliness of step but succeeded only in looking awkward.

  She felt that Mira had somehow tricked her, had deliberately set out to outdo her, and plotted revenge.

  The following day Drusilla’s amour propre was further damaged by the servants, who had all learned of Mira’s success at the ball, and Drusilla treated Betty, the maid, very highly and threw the hairbrush at her, for Betty had dared to chatter on about how well Miss Mira had looked.

  After she had dismissed the maid, Drusilla sat and tho
ught. Mira deserved to be hurt for all her scheming, and the way to hurt Mira was through Charles. If she, Drusilla, could work Charles up to giving Mira a really blistering lecture, then Mira would be unhappy, and an unhappy Mira would lose that strange radiance she had so lately acquired.

  And as Drusilla sat and thought about Mira, in Grosvenor Square, the marquess was also thinking about her. He was contrasting her with the lady present, who was everything Mira was not. His mother was visiting him, and the dowager marchioness had brought a “young” friend with her, a certain Lady Jansen. Lady Jansen was in her late twenties and a widow. She was calm and elegant, exquisitely gowned, and had no doubt been brought round, the marquess reflected cynically, to see if she could catch his eye. His mother was a tireless matchmaker on his behalf and constantly bemoaning her lack of grandchildren. But for the first time he had to admit he was interested. There was something very soothing in this lady of good sense, who was nearer him in years than the young misses of the Season. She had brown hair fashionably dressed in one of the new Roman styles, large pale blue eyes, a straight nose, and a small mouth. She had a generous bosom hoisted up high with a bodice, but then that was the fashion. Her husband, he learned, had died of cholera three years before.

  “I saw you at the ball last night,” said Lady Jansen, “paying court to all the pretty young girls.”

  “Had I seen you, Lady Jansen,” said the marquess gallantly, “I would have had eyes for no other.”

  “That little chit with the green eyes is Mira Markham, is she not?”

  “Yes.”

  Lady Jansen gave a light laugh. “I was surprised to see her being asked to dance even once after her rowdy behavior toward her sister. Do you know, my lord, that she pushed her sister into a goldfish pool?”

  “I am aware of that episode.”

  “I am surprised her mother did not send her packing to the country. She is ruining her beautiful sister’s chances. The Markhams’ vouchers to Almack’s have been refused.”

  “They will survive,” said the dowager marchioness. “Those patronesses are becoming much too haughty. They are turning down so many people of note that if they are not careful, one will gain a cachet by being refused.”

  “What did you think of Miss Mira?” pursued Lady Jansen.

  “I found her very refreshing,” replied the marquess. “In fact, I am to take her driving this afternoon.”

  “Is that wise?” demanded his mother sharply. She was a small woman and rather fat but still had a commanding air. “Mira Markham has disgraced herself, and I do not see why you should go out of your way to bring her into fashion.”

  The marquess laughed. “She is a hoyden, and she amuses me. I will tell you something, but you must promise not to tell anyone else.”

  Both ladies swore they would not breathe a word.

  He told them about Mira’s acting as his tiger. Despite her shock and disapproval the dowager marchioness could not help laughing. “I cannot but admire such courage in a girl,” she said when he had finished.

  “Exactly,” said the marquess. “So I am doing one more favor for her, and then I can forget about her.”

  Lady Jansen, who had smiled indulgently throughout this account, thought busily behind the pleasant mask of her face. She had not expected competition. The marquess’s mother had assured her that her son was heart-free. She shrewdly thought the marquess was intrigued with this minx, and if something was not done to put an end to his interest in Mira Markham, she might have no hope of the prize.

  When she left she went to make calls and told the story of Mira’s acting as tiger, swearing each lady to silence as she did so. The gossip spread outward, ever outward, until it seemed as if a heavy cloud pregnant with gossip and about to burst hung over the head of the unsuspecting Mira.

  Chapter Three

  Lord Charles and the Marquess of Grantley were briefly left alone together in the drawing room while Mrs. Markham went to see if her daughters were ready. Mr. Markham had gone out to his club.

  “I am glad of this opportunity to talk to you, Grantley,” began Lord Charles.

  The marquess raised his thin eyebrows but said nothing.

  “I am concerned for Mira.”

  “Are you about to ask me my intentions?” asked the marquess haughtily.

  “No!” Lord Charles looked horrified. “I would not dream of being so impertinent. Besides, the whole idea is ridiculous. I merely caution you that Mira is inclined to be a trifle wild in her ways.”

  “I have not noticed any wildness.” The marquess’s voice was as cold as ice. “If you have any complaint about Miss Mira, then I suggest you either tell her or tell her parents and refrain from criticizing a good friend of mine.”

  Lord Charles flushed and opened his mouth to deliver an angry retort, but at that moment Mira and her sister came into the room.

  Drusilla was calm and very beautiful in a carriage dress of blue velvet. Mira, in a carriage gown of gold velvet, was sparkling with excitement. The marquess stood up and bowed. “Let us go, Miss Mira. We are fortunate. The day is relatively fine. I have a new carriage for you to inspect.”

  They went outside, followed by Lord Charles and Drusilla. Outside stood the marquess’s latest purchase, a high-perch phaeton with two black horses in tandem in front.

  Holding the horses’ heads was a small tiger. “His name really is Jem,” said the marquess, and Mira giggled. Drusilla, listening to every word, wondered what was so funny about that.

  As Mira and the marquess drove off, the marquess said, “Are you looking forward to cutting a dash in the Park?”

  “In this carriage,” said Mira appreciatively, “one could cut a dash anywhere. What does one do in the Park?”

  “One shows off. One drives round and nods to the fashionables, and then one goes home.”

  “How dull.” Mira sighed. “I have never even seen the river. I could be living in a village called the West End of London. To go outside it seems to be considered a sin.”

  The sun was sparkling, and the air was warm. “Would you like to see something of the rest of London?” asked the marquess.

  “May I?”

  “Of course. I shall show you the river first.”

  Drusilla exclaimed to Lord Charles, “Where are they going? That is not the way to the Park.”

  “I do not care,” said Lord Charles, who was still smarting over the marquess’s put-down.

  Mira had temporarily forgotten about Lord Charles. She saw the River Thames from Westminster Bridge. She saw the Temple Bar, and then they bowled along Fleet Street and up Ludgate Hill past the mercers’ shops to St. Paul’s Cathedral. When the marquess reminded her that her drive in the Park would be expected to be over and that she should return, she heaved a sigh of disappointment.

  “So soon? Do you go to the opera tonight, my lord?”

  “Yes, my chuck. Catalini is singing. I hope you will be able to hear her above the chatter of society.”

  Mira glanced up at him shyly. “Will you dance with me at the opera ball?”

  He hesitated. He had not intended to attend the ball after the opera. “I am sorry,” she said quickly. “That was forward of me. How can you find a bride if I keep making demands on you?”

  “I am sure a dance with you will not stop me from looking at other pretty ladies,” said the marquess. “Very well. One dance. But you must try to attract some beaux.”

  “I think if I cannot marry Charles, then I would rather not be married at all,” said Mira.

  “May I point out to you again that you are not in love with Lord Charles.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Love is not all gladness and happiness, my innocent; it can be a type of suffering. Were you in love with Lord Charles, you would have gone to the Park, longing for every moment you could have a sight of him, hoping against hope that he would notice you or that my presence would make him jealous.”

  “Then you have been in love?”

  “A
t my great age it would be a miracle had I not been.”

  Mira wanted to ask him whether he had actually been in love with his wife, something she had quickly learned in her short stay in London was highly unusual. Marriage was a trade, your fortune to match my fortune, your lands to join my lands. Love had little to do with it. He was not that old, about somewhere in his early thirties, or so she had overheard her mother saying.

  They drove back in amicable silence. He was just helping her down from the carriage when the Markhams’ butler approached them. “If you would be so good as to step upstairs to the drawing room, my lord. My master is desirous of a word with you.”