In the barouche, Helen was in high spirits, having passed the meal at the younger and noisier table and taking her carriage seat overflowing with a budget of news. The subject was the upcoming Fordices’ ball, and every other sentence was prefaced ‘ – Evelyn says.’
“There is to be champagne and lobster patties, and all manner of good things. Paper lanterns on the terrace. And Evelyn says there will be waltzing!”
After listening silently to these effusions for several minutes, Katherine was moved to bring her sister back to reality. “You realize,” she said quietly, “that we will not be able to attend this ball.”
Helen came down to earth with a thud. She stared at her sister in dismay. After a moment, she said, “Oh, but surely - !” She looked as if she wanted to launch into heated protest.
Katherine gave her a quelling look, but only said, “Helen, no.”
Too well behaved to wrangle publicly with her older sister, Helen subsided back against the barouche’s cushions and fell silent. Lady Clara exchanged a significant look with her husband.
The following morning, Lady Clara was absent from the breakfast table. “Only to be expected,” her husband reported. “That inn meal yesterday, most injudicious for a lady in her condition. She’s having tea and toast in bed, crumbs and correspondence all over the place.”
Amanda took note of Lord Charles’ boots. “Are you riding this morning?” she asked. “Perhaps I will come with you.”
“No, you won’t,” Charles answered shortly, eyes on his correspondence.
“Really!” exclaimed Amanda, affronted.
He looked up then and smiled an apology. “I’m not pleasure jaunting today, Mandy,” he said. “I have a number of calls to make on tenants and employees. You’d find it very dull stuff and try to hasten me through it. If you want to ride, I can commit to an afternoon ride if that would suit you.”
“Oh, perhaps,” she said with a pout. “Or I might just walk to the village.”
An interruption occurred then, an eruption into the room of silky draperies in a seafoam green. The apparition resolved itself into Lady Clara.
“Oh, good, you’re still here!” she said to Charles.
“Nice to see you up,” Charles said. “Feeling better?”
“No, not at all,” Clara said. “But I need you to run an errand for me.”
“Oh, ah,” said Charles, promising nothing.
She shook a dainty fist, which was holding a piece of paper. “Have you seen this?”
“Since you have it, obviously I have not. What is it?”
“It’s an invitation to the Fordices’ ball.”
“A ball!” said Amanda, eyes sparkling. “Will I have time to send home for my silver lace gown? I’d no notion I’d be needing a ball gown.”
“You won’t be needing one here,” Clara said with a glance at her friend. “We will have to send our regrets to the Fordices. An unfortunate scheduling conflict. It seems they’ve scheduled their ball for the same night as our dinner party.”
“We’ve scheduled a dinner party?” Charles asked in surprise. “When did that happen and when is it to be?”
“It happened just now and it is to be on…” Clara uncrumpled the invitation in her hand and smoothed it out. “Next Friday week.”
Charles leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “In other words, you are deliberately scheduling a dinner to conflict with the squire’s ball. Might I ask why?”
Clara subsided into a chair beside him and said, “Because I have finally and completely lost patience with that Julia Fordice. She’s made a dead set at you, Charles…”
“She has?” Charles said in astonishment.
Clara and Amanda exchanged a look, before Clara turned back to Charles. “Yes, she has, though you are too unobservant to notice, and now she’s doing the same thing to this Grimthorpe fellow, just because she thinks Katherine might want him.”
“Katherine? I thought her and the vicar…” Charles interrupted.
“Heaven knows what’s going on with Katherine and the vicar,” Clara said impatiently. “But what I do know is that Julia Fordice deliberately arranged this ball so that the Roses could not attend it. A more casual affair and they would be able to go without criticism.”
“But not to dance, surely,” her husband interjected.
“No, not to dance, but they might have attended. But now it’s such a formal affair, with champagne and waltzing and of course the Roses will have to stay home.”
The Captain was thinking deeply. “Weren’t you still mourning your father when we went to the Jerseys’ ball?”
“Yes,” said Lady Clara impatiently.”But that was almost a year on, and anyway, the city is very different from the country. Different rules apply.”
Charles and Hector exchanged baffled looks. “Is that so?” Charles said.
Amanda chimed in on Clara’s behalf. “Indeed it is,” she said. “We might think of the country as being more casual than Town, but in some respects, it’s actually much stricter here. And the observation of mourning is one of those forms that country folk take quite seriously.”
“So!” Clara said with finality. “The Roses will have to stay at home while the entire rest of the neighborhood is off at the Fordices’ ball. Only they won’t have to stay at home, because they will be here. Attending a nice small private dinner party, perfectly suitable for ladies in mourning. And the Fordices will have to make do without all the titled wonders they’re probably promising to their guests.”
Charles frowned. “I don’t like antagonizing the squire. He’s an important man in the village and we need to get along.”
“That’s why you need to go to Rosebourne today and get the Rose ladies committed to my dinner party,” Clara explained patiently. “Then we can be ever so sorry, but we’d already had plans for that evening and it would be unthinkably rude to cancel on our guests in order to make a later engagement. Just give me a few moments to write a note to the Roses and then you can deliver it. And wait for a response.”
“I’m to deliver it? Have we no footmen?”
“Oh, honestly, Charles! Of course we have footmen. Who would be sure to mention downstairs when they delivered an invitation to Rosebourne and my ruse would soon be public property.”
Charles sighed. “You’re not going to drop this, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Very well. Write your note and I will deliver it and wait for a response.”
“What are you delivering?” This from Han, who’d just entered the breakfast room.
“A dinner invitation to the Roses,” Charles said shortly.
“Oh, nice,” Han said. “Tell them to bring Jack. We can have our own feast in the nursery wing.”
“Good idea,” Charles said, with a look to Clara.
“And once you have the Roses’ acceptance, stop off and invite the vicar,” Amanda suggested.
Within a few moments, Charles was riding down the lane, bearing his sister’s invitation.
FOURTEEN
Lord Charles stood in the front hall at Rosebourne, patiently waiting for a dithering Sally to determine where he belonged.
“Miss Rose, sir? Well, Miss Alice Rose is in the morning room. Shall I take you there? Mrs. Shelby and Mrs. Worth are calling.”
“Don’t let me interrupt them,” Lord Charles said hastily, not wishing to be drawn into a lengthy morning call in his riding clothes. “Is Miss Katherine Rose available?”
Sally worried frown cleared. “Oh, yes, sir! She’s in the back parlor with Miss Helen. They’re cutting out a pattern for a dress. You’ll want to watch your step, what with the cutting spread out on the floor – “
She turned to lead him up the stairs, but Charles called her back, gesturing to his dusty boots. “I would hate to shed dust all over their work. My errand is to deliver an invitation from my sister and await a reply. Is there no unused office I could wait in?”
Sally thought a long moment. �
�Not the study,” she said, speaking to herself. “Miss Katherine’s work is in there.” Then she beamed. “The library! Nobody uses that, it will be quite free.”
It seemed odd to Lord Charles that the library in a scholar’s home was the one unused apartment, but he followed Sally to the library and turned down offered refreshment. “Miss Katherine will be with you in two shakes,” Sally promised him, bearing away the invitation.
Charles didn’t know how long two shakes was, but he walked along the shelves idly scanning the book titles for a few moments and had not yet become impatient when Katherine entered, smoothing her hair.
“Lord Charles,” she said. “How do you do?”
“Perfectly well, ma’am. I see you have my sister’s invitation. I was strictly charged not to come back without an affirmative answer.”
Katherine smiled. “That sounds like Lady Clara. Of course we will attend.”
“I am charged to remind you that all residents of the household are invited, including your guest and brother.”
“I can’t speak for Mister Grimthrope, though I suspect he will want to attend. And of course Jack will be delighted.”
Mission accomplished, Lord Charles went on his way, leaving Katherine to her dressmaking and adventure plotting.
“Oh, dear, how vexing,” Lady Fordice said placidly at the breakfast table several days later. Her plate was surrounded by an influx of correspondence, responses to their ball invitations.
“What is it, Mama?” Julia asked without much interest.
“The Greymere party sends their regrets to our invitation.”
“What?!” exclaimed Julia.
“It seems that they have a prior engagement. What a shame.” The Squire’s lady was disappointed that their rooms would not be graced by their distinguished neighbors, but had received such a flattering number of acceptances that she considered it a matter of small import. Not so her daughter, who had looked forward to using her new ball gown and her dainty flirtation with Mister Grimthorpe to finally bring Lord Charles into her orbit.
“Ah, well,” said Lady Fordice, putting the note aside. “Another time, perhaps.”
Julia snatched up the card, and scanned it, but found no further information. Of course someone turning down a social invitation could not be expected to detail what they would be doing instead but Julia burned with curiosity and indignation.
Aunt Alice’s chatter with her cronies soon cleared up the mystery, and it became generally known that the evening of the ball, the Rose family and Mister Downey would be at a select dinner party at Greymere.
Julia’s remarks about her dearest friend became more tart. As some consolation, though, she did seem to have extracted Mister Grimthorpe from Katherine’s grasp. Katherine had certainly never been taken by him on curricle rides, as Julia now had on three separate occasions.
Julia eyed her fallback suitor speculatively as they bowled down the country lane. She wished there was some way to know the extent of old Uncle Basil’s fortune. But on the other hand, she knew that it at least allowed the old fellow to maintain a home in London at a respectable address, and to live in London had always been an ambition of hers.
Lord Charles, now that she thought of it, seemed firmly fixed in the country. He had been quoted as disparaging the London season, and to remain mired in the country year round was not something she could contemplate with complacence, no, not even at so large and elegant a place as Greymere.
While Julia was feeling smug about stealing Rupert from Katherine, Katherine hadn’t even noticed. She barely noticed Rupert’s absence, assuming that he must be finding ways to amuse himself in the countryside. As for herself, she was too caught up in Castle Thunderclap, foiling Baron de la Tour and resolving Euphonia’s problems to have attention to spare for what was going on around her.
She finally penned those beautiful words “The End” on the very day of the Greymere dinner party, and went out with her family in a mood to celebrate.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Purvis said with a smile, ushering the Rose family into the front hall. Katherine looked about her curiously. She had only been inside Rosemere once, and on that occasion had been too shaken and mortified to observe her surroundings. She was impressed with what she saw. The treacherous marble floor shone in mellow squares of black and white. Faded old tapestries adorned the walls and suits of armor guarded either side of the massive fireplace. A wide staircase curved to the upper levels. “The Family is assembled in the drawing room,” the butler told them, and led the way up the stairs and down a long gallery to a charmingly proportioned room. They found that the vicar had preceded them and with their arrival, the party was complete.
Han collected Jack with the inducement, “Just wait till you see what they have for us to eat!” and the two boys ran off to the upper floor.
Lord Charles greeted all of his guests and added to Katherine, “I’m sure you’re thankful to make it through the door with no collisions.”
“Now that you mention it, it does make for a nice change of pace,” Katherine told him.
Conversation in the drawing room centered around the Manor itself and the condition in which Lord Charles found it. Lady Clara and Amanda were outspoken in abusing the furnishings as dowdy.
“They’re comfortable,” Charles insisted. “I see no need for immediate change.”
“Oh, fiddle,” exclaimed Amanda, snapping her fingers. “That to comfort. Fashion cares nothing for comfort. If it did, we’d have long-sleeved ball gowns for the winter months. You’d see ladies at Almack’s with really warm shawls to snuggle into.”
“Perhaps the puff sleeves on ball gowns is a tactic,” Captain Fernley suggested. “The young ladies must perforce dance, merely to keep warm.”
“Ah,” said his wife, “but then what of the poor chaperons who are past their dancing days?”
“They can drink,” suggested Rupert.
Everyone laughed.
“But seriously, Charles,” Clara went on. “Do you have no plans for refurbishment?”
“No immediate plans,” Charles admitted. “Worn carpets and chair coverings must of course be replaced, but I see no need for a total overhaul at present.”
“Wise man!” Aunt Alice said. “For it would be money wasted, I assure you. Once you marry, the new lady of the manor will have her own notions of style, and I’ll be bound that the whole thing would have to be done over again.”
Charles bowed to her. “And there you have it.”
But Amanda continued to clamor for refurbishment (“at least the main reception rooms”) until Purvis entered to announce dinner.
It was an informal dinner and the numbers were unequal, so rather than a formal procession, the diners moved from the room in a casual group. The dining room was down the length of the long gallery from the drawing room. As the guests stepped out of the drawing room, Mrs. Purvis was seen whisking herself out of the dining room. Katherine clearly heard her say, “Never you mind about that now, James,” to someone in the dining room before scurrying away.
Katherine blinked in surprise. So Greymere had a whispering gallery! She would have mentioned it, but the group was still debating the rival merits of the Chinese and the Egyptian styles and she didn’t want to interrupt.
As the diners took their seats and were served the first course, Clara and Amanda continued the debate on Chinese versus Egyptian styles. Finally, Charles said, “I’ve spent the morning touring the tenant holdings and meeting my tenants. There is much that needs to be done for the farm houses, and that shall certainly take precedence over redoing the drawing room, whether it be Chinese or Egyptian. However you disparage the room, at least the roof doesn’t leak and the windows are intact.”
“Very true,” the vicar said. “I’ve been calling on parishioners and I must say that they express great appreciation for the attention you are showing.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Charles said. “I intend to do my best. A large estate is as
much a responsibility as it is a benefit.”
Amanda turned to Mister Downey and asked, “You call on parishioners?”
“Of course I do,” he replied.
“And what do you do during these calls?”
“I learn if they need any assistance, or help them find solutions to their difficulties. Often the best thing one can do is listen. With some of the older people, or the infirm, or the poor, they don’t often have a chance to talk to someone. I like to think my calls cheer them up.”
“And you feel a sense of satisfaction from making these calls.”
“Well, certainly.”
“Excellent!” Amanda exclaimed. At his puzzled look, she added, “A former suitor of mine derived satisfaction from devising elegant set-downs that were witty enough to be repeated.”
“I know who you mean,” Lady Clara said. “He is held to be a great wit.”
“An amusing rattle,” Amanda confirmed. “But that’s not enough, is it?”
Rupert offered, “My afternoon was spent in editing work. My time is not my own, alas. I might be traveling but I brought a case of work with me to satisfy my employers.”
Helen piped up. “Mister Grimthorpe works for Mulberry and Hawes. They publish Mrs. Wilson!”
“Mrs. Wilson!” exclaimed Amanda. “Oh, I love her books!”
“Mister Downey might take you to task for that,” Aunt Alice told her.
The vicar made a gesture of defeat. “Since we had that conversation about novels, Miss Rose, I have learned that there are other vices of such greater concern that I will no longer waste so much as a moment deploring the reading of novels.”
“Very prudent,” Aunt Alice said, rather smugly.
Helen added, “Mister Grimthorpe hasn’t said so outright, but we think he knows who Mrs. Wilson is. Perhaps has even met her!”
“Ah,” said Aunt Alice, “but perhaps he is merely putting on airs to be interesting and has no more acquaintance with Mrs. Wilson that anyone else at this table.”
Rupert smiled at her. “You won’t catch me with those tricks, Miss Rose. I well know that you’re hoping I will reveal some crumb of information to prove that I know the lady, but I’m too wily a fox for you. So I will simply say that perhaps you are right and I know nothing at all.”
Katherine, When She Smiled Page 15