“I am sorry!” she babbled, talking now too fast and too loudly. “My ignorance has given me away. I have been lying to you. I am not a widow and have never been a wife.”
“Ah,” he said diplomatically, concealing what she guessed must be his astonishment beneath a grave and kindly interest. “Are you running away from something?”
“Yes …” She hesitated and he waited, taking another cake and beginning to eat it almost absently.
“I am the last person in the world who would have need of a chaperone,” she continued. “I have spent nearly five and twenty years as a – as someone’s peculiar. I suppose you know what that is, even here in Vienna: a light-skirt, not much better than a harlot.”
He nodded, clearly relieved that she had an explanation even it was a shocking one. He gave her an impish grin and said, “Now why in the world did I not think of that? It must have been the mourning which, incidentally, suits your colouring to perfection. I had been asking myself why you appeared to be entirely on your own. Mrs Morley – are you in fact Miss Morley? – not only do you not understand about chaperones, you do not appear to understand that a respectable woman – even one so advanced in years - is almost bound to provide herself with at least one female companion, usually one with a particularly disagreeable nature who will act as a sort of Cerberus to protect you. You do not appear even to have brought an English maid with you. Did you flee incontinent from an unendurable situation and are you afraid of being found?”
“I am afraid of being found but not by a vengeful lover; there is no one in the world who cares enough to pursue me. It is simply that I wished to put my past life behind me – in short to become respectable. That is why I came to a place where no one knows me. I thought that if I pretended to be a widow I would not be in any way remarkable.”
“I apologise. I daresay it will be of little comfort to you to know that I would never have guessed and that there was really no need for you to confess to a past of which I can see you are ashamed. You look entirely respectable and exactly like a grieving widow.”
Chapter 8
Helen, realising that quarrelling with her mother, although it might provide a certain amount of stimulation in the short term, was unlikely to lead to the sort of outcome she desired, heaved a sigh, folded her lips in an angry line and directed her gaze out of the window.
Lady Charles continued to sniff and wipe her eyes with the wisp of damp linen and Honoria, knowing from past experience that any comment was likely to set off one or the other of her companions on another diatribe or a fresh bout of tears, held her tongue.
The carriage rumbled on towards Tunbridge Wells. It was a grey day – the sort where, although it was not raining, the air hung heavy and dank. There was barely a breath of wind to stir the leaves upon the trees and Honoria felt her spirits sink. The outing was not, thus far, proving to be in the smallest degree entertaining; she even found herself wishing that they had permitted Frank to accompany them for his ebullient nature might have lifted the gloom a trifle.
She was relieved when Pitman pulled the horses up and opened the door.
“I have the headache,” Lady Charles complained, shrinking back from the row of shops amongst which they had come to a halt and casting an entreating look at her niece.
“In that case we will go first to that little tea-room on the corner and take some refreshment.”
The three ladies ordered coffee and cakes.
“We are unfamiliar with Tunbridge Wells,” Honoria confided to the waitress as she laid out the plates. “I wonder if you might be able to recommend us to a shop which sells evening gowns.”
“Oh, yes, Miss, indeed I can,” the woman exclaimed and proceeded to list several such establishments. Since she did not hesitate to add lengthy descriptions of the sort of gowns that might be found in each as well as the personal history of many of the proprietors, this took some time and became increasingly confusing.
“Which, in your opinion, would suit us best?” Honoria interrupted as the catalogue threatened to overwhelm her.
“For you two young ladies?”
“Yes – for the young ladies. I am outfitting them to attend the assembly rooms,” Lady Charles said, pulling herself together and taking charge as she perceived Honoria flagging.
“Ah, my lady, I suggest you try Madame Hortense; she is a few doors down – to the right, my lady. She is bound to stock something suitable and she is a dab hand at making any necessary alterations in a trice.”
“Oh, good, that will suit us very well,” Lady Charles said firmly, determined to stop the flow. “If we cannot find anything there, may we return and seek your advice again?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, my lady. I will be happy to be of service.”
Their forces recruited, the trio rose and set off down the road. They soon found Madame Hortense’s establishment. As they opened the door, a bell jangled in the distance and a woman appeared from the back. As soon as she saw Lady Charles who, although clad in garments purchased several decades ago, was clearly a grand lady, she dropped into a curtsey and pronounced herself delighted to receive the patronage of such a delightful family.
“Yes,” Lady Charles said, smiling condescendingly upon the shopkeeper. “I am intending to conduct my niece,” she nodded at Honoria, “and my daughter to the assembly rooms. On looking through our wardrobes, we find we have nothing to wear. What would you recommend, Madame?”
Her opinion thus sought, Madame became all smiles and, after casting an assessing glance at each young lady, began to pull out gowns from the racks. She cast them on to a chair, barely pausing for her customers to comment upon her choices before she returned to her enthusiastic sorting of the contents of the shop.
The three women stood bemused before this demonstration.
“What do you think, Aunt?” Honoria asked at last, fearing that her relative had been turned to stone and that the racks would be empty and the chair obliterated if someone did not do something to halt the shopkeeper’s actions.
“Really, there are far too many. Madame, pray desist! We are quite overwhelmed. Shall we, perhaps, attempt to suit my niece first? She is the elder,” she added, sensing a frisson of anger pass through her daughter’s frame at this demonstration of favouritism.
“Yes, indeed! By all means!” Madame exclaimed readily. She stopped pulling out dresses and looked at Honoria with her head on one side.
“Mademoiselle is very lovely,” she said at length. “An exquisite figure and just the perfect height – a little below average, which is always exceedingly appealing to gentlemen. And Mademoiselle’s colouring – so charming. I do not know whether you desire to dress her in white for her first appearance, my lady – and she would look quite ravishing all in white – but, if not, she could carry off a powerful colour. Blue would be the conventional choice with those eyes but I think red would be quite striking.”
“Goodness!” Honoria exclaimed. “I do not think I would have the courage to wear red for my first appearance.”
“No, although I believe it would suit you, my dear. Perhaps we could look at a red gown for another occasion. Would you feel happier in white, do you think? It is certainly more usual for a girl your age.”
Madame picked out a white silk from amongst the pile on the chair and held it up. It was considerably more embellished than the old muslin to which Honoria had attached the lace and bows. She realised, looking at this dress, that she would indeed have looked a figure of fun if she had presented herself in the old muslin ornamented with hand-made bows of ribbon and some decidedly dowdy lace. Bodices seemed to have shrunk and the female waist appeared to have risen about as far as it could without actually being situated in the same place as the bosom. Frank, she thought, had been both wrong and right in his remarks about lace: there was a great deal of it on this gown, but it was narrower and neater than the piece which she had sewn on so incompetently. It had been used extensively around the top of the neck, on the tiny puffed sleeves and
in quantities around the double frill at the bottom.
“Oh, I am so glad we came,” Lady Charles exclaimed, fully restored to happiness at the sight of the white dress. “My dear child, you will look enchanting in that. Pray try it on at once.”
Madame, growing more confident that she would make at least one sale, invited her customers to walk into her parlour where they might be quite private and where there was a suitable alcove in which Mademoiselle might change her dress in absolute privacy. Before conducting them into the back room, she took the precaution of locking the front door and fixing a sign to the inside proclaiming the shop temporarily closed.
“Can I offer you some refreshment, my lady?” she enquired when Lady Charles had sat down upon a brocade chair.
“No, thank you. We have just drunk some coffee in a tea room down the road.”
Escorted behind a curtain, Honoria was soon attired in the white silk. Madame seemed able to do up the long row of buttons down the back in the twinkling of an eye, after which she almost pushed the girl out to stand before her aunt.
“Oh, yes, that is just the thing! It fits perfectly, does it not?”
“Come, look at yourself, Mademoiselle,” Madame besought, leading Honoria to stand in front of a long mirror where she beheld a vision in silk and lace. The dress did fit in every way which mattered apart from the fact that it trailed upon the floor so that Honoria was obliged to lift the skirts in order to reach the mirror.
“I think it should be a touch shorter,” Madame said, standing back and surveying her customer from head to foot with a sharp eye. “It would be no good if you were to trip over your own hem when you are dancing. As I said at the outset, you have a figure of the most perfect but are a little shorter than the average.”
“Or perhaps a trifle fatter,” Honoria said, laughing nervously for she was confused by the sight of the young woman in the mirror whom she barely recognised as herself.
“Oh, no, that is most definitely not the case,” Madame assured her. “The thing is, you see, that girls come in all shapes and sizes and it is a great deal more difficult to lengthen a gown with a double frill than it is to shorten it. It will be a matter of a moment to turn it up an inch or so – and then you will be able to dance with no fear of an accident.”
“Well, I think it is quite lovely,” Honoria said. “But is this really what people will be wearing at the assembly rooms? It is so beautiful that it seems to me I should be curtseying to the Queen in such a gown.”
“It would do very well for that – if you are to be presented – but I can assure you that it is just the sort of dress that girls of your age wear to the assembly rooms. Everyone likes to look their best, do they not?”
“Yes; we are very vain,” Honoria agreed with a little pout. “Shall we purchase it, Aunt?” she asked, turning to Lady Charles.
“Yes, indeed. Would you be able to alter it by tonight, Madame?”
“Oh, yes; I have a little seamstress who will be able to do it in less than an hour. I will fetch her at once to measure the precise amount we need to take up.”
Madame darted out of the room and returned with a thin little girl clutching a box of pins. She dropped several curtseys to the grand ladies before falling on her knees before Honoria and beginning to pin up the dress.
Honoria felt quite sad to take off the pretty gown when the girl had finished. Madame, who was clearly born and bred in Kent in spite of pronouncing Mademoiselle in an exaggeratedly foreign manner, whipped the garment away as soon as it had been removed and handed it to the girl, who had retreated to the back of the room. She was driven forth by Madame, who no doubt preferred to instruct her out of earshot of her customers.
While she was absent no one exchanged a word for fear of any remark, however apparently innocuous, sending one or the other into a sulk or worse.
“It will be done directly,” Madame announced brightly, bouncing back into the room after a few minutes. “Would you like to try any others, Mademoiselle, before we attend to your sister?”
“Oh no, pray find something for my cousin; she is not my sister,” Honoria explained, oppressed by the weight of Helen’s growing frustration.
“Ah, of course! You are not at all alike now that I look at you more closely,” Madame unwisely agreed.
Honoria could almost hear the storm gaining strength, the wind beginning to gather pace, the thunder to build; in no time it broke upon the room.
“No indeed!” Helen agreed, her voice so sharp it was in danger of felling Madame where she stood.
“Pray do not enact us another Cheltenham tragedy,” Lady Charles admonished her daughter. “Stand up so that Madame can gauge your size.”
Helen, with a heavy sigh, folded her lips and submitted to Madame’s assessing stare. When a dress in a dark, almost midnight, shade of blue was chosen by Honoria, she consented to try it. Madame, now almost as flustered and wary as Lady Charles, ushered her behind the curtain.
“It is so dreadfully easy to distress her,” Lady Charles murmured to Honoria.
“I have found it best not to show fear,” Honoria suggested, squeezing her aunt’s hand.
“How can one not show a little apprehension when she is so very ready to bite one’s head off?” the older lady enquired with a little sob of self-pity.
“Well, but she doesn’t really bite your head off, does she? She merely snaps and that cannot hurt so very badly when one knows that it is merely her manner, so to speak.”
“But it does, whatever you say. You are so robust, Honoria, but I am only a frail old woman.”
“Nonsense! You are neither frail nor old but you have allowed Helen to become a deal too snappish for anyone’s good. I daresay she will brighten up and start to look outside her own distress once she has found a beau.”
“But what if she does not?” Lady Charles asked, her eyes almost popping from her head like a frightened rabbit. “That would be unendurable: you will find a whole string of admirers and she will be left unsought – I can see it now. And it is of no use to beg Frank to help.”
“I should think not – he cannot be expected to flirt with his own sister, even though you seem to expect him to do so with his cousin.”
“It is not my expectation,” Lady Charles argued, diverted from the difficulties her daughter posed to the much more fascinating topic of whether her son and niece would make a match of it. “From what I have seen since he came home, Frank is quite capable of doing that on his own.”
Honoria laughed but it was a rather false sound; in truth she was becoming increasingly worried by the suspicion that Helen was right in her assessment of her aunt’s intentions. She might have found the matter more amusing if she had not been afraid that Frank was a willing party to the plan and that she would have her work cut out to resist the pair of them.
She was saved from answering – and possibly quarrelling with Lady Charles herself – by the curtain being drawn back and Helen emerging to stand awkwardly before them. The colour did become her, its depth softening her sharp features and throwing her almost waxen skin and moon-pale hair into relief. She did not stand well, unfortunately, adopting a hunched stance and twisting her hands together.
“You would look so much better if you would stand up straight,” Lady Charles said impatiently. She had entertained a vain hope that the dress, plainer than Honoria’s but so much more dramatic a colour, would show off her angry daughter to advantage and was disappointed when Helen remained a cringing figure whom no dress could transform into a beauty.
“Come, look at how lovely you are.” Honoria rose and led her cousin to the mirror.
“But I am not,” Helen argued, staring at her reflection despairingly. “Beside you I am a positive antidote.”
“That is fustian and you know it!” Honoria responded bracingly, stepping back out of range of the mirror.
Chapter 9
Cassie, the wind taken out of her sails by this pragmatic response, said doubtfully – for she was by
no means certain that she was telling the truth, “I own that I am almost relieved that I have burned my boats and need not pretend to be what I am not. It was excessively uncomfortable, I promise you.”
“Frightful, I imagine,” Lord Waldron agreed pleasantly. “But I do not think that you need despair nor that you must remain forever outside Society. It is perfectly clear that you are a lady of good breeding. Will you allow me to assist your return? There will be no difficulty in my introducing you as an Englishwoman who has recently arrived in Vienna. I can say that you are some sort of distant kinswoman – indeed I daresay you are. It will be an easy matter for me to announce that I am expecting my cousin any day. You can arrive in about a fortnight – when the marks upon your face will have faded – and I will engage to introduce you gradually – as befits a widow.”
“You would do that?” Cassie asked, astonished.
“If you would like, yes. It sounds as though you have been ill-treated by my sex and I would be delighted to undo a small – far too small – portion and help you to live the respectable life you crave. I think your original idea of setting yourself up as a widow is an excellent one as it should forestall a good many questions. If you present yourself as a grieving relict, too upset to speak much of your late, lamented husband – you can bury your head in a handkerchief and sniff loudly every time anyone mentions his name – people will not like to ask too many questions. The fact that you have travelled all this way without any companions lends itself perfectly to the story that you are so crushed by grief that you not only cannot mention his name – or bear to have anyone else do so – but have also fled everything that reminded you of your former happiness.”
Cassie smiled rather sadly as Lord Waldron began to embroider freely upon her story.
“You make me sound excessively silly,” she complained.
Honoria Or The Safety 0f The Frying Pan Page 7