Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  His silhouette shifted as he swung to his feet, a hand outstretched. “It’s cold in here, is it not? And probably not lit. You must speak up. No one wishes to sit in the dark. Would you prefer to go somewhere warmer?”

  31

  Anna’s first reaction on hearing his intention had been surprise, followed by a sharp sense of disappointment.

  But then she scolded herself.

  Of course he would return to the sea. She remembered the sight of him on his quarterdeck, smiling up at the set of the sails. The sea was his first love. Everything else was duty.

  She was not certain of her own feelings about these tidings. That warmth was present each time she saw him, but she had learned enough not to trust that sensation, pleasing as it was, nor was she convinced that he felt it.

  She was pretty certain now that she knew who his “Emily” was. Anna refused to let her mind follow the paths of jealousy. Nothing in life so far had led her to believe that any good at all came out of jealousy promptings. Henry and Emily had certainly known one another when very young. They had probably been attached; whatever he had felt that night after the long battle, his initial wounds, and the burial of his men, must be put down to fever and tiredness. She understood it, and could forgive it.

  But she must know for certain that he wanted Anna to wife.

  And if that happened, she must remember that in the world of the sea, his chosen world, captains regularly left their wives behind for those long cruises.

  o0o

  As the succeeding days sped by, the household began by degrees to reflect the Christmas season. At first Anna was scarcely able to perceive the signs. For her, the cold encroached as steadily as the darkness, every day earlier. There was little sign of Christmas to be found, or at least Christmas as she had remembered as a child in Naples: the bright, warm sun, the music everywhere, and the Strada Toledo turned into a magical fair, with fruit festooned around the king of arbor in the street. All the shops decorated with gilt and ribbons and patterns to delight the eye.

  Here, the season was sedate, but she began to observe a brightening in individuals, even if there was little in the way of decoration.

  From Pratt, the gardener, to Mrs. Diggory, the servants moved about with an air of purpose; the days of straitened commons and making do had passed. Henry had indeed given orders for a room to be cleared downstairs and a fire lit for the servants until they retired at night.

  In her first interview with the new lord, Mrs. Diggory had been given carte blanche to hire back those servants who were needed to restore the house to what it had been, and she meant to live up to the trust his lordship placed in her.

  “He’s no fool, Master Henry as was,” she said to her particular friend, Mrs. Pillbury, the housekeeper at Colby Hall, as they sat in the latter’s sitting room over their tea and buttered scones. “He knows what’s o’clock. It’s that being a ship captain, Diggory says, and I think he is right. He was used to watching over those seamen, and if there is a worse parcel of rogues than sailors, I hope never to witness them. Eagles an’t in it! What’s more, if he don’t know a thing, he is not afraid to ask, and he listens to a body when she tells him how it’s always been done.”

  o0o

  The first snow to stick on the ground fell a few days later, developing rapidly to a blizzard that by Christmas Eve left a white world, clear as glass and shockingly cold.

  It was the day of the Elsteads’ ball. Parrette, put on her mettle, had made certain that Anna would stand out in pale peach silk, with an overskirt draped crosswise from the high waist, and embroidered from the waist down to the hem and all the way around in gold, green, and crimson figures of Egyptian birds.

  Crimson glittered at her neck and ears, and in her simple but elegant headdress, woven in among her high-dressed curls. Harriet, too, knew she was looking her best in white muslin beautifully draped and artfully embroidered with flourishes of cherry blossoms and leaves. When she met Anna at the stairs, she exclaimed, “Oh, you look beautiful! Are those rubies?”

  Emily, coming in behind as they gathered in the foyer, heard Anna laugh. “No! I own no rubies, or even diamonds. These are mere trinkets, garnets set in filigree. My father bought them for my mother.”

  “They are a lot prettier than most ruby necklaces I have seen,” Harriet began enviously. “Not that I have seen that many. But, I did not know Henry was so tight-fisted. Has he not given you any jewels at all? Not even a wedding band?” she added belatedly, noting Anna’s bare hands as she pulled on her gloves.

  “My wedding band was lost in the orlop aboard the Aglaea,” Anna said lightly. “And you must recollect that your brother has spent most of his time at sea, where I am certain there is a dearth of jewels to be had, even if he wished for them.”

  “Well, at all events, I think those will be thought the prettiest things in the room, even if they are garnets,” Harriet said generously, and then broke off as Perkins brought Henry downstairs.

  The snow squeaked under the wheels as the family rode toward the Groves for the Elsteads’ ball. Of the family only Harriet anticipated the revelries with uncomplicated emotions. Her ambitions therefore reached no higher than dancing every dance, as this was considered a family event, and therefore practice for the girls not yet out.

  Anna quieted her own apprehensions about not knowing English dances beyond the minuet by reflecting that Henry of course must sit out, therefore she must. No one would have the least interest in her as a partner.

  Emily’s anticipation was entirely taken up with her ambitions. She had engaged Frederick to dance with the new Lady Northcote to make certain (she said) that the lady had a good time at her first ball in Barford Magna. Where Frederick led, Emily knew, many of the young men followed, Providence only knew why; and in the meantime, he was too simple to reflect that if Lady Northcote was kept busy on the ballroom floor, there would be more time for Emily to devote to laying Henry’s ruffled plumage.

  All went at first as she planned. The house was full, decorated with holly boughs and all the potted plants in the conservatory that her mother had insisted on building as a bride, because she had been impressed with the greenhouses at Chatsworth on her single visit.

  Henry was welcomed by all, and conducted by Mrs. Squire Elstead to the best chair in the place. Emily was pleased at how handsome he looked—even the bandage bestowed an interesting air upon him. That scar marring one side of his face could be ignored if one took care to sit upon his other side, but at least he was not rendered hideous by a missing limb. She only hoped that when the bandage came off, whether he saw or not, there would be nothing to disgust in the appearance of his eyes.

  Because his father was too stout to dance, Frederick was to lead out the foreigner as principal woman of rank. Emily turned down two offers, claiming her widowhood was too soon for dancing, and watched complacently as her brother approached Lady Northcote.

  Then everything fell apart when the lady responded, “I do not know your dances. All I can perform is the minuet.”

  “But we begin with the minuet,” Frederick said, laughing. “My mother would think nothing of a ball that began with anything else.”

  Harriet took Anna’s hand. “Why did you not speak up? Of course there was mourning, but . . . Well, at all events, as for the country dances, why, there is nothing easier! If you can do the steps, then you just watch everyone around you, and you’ll have the figures.”

  Anna laughed. “So! If you will teach me, I will be happy to learn.”

  “Then we shall commence following the minuet. Cicely! Come help me. You shall call, since this is your house.”

  Emily watched her own sister come readily to Harriet’s imperious beckon, exactly as she had since they were small, no matter how hard she had tried to break her sister of the habit. Cicely and Frederick were entirely too biddable, but at least their docility served well now.

  She turned away, losing interest, so she missed the moment that Robert Colby, newly returned fro
m his season in London and his extended stay among people of rank, glimpsed Harriet Duncannon for the first time in four years.

  Robert had come to lead, and to be admired for his knowledge of the latest idiom, the latest dances and plays, and the excellence of his London tailor. He had not expected to discover his old friend Thomas Rackham taller than he by at least a hand.

  But, he saw on entering the Elsteads’ ballroom, there was not a decent waistcoat in the place, the cravats were as laughable as those old codgers still powdering their wigs. He fully expected to amaze the girls he had grown up with, and indeed, pretty little Cicely Elstead was staring at him in a gratifying way, but who was that elegant girl with squint-eyed Jane Rackham?

  She turned—Harriet Duncannon? Her flapping braids had somehow been knitted up into something very like the way the girls wore their hair at Almack’s, and her gown was somehow the nicest in the place, excepting only for the married women. She was laughing in the old style, but it was different. She was different, vastly changed in a way he could not have predicted.

  Their eyes met, Harriet dipped her head . . . and then, before Robert could make his leg and claim the first dance, she imperiously beckoned to Thomas.

  Perforce Robert turned to Cicely with a smile and an affect of carelessness as the line formed behind Frederick Elstead and the stunning baroness that everyone had been talking about.

  Ignoring the dancers completely, Emily advanced on Henry, to discover him in conversation with her own father, Dr. Blythe, and Sir Robert Colby.

  She changed direction, sighing with impatience, and glanced at the dancers in order to avoid elbows and knees. Of course Lady Northcote performed beautifully in the minuet. Emily had expected nothing else, and finding Mary Elstead at hand, whiled away the tedium in talking nothings.

  When the country dances began, Henry was lost entirely from view by a tight circle of broad blue and green and brown coats, as the men surrounded him to chatter about that tiresome war: she heard “Nelson,” “Wellesley,” and “India.”

  In the center of the room, the elegancy of the ordered dance had fast turned into a romp as the younger girls coached the foreign woman in the steps of the country dances.

  Anna was relieved to discover that the basic steps were little different than similar dances in France. It was the patterns that had altered. But those, she could follow, and Cicely began to call.

  Emily watched derisively as the dance reeled, turned, came together, weaving circles and squares and lines two by two, the foreign woman moving with a grace that caught the eye. Cicely and her friends all danced on their toes, the newest fashion, one Cicely had gained at her school and passed on to her friends. But they were not nearly as assured as Lady Northcote, who seemed to float. Almost the only ones not watching, besides the inveterate whist players, were Henry with his bandaged eyes, Dr. Blythe, and Emily’s father, still talking away at Henry, while he downed what appeared to be his fifth or sixth glass of wine punch.

  Emily turned her gaze back in time to see Anna execute a pretty rigadaun, as perfect as any opera dancer.

  Emily stilled. Was that it? What if Anna Ludovisi, whose connection to a duke Emily still did not believe, had become an opera dancer? She had no jewels—knew nothing of English dances—but she could discuss all the details of opera.

  Bitter fury surged through Emily. She knew it was entirely fancy, that she was putting together clues out of airy nothing, but at the same time she could not but reflect it would be just like Henry to marry his mistress out of hand, just to spite Emily, newly widowed and helpless.

  Except that the marriage was apparently some years old.

  And even if the foreigner were an opera dancer, she would not be the first low woman married by a nobleman.

  Enough foolish air-dreaming. It was time to rescue Henry from those old bores. Gratitude would be the first step toward regaining his devotion.

  But before she took a step, her mother caught her eye, and beckoned insistently. Emily was forced to comply, convinced that her mother’s imperious gesture had got half the room watching.

  On the floor, the dance ended.

  Anna cast a glance toward Henry, who continued to appear well occupied with his old friends. Yet as the third dance formed up, she thought she might have seen that wry smile he sometimes wore.

  She was distracted by the appearance of large, smiling Mrs. Rackham, who came up while Anna was standing in the middle of the line opposite the silent Thomas Rackham. “Lady Northcote, I believe I scarcely need say anything, for it is clear that you are a fast learner. But if you should wish to practice, I have the dancing master twice monthly, and all the young people are in the habit of coming to us. We make up a little party of it. I play to them, and they are able to make their mistakes where no one but us can see them, and become accustomed to company manners. I can heartily assure you that you would be most welcome.”

  “I should be grateful, oh, much,” Anna said. “But if this is a regular party, will I not be seen as the intruder?”

  Mrs. Rackham, clad in a gorgeous half-dress of yellow over green silk, shook with laughter, her diamond ear drops shimmering in the brilliant light. “Not the least! A married woman will not have her head turned when I say that the very young gentlemen are all agreed in admiring Lady Northcote, my son among ’em.”

  Anna understood at once that Tom Rackham, he of the high shirt points, danced mumchance not out of boredom, but shyness. She remembered the midshipmen, how boisterous and tender-hearted they were by turns, manfully taking on responsibilities that one would think too old for them, and in the next moment skylarking in the upper rigging. Manhood, she thought, was as difficult to define as womanhood—or wifehood.

  Mrs. Rackham, finding the hitherto silent Lady Northcote both agreeable and conversable, stood back as Anna and Tom danced down the line, and when the music ended, carried her to her own friend, Lady Ashburn, whose pale locks Anna had glimpsed in church. Though nothing direct was said, the women conveyed through hints that the senior Lord Northcote had disagreed with Sir William Ashburn over a question of enclosure, a disagreement that his son had inherited along with his land.

  That appeared to explain why the Ashburns were not part of the circles of calls. Anna found the lady’s slow voice pleasant on the ears, becoming animated only when the question of the school was raised. She wished the children to be taught music. “So useful as well as pleasant, and my father always said it was excellent discipline.”

  Anna nodded and agreed, distracted by another glimpse at Henry, and the increasingly wry smile thinning his lips as he listened to Squire Elstead talking.

  On the other side of the room, Mrs. Squire Elstead had delivered herself of a lengthy scold at Emily for being so obvious about watching Henry. “. . . and I must tell you that I witnessed every cat in the room looking your way. Even that muttonhead Mrs. Rackham. Nothing could be more fatal!”

  Emily blushed in vexation, and when her mother finally paused for breath, said in a low, furious voice, “And so you are busy goggling at me while Papa is on his sixth glass of punch. And won’t the evening end well if he falls down in the middle of the dishes?”

  She walked away, looking for the least objectionable person to talk to as her mother rustled away.

  The foreigner was now with fat Mrs. Rackham, talking away to that vulgar Augusta Ashburn, whose wealthy father had been the very tea merchant to find a place for John-Coachman’s son on one of his ships. Probably Henry’s wife could not even hear Augusta Ashburn’s Manchester accent; the woman should not have been invited, but Emily knew her mother was cultivating the Ashburns in case Cicely could do no better than their Bartholomew.

  Disgusted with her mother, with the whole dreary set, Emily walked to the corner opposite the musicians, where she engaged Mrs. Aubigny in conversational French, taking care to keep her back to the room. Let anyone dare to say she was hanging on Henry’s coat sleeves now!

  Though Anna and Henry were still on oppos
ite sides of the room, their conversational partners were both distracted as the footmen brought in fresh punch.

  Anna saw Mrs. Squire Elstead take her husband’s arm and walk him away, leaving Henry alone at last.

  Anna moved quickly to Henry’s side. “Are you quite well? There is punch just bringing in. Shall I fetch you a cup?”

  His breath hissed out. The noise had become insupportable; Squire Elstead’s voice resembled the buzzing of bees, while every barking laugh stabbed through his nerves as merciless as that first splinter wound. “Anna.” He lifted a hand, and she touched his fingers. He clasped her hand. “Who is by?” he murmured.

  “There is no one near us,” she whispered.

  “My head aches abominably,” he admitted. “Can you get me out without causing a to-do?”

  “Give me a moment.” Anna moved away. How did one summon the carriage? It was time for her to learn these things.

  She avoided the line forming for punch, and made her way to the side table bearing the plates of little cakes. A silent man in livery stood behind the table. Anna said to him, “Could you summon our coach to the front, without raising notice?”

  He bowed, caught the eye of a young footman circling about collecting cups, whispered, and the boy vanished with his tray through a discreet door.

  Unnoticed by anyone, Anna and Henry left the ball and soon climbed into the carriage, where he sank back. The flickering light of the lanterns set outside the windows caught the gleam of sweat above the bandage on his high brow.

  Henry grimaced as the coach jerked and began rolling. His hand groped for hers, and she took his fingers in her gloved hands. “I’m fairly well scuppered,” he admitted in a husky voice.

  “Then we shall get you home,” she promised.

  Home.

  The word came out so easily, so naturally. The sensation behind her ribs was too profound for happiness; it almost hurt, and she was aware that she could not be happy while Henry was in distress. Tears stung her eyes, not of grief but a poignant wonder, and she held his hands, and he hers, as they rode in silence.