The phrase at first made her dread their imminent arrest. Further listening enlightened her. As a peer, her father was immune to debtors’ prison--for debt it was had sent him home: too many years of high living on a moderate income until the baron and baroness dared not step outside their London door for fear of duns. The town house had been let for the Season, might even have to be sold.
Further retrenchments were necessary. Miss Porringe was given notice.
“A great girl like you has no need of a governess,” said Lady Roscoe in her languid fashion. “Indeed, too much learning is altogether undesirable. How shocking it would be to have a bluestocking for a daughter. You are not bookish, I trust, Alicia?”
“Oh no, Mama!” cried Alicia, eager to please the beautiful, fashionable mother she scarcely knew. “I like best to be outdoors.”
“Indeed! That is quite as bad.” Lady Roscoe inspected her daughter closely. “I perceive your face is already grown shockingly brown although spring is scarcely come. A girl’s complexion is one of her most precious assets, child, and must be carefully guarded.” With a faint smile she tilted her head, turning away from the bright spring sunshine pouring through the window. “Mine is frequently much admired. Of course, I married very young.”
“Yes, Mama,” said Alicia, a trifle less eagerly. She did not like the way the conversation was tending.
“Is it possible that you go outside without a hat and a parasol?”
“Sometimes, Mama,” she confessed.
“Disgraceful! I can see it is most fortunate that I am come home to take charge of your education. Who better than your mama to teach you how to go on in Society?”
The question was unanswerable, but Alicia had no interest in Society. She wanted to be out sailing with Pirate, or fishing, or riding on the moors, preferably with him, but without when he was unavailable.
“Yes, Mama,” she said glumly.
“Well, I am sure I cannot spare you any of my Distilled Water of Green Pineapples, for there is no knowing when I shall be able to replace it. You will just have to stay indoors until the colour has faded.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Lady Roscoe shivered delicately. “Fetch me my shawl, child. This house is horridly draughty. I do not know how I shall bear to rusticate here.”
The baroness’s instructions were not to be disregarded, as Alicia had so often disregarded her governess’s. For the next fortnight, she never set foot out of doors. She did not even go out to the stables to see Comet and the dogs, now banished from the house.
She spent her time with her mama, running for shawls, which her ladyship tended to discard about the house; disentangling embroidery silks, which seemed to knot themselves, for her ladyship scarcely ever set a stitch though her hoop was always by her; writing letters from dictation, when her ladyship discovered her hand was clear and reasonably elegant, if still a trifle childish; reading aloud from the gossip columns of the papers, which arrived five days late, to her ladyship’s displeasure; and performing a thousand other small tasks.
Alicia bore all patiently, living for the day when her complexion had improved to the point where she was allowed out again. She would even put up with hats, veils, and parasols, though how she was to manage a parasol on horseback she had no notion. Above all, she missed Comet and she longed for a long gallop.
Every day she scrutinized her face in the glass. It seemed to her to pale excruciatingly slowly.
However, one day her mother received a note from friends who were passing through the area on their way from Plymouth to Truro.
“The Dendridges will call tomorrow morning,” exclaimed Lady Roscoe in delight. “How pleasant it will be to see civilized faces for once. I shall not need you, Alicia. You may take yourself off.”
Lady Roscoe was still abed when Alicia hurried out to the stables early next morning.
Her mare had been sold.
* * * *
Lord Roscoe, alarmed to discover the extent of his debts, had every intention of retrenching. All unnecessary expenses must be cut. By his reckoning, comparatively small outlays, such as his daughter’s governess and her mount, would add up to hundreds over the years.
Unfortunately, many much larger expenditures were irreducible.
As eldest son of the house, Rupert was entitled to an allowance to enable him to reside in London, if not in high style. James would finish at Eton in July and was bound for the army. His lieutenancy would cost a pretty penny, and no junior officer of noble birth could be expected to live on his pay. Edward, willy-nilly, was to enter the church. The local incumbent was an aged gentleman who was bound to pop off the hooks by the time Edward took orders. In the meantime, the living still had to be paid, as well as Edward’s school fees and then his university expenses.
Nor did his lordship, though free of the burden of the London house, succeed in cutting his household expenses by much. One must have carriages, and therefore carriage-horses and the grooms to care for them. The indoor staff which sufficed for the four children, with only occasional short visits by their parents, was obviously insufficient with the baron and baroness in residence. And the gardens could not be abandoned to go wild. More fruit and vegetables than ever were needed, and her ladyship like to have flowers about the house.
Furthermore, if she were forced to rusticate, then at least she must invite friends to visit. One could not entirely cut oneself off from decent society!
From Alicia’s point of view, the one blessing was that when Mama and Papa had guests, she was free, comparatively. Hatted and parasoled, she went for long, solitary rambles through the countryside.
One day early in August, she was returning home when she heard hoofbeats behind her, then a hail.
“Allie, is that you under all the paraphernalia?”
She would know that voice anywhere. “Pirate!” Joyfully she turned as he swung down from his horse.
“Not riding?”
The whole story poured out as they walked on. Pirate was deeply sympathetic.
“Parents do seem to have a knack of making a mess of things,” he sighed. “Not that I should complain, I suppose, since Father bought the Buccaneer. She is a splendid vessel, Allie! That is what I have come about, to settle a date for the cruise I promised you.”
“Really and truly? I feared Lord Orford must have forgotten.”
“Well, I have not. She will be at Fowey for the next fortnight at least, so any fine day will do.”
“Any day will do for me,” Alicia said passionately. “I do not care if it is stormy. But I suppose it will depend upon Mama and Papa.”
“Is Ned at home?”
“No, he is staying with a school friend in Somerset, and James has gone into the army, and I do not know where Rupert is, but not here.”
“Poor Allie-oh, all alone and `cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d.’ That is Macbeth--I have learnt something at school. I’m going to be at home for a while. If you can sneak out, I shall take you out in the dinghy one day.”
“Oh yes! As well as the Buccaneer?”
“Of course.”
“I pray Mama does not say I may not go with you on the Buccaneer!”
The invitation from the Earl of Orford was too flattering to be declined. A day was named, after the departure of the present set of guests, with an alternate in case of bad weather. Alicia was aux anges.
At the last minute, Lady Roscoe discovered that Lady Orford and her daughters would not be present. They travelled in the yacht for convenience, but a pleasure cruise was another matter. The baroness was in two minds whether to go.
“Obviously the outing is intended for gentlemen,” she lamented.
Seeing her treat about to vanish, Alicia was on the point of daring to declare that, on the contrary, it was intended for her, when her father intervened.
“My dear, the invitation was directed to both of us. A little excursion will do your spirits a world of good. You may take your maid and the child for company, you know.”
“Oh, very well. Life is so tedious I have near forgot how to enjoy myself, I vow.”
Alicia breathed again. Now all she had to worry about was the ever changeable weather, and whether her mother would rise in the morning early enough for them to reach Fowey to catch the tide.
A glorious day and the prospect of a change of scene brought Lady Roscoe from her bed at what she described as dawn. The landau to Polruan and the ferry across the river to Fowey brought them to the harbour in good time. Pirate and Lord Orford welcomed them aboard.
The earl was as eager to display the luxurious comforts below deck as Pirate was to explain the yacht’s workings above. Lady Roscoe, far more interested in the former, accepted Lord Orford’s escort down the steep stairway. Her abigail clambered after them.
Lord Roscoe and Alicia stayed on deck. If Alicia rather lost track of the technical details, she was more than happy just to be near Pirate, to watch his enthusiastic face and wonder at his knowledge.
A sturdy, grizzled man came over to them. “Begging your pardon, m’lord, miss. Mr. Pendragon, it’s about time we cast off. Take the wheel, if you please.”
“May I?” Pirate’s already bright face glowed. “Oh, sir, this is Captain Denby. Excuse me, pray!”
As he hurried to the wheel, Captain Denby said, “M’lord, I’ll ask you and the young lady to step aside here, if you don’t prefer to go below. My hands will be running about raising sail.”
“Oh, Papa, pray let us stay here, let us stay on deck!” Alicia begged.
He smiled, and seemed about to concur, when Lord Orford came up from the cabins.
“Your mama wishes you to step below, missy,” he said. “Come, take my hand. The ladder is steep.”
One glance at her father assured Alicia that he would not go against her mother’s wishes. Bitterly chagrined, she accepted the earl’s assistance and entered the cabin.
“My dear child,” Lady Roscoe greeted her, “nothing, absolutely nothing, can be more injurious to the complexion than sea air! And those rough men rushing about...We shall be excessively comfortable here. See how charming Lord Orford has made everything, and he has ordered tea to be brought from the galley, which is what a kitchen is called at sea, I collect. Why, one might almost suppose oneself in the most elegant of drawing rooms on land.”
A drawing room! That was not what Alicia had been anticipating for months. But it was no use arguing with Mama. She just stopped listening.
And Pirate was steering the boat, so Alicia would not even have the pleasure of his company. Blinking back tears of disappointment, she sat down by a window, where she could at least watch the little grey and white town receding as the ebb tide swept the Buccaneer down to the sea.
Then they passed St. Catherine’s Point and met the sea swells. Lady Roscoe gulped and turned green.
“I wouldn’t wish Mama to be seasick,” Alicia earnestly assured Pirate, standing beside him at the wheel, “but you must admit it is most providential. She has retired to a sleeping cabin and does not care to have anyone but her maid with her. She is in no case to wonder where I am.”
“Most providential,” said Pirate, grinning.
The Buccaneer tacked down to Falmouth, where Lady Roscoe was carried ashore, moaning and vowing never again to set foot on a sea-going vessel.
“I fear I shall have to escort her home by road,” sighed Lord Roscoe. “She will not travel in a hired carriage, so one must be sent for from home.” He glanced at Alicia. “I cannot think what I am to do with the child in the meantime.”
“Allie shall sail back with us,” cried Pirate. “Father, pray may not Miss Roscoe come with us? I shall take good care of her, sir.”
The earl indulgently agreed. Lord Roscoe demurred, but briefly. With a hasty admonishment to be a good girl and not cause her kind host any trouble, he followed his wife ashore, leaving a blissful Alicia aboard.
It was a wonderful day, and another two followed, for not until the evening of the third did Lord and Lady Roscoe reach home. Alicia spent both days with Pirate, sailing in the dinghy on the Fowey.
All too soon, life resumed its tedious pattern.
* * * *
For the next three years, Alicia’s life continued on the same humdrum course. Her mother grew more and more plaintive, her father more and more worried.
She saw Pirate at intervals, but he left school and was become a grown-up now, a gentleman who rarely visited Cornwall. When he did come, it was generally with a house party which had as little time for a schoolroom chit as did Lord and Lady Roscoe’s friends.
As Alicia’s seventeenth birthday approached, her mother cheered up.
“It is such a pity your birthday is in May,” she told her daughter. “You are just too young to make your come-out this Season. But next year you will be the perfect age. How I long to see London again!”
Alicia’s training in the arts and conduct expected of a young lady suddenly became of vital interest to Lady Roscoe, as her ticket to Town.
Whatever the reason, Alicia enjoyed being important for a change. As she strove to meet her mother’s exacting standards, she found herself quite looking forward to making her bow to Society.
After all, Pirate was part of the Beau Monde, spending most of his time in London, he had told her, when he was not on board the Buccaneer.
One autumn day, at the dinner table--Alicia was permitted to join her parents for dinner, now, when there were no guests--Lady Roscoe said to her husband, “I believe Alicia will do us credit when we go to London, Roscoe. It is a great pity you chose to sell our house, without recalling that we should soon need it for her presentation. It is time to order your man of business to look about for a house to let, or all the best ones will be taken.”
“London?” cried his lordship. “My dear ma’am, there is no question of London. Your daughter will have to find herself a husband in Cornwall, for a Season is so far beyond my purse that London might as well be the moon!”
London, 1814
Twenty years later, as she watched her own girls enjoying the sparkling society at Almack’s, Alicia recalled her mother’s fury and sighed. At the time, she had been quite frightened by Lady Roscoe’s rage, as well as disappointed that she was not to have her Season after all.