“Young Thomas’ll bring it up any moment. Is it true, my lady, as the captain picked up Miss Anita with never a second thought?”
“Yes, is it not wonderful?”
“That it is, my lady, when I think how he was carried into Westwood like a bundle of laundry, thin and pale as a wet sheet and fragile as old lace.” Joan lifted the gown over Constantia’s head. “Mr Trevor says it was a Jewish lady, his lordship’s friend, physicked the captain and set him on the road to recovery.”
“Yes, a Mrs Cohen.” Returning to the stool at the dressing table, she ran her fingertip along the scar. The puckered skin felt as ugly as it looked. Miriam had cured Frank, saved him from life as a cripple. Was it possible she might have some remedy for so hideous a blemish?
Did she dare write and ask? She had heard enough about Miriam, from Felix first and then from Fanny and Frank, to be sure her secret would be kept. Nor did she suppose Miriam would take offence at being consulted by a stranger. She could write about Frank’s recovery and add her question as an afterthought, as though it did not really matter to her, as though she were asking for a friend.
“Joan, I want to write a letter.”
“Then you’ll have to put on a dress and go down to the bookroom, my lady. There’s no room in this cupboard for such things.” The abigail sniffed. “It’s not right your ladyship should be stuck in here.”
“Now, Joan, you know quite well that I offered to take this chamber. It is perfectly adequate, though I do miss the window seat. I trust you will do what you can to help Miss Fanny through this difficult time.”
“You know I will, my lady. We all will,” said Joan, injured. She added tartly, “But it’s to be hoped the rest of miss’s grand relations is somewhere between nasty-tempered blasphemers and hapless halfwits.”
Thomas arrived with the tray of tea. While she sipped at a cup, Constantia noticed her mother’s letter, lying unread on the dressing table. She slit the seal and unfolded the page.
Vickie and Miss Bannister had arrived safely at Westwood. Miss Bannister was laid up after the journey, leaving Vickie on her mother’s hands. Vickie was a hoydenish romp, quite unfit for a London Season. Constantia, on the other hand, was a perverse, disobedient miss. Her brother’s support of her insubordination only showed that he, too, was lacking in the most elementary sense of duty to his parents. Lady Westwood was displeased.
Constantia sighed. Maybe it would be best for all if she yielded to Mama and went home.
Finishing the tea, she dressed and left her chamber. Fanny and Anita were coming down the passage towards her, hand in hand. Anita ran to her.
“Are you awright, Aunt Connie? Me and Aunt Fanny’s coming to ask.”
“I drank a cup of tea, and now I am right as rain.”
“Good.” Beaming, she took Constantia’s hand.
Fanny studied her. “Are you sure you are fit to go down?”
“Yes, truly. I must write a letter. I have just read Mama’s.”
“Connie, you won’t leave? You promised.”
So, once again, she allowed herself to be persuaded to stay. “I shall tell her Oxshott’s heir is here,” she said wryly. “If she believes I have a chance to contract so desirable a match, perhaps she will stop demanding my return. She has been out of the world for so long I doubt she is aware of his deficiencies, and if she is she may not care.”
“You wouldn’t marry poor Dolph!”
“No. I shall never marry.” She had not meant to say that, but perhaps it was for the best.
“That’s what I thought until I met Felix,” said Fanny wisely, though she looked disappointed. She must imagine that if Constantia had not yet found her true love, then Frank was not the man.
Constantia hoped Fanny would find a way to tactfully dissuade her brother should he show signs of attempting to fix his interest--unless Miriam came up with a remedy for the scar.
She was not destined to write to either Miriam or her mother that morning. As she and Fanny and Anita reached the gallery above the hall, a brisk rat-tat on the front door brought Thomas at a run. He opened the door. A tall, lean, elderly lady in a huge puce bonnet surmounted by black plumes marched in as if she owned the house.
“I am Lady Elvira Kerridge,” she snapped. “Where is my brother, my good man?”
Thomas at once put on the impassive face of the well-trained footman, abandoned since leaving Westwood. “I believe his grace is above stairs, my lady, and not wishful to be disturbed. I shall inform the master of your ladyship’s arrival.”
“Master? Master? I suppose the Duke of Oxshott is master in his own house.”
“I don’t see why he should be,” drawled a sneering male voice, “since he ain’t master at home. At any rate, not now you are here, Aunt.”
An elegant gentleman in immaculate morning dress had entered behind Lady Elvira, forestalling Thomas’s effort to close the door. On his arm leant a plump lady in black with a veil hiding her face.
“Godfrey, my poor head,” she moaned in a failing voice. “I shall have a Spasm.”
“You shall lie down at once, Mama, with a tisane.”
“Hypochondriac!” snorted Lady Elvira.
After a moment of frozen dismay, Fanny had started down the stairs, leaving Constantia to follow, if she so chose, with Anita. She crossed the hall to the group by the door.
“I am Fanny Ingram,” she said brightly, “and you, I believe, must be my aunts and my cousin?”
Godfrey--the Honourable Godfrey Yates, Constantia remembered --performed an elaborate bow that was somehow a masterpiece of mockery. Lady Elvira produced a lorgnette and eyed Fanny from head to toe, and back again. Lady Yates moaned.
“And I’m your uncle Vincent, missy,” said a hearty gentleman with a brick-red face. Thrusting himself between the ladies, he enveloped Fanny in an embrace that made her squeak and surreptitiously rub her rear end. Then he turned and shouted, “Alicia, come and meet m’new niece!”
A small, meagre, fluttery lady in grey trotted after him, babbling. “Vincent, pray do not...My dear Miss Ingram...Too kind...So sorry...”
Constantia hesitated on the stairs. She ought to go down and help Fanny deal with the influx, but Anita’s presence could only complicate matters. The child was peering through the bannisters, fascinated by the newcomers.
And yet another newcomer appeared in the doorway, a smart young matron in an olive green carriage dress with epaulets and military frogging. She stood there regarding the scene with a sardonic expression. “La, all my charming relations,” she drawled. “My apologies for adding to their number, Miss Ingram, but when Father summoned me I was overcome by curiosity.”
Joan came hurrying along the gallery towards Constantia. “Thomas said the captain’s guests is come, my lady. Shall I take Miss Anita? You’ll be wanting to go down.”
“Yes, please, Joan. I am needed.”
Thomas must have made his escape to warn the household as soon as Fanny reached the hall, for Frank, Felix, Mrs Tanner, and Hoskins all came in as Constantia descended the stairs. Hoskins went out to deal with the visiting servants. Once introductions had been performed, Frank and Felix took Lord Vincent off for a glass of madeira before luncheon. Mr Yates, his contemptuous air slightly modified by Felix’s presence, said he’d join them as soon as he had assisted his mama to her chamber. Accompanying Lady Yates, Fanny invited Lady Elvira to go with her and confided Lady Vincent to Mrs Tanner’s care. Constantia was left with the remaining guest, Lydia, Lady Warrington, Lord Mentham’s sister.
“I daresay poor Dolph is here already?” she enquired in her fashionably languid drawl as they started up the stairs. “He left the moment Father’s letter arrived.”
“Lord Mentham arrived yesterday. He was staying with you?”
“Lord, no. We are all of us come straight from Telver Park, country seat of the Dukes of Oxshott since sixteen something or other. The rest all live there, leeching on Father. I’m staying because Warrington had to go to Paris on government business.”
“You were not able to go with your husband?”
“No, you see I’m...Wait just a moment and let me catch my breath,” she said as they reached the top of the flight. “You see, I’m in the family way.”
“Oh!” Constantia blushed. “I beg your pardon, we did not know. Ought you to climb the stairs?”
“Lord, yes, I’ll just take my time about it. You say ‘we.’ You know my cousins well?”
“I have not known them long but I have seen a good deal of them since first we met.”
“Father was mad as fire, I vow, when his lawyer announced he had found two nobodies who claimed to be heirs. I must say it’s a surprise to find they have acquaintance among the Ton. Tell me about them. I suppose you like them or you would not be here.”
“Fanny is betrothed to my brother,” Constantia explained. She was about to launch into a paean of praise of her future sister-in-law when a squawk of outrage rose from the group stopped at a door just ahead of them.
“Share?” Lady Elvira sounded exactly like her brother the duke, only an octave higher. “Share my chamber? With Millicent, and her pills and potions?”
“Perhaps you had rather share with Uncle Vincent,” suggested Godfrey Yates mockingly.
“Godfrey, my head!” gasped Lady Yates, drooping. “If I am forced to share a chamber I shall not sleep a wink, and you know how shockingly ill that makes me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Fanny resolutely, “but this house is no mansion. Every bedchamber will be occupied.”
“My dear aunts,” said Lady Warrington, “pray recall that Cousin Fanny did not invite us! But perhaps one of you would prefer to share with me? I suffer horridly from morning sickness, alas.”
Lady Elvira gave her a venomous glance and stalked into the room. Lady Yates, transferring her clutch from her son’s arm to Fanny’s, pressed the other delicate hand to her heart and stumbled after her sister. As Fanny followed perforce, she turned her head and rolled her eyes at Constantia.
“We thought it best to put them together,” Constantia said anxiously to Lady Warrington as they continued along the passage. “They are sisters, after all.”
“And have been at daggers drawn since before I entered this world. Am I to share with you, or with Cousin Fanny?”
“No, you and I each have a very small chamber to ourselves, much too small to share, and Fanny has Anita with her.” She explained Anita’s presence in the household.
“La, what a shame I did not bring my son with me. David is just three and would be
aux anges
to have a playmate. Still, I imagine you might have found it difficult to accommodate him and his nurse. Tell me, Lady Constantia, is Dolph in a room with Cousin Godfrey?”
“Yes, none of us quite liked to ask your father...”
“Say no more! Poor Dolph. And my uncle and aunt Vincent?”
“They are man and wife!” As long as she could remember, Lord and Lady Westwood had had separate rooms, but Fanny had assumed Lord and Lady Vincent would wish to be together, even if there had been a choice.
“They have not shared a room in a decade or more.” Lady Warrington laughed. “This will spike his guns. Your housemaids should be grateful. Not that I imagine Uncle Vincent ever gets much beyond pinching the occasional bottom.”
Blushing again, Constantia was glad to reach the door of Lady Warrington’s chamber. Showing her in, she said, “We have a cold collation for luncheon at about one o’clock. Shall you come down or would you like a tray up here?”
Lady Warrington glanced around the tiny, shabby room. “I shall come down. I’m eating for two, remember, and there is not space enough in here for all the food I require. Besides, I am eager to see my dear papa, I vow, and discover what he is scheming.”
“Scheming?”
“He is not staying here for the pleasure of the amenities, that is certain! My dear Lady Constantia, pray do not look so offended. I allow my tongue too free a rein, I know. I am well aware that my cousins have scarcely had time to realize their good fortune, let alone to refurbish the place. I promise I shall say nothing to them that might be taken amiss. Now, you were asking about Father’s scheming.”
“The duke said he wished to become better acquainted with his niece and nephew, and to make them acquainted with their other relatives.”
“La, how charmingly benevolent! No, he certainly has some nefarious business in mind, but you must not let it disturb you. Though Father makes a good deal more noise than Dolph, he is not much brighter and his plots almost always go astray.”
Almost
always, thought Constantia, leaving Lady Warrington to the ministrations of her abigail. Ought she to warn Fanny and Frank that the duke’s daughter suspected him of plotting against them?
Chapter 14
Lady Warrington’s warning of future trouble was driven from Constantia’s mind by the troubles of the present. As she returned towards the hall, she met Mrs Tanner emerging from the chamber allotted to Lord and Lady Vincent. The usually placid housekeeper was looking decidedly ruffled.
“I don’t know what to do, my lady. Her ladyship’s in high fidgets because she’s to share a bed with her husband.”
Constantia blenched. “Where is Miss Fanny?”
“Still trying to stop the other ladies pulling caps.”
“See if you can find a truckle bed, Mrs Tanner, but Lady Vincent will have to share a chamber, at least, unless she is willing to move into the servants’ quarters. We cannot disrupt all our arrangements at this stage.” She braced herself. “I shall go and talk to her.”
Lady Vincent Kerridge was a picture of pathos, huddled in a low chair with tears trickling down her face. Her frilled white cap sat lopsidedly on untidy grey hair and an equally crooked brooch on her meagre bosom pinned a grey shawl about her thin shoulders.
“So sorry,” she wept. “I simply cannot...I do wish...But you will think...You see, it is...”
What it was took Constantia ten minutes of patient probing to discover. At last she elicited a whispered admission that Lady Vincent was afraid her husband would “bother” her.
Constantia put her hands to her fiery cheeks. Really, she had blushed more since Fanny’s relatives’ arrival than in the rest of her life to date. She wondered if she might have misunderstood.