Elisabeth Kidd (11 page)

“All that can wait,’’ he said. “First we must announce you to London.”

Sydney discovered what he meant by this when, on the following afternoon—after a second morning visit to the modiste for final adjustments to her first London gown—they set out for Hyde Park. They made only one leisurely turn around the Park, but this was more than sufficient, for it was obvious that the ladies and gentlemen who strolled, rode, or drove there were less interested in these activities than in observing one another.

Sydney’s being a new face, she naturally attracted a good deal of attention, some of it far from courteous, but most very gratifying. Prudence, who seemed to know who everyone was, even if she was an intimate of very few, instructed Sydney to whom she must merely nod, and on whom she might bestow a modest smile. Sydney was relieved to see that several very elegant gentlemen were included in this last category, and wondered who they might be, their names being as yet unfamiliar to her. Cedric’s little party did not stop to speak to anyone, but it was soon revealed that this was part of the initiation ritual, as Sydney came to call it.

On the following morning, the second phase opened with a spate of callers, all of whom professed to be delighted to see Mrs. Whitlatch again in Town, and all of whom stared at Sydney while they said it. Several ladies left their cards or came in, towing their various offspring behind them, ostensibly to welcome Miss Archer to London but covertly to see how their daughters compared with her in looks and fortune, and whether they would profit by a closer acquaintance with her.

Sydney’s looks were sufficiently unorthodox to perturb many mothers uncertain of their effect on their—or other mamas’—sons, and her connection with the Marquess of Lyle was sufficiently vague to cause further uncertainties as to her prospects. However, she was given the benefit of the doubt because her naturally warm spirit—when she guarded her tongue—ingratiated her with the mothers, made her fast friends of the daughters, and enslaved the sons.

Prudence’s own son Rudolph, known to everyone except his mama as Dolph, made a belated entrance when it began to appear that the traffic through the house on Grosvenor Square was going to be heavy all season, and that perhaps the rather lonely life he led in his fashionable but cramped bachelor quarters in Albemarle Street might not suit him so well after all. A taller, but equally slim edition of his younger sister, Dolph was an attractive young man of twenty, with sleek fair hair and an innate good taste that he had not yet learned to trust. His own opinion of himself, in fact, was not high in spite of his mother’s fussy concern for him, and he tended to make impulsive remarks and awkward gestures that utterly failed in their intent to project an image of himself as a man-about-town. He was as reverential towards Cedric Maitland, in his way, as Susan was in hers, for Cedric was his ideal—at least when Lyle, who intimidated him as much as he inspired him, was not present.

Dolph smiled nervously at Sydney when Susan made the introductions and ran his hand anxiously over his hair before making a formal bow to her.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, if I have been remiss in my attentions,” he apologized. Sydney thought he looked rather proud of himself for having produced this stilted phrase. Sir Gavin Thiers—a large pleasant-faced gentleman, a friend of Cedric’s some years senior to the young Whitlatches, who had called
without
his mama a few moments before Dolph’s arrival—smiled at this and raised his eyebrows eloquently. Sydney spoke before he could.

“There is no need to beg my pardon, sir. I am certain you have many more interesting matters to occupy you than merely to wait on your sister’s friend. I am very glad to meet you, however.”

Sir Gavin’s eyebrows came down again. “Ho! Now you are roasting us, Miss Archer! I assure you, there is nothing any gentleman who sees you will rather do than to call on you immediately!”

Sydney smiled and replied, “Then it is fortunate that I have been only
once
around the Park, Sir Gavin, for as you see, this is a very small parlour.’’

“You will shortly be obliged to engage the Opera House to receive your callers, ma’am.”

“Oh, but how inconvenient! Is there no other place to accommodate these hordes you envision, sir?”

“Perhaps if you were to make a processional, Miss Archer—as Royalty does when it wishes to be seen but not to—ah, receive.”

Sydney laughed at this, but it was shortly thereafter that her first opportunity arose to meet all the people who Sir Gavin claimed had heard of her. Her next callers were Mrs. de Lamartine and her daughter Janine Forsythe. Sydney had not been informed of Lady Romney’s suggestion to the Marquess of Lyle that Sydney might do well to befriend Janine, but this was just as well, for although Sydney saw at a glance that Mrs. de Lamartine was just such a person as might be a bosom-bow of Lady Romney, she had not been prejudiced against Miss Forsythe, who was not at all like her mama and was very much to Sydney’s taste.

Sylvie de Lamartine, a tall, willowy lady with improbably salmon-coloured hair and a long face, smiled condescendingly at Sydney when they were introduced, and then went off to speak privately with Prudence, leaving Janine to sit down beside Sydney—Sir Gavin having made his polite exit some time before.

“Oh, Miss Archer!” Janine exclaimed, her pretty green eyes sparkling with anticipation, “how glad I am to meet you!” She spoke in a kind of rushed whisper, as if to speak more loudly would mean having to say less and therefore not tell everything she had on her mind. “Mrs. Whitlatch, you may know, wrote to my mama that you would be coming and asked particularly that we be allowed to be friends, and I could see right away when I came here that we would be, which was a surprise, for generally when one’s mama insists on one’s being friends with someone, that someone so often turns out to be not at all congenial. Isn’t that so?”

Sydney did not know whether it was so or not, having no experience in such matters, but she agreed that it would be nice to have a friend one could confide in, which hope she immediately put to the test by enquiring frankly of Janine if the extraordinary shade of her mother’s hair was her own.

Janine did not seem offended by the question, or even uncomfortable as Susan might have been, and she replied directly, “Oh, yes! That is, Mama tells me it was so when she was my age—for as you can see, my own hair is quite red, though not so bright as Mama’s—but it is, shall we say, no longer
naturally
her own colour. Her hairdresser, Monsieur Antoine, does something to it which is a secret even I do not know, so you must not tell anyone I told you about it.”

Sydney assured her she would not breathe a word, for her cousins had long impressed on her that it was ungentlemanly to repeat confidences. This interested Janine, who wanted to know all about Sydney’s family, in return for which Janine told her all about her season thus far, which—as she had arrived in London some weeks ago—was well in train.

Sydney received the impression that Janine was both a very self-possessed young lady—having been reassured by her mother continually since her infancy of her superiority—but at the same time clear-sighted enough to realize her own limitations of birth, fortune, and accomplishment, all of which attributes she possessed in only moderate degree. Janine would surely be the most felicitous companion Sydney could have in London.  She told her so, begging also for her advice on her own debut.

“Oh, yes!” Janine exclaimed. “It is for that very reason that we have called today. We are giving a dinner party on Thursday, and you are invited! That is, you and Mrs. Whitlatch, and Dolph naturally, and I think Susan also, although she is too young for proper parties, but this one will be just among us friends, and although there will not be dancing, there will be musicians to play afterwards, and card tables, and other things—oh, you will enjoy it, Sydney, I know!’’

Sydney knew she would do so, Janine’s gaiety being infectious, and she arrived at the de Lamartine home on Thursday in the same mood. Mr. de Lamartine, Janine’s stepfather, a portly and retiring gentleman some years his wife’s senior, retired in deed as well as disposition immediately after being introduced to his guests, leaving them to enjoy his hospitality unhampered by his presence. This seemed to be his habitual style of entertaining, however, and it was generally accepted as not at all out of the way. Mrs. de Lamartine was resplendent in blue silk and diamonds, and Janine delightful in pale yellow muslin with a satin ribbon in her hair.

On Janine’s insistence, Sydney had been lent the services of Monsieur Antoine, who had cut and arranged her hair in the style known as à la Sappho, an artless arrangement of curls that suited Sydney’s face and personality very well. She had shown off her new white craped-muslin gown, with knots of ribbon around the hem, to Cedric before they set out, to which that gentleman had said merely, “Mmmm. Very nice. Where did you get it?”

Sydney told him, looking once more into the mirror to see if there was anything not quite right. She was about to ask him what he meant by his less than fulsome praise, but Cedric whisked her out the door with an assurance that it was “quite the thing for a young lady’s first party.’’

By the time Sydney had been introduced to a number of gentlemen, she had quite forgotten Cedric’s remarks, for each of them gazed appreciatively at her as if there were nothing to be improved in her appearance. To be sure, Prudence had gone out of her way to introduce her several times as “Lyle’s ward, you know—the only daughter of his dearest friend, Major Archer,” which seemed to have the effect desired by her chaperone but which was very little appreciated by Sydney, who was obliged by honesty to follow in Prudence’s wake reducing her father to the rank he had in fact held.

Sir Gavin Thiers was present and proved to be a universal favourite—of young men, whose adventures he encouraged, of hostesses needing someone agreeable to make up the numbers at table or cards, and of shy young ladies who found him comfortable if not romantic—and Mrs. de Lamartine introduced Sydney to Edward Kingsley, a distant cousin of the un-lamented Mr. Whitlatch. A good-looking young man with curly blond hair and appealing crinkly lines at the corners of his blue eyes, he was nevertheless—Janine confided to Sydney later—regarded as dangerous. He thought rather better of himself than of anyone else, Janine whispered, and there was no telling that he might not break a heart or two, or tread unthinkingly on someone’s feelings. When he felt himself properly deferred to, however, Mr. Kingsley could be charming, and encouraged by his hostess, he paid punctilious court to each lady in turn. Sir Gavin, who had a humourous twinkle in his brown eyes that Sydney found attractive, did much the same thing in a less obvious manner.

Mr. Kingsley was especially attentive to Sydney at dinner, much to the mock distress of Sir Gavin, who sat opposite them and several places away, and pulled faces at Sydney whenever she looked his way. Fortunately, whenever Sydney laughed at him, Mr. Kingsley, who spared Sir Gavin nary a glance, took it as appreciation of his own wit, which made Sydney remember Prudence’s advice about witty young ladies, and she laughed even more, until it began to get around that Miss Archer and Miss Forsythe were two of the merriest girls—called silly by some, but delightful by most—at the party, and indeed of the season.

After dinner, the company trouped dutifully into the music room to attempt to listen to a Haydn quartet over the clatter of glassware brought in from the dining room and the chatter of persons who had not yet completed their conversations. Sydney was one of the few guests who listened intently to the music, but remembering Cedric’s remarks on the matter, she refrained from making any more knowledgeable comment than “very pretty” when Sir Gavin came to ask her how she liked it. Since this seemed to indicate the requisite lack of appreciation, Sir Gavin also informed her that a game of piquet was being started in another room. Sydney felt a momentary pang of sympathy for the musicians, but since they seemed inured to people who walked off in the middle of a movement, she allowed Sir Gavin to lead her away.

Presently, the card room too began to fill up. Sydney and Sir Gavin were paired with Janine and Cedric. Prudence, keeping Susan near her, sat behind a marble bust of Nelson and tried to look inconspicuous while putting her daughter forward—rather like Nelson, Sydney thought—to be admired. Mrs. de Lamartine curiously displayed a greater interest in Sydney than in her own daughter, and she frequently paused to watch her, an indefinable expression on her long face. Fortunately, Sydney did not much care for either Mrs. de Lamartine or her opinions, and was thus able to continue to converse with her partner in her usual natural and unaffected way.

Near the end of the rubber, Edward Kingsley came to ask if she would care to try her luck at backgammon next. Sydney, who was not playing opposite Cedric, looked to him for permission to join what seemed to her a pastime her guardian would scoff at as childish. Cedric, however, did not do so.

“Skill, my dear Kingsley,” he said, studying the cards in his hand. “It is skill which makes the luck at backgammon.’’

“You must come as well, then,” Edward challenged him, “and try your
skill.’’

Cedric laid down his cards and smiled across at Sydney. “Shall we?”

“Oh, yes, please!”

The backgammon was being played for twopence a point, which caused Sydney a momentary twinge of conscience, but since neither her uncle nor her guardian was present, she ruthlessly suppressed it and had a very gay time indeed. When the gathering broke up at a late hour, Sydney discovered herself the richer by two shillings, a circumstance of which she boasted all the way home. Susan, who had not won anything, nevertheless had had a very good time too, and Prudence, who counted up the titles and the fortunes of the various gentlemen present, also declared herself satisfied with the evening.

“I should warn you, however, my dear, that you must not let Mr. Kingsley become too attentive. He may be very handsome—and I am the first to agree that he is—but everyone knows he has not a feather to fly with and must marry an heiress if he is to recoup his father’s losses at faro!’’