Authors: A London Season
"Many,” Anne said firmly, and steered her into yet another shop.
At first Jane had not minded greatly. Her artist's eye appreciated the beauty of the colors and fabrics of the frocks she tried on. And Anne was relieved to discover that Jane's taste was impeccable. After a week, however, she rebelled. There was a heated argument between the two girls which left them both exasperated and feeling the other one was totally unreasonable.
"I never heard of a girl who didn't want new clothes!” Anne finally cried.
"Anne, if you mention one more word about clothes,” Jane said with dangerous calm, “I will take a scissor to the mountains of garments you have already purchased for me.” She meant it. Anne capitulated.
"Very well, I suppose I can finish the shopping myself. There are only gloves and shawls and things like that left to purchase."
"Splendid. You do that,” Jane told her.
"And what are you so anxious to do, Jane,” Anne asked stiffly, “that you can't take time to shop with me?"
Jane's eyes sparkled. “I am going to look at paintings,” she said with great satisfaction.
The first letter David received from Jane in London had been full of complaints, about shopping. The second was quite different.
"Dear David,” it began. “I have made the acquaintance of the most marvelous painter. His name is Mr. Turner and he has a studio here in London. I was looking for a painting to send as a present to Miss Becker, and my uncle took me to the Royal Academy. It was there that I saw Mr. Turner's work for the first time.
"David, he is magnificent. Next day I dragged Anne around to his studio in Harley Street and saw some more of his work. He had two things in particular—one a picture of the falls at Schaffhausen and another of a shipwreck—that were the most wonderful things I have ever seen. I dream about them. The color! The light!
"He is very shy, but he was terribly kind to me. He invited me to attend a lecture he is giving on perspective at the Royal Academy and he asked to see a sample of my work. I'm extremely nervous. This is a man whose opinion I would tremble before. What if he doesn't like what I am doing?
"I am to see him again in two days’ time. I shall write to tell you what happens. It hangs over me like the Day of Judgment.
"But enough of me and my doings. How are you? How do things look for the Newmarket Meet?"
The rest of the letter dealt with David, Heathfield, and the horses. Only one paragraph at the end of this rather lengthy epistle referred to the social world of London, to which she was to be formally introduced in a week's time. “Uncle Edward is throwing a big ball next week,” she wrote. “Anne is in a frenzy over it. They have invited five hundred people! It is going to be dreadful. Imagine the boredom of an evening spent trying to be polite to five hundred strangers. However, Anne and Uncle Edward seem to think I should be overjoyed at the prospect, so I dutifully smile whenever they bring the subject up. The only thing that has interested me so far, I must honestly say, is the food. There are going to be lobster patties. I think I shall spend the evening in the supper room."
Thus wrote Jane on the eve of her debut at the first and the most brilliant ball of the London Season.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
—William Shakespeare
Rayleigh House in Grosvenor Square was brilliantly lit on the night of the ball given by the Marquis and Marchioness of Rayleigh to introduce the Marquis's niece, Lady Jane Fitzmaurice, to London Society. Carriages were lined up before the house, waiting for up to forty-five minutes before it was their turn to pull up before the door of Rayleigh House. The marble hall was filled with the most distinguished persons in town, all talking and laughing as they waited to go up the stairs to greet their host and hostess.
The ball was a success before it even started. All of the Right People had come. Many of them came because of the Marquis; quite a few came because of Anne; all came because they were intensely curious to meet Jane. The rumor of her beauty combined with some hair-raising tales about her exploits on the hunting field had piqued the curiosity of the ton. They were not disappointed.
Jane wore a dress of palest ice blue gauze over an underdress of white satin. Her hair was dressed high over a pearl-encrusted comb. Around her slender neck were clasped her mother's pearls. Her eyes, the color of which was repeated in her gown, were startling against the black of her hair and lashes. She smiled rarely; there was a look of beautiful severity on her face as she stood beside Anne, greeting the arriving guests.
Long before the last of the guests had arrived, Jane's hand had been claimed for every dance. Anne had told her not to dance twice with anyone and Jane had no pangs about following her instructions. She moved through the evening unaware of the effect her beauty and the strange intensity of her personality were having upon her partners. No one before had ever seen such a self-possessed seventeen-year-old debutante. Her manners were impeccable, but the arrogant carriage of her head betrayed her. Jane was not impressed by London Society.
John Bellerman had asked her to have supper with him and Jane had been happy to accept. John Bellerman at Heathfield had been a nuisance; in London, he was a familiar face and Jane, who was only comfortable among people she knew, was genuinely glad to see him.
"There are lobster patties,” she told him seriously. “Let's make sure we get there before they are all gone."
He was happy to oblige. He found her a seat and had gone off to fill up some plates when Anne came up to her with a tall, fair man. “Jane,” she said, “may I introduce Mr. Julian Wrexham? If you don't mind, we will join you and John for supper."
Jane looked up into the handsome, fine-boned face of Julian Wrexham and felt a slight shock of recognition. She frowned slightly as she acknowledged the introduction and turned to Anne after he had gone to procure her some supper. “Who is Mr. Wrexham, Anne?” she asked. “He looks familiar. Have I ever met him?"
"I don't think so, Jane,” Anne answered. “He is not part of your uncle's set."
"Oh. Then he is a friend of yours."
"Not really, although I am of course acquainted with him."
Jane stared at her in amazement. “If neither you nor Uncle Edward knows him, why on earth did you invite him?"
Anne sighed. “Jane, you are such an innocent. Wrexham is the nephew and heir of the Earl of Wymondham, one of the premier noblemen in the kingdom. As such, he is asked everywhere. I am delighted that he chose to accept our invitation."
What she did not say was that Wrexham was
the
prime catch on London's marriage mart. He was twenty-eight, heir to one of the greatest and richest earldoms in England, and so far had proved to be very elusive. He had raised expectations in the hearts of many young ladies and their mamas, but none had brought him up to scratch so far. He had taken one look at Jane and demanded to be introduced. When Anne had regretfully told him that Jane was engaged for every dance, he had suggested that they join her for supper. Anne had been more than happy to oblige him. If Jane could attach Wrexham!
Anne came out of her pleasant dream to hear Jane speaking to her. “I beg your pardon, Jane?” she said.
Jane raised an eyebrow but patiently repeated her question. “I asked you if Lord Wymondham was a bachelor? You said Mr. Wrexham was his nephew."
"Lord Wymondham is married, but has never had children. His wife does not care for the English climate and lives in Italy. Wymondham himself rarely comes to London. He is often engaged in diplomatic missions which take him all over the world."
"He and his wife don't get along, I gather,” Jane said cynically.
"No, they don't.” Anne hesitated, then ventured her first hint about their real purpose in bringing Jane to London. “I believe the Earl was married very young, in France. The Wrexhams did not approve and he was brought home. His wife was killed in the revolution. There was a child, too, I believe. Anyway, a few years later he married Annabella Stackley, a former actress. He did it to spite his family, I believe, but he ended up spiting himself. They never got on.” Anne paused, then said delicately, “Your uncle would never force you to marry someone you did not like, Jane. But it is very important when one marries to choose someone with whom one is compatible, both in temperament and in class."
Jane looked startled. “Married! Good heavens, Anne, who said anything about my getting married?"
At this John returned, not overly pleased to see that his sister had intruded on his tête-à-tête. When he saw Mr. Wrexham his temper deteriorated even further. If Julian Wrexham was going to dangle after Jane, the rest of her admirers might as well fold their tents and retire from the field.
To her surprise, Jane found that she was enjoying her visit to London. It was not the avalanche of invitations that poured into the house or the admiration of many of London's most distinguished bachelors that impressed her. It was the art.
There were as yet no public galleries in London, but aside from the Royal Academy, artists’ studios, and the art sale rooms, Jane was able to see a great many private collections. A number of rich English connoisseurs had been able to buy up masterpieces from the great collections in France, Italy, and Spain that had been broken up after the French Revolution. Consequently, there was a fund of European masterpieces gracing the walls of English houses. Mr. Morely, nephew of the Duke of Melrose, took Jane to see his uncle's collection of seventeenth-century Dutch landscapes. Lord Henry Markham, son of the Earl of Newcastle, took her on a tour of his father's famous Titian gallery. Sir George Beaumont not only showed her his great collection of Italian and French masters, he loaned her a Raphael to take home and study at her leisure.
Julian Wrexham was also well known for his appreciation and understanding of art, and the Wymondham collection, to which he was heir, was justly famous. One afternoon about a week after the Rayleigh Ball, he invited Jane and Anne to visit Hawkhurst House, the London home of the Earls of Wymondham. The house was outside the city proper, set in a lovely park that stretched down to the Thames. It was an Elizabethan mansion that the father of the present Earl had had redone by Robert Adam. It was used as a country house convenient to town and it was famous as one of Adam's most brilliant interiors.
"My uncle uses it whenever he is in town, which is but seldom, I might say,” Mr. Wrexham told them. “I stay here occasionally myself, but I often find my bachelor's lodgings in town more convenient. I have had as yet no need for a larger establishment.” His gray eyes had looked speculatively at Jane, who was staring at the building in front of them and appeared unconscious of his regard. Anne was very aware of that look, however, and felt a faint thrill run up her spine. She felt Mr. Wrexham's gaze move to her face and hastily focused her own eyes on the facade of Hawkhurst House.
It was a great quadrangular mansion that dated from the sixteenth century and the Elizabethan exterior had remained largely untouched. The four wings of the building were built around a courtyard and the north side, where they were entering, contained the state rooms which Adam had decorated so ambitiously.
They started in the entrance hall, filled with marbles set in classical arches, and worked their way slowly through the anteroom and dining room. Mr. Wrexham led them from one fine thing to another, discoursing lightly and knowledgeably about each piece, consulting their own opinions with flattering attention. After a while, Anne found herself becoming oppressed by such an accumulation of beauty and knowledge, but she continued to look attentively at Julian Wrexham and to smile and admire politely.
Jane was more silent. It was not until they reached the green drawing room that she became animated. The walls were lined with green silk and hung with paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, and Claude. They spent quite a bit of time in the drawing room and Anne's legs were aching by the time they had made their way to the gallery where tea was to be served.
The long Elizabethan gallery had been done over by Adam into a delightful room for the ladies to retire to after a formal dinner party. On the walls hung a collection of Suffolk scenes by Constable. “My uncle added these,” Mr. Wrexham told Jane somewhat apologetically. “Mr. Constable is not very well thought of among most of the great collectors, but my uncle likes his work.
"Your uncle is right,” said Jane with decision. “I saw some of his paintings at the Royal Academy.” She was silent a minute, looking quietly at the peaceful scene before her. “Look at the way the light and shade of the trees is reflected in the river there,” she said finally. “Beautiful."
Wrexham looked from the painting to Jane's intent face. “Yes,” he agreed pensively. “Beautiful."
On the whole Anne was well pleased with the afternoon. Julian Wrexham could not have been more charming, she thought. “It must be marvelous to live in a house like that,” she said to Jane as they drove back to town together. “Especially for a man like Mr. Wrexham, who obviously has a deep love for beautiful things."
"I don't know if he does, really,” said Jane thoughtfully. “I had the feeling all afternoon that he didn't so much want us to admire his house as he wanted us to admire
him
for owning it."
This was an uncomfortably perceptive comment. Anne, too, had had the impression that Julian Wrexham was in effect presenting his credentials to Jane. It was not a thought that made Anne at all unhappy. “He wants
you
to think well of him,” she said finally. “After all, that is not such a bad thing."
"It shows a very shallow feeling about art,” said Jane positively.
Anne sighed, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes.
"Is it a custom?"
—William Shakespeare
The weeks went by and Jane found herself locked into a social whirl that made all her previous experiences pale. She went to balls, receptions, routs, luncheon parties, dinner parties, and to Almacks, London's most exclusive social club, known irreverently as the marriage mart. There was a solid core of bachelors who spent a great deal of time dancing with her, driving her in the park, and fetching her glasses of punch.