“I hope I never have to choose between such alternatives,” shuddered Honor.
“My mouth is watering,” her husband remarked as the carriage came to a halt.
Judging by the quantity he ate, he was not disappointed. Hester was amazed and gratified at the general appreciation of her efforts, not having realised that in the nature of things, most households had to make do with the services of English cooks of indifferent abilities. The French chef who had taught her his tricks of the trade had been one of her father’s extravagances.
No less successful than the dinner was the choice of guests. Polite conversation soon gave way to true conviviality, and the occasional lull was unhesitatingly ascribed to the fact that everyone had their mouths full.
Even Bessie’s service was remarkably free of hitches. The one contretemps occurred when the time came to serve the second course.
“Psst! Miss!” the maid hissed around the door. Hester excused herself, but returned a moment later.
“Mosquito ate the cheesecake,” she told them regretfully.
“A mosquito?” exclaimed Honor.
“Mosquito is a three-legged cat that bites,” Lord Alton explained. “One of Hester’s protégés.”
“Well, with a leg missing, I daresay the poor creature must take what it can get,” said Sir Wilfred indulgently.
“Not at all,” Hester hastened to correct him. “She is an excellent hunter and regularly fed besides. She has no excuse, and so I told her.”
“It is just as well there is no cheesecake,” sighed Bella. “It is one of my favourites, and I have been eating for three, not merely for two.”
“Have some apricot tart instead,” her husband consoled her.
When the ladies retired to the parlour, Hester saw that Bella was looking tired. The gentlemen did not linger long, even though his lordship had provided a bottle of his best cognac, and Hester rang for the tea tray soon after they appeared. She herself was beginning to feel the effect of ‘the exertions of the past few days and was not sorry when Barney carried off his wife at an early hour, followed shortly by the Stearns and Lord Alton.
“Shall I drive you to Holles Street tomorrow morning?” his lordship asked, pressing her hand. “You may feel the need of support.”
“Thank you, David, but I think I shall walk. It is not so far, and it will help me put my thoughts in order. I have had no leisure to consider what I will say to Lady Bardry.”
“And you will certainly fall asleep the minute your head touches the pillow tonight.” He kissed her hand. “Very well, I shall come at the usual time, and hope that you will have good news of the encounter. Good night, my dear.”
The Stearns’ coach set him down in Hanover Square, and he stood for a few minutes beside it, finishing the story he had been telling about his meeting with Mr. Pettigrew, the curate, during his stay in Henley.
“Alice Godric is certainly excessively beautiful,” commented Lady Honor casually, seizing her chance. “Hester told me you are in love with her, but I do not believe that she is the kind of female you admire.”
An arrested silence greeted her remark.
“No,” said his lordship slowly, ‘‘Miss Alice is not at all . . . Hester told you? Good God, you mean . . .? But why should . . .? Oh, excuse me, please. Good night, Lady Honor, Wilfred.”
Turning abruptly, he strode off into the night. “Well, m’dear,” said Sir Wilfred, “you
have
set the cat among the pigeons!”
Chapter 17
Lady Bardry was all cordiality. She seemed to have forgotten that she had spent the past twenty years trying to ignore Hester’s very existence.
“Come sit by me, dear child,” she opened, when the butler ushered Hester into her drawing room. “You looked quite delightful at the Charworthys’. I was sadly disappointed that we could not chat together, but my poor head ached quite dreadfully.”
“I hope you are recovered, my lady?” Hester enquired, thankfully accepting the subterfuge.
“Yes, of course, I wish you will call me Aunt, Hester, or people will think it very strange.” She said this as if it were a long-standing point of contention. “Sir Humphrey thinks it time that I should discuss dear Alice’s future with you. She has received two offers, you know. One of them Sir Humphrey thought unsuitable, and he would not allow the gentleman to apply to your sister, but the other was quite unexceptionable. Alice told her uncle that she did not wish to think of marriage at present and asked him to refuse Mr. Edwards in her name.”
“Very wise, ma’am . . . Aunt. Alice knows her own weakness. She is so soft-hearted that had Mr. Edwards shown any distress at her rejection, she would certainly have found herself engaged to him in spite of herself.”
“But such an eligible match! And what is she come up to London for if she is not looking for a husband, pray? When I asked her the same question, she burst into tears and said she could not tell me and she wished she were dead!”
“On dear, I do beg your pardon, Aunt. I have striven in vain to teach Alice to control her emotions. Perhaps I should have told you that she was very attached to a certain young man before she came to town. I had hoped that new faces would change her sentiments, but I confess she seems as determined as ever to have him.”
“Quite ineligible, I take it?”
“No, a respectable gentleman and pleasant enough; a country clergyman. I daresay he will suit Alice to perfection, only I had promised my stepmama to see that she had her season and a chance at a good match.”
‘Very commendable. It is a pity not to make the best of such beauty, but with no wit and no fortune, perhaps she’d not have succeeded anyway.”
Hester was about to flare up in defence of her sister. Then she reflected that Lady Bardry was apparently trying to be agreeable, whatever her motives, and it would be chuckled-headed to vex her unnecessarily.
Her ladyship had already dismissed Alice from her mind and was ready to move on to matters of more immediate interest. “You have received a great many invitations,” she said. “I have sorted through them and picked out those which you should accept. Naturally you will attend these engagements with us, your family.”
“Thank you, Aunt, but I have no intention of cutting a figure in society. I beg you will decline on my behalf.”
“Nonsense, child! You will not wish to offend half the hostesses in London! You must seize the opportunity, while they are so flatteringly anxious to obtain your presence at their parties.”
“I cannot guess why they should be interested in me. However, that is beside the point. Among other objections, I have not the gowns to wear, nor the means to buy them.”
‘I am sure that Alice and Sophie, and even I, have more than sufficient to spare. Alice may alter them for you. The season is well advanced, and you will not need so many. Now, there is the Hyssops’ rout this evening, so we must set to work as soon as the girls come in.”
“I have an engagement this afternoon, Aunt.” Hester felt that her life had been taken out of her hands, but her chief reason for staying aloof from society had vanished with the hope of a great match for Alice, so she acquiesced wearily.
“This afternoon? With whom?”
“With Lord Alton.” To her annoyance, she felt herself blushing.
“I shall write him a note making your excuses. We cannot permit one person to monopolise your time. Tomorrow there’s . . .” Lady Bardry continued to enumerate the pleasures in store for the rest of the week, firmly quashing any objections.
She then sat down at her desk and indited a brief note to Lord Alton. She looked upon it as a warning shot across the bows. If his lordship’s intentions were dishonourable, it would serve as notice that he must forsake this particular quarry. If, on the other hand, it was marriage he had in mind, he could only be pleased to receive her aid in his attempt to establish his future bride as a member of the Upper Ten Thousand.
Pleased he might be by Lady Bardry’s assistance, but Lord Alton found to his dismay that it had become impossible to obtain a private word with Miss Godric. He had decided that at once the quickest and the easiest way to convince her that he did not love her sister was to declare himself without delay. It would also be the quickest and easiest, though not necessarily the least painful, way to find out whether he had succeeded in ousting John Collingwood from her heart.
In the week that followed, he found her at home only twice. Both times Robbie and James were with her and she was busy about household matters. She spent a great deal of time in Holles Street, trying on morning gowns, walking dresses, evening ensembles, and submitting patiently to hours of standing still while Alice and her aunt’s abigail pinned and cut and tucked and measured. He saw her several times in Lady Bardry’s drawing room—along with Lady Bardry, Sophie, Alice, an assortment of beaux, and a variety of other visitors. Every evening he met her at the home of one or another of society’s leading hostesses, and roundly damned society’s prying eyes as he sat making polite conversation.
By Thursday he was desperate.
‘Will Alice visit you as usual on Sunday afternoon?” he enquired during a pause between Miss Hemming’s performance upon the pianoforte and the arrival of the tea tray in Lady Shaw’s salon. “You have been seeing her daily, have you not?”
“I had not thought about it. No, I shall do better to devote the time to Rob and Jamie. I have been neglecting them shockingly of late.”
It was hardly the response he had hoped for, but he knew better than to argue.
“I wonder if they would like to visit Hampton Court Palace?” he said. “You have not seen it, and it is well worth a visit. Terence and Frederick might join us, perhaps.” And keep her brothers occupied, with any luck at all.
“What a delightful scheme! I am sure they will like it of all things. Only perhaps Alice and—”
“Six of us will quite up fill my carriage. It is settled then? We have only to pray for fine weather.”
“I will,” she promised.
The next day she mentioned to Alice that she would not expect her on Sunday. Alice smiled and nodded vaguely. That morning she had received a letter from Mr. Collingwood announcing that he intended to arrive in town that very Sunday, and she did not mean to leave her aunt’s house for a moment, for fear of missing him. She told no one. They all wanted her to marry some grand—though unspecified— personage, and who could tell what they might do to prevent true lovers meeting? She knew from her reading that any villainy was possible at such a juncture.
Tired of struggling, Hester swam with the tide. Only twice did she assert herself. The first time was when Lady Bardry proposed dancing lessons.
“I thank you, Aunt, but I am quite beyond the age for such things,” she replied quietly but firmly. “I remember the country dances well enough, and if any gentleman should be so obliging as to ask me for a waltz or a cotillion, I hope he will also be so obliging as to sit out with me. If not, he is welcome to find another partner.”
The second occasion was at her first ball. To her surprise, her hand had been solicited not only by Lord Alton and Sir Wilfred Stearn, but by several other gentlemen as well. She was standing between dances, talking to Sophie and watching the crowds, when a half-familiar figure approached. With a shock she recognised the dark, handsome face and elegantly languid bearing of Sir Hubert Rathwycke.
“Miss Godric,” he said, coming up to her, “since I am well acquainted with your sister, I take the liberty . . .”
Hester tilted her chin, turned her back on him, and continued her conversation.
Scarlet with fury, Sir Hubert looked as if he would have liked to strike her. No one appeared to have noticed her cut, so he shrugged his shoulders and moved away, but more than one comment was made that evening about the nasty look in his eyes.
“Dangerous man,” said one Tulip to another, nodding wisely. “Wonder who’s crossed him now? Sorry for ‘em, demmed if I ain’t.”
Hester, having explained away her action to an awed Sophie, dismissed it from her mind.
Sunday afternoon came. Lord Alton picked up the Godrics in Paddington, his nephews in Charles Street, and set off for Hampton Court. Lady Bardry, thinking her niece was about to leave for Paddington, took Sophie on a long overdue visit to her paternal grandmama. Alice settled down, chin in hand, at the drawing room window to wait for the Reverend Collingwood.
Dreaming of heaven in a country parsonage, she scarcely noticed when a boy ran up the front steps and vigorously wielded the knocker. A few minutes later, a more discreet tap on the door of the drawing room heralded the arrival of the butler.
“A message for you, miss,” he announced ponderously. “A gentleman is waiting for you round the corner in Margaret Street.” He was surprised and somewhat disapproving that Lord Alton should make Miss Alice walk out to meet him, but after all it was very good-natured of his lordship to take her out to Paddington each and every Sunday, a young miss with no more sense in her cockloft than a pigeon.
John! thought Alice. She hurried to fetch her pelisse and almost ran up Holles Street toward Cavendish Square. The boy who had brought the message sauntered after her. Fluttery with happiness, misty-eyed, Alice was thinking how clever it was of Mr. Collingwood to avoid showing himself at her aunt’s house before all was settled between them. The hero of the novel she had just finished had languished for years in a dark and mouldy dungeon for want of just such foresight. She was not at all surprised to find her lover swathed in a cloak, collar turned up and hat-brim down, though it was a fine, warm afternoon in May. He bowed low as she approached.
“Mr. Collingwood!” she cried. “My dearest John!”
Head still bowed, he kissed her hand.
“Dearest!” he murmured in a husky voice. “Into the coach quickly.” He turned his face away to cough as he handed her in and shut the door, remaining outside. The blinds were down, so she could not see him, but he whispered loud enough for her to hear, “I shall ride, my love, and soon, soon we shall be safe!”
Relaxing on the soft cushions, Alice wondered if he was taking her to Gretna Green or straight to Somerset. How lucky he had taken precautions against the dangers she had anticipated, and how romantic their flight together! She wished his principles were not so delicate as to forbid him joining her in the carriage, but over the rattle of the wheels she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves close behind. Her faithful John was with her.