Lydia (15 page)

I crossed the room to examine them.

“This one.” I pointed at a drawing of a three-quarter-length pelisse, a sprigged brown-and-green oak-leaf motif, with a lining of leopard fur. “This is the one I like the best.”

It is quite hard to describe the Comtesse de Fombelle looking pleased. It involves a sort of pursing of the lips, which makes most people look pinched, but in her I think it is an attempt to disguise a smile. She said that it was her favourite, too, but that she could not make it yet, on account of not having any leopard fur.

“One day!” she said. “Now, what sort of dress would you like?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That is why you are here, is it not? For me to make you a dress?”

“Why yes, of course. That is to say . . .” Was it? Had I agreed to her making me a dress? I could not remember, but did not want to offend. And if I did agree, was I supposed to pay her? How much? What with the parasol and ostrich feather and
pantaloons, my small allowance from Mamma is already severely depleted.

The Comtesse was frowning as her brother whispered in her ear. “Oh, very well,” I heard her say, and then she turned towards me.

“My dear Miss Bennet, I should like to make you a gift of a dress. No, no, do not thank me. I am making one for my cousin as well. The first dress ball of the season is on the sixteenth of July, and it is a terribly grand affair. Dressed by me, you shall be the most elegant, exquisite creatures in the room. I shall make you look like a princess. No, a queen! There, Alaric! Was not that prettily expressed?”

She glared at her brother. I had the feeling the offer to make me a dress for nothing came from him. A part of me felt mortified, knowing that he had guessed me to be short of funds, and wanted to refuse. Another part of me thought, well, a new dress!

“Quite prettily.” Alaric smiled. “Though you have some distance to go before you are truly polite. And I do not believe the offer to be entirely devoid of interest, for Miss Bennet will be an excellent advertisement for your business.”

“She shall, shall she not? Look at her, Al! Tall, and that excellent, robust English complexion, that firm bosom, and those strong shoulders . . . She is the exact opposite of Esther.”

I blushed. The Comtesse grabbed a measuring tape. “Stand still while I measure you,” she ordered.

But the Comte took the tape out of her hands. “Another day, Theo. I believe we invited Miss Bennet for luncheon. If she agrees to your proposition, I shall fetch her from town again another day. Or you could go to her, you know. I believe
that is also how these things are done.”

His sister arched her eyebrows at me. “Well?” she said. “You have not said a word. Shall I make you a dress?”

“Yes, please,” I cried. “And I would far sooner come back here. When should I return?”

The Comtesse waved a vague but gracious hand and said, “Whenever you wish.”

Alaric proclaimed himself delighted, and we repaired to the main house for luncheon, where to my relief there was no need to discuss literature or indeed anything else, for the Comtesse dominated the table entirely with her talk of clothes. The Comte told me on the drive home that she plans to make a profession of her dressmaking. I can't think why. A profession sounds like monstrous hard work, and for what? But I am not complaining. After all,
I
am to have a dress made for me by a countess!

Thursday, 2nd July

A
  whole week has passed, in which nothing has happened.
Whenever you wish
, the Comtesse said – but how was I to get there? She didn't offer to send the trap for me, and I can't very well write and ask. A hackney all the way out there would be too expensive, and I refuse to ask Harriet for help. She would only want to come too and take everything over. I hoped I might see the Comtesse at the beach, but she has not come at all. It has been extremely vexing. But then this morning Wickham called, as Harriet and I were changing in our rooms after returning from our bathe.

Harriet, whose hair becomes uncontrollably frizzy after she has been in the sea, said that she could not possibly show herself in such a state, and I should go down and entertain him alone.

“I came to see how you were,” he said as I entered the room. “I heard you were afflicted by a sudden love of reading.”

“Very funny,” I said, and would have ignored him, when it dawned on me how he could help.

“Do you still have Denny's curricle?” I asked.

“I do,” he replied. “Poor Denny just keeps on losing.”

“Harriet!” I shouted up the stairs. “Wickham is going to accompany me to Munro's to look at their new gloves.”

I pushed him out of the house before she could come down.

“Gloves?” Wickham queried.

“It's all I could think of. I actually need you to drive me to Tara. They have invited me,” I could not resist adding.

Suddenly, Wickham looked interested. “So the spa plan worked, did it? Well done, Lydia! I am excessively impressed. How did you do it?”

“I don't think I should go into details,” I said primly.

Wickham grinned. “I don't suppose the reading disease has anything to do with this new friendship?”

“Oh, you are impossible!”

We had arrived at the library. I dropped his arm and we stood facing each other, I annoyed, he curious.

“Very well.” He smiled. “I will take you.”

“Thank you!”

He strolled away to fetch the curricle from the stables where Denny keeps it. I sat on a bench outside the library to wait. It was very pleasant to sit in the sun watching people come and go, but as Wickham returned I was struck by a terrible thought.

“Will my dress do?” I asked. I was wearing my green spotted muslin. “It is just an old thing – I did not think, when I changed after bathing, that I would be going to Tara.”

Wickham looked me slowly up and down. “You'll do,” he said, and I had to make a great fuss of climbing into the curricle so he would not see me blush. He is such an irritating man! I
asked him to leave me at the elephant gate, and he laughed at me. “I understand. Your old friends do not suit your new high-flown connections!”

“Oh, go away!”

It took ages to walk to Tara from the road. I was hot and thirsty by the time I reached the house, but there was nobody about. Too late, I realised the folly of rushing out here without a proper appointment, or knowing how I should return! But the front door swung open when I pushed it, and so I tiptoed in. I walked through the white-and-gold hall with its black-and-white floor tiles, and into the lilac drawing room. It was empty. I crossed to look at the view from the window, then turned to the pianoforte, which was open, with a stack of sheet music and a bowl of fresh flowers on top. Suddenly, I wished more than anything that I knew how to play. Why did I never pursue lessons, like Lizzy and Mary? Lizzy is right – I
am
idle. I fingered a key, then another, and another. In my head, more notes poured out, rushing one after the other to become great concertos. A room of enraptured spectators sat upon rows of chairs as I played. The Comte de Fombelle stood at the back, smiling at me . . .
There used to be such parties here
. . .

“Who are you?” I jumped as a woman's voice cut into my daydream. Mrs. Lovett stood in the doorway, regarding me with suspicion.

Mrs. Lovett dresses expensively, but you can tell that
she
is not French, nor a person of rank. There is something too fussy about her clothes that reminds me of Harriet.

I curtsied. “I am Lydia Bennet.”

“Are you a friend of my niece's?”

“Not exactly . . . I am come about a dress.”

“Oh, goodness,
that
.” She exhaled sharply. I have the impression she is not much impressed by the Comtesse's eccentric career notions.

“You are staying in town?”

“Yes, ma'am. With Colonel Forster, of the Derbyshire militia.”

“Oh, the militia.” She sniffed. I get the feeling she disapproves of them just as much as she does of her step-niece's dressmaking. “Well, we must all stay somewhere. I'm afraid Théodorine and my daughter are not at home. They went out in the trap, quite unaccompanied. I don't know what the world is coming to. And now I am going out, and cannot very well leave you alone. You had better return to Brighton with me, and come again tomorrow.”

“But I am very happy to wait . . .”

“I will look after Miss Bennet.” My heart leaped as the Comte de Fombelle appeared in the doorway, wearing a banyan over his trousers and shirt, a stick of charcoal in his hand. He looked marvellous – an Indian banyan is so much more stylish than an English dressing gown – but Mrs. Lovett frowned again, doubtless thinking his attire unsuitable. “She and I are old friends. Go to your engagement, dear Aunt, and I shall look after her as best I can until Theo and Esther return.”

Mrs. Lovett finally departed, after much protesting on her part about how improper it was to leave us together, and much assurance on the Comte's that his sister and cousin would return shortly, that the housekeeper Marie was in the kitchen and that I would be very happy playing the pianoforte until his sister and cousin returned.

“Thank goodness for that,” he said with a smile as we heard the sound of the carriage departing. “Come, never mind the instrument. Let me show you my study. You'll see that Theo isn't the only one here with an empire.”

Goodness, how the Comte de Fombelle talks! My brain was bursting by the time we reached his study. We made slow progress getting there, because it is right at the top of the house and he kept stopping every few steps the better to tell his story, of how he and his sister and their mother first arrived in England after fleeing the Revolution, how they lived for a year in a tiny cottage because the revolutionaries had taken all their money as well as their castle in Normandy, how Mr. John Shelton had fallen in love with their
maman
at first sight because she was so good and beautiful, and married her, and brought them all to live here – it had seemed like a fairy-tale house to them, and although his sister had always adored the summer house,
he
had a special fondness for the attic room where he was taking me now.

“It feels like a fairy-tale house to me, too,” I told him.

He beamed, and said he was glad to hear it, and walked up a few more steps, then stopped again to tell how their stepfather grew homesick for India, “So off we went again, to the heat and dust, and it was even more wonderful than here,” but even so he never forgot the miniature Indian palace high on the cliff and the room at the top of the house, and when they had to leave India he told himself that he would go straight there and make it his own.

“And here it is!”

Finally, we had reached the top of the stairs, and stood upon a narrow landing. The Comte threw open a door, and I
stepped into his study.

It is one long gallery, the length of the whole house, the cosiest place you can imagine, with a sofa and armchairs gathered about a fireplace, and a vast painting of an Indian palace above it, and a great collection of the strangest statues I ever saw upon the mantel, of people with eight arms and snake bodies and elephant heads. The outside wall was almost entirely hidden by prints of houses, both Indian and English, and at the far end of the room was an elevated table covered in papers and drawing materials, with rolls of paper stacked on shelves beside it.

“Architectural drawings,” the Comte explained. “Architecture is my passion – like dressmaking for Theo. I hope one day to make it my profession.”

I forced a smile, but inside my heart was faltering – for all the wall space that was not covered in drawings was taken up by books.

“Are you quite well?” Alaric asked.

I scarcely had the strength to answer – had he actually read them all?

The sound of footsteps on the stairs forced me to rally. A female voice called, “Al! Alaric! Are you up there?” The footsteps drew nearer, the door flew open, and the Comtesse de Fombelle burst into the room in her emerald silk beach dress, damp hair tumbling down her back, and her hemline quite white with salt.

“Miss Bennet!” She glanced sharply from me to her brother. “This is a surprise.”

“I came about the dress,” I said. “I'm sorry, I should have sent a note. A friend was driving out this way, and offered
to bring me.”

“Well, then you had better come with me,” she replied. “My cousin Esther is downstairs. You can sit with her while I change.”

Esther Lovett is exactly the sort of person Lizzy would approve of. She is
tremendously
accomplished. She was playing something complicated on the piano when the Comtesse and I came down from the Comte's study, she speaks French with the Comtesse, and one of her watercolours sits upon the mantelpiece. She has also read every single one of Shakespeare's sonnets. I know, because it was almost the first thing she said to me. “Alaric says you like Shakespeare. I am so glad. I have read every one of his sonnets.”

The Comtesse left us alone for some ten minutes, then swept back into the room in her navy-blue dressmaking outfit, and ushered us out to the summer house. “Since I am making Esther a dress for the ball as well, there is a lot to do,” she said, “and not a minute to lose.”

It is very impressive to watch her work, and a little terrifying. She frowned a great deal as she took my measurements, and demanded silence as she wrote them down, and then she rummaged through her stack of cloths and jabbed me several times as she pinned various samples to me. She would not let me choose the fabric for my dress. My heart settled on a luscious lavender silk, but she said that she would decide on everything, and please could I not move. And so I tried not to talk or fidget, and to stand as still and silent as possible, and imagined what it must be like to be a woman with a profession. Would there be magazine articles about her creations, such as
we read in the fashion periodicals at home? Imagine perfect strangers talking about something you have made – not just in Meryton or Brighton, but farther afield – in London, or in Paris! I should like that, I think. Yes, I should like that very much.

Afterwards, over a simple lunch, the Comtesse interrogated me, much as her aunt had, without letting anyone else get a word in. Where did I come from? Where was I staying? Colonel Forster? The Derbyshire militia? What sort of people were they?

“Theo, for heaven's sake,” her brother remonstrated. “Leave poor Miss Bennet alone. Esther, talk to her about books or plays or something. Theo should be forbidden from ever making conversation, if she is going to ask such dull questions.”

I saw what he was trying to do – stop his sister from haranguing me. It was kindly meant, but I wished he hadn't, for if there was one thing worse than being interrogated by the Comtesse, surely it must be discussing literature with Miss Lovett. But Miss Lovett had unaccountably spilled her wine all over the tablecloth, and was covered in confusion. The Comte leaned forward to help her.

“Well, and are you fond of the theatre, Miss Bennet?” he asked as he dabbed away at the cloth with his table napkin.

“Monstrous fond!” I cried, wildly wondering what I should say next. “Why, I was lucky enough to go just the other day!”

“What was the play?”

I told him. I thought I saw the Comtesse smirk. I suppose
The Weathercock
is not refined enough for her, but luckily her brother is not so superior, and kept up a cheerful stream of
chatter, first demanding details of the production and then not listening to my answers as he recounted
his
last visit to the theatre, in London, before coming to Brighton.

“I will lend it to you,” he said. “I have it upstairs. You can tell me what you think of it next time we meet.”

“Oh yes, do read it,” Theo said as he rushed away to fetch the book. “I'm sure we would all be fascinated to hear your thoughts.”

Was she laughing at me? Has she guessed? I was all confusion and embarrassment as Alaric re-entered the room, and I am quite sure everybody saw.

“You must not mind Theo,” Alaric assured me again as he drove me home. “Since our mother died, she has become somewhat authoritarian, but she means well.”

“I do not think she likes me very much.”