He caught her hand and raised it to his lips in a gesture unusually graceful for him.
“You are right, Miss Gray, and kind withal. Yet I see her bewitching face still as though she stood before me. I shall go up.”
Octavia repaired to the kitchen, buttered and ate a couple of slices of bread, and started peeling potatoes.
A few minutes later the doorbell rang. Wiping her hands on her apron, she admitted two Members of Parliament and a political agent.
It was very amiable of Julia’s baronet to give her a library subscription, she thought, but what she really needed was time to read!
Chapter 2
Two days later, shortly after noon, Octavia set off for Chapel Street. It had rained in the morning, so though the sun now shone she wore a light cloak over her best dress of lavender silk, and pattens on her feet.
The streets were muddy but the air was fresh and clear after the showers. On an impulse, she spent a penny of the shilling in her pocket on a posy of violets from a hawker. As she walked, sniffing now and then at their sweet scent, she tried to imagine spring in the country, with flowers blooming in the hedgerows instead of lying in squashed bunches in an old woman’s basket. Waiting to cross Oxford Street, watching the endless stream of carts and carriages, she pictured green fields spreading into the distance, inhabited only by placid cows.
The noisy crowd on the corner rushed forward, hustling her across between a phaeton and a lumbering stagecoach with twelve passengers packed onto its roof.
The streets of Mayfair were somewhat quieter and cleaner. The clicking of her pattens echoed between the elegant façades of the town houses of the wealthy. Turning into Chapel Street, she saw ahead the still-bare trees of Hyde Park and glanced up at the sky. There were a few high, puffy clouds, but with luck the sun would shine until she had persuaded Julia out for a stroll.
The Langstons’ stout, dignified butler, who could wither an encroaching mushroom with a glance, beamed at her benevolently.
“Fine day, miss,” he offered, taking her cloak and bonnet and beckoning a powdered footman in olive green livery to help her remove the pattens. Miss Gray was a prime favourite with him, ever since she had shared her lessons with Miss Julia. Nothing to look at, he admitted to himself, but always polite and considerate to the servants, though she knew how to keep her distance. Miss Julia, otherwise a paragon of perfection, was apt to be a tad too familiar. Of course it was only her friendly heart, God bless her.
“Miss Julia’s in the blue drawing room, miss, and her ladyship with her.”
“Thank you, Raeburn. You need not show me up." Octavia shook out her skirts and trod up the wide marble staircase.
Her aunt greeted her fondly but languidly.
“Come in, my dear,” she murmured. “How does my sister go on, pray?”
Octavia always found it hard to believe that her mother and Aunt Millicent were sisters. Lady Langston seemed to have been permanently exhausted by the effort of bearing her single child, while Mrs Gray had produced eight offspring and gone on to make a career of founding and managing charities for every purpose under the sun.
Julia had been brought up by nannies and governesses, Octavia by her older siblings. Sharing the last of the governesses, they had grown as close as possible for two girls leading such different lives.
“My mother is very well, I thank you, Aunt.”
“Tavy, do come and look at this pelisse in
Ackermann'
s.” Julia was sitting by the window, studying a magazine. “It is trimmed with ruby velvet, with a bonnet of the same; is that not a charming conceit?”
Lady Langston sighed faintly. “I must call on Mrs Burrell,” she said, rising with Octavia’s assistance. “She was kind enough to say last night at Almack’s that you was a pretty-behaved female, Julia. A pity that you do not practise your manners on your family. I shall see you at dinner, or do we dine out this evening?
“At the Overtons, Mama, and then to the play. Papa goes with us.”
Her ladyship sighed again, and made her way out of the room.
“Don’t talk to me of clothes, Ju,” begged Octavia. “This gown is monstrous tight about the waist and cannot be let out further, I vow.”
“You are growing excessively plump,” said her cousin, regarding her critically.
“I know! But when I spend the greater part of my time organising meals and entertaining my parents’ acquaintances, it is horridly difficult not to eat too much.”
“You ought to dine on biscuits and vinegar, as Byron did. Never mind, I have a hundred dresses you are welcome to, as I have told you time and again.”
“And all by far too
fine
.”
“But, Tavy, you have worn that lavender silk every Thursday and Sunday these two years! Surely my aunt realises that you need a new one!”
“Mama thinks the money better spent on clothing the South Sea Islanders, and Papa mutters ominously about giving up politics and returning to the law. It is all I can do to wheedle a new stuff gown for daily wear now and then. And you know that I was unable to go to parties with you last year because they would not allow me to accept any of your ‘frivolous garments,’ as well as because of their dislike of the Haut Ton. It is a matter of principle with them.”
“I shall find you something sufficiently sober in my wardrobe. Let us go and look at once.”
“I am so much fatter than you that I doubt it would take a month to alter anything to fit,” Octavia replied gloomily, following Julia out.
“Nonsense.” Julia turned as she reached the landing and regarded her plump cousin. “I appear slimmer because I am taller. I’ll wager we need only turn up the hem.”
“Later perhaps. I should like to go to the park while the sun is shining.”
Julia acquiesced. In a few minutes, cloaked and bonneted, they were sauntering down a gravel path, attended by a footman. There were a number of strollers about, and even one or two carriages, but it was not yet the hour of the fashionable promenade and they met no one they knew.
On oak and elm, leaf buds were swelling. Soon the park would be fresh and green for a few brief weeks, before the city’s dust and soot cast their dingy pall.
“Is the country like this?” asked Octavia. “Only more of it?”
“Not really. It is . . . oh, it is just different. Though of course I only see it in the summer; I have not been at the Priory in the spring since I was a child. It must be very dull, because all one’s friends are in town. I wish your mama will allow you to come with us this summer, so that you might satisfy your curiosity. We always have lots of guests and it is the greatest fun.”
“I am very sure she will not. You always have such grand company at the Priory that I know I should need as much finery there as here in London, to go about with you."
“But my aunt need not see it. I have plenty for both; they need be at no expense. I must and will ask again for your company."
“I fear your pains will be for nothing, as they were last year and the year before. I am reconciled to remaining a dowdy city dweller, so let us not speak of it further, if you please, Ju dear. How delightfully the daffodils spread beneath those trees! Now tell me, we were discussing your latest suitor when we were interrupted. You had just reached ‘It is only that . . .' when our subject appeared to silence you."
Julia grimaced. “It is only that . . ." she repeated. “You will think me quite puffed up, Tavy, but he does not seem to me quite so devoted as I have been wont to find my suitors. You saw him detached from my side by a new edition of Virgil. That has not been the only instance of a mind easily distracted from the contemplation of my perfections!”
“How very shocking! But surely this is a sign that he is a serious gentleman. How often have I heard you castigate as mere fribbles the majority of those who court you! To have attached a gentleman who has more in his mind than the latest fashion in waistcoats or which horse is to win at Newmarket, is certainly no mean triumph.”
“I am far from sure that I have attached him. And besides, I have a horrid feeling that when he says he prefers to spend his time in the country he not only means it, but does not include large house-parties of congenial acquaintances among the pleasures of country living. However, I daresay I shall have him, always supposing he should come up to scratch.”
“He will scarce offer for you if he is not in love, and being in love, how can he deny his bride a house in town and as many guests in the country as she should care to invite? Only lack of means could excuse that and you say he is well-to-do.”
“Rich as Croesus.”
“He seemed both amiable and generous. I daresay you might come to love him, would you but try.”
“Do not you start to sing his praises! I hear nothing else from Mama, I vow. Let us turn down this walk beside the Serpentine. I love to see the swans. Oh, look, Tavy, is that not your friend Mr Wynn?”
James Wynn’s lean figure was indeed rapidly bearing down upon them. Octavia was dismayed to see that he had on a new coat and a snowy white cravat, neatly if not exquisitely tied. She could only put it down to a desire to impress her cousin.
He doffed his well-brushed hat and bowed bashfully as he came up, but would have passed on without speaking had not Julia addressed him.
“Mr Wynn! What a charming surprise!” She cast a mischievous glance at Octavia. “We were saying but a moment past that we were sadly in need of male company. It is beyond anything fatiguing to walk without a gentleman’s arm to lean on.”
“Pray take my arm, Miss Langston!” he offered with incredulous delight. “I am happy to be of use. Miss Gray, my other arm is at your service.”
“Thank you, sir, I am made of stronger stuff than my cousin.” Octavia was annoyed with both of them. She felt herself responsible for their meeting and knew very well how strongly her aunt and uncle must disapprove. Still, it seemed highly unlikely that the ardent reform politician and the indulged, frivolous daughter of a Tory peer should have a great deal to say to one another.
She listened in growing consternation as Julia questioned the young man about his articles in the
Edinburgh Review.
She sounded positively fascinated! And when they went on to catalogue mutual acquaintances, it was alarming how many they found. Not all her father’s colleagues despised the fashionable world, apparently. Mr Wynn and Miss Langston might be sure of meeting at balls and routs and breakfasts if they only made the effort.
Left out of the conversation, Octavia was the first to notice that the sky was no longer a benevolent blue. A sudden breeze shook the branches of the nearby trees and a few heavy drops fell, splashing in rippling circles into the Serpentine. The cloud blew over but there were others, darker, behind it.
“Julia, it’s going to rain. We must hurry back.”
The footman, who had been following several paces behind, stepped up and offered a huge black umbrella. Mr Wynn unfurled and raised it, and they retraced their steps towards Park Lane.
By the time they reached that grand thoroughfare, the rain had abandoned all attempts to disguise itself as an April shower and was coming down in torrents. A gusty, chilly wind make it difficult to keep the umbrella upright, and blew the moisture in beneath it. When they reached Lord Langston’s house in Chapel Street, the footman was soaked and the other three all decidedly damp.
Mr Wynn cursed himself for not turning back sooner, and vowed never to forgive himself if Miss Langston should catch cold. He took his leave at the foot of the steps, refusing, to Octavia’s relief, Julia’s pressing invitation to come in and dry himself.
Raeburn swung the door open before they reached the top of the steps.
“Miss Julia, you’ll catch your death,” he cried. “Come in, come in quick, Miss Gray. Henry, whatever were you about to let the young ladies get so wet?”
The footman, dripping miserably on the marble floor, muttered an indistinguishable excuse.
“You must not blame Henry,” said Octavia quickly. “It was entirely our own fault.”
“See that he changes his clothes at once, if you please, Raeburn,” added Julia, “and has something hot to drink.”
Henry’s expression lightened to something approaching worship as he gazed at his young mistress.
The butler hurried him off to the servants’ quarters. “I’ll see to it at once, miss,” he assured them, “and I’ll send a maid up to light the fire for your chamber, for you’ll want to get into something dry right away, and Cook shall send hot soup up as soon as she can have it ready.”
“Thank you, Raeburn, and pray do not tell her ladyship that we received a wetting. She will be quite sure I shall develop an inflammation of the lungs."
“My lips are sealed, Miss Julia,” he promised.
“You see,” said Julia with considerable satisfaction as they mounted the stairs, “you will have to accept one of my gowns, and a nice warm pelisse too, for yours will never dry before you must leave. I’ll call up every maid in the house that can wield a needle. It will be done in a trice. Only come and choose what you will have.”
She ran lightly up the second flight.
Octavia could not repress feelings of envy as the entire wardrobe of a fashionable young lady was opened before her. Walking dresses of Circassian cloth and mull muslin, trimmed with blond lace and embroidery; satin slips with overskirts of spangled gauze or
crêpe lisse
in pink and pale blue and primrose; in pride of place hung the
grande toilette,
white silk sewn with seed pearls and tiny silver roses, which Queen Charlotte’s death the year before had rendered useless before it was ever worn.
“Here is the very thing!” exclaimed Julia, pulling out a promenade dress of canary yellow jaconet ornamented with pale green ribbons. “There is a matching bonnet somewhere, too. Ada will find it.”
“Aye, put away in the attic, I doubt,” said her abigail severely. “You never did wear that outfit, Miss Julia, for it’s quite the wrong shade, but ‘twill suit Miss Gray’s colouring to perfection.”
Octavia gazed at it wistfully but shook her head. “That hue is by far too gay for my needs,” she said. “It will grow dingy in no time. Have you nothing darker that you can spare?”