The Frost Fair

The Frost Fair

Elizabeth Mansfield

NOTE TO THE READER

The strangest part of this story is the behavior of the weather. It is also the only part which is not fiction …

Chapter One

For Meg Underwood, rapidly approaching the end of her twenty-fifth year, time was running out. If she didn't take herself a husband within the next five months (for in March of 1814 she would turn twenty-six), the bulk of her enormous fortune would go to a distant cousin whom she utterly loathed.
That
was the stipulation her father, the stubborn old Earl of Barringham, had added to his will when he'd begun to realize that his only child, with her proclivities to arrogance and independence, was rejecting out of hand every suitable match which was offered to her. “And
that,
” Meg declared angrily to her aunt who sat watching her with amused eyes as the girl paced angrily about the drawing room of the fashionable town house they occupied in Dover Street, “is how he arranged to exert his control over me, even from the grave!”

“Margaret Underwood, be
fair
!” the diminutive, grey-haired Isabel Underwood exclaimed. Her late husband's brother had been the most indulgent of fathers to Meg. How could the girl, willful and headstrong though she sometimes was, speak so unkindly of the father she'd always adored? “He only wanted to be sure you'd have babies and carry on the line.”

“Babies! The line! Really, Aunt Bel, sometimes I wish I'd been born a housemaid or the daughter of a chimney sweep so that I wouldn't have to concern myself with the
line
.”

Isabel Underwood snorted. “What utter drivel! If you're going to speak nonsense, we shall get nowhere.”

“Yes, of course you're right,” Meg sighed, dropping abruptly into a chair and propping her chin in her cupped hand. “If I were the sort who'd be content to be poor, there'd be no problem—I would simply remain single and permit my cousin to
have
the estate.”

“If marriage is truly so repugnant to you, dearest,” Aunt Isabel suggested sympathetically, “you may quite easily do just that. Let the estate go. We shan't be poor. I have my jointure, modest though it is, and you'd have a sizeable competence. Together we could contrive. We'd have to give up this house, of course, and move to a neighborhood a bit less in vogue—”

“Stop! Next you'll tell me that I'd have to turn my gowns and mend the holes in my gloves! I'm much too spoiled, I'm afraid, to become accustomed to pretty economies. Besides, marriage is
not
repugnant to me. I fully intend to enter into wedlock one day. I simply want to do it in my own time.”

Isabel shook her head, unconvinced. “You've had a great deal of time already, Meg. Don't fool yourself. A woman of twenty-five, no matter how attractive, is already considered by the world to have passed her prime.”

Now it was Meg who snorted. “I don't care
what
the world thinks. I've never yet lacked for suitors, have I?”

“No, you haven't, for which you can thank your father's wealth quite as much as your own charms, which I don't deny are abundant. But as you grow older, my love—and certainly as soon as it becomes known that your fortune has passed to other hands—you'll find that the number of gentlemen who come knocking at your door will drastically diminish.”

“Thank you, Aunt Bel,” her niece said drily. “You've cheered me up considerably.”

“I had no intention of cheering you. I'm simply pointing out that, if you are to marry at all, you're not likely to find a better field to choose from than the present one or a better time than right now.”

Meg gave a rueful laugh. “The field is quite small, I'm afraid, if one eliminates the impossibles. Ferdie Sanbourne is too much the fop, Sir Alfred is a pompous ass, and Jack Kingsley, while he's the most entertaining of the lot, has too great an attachment to his mama. That leaves only—”

“Arthur Steele and Charles Isham.”

“Yes. And while my enthusiasm for either one falls far short of the romantic, I can think of no major objections …”

“Oh good!” Aunt Isabel chirped in pleased surprise. “Now we need only decide which one.”

Meg sighed in joyless acceptance of her fate. “I suppose it may as well be Charles.”

“Really, Meggie?” Isabel beamed. “I hoped you would choose him. But I thought it was Steele you thought the more forceful of the two.”

“Yes, perhaps. But he seems so content in his bachelorhood, one can't be sure he'd adjust to marriage with sufficient dedication. Besides, Charles is more … er …”

“Dignified?” Isabel supplied.

“Yes, dignified is the perfect word for him,” Meg agreed, although her tone seemed to imply that dignity was not a quality she found exciting.

“And he's quite handsome, too, don't you think?” Isabel pressed, hoping that by her fervency she might inspire some in Meg. “The sort of distinguished features one likes to think
belong
with titles and estates.”

Meg was not taken in. “Yes,” she said scornfully, “the sort of looks which cry out for portraiture. I shall arrange for us to be painted together—his dignity shall soften my flamboyance, and my disreputability shall soften his pomposity.”

Isabel couldn't help giggling. “That proves how well you match. Quite the perfect pairing.”

Meg only grunted in disgust.

Isabel studied her with sudden misgivings. “If you're really so unwilling, love—”

“I'm not unwilling. Truly, Aunt Bel. Speaking quite seriously, I find Charles to be one of the most sensible of the men in my circle. Don't you agree?”

“Yes, he is. And quite well-read.”

“And his lineage is impeccable, too,” Meg added, a little twitch showing at the corners of her mouth.

Isabel, recognizing the teasing glint in her niece's eyes, tried to keep the discussion meaningful. “And he has a
kind, generous
nature,” she said impressively.

“Oh, yes, very,” Meg agreed, trying to keep the signs of irony from her voice. “And he has a country seat in Yorkshire—quite splendid, too, they say.”

As if his property mattered
, Isabel thought, frowning with annoyance. Meg had enough property of her own to suit the greediest of landowners. The girl was merely making light of a situation which Isabel felt was fraught with importance for her future. “He has a very strong
character,
” she said sternly, “and
that
is what counts.”

“Yes, indeed,” Meg said with exaggerated admiration, “and he's a viscount, too.”

“
He
, at least, has a sense of
seriousness
.”

“And a house in town …”

“And not the slightest touch of
vulgarity
, like some I know!” Isabel said, her mouth pursed with disapproval.

“And the most magnificent collection of carnages …”

“And a true sense of
moral rectitude
…”

“And if rumor may be believed, at least twenty thousand a year.”

This was more than Isabel could stand. She uttered a shriek of laughter and soon doubled over in a paroxysm of guffaws. She was promptly joined by her niece, and the two laughed till they ached. “Oh, M-Meggie,” Isabel gasped weakly when she could catch her breath, “must you be so silly? Lord Isham is a perfectly fine specimen—”

“I know, I know. I'll wed him, I promise.” She jumped up from her chair. “Only please stop singing his praises, because the more you do it, the less appetizing he becomes. Come, let's go to bed before you make him seem so
worthy
I shall change my mind.” Not permitting her aunt to utter another word, she pulled the older woman to her feet and, with one affectionate arm around her aunt's waist, led her from the room.

Isabel Underwood went to bed that night more relaxed in her mind than she'd been in months. She'd been more a mother than an aunt to Meg for many years, and all during that time, the girl had caused more than her share of motherly concern. But now,
at last
, she'd agreed to marry. Isabel was certain Charles would make a satisfactory husband … if only Meg wouldn't change her mind.

The trouble with Meg was, and always had been, an excess of independence. Independence was a quality which Isabel very much admired, but an excess of it could be dangerous. An independent spirit could fool a girl into believing she could live her life alone. When young and surrounded by admirers, a girl might not realize how lonely life could become later. And Meg was twenty-five—no longer a girl at all. If she were not the dazzling, wealthy, titian-haired Lady Margaret Underwood, she might very well be called an old maid!

Of course, the epithet is ridiculous when applied to Meg
, Isabel told herself as she snuggled in among the pillows. There wasn't a day that passed when the door knocker didn't sound at least half-a-dozen times to announce callers and admirers. If Meg were not so blastedly independent, she could have accepted one of those suitors years ago and had a brood of babies by this time!

In the matter of marriage, the girl's ideas were beyond Isabel's understanding. Aside from the material advantage which would come to her as soon as she signed the marriage vows, didn't Meg realize how much happiness she could gain by entering into wedlock? Didn't she want a family? Her parents were both dead, and her family was reduced to one widowed aunt—herself. Didn't the girl realize that a family circle of two was not enough?

But she was berating herself to no purpose, she remembered—the girl had agreed to
do
it. Meg would marry Lord Isham, and Isabel would have babies to dandle on her knee at last! With a final prayer that her willful niece would not change her mind, she pulled the coverlet to her neck and let herself slip into sleep.

Miraculously, Meg did not change her mind. True to her word, the very next evening she permitted Charles, Viscount Isham, to make a formal proposal of marriage, which she just as formally accepted. The news of the forthcoming nuptials, however, was withheld from the world until Lady Margaret Underwood could be presented to the Viscount's mother. The dowager Lady Isham was permanently ensconced at Isham Manor in Yorkshire, but she promptly wrote a most cordial note inviting Meg and her aunt to the estate where, she said, a dinner would be held for members of the Isham family and a few close friends, at which the betrothal would be officially announced.

No one outside the family was to be informed of the news until the proper time, but Meg felt that it would be cruel to allow Arthur Steele, the most persistent of her admirers, to learn of the situation by reading of it in the
Times
. Therefore, late in October, a day before she was to depart for the north, she asked him to call and broke the news to him.

Arthur, a large, burly, cheerfully stoic fellow, was far less chagrined than Meg had expected. “You'll never go through with it,” he said with unflappable confidence. “One week in Isham's company—and they say his place is so isolated there'll be precious little else you'll be able to do but endure his company—and you'll come flying home for good.”

“If I didn't care for Charles' companionship, I wouldn't be marrying him,” Meg said testily.

“The only reason you imagine you care for his companionship, my dear girl, is because you don't
know
him.”

Meg, quite unsure of her decision in the first place, was scarcely reassured by Arthur's remarks. But pride, loyalty to her betrothed and a growing concern about her future made her staunchly defensive. “I know him as well as you do, Arthur. You're only saying these things because you don't want to face defeat.”

Arthur shrugged, picked up his hat and stick and started for the door. “Don't want to get into a wrangle with you, my dear, especially since you seem to have made up your mind. Stubborn as a mule once you've made up your mind, and you always were. But I'd be willing to put up a hundred guineas to your
one
that you'll be back and ready for me within a fortnight.”