Danse de la Folie (14 page)

A leggy schoolgirl appeared, and flashed a happy smile as
Clarissa and Kitty approached. Kitty smiled back, thinking that this child
would easily be the most beautiful of all Clarissa’s astonishing sisters.

As soon as Clarissa had performed the introductions, Matilda
clasped her hands and declared, “Oh, Clarissa, were you truly in a shipwreck?”

“Yes, Tildy.”

“Oh, if only I had known you would have such an adventure, I
would have been
wild
to go. Was it
the French, or pirates?”

“Neither,” Clarissa said. “Are you quite finished with your
lesson? I am afraid that Miss Gill will be disappointed in me if I interrupt.”

Miss Matilda Harlowe lifted an impatient shoulder. “Just as
I thought. It was only Aunt Sophia making things up again. And I know that Lady
Catherine does not wear her maid’s cast-off clothes, either. I never believed
that, but I did hope about the French or the pirates. Now that we know that you
survived,” Matilda added hastily.

Kitty’s cheeks warmed unpleasantly as Clarissa said, “I
believe Miss Gill is waiting, Tildy.”

Matilda cast a heart-felt sigh. “If the Prodigy Mozart had
any notion how much torment he might cause people who had done no harm to him,
he surely would have confined himself to stickball with his friends.”

“I believe that particular piece was written by Mr. Haydn,”
Clarissa said, as Matilda started away with lagging steps.

“It is all one,” Matilda replied. “Horrid!”

o0o

Kitty was given a charming room with hangings of rose and
gold in the very latest Athenian style. The beautiful room quite oppressed her,
as did her reflections on the day. She fell asleep wondering if it might be
best to go home after all.

But she woke to such a beautiful morning that her courage
soon returned. Alice appeared with the hot water, full of praise for everything
that she had seen so far. She and Clarissa’s maids had become fast friends, and
Alice was learning very quickly how to go on.

Kitty was just putting her feet into her slippers, and Alice
bent to tie the ribbon, when she added that Lord Chadwick and his son had
arrived during the night, and Kitty would find them at breakfast.

Kitty knew it was silly to imagine falling in love with
Clarissa’s brother, but she could not help thinking of it as she went
downstairs. She entered the breakfast room in a little flutter of trepidation,
and took her place at the noisy, lively family table.

Clarissa’s brother James was certainly handsome, but within
a very short time he reminded Kitty so much of her brother Ned that she began
to enjoy herself, the fancy quite forgotten.

Instead, she looked with interest at her host. She detected
a faint resemblance to Clarissa in Lord Chadwick’s long face, though there it
ended. Lord Chadwick, like his son, was dressed in riding clothes.

The voices rose, Mrs. Latchmore’s above them all as she
tried to scold the younger girls into silence. Lord Chadwick took no notice as
he addressed himself to his breakfast.

When that was done, he looked up, and Kitty was startled to
find him eyeing her. He gave her a genial node, and said, “St. Tarval’s
daughter? Lord, you’ve a strong look of your mother. She was a reigning Toast,
you know.”

Kitty thanked him demurely, hiding the urge to laugh. She
could not but help think of the warnings she had grown up with while her
grandmother lived, that she must not do this, or think that, lest she become as
notorious as her mother, which would spell instant social ruin.

The ease with which Clarissa’s family accepted Kitty reassured
her, and she had begun to relax when Matilda, who had been writhing with
increasing impatience under her aunt’s continued scolding, cried out, “Papa! What
did you bring us?”

Amelia had been talking to her brother across the table. She
broke off to say triumphantly, “Nothing but my London hack.”

“It is not a long-tail gray,” Eliza stated.

Lord Chadwick had risen. Paying no attention to his younger
offspring, he said to Clarissa, “I’m off to my study. Want to speak to you.”

Kitty’s enjoyment had vanished like the sun behind the
clouds now gathering outside the bow windows. Eliza and Amelia glared at one
another in a way that called the Bouldeston sisters to mind. Too often when
Lucretia and Lucasta argued, Lady Bouldeston would admonish them in a low,
cruel drawl, “What will people say about you?”

‘People’ meant Kitty, usually, for seldom was anyone else
present. To be regarded as ‘people’ made Kitty feel like an interloper, someone
whose presence required a false front.

It did not help that as soon as Lady Bouldeston was away
from the room, the sisters would turn angry glances her way, though she never
once said anything to anybody. Not after Lucretia had observed in a sweetly
horrid voice a couple of years before, “I suppose you are going to run to
Carlisle. I cannot stop you from saying horrid things about us, but it is just
a little disagreement like anyone may have.”

Kitty hated the thought of being a tale-bearer. She also
knew that she did not understand the rules of society, as Lucretia often
reminded Kitty, adding the rider that her motive was enlightenment, and charity.

No one likes charity
,
Kitty thought as she sat there mute and miserable, intensely aware of being in
a strange house, with sisters glaring at one another across the table. She
braced herself, waiting for Lady Chadwick to admonish them in a way that would
make Kitty feel like a stranger. But Lady Chadwick was reading her letters as
if no one else was in the room.

Then Clarissa rose, touching Amelia on the shoulder. She did
not say anything. Her smile was small, her gaze steady. Amelia met that gaze
and the anger died out of her face. She blushed a little, then said to Eliza, “No,
quite right. But she is beautiful, even so. Come out to the stable and see her.
Perhaps you would like to ride her when you come down to Town.”

Eliza’s mutinous expression vanished. “Oh! May I? Oh,
please?”

Clarissa whispered to Kitty, “I will join you presently.”
And she walked out, leaving Kitty feeling puzzled to understand what had taken
place.

When Clarissa reached her father’s study, he tossed aside
the newspaper. “What is this I hear about French agents? More of Sophie’s
turning dust into mountains?”

“There were no French agents, Papa,” Clarissa said.

“Thought not. Had a stay with old Tony St. Tarval’s boy and
girl? That was a good notion, to bring her back with you, if you girls have
taken to one another. She is a diamond, like her mother, though I hope she isn’t
as wild a piece. Dark, too, so Amelia won’t get into a pucker.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“The Wilburfoldes have called, the both of them, since news
of the mishap was noised round the parish.” As he spoke, he eyed his eldest
daughter. She was always calm, but her eyes had a way of smiling, as her mother’s
had once done. At the mention of the Wilburfoldes, she did not pout or flounce
or wail, like his other girls were wont to do. But every hint of smile vanished
as quick as if he’d pinched a candle.

He sighed, trying to understand. “What do you want, girl?
Here is a respectable offer, no, better. Money, title, a family known in the
parish as they live close by. Here is your chance to become your ladyship, and
have your own establishment, instead of hanging on James someday. You know
he’ll marry sooner or later, and the chances are good his wife won’t want
another woman in the house.”

This aspect of the matter had never struck Clarissa quite so
hard. Until recently, she’d always assumed that any woman James married would
be like their sisters, but men were unaccountable in their tastes. What if
James brought home someone like Lucretia Bouldeston?

There was no villain here. Her father thought he was doing
his best by her according to the rules of society.

Now, everything was different. No, everything was exactly
the same as before, excepting only this: she had discovered what all the poetry
and the music was about. But the man was as out of her reach as any German
Archduke or Greek prince of the most dramatic and unlikely tales.

Her father said, “I know you girls like to fix your
affections, but you have not done so in six years on the Town. Ten to one at
your age, you never will. And you are old enough not to turn missish if I
remind you that, so long as you give that muffin-face an heir, at least he
would never notice...”

Clarissa made a quick, inadvertent gesture of revulsion, and
Lord Chadwick abandoned that line of discourse, and thrust his hand through his
hair before patting her hand. “There, now, let us say no more for today. I’d be
a devilish unnatural father if I did not wish to see my girls creditably
placed. We can talk again when we come home after your season. You go and give
St. Tarval’s girl a good time. And if it’s true she’s wearing her mother’s
gowns—and I remember hearing something or other about old Tony run off his
legs—then fix her up like Amelia, and hang the expense.”

“Thank you, Papa,” Clarissa said, dropping a curtsy, then
kissing him on the cheek.

o0o

Lady Chadwick bestirred herself long enough to invite their
guest to join her in the red salon. Here, she indicated a stack of new books
lying about, and said, “I do not know if you like to read, but we have a number
of novels.”

“Oh, thank you,” Kitty exclaimed. “I like them very much.”

“Clarissa reads them, and so do the girls, from time to
time. I confess I cannot understand the interest in reading about a set of
persons one does not know. Unless it is one like
The Sylph
, where everyone rushes to see if they have been hit off
in it. Or their friends,” she added. “But that was long before your time,” she
observed calmly. “I was very young, too, when all the big girls were whispering
about it. The Duchess of Devonshire introduced
all
the fashions in those days. The hats! You cannot conceive how
monstrous, though we thought them
le
dernier cri
, at the time.”

Greatly entertained, Kitty hoped that Lady Chadwick would
talk some more about the famous duchess, who, she knew, had been a great friend
of her mother’s. But her grandmother had refused to have the duchess’s name is
spoken in Tarval Hall, and of course there was no copy of the novel that the
duchess might or might not have written.

Lady Chadwick was distracted when the footman brought in a
silver tray stacked with letters. She interrupted herself without a thought,
and picked up the first letter.

Kitty was thinking that she might as well choose one of the
books when Mrs. Latchmore entered and sat down, making a business of setting
out fabric, thread, and sisters from her huswife. Taking in Kitty, she muttered
about the luck some had to sit about like ladies of leisure with no fine work
to do.

Kitty was ready to turn her hand to anything Mrs. Latchmore
might need done, but the lady never gave her a chance to speak. Instead, she
went on about a great many subjects, from Matilda’s torn petticoat (which
apparently no one in the household was capable of mending properly) to how
uncomfortable it was to be a widow in straightened circumstances, whose
sacrifices went unnoticed by all. Kitty began to suspect that what Mrs.
Latchmore wanted was an audience in preference to another needlewoman.

Kitty was certainly the only listener, as Lady Chadwick
peaceably read her letters, even when the younger girls ran in and out on their
own pursuits. Kitty was secretly diverted by her observation of the lady’s
method for dealing with a noisy family.

Mrs. Latchmore had not run out of words when the stately
butler appeared at the door.

“What is it, Pobrick?” Lady Chadwick asked.

“Lord Wilburfolde,” the butler announced portentously.

A little sigh escaped Lady Chadwick, and she laid aside a
letter and rose to greet the gentleman who entered with a heavy tread and
approached her with a deliberate air. Kitty had also risen, and while she
waited to be introduced had leisure to observe this gentleman as he bent over
Lady Chadwick’s hand. He was somewhat shorter than Kitty’s brother Edward,
solidly built, and impeccably dressed in a sober shade of brown. At first Kitty
assumed he was older, for there was a hint of jowl at either side of his chin,
emphasized by the pursed line of his lips. His hair was a shade of black
similar to her own, clipped very close to his head, which made it seem rounder
than it really was.

“Dear Lady Chadwick,” he said. His voice was as heavy and
deliberate as his tread, each word carefully picked out. “I know that I see you
well, for you are handsome as always. My mother requested me to carry to you
her compliments. Mrs. Latchmore, I trust I see you well. If my mother had known
you would be present during my call, I feel certain that she would have
encouraged me to proffer her compliments, as well.”

He paused as the ladies responded politely, then turned
Kitty’s way, as Lady Chadwick performed the introduction.

Kitty held out her hand, which he gave a ponderous shake, up
and down twice, so careful and so precise a motion that she wondered if he was
counting under his breath.

At Lady Chadwick’s invitation for all to sit Lord Wilburfolde
settled carefully into a chair, and after Mrs. Latchmore made a polite inquiry
about his mother, with the same care and deliberation that he had exhibited so
far, he commenced giving the ladies a long and exact description of the history
of Lady Wilburfolde’s medical complaint.

Mrs. Latchmore entered into a comparison of symptoms as
experienced by her late spouse, and she and Lord Wilburfolde were deep in a
discussion of the respective cases when Clarissa entered the room.

Mrs. Latchmore interrupted herself to say, “Clarissa, dear,
look who has ridden out in this filthy weather, just to inquire after you. We
have been happy to give him the news that you are returned safely, but alas,
Lady Wilburfolde is unwell.”