“Then in that case, I will turn to your sister or her guest, whoever is not promised,” Mr. Devereaux said.
“Come, Clarissa,” Kitty said, holding out her hand to Lord Arden. “You know I promised my cousin. Come be in our set.”
The four walked off, Lucretia staring after in astonishment.
That emotion was swiftly followed by rage. How selfish people were! And what hypocrites! The worst of all was Catherine Decourcey, thanking Lucretia so humbly for her truly excellent and selfless advice about not putting herself forward. What could be more brazen?
Lucretia looked around. Something had to be done, and this summer, as well, thanks to Lucretia’s equally selfish parents. Lucretia remembered her promise to Catherine on their first meeting in town. If Catherine was that determined to catch a husband, then Lucretia must help her before she made the entire family into a laughing-stock.
“Let us take a turn about the room, Miss Fordham,” she suggested. “The motion is so refreshing.”
Now, which of the single gentlemen would be suitable for Catherine? Not anyone with tastes that would be called nice. Not for a country mouse with no dowry. Oh, here came Papa’s friend Mr. Redding, who was on the lookout for a new wife. While Lucretia found him revolting in every sense—she could certainly do better—he was quite good enough for the likes of Catherine...
TWENTY-THREE
Kitty had not sat down once for three hours, but never had time passed so swiftly.
The best dance thus far was the first. She, Lord Arden, Clarissa, and Mr. Devereaux made up a square, which occasioned conversation as they waited to go down the dance. Lord Arden began by mocking a character from a play, begging them to guess which was meant. Clarissa knew the character, and responded in kind.
They began with comical plays, but when Mr. Devereaux quoted a line from the translation of Sorrows of Young Werther, and Clarissa promptly guessed it, somehow the moment devolved into a game of ladies against gentlemen. Kitty, put on her mettle, forgot her promise to hide her extensive knowledge of novels and plays. Consequently she came off best, but not by a large margin, for Mr. Devereaux and Clarissa were nearly as fast. Only Lord Arden was left out, castigating them good-naturedly as a parcel of blue-stockings.
When the dance ended, Kitty found her brothers there. Ned exclaimed, “Arden! I looked you out all over. We need a fourth for a hand,” and bore him off.
Kitty turned to her elder brother, who was just bowing to Clarissa, a hand out. “My dance?”
Clarissa curtseyed, and Kitty sighed. So much for leaving Clarissa with Mr. Devereaux. At whom Kitty should not be looking, or throwing herself at as people said. What a very vulgar image, and she would never do that to anyone!
But if people said it, then her conduct must be amiss. She had already made one hideous mistake when she first went into society and did not know the hidden rules.
So she walked randomly away, wondering if throwing herself at meant others could somehow see her interest on her face, like some sort of invisible sign. If only he weren’t so handsome—if he weren’t so funny at such unexpected times, and always uttered in a serious tone, which somehow made his wit the more humorous.
“Oh, there you are, Catherine.” It was Lucretia. “Looking about for a partner? Look no farther. I am delighted to introduce you to Mr. Redding,” Lucretia declared, and performed this office.
She stayed long enough to assure Mr. Redding that Lady Catherine would be vastly entertained by so nimble a dancer, and then excused herself, saying her sister must be looking for her.
This gentleman was very tall and thin, probably closer to fifty than forty. Kitty made her curtsey, looking in surprise as he smirked down at her and said, “And so, will you honor me with a dance?”
Kitty politely assented, and they joined the next set.
He was a fine enough dancer, but when they were together, his questions were put in an odd tone that she could not define. “And so you adore dancing? Ah, you young ladies are naughty little pusses! Perhaps afterward you would adore a cool walk in the garden even more?”
Kitty had no idea how to answer that. In truth, the ballroom was very warm, but she had no desire to be walking about with a strange man, however friendly; there was something about the pressing of his hands on her arm, the fact that he stood so closely, that made her uneasy.
“I am comfortable here,” Kitty began.
Mr. Redding stroked her hand. “It is so perfect an evening, and I was promised that you are a friendly young lady.”
“I beg pardon, sir, but I—”
“Evening, Redding.”
Kitty flushed at the sound of Mr. Devereaux’s familiar voice. Her heartbeat quickened, but she was not altogether glad to see the gentleman. There was that uncomfortable sense that she was missing something—or that something was amiss—that she had somehow done wrong. Though she could not have said what, or how. She was both embarrassed and relieved, though neither emotion she could quite account for.
“Devereaux,” Mr. Redding replied, with as good a grace as he could muster.
“My lady, I believe the next dance was mine?” Mr. Devereaux asked, and his reward for breaking his strict rule was the unmistakable relief in Kitty’s countenance.
He had been intending to leave. Now the price for this impulse would be to spend the rest of the evening dancing, so that those who minded such things would not be able to remember one of his partners from another.
And yet he could not be sorry, he decided as they began to thread through the crowd in the ballroom. His partner’s countenance brightened. Mr. Devereaux glanced up. Who could revive the young lady like a garden of flowers? Here were her two brothers advancing.
“Did you need me?” she asked. “Is everything—that is, are you enjoying yourselves?”
“Not in here,” Edward began, rolling his eyes. “Card room’s full as it can hold.”
“It’s a fine evening,” St. Tarval said, bowing to the gentleman at Kitty’s side. “I believe we’ve met at Lord Arden’s?”
“Oh, hey, you haven’t met?” Ned exclaimed, and he hastily performed the introductions. Then he indicated the crowd, and gave a crack of laughter. “Good luck getting out there on the floor. Why anyone would want to in this heat—well, Kit, I hope you can wedge in, is all I am saying.”
Kitty stood on tiptoe, dismayed to see that Ned had not exaggerated. From the number of nodding feathers extending upward from ladies’ headdresses, it looked as if the entire ballroom was filled.
“We can take a turn outside, if you like,” Mr. Devereaux offered.
“It would be much cooler,” Kitty said thankfully, so relieved that it did not occur to her to wonder why the prospect of a walk in the garden now did not discommode her. She was only aware that it didn’t.
“I believe I saw your hostess outside,” Mr. Devereaux said. “We will walk in her direction, and I will restore you to her.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kitty said. She was aware of a small feeling of constraint, and decided to apply her brother’s advice about jumping fences: best to get over as quick as one could. “I understand that your sister, Miss Elizabeth, is to visit the Chadwicks.”
“I believe, from the missives I have been honored to receive, that she is counting the hours. I trust the Harlowes are prepared to endure the household being turned upside down.”
“With four lively girls,” Kitty said, “they are surely ready for anything.”
“They have not yet spent time with my sister,” Mr. Devereaux said with a wry smile.
Kitty remembered the headlong conversation of that young lady, and could not help a spurt of sympathy for the brother who had to act as guardian. “She is very romantical.”
“A generous observation,” Mr. Devereaux said. “I only hope that when she does marry, she will find a gentleman possessed of both a sense of humor and a vast wealth of patience.”
Kitty chuckled at that. “I have to admit, I was enamored of the idea of assi
sting to foil an abduction.”
“Who could resist?” he countered. “Though I will admit that my part, being the desperate duelist, either as villain or as hero—we will not inquire too closely into which—has less appeal. In particular considering the weather, which did not cooperate at all with the romantical aspects of the case.”
“Nothing did,” Kitty admitted. “It was a farce. Until that day, I read them and laughed, but now I have only to think of similar situations and my sympathies are entirely with the victims.”
“I have had occasion to note,” he said as they walked over a little bridge that spanned an artfully designed stream, “that the individuals in novels and plays very seldom behave in any way one recognizes from the course of life.”
“I have noticed the same,” Kitty declared, thinking of Andromeda, and how very many changes she was going to have to make. “And yet I still read them.”
“So do I. Do you think we are drawn back by the comfortable feelings of superiority over the benighted characters caught in the plots, or is it the comfort of calling up the range of sensibilities from horror to laughter for people who do not exist?”
“My brother once said much the same,” she said, glancing down at the stream as fairly lights bobbed and twinkled in the quiet waters. “He said the proclivities for indulging in gossip stems from the same impulse as the reading of novels, only gossip touches on real people. Therein lies the harm. But I think there can be much to learn from a novel, if it depicts how people ought to behave when they have no idea, especially young ladies who as everyone knows have to marry, whereas young gentlemen might want to marry...”
She paused, looking upward, unaware of her entrancing profile contrasted against the golden lights of the house.
“I beg pardon,” she said suddenly, turning to face him.
“You have it, of course. But may I ask what I am pardoning?”
“I have been taking more than my share of the conversation,” she said contritely.
“Not that I was aware. Rather than argue over who talked most, tell me this. Which novels demonstrate how we ought to behave? I trust you are not about to name Goethe’s hapless young hero.”
“No,” Kitty said. “How very selfish Werther is. I can only think of one of my brothers being found dead, and, well, no.”
“Then you will suggest that pattern of perfection, Sir Charles Grandison?”
“Oh, so perfect, and so dull,” she said, giggling.
“Dull? And here I thought he was the epitome of nobility...”
“Not dull, precisely. But so very perfect. He never makes a mistake, or changes a whit...” Self-consciousness forgotten, Kitty launched into opinions about literature, revealing how widely she was read, which led to talk about the doings of real people. She didn’t pretend to experience she didn’t have, but offered evidence from country life.
He was surprised to discover that he was not bored. He should have been bored. If anyone else had talked on about the doings of a set of persons he had never met, and would not travel an hour out of his way to encounter, he would have been bored. But she pressed no confidences on him as a way to presume an intimacy; she indulged no gossip. Her anecdotes touched on the vagaries of human nature without being cruel.
They had walked twice around the garden when he became aware of a speculative glance or two from other guests, recalling him to his desire to protect her from the sort of speculation he hated.
He guided their steps to Lady Chadwick’s side. Kitty bowed and sat down, addressing herself to Clarissa without a single languishing look, and he turned dutifully to Amelia.
She agreed with alacrity, sparking amusement. She seemed determined to dance—or to be seen dancing—and so, as they worked their way into the press, she said, “Now, Mr. Devereaux, tell me about Shakespeare.”
“Shakespeare,” he repeated, astonished.
“Yes. I would like something to say, something with proper éclat. And I have used up all that Clarissa and Lady Kitty can think of. You are the only other person I know who has read such things.”
“Very well,” he said, very much amused. Was it the parson, inspiring these ventures into deep waters? “Which play shall we discuss?”
o0o
The dance ended, and Amelia was promptly claimed by a young sprig her own age. Devereaux relinquished her, satisfied that the idle eyes observing his actions would find him doing his duty by his relations.
He began walking in search of something to drink, smiling over Amelia’s determined effort to master Shakespeare in a matter of days in order to impress her young parson. He was only a few paces from the tables where punch and glasses had been set out when Miss Bouldeston once again crossed his path.
He checked, out of habit, then became aware that he was not her target this time. St. Tarval and Lord Arden were fetching refreshments for their partners when Miss Bouldeston confronted them to make her curtsy.
Perhaps he had misjudged the young lady, who claimed to be Lady Kitty’s friend. When he stepped up, Miss Bouldeston looked startled, a real expression rather than her customary affected manner. She was a pretty enough girl, and again he heard those sympathetic accents, young ladies have to marry. He said, “Would you care to dance?”
Lucretia turned away from St. Tarval, scarcely remembering her curtsey. She was positively giddy with triumph, and as she walked beside Mr. Devereaux through the crowd, she glanced about her, wanting to see envy in every pair of female eyes, especially those who had no partner.
She knew he could not resist forever; men were so very simple, after all. It had taken jealousy to get him to stir, for it could be no accident that this offer of a dance occurred when she was with Carlisle.
They took their place in line, and Mr. Devereaux’s next words proved to her a similar train of thought. “You are friends with St. Tarval and Lady Catherine?”
Now to make certain that he understood her heart was perfectly free. “His lands border my father’s. As you may expect, we grew up fond of one another, the old boy and girl interest. I grew out of that, of course, when I came to town, but he, I fear...”
She let her voice trail off, a nod to delicacy. Now to make certain that he quite understood about Catherine. Oh, who would’ve thought she would be given such a capital opportunity! “As for Catherine, I was her only friend as there are no other young females of birth within a day’s ride.”
“I observe that you use her given name, unlike the Chadwicks.”
How to answer that? Lucretia had never really thought about it, beyond the fact that her dislike of Catherine had extended to the fond little nickname her brothers employed. And she utterly loathed acknowledging that country mouse’s better birth by giving the honorific ‘Lady’—she only used it when talking about her to strangers. A ‘lady’ among one’s acquaintance is always a fine thing.
She must make their relative positions perfectly clear. “Such ill-chosen things, sometimes, childhood names that we ought to leave off when we leave behind our dolls and toys. I use her name as a reminder of the dignity to which she was born. Because she has no mother, my own parent, so careful in raising us, convinced me it is my duty to offer little hints in the most delicate manner to guide Catherine’s behavior as best I can. I think, to my sorrow, that the failure is mine when she errs.”
“Surely your mother would be better equipped for such a duty? Or are you that much older?” the gentleman asked.
“Oh, no,” Lucretia corrected emphatically. “Scarcely a year. My mother feels that Lady Chadwick’s too-kind heart... well, in short, I have done my best to dissuade Catherine from being too obvious in her desperate search for a wealthy husband.”
“I see,” the gentleman said, his tone not quite the sympathetic understanding that she had expected.
She thought it better to leave the subject, and get back to her own situation. They were nearly at the top of the dance, so she must be quick. Casting her eyes down in a modest gesture, she said, “As for h
er brother, he has come to town to try to press me to the point.”
He was silent. She dared a peek upwards. It would have been too much to expect an instantaneous effusion of love in this great crowd. Indeed, he seemed distracted by the press of people. She must be satisfied that she had carried her point. Both points, to be sure: the brother and sister were importunate in their separate ways.
Perhaps they would soon return to Tarval Hall, where they would not be in anybody’s way.
When the dance ended, he walked her to her mother’s side and bowed over her hand, exchanged a polite word with her mother, and then moved on.
“That is a connection I would like to see,” Lady Bouldeston murmured.
Lucretia bridled as she busied herself with her fan. She watched him move to the horse-faced Miss Lasley. What was he about, paying attention to that dowd? Men—no one knew what they would be at!
She was noting critically every clumsy step performed by Miss Lasley as Lucasta appeared from her latest dance, damp and red-faced. But this time, when she bored on about her stupid poet, Lucretia could tolerate it, for she was cherishing her own vastly superior achievement. She decided against speaking of it, preferring to anticipate her mother’s vast surprise, and Lucasta’s discomfiture when she declared to them that she would be the new Mrs. Devereaux, two deaths away from becoming a duchess.
TWENTY-FOUR
It was during that evening that Clarissa at last discovered why her betrothed could not help but irritate her nerves even when he was not dutifully carrying out his mother’s charges. He meant well, but he had no vestige of a sense of humor.
She had not thought about this subject before. Humor was like the air you breathed. It was there. When you’ve shared a moment of mirth, the laughter is soon gone, but not the memory of having shared it. Humor had not the importance of awe when one looked upon a painting of genius, or listened to a musical masterpiece. But during that very first dance, when she and Cousin Philip, Kitty, and Lord Arden had been laughing over their game, she had ended the dance with an inexplicable sense that they had shared something of great importance.