Chapter 16
Allegra looked about her with concealed curiosity as she entered Lord Milton’s home with Mrs Constantine.
It was a tall, narrow house on a gloomy street not far from Berkeley Square, and its interior was decorated with a great deal of sober English good taste, as she might have expected.
Lord Milton – or his mother – had not indulged in the current mode for extravagant gilded furniture supported by mythical creatures, or any other decorative details of foreign origin.
Nobody was ever going to confuse this elegant, restrained interior with the Prince of Wales’s Marine Pavilion at Brighton, or Empress Josephine’s Chateau Malmaison near Paris.
Somebody’s favourite colour was obviously grey.
So much grey, set off with chilly white marble.
Allegra had never had the opportunity to decorate a house, or even part of one; the Constantines’ London home was rented, and her father’s manor in Surrey was not large, and of Elizabethan construction besides, so most of the rooms were panelled in slightly worm-eaten dark oak.
Such newfangled ideas as painted and gilded wood or expensive wallpaper had not made an appearance, and probably never would.
If she ever had a home of her own and any say in the matter, she had no idea what it would look like, but it wouldn’t be decayed Tudor, or this.
One might as well live in a museum in either case.
Lord Milton greeted them with a cool smile and presented them to the lady at his side, who was indeed his mother. Allegra, curtsying, found herself uncomfortably aware of scrutiny from a pair of sharp colourless eyes, set above an intimidating nose and a small, pursed mouth.
Mrs Constantine in her wisdom had decided that this evening Allegra would be dressed more modestly than was the current mode even for debutantes.
This had involved the sacrifice of yet another outmoded gown from her apparently bottomless trunks, one of rich jonquil satin this time.
Its neckline was higher than she had been accustomed to of late, it had more substantial sleeves, and it was covered once again with the flimsy gauze over-dress sprinkled with brilliants.
But this drapery had been rearranged somehow so that it didn’t draw quite so much emphasis to the ample curves of her hips, and she had a small gold cross around her neck for the first time in her life.
She wasn’t quite carrying a prayerbook in her reticule, but she gave the impression that she’d know where to find one if anybody happened to ask.
She had a white ribbon threaded demurely through her hair.
Mr Severin would no doubt have laughed and made some satirical comment at the sight of her pretending to be something she was not – but he, of course, wouldn’t be here.
‘Hmm,’ said the lady in arctic tones. ‘So this is the girl, is it, Alfred?’
Allegra’s eyes, which had been modestly downcast, shot up.
‘Yes, Mama,’ responded Lord Milton with no appearance of dismay.
Clearly he was accustomed to being addressed in this discouraging manner.
‘But we must greet our other guests now, must we not? I am sure that you will be able to have a comfortable coze with Miss Constantine and her mother a little later in the evening.’
Lady Milton’s face and manner suggested that his hope was highly unlikely to be realised.
She was a tall, lean, grey-haired woman dressed in dark shades of purple that, though they did not precisely signify mourning, were not too far removed from it either.
If any of her guests were to drop down dead tonight, she’d be ready.
Her gown was trimmed with great quantities of exquisite black lace, and her elaborate coiffure was decked with several trembling plumes, dyed black and held in place with a diamond aigrette.
She could not possibly have dressed with the express purpose of making Allegra feel even shorter and plumper that she normally did, since they’d never met before, but that was the effect.
And her expression could not be described as welcoming.
Forbidding, perhaps. She made no reply to her son, but merely nodded in obvious dismissal, and the Constantines moved on, to Miss Constantine’s relief.
Her mama, extraordinarily, had not had the opportunity to speak beyond a murmur of greeting.
‘Oh, dear,’ Allegra whispered inadequately.
‘She might be like that with everyone,’ Leontina responded in a similar low tone. ‘No need to despair – we are here, are we not? Let us find some place where we can observe her discreetly and see how she goes on when she greets others.’
‘In preparation for our comfortable coze later on?’ Allegra whispered. ‘I can hardly wait.’ But she made no other objection, and they looked about them for a safe corner into which they could retreat.
It transpired that she was like that with everyone, or almost everyone.
The only persons Lady Milton greeted with any approach to enthusiasm – and it could not have been described as a close approach – were dowagers of her own age, and a crusty old general or two.
Younger persons, anyone under sixty, were generally favoured with an icy stare, as if the lady had no recollection of inviting them and wished they hadn’t had the temerity to come.
It could hardly be described as a recipe for an enjoyable party; it would have cast a pall of excessive gloom even at a wake.
Few of the other people present were anything more to Allegra than names.
They represented, as far as she could see, the stiffest, stuffiest, dullest section of society.
As the time passed, slowly, it became harder and harder to understand what she could possibly be doing here, and correspondingly more and more difficult to believe that a woman like Lady Milton could harbour the slightest wish for her son to marry a mere nobody like Allegra Constantine.