CHAPTER NINETEEN
The laudanum was effective, and Parry permitted its use one further day, after which the inflammation seemed a little resolved.
Emily was now covered in the red rash, which was unsightly, and she was fractious, but at least she was not quite as unwell, and the presence of the maid Hannah during times when Louisa needed to rest was thought reasonable, once Emily was used to her in the room.
Lord Barkby therefore returned to his mother and aunt, whilst promising both Emily and her mother that he would attend upon them every day.
Lady Barkby greeted him as though he had been upon some perilous expedition to the far ends of the earth, not Edward Street.
Mr Gilmorton also greeted him with no small degree of relief, since ‘guarding’ Miss Newent, whilst conducting what he felt was now very definitely his courtship of Miss Brailes, was proving very complicated.
‘Er, no, most unlikely.’ Lord Barkby’s lips twitched.
‘So I did a smart left wheel and entered the library, where I found Miss Newent looking rather lost. She was wide-eyed, and when she saw me exclaimed that there were “such a lot of books”. I ask you, in a library! Anyway, who should also find a sudden need for the written word but Hurstwood, who “just happened” to find himself wishing to idle away a half hour selecting a tome. If you believed that you would believe anything. He clearly wished me elsewhere, which was just why I stuck like a limpet, though it was dashed difficult. I was wondering how to keep going when Miss Brailes and Lady Brailes arrived, and Miss Brailes was a perfect trump. I swear she understood the situation in a glance, and she made a lot of fuss over Miss Newent, talking to her about how no gentleman could understand what fictional works would please a young lady, and guiding her to a book. She then took her under her wing and suggested that she might care to walk home with herself and Lady Brailes. Hurstwood was fuming, but could do nothing. She gave me a look as she left – Miss Brailes, not Miss Newent. She knew just what she had done. The girl’s a wonder. ’
‘No doubt of it.’ Lord Barkby might not have bestowed such glowing praise, but acknowledged that Miss Brailes showed a good deal of perspicacity.
Having said which, most other ladies showed to advantage when placed beside Miss Newent in the intelligence department, even if that young lady’s looks offset her simplicity.
315‘But the thing is, that was but one fortuitous encounter. I am willing to wager that Hurstwood had suggested Miss Newent meet him in the library, for she would never have gone there of her own volition.’ Mr Gilmorton shook his head.
‘I cannot watch her all the time, and although I am now pretty sure Miss Brailes understands that I am not dangling after the girl, it does make it harder to further my case with her.’
‘Does it need “furthering”, Gil? I would say she looks pretty keen on you, you know.’
‘Do you think so, really?’ Mr Gilmorton sighed, and then grew serious. ‘I wonder if she will remain keen on me when she learns the truth.’
‘Gil, old fellow, you place too much weight upon the whole business. It was perfectly understandable, and there is no stain upon your character.’
‘Good of you to say so, but then, you were always the stoutest of friends. I know I will have to reveal it all to her, of course, for I get nightmares sometimes, wake up yelling. Wouldn’t be fair to marry a girl and not warn her of something like that.
I just dread her looking at me with disgust, and giving me my congé. ’
‘She will not. Trust me.’
‘I trust you, my dear chap, but it does not mean you are right.’ He looked glum, and Lord Barkby realised that his mind would only be eased once he had made a clean breast of it to Miss Brailes.
‘In the meantime, I am at least partially at your disposal for the protection of Miss Newent. I shall be in Edward Street each day at some point to see the invalid, and ensure 316that Lady Dembleby is doing as the doctor has told her and getting food, sleep and fresh air.’ Lord Barkby patted his friend’s shoulder.
‘Odd thing, the measles,’ mused Mr Gilmorton. ‘Nearly everyone has had them, but most of us just muddle through them feeling ill and get better without any great worry over us. Dashed bad luck for Lady Dembleby’s little Emily to have them so bad.’
‘I had them at school, and two boys died,’ replied Lord Barkby.
‘Emily has certainly been very poorly, and the inflammation in her ears has at times been agonising for her. However, now the worst is over I am sure everything will settle back to normal very swiftly, though it will mean Lady Dembleby returns to Elliston Court a week or so sooner than she had intended, for Emily’s recuperation. ’
‘I will be glad of all the help you can give, however much that is. Exhausting business, chit guarding,’ sighed Mr Gilmorton.
The Dowager Duchess of Furness liked routine, and she noticed her grandson was becoming an increasingly absent aide and companion, and was thus disturbing her routine.
He had seemed to be forever in the company of Lady Dembleby, and at first she assumed that it was as rumour had it, and he was paying court to her.
As far as it was in her power, she observed, and then became confused.
He treated Lady Dembleby in a friendly manner, but there was nothing of the wooing lover about him with her, yet when he returned to his duties at her own side, he always seemed very buoyed in spirits after being with her.
She discounted 317the brainless beauty that Lady Dembleby had taken up, though she admitted he seemed to hang about her as much as he did her ladyship.
By a process of elimination she came to think the unthinkable.
The Brailes girl was the sort men ignored.
Current fashion, not that her grace thought much of current fashion, was designed for tall, slim girls with figures that, in her view, were scarcely more formed than boys.
It did nothing for the young woman with a trim waist but broad hips and a womanly bosom.
What was more, Miss Brailes had a face that was pleasant in form but more suited to a milkmaid, having very obvious pink cheeks.
It teetered upon common. In her favour, however, was the fact that she did not appear to be stupid, and when the gimlet aristocratic eye watched her with young Henry, she most certainly came out of the shell in which she had no doubt been encouraged to lurk.
Well, it was not a good match, but might be just what the boy needed.
The Duchess was not a demonstrative woman, but she was very fond of her grandson, and had been concerned about him ever since that business when he left the army.
His mother would throw up her hands, but some judicious prying discovered that Sir Daniel Brailes’ mother had been the youngest daughter of an admittedly numerous family of impeccable bloodline, with whom it was no embarrassment to have a connection.
It could be worse, and it just about kept the girl from being a nobody.
She did not therefore interfere, which was most unusual for the Duchess, but she did permit a frumpish woman, whom she would otherwise have described as a toadeater, to render her such services as Henry was not present to provide.
318Miss Brailes, milkmaid complexioned as she might be, had finally assimilated Mr Gilmorton’s noble intentions towards Miss Newent, and realised also that the more she assisted him, the more time he would have for the far more pleasurable activity of courting her own person.
That this was his wish she no longer doubted, amazing as it seemed.
Caroline Brailes knew herself to be a pragmatic, level-headed young woman, and sometimes she laughed at herself for feeling so buoyed by a smile, or so miserable just because he had to depart a little early from a function.
She had, of course, heard that falling in love was like a sickness, but had thought it hyperbole.
However, it certainly gave her symptoms she would otherwise ascribe to an ailment, for her appetite was wayward, her pulse inclined to sudden rapidity, her moods swung violently and her heart suffered palpitations.
She set about her task with typical thoroughness, and Miss Newent was left vaguely perplexed as to why the scarily bookish Miss Brailes gave every sign of wishing to be her bosom companion.
She appeared as if by magic at her side when she went shopping with her maid, at the weekly ball in the Upper Assembly Rooms, at concerts and in the Pump Room.
She even evinced interest in the things Miss Newent liked, such as pressing flowers and sketching, though they were not her own favoured pastimes.
On the positive side, when she did have the chance to speak with Mr Gilmorton, there was a topic of mutual interest that marked their closeness without in any way sounding intimate.
‘You know, Miss Brailes, at this rate we will become 319as skilled as the Bow Street Runners, what with all this following and second-guessing of Miss Newent’s movements.
Dashed exhausting I find it, and wonder that of the few Bow Street Runners I have ever encountered, most appeared portly.
How have they time to eat?’ He grinned at her.
‘I think, sir, you will find their observations entail frequent sojourns in hostelries, and to have an empty hand would mark one out. Likewise, would one instantly surmise that a man eating a pie across the street was in fact watching one’s every move?’
‘I shall hereafter be very wary of anyone seen eating a pie, not that any person of manners would eat in the street.’
‘Very true, Mr Gilmorton. I only wish this enterprise did not take up so much of one’s time.’