Chapter 3 The Birth of Venus
Waking in Margate each day was a source of happiness for Frances.
She rose early, dressed simply, breakfasted on toast and hot chocolate with Uncle Barrington and then the carriage would arrive for them, so that they reached the town and shoreline well before most visitors, allowing her to pace the beach in glorious solitude.
Uncle Barrington kept watch over her from the promenade and occasionally she would bring him a particularly fine specimen, which he would admire.
About midday they would be served a meal in the sunshine and then continue shell seeking until late in the afternoon.
It was a wonderful life and she was somewhat put out at the news that they were to be joined by a visitor.
“My heir, Laurence Mowatt. He travels tomorrow.”
Frances nodded, uninterested except for one particular. “Will he be staying long?”
“A week, perhaps two.”
She had been hoping for only a few days, but never mind.
No doubt a young man would spend his time socialising with local society or riding, bathing and so on.
She only hoped he would not commandeer too much of Uncle Barrington’s time.
The journey from London to Margate was as tedious as Laurence had feared, but he spent much of it asleep after the late evening he had enjoyed with Lady Kingsman.
Arriving late at Northdown House, he was informed, as expected, that Lord Barrington had already retired.
The servants, however, were welcoming to their future master, serving him a hearty meal accompanied by a good wine, then taking him to the warm and comfortable Cherry Bedroom, where Roberts had already unpacked and made everything homely.
Dressed in a warmed nightgown, lying in a well-aired and exceedingly comfortable feather bed, Laurence blew out the candle by his bedside and slept.
In the morning, freshly washed and dressed, he made his way to the drawing room for breakfast but was surprised to be informed by the butler that Lord Barrington had risen early, breakfasted and was “on the beach with Miss Lilley.”
“Miss Lilley?”
“His goddaughter, Sir, she is visiting at present. His lordship desired that you join them at the beach when you had breakfasted. Your horse will be saddled and waiting for you when you are ready.”
Laurence ate a couple of slices of a rich plum cake, drank his coffee and then made his way out via the gardens and to the stables, where a groom was waiting with Hippomenes, a fine grey.
Laurence re-acquainted himself with the horse, offering him a freshly-picked apple from the orchard before getting easily into the saddle.
He prided himself on being able to ride most horses well, but he did have a soft spot for Hippomenes, the first fully grown horse he had ridden as a boy.
The horse had been only a couple of years old at the time, but standing at a fully grown sixteen hands, he had seemed very impressive to the young Laurence, who was only just graduating from his favourite pony.
Uncle Barrington had always kept a riding horse for guests, despite no longer being able to ride himself, and so Hippomenes had an easy enough life, ridden mostly for exercise by the grooms to keep him even tempered and in good form.
It had been the best part of four years since Laurence had visited Northdown, but the horse still whinnied with recognition, fresh and eager for the day’s outing.
The ride to the sea from Northdown House was a short and fairly direct route, mostly downhill and Laurence took it at a brisk trot, enjoying the bright autumn morning and the fresh air.
Once in the centre of Margate, close to the promenade overlooking the sandy beach, he dismounted and paid a young boy to watch over Hippomenes for him while he sought out Lord Barrington.
His uncle was easy enough to spot on the already busy beachfront, for while there were bath chairs here and there, Uncle Barrington went about with two strong footmen, who had been chosen for their burly arms.
Andrew and Benjamin had been with his household for years, taking Lord Barrington wherever he wished to go, whether it be gently pushing him along the promenade in his chair like the other invalids or on more intrepid adventures, when they would carry him onto beaches both popular and deserted, even down difficult-to-manage cliff paths.
Laurence quickly reached his uncle and presented himself before him with a small bow.
“Uncle Barrington.”
“Laurence, my boy! You are most welcome to Margate. I am sorry I was not at home to greet you when you rose, but I thought you would be weary after the journey from London and wish to rise late. Frances was keen to get to the beach early, while the strandline was still fresh. We are but servants to the tide.”
Laurence made a bow. “I am very pleased to see you, Sir. You are looking well.”
“I rarely look well, but you are kind to say so. Frances! Come and join us!”
A young woman some way off turned and made her way towards them.
She was not particularly noticeable, Laurence thought, being of average height and dressed in plain blue cotton with little decoration.
An equally severe blue bonnet with a white ribbon contained most of her hair, though a few dark brown tendrils had escaped in the breeze.
Her feet were shod in worn leather boots and she carried a small straw basket lined in green linen, in which were a handful of shells, none of them remarkable.
Her skin was browner than it should be for a lady; clearly she had spent too much time in the sun without a parasol.
She could easily have been mistaken for a lady’s maid or the daughter of a merchant, so plainly was she dressed.
Uncle Barrington, however, was beaming at the sight of her.
“Laurence, may I introduce my goddaughter Miss Frances Lilley, daughter of Viscount Lilley. She has been a regular visitor here over the years and is staying with me for a few weeks. Frances, this is my nephew and heir Mr Laurence Mowatt, son of Mr Mowatt and my dear late departed sister Cecilia. He used to come to me often when he was a boy along with his mother, for she was fond of the sea. We have not seen one another nearly enough since her passing, so I wrote and asked him to join me here for a visit.”
Laurence bowed. The young woman, eyes fixed on the ground at their feet, gave a curtsey in return, but did not say anything, nor so much as smile. So much for Uncle Barrington being lonely, thought Laurence, he already had one “young spirit”
as he liked to call them, for company, and hardly needed Laurence to attend him at Northdown. Still, if Miss Lilley were staying she would be company for his uncle. He might be able to leave sooner than he had thought.
“Are you enjoying Margate, Miss Lilley?”
She did not raise her gaze to him. “Yes.”
Laurence waited for some other comment, some pleasantry about the sea air or doting on her godfather, but nothing was forthcoming.
He blinked and tried again. “Do you come for your health, or the pleasure of Uncle Barrington’s company?”
Simpering flattery of Uncle Barrington was what he was expecting, but Miss Lilley only shrugged – shrugged! – and said, “I come for the shells.”
Laurence frowned, but Uncle Barrington let out a laugh. “Her bluntness does me good,”
he said. “I grow weary of the ton and all its falsities disguised as niceties. You will no doubt meet some of the local society while you are here, Laurence, and then you will see why I prefer Frances’ company to theirs.”
Laurence tried to smile in return at the jest, but to his consternation Miss Lilley had already turned away from both of them and had begun walking away along the beach, following an invisible line of her own, head down, turning slightly from side to side.
She occasionally stooped to pick up a shell and add it to her basket, then continued.
She did not look back at the two men, did not in any way suggest that they might wish to follow her or indeed that she had anything to do with them.
Disconcerted, Laurence turned back to his uncle, who was watching Miss Lilley with a fond smile.
“She does me good, Laurence.”
Laurence murmured something that he hoped sounded agreeable, though he could not for the life of him understand what his uncle saw in the girl, who was not only plain (and plainly dressed) but entirely deficient in manners.
Her terse replies, her seeming inability to meet his gaze when conversing, her abrupt departure, none of them were what he expected from the daughter and goddaughter of viscounts.
He cleared his throat. “Shall we follow along the promenade?”
“Yes, let us do so. We can talk while Frances gathers her shells. Andrew and Benjamin, you may wait here. We will wave if we have need of you.”
Laurence took hold of the chair and pushed it slowly along, so that they kept pace with Miss Lilley on the beach below them. After a few moments Laurence could not help asking more about her, for he found her presence odd.
“Does Miss Lilley visit you often, Sir?”
“A few times a year, mostly when I can spirit her away from her mama, an excellent woman but altogether too preoccupied with marrying the girl off, for which there is still plenty of time, though she will go on about it being her fourth season.”
He sighed, looking out to where Frances continued along the shoreline.
“I am sorry this is the first time the two of you have met, I suppose when you were both very young you were not much in company and when you grew older… well, Frances is not overly fond of meeting new people and you usually visited with your mother, so I would not have invited many other guests, so that I might better savour her company and yours.”
Laurence had stopped listening partway through this explanation, having caught hold of a fact which had caused his eyebrows to raise. “This is to be Miss Lilley’s fourth season?”
Lord Barrington chuckled. “You sound just like her mother and the rest of the ton , Laurence. Who cares how many seasons a girl has? If it takes longer to find one’s soul mate, so be it.”
Laurence was glad he was walking behind his uncle’s chair, for he was aware that his expression would have been in direct conflict with Lord Barrington’s unusual views.
Her fourth season? A spinster, then.
And hardly surprising, given how she looked and behaved.
Her parents must be sorely disappointed.
He thought of his two sisters, attractive, cheerful women who had adored balls and pretty dresses as young girls and who had both successfully married in their first seasons.
Both were now with child.
Miss Lilley would no doubt stumble through this fourth season and then her parents, if they had any sense, would encourage her to forgo excessive social outings.
She could take to wearing a cap and continue looking for shells, would no doubt be treated with baffled politeness by the inhabitants of Margate for her all too obvious but harmless eccentricities, protected as she was by wealth, her local connections with Lord Barrington and her titled family.
It was possible that she was not entirely right in the head, certainly based on their brief exchange so far and his uncle’s excessive explanations for her behaviour.
He felt a little pity for her and resolved to treat her with kindness.
She could not help how she was born, after all.
At the end of the promenade the two men paused for a while, looking out to sea, where ships passed on the far horizon and bathers and fishermen came and went close by.
It was annoying, thought Frances as she walked along the sands, that her godfather had seen fit to invite along his heir.
The one thing Frances was keen to do was escape the notice of young men, and here was one where she had hoped to find none, and worse, a young man certain that he must pay her attention out of politeness to Lord Barrington, so that he would inevitably ask too many questions in an effort to make conversation.
When they were alone, she and Lord Barrington often spent more than half a day at a time barely speaking, only enjoying the amiable company of the other.
She would bring him a particularly fine shell and he would turn it over in his hands and nod at her description of it, then hand it back and she would be off again.
They spoke more at meals, but again there was no sense of obligation to ward off silence.
If they wished to speak, they would speak, if not, not.
Her mother, had she been with them, would have chattered away incessantly, and no doubt this young man would spoil the silence she had been enjoying.
At least she was to stay longer than he was.
Frances hoped to stay at least a month and perhaps two if she could keep her mother at bay long enough.
But for now the sand slipped gently under her feet and the sun shone, the gulls cried above and the salt air from the sea was a pleasure to breathe.
She found a large mussel shell with a tiny hole bored through it by the sea and beside it a tiny shell which was a plain white and brown from the outside, but inside revealed a delicate rosy pink.
Limecola balthica came in a surprising array of shades of pink or white or brown, always different the one from another.
And something out of place – a pale brown and white whorled shell, not a seashell at all, but Helix aspersa, the common or garden snail.
Those who did not know their shells often did not notice the difference, and they were pretty enough but Frances never collected them, they were part of the land, not the sea.
From time to time the legs and skirts of passers-by interrupted her view, but she did not raise her head to acknowledge their greetings.
They were merely an obstacle to her search and she found them irritating.
No doubt they thought her odd, rude or even deaf, but she did not care.
If she must succumb to the coming season and all its horrors then she was determined to enjoy herself for now, to revel in her collecting and the freedom of life under her godfather’s wing.
The slow stroll along the promenade to the lighthouse and back again, as Miss Lilley prowled the seashore, head always down for the next hour and a half, was pleasant enough.
Laurence listened to his uncle speak of Northdown House and Park and its upkeep with interest, for not only was his uncle knowledgeable, but of course one day it would all be his, and he must know how best to manage it or whether it would be better to dispose of it altogether.
“…And I think I will expand the orchard, it has always been a favourite part of the grounds for me, and the trees seem to do remarkably well there, no doubt the gentler seaside weather helps them along, we rarely have hard frosts.
The mulberry and cherry in particular are bountiful each year, Mrs Norris can barely keep up with preserving them.
I think perhaps espaliered pears along the southern wall would be a welcome addition.
Are you fond of pears, Laurence? I recall you were always fond of cherries, you used to eat them in such quantities as made your dear mother fear you would be sick, but you never were.
Always climbing the tree and sitting there contentedly, eating cherries by the handful.”
He chuckled and Laurence smiled, remembering the happy days when he would visit Northdown with his mother, indulged at every turn by both her and his uncle, the freedoms he had been allowed away from his nursemaid and later his tutor.
“…And speaking of eating, after such an early start I think we should have nuncheon, let us rejoin Andrew and Benjamin, they have care of the provisions.”
The footmen, accustomed to the viscount’s ways, had with them in the carriage not only a large hamper of food but also, strapped to the back, a set of cunningly wrought table and chairs, all of which folded up entirely flat, to facilitate their transport.
In a matter of moments, a fully-laid dining table had appeared at the base of the lighthouse and two chairs to go with it for Lord Barrington’s guests, while he himself remained in his wheeled chair.
A large roast chicken, individual pigeon pies, an intricately laid out salad platter of salmagundy, bread rolls and butter, cheese and plain biscuits, a lemon syllabub and fresh white grapes as well as little rout cakes, were placed upon the white tablecloth and both lemonade and ale were offered as they began their repast.
“I have never seen such folding furniture.”
Laurence popped a grape into his mouth.
“They are naval campaign pieces,”
said Miss Lilley, engaged in buttering a roll. “They are designed to take up as little space on board a vessel as possible, as well as to be stored safely in case of a storm and, of course, to be easily transported to one’s destination once land is made.”
Laurence stared at her. He had thought that perhaps she was simple-minded, but now, hearing her speak with authority, he was forced to reconsider that opinion. “I was not aware of such items before,”
he said. “How do you come to know of them, Miss Lilley?”
She did not look up, merely held out her plate so that Lord Barrington could help her to the roast chicken, which he had just finished carving.
“My younger brother is in the navy. He took me aboard his ship once, that I might see where he would be spending his time. They have very many excellent inventions on board, to take account of the sea’s movements. Hammocks to sleep in, for example, may seem a crude form of bed, but actually they are both comfortable and practical. I tried one myself and found it most agreeable, I suggested to my mother that I might have one in my bedchamber but she disliked the idea.”
She nodded to Andrew, who filled her glass with lemonade, from which she took a small sip.
“A hammock is not just for sleeping in.
Should a sailor die at sea it is used as his shroud.
They dress him in his land clothes, sew him into the hammock with a cannonball at his feet to weigh him down and put the final stitch through his nose –
a superstition designed to keep him in his shroud and prevent his spirit from following the ship – although of course it also serves as a final check that the man really is dead.”
Laurence stared at her.
Not only was her topic of conversation unexpected, it was downright inappropriate for a young lady to know of, let alone talk of, such things.
The lives and deaths of sailors? Shocking details of their preparation for burial at sea? He was speechless.
He glanced at his uncle, but Lord Barrington appeared to be entirely attentive to his meal, although a small smile lurked at the corner of his mouth.
In the ensuing silence, Frances looked up at Laurence, meeting his gaze directly for the first time. “I have shocked you,”
she said. “I apologise. My mother is always telling me that gentlemen do not like to hear a lady discourse on anything considered unfeminine.”
She gave a resigned sigh. “Would you prefer me to speak of art or music? I have been subjected to enough tuition of each that I can hold a tolerably staid conversation regarding them.”
Now that he was close to her and she was finally looking directly at him, Laurence could see that her eyes were her one redeeming feature.
They were a deep grey in colour, very large and fringed with long black lashes.
There was, he had to admit, something refreshing in not having a girl simper at him or flutter her lashes excessively.
Miss Lilley was speaking to him more in the way his sisters had done as children, directly and honestly, with no artifice or intentions to snare him.
He had forgotten what such conversations had been like, when these days every woman he met had her eye on him for matrimony or something else.
Relieved at her offer to change the topic, he tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground. “Are you fond of art, Miss Lilley?”
She nodded and straightened her shoulders, as though accepting a challenge.
“Gainsborough’s portraits are very fine. The landscapes in which his subjects are placed show an understanding of nature which can only come from dedicated attention to the details of the natural world, which he was known to study and indeed sometimes created small models of, the better to recreate it in his works. Were you aware that some of the supper boxes in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens were painted by him when he was still an unknown? They are quite charming.”
Unexpectedly, Laurence wanted to laugh. She sounded like a particularly poor actress at the theatre, repeating her lines without any emotion or interest. “Did your mother teach you that monologue?” he asked.