CHAPTER FIVE #2
As if conjured up by mention of his name, the butler appeared at that moment carrying a large tray.
It would be an overstatement to suggest that the travellers fell upon the light repast like locusts, but Laura at least made no polite demurs when pressed to try the dainty cucumber sandwiches and cake that accompanied the tea.
Until her sharp hunger was appeased, she munched doggedly through a slice of pound cake whose equal for dry tastelessness she hoped never to meet again, aware that her mother, who had exercised more discrimination in passing up the treat, was refusing to meet her eyes as she chatted brightly to cover her daughter’s silent struggle to swallow.
“As I told you in my letter, Oswald,” Mrs. Marsh said after using her serviette, “I am completely out of touch with all the friends of my youth, with the single exception of Lady Bentley, who is Laura’s godmother.
Naturally she will be only too happy to introduce the girls to her circle of friends, but she has no children and I do not know whether she counts any of Almack’s present patronesses among her —”
“Now there I have some good news, sister,” Sir Oswald interjected, his thin-lipped mouth stretching into a smile of satisfaction that somehow failed to give his austere features a more amiable cast. “Marietta’s close friend Mrs. Chandler has always cherished a fondness for Sophia, who is near in age to her own daughter.
I explained the situation to her, and she has assured me of her willingness to obtain vouchers for Almack’s from Lady Sefton.
She will call on you in a few days when you have become more acclimated to our town ways. ”
“Dolly Chandler made her come-out last spring,” Sophia remarked.
“She had a marvellous time and received two offers. Her mother gives out that she was too young to be thinking of marriage at seventeen, but Dolly told me that both offers were from younger sons without good prospects. Even though her portion is only five thousand pounds, the Chandlers feel she may still make a more advantageous match. Dolly did not like either suitor above half in any case.”
This casual report of the personal affairs of strangers had Laura’s eyes widening in wonder as she finally washed down the dry cake with cooling tea. She looked to her mother for guidance.
“Seventeen is rather young to settle down, as I well know,” Mrs. Marsh said into the brief hiatus. “Oswald, where is Aubrey? I cannot recall that you mentioned whether he was at school yet?”
“He will enter Eton in the autumn. I have arranged to have him tutored while we are in London by a recent university graduate awaiting his first preferment in the church. I believe one of the maids has taken him to the park for some exercise this afternoon.”
Sophia had raised her head in a listening attitude.
“Unless I miss my guess, that unseemly racket from the stairwell signals my little brother’s return.
” She darted through the hall doorway and reappeared seconds later, tugging a young boy after her.
Stopping a few feet from the group around the tea table, she held him in front of her with hands on his shoulders and announced cheerfully, “This unkempt vagabond is Aubrey, pride of the house of Albright. We might have waited until Nora had made him presentable for the third time today to introduce him, but then you might not have recognised him the next time you met. Make your bow to Aunt Annabelle and Cousin Laura, urchin.”
Unabashed by his sister’s unflattering epithet, young Aubrey snatched off his cap with grimy fingers and executed creditable bows for his unknown relatives, his slightly gap-toothed grin triumphing over rumpled linen and grass-stained knees. “How do you do, Aunt Annabelle and Cousin Laura?”
Both ladies were instantly captivated by the boy’s natural ease and friendliness. “Oh, Oswald,” Mrs. Marsh cried, “Aubrey is all Albright. He puts me forcibly in mind of the portrait of you as a boy that Father kept in the library at Elmwood.”
When called upon to second her mother’s opinion, Laura was forced to admit that she had not noticed said portrait on her long-ago visits to her grandfather’s estate.
Comparing Aubrey with his father, she discovered and dismissed the obvious similarities of colouring and physique.
Both Albright males had blue eyes, but the father’s evoked Arctic ice fields while the son’s brought bluebells to mind.
Her imagination was inadequate to the feat of conjuring up an image of the precise Sir Oswald as a rumpled and earth-stained boy, and she strongly doubted that he had ever gazed upon the world with his son’s expression of eager, joyous curiosity.
Aubrey’s stay in the saloon was of short duration.
His parent’s mouth had thinned as he took in the full extent of the lad’s bedraggled appearance, and when he intercepted an avid glance at the cake remaining on the tray, he snapped, “Not with those dirty hands, you don’t.
Get yourself cleaned up before Nora feeds you in the nursery. ”
“Yes, sir,” the child replied, his smile undimmed by disgrace as he bade his aunt and cousin a polite goodbye before whisking himself away from parental censure.
Sir Oswald, turning to direct a remark to his sister, failed to see the lightning-fast movement that plucked the cake from its resting place before Aubrey made his escape.
Laura hid a smile as Sophia rearranged the teapot to obstruct her father’s view of the now-empty plate before blithely expanding on Sir Oswald’s observation.
Conscious of having contributed little to the conversation thus far, Laura roused herself to relate her first impressions of the city scene from the restricted viewpoint of the carriage that had brought them to Mount Street.
“I am looking forward to walking extensively and becoming acquainted with the surrounding area,” she said, smiling at her uncle in her enthusiasm.
“There is much of interest to be seen,” Sir Oswald agreed.
“You will not of course venture outdoors unattended at any time.” Noting the surprise in Laura’s face, he turned to his sister.
“Surely you have advised Laura that young ladies of quality do not parade about London without their maids or other escort?”
“All in due time,” Annabelle Marsh replied serenely.
“Laura has much to learn about living in a city. This is quite a new experience for her.” She kept her brother’s attention on herself with another idle question to cover her daughter’s retreat into total silence until Sir Oswald indicated his intention of returning to his study.
The ladies then scattered to settle into their rooms for a short rest before changing for dinner.
Several hours later, Laura sat in the chair in her room, attired for sleep, physically fatigued but with an overactive brain that resisted rest as it persisted in reviewing the events of the day.
It could have been worse, she assured herself; she might be sharing a bedchamber at this very moment, an appalling possibility that had not even crossed her mind back home when she was bemoaning her fate.
She gazed into the shadowed corners of her small sanctuary with a fierce possessiveness, grateful for her situation on the nursery level and every foot of distance between herself and the master of the house.
There were other reasons for cautious optimism at the end of this first day in London.
Both her unknown cousins were more appealing in the flesh than she could have dared to hope, based on her past dealings with their cold-natured father.
Aubrey looked a delightful imp, and she would welcome the opportunity to improve their acquaintance.
And her female cousin seemed as amiable and good-natured as she was lovely.
Actually, these adjectives struck her as inadequate to depict Sophia; a few short hours in her company had persuaded Laura that there was more to Sophia than met the eye.
At first glance she was the adult version of the good little girl her aunt had remembered, but then came the occasional burst of candour totally unexpected from Papa’s perfect daughter.
Did these arise spontaneously from an ingenuous nature, or were they calculated?
If the latter, to what purpose? That question awaited a fuller understanding of her cousin, but Laura confessed herself intrigued by the girl.
There was a smile on her lips as she rose from the chair and approached the bed.
On the point of blowing out her candle, she hesitated, her expression thoughtful.
The women had separated at the stairs upon retiring, with Sophia and Mrs. Marsh heading down the hall to their bedchambers while Laura ascended to the next level.
She had long been in the habit of popping into her mother’s room most evenings to say a final goodnight.
Unwilling to create an awkward situation, she’d proceeded directly upstairs tonight, but there was no real reason to forgo a pleasant custom that would inconvenience no one.
She dithered a moment longer, then firmly retied the girdle of her velvet robe and took up the bedside candle with an air of decision.
“Come in,” Mrs. Marsh called a few minutes later in response to a soft knock.
She lowered the book she had been reading and smiled over its pages at her tiptoeing daughter.
“I am so pleased that you stopped in to say goodnight, dearest.” She held up a glass half filled with white liquid.
“With so much excitement in one day — one very long day — I feared sleep would be elusive, so I had Sukie heat up some milk for me. Were you too wound up to sleep also?”
“I think I am too hungry to sleep.” Laura’s smile was wry.
“So far the food presented by this fancy London chef has been poor in quality and skimpy in quantity. The vegetable dishes tonight were limp and unappetising, and the so-called veal collops were so full of gristle that mine at least was inedible.”
“I must say that I was surprised myself to sit down to such a poor table. Oswald was always so fastidious in his tastes. Of course, Marietta’s illness and death must have disrupted the routines of the house, what with Sophie being too young to take over the reins at the time.
Lady Grantly, too, would have been unfamiliar with the style of her nephew’s establishment, and now she and the housekeeper are both gone.
It is not surprising that the household routine still suffers.
Oswald has no doubt wearied of having to perform what is essentially a woman’s role.
” Mrs. Marsh moved her legs to accommodate her daughter, who was now established at the foot of the bed with her arms wrapped around her own legs, an amused smile playing about her lips.
“As usual you are more charitably inclined than I, Mama. Observation — limited as yet, I grant you — and instinct tell me that my esteemed uncle is inclined to be cheese-paring in those areas that do not come under public scrutiny or add to his consequence in the eyes of his acquaintance.”
“That is ungenerous of you, my child. You forget that your uncle has willingly added three people to his household at a considerable increase in domestic expense.”
“What three people, Mama? What expense?” Laura asked in mock confusion.
“Since Aunt Marietta’s death he has discharged her abigail and the housekeeper, and Lady Grantly has conveniently removed herself.
Since you will undoubtedly take over the housekeeping and Sukie will more than earn her keep in this house, he will actually incur a considerable savings in wages.
Whatever the cost of our wardrobes this spring — and you will have noted that a less expensive dressmaker has now been engaged to provide them — it will not be a fraction of what Aunt Marietta would have spent for Sophie’s come-out.
I will concede,” Laura added as her mother opened her mouth to protest this assessment, “that I might prove an economic liability to my uncle, since I possess even fewer domestic skills than Sophie that he can avail himself of to offset the cost of clothing me. How I detest being under an obligation!” she cried, biting her lip in frustration.
“We are not paupers, Mama. Can we not afford to defray some of the cost of this undertaking?”
“It has always been my fixed intention to assume all the cost of our basic wardrobes, dearest,” Mrs. Marsh said quietly.
“I have no qualms, nor should you, in permitting my brother to underwrite the additional expenses that pertain to a London season — ballgowns and formal dress for the opera and the theatre, plus anything else we would not require in Hertfordshire.”
Relief flooded Laura’s features as she jumped off the bed and came around to kiss her mother’s soft cheek. “Thank you, Mama. I am sorry to be so difficult, but —”
“Do you think you might be able to sleep now?” There was a gleam of amusement in Mrs. Marsh’s blue-green eyes that her daughter had inherited.
“Yes, despite a grumbling stomach. You must get upon terms with the chef immediately, Mama, or we shall fade away to mere shadows. Shall I tell my uncle I would be happy to do the marketing? It might not be considered a valuable feminine accomplishment in some quarters, but one thing I can do is recognise good produce when I see it, and haggle over prices with the best will in the world.”
“If you are really hungry, there is a tin of sweetmeats in the top drawer of the chest. Mrs. Burns must have slipped it into my baggage this morning.”
“Blessings on dear Mrs. Burns,” declared Laura, heading for the chest. She came away nibbling one of the sticky treats before retrieving her candle and bidding her mother a smiling goodnight.
Mrs. Marsh did not take up her book again after Laura’s quiet exit.
Her eyes remained on the door as she sipped slowly at the lukewarm milk, her thoughts centred on her beloved child.
She was immensely grateful that Laura’s nature was warm-hearted and generous, but there was no denying she possessed her father’s stiff-necked pride in full measure, she acknowledged with an inward sigh as she replaced the glass on the table and leaned over to blow out her candle.