CHAPTER EIGHT #3
“I suppose Nora can leave him there in the afternoon for an hour or two, and call back to escort him home?”
“Certainly, but not tomorrow, if you please. I plan to spend some time checking into Aubrey’s initial progress with this new tutor. He came well recommended, but it is only prudent to demonstrate that there will be expectations to meet right from the beginning.”
“Very well, the next day, then. Lord Exton also expressed his intention to call one day soon. No doubt he feels he must thank us in person for the service Laura and Aubrey rendered his son.”
“Very proper of him,” agreed her brother before helping himself to another veal collop and some mushrooms. “This dish is more than tolerable,” he remarked in some surprise.
“His sister smiled. “I have had several conversations with the chef and urged him to send someone more discriminating to do the marketing. The quality of the produce and meat has been poor. I have also endeavoured to persuade him not to try to cram the baking into his busy schedule now that there are more of us to feed.”
“But there are actually no more of us here than there were six months ago,” a puzzled Sophia pointed out.
“I know,” Annabelle twinkled a smile at her niece, “but the man obviously has no skill at baking, so he cannot like doing it. I’ll see if anyone else in the kitchen can take over that department after a bit.
Meanwhile, it is wiser to buy baked goods and let the question rest for the present.
Your father would not care to experience a complete upheaval in the kitchen if it can be avoided. ”
“Lord, no!” Sir Oswald agreed in heartfelt accents, returning his attention to his meal with rare enjoyment.
The evening passed peacefully. Sophia diddled at the pianoforte while contributing to a lazy conversation among the ladies until her father joined them.
She then obliged her parent by playing his requests.
Mrs. Marsh worked on her exquisite embroidery and Laura sat enjoying the music, setting an erratic stitch now and then in the ancient, yellowing piece of fancy work she kept to hide behind on the infrequent occasions in the past when she had found herself in female company.
From time to time her thoughtful glance dwelled on her mother’s madonna-like features for an extended moment, noting that the impression of quiet contentment Annabelle presented never varied.
Laura was still thinking about her parent later as she prepared for bed.
She acknowledged a faint sense of disappointment that during their customary final goodnight in her bedchamber, her mother had made no reference to her vaguely deceptive statements to her brother about Lords Hastings and Exton.
Laura saw the omission almost as a denial of the tenuous little conspiratorial bond she had experienced — or fancied she had felt between them — at dinner.
She’d been uncharacteristically reticent about broaching the subject herself, fearful of invading her parent’s privacy perhaps.
Laura frowned unseeingly into the mirror as she tied a nightcap under her chin.
Why should she find her mother’s masterly evasion of her brother’s questions so surprising?
Because in the self-absorption of youth she was used to considering her parent’s words and actions faithfully reflective of her thoughts and emotions?
Obviously Annabelle had learned circumspection during the long years of concealing her feelings about her unsatisfactory marriage from the world.
And she must emulate her mother’s example and learn this art also, Laura resolved, climbing into bed.
As well she must master the smarting little hurt at discovering that her mother’s heart was not as wholly accessible to her daughter’s perusal as that daughter had always assumed in her adolescent conceit.
After all, every heart deserved to keep its own secrets, even from loved ones.
Satisfied with the result of her complex ruminations, Laura slept the sleep of the just and the sensible that night.
The pace of life quickened for the ladies of Mount Street now that their initial wardrobe inadequacies were well in hand to be eliminated.
The next day saw them calling on Lady Sefton in the company of Mrs. Chandler and Dorothea.
Next to Emily Lamb — Lady Cowper — Maria Sefton was reputed to be the most attractive and approachable of the lady patronesses whose vigilant oversight kept the weekly balls at Mr. Willis’ rooms in King Street the most select and desirable venue in which genteel families could introduce their marriageable offspring of both sexes.
She greeted Mrs. Chandler as a friend and displayed warm cordiality in dispensing the coveted invitations to Almack’s, going so far as to offer a smiling prediction that her services in presenting would-be dancing partners to such charming girls as Miss Marsh and Miss Albright would be in great demand at their initial ball and completely redundant thereafter.
The girls received the compliment as their different natures dictated: Sophia with sparkling pleasure, lightly overlaid with the requisite assumption of modesty dictated by a proper upbringing, and Laura with a touch of shyness and innate reserve underlying her grateful smile.
In the carriage after delivering the Chandlers to their home, the Mount Street ladies agreed that, although perhaps not a beauty, Lady Sefton was still a pretty woman, whose gentle eyes and kindly smile gave her a timeless appeal.
They returned home in time for lunch, well pleased with the morning’s accomplishments, to learn from Jimson that Lord Hastings had called in their absence.
“Well, now, I call that promising indeed — do not you, cousin?” Sophia tenderly removed a dashing straw bonnet whose high crown was encircled with large yellow roses, opening her dark eyes wide at her cousin over the brim.
Sophia at her most ingenuous. We’ll be stepping over the bodies of love-smitten young men in the near future, Laura predicted mentally.
Taking a leaf from her cousin’s book on impulse, she removed her own hat and peered over its more modest brim, her sea-green gaze limpid. “Whatever can you mean, Sophie? What is promising?” she inquired, putting as much coy innocence as she could muster into the sweet tones.
The lovely brunette’s eyes narrowed in suspicion before she dissolved into giggles.
“Touché!” she admitted, tossing the prized bonnet on to a table before strolling over to a mirror and pushing her fingers into her flattened curls to restore them to their usual state of luxuriant fullness.
“One call would have satisfied all claims on civility considering the recent nature of the acquaintance. I wonder what could have prompted another visit scarcely three days later?”
“Oh, I can tell you that,” Laura replied in the confiding tones of one big with news. “Lord Hastings has formed a tendre for Mama. He was forever flirting with her in Hertfordshire even though he was concussed at the time.”
“Laura Marsh, you will give your cousin a vastly mistaken idea of Lord Hastings’ character with your ridiculous funning — which is in very poor taste, let me add, as well as being untrue,” Mrs. Marsh said with some asperity.
“No, really, Aunt Annabelle,” Sophia said earnestly, “no one would find it difficult to credit. You do not look a day over thirty. I could see that Lady Sefton did not believe you were actually Laura’s mama at first.”
Mrs. Marsh laughed, erasing several more years from her lovely countenance. “That is quite enough nonsense from the pair of you,” she declared, patting her niece’s cheek as she headed for the stairs. “I have a lowering suspicion that chaperoning you girls is going to age me rapidly this spring.”
All three women were smiling as they proceeded up the stairs to get ready for luncheon.