CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At Annabelle’s request, Laura did not go directly to the saloon on the Wednesday evening of Almack’s first ball of the season, but detoured by her mother’s room instead.
“Oh, dearest, you look like a young queen in that golden gown with your hair dressed high on your head.” Mrs. Marsh tweaked a honey-hued curl falling artlessly toward her daughter’s ear. “Did Sukie do it for you?”
“Yes. After less than a month in town she fancies herself a society dresser,” Laura laughed, “and does not scruple to scold me if she feels something I do or wear or say might reveal my deplorable rural origins.”
Annabelle smiled in sympathy, but as her eyes took in the details of the golden sarcenet skirt over a slip that was close to amber and the bandings of the same amber on the short puffed sleeves, she declared, “Whoever was responsible, the result is that you look every inch the tonnish young lady this evening. All you require is one finishing touch, and here it is.”
A surprised Laura took the box her mother held out and, opening it, stared down at the contents. “But, Mama,” she cried, raising her eyes, “these are your pearls! Oh, of course, you mean to lend them to me tonight. Thank you. I have always loved them.”
“No, dearest, I mean to give them to you tonight,” Annabelle declared, shaking her head. “That was always the plan. My grandmother wore them for her come-out and my mother for hers. She gave them to me and I now give them to you. Stand still and I will fasten them for you.”
Laura stood before the mirror watching her mother’s movements, an unfamiliar catch in her throat at the sheer loveliness of the woman whose every thought and action had been for her daughter’s benefit for as long as memory stretched.
“There! My, they are wonderful against your skin, dearest, but there is still one thing missing.”
“Missing? But I am wearing the gold filigree earrings you gave me for my birthday, Mama, see?” Laura turned her head and met her parent’s eyes, which were bright with rare excitement.
As she stared bemused, Annabelle reached down to the dressing table, where she picked up another box that she presented to her daughter with something of a flourish.
“Go on, open it,” she urged, seizing the girl’s wrist and placing the box in her hand.
Laura obeyed and her eyes widened as she slipped her fingers under a double strand of lustrous pearls. “It’s a beautiful bracelet, Mama, but you should not have done it. It’s too much.”
Annabelle laughed and administered a little shake to Laura’s arm.
“Do not be a goose, dearest. Your father and I planned to give you this on your wedding day.” She shrugged shapely shoulders under lace sleeves dyed to match her gown of mauve silk.
“That did not happen, so you shall have it now. Here, I’ll put it on for you.
There, now you look perfectly turned out.
” She smiled to herself as the girl’s fingers rose to caress the pearls at her throat while the bracelet slid a few inches back from her slender wrist.
Laura caught her mother’s eye in the mirror and laughed self-consciously.
“At the risk of sounding immodest, Mama, I must say that we do make rather an elegant pair tonight. I like the look of the lace bodice exactly matching the colour of your gown, but you are not wearing any jewellery except your amethyst earrings. Won’t you please take the pearls or the bracelet for this evening? ”
“Thank you, my love, but I do have a necklace, if you will return the favour by fastening it for me.”
“Of course. Goodness!” Laura exclaimed as she stared at the item her mother had spilled carelessly into her cupped palm. “Diamonds! I have never seen this before. It is magnificent.”
Annabelle’s earlier animation had drained from her countenance as she stood quietly while Laura fastened the exquisitely formed diamond links about her throat. “My father gave it to me on my marriage,” she said in a colourless voice. “I never cared to wear it in the country.”
“Well, you look marvellous in it tonight. If you hoped to placate my uncle by wearing mauve, I must warn you that you still appear far too young to be taken for a chaperone.”
Annabelle gave her daughter a saucy look that set Laura laughing as they headed downstairs together, carrying evening cloaks and reticules over their arms.
Sophia was at her radiant best, gowned all in a creamy-white costume that made the most of her dramatic dark eyes and hair.
Sir Oswald too was looking very fine in the black coat and white knee breeches that were de rigueur for Almack’s.
Her uncle’s affability never went below the surface, Laura reflected, as the party drove off to King Street, but at least tonight he had taken the trouble to present the appearance of someone anticipating a pleasant evening.
Watching brother and sister making desultory conversation in the carriage from her seat beside Sophia, she was struck anew by the strong family resemblance between them.
They shared the Albright fair colouring and slender but well-proportioned physique that lent distinction and grace to their movements.
Fortunately her grandfather’s and uncle’s austere character and emotional coldness had bypassed Annabelle and Sophia, and she ventured to hope that Aubrey had also escaped the stigma.
As the carriage joined a stream of vehicles heading for the same destination, she trusted with innocent vanity that, whatever their individual flaws, the Albright party would present an attractive family portrait this evening.
Almack’s was everything Laura had imagined and more.
The ballroom was an impressive size but could barely contain the multitude that had turned out for the occasion.
Fortunately for those who came to dance, the cardplayers and strollers spilled into ancillary rooms, and chaperones established themselves around the perimeter of the ballroom.
The soft glow of hundreds of candles enhanced the visual attractions of the scene, making fabrics shimmer and jewels sparkle while flattering even ageing complexions.
Most of the ladies present favoured pastels, but here and there richly coloured gowns added a grace note to the spectrum.
The gentlemen in their severe black and white evening dress, except for the occasional military uniform, provided a splendid foil for the fair sex.
Lady Sefton greeted the party warmly and presented several young men to the cousins as desirable partners for the evening. With the dreadful spectre of being a wallflower banished, the girls prepared to enjoy themselves to their full bent.
Though Laura was loath to admit it, she was relieved that Lord Hastings was to be her first partner. She had seen him just that morning and, as usual, his manner had conveyed unalloyed pleasure in her company and a flattering blindness to her conversational and social shortcomings.
Armed with swatches of fabrics, she and Sukie had been sent on an errand and had almost literally bumped into Lord Hastings as they rounded a corner on to Bond Street.
“Well met, Miss Marsh,” he’d said, doffing his hat with a beaming smile. “This must be my lucky day.”
“It doesn’t look that way,” Laura had replied. “You have a cut on your chin.”
He’d laughed outright as she bit her lip in belated recognition of her deplorable candour.
“I could say I cut myself shaving, but the lowering truth is that I forgot to duck while sparring at Jackson’s just now.
It will heal in an hour,” he predicted optimistically.
“May I persuade you to engage me as porter and general assistant in whatever commissions have brought you to this spot?”
“I would not dream of imposing so on your good nature, sir,” she’d protested. “It is merely a prosaic errand to buy some ribbons for my mother.”
He had brushed aside her objection and offered his arm, declaring himself a dab hand at matching colours. Diverted by his nonsense, she’d meekly allowed herself to be steered into a shop where he proceeded to demonstrate the truth of his boastful claims to her increasing amusement and wonder.
Confronted by merchandise in a vast rainbow of hues, Lord Hastings had pointed to one sample. “What colour would you call this?”
“Brown, of course.”
“Ah, but not just any brown — this is Skeffington brown, made famous by Sir Lumley Skeffington, while this one with the reddish tinge is known as Devonshire brown. And this colour?”
“Sort of pinky-purple,” she’d replied.
“Amaranthus, to be precise. And this?”
“Orange, dark orange.”
“It is called capucine.”
She’d eyed his too-innocent countenance with dawning respect. “I am humbled — nay, confounded — by this display of esoteric knowledge. To what do you owe your proficiency?’
“I have a mother,” he’d announced with a grand air, “and a peculiar memory for trivia.”
By the time Lord Hastings had escorted Laura and the faithful Sukie to the Albright door the simple errand had consumed more than an hour.
They had dawdled in the shop and strolled an eccentric route back to Mount Street.
Their conversation had been wide-ranging and inconsequential for the most part, but it had created an aura of mental attunement on some wordless level that was uniquely pleasurable to Laura.
Lord Hastings really was a most companionable person, she decided as she gave him her hand for her maiden dance at Almack’s.
His breezy manner when leading her on to the floor helped subdue the qualms any young lady might be excused for harbouring on the occasion of demonstrating her terpsichorean prowess for the first time in public.
Still, her fingers, as the pair joined a set that was forming, clutched rather than rested on his sleeve, and as they launched into the first movements of the country dance, he was obliged to repeat his opening remarks before her eyes looked on him with comprehension, and the fixed smile on her lips softened.