Chapter 10
“Do you suppose anyone will come?” Bernice asked. “After all, my mother all but forced the gentlemen’s hands when she delivered the invitation in such an obvious way.”
Camilla, accompanied by her maid, had gone to the Miltons’ house on Berkeley Square, her first endeavor in seeking Bernice’s company without the excuse of paying morning calls.
Not that she had paid a morning call at the Miltons’ more than a handful of times with her mother and sisters, but she figured that if she wished to develop a more intimate friendship, she must make an effort to do so.
“I think there is every reason to hope they might come,” Camilla replied reassuringly, although she had doubts on that head.
Surely the gentlemen would have some other invitation they preferred?
But she did not wish to discourage Bernice.
“After all, your mother is not the only lady of Society whose ambition for her daughter leads her to organize a party.”
“If that is her reason and not simply to boast of having attracted distinguished guests.” Bernice smiled at her wistfully. “Your mother seems to have little ambition for any of you, and I do mean that in the kindest of terms. She is so good natured and calm.”
Camilla adjusted her vision of Lady Poole to try to fit that of Bernice’s.
She had always viewed her mother with more of a critical spirit, but perhaps that was due to Dorothea’s influence.
Not the current Lady Dorothea Shaw, happily married and gracious, for she was not the same creature as the single Lady Dorothea Rowlandson.
Miles had contributed to her transformation by the simple expedient of loving her for precisely who she was. It taught her to do the same to others.
If it remained uncertain whether Dorothea had contributed to the vague criticism Camilla felt toward their mother, there was no question of whether her father had done so.
The late Lord Poole was an autocratic, sarcastic, impatient man.
He was a poor choice of husband for any woman, but particularly for one of such great sensibility as Lady Poole.
She had married him at the tender age of seventeen, with no family to speak of who might shield her from an impossible-to-please husband.
As a result, Lady Poole had simply disappeared into herself.
For years, she had existed as a mere shadow in a loud and boisterous household.
A young Camilla observing this had suffered under the neglect of a father who cared little, and a mother who had no strength to care more, and decided she would not fall prey to the same fate. She would have a voice.
Bernice, looking around her drawing room, had not seemed to notice that Camilla’s thoughts had wandered and was likely entertaining her own. She liked that about her. Bernice Milton was a restful person to be around.
“Did your mother send the invitations out already?” She wanted to know whether they had received any replies.
Would she come to a night of cards that required her to match wits with Pembroke?
A part of her hoped she would, for it was exhilarating.
Another part of her felt tired at the thought.
It was not the matching of wits that was exhausting, but the keeping her heart’s fortress intact that was.
“She said she would speak to Abigail first to see if she and Mr. Quarles could come.” Bernice’s grimace revealed what she thought of her sister’s presence at the event, and Camilla privately agreed.
Abigail was not a pleasant person to be around.
“In the end, she said she is far too busy to consider such an unimportant invitation and that we must do it without her—if we can manage to attract enough of a crowd, that is.”
“I am sorry to say it, but your sister is not kind.” Camilla reached forward and chose another small cake, though she had told herself she would have only one. She set it on her plate.
“I know it,” Bernice said, in the voice of one resigned.
“I might have supported you against her back in Surrey had I had the idea to do so then.” Camilla brushed the crumbs from her fingers and asked a question that had recently come to mind.
“Why do you suppose we rarely spent time together when we were younger? We are only coming to know each other now.”
“I always assumed it was because you were higher in status than we were.” Bernice shrugged, then leaned in for sotto voce speech.
“At least that was the excuse my mother made. It didn’t stop her from bringing us to visit you, however, for in the next breath she would say that we were not inferior and invite anyone to dare to say it. ”
“Of course you are not. What a silly thing, the notion of status, don’t you think?
” Camilla bit into the cake. “I suppose you must think it rich coming from me, but we have never gained a single advantage from it that I can see. My father set great store by it, and Dorothea followed him in his ambition for a short time. Thankfully, she has more sense now.”
“You seem to have had an unusual upbringing for the daughter of a peer,” Bernice said kindly, leaving unsaid the obvious that without a doubt Camilla had gained untold advantages from her status; she was being ungrateful.
“I suppose. It is the only one I know.” Camilla relaxed in the calm of the moment, appreciating this quiet exchange with none of the fanfare of morning calls and displaying one’s best side.
It was like talking to Sophia in a way. “And you have not had an easy time of it with your mother and sister.”
Bernice shook her head. “But I have my father, and thankfully he is hale and hearty, for I should truly be loath to lose him.”
Camilla murmured her agreement. The solution to her friend’s unhappy predicament presented itself, and she studied Bernice, a smile lurking. “You will simply have to marry. Then you will be mistress of your own household. Know of any candidates?”
Bernice’s ivory complexion was not generally given to color, but her cheeks gave a good show of it then. Lips closed, she shook her head again.
“Perhaps one will come along. You are only Sophia’s age, and as shy as she has always been, she is now married. And rules her own home with an iron fist,” Camilla joked, laughing at the idea.
Bernice joined her in her mirth, but only briefly before her face fell. “She is also beautiful.”
Camilla was unable to return an answer because Lady Milton entered the drawing room and exclaimed at the ill luck of not having been at home earlier to receive their visitor.
She assured Lady Milton that she had spent a delightful hour with Bernice and had not minded it at all.
The open conversation they had shared was all they were to have, because Lady Milton began to discuss plans for Thursday night’s card party in a way that gave no one else a chance to speak.
That was, the party that would take place if they could convince Lord Pembroke to join them, along with his gentlemen friends.
A note delivered by messenger from Bernice informed Camilla that the card party scheduled for the following evening was to happen.
There would be a group of Sir Humphrey and Lady Milton’s friends, and they would set up their own table for card games with a separate table for the younger set.
Meanwhile, Lord Pembroke had graciously accepted to come, along with his friends, Mr. Pollard, Mr. Wilmot, and Mr. Weatherby.
In addition, Bernice wrote, her sister Abigail had suddenly claimed she was free after all.
She would come with her husband and a young protégée of hers, a Miss Alice Winkley.
Lady Joanna was also invited if she wished it, for she was of an age to enjoy such a thing.
Bernice added as an aside that it would provide the younger set an even number if her sister was willing to condescend to coming.
So Pembroke would attend after all. Camilla brooded over the news, unsure of how she felt.
Surprised, surely, for she had not thought he would come.
It would certainly make the party more interesting to have him there with his friends.
It would also force her to be at her wittiest, for she could not let him win any encounter they had, whether it be cards or debate.
She wondered what had caused him to accept the invitation when he neither knew Lady Milton well, nor was the evening’s entertainment likely to be one that would appeal to him and his friends.
Joanna, who had no objection to going, and Camilla set off by carriage accompanied by a footman, and they arrived at the Miltons’ residence at seven o’clock.
It was warm enough that they needed only a light cloak, even in the evening, which Camilla removed in the entrance and handed to the footman.
They were presented to those assembled, which included mainly Lord and Lady Milton’s friends.
After greeting them formally, and Bernice more warmly, Camilla exchanged a cordial greeting with Abigail, before being presented to Abigail’s friend.
“How do you do,” Miss Winkley whispered.
Miss Winkley was very becoming, with large, innocent blue eyes and angelic, guinea-colored ringlets.
With such a timid greeting, she reminded Camilla forcibly of Sophia.
It gave her a measure of compassion for the girl, for she knew it was not easy to live with such shyness.
She could not but wonder whatever had possessed Abigail to befriend her, for Miss Winkley was her opposite.
A hearty knock sounded on the door, and the servant opened it to show in the first of the gentlemen to arrive—Lord Pembroke. Camilla hid all signs of nervousness behind a blank expression as though the sight of him affected her not at all.
“That is Lord Pembroke, an earl,” Abigail whispered in the ear of her friend, which Camilla was close enough to hear. “I am quite certain he will be taken with you, and what a victory it will be when he singles you out.”