Джорджетт Хейер - Black Sheep

A little before eight o’clock, at the close of a damp autumn day, a post-chaise entered Bath, on the London Road, and presently drew up outside a house in Sydney Place. It was a hired vehicle, but it was drawn by four horses, and there was nothing in the appearance of the lady who occupied it to suggest that a private chaise, with her own postilions, would have been rather beyond her touch. She was accompanied by a middle-aged maid; and she was attired in an olive-green redingote of twilled silk which so exactly fitted her admirable figure that any female, beholding it, would have recognized at a glance that it had been made for her by a modiste of the first stare. It combined the simplicity of a garment designed for travel with an elegance only rivalled by the hat which becomingly framed Miss Abigail Wendover’s face. No curled plumes or bunches of flowers adorned this confection: it was made of gros de Naples, bound with a satin ribbon; its poke was moderate, and its crown shallow; but it was as fashionable as the redingote.

The face beneath it was neither that of a girl in her first bloom, nor that of an accredited beauty, but it held an elusive charm which was centred in the lady’s eyes, and the shy laughter which lurked in them. They were gray, and they held a great deal of intelligence; but her other features were not remarkable, her mouth being too large for beauty, her nose too far removed from the classical, and her chin rather too resolute. Her hair was neither fashionably dark nor angelically fair, but of a soft brown. It was not cropped, after the prevailing mode; she wore it braided round her head, or in a knot from which curls fell about her ears. Occasionally, and in defiance of her niece’s vehemently expressed disapproval, she tied a lace cap over it. Fanny said that it made her look like an old maid, and cried out indignantly when she answered, in her pretty, musical voice: “Well, I am an old maid!”

It seemed as if her arrival had been eagerly awaited, for hardly had the chaise drawn up than the door of the house which was her home was flung open, and a footman came hurrying out to let down the steps of the chaise. He was followed by an elderly butler, who handed his mistress down, beaming a welcome, and saying: “Good-evening, Miss Abby! Well, and it is a good evening which brings you home again! I am very happy to see you, ma’am!”

“Oh, and so happy as I am, Mitton!” she responded. “I don’t think I was ever away for so many weeks before! Is my sister well?”

“Pretty stout, ma’am—barring a touch of rheumatism. She was a trifle down pin when you first went away, and took the notion into her head that she was of a consumptive habit—”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Abby, in comical dismay.

“No, ma’am,” agreed Mitton. “It was no more than an epidemic cold, which left her with a little cough—as the new doctor was able to convince her.” His tone was one of bland respect, but there was a twinkle in his eye, which drew an involuntary chuckle from her. The twinkle deepened, but all he said was: “Very glad she will be to see you, Miss Abby. Quite on the fidgets she has been for hours past, fearing that there might be another put-off.”

“Then I must go up to her immediately,” Abby said, and went with a light step into the house, leaving Mitton to extend a gracious welcome to her attendant.

Since the struggle for position between the butler grown old in the service of the family, and the one-time nurse to its three younger daughters, was unremitting, Mrs Grimston took this in bad part, detecting a note of patronage, and merely adjured him never to mind how she did, but to take care of Miss Abby’s jewel-box.

Meanwhile, Abby, running up the stairs, found her sister awaiting her at the top of the first flight. Miss Wendover, enfolding her in a fond embrace, shed tears of joy, and begged her, in one tumbled speech, to retire instantly to bed after the fatigue of her journey; to come into the drawing-room; not to put herself to the trouble of uttering a word until she should be perfectly rested; and to tell her at once all about dear Jane, and dear Mary, and dear Jane’s sweet new baby.

Sixteen years separated the sisters, for they were the eldest and the youngest members of a numerous family, three of whom had died in infancy, and one, the first-born son, when his only child was hardly out of leading-strings. Between Selina, on the shady side of forty, and Abigail, with a mere eight-and-twenty years in her dish, there now intervened only James, Mary, and Jane. It was with Jane, married to a man of considerable property in Huntingdonshire, that Abigail had been sojourning for the better part of the past six weeks, having been summoned to support her sister through the disasters which had befallen her. Measles had attacked her youthful family, and at the very moment when Nurse, falling down the backstairs, had broken her leg, and while she herself was in hourly expectation of presenting Sir Francis with a fourth petit paquet. In a letter heavy with underscorings, Lady Chesham had implored her dearest Abby to come to her at once, and to bring Grimston with her, since nothing could prevail upon her to abandon her beloved children to a strange nurse’s care.

So Abigail had posted away to Huntingdonshire, where she had remained for five weeks, under trying conditions, all three children having succumbed to the measles before her arrival, her sister being brought to bed within two days of it, and her brother-in-law, at no time remarkable for amiability, apparently labouring under the conviction that this unfortunate concatenation of circumstances had been designed for the express purpose of causing him to suffer the maximum amount of undeserved hardship.

“You must be worn to a thread!” Selina said, leading her into the drawing-room. “And then to be obliged to go to London, in all that racket and bustle! I don’t think Mary should have asked it of you!”

“She didn’t: I invited myself, as a reward for not having got into a quarrel with Sir Francis. Never have I known a more glumpish, disagreeable man! I sincerely pity Jane, and forgive her all her peevishness. You can’t conceive how glad I was to see George’s good-humoured countenance when I reached Brook Street, and to be made so welcome by him and Mary! I enjoyed myself very much, and did a vast deal of shopping. Only wait until you see the bonnet I’ve brought for you: you will look charmingly in it! Then I bought ells of the prettiest muslins for Fanny, besides a quantity of fripperies for myself, and—But where is Fanny?”

“She will be so vexed not to have been here to welcome you!”

“Fiddle! why should she be? It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Then I collect she is at the cotillion-ball?”

“I thought there could be no objection,” Selina said, a little defensively. “Lady Weaverham invited her to dine, and to go to the Upper Rooms afterwards, in her party, and I consented to it, having then no apprehension that you would be with us again today.”

“Why, of course!” said Abby. “Very uncivil of Fanny it would have been to have cried off!”

“Exactly so!” said Selina eagerly. “With Lady Weaverham, too—such an amiable woman, as I know you must agree! Besides having two daughters, which makes it so particularly kind in her to have invited Fanny! Because it can’t be denied that our dearest is the prettiest girl in Bath!”

“Oh, out of cry! As for Lady Weaverham, no one could be more amiable—or more shatterbrained! I wish—No, never mind! I’m glad she has taken Fanny to the ball on this occasion, for I must talk to you about Fanny.”

“Yes, my love, of course! But you are tired, and must be longing to go to bed! A bowl of broth—”

“No, no, just a little thin gruel!” said Abby, laughing at her. “You goose, I stopped to dine in Chippenham, and I’m not in the least tired. We’ll drink tea together, as soon as I’ve put off my hat, and enjoy a comfortable prose.” She added mischievously: “You look the picture of guilt—as though you were in dread of a scold! But how should I dare to scold my eldest sister? I’m not so brassy!”

She went away, leaving Selina to ring for the tea-tray, and mounted the stairs to her bedroom, where she found Mrs Grimston unpacking her trunk. A look of disapproval had settled on this formidable dame’s countenance, and she greeted Miss Wendover with the information that she had known at the outset how it would be if Miss Fanny were left with only Miss Selina, and Betty Conner (who had more hair than wit, and was flighty into the bargain) to take care of her. “Jauntering about all over!” she said darkly. “Concerts, and balls, and theatres, and picnics, and I don’t know what more besides!”

Abby had her own reasons for suspecting that her niece had been enjoying far more licence than had previously been granted to her; but as she had no intention of discussing the matter with Mrs Grimston she merely replied: “Well, how should you?” which effectually reduced her old nurse to offended silence.

The Misses Wendover had virtually had charge of their orphaned niece since she was two years old, when her mama had died in giving birth to a still-born son, and her papa had confided her to the care of her grandmama. His own death, three years later, in no way affected this arrangement; and when, in Fanny’s twelfth year, her grandpapa had met with a fatal accident on the hunting-field, and his widow had chosen to retire to Bath, instead of continuing to endure, in her Dower House, a climate which had never agreed with her frail constitution, his surviving son, James, who was Fanny’s guardian, had been only too glad to leave Fanny in her care. He was himself the father of a hopeful family, but his wife, a lady of forceful character, had no wish to assume the charge of his niece. When Mrs Wendover died, three years later, Fanny was bidding fair to become an uncommonly beautiful girl, and Mrs James Wendover had even less desire to include her in her household, where she would not only outshine her cousins, but might even teach them to be as light at hand as she was herself. So James, steward and tenant of the estate of which Fanny was the owner, graciously informed his sisters that they might, for the present, continue to act as the dear child’s guardians. It would be a pity (as his Cornelia pointed out to him) to interrupt her education at one of Bath’s exclusive seminaries. James, adhering to the custom of his family, was determined to arrange an advantageous marriage for Fanny; but he thought there was time enough before it would become Cornelia’s duty to launch her into society, not foreseeing that when Fanny was ripe for presentation Cornelia would be more than ever determined to leave her with her aunts. Cornelia confessed that she could not like Fanny, in whom she detected a sad resemblance to her poor mama. It was to be hoped that she would not grow into one of these modern hurly-burly females; but for her part Cornelia considered that her vivacity led her to be far too coming. But what could one expect of a girl reared by a couple of doting old maids?

The younger of the doting old maids went downstairs again to the drawing-room, where her sister was already seated behind the tea-table. Miss Wendover, after one glance at her carriage-dress, with its rucked sleeves and its little winged ruff of starched muslin, greeted her with instant approval, exclaiming: “I never saw you look so becoming! London, of course?”

“Yes: Mary was so obliging as to take me to her very own Therese, which I thought excessively good-natured of her.”

“Therese! I daresay it was shockingly dear, then, because Cornelia once said to me—so spiteful of her!—that it was to be hoped George might not be ruined by Mary’s extravagance, and that she couldn’t afford to have her dresses made by Therese.”

“Could, but won’t,” said Abby, sipping her tea. “How happy James must be to have a wife who is as big a nip-farthing as he is himself!”

“Oh, Abby, how can you? Remember, he is your brother!”

“I do, and never cease to regret it!” retorted Abby. “Now, don’t, I beg of you, recite me a catalogue of his virtues, for they don’t render him any more lovable—less, in fact! Besides, he’s an incorrigible busy-head, and I’m quite out of charity with him.”

Selina had been uttering soft clucking sounds of protest, but they ceased at this, and she demanded quite sharply: “Has James written to you too?”

“Written to me! He actually came up to London to read me one of his pompous lectures! My dear, what have you been doing here? Who is this ramshackle youth who has been making up to Fanny?”