Buch lesen: «The Scandal Of The Season»

Chapter One

Cassandra pressed her nose right up to the window pane as the carriage containing Miss Henley of Henley Hall went lurching past the front gate.

‘You can come away from the window now,’ said Aunt Eunice, from the cutting table where she was working. ‘She’s gone.’

Along with all the beautiful clothes Cassandra and her aunts had spent the last few months, often late into the night, creating.

Would Miss Henley wear the white muslin with the periwinkle ribbons and spangled overdress, with which Cassandra had fallen half in love, to a ball? Or, once she reached London, would she discard it in favour of something created by a fashionable town modiste? The way she’d so easily discarded Cassandra the minute she could, apparently. Miss Henley hadn’t even leaned out of the window to wave as she’d gone past just now, the way Cassandra would have done had she been in the coach, and Miss Henley the one whose fingers had developed calluses as she’d sat up till all hours, making sure everything was finished on time.

A heavy, invisible cloak seemed to settle over Cassandra’s shoulders as she thought of how much effort she’d put into making each and every garment that comprised Miss Henley’s wardrobe for her Season. She’d wanted them all to be perfect, because of the way Miss Henley had stood up to her mother, who’d wanted her to take her custom to a more reputable dressmaker with a shop in Exeter.

‘I want nobody but my dear, dear friend, Miss Furnival,’ she’d said, ‘to make the clothes I’m going to wear in town. Because every time I put on something she has made for me, I will feel as if she is with me in spirit and then I shall feel less alone.’

The statement had touched something so deep inside Cassandra, she hadn’t quite known how to deal with the feeling.

‘You won’t be alone,’ Lady Henley, her mother, had said tartly enough to dispel it. ‘I shall be with you. And so will your papa.’

‘Yes, but I shan’t have any friends my own age,’ Miss Henley had objected, with a pout. ‘And everyone will be so…sophisticated and they are bound to make me feel like a mere country miss, and…’

Her big blue eyes had swum with tears. And Lady Henley had promptly capitulated.

‘I suppose at least it will save us a deal of expense,’ she’d said, looking round the front parlour of the cottage where Cassandra’s aunts carried on their business. ‘Which will please your papa. And we shan’t have the fatigue of travelling up to Exeter whenever you need a fitting, either. Very well, my puss. You may have your way.’

‘Spoiled madam,’ Aunt Cordelia had muttered. After the Henleys had left, of course.

‘Still, it is a big order,’ the ever-practical Aunt Eunice had pointed out. ‘And at least Sir Barnabas will pay promptly.’

‘That is the one advantage of having a vicar with evangelical tendencies,’ Aunt Cordelia had replied. ‘He would rain down fire and brimstone on anyone who brought hardship on any of his flock by neglecting to pay what they owe.’

‘Especially two spinster ladies of genteel birth, who have fallen on such hard times that they are forced to earn their living by the needle,’ Aunt Eunice had said, her tongue most decidedly in her cheek.

Cassandra felt her lower lip wobble as Miss Henley’s coach swept round the bend in the lane, taking it briefly out of sight. Would its youngest occupant ever really think of her when she was driving round the park in a curricle tooled by some handsome young buck? Or when some dashing blade was rowing her down the river to a grassy bank where dozens of dazzling young people would be gathering to take a picnic?

Probably not, she reflected, heaving a sigh.

‘I’m just going to watch,’ she said with a sniff, in belated answer to Aunt Eunice’s comment about getting back to work, ‘until they’ve gone over the bridge.’ It might take her a while to shake off this fit of the dismals and she had no wish to show a glum face to her aunts, since it would smack of ingratitude.

‘You won’t be able to see them going over the bridge,’ Aunt Eunice said, before Aunt Cordelia shushed her.

‘The girl might be able to glimpse the trunks strapped to the roof when they get to the brow of it,’ she said.

Yes, the trunks. And there they were! She could see them now as the coach crested the narrow bridge over the River Teene. Each and every one of them stuffed to bursting with outfits she’d helped create, outfits which were going to London, a place she had never been, nor would ever be likely to go, not now, even though it was an experience most girls of her age and station considered their right.

Because she’d committed a Fatal Error.

‘Leave her be, Eunice,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘It can’t be easy watching a stuck-up little madam like that swanning off to town when our Cassy…’

Had been stupid enough to trust in a handsome face and a scarlet jacket, and a kindly demeanour…

Oh, dear, there went her lower lip again.

She dug into the pocket of her apron for a handkerchief, and surreptitiously dabbed at her left eye, which was, in spite of her resolve, starting to leak. She had no intention of letting the aunts see that she was on the verge of tears. It might make them think she was unhappy with her lot. Which would be terribly…disloyal. Because if they hadn’t taken her in and given her honest work, she could easily have ended up lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Or, worse, staying alive and earning her living by…

She pulled herself up short with a sniff. She hadn’t had to endure such horrors. Because the aunts had taken her in. Even though her own mother and stepfather had refused to do as much, claiming she would bring shame on them and blight her younger brother’s reputation, as well.

It was true that Aunt Cordelia, who was not really an aunt but only some sort of cousin of her mother’s, had only opened her door grudgingly. But that hadn’t been anything to do with Cassandra’s actions.

‘We don’t mix socially any longer,’ she’d said gruffly. ‘Not since we’ve set up house together. And if you come to stay the rest of the family will turn their backs on you, because they will consider you’ve been…er…contaminated by our sort of…’

‘Eccentricity,’ Aunt Eunice had concluded when Aunt Cordelia had floundered.

‘Yes, that’s the least unpleasant way they have described our arrangement,’ Aunt Cordelia had mused.

Cassandra hadn’t understood what they’d meant, not then. So she’d simply said that it wouldn’t make any difference, because none of her immediate family would have anything further to do with her anyway. Her stepfather had warned her that he would see to that.

‘Well, he has no say here,’ Aunt Cordelia had said firmly. ‘I’ve never had any time for that old lecher who married your mother for her money. And as for the rest of them…well, they all washed their hands of me many years ago, when I refused to marry some oafish male, and set up home with my good friend instead. But…that’s why you came to me, isn’t it?’

Cassandra had nodded.

‘Then you can stay for a while and see if we can all rub along together.’

And they had. They did.

Cassandra blew her nose. She had become, if not exactly happy, then at least content with her lot. Her aunts never made her feel she was a failure, or a disappointment, or a burden. On the contrary, they made her feel that she was making a valuable contribution to the upkeep of the household, since she was such a swift and neat stitcher. Which was, ironically, thanks to her stepfather’s insistence that she and her mother make all their own clothing rather than pay a dressmaker to do it.

However, on days like this, when the clouds looked as though they might part and let the sun through at any minute, and spears of daffodils were nosing their way through the frosty ground, bringing a sense of hope to everyone else, she was always particularly susceptible to suffering from regrets.

So Cassandra didn’t think she’d better attempt to converse with her aunts until she was in better control of herself. Therefore she stayed where she was, gazing out of the window that overlooked their front garden and the lane which led, eventually, to the road to London. And kept her handkerchief at the ready.

She had blown her nose for the fourth, and positively the last, time when she saw the top of a carriage driving over the hump-backed bridge.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It looks as though Miss Henley has forgotten something. At least…no, actually, I don’t think that is her carriage coming over the bridge. There are no trunks on the roof. And, oh! You should see the horses. Four of them. All greys.’ And all of them a distinct cut above the mixed team of chestnuts and blacks that Sir Barnabas occasionally put to work on his home farm.

Cassandra heard the clatter of scissors falling to the table an instant before feeling the presence of Aunt Eunice at her back.

‘She’s right, Cordelia. A spanking team. And, oh, my word, a crest on the door,’ she said as the coach drew level with the cottage.

‘A crest?’ Now it was Aunt Cordelia’s turn to toss her work aside and join them at the little bow-fronted window. ‘What on earth can somebody of that rank be doing in an out-of-the-way place like Market Gooding? Especially up this end.’ For the lane on which their cottage stood only ran between Henley Hall and the London Road.

‘They must have got lost,’ said Aunt Eunice as the carriage drew to a halt by their front gate. ‘Look, that fellow,’ she said, as one of the pair of footmen, who’d been perched up behind, jumped down and opened their gate, ‘is coming to ask for directions.’

‘Then why is the other one opening the carriage door and letting down the steps?’ asked Aunt Cordelia.

All three ladies fell silent at the first glimpse of the passenger, who was clearly a very grand lady to judge from not only the crest on the door, but also the air of reverence with which the footman held out his arm to help her alight.

‘A lady like that wouldn’t get out to ask her way from the inhabitants of a cottage like this,’ said Aunt Cordelia.

‘She must be a new customer,’ said Cassandra as her footman deftly caught the lady’s muff and the furs which must have been swaddling her, before they scattered in all directions.

‘Not she,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘No lady decked out in a carriage dress that fine could possibly want to mar her image by buying anything from a provincial dressmaker.’

Cassandra felt Aunt Eunice swell with indignation at the slur on her creative talent. For she was the one with the eye for seeing just what would suit those who consulted her, as well as the skills of measuring and cutting. Cassandra did the rough basting, and plain stitching nowadays, while Cordelia added the finishing touches. ‘I could turn her out just as fine,’ she growled.

‘Well, yes, you could,’ Aunt Cordelia acknowledged. ‘If you were able to get your hands on that amount of velvet, in just that shade of blue, and if she were to ask you to, but she wouldn’t, would she?’

‘Well, we’re about to find out,’ she retorted, as the footman who’d been stalking up the garden path rapped imperiously on their front door, causing all three ladies to cease their perusal of the vision of sophistication, who was finally ready to take the arm of the second footman, and rush to adopt various industrious poses around the room while Betty, their maid, went to answer the door.

Although Cassandra strained to make out the conversation taking place in the hall, the thick oak door to the parlour kept it frustratingly muffled. Her aunts, who were merely holding the tools of their trade, while leaning in the same direction, were looking equally frustrated.

But at last the door opened and the lady in blue velvet came floating into the room on a cloud of exotic perfume. It was as well they’d watched her arrive, otherwise they would all probably have sat there gaping at the vision of fashionable elegance, flanked on either side by two footmen whose heads almost brushed the ceiling.

As it was, all three of them managed to rise to their feet and drop into suitably deferential curtsies, with an air of aplomb that conveyed the message that they were used to entertaining titled ladies practically every day.

The lady stood there for a moment, looking them over, then abruptly flung her arms wide and headed straight for Cassandra.

‘Darling,’ she said, enveloping her in a highly scented hug. ‘I have found you at last!’

The aunts shot her looks of enquiry, which Cassandra had to return with a shrug. For she had absolutely no idea why this lady was hugging her and calling her darling.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, disentangling herself from the lady’s perfumed embrace. ‘But I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.’

The lady cocked her head to one side, and gave her what Cassandra could only think of as a twinkling look. ‘You are Miss Cassandra Furnival, are you not? Daughter of Julia Hasely, third daughter of the Earl of Sydenham?’

‘Er…yes, I am, but…’

The lady gave a rueful shake of her head and heaved a melodramatic sigh, making Cassandra suspect the lady never did anything without considering the effect it would have upon an audience. ‘I suppose I should have been prepared to find you had forgotten me. Because you were, after all, just the tiniest babe when last we were in the same room together.’ She drew off her gloves and held them out in mid-air. One of the footmen sprang forward just in time to catch them as she let them drop. ‘Which was at your christening,’ she finished saying, looking around as though searching for something. ‘Your mother was a great friend of mine,’ she said, making for one of the chairs reserved for customers. ‘A very great friend,’ she said, disposing herself upon it gracefully. ‘I,’ she announced, with a dazzling smile, ‘am your godmother.’

‘Your Grace,’ gasped Cassandra, collapsing on to her own chair as she finally realised that this lady had, indeed, come to visit her. The Duchess of Theakstone, her godmother, was the only person from her past life who still corresponded with her. Even though it was only ever in the form of a note at Christmas and her birthday—hastily dashed off, to judge from the handwriting—she had treasured each and every one. For it was more than anyone else had done.

The Duchess laughed at this expression of Cassandra’s shock at finally meeting her in person. ‘I can see that I have taken you by surprise.’

Surprise? That was putting it mildly.

‘You have never once asked me to help you, but I have often wished I could. While Theakstone was alive, of course, it was impossible.’ She twisted her mouth into what, on a less beautiful woman, would have been called a sneer.

This statement only served to puzzle Cassandra even further. For one thing, the Duke to whom her godmother had been married had died several years ago. For another…

‘Oh, my dear, how perplexed you look,’ said the Duchess of Theakstone, with a challenging sort of smile. ‘As though you never expected me to lift as much as a finger.’

‘Ah…’ Well, no, she hadn’t. But the Duchess was making it sound as though somehow that view offended her.

‘Well, no,’ stammered Cassandra, ‘I would never have presumed so far. How could I, when not even my own mother was prepared to acknowledge me after I committed my Fatal Error? But it wasn’t only that…’

‘Oh? Then what was it, precisely?’ asked the Duchess, rather frostily.

‘Only that you don’t look…that is… I suppose that my mother must be considerably older than you. Well, she looked older than you last time I saw her, which was more than half-a-dozen years ago. So I don’t see how you could have been such friends.’

‘Oh, my dear, how clever of you to say just the right thing,’ she crowed with delight. ‘I am sure we are going to get along famously,’ she said, untying and removing her bonnet to reveal a mass of gleaming golden curls, not one of which had been flattened by the cleverly constructed confection.

Aunt Eunice sprang forward to take the exquisite bonnet before either of the footmen could crush it in their meaty great paws, and carried it reverently over to a hatstand, currently occupied only by a swathe of sprig muslin.

‘Thank you,’ said the Duchess. ‘Not only for taking such great care of my hat, but also of my goddaughter. I am so glad she found a safe haven with two such compassionate ladies.’ She looked at each aunt in turn and then at Cassandra in a way that somehow made her aware that she hadn’t effected a proper introduction.

‘This is my Aunt Cordelia,’ she said. ‘Er… Miss Bramstock, I should have said,’ she added, blushing.

‘Ah, so you are the one who caused such a stir by spurning Hendon’s offer and running off to set up home with your schoolfriend,’ said the Duchess, before turning to examine Aunt Eunice, who lifted her chin to stare back with some belligerence.

‘And this is, well, I call her Aunt Eunice,’ Cassandra said, hoping that this was not going to turn into the sort of confrontation that would send her godmother flouncing out in a huff.

‘Because you are so fond of her,’ the Duchess concluded for her. ‘Which is not surprising, when she has clearly done far more for you than any of your blood relations.’

Aunt Eunice subsided at once, murmuring her thanks and protesting that it was nothing.

‘Is there somewhere that my boys,’ said the Duchess, waving a hand at the two enormous footmen, ‘may take refreshments?’

‘Of course,’ said Aunt Cordelia with a touch of chagrin at the reminder she was forgetting her duties as a hostess. Once she’d sent ‘the boys’ off to the kitchen with a message for Betty to not only look after them, but also to bring tea and cake to the parlour for their guest, Cassandra and both her aunts took to their chairs and gazed at their visitor in an expectant silence.

‘Now that we are alone,’ said the Duchess, ‘we may get to the point. As I said, I am sure nobody could deny that you ladies have done my goddaughter a sterling service, up to this point. But now she needs someone with social standing to bring her out, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Bring me out? That is not possible. Not when I am ruined. Socially, that is, if not in fact. For I’m sure that Stepfather must have made everyone aware he would not let me set foot in his house when I went back to try to explain…’

‘Yes. And that he cut you off without a penny to your name, as though it was something to be proud of,’ put in the Duchess grimly.

‘Yes. And I don’t suppose even my mother has ever said one word in my defence…’

‘The poor creature was so browbeaten by that bully she married I don’t suppose she dared,’ said the Duchess.

‘No, she wouldn’t,’ said Cassandra, marvelling at how clearly the Duchess saw what had happened back then. She wondered if perhaps her mother had written to her, explaining, and asking her to help her only daughter… No, no, that couldn’t be it. Stepfather would never allow any kind of missive to leave the house without scrutinising it carefully.

‘But if I,’ continued the Duchess, ‘were to spread a rumour that it was all a plot he made up to swindle you out of your inheritance, plenty of people would be ready to believe it nowadays. Because, let me tell you, my dears, since the time he turned you out of doors he has shown his true colours often enough that he is generally held in aversion.’

‘But, Your Grace, that is not true! I mean, yes, I’m sure he did leap at the chance to get his hands on what money should have come to me, because he is that sort of man. But he didn’t have to make up any scandal about me. I did run away with a soldier, you know, and I did return home unmarried…’

The Duchess held up her hand to stop her saying anything further. ‘I am glad that you are being so frank with me. But you cannot restore your reputation if you go round blurting out the truth to all and sundry.’

Cassandra’s heart gave a little lurch. Could it be possible? Could she really slough off the cloud of disgrace she could always feel hanging over her head, even when everyone was polite to her face these days? Could she find a place in polite society again? Become respectable once more?

But at what cost? ‘I won’t tell lies to try to persuade people I am something I am not,’ she said firmly.

‘There will be no need,’ said the Duchess after a pause. ‘From what you have just said, it sounds as if your so-called scandal was little more than a brief escapade, which could have been brushed over if your mother had not married such a monster.’

‘Well, yes, but…’ she clasped her hands at her waist as another barrier to the Duchess’s scheme sprang to mind ‘…am I not too old to make a come-out?’

‘Not at all. You cannot be more than twenty years of age?’

‘I am three and twenty.’

‘You look much younger. Besides, there are plenty of men who do not want a bride right out of the schoolroom. Someone more mature, with a bit of sense. And you are so pretty that I am sure there will be someone who is willing to overlook all that other business,’ she said, waving her hand to dismiss Cassandra’s Fatal Error as though it was no more than a bothersome fly.

‘But… I’m not at all sure I wish to marry,’ said Cassandra with a guilty look at her aunts, whose views on marriage she had begun to absorb. ‘I am very happy here.’

‘I am sure you are,’ said the Duchess soothingly. ‘And if you don’t find a husband and wish to come back here after your Season, why, of course you may. But there’s more to having a Season than catching a husband. There are all the balls and parties, and picnics and shopping, and visiting the theatre, and galleries and exhibitions. I vow and declare you deserve to enjoy all that has been so long denied you—through, I’m sure, no fault of your own.’

‘That’s true, Cassandra,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘And even though we both turned our backs on society, at least we had the luxury of choosing to do so.’

‘You see?’ The Duchess turned to Cassandra with a smile of triumph. ‘Your aunts would love you to be able to find a husband, if that would make you happy, even if it wasn’t for them,’ she declared with a candour that was slightly shocking.

‘And even if your experiences have put you off men altogether, that is no reason not to come to London with me. Wouldn’t you like to go to balls and see the sights, Cassy darling?’

Cassy twisted the hands she still held clasped at her waist. Because not five minutes earlier, she had been wishing for just that very thing. And to be honest, if she could find a man like her real papa, a man who’d been kind and jolly from what she could remember of him, then she wouldn’t mind marrying, either. For one thing it would mean she wouldn’t have to work for her living any longer. And for another, she might have children. Adorable little chubby babies, who’d grow into people who would love her.

‘You know,’ pointed out Aunt Eunice, gruffly, just as Cassy had begun to get a real pang of longing to feel a warm little bundle in her arms, while another pair of youthful arms hugged her knees, ‘it wouldn’t do you any harm to go up to Town just to see the latest fashions being worn.’

‘And visit some of the silk warehouses and see what’s on offer,’ said Aunt Cordelia.

‘There, you see? These dear ladies are in agreement. Even if you cannot find a husband, there are plenty of other useful things you can do in town. And we shall have such fun,’ said the Duchess, clapping her dainty little hands in delight. ‘Oh, I knew this was going to answer.’

‘Well,’ said Cassandra, wondering why she was bothering to argue when everyone in the room, including her, thought that a trip to London was just what she needed. ‘It is very good of you, Your Grace…’

‘Oh, don’t start off calling me that. I am your godmother and it will be of the utmost importance to remind everyone of that fact. So you had better get into the habit of calling me Godmama right away. And as for being good,’ she added with a rather mischievous grin, ‘that is not altogether true. Since you have been honest with me, my dear, it is only fair that I return the favour by being completely honest with you.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You see, although it is true that, for a while, at one point in our lives, your mother and I were great friends, that is not the only reason I have offered to bring you out.’ She tilted her head to one side, setting her golden ringlets dancing, and smiled in what Cassandra thought of as a positively coaxing manner.

‘It is my stepson,’ she said, her smile fading. ‘He has practically ordered me to leave Town and go to live in the Dower House. Which I shall never do! I have such horrid memories of my years at Theakstone Court that I vowed never to set foot anywhere on the estate ever again. But when I told him so, he said I would have no choice if he were to turn off all the London servants. Well…’ she leaned back as both aunts gasped in outrage ‘…that was all he knew! For the moment I warned the staff of his threats, they all swore they would stay on without wages, if necessary. Isn’t that loyal of them? The dears. Which meant that of course I could not abandon them, either. And so I started cudgelling my brains for a solution which would mean that we could all stay on in Grosvenor Square. Which,’ she said, holding out her hand to Cassandra in a way that looked like an appeal for help, ‘is where you come in…’