A Change of Fortune

The young lady and her maid had no idea they were being closely observed as they walked among the crowds beside the frozen Serpentine that clear, cold December morning. It was 1813 and so far the winter had been the most bitter in living memory, and Hyde Park was pale and brittle with weeks of unbroken frost. There were skaters on the frozen lake, their laughter echoing sharply through the still air, and the two young women stopped to watch.

A tall, fashionable young gentleman lingered secretly among the winter trees. He had been following them for some time. The maid was of no interest to him, for she was plain and of little consequence, but her mistress was a different matter; she had a loveliness which had claimed his full attention from the first moment he had noticed her. He took a long breath, leaning back against one of the trees, his tasseled cane swinging idly in his gloved hand. He wore a stylish Polish greatcoat which could only have come from one of Bond Street’s foremost tailors, and his gleaming hessian boots looked Hoby’s at the very least. His top hat was tipped rakishly back on his light brown hair, and his long-lashed hazel eyes bore a look of pensiveness. His fine aristocratic face was handsome, but its expression now was calculating; it was not an expression which would have been appreciated in the slightest by the young lady toward whom it was directed.

Their airing evidently at an end, the two turned from the lake and began to retrace their steps in his direction. He could see her more clearly now, and his practiced glance swept her slowly from head to toe. She was a little above medium height, and slender, although her figure was concealed by the fur-trimmed cream mantle she wore. She had silver-fair hair, he could see the soft curls framing her face beneath her pink-ribboned bonnet, and with her pale, clear complexion she should have had blue eyes, but her eyes were a magnificent, arresting dark brown. Who was she? He had never seen her before, and yet surely she must be out in society for she seemed at least nineteen years old and she was certainly from a wealthy family, that much was clear from her clothes and her manner. Oh, how cool and demure she looked, and yet there was a warmth which promised so very much to the man fortunate enough to engage her heart. For the first time in many weeks he was aroused from the boredom which had descended over him after a long and tedious Season; but how to succeed with her, that was the problem. She wasn’t a lady of easy virtue, and so could hardly be openly approached and propositioned. No, in this case a certain subtlety would be required, else his lovely prey would too swiftly perceive the true nature of the chase.

They had almost reached him now, and suddenly he hesitated. Perhaps subtlety would take too long and his purpose be better served after all by a direct but disarming approach. Would she believe him if he confessed to being carried away on the spur of the moment by an overwhelming admiration? Would she melt before such abject “honesty”? But even as he pondered what to do, she looked coldly through him as if he simply did not exist, walking past with such a deliberate air of indifference that for a moment he was caught off guard. It was a very obvious snub, and belatedly he realized that she had become aware of his close scrutiny. The maid knew too, for her cheeks were a little flushed and she glanced coyly at him from beneath lowered lashes before hurrying on after her mistress.

Annoyance flushed hotly through him. He had thought himself undetected, and therefore at an advantage; overconfidence had cost him that advantage, and maybe a great deal more. He watched as they approached the gates into noisy, congested Park lane, one of London’s busiest thoroughfares. As they passed from sight, he suddenly determined to see where they went, for he wasn’t defeated yet and meant to proceed with the conquest of his lovely unknown.

On the pavement outside the park gates, however, he came to a halt, for there was no sign of them. A constant stream of carriages, wagons, gigs, and curricles passed him by, moving slowly over the icy road, and there were other pedestrians strolling to and from the park, but it was as if the two young women had vanished into the cold, thin air.

Something made him look suddenly across the way, and he saw them again, standing at the door of a large white house almost on the corner of Curzon Street. It was an elegant building, one which he had passed countless times in the past. As he watched, a liveried Negro footman admitted them and the door closed again, the crimson ribbons of the Christmas wreath upon it trembling a little afterward.

Threading his way through the traffic, the man stood on the pavement outside the house. It was indeed a fine building, with wide bow windows and beautiful wrought-iron balconies which were protected by handsome roofs. He glanced at the polished brass plate beside the discreet dark green door: MISS HART’S SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES. He smiled a little, for this was a very exclusive establishment, more exclusive than ever since a certain Russian countess from the highest echelons of society had decided to graciously bestow her patronage upon it. To this seminary came the daughters of the very wealthy, to be educated from childhood to the age of eighteen, by which time they were ready to enter society and the Marriage Mart. So, his fair incognita must be one of Miss Hart’s “young ladies,” there could be no other explanation since she was far too elegantly and fashionably attired to be one of the teachers, and she was too young to be a parent. It was possible that she was merely visiting, of course, but somehow he didn’t think so, he felt certain that she was one of the privileged pupils, which would explain why he hadn’t seen her before, for she couldn’t yet be out in society.

He smiled again, for one snub wasn’t sufficient to discourage him, especially as he knew that it was possible to gain invitations to this feminine stronghold. With such an invitation he would be able to see that he was formally introduced to the beauty who had so bewitched him.

His cane still swinging, his steps noticeably lighter now, he returned to quiet Curzon Street, where his carriage awaited him. Dame Fortune was smiling upon him after all this fine December morning, for it just so happened that recently he had become acquainted with a certain ambitious and scheming young woman fresh from St. Petersburg. This young woman, Miss Nadia Benckendorff, was the cousin of the seminary’s distinguished benefactress, Countess Lieven, and was about to have her hitherto rejected advances unexpectedly welcomed.

Climbing into the carriage, he instructed the coachman to drive to the Russian embassy in Harley Street, where Dorothea Lieven’s husband was the ambassador, and where Nadia had resided since arriving in London barely a month before. He leaned his head back against the carriage’s excellent velvet upholstery, and after a moment he smiled again. Countess Lieven took her duties as benefactress very seriously indeed, and she frequently took tea at the seminary. He glanced out again as the carriage passed the tall white house. Soon he would be admitted through that exclusive door….

A week later the seminary closed for the Christmas holiday, and all but one of the thirty pupils returned to their families. The one who remained was Leonie Conyngham, the young lady in the park.

At nineteen she was, strictly speaking, a little old to be at the school, but she was waiting for her widowed father to return from Madras, where he had been many years in the service of the East India Company. Richard Conyngham was now a nabob of the first order, and when he arrived in England early in the new year he was going to purchase a great country estate and a London residence, and his only daughter was going to be mistress of both. Leonie would then be launched in society with every possible advantage, and because of all that she would one day inherit, she would be very much sought after. It was an exciting prospect, and one which she now awaited with increasing impatience. Never had a winter seemed to drag by so slowly, and never before had she so wished Christmas to be over and done with.

It was very early in the morning, and she lay drowsily in her huge four-poster bed. Her room was the principal bedchamber at the seminary, as befitted the most senior pupil. It was a handsome room, with a balcony overlooking Hyde Park. Its walls were hung with pink-and-white Chinese silk, and there was a pink stucco frieze around the ceiling. On the polished floor rested a fine floral carpet, and the draperies of the bed were of a particularly elegant deep rose brocade, which same material had been used for the window curtains and the upholstery of the chairs. In one corner of the room stood an elegant little mahogany table on which there was a large porcelain jug and bowl, while in another there was an immense wardrobe, containing her extensive array of fashionable clothes. Apart from that, the only other item of furniture was her dressing table, which had white muslin hangings and was covered with a clutter of cosmetics jars and boxes, scent vials, jewel cases, pins, brushes, and combs.

A newly kindled fire crackled in the marble fireplace, having just been attended by a chambermaid. At Leonie’s request she had drawn back the curtains and folded aside the heavy shutters, allowing the chill morning fight into the room. The day looked bitterly cold and uninviting. The freezing fog which had descended over the capital three days earlier showed no sign as yet of lifting, and the boundary wall of the park was indistinct in the gloom. Beyond it the trees were white and ghostly, and the Serpentine was hidden from view. There were icicles on the wrought-iron balcony and suspended from its roof, and there was a thick rime of ice on the naked branches of the fig tree growing against the wall. Park Lane, usually busy even at this early hour, was almost deserted. It was very quiet, almost too quiet for one of the world’s greatest cities.

Leonie shivered, wriggling further into the depths of the warm bed. Soon her morning tray of coffee and Shrewsbury cakes would be brought, but in the meantime it was good just to lie where she was, luxuriating in the comfort of the finest bed in the house, finer even than Miss Hart’s. She smiled a little as she thought of the headmistress, who, for the benefit of the ladies and gentlemen of rank and fashion who entered her domain, gave an outward display of deference and humility, which qualities were quickly abandoned in private. Emmeline Hart was ambitious, more so than ever since the advent of Countess Lieven, and she was filled with a longing for the more magnificent things of life, as the purchase of her green velvet bed had revealed. What other grand items she had purchased for her private rooms could only be guessed at, since they had been carried in covered with discreet dust sheets, but the bed had been too large and cumbersome, and a great many people had witnessed its arrival. Leonie’s smile faded a little then, for while it was possible to smile at Miss Hart, it wasn’t possible to like her at all; she was simply not a likable person, being too hard and cold for that, although she strove all the while to conceal her true self behind a veneer of sweet smiles and charming words.

Thoughts of Miss Hart vanished then, for Leonie suddenly remembered the forbidden book she had concealed so carefully the night before beneath her pillow. Sitting up, her silver-fair hair tumbling down over the shoulders of her lacy nightgown, she quickly put on her warm shawl and removed the book from its hiding place. It was Lord Byron’s latest work,
The Bride of Abydos
, and was said to be very shocking indeed because of its theme of illicit love. This would have been shocking enough on its own, but was rendered more so than ever by the scandalous rumors in circulation concerning the poet and his half-sister, Mrs. Leigh. In the opinion of Countess Lieven, whose word was now law at the seminary, such a book was not at all suitable reading for proper young ladies, and she had promptly instructed Miss Hart to ban it from the premises. Unfortunately, as is frequently the consequence of such prohibition, acquisition of the forbidden volume immediately became a matter of the utmost importance, and to Leonie’s certain knowledge there were at least three other copies reposing in various secret places throughout the building! This disobedience had as much to do with a general desire to flout the countess’s wishes as it had to do with a genuine interest in Lord Byron’s scandalous writings and affairs, since it was known that the countess was being very hypocritical indeed. She presumed to pronounce upon the protection of virtue, and yet was known to be actively engaged upon the pursuit of Lord Byron, whom she dearly wished to secure as her latest lover. Such double standards cried out to be challenged, although only in secret, since the countess was not a lady anyone wished to offend, her importance in society being far too great for that.

Leonie did not much care for Dorothea, Countess Lieven, whose interest in the seminary had meant the introduction of far too many petty rules and regulations, most of them brought in simply because they had applied at the countess’s old school, the great Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg, which establishment had received the patronage of her imperial guardian, the Empress Maria Feodorovna. It was a wish to emulate this great royal lady that had prompted Dorothea to bestow her own patronage upon a similar school in London. Leonie sighed, for on her own, Dorothea Lieven was bad enough, but now she had been joined by her cousin, Miss Benckendorff, another ex-pupil of the Smolny, and heaven alone knew how many more new rules would be introduced as a result. The more Leonie dwelt upon it, the more glad she became that soon she would be leaving the seminary forever. Opening the book and removing the embroidered marker, she settled back to read.