Before the Storm (8 page)

She went slowly up the stairs to the small sitting room at the front of the first floor that had been papered with a lavish design of lilac and white roses for the personal use of the two Garland sisters. The door was slightly ajar and Phoebe could hear Clementine reading aloud as Eliza impatiently turned the pages of a fashion magazine before she pushed it open and both girls cast aside what they were doing to excitedly jump up and greet her.
 

‘You’re late!’ Eliza said, pretending to be annoyed. Both sisters were dressed in matching flowing muslin dresses with pale pink velvet sashes tied loosely at their waists - they looked enchanting but also curiously childlike in comparison to Phoebe in her grown up green silk dress.

Phoebe blushed. ‘I was held up in town,’ she replied, throwing herself down on to the comfortable little rose pink brocade sofa and languidly casting her gloves onto a nearby table. ‘I’m not very late anyway. Do stop exaggerating.’

Clementine noticed the blush but said nothing. ‘We should have tea,’ she said, ringing the embroidered bell tug that hung at the side of the fireplace.
 

‘And cake?’ Phoebe demanded with a laugh. ‘I am ravenous.’ She looked around the room, feeling a pang of envy as usual as she took in the pretty little feminine ornaments, fans, porcelain pots and scraps of lace that littered the mantlepiece and tables. She and her sister had their own small sitting room in Bloomsbury but it was not quite so becoming and comfortable as this one. ‘Is Venetia coming?’ she asked.

‘She should be here by now,’ Clementine said, going to the window and pulling aside the soft white toile curtains to look down at the street. ‘Oh, I think that is her now.’ All three of them crowded at the window to peer down curiously as Venetia, dressed in a bright blue velvet redingote gown with a matching hat placed jauntily on her crimson ringlets stepped down from her father’s carriage then looked up and gaily waved to them all before disappearing into the house.

They grinned at each other as they heard the usual commotion and fuss that accompanied Venetia’s arrival anywhere floating up from the entrance hall. ‘How does she do it?’ Phoebe whispered to Eliza, who shrugged. ‘She likes to make a good entrance.’

‘Girls! I am so pleased to see you all!’ Venetia erupted into the room with her arms outstretched to hug them all. ‘I thought that I would never get here! Can you believe that we almost lost a wheel coming through Islington? My dears, I have never been so afraid!’

‘I don’t believe that,’ Eliza said drily as she kissed her friend on the cheek. ‘You aren’t afraid of anything, Venetia.’

‘No?’ Venetia tossed back her long bright hair and put her lovely head to one side to consider this. ‘Perhaps you are right, Beautiful Miss Garland. That’s what Jules always calls you - isn’t he droll?’ She looked at them all to make sure that she had their attention then with a flourish pulled off one of her black leather gloves, revealing an enormous diamond ring on her left hand, which she waved in front of their astonished eyes. ‘And what do you think of this, girls?’

‘Oh my goodness, Venetia!’ Almost squeaking with excitement, Clementine ran forward and took her friend’s hand to take a closer look at the ring, which gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight from the tall windows. ‘Is it real? Is it what I think it is?’

Venetia laughed with delight and gave Clementine a swift hug. ‘Of course it is real, you impudent girl and it is indeed what you think it is! Jules and I are to be married.’

‘Married!’ Phoebe was open mouthed with surprise. ‘You and Jules? Well.’ She and Eliza exchanged a swift look, which Venetia did not miss.

‘Come now, please be happy for me!’ she admonished with a pout. ‘You know how much I have wanted this.’ She opened her arms to her friends who both ran forward to hug her, feeling ashamed not to have been instantly able to share her happiness. ‘There now, isn’t that better?’

‘I’m sorry, Venetia,’ Eliza said a trifle stiffly. ‘It’s just a shock, that’s all. I had no idea how serious you were about him.’ She looked to Phoebe, who still had her arm around Venetia’s waist. ‘To be honest, my dear, we just thought that it was a flirtation and kept expecting to hear that he was going back to France again.’

Venetia laughed. ‘But he is going back to France!’ she said with a smile. ‘Only, he is taking me with him!’ She did a little pirouette on the spot, her blue skirts whirling around her. ‘Imagine me in Paris and Versailles! His family have an immense chateau in the Loire valley too! Oh, darlings, it’s going to be wonderful.’
 

‘You’re so lucky!’ Clementine exclaimed, her eyes shining like stars as she thought of Paris. Sidonie had told her so much about it and she was desperate to see it for herself. ‘Will you live in the chateau with them?’ She imagined a huge castle with massive turrets and then, irresistibly, herself standing on top of one of the turrets in what she hazily imagined to be a cloth of gold Medieval dress and tall wimple.

‘No, Jules has his own little house in Neuilly, which is near Paris,’ Venetia said with an airy shrug of her shoulders. ‘His father, the Duc, gave it to him. He says that we will live there until his family give us something bigger.’

‘Jules’ father is a duke?’ Eliza stammered, looking again to Phoebe, who looked equally astonished and somewhat put out. ‘You never said so!’

Venetia gave a mischievous smile. ‘Did I not, my dear?’ She sauntered to the fireplace and checked her appearance carefully in the huge mirror that hung over the mantlepiece. ‘I suppose that I also forgot to mention that he has an elder brother?’ She turned back to them with a grin. ‘An unmarried elder brother.’

‘But what about religion?’ Phoebe asked as they all exchanged looks. ‘Aren’t they all Catholic in France?’

Venetia shrugged and turned back to the mirror. ‘That isn’t a problem,’ she said hesitantly, curling one of her long scarlet ringlets around her finger and watching it spring back into shape. ‘I am a Catholic too. Not a very good one, obviously but Mama is one and insisted that I should be baptised too.’ She sighed. ‘I love Jules so much though that I’d willingly convert so that we could be together.’

‘I would too,’ Eliza said, surprising everyone. ‘Why not? If I wanted to marry a man, I wouldn’t let something like religion stand in my way.’

‘How ruthless you are,’ Venetia remarked with a lazy smile over her shoulder at her friend. ‘You shall have to come and visit me in France and we’ll put it to the test!’

Any reply that Eliza might have made was postponed by a timid looking little maid entering the room bearing a silver tray laden with tea things and cake, which she placed on a table in front of the window. ‘Fresh walnut cake,’ she said shortly with a hasty curtsey. ‘Cook just baked it.’ She backed quickly out of the room before anyone could reply.

‘When is the wedding?’ Clementine asked as she clumsily but proudly poured tea from a silver pot into delicate floral patterned china cups. ‘Will it be soon?’ She handed Venetia a cup then began slicing into the cake, which was deliciously moist.

‘Next month,’ said Venetia, cramming cake into her mouth. ‘Mama is furious as it doesn’t leave her much time to organise my trousseau but we just couldn’t bear to wait. I’ve told her that it doesn’t matter and I’ll buy everything that I need in Paris once I am there, but she won’t listen.’ She laughed. ‘It’s almost as though she doesn’t think they have shops there.’

There was a knock on the door and Sidonie slipped into the room, dressed in her usual neat grey cotton dress. ‘It’s time for your lessons, Clementine,’ she said with a friendly nod to the other girls.

Clementine gave a groan but obediently put down her cup and went to her governess. ‘Have you heard Venetia’s news?’ she asked, her eyes still shining. ‘She and Jules are to be married next month!’ she turned to Venetia. ‘Can Miss Roche see your ring?’

‘Of course!’ Venetia obligingly came forward with her hand outstretched so that Sidonie could admire the diamond. ‘Isn’t it beautiful? He bought it from the Prince Regent’s favourite jeweller.’
 

Sidonie smiled dutifully as she examined the ring. ‘Congratulations,’ she murmured politely. ‘What a lovely ring.’

Venetia gave a little jump. ‘Oh, but I almost forgot the best bit!’ she exclaimed, turning to the others with wide eyes. ‘There’s going to be a ball! Can you imagine? A ball for me!’ She did a little dance as Eliza and Phoebe both clapped their hands with delight. ‘Jules is great friends with all sorts of people and one of them, Lady D’Eversley has said that she wants to hold a masked ball for us before we go to Paris! Isn’t that kind of her? I’ve never met her before in my life and now she wants to hold a ball for me!’

‘A ball!’ Eliza breathed, already imagining what she would wear. She’d seen the perfect dress in the window of a fashionable Bond Street modiste only the previous day - pale dove grey silk covered with silvery gauze and silver stars embroidered on the bodice. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really!’ Venetia hugged Eliza. ‘Jules says that the Duchess Georgiana herself will be there! Oh, I could die, I am so excited! I have never met her but apparently he has known her ever since he was a little boy.’ They all gasped at this - the gorgeous Duchess of Devonshire was the the adored idol of England and like most other girls they’d all spent far too long slavishly copying the extravagant fashions that she set and furtively reading all the current tit-bits of gossip about her life.

If anyone wondered why Jules had never introduced his bride to be to any of his distinguished friends, they were far too polite to show it. Clementine gave Sidonie a furtive look from beneath her dark eyelashes. ‘Will we really be invited to the ball?’ she whispered. ‘If these people don’t really know Venetia then they won’t know about us either, will they?’

Sidonie looked at her charge, debating whether or not to tell her the truth then gave a tiny shake of her head. She looked sadly at the other girls as they squealed and hugged each other in the centre of the room, talking over each other excitedly about the dresses they wanted to wear and how they planned to do their hair. ‘I’m afraid not, dearest.’

Chapter Seven

It was clear to Sidonie right from the beginning that despite their closeness to Venetia, Eliza and Clementine were extremely unlikely to be asked to the masked ball at Lady D’Eversley’s Grosvenor Square mansion. They both pretended not to care about the general lack of invitations that came to Highbury Place but Sidonie had watched their faces fall when their mother rather tactlessly read aloud from fawning newspaper accounts of the glittering balls and
soirées
of Mayfair which dwelled on the gorgeous dresses worn by the ladies and dashing good looks of the gentlemen and knew that actually both girls felt their exclusion from high society very keenly.

‘Most of these society girls aren’t nearly so pretty or rich as my lovely Eliza,’ Mrs Garland once confided despairingly to Sidonie when she found herself alone with her in the breakfast room. ‘So why isn’t she getting invited to anything? I take her to Hyde Park and all the most fashionable amusements so it isn’t as though they never get to see her.’

‘They may see her,’ Sidonie said gently, not wanting to hurt Mrs Garland’s feelings, ‘but they don’t know who she
is.
Oh, they may well ask the name of the pretty fair girl but you must remember that the very highest ton have all known each other since the cradle and their families have been marrying each other for centuries. It’s very hard for an outsider to break into their circle.’

‘But how is it to be done?’ Mrs Garland exclaimed, pushing her tea cup away petulantly. ‘I swear that we have tried everything to bring the girls to their notice and yet they still carry on snubbing them. Mr Garland says that we should just give up and introduce them to businessmen like himself but that’s not what I want for them, Miss Roche.’ She sighed. ‘I always thought that my Eliza could be a Lady one day. Do you not think that she looks just like a Lady, Miss Roche? She would be wasted on some mere merchant, no matter how rich he might be.’ She shuddered. ‘No, I am determined that she should marry a peer and that’s an end to the matter.’

Sidonie privately felt that Mr Garland spoke a great deal of sense and that Mrs Garland was over reaching herself but it was beyond her remit to say so, of course. ‘I am sure that we will be able to contrive something, Mrs Garland,’ was all that she tactfully replied.

Although the sensible, rational part of Sidonie’s mind told her not to meddle in the affairs of her charge, still she could not help but be determined to do her best to ensure that neither Garland girl and by extension, Phoebe was left out on this occasion. The sight of Eliza and Clementine both wholeheartedly and apparently without envy joining in Venetia’s excitement about the forthcoming ball only served to strengthen her resolve.
 

After a sleepless, terrible night, she wearily summoned up all of her considerable courage to write a very brief but imperative note to Comte Jules, asking him to meet her in St James’ Park the next day. She liked to walk there alone while Clementine was having her much hated weekly dancing lesson with a fashionable dance master a few streets away. Sidonie had come to love these few snatched hours of solitude away from the demands of her pupil and the ever present Mrs Garland and so it was a wrench to give some time up to meet Jules, even briefly.
 

Her resentment increased when she saw Jules strolling towards her and realised that he was grinning in a triumphant manner. ‘I knew that you would give in,’ he said as he came up close and took her reluctant hand to kiss it. ‘I knew that you wouldn’t be able to stay away from me.’