Carola Dunn (3 page)

“Expense is no object,” said Jessica with a dismissive wave of the hand. “However, my aunt wishes to reside within easy walking distance of the baths, so we will stay in the lower part of town, if you please.” An aunt, she felt, was a more impressive chaperon than a former governess.

“I’m sorry to hear madam is indisposed,” he said, hopefully inquisitive. Jessica was sure that any information she provided was bound to reach a wide audience.

“I am not in the least indisposed,” snapped Miss Tibbett, absorbing without a quiver her unexpected promotion. “I wish to explore the remains of
Aquae Sulis.”

“Ak... ? Oh, the Roman ruins. Let me see what I can do for you, madam.” He ran his finger down a list. “There’s a nice place in Pulteney Street. It’s a bit of a walk, but level all the way. Then there’s North Parade, that’s closer, only it’s the end house, right by the river. There’s a lot of people don’t care for the river’s miasmas, so it’s going a bit cheaper.”

Jessica clasped her hands in well-feigned delight. “By the river? How charming! You don’t fear the miasmas, do you, Aunt Tibby?”

“Not in the least. You know I am not at all invalidish.” She glared at the unforgiven agent. “I find the sound of running water an excellent soporific.”

“And I adore sketching rivers. We shall take it.”

“I think you’ll be pleased. Miss Franklin. You can see Pulteney Bridge from the upper windows. Will you be requiring servants? I can engage them for you.”

“Thank you, but I prefer my own staff,” said Jessica grandly. “They will arrive tomorrow from my brother’s estate in the North.” She hoped he pictured a large carriage bearing at least a dozen servants, not Hayes and Mrs. Ancaster hopping off the stage.

“Of course there is a housekeeper comes with the house.”

“Oh no, that will never do!” Aghast, she foresaw the woman gossiping about the footman who turned into a valet, and the housemaid playing the abigail.

Miss Tibbett came to the rescue. “The truth is, Sir Nathan cannot abide strange servants about him.”

“Well, I daresay she will be glad of a holiday,” he said doubtfully.

“My brother is recently returned from America and he—ah—he prefers to surround himself with familiar faces now that he is home,” Jessica improvised. The man accepted her explanation with a nod of sympathetic comprehension. Doubtless he thought Nathan’s nerves had suffered in the war. Nathan would be furious if he ever found out. “Of course we have not cared for amusements during his absence,” she hurried on. “Since estates are so large in the North, Langdale is rather isolated and I fear we are fallen behind the mode. Perhaps you could advise us as to which shops are the most fashionable?”

Armed with this information and the key to Number 15, North Parade, Jessica and Aunt Tibby picked up Nathan at the White Hart and went to inspect their new home.

As they crossed Pierrepont Street and started down North Parade, a smart curricle came towards them. Deep blue with yellow-painted trim, it was pulled by a pair of bays which drew a whistle of admiration from Nathan. His attention attracted by the sound, the driver grinned and saluted with his whip. Nathan turned to stare after the vehicle. Tugging on his arm, Jessica glanced back and found the gentleman doing likewise. She blushed in confusion, torn between wishing she had already purchased a new bonnet and hoping that he didn’t think she was so bold as to deliberately catch his eye.

“What a splendid rig,” said Nathan enviously. “I’ll wager that set him back a pretty penny.”

“He must be wealthy then.” Jessica could not resist another backward glance but the curricle was gone. “I wonder if he’s married. He appeared to be quite young.”

Reminded of their purpose in coming to Bath, Nathan was once more cast into the dismals. He merely grunted when his sister demanded his opinion of Number 15.

“Well, I think it’s quite perfect,” she said. “Not too large, elegantly furnished, close to the centre of town.” And possibly in the same street as the rich gentleman with the boyish grin, she added to herself. “We shall move in tomorrow.”

By the following evening they were settled in North Parade. Tad, in his livery, was sent to meet the stage and brought Hayes and Mrs. Ancaster to join them. Satisfied with her arrangements, Jessica retired to her chamber, prepared for bed, and snuffed her candle. She went to sit at the window, gazing out at the Avon. In the last light of sunset, the water frothed pink as it rushed over the weir below Pulteney Bridge. Above the three dark arches, lamps still burned in the windows of the little shops that lined the bridge.

Gradually Jessica’s gaze turned to the gardens opposite the house, deserted at this late hour, and then to the street leading towards the town centre. The lamplighter was making his rounds. A carriage rumbled past him and stopped outside the building next to theirs, but in the dusk, at an awkward angle, she could not make out whether it was a curricle, let alone who the driver was.

It was ridiculous the way her thoughts kept turning to the gentleman of whom she had caught no more than a glimpse, she scolded herself. Probably she would never see him again, and if she did she might very well not recognize him. And if he should by chance recognize her, doubtless he would recall her as the brazen hussy who had stared at him in the street.

She laughed, shook her head, and went to bed. As Tibby said, there were plenty of fish in the sea. Seeking the right one was going to be an adventure and, much as she loved Langdale, how she had longed for adventure these past years.

* * * *

Looking around the Pump Room the next morning, Jessica wondered if Tibby’s maxim was true. Crutches, ear trumpets, and Bath chairs abounded. Except for herself and Nathan, as far as she could see, Miss Tibbett was the youngest person there by a decade.

“Dash it, they’re all octogenarian invalids,” Nathan exclaimed indignantly. “You need not think I shall marry a female old enough to be my grandmother, however rich.”

“Hush! Of course not,” Jessica whispered. “I believe we may have come too early, before the fashionable hour, but it was impossible to make Aunt Tibby wait any longer.”

Miss Tibbett also was gazing about her, but her displeasure was reserved for the building. “Nothing here older than a hundred years,” she said in disgust.

“And no
one
much younger,” said Jessica, laughing despite her dismay. “Perhaps it is just as well, as we have not yet visited the modiste. Since we are here, you must drink a glass of water, Aunt. That, surely, has not changed since Roman days.”

This suggestion finding favour, Miss Tibbett made her way across the room to the pump. Nathan and Jessica strolled to the end where, in an alcove, stood a statue of Beau Nash, a stout, bewigged gentleman in a frock coat. Only the bottom three buttons of his thigh-length waistcoat met over his bulging stone stomach.

“I’m dashed if I can see how he ever earned the nickname ‘Beau’,” said Nathan.

“Bath was a much more fashionable resort when he ruled here,” Jessica mourned. “I hope we are not come on a wild goose chase.”

They turned to look back down the vista of decrepitude, brightly illumined by huge windows between Corinthian columns. Of Miss Tibbett’s neat, spare figure, clad in her habitual black, there was no sign.

“The lady asked the way to the baths,” said the pump attendant when they enquired. “If you go out through that door there, likely you’ll find her.”

The sulphurously steaming baths they found. Miss Tibbett had vanished.

“No doubt she’s investigating the foundations by now,” Nathan guessed.

“Never mind. The house is not much more than a furlong from here so she cannot possibly lose her way home.
Dearest
brother, will you go with me to the shops?”

Indulgently, Nathan agreed. Whatever he thought of her totty-headed plan, Jessica deserved a new wardrobe and a few weeks of frivolity. She had kept Langdale going for him during his absence with never a murmur of complaint. How she spent the money from the sale of her diamond heirloom was her affair, after all, and it was not fair to spoil her pleasure by moping.

He had no intention of compromising his honour by becoming a fortune hunter, so what harm could there be in enjoying the entertainments of Bath?

“Are we to attend the ball at the Upper Rooms tomorrow night?” he enquired, offering his arm as they crossed the Pump Yard, passed under the colonnade and turned right in Stall Street.

“If I can find a seamstress who will make me a gown in time. How lucky it is that modern fashions are so simple. In Beau Nash’s day, with all the silks and brocades and hoops they wore, it must have taken weeks to produce a single garment. I shall look for a white muslin sprigged in the green of the tunic I have been netting, and I should like a wreath of white roses with green leaves for my hair.”

“I shall have the pleasure of escorting the most beautiful and elegant female in the place,” he said gallantly. Indeed he was proud to parade her on his arm, and he noted more than one admiring glance cast in her direction despite her unmodish dress.

The streets were busy now, and he was glad to see that a reasonable proportion of the inhabitants of the town appeared to be under forty years of age. A trio of young ladies tripped down Old Bond Street towards them, twirling parasols of pink and blue and primrose yellow. As they passed they cast sidelong looks at him, and whispered and giggled.

Suddenly he was conscious of his own shabby, provincial appearance. He had arrived home from America with nothing but his uniform, and apart from a cheap coat bought in Liverpool, his entire wardrobe was three years old or more. Fortunately, as a boy he had worn his clothes loose-fitting, being more interested in country sports than dandyism. Nonetheless, the sleeves of his coat were a good inch too short, and only the knit fabric and the stirrup-straps of his pantaloons allowed them to stretch to a fashionably skintight fit.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, avoiding his sister’s eye, “I shall escort you to the draper’s shop and abandon you there while I find a tailor.”

Laughter quivered behind the solemnity of her tone as she replied, “By all means. If I am not at the draper’s when you come to find me, try the milliner’s next door.”

Let her suppose that he was falling in with her nefarious stratagems! Because he chose to be decently dressed did not mean he intended to worm his way into the affections of some innocent heiress.

The next evening, as Jessica stepped down from her sedan chair outside the Assembly Rooms, she acknowledged being pleased with herself. She had asked the draper for the name of a seamstress who might be able to make up a gown at short notice. He had supplied a name and direction. The woman was not, he said deprecatingly, a fashionable modiste, but for that reason she was not likely to be busy.

The seamstress, a widow in reduced circumstances, had been touchingly grateful for the work. She was quick and competent, her charges were moderate, and Jessica had every intention of continuing to patronize her.

The new sprigged muslin gown was all she had hoped, with the net tunic adding a touch of elegance. She had even found green kid dancing slippers to match. Her pale hair was pinned in a topknot wreathed by silk daisies, with a few curls on her forehead and artful tendrils escaping to caress her neck. In the slanting evening sunlight, Mama’s aquamarines sparkled as brightly as emeralds.

Nathan, paying off the chairmen, was bang up to the mark in a glossy new beaver, forest-green coat of Bath superfine, dove-coloured inexpressibles, green satin waistcoat, and cravat tied in a Waterfall over which she knew he and Tad had struggled for a good forty-five minutes. He was even wearing Papa’s heavy gold signet ring, and from his fob dangled a miniature gold monkey with ruby eyes that a seafaring uncle had brought him from India when they were children. Just enough to hint at wealth without being ostentatious, she thought with an approving nod, though she doubted that Nathan saw it that way.

Now he was handing Miss Tibbett down from her chair. In her best black silk, “Aunt” Tibby was the patterncard of a thoroughly respectable chaperon. She wore the string of oval jet beads separated by tiny gold balls that Jessica had purchased for her that afternoon at Perrin’s, the best jeweller in Milsom Street. The necklace, together with her air of suppressed excitement, made her look less like a governess than ever. She had even consented to leave her spectacles at home.

Miss Tibbett had found a Roman coin that morning and she was eager to share the news with anyone she could persuade to listen.

The Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Guynette, bowed graciously when Nathan announced their names and wished them a pleasant stay in Bath. They moved on into the ballroom and found seats on the benches at the side.

At the end, beneath a statue of a female figure in Classical draperies bearing a lyre, the orchestra tuned up as the room filled. Watching the flow of new arrivals, Jessica remained satisfied with her and her companions’ appearance. Less satisfactory was the realization that everyone seemed to know everyone else, or at least a few others, while she and Nathan had not a single acquaintance among the crowd. She longed to be able to jump up with a cry of delight and greet some “dearest friend,” as every other young lady seemed able to do.

How futile it was to know she was looking her best if no one noticed!

Couples began to take their places on the floor. Jessica was about to urge Nathan to go and ask Mr. Guynette to present him to some partnerless female when that gentleman bustled up with a short, plump, red-cheeked young man in tow.

“Miss Franklin,” he said, beaming, “Mr. Barlow has particularly requested an introduction. I trust you will regard him with favour as a partner in the country dance. Sir Nathan, you are not yet standing up. Come with me, pray, and I shall find you a pretty miss.”

As he bore Nathan away, Jessica rose to find herself, as she had feared, an inch or two taller than Mr. Barlow. However, it was unthinkable to refuse the Master of Ceremonies’ command, even if she could have brought herself to disappoint the young gentleman gazing at her hopefully.