Carola Dunn (2 page)

“Oh, dear!” moaned Lady Tesborough in trepidation. “I always have palpitations when you say that, dearest.”

“It is nothing very dreadful,” assured her daughter, but the beginnings of a gleeful smile were far from reassuring. “I shall go incognito, call myself plain Miss Smith or something. And yes, I shall make myself plain too, tie back my hair and wear a cap and dark, dowdy dresses, and behave very demurely.”

“But Angel!” wailed her ladyship, appalled.

“I do not think it such a bad idea,” interrupted her husband. “Perhaps it might at least teach you to count your blessings.”

“But Frederick!”

“Maybe I should dye my hair,” said Angel consideringly.

“Indeed you will not! I never heard such nonsense in my life.”

“Very well, Mama, if you think I ought not. I daresay I can pin it up under a cap, or I can cut it short.”

“No! Angel, how can you suggest such a thing! Frederick, you must not let her. Do not sit there laughing, Frederick. She will be wanting to paint her face next!”

“Oh no, I mean to go as a Puritan, not a Cyp . . . an opera dancer.”

“That is something to be thankful for,” said his lordship. “Come, Louisa, do not let yourself be thrown into high fidgets. It will do her no harm to see how the other half lives, not that I suppose she means to go without her allowance for the nonce. If Sutton will permit this masquerade, your sister will take good care that it does not get out of hand. Angel is not like to meet any acquaintance in the wilds of the North.”

“Thank you, Papa. I will write to Aunt Maria at once. Will you write a note to my uncle to persuade him? If you do not object, surely he will not.”

Finding herself outvoted, Lady Tesborough summoned up a last feeble protest.

“Angel, pray do not call yourself Miss Smith. Such a common name.”

* * * *

A fortnight later, early on a sunny Friday morning, the Tesborough travelling carriage departed from Grosvenor Square bearing Lady Evangelina Brenthaven, her maid, and a footman out of town. Descending at the Catherine Wheel in Henley some hours later, the young lady ordered a private parlour, where she consumed a hearty luncheon. Then, with much stretching and yawning, she requested a chamber where she might lay herself down for half an hour, being shockingly fatigued by her journey. She and her abigail retired to the inn’s best bedchamber, having paid the reckoning in advance.

Some thirty minutes and a great deal of giggling later, Miss Evelyn Brent, a sober young woman in a grey stuff gown and a plain, concealing poke bonnet, slipped down the back stairs to the stableyard. A grinning footman, sworn to secrecy, handed her into the Tesborough coach, where she huddled back into a corner.

Her maid, meanwhile, sailed openly down the main staircase.

“Her ladyship forgot her comb,” she announced with a condescending nod to the innkeeper’s wife, waving the misplaced article as evidence of the truth of her words.

A moment later she joined her mistress in the carriage, the footman swung up behind, and the old coachman, shaking his head, drove the fresh team out of the yard and headed north on the Oxford Road.

Chapter 2

The long June evening had scarce begun to wane when Miss Brent, by now genuinely fatigued, arrived at her uncle’s rectory. Scarlet geraniums glowed in the window boxes of the long, low house built of mellow Cotswold stone. The front door stood hospitably open, and as the carriage turned into the semicircular drive, Miss Catherine Sutton appeared.

“Mother,” she called, “Angel is come.”

Hurrying down the steps, she opened the coach door as the vehicle stopped, then paused in confusion, looking from one of the occupants to the other.

Angel laughed. “Do you not know me, Cousin Catherine?” she crowed, untying her bonnet and flinging it to the floor. She shook her head, and a shower of pins let loose her sadly crushed ringlets. “I cannot wait to take off this dreadful dress,” she went on. “It is horridly scratchy and far too warm for a summer day.”

“We shall have to find you something lighter,” proposed her tall cousin practically. “Just because you are in disguise there is no reason to be uncomfortable. Wherever did you come by that hideous bonnet?”

“Is it not odious?” agreed Angel as she stepped from the carriage. “I bought it and the dress, too, from one of the housemaids. I could not shop in London for such dowdy things. How people would have stared! Good evening, Aunt Maria. I am so happy to be with you again!”

Embraces were exchanged and Angel was hurried into the house to greet her uncle, who found it difficult to hide his amusement at the sight of his beautiful and elegant niece in the housemaid’s second-best gown, her golden hair sadly tousled.

Catherine bore her off to her chamber.

“We have dined already,” she apologised, “as we did not know precisely when you would arrive. Should you like a tray in your room? You must be quite exhausted after travelling eighty miles in a single day.”

“I am tired,” Angel admitted, struggling out of the grey dress with her cousin’s assistance. “Besides, I did not bring anything to change into. I thought I could buy some dresses tomorrow.”

“And I daresay you plan to go shopping in your petticoats?”

“I did not know this would be so wretchedly uncomfortable. I suppose I must wear it again.”

“I’d willingly lend you something, Angel, only it would take a deal of altering. You brought nothing at all?”

“Only underthings and nightgowns. Even my plainest shawl is too fine.”

“You are truly serious about this masquerade then? Do tell me what has driven you to it.” Unlike her father, Catherine had no pipe behind which to hide her amusement. Angel was undeterred.

“My eighteenth proposal,” she said, candidly if obscurely. “Damian Wycherly is the heir to the Duke of Medcliff so I cannot accuse him of being on the catch for a fortune or a titled wife, but he only offered for me because I am pretty and all the rage. I want to meet people who do not know that I am rich and beautiful and the daughter of a marquis.”

“Oh, dear, I very much doubt whether there will be many young gentlemen at Barrows End. It is a tiny hamlet, you know, with a number of outlying farms. Mr Craythorn writes that Lord Grisedale is unwell, and particularly cautioned Papa against mentioning his son in his presence. It seems Lord Dominic ran off to be a soldier and the earl has quite cast him off, so there will be no young people visiting there, I expect, though I believe there is a daughter also.”

“I did not mean only young men,” said Angel. “Though you must admit that it would be most romantic if a gentleman fell in love with me without knowing who I am. I could be certain that he loved me for myself.”

“Romantic, yes, but he would probably turn out to be quite ineligible himself.”

“You are so prosaic, Catherine! I am looking forward to all sorts of adventures this summer and you shall not persuade me otherwise. Do not you long for romance?”

“I have a melancholy suspicion that I am too old, too plain, and too tall to expect dreams to come true. You must not think I repine. There is a great deal to be said for a life of quiet contentment such as mine. There now, I shall go and fetch your supper.”

Angel leaned back in her easy chair with a sigh and watched her cousin leave the room. Twenty-four
was
rather old, she admitted to herself, but she did not think Catherine plain. She had a vague memory of hearing her mother refer to her cousin despairingly as a gangling beanpole. That must have been six years since, during her London Season, for it was now quite inappropriate. Though certainly rather too tall, she was generously built and her quietly self-confident bearing had nothing to do with gangling. Junoesque was the word. Her fair-complexioned face and grey eyes with strongly marked brows were pleasant if unremarkable, and her brown hair was abundant and glossy. Too abundant, perhaps. It had never been cut and she wore it in coiled braids which not only added to her height but gave her a somewhat old-fashioned air. Angel wondered if she could be persuaded to have it shortened and curled, then decided it suited her very well as it was.

If no other adventure came her way in Westmorland, it might prove interesting to look about for a husband for Catherine. A dearth of young gentlemen was no obstacle, for at her advanced age quite an old gentleman would do, say thirty, or even thirty-five. That he must be tall went without saying.

Not being in the habit of holding her tongue, Angel unfolded her plan as soon as her cousin returned, with a well-stocked supper tray.

“It will certainly keep you occupied,” Catherine said, her eyes brimming with laughter. “Do you never stop plotting, Angel?”

“That reminds me, you must not call me Angel. I am Miss Brent, Miss Evelyn Brent.”

“Very well, Cousin Evelyn.”

“I do not really like the name Evelyn, but it is not too different from my own and will match the monogram on my handkerchiefs.”

“In case you need to drop one. I do understand. How about Eugenia instead?”

“That is even worse. I have an aunt Eugenia who disapproves of me prodigiously. Evelyn is not so bad. You could call me Lyn for short.’’

“Lyn let it be. I wish I could eat like that,” said Catherine enviously as a large Banbury cake disappeared. “I should soon be fat as a flawn.”

Angel looked down complacently at her own trim waist. “Mama says when I am older I shall have to take care if I do not wish to grow plump like her,” she consoled, then giggled. “Especially, she says, as Papa is growing to be quite an ‘imposing figure.’”

“Mother is as like Aunt Louisa as two peas in a pod, but my papa is positively skinny. It seems most unjust that I should inherit his height and Mother’s shape. If I overeat, I too shall be an imposing figure by the time I reach Uncle Frederick’s age!”

“Well, I could not swallow another morsel now. I can scarce keep my eyes open. Will you say good night to Aunt Maria and Uncle Clement for me, please?”

“Of course, dear. Come, let me tuck you in. Sleep well, Lyn.”

Angel hugged her cousin. “We are going to have a wonderful summer,” she announced drowsily. “Good night.”

* * * *

The next day Mrs Sutton took her niece shopping. She and Catherine patronised the smartest shops in Banbury, but Angel was shocked to see how far the provincial styles lagged behind the latest London fashions. She realised that her cousin’s dress, which she had thought almost quaint, was considered modish here, though both the Sutton ladies affected the restrained colours appropriate to a minister’s family.

Fortunately, she was looking for something very similar. After a wistful glance at a delightful, if old-fashioned, walking dress of jaconet with a peach-coloured sarsnet slip, she turned determinedly to plain muslin in various shades of grey. She was completely oblivious of the startled looks elicited by the housemaid’s second-best gown, but Aunt Maria muttered harrassed comments to the dressmakers about schoolgirls who grow out of everything at once.

Catherine managed to persuade her cousin to order one silk evening gown in a delicate lavender.

“I shall feel quite ashamed of my own finery if you are to wear nothing but half-mourning,” she pointed out
sotto voce.
“I cannot think that a single gown of coloured silk will give away your secret. And what say you to this blue merino for a cloak and hood? I understand it rains a good deal in the Lake District. See, this is the exact shade of your eyes.”

Angel rejected it firmly, choosing in its place a slate grey kerseymere whose subdued hue made her eyes the bluer in contrast, though she did not know it. A shawl of Thibet cloth for cool days was added to her purchases. It was not as fine and soft as the cachemire it imitated, but the ingenious weavers of Scotland had succeeded in imparting to it a silvery sheen that she found irresistible.

The Suttons’ gig filled with packages. Thoroughly enjoying herself, Angel bought a parasol for her cousin and a reticule in the shape of a Grecian urn for her aunt. All three ladies were fitted with sturdy walking shoes in preparation for the rough mountain country so enticingly described by Mr Wordsworth.

“And now the milliner’s, if you please, Aunt,” requested Angel.

A wide-brimmed straw bonnet was first on the list. It took all her resolution to reject a charming confection with coquelicot ribbons and a bunch of cherries dangling saucily, but that hurdle passed, she was easily able to overcome the Suttons’ horrified objections when she asked to see some caps.

“But Angel!” cried Catherine, “even I do not wear caps yet!”

“Lyn!” hissed Angel.

“Evelyn dear,” said her aunt more calmly, “I cannot think it necessary . . .”

“I am quite determined,” Angel assured them, “so pray do not fly up into the boughs. There is no sense in doing things by halves, after all.”

Passing over frivolous froths of lace, beribonned gauze, braid-edged crêpe lisse, she chose a pair of French-work cornettes which could be worn alone or under her bonnet, a cottage cap, and a Parisian mob. She tried them on, tucking up her ringlets underneath. Two or three curls refused to be confined, making their appearance at her temples even when she had the milliner tack on broad borders of Honiton lace.

“I wish I had not promised Mama not to cut or dye my hair,” she said crossly in the end. “Well, it will have to do. I look a regular quiz in the caps in spite of it, do I not, Catherine?”

Her cousin laughingly refused to answer. Nothing, she thought, could make Angel’s delicate features appear less than lovely, but she had no intention of giving her the idea that further efforts to hide her charms were necessary. Who could guess what hubblebubble notion she might come up with next?

* * * *

Mr Sutton planned a leisurely trip northward for the party, as he did not have to be in Barrows End till the following Sunday. They left on Monday morning and travelled via Warwick and Chester, visiting places of interest en route.

Angel managed to stay out of mischief until fine weather tempted them to the coast at Morecambe. Against the advice of a local fisherman, she persuaded Catherine to walk with her across the wide, silvery sands. The tide rushed in with appalling swiftness and trapped them on a sandbank, whence they were rescued, wet and frightened, by the surly shrimp-fisher.