Elisabeth Kidd (13 page)

Prudence felt the truth of this. However, she did not see a likely match between the two youngest members of her congregation. Robin was far too eager to enjoy himself to think about looking for a wife, especially one as artless as Susan. Carlton, on the other hand, was ripe for marriage, and in some ways Prudence was more observant than Sylvie, who saw only what she wanted to see. It had not escaped
her
that the young cleric’s eye had passed no further than Janine Forsythe.

“I shall certainly welcome a friendship between Susan and Mr. Robert Wendt,” she told Sylvie, “but as they are both so young, perhaps a friendship is all we ought to hope for. Certainly it would help Susan over her shyness, to be able to talk to a gentleman freely. See how she responds to Mr. Maitland.”

Sylvie saw, and grew impatient. She rose and, smiling at Cedric as one chaperone to another, asked if he would be so kind as to show her the library. Mrs. Whitlatch had mentioned that there was a copy of Mrs. Edgeworth’s
Ormond
she
might borrow. Mr. Maitland professed himself delighted to oblige.

There was a distinct easing of the atmosphere when Mrs. de Lamartine left the room; no one was conscious of it, but everyone seemed to move at once, or to speak less stiltedly, or to some other person. Sydney was sitting on the window seat, with Janine and Carl to one side of her, and Edward Kingsley and Janet Adderley to the other. Then—when she glanced outside and exclaimed, “Oh, here is Sir Gavin to join us!”—Robin and Susan joined her also, so that when Sir Gavin was announced a few minutes later, he found a half-dozen young people eagerly awaiting him. Behind Sir Gavin came his sister Sarah and her friend Lizzy Daniels, who were introduced all around. Trailing after them was Dolph Whitlatch, who had been all over Town, he told them, and not found a soul he was acquainted with.

“And here we find the reason,” Sir Gavin said. “Half London is in Mrs. Whitlatch’s parlour—and the other half is not worth knowing!’’

He bent his large frame to kiss Mrs. Whitlatch’s hand, but refused to be cajoled into sitting beside her unless her sofa was moved closer to the window. This struck Prudence as an excellent notion; she rose, Carl and Sir Gavin moved the sofa, and the discussion was resumed.

“May one ask what is being talked of?” Sir Gavin enquired.

“Vauxhall!” Susan told him breathlessly. Cedric being out of the room, she transferred her adoration to Sir Gavin, who smiled companionably at her. Susan’s cheeks grew two shades less pale. Sydney explained that Mr. Kingsley had proposed an expedition to the famous pleasure gardens to view a marvel known as The Grand Cascade. Edward had in truth suggested this privately to Sydney, but she had lost no time, much to his vexation, in making it public.

“Dull sort of place, Vauxhall,” Dolph remarked, feigning a cosmopolitan disdain for such low entertainment.

“I am sorry to hear you say that,” Sir Gavin said with a twinkle in his eye, “for I was about to suggest a similar expedition—to Richmond Park. You may not be interested in that either, of course, there being little more to look at there than trees and deer.”

Dolph’s interests were, however, immediately deemed irrelevant, and in any case no one could have heard his opinion over the general clamour that greeted Sir Gavin’s proposal. It was known that, in addition to his rooms in Town, he possessed a large house on the edge of the Park, which he assured them would be at their disposal during the garden fête to which they would all receive invitations very shortly. Naturally, this turned the discussion to what others were to be included among the guests.

“There can never be too many ladies,” Sir Gavin said, as Janine counted heads.

“But we are shy one gentleman—’’

“I thought Susan was the shy one,” Carl said.

“—unless Mr. Maitland comes.”

Susan giggled. Sydney suggested a certain gentleman who had paid her court at Almack’s the Wednesday before—Mrs. Drummond-Burrell having duly provided the vouchers. The company groaned in unison.

“Oh, come—he can’t be as bad as that!” Sydney protested.

“Have you heard his laugh?” Lizzy asked her.

“At Almack’s? He didn’t dare!”

“Well, he will at Richmond, and not only you, Miss Archer, but everyone in the Park will hear.’’

“Then
do you
suggest someone, Sir Gavin.”

Their prospective host assured her that there would be a large selection of old and future friends there, as his mother, a widow who kept Sir Gavin’s house for him when he removed to Town during the season, had also invited a number of her acquaintance—along with their sons and daughters and nephews and nieces. He described some of the entertainments—from archery and riding to strolling musicians—which would be offered from early morning onwards, and promised such fine weather that even Miss Adderley would find the outing salubrious. The ladies were in transports to hear that they would thus be able to display at least two new dresses each, and the gentlemen were equally elated to discover there would be so many agreeable things to do.

Unhappily for Sydney, it was later borne in on her that Cedric, her arbiter in all such matters, displayed a marked lack of enthusiasm for the project.

“Are garden fêtes not quite the thing, then?” she enquired of him during a lull in the dancing at a very select evening ridotto not long after. “Everyone will be going to it.”

“It don’t make a thing acceptable just because everyone’s doing it,” he told her. “At Richmond, or Vauxhall, or anywhere, it depends on
what
exactly you do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Everyone goes to them,” Cedric explained patiently, smiling blandly at Lady Sefton, who passed just at that moment and eyed them curiously. “That means, you’re liable to meet all sorts of people there. Some sorts you’d rather not know. If you go with a party of friends, as you are planning to do—why it’s perfectly fine. Unless—”

“Unless—?”

Cedric felt himself suddenly overcome by an attack of scruples. “Unless you should be—ah, annoyed by some of the rougher elements. But as Prudence will be there, and Lady Thiers, and you’ll all be together—well, everyone will have a jolly time, eh?”

“Won’t you come too, Cedric, dear?”

Cedric could not help wondering what precisely his charge had in her lively mind now, and reviewed his objections to see what he might have left out telling her—for there were times when she took his advice far too literally. He had not, in fact, intended to go to Richmond. Large groups of persons—particularly when they were mostly younger than himself—made Cedric uneasy. Not only that, but the last time he’d been anywhere with Sir Gavin, he’d spilled punch on his brand new silk waistcoat. Champagne punch it was, and dashed good stuff. He remembered now he’d actually had quite a good time up to that moment, and—well, he really ought to keep an eye on Sydney, even if she had been behaving very well of late. In fact, he was dashed proud of her! Cedric sighed. Sydney’s blue eyes were fixed on him anxiously.

“Oh, very well,” he capitulated. “I’ll come. Wouldn’t want you to get into mischief, you know. Lyle would have my head for it.”

Sydney’s happy smile quickly faded. “Oh, dear! I suppose I needn’t ask if my lord guardian would approve of this scheme?” Cedric shook his head. “No, I thought not. Well, he doesn’t have to know about it, does he?”

Sydney reached out to squeeze Cedric’s gloved hand as she appealed to him. He was conscious of the warmth of it, and the sensation drove him to make rash promises.

“Of course he doesn’t. Why raise a dust—I mean, why worry him unnecessarily, eh?”

Sydney smiled. Her eyes glowed an even deeper blue.

“Oh, thank you, Cedric. How good you are to me!’’

However much Sir Gavin’s friends looked forward to his Richmond Park fête, it was not by any means the only event on anyone’s social calendar. Sydney’s, indeed, was so full that both her duke and a sudden thrilling turn in her artistic career were upon her before she had so much as a hint of their appearance.

Only a few weeks into the season, Sydney had come to understand something of the fervour with which Cedric had spoken to her at Long Hill of it. It was not, as she had supposed then, merely a succession of entertainments out of which one might pick and choose as among differently flavoured bonbons in a box. One was expected to eat them all, even if they made one sick. She felt quite giddy as she was pulled along from one ballroom to another, from an intimate dinner party here to a large banquet there, from a Wednesday at Almack’s to a Saturday at the Zoological Gardens.

There was a noticeable lack, however, of activities that required intellectual as well as physical stamina, and in spite of her full calendar, Sydney soon began to feel this lack. Time and opportunity, furthermore, were slipping away, she feared; she could not wait for artistic as well as social fame to come rushing up to her, but would have to go out and find it for herself.

This was, however, far easier said than accomplished. She considered knocking on the door of Drury Lane Theatre and demanding an audition, but even inexperienced as she was, she knew she would be likely to get a great many other unsavoury offers instead, were she to do such a thing. For a time, she practiced devotedly on the pianoforte in the fortunately remote music room at Grosvenor Square to perfect some half-dozen pieces, hoping to catch the ear of any impresario who might attend one of the same parties she did. But none ever came to them, and Daisy began to complain of being footsore from having to fetch Sydney from the distant music room whenever she had a caller.

She never refused to meet any of her callers, as she might have done in her more single-minded days at home, and even at Long Hill. There was no denying she felt a great satisfaction in her multitude of new acquaintances and her scarcity of free evenings, and had she read over her journal entries—still faithfully recorded every night—for the last month, she would have been made forcibly aware of how her ideas of what was most important were changing.

She also felt a decided obligation to Cedric for his continued, if now less conspicuous, care of her, and her reluctance to cause him any anxiety moved her to behave more circumspectly than she had been wont to do in the past.

Furthermore, as obliging as Cedric might be in the matter of garden fêtes, Sydney knew it was useless to apply to him with any hope of success to accompany her to see Mr. Kean as Shylock at Drury Lane, or to sit through Madame Vesta’s
Norma
at the King’s Theatre. To be sure, it was not difficult to persuade Janet Adderley, who was a great reader, to accompany her to Hatchard’s, or Janine Forsythe to go with her to Montague House to view the Egyptian antiquities. Janine knew she was not actually obliged to look at these “objects of learned and curious significance,” and once inside the building, she and Carl Wendt were able to find a secluded corner to converse together while Sydney wandered about happily by herself.

Not even Susan, however, could be persuaded to attend any of Mr. Hazlitt’s lectures on the English poets, and when Sydney looked for someone to accompany her to the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition of paintings, she came upon unexpected opposition, all of her acquaintance by now having had their fill for the season of educational activities or, like Cedric and Prudence, were out of the asking for fear they would inform the Marquess of his ward’s curious tastes in entertainment.

Thus it was that Sydney accepted the ubiquitous Edward Kingsley’s escort to the Academy exhibition. He had called to see if she cared to go for a drive, and found her unexpectedly with nothing to do—Sarah Thiers and Lizzy Daniels, with whom she had been engaged to go to Clarimonde’s to look at the newest bonnets, having just that moment sent around a message that Lizzy had turned her ankle getting into the carriage and that Sarah was comforting her in her affliction, and would Sydney mind very much if they met the following day instead?

Sydney looked very smart that morning, in a coquelicot walking dress and a dashing bonnet—one did not after all go to Clarimonde’s looking as if one
needed
a new bonnet—with ribbons of the same poppy shade. It had been Cedric’s idea that, in addition to patronizing a more enlightened modiste, Sydney should be dressed in shades that suited her intense colouring rather than in the usual pastels favoured by debutantes—or at least by tradition and the debutantes’ mamas.

Edward acknowledged the effect of this daring departure from convention by never taking his eyes from Sydney until he was seated on his curricle and obliged to mind his horses. With Edward’s discreet groom perched up behind him, they made their way to Somerset House, while Sydney, made reckless by this unforeseen opportunity, told Edward more than he cared to know or would ever remember about the history, policies, patrons, and artists of the Academy.

“I have all along suspected you of being a remarkable young woman,” Edward told her, as he handed her down from the curricle at the entrance to Somerset House. “And I assure you,” he added with an engaging smile, “that I am accounted to have excellent taste in the
decorative
arts!’’

“Why then, sir,” Sydney replied with a good humour, but at the same time pulling her hand free of his over-fervent clasp,   “you will doubtless be most appreciative of the
genuine
works of art we shall see here this afternoon!’’

Edward duly paid their shillings at the entrance, but unfortunately the crush of people within was greater than usual and it was very difficult to see anything but waistcoats and bonnets—or paintings either hung so high up as to skew the viewer’s perspective, or crowded together like the Academy’s patrons themselves and equally impossible to appreciate fully.

Sydney made a brave effort to see enough of each work to be able to comment intelligently on it, but she sighed feelingly when she could not see anything at all over the heads of a group of large, overdressed ladies surrounding Sir Thomas Lawrence’s latest portrait, which they professed to adore without actually looking at it.