Falling in Love With English Boys (10 page)

In truth, I only know she was a different creature in her youth because of very vague memories and the fact that I once heard Papa, near tears, demanding of her, “What have you done to the lovely, sweet girl I married?” My heart ached for him. I could have smacked her myself when she replied:

“Would not a better question be what
you
have done to her?”

I know she was beautiful. I suppose she still is. But she hounds me with her rules and her warnings—against Adventurers (men who shall court me for the three thousand pounds I have from Grandmother Cavendish), against Ignorance (my own, primarily, although she seems to feel there is an epidemic of sorts sweeping England), against Complaisance (or is it “complacence”? I am not curious enough to interrupt the lectures to ask). Then, of course, there is bad drinking water, heavy application of face powder, pickpockets, spoiled fish, immoral acquaintances, gin, gossip, and the colour chartreuse. Heaven help me.

I feel for Papa. It is she who keeps him away from home so often, I know it. She chases him out with her headaches and her waspishness and her writing, which is what he dislikes most of all. He cannot countenance a woman who cares only to speak of what she has read, or far worse, what she has
written
.

“There is nothing so deadly dull as a bookish girl,” he has told me. “We men spend our youth waiting to be done with the tedium of school and governesses. Why on earth should we wish to repeat the experience with our wives? Be a fool, Katherine, be a vixen, but
never
a bluestocking.”

I shall not. I shall not be bookish or dull. Nor shall I be changeable. I shall be steadfast in all things and shall be quite the same person at eight-and-thirty as I am now at eighteen.

Luisa visited this morning and was so charming to Mama and so persuasive, that I was allowed to attend a supper party at her house. I do love Luisa!

It was a lively evening.We were all gathered together at one table, the familiar crowd. Mr. Eccleston was most silly, telling us of the day he and Mr. Baker spent rowing on the Serpentine. It seems Mr. Baker is composing a poem about water nymphs and required water. Mr. Eccleston did the rowing.

“Why should he not?” Mr. Baker demanded of us all, his marvelous eyes alight. “He is the one with the brawn.”

“And you with the brains, I suppose?” came Mr. Eccleston’s retort. “What sort of brains are required to know that standing up in a narrow rowboat is simply asking to be upset, hmm?”

“It was a splendid line and needed to be cried aloft!”

“It was a lost line,” Mr. Eccleston announced drily, “to water in my ears and your mouth.”

Everyone laughed at the image of the pair of them flapping about in the water. “And nymphs?” Miss Eleanora Quinn asked. She has taken to wearing funny little sprays of peacock feathers in her hair. Luisa and I have debated the kindness of telling her that she resembles a startled finch. I am in favor; Luisa against.

“We are all like birds, I expect,” was her reasoning,“inclined to flutter and preen when a gentleman we admire is nearby.” I have never seen her so much as flutter a lash. It would be most annoying if I were not secretly relieved that she shows no preference—in fact, she shows a disinterest—in Mr. Baker.
She gets on very nicely with Charles, which is lovely, as it allows me to spend some evenings with two of the people I am most fond of, and even seems somewhat taken with Nicholas, which is quite beyond me.

This evening, for her part, Miss Quinn was fluttering and twittering away at all the gentlemen. I would have been quite put out, but she flirts with Mr. Eccleston and Mr. Davison quite as much as she does Mr. Baker. “Were there no nymphs about to rescue you?” she asked him.

“For water I go to Hyde Park,” Mr. Baker replied. I nearly dropped my lemonade (I do hope I will soon like champagne again!) when his eyes caught mine. “For nymphs, I have come here. To be rescued.”

“But there is no water, sir,” I teased.

“There are many more circumstances requiring rescue,” he answered.

“To be sure,” said Mr. Pertwee. “Poverty!”

“Conniving mamas with available daughters!” from Mr. McCoy.

“Boredom,” Luisa added, and yawned prettily.

“All true,” cried Mr. Baker with a toss of his curls, “but none of those are what I fear most!”

“He’s positively terrified of a badly tailored coat,” Mr. Eccleston informed us.

“I am terrified,” Mr. Baker began, and I leaned forward, “of nothing at all but solitude and an empty heart.”

“What utter rot!” Mr. Eccleston laughed.

“Oh, but such pretty rot,” Mr. McCoy added.

Mr. Baker laughed with them, but his eyes met mine again.

For the remainder of the evening, which went altogether too quickly, I could do little other than to ask myself, over and over again, “Is this how it feels?”

I cannot bring myself to say aloud what
it
might be.

As we all parted, Mr. Baker bowed low over my hand and he kissed it. I had not thought that the brief touch of lips to skin could feel so warm. I think I would very much like
Thomas
to kiss me again.

I thought nothing could spoil the evening. I was, of course, wrong.

Papa is spending much time with the odious Lord Chilham and, appallingly, does not seem to mind. In fact, he seems entirely happy with the situation. I confess I cannot quite reconcile Papa’s excellent taste in all matters with this odd friendship. His chosen acquaintances have always been from among the most elegant and discriminating crowd. The sort of persons he has always instructed me to emulate. Chilham is so much the opposite: boring, unfashionable, foolish. Yet Papa quite snapped at me when I suggested he might better enjoy an evening with the clown Grimaldi.

“He is my cousin, Katherine, and a far more important personage in Town than you! It would serve you well to remember that. You will treat him with all due respect, miss.”

There is a quandary. How does one treat someone with due respect, when they are due none? After all, the man sports odd-coloured waistcoats and his stockings bag at the ankles.

I had scarcely arrived home from the supper party when Chilham burst from Papa’s library and came at me like a wasp to a violet. He has now taken to wearing his cravat so high and highly starched that he cannot lower his chin. I suspect he is unable to see the floor, for a corner of a particularly dangerous and vicious pink silk carpet nearly felled him. He flailed for an instant, thin arms and legs windmilling, before recovering.

I did not laugh. My tightly laced corset helped. Papa’s warning helped more. His just-visible presence in the library door quite sealed the matter.

“Good evening, Lord Chilham,” I managed, trying not to fling myself backward when he reached for my hand. I feared there would be a terrible tug-of-war over my arm should he insist on grabbing me. The very idea of his putting his lips, or even his cold fingers, where Thomas’s had been was unthinkable.

He reached, I twisted and curtsied. He reached again, then gave it up and bowed.

“Cousin. You are looking uncommonly well.”

I think I probably am. I am happy.

He went on, “Do come and join your father and me in a glass of sherry and a bit of conversation.”

How odd that when I so often desire my father’s company more than anything, at the moment I simply could not be bothered. “I thank you, sir, for the very kind and generous invitation, but I am quite fatigued. I would certainly only bore you with the silly prattle of the evening.”

What utter rot, as Mr. Eccleston would say. Yet it was pretty rot.

“Nonsense! I insist!”

And I am not some meek little miss to be commanded so. “I assure you, my lord, I am poor company and must decline.” I am not certain I suppressed my yawn well enough; I caught sight of Papa scowling.

Chilham really is especially unappealing when he pouts. Beneath the pudding hair, his face resembles that of a petulant infant. Yet he was not deterred for long. “Far be it from me to deprive you of your rest. I shall not, however, accept a refusal for tomorrow night. It would be my great pleasure to escort you to Vauxhall Gardens. Your father tells me you are most anxious to see the fireworks.”

Yes, I was. I was very much looking forward to going with Papa. He promised. We should engage a box and have supper there under the stars, and watch the people—the soldiers and tradesmen and women of questionable virtue—until the fireworks display began.

“I do not think—” I began. Father appeared fully in the doorway then, frowning fiercely. My goodness, he is intent on not offending this ludicrous—yes,
titled
—creature. “Oh, very well. Thank you, my lord.”

“You make me the happiest of men, Cousin Katherine. I wish you the sweetest of dreams.”

His collar points prevented him from merely bowing his head. So he bent from the waist and nearly toppled himself forward onto the floor. I quite laughed myself silly once I had closed my bedchamber door behind me.

July 8

Rich Girl

Well, Elizabeth’s Imogen looks like Beyoncé, and is so posh and preppy I thought it was an act at first. She actually wears pearls. Over Petit Bateau shirts, it must be noted, but
pearls
. And Consuelo—sloe-eyed, Spanish Consuelo—is this elfin blonde who wears Doc Martens with a floaty little dress that I’m pretty sure I saw in last month’s
Vogue
. They are both effortlessly friendly, in the way that only totally self-assured girls are, and effortlessly cool, in the way that almost no one is. I think it must have something to do with the fact that they both wear La Perla underwear. Not that they announced that to me, or anyone. It was Elizabeth, who told them to move their La Perla’d arses if we were to get to the park before July. Apparently Elizabeth hangs out with the rich kids.

They’ve all been friends since they were eight and starting at their Independent School in Kensington. I can tell that’s London for “Expensive and Elite.” They don’t need to boast; their lives spill forth like caviar with no help whatsoever. Imogen’s mother is a neurosurgeon with awful taste in men (“Wouldn’t you think a naffing brain surgeon would have more sense than to take up with an unemployed actor? I mean, he left her in Portofino with nothing but the hotel bill . . .”). Elizabeth and Imogen spent last weekend at Consuelo’s country house (“By the way, Lizzie, Daddy’s buying you a new iPod. He feels just awful about the power surges, but it can’t be helped. Most of the wiring in the east wing
was
put in for the king’s visit in the thirties . . . ”).

I asked if they know Will Percival. Consuelo thought for a moment. “Sounds a bit familiar. We might have had French lessons together, but I’m not certain.”

Elizabeth eyed her skeptically. “And when might this have been, these lessons that are so clear in your mind?”

“Oh, well, I suppose I was three. Maybe four—”

“Would that perchance be William Percival the Tall, pupil at the Charterhouse School?” Imogen lazily waved her iPhone in my direction. “I can see why you would ask.”

“Here, gimme.” Elizabeth snagged the phone, studied the little screen for a sec, and let out a low whistle. “God, I love Google. Not half bad, Yank. And aristocratic. Which is not a recommendation.”