Rondo Allegro (54 page)

Anna was still debating permitting herself the pleasure of
singing and the danger of discovery; on seeing Emily’s impatience with this new
addition, and Harriet’s and Frederic’s honest indifference, she elected to
remain in the background, reflecting that at least she was surrounded by music,
even if her contributory role was limited.

Sunday they woke to freezing sleet of such an intensity that
there would be no church that morning. The dowager did not retire to her rooms
with her hymn book as had been her wont. She played hymns on the instrument,
with a power that sounded almost defiant to Anna’s sensitive ear. She sensed
that the spectacles were still a topic of conflict. Harriet repaired to the
schoolroom to play with the little girls, and Anna stole to the gallery to
dance herself into warmth.

Then Monday morning arrived after a sleety, windy night, and
brought with it an express from Mr. Perkins, stating that the Right Hon’ble
Lord Northcote would be traveling by gentle stages, and they might expect him
by Wednesday latest.

Everyone felt a sense of anticipation. The only outward sign
was Mrs. Diggory, and the entire staff, throwing the house into a frenzy of
cleaning suitable (Harriet remarked caustically, when she had been politely
chased from three rooms) for the arrival of His Majesty, King George, and the
entire royal family.

o0o

Tuesday brought the first snow of the season. No one would
be expected that day, either from London or more close by. Anna was aware that
in other circumstances she would have been enchanted to see snow for the first
time, but she was aware of a disappointment so sharp that she yanked the
curtains closed.

The dowager sighed, and as she had for years that only she
had numbered, suppressed her impatience to lay eyes on her son.

Harriet shrugged. Henry would arrive when he arrived. She
was off to visit Jane.

Emily looked out, judged that it was not heavy enough yet to
keep her inside, and sent orders for her park phaeton to be put to, with the
back up. She went out, looked at John-Coachman’s silent face, and sensed his
unspoken disapproval. He was invariably courteous, but she suspected he thought
more highly of the horses than he did of their owners.

“I have changed my mind,” she said. “I will ride to the
Groves. Pray saddle my hack.”

She left him to unhitch the team from the park phaeton and
walked around, slapping her whip idly against her half-boot, until she happened
to glance up at the paned windows of the gallery in the old wing. Was there
movement behind that glass? It had to be a reflection. Or perhaps Mrs. Diggory
had extended her efforts into the wing that no one entered.

“Your ladyship’s hack is ready.”

Distracted, she took the reins, was tossed into the saddle,
and set out at a spanking pace. At the Groves, she handed off the heated horse
at the stable, and walked in to discover her family sitting over a late
breakfast, as often happened in winter. She did not apologize for interrupting,
but said, “Henry should arrive tomorrow.”

“Capital,” Frederick exclaimed. Then frowned. “Is he still
wounded, do you think? I hope he has not altogether given up riding—”

Their mother interrupted him. “If any of John’s hacks are
left at the Manor, I would be surprised. Has that French woman sold them all
off?”

Emily knew her mother was very well aware that the only
selling had been done by she herself, in her effort to stave off the most
immediate creditors, after the disappointment of Amelia’s birth. This was her
mother’s half-apology for their acrimonious last parting.

“Nothing,” she said, “has been changed.”

Frederick shot a glance from their mother to his wife, and
as always, the two were in mutual agreement on retreat, Cicely following right
behind Mary.

Mrs. Squire Elstead frowned after them. He was so handsome,
and Cicely even prettier than her sister, and for what? Neither of them had the
least ambition. They might as well have been born ugly, and the money spent on
that expensive school in York saved.

Emily glanced at the head of the table. Her father had
already gone, of course. “As for Ludovisi, I found out just yesterday that
there is indeed a noble family by that name, but there is an infinity of
cousins and children. All she’d get out of
that
connection would likely be a worn pair of shoes.”

“Mother, that is vulgar.”

The Squire’s wife jerked up her shoulder. “It is no more
than the truth, and it is surprising to hear missish words from a married
woman. A once-married woman. At all events, no one but shop girls dress that
smartly. I notice,” she said, tapping her finger on her coffee cup, “that she
does not wear a wedding band. I find that very significant, though your father
insists that that is probably some outlandish French custom, their having got
up to all manner of disagreeable capers during their revolt. I am going to find
out who the mother’s people were.”

Emily shrugged. The lack of a ring was immaterial. It was as
likely someone pretending to be married could buy a band and put it on.

“And further, I saw quite clearly that she waited for you to
move at the end of your call. Does she give orders?”

“No.” Emily wished that Lady Northcote would be found out to
be a jumped-up shop girl, or something like, but she knew better. Shop girls
from Paris would never speak so well, or move so elegantly.

“It is different in France,” Emily said impatiently. She had
heard enough about the freedom married Frenchwomen had, even before all civilized
behavior was thrown out the window by the Revolution. Men and women mixed
freely in their salons, where it was reputed that wit and style were as
important as good birth. “Mother, I want you to give the Christmas ball. It is
too soon for us, even if there were no Lady Northcote in question.”

“Your father will quibble over the bother and expense,” Mrs.
Elstead said.

Emily ignored that out of long habit. When her mother
misliked a notion, she always attributed the negation to her father.

Sure enough, her mother followed up her remark with a
sharper question. “Why should we be put to that trouble? What is to be gained?”

Henry will see me
presiding
, Emily thought. Out loud, she said, “It will be a fine way to
establish us on the old footing, of course. And you know Papa will want to
settle things relative to his desire to serve as Justice of the Peace.”

She could see that this was a hit. Her mother had been
hinting broadly ever since John’s death. While the appointment brought nothing
remunerative, it was a position of tremendous prestige, and her mother longed
to print visiting cards with ‘J.P.’ after Father’s name, which was as close to
a title as she would ever get.

Mrs. Squire Elstead considered, then frowned. “At a ball?”

“Mother, the ball will begin things. Then we will give our
customary New Year’s party. If Lady Northcote knows nothing of such things,
after years in France under that terrible government, I will put her in the way
of it.”

“And Henry will see you doing it,” Mrs. Elstead said.

Emily flushed, but did not deny it. Her mother smiled. “Is
she really so incapable?”

Emily had been considering that very question. “She has
given no orders, and yet . . . the household has changed vastly
since her arrival. Not that I can blame her for putting it into my
mother-in-law’s head that women of quality, even noble and royal women, wear
spectacles. It might only have been conversation, after which it is as likely
that Harriet talked her mother into it. Harriet has become increasingly pert,
and though I cannot blame the woman for that, she does nothing to correct her.
In addition to all else, Eleanor is suddenly prating of music lessons, as if
she were another Mrs. Billington, which she is not, and that occurred after
Lady Northcote went up the nursery and taught her a few notes. I cannot imagine
why she would do that. Perhaps she only meant well.”

“She might have been put in the way of it by Louisa
Northcote,” Mrs. Squire Elstead stated. “She was
always
tiresome about that instrument. Of course it was the only
accomplishment she had, so naturally the Dangeau family must puff it off.”

Emily had long suspected that her mother had wished to marry
the baron, old as he was, after the death of his first wife. But he had looked
higher for a bride, and the Dangeaus had not only wealth and coronets aplenty
but also ecclesiastical rank in their family tree.

Her mother went on embroidering a favorite theme. “You watch
out, Emily, or that fool Louisa Northcote will turn Eleanor into a
bluestocking, and then you will be stuck with her on your hands the way they
are with those spinsters out at Whitstead. A perfectly good house, which
you
might have had, instead thrown away
on . . .”

Emily shut out her mother, whose complaints about Penelope
and Caroline were nothing new. Of more immediate necessity was regaining her
own position in society. Even if Whitstead had been free, she had no intention
of burying herself in a country village that made Barford Magna look the size
of London.

Her mother, noticing in Emily’s distant gaze that her
daughter was not listening, halted mid-sentence. “Do as you will,” she said. “I
will put Cicely to writing out the invitations. At least the child came back
from York with superior handwriting.”

Emily took her leave, and rode back to the Manor. She had
gained her point. The Elsteads would give the Christmas ball, and her
cheese-paring mother would see to it that it was very fine, as she had the
newly-returned Henry to impress for her own purposes.

But Emily could not talk to her mother about her own
misgivings.

She sensed that there was some mystery; Lady Northcote vanished
alone for hours. It was too much to hope that there was some sordid reason for
those rambles.

Emily knew the grounds well enough from when she and Henry
had been young. There was little likelihood of mysterious French spies (what
would they have to spy on?) or sinister Italian banditti (no one had reported
so much as a missing hen in a parish where everyone’s business became known as
soon as Mother laid ear to it), or even a German count who might appear to
carry off the object of his desire, married surely on some whim by Henry. She
might only be a very good walker.

Emily had been calculating, and surely this Anna
Ludovisi—impossible name!—could have been no more than sixteen when Henry had
married her. She might not, feature by feature, compare with Emily herself (and
Emily studied her mirror carefully for the least signs of age), but she
conveyed an aura of beauty, and without any apparent effort. The way she
crossed a room drew the eye; Emily could only be glad that apparently she had
never thought to ride a horse, nor did she drive. There, she knew she would be
superior. Further, if Henry was still tiresome about music, Emily had made
certain that she was leading the musical evenings.

The next day, she dressed in a fine gown that had just
arrived from London before she was forced to put on black clothes, so she had
never before had a chance to wear it. She might have turned twenty-seven this
summer past, but nobody would know it to look at her.

Henry had loved her once. All this past year, as she waited
for the birth of her child, she had thought about Henry, and how even if she
were disappointed of a son, nothing would stand in the way of her marriage with
Henry, who surely could get dispensation from his uncle the bishop for marrying
his brother’s wife. Either way, she would retain her position.

Then there had come that shocking newsprint article, stating
that he possessed a wife.

She gave no sign of these thoughts as she joined the others.
She had learnt by bitter experience that the flattery and deference of
courtship ended with the wedding breakfast. Since then she had schooled herself
to suggest, to hint, to encourage a hot-tempered, selfish husband in order to
gain her point, and to reveal nothing that he might use against her later.

o0o

The day was got through each in their various pursuits
until the likely time the express was to be expected. Emily had already chosen
the place where she would stand directly under the chandelier, whose light
would make a glorious gold of her hair.

When at last the word passed that the carriage was seen
turning at the road, and the servants made haste to assemble outside to greet
the new baron, Emily made certain to take up her station before anyone else
could claim that place. She spared a brief moment of pity for the bride, who
was, in spite of her elegance, content to stand between the dowager and Harriet
in a dull corner, and then the noise of arrival caused Diggory to open the door
to announce his master.

Emily put on her most serene smile, her hand lifted in a
graceful appeal—but then she stopped, thoroughly nonplussed: the man who
stepped inside his house was Henry indeed, but with a bandage wrapped around
his eyes.

She stared, her wits flown.

Anna had also dressed with care because she always dressed
with care. She had seen the terrible aftermath of battle, and her expectation
was of a man weakened and in need of nursing. She and Parrette had gone round
the baronial rooms, discussing what might be best for him: which room was the
warmest? The quietest? Anna’s own private thought was,
Where shall I sleep?
But she could not bring herself to voice it.

She had spent time living in his family, his house, and his
country. Now, at last, she was to be reunited with the man himself, and here he
was, being led by Perkins, who was almost unrecognizable in the correct garb of
a valet, save for that wooden leg.

Her heart beat fast as Henry entered on Perkins’ arm. He was
thinner than she remembered, the bones of his face above and below the
eye-bandage strongly pronounced. Most surprising, even unsettling, was that
instead of the uniform she had always seen him wear, he was dressed in the
correct garb of a gentleman, though his blue cutaway coat was similar in shade
to his captain’s coat.