The Reckoning (60 page)

Polly longed, suddenly and fiercely, for Harvey; for a reso
lution to this frightful situation, for an end to the boredom,
monotony, imprisonment – for escape! For the first time she
thought seriously about escape. It was obvious that Harvey
would never be able to save her from the situation which he
had created in the first place; but if Minnie's clinging depend
ency were at last lessening, perhaps there might be another
way.

Perhaps, she thought, clenching her fists against her breast
in an unconscious gesture, she might simply go away on her
own, leave them both. In some distant part of the country,
she might find some way to support herself, as a governess or
a lady's maid perhaps. It would mean poverty, discomfort,
obscurity – all the things she had always dreaded for herself;
but for the first time those things seemed less frightful than
the continuation of her present dependency. Here, for all her
material comfort, she seemed to be losing control of her very soul. Away from here, there might be, even in poverty, a way
of becoming at last her own woman.

*

Rosamund went to her wedding in a calmer state of mind
than most brides of her age. Indeed, Docwra, who had been
sent by Lucy to dress her in case she needed reassurance,
advice or encouragement, had nothing to do in those departments. Docwra was old-fashioned enough to have wanted to
see her charge weep a little or turn pale and tremble, but
Rosamund merely inspected her reflection in the dressing-
table glass and said that she had no need of the spanish-paper
Docwra had brought with her.

‘
It will be hot enough in the carriage, I'm sure, to give me
the colour of a lobster. I'll rather need whitening than
rouging.'

‘
You won't need either, my lady,' Docwra said, rallying.
‘You'll look beautiful, and a lucky man he is to be receiving
you
at the altar.'

‘
Well, I am marrying my childhood sweetheart after all,'
Rosamund said. 'I should think most people would say I'm
the lucky one.’

Docwra couldn't tell from Rosamund's face whether she
meant it, or was joking, and found it safer to say nothing. Instead she commented on her work as she arranged Rosa
mund's hair.

‘
A blessing it
is
that you're marrying in June, when the
roses are at their best. There's nothing like roses for dressing
up a head; though once you're married it'll be diamonds and
pearls, o' course, you being a countess. Outrank your mother,
you will, had you thought about that? She'll have to stand if
you come into the room at a public function, and you'll go in
to dinner before her.'

‘
What a thought!' Rosamund laughed. 'I hope
that
never
happens. I must avoid public functions that she attends.'

‘
T'won't be your choice,' Dowcra began, but Rosamund
interrupted, 'As to diamonds and pearls – have you seen the
Chelmsford jewels?'

‘
I
have. I was at Chelmsford House with her ladyship the
day they was brought from the bank, and Hawkins let me
have a look at them before he took them down to the strong
room. There's not much of them, compared with what her
ladyship had when she married your late father, but they're
good stones, the way you won't be shamed.'

‘
There's a lovely tiara of rose diamonds,' Rosamund said
‘and a really pretty necklace of large half-pearls set about
with rubies, and some other things I shan't mind wearing.
Usually family jewels are so ugly and old-fashioned.'

‘
I
expect they were made for Mrs Firth when she was
married to the sixth earl. She was so young and pretty then, I
remember hearing he had a lot of the family stuff made over
for her, though she never cared much for grand occasions.
Ah, there was a lot of jealous talk when the earl married her,
her only being a soldier's daughter –'

‘
I'll bet Lady Barbara had something to say about it,'
Rosamund said grimly.

Docwra quite properly ignored that. 'But they were very happy together, and she gave him a son just as she should,
and all in all she was as good a countess as any that's been
born to the rank. It's not so very old a title, but there's been
some fine people who've been Countess of Chelmsford – your
own grandmother, her ladyship's mother, amongst 'em.’

Rosamund raised her eyebrows. ‘Grandmama? Really?
I
never knew that.'

‘
That's right. It was before she married your grandfather,
and there was no children of the marriage, so I suppose it
never got talked of. The earl died young, and the title went to
his brother, and your grandmother went back to Morland
Place and married her cousin. Still and all, she was Countess
of Chelmsford all right, so you can hold your head up in the
title and think of her.'

‘
She died when I was a baby. I never knew her,' Rosamund
said. 'I wish I had.’

Docwra smiled at Rosamund's reflection in the glass, and
rested her hand softly on the crown of burnished hair. ‘She'd
have loved you, my lady, no doubt about it. It was she that named you Rose of the World the day you was born, and if she saw you now she'd say you've grown up as beautiful as
your name.'

‘
Thank you, Docwra,' Rosamund said solemnly. 'You're an
atrocious liar, for
I'm
plain as a stick and always have been,
but I know you mean it from kindness. And now, if you've
finished with my head, hadn't we better be putting on the
gown? It's after half past eleven.’

Docwra gave a shriek. 'Lord bless us! We'll be late. Where's
that girl? Moss! Come in here, and don't be mooning about
like a sick spaniel! Fetch her ladyship's wedding gown over,
and mind you don't crumple it.’

The gown was of very fine white muslin over a stiffened
pale pink silk slip. The waist was very high, as the fashion
was, and the hem very wide, deeply flounced and ruffled with
pink and white silk festoons of ruched ribbon, gathered up to
clusters of pink silk roses with seed-pearls at their hearts. The
same ruched ribbon decorated the low neckline of the bodice,
but there the gathers were pinned with real roses. There were
knots of ribbon on the puffed muslin sleeves, and her hair was
dressed with more roses and ribbons, and short pink and
white plumes held by clips set with pink freshwater pearls.

When Docwra and Moss had hooked her up and twitched
the dress into position, Rosamund looked at herself doubtfully
in the long cheval glass. She had grown up through a period
in which women's gowns were classically plain and
unadorned, and in any case had spent most of her life dressed
in riding habits. The fashion for trimming and flounces had
only come in in the last year or so, and she had never seen
herself in anything so elaborate and frilly, and doubted
whether it suited her.

Still, she thought, with an inward sigh, if the thing had to
be done, it might as well be done properly. Docwra slipped a
gold filagree necklace – a present from the bridegroom –
around her throat and fastened it behind, and then she was
finished. As she turned away from the glass, there was a
tapping at the door.

‘
Now what –?' Docwra began disapprovingly, and jerked
her head at Moss.

The maid went across and opened it a crack, murmured
something, glanced back over her shoulder at her mistress
and said, 'It's Parslow, my lady.’

Rosamund nodded. Moss opened the door fully, and
Parslow stood there on the threshold, smartly dressed in
bran-new livery with a wedding-favour on the collar, his hat respectfully in his hand and his hair neatly pomaded down.

Before he could speak, Docwra hurried forward and said
disapprovingly, 'Yes, yes, her ladyship's ready. There was no
need for you to come hurrying her. Sure an' nothing's going
to happen until she gets there anyway.’

Rosamund caught his eye over Docwra's fat shoulder. 'All
right, Docwra,' she intervened. 'You and Moss can go and get ready. I shall come down in a moment or two. Go on, now, or
you'll be late.’

The maids departed reluctantly, and she was left facing
Parslow, across the room in which she had slept as a maiden
for the last time last night. Tonight there would be the goose-
feather bed and the new-wedded lord. What did Parslow
think of it all, she wondered? She had not forgotten that his
advice had been that she refuse Marcus.

Parslow's face was impassive as usual, but his eyes were
bright with some unaccustomed emotion. 'My lady,' he said,
on a faintly interrogative note.

‘
Well,' she said nervously, holding her hands out a little
from her side in the manner of a child in a party-frock, 'will I
do?’

His eyes never strayed from her face, and if that was not a
smile on his lips, it was the next thing to it. 'You're beautiful,
my lady,' he said softly.

Not her gown, but her! Her cheeks grew warm. The word
‘gammon' sprang to her lips and died there, and she felt
instead a piercing desire to burst into tears and fling herself
into his arms. She suppressed it, drew a deep breath, and said, ’You came to tell me the carriage is here, I suppose?'

‘
Yes, my lady. And also – if you'll allow me –' He hesi
tated, seeming for once unsure of himself. 'I hope you won't
consider it a liberty –'

‘
What is it?' Rosamund asked. 'It's all right, you can be
frank with me.'

‘
Oh no, my lady.
It's
just that – I have something I wanted
to give you, if you'd permit me?’

He reached into his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a very
small paper parcel. She received it from him in silence,
opened it, and found inside, in all the niceness of jeweller's
packing, a tiny silver horseshoe.