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‘It was more humiliating than painful.’ Just how humiliating she was not prepared to divulge.
* * *
Her aunt came downstairs at noon to find her niece in the morning parlour with a novel by Miss Jane Austen in her lap, although she was not reading it but daydreaming. Not even Miss Austen’s elegant prose could hold her attention. She had never expected to be so bored. It was worse than being in Hadlea, where at least she could go out walking or riding or visit her sister.
‘When we have had nuncheon, we will go out in the carriage,’ her aunt said. ‘I must go to the library and change my book.’ She nodded towards the volume Sophie was holding. ‘Unless you want to read it.’
‘No, Aunt, I have already read it.’
‘Then to the library we will go and then we will call on my friend Mrs Malthouse in Hanover Square. Mr and Mrs Malthouse are very wealthy, but it makes no matter for I have often spoken of you and dear Jane and Issie and their husbands and how well up in the stirrups they are, so you do not need to feel in any way inferior.’
Sophie did not see why she should feel inferior and was tempted to say, ‘I do not’, but held her tongue.
* * *
Mrs Malthouse was even rounder than Aunt Emmeline, but in spite of that wore fussy clothes with a great many lace flounces and ribbons. Her daughter, Cassandra, was nothing like her mother, being tall and slim, with dark brown hair arranged in ringlets and a merry smile.
‘You remember me speaking of my sister’s family, do you not?’ Lady Cartrose explained to her friend. ‘Sophie is staying with me, but as you know, I seldom venture out in the evenings nowadays. Her brother is also with us and will escort her to whatever function has been arranged for her to attend. Everyone knows I do not go out so very often these days and I am wanting in invitations. I am come to appeal to you to help me out. I know Cassandra is engaged to attend the Rowlands’ dancing party and wondered if you might ask them to include Sophie in the invitation.’
Sophie disliked the way her aunt was begging on her behalf and would as lief forgo the dance as to be invited out of charity. ‘Aunt, we should not put Mrs Malthouse to the inconvenience,’ she said. ‘Doubtless there will be other invitations.’
‘It is a public subscription dance,’ Cassandra put in. ‘It is only being held at the Rowlands’ because they have a large ballroom. You have only to buy a ticket. I think it costs five guineas.’
‘That is a prodigious amount,’ Emmeline said.
‘It is so high as to keep out the undesirables,’ Mrs Malthouse put in. ‘And because it is to raise money for a suitable gift for the new princess. She is to be christened Alexandrina Victoria, though I believe she is to be known as Princess Victoria.’
‘In that case I shall naturally obtain tickets for Teddy and Sophie,’ Emmeline said. ‘I shall not go.’
‘If Sophie is in need of company,’ Mrs Malthouse added, ‘then she and her brother are welcome to join our party.’
‘Thank you, Augusta. I knew you would help,’ Emmeline said.
Sophie added her gratitude while wondering who was to pay for the tickets. The pin money she had been given would not stretch to it. Her aunt seemed unconcerned, so perhaps she expected Mark to put his hand in his pocket yet again, but Mark might judge ten guineas for two tickets a monstrous imposition and refuse to pay. It would be a bitter disappointment if she could not go.
‘Shall we take a turn in the garden?’ Cassandra suggested to Sophie. ‘We can leave Mama and Lady Cartrose to their gossip.’
She readily agreed and the two young ladies left the house by the conservatory. The sun had come out and chased off the frost, and the garden was secluded and sheltered. It was pleasant strolling about an immaculately tended garden and talking. ‘Have you been to London before?’ Cassandra asked her.
‘No, never, though my sisters have. They are older than me and both married. Jane is married to Lord Wyndham, and Isabel to Sir Andrew Ashton, who owns a fast clipper and takes her all over the world on it. My brother is in town with me. He is older than Issie and younger than Jane.’
‘Yes, I have heard Lady Cartrose talk of your sisters. Your father has a substantial estate in Norfolk, I believe.’
‘It is fairly extensive. It is mostly arable land and grazing. I have often heard Papa say the land is very fertile, but I know nothing of agriculture so cannot vouch for it.’
‘We don’t have a country estate. It is not that we could not afford it, but that Papa’s business as a top lawyer in constant demand keeps him in town all the year round and we would hardly ever use it. Sometimes I go and stay with my uncle and aunt in the country, but I miss the entertainments and the shops and meeting my friends, so I am always thankful to come back home.’
‘I can quite see that. I should, too, I am sure.’
‘You are very pretty and I do admire your dress,’ Cassandra said, looking at Sophie’s yellow sarcenet gown with its high waist and puffed sleeves, over which she was wearing a matching silk shawl. ‘It must have been made by the finest mantua maker.’
‘Indeed it was,’ Sophie said. ‘Just because I live in the country does not mean I am ignorant of fashion, or unable to procure the best.’ This was all dreadfully boastful and not exactly accurate, but she couldn’t bear to be thought of as a country yokel. Besides, Jane’s needlework was up to anything a London mantua maker could produce.
‘I am so pleased to hear it, Miss Cavenhurst. I can think of nothing worse than having to stint. We are fortunate not to have to think of it.’
Sophie had only intended to praise Jane’s work, but her aunt had already told everyone she was well connected and she felt she could not contradict her, so she let it go. ‘If we are to be friends, please call me Sophie.’
‘Of course we shall be friends, so Sophie it shall be. You may call me Cassie. Everyone does except Mama and Papa and my grandparents.’
‘Cassie, do you have a beau?’
‘No, Mama would never tolerate it before I come out, but this year I hope to find a husband. What about you? Do you expect to find one while you are in town?’
‘That is the idea of a Season, is it not?’
‘Indeed it is. Have you anyone in mind?’
‘No one. My brother says I am too particular, but I will not marry just for the sake of it. I have already turned down three offers.’
‘Three!’ exclaimed Cassandra. ‘You cannot mean it.’
‘Indeed, I do.’
‘Were they all handsome and rich? Did they have titles?’
‘One was handsome and tolerably rich, one was a baronet and one a lord, but none combined all the attributes I am looking for. The lord was a widower with two children. I have no wish to be a second wife. I had no difficulty in rejecting them.’ She was boasting again, although she had said nothing that was not true and was amused by the expression on Cassandra’s face, a mixture of shock and incredulity.
‘What manner of man are you looking for?’
‘The same as every other young lady, I expect. Handsome, rich and titled, but he must be kind, considerate and care about the things I care about, and he must of all things be wildly in love with me, as I must be with him.’
‘You and I think alike, Sophie. Let us hope we are not both vying for the same man, if such a man can be found who is single and looking for a wife.’
‘Tell me about the dance.’ Sophie felt they had exhausted the topic of future husbands and she was feeling a little guilty over her boastfulness. It was not at all how she felt inside. ‘What shall you wear?’
‘Mama will not allow colours until after I have my come-out later in the Season, so white it will have to be, but I can have a coloured sash and coloured ribbons in my hair. Which colour would suit me, do you think?’
Sophie stopped walking to turn towards her. ‘Green,’ she said. ‘Definitely green, it will enhance the colour of your eyes. And green slippers, of course.’
Cassandra clapped her hands. ‘Yes, I am sure Mama will allow that. What about you? You are very fair and have blue eyes, so perhaps blue for you. Or maybe pink. Do you like pink?’
‘It depends on the shade, but I like blue best. I have a lovely blue ball gown in my luggage and a rose-pink gauze evening gown.’
‘You mean the whole dress is coloured, not white?’
‘I hate white. It may look delightful on you, but it makes me look insipid.’
‘Will your aunt allow it?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘But you will be defying convention.’
‘Pooh to convention.’
Cassandra laughed. ‘Oh, I can see you are going to set the ton by the ears.’
Sophie joined in the laughter. ‘That is the whole idea.’ She paused. ‘The gowns shall be a secret until the night I wear them, so do not say anything of them to your mama.’
‘I won’t. Shall we go back indoors? Lady Cartrose will be taking her leave by now.’
They returned to the drawing room to find that Cassandra’s brother, Vincent, had arrived and their departure was delayed while Sophie was introduced to him.
He was very like Cassandra in looks, half a head taller than she was and rather too thin to be called handsome. He was dressed in a dark grey coat and lighter grey pantaloons. His neckcloth was extravagantly tied and his shirt points starched to a board. They certainly made him keep his head up. His dark hair was cut short and curled towards his face. He bowed to her and took her hand. ‘How do you do, Miss Cavenhurst. I am told that you will be gracing the Rowlands’ dance with us. I shall look forward to that.’
She withdrew her hand and smiled at him. ‘You are too kind.’
‘Come, Sophie,’ Emmeline said. ‘We have time for a turn around the park before going home. Lord Wyndham is to dine with us, so we shall have a little company this evening.’
They took their leave and, once they were seated in the barouche and trotting along Brook Street towards Park Lane, her aunt asked her what she thought of Cassandra.
‘I think we shall deal very well together,’ Sophie said, speaking very loudly into her aunt’s ear. ‘She already thinks of me as her friend.’
‘Good. That means you will have a companion for outings when I cannot go with you. What did you think of Vincent?’
‘I really did not think of him at all, Aunt. We met so briefly.’
‘He is an admirable young man, and though he does not have a title, he will come into a considerable fortune when he inherits. In the meantime he is employed in his father’s law firm.’
‘If he is anything like Teddy, he doesn’t do much work there.’ She was obliged to repeat this twice before her aunt comprehended.
‘You are unkind to your brother, Sophie. I collect he worked very hard when he was in India, for he made a fortune there, enough to get himself and your papa out of dun country by all accounts.’
‘Oh, yes, I will give him that, but as for law work, he hated being behind a desk all day. Now he helps Papa on the estate. Mr Malthouse has no estate.’
‘That is true. But Mr Vincent Malthouse is only the first of many young men you will meet in the course of the next few weeks. I am persuaded you will be able to choose whomever you please.’
Sophie was not so sure about that, considering she had so far only been engaged for a subscription dance. She needed more than that. She needed something happening every day and she needed to make an impression at every one of them.
They turned in at the park and followed a parade of carriages passing others going in the opposite direction. Lady Cartrose knew so many people and they were continually stopping for her to gossip and introduce Sophie. Sophie bowed her head and said, ‘How do you do?’ and answered politely when they enquired if she was enjoying her stay in London, but she doubted she would remember all their names. One rider she would not forget, though he did not stop. He simply rode slowly past them on the other side of the rail, and she concluded he was not known to her aunt, for which she was thankful. She was not sure whether he had seen and recognised her, but turned her head away to talk to Lady Cartrose. ‘It is lovely to see the trees bursting into leaf,’ she said. ‘It makes me think of summer.’
‘And let us hope it is better than last summer,’ her aunt answered, unaware of Sophie’s agitation.
‘There,’ the old lady said, as they turned out of the gate to go home. ‘Everyone knows you are in town now, and if they do not they very soon will.’
* * *
Mark arrived at six that evening to dine with them as promised. He was in a cheerful mood and listened attentively to Lady Cartrose’s recital of their afternoon. ‘There is to be a subscription ball to honour the new princess,’ she told him. ‘You have no objection to Sophie attending with Mr and Mrs Malthouse and their daughter, Cassandra, have you? They are very respectable people, well up in the ton. I know she should not be attending balls before her come-out, but this is not a formal ball and it is in a good cause.’
‘My lady, I can have no say in the matter, I am merely a bystander. It is for you and Sophie’s brother to say what she may and may not do.’
Lady Cartrose turned to Teddy. ‘Edward, what do you think? Shall you allow it?’
‘Don’t see why not,’ he said lazily. ‘What’s it all about, this ball?’
He had not been attending the conversation, and her ladyship was obliged to repeat what she had said to Mark. ‘It will be a very select dancing party,’ she explained. ‘The tickets are five guineas.’
‘Five guineas! Whoever heard of having to pay for an invitation to a dance? Sounds rummy to me.’
‘It is to raise money to buy the new royal baby a present,’ Sophie explained.
‘What does she want a present for? She’ll not be short of the dibs.’
‘Oh, Teddy, don’t be difficult,’ Sophie said. ‘I want to go. After all, it is why I came to London.’
‘To go to subscription dances?’
‘You know what I mean. You’re not going to deny me, are you?’
‘No, sis, we’ll go to your dance and I’ll buy the tickets. Will that satisfy you?’
The look that Mark shot her brother might have puzzled her if she had noticed it, but as she was turning a beaming smile on her sibling, she did not see it. ‘Oh, you are the best of brothers. Thank you. Thank you.’
‘Talking of raising money,’ Mark said, ‘I have been busy today finalising the arrangements for a concert to raise funds for the Hadlea Home extension. I hope you will all attend. It is to be at Wyndham House next Saturday. I have hired some excellent musicians.’
‘Do we have to pay to come to that, too?’ Teddy asked with a grin.
‘Donations are voluntary, of course,’ Mark said. ‘But since you seem to be in funds, I hope to see a contribution from you.’
This remark was so pointed, Sophie looked from one to the other. ‘What is going on?’
‘Nothing,’ Teddy said. ‘I do not always have pockets to let, you know.’
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I believe Papa gave you some money to top up my pin money should I need it.’
‘Quite right,’ he said, visibly relieved.
* * *
After they finished their meal, the two men did not linger long in the dining room, but joined Sophie and her aunt in the drawing room for tea, where the conversation centred around who might be present at the Rowlands’ dance. Mark pointed out that perhaps the elite might not wish to attend an event in which anyone could be present, but he supposed the high price of the tickets would keep out the riff-raff. He hoped the princess’s parents appreciated what was being done for their offspring.
‘How far down the line is she?’ Sophie asked.
‘Well, there’s the Prince Regent, then his brothers, all six of them,’ Mark said. ‘The new princess is presently the only legitimate child of any of them, but who is to say that won’t change, especially if the prince manages to divorce his wife and produce another child of his own.’
‘Who would want to marry him?’ Sophie said, with a shudder.
‘Almost anyone, I should think,’ Teddy said. ‘To be Queen of England must surely be a great lure.’
