The front steps of the house on Portland Place were of marble and, whatever the vagaries of London’s weather, were kept immaculate. The front door, very tall and topped by a pediment, was flanked by stained-glass windows and boasted a brass doorknob so highly polished it seemed to puff itself out with its own consequence and sneer at any hand presuming to encircle it. The windows sparkled, the lace curtains were like snow, the iron railings protecting the steps leading down to the areaway were black and glossy, and the entire exterior exuded quiet and well-mannered affluence. So, to a point, did the interior. The ground floor rooms were gracious and the main drawing room, located on the first floor, was large and most elegant. Nor could any fault be found with the music room and three guest bedrooms, all most nicely appointed. Only the parlour, wherein family gatherings took place, showed signs of becoming shabby, although it was still a quite comfortable room.
Deterioration was more noticeable on the second floor. The bedchambers and connecting private parlour of Mr. Humphrey Van Lindsay and his wife Philippa overlooked the street and were a very good size, but more than a suspicion of wear was manifested in fading bedcurtains and carpets inclining to the threadbare. Here also were the three bedrooms of the children. As thirteen years divided the sons of the house, Timothy had shared the bedchamber only on the occasions when he came down from University. These past five years he had been building himself a fine record with his Regiment and was now in France with the Army of Occupation. Norman, aged sixteen, was thus left in sole possession of the room, a circumstance he extolled publicly and privately despised. From early childhood the eldest Van Lindsay daughter had required a private bedchamber (this demand resulting in a marked lack of opposition from her two sisters), but three years ago, in June of 1813, Beatrice had married Sir William Dwyer, whereby Lisette and Judith now also had rooms to themselves. In marked contrast to the elegance of the lower regions, however, these bedchambers were far from luxurious, the furniture being sadly past the stage at which reupholstering or repairs would have redeemed it, the carpets downright tattered, and the apartments spared from being dismal only by the inventive young minds of their occupants.
The top floor contained the schoolroom and the servants’ quarters and was, to judge from the occasional pithy remarks of the housekeeper and cook, decidedly dismal.
On a rainy afternoon in early April, the large house was unusually quiet. Mr. Van Lindsay was in his study writing a speech to be delivered in the House of Commons, of which august body he was a Member of long standing; Mrs. Van Lindsay was laid down upon her bed, resting; Judith was at her dancing lesson, and a sulky Norman was exasperating his tutor by attempting to explain both his execrable failures in Latin and his conviction that not even when he reached the ripe old age of eighteen would he be able to pass Smalls. In the rear corner bedroom, Lisette Van Lindsay sat alone, head bowed as she ostensibly mended a lace tablecloth. Thick hair of a very dark brown, styled in one of the new shorter cuts, accentuated the beautiful shape of her head, which remained down-bent until a gust of wind drove raindrops in a busy pattering at the windowpanes. Lisette looked up then, revealing a heart-shaped face blessed with a clear, creamy complexion, a straight nose with just the suggestion of an upward tilt, and a full-lipped mouth, just now tragically drooping above a firm little chin. The grey skies outside were no greyer than the hue of Miss Van Lindsay’s world; the raindrops no damper than the tears that fell with distressing frequency from great eyes, near-black, to wet her rather uneven stitches. At the advanced age of one and twenty her future stretched out bleak and hopeless; a spinster’s existence. For she would, she thought grievously, never wed. Not now that she had been spurned, tossed aside like—
“Lisette! Lisette! Are you in there?”
An impatient scratching at the door accompanied that urgent enquiry, and the tablecloth was brought into play to dab hurriedly at the tearful eyes that then blinked down at the stitch to be set. “Come in,” Lisette invited rather belatedly as the door burst open.
Judith Van Lindsay, a plump and tomboyish fourteen, exploded into the room, her long pigtails flying. “Only guess who I just saw!” she cried. “Only guess! You’ll never guess!”
Bending to examine her stitchery—and conceal her somewhat reddened eyes—Lisette guessed dutifully, “The Duke of Wellington?”
Judith’s round face sank. With a regretful sigh she admitted that her hero had not been the one observed, but then, her own dark eyes bright with importance, she divulged, “That dreadful Rachel Strand woman! She was with her brother—or at least Elinor said it was her brother. And I thought she was not so spectacular as everyone says. She’s not near as pretty as you, and why that stupid Tristram Leith should have chose her is more than I—or Elinor either—could fathom! Oh, now I have made you prick your finger!”
“No, no,” Lisette reassured. And thus provided with an excuse to look strained, as she knew she must, corrected, “The lady is now Mrs. Leith, Judith. Not Rachel Strand.”
“And not a lady,” Judith said pertly. Her sister’s frown caused her to hurry on. “But do you not think her daring to venture into Town with her shocking reputation? I could scarce credit it. And you would never think her a notorious woman, for she is angelically fair—” She broke off to add loyally, “but nowhere near as pretty as you!” In need of sustenance after all this excitement, Judith then bounced onto the bed and produced from her reticule a sticky glob from which she began with great concentration to remove some much wrinkled and not too clean paper.
Such a procedure would normally have ensured her immediate banishment, but watching her ebullient sister unseeingly, Lisette murmured, “So she really is a beauty.”
“In a blond way, I suppose.” Judith licked her treasure happily and went on, whenever her tongue was not otherwise employed, “She must have all the looks … in the family, for I heard Mama telling Papa that her sister … Charity, is a plain little dab of a thing.”
Attempting to be objective, Lisette set another stitch and remarked that she’d heard Charity Strand did not enjoy good health. “Have you seen her, also?”
“No. But I saw the brother, and he certainly could not be said to be even slightly handsome. Oh, he’s a good pair of shoulders, were they not so bony, and straight legs, but—”
“Judith!”
The bold young miss giggled. “Well, he has. But he is so thin, Lisette! And his face is brown, which makes his eyes look positive weird!” She licked again, then paused, her mood changing as she observed, “Poor soul. I know how he must feel. Look at me. Fat and plain. And this hair!” She gave one thick rope a deprecatory tug, then pulled a face as her fingers adhered to the long strands.
Lisette groaned in exasperation and went to the washstand. Wetting a cloth, she returned and handed it to her sister. “If you would not eat so many sweets, Judith, you’d likely put off some of those extra inches. But it is just puppy fat, after all. I suppose by the time you reach fifteen you will be slim, if only you are a little more careful. Now give me that horrid stuff.”
Relinquishing her prize with a martyred sigh, Judith dabbed at her fingers and mourned, “Even if I do manage to become thinner in the next year, I shall never have your looks, dearest. You could have wed any bachelor in London, and you know it, had you not set your cap for—”
“What fustian!” Lisette intervened hastily. “I shall never marry, because I do not wish to be wed.” With a prideful tilt of the chin, she added a reinforcing, “I am much too modern to submit to a man’s will! And—and as for Leith”—oh, how hard it was to say his name!—“only think what a narrow escape I had, for he must have very little sense of family obligation or pride to wed into so unacceptable a house. Indeed, my heart quite goes out to his poor father for—”
“Not—marry?” gasped Judith, who had been momentarily struck dumb. “But, Lisette, you must marry! Papa told Timothy we are pinning all our hopes on your making a brilliant match. And with your looks.… Only recall that fellow who kept writing those odes to your eyes.” She gave a squeak of laughter. “Remember the one that went: ‘Great eyes that glow like dusky pansies…’?”
“Yes.” Lisette sat on the bed and giggled. “And as though that were not bad enough, he finished it with, ‘Despair to every hope of man’s is!’ Dreadful!” Briefly, they both succumbed to mirth. Still smiling, Lisette asked, “How do you know that Papa told Timothy I was the hope of the family? Did Tim tell you?”
“No. It was in a letter Papa was writing. I saw it when I was sent to his study to be punished for putting water in the bottle with Norman’s silly model ship.”
“Judith!” gasped Lisette, much shocked. “You never did?”
Judith’s chin set mulishly. “Well, he will never finish it, and it was all droopy on one side at all events!” She brightened to a redeeming notion. “Now he can say it sank!”
“I didn’t mean that. You read Papa’s letter? That is dishonourable!”
To receive such a scold from the sister she both adored and admired, and to realize the justification for that rebuke, was crushing. Her face reddening, Judith said defiantly, “Well—well, look at what you’re doing! Darning that old thing! Mama would be properly in the boughs did she see you.”
“I know, but someone must do the mending, and Mrs. Helm is always saying she has not the time because she is so short of maids. Poor Sandy has her hands full, trying to take care of Mama and me. So who else is to do it?”
“There would not be so much to be done if Mama did not persist in using lace tablecloths. Someday she will have to admit we are poor, instead of forever pretending we are better than everyone else.”
The criticism was well based, but stifling a sigh, Lisette said, “You must not forget, dear, that we are of a very old house. Mama is proud of being a Bayes-Copeland. And Papa—”
“Papa is proud of Mama, and tells his cronies that ‘Poor Norman’ could not go to Eton because he is too frail. Frail! The great monster is sturdy as any bull, and had we the ready, would have been—” She broke off with a guilty start as the door opened to admit her mother’s regal figure.
Mrs. Van Lindsay swept into the room with a shushing of silks and a breath of expensive perfume. In her youth, Philippa Van Lindsay had been a great beauty. At seven and forty, she was still a handsome woman. She had long ago determined she would never allow herself to become a fat and indolent matron, with the result that she was, if anything, rather too angular, but she had a clear skin, the luxuriant dark hair that marked all her children, and the same big, dark eyes that enhanced Lisette’s lovely face. “So you are back, Judith,” she observed redundantly. “Did you get your feet wet?”
Judith, who had sprung up respectfully, now replied in the rather scared voice she invariably adopted towards her parent that she was perfectly dry, thank you.
“Well, I must say your lessons seem to become shorter and shorter. I would by far prefer that you go to Madame Coutrain. Your cousin Matthilde moves with such grace, and I am assured it is only thanks to the Coutrain woman, for her mama was of most indifferent upbringing. However, your grandmama would have Alexis is more the thing, so … Well, that is neither here nor there.” She folded her hands, her eyes slightly frowning as she reflected that since her mother was paying for the lessons, there was little she could do about it. That vexed gaze came to rest on the lace tablecloth that Judith’s plump form did not quite conceal. Her frown deepening, she demanded, “Lisette, whatever are you about?” and, seizing the tablecloth without waiting for a response, eyed the hanging thread and needle with disapprobation. “How many times have I told you, child? You are not a seamstress!”
Lisette, having also come to her feet, said anxiously, “No, but someone must mend them, Mama, and we do not have a seamstress or anyone who—”
She quailed into silence, for her mother’s fine eyes held a formidable flash as they rested upon her. “We may not, just at the present,” admitted Mrs. Van Lindsay in a voice of ice, “be enabled to procure such servants as we would wish. We are, nonetheless, of such consequence as would forbid us to engage in menial tasks. If you have no sense of your own pride, Lisette, you might do me the courtesy to consider mine!”
“Y-yours, Mama?”
“Mine! How bitterly humiliated I would be did the servants spread the news that one for whom we had once entertained such brilliant hopes was reduced to spoiling her pretty fingers by hours of drudgery.”
Lisette lowered her lashes to conceal the tears that, these days, sprang to her eyes so readily. Judith saw the painful flush that stained her idol’s cheeks and, with unprecedented courage, proclaimed, “Lisette still has brilliant hopes, Mama! She may be one and twenty, but she is quite the prettiest girl in all London, and has lots of beaux! You should only see how the gentlemen stare when we walk out. She’ll likely find a far better catch than that old Tristram Leith! And who wants him, anyway, with his face all scarred as it is since Waterloo.”
For a moment there was an awful silence, Mrs. Van Lindsay regarding her youngest child in outraged disbelief; Lisette, pale and awestruck, gazing at her sister, and Judith, aghast at her own daring, now suddenly all great eyes and terror, so that for the first time her mama was brought to the realization that her youngest was beginning to show signs of the family looks. Slightly mollified by that hopeful thought, she demanded, “Open your mouth at once, Miss Insolence!”
Trembling, Judith obeyed.
Mrs. Van Lindsay peered inside and drew back with an exclamation of disgust. “Purple! Good God! Are you run quite mad? On top of having the temerity to address your mother with all the abandon of a bourgeoisie, you must stuff your stomach with rubbish! Do not ever let me discover you to have been so thoughtless again! If you start throwing out as many spots as a dog has fleas, your poor parents will very likely find themselves with another daughter they cannot fire off, year after year!”
At this dreadful denunciation, Judith burst into tears, and Lisette found it necessary to turn away, a hand pressed to her mouth. Mrs. Van Lindsay advised Judith to repair to her own room at once where she could entertain herself by writing, “I will not Curdle my Insides with Rubbish” two hundred times.
Judith fled, shattered. When the door closed behind her, Mrs. Van Lindsay crossed to put a consoling arm about Lisette’s shoulders and draw her down beside her on the bed. Kindness was the one quality well calculated to break the floodgates, and Lisette’s grief overflowed. Holding her through the storm and in her dignified fashion attempting to comfort her, Mrs. Van Lindsay at length drew a handkerchief from her pocket and began gently to dry the wet cheeks. “Hush now, child,” she said. “I comprehend that your affections were deeply engaged. How wretched of Leith to jilt you! And of all people, for that disgusting Strand woman! Quite insupportable. I wonder if Timothy should come home and call him out.”
“Oh, no—no, Mama!” quavered Lisette. “Truly, there was never anything between Colonel Leith and me, save … save friendship. Only—after Mia Buchanan married Hawkhurst, he seemed to—to turn to me. And I did hope”—A sob hiccuped again, and she could not go on.
“It was a sad disappointment, for I’ll own I myself had fancied Leith’s attentions fixed on you. Although, whatever he has done, he is very much the gentleman and he never did address your father in the matter, so I suppose— Had he not been recalled to active duty for that wretched Waterloo—Still, there are plenty more eligible bachelors in town, and you are an uncommonly fine-looking girl, you know.”
Deeply grateful for so rare a display of affection, Lisette stammered out her thanks. “I cannot tell you, Mama, how—how sorry I am to have brought you such disappointment. D-does Papa hope—I mean—is it vital that I marry well?”
Mrs. Van Lindsay did not immediately answer. After her fashion she was fond of both her husband and her daughter and, despite a rather vexed feeling they both had failed her, had no wish to hurt either. “I am persuaded you must be aware, child,” she said slowly, “that our finest families are not necessarily those blessed with great wealth.”
“Oh, Mama! Are we quite in the basket?”
Shocked, her mother cried, “There is scarce the need for such crude expressions! If you mean to suggest that our financial situation is—er—not good”—she sighed, her shoulders drooped suddenly, and she muttered in distracted tones—“you would be quite correct. Our situation is near desperate—I’ll not dissemble. Never in my youth did I dream that a Bayes-Copeland could come to such straits. How much longer we can continue to keep up this house and pay the servants, I dare not guess. Norman must go to University. And Timothy should have bought his promotion long ago.…”
Horrified by this display, Lisette was emboldened to clasp her mother’s clawlike hand. “Oh, poor Mama! How dreadful for you. I do not wish to marry, but if anyone acceptable should offer, I hope I know my duty to my family.”
“Good girl.” Mrs. Van Lindsay squeezed her daughter’s fingers briefly, pulled back her shoulders, and stood. “But we must not allow ourselves to be maudlin over the matter. We shall come about, I am assured. As a matter of fact, there is someone—” She closed her lips over the rest of that rather premature remark and turned to the door. “No more darning, child.” With her hand on the doorknob she added, “If you feel you must sew, however, the flounce on my magenta silk evening gown is quite sadly torn, and—” She had opened the door and now stopped, one hand flung aloft, her head tilted, birdlike, as she listened intently. “Your papa is at his pacing again! He must have finished his speech and will be practicing it on Powers. Oh! My poor carpets!” and with a flash of skirts she was gone.
Lisette smiled faintly as she envisioned the scene in the drawing room when her volatile Papa was caught at his depredations once more. Her smile soon faded, however. “As a matter of fact, there is someone—” Whatever had Mama been about to say?
* * *
Lisette awoke to the sounds of strife. She pushed back the faded bedcurtains and was blinded by early morning sunlight. She thought, A nice day, thank goodness, and stepped into her furred slippers. Another rageful shriek, followed by shouts of boyish laughter, rent the air. Judith and Norman. Again! Lisette hurried into the hall casting a fearful glance towards the front of the house, but as yet the doors to the front bedchambers remained tightly closed.
His cherubic face alight with mirth and mischief, Norman shot past her and began to pound down the stairs. Lisette leaned over the railing and hissed, “What have you done?” then jumped aside, a shoe barely missing her as it hurtled after her brother’s retreating form.
Judith, armed with another shoe and a slipper, launched them one after the other, while screaming animadversions upon her brother’s character. Her zeal and indignation were dimmed only by the arrival on the scene of Mrs. Van Lindsay, clad in cap and wrapper, whose demands for an explanation of “this disgraceful behaviour” were echoed by her life’s companion, who hove into view wearing a bright red dressing gown and with his thinning brown hair all on end—as Judith later giggled to Lisette—“like the bristles of a worn brush.”
To be rudely awakened for any cause upset Humphrey Van Lindsay, and to be rudely awakened before nine o’clock in the morning had thrown him into a passion. He was a large man with a larger voice, given to making hasty judgements and adhering to them with bulldog tenacity, so that there were many who considered him to merit a brilliant future in politics. There were others, of course, who considered him to be a loud-mouthed idiot and an intolerable snob. The latter charge, at least, was justified. Humphrey was almost as conscious of social position as was his spouse and considered that in wedding Philippa Bayes-Copeland he had pulled off the coup of the century (an opinion she shared). She was the only person who could manoeuvre him, which she did with firmness and regularity, and being well suited they enjoyed a reasonably happy marriage, despite their precarious monetary situation. There was little evidence of connubial bliss at the moment, however, for between Mrs. Van Lindsay’s strident demands for an explanation, Judith’s decision that her safest course was to launch into hysterics, and Humphrey’s bellowing rage, the scene more nearly resembled bedlam.
Experienced in such fiascos, Lisette said two magical words: “The servants!” At once, the elder Van Lindsays stifled their rancour. They all adjourned to Judith’s bedroom and closed the door.
“Will you stop, Judith?” Philippa enquired. “Or must I slap you?”
Thus appealed to, Judith lowered her shrieks a few decibels to spasmodic sobs, between which she opined that her brother was a hideous brute, a sadistic savage, and the greatest beast in nature. “Look,” she wept, holding up a much folded piece of tissue paper. “Only look what he d-did! It is a pattern of Ruth MacKay’s new party dress. Elinor copied it for me, and—and Norman met her last evening and p-prom-promised to give it me. But—look! Look!”
Snorting his wrath, her sire opened the pattern. This took a few minutes and seemed to involve an inordinate amount of paper. “Good … gad!” he breathed, holding up what must only be a garment for a giant. “Surely, this is the wrong size, Judith?”
His daughter uttered a new shriek of rageful chagrin and cast herself on the bed. Over her recumbent form, the eyes of her sister and her mama met, alight with guilty laughter. Recovering herself, Philippa snatched the paper from her spouse’s hands. “Of course it is not her size, Mr. Van Linsday!”
Humphrey had seen the twinkle in her eyes, and mirth crept into his own.
“Er—oh!” he said. “I see the light. Copied it, did he?”
“And enlarged it, Papa,” Lisette nodded, stroking her sister’s tangled hair comfortingly.
“Yes. I can—ah, tell he’s spread it out a bit,” he chortled.
“By a good four sizes!” said Mrs. Van Lindsay.
“Four!” howled the maligned Judith. “Forty, more like! I am not that fat, Papa! I am not!”
“Norman,” said Mrs. Van Lindsay sternly, “must be spoken to, sir.”
“Quite so. Yes, I’ll—ah—see if I can find the lad.…” And Humphrey deserted the scene in favour of his bedchamber, whence soon emanated gales of laughter.
Mrs. Van Lindsay proceeded to make it clear to her stricken offspring that while she did not approve of Norman’s teasing, Judith should perhaps consider that the model he had been attempting to construct in the bottle might well have meant as much to him as did the dress pattern to Judith. “One thing,” she murmured to Lisette, as she walked to the door, “it has put your father into a very good humour, which is more than I’d hoped for when first I heard that uproar!”
Mr. Humphrey’s good humour endured, and later that morning, when Lisette was summoned to the drawing room, she found him awaiting her, his broad features wreathed in smiles. “How pretty you look, child,” he beamed. “Come and chat with your papa for a few moments.”
Lisette sat obediently, but whatever he had in mind he evidently hesitated to broach, for during the next ten minutes he spoke only of commonplaces, asked her twice if she was happy, and commenting three times on the charm of “that pink gown.” Refraining from pointing out that her muslin was peach-coloured, not pink, Lisette began to be uneasy. Papa was nervous, which must mean he had something unpleasant to say. She was mildly relieved when Powers appeared and announced that Mr. Garvey was belowstairs. Lisette prepared to leave, but her father requested that the caller be shown up, adding as the butler took his lugubrious countenance from sight, “This is a happy coincidence, m’dear. Mr. Garvey has been plaguing me for an introduction. Now’s as good a time as any, eh?”
“Is the gentleman Mr. James Garvey, Papa? The Regent’s friend?”
Humphrey chuckled. “Clever little puss. You know I do not usually cultivate the Carlton House set. You’re right, but James is a good enough man. He can trace his house back almost as far as our own. Came into a considerable fortune some years ago, when his father went to his reward. James has been in Europe for several months, but I make no doubt you will recall having seen him at this or that occasion, for he is very— Ah, good morning, good morning, my dear fellow!” Humphrey rose and walked to extend a hand to his guest. “You chose a fortunate moment, James,” he said heartily. “M’daughter and I were enjoying a cose. Lisette, I present Mr. James Garvey. James, this is my middle daughter. You know Beatrice, I believe. Don’t think you’ve met our Lisette.”
Lisette made her curtsey to a dapper gentleman of about five and thirty. He was not above average height, but well proportioned, and with a head of thickly curling dark hair that was gracefully bowed before her. She thought, as he straightened, that he was quite the dandy, for his shirt points were very high, his cravat a masterpiece, and his blue jacket extremely well cut. A green and blue brocaded waistcoat complemented the jacket neatly, and his pearl-grey inexpressibles were beyond reproach. Two fobs and a seal hung at his trim waist, and a large sapphire flashed on one hand. Unbidden, the recollection darted into her mind that Tristram Leith had never worn fobs or seals, the only jewellery she had ever seen him affect being his heavy gold signet ring.…
Her gaze drifting back to the visitor’s face, she encountered a stunned look in his fine green eyes. He murmured in a bewildered manner, “Jove, sir! You said your daughter was lovely, but—I never dreamt—” He faltered into silence.
Lisette blushed and was both pleased and puzzled, for she had the distinct impression it was not at all what he had intended to say. She lowered her eyes, paying little heed to the polite pleasantry of her father’s response. When she looked up, Mr. Garvey had recovered his air of sophisticated assurance. His admiration was obvious, but he displayed it now with a light-hearted effusiveness that was a balm to her bruised spirit. She was, he said, as pretty and sparkling as this beautiful morning. She would, did she venture outside, quite put the sunlight to shame with her radiance. Lisette was startled, and slanted a glance at her papa, who would have flown into a rage had she told him one of her beaux had made such bold remarks on first acquaintance, but Mr. Van Lindsay seemed no whit put out.
Mr. Garvey was aware of her reaction, however, and at once addressed himself to her parent. “My groom is walking my horses this very moment, sir. Have I your leave to ask that your daughter accompany me on a short drive?”
Mr. Van Lindsay never drove in the park save during the fashionable late afternoon, and up went his brows. “At this hour?”
“No time like the present,” said Mr. Garvey with a smile. And receiving permission, begged that Miss Van Lindsay do him the honour of accompanying him. All the time, his eyes twinkled at her, and a dimple that came and went beside his mouth was quite attractive, she decided. Garvey’s close friendship with the Regent made him a powerful man, and he was much admired by the ladies. It would be quite a feather in her cap to be seen with him. And if Colonel the Honourable Tristram Leith chanced to ride by, she would lift her nose at him and show the ton how little she cared that he had wed another! With a shy smile she accepted, and hurried upstairs for bonnet and shawl.
Judith, quite transformed from the howling banshee of two hours previously, danced around the upper landing in triumph. “Only think!” she cried, clinging to Lisette’s hand, “James Garvey! Ruth MacKay is fairly gooseflesh whenever she mentions him! I knew you would make a recover, Lisette! I knew it! Oh, how proud—”
“Lisette!” hissed Mrs. Van Lindsay from the open bedchamber door. “Come here, child. Now, you must wear the bonnet with the cherry flowers.”
“But, Mama, will it not clash with the peach?”
“No, no.” Already, Philippa was arranging the dainty straw upon her daughter’s sleek head. “Ugh! Horrid! It clashes dreadfully. As I thought. Well, we must—Sandy? Where is the woman?”
Louise Sanders, who had been personal maid and dresser to the mistress of the house and her daughters, and “Sandy” for as long as any occupant of 359 Portland Place could recall, emerged from the wardrobe, her plain but pleasant face triumphant as she unwrapped silver paper from a wide-brimmed straw confection having a cluster of faded orange silk roses at one side, and long brown velvet ribbons that fell from the crown to tie under the chin, causing the brim to poke high. “I knew it was in there somewhere,” she exulted. “You remember, missus, you wore it only once and stuck it away—must be three or four years since.”
“But—it is so faded,” demurred Lisette.
“No, no—it don’t look faded,” her sister said eagerly. “Only dust it a little, Sandy, and when it is worn next to that peach gown, Lisette, everyone will suppose it made for it.”
As wild a tomboy as she was, Judith had an infallible eye for colour, and it did not err in this case. The bonnet that looked faded to those who remembered the bright orange of the original blooms seemed perfectly matched when worn with the peach muslin. Judith, who had been scrabbling frenziedly through a drawer of the chest, now produced a cream silk shawl with an intricately knotted fringe, which perfectly finished the ensemble, and when Sanders had provided a sunshade and long cream kid gloves, Lisette was ready.
“Remember, now,” urged Mrs. Van Lindsay, “should you meet the Prince, have a care; he’s a wicked fellow for the ladies. In point of fact, I’m not at all sure that James Garvey is all he should be. But, such a fine old family, love, and ten thousand a year, if he’s a penny!”
There came a frantic scratching at the door. Sanders hurried to open it, and Norman, his boyish face flushed and excited, rushed in. “Hello, Mama! Lisette, d’you know who is downstairs with my father?”
“James Garvey,” mocked Judith, curtseying. “Everyone knows who is downstairs, stupid boy!”
Mrs. Van Lindsay said a stern, “That will do, Judith. Mr. Garvey has come to take your sister out driving, Norman. I trust you behaved properly to the gentleman?”
“Garvey called for Lisette? But—he’s a nonpareil! They say he and Prinny are thick as thieves. And besides, I thought Lisette had a tendre for—” Here, catching Judith’s enraged scowl and the flash of his mother’s warning glance, he was dumb.
The sad light returned to Lisette’s eyes. With her hand on the doorknob she turned back. “Tendre—for whom, Norman?”
Mrs. Van Lindsay said an urgent, “Pay no heed to the foolish child. Run along, do, or Mr. Garvey will be quite out of patience!”
Walking to the stairs, Lisette wondered ruefully if Mr. Garvey suspected the excitement his lineage and ten thousand a year had evoked in the Van Lindsay family.
“Oh, how beautiful she looks,” sighed Sanders, as the door closed upon her favourite.
“The very essence of feminine charm,” murmured Judith, her eyes dreaming.
“Like a side of beef to be sold,” snorted Norman, revolted.
Judith gave a squeak of outrage. Sanders glanced apprehensively at her mistress. “What … did you say?” demanded Mrs. Van Lindsay, awfully.
Scarlet, Norman stammered, “I said—er, one should hide grief, I—hold.”
Sanders smothered a grin and turned quickly away. Judith, glaring, met a mutely pleading gaze, pursed her lips, and was silent.
“Hmmnnn…” said Mrs. Van Lindsay.