“YOU MUST HAVE more porridge, Jennie,” said Aunt Higham. “You’re very thin. Be lavish with the cream. A pleasing slenderness is one thing, but there’s nothing worse than being scrawny.”
“I’m eating an extra roll, Aunt,” Jennie said with an affectionate smile. She was even fonder than usual of Aunt Higham this morning, because she was leaving her.
“Then use more butter. There’s no need to scrimp here. Lottie, pass her the honey.”
“Monstrous!” Uncle Higham barked. Jennie knew it was neither the honey nor herself that was monstrous, but the state of the nation.
So the day that was to turn her life around—if she could manage it—began as all other days had begun here. As usual, while she sat at breakfast with her aunt and uncle and cousin, she thought her own thoughts while Uncle Higham delivered his morning pronunciamentos on the idiotic behavior of Parliament, the lunacy of the King, the de-pravity of the Prince of Wales, the infamy of the Orders in Council which had caused the Americans to lay down their embargo; the colonies, as he persisted in calling the United States, were not to be forgiven their retaliation. The embargo was just as evil as Napoleon’s blockade. They were strangling British trade to the death; if all the Highams ended up in the workhouse, it would be on the heads of the Americans and the French, and, of course, the criminal imbeciles responsible for the Orders in Council, he added, trying to be fair and turning purple in the attempt.
Since Sir John Moore had fallen at Corunna in January, Uncle Higham had been extremely gloomy, and he was not cheered now by reading in his morning paper that Arthur Wellesley had asked for, and been given, leave to lead an expeditionary force to defend Portugal.
“Of course Bonaparte can’t be allowed to go on gulping down one country after another like a plate of oysters. Of course he must be crushed!” He crushed him with a huge meaty fist beside his coffee cup, which leaped off the saucer and fell back again. “But I don’t trust this Wellesley. Something peculiar about that family! Flashy, unpredictable. Look at this woman! Disgraceful! Man should resign from the Army!”
“The woman’s not a Wellesley, Roger,” his wife said briskly. “She’s his sister-in-law. The Wellesleys are well rid of her, but God help the Pagets.” Lady Caroline Wellesley had just left her husband and young children to elope with Lord Paget. “Went off in a hackney coach!” Something about that made Aunt Higham want to laugh, but the impulse was bound and gagged.
Charlotte’s larkspur eyes were vacant; these days she was reading The Mysteries of Udolpho on the sly in Jennie’s room, and her thoughts moved in gloomy Gothic circles, searching for a demon lover.
“It’s Paget who should resign,” said Aunt Higham, “not Arthur Wellesley.”
Her husband glared at her. “He’s the best cavalry officer in the Army. Nation needs him. War, war,” Uncle Higham growled at his plate. “I’m sick of it. Country’s sick of it. The whole world’s dying of a plague of stupidity.”
He was a large man, red of face and hair, with reddish brown eyes, and with a thick prow of a nose projecting between fleshy cheeks, and jowls folding over his cravat. The broad curve of his middle made a fine display of his figured waistcoat, chain, and seals. He still had good muscular calves for silk stockings, which may have been one reason he held forth about the immorality of the pantaloons that were replacing honest, manly knee breeches.
He had never gone out of his way to make Jennie welcome, and at first she had felt humiliated and angry in his presence. But in time she realized that he had never gone out of his way to make her feel unwelcome. He treated her as a member of the family—that is, he favored her with a comment or barked out a question when he felt like it, and otherwise ignored her.
After her father’s charm and humor, Uncle Higham’s manner was a shock, but it was the salutary shock of cold water dashed into the face to stop a faint or to startle a child into letting go its breath. It was instant notice that home was gone forever and the family broken up. Her aunt was not demonstrative, so Jennie was flung in to sink or swim. She had floundered, choked, thought she was going down for good, and had shot to the surface again, gasping but surviving.
She had survived to the point where Carolus Hawthorne’s daughter was thinking very vigorously for herself while her amber eyes, seemingly as innocent and transparent as a young hound’s, were fixed earnestly on first her uncle’s face and then her aunt’s. George Vinton would be here this afternoon or evening, if not this morning; the bird was unable to stay away from the cobra. If she suggested a walk in the garden, Aunt Higham would be pleased to keep the children away.
If he came this morning, there was even a chance that she might be away before nightfall. The thought of the ecstasy of heading north from London made her almost dizzy; she wanted to shut her eyes and swing with the sensation.
There was a stir in the room like the change in the tide. Breakfast was over, and Uncle Higham was about to be seen off to business. Charlotte returned reluctantly from Gothic grottoes. The two girls walked behind the senior Highams out into the marble-floored foyer. From the head of the stairs there were rustlings and whisperings as the younger children gathered. Mavis, the tall parlonmaid, appeared suddenly and soundlessly, like an apparition; Jennie suspected her of lying in wait in the library. Uncle Higham scowled at his greatcoat, and it was whisked away. His hat and gloves were presented, and he turned to select his stick from the collection in the tall Chinese urn; he always walked when the weather was fine.
Charlotte, while looking respectful, was dreaming again. Aunt Higham waited, her hands folded across her middle, also respectful but hardly browbeaten. There was a sense of held breath at the head of the stairs while Uncle Higham’s hand hovered over the collection of sticks. Suddenly it pounced. When he lifted out the chosen one, he looked up at the bronze hanging lamp as if he were listening.
“Good-bye, Papa!” The chorus came. Derwent’s voice was the loudest because this wasn’t one of his jail days; he could never be sure, until he saw the stick come out, if Papa was about to announce that it was time that Derwent spent some time on the business premises of Higham Brothers, Ltd.
Now Papa waved his hat at them, admonished them to be good, and was swept out the door on a wave of fervent promises. Mavis closed the door behind him with reverent ceremony, and instantly the house came to the boil. Mavis disappeared as magically as she had appeared. Aunt Higham went to the kitchen to give the day’s orders; she was not one of those women who feared to step into Cook’s territory. The children rushed down the stairs, and Charlotte floated into the drawing room to practice her music on the new Broadwood pianoforte.
Jennie was surrounded by the children’s giggling, stamping, hooting version of a Red Indian dance. Ann and Marjorie were six and nine; Derwent was ten, and his dream was to run away to North America and be adopted into a tribe of Red Indians. He wanted to go before he could be sent to public school, which gave the shape and substance to his chronic nightmares. Some Higham cousins had gladly given him the dreadful details. Only Jennie and Charlotte knew this; Jennie would have liked to go directly to the parents but, as with Tamsin, she didn’t dare. Charlotte hoped his tendency to heavy colds would keep him home.
Jennie, trailed by noise like a comet by fire, went into the drawing room. She silenced the children with a finger to her lips and opened music for Charlotte to sight-read. The children ranged about the long room, staring at its riches. They spent so little time in this splendid place it was a treasure cave to them. There was the fascination of the circular convex mirror in its gilt frame over the mantel, in which they could see the whole room; the matching sofas with entire tapestry pictures set in their backs; the marquetry cabinets; the gold-framed paintings against the hand-painted wallpaper; the carpet that was a flower garden in itself; the fire screens painted with fantastic, fairy scenes; the crystal girandoles hanging from the wall sconces, flashing every color as the sun struck them. There were the Egyptian chairs with great paws for feet, and the Holy of Holies, the glass cabinet holding curios from wherever in the world their father’s family had done business. They whispered covetously before it, breathing mist onto the glass, their fingers itching to hold miniature ship or elephant or man.
Charlotte’s music tinkled through the tenuous morning light. She was silvery blond, and like Jennie she was very slender while the little girls were still round with baby fat. There was something so innocent and helpless about the nape of her neck as she bent her pale head toward the music that Jennie, thinking this could be the last morning she would stand behind the child like this, was suddenly stabbed with something worse than melancholy.
Charlotte in her own way touched her as much as Tamsin had. To be young was to be a victim in one way or another. Look at Derwent. At ten he should be completely carefree, bursting with happy expectations about life, but he was already terrified of it.
When I get away from here, she thought, I shall write Aunt and Uncle Higham a letter and tell them they must not send Derwent away to public school. They’ll burn it at once, of course, but they’ll read it first.
“Very good, Lottie,” she said aloud, lightly pressing the girl’s thin shoulders. “Now here’s what I’d like you to do.” She set her an hour’s work and took the others upstairs, where they began an extremely active and noisy geography lesson. Tamsin’s successor sat by the cradle watching the baby while Mrs. Coombes went downstairs for a restorative cup of tea in the kitchen as soon as Aunt Higham had left it. She was not young, and the children woke early these mornings.
The youngster by the cradle enjoyed the lessons and was taking in everything like a sponge. Jennie hoped the next governess would appreciate that. The next governess . . . Leaving the children made her feel like a criminal. But they’d have had someone else if I hadn’t come, she thought, and it’s not as if I shan’t be seeing them again. After all, I’m not eloping into utter disgrace like Lady Caroline Wellesley and her cavalry officer. I’m simply going home.
After morning lessons the children went to play in the garden, and Jennie went to her room and took off the full holland apron guarding her violet-sprigged muslin morning gown from the wear and tear of governess life. She tucked up the hair that had come loose from the knot while they were dramatizing the Crusades, and washed her hands and face. Then she went down to the morning room, where Aunt Higham was entertaining early callers. She would rather have gone out and played rounders or Indians in the garden, which was a sooty and pathetic substitute for the moors and the seashore of home but was better than the absurd ritual of the morning room. Charlotte was allowed to join now, and she always entered the room in the poignant, ardent belief that something wonderful was going to happen.
Certainly nothing wonderful happened this morning. No males called, not even George Vinton. The girls had to sit erect, ankles genteelly crossed and hands gracefully folded while the ladies talked twaddle in the accent that sounded ridiculously affected to Jennie; she could hardly believe that Aunt Higham really cared about this nonsense. Charlotte was disappointed and trying so hard to keep still that she grew quite flushed and her eyes became watery as if she were feverish. Aunt Higham could not abide a fidget and said men couldn’t either. A fidget was as bad as a rattle anytime.
Mavis appeared to announce that the carriage had come for Lady Clarke, and the last caller arose to go. “Adieu until three then,” she cried. She was a bedizened old rack of bones who had talked on and on in a high, honking voice until even Aunt Higham became restive.
She was quickly on her feet now, agreeing, “Until three.” They touched cheeks. Lady Clarke didn’t keep a carriage; she could barely keep herself. Out of duty or pity, friends dropped her here and there, collecting her later.
When she had left the room, honking amiably away at Mavis, no one moved until the sound of her voice was shut off by the closing front door. “We will drive in the park this afternoon,” Aunt Higham announced. “It’s very warm and fine. Mademoiselle can give the children their French in the garden. Charlotte, you’ll come with us today. Wear your rose pelerine and the bonnet to match; it puts color in your face.”
“Oh, Mama!” Clearly the horrid session in the morning was worth it now.
“Jennie, you will wear your lilac.”
“Yes, Aunt.” Well, she’d paid for the clothes; she could give the orders. There’d be no meeting with George Vinton this afternoon, and the hope of today’s escape had gone a-glimmering. But George would surely come tonight.
At a quarter of three, the girls met their commanding officer in the foyer and were inspected while Mavis stood by, professionally impassive.
“You look very well,” Aunt Higham said. “I see you haven’t forgotten your gloves and your reticules.” Charlotte had reminded Jennie of these necessities. She had no clean handkerchief in her reticule, but her aunt needn’t know that, she thought with invigorating defiance.
“You look very handsome yourself, Aunt,” she said.
“Oh, Mama, you do!” Charlotte breathed.
“Perhaps,” her mother admitted sternly. She wore a plum-colored mantle, and matching plumes dipped softly from the crown of her straw hat; like Jennie’s, its brim was turned up roguishly on one side, but Jennie’s hat was trimmed with silk lilacs. “Put your gloves on before you go out,” she commanded. She nodded to Mavis, the door was opened, and they went out into the spring afternoon.
The barouche waited; the coachman in maroon livery was as impassive as Mavis, but with a nuance of contempt. The two black horses were satiny in the sun. One did not greet the Higham horses by kissing their noses and asking how they did; one did not visit them in the mews with gifts of apples and sugar lumps. A few hundred miles away Nelson, still in his thick winter coat, would be browsing in the orchard. Right now, Jennie thought with a griping pain in her stomach, my real life is going on back there. What am I doing here?
“Well, Jennie?” her aunt said tartly. She was already seated, and Charlotte sat opposite her, back to the horses. She smiled at Jennie; the rosy silk lining of her bonnet reflected on her narrow face, and she was hoping there might be soldiers riding in the park.
In a shabby crescent they stopped for Lady Clarke, wearing brown kerseymere and crepe and a velvet turban with a veil. Their discreetness was shattered by her obvious rouge and such a powerful scent that even Aunt Higham’s nostrils flared involuntarily. Between that and riding backward I shall be sick, Jennie thought hopefully. I shall have to be taken at once back to Brunswick Square before I disgrace myself. She imagined a geyser of undigested dinner shooting into Lady Clarke’s lap.
The picture was so entertaining that it diverted the incipient nausea. After such an incident Aunt Higham might consider it a blessing, rather than an insult, that the bird had flown.
The first really warm and sunny day had brought crowds out to stroll or drive under the new leaves, but it was still damp enough to keep the dust down. Charlotte’s head turned constantly; she was a kitten watching a swarm of bright butterflies. She was entranced by the occupants of the other equipages; the young men in their glossy curricles and phaetons behind matched pairs were all Phoebus to her, each driving his own chariot of the sun. Their lady friends dazzled in rainbows of pelisses, mantles, cloaks, Lavinia hats, jockey bonnets.
As for the riders of horses, Charlotte’s eyes enameled them all with beauty; Jennie was sure that the girl saw not one portly or ungainly figure among them. They were all gods or heroes, and every horse kin to Bucephalus. The women in a splendid variety of riding habits and hats, feathered or buckled, or trailing vivid scarves, rode with stately yet graceful confidence, simultaneously managing reins, crops, and conversation.
Lady Clarke’s brown velvet turban nodded in all directions, her quizzing glasses were at the ready, her other gloved hand kept raising and waggling the fingers; she might have been royalty. Aunt Higham was more restrained, but her broad face wore a tight smile of either pleasure or determination—it was hard to tell—and her bows were frequent.
A big bay dashed by them, and Charlotte seized Jennie’s arm. “That was the Prince of Wales, I’m sure!”
Lady Clarke gazed severely through her quizzing glasses after the rider and honked, “Nonsense, child! The Prince is very stout.”
Mortified, Charlotte whispered, “He looked like a prince.”
“He may be a duke or an earl.” Jennie comforted her.
A young man alone in a phaeton behind two grays came abreast of them and lifted his high-crowned hat. “Good afternoon, Lady Clarke! Madam! Young ladies!” A radiant smile for the girls, and the phaeton sped on. Both girls instantly twisted around to watch and were tapped smartly on the knees by Aunt Higham.
“Behave yourselves!”
Are we out to see or to be seen? Jennie asked silently, but she knew the answer. To be seen. Marketable goods.
“But who is he, Mama?” Charlotte said.
“No one either of you should know,” said her mother. “A coxcomb, nothing more. He played ducks and drakes with his inheritance and now is owned by every moneylender in London.”
Charlotte sighed. Jennie said to her, “All the really beautiful ones are flawed.” She thought of George Vinton, and sighed herself. If he was the best she could attract, she was a sorry lot. Not that she wanted any of these either; their horses were the best part of them. And if this wasn’t the last drive she endured in Uncle Higham’s maroon barouche, she was an everlasting disgrace to the name and memory of Carolus Hawthorne.
A lady bowed graciously as her carriage rolled by; it was an elegant vehicle, with a footman on the box beside the coachman, and both in bottle green. Aunt Higham and Lady Clarke bowed in return, smiles stiff as grimaces, and then they turned to each other, both speaking at once.
“How she dares! I shouldn’t have responded, but she took me by surprise! I feel quite soiled! They say—” Lady Clarke honked discreetly behind her hand, Aunt Higham bent avidly toward her. Charlotte’s eyes ranged desperately over the traffic following and passing the barouche, as if she wondered which was permissible for her attention.
Jennie’s head was hot in the small, tight straw, and its ribbons were scratching under her chin. Her hands burned in the gloves, and she was sweating inside the snugly buttoned pelerine. She wanted to rip off her gloves, she longed to unbutton at least partway before she suffocated or was steamed to mush like a haddock, but of course, that was unthinkable.
This could be one version of hell, riding backward through eternity in a crowd of the other Damned, boiling in your stays and forbidden to move. She turned her head to the side where the traffic was least, in an attempt to isolate herself in a secret world away from the noise and the uncaring, unknowing faces. Mind over matter, she commanded herself. She tried to think of tranquilizing poetry, but even Mr. Wordsworth deserted her, and if she finished the drive with a blinding headache and had to go to bed, she’d lose her chance to get George Vinton alone tonight.