A Sisterly Regard (3 page)

"Will you stop pounding on my head, young woman! I have
hurts enough without you adding to them."

She snatched her hand away and opened her mouth to voice an
angry reply. Before she could find sufficiently cutting words, a shake of
her mother's head prevented her from speaking. Lady Gifford asked the
young man to try again to sit upright. He succeeded in doing so, though he
was forced to support himself with one arm for a few moments. Finally he
was able to sit alone. He shook his head.

"Ow! That hurts like the devil!" Then, as if suddenly aware of
the company, his mouth twisted. "Your pardon, my lady. An aching head
is no excuse for swearing. Thank you for helping me, but I believe I can
manage now. Please do not let me delay you further."

"Very well, young man. You do not seem to have taken any
lasting injury. Only let us remain until you feel that you can hold your seat
on the phaeton. Jem will assist you in mounting it before we depart. Now,
do take a bit more of this wine. I am sure it will make you feel much more
the thing."

The young man drank the wine and had soon lost much of his
paleness. Jem Coachman held the horses while Biggins helped him mount
to the perch. Biggins took the reins, over his master's half-hearted protest,
and he bade a grateful farewell to the ladies.

They watched the phaeton move rather too rapidly away. "Well,
at least the horses are probably too tired to bolt again," said Phaedra.
"What a rude young man."

"I doubt you would be in the best of manners if you had been
thrown about as he has. I am so glad that he was not more seriously
injured. He could have been killed." Lady Gifford finished replacing the
flasks in the hamper. As she walked back to her coach, she spied her elder
daughter, who was dangling from the window and watching the phaeton
out of sight.

"Chloe, what are you doing, hanging out of the coach like a
hoyden? Get yourself back inside this instant."

Resettling herself in the coach, Phaedra found her weariness
considerably abated. The light activity of assisting the injured gentleman
had eased the stiffness in her joints and banished her drowsiness.

"Mama, who was he? What happened?" Chloe demanded, as the
coach jerked to a start.

"Why, do you know, we did not learn his name," Lady Gifford
said. "How peculiar, to be sure."

"I heard Jem tell Biggins who we are. It doesn't matter, though.
He is a rude man whom we do not wish to know." Phaedra brushed dirt
and debris from her skirt.

"You are being unfair. He was injured and no doubt in pain.
One cannot hold his rudeness against him under these circumstances.
Besides, he did say you were hurting him."

"Well, I thought he was handsome as anything, from what I
could see, and his phaeton looked very expensive," Chloe said. "Perhaps
we will meet him in London, and he will ask me to dance. Do you suppose
he is wealthy, Mama? I wonder if he is married."

Phaedra shook her head in exasperation. "Chloe, you think of
nothing but parties and dancing and catching a rich husband. You may
never see him again, and I am not sure but what that would be
desirable,"

She deliberately changed the subject. "How far is it to London,
Mama? Do we make any more changes before we arrive?"

"Yes, I believe we do, and very soon, I imagine," Lady Gifford
replied. "Chloe, how is it that you were so unwell until we stopped, then
you suddenly became well enough to make a cake of yourself, hanging out
the window? And if you were that recovered, why did you not come to
our assistance?"

"I was much better as long as we were not moving and it did not
upset my stomach to look out of the window," Chloe replied defensively.
"I feel distinctly unwell now, though, and wish you would not scold. I
shall try to sleep until we reach London." She pulled the shawl about her
head again and lay back against the squabs.

Lady Gifford gave a ladylike snort. Phaedra suspected her mama
was not misled by Chloe's stratagems. As for herself, she suspected her
sister made too much of a good thing out of her motion sickness.

* * * *

They gratefully arrived in London shortly after eight in the
evening. All three were chilled through and thoroughly tired of traveling,
though Phaedra had found the long drive through London the most
interesting part of the trip. At one point, she had seen a great domed
structure in the bright moonlight. Upon pointing it out to her mother, she
was informed that the building was St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by the
legendary Sir Christopher Wren.

The house the Hazelbournes had taken for the Season was just
north of Grosvenor Square, in an unexceptional but not highly fashionable
neighborhood. In the past Lord and Lady Gifford had stayed at the Duke of
Verbain's town house when they visited London. This year, with two
daughters to be presented and plans to remain through the month of June,
they needed a house. While Lord Gifford was far from under the hatches,
his fortune was only modest. He had gratefully taken advantage of an offer
from a distant relative of Lady Gifford's who was willing to allow them the
use of his London residence for a fraction of what a larger and
better-located one would have cost.

It was barely commodious enough for the Hazelbournes, but
there was a small rear garden giving onto a detached mews where the
coach could be stabled and convenient for the ladies' use. The house was
furnished with a partial staff, augmented by Hazelbourne servants sent up
from the country.

Much to Chloe's dismay, there was no ballroom. She made
unkind comments about this serious lack until she was reminded that she
and her sister were to make their come out at a ball given by their
great-aunt, the Duchess of Verbain.

The ladies were met by the assembled staff, headed by
Edgemont, their butler from Gifford Court, who had come to Town a
week ahead of them to make the house ready. Parsons, her ladyship's
personal servant, hovered in the background. Lady Gifford, in the manner
that had made her beloved of her servants all her life, greeted each of them
and said a kind word to even the lowest tweenie.

"Now, my lady, you will come into the parlor and have a nice
cup of tea," Parsons said, as the introductions were finished.

She bustled ahead of the three, leading them upstairs and into a
large room off the central hallway. It was high ceilinged and papered above
dark wainscoting with Chinese silk in a red and gold design. Gold velvet
draperies covered two large windows overlooking the front of the house.
Three red velvet upholstered sofas, several chairs with gold brocade seats,
and half a dozen small mahogany tables were placed in stiff lines along
three walls. An enormous fireplace with an ornate mantelpiece dominated
the wall opposite the entrance, and a worn but still attractive Oriental rug
in red, gold, and black covered most of the polished floor. There were
several portraits in gilded frames on the walls, including one of Lady
Gifford's maternal grandfather.

Lady Gifford and the sisters gaped at the room's overpowering
redness while Parsons fussed. "You must be particularly exhausted. Why,
we expected you an hour ago. Did you have trouble on the journey? Here,
sit down, this chair looks most comfortable. Miss Chloe, you get a pillow
for your mother's back. Miss Phaedra, pour her a cup and let her rest.
Poor thing, jogging along all day in that coach, with two chattering
magpies for company. Why..."

"That will do, Parsons," her mistress said. "I am only a little
tired, and the magpies did not chatter. I am chilled, I will admit. We were
delayed because we came to the assistance of a young man who had had an
accident, but the delay was less than an hour. It was really a very easy
journey. No, Chloe, I do not want another pillow behind me. I just want
to sit here and drink my tea quietly. Do not fuss!"

The dresser sniffed. "And it was helping the young man that you
got your skirt all dirty, I'll warrant." She frowned at the blood and grass
stains on the skirt of Phaedra's blue wool traveling dress. "And you too,
Miss Phaedra. I declare, you get out of my sight for one day and your
clothes are all rags. It will take a bit of scrubbing to get those stains out of
your dress, but I don't mind, I'm sure."

"Do let Mama rest a bit," Phaedra told the dresser. "We will sit
here quietly for a few minutes, then I will send Mama straight to her bed.
Would you go up and prepare it, please, Parsons."

"Thank you, dear," Lady Gifford said, as her dresser stalked
from the room in outraged sensibility. "She does tend to mother me over
much." She turned to Chloe. "Are you feeling better, my dear? You have
more color, but you are so quiet."

"Yes, Mama, I am feeling much more the thing. This house does
not move, you see." Chloe smiled. "I was silent because I was thinking
about that handsome young gentleman we met this afternoon. Do you
think he will come to call?"

"I doubt it. We only told his groom that we were traveling to
London and our names. We did not give our direction," her mother
replied. "Besides, offering assistance along a roadside does not constitute
an introduction. It would be the height of impropriety if he were to call
without one."

"Perhaps he will write, then, and express his gratitude. I truly
would like to make his acquaintance." Chloe sighed. "He was so very
handsome."

"Stuff!" Phaedra said. "He was not handsome, when you saw
him at close range. He was swarthy and scowly. You are romanticizing,
again, Chloe. You will probably never meet him again. Or, if you do, you
will find, as I did, that he is rude and overbearing." She began to walk
about the room, inspecting it.

Although somewhat bare, lacking the usual porcelain figurines,
vases of flowers, and other decorative touches, its furnishings were quality
pieces, if ever so slightly shabby. Phaedra fingered the velvet draperies,
noting that they were slightly faded along the folds. Moving to stand
before the fireplace, she examined the careful craftsmanship that had gone
into the construction of the beautifully carved mantelpiece. "Do you
know, Mama, it is really outside of enough that this room is so very red. In
any other color, it would be truly lovely. As it is, one is
overwhelmed."

"It does lack something of good taste," her mother agreed. "I am
reminded somehow of Carlton House, the Prince of Wales' residence. It
also is decorated in this style of overstated and tasteless opulence."

"Do you mean 'Prinny', Mama?" Chloe asked.

"Yes, Chloe. But I beg of you, do not use that name for him. It
is not polite in you to do so."

"I have heard you and Papa call him that," the girl
protested.

"What is acceptable for your father and me to do is not
necessarily so for a young girl in her first Season, so mind your
manners."

"Yes, Mama," Chloe said, with a pout.

"Are there really rooms at Carlton House like this one, Mama? I
cannot believe that our future king would be so lacking in good taste,"
Phaedra said.

"You will find, dear, that there are rooms in Carlton House that
make this one seem plain and colorless," her mother replied dryly.

"Will we go to Carlton House, Mama?" Chloe clapped her
hands. "Will we meet the Prince of Wales? Oh, I should like that above all
things!" At her mother's cautious admission that an invitation might come
their way, she bounced in her chair. "Oh! I do want to go there! Just
think, Phaedra! To be invited to the Prince of Wales' palace. How
wonderful it is to be in London at last!" She looked around. "But how can
you criticize this beautiful room? It may be just the tiniest bit shabby, but
it is so elegant, so royal in appearance."

Both her mother and Phaedra laughed. "As you say, Chloe. It is
much more your style than mine, though." Phaedra barely restrained a
yawn. "You should know, however, that the prince's residence, though it
has the reputation of being very ornate and expensive, is nothing
approaching a palace. Do you never read the newspapers, goose?"

She rubbed her temples. "I am so tired. Let us go to bed."
Suiting her actions to her words, she rose and walked to the door.
"Coming, Mama?"

"Yes, dear," Lady Gifford answered, as she stifled a yawn.
"Come, Chloe, you must get some sleep. Tomorrow will be an exciting
day, for we must begin organizing your wardrobe."

I shall not close my eyes," Chloe vowed. "We are truly here!
We are in London! She twirled in the center of the room, narrowly
avoiding a collision with a sofa. "I shall be a
succes fou
! I feel it in
my heart." She patted her bosom.

"The feeling will cure easily with a cup of warm milk," Phaedra
said, too tired to be amused by her sister's dramatics.

The following days were a whirl of shopping and fittings.
Although she enjoyed watching her daughters discover the joys of
shopping, each evening found Lady Gifford prostrate with exhaustion.
Chloe had constantly to be restrained from choosing fashions and
accessories far too dashing for a girl in her first Season. Phaedra, on the
other hand, had to be sternly ordered to select frivolous bonnets and
dainty slippers, her taste being much more for practical headgear and
serviceable shoes.

Lady Gifford had her hands full at the Pantheon Bazaar, where
Chloe invariably fell in love with unsuitably garish fabrics, while Phaedra
selected those which would have had her labeled a drab. All was finally
resolved, however, and both girls, while not completely satisfied with
their growing wardrobes, would be clothed in a manner fitting their ages
and station.

Unused to spending all of her days indoors and relatively
inactive, Phaedra finally rebelled against the constant round of shopping
and fittings. During a rare afternoon at home, she jumped to her feet, cast
her needlework from her, and stated, "I am going for a long walk. My
body is stiff and aching from too much sitting, standing or riding in
carriages. I need fresh air and exercise."