Jane and the Wandering Eye (23 page)

“Now
there
is a respectable gentleman, Jane,” my mother declared, reappearing with Henry in tow.
“There
is credit and propriety.”

My sister audibly sighed.

“Shall we seek the cloak-room?” I enquired, but it was too late. Mr. Kemble had achieved his object.

“Miss Austen,” he cried heartily to Cassandra, with a bow that brought him nearly so low as her knees. “Delighted! Capital! I am only just arrived in Bath—and here I find my old partner! You haven’t changed a bit—and it has been all of three years since we met, I declare! I might never have left Chilham! I trust you are at liberty for the first?”

“I am, sir,” my amiable sister replied with a curtsey.

“Excellent! Excellent! I shall look to partner you the entire evening, then—would consider it a favour to your excellent brother Edward!—for I cannot suppose a lady of your mature years to be very much in request. We shall deal famously together!”

Mr. Kemble offered his arm, and with a despairing look, Cassandra accepted it; and I heard him exclaim, as they moved towards the floor: “My setter Daisy’s had two litters since you went away! Capital little bitch! No turning her from the scent!”

“How well they look together,” my mother mused, in following her elder daughter amidst the couples. “Though she
is
perhaps too near him in height for convention’s sake.”

“That is very bad in Cassandra, indeed,” Eliza said mischievously. “A lady should always attempt to be
shorter than her partner, can she contrive it, and had much better sit down if not. But
you
shall not suffer a similar indignity, Jane, for Lord Harold is quite tall, indeed. Shall we dance, Henry?”

The first dance was struck up; I found Cassandra quite martyred among the couples; and felt a gentleman to loom at my elbow. I turned—and saw Hugh Conyngham.

He had left off his court dress, and was arrayed this evening in a plum-coloured coat of superfine cloth, a pair of dove-grey pantaloons, and a waistcoat of embroidered silk. The folds of his neckcloth were so intricate as to leave the eye entirely bewildered, and his collar points so stiff as to demand a permanent elevation of the chin. I smothered an unruly impulse to laugh aloud—the tragic Hugh Conyngham, a Dandy!—and curtseyed deep in acknowledgement. For all that he might affect the popinjay, Mr. Conyngham is nonetheless a handsome fellow, with his tousled dark head and his bright blue eyes—and I must appear sensible of the honour of his attentions.

“Miss Austen,” the actor said with a bow. “Your ankle is quite recovered, I trust?”

“Entirely, sir, I assure you. I may thank your excessive goodness—and excellent brandy—for the preservation of my health.”

“Then may I solicit this dance?”

“With pleasure.” My surprise was considerable; but I followed him to the floor without a murmur, my thoughts revolving wildly. Had he discovered the plundered desk in the manager’s office, and recollected the curious nature of my stumbling in the wings?

“I am all astonishment, Mr. Conyngham, at finding you present in the Lower Rooms,” I said, as we entered the line of couples arranged for a minuet. “I had thought the company engaged tonight in Bristol.”

“And so they are—but the play they would mount has
no part for me.” He moved well, with unconscious grace, and his aspect was hardly grim; perhaps I had misread his eagerness in seeking me for a partner. “I had thought to find Her Grace’s party at the Assembly—but must suppose their present misfortune to have counselled a quiet evening at home.”

“Perhaps. Though I believe they intended the Rooms.”

“Lord Harold is a prepossessing gentleman. I had not made his acquaintance before his appearance in Orchard Street last evening.”

“Very prepossessing, indeed,” I carefully replied. “And blessed with considerable penetradon. He is highly placed in Government circles, I understand.”

A swift, assessing look, as swiftly averted. “You are quite intimate with the family?”

“No more so than yourself, Mr. Conyngham.”

“I?” He permitted himself a smile. “As though it were possible! No, no, Miss Austen—not for me the pretensions of a Mr. Portal. I do not aim so high as a ducal family.”

“And did the manager truly entertain a hope in that quarter?”

“I must assume so. Portal was excessively attentive to Lady Desdemona.”

“But—forgive me—I had understood him to be devoted to your sister.”

“Admiration, perhaps—esteem and affection—but devotion? I should not call it such.” He shook his head.

“No,” I mused, “for the devoted do not look elsewhere.”

“As my sister has long been aware. Maria has never been so incautious as to place her faith in the affections of a gentleman; and I cannot find it in me to counsel her otherwise. We are a reprehensible lot, where ladies are concerned.”

“You are severe upon your sex!”

He smiled bitterly. “I have seen perhaps too much of our fickle nature, Miss Austen.”

“But you can know nothing of light attachments yourself, Mr. Conyngham.” I hesitated, then plunged on. “I have it on the very best authority that your heart is given over to one already in her grave.”

He inclined his handsome head in acknowledgement, but seemed much preoccupied, and presently said, “I see that you have heard something of my sad history.”

“Your affection for the late Miss Siddons? Yes—an acquaintance of mine, familiar with the story, did let something slip.”

A flush suffused Hugh Conyngham’s cheeks, and as swiftly drained away. Such acute sensibility should not be surprising in a man devoted to the Theatre.

“I must applaud your sentiments,” I continued. “Such constancy in a gentleman—even unto death—is exceedingly rare.”

His blue eyes held mine for a long moment, and then he moved around me in a figure of the dance. “It was Her Grace who happened to speak of the business, I must suppose?”

“On the contrary—an old friend of your family’s. Madam Anne Lefroy.”

“I do not recollect—”

“You are unacquainted with the lady, I believe, but may profess at least to have seen her. Madam attended Her Grace’s rout in the guise of Queen Elizabeth.”

“Ah, yes,” the actor cried, comprehension dawning. “I did chance to observe her. She spent a considerable period in conversation with the Red Harlequin.”

“Mr. Thomas Lawrence. Do you know the gentleman at all?”

“Our paths have crossed before,” Hugh Conyngham supplied briefly. “But tell me, Miss Austen—how is it that
your friend professes to know aught of my history? For I have assuredly never met her.”

“She chanced to act in an amateur theatrical with your parents many years ago, I understand, at the Dowager’s estate in Kent—and followed the course of your life with considerable interest for many years thereafter. Music, and theatre, and excellence in composition, are beyond all things Madam Lefroy’s delight.”

Mr. Conyngham’s looks were abstracted, as though his mind was entirely fled, but he collected himself enough to say, “A lady of parts, I perceive. She is resident in Bath? For I should like to make her acquaintance, and hear her recollection of my parents.”

“I regret to say that her home is in Hampshire—in the village of Ashe, not far from where I spent the better part of my childhood.”

When the actor reached for my hand in the figure of the dance, I perceived that his own was trembling slightly. “But Madam Lefroy claims an acquaintance with both yourself and the Trowbridge family?” he enquired. “Then perhaps I may yet encounter her with time.”

“I should do much to summon her again to Bath,” I said with feeling.

We danced on some moments in silence; and then I thought it wise to revert to our first topic. He had certainly abandoned it for the slightest diversion; and such discomfort must be probed. “Even so cautious a lady as your sister, Mr. Conyngham, must place
some
credit in the affections of a gentleman. For she is happy, I believe, in the attentions of the Earl of Swithin. Lord Harold himself seems quite struck by the Earl’s regard. He remarked upon it only last evening.”

At this, Mr. Conyngham faltered in the dance. “They are the merest acquaintances, I believe. Maria possesses any number of beaux, who appear in the wings with all manner of tributes, and vanish as swiftly by morning. I
cannot think what Lord Harold finds to remark in the offering of a few flowers.”

“Nor can I,” I cheerfully replied, “but after all, my dear sir, such a man must have sources of information of which we can know nothing.”

He could hardly rejoice in the thought; that he knew the desk had been plundered, and by whom, I little doubted—and so, in the most desultory manner imaginable, our dance declined to its end.

“I
AM HAPPY TO SEE YOU AGAIN
, L
ORD
H
AROLD,” MY
mother said with considerable effort a half-hour later, as we stood in the Tea Room hopeful of securing places. “You do not know Mrs. Henry Austen, I believe.”

“On the contrary, madam—we have met in London. At the late Sir Hugh Walpole’s, I believe.” Lord Harold bowed.

“You have a remarkable memory, my lord,” Eliza cried. “I have not seen Lady Walpole this age! But I believe we may have met at a rout or two, when she was more given to braving society.”

“You are well, Lord Harold, I hope?” my mother enquired.

“I am, ma’am. And I find you in good health, I trust?”

“Tolerable, tolerable—though Mr. Austen’s is not what I would wish. Mr. Bowen
will
have him walk out in the coldest weather, as you saw yourself when you were so kind as to call in Green Park Buildings Wednesday; and though the exercise may be beneficial, I cannot think the sharpness of the wind entirely salubrious.”

“No, indeed. And did the Reverend determine to remain at home this evening?”

“He is playing at whist, sir. My son Henry attends him.”

“Jane,” my sister Eliza whispered, “I am
quite taken
with your Gentleman Rogue. I understand, now, Lady Walpole’s utter enslavement to Trowbridge several years past. There was quite a scandal, you know, when she abandoned Sir Hugh.”

“Eliza,” I retorted in a quelling tone. “He will hear you.”

The little Comtesse’s dark eyes sparkled with mischief. “I do not care if he does. I should like nothing better than to have the whole history from Lord Harold himself. Sir Hugh shot himself in the midst of Pall Mall, you know; and Lady Walpole has not shown her face this age. Lord Harold has quite thrown her off, I expect.”

“Eliza—”

But I need not have excited anxiety. Lord Harold was utterly transfixed by my mother’s recitation of woe. In his dark blue coat and cream-coloured breeches, his head tilted slightly to one side, he was all politeness—and might rather have been attending Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, on the Whigs’ prospects in Government.

“Reverend Austen has suffered a trifling cough,” my mother continued, “though I
will
dress his chest in mustard and flannel; and I
cannot
be sanguine regarding his bowels.”

“Now, Mamma,” I protested. “Lord Harold is hardly a physician, and can have no interest in our … trifling coughs.”

“On the contrary,” he protested amiably, “I am frequently called to offer an opinion in my mother’s case, and place the greatest trust in Dr. Charles Gibbs, of Milsom Street. He is a most excellent physician, and has quite preserved the Dowager Duchess against Bath’s penetrating damps.”

“I have not the honour of acquaintance with Dr. Gibbs,” my mother replied.

“Then I shall make certain to send him to Green Park Buildings. You cannot do without Gibbs.”

My mother curtseyed, and turned to me abruptly. “Jane, my dear, I long to be at home. Have you not had enough of dancing? Cassandra is greatly fatigued—the poor child suffered a trying injury to the head last summer, Lord Harold, while we were travelling in Dorset—and I cannot think the lateness of the hour good for her.”

“I shall be quite all right, Mamma,” I replied with equanimity. “For Henry and Eliza do not desert me. Do you attend Cassandra home, and I shall follow presently.”

She would have protested—would rather have remained, than abandoned me to Lord Harold in her absence—but my brother was so insistent upon her leaving, and even went in search of my father for the purpose of speeding her departure, that her intentions were utterly routed. She turned from our little party with a swirl of her skirts, and I perceived that I should be subject to a scolding on the morrow.

“And now we may have our tea in peace,” Eliza announced. She seized upon a table with remarkable energy, and awaited the appearance of a footman with the tea things.

“I did not expect the pleasure of meeting you this evening,” I said to Lord Harold, when all the bustle of family business was over.

“I could not resist attending my niece to the Assembly, in direct opposition to the Earl of Swithin’s views of propriety. I observe that
he
at least has not remained at home, in deference to my nephew. He is even now paying court to Miss Conyngham, and is careful that Desdemona observes it. Mona, for her part, is engrossed in conversation with a Colonel Easton. How diverting it all is, to be sure.”

“Colonel Easton?”

“He is an officer in the Dragoon Guards, and has been
in love with my niece this age. Mona rides with him tomorrow at Dash’s.”
²

“I am unacquainted with Colonel Easton—but had heard that he is recently come to Bath. And that he was injured in a duel,” I managed. “The result of an insult to Lord Swithin.”

“And so he was. His right arm is still bound up in a sling, like a badge of honour. The Colonel and the Earl do not speak. We may presume this lends the flirtation a certain piquancy in Mona’s eyes.”

Lord Harold handed me a glass of wine punch, and secured himself another.

“Your family does not regard my attentions with pleasure, Miss Austen. I fear I have rendered you a disservice. Pray accept my apologies.”

I coloured, and looked conscious. “I do not understand you, my lord.”

“I beg your pardon, but I fancy you do. I quite ruin your reputation with every advance upon your doorstep, my dear.” The Gentleman Rogue’s words were couched in boredom; but I detected a wound. It is something, indeed, to be suspected of impropriety wherever one goes—the justice of the suspicion notwithstanding.