Jennie About to Be (4 page)

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.

C
HARLOTTE
stiffened abruptly beside her, and a sharp little elbow knocked against her side. Was Charlotte also feeling ill? Then they could go home. With relief she looked around and saw the other three heads all turned like sunflowers toward the vision just coming abreast of the barouche.

There was a strong whiff of warm horse and leather, a musical jingling as the big chestnut tossed his head against restraint, breathing impatiently, his eyes rolling; there was a high jackboot black and lustrous, a magnificent thigh in tight buff doeskin. All eyes rose devoutly past the deep-cuffed white gauntlet, up the blue sleeve past the thick gold epaulet, to the face that shown upon them. The rider removed the big black cocked hat with its red and white plumes and held it against his breast. His head was fair.

If the others had been Phoebus, this was the Sun.

“Nigel, my love!” Lady Clarke's raddled old face contorted grotesquely with joy. She announced him as if it were the Second Coming. “My grandnephew, Captain Gilchrist of the Royal Horse Guards!” Her eyes were wetly shining. “Mrs. Roger Higham.”

“Dear Auntie!” he replied in a pleasant baritone voice. “Your servant, ma'am.” He addressed Aunt Higham.

“How do you do, Captain Gilchrist?” There was something new about Aunt Higham, or rather something past: the ghost of the blooming country girl she'd been. Who knew but herself what other ghost this completely glorious young man had conjured up? She'd settled for Roger Higham, but in this moment Jennie saw the lost girl in her aunt's solid flesh, and loved her as she never had before.

The Sun shone impartially upon them all with a flash of beautiful teeth, an irresistible creasing of his fresh-colored cheeks. He had also a romantic cleft in his chin, which Charlotte would have seen at once; her arm trembled against Jennie's. Jennie told herself
she
was moved only by the masculine beauty of both horse and man, because they were products of nature, like breaking surf or the full moon.

“Miss Hawthorne.” Lady Clarke named her, but forbiddingly. There was an implicit warning to Jennie not to get ideas. Captain Gilchrist was clearly marked for something better than the Highams' poor relation.

“Miss Hawthorne!” A courtly inclination of the golden head.

She inclined her own head, trying for a remote, but possibly amused, dignity. Aunt Higham said, “My dear niece Eugenia is—”

Lady Clarke rode over her like a Roman legion. “And Miss Higham.”

“Miss Higham!”

Charlotte was as rose-red as her pelerine; her lips moved without sound; she kept blinking, her fingers dug into Jennie's arm.

“And how does your mother do?” his great' aunt asked him. He answered something, controlling the impatient horse with negligent one-handed ease. Jennie recovered her pride and refused to stare, though she wanted to. She observed her aunt and guessed that she had hoped for something like this when she had invited Lady Clarke to join them. She was watching the captain with a religious attention, no doubt trying to decide whether her duty was to her niece or to the hope that Captain Gilchrist would still be eligible in about three years. That hope was also naked in Charlotte's eyes, as wide with wistful hunger as if she were ten and coveting a marzipan soldier in a shopwindow.

He would make a rather lovely one, Jennie thought with deliberate contempt, breathing slowly to calm herself. Of course he was handsome, but take away the great horse and the splendors of gold braid, jackboots, red sash, and plumed hat, and what would he be?