Smugglers' Summer (12 page)

“I hope not! Surely your mama would not let you take part in a play? I am very certain mine would be excessively shocked at the thought.”

“It would be perfectly unexceptionable, I assure you. It is not very different from charades, after all, which I have often acted in. Indeed, we were to perform a play at the Priory once, only the gentlemen quarrelled so about who was to be the hero that it all came to nothing.”

“If you were to be the heroine, I am not in the least surprised that they quarrelled, but it sounds vastly improper to me. I could not join in.” Octavia was in a quake at the prospect.

“It is not as if you were being asked to make a living on the stage. What a puritan you are, Tavy! If you were needed I am sure there is no reason you should refuse, but I daresay Lord Edgcumbe will not suggest such a thing anyway. It is scarce a year since his son died. And besides, he is more likely to do so at Mount Edgcumbe, where he can assemble a larger party and there are nearer neighbours to be the audience.”

Octavia was profoundly thankful. The idea of dressing up in peculiar clothes and parading in front of an audience filled her with alarm. She did not think it was delicacy of principle though. An examination of her feelings confirmed the melancholy suspicion that she was simply afraid of making a cake of herself in front of a selection of the
beau monde.

She had been looking forward to the Edgcumbes’ arrival as the nearest she would ever come to making a debut in Polite Circles. Suddenly her confidence was gone. New clothes and a different style of hair were feeble foundations on which to build a new image of herself.

Her governess’s lessons on the niceties of correct behaviour in fashionable young ladies had passed over her head, as she had expected never to need them. She knew very well how to go on at one of her father’s informal political gatherings, how to humour her mother’s philanthropic friends. Now she was to be faced with terrifying creatures she had only heard of: Corinthians, Tulips, Wags and Dandies, perhaps even a Nonpareil. Did Lord Edgcumbe number a Court-Card among his acquaintance? What did one say to a Fop at the breakfast table? How was she to deal with a Coxcomb, or, God forbid, a Rake?

And the ladies! The ladies would see at a glance that she was an encroaching mushroom, a crow in peacock’s feathers. They would laugh at her efforts to set herself up as one of them.

She could see only mortification ahead.

“Mama is right!” she blurted in a panic. “My aunt was right! I shall stay in my room while they are here.”

“What fustian!” Julia exclaimed. “What has put you in such a tweak, Tavy? If it is only that you do not wish to act, of course you shall not.”

Octavia tried to explain her apprehension.

“Fustian!” her cousin repeated. “It is not as if you have the patronesses of Almack’s to turn up sweet. Even if they guess that you are not accustomed to go about in society, there is nothing in your manners to offend the highest stickler. Be yourself and you will be all the rage.”

“I do not aim so high!” Octavia could not help laughing at the exaggeration. “If I can but rub through without putting you or myself to the blush, I shall be more than satisfied.”

She hoped against hope that Sir Tristram would return with the other guests. It would be such a comfort to find a friendly face among the crowd.

Mrs Pengarth came in to ask if the two young ladies would mind sharing a bed, so that she could put another young lady in the little chamber. Julia declared that her bed was large enough for a family; sharing with her cousin was no hardship.

“But Octavia’s room is scarce wide enough to turn round in,” she added. “Who is to have it?”

“A Lady Cynthia Marlowe, miss.

“Cynnie! That’s famous! You will like her, Tavy, I promise. She shall use our chamber for dressing.”

“Thank you, miss. I was hoping you’d not mind.”

“Is Lady Cynthia’s brother coming?”

“So I understand, miss. Him and our Lord Ernest was at the university together.”

This news sent Julia into a fit of the giggles. Mrs Pengarth smiled indulgently and departed, leaving Octavia to try to make sense of her cousin’s gasped explanations.

“Never mind,” she spluttered, “you will see. Cynnie is the dearest girl, but Lord Rupert . . . !" She wiped tears of merriment from her eyes.

For three days the house was filled with bustling maids bearing buckets and mops, dusters and beeswax, armfuls of linen, as the chambers in the rarely used east wing were prepared for habitation. Gardeners brought wheelbarrows full of vegetables and flowers; odours of baking and roasting filled the kitchen court and seeped into every room. On the third day, grooms arrived leading several riding hacks. The stables were soon as busy as the house.

The fourth day dawned windy but bright. It took Octavia two hours to decide which of her four new morning dresses was most suited to make a good first impression; she finally settled on an Indian mull with deep rose and white stripes. Julia, still lounging in bed with her morning chocolate, laughed at her as Ada brushed her curls.

“I shall wear blue,” she said, “so as not to clash. Ada, there is a bit of pink ribbon somewhere which matches that gown. Thread my locket on it and it will be the perfect ornament. I believe I shall get up now. At last there is something to look forward to!”

The earl and his guests were expected to arrive with the tide early in the afternoon. Octavia was too apprehensive to eat any luncheon. Lady Langston, sighing, decided she must forgo her customary postprandial nap in order to be on hand to greet her host. Julia jumped up a hundred times, vowing she heard the wheels of the carriages carrying the company up from the quay.

The brief meal concluded, her ladyship decided they should sit in the Great Hall.

“Such an old-fashioned house,” she lamented. “The drawing room is certainly more suitable, but tucked away as it is, and not half large enough, I daresay, for the whole party, and I do not care to be remiss when his lordship has been so kind. Yes, we shall wait in the Great Hall. I shall not regard the draughts."

Neither Octavia nor Julia could sit still. Octavia wandered about the hall, looking with unseeing eyes at the halberds and muskets on the walls. Her cousin stationed herself by the door into the courtyard, and gazed towards the gatehouse arch.

“They are come!” she cried at last, as a pair of horses crossed her view.

Octavia ran to her side. It seemed to her that at least a score of gaily chattering ladies and gentlemen passed under the arch and along the cobbled walk towards her. The introductions left her befuddled, aware only of Lord Edgcumbe himself, a fine figure of a man in his mid-fifties, of Julia’s friend Lady Cynthia, and of Lady Cynthia’s brother.

The sight of Rupert Marlowe was enough to drive all the other guests from her mind. He was a young man of medium height but his hair was brushed up in such a way as to add at least five inches. His shirt collar reached nearly to his ears, and the stiff-starched points in front threatened his nose on either side. His neckcloth was a miracle of snowy intricacy reaching to his chin, his emerald green coat so tight that the slightest movement of his arms threatened to burst a seam. A waistcoat of cloth of gold embroidered in green silk with flourishing vines completed his upper half, while matching gold tassels adorned the green-dyed tops of his gleaming boots. Judging by his mincing walk, these latter were as much too tight for him as the coat.

He seemed to be unable to bend at the waist, for his bow consisted of a series of elaborate flourishes of the right hand.

Julia caught Octavia’s eye as she gaped after this apparition. She bit her lip and tried to keep a straight face.

“Do not laugh, Miss Gray,” said Lady Cynthia mournfully. “I assure you it is in the highest degree mortifying to be obliged to own that popinjay as my brother. Julia will tell you I have been trying these three years to disown him.”

“I expect he will grow out of it,” soothed Octavia, happy to see that his sister was a sprightly young lady dressed perfectly normally in sprig muslin.

“Certainly,” agreed Julia. “Last year Ernest rivalled him, but since his brother died and he became heir, his shirt points have shrunk quite three inches and he can breathe in his coats.”

“Ernest?” asked Octavia uncertainly.

They pointed out Ernest, now Lord Valletort and Lord Edgcumbe’s heir, and his lordship’s daughter, Lady Emma, a dignified woman in her late twenties who had run his household since her mother’s death thirteen years earlier.

“That is her friend, Mrs Alverston, standing next to her,” said Lady Cynthia. “She is a widow. An elegant creature, is she not? The elderly lady is her companion, Miss Matilda Crosby.”

“Who is the gentleman talking to my aunt, Ju?”

“That is Sir Magnus Rayle. He is a friend of Papa’s.”

“Which leaves only the two most interesting characters to be described,” continued Lady Cynthia. “The gentleman admiring the halberds and muskets is Mr Frederick Findlay, a noted Dandy, and his companion is Lord Wetherford, heir to the Marquis of Stoke and my betrothed!”

“Cynnie! Never say you have thrown your cap over the windmill. Lord Wetherford has been dangling after you this age!”

“That explains why he is regarding Julia and me with such a jaundiced eye,” laughed Octavia. “We are keeping him from your side. You had best go to him before he takes us in dislike.”

Lady Cynthia smiled invitingly at the young man, and he hurried over, dragging his friend with him. It was soon clear to Octavia that Mr Findlay was one of Julia’s court of admirers. She thought him rather ordinary; certainly he was dressed with neat propriety, quite unlike Lord Rupert’s excesses, but in spite of the recent boat journey, not a hair on his head was out of place, no smudge marred his glossy boots, and his brown coat showed nary a wrinkle.

Feeling very much an outsider, she listened to the four exchanging reminiscences of the past season, and wished that Sir Tristram had come.

Chapter 11

When he brought guests to Cotehele, Lord Edgcumbe liked to live in the style of his sixteenth-century forebears. He did not go so far as to ban forks from the table in the Great Hall, but dinner was definitely more on the lines of a Tudor banquet than an elegant modern meal. The highlight of the first course was a roasted swan, flanked by a pair of sucking pigs, and a huge bowl of syllabub appeared with the second course. Cider and mead flowed freely, loosening tongues, and when his lordship did his famous impression of a typical Cornish mayor the laughter was uproarious.

When Octavia woke the next morning, it was pouring with rain. The planned picnic was out of the question; even if it stopped raining, the ground must be sodden. She anticipated with dread a day spent trying to make conversation with a dozen people with whom she had nothing in common. Would it, she wondered, be shockingly discourteous to retreat to the bookroom?

Julia was disappointed by the weather, but she bounced out of bed nonetheless, already making alternative plans. James Wynn seemed to be entirely forgotten. Octavia was glad to see her happy, sorry to think her so fickle, and concerned at Sir Tristram’s absence. If Mr Wynn’s long silence had cured Julia of her
tendre,
it was a pity the baronet was not there to take advantage of it.

Despite the rain, Lord Edgcumbe and his son rode off to visit their tenants. Lady Emma suggested that her guests might like to tour the house and hear something of its history. Lady Langston and Miss Matilda Crosby declined, but all the rest followed her though Lord Wetherford and Sir Magnus had visited Cotehele before.

Octavia had seen all the public rooms already, except the chapel, which was entered through the dining room. She had never thought to wonder what was beyond the door in the corner. Lady Emma showed them the ancient clock, built of hand-wrought iron in 1485 and still sounding its hourly chime. She also pointed out a tiny balcony high on one wall. It was built so that elderly and sick family members could attend mass without leaving the solar, she explained.

“The solar?” queried Mr Findlay. “And what may that be?”

“A sort of withdrawing room, where the lord’s family lived in medieval times. We shall go there next. It was divided more than a century ago into two bedchambers, the Red Room and the South Room.”

“By Jove, ma’am,” said Mr Findlay, startled, “if you mean to show off my chamber, I had best go check that it is fit to be seen!” He bolted like a frightened horse.

Lord Wetherford laughed. “I have the Red Room,” he said, “but I hope I may trust my man to have left it decent. I have been through this before!”

As well as the closet-balcony overlooking the chapel, the South Room proved to possess a squint with a view into the Great Hall, to allow the lord of the manor to see what his retainers were up to. Octavia and Julia were particularly interested to learn that the walnut escritoire against one wall had secret drawers.

“I wonder if Sir Tristram knows about that one?” whispered Julia. “Did he not sleep in this chamber?”

“In the Red Room, I think. We cannot investigate it until they go back to Mount Edgcumbe.”

“I’ll think of a way,” vowed Julia.

Lady Emma indicated the cabinet in the drawing room as another place of concealment, but she did not demonstrate any of its secrets. Nor did she mention the possibility of hidden rooms or buried treasure. The tour of the house ended in the Punch Room, where the gentlemen were invited to examine the contents of the small wine cellar and sample what they would.

“Strictly a masculine room,” said Lady Emma, smiling as she led the ladies out. “The host would retire here with his male guests to drink in peace.

They repaired to the drawing room, where they found Lady Langston and Miss Crosby enjoying a comfortable cose. Sir Magnus, Lord Wetherby, Lord Rupert, and Mr Findlay soon reappeared, having, they announced, split an excellent bottle of Madeira between them.

After a few words with Lady Langston, Sir Magnus approached Octavia.

“I understand your father is a colleague of mine, Miss Gray,” he said, “though on the opposite side of the House.”