Talk of the Town (2 page)

“The fact of the matter is, my dear, I have been much alone since Mr. Pealing’s passing. Too much alone. Solitude is very bad for you, especially if you are a shatter-brained rattle like myself, with no deep pious thoughts to sustain you. I haven’t had a visitor in a month,” she admitted, “nor been to see anyone. All alone but for the servants, and they, you know, only want to scold and complain.”

“Oh, Ma’am, you should have come to us!” Daphne said, her sympathy touched at this news.

“And so I should have done if it weren’t for that Methodist your mama married. Now pray don’t tell me he is an Episcopalian, my dear, for I know very well what he calls himself, and what he really is, too. He wouldn’t want a shady character like me in his house, but then I had the idea of asking Mary to send you to me, and I thought James might allow it to keep me from his door, as I make no doubt he did. But whyever you are here, I’m glad you are, for I have been dying for someone to talk to.”

She reached out and rang a bell. The butler appeared and she called for tea. “Now,” Effie ran on, unable to stem the flow now that she finally had a listener, “we shall settle in for a good cose, and you must tell me what Mary and James are up to these days, and your brothers, and, of course, all about your beaux. I wager you have many of them.”

Daphne would no sooner answer one question of Mama’s activities than three more would be fired at her head. She was a little confused, but happy to see her aunt so alert and talkative. An hour later, with her head in a whirl, Daphne went to her room to relax after her trip, and later to change for dinner.

Aunt Effie had exerted herself to make this first meal a particularly fine one. What silver, crystal, and china she still possessed were all cleaned and polished and laid on the table in a very closet of a dining parlour. The food was good and plentiful, and when Daphne got over the feeling she was eating in a clothespress, she enjoyed it.

“Try this ragout,” Effie said, passing along a dish. There was no room for footmen at their elbows, and the niece doubted that such people were on the premises at all. “I got the recipe from Lady Devonshire’s Pierre years ago. Lord Holland most particularly liked it.”

Later, when dessert wine was poured into her glass, Effie said, “This should be good. It’s old enough. It has sat in the cellars since the last century. Fox gave it to me for helping him win the election in ‘85, I think it was,” she added casually.

“Fox, the great statesman?” Daphne asked, feeling that at last she was approaching the real Aunt Effie of legend.

“To be sure, my dear. What a treasure he was! When Pitt had the parliament dissolved, you must know, we all—all the Prince of Wales’s set—got together and decided dear Charles must be our next prime minister. Prinney was a Whig then, fancy! The ladies took an active part in politics in those days. Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, and I rounded up a bunch of ladies to go down into the most blackguard houses of Long Acres, begging votes and buying them with a kiss when we had to. We all wore a fox brush in our caps, and his buff-and-blue colours in a scarf, and combed his area. And when he won—what a revel! We stayed up all night partying at Devonshire House, and the next day Prinney had a do at Canton House that lasted from noon till six. I didn’t sleep for three days. That same night we went on to Mrs. Crewes for another party. I was married to Lord Standington in those days and moved in the best circles.”

“And you actually knew the Prince of Wales personally?” Daphne enquired.

“Knew him! My dear, he spent a week with Standington and myself at Arthur’s hunting box in Leicester, with Marie—Mrs. Fitzherbert, you know. Such a sweet thing she was, only quite stout and with rather a long nose, but very sweet. Georgiana told me such a story about Marie and the Prince. She was present at their betrothal, I suppose you would call it. The Prince was dying for Marie, and she would have nothing to do with him—he couldn’t legally marry her because of the Marriage Act, of course. Her a Papist amongst other things, and a widow! So the Prince had his quack in to leech him—he liked to look pale and romantic. There was a cup of blood drawn, and what must he do but pour it all over himself, cut a hole in his jacket, and send for Marie, pretending he’d tried to commit suicide for love of her. But she wouldn’t go to him without a lady escort, and that is how Georgiana came to be in on it. I wish she had called me. He proposed marriage, and Marie accepted—wrote to the Pope and all to see if it would do. Later they had a sort of marriage ceremony, though neither of them ever declared it publicly and later, when they made Prinney marry that horrid Caroline, he just dropped Marie. They may say what they will of a divorcee, at least I’m not a bigamist.”

With interesting stories and characters of this sort to beguile the evening, it passed quickly. The ladies went from dining room to Blue Saloon with hardly a gap in the conversation. Tales incredible to believe were unfolded with such a wealth of detail as to name, place and circumstance that there was no disbelieving them. Then, too, despite her eventful life, Effie was not an imaginative person. She was, in fact, that sort of realist who would halt a conversation for five minutes to recall whether it was Mr. Pettigrew or his brother Robert who was second best man at a wedding, when the wedding itself was only a diversion in some other story.

“What a memory you have, Aunt,” Daphne complimented her. “And what a lot of interesting stories.”

“My memory begins to fail me, dear. I’m not sure yet whether it was Mr. Pettigrew or Robert— but in any case I have been reading those stories over in my memoirs these past months I have been so alone, and that’s why they are fresh in mind now."

“Oh, you have kept a diary! What a splendid idea! I used to myself, but it seemed pointless to write each day that I had helped hem up a pair of curtains, or went for a ride in the woods, or drove to the village, so I stopped.”

“I shouldn’t bother to start till my life got a little more interesting, if I were you, for there’s nothing makes one so peevish as reading a book where nothing happens."

“Nothing of the sort you have been describing is likely to happen in my life, Auntie.”

“Never say never. It is something I learned long ago. I used to say I’d never hold up my head again when Standington walked out on me, and never be poor again when I married Mr. Eglinton, and never marry again when he died. But all my nevers came back to taunt me, and now I hardly ever say it, for I shan’t even say I never say never. It is, perhaps, unlikely I shall remarry and be rich again, but there—who is to say? But as to yourself, the case is quite different. You are young and attractive and in London. Oh, I know I can’t present you as I should dearly love to do, my dear, but there are gentlemen with eyes in their heads for all that, and I had not been presented yet when Standington saw me, looking in at a shop window, and followed me. He was so clever. He came to the door not five minutes after I got home and said he’d seen me drop a trinket—a watch fob it was— and followed me home to return it. I’d never seen it before in my life. How should I, for he took it from his own chain for the purpose, and it served as an introduction. Before long he was calling every day. What a handsome man he was—so straight and with shoulders as wide as a door.” The blue eyes took on their glazed “memory” look.

Daphne was already beginning to have some understanding of her aunt. Of all her husbands, it was only the first who brought this certain smile to her lips. He was the great love of her life—no doubt of that. Her fondest and most frequent memories were of her life in England with him, and they were only married for eighteen months. Even the divorce had not soured those memories. Daphne was curious to have a look at the memoirs. “Did you write that episode up in your memoirs, Aunt? It seems to me from that date on your life was interesting enough to record.”

“It was interesting enough a month before that. I started it the day I came to London to visit the Elders. That was their name, not age. Relatives on Papa’s side. Yes, there was a very interesting month even before Standington wangled his introduction. You must have a look at my diary one day, if you can read my scratching. I haven’t kept it since I married Mr. Pealing, but now that you are come, I think I’ll start it again, for with such an attractive young lady in the house, I have a feeling things will pick up. I am very good at feelings.”

She was off on another tale having to do with a premonition that Lord Alvanley would escape unscathed from a duel with Morgan O’Connell, as indeed he had. “And now I have the feeling that things are going to start to happen again. It’s hard to describe what I mean. The blood quickens and there’s a feeling of excitement inside my head. Mary would know what I meant. She used to get feelings, too.”

“I hope you may be right, Ma’am,” Daphne said, with the secret thought that her aunt’s manifestations of feeling might be due to Mr. Fox’s excellent wine.

“Oh, I am never wrong about my feelings.”

“What, never?” her niece teased.

“Hardly ever,” Effie corrected herself, and together they went off to their chambers.

Chapter 3

Aunt Effie’s premonition of great things about to happen did not come to pass immediately. Nothing occurred during the first three days of the visit. The lavish dinner of the first evening was not repeated, and Daphne soon learned that her aunt kept no carriage. “Actually I have a carriage,” Effie told her, “but I don’t keep horses. In the first place, they charge extra for the stable that goes with the apartment, and in the second place, it requires a groom and such a ton of feed, for horses do nothing but eat their heads off all the time you’re not using them. And I don’t go about enough to make it worth my while.”

“Then why don’t you sell the carriage?” her niece asked.

“Well, it is the carriage Standington gave me for a wedding present, and I wouldn’t like to part with it. I had the crest painted over, of course.”

Daphne had to repress a sigh at this foolish streak of romanticism. Her aunt obviously needed the money, and she also felt that Effie would hire a team for the months of her visit if she could afford it. The quality of the wine had been inferior after the first night, and the general state of creeping decay in all the furnishings, such as drapes and carpets, was further evidence of a lack of funds.

One day Daphne found her aunt in a little study—the one which held the memoirs, often dipped into to pass the time. She was frowning over a fistful of bills and shaking her head. “Bills,” she said in accents of loathing. “I’m sure I don’t know how I managed to eat up five guineas worth of meat in a month, but here is the bill from the butcher, and Cook confirms it. And look at this, Daphne, three guineas for candles, in spite of using tallow ones in the kitchen. I certainly didn’t used to spend so much for candles. And here are more bills just come. I don’t believe I’ll bother to open them.” Setting the bills aside she went on, “I’m sure they’re making the days shorter.”

“That one doesn’t look like a bill,” Daphne said, pointing out an envelope of a superior quality.

Effie eyed it suspiciously, but at last opened it and pulled out a letter. “It’s from a Mr. Henry Colburn,” she said. “I never heard of him. Who can he be?”

“Read the letter and find out,” she was advised.

"Good gracious me! Was there ever such nonsense? He wants me to write a book,” she said, laughing.

This sounded such a bizarre request to come out of the blue that Daphne reached out her hand for the letter. It sounded less bizarre after she read the letter’s contents. Mr. Colburn knew Aunt Effie’s history and had suggested she write her reminiscences of the great people she had known. He mentioned her travels abroad, which were of interest to those who stayed at home.

“It’s a stunning idea!” Daphne said, thinking of the revenue that might come from such a book. She also saw the editing of the memoirs as a useful and amusing occupation after she returned home and her aunt would be again alone. Effie would meet some new friends, have somewhere to go and someone to visit her.

“It is not to be thought of,” the aunt said, setting the letter aside with the bills. “I’m sure I would never sink so low.”

“There is that never again!” Daphne roasted. “It is not in the least low, Ma’am. Many of your reminiscences are unexceptionable. They show no one in a poor light. Your soliciting votes for Fox, for instance, would harm no one and be of interest to many. Your experience in France where you lost your diamond necklace and it turned up next day in the pot-au-feu, too, was most unusual and amusing. You would not, of course, put in those sections where certain people took advantage of you. No need to tell how many you helped with money only to be spurned when they were in a position to return the favour; and, of course, it wouldn’t do to brag how you had to fight off the men with a sledge hammer.”

“But if it is announced that I am to write a book, people will expect to read about—you know, the divorce and all that. I would never—there I go again—but I never would write a word about that, and that is what people would expect: Scandal.”

“Let them think what they like, Auntie, if it will make them buy the book. You needn’t fulfill their lurid expectations. Write about what you wish. There is enough material in your diaries to write a good long book without resorting to any shameful revelations to yourself or anyone else.”

“James wouldn’t like it,” was the answer.

“James who?” Daphne asked, trying to recall if James was one of the husbands.

“Your father,” Effie replied, startled. “You know what a demon for propriety he is. Methodist. Why, he won’t let Mary walk in the village without an abigail to this day. He wouldn’t care for it at all.”

“Aunt Effie! My father may go to the devil. This has nothing to do with him. Mama knuckles under to him too easily nine times out of ten. If he were my husband instead of father he wouldn’t be so overbearing. As he does not see fit to ask you to come to us, as he should do, you need not consider what he will think. Anyway, it isn’t nearly so dashing as some of the other things you’ve done.”