Wife Errant (7 page)

“How was your evening, Mama?”
Tess asked. She hoped to hear that Lord James had given her her
congé
.

“Wretched. I lost two guineas, and the supper they served was inedible. Cold meat and bread. I told James I would not care to visit the place with him again. We are going to a play tomorrow night.”

Tess wished to discover whether this was one of the appointments that had been made before Revel spoke to his cousin. “I think you mentioned the play before?”
she said.

“Very likely. James has subscription tickets, so he feels he must go to get his money’s worth. I would much rather go to a rout.”

This did not quite answer Tess’s question. “Where else do you and James plan to go?”
she asked.

“Good gracious, it is a romance, not a military campaign. We don’t have the whole season planned in advance.”
Not a word was said about breaking the affair off. Her next speech was, “I don’t suppose you saw your papa at the assembly?”

“No, he could not take Esmée there.”

“I should hope not, but she is so brazen she would go to Court with a married man. If Bath takes us for fallen women, Tess, you must not blame me. It is all in your father’s dish.”

“Society has always granted men more freedom in that respect. It is only when a lady carries on that the family’s reputation sinks.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, child. There is scarcely a married lady in London who goes anywhere with her husband. It is very poor ton to do so. The mischief in our situation is that your papa left home. If he at least resided under the same roof, nothing would be thought of it.”

“You are the one who put him out, Mama.”

“This time he went too far,”
Mrs. Marchant said grimly, but there were tears glittering in her eyes, and more grief than anger on her pinched face. “He ought not to have done it in Bath.”

“Bath is more strict than most cities,”
Tess agreed.

“Strict? What do I care for strict? It was in Bath that he met and courted me, Tess. We were married at home and came back here for our honeymoon. Lyle never carried on with lightskirts in Bath before. It is like flirting in church. I could not forgive that. I am only kept in my skin by the hope that he will come back and beg my forgiveness.”

Her control flew to the winds, and she dissolved in a bout of tears. Tess felt sorry for her mother, and guilty for adding to her troubles. Mama couldn’t help being a peagoose. She had put up with a good deal from her husband. If Mama loved him less, this never would have happened. She would have turned her head the other way and gone on pretending not to know, or to mind. It was the fate of ladies who married men like Papa, or Lord Revel.

Both ladies took their confusion and troubles to bed with them. Mrs. Marchant now had to worry that her little fling with James was jeopardizing her daughters’
reputations. She was bored to flinders with James. Her jaws ached from trying to swallow her yawns after an evening with him.

They only went to hole-in-the-wall places, which was her fault. If James were seeing an unattached lady, they would be welcome anywhere.

She worried about Tess and Revel. There was no trusting a fellow like Revel, though it would be wonderful if Tess could nab him. Certainly the pair of them had been kissing, which was shocking. Tess should have more sense, but then who could resist a dashing fellow like Revel?

There was more to Tess than she had realized. James, too, had spoken warmly of her. A little more warmly than Mrs. Marchant quite liked. “A charming girl,”
he had said so often she wanted to crown him.

Perhaps men saw something in Tess that evaded her own feminine eyes? It was not only beauty that attracted men, but some other intangible aura of sexuality. Personally she had never glimpsed such a thing in Tess. If Tess nabbed Revel, she would be a countess! With such powerful connections, what was to stop Dulcie from becoming a duchess?

Tess’s thoughts, while different, were equally troublesome. Until that night, she had not realized how much Mama still loved Papa. It seemed hard to add to her worries at this troubled time, yet something must be done. Papa would not come home while Lord James was in the picture.

Breakfast was an unpleasant affair, with Dulcie in the boughs at Tess’s trick of darting off to the Lower Rooms without her. A little ray of light penetrated the gloom when Tess mentioned that Mr. Evans was to call that afternoon,

“The man you used to ogle at the Pump Room?”
Dulcie asked. “The one with the long nose?”

“His nose is not long!”

“Why did you not tell me Evans is calling?”
Mrs. Marchant demanded. “This is wonderful news. He has five thousand a year if he has a sou. And he cannot be too high in the instep, for his mama married a dancing master when his papa died. It was a great secret; everyone was whispering it.”

Dulcie burst into peals of laughter. “I don’t think he ought to be encouraged,”
she said.

“Beggars cannot be choosers,”
the mama retorted. “With your father making a scandal of us, we are fortunate for friendship from any half-decent source. And Evans is half decent. His papa was a gentleman, even if his mama is a goosecap.”

As the ladies would be remaining at home in the afternoon, they took the carriage out for a spin in the morning. The main point of interest in these drives was to scour the streets for a sight of Mr. Marchant and/or Mrs. Gardener, and if they spotted the latter, to see what she was wearing. She was glimpsed coming out of the milliner’s, but she was not with her new beau.

The carriage was immediately stopped and the three ladies descended to follow Mrs. Gardener for a block, at which point she got into her own carriage and disappeared, without realizing she had been under observation.

Mrs. Marchant made the supreme sacrifice of lending Henshaw to the girls for their toilettes that afternoon. Fearful for Tess’s burgeoning powers of attractions, she said, “If young Evans suggests a ride, Tess, you will take Dulcie with you.”

“I cannot leave,”
Tess said. “Someone else might call.”

Her mother gave her a look, half-pitying, half-disdainful. “If you refer to Revel, I would not sit home waiting for him to come. He made it pretty clear last night. ‘If
Tess
and I ever go out again,’
he said, bold as brass. And calling you Tess, too. He never did that before, now I think of it.”

“I was not necessarily referring to Revel. I met other gentlemen as well last night.”

Mrs. Marchant, watching Tess’s reflection in the mirror, decided it was the mirror that gave Tess that sly expression, like a cat. Yet the girl had certainly changed her stripes in the space of twenty-four hours. That very morning Mrs. Marchant had been required to answer the letters from Northbay, for Tess had not done it as she usually did. A grudging admiration was sneaking in with the annoyance.

When the young ladies were as pretty as Henshaw’s clever hands could make them, they went belowstairs to await Evans’s arrival. He came punctually at three, bearing a bunch of indifferent posies picked up from a street vendor. No sooner had he made his bows than his long nose and eager eye turned to Dulcie, sitting in all the glory of her new
cheribime
do, with the sun striking her blond curls, turning them to gold.

“I don’t believe I have had the pleasure of your ... friend’s acquaintance,”
he said to Tess.

“This is my little sister, Miss Dulcie,”
Tess said.

“Not
that
little, Tess,”
Mrs. Marchant said playfully.

Here was one man who knew true beauty when he saw it, at least. Evans sat down, tea was served, and the conversation ground along dully. Evans did not believe he had seen Miss Dulcie at the Lower Rooms last night. No indeed, she had not gone. She was reading
The Castle of Otranto
and could not tear herself away from the trials of Isabella.

Evans’s chair moved a little closer to her, and for the next ten minutes, the room rang with exclamations of delighted horror regarding the wicked Manfred, and Theodore, who bore such an uncanny resemblance to the portrait of Alfonso.

“I know Theodore is not just a simple peasant,”
Dulcie exclaimed. Evans opened his lips to corroborate it, and she said, “No, don’t tell me, Mr. Evans. I have not finished the book yet. I have only been reading it for two weeks.”

Mrs. Marchant was nearly convinced her elder daughter was the flat she always knew her to be, for she sat with her tongue between her teeth while Dulcie waltzed away with her beau. The rattle of the door knocker was heard, and suddenly Tess’s face became animated.

“Who could that be?’
she asked, but she wore a gloating smile. “Why, it is Lord Revel,”
she exclaimed in poorly simulated surprise when his voice was heard in the hallway. “I wonder what he wants.”

When Revel entered and saw Mr. Evans in the room, the smile on his face froze. Revel spoke first to the ladies, but when he addressed Evans, his displeasure was obvious. Indeed in Tess’s opinion, it was a tad overdone. He need not have glared quite so fiercely.

Revel was served wine, and for a few moments the conversation veered from
Otranto
into more general waters. Everyone agreed it was a lovely day. The weather very mild for the time of year.

“Let us take advantage of it and go for a spin,”
Revel suggested, directing his invitation to Tess.

“I cannot leave, Revel,”
she said, looking at Evans.

“Don’t let me detain you,”
Evans said promptly. “I was about to leave in any case.”

“No, no, you must not rush away,”
Tess insisted.

“Why don’t we all go out for a drive?”
Evans suggested, turning his long nose to Dulcie.

Mrs. Marchant found no fault in this. She assumed the four would go in one carriage; two of the four knew she thought so, and said not a word to disillusion her. The group left as a foursome, but when they strolled by twos along the street, looking for their carriages, Evans called over his shoulder, “Your carriage or mine, Revel? Or shall we each take our own?”

“Let us go by twos, like Noah’s ark,”
Revel replied.

Dulcie cast a questioning eye at her older sister, fully expecting Tess to scotch this exciting scheme.

Tess said, “Then we shall take our leave of you now, Mr. Evans. It was nice seeing you again. Take care of Dulcie.”

When she was safely ensconced in Revel’s chaise, she said, "I
made sure you would cry craven and not come this afternoon, after Mama's hints last night.”

“Surely a carriage drive in full sunlight is not enough to compromise us.”

“As long as we are home before dinner.”

“Did she cut up stiff after I left?”

“You did not fool her for a moment. She knows full well you are only amusing yourself with me as Bath is so dull. I am not to see you again unless it is clear your intentions are honorable, sir.”

“They are not dishonorable, but you must not let her get the idea it is to be a match.”

“I am rethinking this whole affair, Revel. Mama has enough worries in her dish.”
She told him about her mother’s outburst the night before. “So if she is a little distracted, one can hardly blame her. She still loves him very much, you see.”

“I have always thought love matches ought to be outlawed. Whichever of the loving couple recovers his sanity first, pitches the other into misery.”
He waited, fully expecting a lively argument on the merits of true love.

“I daresay the first weeks of rapture would be delightful, but until some way is found for both to become sane simultaneously, it is a poor bargain,”
she agreed.

“You would limit the rapture to weeks?”
he asked, surprised, but ready to shift ground for conversation’s sake.

“Perhaps months,”
she said reflectively.

“I personally know a man who has been happily married for two years,”
he said.

“He must have married a saint.”

“On the contrary; his wife did.”

“Poor lady. How can she be happy with a saint? One feels instinctively sinners would be more amusing.”
She had a passing memory of Saint Jerome. “Have you seen your cousin today?”

“No, did your mama say anything about him?”

“Nothing that suggested the affair is over. She is attending a play with him this evening.”

“It will be the last outing. He mentioned the play yesterday. Romeo Coates is to perform one of his vivisections on Shakespeare.”

She looked blank. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind, Tess. It is a joke.”

“Oh,”
she said, but was not interested enough to pursue it. “Mama will be twice as blue when Lord James jilts her, too. I am almost sorry I had you speak to him, except that she really does not care for him in the least, and it would be a pity if she broke his heart.”

“It is a case of cream-pot love, Tess. As to bringing our ‘affair’
to a halt, I think you should reconsider. Your intention was to awaken your mother to her duties. It seems you are having some success. If your parents are not to get together, it is more important than ever that Mrs. Marchant behave with propriety. The daughters of a broken marriage are already under a cloud. Throw in a giddy mama, and the better class of gent will stay away in droves.”

“But if Papa continues acting the lecher ... ?”

He shrugged. “Society does not expect much propriety from men. It is the ladies who are saddled with the burden of behaving themselves. You and Dulcie will take your moral coloring from your mother. In fact, society looks with a peculiarly sympathetic eye on such ladies. Being wronged by men recommends them to the more devout sort. If you frequented London, you would realize Byron’s wife is in the process of canonization since she had to throw him out.”

“One wonders how she could have the heart for it, he is so handsome and romantic,”
Tess said in a dreamy way.

Revel was amazed that she admired Byron. He would have thought her taste in men more demanding, and intimated something of the sort. “I daresay it is the feminine folly of wanting to tame a rake that incites you to passion.”

“Tame Lord Byron? Surely you jest! Propriety would be the ruination of a man like that. His indiscretions are the most interesting thing about him. I nearly gave up on him when he married Miss Milbankes.”