Cousin Cecilia Read online

  Though she was top of the trees herself, Miss Cummings realized at a glance that her hostess was a deep-dyed provincial. The saloon, with every tabletop holding a gaudy assortment of bibelots, told her; Mrs. Meacham’s gown and coiffeur and manner told her. None of it mattered in the least. She had no doubt the prospective bridegrooms would be cut from the same bolt, and equality of position was the thing that insured at least a chance of happiness.

  Mrs. Meacham led her guest into the Gold Saloon and closed the door to disclose her business in private. As her eyes roamed over her husband’s second cousin once removed, she deeply regretted that so little of the family elegance had been transmitted to Henry’s daughters. Before her stood a tall, fashionable lady with smooth black hair, wide-set, heavily fringed gray eyes of unusual brilliance, and an enviable complexion. She looked a trifle willful about the mouth, but the voice that issued from the mouth was low pitched and pleasantly musical. Even after the horrors of travel, Miss Cummings appeared completely relaxed, with a blush of pink on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes.

  She wore a very dashing bonnet and a deep cherry traveling suit that was surely the work of a French seamstress. It clung to high bosoms and a tiny waist. With such an Incomparable as this in their midst, Mrs. Meacham could not think the local beaux would be inclined to offer for their former flirts. She feared she had made a dreadful error, till she recalled the relatives who had received help through the marital machinations of Miss Cummings.

  They were seated, a glass of wine offered, and, taking a deep breath, Mrs. Meacham unfolded her tale. “I have purposely sent the girls out visiting that I might have a private chat with you first, Miss Cummings.”

  “Do call me Cousin Cecilia, ma’am,” the dasher invited. She liked to establish a footing of intimacy as soon as possible, as the truth was more likely to be forthcoming then.

  “I have formed the decision that the girls must know nothing of the reason for your coming. That is, you are just here to visit, of course, but...”

  “No, no. I am come to make a match for Martha and Alice,” she said quite frankly. “It will be a great pleasure for me. You have not told the girls why I am here then?”

  “To be sure, I have not. They are such rattlepates they would tell the whole world, and what a paper-skull I should look.”

  A furrow creased Miss Cumming’s broad white brow. “It will be difficult to get them to cooperate if they do not know why I am here.”

  “As to that, they will do anything you tell them.”

  “Biddable, are they?”

  “Greenheads, both of them.”

  “That is a mixed blessing,” Miss Cummings remarked, idly drawing off a pair of black kid gloves to reveal shapely white fingers, with a fine diamond ring on her right hand. “If they will be bidden by us, they will also be led by their beaux. I comprehend from your letter you already have two gentlemen in mind?”

  “The girls have, and their papa approved before he passed away.”

  “How are the gentlemen situated as to fortune?”

  The affair was outlined in an open manner. Cousin Cecilia accepted her reason for being here so nonchalantly and spoke so calmly of it all that before Mrs. Meacham quite knew what she was about, she had taken Cecilia into her complete confidence. Cecilia nodded, satisfied that the matches were suitable in all external details. Over dinner, every folly was gone into, and it was soon clear to Cecilia that Lord Wickham was the maker of mischief in the case. The beaux had behaved properly in the past, therefore their natures were good. Wickham was leading them astray. She must learn more of this troublemaker.

  “I recall the name, though I cannot say I have ever met Wickham,” she said pensively. “I believe he married the year before I made my curtsy at St. James’s. There was some scandal in the family, was there not?” This, too, was told in colorful detail.

  “I have not had a case of just this sort before,” Miss Cummings admitted. “When an older gentleman of such high rank is ape-leading youngsters, they will look to him for guidance. My first move must be to meet Lord Wickham and take his measure.”

  “Well now, that you won’t, my dear, for no one visits him, and he never goes anywhere that you might bump into him in the regular way.”

  Miss Cummings looked surprised. “The young gentlemen met him; he cannot be such a hermit as that.”

  “Hermit! Ha, if he is a hermit, I am a duchess. What I meant is I cannot introduce you, nor can anyone else. He only visits the Lowreys, and they hold themselves very high. Lord Wickham just rackets around the countryside with all the young bachelors at his heels like hounds after a fox, and how a young lady might make his acquaintance, I am sure I don’t know. Are we dished before we begin?” she asked, with a helpless look.

  Miss Cummings smiled calmly. “Certainly not. The case may be difficult, but it is not impossible. Your daughters know the gentlemen, and the gentlemen know Lord Wickham. If something cannot be contrived to bring us all together, then I shall go riding up to the Abbey myself and ask an interview with him.”

  Mrs. Meacham’s face turned bright pink. “You must never think of such a thing!”

  “I have already thought of it, ma’am. Desperate cases require desperate remedies. That is not to say I shall be obvious. My carriage shall lose a wheel, or I shall be so foolish as to go gathering flowers when a storm is about to break, or do any of half a dozen things that will get me into the Abbey fast enough,” she explained nonchalantly.

  “But would you get out again unharmed?” Mrs. Meacham demanded, with a sage look.

  Again Miss Cummings looked surprised. “I thought the problem was that Lord Wickham had no interest in ladies. Do you mean he is a womanizer? That will require a different approach entirely.”

  “He has no interest in proper ladies; as to the other sort, he is a regular Don Juan.”

  “I see what it is,” Miss Cummings said, nodding her head. “He dislikes marriage. His wife’s running off on him would account for that. Having made a botch of it himself, he is determined to stamp out the institution. I doubt he would ban horse racing if he took one tumble. What an idiot the man must be.”

  “I have nothing against his not marrying, but why must he go sticking a spoke in Martha’s and Alice’s wheel?” the irate mother demanded.

  “I really must meet him to satisfy myself how to approach the matter,” Miss Cummings said. “Now, help me to decide how it is to be done.”

  “I fear it is impossible.”

  Miss Cummings realized that the meeting would have to be a highly irregular one, and said no more of it to her hostess. She inquired after the girls instead, and this formed their conversation till a bustle in the hall announced the daughters’ arrival in person.

  Cecilia observed them with the sharp eye of a horse trader. She saw at a glance that their charms were provincial charms, as she had anticipated. Martha, the elder, taller, and prettier of the two, was not an ill-formed girl. Her hair was sadly frizzed to be sure, and her gown not well chosen to compliment her pale complexion. A washed-out yellow gown never became anyone, and on a pale blonde it was a catastrophe. The blue eyes were fine, though, and but for an unfortunate tendency to bite her fingernails and speak very little, she would do well enough for a country buck.

  Alice was not so well built. She was of short and stocky proportions, with Martha’s blond hair shading into red. Worse, a smattering of freckles decked her snub nose. But her smile was sweet, and there was a certain gamine charm about her. Of the two, she had more liveliness, more conversation, more ease of manners. Strange that the prettier girl was less at ease. With the dowries their mother had mentioned, Cecilia thought the gentlemen must be hard cases, indeed, to be so dilatory in their courting.

  After answering the requisite inquiries about her trip and the recent wedding, Cecilia began an adroit quizzing about the girls’ beaux, to learn how they managed the situation.

  The names Henley Dallan and George Wideman were elicited with no difficult
y, and from the blushes that accompanied the admissions, the girls’ state of infatuation was evident. This infatuation must be diluted a little, to let them see their gentlemen more objectively. Cecilia couched her questions in a manner that implied she took the gentlemen to be older, richer, more handsome, and in every respect more desirable than she knew them to be.

  “Only a small estate,” she said when Martha mentioned Mr. Dallan’s inheritance. “But then he is running so hard after you that you cannot escape him, I daresay,” she laughed lightly. “He will do well to get you. He is fortunate, indeed, that you, with fifteen thousand pounds, look no higher for a match. In London, ten thousand usually gets a baronet,” she said. “But those terribly handsome men are spoilt from having all the girls chasing them. Lord Byron was the same, in London. Mr. Dallan is a regular corsair, I collect?”

  Martha thought perhaps Lord Wickham might be a corsair. A generous viewer might call Mr. Dallan handsome. No one who knew him had ever called him “terribly handsome.” She was beginning to wonder what her cousin would think when she met him. “He is not so terribly handsome,” she said, with an air of apology.

  Cecilia looked at her and blinked. “Ah, it is not his fortune and not his face that have caught you. He is a singularly talented gentleman, I collect? A scholar, who distinguished himself at Oxford? Does he translate the works of Ovid and Virgil into English in clever, polished couplets?” Martha only stared in confusion. “Or is he artistically inclined? Does he collect artworks and make his small estate a cultural oasis in the desert of Sussex?”

  “Oh no, indeed! He did not go to university. He is not an intellectual sort of man at all. He rides a great deal, and—and he dances well,” she finished weakly.

  “But one does not marry a dancing master,” Cecilia exclaimed, and looked on in feigned astonishment. Hoping to have given her cousin the notion that she was much too good for Mr. Dallan, she then turned and pulled the same stunt on Alice. It was clear that the ladies had much too high an opinion of their young men and much too low an opinion of themselves. She must buck up their confidence a little.

  As a clincher, she asked, “How long do you plan to keep your beaux dangling at your apron strings before you accept them, ladies? You, Martha, must be nearly nineteen,” she said cunningly, knowing she was older. “You must be eager to be settled. Why do you not accept Mr. Dallan, as you have decided to have him in spite of... that is ... since you have decided he will suit you?”

  “She’s twenty!” Alice crowed, and laughed.

  “Oh, I am sorry!” Cecilia exclaimed, as though shocked that such antiquity should still be unattached. “Then I collect the match will be rushed forward immediately? A pity your papa’s passing away delayed it.”

  “It is not settled,” Miss Meacham admitted, with terrible embarrassment.

  “You have not quite decided to have him,” Cecilia said. “Truth to tell, I am relieved to hear it, for I am sure you could do better for yourself.”

  “It’s not that, exactly,” Martha said, turning redder by the moment.

  Miss Cummings felt very sorry for her predicament, but she was ruthless in her tactics. “Oh fie, Mrs. Meacham,” she said, turning to the mother. “You are the dragon in the case. You must have pity on the poor fellow. I daresay he is pining his nights away in regret.”

  Mrs. Meacham was beginning to understand Cecilia’s scheme and said, “Lord bless me, I would not forbid the match if he offered.”

  “ ‘If he offered!’ ” Cecilia asked, in a stunned voice. “Good God! Am I to understand... Oh I do beg your pardon, Cousin Martha. I had no notion. Indeed, I am sorry.”

  Mrs. Meacham bit back a reluctant smile. This young lady ought to be starring at Drury Lane. She acted as sweet as sugar water, but there was a squirt of lemon in her. Wouldn’t she love to see Miss Cummings land Dallan a facer! Into the heavy silence, a little feeling of anger crept. One could almost feel it, and certainly anyone could see it glinting in Martha’s blue eyes. Cecilia hoped it would find its rightful target and not settle on herself.

  “I did not say I would have him if he did offer,” Martha said suddenly. Such a view of the matter as her cousin outlined had never entered her humble head before. She felt stupid and cheap to have been pining after Henley Dallan for so long. For four years she had been mooning after him, grateful for any crumb in the way of dalliance. Her spine stiffened, and some semblance of pride could be traced on her face. “In fact, I do not care for him as much as I used to. Since Lord Wickham came to the Abbey, Henley is acting quite stupid. And so is George,” she added to her sister, to dissipate the blame.

  Here was getting the thing off on the right foot! Cecilia gave every encouragement to their anger and laughed aloud at every folly the gentlemen (whom she decided to call boys) had committed. Alice joined fully in the disparagement, and before the ladies climbed the stairs to bed, there was a fine new flow of spirits in the air. There was no despondency, no sense of helplessness that they would never receive an offer, but rather a question as to whether they would bother to say yes when the offer came.

  To be sure, the feeling dissipated somewhat when the sisters were alone in their beds, without the sparkling eyes of Cousin Cecilia laughing and making them feel very special. But still, a seed had been planted. They were roused to resentment at least at being made to look a fool in front of her. Oddly, neither sister noticed that Cecilia had reached the ripe old age of two and twenty herself without having attached a beau.

  Down the hall in the green guest suite, Miss Cummings sat at a desk, writing out in a businesslike manner a list of points to consider. Like a general assembling and planning the maneuvering of her forces, she laid out her plan. At the top of the list stood the name Lord Wickham, with a bold question mark after it. Details of improvement to the ladies’ toilettes followed, social functions where maneuvers could be engaged in, and at the end of the list, alone, stood the word “competition.” There was half the problem. The beaux required some competition. Whether it was available locally or had to be imported was something to be discovered.

  At eleven, she went to bed, satisfied that she had the battle plan under control. Esprit de corps at least had improved already since Cousin Cecilia’s coming. Lord Wickham was seen as Napoleon to her Wellington at Waterloo. She looked forward to engaging him in battle.

  Chapter Three

  Over a hearty breakfast of gammon and eggs the next morning, the ladies discussed plans for their day. The sisters proposed a tour of the High Street, with a visit to the shops. No female visitor could be expected to delay this delightful excursion. Mrs. Meacham suggested visiting the vicar and other friends to present Miss Cummings to them. All these proposals ended with the words, “This afternoon, of course, for someone might call this morning.”

  “Surely you do not receive calls every morning? Whom are you expecting to call?” Miss Cummings inquired.

  “No one in particular,” Martha replied evasively.

  “No, no one special,” Alice confirmed, “but there is no saying. Someone might drop in.”

  When the sisters exchanged a furtive glance, Cecilia understood their meaning without being told. “Ladies, you cannot mean you sit home every morning on the off-chance that one or the other of your beaux might do you the honor of popping in unannounced for half an hour!” Their sheepish looks told her this was precisely the case, and their insistence told her that one lecture had not sufficed to firm their resolution.

  “It is usually in the morning that they come,” Alice explained.

  “Do they come every morning?”

  “Oh no,” Martha said. “Usually they go riding or shooting, but if they do call, it is in the morning. About once a week they come, and last week it was on a Tuesday. Since today is Tuesday...”

  “I hope they come on Tuesday this week, too,” Cecilia said firmly, “and you will neither of you be at home to receive them.”

  “But we can’t leave, you see, in case they come,” Alice said s
imply.

  Cecilia stared in dismay. “My dear goose, you might as well have a sign printed ‘DOORMAT’ and hang it over your shoulders if this is all the gumption you possess. To sit twiddling your thumbs for weeks on end in case—upon my word, it passes thinking about. Your wits have gone begging, ma’am,” she said to Mrs. Meacham, who was looking foolish herself at this point. “How have you let your daughters fall into such a state as this? I was not called a moment too soon if this is how you all go on.”

  “I don’t know what ails me,” Mrs. Meacham confessed. “I should have given Dallan a sharp word before now. I can give a lady a piece of my mind as easy as buttering toast, but with gentlemen, I feel a heat all over me and don’t know which way to look. And besides, it might very likely give Dallan a disgust of us. Henry, my late husband, wanted the match for Martha. They were his dying words. I was all in a pelter, but I kept wits enough to ask him that, and he agreed.”

  “You will never do as your husband wished with these mealy-mouthed tactics, ma’am. We must fight back.”

  From that point on, there was no charade about Cecilia being in the house for any purpose but to smarten the girls up and get them both a husband. To this end, she herded them off to her chamber to take them in hand. The first matter was their toilette; an improved appearance was better than a tonic for lifting the spirits. She brought out her fashion magazines and said, “We shall start at the top of your heads. A new hairdo for Martha is first on our list.” She said not a word about that dreadful frizz, but it was her intention to remove it.

  After looking through the pages, Martha shyly brought her choice to Cecilia. “This one is very dashing,” she said.

  Cecilia found herself looking at a convoluted mass of swirls and curls and feathers that might be suitable at court, on a sophisticated matron. The fault was her own, for she had used the phrase, “stylish.” She worded her refusal softly. “It would take years for your hair to grow long enough for that style, Martha. And in any case, that do is for London dowagers. What do you think of this one?” She indicated a much simpler and more youthful hairdo of soft curls framing the face.