Cousin Cecilia Read online

  “Yes, Mademoiselle Dupuis is all the rage.”

  “You do her infinite credit.”

  This was all very fine and flattering, but Mr. Dallan was the subject to be discussed, and she tried again. “Those young gentlemen I mentioned have a very high opinion of you.”

  “The countryside is thin of company. My old friends have all married or moved on, so I have been racketing around a little with those young fellows. A man cannot stay home with a book every night.”

  She adopted a sympathetic pose, but stated her point all the same. “It is a pity you have not a more suitable set of friends, for young gentlemen of moderate means could ill afford to keep the pace you set, I think.”

  “Oh I am not such an expensive fellow as all that,” he laughed. “A little racing, a little sport. We find an hour now and then to attend to business. I am not about to ruin them, if that is what you fear.”

  “It can hardly amount to fear, as I am so little involved, but the ineligibility of yourself being used as their pattern card does cause a question.”

  He leveled a playful but pointed look at her. “Have you a more suitable companion in mind for me, ma’am?”

  Cecilia swallowed a little gush of pleasure at this hint of wishing to spend more time with her. “I hardly know all the local inhabitants yet,” her mouth said, but her eyes, which she managed with the skill of a courtesan, gave the answer he desired.

  “It is not a local inhabitant I have in mind, but a visitor,” he answered, with the masculine version of the same look.

  “Why Lord Wickham, I do believe you are flirting with me!” she charged.

  “Is that what they call it nowadays?” he parried. “It used to be called trifling when I went abroad.”

  Trifling! Well, he could have hardly have told her more plainly that he meant nothing by his gallantry! And he was looking pretty sharp, too, to make sure she caught the full import. “Now it is called an à suivi flirtation,” she explained. “You are behindhand in the diction regulating society. For shame, and you home for a whole year.”

  “So long as it is only the diction that has changed, and not the rules, I cannot run too far amok.”

  “I shouldn’t think the rules have changed,” she allowed.

  Secure that they now understood each other, Lord Wickham continued his attack. “Do you ride at all, Miss Cummings?”

  “I enjoy it, but have not brought my mount with me.”

  “I have several hacks at the Abbey—one quite a gentle goer, if you would like to have the use of her.”

  “Really you are too kind. I cannot like to accept such a favor from a mere acquaintance, however.”

  “That presents no insurmountable problem. We have only to shift ourselves forward to the status of friends.”

  “Yes,” she smiled and wafted an elegant feathered fan. “And when we are friends, then I shall be happy to accept the loan of a mount.”

  “Friendship will best be achieved by meeting again. As your visit is of so indeterminate a duration, I shall bucket ahead at top speed. Shall we say—tomorrow?”

  Cecilia gave her assent and concealed like a spy that she had got exactly what she wanted from the evening—to establish a firm footing with Lord Wickham.

  The music was striking up again, and she must leave him. Mr. Wideman came forward to claim a dance, and it was with a feeling of satisfaction that Lord Wickham was seen to ask Martha to stand up with him. All the romances were progressing satisfactorily. Martha had had the first dance with Dallan, Alice with Wideman, and Kate Daugherty with Andy Sproule. The evening continued as smoothly as silk, with the same group changing partners amongst themselves. In the corner, Mrs. Meacham congratulated herself on her ingenious idea of asking Cousin Cecilia to visit them. What a marplot she had been not to have taken steps sooner. At this rate, there would be wedding bells before summer.

  Some little while later a waltz was announced, and Cecilia again had the pleasure of being sought by Lord Wickham. He had been abroad when the waltz gained popularity, but his natural grace allowed him to perform well, while still continuing the flirtation. “Had I realized England had unfrozen to the extent of allowing a gentleman to hold a lady in his arms in public, I would have returned sooner,” he smiled.

  “Yet you have waited this long to indulge the pleasure. This is your first assembly.”

  “Till now there has been no lady I was eager to get into my arms.”

  The girls had another dance with their beaux, too, and while it was very satisfying, the thought did intrude that they could none of them stand up three times with the same gentleman, so that the excitement was over till supper time. No actual supper invitations had been issued by the gentlemen, but it was taken for granted that the couples would dine together. As the time for supper drew near, the ladies began to look around the hall to give an inviting smile. It was then that Alice exploded her shell.

  “We had best get busy and find a partner for dinner,” she said.

  “I have not seen Henley around for half an hour,” Martha said. “I wonder if he stepped out with Andy to blow a cloud.”

  “No, he has left,” Alice said. Everyone stared.

  “Left!” Cecilia exclaimed.

  “Yes, Lord Wickham has taken them all over to Jack Duck’s Tavern. It is the Spanish dancer’s last night. That is why they all came so early to the assembly, for lately they have been dropping in around supper time, if they come at all. George told me they meant to get away by eleven.”

  “What, left without even saying good-bye?” Martha demanded.

  “George said to say good night to everyone for him,” Alice said.

  Cecilia felt a hot surge of anger swell up in her. “Why did you not tell me sooner, that I might have stopped them?” she demanded.

  “You couldn’t have stopped them, Cousin,” Alice told her. “They decided three days ago. The Spanish dancer is very good, and it is her last night. From here she goes on to London. I wish I could see her.”

  “It is all of a piece,” Mrs. Meacham scolded. “I knew it was too good to last.”

  Martha stuck her finger in her mouth and sulked. “We might as well go home.”

  “Use your sense, girl!” Cecilia snapped, and removed the offending finger. “They are not the only gentlemen in Laycombe. We must find other partners. Get busy and see what you can do.”

  They each found a partner, but of such indifferent qualifications that little interest was taken in the dinner hour, and they left before the dance was over. As they drove home in the carriage, Cecilia asked, “Do they often pull this stunt on you?”

  “No, they usually come late,” Alice reminded her.

  “I wish you had told me sooner. When is the next assembly?”

  “In two weeks’ time,” Mrs. Meacham said. “There is one every two weeks in the spring. The rest of the year, it is one a month, with a Christmas party besides.”

  “It must be the next one then,” Cecilia said with determination. Everyone was too weary to inquire her meaning, but they placed faith in her delivering their beaux for the entire evening the next time.

  Miss Cummings was not so docile as that. Wickham’s trick was seen as an outright attack on her position. Wellington, she felt, would not take it without retaliating. An examination of the local bucks had shown her that competition must be imported. Inferior as Dallan and Wideman were, they were the best of the local lot. But till she had the matter under her control, she would not tell her cousins her plan.

  Cocoa was served when they reached home, and over this refreshment the ladies discussed the toilettes, partners and flirtations of all their friends at the ball. When this necessary ritual was over, they went to bed, too fagged to worry about not sleeping.

  Chapter Six

  It was the custom in Laycombe, as elsewhere, to sleep in late the morning following an assembly, but with plans to formulate, Cecilia did not sleep in very late. She spent the hour before her cousins’ rising in deep thought. At the n
ext assembly, she would repay the gentlemen, not omitting Lord Wickham, for their cavalier treatment. She admitted to no more than a fit of pique at his shearing off. He was no suitor. In fact, the others seemed to consider it an act of great condescension that he had come to the assembly at all.

  Lord Wickham aside, how should she retaliate against the others? She could bar—and it would have to be by main force—the girls from attending the next assembly. This no sooner occurred than to be rejected. The occasions when the couples were together were already too few. Besides, it might be recognized as retaliation and she was more subtle than that.

  What would please her much better would be to have the girls’ cards so full that they could barely squeeze Dallan and Wideman in for one dance. And that meant bringing in reinforcements.

  London was the obvious place to recruit them. With the Season drawing nigh, crowds would be gathering, and some of them would agree to spend a few days before the Season at a country party. She jotted down half a dozen names, and felt that if half of them accepted, it would provide a beau each for her cousins and Kate Daugherty.

  She debated a moment whether to send the invitations by mail or deliver them in person, and soon opted for the latter. A day in London would provide a pleasant diversion for her cousins. What day should they go? Lord Wickham was to call today, and tomorrow was Sunday. The London crowd would be thin on a Monday, as weekend parties sometimes lasted an extra day. She tentatively settled on Wednesday as the day for the trip. It only remained to get Mrs. Meacham’s approval and drop a line to Papa’s housekeeper in Hanover Square to prepare the house.

  She did not broach her plan the instant her cousins came down to breakfast. There was still some discussion of the assembly to be indulged in. Cecilia received many questions as she had been singled out by Lord Wickham. “What is he like?” was the most often asked one. She patiently repeated that he was very civil, not so very toplofty, and so on.

  “I thought him an excellent dancer,” Martha said, to remind them that she had been singled out for his second partner. “Better than Henley. Henley was going to ask you to stand up, Cecilia, but he was afraid you would refuse.”

  “I hope I am not so rude as that! I should have been happy to stand up with him,” Cecilia assured her.

  “He’s taken the notion you dislike him.”

  Cecilia knew that a feud in that quarter would only keep Henley away and was quick to mend the quarrel. “Only because I teased him a little about his jacket?” she laughed lightly. “You must tell him I was only funning. I only tease those men I like,” she added. “He looked very well, did he not? Quite an unexceptionable jacket he wore last night.”

  Martha smiled and said she would tell him next time she saw him.

  “When will you see him again?” Cecilia asked at once, and heard that no firm call was planned.

  “Is there no private party planned for a Saturday night?” she asked, and was told there was none. “A pity local company is so thin. Our wits are gone begging! Why do we not have a party, Mrs. Meacham?” Their shocked faces told her this was innovation of a strong order, to be having a party for no obvious reason.

  “They always go to Jack Duck’s on Saturday night,” Alice announced baldly. “George says it is the best night.”

  “Then Saturday is precisely the evening we must have our party,” Cecilia countered.

  “It is too late for this week,” Mrs. Meacham mentioned. “We could get it together for next Saturday.”

  “Excellent. Let us send out the cards this very day. I shall send one to Lord Wickham as well, with your permission, ma’am.”

  Her hostess looked shocked at the idea. “Oh my dear, we cannot ask him!”

  “Is he as ramshackle as all that?”

  “Nothing of the sort. The hitch is that he never accepts an invitation anywhere. He received many offers when he first returned, but he never accepted them.”

  Cecilia had no wish to receive a refusal. “You told me he never attended the assemblies either, but he went last night.”

  “So he did, and it was the greatest surprise in the world. Whoever would have believed it? Everyone spoke of it. And of you, too, Cecilia. You were a great success. But as to his accepting an invitation, that is a cat of a different color. He calls on no one.”

  “He is calling on me today,” Cecilia announced, and received all the astonishment she could wish.

  “What, calling here?” the mother asked, and dropped her toast in shock. “You never mean it! Here, at my house.”

  “I hope you do not mind.”

  “Mind? It is famous.” She slapped her knee in glee. “He never goes anywhere but to Lowreys. How everyone will stare when I tell them. And here I sit like a moonling, when the whole room will have to be turned out.” She rose from her chair before anyone could stop her and sent a bevy of servants with beeswax and dust cloths, tea leaves and broom, to clean the immaculate Gold Saloon.

  “You have attached him, Cousin,” Martha marveled, and in her excitement her finger found its accustomed way to her mouth.

  “Which I never would have done had I chewed my fingernails to the quick.” Martha removed the finger and smiled an apology. “As to having attached him,” Cecilia continued, “it is no such a thing. Merely I am letting him call so that I may exercise a little influence on him, to detach him from your beaux.”

  “He must be sweet on you,” Alice insisted. “He never asked to call on any other girl. Sally Gardner was used to chase him dreadfully—well, she still does. Every time he rides into the village, she flings on her bonnet and pelisse and goes scrambling into the street after him, letting on she needs something in whatever shop he goes into, and accidentally dropping her bags at his feet, so he has to help her pick them up.”

  “Oh dear,” Cecilia laughed. “I hope he doesn’t think I was using her stunt Tuesday when the buttons fell.”

  “You only did it once,” Alice said forgivingly. “Sally does it all the time. You remember, Martha, when Lord Wickham’s housekeeper broke out into hives and he was several times at the chemist’s shop trying to find a remedy, Sally used to scoot into the chemists the minute she spotted him coming down the street. She used to get a teaspoon of clove oil at a time, and her mama didn’t have a toothache either because she would be out gallivanting herself the minute Lord Wickham was down the road.”

  Cecilia smiled ruefully at such gauche behavior, and as soon as Mrs. Meacham returned, she broached the London plan. It met with unanimous approval. When Cecilia asked if she could put a few guests up if they wished to come to the assembly, that, too, was agreed to. The house was the finest in the village, much larger than they needed, with ten bedrooms and two suites. Martha and Alice were thrown into a tizzy to hear that the guests were gentlemen and demanded an accounting of each. As Cecilia had no idea which of her friends would accept, however, she could not oblige them, and made it a mystery.

  Cecilia assumed her young cousins would be at home when Lord Wickham called and hoped to put Martha forward a little. She was thwarted in her scheme. Martha and Alice left for the vicarage right after breakfast, to discuss the assembly with Kate, but their mother would be at home.

  “He’ll come around eleven-thirty,” Mrs. Meacham said. “He usually rides into the village at eleven on Saturday morning to tend to any business or shopping or banking he may have before the weekend. After he is finished, he’ll stop here.”

  “You set me down a peg, ma’am,” Cecilia said. “I had thought he was making a special trip in to see me.”

  “So he would have done, had it been any day but Saturday, and he coming anyway. It must be nearly eleven. There goes Sally Gardner with her basket. She times her leaving the house to meet him. Yes, there he is. Why, he is in his phaeton; he usually rides his black horse. A fierce looking animal it is. The lads say it’s an Arabian.”

  “He does not mean to pay his call in riding clothes at least.” Her pride was assuaged to see that he had made this concession to
her call.

  “So I see,” Mrs. Meacham said, peering through the sheer curtains. “He is likely getting some things that he will need the carriage to haul home.”

  “You are determined to deflate my pretensions,” Cecilia said, yet her cousin’s explanation struck her as plausible. She had been taking too much credit for this call. It was actually no inconvenience to Lord Wickham at all, and therefore little compliment to herself.

  The only minor consolation she could derive was that he called before he attended to business. This might indicate an eagerness that the rest of his call did not uphold. When he was seated in the well-dusted Gold Saloon, he addressed the first half of his remarks to Mrs. Meacham.

  “You have removed from the Maples since I left,” he began, and tendered his sympathy at the cause. “You must have hated to leave it, but you have no sons, as I recall. A large estate is a big handful for a lady.”

  Mrs. Meacham soon found herself overcoming any shyness and chatting sociably. While they chatted, Cecilia had time to examine his toilette. Wickham was turned out remarkably well for a country gentleman. His shirt front and cravat were immaculate; his Hessians were newly polished, and his jacket was unexceptionable. It was the work of Stultz to be sure, but not one of his more outré creations.

  The conversation proceeded with congratulations from Lord Wickham on the beauty of the Meacham girls, and a playful mention that they had got their looks from their mother. This was palpable nonsense; they both favored their father in appearance, but it went down very well. Oh yes, Wickham was definitely setting out to please the dame and having wonderful success, too. Next he complimented her on the house.

  “I had the happy idea of having a bow window thrown out, for it gives such a good view of the street. I can see it from end to end. It is something to do of a dull afternoon, looking out on the street.”

  “A charming idea, and the room is so tastefully decorated, too. My own place has sadly deteriorated, since I have been away. I am trying to bring it back, but that certain touch is lacking. The woman’s touch. I hesitate to entertain till I have refurbished the place.” The weak pretext was to account for his lack of sociability.