CHAPTER ONE
‘No, Mama, surely you do not mean it.’
‘I am sorry, my dear, but I really see no alternative.’ Lady Chelmarsh looked at her eldest child, not without sympathy. ‘If I am to bring out your cousin Susan at the same time as Harriet, then I will need assistance, especially if Frances has need of me as her time draws near. You are old enough and sensible enough to guide the girls for a couple of weeks and your sister will need—’
‘Am I advanced in years, Mama?’
‘Maturity, Sophronia, would be the word I would use. Your maturity will make it perfectly acceptable for me to do so.’
Sophy Hadlow pulled a face. She had absolutely no wish to spend another Season in London. She was a young woman who laboured under several disadvantages, not the least of which, in her own opinion, was having a name which made her wince. Thankfully, only her mother ever called her Sophronia at home, and she was perfectly happy as Sophy, though less so as ‘Soppy’, which name her younger brother Jasper, Viscount Elvington, used when he wanted to annoy her. However, hearing her name announced in ringing tones at society functions as ‘Lady Sophronia Hadlow’ always made her shrink. Perhaps her mama had felt a premonition at her birth that shrinking might be useful, for her other major problem was her height. Sophy stood nearly five foot ten in her stockinged feet, and stood out like a sore thumb at parties among the other debutantes. Lady Chelmarsh had known even before attempting to launch her first-born into society that it would not be easy. Whilst Sophy was still in the schoolroom she had shaken her head over her chances, and at one stage even suggested to her lord that they put Sophronia on a strict diet. He had vetoed this idea on the sound grounds that whilst it might make the poor girl hungry and emaciated it would not decrease her height. A tall man himself, the Earl of Chelmarsh could not fully appreciate the problem.
Lady Chelmarsh had given up, but always tried to get Sophy to bend her knees when standing with other young ladies. This made her very self-conscious about her looks, and gave her a strained back. Her mama never ceased telling her how difficult she made things for herself, as if her stature was her own fault. Added to her height, which was mostly accounted for by long legs, Sophy was possessed not of a maypole figure, but one rather more generously endowed in the bosom than would be expected of so slim a lady. The fashion of gowns accentuated both her height and bosom, and her mama despaired, predicting failure, which duly ensued. Lacking confidence and made constantly aware of her ‘oddity’, Sophy crept miserably through her first Season, and then a second and third when her younger sister Frances was brought out.
Frances was a more average height, a little on the tall side, perhaps, but only by the smallest of margins. She basked in maternal approval and formed a very suitable connection within the year. Young Lady Tattersett had then proceeded to fulfil wifely expectations within eighteen months of marriage and was due to be confined for the first time in early May.
Sophy had determinedly avoided a pointless return to London since her sister’s triumph, and had not thought it necessary that she should attend for the come-out of her youngest sister, Harriet, six years her junior. The death of Lady Chelmarsh’s sister, however, meant that her ladyship faced guiding two inexperienced damsels, and felt the need for reinforcements.
‘What about Aunt Augusta? She would be far more help than I could be, Mama.’
‘Your Aunt Augusta has declined.’ Lady Chelmarsh coloured, not wishing to reveal the tone of her sister-in-law’s refusal, nor her reason.
Sophy was about to ask why, but noted the look upon her mother’s face, and thought the better of it. Aunt Augusta, Lady Warsash, was a very strict and proper individual, and from what Sophy could remember of her cousin Susan when last she had seen her, the two would not get on well. Susan bore every sign of being an ill-disciplined romp of a girl, and it was only from a strong sense of sisterly duty that Lady Chelmarsh had agreed to bring her out, since Susan’s older, and far more staid, brother, the current Lord Tyneham, was still single.
‘Would it not be possible to delay Harriet’s coming-out for a year, and Susan’s also? Frances is unlikely to produce another infant within twelve months of the first, surely.’
‘No, I will not have Harriet dawdling about at home. She is far too pretty a girl, and already young Minsterley, and half the neighbourhood, are hanging about our gates.’
This was an exaggeration. Harriet was very popular with the young men with whom she had grown up, and who now noticed that she was no longer a fubsy schoolroom miss, but a fledgling beauty, although none were to be found lingering by the lodge in the hope of a mere sight of her.
‘Besides, Susan will be nineteen before the Season is half over. If she is to be launched into Society at all this is her chance.’
‘At all, Mama?’
‘I meant,’ Lady Chelmarsh corrected herself, rather hurriedly, ‘that if she is to make a good match, she cannot afford to betwenty.’ She said the number as if it were three score years and ten.
‘I am three and twenty, Mama,’ murmured Sophy.
‘Yes, my dear, but … some girls are not destined for marriage. One never quite gives up hope but … And do not think I do not appreciate you, for I do. I was only saying to your father the other day what a consolation it is to know that we have you on hand to keep us young, when we get older.’
Sophy did not find this very cheering. Being a prop to one’s ageing parents did not strike her as an ambition in life. Not that she could lay claim to having any ambitions of her own. Once, perhaps, she had dreamt of being swept off her feet by a tall, and she always counted that as important, handsome man who would worship the ground upon which she trod, and whisk her away to a neatly proportioned country seat where the chimneys did not smoke, and they could live in blissful union for the rest of their lives. Her first Season had shown her how unlikely an eventuality that was. Her mother clearly thought her a lost cause in the marriage market, but then she always had been most pessimistic about her chances.
Lady Chelmarsh’s thoughts had moved on to matters of the moment, and she asked Sophy if she had seen her tatting, which was really an instruction for her daughter to go in search of it.
Lady Harriet Hadlow was too old for the schoolroom. She told herself this, even as she sat in it, daydreaming about a spectacularly successful debut in the adult world. Since the departure of the governess, this had become a quiet refuge from the bustle that surrounded the preparations for a London Season. It was all terribly exciting, of course, but gave little time for imagining, and Lady Harriet was a natural dreamer. Mama had already said that they would take up residence in Hill Street early enough to visit the most fashionable modistes for most of her dresses, and she had brought several recent copies ofLa Belle Assembléeto provide her with inspiration. The fashion plates depicted gowns more suited to dashing young matrons than modest debutantes, but there were several in which she could see herself stunning the most apparently hard-hearted, but secretly romantic, eligible gentlemen, who would combine title, riches, handsome features and a capacity for love.
She heard footsteps in the passageway, and her sister popped her head around the door.
‘I thought you would be here, Harry. Has Mama told you that I am being dragged to London too?’
‘Oh yes,’ declared that damsel, blithely revealing that Lady Chelmarsh had informed other members of the family before telling Sophy herself. ‘Mama said you would dislike it, but that must be a hum, because how could you prefer staying here with Papa and his stud books, or whatever you call them for cows? There will be nobody interesting left in the vicinity, and you would be reduced to mending flounces and inviting as dinner guests old Sir Humphrey Mawdsley, who sneezes snuff over one, or Lady Wadderton, with her ear trumpet.’
It had to be said, Lady Harriet did not paint a picture of pleasure and excitement.
‘But Lady Wadderton tells such funny stories. That one about the effetevicomteand the roses …’ Sophy’s lips twitched.
‘Oh yes, that one, or the one about the carriage that bolted. Those are the two stories she always tells. Alternatively, there is the one about how she saw her cousin ‘in flagrante’ with her aunt’s coachman, in an arbour at Ranelagh Gardens. I only heard that one the once, when Mama had started inviting me to join her when she had visitors to take tea, at this time last year. Mama spilt milk over her green Berlin silk.’ Harriet sounded quite matter-of-fact. ‘I did ask Miss Welling what “in flagrante” meant, when I returned here, but she boxed my ears,’ she added, pensively.
‘Yes, well, anyway, I would prefer the boring mediocrity of life at home to gadding about to parties where I will stand against the wall and be expected to chaperone Susan.’
