‘It will be all innocence, no doubt, ma’am,’ lied Bembridge, who privately thought Miss Tyneham a risk to the entire male gender, and would rather a tiger had been introduced into the household, ‘but I feel I ought to remind the staff that her behaviour must not be taken at face value.’
‘I see,’ repeated Lady Chelmarsh. ‘Indeed, I fear you are right to speak with the men. I am sorry, Bembridge, that the staff are put in this … difficulty. At least it is only for this one Season.’
Bembridge did not think he could survive a second, but made an appropriate response.
Lady Chelmarsh was still working her handkerchief through her fingers when Sophy came in to ask if there was anything her mama needed at Grafton House, whither Sophy was bound to hunt for lace edging for a petticoat.
‘I need peace and quiet, dear, and you cannot purchase me that.’
‘But surely, Mama, one does not come to London for peace and quiet?’
‘Oh no, I meant to be free of worry about … I have just had a very upsetting interview with Bembridge. Susan has been “playing off her tricks”.’
‘Not on dear old Bembridge, surely?’
‘Not on him, at least he did not say so, but on the other men. It is terribly distressing.’
‘I saw her this morning, looking sideways at the new under-footman. She uses them as practice, I think. I believe she likes to feel the adulation. She is not likely to try and run off with a servant.’
‘Do not even say such a thing. It gives me palpitations.’
‘I am sorry, Mama. I have told Susan her behaviour is wrong, and unfair, but she shrugs and says it means nothing, and men should not be so easily duped.’
‘Where will it end? Oh, Sophronia, how can one find a suitable parti for a girl like Susan?’
‘I hate to say it, Mama, but the best thing for her would be a man for whom she feels a partiality but who does not respond to her “tricks”. Perhaps, you know, she needs to fall for a rake.’
‘No, oh no. She could not. It would be unthinkable. What people would say …’
‘Unpalatable it may be, Mama, but it does not make it less true.’ Sophy paused. ‘Shall I take her with me shopping, and Harriet also?’
‘Yes. No. Yes. Oh, Sophy I wish your father were here.’
‘You do not really, Mama, for he would look miserable, and declare you know best in all such matters anyway.’
With which Sophy left her mother to her musings and went to find her sister and her wayward cousin.
Harriet was in Susan’s room, sat upon the bed and watching her cousin instructing the maid how best to dress her hair, and finding fault with every pin. Sophy arrived just as Susan exclaimed that it would look better if she did it herself. The maid was flustered, and thus even more hesitant.
‘Let me, cousin.’ Sophy stepped forward, dismissed the maid with a smile and thanks, and calmly placed the last few pins with deft fingers. ‘You should not berate the maid simply because you are out of patience, Susan.’
‘I was not. She was slow, and clumsy.’ Susan pouted. ‘I am bored.’
‘Well, you need not be so. I am going to Grafton House for lace, and thought you and Harry might accompany me. You were thinking of some hair ribands only yesterday, Harry, and it is a delightful place to spend one’s pin money.’
Harriet was instantly enthusiastic, and Susan became so when she realised that they were walking the short distance to New Bond Street, which might mean the opportunity to see gentlemen, if not upon the Strut at such an early hour of the day, then about their business.
It was but a few minutes’ walk from the house in Hill Street to the ladylike delights of the linen-drapers at Grafton House. They passed through Berkeley Square, and, after gazing into a few enticing windows in Bruton Street, turned right into the lower end of New Bond Street. Whilst the elegant modistes might be visited by young unmarried ladies only with the support of parental wealth, Grafton House was an emporium within whose portals one might spend one’s shillings upon furbelows, and, if one was reduced to such levels, materials with which to make one’s own gowns, or take to a lesser dressmaker. It was not the most fashionable of shops, but was popular. Sophy, having discovered it during her first Season when she wanted to replace some buttons on a pelisse, knew it to be the perfect source of trimming for the petticoat she had nearly finished at home, and had brought up to Town to occupy any quiet time with restful hemming. She was not a notable needlewoman, and had neither the need nor inclination to make her own dresses, but petticoats were a different matter, and provided employment on rainy afternoons in the country.
There was an added advantage to taking her sister and cousin to Grafton House; it was not a place where Susan might be distracted by gentlemen. In this Sophy was correct, but she forgot that Susan was as likely to flutter her eyelashes at a breathless draper’s assistant as at a duke.
They arrived before the shop was too crowded, and whilst Sophy pondered over the advantages of a narrow ecru lace that was unlikely to tear over the more opulent wider examples, she let the younger ladies, with the protection of the maidservant, wander among the fabrics, braids and ribbons. Having selected and requested the appropriate yardage for her project, Sophy’s eye was caught by some very fine lawn, from which she might make both a tucker and some handkerchiefs to embroider for female relatives, and it was only then that she went to seek out her sister.
Harriet was trying to decide between a broad satin ribbon in cerulean blue, and one in a soft green. Susan was contemplating the purchase of silk stockings, not least because handling one she had successfully caught the eye of a young man whose Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down and pulse was racing as she held the item in her hand and gave him a look that turned his mind, firmly focused upon commerce, to jelly, just as she intended that it would.
‘I am bound to wear holes in the heels when we are at balls and parties every night, for I fully intend to dance every dance, so I think investing in another couple of pairs would be a very good idea, do not you, cousin?’ She smiled up at Sophy.
‘Yes, but that presupposes that your dance card will be full.’
