Georgiana had been prior informed that the woman was to be her companion on the journey. Her name was Jenny and she was a surprisingly bright-faced girl who could not be much older than herself.
The grooms loaded the trunks, though they did not appear over-awed by the looks of the house or the state of her luggage. All the while, her father glanced nervously at the above-stairs windows.
Jenny threw open the door and said, “Good day to you, my lord! I been told we’re to cut and run like chickens ahead of a fox.”
The baron did not answer this unique phrasing, but only nodded and helped Georgiana inside the carriage.
The door was shut, the grooms leapt onto the running boards, the coachman tipped his cap, and the carriage set off. Georgiana thought not even Queen Mary fleeing Lochleven Castle had got off so speedily.
She poked her head out the window to look back and give a last wave to her father, just as Lady Manley opened her own window and shrieked.
Georgiana sat back and was grateful that the coachman did not pause upon hearing the outcry, but put distance from it by way of the horses’ spirited trot.
“Ah,” Jenny said, nodding knowingly, “just as Lady Mendleton predicted, your ma is distraught that you leave her.”
Georgiana nodded, as she supposed her mother was indeed distraught, though not for the reasons the maid suspected.
“I expect you been told I’m Jenny, but if you wasn’t, I’m Jenny.”
Georgiana smiled. “You may call me Georgiana,” she said.
“I may not!” Jenny said. “You are to be Miss Wilcox. Lady Mendleton will fret if I don’t get it right.”
Georgiana supposed this was part of the more formal rules in Town. Or everywhere but her own house. Nobody in it ever called her Miss Wilcox.
Jenny leaned back comfortably and said, “It ain’t so much she is such a stickler, mind. It’s them friends of hers. The duchess and Lady Heathway, to be exact.Theyare real sticklers.Theywould say, Jenny you got to know your place!”
Jenny scratched her cap, as if her mind itched with a new idea. “No, that ain’t right,” she said. “They wouldn’t say nothing to me directly. They’d say, Louisa, that maid of yours has got to know her place!” Jenny paused and said softly, “They probably don’t even know my name.”
“Well, Jenny,Iknow your name,” Georgiana said.
Jenny seemed to find great comfort in that idea and nodded enthusiastically.
Georgiana found herself rather delighted with Jenny. She had expected a staid middle-aged woman who would sit silent and grim for the entire journey. In truth, she rather wondered at Lady Mendleton sending a maid so young to be a chaperone. For all that, though, Jenny was certain to be a more interesting companion.
“So you’re the very first girl…just think of it,” Jenny said.
“The very first girl?” Georgiana said, wondering if Lady Mendleton had invited a whole slew of ladies to stay. She might not mind it, if that were the case. Now that she was on her way, she’d begun to feel too…something. Too singled out, perhaps?
“You’re the first girl of that society they’ve slapped together,” Jenny said confidentially.
“Society?” Georgiana asked. She had not heard her father mention a society.
As Jenny rarely needed prompting to tell all that she knew, and perhaps some she only thought she knew, the next hour was taken up with everything she’d gleaned about The Society of Sponsoring Ladies.
As Georgiana listened, her head fairly spun. She now understood that a group of six ladies, longstanding friends and all without daughters, had come together in a plan to launch girls who had not the means to launch themselves. And, God help her, she was the first.
She was rather touched when Jenny talked about how poor Lady Mendleton always had her heart set on a daughter and never got one. How she’d heard that in the early years, Lady Mendleton had secretly bought all manner of lovely things for a baby girl and they were locked up in a trunk in the attics now.
“A course,” Jenny said, “yesterday, when she sprung the whole plan on Lord Mendleton, there was a bit of a ruckus over the dowry. The earl was stupefied, if you understand me. But Lady Mendleton said she was directed by the duchess to run over, pummel, and barrel ahead and that’s what she did. The lord’s an easygoing sort anyway so he eventually gave up and poured himself a brandy.”
Georgiana gripped the seat. “Jenny,” she said, “what dowry? Nothing of the sort was discussed with my father, of that I am certain. It cannot be right.”
“Oh, it’s right. Two thousand pounds of right,” Jenny said.
Georgiana felt herself color. This had all seemed a wonderful romp, but two thousand pounds? Did her father know how indebted he was?
Before she could question Jenny further on that particular matter, the maid was off to describing Lady Mendleton’s son, Lord Langley, who appeared to live in the residence.
