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“Lady Westerlea. Her daughter-in-law is connected to Lady Brackenwood and Lady Craston, and Lady Craston is connected to… oh, everybody. Once one door opens, many more open. But Lady Westerlea has not responded. We have called there three times, and we know she is in town, but she is never at home to us.”
“Hmm. So, my lady, what is the exact nature of your connection to Lady Westerlea?”
“I know her very well, sir, I assure you. She is an old friend of many years’ standing. Several years, in any event.”
“And you met her how, precisely?”
Lady Failsworthy licked her lips. “At a musical soirée.”
“And… what then, precisely? Did she call on you first, or did you call on her? How often did she invite you to dine with her… or to any other event?”
Silence. Lady Failsworthy paled visibly, then lowered her head. Perhaps a tear trickled down her powdered cheek.
“You don’t know her at all, do you?”
“Ido!”she cried, her head lifting sharply. “I swear I do. Ididmeet her at a musical soirée at her house. I was there with my cousin’s daughter, who was coming out that year, but my cousin broke her leg so I… so I was asked to accompany Mildred to her evening engagements.”
“So you went to Lady Westerlea’s house once and met the lady, and that is the sum total of your acquaintance with her,” Pa said sternly.
Mutely, she nodded, the tears flowing in earnest now.
“And all these other lords and ladies… the same?”
Another nod. Stepmother was ashen, seeing her careful planning crumbling to dust before her eyes.
Pa sighed. “You’d better go home, my lady. You can keep everything you’ve bought, and I’ll pay you to the end of the month, but I want you out of this house first thing tomorrow.”
With a sob, she fled the room, leaving the Fletchers gazing at each other in dismay. Now what were they to do?
4: Plans
The Fletcher family gathered in sombre mood the next morning after breakfast. The first task was to see Lady Failsworthy on her way, a new box for all her purchases being Pa’s final gift to her.
“Good riddance,” Will muttered, as they watched the post-chaise lumbering away round the square.
“Aye, but what we’re to do now is more than I can tell,” Pa said. “Into my office, everyone, and let’s put our heads together and see if we can’t work up another plan.”
They all crowded into the office. Stepmother said nothing, but she was pale, and her eyes looked red, as if she had been crying. Rosie looked anxious, but Angie at least was her usual cheerful self. Will was grateful for one member of the family who was not discomposed by this setback.
“Well now,” Pa said, when they were all settled. “This is a blow, and no mistake. We were depending on Lady Failsworthy and she’s not done as we expected.”
“She lied to us!” Stepmother said with a spurt of anger. “She said she could introduce us to all these people, and she misled us utterly.”
“That’s more like it,” Pa said. “Anger is better than tears.”
“You should be angry, too,” Stepmother said. “She ran up bills in half the shops in London. I dare say you have not seen the whole of her debts, either.”
“So I imagine,” Pa said. “I don’t like being bamboozled any more than another man, and Iamangry — I’m mad as fire that she upset you, Lizzie. That’s the worst of it, in my book. But anger has to be used to advantage, and there’s no purpose in shouting at a woman like that. She tricked us and that’s the end of it. What we must do now is to decide how we move forward. We can’t work our way into the sort of society you want for the girls, so it seems to me that we have but three choices. We can pack up and go home—”
Four voices cried, “No!” in unison.
“Right. No retreat. Good. So that leaves two choices. We can try to find some other sponsor to introduce us. Do we have any possibilities? Any of your other Haygarth relations, Lizzie?”
“They so seldom come to town,” she said fretfully. “Now and then for shopping or the theatre, but they do not seem to visit anyone. I am not sure they have many acquaintances in town.”
“Surely the Plummers are our best possibility,” Angie said. “They are neighbours in Hertfordshire, after all. We can call upon them, surely? And then they will introduce us to others.”
“I have already left my card twice with Lady Plummer and Lady Charles,” Stepmother said. “Your father has left his card for Lord Charles. We can do no more. None of them want anything to do with us. I had great hopes of Lord Charles, once — his brother is the Marquess of Barrowford, and just imagine how different life would be if we were inthatcircle! But your father disliked the idea and so it was dropped.”
