I turned and stared at her. “Do I seem to you so vicious, Mary? So wantonly careless of the feelings of others?”
She coloured immediately. “Not vicious, Jane. Not exactly. But I am always thankful that the regard of a sister prevents you from speaking so frankly as you might, your opinion of me.”
My whole heart went out to her: the soft, round face under the cloud of curls; the wondering eyes of a child. Great strength of mind and purpose was concealed beneath her china-doll looks; and her goodness was unshakeable. But it was true I had disparaged Mary Gibson greatly when Frank first lost his heart to her: a mere girl of Ramsgate, with no more wit than fortune or influence. It was easy to dismiss Mary in her girlhood — but I could never regard the Captain’s wife so lightly now.
“Will you oblige me, my dear — though I hesitate to ask it: will you help me to do up my hair as it should be done, to grace this remarkable hat?”
She jumped down from the bed with her face alight. She had left several younger sisters, some of them barely out in Society, when she quitted Kent a few years ago; and I knew she missed the joys of preparing for Assemblies and balls — all the chatter of a ladies’ dressing room.
She held the Equestrian Hat aloft, her narrowed gaze surveying me in the mirror.
“You must let down the front section of your hair, Jane, for it is far too severe, and part it in the middle, I think. We shall curl the wings in bunches at the temple, and the brim of the hat shall dip just so. Have you, by any chance, a set of hair tongs?”
As she wove the heated iron through my hair, I gripped the gold crucifix tightly in my palm. There would be time enough to clasp it about my throat, once I had crossed the River Itchen.
It seemed that Mrs. Challoner had found an hour to commission her gown — and then had commanded several days and nights of Madame Clarisse’s time. She was breathtaking in her evening dress, of rich white Italian sarcenet; it was embroidered in gold thread with grapevines and leaves that ran across the low bodice and the edge of the cap sleeves. Scrollwork in gold ornamented the hem, which was a full foot shorter than the under-petticoat and train; gold buttons fastened the dress behind. Her hair was combed sleekly back along the right side of her head, and blossomed in curls over her left ear; a circlet of gold and diamonds ornamented her neck, and another the upper part of her arm. With her brilliant complexion and liquid dark eyes, she appeared a triumphant goddess — a victorious archangel, who might equally reward a youth for excellence at sport, or watch him broken under the wheels of a chariot. She was charmingly grouped as I entered the room, in a low chair by the fire, with Mr. Ord standing above her and a little girl of nine or ten on a hassock at her feet. The child wore a simple white gown of muslin, tied with a pale green sash; she was turning over the beads of a bracelet, and talking amiably of the afternoon’s delights. I should mention that the drawing-room of Netley Lodge provided a perfect backdrop to this elegant domestic scene: it was filled with curious treasures, brought from Oporto by Mrs. Challoner, and displayed about the room with artless taste. A brilliant bird, quite dead and stuffed, was posed in a gilt cage in one corner; Spanish scimitars hung from the walls; a drapery of embroidered stuff, in the Portuguese manner, was flung across a sopha; and heavy paintings in oils — dark as the Inquisition — stared down from the walls.
“Miss Austen!” Sophia cried, and rose with alacrity to embrace me. I was startled at the effusion of her welcome, but returned her warmth unquestioningly. “How lovely you look in that gown!”
Her eyes moved lightly over my figure — lingered an instant upon the golden crucifix at my throat, but without any peculiar regard — and took in the effect of the paisley shawl with obvious pleasure.
“I must order a gown just like it, immediately — only not, I think, in black. Then we may be seen to be two girls together, sharing confidences, as we ride about the country in my charming phaeton! Maria — may I have the honour of introducing Miss Austen to your acquaintance?”
At that moment, a lady was entering the drawingroom, in a magnificent gown of deep pink drawn up over a white satin slip; it was fastened at the knee with a cluster of silver roses and green foil, and allowed to drape on the opposite side to just above the bottom of the petticoat. Had she been less stately in her person, the gown might have been ravishing; but as it was, she appeared rather like an overlarge sweetmeat trundled through the room on a rolling cart. Her ample white bosom surged above the tight diamond lacing of her bodice; and a necklace of amethyst trembled in her décolletage.
“Miss Austen — Mrs. Fitzherbert. Maria, this is Miss Austen — my sole friend in Southampton, and a very great adventuress on horseback.”
“A pleasure,” said Maria Fitzherbert. She inclined her head. I curtseyed quite low — for one is so rarely in the presence of a royal mistress, particularly one who believes herself a wife, that I was determined no lack of civility should characterise our meeting. She smiled at me; said a word or two respecting “dear Sophia, and her bruising experience in Oporto,” made it known that she regarded me as an object of gratitude for having taken “dear Sophia” under my wing — and moved, in her ponderous fashion, towards the window seat. There she took up her workbag and commenced to unfurl a quantity of fringe.
I had heard from my cousin Eliza de Feuillide, who knew a little of the lady, that Maria Fitzherbert was the most placid and domestic of creatures; that she loved nothing so much as a comfortable coze in the countryside, particularly at her house on the Steine in Brighton; that the Prince’s predilection for loud company and late hours was the saddest of trials; and that, if left to herself, she would summon no more than three friends of an evening, to make up her table at whist. She must be more than fifty, I presumed, and the sylph-like beauty she had commanded at eighteen — the year of her first marriage, to the heir of Lulworth Castle in Dorset — was now utterly fled. Mr. Weld had been six-and-twenty years her senior, and he had survived his wedding night but three months. She was no luckier in her second union, to Mr. Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton Park and London; for he died but four years after their marriage, along with her infant son. She had been nine-and-twenty when at last the Prince prevailed against her scruples, and persuaded her to be his consort. Now the golden hair was turned to grey; her flawless complexion flaccid. But the Prince was said to prefer portly women.
Mr. Ord crossed the room, apparently to admire Mrs. Fitzherbert’s fringe — his attitude all politeness — but a tug on the tails of his black coat from the little girl in the green sash brought him whirling around, at the ready to tickle her. She shrieked with delight, and hid herself behind the column of Sophia Challoner’s dress; Mr. Ord, however, forbore to pursue her there.
“Minney,” said Mrs. Fitzherbert quietly, “it is time you were returned to Miss LaSalles; come, kiss my cheek and make your adieux.”
The child affected to pout, and cast down her eyes; but she was a dutiful creature, and did not hesitate to peck the matron’s cheek and skip out of the room in search of her governess.
“That is little Mary Seymour,” Sophia informed me in a low voice. “You will have heard of her troubled case, I am certain.”
I had read of Minney Seymour, as she was known, in all the London papers. She was the seventh child of Lord Hugh and Lady Horatia Seymour, the latter a consumptive who had placed the infant in Mrs. Fitzherbert’s care before going abroad for a cure. Poor Lady Seymour, whose husband was a ViceAdmiral of the Royal Navy, had returned to England when her daughter was two — only to die of consumption a few weeks later. Her husband, serving on the West Indies station, had survived her but a matter of months. The child had remained with Mrs. Fitzherbert, much doted upon by the lady and her royal consort — until the Seymour family demanded her return when Minney was four. The furor that then ensued was indescribable.