Penelope’s beautiful eyes narrowed as they surveyed Belinda. There was something definitely odd about that young woman. Her arrival on the scene seemed just too opportune. Perhaps she had engineered the accident, thought Penelope pettishly, not stopping to consider that the idea of any young lady causing a coach to crash down in an icy river in the faint hope that the marquess would come riding by was stupid in the extreme.
Penelope had been told from her earliest days that she was beautiful beyond compare. She had practised a certain elegance of manner but had stopped there at improvement, considering her looks enough to contribute to any company.
Belinda, on the other hand, had assiduously practised the art of conversation to make up for what she felt was her own lack of attractions. She turned to the marquess and began to speak.
3
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike.
Alexander Pope
‘It is most generous of you, my lord,’ said Belinda, ‘to provide us with shelter and accommodation.’
‘My pleasure, I assure you, Miss Earle. Do you reside with family in The Bath?’
‘I am to stay with Great-Aunt Harriet.’
‘And shall you make your come-out there?’
‘I have already made my come-out, my lord, at the last Season. I am now going “in” again.’
He looked at her curiously. ‘And why is that?’ Belinda hesitated while vermicelli soup was served. She was aware of Penelope’s eyes resting on her, and somehow aware that Penelope’s shell-like ears were straining to catch every syllable. She must not tell this marquess or anyone about the footman. Who would understand, except perhaps someone like the odd Miss Pym? To say one had run away with a footman suggested a world of unladylike passion. ‘I did not take,’ she said calmly. ‘I am lucky to be only travelling as far as The Bath. I could just as well have been sent to India or to some battlefront in hope that my not-too-obvious charms might catch the eye of a homesick member of the East India Company or some war-weary soldier.’
‘You are very frank,’ commented the marquess, feeling sure he should disapprove of any lady who openly ran down her own attractions and appearance, and yet finding in himself an odd desire to instil some much-needed vanity into Miss Earle. ‘You should not disparage yourself,’ he pointed out. ‘People will take you at your own valuation. If you go about saying openly, “I am not attractive,” then you will, I may say, find that people think you so. Which would be a pity.’
‘How so?’ demanded Belinda, her eyes dancing.
‘They might then fail to notice that your figure is good and your eyes very fine.’
Belinda should have blushed and lowered her eyes. Instead she looked at him in open gratitude. ‘Do you really think so?’ she asked. Then her face fell. ‘But of course you do not. You are merely flirting with me as a matter of form.’
‘I never flirt,’ said the marquess frostily.
‘Do you not? I long to be able to flirt with ease, but I have an unfortunate habit of telling the truth. Not all the truth all of the time, don’t you see, for if you asked me if I were enjoying myself at present, I would be obliged to say, “Yes,” for it would be churlish to say else.’
‘Obviously then you are not enjoying yourself. What is wrong? You may speak freely. Your honesty amuses me.’
‘Well … well, it is just that I sense you have offended your guests by expecting them to dine with passengers from the stage.’
He stiffened. ‘My guests have too much breeding to betray either like or dislike.’
‘Unlike me, you see what you want to see.’ Belinda lowered her voice. ‘Regard how dainty Mrs Judd takes little sips of soup with a hand that trembles with nerves. Miss Jordan is aware of her discomfort and so she stares at her openly – that is, when she is not straining to hear what we are saying – in the hope of making her feel worse. Sir Henry and Lady Jordan maintain an icy silence.’
He had promised not to be offended, but he found he was becoming very angry with her indeed. ‘In that case,’ he said coldly, ‘I suggest you turn your attention to Mr Judd on your other side and I shall devote myself to Miss Pym.
As he turned away, he heard Belinda mutter, ‘I should have known you would be angry.’
The soup had been removed and fried whitebait was being served.
Hannah’s sharp ears had heard most of the interchange between the marquess and Belinda. She felt impatient with that young lady. If that was how she had gone on during her Season, then no wonder she had not found any suitable beaux.
‘Are you a friend of Miss Earle?’ She realised the marquess was asking her.
‘I am now, my lord,’ said Hannah. ‘But it is a friendship of very short duration, having only started when I joined the coach.’
‘I understand that you like to travel, Miss Pym?’
‘Oh, so very much,’ said Hannah. ‘It is an excellent way of meeting people.’
‘Odso! I was given to understand that although a variety of classes travel together on the stage, they hardly ever exchange a common civility.’
‘True,’ agreed Hannah. ‘But this is such an adventure.’ Her large strange eyes, which changed colour according to her mood, glowed green with excitement.
‘But wading through an icy river in winter is most people’s idea of hell rather than a gay adventure, Miss Pym.’
‘I am very tough,’ said Hannah. ‘I only hope the same can be said for poor Miss Wimple, and Mrs Judd is not at all strong in spirit.’
‘Have you always travelled?’
‘Oh, no, my lord. I always dreamt of it, but it did not become possible until this year, when I received a legacy from a relative. I plan to go the length and breadth of England. This is a wonderful castle. I thought such piles as this would have fallen into ruins.’
‘It amuses me to maintain it in its original splendour, on the outside at least,’ said the marquess. ‘I do not think I should find stone-flagged floors covered with rushes inside at all comfortable. But you do not take wine, Miss Pym.’
‘Although I have a great deal of stamina,’ said Hannah, ‘I fear, after the exhaustion caused by the recent accident, that wine would go straight to my head. The negus before supper was enough, I thank you.’
The marquess glanced across Hannah to where Belinda was making an obvious effort to put Mr Judd at his ease. Mr Judd, it appeared, was a music teacher at a ladies’ seminary in Bath. Belinda was saying teasingly that he must break the hearts of all his young ladies, and Mr Judd was growing visibly more expansive and swell-headed. For a young lady who claimed she did not know how to flirt, she was doing very well, reflected the marquess. He was aware that the Jordans were sitting in icy silence and felt impatient with them. He would expect, in any wife he chose, the same ease of manner with his tenants as with his peers. But the candle-light played softly on the whiteness of Penelope’s arms and on the glossy tresses of her hair and instead of blaming her for her cold behaviour, he felt obscurely it was all this Miss Earle’s fault. He could not, for example, possibly contemplate marriage to any female as farouche as Miss Earle. One would never know what to expect from her from one moment to the next. And on that thought followed another, treacherous one: that it was very boring to know exactly what anyone would say and do from one moment to the other.