The following morning as Charlotte was surveying herself in the mirror, adjusting her dress for the tenth time and making sure yet again that her hair was both tidy and at the same time shown to its best advantage, Augusta Balantyne was staring across the breakfast table at her husband.
“Do I understand you correctly, Brandon, that you have engaged some young woman of indeterminate background and restricted means to come into this house and assist you in these family memoirs you are-” her voice froze, “occupied with?”
“No, you do not understand me, Augusta,” he replied over his cup. “Lady Ashworth, whom I gather to be a friend of yours, recommended her sister to me as a woman of intelligence and propriety, who would be willing to put my papers in order and take some notes, as I may dictate them. You will not be required to entertain her socially: though why the matter should concern you, I don’t know. She could not possibly be either plainer or more foolish than some of the women you have in here.”
“Sometimes, Brandon, I think you say such things entirely to provoke me. One cannot order one’s acquaintance on the basis of good looks, or, unfortunately, of intelligence.”
“I think they would be criteria quite as satisfactory as either birth or money,” he opined.
“Don’t be naive,” she snapped. “You know perfectly well what is of value in society and what is not. I hope you do not intend this young woman to eat in the dining room?”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“I had not considered her eating at all. But now that you mention it, perhaps cook had better prepare her something and she can eat in the library, as the governess used to.”
“The governess ate in the schoolroom.”
“The difference is academic.” He stood up. “Have Max show her into the library when she comes. You know, I dislike that man. A spell in the army would do him good.”
“He is an excellent footman, and a ‘spell in the army’ would ruin him. Please do not meddle with the governing of the household servants. That is what we employ Masters for; besides, you know nothing about it.”
He gave her a sour look and went out of the door, shutting it sharply behind him.
Augusta made it her business to be in the hallway at ten o’clock when Charlotte arrived promptly. She saw Max open the door and watched with interest, and an odd mixture of superiority and reluctant approval as Charlotte was shown in. She had expected a dowdy dress and a pinched, submissive face: instead she saw rich wine-colored skirts, a little outdated in fashion, but still flattering; and a face anything but submissive. Indeed, it was one of the most flagrant and willful faces she had ever seen, yet having at the same time a surprising gentleness in the mouth and the soft curve of cheek and throat. Definitely not a woman she wished in her house, not a woman she could like, or understand; not a woman who would be easily governed by the rules of society by which Augusta had lived all her life, had fought and won all her many intricate battles.
She sailed forward in her most frigid manner.
“Good morning, Miss-er?” she raised her brows in inquiry.
Charlotte met her eyes squarely.
“Miss Ellison, Lady Augusta,” she lied without a thought.
“Indeed.” Dislike hardened in her; she smiled barely, “I believe my husband is expecting you.” She glanced at Max who obediently went to the library door and opened it. “I understand you have come to be of some clerical assistance to him.” Best to let her know immediately her standing in the house.
“Miss Ellison.” Max’s heavy-lidded eyes followed Charlotte in, lingering on her shoulders and her waist.
The door closed behind her and Charlotte stood still, waiting for the general to look up. She was no longer trembling inside; Lady Augusta’s patronage had turned her fear into anger.
General Balantyne sat behind an enormous desk. She saw the handsome head, the lean bones of the face. Her interest was immediate. In her imagination she saw the long battle line of history stretch out behind him: Crimea, Waterloo, Corunna, Plassey, Malplaquet…
He looked up. The bland courtesy washed out of his face and he stared at her. She stared back.
“How do you do, Miss-”
“How do you do, General Balantyne. My sister, Lady Ashworth, considered I might be of some service to you. I hope that may be so.”
“Yes.” He stood up, blinking, still staring at her, frowning a little. “She said you had some interest in military affairs. I am setting in some order the history of my family, which has served with distinction in every great battle since the time of the Duke of Marlborough.”
Thoughts as to how she should answer flashed through Charlotte’s mind.
“You must be very proud,” she said honestly. “It is a good thing you should record it accurately for people to know; especially those in the future, when the men who can remember our great battles are gone.”
He said nothing, but his shoulders straightened as he considered her, and there was a very small smile at the edges of his mouth.
In the rest of the house the usual business of the morning was conducting itself, housemaids and upstairs maids and ladies’ maids were all furiously occupied. Augusta was supervising because she was expecting guests of great social importance for dinner, and also because she had nothing else to do. At half past ten she could not find the tweeny. The wretched girl had left a distinct rime of dust on the frames of the pictures on the landing-it showed gray on Augusta’s finger-and the child was nowhere to be seen.
Augusta had long known the favorite bolt hole of idle servants, between the stillroom and the butler’s pantry, and she now repaired to it with some determination. If the girl was loitering among the footmen or bootboys, she would give her a criticism that would not lightly be forgotten.
At the stillroom door she stopped, conscious that there was someone in the small room beyond. There was a whispered voice, she could not hear the words, nor even if they were spoken by a man or a woman; then the rusle of-surely not silk-on a maid?
She pushed the door open soundlessly and saw black-suited arms cradling a taffeta bodice, and over the slender shoulder the sloe-eyed, sensuous face of Max, his lips on the white neck. She knew the neck, knew the elegant coils of dark hair. It was Christina.
Please, dear heaven, they had neither of them seen her! She could not look anyone in the face at this moment. Her heart rose cold in her chest, beating painfully. She backed away from the door. Her daughter, giggling, in the arms of a footman! Horror froze her normally agile brain. Icy, paralyzing minutes passed before she could even begin to think what to do about such a monstrous thing, how to nullify it, obliterate it from existence. It would take work, skilclass="underline" but it must be done! Otherwise Christina would be ruined. What man of birth in his right mind would marry her after this, if it were known?
FOUR
Reggie Southeron sat in the library in his house and stared out at the leafless trees in Callander Square. The gray November sky scudded past above them and the first heavy gusts of rain clattered on the glass. He had a schooner of brandy on the small table beside him and the decanter winked comfortably in the firelight. Under any other circumstances he would have been entirely happy, but this miserable business in the gardens was causing him a nagging anxiety. Of course he had no idea who might be responsible-any one of a score! There was little else of entertainment in a servant’s life, and everyone knew that most of the girls, especially those who came up from the country to improve themselves, were not averse to a little fun: at least everyone who kept an establishment of any standard. But it was possible that someone like the police, who were, after all, no better than tradesmen or servants themselves, held quite a different view. Some police, the local ones in the country, for example, knew how to be discreet; but it was a different case with the London men who were used to dealing with the criminal classes in general, and in all probability had no concept of social rank or refinement.