Джорджетт Хейер - Black Sheep

A little before eight o’clock, at the close of a damp autumn day, a post-chaise entered Bath, on the London Road, and presently drew up outside a house in Sydney Place. It was a hired vehicle, but it was drawn by four horses, and there was nothing in the appearance of the lady who occupied it to suggest that a private chaise, with her own postilions, would have been rather beyond her touch. She was accompanied by a middle-aged maid; and she was attired in an olive-green redingote of twilled silk which so exactly fitted her admirable figure that any female, beholding it, would have recognized at a glance that it had been made for her by a modiste of the first stare. It combined the simplicity of a garment designed for travel with an elegance only rivalled by the hat which becomingly framed Miss Abigail Wendover’s face. No curled plumes or bunches of flowers adorned this confection: it was made of gros de Naples , bound with a satin ribbon; its poke was moderate, and its crown shallow; but it was as fashionable as the redingote.

The face beneath it was neither that of a girl in her first bloom, nor that of an accredited beauty, but it held an elusive charm which was centred in the lady’s eyes, and the shy laughter which lurked in them. They were gray, and they held a great deal of intelligence; but her other features were not remarkable, her mouth being too large for beauty, her nose too far removed from the classical, and her chin rather too resolute. Her hair was neither fashionably dark nor angelically fair, but of a soft brown. It was not cropped, after the prevailing mode; she wore it braided round her head, or in a knot from which curls fell about her ears. Occasionally, and in defiance of her niece’s vehemently expressed disapproval, she tied a lace cap over it. Fanny said that it made her look like an old maid, and cried out indignantly when she answered, in her pretty, musical voice: “Well, I am an old maid!”

It seemed as if her arrival had been eagerly awaited, for hardly had the chaise drawn up than the door of the house which was her home was flung open, and a footman came hurrying out to let down the steps of the chaise. He was followed by an elderly butler, who handed his mistress down, beaming a welcome, and saying: “Good-evening, Miss Abby! Well, and it is a good evening which brings you home again! I am very happy to see you, ma’am!”

“Oh, and so happy as I am, Mitton!” she responded. “I don’t think I was ever away for so many weeks before! Is my sister well?”

“Pretty stout, ma’am—barring a touch of rheumatism. She was a trifle down pin when you first went away, and took the notion into her head that she was of a consumptive habit—”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Abby, in comical dismay.

“No, ma’am,” agreed Mitton. “It was no more than an epidemic cold, which left her with a little cough—as the new doctor was able to convince her.” His tone was one of bland respect, but there was a twinkle in his eye, which drew an involuntary chuckle from her. The twinkle deepened, but all he said was: “Very glad she will be to see you, Miss Abby. Quite on the fidgets she has been for hours past, fearing that there might be another put-off.”

“Then I must go up to her immediately,” Abby said, and went with a light step into the house, leaving Mitton to extend a gracious welcome to her attendant.

Since the struggle for position between the butler grown old in the service of the family, and the one-time nurse to its three younger daughters, was unremitting, Mrs Grimston took this in bad part, detecting a note of patronage, and merely adjured him never to mind how she did, but to take care of Miss Abby’s jewel-box.

Meanwhile, Abby, running up the stairs, found her sister awaiting her at the top of the first flight. Miss Wendover, enfolding her in a fond embrace, shed tears of joy, and begged her, in one tumbled speech, to retire instantly to bed after the fatigue of her journey; to come into the drawing-room; not to put herself to the trouble of uttering a word until she should be perfectly rested; and to tell her at once all about dear Jane, and dear Mary, and dear Jane’s sweet new baby.

Sixteen years separated the sisters, for they were the eldest and the youngest members of a numerous family, three of whom had died in infancy, and one, the first-born son, when his only child was hardly out of leading-strings. Between Selina, on the shady side of forty, and Abigail, with a mere eight-and-twenty years in her dish, there now intervened only James, Mary, and Jane. It was with Jane, married to a man of considerable property in Huntingdonshire, that Abigail had been sojourning for the better part of the past six weeks, having been summoned to support her sister through the disasters which had befallen her. Measles had attacked her youthful family, and at the very moment when Nurse, falling down the backstairs, had broken her leg, and while she herself was in hourly expectation of presenting Sir Francis with a fourth petit paquet . In a letter heavy with underscorings, Lady Chesham had implored her dearest Abby to come to her at once, and to bring Grimston with her, since nothing could prevail upon her to abandon her beloved children to a strange nurse’s care.

So Abigail had posted away to Huntingdonshire, where she had remained for five weeks, under trying conditions, all three children having succumbed to the measles before her arrival, her sister being brought to bed within two days of it, and her brother-in-law, at no time remarkable for amiability, apparently labouring under the conviction that this unfortunate concatenation of circumstances had been designed for the express purpose of causing him to suffer the maximum amount of undeserved hardship.

“You must be worn to a thread!” Selina said, leading her into the drawing-room. “And then to be obliged to go to London, in all that racket and bustle! I don’t think Mary should have asked it of you!”

“She didn’t: I invited myself, as a reward for not having got into a quarrel with Sir Francis. Never have I known a more glumpish, disagreeable man! I sincerely pity Jane, and forgive her all her peevishness. You can’t conceive how glad I was to see George’s good-humoured countenance when I reached Brook Street, and to be made so welcome by him and Mary! I enjoyed myself very much, and did a vast deal of shopping. Only wait until you see the bonnet I’ve brought for you: you will look charmingly in it! Then I bought ells of the prettiest muslins for Fanny, besides a quantity of fripperies for myself, and—But where is Fanny?”

“She will be so vexed not to have been here to welcome you!”

“Fiddle! why should she be? It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Then I collect she is at the cotillion-ball?”

“I thought there could be no objection,” Selina said, a little defensively. “Lady Weaverham invited her to dine, and to go to the Upper Rooms afterwards, in her party, and I consented to it, having then no apprehension that you would be with us again today.”

“Why, of course!” said Abby. “Very uncivil of Fanny it would have been to have cried off!”

“Exactly so!” said Selina eagerly. “With Lady Weaverham, too—such an amiable woman, as I know you must agree! Besides having two daughters, which makes it so particularly kind in her to have invited Fanny! Because it can’t be denied that our dearest is the prettiest girl in Bath!”

“Oh, out of cry! As for Lady Weaverham, no one could be more amiable—or more shatterbrained! I wish—No, never mind! I’m glad she has taken Fanny to the ball on this occasion, for I must talk to you about Fanny.”