Page 29 of A Marriage is Arranged
When she returned home after her walk, Louise would usually have tea in what was now known as her ladyship’s sitting room. She had started doing her caricatures again: the guests at the wedding breakfast, the personalities observed during her walks. She would smile to herself remembering their peculiarities. She kept her portfolio of drawings in her rooms upstairs, and Rose would giggle over them.
“I don’t know why, but there’s more odd-looking folks in Lunnon than there ever is at ’ome,” she observed one day.
“Perhaps you’re right. More people with money to indulge their whims, that’s certain,” Louise responded. “But I think it’s also because people live closer together, so we see more in a smaller area. But there are odd characters at home, too. I mean, remember the two Miss Trotters and their hats decorated with the fur and feathers from all their animals?”
“Oh yes! And that time their cat died and they ’ad ’er stuffed and stuck right on top o’ one of their bonnets?” Rose gave a hoot of laughter. “Pity you never did a drawing of them!”
About ten days after the wedding, Louise was surprised one afternoon when Lisle came into her sitting room and announced, “The Dowager Countess, Lady Esmé, my lady,” and the Earl’s grandmother swept in.
“Don’t get up, my dear!” she cried as Louise rose, “I should be leaving you in peace, but I wanted to see how final plans are progressing for the Ball.”
“Very well, my lady,” replied Louise. “I know Mrs. Smith sent the menu and flower choices for your approval, and the musicians and dance master were interviewed and chosen weeks ago. You left me nothing to do except choose the color of the carpet for the front steps. Because it’s been so long since a Ball was held here, Mrs. Smith turned out all the old diaries to see what was done in the past. It has always been red, as one might expect, so I left it at that.”
She took a breath. “I know it’s a little unusual, but I’ve decided to allow guests access to the back garden. I’m going to have the breakfast room cleared and the door wide open so there will be a clear path to the French windows and the garden. It’s so pretty and the evenings are warm. I’ve spoken with the gardeners and they will be putting lanterns in the trees. I hope you approve.”
The Dowager gave a little laugh. “It’s your home, my dear, you must do what you like. Moonlight and lanterns? The younger set will adore it! It will be interesting to see how the Mamas deal with the effect it’s all bound to have on their daughters!”
“Oh dear, I didn’t think of that!”
“Don’t worry, Louise. It’s a charming idea. I’m all for it! What does Gareth think?”
Louise grimaced. “I haven’t asked him. Like you, he told me this is my home and to do as I like. Let’s hope he meant it!”
“I’m sure he did. But what is this?”
The Dowager’s eye had fallen on a caricature Louise had just completed. It was the comic image of a lady she had observed that afternoon. She was clearly doing her best to hold on to her faded youth. Her improbably yellow hair curled from under a chip bonnet that would have been suitable for a girl just out of school, and the bright red circles on her cheeks demonstrated enthusiasm rather than expertise on the part of whoever applied them. She was very thin; her arms were like sticks and her head bobbed on a neck that looked too narrow to carry it. She was wearing a gown much too young for her, in a fine muslin that was almost transparent in the sunlight. The low neckline revealed a raddled décolleté swathed in row upon row of multicolored beads. She teetered along the linkway carrying a lace parasol. She looked not unlike a marionette and that is how Louise had drawn her, her thin arms held by strings and her rouged-cheeked head nodding above.
Lady Esmé picked up the drawing. She trilled a laugh. “Why! It’s Caroline du Bois! It’s her to the life. What a silly creature she is, to be sure! You know, she was lovely when she was young, but with the sort of ethereal beauty that doesn’t last. She faded before she was thirty, poor thing. Maurice du Bois left her very well provided for and she spends her money trying to regain her youthful looks. The cures that woman has been on, and the diets! I heard she was eating nothing but pickled cabbage at one point. Please, Louise, may I show it to a friend? She was desperately in love with Maurice but Caroline pipped her to the post. She never really got over it. It would do her so much good to see this!”
“Well, yes, of course, though I wouldn’t like it to get into this Caroline’s hands. I just do them to amuse myself, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let it out of my possession!”
At this point, Lisle came in with the tea things. Lady Esmé put the caricature in her reticule and the conversation turned in a different direction.
“You have ordered new gowns, I hope,” said the Dowager, looking narrowly at her granddaughter-in-law’s ill-fitting garment.
“Yes. Luckily, I am not yet going into society, so my lack of wardrobe has not been an inconvenience. Véronique has promised a day dress and an evening gown this week. She said I should wear my wedding dress at the Ball.”
“Quite right. It is truly a beautiful creation. Shall you wear the tiara?”
“I should like to, but neither I nor Rose can manage my hair.”
“Then you need a new dresser.”
“Oh, no. Rose suits me very well and I like her.”
She didn’t tell the Dowager about their companionable walks or the shared memories from home that buoyed her up when the situation with her husband preyed on her.
“Then I’ll send Booth over on the night of the Ball. Perhaps she can teach young Rose what to do.”
That night, Louise lay in bed thinking about the Ball. Her anticipation of the fast-approaching event was one of excitement mixed with dread. Neither the Dowager nor Gareth knew it, but it would be her first. She had been to a few informal routs and small dance-parties while still at school, but her father’s death soon after she had come home had prevented her from going to any real Balls.
She had had dancing lessons at school, but most of her experience had been partnering other girls in country dances and Cotillions with set figures. To be sure, they took turns with the dancing master, but he had to be shared amongst a dozen of them. Then, just before Louise left school, a new headmistress had been appointed. She was a very forward-looking individual. It was she who had encouraged the girls to read Mary Wollstonecraft, and even more daringly, she had introduced the Waltz.
Louise had loved it, finding it almost impossible to sit still when the lilting music was playing, but the only man she had ever danced it with was the dancing master. He was a middle-aged, slightly portly gentleman with a large family, deliberately chosen, in fact, because he roused no flutterings in the young maidens’ breasts. She now thought if the Earl put his arm around her waist, the hammering of her heart would be loud enough for everyone to hear. And what if she stepped on his toes? She blushed in the darkness of her bedchamber just thinking about it.