Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [19]
“Good evening Charlotte, my dear,” she said calmly when she reached the top. “I assume you are standing in for Emily?”
“I am afraid she is not feeling well this evening.” Charlotte dropped the very slightest curtsey. “She will be terribly disappointed not to have seen you, but I am delighted to be in her place.”
Vespasia smiled with perfectly genuine pleasure, inclined her head in acknowledgment, spoke warmly to Jack, and then swept past to join the throng in the first reception room. As she entered there was a hush, a turning of heads and a quick murmur of appreciation. Everyone knew who she was. Fifty years ago she had been one of the great beauties of her day, and even now at eighty she had a structure of bone and a hairline across the brow that made many a younger woman envious. She was frailer than she had been even a short while ago, but she still held her head as if her tiara were a crown, and could with a glance freeze an impertinent comment on the lips of an unfortunate offender.
Charlotte felt a lift of pleasure, almost excitement, as she watched Aunt Vespasia disappear among the crowd. With her here the whole evening would have a quality of glamour and purpose far deeper than a mere social exercise. Something of importance might be begun.
A few moments later she welcomed Mr. Addison Carswell and his wife. Emily had told her he was a magistrate of considerable influence, sitting in one of the central city courts. He was not a remarkable man in appearance, of average height and slightly stocky build. His hair was receding although it was still thick from the top of his head backwards, but it was nondescript brown, and his mustache was minimal, his cheeks clean shaven. It was only when she was speaking to him in the usual polite, rather stilted phrases that she observed the strength of his features, and the intelligence in his eyes. It was a face of good balance, and without meanness.
Mrs. Carswell was a solid woman, strong and thickset, but her face was handsome in its own fashion, with straight nose, steady eye and a candor of bearing that indicated an inner calm. This social whirl might find her out of her depth. She looked the kind of woman who had no ready wit to swap comments with the ladies of high fashion, but neither would she need it for her happiness. Her values might rest largely in her home and family.
Accompanying their parents were the four Carswell daughters, each presented in turn. The eldest, Mary Ann, had come with her husband, Algernon Spencer. He was a large, rather bluff young man with too much hair for the current mode, but presentable enough otherwise. Mary Ann herself was as pleased as any girl might be who has succeeded in marrying reasonably well, and ahead of her sisters.
Miss Maude, Miss Marguerite and Miss Mabel were all fair haired, rose skinned and comely enough, if rather too like each other to be easily told apart or offer any memorable individuality. They all curtseyed gracefully, looked under their eyelashes with modest expressions of pleasure, and proceeded up the stairs to take their places, be presented to whomsoever their mother chose, or could arrange, and talk inconsequentially but with charm. They had been well schooled in their duty and knew it down to the last glance, murmur, gesture of fan and swish of skirt. No doubt within the next two seasons even the youngest of them would find a suitable husband, which was quite necessary, since two seasons was all society permitted a young woman before writing her off. Naturally they were all dressed in white, or as close to it as made little difference.
On this occasion their brother, Mr. Arthur Carswell, was not with them, having decided to go to a different function, because there would be present at that a young lady whose hand in marriage he aspired to win.
A little behind the Carswells Charlotte was delighted to see Somerset Carlisle.