Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [13]
“They struggled on for a full three minutes,” Emily said finally, “getting louder and louder, trying to outdo each other, till the chandeliers rattled. Charlotte and I couldn’t bear it any longer. We stood up at precisely the same moment and fled through the chairs, falling over people’s feet, till we collided in the doorway and almost fell outside, clasping each other. We gave way and laughed till we cried. Even Mama, when she caught up with us, didn’t have the heart to be angry.”
“Oh, how that takes me back!” Vespasia said with a broad smile, dabbing at the tears on her cheeks. “I’ve been to so many ghastly soirees. Now I shall never be able to listen to an earnest soprano again without thinking of this! There are so many fearful singers I should like such a thing to happen to—it would be such a mercy for the rest of us.”
“So should I,” Tassie agreed. “Starting with Mr. Beamish and his songs of pure womanhood. I suppose with a little foresight it could be arranged?” she added hopefully.
“Anastasia!” Mrs. March said, with ice in her voice. “You will do nothing of the sort. It would be quite irresponsible, and in the worst possible taste. I forbid you even to entertain the idea.”
But Tassie’s smile remained radiant, her eyes faraway and shining.
“Who is Mr. Beamish?” Jack Radley asked curiously.
“The vicar,” Eustace said frostily. “You heard his sermon on Sunday.”
Great-aunt Vespasia smothered a deep gurgle in her throat and began to take the stones out of her grapes assiduously with a silver knife and fork, placing them with elegant fingers on the side of her plate.
Mrs. March waited impatiently. At last she stood up, rustling her skirts noisily and tweaking the tablecloth so the silver rattled, and George snatched at a swaying glass and caught it just as it overbalanced.
“It is time the ladies withdrew,” she announced loudly, fixing first Vespasia and then Sybilla with a stony stare. She knew Tassie and Emily would not dare disobey.
Vespasia rose to her feet with the grace she had never lost; the air of moving at precisely her own speed, and the rest of the world might follow or not, as it chose. Reluctantly, the others rose also: Tassie demure; Sybilla svelte, smiling over her shoulder at the men; Emily with a sinking feeling inside her, a taste of Pyrrhic victory fast losing its savor.
“I’m sure something could be contrived,” Aunt Vespasia said quietly to Tassie. “With a little imagination.”
Tassie looked confused. “About what, Grandmama?”
“Mr. Beamish, of course!” Vespasia snapped. “I have longed for years to take that fatuous smile off his face.”
They swept past Emily, side by side, whispering, and on into the withdrawing room. Spacious and cool in pale greens, it was one of the few rooms in the house Olivia March had been permitted to redecorate from the old lady’s taste, which was dictated at a time when the weight of one’s furniture indicated the worthiness and sobriety of one’s life. Later, fashion had changed, and status and novelty became the criteria. But Olivia’s taste flowered during the Oriental period, around the International Exhibition of 1862, and the withdrawing room was gentle, full of soft colors and with only sufficient furniture to afford comfort, quite unlike old Mrs. March’s boudoir. The other downstairs sitting room was all hot rose pinks, with drapes over mantel and piano, and jardinières, photographs, and antimacassars.
Emily followed them and took her seat, after offering token assistance to old Mrs. March. She must keep up the act every moment until she was alone in her room. Women especially notice everything; they would observe the least flicker of expression or intonation of the voice, and they would interpret it with minute understanding.
“Thank you,” Mrs. March said tersely, rearranging her skirts to fall more elegantly and patting her hair. It was thick and mouse gray, elaborately coifed in a fashion common thirty years before, during the Crimean War. Emily wondered fleetingly how long it had taken the maid to dress it like that. There was not