The Husband Season. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ a scapegrace like her brother, though she loved him dearly. It had taken a really bad shock and a spell in India for him to come to his senses. To give him his due he had saved the family bacon when it looked as though they would lose everything, including their home, and for that she would forgive him almost anything, even the way he teased her.

      ‘Sophie, you have exhausted all the eligibles in the neighbourhood,’ he told her one day in April. ‘You are fast earning a reputation for being hard to please.’

      ‘What is wrong with that? Marriage is a big decision. I don’t want to make a mistake like Issie very nearly did.’

      ‘And as a consequence will likely end up an old maid.’

      ‘That’s why I want a Season in London. I would meet new people there.’

      ‘A Season?’ he asked in surprise. ‘When did you think of that?’

      She could not tell him she was afraid she was falling in love with Mark and that simply would not do. She had decided that the best cure was to leave Hadlea for a time and try to find a husband to equal him. What better way than a Season in London? ‘I have been thinking about it for a long time,’ she said. ‘Lucy Martindale is having one this year and she talks of nothing else.’ The Martindales had an estate ten miles from Hadlea and Sophie had known Lucinda since they were at school together. They corresponded frequently and often visited each other.

      ‘I can quite see you would not want to be left behind, but what does our esteemed father say to the idea?’

      ‘I haven’t asked him yet.’

      ‘I doubt you will persuade him to take you. You know how coach travel always makes Mama ill, and he would not leave her behind.’

      ‘I know that,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But if Papa won’t take me, you will, won’t you?’

      ‘Good heavens! Whatever gave you that notion?’

      ‘Well, who else will?’

      ‘Ask Jane.’ No one in the family seemed to have given up the habit of saying, ‘ask Jane,’ whenever a problem raised its head.

      ‘Jane is too wrapped up with her baby to leave him, you know that, and Issie is on the high seas somewhere. If you agree to take me, then Papa can have no objection, can he?’

      ‘Ask him first.’

      She found her father in the morning room reading the newspaper, sent down every day from London. He liked to keep abreast of the news, though very little of it was good. There was unrest everywhere, especially in the industrial north, and frequent demonstrations for parliamentary reform, not to mention the unpopularity of the Prince Regent and rumours that he was about to divorce his wife, from whom he was separated. Such a thing was unheard of and set a very bad example to the populace. There was a rumour that, since the death of his daughter and her baby, he was anxious to marry again and produce a legitimate heir. His brothers, none of who had legitimate heirs but plenty of illegitimate ones, were all hastily trying to marry and have children. So far only the Duke of Kent had made any progress in that direction; his duchess was enceinte.

      He laid the paper aside when his youngest daughter tripped into the room, all winning smiles. ‘Papa, dear Papa,’ she wheedled, ‘I have a request to make.’

      He smiled. ‘And I have no doubt it will cost me money.’

      She squatted down on a footstool near him. ‘Yes, I suppose it must, but I know you would not like to disappoint me.’

      ‘Go on,’ he said patiently.

      ‘I should like a Season in London.’

      ‘A Season,’ he repeated. ‘I expected to be asked for a new gown or some such frippery, but a Season! Where did you get that idea?’

      ‘All young ladies of any standing have come-out Seasons. It is how they find husbands. You would not wish me to be an old maid, would you?’

      ‘I doubt there is any fear of that.’

      ‘It is what Teddy said. He said there were no eligibles left hereabouts, so I must look farther afield. He will take me, if you cannot.’

      ‘I would not lay such a burden on his shoulders, Sophie.’

      ‘Then, will you and Mama take me?’

      ‘Sophie, there is no question of you having a Season this year or any other,’ he said. ‘We are not so well up in society as to aspire to such heights. It would cost a prodigious amount of money, which I am afraid cannot be spared. Neither of your sisters had a Season...’

      ‘But they did go and stay with Aunt Emmeline in Mount Street.’

      ‘Sophie, they stayed with her for two weeks, and the purpose of the visit was not a come-out as you know very well. They both found their husbands without recourse to balls and assemblies and tea parties.’

      ‘Yes, but where am I to find another Mark or Drew if I don’t go where I might meet them?’

      ‘Mark and Andrew are estimable young men, but why would you want a husband like them?’

      The reason was her secret, so she simply said, ‘They are my ideal.’

      He laughed. ‘Sophie, you will find the right man for you, all in good time. There is no hurry. You are but nineteen years old. Indeed, too much haste could very well end in disaster.’

      ‘So you will not let me go?’

      ‘I am afraid not. Now leave me to my newspaper.’

      Drooping with disappointment, she left him to find her mother. Lady Cavenhurst was in the garden cutting daffodils from the hundreds that grew there. Sophie poured her woes into her mother’s ears. ‘You will persuade him, won’t you, dearest Mama? You know how important the right connections are to a young lady. There is no hope that I will find a suitable husband in a backwater like Hadlea.’

      Her ladyship continued to cut the flowers and lay them in a trug on her arm. ‘Why this sudden urge to be married, Sophie?’

      ‘It is not sudden. I have been thinking about it ever since Jane and Issie were wed and I felt I should make a push to find a husband like Mark or Drew.’

      ‘You have set your sights very high, child.’

      ‘Why not? Is that a fault?’

      ‘No, dear, of course not.’

      ‘So will you speak to Papa? Aunt Emmeline would have me, would she not?’

      ‘Your aunt Emmeline is old, Sophie. I doubt she goes out and about very much nowadays.’

      ‘Teddy said he will escort me, so you will speak to Papa?’

      Her mother sighed. ‘I will talk to him, but if he has made up his mind there will be no shifting him and I will not press him.’

      ‘Thank you, Mama.’

      Having obtained that concession, which СКАЧАТЬ