Page 40 of Henrietta

‘They went to get refreshment,’ Hetty said, and if ordinarily she would have been able to tell at once that Lady Allerton was irate, right then she did not spare it a thought. She was too elated.

‘Oh goodness, I shall fetch them – No, Arthur, you fetch a cab, I shall find you out there—’

‘I did it! Arthur,’ Hetty said, gripping his arm, ‘I spoke to a stranger, properly. I asked him questions! I was even – well, I was not strictly amusing, but it was an amusing conversation.’

Arthur laughed. ‘I saw you.’

Hetty felt a hundred feet tall. The euphoria was strange, oddly all-encompassing for an interaction that had been so fleeting, so inconsequential – and, in truth, hardly anything to do with her. For she had only been following the fellow’s lead. But it felt huge, to her. ‘I want to come every evening! Somehow, with a mask … it is as if I can be someone else entirely.’

She spoke with jubilation, but her words had the smile slipping from Arthur’s lips. ‘You don’t need to be anyone else.’

She laughed. ‘Of course I do.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Yourself is enough, I promise.’

Hetty looked away, unable to hold his gaze. It was half painful to hear him say such a thing, for it was so very close to what she wished most in the world to hear from him. She knew better than to think he meant it in the way she wished – not yet, anyway.

‘And if this fellow – your Belgian – is the person you believe him to be,’ he said stoutly, ‘then he will see it too.’

‘It is not so easy as that,’ she said, regarding her feet. ‘If you only knew the ladies he ordinarily pursues. Such great beauties.’

Arthur shrugged. ‘You are beautiful, too.’

He said it without the smallest edge of romance, or even much emotion, but rather the matter-of-fact firmness with which one speaks undeniable truth. It made it better somehow and if Hetty had not been sure before, she was now: this was quite the best night of her life.

CHAPTER XII.

THOUGH the future ramifications of that evening at the Argyll Rooms would eventually prove calamitous, for now Hetty could only see its advantages. It was not the catalyst for an overnight transformation, as such things surely only existed on the stage, but it was a distinct turning point: the freedom she had found that night might not be easily replicated without a mask, but neither was the knowledge of what she was capable easily forgotten.

In the following days, as London was thrown into tumult by the arrival of the foreign royals – with hordes of persons lining the streets to catch a glimpse of the Tsar – Hetty was awash with fresh determination.

Each day, she rode in the park with the Morgans, and each day Arthur added a new person to their midst for Hetty to practise upon. Quite soon, Hetty had half a dozen extra persons she might speak comfortably to at each event. The Morgans of course, but also Colonel Davenport, who – once she had progressed past merely repeating the final word of each of his sentences – she had discovered had family in Vienna, and could easily be prompted to share memories of that fair city. There was Mrs Morgan’s sister, too, and a handful of Arthur’s friends from his regiment, who could each be depended upon to run on for twenty minutes if one asked them which horse they favoured at Newmarket this week.

No one would call her a diamond, but at Lady Sefton’s ball she was conscious of never having felt more confident at an assembly, though there must have two hundred persons crammed into the ballroom, which had been decorated entirely in pink calico, hundreds of yards of material hanging from the ceiling to form the likeness of a huge tent.

‘It’s very novel,’ Lady Allerton observed, looking about herself with no evidence of pleasure. Her ladyship had never before felt the slightest ounce of envy towards other hostesses, knowing her assemblies to be so vastly superior to them all, and yet she was conscious now of a feeling of unease. ‘I certainly do not think pink calico is the right choice. I feel as if I am trapped within a – within some kind of …’

‘Organ?’ Hetty wondered, for this had occurred to her as well.

Lady Allerton shuddered. ‘Hetty, I am not certain you ought to speak of organs.’

‘It’s the pink, I think,’ Arthur decided. ‘It’s disconcertingly flesh-like.’

‘Nor flesh!’

Arthur laughed. His spirits, that night, were just as high as Hetty’s, for it had been a most fruitful week. The racing stables at Newmarket had already been sold, their Brighton property was on the market – Lady Allerton was an enthusiastic advocate for this scheme, feeling salt air to be very drying to the skin – the dower house had been let, and – though it had hurt him to do so – he had instructed his groom to dispose of his beloved bays, keeping only one pair of horses for his curricle. In another Season, Arthur would have hesitated to take so many measures so quickly, fearful it would constitute a proclamation of their troubles; but in this Season he felt secure that there was so much else occupying the ton that no one would pay attention to his affairs. Even before the arrival of the Tsar, his sister the Grandduchess had set tongues a-wagging: it having been generally supposed that a match would be planned between her and one of the Prince Regent’s ducal brothers, she had scandalised Society by displaying near-open contempt for these gentlemen. This was, Arthur supposed, the reason so many noble European families had sent their sons to join the Peace Celebrations that year, to see if they might succeed where the English had failed.

Now, as Lady Allerton surveyed the crowds around her, she noted with mingled pleasure and dismay how many of the faces were unknown to her – pleasure, for it promised an enjoyable evening ahead, and dismay, for Lady Sefton’s triumph only upped the ante for all other hostesses. She forced herself to banish such envious thoughts, however, declaring: ‘I think I will request an introduction from Lady Davenport for this niece and nephew of hers. Her sister married one of the Belgian nobles of Brabant, you know – thankfully the family managed to hang on to most of their land. I cannot see the Marquis, but that must be Mademoiselle Isabelle de Nicolet, over there beside her.’

She gestured across to where a ravishing young female – dressed in unrelieved white satin, veiled by a drapery of silver net – was holding court amongst an adoring crowd of gentleman. Amongst them, Hetty noted with a little concern, were several of those persons who usually formed the centre of Trixie’s court.

She jolted back to attention to find Lady Allerton sweeping away towards Mademoiselle de Nicolet, Arthur following obediently behind, and Timothy acquiescing as though he was bestowing some great favour, muttering: ‘Mr Brummell is not led by the flock.’

Trixie, tossing her head as if to rid herself of an irksome fly, did not follow at all, for at that moment Lord Devereux stole her away for the first dance, while Hetty did her best to tuck herself in her ladyship’s wake and follow along. Except this was no ordinary feat in such a crush of persons, and Hetty only had to allow Miss Corcott to pass by her to be separated from the Allertons. As she hastened to catch them up, a gentlemen moving in the opposite direction had the misfortune to step upon the hem of her gown as it whisked past. Hetty, brought abruptly to a halt, would have fallen had not his hasty intervention prevented it.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I beg your pardon, I did not mean—’ Recollecting her manners, Hetty dipped into a curtsey. ‘How do you do?’