Page 8 of The Viscount's Pearl
“She does me good, Laurence.”
Laurence murmured something that he hoped soundedagreeable, though he could not for the life of him understand what his uncle saw in the girl, who was not only plain (and plainly dressed) but entirely deficient in manners. Her terse replies, her seeming inability to meet his gaze when conversing, her abrupt departure, none of them were what he expected from the daughter and goddaughter of viscounts.
He cleared his throat. “Shall we follow along the promenade?”
“Yes, let us do so. We can talk while Frances gathers her shells. Andrew and Benjamin, you may wait here. We will wave if we have need of you.”
Laurence took hold of the chair and pushed it slowly along, so that they kept pace with Miss Lilley on the beach below them. After a few moments Laurence could not help asking more about her, for he found her presence odd.
“Does Miss Lilley visit you often, Sir?”
“A few times a year, mostly when I can spirit her away from her mama, an excellent woman but altogether too preoccupied with marrying the girl off, for which there is still plenty of time, though she will goonabout it being her fourth season.” He sighed, looking out to where Frances continued along the shoreline. “I am sorry this is the first time the two of you have met, I suppose when you were both very young you were not much in company and when you grew older… well, Frances is not overly fond of meeting new people and you usually visited with your mother, so I would not have invited many other guests, so that I might better savour her company and yours.”
Laurence had stopped listening partway through this explanation, having caught hold of a fact which had caused his eyebrows to raise. “This is to be Miss Lilley’sfourthseason?”
Lord Barrington chuckled. “You sound just like her mother and the rest of theton, Laurence. Who cares how many seasons a girl has? If it takes longer to find one’s soul mate, so be it.”
Laurence was glad he was walking behind his uncle’s chair,for he was aware that his expression would have been in direct conflict with Lord Barrington’s unusual views. Her fourth season? A spinster, then. And hardly surprising, given how she looked and behaved. Her parents must be sorely disappointed. He thought of his two sisters, attractive, cheerful women who had adored balls and pretty dresses as young girls and who had both successfully married in their first seasons. Both were now with child. Miss Lilley would no doubt stumble through this fourth season and then her parents, if they had any sense, would encourage her to forgo excessive social outings. She could take to wearing a cap and continue looking for shells, would no doubt be treated with baffled politeness by the inhabitants of Margate for her all too obvious but harmless eccentricities, protected as she was by wealth, her local connections with Lord Barrington and her titled family. It was possible that she was not entirely right in the head, certainly based on their brief exchange so far and his uncle’s excessive explanations for her behaviour. He felt a little pity for her and resolved to treat her with kindness. She could not help how she was born, after all.
At the end of the promenade the two men paused for a while, looking out to sea, where ships passed on the far horizon and bathers and fishermen came and went close by.
It was annoying, thought Frances as she walked along the sands, that her godfather had seen fit to invite along his heir. The one thing Frances was keen to do was escape the notice of young men, and here was one where she had hoped to find none, and worse, a young man certain that he must pay her attention out of politeness to Lord Barrington, so that he would inevitably ask too many questions in an effort to make conversation. When they were alone, she and Lord Barrington often spent more than half a day at a time barely speaking, only enjoying the amiablecompany of the other. She would bring him a particularly fine shell and he would turn it over in his hands and nod at her description of it, then hand it back and she would be off again. They spoke more at meals, but again there was no sense of obligation to ward off silence. If they wished to speak, they would speak, if not, not. Her mother, had she been with them, would have chattered away incessantly, and no doubt this young man would spoil the silence she had been enjoying. At least she was to stay longer than he was. Frances hoped to stay at least a month and perhaps two if she could keep her mother at bay long enough.
But for now the sand slipped gently under her feet and the sun shone, the gulls cried above and the salt air from the sea was a pleasure to breathe. She found a large mussel shell with a tiny hole bored through it by the sea and beside it a tiny shell which was a plain white and brown from the outside, but inside revealed a delicate rosy pink.Limecola balthicacame in a surprising array of shades of pink or white or brown, always different the one from another. And something out of place – a pale brown and white whorled shell, not a seashell at all, butHelix aspersa,the common or garden snail.Those who did not know their shells often did not notice the difference, and they were pretty enough but Frances never collected them, they were part of the land, not the sea. From time to time the legs and skirts of passers-by interrupted her view, but she did not raise her head to acknowledge their greetings. They were merely an obstacle to her search and she found them irritating. No doubt they thought her odd, rude or even deaf, but she did not care. If she must succumb to the coming season and all its horrors then she was determined to enjoy herself for now, to revel in her collecting and the freedom of life under her godfather’s wing.
The slow stroll along the promenade to the lighthouse and back again, as Miss Lilley prowled the seashore, head always down for the next hour and a half, was pleasant enough. Laurence listened to his uncle speak of Northdown House and Park and its upkeep with interest, for not only was his uncle knowledgeable, but of course one day it would all be his, and he must know how best to manage it or whether it would be better to dispose of it altogether.
“…And I think I will expand the orchard, it has always been a favourite part of the grounds for me, and the trees seem to do remarkably well there, no doubt the gentler seaside weather helps them along, we rarely have hard frosts. The mulberry and cherry in particular are bountiful each year, Mrs Norris can barely keep up with preserving them. I think perhaps espaliered pears along the southern wall would be a welcome addition. Are you fond of pears, Laurence? I recall you were always fond of cherries, you used to eat them in such quantities as made your dear mother fear you would be sick, but you never were. Always climbing the tree and sitting there contentedly, eating cherries by the handful.” He chuckled and Laurence smiled, remembering the happy days when he would visit Northdown with his mother, indulged at every turn by both her and his uncle, the freedoms he had been allowed away from his nursemaid and later his tutor.
“…And speaking of eating, after such an early start I think we should have nuncheon, let us rejoin Andrew and Benjamin, they have care of the provisions.”
The footmen, accustomed to the viscount’s ways, had with them in the carriage not only a large hamper of food but also, strapped to the back, a set of cunningly wrought table and chairs, all of which folded up entirely flat, to facilitate their transport. In a matter of moments, a fully-laid dining table had appeared at the base of the lighthouse and two chairs to go withit for Lord Barrington’s guests, while he himself remained in his wheeled chair. A large roast chicken, individual pigeon pies, an intricately laid out salad platter of salmagundy, bread rolls and butter, cheese and plain biscuits, a lemon syllabub and fresh white grapes as well as little rout cakes, were placed upon the white tablecloth and both lemonade and ale were offered as they began their repast.
“I have never seen such folding furniture.” Laurence popped a grape into his mouth.
“They are naval campaign pieces,” said Miss Lilley, engaged in buttering a roll. “They are designed to take up as little space on board a vessel as possible, as well as to be stored safely in case of a storm and, of course, to be easily transported to one’s destination once land is made.”
Laurence stared at her. He had thought that perhaps she was simple-minded, but now, hearing her speak with authority, he was forced to reconsider that opinion. “I was not aware of such items before,” he said. “How do you come to know of them, Miss Lilley?”
She did not look up, merely held out her plate so that Lord Barrington could help her to the roast chicken, which he had just finished carving. “My younger brother is in the navy. He took me aboard his ship once, that I might see where he would be spending his time. They have very many excellent inventions on board, to take account of the sea’s movements. Hammocks to sleep in, for example, may seem a crude form of bed, but actually they are both comfortable and practical. I tried one myself and found it most agreeable, I suggested to my mother that I might have one in my bedchamber but she disliked the idea.”
She nodded to Andrew, who filled her glass with lemonade, from which she took a small sip. “A hammock is not just for sleeping in. Should a sailor die at sea it is used as his shroud. They dress him in his land clothes, sew him into the hammockwith a cannonball at his feet to weigh him down and put the final stitch through his nose – a superstition designed to keep him in his shroud and prevent his spirit from following the ship – although of course it also serves as a final check that the man really is dead.”
Laurence stared at her. Not only was her topic of conversation unexpected, it was downright inappropriate for a young lady to know of, let alone talk of, such things. The lives and deaths of sailors? Shocking details of their preparation for burial at sea? He was speechless. He glanced at his uncle, but Lord Barrington appeared to be entirely attentive to his meal, although a small smile lurked at the corner of his mouth.
In the ensuing silence, Frances looked up at Laurence, meeting his gaze directly for the first time. “I have shocked you,” she said. “I apologise. My mother is always telling me that gentlemen do not like to hear a lady discourse on anything considered unfeminine.” She gave a resigned sigh. “Would you prefer me to speak of art or music? I have been subjected to enough tuition of each that I can hold a tolerably staid conversation regarding them.”
Now that he was close to her and she was finally looking directly at him, Laurence could see that her eyes were her one redeeming feature. They were a deep grey in colour, very large and fringed with long black lashes. There was, he had to admit, something refreshing in not having a girl simper at him or flutter her lashes excessively. Miss Lilley was speaking to him more in the way his sisters had done as children, directly and honestly, with no artifice or intentions to snare him. He had forgotten what such conversations had been like, when these days every woman he met had her eye on him for matrimony or something else.
Relieved at her offer to change the topic, he tried to steer theconversation back to safer ground. “Are you fond of art, Miss Lilley?”
She nodded and straightened her shoulders, as though accepting a challenge. “Gainsborough’s portraits are very fine. The landscapes in which his subjects are placed show an understanding of nature which can only come from dedicated attention to the details of the natural world, which he was known to study and indeed sometimes created small models of, the better to recreate it in his works. Were you aware that some of the supper boxes in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens were painted by him when he was still an unknown? They are quite charming.”
Unexpectedly, Laurence wanted to laugh. She sounded like a particularly poor actress at the theatre, repeating her lines without any emotion or interest. “Did your mother teach you that monologue?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, without any indication of embarrassment at being found out. “Was it more to your liking?”
He could not help it, he chuckled. “Not really,” he confessed. “I thought it would be but now I think I would prefer you to speak of the navy and their odd practices rather than a topic in which you have clearly been schooled, yet have no real interest in.”
