"He is generally a sweet dog," said Rebecca in answer to my curious glance, "But sometimes he takes a little nibble of someone when he is surprised."
Ah. So they had expected the dog to rip my face off.
Sir Sebastian did not seem inclined to maul me. He wagged his little nub of a tail and looked up at me with his great big adorable eyes which seemed to ask, "Who are you and what will you feed me?"
"Good, he likes you," Margaret said, nodding approvingly. "That will make everything so much easier when I leave him with you."
"Pardon?" Darcy and I said simultaneously.
"Mrs. Bythesea has asked me to visit her, she is very likely dying and I must go to her. The problem is she cannot abide dogs. Cat person, I am afraid. Despite that deficiency she has been my dear friend these sixty years and I really must see her before the end. So I will be leaving Sebby and Dora here with you today—"
"Today?" My husband and I burst out again.
"Yes, today. I must start out immediately if I am to make it in time to see Susan. I could take Dora with me I suppose, but it is no place for a young lady. She is nineteen. I really ought to have insisted she make her come out last year, but she had no inclination and I fear I do not get out much in society these days."
Margaret paused to sigh.
"The poor girl is becoming strange. Last week she got a monstrous beetle in the post. It was dead, thank the Lord, in a little glass box with pins all through it. She was pleased as anything with it."
Without looking up from her book Dora said in the flat tone of one much put upon, "It was a prime example of aNebria Lividia. I needed to illustrate it for Mr. Bartlett's encyclopedia."
"The girl spends all her time sketching insects. It is high time a husband is found for her—before people start calling her eccentric. This would be the perfect opportunity to take her about since Elizabeth must be introduced to everyone anyway. And at this time of year, before the season has really begun, it should be less overwhelming for her. Yes, yes it will work out wonderfully. Elizabeth can be her chaperon—a much better option than having some frightening old woman toting her about. Shockingly, some people find me intimidating."
Her words made me break out in a cold sweat all over. "Me? Be her chaperon? As you said, I will have to be introduced around, I have no acquaintance in town and I would not know—I have no idea—truly there must be someone else."
I looked to my husband pleadingly.
"I must concur, Elizabeth would make a most unsuitable chaperon," said Darcy.
I tried not to be offended at his words. They were exactly what I had been thinking. But really! He had the most insulting way of putting things.
Rebecca saw the hurt cross my features before I could hide it. Cautiously she said, "Though I am sure Elizabeth would be perfectly splendid, would it not be better for me to chaperon Dora?"
"Rebecca, dear child, you are set to whelp any day now, you cannot be taking Dora hither and tither," replied Margaret.
Rebecca's hand flew to her abdomen. "You know? That I am enceinte?"
Mrs. Vane snorted. Margaret cast a glare at her niece.
"Everyone knows, child."
"Everyone?" Rebecca looked entreatingly to James. He reluctantly nodded.
"Oh."
"So you see, it must be Elizabeth," finished Margaret.
"Iought to be the one to chaperon Dora." Mrs. Vane appeared rather put out at having been overlooked.
"Indeed, you ought to be," agreed Margaret cheerfully, "You would be required to face the ton, however. Are you prepared to do so?"
"I—I—oh," Mrs. Vane sputtered. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I never would have believed her capable of anything so indelicate as sputtering. Even more remarkably, she followed up this indecorous display by muttering indistinctly. Then, in high dudgeon, she quit the room.
Margaret sighed. "I know it is not the done thing to wish someone dead, but I do think it would have been better for Constance if Henry Vane were definitely dead rather than having all this uncertainty. If he has done away with himself, as the gossips seem to think he has, it would have been much more considerate of him to have hanged himself or poisoned himself—none of this throwing himself into the river nonsense—and he ought to have left a note. Then he never was a considerate man. Terrible mistake for her to have married him for all his charm.
"Yet, you see, if his body had turned up, at least then she might be certain the shame was all over. As it is he might turn up alive at anytime and heap embarrassment on her allover again. I suppose a body might be found. One that appears enough like Henry to claim it. I know where bodies can be had if one really needs one."
"That does not surprise me at all, Aunt," said James.
