Mr. Castle stopped under a street light and glared at his companion’s reproachful countenance. “No, nor it ain’t the act of a friend to try to gull a friend neither — not that you can, because I’m wise to you! A man has to do something to survive an evening of speculation!”
“As you say, Barney, but I’ve spent worse evenings in the company of proper young ladies, as have you.”
“Lord, yes! Remember that night old Mrs. Hackley dragooned us into escorting her antidote of a granddaughter to a musicalevening, all because she said your father was her favourite neighbour?”
Jack chuckled. “And the wretched girl insisted on performing —”
“The worst caterwauling I’ve ever heard before or since, give you my word.” With relish Mr. Castle added more lurid details of that long-ago fiasco, which set Jack laughing as the old friends strolled on, in perfect charity with each other once again as they headed for more casual masculine entertainment.
On the drive home after their first social evening, Sophia demonstrated a hitherto unsuspected attribute — total recall of the details of the clothing worn by each and every lady present at the card party. Laura presented her cousin with a symbolic laurel wreath after quizzing her on the finer points of some of the costumes, though she readily admitted that she had no idea whether the answers were accurate or not, since any specific beyond colour would certainly have escaped her own notice.
“Of course it would,” Sophia agreed, “because you have little interest in fashion, but I expect you can identify every plant in any garden we might visit this spring. There is no mystery to it.”
“An astute observation, Sophie, and an echo of my own sentiments,” her aunt said.
Laura could not read her mother’s expression in the dim light from the carriage lamps, but she detected the hint of a reproach in her voice. “I promise faithfully to try to be more conformable in future, Mama,” she said, feeling quite ashamed.
“I shall quiz you on the ladies’ outfits after each engagement, cousin,” Sophia threatened lightly, and Laura was pleased to hear her mother’s soft chuckle.
In a spirit of self-amendment, Laura made a lengthy entry in her journal before climbing into bed that evening, jotting down the names of everyone she recalled meeting at the Bentleys’,even adding some descriptive bits to aid her memory in future encounters.
Late the next morning, Laura ran upstairs to put off her bonnet and place the flowers she’d just purchased in her pink Sevres vase before getting ready for lunch. She saw her cousin in the hall on the second floor as she turned the corner.
“Oh, there you are,” Sophia said, coming toward her.
“Were you looking for me? I told you Sukie and I were going out to do some errands. You wanted to practise your music,” Laura reminded her.
“Yes, and I did. I thought you might have returned while I was still playing, so I brought you this fashion magazine to look over,” Sophia replied, thrusting the periodical at her cousin. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Don’t you want to see what I bought at —” Laura broke off, juggling her packages to accept the magazine and turning to watch the other girl heading for the stairs.
“Later.” Sophia’s raised hand, her fingers wiggling in a dismissive gesture, vanished from sight last of all.
Laura shrugged mentally and proceeded down the hall to her sanctuary. On coming abreast of the schoolroom she heard sounds indicating the presence of Aubrey and his tutor. As she deposited a dozen bright daffodils in her little vase a moment later, Laura’s eyes lighted on the issue ofLa Belle Assembléethat she’d dropped on to the bed with her packages, and her lips twitched into a smile. Sophia must have been serious about testing her on the nuances of fashion. One was never quite sure if Sophia’s words actually reflected her true sentiments. Her hands paused in their task as this odd evaluation surfaced and gained significance.
With one finger delicately tracing the curve of a velvety yellow petal, she suddenly recalled that she had found her cousin intriguing right from the day she’d arrived in London and hadlooked forward to getting to know her. The smile faded from Laura’s lips as it came home to her just how little progress she had made toward this objective. Sophia was quick-witted and articulate, but aside from a love of music, the frivolous aspects of her come-out absorbed all her interest as far as Laura could determine. She was lovely to look at, charming, amusing, casually friendly and amiable, but all that had been evident on the day they met.
There was a little pleat between Laura’s brows as she pondered what she could add to this rough sketch weeks later. Her cousin’s passive disinclination to take over the reins of household management might indicate a lazy nature, or mayhap it was simply a lack of interest in domestic matters at this exciting stage of her life when a constant round of pleasurable activities was almost a duty for a girl of marriageable age. Nor was Laura any more confident in assessing whether Sophia’s amiability sprang from an affectionate nature or was the result of early training in manners.
She was quite clever at forestalling or deflecting her father’s caustic criticism by tactful interventions that smoothed over the fraught atmosphere on occasion. Had these social skills been honed by years of observing her gentle mother demeaned and manipulated by her overbearing father? Laura knew her own father’s frequent criticism had made her overly sensible to slights, but that did not alter the fact that a pattern of slighting behaviour had existed in their home.
Sir Oswald’s occasional references to his dead wife inevitably had a little sting to them. It infuriated Laura that men like her father and uncle, who had obviously chosen their mates solely for their beautiful faces, should later assume they had a right to expect their wives to embody all those qualities of mind and spirit that their infatuation had prevented them from valuing in their youth. She and Sophia had in common the habit ofbristling in defence of their mothers, but Laura allowed that her cousin was more subtle and adept in her responses. This loyalty was one of the qualities she admired in the girl, but it had not brought them closer to a true friendship. It was never mentioned between them. Despite her sunny surface, Sophia remained inaccessible to her tentative advances, swathed as it seemed in a smiling but impenetrable reserve. Compared with her cousin, Laura thought with wry regret, her own nature might almost be considered open and confiding, a description that would surely confound her mother. If Annabelle’s warmth and affection could not pierce Sophia’s reserve, what chance hadsheto succeed?
Sophia was in a sense their hostess and therefore entitled to set the tone for their relationship. Laura arrived at this point while washing her hands before going down to lunch. It would be easy to accept the situation as it stood, knowing their time in Mount Street would be brief, but it did go against the grain to give up without a fight. Laura owned to a number of shortcomings in her character, but a lack of determination and persistence was not among them. She was woefully short of relatives as it was, and it seemed a pity to fail to make a friend of the only one of her own sex and age, all for the want of a little sustained effort. Surely some way of getting closer to Sophia would occur to her if she put her mind to the problem, she reckoned, as she strolled over to the dressing table to check her unruly hair in the mirror. As usual, twisty little tendrils had separated from the mass and now curled wildly around her forehead. An absentminded attempt to restore some order by smoothing her fingers back through her hair produced results that didn’t survive the few paces to the door.
Over the next few days Laura’s optimistic outlook for forging stronger bonds with her cousin went unrewarded. Sophia was her usual cheerful presence at meals and on outings with her aunt and cousin, and she sparkled in company, but during thosehours with no scheduled activity she generally excused herself to play the pianoforte or disappeared into her room. When Laura suggested going to Hatchards one morning to return their borrowed books, Sophia declined on the grounds that she had not finished hers, but urged her cousin to go with Sukie instead so as not to miss her walk. Laura accepted the refusal gracefully and told herself not to read too much into the younger girl’s aura of evasiveness.
Late one morning she opened her bedroom door to see her cousin moving away toward the stairs. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Sophie, I did not hear you knock,” she said in some surprise.
“I must not have used enough force,” Sophia replied, turning and coming slowly back toward Laura. She put her hand into the lace-edged pocket of a very fetching morning gown of pink sprigged muslin with a little pleated frill at the throat, and withdrew a decorative little flagon. “I wondered if you might like to have this perfume I bought last week. It’s a lovely scent but it seems to make me itch and sneeze.”
Laura took the bottle being held out to her and unstoppered it, sniffing at the contents. “Ummm, delicious! Are you certain you did not simply splash too much on at one time?”
“No, no. I fear it just doesn’t suit me. If you like it, please keep it.”
“Thank you, I’d love to have it — that is, if you don’t think my wearing it in the same room will make you feel all sneezy.”
Sophia laughed. “I’ll take care to keep a distance.”
