18
Mid-March brought with it a false spring; a brief spell of sunshine that had everyone fooled for the fortnight it lasted, improving tempers across the city and turning the attention of many to the London Season. For while most of Bath’s residents remained year-round, many of the wealthier inhabitants—such as Lady Hurley and the Winkworths—would be removing to the metropolis at the end of the month. All seemed energized by the approaching Season, but none more so than Lady Hurley, for no sooner had she spotted Eliza and Margaret at the Pump Room, than she had bustled over, dispensed entirely with pleasantries and invited them to a party.
“Before I leave for London,” she explained, with all the rapidity of an officer delivering a field report, “I have settled my heart on hosting a rout next week, with a little dancing, to bid farewell to Bath, and I absolutely insist you are in attendance.”
Eliza hesitated.
“Do not, I beg of you, say it would be improper!” Lady Hurley said. “Why, Lady Somerset, it must be eleven months since your mourning began! If you are seated, throughout, and do not stay too late, I am sure it cannot be thought in the least remarkable for you to attend a small party at a private residence.”
“Come, Eliza, surely you are allowed some fun, now?” Margaret said.
Oh, dash it. It was not so very improper—she had only a month left of full mourning, after all. She was sure that Somerset would recommend she enjoy herself.
“We should be delighted to attend,” Eliza said. “I have a fancy for a new evening dress, anyhow, and this makes the perfect excuse.”
“I have just come from Madame Prevette, and she has in some ravishing new black gossamer that would look divine,” Lady Hurley said. “Though I did not enquire how much of it remains.”
“Then we must hasten to the modiste before the other widows make a run on it,” Eliza declared, smiling to imagine a flock of black-clad women dashing down Milsom Street.
But Lady Hurley was too busy casting about for the Melvilles to pay heed.
“If I can be sure of their attendance, too, it is likely to be the most modish event of the year, but I cannot find hide nor hair of them. Though perhaps”—she threw a roguish look toward Eliza—“it would be quicker for you to invite Melville, my lady, for I am sure you will see him before I!”
“I do not know what you mean,” Eliza said.
Lady Hurley cackled. “Oh, we all saw you, whispering together at the concert last week,” she said. “And riding together yesterday afternoon! Very cozy.”
She bustled away, without waiting for a response, but Eliza’s cheeks still pinked.
The day before, when Eliza had been suffering from a fit of the sullens—for no matter how carefully she painted, Melville’s ears were still lying awkwardly—Melville had removed the paintbrush from her hand and suggested a ride would clear her mind.
“Now?” Eliza had said uncertainly. “Alone?”
“I would prefer your groom attend us,” he had said, making for the door so that he might change into riding dress. “I suspect otherwise you might attempt a seduction.”
And while it might not be altogether sensible to jaunt about the countryside with an unmarried gentleman at such an unusual hour, even with her groom in attendance—in Bath, one commonly rode before breakfast—after an hour on the hills, breathless and laughing, she had not cared. Now, however . . .
“Pay her no mind,” Margaret advised Eliza, but as they walked to Milsom Street, Eliza could not help but wonder if the gazes upon her had increased in number since last week—whether the ogles were more speculative, whether she could hear her name being whispered by the little flocks of ladies and gentlemen that passed them.
Perhaps it would be wise to keep Melville at arm’s length, in public. For while Eliza might know herself to be as good as engaged to another man, Bath’s quidnuncs did not and there was no need, truly, for them to spend any time in one another’s company outside of sittings. Wise—but tedious. Hang it, Eliza declared to herself, as they pushed into Madame Prevette’s shop. Eliza was not about to make herself unhappy for the sake of appeasing some imaginary gossipmongers. Let them stare, if they like.
The black gossamer was everything Lady Hurley had said it would be, and Madame Prevette promised to have a new creation ready for Eliza by the time of the rout.
“You will be wanting a whole new toilette, soon, will you not?” Madame Prevette asked Eliza, as Margaret considered the merits of primrose versus pomona-green silk. “For your half-mourning?”
“Yes, I suppose I will,” Eliza said, a little surprised. With everything that had occurred with Somerset, she had almost forgotten that the ending of her full mourning meant more than being able to marry him. It would mean the re-entry, at last, into the world of color: very soon, she would be permitted to lighten her dresses and gowns to the greys and lavenders of half-mourning. “Yes indeed, Madame Prevette, I will most certainly need to buy everything new.”
“Perhaps I may show you some of my latest plates from Paris,” Madame Prevette offered, and disappeared briefly into the back. When she returned, it was to find Eliza running her hand enviously over a roll of bronze-green satin, newly arrived. The color was so beautiful.
“Perhaps something in that color? It would suit you very well,” Madame Prevette suggested.
“I would love to . . .” Eliza said. “But even half-mourning would not allow such a rich hue.”
“Not even to save, to look forward to the day you might wear it?” Madame Prevette was an astute saleswoman, and Eliza was immediately intrigued. The idea of the dress of her dreams, hanging in her wardrobe like a promise of better things to come . . .
“Perhaps over a satin slip,” Madame Prevette wondered aloud. “And matching slippers to complete the ensemble?”
Oh, why not?
“You have my measurements?” Eliza said. “And I can count upon your discretion?”
“It will be our little secret,” she said.
Eliza and Margaret bade her farewell with a smile before hurrying home to meet the Melvilles.
“I suppose I ought to have asked if you had a preference on style,” Eliza mused to Melville later, regarding the canvas critically. She hadn’t allowed him to look at the canvas out of an anxiousness that to do so would be to spoil it in some way—though she was pleased with her progress. Without sufficient time to dry the portrait between sittings, Eliza was painting alla prima—laying fresh paint onto wet canvas—and a fortnight in, the bulk of the work was already behind her.
“I’m not sure I have one,” Melville said. “As long as it combines the grandeur of Thomas Gainsborough and the playful insouciance of Thomas Rowlandson, I will be well satisfied.”
“Oh, you want both Thomases, do you?” Eliza said, smiling.
“If you could.”
“I’m afraid it is not at all what I had in mind.”
“No insouciance at all?” Melville checked.
“Not even a little,” she said gravely.
“Alas—though if you can capture my new pantaloons, I shall be satisfied,” Melville said. “Do not, I beg you, heed Caroline: they are the very height of fashion, you know.”
The pantaloons in question were a bright yellow—Caroline had dubbed them, moments before, as “too natty by half”—and appeared to have been veritably molded to his leg in a manner that Eliza might have thought brave, had Melville’s legs been any less fine.
She shook her head.
“I am fixed on the pose,” she told him. “Torso and head, only.”
“Is it a compliment to my face that it is the portrait’s focus?” Melville wondered. “Or an insult to my body to have it ignored?”
“Neither,” she said, smiling. “Merely a reflection upon my lack of study—my full-body portraits always have a somewhat dislocated appearance. To truly be able to convey the proportions of the human form, I would need to study it—fully, privately, as they do at the Royal Academy. But of course, this is certainly not a lesson allowed to women.”
Melville leaned back in his seat, surveying her with a mischievous eye.
“Was this not a tutelage the late earl could offer to you?” he asked.
Eliza did not flush at the question, which she saw as proof of her increasing immunity from his outrageousness.
“The late earl would not have been at all receptive to such a request,” she said. “Had I ever dared to make it.”
“Yours was not a . . . passionate marriage?”
He raised his eyebrows at her, challenging—as if to communicate that he knew full well that this was another shockingly inappropriate line of questioning, and was waiting for her to put a stop to it. But, this time, Eliza would not give him the benefit of feeling smug.
“The late earl saw to his husbandly obligations in the same manner as all his other responsibilities,” she said archly. “That is to say: faithfully, dutifully . . . and with a great deal of brevity.”
Melville gave a shout of surprised laughter. Eliza grinned, giddy and irresponsible.
“Well, as your current subject,” Melville said, “if a more—ah—natural style of deportment would be beneficial to your education . . .”
He lifted his hand playfully to his cravat.
“Please leave your clothes where they are,” Eliza said hastily, though she was still smiling. “Perkins will arrive with refreshments soon, and the sight would only disturb him.”
“I would merely explain to Perkins my altruistic motivations,” Melville said earnestly. “I have long been a supporter of the arts—indeed, I have offered my services to actresses, opera singers, dancers . . .”
Eliza laughed again, loud and uncontrolled, and from the open door came the sound of Margaret cackling, too. The French lesson had been long abandoned—when Eliza had popped into the drawing room to locate her maulstick that morning, both Caroline’s and Margaret’s faces had been worryingly full of smirks. Eliza did not quite like to wonder what they had been discussing, but no doubt it was that particular sort of serrated humor these ladies seemed to enjoy with one another—since February it was as if they had been sharpening their wits upon each other as knives upon whetstones.
“Are you to attend Lady Hurley’s rout?” Melville asked. “I am greatly looking forward to it. Dinner, cards, a little dancing . . .”
“I envy you that,” Eliza said. “I have not been able to dance in such a long time.”
“Is this your chance?” Melville suggested.
Eliza laughed.
“Dance? In full mourning?” she said. “I should be chased out of town with pitchforks.”
“Who would lead the charge?” Melville wondered. “Mrs. Winkworth?”
“Almost certainly,” Eliza said. “She is already regarding my driving lessons with a great deal of consternation—and no doubt squirrelling letters to Lady Selwyn about my behavior.”
This prospect did not worry her as much as it might once have done.
“You believe Lady Selwyn to have recruited a spy?” Melville asked quizzically.
“I would be very surprised if she has not,” Eliza said with a snort. “She will certainly be on the lookout for anything that could—” She broke off. For a moment she had forgotten that the morality clause was a secret.
“Anything that could keep you and Somerset at a distance?” Melville suggested. “I noticed she did not regard your reacquaintance with pleasure—but if your driving has Somerset running for the hills then he is blander than even I suspected.”
“He is not bland!” Eliza protested. She had not told Somerset, yet, about Caroline’s lessons, not out of fear of his reaction, but to ensure herself skilled enough to impress him.
“Then do you need worry over what Mrs. Winkworth writes?”
“I do not worry,” Eliza said, “but it is my fortune that is Lady Selwyn’s greatest interest.”
Melville tilted his head in question—and really, what harm was there in sharing one more secret with Melville, now?
“My lands were originally intended for the Selwyns’ second son,” Eliza explained. “My husband bequeathed them to me, instead, but if I cause any dishonor to the family name, they revert back to Somerset.”
Melville went very still.
“A morality clause,” he said slowly.
“It was the only silver lining for the Selwyns,” Eliza said, working another tiny fleck of color onto portrait-Melville’s cuffs. “If the lands revert, I imagine they would wind their way back to Tarquin eventually.”
“That is . . . diabolical.”
Eliza’s lips quirked at the horror in Melville’s voice.
“You have met them,” she said. “Do you not think it within character?”
“I thought them snide,” Melville said. “And self-serving—but not so malignant.”
He ran a hand distractedly through his hair, more stricken on Eliza’s behalf than she had expected.
“How could they do such a thing?”
“Oh, I am long accustomed to the idea,” Eliza assured him. She had not meant to upset him. “It has not caused me an issue yet.”
“Yet,” Melville said. “You are worried it still might?”
“I used to be,” Eliza admitted. “But not since—”
She broke off, biting her lip.
“Since?”
Eliza hesitated. She did not like to lie, outright, to one she considered a friend—but the idea of informing Melville of such a thing filled her with disquiet rather than gladness.
“Since?” Melville pressed again, more seriously now.
There was no helping it.
“Since Somerset and I are . . . to be married,” she said.
The clock struck the hour, and it was not until the last knell had sounded that Melville spoke.
“I see,” he said. “Yes—I see.”
His face and voice, so blank and rigid, were at curious variance with his hands, which appeared a little unsteady. Melville pressed them into the arms of his chair, as if to cease their minute shaking.
“Of course—I had suspected, as you know.”
Eliza’s stomach twisted.
“Melville . . .” she said, uneasy but uncertain why.
“I wish you very happy,” Melville said. His voice still sounded off.
“Thank you,” she said. Why did this feel so dreadfully uncomfortable?
“Right-o,” Melville said, with insincere cheer, standing abruptly and adjusting his cravat. “I’m afraid I have business to attend to—letters to write, poetry to compose, etcetera, etcetera.” He strode toward the door.
“Melville!” Eliza said, clutching her palette with tight hands. She did not want him to leave—not in such a way . . .
“Melville?”
But he was already gone.