Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor by Stephanie Barron Read Free Book Online Page B

of the Indies. Madame has made her life business the social launching of her two girls, as she calls them—meaning her daughter Fanny and her orphaned niece Isobel. She talks enough for a household; we may perhaps impute her husband's demise these two years past to a surfeit of his lady's conversation. I should listen to it with better grace if her manners were equal to her niece's; but Madame Delahoussaye's pride in her station has been too strongly felt. When I appeared at Isobel's side at the commencement of the ball, the aunt swiftly took the measure of my gown; learned that my father is a clergyman; and thereafter reserved her brilliance for others more obviously favoured by fortune.
    Far from feeling too great an oppression at her niece's tragic loss, Madame Delahoussaye has busied herself since the Earl's death in sending orders to her favourite London warehouses, in preparation for the household's adoption of mourning; she is wearing even now the gown that graced her late husband's twelvemonth, 3 but is rather put out at its decided lack of fashion. She frequently delivers her opinions—that the Earl should have kept to the lemon-water she prescribed for his health; that the fees to the London physician had better have been saved; and that Isobel should quit Scargrave for Town as soon as the funeral is done—the better to bring Fanny her Season of enjoyment, for the poor child is not growing any younger.
    From Fanny's marriage prospects, Madame inevitably turns to the latest style of mourning in France—a nation which, I feel compelled to point out, has had ample scope for study in the art under Buonaparte. Any observation of an historic or political nature must be lost on Madame Delahoussaye and her daughter, however; their heads are formed neither for penetrating discourse nor serious debate. Miss Fanny attends to her mother's recommendations with the greatest care, and is forever engaged in the drawing up of lists, which must be designed to keep a multitude of milliners in goose-and-pudding for the coming year. Lacking their funds and their instinct for elegance in the midst of sorrow, I must content myself for the nonce with whatever grey muslin be in my possession; and for my part, there all attempt at mourning shall end.
    I should do Fanny Delahoussaye an injustice if I did not set down that she styles herself very fine, indeed. Having spent hours poring over the pages of Le Beau Monde , 4 she is never seen in anything less than the most breathlessly current of gowns. Though given to riotous colour in her evening dress, she prefers a young lady's natural choice for day—white muslin or lawn—in the knowledge that it renders her pink-and-gold perfection even more angelic. And since pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked, I have resolved to thrust my own white lawn to the side for the duration of my Scargrave stay. Such an invitation to comparison between myself and Miss Delahoussaye must be invidious.
    Born like Isobei in the Indies, though schooled in London, Fanny's chief business at nineteen appears to be the getting of a husband. She and her mother must needs be at cross purposes in this: Madame Delahoussaye favours the newly-titled Earl, Fitzroy Payne, as any mother should do, while Fanny displays a clearer preference for the penniless scapegrace Tom Hearst. Whether she is likely or able to captivate either gentleman is never laid open to question; it is assumed that her loveliness will conquer. I cannot be so sanguine. Fanny's pretty gowns and her fortune aside, she looks very much like any other young woman with a quantity of yellow hair, vacant eyes, and an expanse of exposed bosom. She inclines her head with exquisite grace, but fails to utter a sensible word; such an excess of elegance can only be imputed to the most fashionable of finishing schools. No doubt she speaks Italian and is highly accomplished—in the art of painting screens, making fringe, and standing before the mantua-maker 5