The Cause

Book 23: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The forthcoming marriage of Venetia, eldest daughter of the Duke of Southport, and 'Beauty' Winchmore is the talk of London society, and a match which has the full support of Venetia's parents. But just weeks before the wedding Venetia cries off - unable to accept that her husband-to-be will forbid her to study medicine. And within weeks of her shameful behaviour her father is dead and she is ostracised from her family, left with a tiny allowance to carry on with the 'cause' and try to qualify as a doctor. Meanwhile at Morland Place George's new wife is whittling away at his fortune during the worst agricultural recession of the century. His sister, Henrietta, apparently safely married off to the Reverend Fortescue, has realised her marriage is a hollow pretence of conjugal bliss and falls heavily in love with a local squire - a passion which seems destined to be unfulfilled. Another wonderful piece of fictionalised history which brings period and place to three-dimensional and colourful life.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 544

Sample

May 1874

Venetia Fleetwood came into the green drawing-room of Southport House in Pall Mall at her usual energetic pace, a clutch of
stiff white envelopes in her hand. Her mother Charlotte, the duchess, was reclining on a sofa with a writing-case on her lap,
composing a letter.


Venetia was a little too tall and thin for conventional beauty, and at twenty-four past girlhood, but she had a vivid, expressive
face, and eyes that not a few young men had found fascinating. She paused to observe how slowly her mother was writing, and
said, ‘That looks laborious.’


Charlotte shrugged off the implied sympathy: she never made much of her ailments. ‘Not nearly as laborious as when we had
to use goose quills. I was quite an expert at cutting a nib when I was a girl: I made all my father’s for him. You may thank
progress that it’s now a lost art. What’s that in your hand?’


‘More wedding replies,’ Venetia said. ‘I brought them up to save Ungar the stairs. You really ought to pension him off, Mama.’

‘It would break his heart.’

‘It’s his heart I worry about. I can’t think how old he is.’

‘I wouldn’t dare ask him. He’s been my butler since before you were born, and he wasn’t a young man then. But he was always
terrifying.’


Venetia smiled at the idea of her mother being terrified of anyone. She waved the envelopes. ‘Where would you like me to put
these?’


‘Oh, with the others,’ Charlotte said, a touch wearily. ‘I can’t deal with them now.’

‘Where is everyone?’ Venetia asked. ‘You aren’t having to do everything alone, are you?’ She crossed to the table to add the
envelopes to the growing pile, sparing a surprised glance for a rather crude and brightly coloured figurine standing there,
and returned to her mother. ‘You look pale. Has the pain come back?’


‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all,’ Charlotte said.

‘If you have a headache you shouldn’t be writing. What is it, anyway?’ She craned her neck to look over her mother’s shoulder.
‘A thank-you note?’ she said in surprise.


‘Don’t say “note”, darling.’

‘Letter, then. But you don’t have to do those yourself. What do you have secretaries for?’

‘Miss Scanlon’s running messages for me, and Temple has quite enough to do. And besides, this is a special case – old Mrs
Golding, who was your father’s nurse, down at Ravendene.’


Venetia frowned. ‘The old lady who lives in the cottage by the butcher’s shop? The one Gussie calls “Mutton Chops” because
she has more whiskers than Marcus?’


‘Don’t be cruel. She hasn’t two farthings to rub together, poor thing, apart from the pension your father pays her, but she
still sent a wedding present.’


‘Don’t tell me! That china figure on the table?’

‘I’m afraid so. But it was very kind of her, and quite unlooked-for. She says it was given to her on her wedding day.’

‘Not by Papa, I sincerely hope!’ Venetia said. ‘What on earth is it?’

‘I think it’s meant to be Lord Nelson. There was quite a craze for him in those days.’

‘Oh, yes, I see now. I wondered why it only had one arm.’

‘I expect it’s had pride of place on her chimney-piece for the last fifty years,’ Charlotte said, ‘so please, darling, do
say something kind when you see her next.’


‘I’m always kind. It’s Gussie who’s tactless. But where is everybody?’ Venetia reverted to her unanswered question.

‘The girls are in the ballroom, laying out the presents that came this morning. And your father’s gone to the House.’

‘Again?’ Venetia grinned. ‘You know, Mama-duchess, I don’t think Papa ever really meant to retire.’

‘Oh, he meant it,’ Charlotte said. ‘But he found that he didn’t like it as much as he expected.’

The Duke of Southport had retired from politics at the end of the 1871 session, worn out with his struggle to get Cardwell’s
army reforms through, against fierce opposition that had even included his own younger son, Marcus, who was a cavalry officer.
The duke had given up his government position, closed up Southport House, and invited Charlotte to share a life of pastoral
serenity with him down at Ravendene, his seat in Northamptonshire. Charlotte’s health had been damaged while nursing in the
Crimea; like many who had been at Balaclava, she had never been entirely well since. She suffered from intermittent bouts
of severe pain, fever and debility, so the prospect of bucolic bliss had pleased her.


But it hadn’t been long before Oliver had started to miss being at the centre of things: Charlotte noticed the ill-concealed
eagerness with which he seized the London papers from the butler’s hand every morning. Soon enough a day-trip to London ‘on
business’ was casually mooted. This was by way of being the thin end of the wedge. The day trip was repeated, grew more frequent,
and eventually was lengthened to an overnight stay so that the duke could ‘catch old So-and-so at the club’ or sit in on an
important debate the next day.


By the time the decision had to be made whether Venetia should be married in London or from Ravendene, there was little doubt
which Southport would choose. ‘Your papa simply couldn’t get used to not being consulted,’ Charlotte said now to her eldest daughter.


‘If he wanted to get back into government, he’s missed his chance, poor Papa, now Mr Gladstone’s gone out!’ Venetia said.

In January of this year the general election had returned a Conservative majority. It was said that the brewers’ vote was
responsible: the Licensing Act of 1872 had been so unpopular that the brewing trade had turned en masse against the Liberals, and every public house had become a Conservative committee room. In February Disraeli had been invited
to form a government, and it was only as a member of Her Majesty’s Opposition that the Duke of Southport now spoke in the
House of Lords.


‘Oh, I dare say he’ll still make himself useful,’ Charlotte said.

‘Not work for Mr Disraeli?’ Venetia said in mock horror.

‘Don’t be silly, darling. It’s not as if the Fleetwoods are an old Whig family. And in any case, there’s good work to be done
in opposition.’


‘Devil’s advocate, Mama-duchess!’

‘Naturally I want Papa to be happy,’ Charlotte said. ‘There’s no comfort for a wife in a discontented husband. Speaking of
which, where’s John? Didn’t he come back with you?’


Venetia wrinkled her nose. ‘John?’

‘Your fiancé, had you forgotten?’ Charlotte said drily.

‘I can never think of him as “John”. I don’t know how you’ve mastered it so soon.’

‘Not soon at all. You’ve been engaged for a year.’

‘Yes, I know. But he’ll always be Beauty Winchmore to me.’

‘Beauty’ had been Lord Hazelmere’s sobriquet when he was Captain Winchmore, the most handsome and dashing of Blues officers.
He had been the hardest rider and lightest dancer in the Heavy Brigade, pursued by ambitious mamas and their daughters alike, but never with a serious eye for anyone but Venetia.


Charlotte laughed, but she said, ‘You must give the poor man a little dignity, now he’s come into the title.’

‘Beauty doesn’t need dignity,’ Venetia said carelessly. ‘He has everything else – looks, charm, rank and fortune.’

Not so very much fortune, Charlotte reflected. The estate Winchmore had inherited from his father had been found to be much
less healthy than supposed, emaciated by the extravagant lifestyle of both father and son. Hazelmere had been embarrassed
but frank about it when closeted with Southport to discuss settlements – so Oliver had told Charlotte privately afterwards.
Oliver had been obliged to agree to make a larger settlement on Venetia than he had anticipated, ‘or they’ll have nothing
to live on,’ he said. ‘And whatever she thinks, Venetia won’t be content with love in a cottage. She wasn’t born my daughter
for nothing.’


At that moment the door opened and three young women came in: the duchess’s other daughters, Olivia and Augusta, and her ward,
Emma.


‘Oh, you’re back!’ Augusta exclaimed to Venetia. ‘I say, that’s a splendid hat!’

‘I’d forgotten I was still wearing it,’ Venetia said. She pulled out the long jet pins and removed it – a smart and rather
mannish black glazed straw trimmed with cock’s feathers.


‘Where did you get it?’ Augusta pursued. ‘I must say, old Sissy, your clothes have taken a turn for the better since you became
an engaged woman.’


‘You’re too kind. I always come to you to know what to wear, Gussie dear,’ Venetia said, with an irony lost on her sister.

Augusta’s self-confidence was impervious. ‘We’ve been unpacking your wedding presents,’ she informed her. ‘Lots more came
today – everyone in the country seems to be sending something. We’ve used up nearly one whole side of the ballroom, Mama. We’ll need more trestles if anything else comes.’


‘You have made a careful note of everything, haven’t you?’ Charlotte asked anxiously.

‘Of course we have,’ Augusta said. ‘Olivia wrote down who sent what and so on – didn’t you, Liv?’

‘And we’ve put each person’s card on display next to each present, Aunt Charlotte, just as you told us,’ Emma added. ‘Though,
honestly, some of the things they’ve sent – you wouldn’t think they’d want to own up to them! A pokerwork escritoire that
looks like snakes writhing about in agony! The Milners sent that.’


‘They should be made to sit and stare at it for an hour every day. That’d teach ’em!’ Augusta snorted.

‘And Lady Tonbridge only sent a photo-lith of the Queen in the most dreadful silver frame, which I call mean,’ Emma said.

‘And there was a pair of hideous Chinese vases from someone called Lady Pastry. Who on earth can she be?’


‘Lady Paisley,’ Olivia corrected patiently. ‘I told you, Gussie. It was bad handwriting, Mama.’

‘I don’t think I know her,’ Charlotte said, faintly puzzled. ‘She must be someone of Hazelmere’s.’

‘Well, the vases were vile, and the fist was viler,’ said Augusta, who picked up slang from her brother Harry, the heir, with
whom she was a favourite. ‘I don’t know where you and Beauty are going to live, Ven, but you’ll need a huge room just to put
all the ugly things in. Or a better solution might be to have two houses – one for you and one for the wedding presents.’


‘You mustn’t call Lord Hazelmere “Beauty”, darling,’ Charlotte reproved.

‘But everybody calls him that,’ Augusta protested, opening her eyes wide. ‘You can’t really expect a person to call him John?’


‘You are not to call him by his Christian name at all, you horrid infant,’ Venetia said. ‘He’s Lord Hazelmere to you.’


‘Oh, don’t be stuffy! When I danced with him at Lady Carmichael’s last week he was as nice as can be. He dances divinely, you know. In fact, I rather think he’s wasted on
you. Everyone knows you don’t like to dance.’


Charlotte intervened. ‘Girls, do please sit down. It makes my head ache trying to look at you. Venetia, darling, draw the
curtain across, will you? The sun’s come round.’


Venetia went to obey her, and the others sat down on two of the green-silk-covered Louis Quinze settles that gave the room
its name. Of the three sisters, only Olivia was a real beauty, with golden hair, regular features, and her father’s violet
eyes. She moved gracefully, and had a particularly lovely voice. Her years at Court as a maid-of-honour had given her both
polish and a certain gravity; everything about her had a poise and restraint which made her seem older than her twenty-three
years.


It had been no surprise to anyone when Olivia attracted the attention of one of the equerries, Charles Du Cane, ten years
her senior and destined for great things in the Household; but the Queen disliked change, and maids-of-honour could not marry.
It was typical of Olivia that she was quite content to leave things as they were for the time being. The large and static
rhythms of Windsor and Balmoral, like the slow surgings of a full tide, had imprinted themselves on her quiet mind. At some
point in the future she and Mr Du Cane would be married, but there was no hurry. She loved him, and could no more have doubted
his intentions than God’s goodness.


Augusta, the youngest of Charlotte’s five children, was in a hurry for everything. Had she been in love, she would have been
more likely to elope than wait for anyone’s approval. She was always on the fidget, always talking, always ready for a new
thought or a change of action. At nineteen she was a slender girl with thick sandy-gold hair and rather popping eyes, not
a beauty, but with a smile, when she cared to use it, that would melt basalt. She never wasted it on her family, however:
it was reserved for gentlemen, and not even all of them.


In her childhood she had lacked the personal attention the other children had received from parents and grandparents, and
her education had been neglected. She had learned only what she wanted to learn, which was very little beyond reading and
writing. Since her come-out she had read nothing but magazines and Burke’s Peerage. She adored clothes and studied fashion with an almost religious devotion. Today she was wearing a gown of dark green tartan
print and lilac silk, tight in the bodice over stays so fiercely laced that bending was an impossibility. The long sleeves,
the panelled bodice, and the intricacies of the skirt were much trimmed with frill and self-coloured bows; the full, draped
bustle and long train meant she could only sit sideways and had to have a settle all to herself. From this vantage point she
bent a critical look on the other females in the room and sighingly deplored their entire lack of style. It was awful to have
to live with such a pack of dowdies!


When finely dressed, Augusta liked to go visiting, to walk or drive where she would be seen, to go to parties, to dance and
chat with ‘the men’. Venetia was appalled by her ignorance, and called her an empty-headed little flirt; Augusta was equally
appalled by Venetia’s intellectual leanings, and called her a frightful blue-stocking. Charlotte, struggling with the awful
lethargy of her illness, feared she had not done quite right by either of them. If they could have been blended together and
then divided equally, she thought, they might have made two reasonable young women.


‘So do tell,’ Augusta said to Venetia, ‘what have you done with Lord Hazelmere? I thought you were looking at houses today.’


‘Only this morning,’ Venetia said. ‘The agent had two for us to inspect.’

‘Did you like either of them?’ Charlotte asked.

Venetia shook her head. ‘The one in Henrietta Place was too small, and the other was in Kensington. We didn’t even go and
look at that. Beauty – Hazelmere spoke to Griffin pretty sharply about wasting our time. He said – Griffin said – that there was something coming up in Bryanston Square
or Bryanston Place, I can’t remember which, that he thought might suit. But we can’t see it until next week.’


‘It couldn’t have taken very long to look at one house,’ Augusta said. ‘What on earth have you been doing ever since?’

‘I don’t have to answer to you, miss,’ Venetia said sharply.

‘Of course not, darling,’ Charlotte said quickly, ‘but you were supposed to have a fitting this afternoon. I had to send round
to Madame Bartoldy to cancel when you didn’t come in.’


‘Oh, Lord, I forgot! I’m sorry, Mama.’

‘We quite thought you were going to bring John back for luncheon.’

‘Instead of which,’ Augusta finished, ‘there we were without a man of any sort, staring at each other like four old cats.’

‘Don’t be vulgar, dear,’ said Charlotte.

‘You must have misunderstood me,’ Venetia said. ‘He couldn’t have come to luncheon anyway. He had to see someone at his club,
and then there’s a debate on trades unions, or somesuch, in the House this afternoon. I suppose that’s what Papa’s gone in
for?’


‘Oh, never mind boring old politics,’ Gussie said. ‘What we want to know is where you’ve been all this time without Hazelmere. Did you lunch with someone nice?’


‘I didn’t lunch at all, if you must know, you horrid, nosy child,’ Venetia said. ‘I went to the New Hospital for Women to see Mrs Anderson.
She was just going off to inspect some new premises, so I went too.’ She turned to her mother, knowing where her best audience
lay. ‘You remember I told you they have to move somewhere larger because they’re so overcrowded? Well, she’s found two adjoining
houses in the Marylebone Road with a fourteen-year lease. A group of us spent a couple of hours going over them and making plans. It was so interesting! There’ll be room for twenty-six beds when the alterations are finished.’


‘The building work will be expensive,’ Charlotte said, from experience.

‘Yes, and there’s all the equipment to buy – bedsteads, blankets, lockers, bedpans – absolutely everything! Mrs Anderson’s
started a fund, and she’s going to write to everybody for donations.’


‘I’m sure I can find a few guineas for a worthy cause,’ Charlotte said.

‘Thank you, Mama,’ Venetia said. ‘I knew I could depend on you.’

‘I’m happy to help. Mrs Anderson’s a remarkable woman,’ said Charlotte.

‘She is,’ Venetia agreed. ‘As well as running the hospital and planning the move, she operates, lectures, attends dozens of
cases – sometimes in the middle of the night – and on top of all that she’s pregnant again!’


Olivia protested. ‘Oh, Venetia, must you use that word? It’s so – unnecessary.’

‘What would be unnecessary would be to wrap up a plain fact in fancy ribbons,’ Venetia retorted.


‘The Queen would dislike it so.’

‘Luckily the Queen is never likely to hear me say it, or anything else, for which I am sure we’re equally grateful,’ Venetia
said. Olivia looked a little hurt, but she disliked quarrels, and said nothing.


‘If you didn’t have any luncheon, darling, you must be hungry,’ Charlotte said. ‘Ring the bell, Emma, and we’ll have five
o’clock tea.’


Augusta reverted to the point that interested her. ‘So, but who brought you home from your horrid hospital, then, Sissy?’

‘Nobody brought me home,’ Venetia said shortly.

‘You didn’t come in a cab by yourself?’


Venetia’s brows drew down. ‘If I’d wanted to, I would have, but I didn’t. I took the omnibus.’ She observed the general reaction
with impatience. ‘For heaven’s sake, there’s nothing improper about the omnibus! All sorts of people ride on them.’


‘Not all sorts,’ Augusta said. ‘Not people like us, just the lower orders – and the horrid do-goods that you meet at your dreary meetings
and committees.’


‘It’s not “horrid” or “dreary” to try to improve the lot of the unfortunate,’ Charlotte reproved. ‘I’ve devoted a great deal
of my own life to it.’


‘It’s different when you do it, Mama,’ Augusta said kindly, then added with an exaggerated sigh, ‘I’m sorry to have to say
it, but Venetia’s becoming awfully middle-classed.’


Charlotte roused herself to sternness. ‘That’s enough, Gussie. Your sister’s not answerable to you; and until you have opinions
worth listening to, you had better hold your tongue. All the same, darling,’ she added to Venetia, after a pause, ‘I’m not
sure I like the idea of your travelling alone on an omnibus.’


‘A contradiction in terms, surely?’ Venetia said.

‘Don’t prevaricate. I can’t quite think it right for a female to travel unaccompanied––’

Venetia burst out in exasperation, ‘For heaven’s sake! Can’t a sensible, mature, educated woman travel on a public omnibus
in broad daylight? Why is a woman alone assumed to be either feeble-minded or vicious? Really, I wonder I was able to hand
over the fare without a man to tell me which coin was which and protect me from the conductor’s advances!’


Augusta, having provoked an interesting reaction, was enjoying the outburst. ‘Go it! Give ’em socks!’ she urged her sister.

Charlotte said, ‘Please don’t let your father hear you speak like that. I do sympathise with you, darling, but the world is what it is––’


‘And it will never be any different if we don’t try to change it,’ Venetia snapped.

At that moment, fortunately, the door opened and Ungar, the butler, announced, ‘Mr Weston, your grace. And would your grace
desire the tea to be served now?’


‘Yes, bring it in, Ungar, and a cup for Mr Weston, too.’

‘I have already taken the liberty of providing one, your grace.’ Ungar bowed and stepped back to admit Tommy Weston; behind
him, two footmen waited with vast silver trays, one containing the kettle, pot, spirit lamp and other paraphernalia, the other
with plates of thinnest bread-and-butter, small French-iced cakes, and a dish of the first strawberries.


Tommy Weston crossed the room to kiss the duchess’s hand, and she greeted him with relief and warm affection. ‘Now you will
keep my turbulent brood at peace with each other,’ she said.


‘I’ll do my best,’ Tommy said, sitting down beside Emma. He was the adopted son of Charlotte’s uncle, Thomas Weston, and had
run tame about the Southports’ houses most of his life. He was twenty-five, neither tall nor handsome, and with an indefinable
look of fragility to his face; but a pleasant young man with a warm smile and easy manners. He was in blacks for his mother,
who had died in November.


His father, who had been MP for Winchendon, had given up his seat at the last election, and had now retired to a small house
in Brighton. Weston’s considerable fortune would all be Tommy’s when he died, in token of which – for he was a fair-minded
man – he had settled a very large allowance on his son. ‘No use in Tommy’s scraping about, getting into debt and ending by
wishing me dead,’ he had said; to which Tommy replied hotly that of course he wouldn’t do any such thing. But it was certainly
nice to be independent and do as he pleased without worrying about money, especially as he had no turn for any kind of work.


Over tea, Tommy settled down to make himself agreeable to everyone. He enquired after the duchess’s health, and then elicited
from Venetia an account of her day. He had a snippet of his own to add when she had finished.


‘Did you know that Mr and Mrs Anderson are about to move house?’ he said. ‘Not very far, though, just further up Upper Berkeley Street to number four.’


Venetia laughed, beguiled out of her scowls. ‘It’s true after all,’ she said. ‘Tommy does know everyone!’


He talked to Olivia about the Queen’s surprising fondness for her new Prime Minister: Mr Disraeli had even persuaded her to
agree to meet the Tsar of Russia, which no-one had managed before. Then he drew Olivia out on the subject of Her Majesty’s
anxiety that the Prince and Princess of Wales were moving in a ‘fast’ set.


‘I have heard that Marlborough House parties are so boisterous the noise can be heard at the other end of Pall Mall,’ he said
seriously.


‘It’s true,’ Augusta broke in, ‘because I heard it myself one night, hanging out of the window. They must be wonderful parties!
I wish I might go,’ she added wistfully.


Tommy suppressed a smile at the thought and asked her instead about the entirely respectable performance of Handel’s Messiah she had attended the evening before. This seemed to have been notable not for any musical excellence but because a tall handsome
man with ‘the most killing blue eyes’ had begged to be introduced to her, as Augusta was only too eager to tell.


‘Mr Cornwallis came back to our box after the first interval and said, “By Jove, Lady Augusta, you’ve had a remarkable effect
on the most unimpressionable man I’ve ever known!” I asked who it was, though I’d guessed, because I’d seen him looking up
at us and whispering furiously to Mr Cornwallis down in the stalls. So Cornwallis pointed him out and said, “His name is Wentworth,
and he has a very nice estate in the north and twenty thousand a year.” They were up at Trinity together. So Cornwallis said,
“He’s a very good fellow, but by my head, he’s as cold as ice and I never knew him to notice any woman before in my whole
life.”’


She paused to see the effect this was having on Tommy. He made encouraging noises, enjoying the show, for Augusta had quite
a turn for mimicry, and the whole scene was quite clear to him. She went on, ‘So I looked demure – like this – and said, “Oh, really?” And Cornwallis said, “Yes, but he has been positively raving about you: ‘Cornwallis, who is
that lovely girl you’ve been talking to – I must meet her,’ and so on.” So then he begged me to allow him to present his friend,
and I said very graciously he might, and in the second interval Mr Wentworth appeared in our box, and chatted most amiably
– not a hint of coldness about him – though he didn’t so much as glance at Anda Cornwallis, despite her looking ravishing last night, in white and with her hair done a different way which doesn’t
make her neck look quite so short. But he only had eyes for me – and such eyes! I never saw bluer. He asked if I was going
to be at the Somersets’ ball and of course I said yes, and he looked very significant and nodded a great deal but just then the interval ended and he was obliged to go away, otherwise I’m sure he’d
have asked me to keep a dance for him. Afterwards Anda Cornwallis said she hoped I might not be smitten, but I told her it
would take a great deal more than twenty thousand a year to smite me, even with such blue eyes.’


Tommy laughed and said, ‘You must be sure to make a large number of men very unhappy before making one man happy.’


But Venetia had listened with impatience and contempt to all this, and said that Gussie was as vain as a monkey and a disgrace
to her sex and that it was lucky for her that their mother had fallen asleep and not heard her talk, or she’d not be allowed
to go to the Somersets’ ball at all, even with Lord and Lady Cornwallis’s chaperonage. Augusta retorted that she was a fine one to talk about chaperons, rushing about alone all over London like a hoyden. Then Olivia interrupted the exchange
gently but firmly by asking Tommy how his father was.


Tommy shook his head sadly. ‘Of course he’s over seventy, and one shouldn’t expect too much, but he took Mum’s death very
hard. I went to stay with him last Friday-to-Monday, and there was something about him …’ He paused, remembering. ‘We went
for a walk along the sea front, and he walked so slowly, not like his old way. And then we sat down on one of those new seats for a while, and when I spoke to him, he looked at me quite vaguely,
as if he didn’t know who I was.’


‘He will be coming up for the wedding, won’t he?’ Venetia asked.

‘I’m sure he will, if he’s well enough. He wouldn’t miss it for worlds – he’s very fond of you, you know.’

‘As one black sheep of another,’ Venetia said, smiling. She stood up. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have some letters to write.’

Her departure broke up the party. The duchess woke, and, feeling less well than she would admit, withdrew to her room. Olivia
took Augusta away to make her practise – ‘You’ve precious few accomplishments, Gussie, you can’t afford to neglect your playing’
– which left Tommy Weston alone with Emma.


For a while they sat silently, each absorbed in thought: as old friends, they did not feel the need to make conversation.
Emma’s thoughts were not happy ones. Like Tommy she was in black – for her mother, Charlotte’s cousin Fanny, who had died
the previous December. Her mourning and Venetia’s impending wedding had been the excuse no