He looked surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Barnaby, did I offend you? I assure you I only meant that one can get very little idea of a person’s true nature from the sort of social twitterings that are all one is allowed before marriage.”
Charlotte smiled broadly. “I am not in the least offended. I know precisely what you mean. And then when you do discover, of course it is too late. Mrs. York was just saying that if we come to call upon the Danvers it would be necessary for Veronica to be chaperoned. But I would be quite happy to make sure nothing is done that could be remarked upon, I give you my word.”
“I am sure you mean well, Miss Barnaby, but that is not sufficient for Society,” Loretta said firmly.
“Nonsense,” Piers contradicted her. “Perfectly all right. Anyway, who would know about it? Harriet certainly isn’t going to say anything.”
“It would be as well if I were to go with you,” she insisted, taking a step towards the door. “This is a most delicate time.”
“For heaven’s sake stop fussing, Loretta!” he said with unusual sharpness. “You worry over Veronica far too much. Danver’s a decent enough fellow, and no stick-in-the-mud. Miss Barnaby is perfectly adequate as a chaperone, and it’s good of her to oblige.”
“Piers, you don’t understand.” Loretta’s voice grated with the power of her emotion. “I wish you would accept my judgment. There is far more to this than you realize.”
“About a carriage ride?” His disbelief was tinged with annoyance.
Her face was white. “There are delicacies, things that. . .”
“Indeed? What, for example?”
She was angry, but she had no answer that she was prepared to give him.
Charlotte looked at Veronica, wondering whether the brief escape would be worth the unpleasantness which would undoubtedly follow.
“Come, Elisabeth,” Veronica said without looking at Loretta. “We shall not be long, but it will be good for us to go out.”
Charlotte excused herself and followed Veronica out into the hallway. She waited a few moments while the footman was dispatched to fetch Veronica’s cloak and muff, and Veronica herself went to change her boots.
The withdrawing room door was ajar.
“You know nothing whatever about that young woman!” Loretta’s voice rose angrily. “Most unsuitable. Brash. Totally unsophisticated!”
“She seemed very pleasant to me,” Piers answered. “In fact, altogether attractive.”
“For heaven’s sake, Piers! Just because she has a handsome face. Really, you are so naive sometimes.”
“And you, my dear, see complications where there are none.”
“I anticipate, which is not the same thing.”
“It is very often exactly the same thing.”
Charlotte was prevented from overhearing any more by Veronica’s return. Emily came downstairs, too, with a cloak over her arm. At first Charlotte hardly recognized her; she looked so different with her hair under a cap, wearing a blue stuff dress with no bustle and a plain apron over it. She looked thinner than before, although it was probably the clothes, and terribly pale. Their eyes met only for a moment, Emily’s wide and very blue, then Veronica put on the cloak. Emily smoothed it over her shoulders, and Charlotte and Veronica went out of the front door as Albert held it open for them.
The drive was chilly, even with rugs over their knees, but it was exhilarating to be bowling along at a good pace with fashionable streets, wide avenues, and squares passing their windows. For a moment Veronica turned, her eyes almost black in the carriage interior, her lips parted, but Charlotte knew where Veronica wanted to go before she could ask.
“Of course,” she said quickly.
Veronica clasped her hand inside the muff. “Thank you.”
They were received without surprise at the Danver house and shown into the withdrawing room. Since Charlotte had written to Veronica two days ago, it was possible Veronica had written to Julian, and they were expected. Julian Danver himself was there and greeted them, taking Veronica’s hands and holding them warmly for a moment before turning to Charlotte.
“How charming to see you again, Miss Barnaby.” He smiled at her. His gaze was very direct, and Charlotte remembered how much she had liked him. “I am sure you remember my aunt, Miss Danver? And my sister Harriet?”
“Of course,” she said quickly, looking first at Aunt Adeline, whose thin, intelligent face regarded her with interest, and then at Harriet. This afternoon she seemed paler than before; there was a deep shadow of unhappiness behind her answering look. “I hope you are well.”
“Very well, thank you, and you?”
All the usual greetings were exchanged and the polite, meaningless topics of conversation touched upon. It was the sort of formal ritual Charlotte had been used to as a girl but had been able to cast aside after her marriage. Indeed with the dramatic fall in her social standing, the opportunity had been removed from her, a loss she had been grateful for. She had never been skilled at it, her own opinions far too ready on her tongue. No one wanted them: it was unseemly for a woman to be opinionated, and a great deal of feminine charm lay in listening and admiring, and making perhaps an occasional remark of optimism and good nature. Of course, it was almost always acceptable to laugh, if one’s laughter was musical and not too loud; it should never be the rich mirth of one who understood the absurd or the farcical. Charlotte had lost the polish she had cultivated when her mother had tried so hard to marry her successfully. Now she sat primly on the edge of her chair with her hands folded in her lap and watched, speaking only when civility demanded.
Veronica had practiced the feminine graces so long it was second nature to her to find the words to courteously
