Oh yes, you should, C.J. thought. If you only knew how much. But she replied simply, “Pooh! If ladies and gentlemen discussed nothing but the weather and the state of everyone’s collective and individual health, we should never begin to learn one another’s true natures. However distasteful.”
“That is what marriage is for, my dear,” the countess beamed, ignoring C.J.’s last remark.
“But by then, it is often too late, Aunt Euphoria.” She looked to his lordship for a reaction.
Darlington studied a biscuit. “I have a witty cousin who believes that a young lady should never know too much about her husband before marriage, as she has the rest of her life to devote to acquainting herself with his habits.”
Lady Oliver peered at her teacup as though she were inspecting it for germs. “Speaking of our cousin, where is she, Percy?”
“I understood Miss Jane had first to pay a call upon an acquaintance. You must excuse her tardiness, Lady Dalrymple. I fear she has been delayed.”
As if on cue, Collins opened the large double doors to the drawing room.
“Ah, there she is.” Darlington rose to greet the new arrival, who fairly blew into the room with a palpable energy and poise.
The slender brunette who appeared to be in her early or midtwenties handed her straw bonnet to the manservant and touched her hand to her dark curls. “Faugh! Open carriages are nasty things. A clean gown has not five minutes’ wear in them. You are splashed getting in and getting out, and the wind takes your hair and your bonnet in every direction.” The young lady grasped the train of her simple muslin frock, pulling it toward her, the better to inspect her hem.
The earl greeted his cousin and the young woman presented herself to Lady Oliver, receiving an indifferent kiss on the cheek.
“Allow me to introduce the young ladies, Aunt Augusta. Miss Jane, I should like you to meet Lady Dalrymple’s niece, Lady Cassandra—although she goes by the appellation of Miss Welles. Miss Cassandra Welles, I give you a cousin whom I hold in fondest esteem. Miss Jane Austen.”
C.J. nearly swooned. Luckily, a fortuitously placed armchair helped restore her equilibrium.
“Beware of fainting fits,” the newcomer cautioned, retrieving a vinaigrette of smelling salts from her reticule. “Though at the time they may be refreshing and agreeable, if too often repeated and at improper seasons, they may prove destructive to your constitution. Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.”
C.J. was flummoxed. “I beg your pardon. I . . . am . . . truly honored to make your acquaintance,” she stammered, causing Miss Austen to wonder at the effusion of her reception.
“You are never sure of a good impression being durable,” Jane demurred, as she took C.J.’s trembling hand. “Everybody must sway it. Yet having never met me, you seem quite assured in your opinion, Miss Welles.”
Her senses at sixes and sevens, C.J. suggested that she and Miss Austen retire to the settee. Jane reached for the teapot, but Lady Dalrymple shot her niece a look that conveyed the inappropriateness of a hostess permitting a guest to serve her own tea. “Let me be ‘mother,’ Miss Austen,” C.J. said, as she prayed to all the gods in heaven to help her correctly pour tea for Jane Austen. “Cream?” she asked. Miss Austen declined, preferring lemon. It was all C.J. could do to contain her giddiness. How impossible not to be able to reveal her genuine excitement!
Lady Dalrymple politely asked Miss Austen if her prior engagement had been a pleasant one, to which she received an assessment of the young lady’s discourse with her friend Mrs. Smith, who, newly wed to a country squire, was endeavoring to become the perfect wife. “She was doomed to the repeated details of his day’s sport, good or bad: his boast of his dogs, his jealousy of his neighbors, his doubts on their qualifications, and his zeal after poachers.”
C.J. was fascinated. “But did Mrs. Smith know nothing of her husband’s rather narrow pursuits when she married him?”
“Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant.” Miss Austen sipped her tea. “To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.” From the way Miss Austen’s eyes sparkled, C.J. wondered if Jane was having a joke on the lot of them.
So Darlington had been right about his cousin’s opinion of relationships. “Then, Miss Austen, I have no sense and even less sensibility, for I learned of your cousin’s prejudicial political preferences—which he proclaimed most earnestly—all in the space of a single afternoon’s acquaintance.”
Darlington’s lips curved into a tiny smile. “Let it be said that Cousin Jane and I disagree on the matter of matrimony where prior knowledge of each other’s faults and foibles is at issue. I believe in fully knowing what one is letting oneself in for, so to speak. The learning should be an enlightening experience in the most positive sense.”
He turned to Jane. “Call me insensible, cousin, but should I decide to wed Miss Welles, for example, I trust that every day in her company would yield many singular and delightful discoveries, and I should have no difficulty administering to her vanity. Undoubtedly, I should find many occasions to offer an honest compliment.”
Lady Oliver, appalled by her nephew’s merest mention of the notion of marriage to Lady Dalrymple’s oddly attired and altogether too unreserved poor relation, sought to change the topic of conversation. “Percy—,” she began to rebuke, but was checked by Miss Austen, who was quite keen to learn how C.J. had come to Bath. C.J. found wisdom enough to hold her tongue and let Lady Dalrymple, who was eager to entertain, deliver a highly edited rendition of her niece’s
