Chapter Ten
Of period pastimes, a portrait, planets, and a pretentious parvenue.
C.J. WAS RELISHING the quiet, candlelit evening at her “aunt’s” prior to their departure for the Assembly Rooms. Although the music commenced at seven, balls rarely got underway until nine; and as it was not the fashion to be one of the first arrivals, the early hours of the evening were spent in other social pursuits.
Apart from the occasional yapping of Fielding or Swift, who craved a treat from their indulgent mistress, or Newton calling out bids while Lady Dalrymple’s visitors played hands of écarté, the tranquility of C.J.’s new surroundings both calmed and energized her. For a young woman accustomed to the clamor and cacophony of a twenty-first-century metropolis, a lifestyle where nothing was demanded of her beyond a cheerful countenance, a pleasant disposition, and witty discourse, while otherwise left to her favorite activities—reading, needlework, the taking of fresh air, and shopping—presented itself as a paradisiacal holiday.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax, the evening’s callers, were amiable enough, decent sorts, although Mrs. Fairfax was something of a parvenue. Throughout the evening she continued to lament to Lady Dalrymple how sorely disappointed she was by what she considered the “leavings” in Bath. As far as she was concerned, anyone who was anyone had deserted the town earlier in the season, and only the nouveaux remained. Bath, she bemoaned, was no longer what it used be in her day. Mrs. Fairfax held every hope that her adversaries at cards would assist her in securing proper husbands for her two eligible daughters, Harriet and Susanne. The one had a predilection for soldiers; the other a propensity toward Scots, and Mrs. Fairfax proclaimed that for the life of her, she could not rightly discern which was worse.
Through a quick reading of Mr. Fairfax’s expression during his lady’s energetic discourse, C.J. judged that the gentleman most distinctly wished that he were somewhere else—anywhere else perhaps—than across the table from his prattling wife and in the company of the most feared dragon of the ton. Lady Oliver did little to conceal her disdain for the nattering drivel of Mrs. Fairfax, as well as the person who uttered it, and had even less use for the husband who was fool enough to have married the woman.
Lady Dalrymple was all for playing ombre but received a derisive scolding for choosing a game that was hopelessly old-fashioned. The hostess was outvoted when Mrs. Fairfax, who took great delight in being able to trump her aristocratic evening companions with some precious tidbit of arcana, asked if she might introduce a new game to them, which she had taken the liberty of bringing with her, ordering the beleaguered Mr. Fairfax to fetch her satchel. She had even persuaded Lady Oliver to join in. Pope Joan, the convivial combination card and board game, was named for a ninth-century pontiff, and the board was illustrated with such provocative demarcations as “Intrigue” and “Matrimony,” as well as “Pope Joan,” “Ace,” “King,” “Queen,” “Knave,” and “Game.” What distinguished the deck was that the eight of diamonds had been removed, which, to C.J.’s mind seemed a completely arbitrary excision.
An indifferent card player herself, C.J. watched the proceedings comfortably from an ormolu-mounted mahogany window seat upholstered in apple-green silk. Besides, had she elected to participate, she would have hazarded embarrassing herself to no end in the present company, certain she would be expected to have some familiarity with several of the more popular card games. When Lady Dalrymple helpfully informed her that ombre was played much like whist, it meant nothing to her. C.J. pleaded ignorance of cards, claiming quite honestly that she much preferred to embroider or bury her nose in books. So she had asked her “aunt” for a piece of needlework to stitch while she enjoyed her solitude, and Lady Dalrymple was only too happy to provide her young charge with a bit of crewelwork intended to be the cover for a footstool. The countess complained that nowadays, in the candle glow, the close work hurt her eyes, and her hands were becoming too stiff of late to ply the needle as she had done with such dexterity in her youth. She had provided C.J. with the most cunning contraption: a lit candle placed behind a globe filled with water, the effect of which was to magnify as well as illuminate the needlework.
Before the card party began, Lady Dalrymple had proudly shown C.J. the set of curtained bed hangings in her chamber. C.J. had marveled at the yards and yards of creamy duchess satin that the sixteen-year-old countess-to-be had spent months intricately embroidering as a wedding gift for her husband, the Earl of Dalrymple. The old earl’s portrait still hung in a gilt frame opposite the heavily canopied four-poster, and his widow wiped away a tear as she described her freethinking, progressive husband.
“He was such a helpmate, Cassandra, and I was the envy of the ton,” she had said, mopping her brow with a plump hand and tucking a pewter-gray curl back into her lace cap. “Of course, to look at me now, you would never think that I could have
