The Ideal Wife(47)

“So provoking for you, dear Lady Ripley, to miss the nuptials by one day,” one lady said. “Young people are far more impatient than they used to be in our day, are they not?”

“But I had all the delight,” Lady Ripley said, “of meeting a brand-new daughter-in-law as soon as I arrived in London, without having all the headache of a wedding to arrange. Imagine my delight!”

A few of the ladies joined in her laughter.

“Besides,” Abigail said, “Miles and I were so deeply in love that we could not wait even one day longer.”

The ladies tittered again as her mother-in-law squeezed her arm.

“You were a Gardiner, I understand, Lady Severn?”another lady said. “Would that be the Gardiners of Lincolnshire?”

“Sussex,” Abigail said.

“And our kinsmen,” Lady Ripley added. “An illustrious branch of the family.”

One lady had raised a lorgnette to her eye and was viewing her through it, Abigail noticed. And all the other ladies were looking at her in that polite, arctic way that Mrs. Gill and her cronies could also do to perfection when they wished to establish their superiority over another poor mortal.#p#分页标题#e#

“Also an impoverished branch,” she said, smiling and looking easily about her. “Did you ladies know that I was forced to earn my own living for the past two years? I was companion to a wealthy merchant’s wife.” She laughed. “I was very fortunate to meet my husband when I did, and even more fortunate that he fell as deeply in love with me as I with him. I had been dismissed from my post without a character for objecting rather pointedly to the attentions my employer’s husband was paying the unwilling governess. He could not tell his wife that that was the reason, of course. She would doubtless have smashed a chamber pot over his head.”

A few of the ladies were smiling. Two laughed out loud.

“He convinced his wife that I was sighing over his nineteen-year-old son,” Abigail said, “whose chief claim to fame at the moment is that his face is all over spots, the poor boy. His doting mama believed all, of course, and I was given a week’s notice. And then along came Miles.”

“It is quite a Cinderella story,” one very small lady said.

“And certainly has its Prince Charming,” Lady Mulligan said. “You have done all the other young ladies of the Season a great disservice, Lady Severn, I do assure you.”

“My husband’s second cousin was forced into service for a whole year,” another lady said, “before being fortunate enough to inherit a competence from her maternal aunt. Then she married Mr. Henry. Ten thousand a year, you know, and property in Derbyshire. They do not come to town very often, I’m afraid.”

Lady Ripley squeezed Abigail’s arm again and they moved on to another group.

“My dear Abigail,” she said later, when they were in the carriage on the way to Mrs. Reese’s, “it was a very near-run thing. I thought I would have the vapors when you began to speak so very candidly. It was more fortunate than I can say that Lady Murtry found your story amusing. When she laughed, everyone else followed suit. But do be careful. It would be wise to allow me to do the talking for the rest of the afternoon.”

“I thought I would die,” Constance said. “But you did make it sound so funny, Abigail. I could just picture your employer’s wife smashing a chamber pot over his head.”

“That detail must certainly not be repeated,” Lady Ripley said hastily. “Some people may consider it downright vulgar of you to say such a thing, Abigail.”

Abigail held her peace. But if Mrs. Reese tried freezing her out with that look, she thought, then she would not be answerable for what she might say. And it was indeed fortunate that the ladies at Lady Mulligan’s had found her words funny. She had not meant to amuse them. She had meant to give them a collective and blistering setdown.

She was glad it had not worked that way. For Miles’s sake she was glad. She would not wish to embarrass him by any vulgar display or by making an enemy of the whole of polite society. She would keep her mouth closed for the rest of the afternoon, she decided. She would smile meekly and allow her mother-in-law to thaw any chilly atmosphere that might greet her.



LORD SEVERN CALLED on his mother before returning home to change for dinner. It had been a long day, he reflected as his mother’s butler preceded him to the door of her sitting room. He had had luncheon at White’s, read the papers there for a while, having recalled that he had not had a chance to read at breakfast, and joined a few acquaintances in a walk to Tattersall’s, though he had no present interest in buying any horses.