Gift Of the Gods Read online

  As if she felt that she had been too enthusiastic, Mrs. Lulworth answered warily,

  “I might consider taking some more, of course, on sale or return.”

  “I am afraid that would not suit us,” Penelope answered. “We have a proposition to put to you and perhaps we could sit down while I tell you what my sister and I have in mind.”

  She was aware that Alisa was looking at her apprehensively, as if she thought that she was being very high-handed, but Mrs. Lulworth merely said,

  “Perhaps you would come into my private office where we’ll not be disturbed.”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” Penelope agreed.

  As they followed Mrs. Lulworth, she squeezed Alisa’s hand to reassure her.

  Half-an-hour later they came back into the shop.

  Mrs. Lulworth was now looking somewhat bewildered, at the same time treating what she now considered as two new customers in a very different manner.

  Penelope had stated their terms very clearly,

  They would give Mrs. Lulworth fifty pounds to provide them with gowns and other accessories that they needed immediately.

  They had fifty pots of face creams with them in London and would make more if necessary.

  The fifty pots must be credited to them outright at ten shillings per pot.

  There was a heated argument while Mrs. Lulworth insisted that seven shillings was all she could pay, while Penelope stuck to her figure of ten.

  There was quite a battle before finally Penelope accepted nine shillings with the proviso that, if there was a sudden rush for more and they had to go to the country to make more cream, for the next batch they would receive ten shillings.

  Alisa had taken no part in the discussion.

  She only thought that she would easily have been talked into accepting seven shillings with gratitude and that she was hopeless in negotiations of this sort.

  This was especially true when she thought that not only did the pots of cream not cost them anything like ten shillings to make, but it was in fact embarrassing to be in the position of having to sell anything.

  It meant so much to Penelope that, despite her conscience, which pricked her all the time, they were spending the money that came from the Earl and Alisa tried to be happy about it.

  When they finally came down to choosing their gowns, it was a thrill she had never enjoyed before to know how different she could look dressed in the height of fashion.

  It was Penelope, of course, who contrived to make Mrs. Lulworth interested in them as social assets by saying,

  “We are staying with our aunt, Lady Ledbury, in Islington, and it is very important that my sister and I should have something fashionable to wear before we call on a very old friend of my mother’s, the Marchioness of Conyngham.”

  Alisa thought that Mrs. Lulworth looked startled before she asked,

  “Did you say, the Marchioness of Conyngham?”

  “Yes, that is right. My mother used to visit the Marchioness’s family when she was a girl and my sister and I intend to get in touch with her as soon as we have something respectable to wear.”

  “That is certainly something I did not expect,” Mrs. Lulworth said almost beneath her breath and Alisa wondered why she should be so astonished.

  “Her Ladyship,” Mrs. Lulworth went on, “has bought some gowns from me in the past and I should very much like to have the privilege of dressing her again.”

  “Then you must certainly make us gowns that she will admire when we call on her,” Penelope pointed out.

  With her usual quickness, she realised that Mrs. Lulworth was extremely impressed by the Marchioness of Conyngham and she went on,

  “I am not being conceited, Mrs. Lulworth, but I do know that my sister and I will ‘pay with dressing’, as the saying goes.”

  Mrs. Lulworth realised that she must supply them with gowns immediately and she produced some that were already half-finished.

  As Penelope and Alisa looked so lovely in them, she said that she would finish them off and then start making others for the lady who had originally ordered them.

  Mrs. Lulworth’s assistants were sent running from one end of the shop to the other to produce materials that were so beautiful that Alisa knew they would be very expensive.

  The moment she was able to do so, she whispered in Penelope s ear,

  “Please, please – we cannot afford to – spend so – much.”

  “Leave everything to me,” Penelope replied, undoing a roll of blue silk the exact colour of Alisa’s eyes and holding it up against her.

  “Look!” she exclaimed and she did not have to put into words how lovely Alisa would look in it.

  When finally they left the shop, it was already luncheon time and they knew that their aunt would be annoyed with them for being late.

  But nothing mattered except that Mrs. Lulworth had promised that by the next morning she would deliver two day gowns to 43 Islington Square and two evening gowns would be ready by tomorrow night if they had a fitting during the afternoon.

  Alisa had the uncomfortable impression that Penelope had ordered a number of other gowns as well.

  She was quite certain that the fifty pounds that had come from the Earl and the twenty-two pounds for the new pots of cream would not cover the cost of the gowns, bonnets, gloves, shoes, stockings and sunshades that Penelope had stipulated as being absolutely essential.

  She tried to say as much as they hurried back to Islington, but they were walking so quickly that conversation was impossible and they were both breathless by the time they reached their aunt’s house.

  To put Aunt Harriet in a good mood after luncheon, which had been delayed for over half-an-hour, Alisa repaired one of the hymn books while Penelope sewed up the seams of a grey gown in a cheap and ugly cotton for some poor unfortunate black child who would undoubtedly look hideous in it.

  “I have a treat for you tomorrow,” Lady Ledbury said when she came into the room where they were working.

  “What is that, Aunt Harriet?” Alisa asked.

  “I am going to take you to St. Mary’s to hear the choir practise for the Coronation Service. We are very proud that our boys have been chosen to augment the choir at Westminster Abbey and I know that you will enjoy hearing them.”

  “I am sorry, Aunt Harriet,” Penelope said quickly before Alisa could speak, “but tomorrow afternoon we have planned to call on the Marchioness of Conyngham.”

  There was silence while her aunt stared at her in sheer astonishment.

  “Did you say the Marchioness of Conyngham?” she asked.

  “Yes, Aunt,” Penelope answered. “As I expect you know, she was a close friend of Mama’s and we have something to take her that we are sure she will be very pleased to have.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Lady Ledbury squawked. “I have never heard of your mother associating with the Marchioness!”

  “She was not the Marchioness when Mama was young,” Penelope explained. “She was Elizabeth Denison and Mama used to stay with them. But, of course, after she was married she lived in the country, so it was difficult for them to meet.”

  “I cannot credit that what you are telling me is true,” Lady Ledbury said, “and I don’t believe that at this present moment the Marchioness is somebody you should be closely acquainted with.”

  Penelope looked at her aunt in surprise.

  “What do you mean by that, Aunt Harriet?”

  There was silence.

  Then Lady Ledbury said,

  “I don’t intend to elaborate on this matter or discuss it with anybody as young as yourselves, but I think I should really prevent you from doing as you intend.”

  “I cannot understand what you are saying,” Penelope replied. “If there is something against the Marchioness, then it would be wiser for you to tell us what it is.”

  “It is something I cannot discuss with two young and innocent girls,” Lady Ledbury replied.

  As she spoke, she rose and wa
lked with dignity from the room, while Penelope and Alisa stared at each other in confusion.

  “What can this be about?” Penelope asked.

  “Perhaps we ought to obey her and not take the – letter to the – Marchioness,” Alisa said nervously.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Penelope answered. “If Aunt Harriet disapproves of her, it means that she will be charming and just the sort of person to help us.”

  She saw that her sister looked worried and put out her hand towards her.

  “Stop making difficulties, Alisa,” she said, “or when you grow old you will look exactly like Aunt Harriet!”

  It sounded so ridiculous that Alisa began to laugh.

  “I would do anything rather than that!”

  “So would I,” Penelope agreed, “and it makes me even more determined than ever to call on the Marchioness.”

  *

  Later that evening, Alisa had gone up to her bedroom and was wondering what was keeping Penelope downstairs.

  Then her sister burst into the room.

  She closed the door behind her and blurted out,

  “Alisa, what do you think! You will never believe it! I have found out why Aunt Harriet disapproves of the Marchioness of Conyngham!”

  “What has she done?” she asked.

  “Hold your breath and listen!” Penelope replied.

  Then slowly and dramatically she declared,

  “The Marchioness is the new favourite of the King!”

  Chapter Four

  The Marchioness of Conyngham was fat, religious, kindly, rich and rapacious.

  At fifty-two, with four grown-up children, she could hardly believe that her new beau should be the King of England.

  After twenty-seven years of marriage her beauty was beginning to fade and, although she had been greatly admired, nobody had ever said that she was particularly amusing or outstandingly intelligent.

  However, she was shrewder than most people gave her credit for and the King adored her.

  For some time now he had been seeing less and less of Lady Hertford, who was tearful and angry at losing the Monarch’s attention and was exceedingly spiteful to all her friends about the Marchioness.

  The one thing that Elizabeth Conyngham really enjoyed was jewellery. She was excessively fond of clothes and money, but jewellery was something that brought a sparkle to her eyes and made her effusively grateful.

  The King had realised this and he was incessantly heaping presents of diamonds, pearls and sapphires on her.

  Those in attendance on His Majesty had always been aware that, for some unexplained reason, he had all his life needed a motherly and affectionate woman to fuss over and fondle and he had invariably been in love with women older than himself.

  The Marchioness was in fact five years younger than he, but there was no doubt that by her contemporaries she was counted amongst the Dowagers and the Beau Monde was laughing heartily at the remark made by Lady Hertford’s grandson, Lord Beauchamp, who seeing the King riding with the Marchioness in Hyde Park, had exclaimed,

  “My God! Grandmother must learn to ride or it’s all over with us!”

  The King found with the Marchioness something that the other women he had been enamoured with had been unable to give him and that was a family.

  He loved the Conyngham children deeply, and he wrote to the Marchioness’s youngest granddaughter, Maria, the most affectionate and touching letters.

  At first people were incredulous at this new amatory obsession displayed by the King and then they were amused by it.

  The King was so much in love that he even went on a strict diet to try to make himself more attractive and ways of pleasing the Marchioness were in his thoughts both day and night.

  However, quite a number of people were scandalised and shocked by the association, including the Marchioness’s brother and Alisa.

  At first she scornfully dismissed the information brought to her by Penelope as being merely below stairs gossip.

  “How can you discuss such things with the servants, Penelope?” she asked. “You know Mama would not approve.”

  “They are the only human beings in this gloomy house!” Penelope retorted. “In fact, I asked Martha very tactfully why Aunt Harriet was so disapproving of somebody who sounded so respectable.”

  Martha was their aunt’s lady’s maid, housekeeper and, because she usually had nobody else to talk to, confidante.

  Martha had been with Lady Ledbury for thirty years and, although she was somewhat strait-laced and definitely puritanical, Alisa liked her.

  She had certainly been kind to them when they were younger and were sent early to bed with the sort of supper that Aunt Harriet considered good for children.

  It was Martha who had brought them up jellies or grapes and sometimes a chocolate or two.

  “Martha says,” Penelope went on, “that the Marchioness of Conyngham is as fat as the King and the cartoonists are drawing scandalous pictures of them both! We must certainly look at them when we have the chance.”

  “Perhaps we had – better not – call on the – Marchioness,” Alisa said in a hesitating voice.

  “Not call on her?” Penelope exclaimed. “How can you be so foolish?”

  “But if she is – improper – ”

  “If she has the King in her pocket, as Martha says she has,” Penelope answered, “can you not see how advantageous it would be if she would ask us to only one party? We would meet everybody there – but everybody!”

  It flashed through Alisa’s mind that this could include the Earl and she said quickly without thinking,

  “Please, Penelope – don’t insist on our taking her a – present and – trying to make her help us.”

  “If you are going to be so stupid as to behave like Aunt Harriet,” Penelope exclaimed, “then I will go and see the Marchioness alone!”

  This was something that Alisa knew she could not allow her sister to do.

  At the same time she hoped fervently that what they had been told was untrue and that Martha had exaggerated what was being said.

  After all, surely the Marchioness was too old for a flirtation with the King or anybody else and perhaps it was only jealousy that made people say unkind things of a lady he wanted merely as a friend.

  She prayed that this was the truth, but when they were going for their fittings at Mrs. Lulworth’s the following afternoon, Penelope insisted on stopping outside the shop in Bond Street that sold the latest cartoons.

  There in the window was one by Rowlandson depicting the King and the Marchioness, both looking grossly fat and extremely flirtatious.

  Because Alisa felt it was degrading even to look at it, she took only one glance and then walked on, regardless of the fact that she was leaving Penelope behind her.

  Only when her sister caught up with her did she say,

  “I think it is – wrong for you to be – interested in such things! And because you are young and a debutante, I do beg of you, if anybody – mentions, which I am sure they will not – the King’s – association with the Marchioness, you will pretend you know – nothing about it.”

  “Very well. Miss Prude,” Penelope replied.

  She would have said more, but she was determined to have her own way in calling on the Marchioness later in the afternoon and she was afraid that if Alisa was too shocked she would definitely refuse to go with her.

  The evening gowns were so lovely that Penelope was in raptures over hers and Alisa found it difficult to argue about the behaviour of two elderly strangers, which was really how she thought of them, when they had so much to be grateful for.

  Nor did she wish to think of the man to whom they owed their gratitude! But there was no doubt that it was an exhilaration she had never known before, to realise that both she and Penelope could look so completely different and indeed so lovely in the gowns which made them as ethereal and graceful as any Greek Goddess,

  ‘We should wear these standing in one of the alcoves in the Earl
’s dining room,’ Alisa thought involuntarily, then rebuked herself for thinking of him again.

  Mrs. Lulworth promised that the gowns would be delivered the next day and then added,

  “You do me great credit and I hope that, if anybody asks you from where you purchased your gowns, you will give them my name.”

  “You know we will do that,” Penelope answered.

  “We are very very grateful to you,” Alisa added. “You have been so kind.”

  Mrs. Lulworth smiled, which was a rare occurrence.

  “I’ve sold ten pots of face creams already this morning,” she said, “and I’ve only twenty-nine left.”

  “That is splendid!” Penelope cried. “Sometime next week my sister and I will have to go back to the country to make some more.”

  “We’d better wait and see,” Mrs, Lulworth said cautiously, “but they may quite likely be needed.”

  As they walked from Bond Street towards the Marchioness’s house, Alisa found herself once again trying to think that Martha’s story of the King’s love for their mother’s old friend was merely gossip.

  She could not imagine that anybody of her mother’s generation would indulge in love affairs, even with a King, and, although she admitted that she was very ignorant about such matters, she supposed that people in love would kiss each other in the same way that the Earl had kissed her.

  But it was not love he was offering her!

  At the same time she realised how little she understood what a man felt for a woman or a woman for a man and it was a subject she had no wish to discuss with Penelope.

  ‘If Mama were alive,’ she thought, ‘I would ask her.’

  Then she admitted to herself that she could not have told even her mother that she had been kissed, nor could she have described the strange feeling it had aroused in her.

  They neared the very impressive mansion, which Penelope had learnt again from Martha was where the Marchioness of Conyngham resided with those of her children who were unmarried.

  “I am praying, Alisa,” she said in a low voice, “and I hope you are too, that the Marchioness will be at home.”

  Alisa felt that if the truth were told she was praying the opposite, so that they could just leave their letter and go away. But she was aware that most Ladies of Fashion entertained their friends on one particular day of the week, the most usual choice being Wednesday or Thursday.