with one Max Ravenscar, and maybe she would learn something from that encounter.
‘You rang, sir?’
Mr Ravenscar turned his head. ‘Yes, I rang. Send word to the stables, please, that I want the greys brought round in half an hour.’
Chapter 4
Miss Grantham, sleeping late into the morning, did not leave her room until past eleven o’clock. The servants, in green baize aprons and shirt-sleeves, were still sweeping and dusting the saloons, and Miss Grantham presently found her aunt in her dressing-room, seated before a table on which her toilet accessories were inextricably mixed with bills, letters, pens, ink, and wafers.
Lady Bellingham had been a very pretty woman in her youth, but there was little trace of a former beauty to be detected in her plump countenance today. A once pink-and white complexion had long been raddled by cosmetics; there were pouches under her pale blue eyes; her cheeks had sagged; and it could not have been said that a golden wig became her.
Some traces of hair-powder still clung to this erection, but the monstrous plumes she had worn in it on the previous evening had been removed, and a lace cap set in their place, with lilac ribbons tied under her little chin. A voluminous robe with a quantity of ruffles and ribbons, enveloped her stout form, and she wore, in addition, a trailing Paisley shawl, which was continually slipping off her shoulders, or getting its fringe entangled in the pins and combs which littered the dressing-table.
She looked up, when her niece entered the room, and said in a distracted way: ‘Oh, my dear, thank heavens you are come! I am in such a taking! I am sure we are ruined I’
Miss Grantham, who was looking very neat in a chintz gown, with her hair dressed plainly, bent over her to kiss her cheek. ‘Oh no! Don’t say so! I had some deep doings myself last night.’
‘Lucius told me you had gone down six hundred pounds,’ said Lady Bellingham. ‘Of course, it can’t be helped, but why would not Mr Ravenscar play faro? People are so tiresome! My love, nothing could be worse than the fix we are in. Just look at this bill from Priddy’s! Twelve dozen of Fine Hock at thirty shillings a dozen, and such nasty stuff as it is! Ditto of Claret, First Growth, at forty-two shillings the dozen—why, it is robbery, no less! Ditto of White Champagne, at seventy shillings—I cannot conceive how the half of it can have been drunk, and here is Mortimer telling me that we shall be needing more.’
Miss Grantham sat down, and picked up the bill from Priddy’s Foreign Warehouse and Vaults. ‘It does seem shocking,’ she agreed. ‘Do you think we should buy cheaper wine?’
‘Impossible!’ said Lady Bellingham, with resolution. ‘You know what everyone says about the inferior stuff that Hobart woman gives her guests to drink! But that is not the worst!
Where is that odious bill for coals? Forty-four shillings the ton we are paying, Deb, and that not the best coal! Then there’s the bill from the coachmakers—here it is! No, that’s not it. Seventy pounds for green peas: it doesn’t seem right does it, my love? I dare say we are being robbed, but what is one to do? What’s this? Candles, fifty pounds, and that’s only for six months! Burning wax ones in the kitchen, if we only knew. Where is that?—oh, I have it in my hand all the time! Now, do listen, Deb! Seven hundred pounds for the bays and a new barouche! Well, I can’t think where the money is to come from. It seems a monstrous price.’
‘We might let the bays go, and hire a pair of job horses,’ suggested Miss Grantham dubiously.
‘I can’t and I won’t live in squalor!’ declared her aunt tearfully.
Miss Grantham began to gather up the bills, and to sort them. ‘I know. It would be horrid, but we should be spared these dreadful bills for repairs. What is K.Q. iron, Aunt Lizzie?’
‘I can’t imagine, my love. Do we use that, too?’
‘Well, it says here, Best K.Q. iron, faggotted
‘You rang, sir?’
Mr Ravenscar turned his head. ‘Yes, I rang. Send word to the stables, please, that I want the greys brought round in half an hour.’
Chapter 4
Miss Grantham, sleeping late into the morning, did not leave her room until past eleven o’clock. The servants, in green baize aprons and shirt-sleeves, were still sweeping and dusting the saloons, and Miss Grantham presently found her aunt in her dressing-room, seated before a table on which her toilet accessories were inextricably mixed with bills, letters, pens, ink, and wafers.
Lady Bellingham had been a very pretty woman in her youth, but there was little trace of a former beauty to be detected in her plump countenance today. A once pink-and white complexion had long been raddled by cosmetics; there were pouches under her pale blue eyes; her cheeks had sagged; and it could not have been said that a golden wig became her.
Some traces of hair-powder still clung to this erection, but the monstrous plumes she had worn in it on the previous evening had been removed, and a lace cap set in their place, with lilac ribbons tied under her little chin. A voluminous robe with a quantity of ruffles and ribbons, enveloped her stout form, and she wore, in addition, a trailing Paisley shawl, which was continually slipping off her shoulders, or getting its fringe entangled in the pins and combs which littered the dressing-table.
She looked up, when her niece entered the room, and said in a distracted way: ‘Oh, my dear, thank heavens you are come! I am in such a taking! I am sure we are ruined I’
Miss Grantham, who was looking very neat in a chintz gown, with her hair dressed plainly, bent over her to kiss her cheek. ‘Oh no! Don’t say so! I had some deep doings myself last night.’
‘Lucius told me you had gone down six hundred pounds,’ said Lady Bellingham. ‘Of course, it can’t be helped, but why would not Mr Ravenscar play faro? People are so tiresome! My love, nothing could be worse than the fix we are in. Just look at this bill from Priddy’s! Twelve dozen of Fine Hock at thirty shillings a dozen, and such nasty stuff as it is! Ditto of Claret, First Growth, at forty-two shillings the dozen—why, it is robbery, no less! Ditto of White Champagne, at seventy shillings—I cannot conceive how the half of it can have been drunk, and here is Mortimer telling me that we shall be needing more.’
Miss Grantham sat down, and picked up the bill from Priddy’s Foreign Warehouse and Vaults. ‘It does seem shocking,’ she agreed. ‘Do you think we should buy cheaper wine?’
‘Impossible!’ said Lady Bellingham, with resolution. ‘You know what everyone says about the inferior stuff that Hobart woman gives her guests to drink! But that is not the worst!
Where is that odious bill for coals? Forty-four shillings the ton we are paying, Deb, and that not the best coal! Then there’s the bill from the coachmakers—here it is! No, that’s not it. Seventy pounds for green peas: it doesn’t seem right does it, my love? I dare say we are being robbed, but what is one to do? What’s this? Candles, fifty pounds, and that’s only for six months! Burning wax ones in the kitchen, if we only knew. Where is that?—oh, I have it in my hand all the time! Now, do listen, Deb! Seven hundred pounds for the bays and a new barouche! Well, I can’t think where the money is to come from. It seems a monstrous price.’
‘We might let the bays go, and hire a pair of job horses,’ suggested Miss Grantham dubiously.
‘I can’t and I won’t live in squalor!’ declared her aunt tearfully.
Miss Grantham began to gather up the bills, and to sort them. ‘I know. It would be horrid, but we should be spared these dreadful bills for repairs. What is K.Q. iron, Aunt Lizzie?’
‘I can’t imagine, my love. Do we use that, too?’
‘Well, it says here, Best K.Q. iron, faggotted
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