‘Besides, if you do come, you will have so much work cut out making change for our customers to spend much time talking to anyone. You know that Aunt Percival and I aren’t very good at sums.’
‘In that case, you really will wish me to accompany you—seeing that I will be useful after all.’ Marietta smiled.
She was beginning to enjoy wrong-footing Sophie, whose spite was becoming unendurable. Aunt Percival had berated her the other evening for ‘allowing Sophie to walk all over you’ and had advised her to stand up for herself a little more. ‘You are doing her no favour by letting her use you as a doormat,’ she had ended, trenchantly for her.
Well, I wasn’t a doormat this morning, far from it, thought Marietta, looking around the crowded church hall to see whether Jack was present. He had apparently told Sophie that he would arrive early, but it was already four o’clock and there was no sign of him.
Nor was there any sign of Sophie, either. After two hours of waiting for Jack, she had flounced off to take tea in a back room, telling Aunt Percival to be sure to fetch her if he should suddenly arrive. Aunt Percival’s answer to that, once she had gone, was to remember a sudden necessary errand which she needed to run, leaving Marietta alone in blessed peace at the stall.
She had just sold an embroidered pocket book to Mrs Senator Clay when she saw Sophie returning with a man in tow. She was chattering animatedly to him, even though he was not the missing Jack. He was someone whom Marietta had once known very well and whom she was surprised to see at this unassuming event.
‘Guess who I found?’ bubbled Sophie at Marietta. ‘He says that he knew you long ago when you were young.’
Marietta looked at the handsome blond man who was bowing to her before offering her a faint smile. ‘I don’t need to guess,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s Avory Grant, isn’t it? I would have known you anywhere.’
Marietta had not seen him for seven years and those years had changed them both. There were grey streaks in his fair curls and lines on his classically handsome face, even though he was still only in his early thirties. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her.
‘You haven’t forgotten me, I see,’ he said quietly, bowing to her.
‘No, of course not,’ she told him, smiling at him. He might once have proposed to her and been refused, but that was no reason for them to be uneasy with one another.
He smiled. ‘And I would have known you, even though you have become handsome after a fashion which must cause heads to turn in your direction these days.’
‘Now, Avory, you must not flatter me. You know as well as I that I am past my first youth.’
He shook his head. ‘I meant what I said. I am delighted to see you again, and to find you looking so well.’
She did not tell him that he had not changed, for he had, even though he was essentially still the young man who had asked to marry her—something which Sophie did not know.
‘I arrived in Washington yesterday and my aunt told me that I would find you here this afternoon—and so Miss Sophie confirmed when I encountered her.’
Sophie slipped a proprietorial arm through Avory’s, and her smile for Marietta was that of a crocodile hanging on to its prey. ‘Avory and I first met when Pa invited him to dinner this time last year,’ she announced sweetly.
Avory nodded agreement, adding, ‘I am having a short holiday in Washington, renewing old friendships, before I join the Army of the Potomac—’
He was not allowed to finish. Sophie exclaimed, ‘Oh, no—do not say so. It is not even certain that there will be a war.’
‘Would that that were so,’ he told her indulgently, ‘but I am afraid that war is now inevitable.’ He turned to Marietta. ‘I am sure that the Senator would agree with me. May I compliment you again on your appearance, Marietta—it is as though no years at all have passed since we last had the good fortune to meet.’
Marietta’s thanks for this compliment were coolly polite but genuine. For the first time in months, nettled by Sophie’s constant criticism of her, and a little on her high ropes because of the Dilhorne party’s open admiration of her, she had dressed herself with some care.
She was wearing a fashionable green velvet gown decorated with gold buttons and a certain quantity of discreetly placed gilt lace which showed off her glossy chestnut hair to advantage. More to the point, she had abandoned her normally severe coiffure in favour of one which allowed her glorious locks to hang loose a little before they were confined by a black velvet bandeau round her forehead. In the centre of it she had pinned a small topaz brooch. Her mirror had told her how much this unwonted care had improved her appearance.
Sophie tossed her head a little. Plain Jane had no business to be receiving praise—that was for her. ‘Oh, Marietta always looks the same,’ she said, as though that were some major fault. ‘I suppose that your wife is still recovering from your journey from Grantsville and would find a visit to a Bazaar too exhausting.’
Marietta threw Sophie a glance so withering that even that careless kitten quailed before it, while Avory, his face shuttered, said in a low voice, ‘My wife died suddenly six months ago—the news has possibly not yet reached you.’
To save her cousin at least a little face for having forgotten what she must have been told, Marietta said, ‘Sophie has been living in the country until she came to Washington early this spring and consequently would not have been informed of your sad loss.’
‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ stammered Sophie. ‘May I offer you my belated condolences, Avory?’
Despite Marietta’s kind intervention, she shot her a look which was poisonous—but which Avory did not see. He inclined his head towards her and said, ‘You may, indeed. I thank you.’
He addressed his next remark to Marietta. ‘I should wish to pay you a more formal visit before I leave Washington. I take it that you are still at your old address.’
‘Yes, we shall be pleased to see you.’
Sophie announced in a distracted voice, ‘Oh, look—Charles Stanton has just come in, but Jack isn’t with him. Wherever can he be?’
Her brief moment of remorse for her thoughtlessness was over, and she was ready to resume her exciting social life. As on the night of the reception at the White House, she waved her hand above her head to attract attention, only this time it was holding her fan, not a bouquet.
She had already forgiven Charles for having caused her to insult him by not using his proper name, and when he arrived at the stall her pleasure at seeing him was unfeigned because it allowed her to forget her recent gaffe and repair a previous one.
‘Oh, m’lord,’ she exclaimed, startling Avory who was about to leave them. ‘How delightful to see you again. But where are your companions? I trust that they have not deserted us.’
‘Not at all,’ said Charles gravely, including Avory in his bow to her and Marietta. ‘Alan was summoned at short notice to a committee on the Hill and took Jack with him. Since my specialist knowledge was not wanted today, Jack suggested that I come along and assure you that he and his brother would join us before the afternoon is over.’
‘We are being remiss,’ said Marietta, trying
