My Last Duchess, стр. 35

At the play’s intermission, she surveyed the ladies who crowded the Penshallow box, and selected the worst gossip of themall, Lady Arden, and adroitly drew her to the front of the box, exclaiming that she hadn’t seen the lady for ages.

Once they were cozily seated, Ophelia confided that she had insisted her darling Maddie keep her condition a secret.

“I understand that for the first months,” Lady Arden said, looking faintly skeptical, “but so near to confinement?”

Ophelia flipped open her fan and spoke behind it. “Surely you know that my dearest cousin’s marital relations are stormy.”

“To say the least!” Lady Arden’s eyes brightened.

“Most of London believes that it is due to a lack of passion between herself and her husband,” Ophelia whispered, “but thereverse is true. There is too much emotion between them.”

“Ah,” Lady Arden breathed.

“Her delicate condition makes her so sensitive,” Ophelia confided. “I feared for the life of the babe.”

“Lord Arden likes to tell stories of a time when I behaved in a most unladylike fashion while carrying our second child,”Lady Arden said, apparently won over. “Arden insisted on roast partridge for luncheon over my express command, and I couldnot abide that odor. I vomited on his shoes. Deliberately, he says.”

“I have persuaded my dearest cousin that she would do best to retire from society after this evening,” Ophelia said. “I certainlydon’t want her to lose control of her temper as she did at the Hunt Ball, only due to the emotional storms of the first monthsof one’s delicate condition. I trust you will pay us a call? She will be resting comfortably at my house.”

“An excellent plan,” Lady Arden said, clearly recalling the way glacé cherries had bounced off Maddie’s husband’s head. “Mensimply do not understand how hard it is to manage one’s feelings while carrying a child.”

“Lord Penshallow will visit daily, of course,” Ophelia said.

“Of course,” Lady Arden echoed.

Then she asked precisely the question that Ophelia had been hoping to avoid. “Did you see that the Duke of Lindow is in attendance,accompanied by Lady Woolhastings?” She nodded at the box across from them, which was as thronged as their own with visitors.“I must say, that pairing has surprised me.”

“Oh?” Ophelia asked. “I know Lady Woolhastings, of course, but she is considerably older than I am.” If she felt an errantthrill at that truth, it was only natural. Or so she assured herself.

“Her eldest daughter and I were presented at St. James in the same drawing room, so yes, she is my mother’s age. Just lookat them together!”

Ophelia had managed not to glance at the ducal box before the play, or during the first three acts, but now she couldn’t stopherself.

Hugo wore a sober coat of dark blue, enlivened by a sumptuous apricot waistcoat. He was standing, since ladies were visitingtheir box. Two women remained seated: Lady Woolhastings and Lady Knowe, who was wearing a gown à la française that made Ophelia feel a flash of pure jealousy.

“I would never wear that gown at her age,” Lady Arden said.

“You wouldn’t?” Ophelia breathed. “I think the blue is exquisite.”

“Oh, that,” Lady Arden cried. “Not that. Everyone knows that Lady Knowe orders all her fabric from France. No, that sack gown that Lady Woolhastings is wearing.”She shivered.

Ophelia deliberately hadn’t looked closely at Lady Woolhastings, the woman whom Hugo had chosen to replace her. That soundedbitter, and she had no right to bitterness, given her refusal of his proposal.

She forced herself to look at Lady Woolhastings as if yesterday’s trip to the Frost Fair had never happened, as if the ladywere a stranger. She was wearing a neat, small wig that covered her head with organized rows of curls, and she had a quitepretty face.

“That’s a very close wig. Do you think that she’s shaved her head?” Lady Arden whispered. “Ladies of my mother’s generationoften do so.”

Ophelia raised her shoulders in a hopeless shrug. Hugo had adored her hair. She couldn’t imagine him in bed with a bald woman.

“But that dress,” Lady Arden moaned. “Lady Woolhastings is going to be a duchess, and she is wearing a dress that airs herentire bosom to the theater, at her age?”

The gown in question was fashioned from silk patterned with stripes of red flowers, and horizontal ruffles across the front.Almost none of that cloth appeared above the waist: the lady was flaunting oceans of creamy skin, with only a small rufflekeeping her nipples from open view.

“Of course, His Grace doesn’t care about her bosom,” Lady Arden said. “He’s interested in her maternal side.”

Ophelia tormented herself by asking another question. “Her daughters are well married, are they not?”

“Yes, she’ll be a good mother to his children,” Lady Arden agreed. “Though not even she could marry off his youngest, giventhe child’s illegitimacy.”

Ophelia raised a startled eyebrow. Generally, she avoided gossip of this sort, but that was precisely why she was talkingto Lady Arden, of course. If she believed in Maddie’s confinement, then everyone would.

“I hear that the youngest is the spitting image of the Prussian whom his wife ran off with,” Lady Arden whispered, her eyesalight. “Golden hair and a Prussian nose.”

“I’m certain there is golden hair in the Lindow family line,” Ophelia said firmly, avoiding even the faintest tone of indignation.It never did to show emotion in these situations. “I can hardly imagine a two-year-old with a Prussian nose! I expect it isas stubby and round as my own daughter’s.”

“You are so good-natured,” Lady Arden said. “It’s a pity that the duke didn’t look to you, my dear. Everyone knows what an excellent mother you are. What’s more, you wouldn’t make such an obvious faux pas. A duchess oughtn’t to expose her bosom to the world.”

“I couldn’t wear that dress,” Ophelia said with a sigh. “No modiste could manage to confine my bosom with such a small amount of fabric.”

“Perhaps you would be able to marry off the child of the Prussian, but Lady Woolhastings will not, mark my words. She won’t be a powerfulduchess, if