Chapter 25

25

Cassandra carried out her investigations and discovered that there was a public assembly in the nearby market town in two days' time, on the evening of the full moon. Now she had merely to persuade her unsuspecting guests that they were all possessed of a powerful desire to go. Lady Carston had promised her support; she had agreed that the plan offered the only possible way of divining Lady Ashby's feelings for the Captain without alerting her to his (currently) hopeless passion. She had engaged furthermore to temper Lady Louisa's inevitable objections, or at least to persuade her to reduce the expression of them to manageable levels. There was no point asking Louisa to show enthusiasm for the project; if she did so, anyone even slightly acquainted with her would imagine that she was unwell, or even in imminent danger of losing her reason. It must be obvious that to drive for an hour over indifferent roads in order to attend a provincial assembly in what she would describe as the depths of winter so that she could watch a horde of unfashionable and badly dressed persons disporting themselves to the scraping of ill-tuned fiddles was her idea of torture.

Lady Irlam knew that her strongest ally was likely to be Mrs Winterton. The genteel society in that part of Hampshire, whom Lady Louisa would characterise with aristocratic disdain as a parcel of rustics, were Sophia Winterton's neighbours and in many cases her friends from childhood, and it was not to be supposed that she would readily forgo the chance of meeting them on such an agreeable social occasion. Mrs Winterton was such a kind and pleasant lady, and one who had done so much for Hal and Bastian and all the Pendlebury children, that Cassandra calculated that if she expressed a strong wish to go, it was highly likely that her nephews would hurry to oblige her. As for Lady Ashby, Mr Welby and Mr Wainfleet, they were well-bred people who would surely acquiesce to anything that their hosts proposed, whatever private reservations they might cherish. The idea of Mr Wainfleet in particular summoning the courage to object must make her smile, it was so implausible.

She was proved right in every respect, and the matter was swiftly settled. Hal was plainly a little startled when the idea was first put to the company, and looked hard at Cassandra, as if suspecting his wife of having some devious and possibly dangerous plan in mind, but while his Aunt Sophia was exclaiming with honest pleasure at the idea, he could hardly pour cold water on all her happy expectation. Cassandra shot him a look that signified, I am very grateful for your forbearance, and I will explain presently.

When she made him aware of her scheme later that evening, he was doubtful but conceded that he couldn't think of anything that would serve as well. So it was agreed, and time would tell the upshot of it.

They would need three coaches for the expedition, as the persons attending from the Castle were ten in number, and Cassandra put a great deal of thought into the arrangement of her guests between the conveyances. She had every reason to know – she blushed pleasurably at the recollection – just exactly what could occur in a carriage in the darkness on the way home from a ball when two young people were strongly drawn to each other and their companions were asleep. But she reflected that the case was hardly the same; Leo's problem was far more complicated than mere lack of opportunity.

She had written everyone's names on pieces of paper and was moving them about between three larger cards that signified the carriages, and she soon discovered that it was quite ridiculously difficult to achieve a successful result. She would prefer to avoid an arrangement that put Lady Ashby along with Leo in a carriage with two other young men she barely knew, which was not a usual kind of thing to do to a lady and might easily make her uncomfortable, or alternatively put her with Leo and Mrs Winterton, which would have much the same effect given the nature of her secret. To place the pair with Hal and Cassandra themselves, on the other hand, would look enormously pointed and frankly odd, as if to say that they were two couples publicly recognised as such, which was sadly far from being true. The whole thing, which ought to be simple enough, was excessively complicated. She couldn't put all the ladies beside herself together, either, because they would never arrive at the assembly, or even leave for it, as they politely argued over who would take the seats of honour and who sit backwards in relative discomfort. Lady Carston was in an interesting condition, she now knew; Louisa and Lady Ashby were of higher rank; Mrs Winterton was older. It gave one the headache. There was also Tom Wainfleet to consider; he was so shy, it would be cruel to place him, unsupported, with ladies he might be disposed to be frightened of, which was all of them apart from Mrs Winterton, who was surely too motherly a figure to alarm even him.

In the end, Cassandra threw up her hands at the disproportionate expenditure of time on the ridiculous little problem and regarded her little paper coaches with a certain measure of satisfaction. Tom would ride with Mrs Winterton, Lady Ashby and Leo, which admittedly was not ideal but could have been worse; Bastian and Matthew would ride with Lady Carston and Louisa, so that once again both the ladies could have the good seats, and she and Hal would ride alone. This would please Hal and – if she were honest – herself. A secret little smile curved her lips as she tied away her pieces of paper. They had rather a history, she and her husband, when it came to carriages in the dark.