The Sleeping Sword by Brenda Jagger

have we not, to obey mamma and papa, that it seems impossible to break free. Yes, dear, a strong-minded mamma can be a great burden. You may find a husband somewhat easier to manage.’
    And I was in no doubt that, day by day, Mrs. Agbrigg was forcing me towards that same conclusion.
    My cousin Blanche returned home at the start of the winter, looking as lovely and—one could not avoid noticing it—as virginal as ever, and immediately Aunt Caroline, who had been living quietly since the wedding, awoke to her accustomed activity, organizing an ambitious programme of winter events which one could only assume to be her swan-song. The house once more was full of guests, foxhunting gentlemen from London availing themselves of the well-stocked Listonby stables, ladies with double-barrelled names and flat, high-bred voices who sat about all day—like Blanche—in the Great Hall, where tea and muffins, hot chocolate and gingerbread, chilled white or hot, spiced wine were in constant supply, served by footmen in Listonby’s blue and gold livery who seemed possessed of the ability to materialize from thin air.
    â€˜Wonderful, is it not,’ Blanche asked me, stifling a contented yawn, ‘how it all happens, as if by magic?’
    But the magician—as Blanche well knew—had been up since dawn setting these luxurious wheels in motion and would not retire that night until the last of her guests had been escorted ceremoniously to bed.
    â€˜Aunt Caroline must work extremely hard,’ I suggested, but Blanche only smiled.
    â€˜She loves it, Grace—simply thrives on it. She wouldn’t be without it for the world. And as for me—well, I haven’t the least notion of depriving her. It would be too unkind.’
    Yet, although Blanche seemed content to remain a pampered guest in her own home for ever, there would be times, surely, when Sir Dominic’s wife must take precedence over his widowed mother? And I wondered, with some amusement and a certain sympathy, how Aunt Caroline would come to terms with that.
    There was a change of guests that first fine November Saturday, one house-party being carefully conveyed to the station to catch the morning train, the next one not due until Monday, making dinner that night a family occasion in the small, early Georgian saloon, an apartment the colour of musk roses where Aunt Caroline—who had ‘improved’ so much else at Listonby—had retained the original century old Baroque mouldings, the elegant, satin-covered Regency chairs, the impression of great age and the gradual, heart-searching decay of great beauty.
    â€˜How nice to be en famille ,’ she said, smiling very brightly as Blanche sat down at the head of the table opposite her bridegroom, not troubling in the least as to where anyone else should sit; claiming, in fact, the privileges of the lady of the manor while not even appearing to notice the responsibilities. But the Duke of South Erin, very much en famille at Listonby, automatically took the place of honour to the right of Blanche, Aunt Caroline to the right of Dominic, Gideon Chard and Venetia finding themselves side by side, an indication, one supposed, that Aunt Caroline had abandoned her hopes of an earl’s daughter and decided to ‘see reason’; while Noel Chard, not receiving any instructions, hesitated, his eyes on the empty chair beside Blanche, wondering perhaps if he should be paying attention to me until his mother deposited me to the left of Dominic and released him.
    Unlike Tarn Edge, the food was superb, the service miraculous, the conversation dull, I thought, but without strain, Sir Dominic and the weather-beaten little duke confining themselves to hunting and shooting stories of a technicality which rendered them incomprehensible to me, although Gideon and even Venetia from time to time joined in, having all of them in their day jumped a wider ditch in pursuit of a craftier fox,