Matlin nursed a strong, bitter feeling that no one understood, that he had tried, except on that disastrous night in the hut near Peñausende; he had tried to work for Thea’s good, and now all he heard were recriminations. He drank what was left of his coffee, stared unseeingly at the blotch on the tablecloth, and wished that his head did not ache so fiercely. He was still wishing this when Lady Ocott, unaccountably awake and dressed at this unfashionable hour, appeared in the doorway. Even her smile seemed loud to Matlin’s delicate head; she settled herself without comment in the chair opposite him and picked daintily over the toast rack.
“My dear, this coffee is stone cold.” She rang the bell and ordered more. “There, we shall be much more comfortable now.”
Matlin looked at her from under lowering brows. “Aunt Sue, what are you about? Don’t put that innocent face on, I’ve seen it before. If you have come to read me a scold about Thea....” His voice trailed off emptily.
Lady Ocott regarded him with some sympathy. “She wept herself to sleep last night, Douglas. The child worships you, cannot you see that?”
He drew himself up from the table, wincing slightly at the throbbing in his head. “No, Aunt, I cannot,” he said tonelessly. “But don’t think it’s any fault of Uncle Nigel’s. He had his say half an hour ago, and I doubt you could better it. I have heard all I can bear of my wife’s manifest wrongs. If you will excuse me....” It was not a question.
Lady Ocott watched him go, then applied herself to coffee and rolls with a sense that she would need all the fortification she could get.
However, when she had at last braced herself to waken her niece, she was surprised to find Thea awake, dressing, apparently no worse for the scene the night before. She was fluttering aimlessly about her room, waiting for the hip bath to be filled, shuffling through the cards and notes which her maid had brought to her, as if she had not a care in the world. Only a persistent red rim to her eyes bore mute testimony to tears in the night.
“Thea, dearest,” Lady Ocott began, feeling rather foolish.
“Good morning, ma’am.” Thea’s manner was determinedly cheery. That her smile was fixed and her voice hard beneath the superficial cheer was nothing a stranger would have noticed. Lady Ocott frowned uneasily. “What a Friday face! It must come of being up at such an uncivilized hour; have you an engagement this morning?”
“No. That is, I thought I would have breakfast with Nigel and Douglas; only Nigel had already left the house, and Douglas....” Lady Ocott stopped, unsure of how to continue.
“Gone off to Whitehall? Welladay, we shall do very well without him, I am sure.” Thea tossed envelopes on the counterpane with a savage gesture. “What did you plan for today, Aunt Sue? More shopping? I hope you will hold me excused, but I would like some fresh air today, perhaps a drive or a picnic if one can be got up on such short notice. Do you like the idea?”
Feeling that this mummery had gone on long enough, Lady Ocott shook her head. “Dorothea, stop this nonsense at once. Get a hold on yourself.”
Between her teeth Thea muttered, “I have a hold on myself. I hate to think what I should do if I did not. I assure you, ma’am, it’s much better this way. Why, I feel perfectly splendid this morning; don’t you? Such a fine, sunny day.” Her voice wavered on the last words, but her smile was indomitable.
Lady Ocott felt rather ill and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “Thea, dear child.” Reaching to take one of the younger woman’s hands in her own, Lady Ocott started on a confused but heartfelt assurance that everything would be all right, that all would be well with time, with time. “You’ll see, dearest lamb, it will all come right, I know it.”
Thea smiled brightly. “It’s more than I know, ma’am. I am afraid you will have to give up this plan of yours for Matlin and me. I’m afraid we are not going to live happily ever after. What a drab ambition, after all! But look!” She held a note aloft in a dreadful coquettish imitation of a tonnish belle. “Bess Chase has persuaded my—Mr. Joaquín to take her to Ranelagh this evening, and she wants me to chaperon them. I can imagine Bess persuading Mr. Joaquín to persuade her.... I think I shall go.”
“No, Thea, for heaven’s sake.”
Thea’s look was suddenly blackly unforgiving. “I am tired of being told what to do, and with whom, ma’am. I know better than to compromise myself, if that is what you’re afraid of; I am not going to ruin my husband’s precious career! All I want is to be able to enjoy my friends, which seems little enough to ask. I am an adult, whatever he thinks; I was old enough to save his life twice, I made the crossing on that horrid boat, I left Silvy behind....” After a moment of silence Thea tried unsuccessfully to smile again. “Well, I am certainly old enough, after all that, to go to a party with Bess Chase and her brother. If you would like to join us, ma’am, I am certain Mr. Joaquín would be delighted. Now, if you will excuse me?” She nodded toward her bath.
Lady Ocott shook her head. “Dear lamb, don’t take it all so hard, I beg you. See how miserable you make me?” In truth, there were tears in her eyes; they were caught by the bright sunlight which streamed through filmy draperies.
Thea softened a little. “I don’t wish you to be unhappy, Aunt Sue; don’t you take it all so much to heart, I beg. Douglas and I—well, that’s of no account. I think nothing of it, truly. Even a marriage of convenience must be a little inconvenient at times, I suppose. Now, I must take my bath if I am to be ready to drive out with Lady Duncannon this afternoon. Go on, there’s nothing in the world wrong with me.”
Lady Ocott left, frustrated and miserable. “What good does it do to rise at dawn, practically, if these idiotic children refuse to be helped?” she muttered wrathfully to an underfootman polishing brass in the hallway. The man made no answer; she passed to her own chamber unsatisfied.
o0o
The drive with which Matlin had hoped to clear his head and gain some thinking time had only made matters worse. His head pounded unrelentingly; his stomach was delicately settled at best, and none of his thoughts seemed worth thinking. He had an appointment with Canning’s undersecretary, George Hammond, that afternoon, and had made no plans to fill time until then. Why should he have had to do so? Now Thea’s words and his uncle’s and Aunt Susan’s rang in his ears; his stomach churned, and he wanted distraction.
Briefly he considered boxing at Cribb’s and shooting at Manton’s gallery, tailors, and the horse auctions at Tattersall’s. There was nothing he wanted to do or, rather, what he wanted to do he could not. So he found himself by default at White’s Club, where the doorman admitted him with a sympathetic look and a waiter brought him a mild brandy-and-water and the morning’s Gazette. Other members of the club were warned off by Matlin’s absentminded grimace, and he spent a comparatively restful few hours reading the foreign news and waiting for the pitching in his stomach to abate. When he left White’s for the Foreign Office he was feeling much better and had managed to ignore entirely the issue of his marriage and his wife. With any luck, he thought grimly, Hammond would have enough work for him to distract him from any thoughts of Dorothea at all.
There was indeed work for him to do: a report to be translated and annotated, which Hammond pressed into his hands at once.
“You’ve passed through this territory, Sir Douglas. You should be able to tell me how much of this dispatch is flummery and how much is solid information. I shall want you to speak with Mr. Canning later today, if that is convenient. You hadn’t any engagements for this evening, had you?”
“None.” Matlin’s smile was perfunctory.
“Good. Well then?” Hammond turned away absently. Matlin found a desk and chair and set about his task.
Thea’s face kept superimposing itself upon the page. The thoughts he had suppressed all day began to haunt him, and the work before him went slowly, then more slowly, until at last he threw his pen across the room in frustration and muttered an oath.
After all, what did it matter what the girl thought or did not thin
k about him or Adele Frain or anything else? He had fulfilled his promises to her and the Sisters, hadn’t he? He had brought her back to London, seen that she was brought out, that she was meeting people, had the chances that a girl of her age deserved. He had offered her her freedom in good faith and thought that she would find a boy closer to her own age and of her own choosing. So, why should he care now what she thought of him? What she felt, after last night, was no longer in doubt, and Matlin found the honesty to admit that he cared very much. Beyond his horrified guilt and the awkwardness of their situation, the weight of obligation he had felt to her for saving his life, the anger which blossomed in him when he saw her surrounded by other men, particularly that damned Spaniard, Joaquín, there was something else. The images of Thea refused to be dismissed.
An elderly clerk shuffled into the room breathing noisily.
“What the devil is it?” Matlin snapped. The answer came to him startlingly. He loved her. He was in love with his wife, fourteen years old or not, faithful or not. It was so amazing a thought that for a few minutes he could do nothing but sit, gazing at the far wall.
When he came to himself the clerk had left, daunted. As he stared down at the papers before him, Matlin wondered: had matters gone too far to be made up?
He sped through the rest of the report; he went as quickly as he could; his annotations were terse, and his translations more functional than literal. When he had finished he brought the report straight to Canning.
“Well, ye made quick work of it, Douglas.” The Foreign Secretary looked disposed to be chatty.
“Sir, I wonder....”
Canning raised an eyebrow. “Yes? You wonder what?”
“Hammond said you wished to speak with me, but I wonder if I might be spared tonight. I just recalled something. My wife....”
Canning smiled shrewdly. “Met her last week, Douglas. A very charming girl and a thought underappreciated, I would say. Never seems to have your escort.”
“I mean to right that, sir. That is, if you don’t need me.”
“The Foreign Office has survived this long without you; I imagine that one evening won’t make the end of the world.” Canning flipped through the papers Matlin had handed him and began to read. Matlin found himself stuttering thanks like a schoolboy as he left the room and started for Hill Street.
“Lady Matlin has gone to Ranelagh with Miss Chase and Mr. Chase,” Platt informed him. Some curious instinct had prompted the butler to refrain from adding Mr. Joaquín’s name to the list. “Lady Ocott is gone with Mrs. Caddish to the play, sir, and my lord is....”
“I don’t really need to know where my uncle is, Platt. I shall be joining my wife at Ranelagh as soon as I have changed. Will you have my phaeton brought round in half an hour?” Eagerly, surrendering himself to a new-found sense of adolescent joy, Matlin took the hall stairs two at a time and rang impatiently for his valet.
Within an hour he was walking over the Ranelagh grounds, pushing his way through the press and acknowledging greetings from friends with a barely civil brevity. A group of women, demi-reps from the look of them, drifted past him in a cloud of transparent muslin and overpoweringly musky scent. Matlin had a twinge when he thought of what he had said to Thea about her own clothes.
“I’ve a deal to apologize for, sweetheart,” he murmured to himself. “Only let me find you and begin.” Nowhere in the crowd did he see Thea’s face. At last he sighted, not Thea, but Tony Chase.
“Chase, by God I’m glad to see you.”
Tony looked at Matlin dubiously. “Good evening, sir,” he began cautiously. “Your wife did not say you would be here this evening.”
“My wife did not know,” Matlin said cheerfully, quite in charity with the younger man. “Where is she now? I came on purpose to join her.”
Chase temporized awkwardly. “She—my sister was with her by the decorative fountain....”
“Fine.” Matlin made to take Chase’s arm. “We’ll join them together.”
“Sir Douglas, perhaps I can bring her to you? That is....” Chase looked very uncomfortable. “You and Lady Matlin had a quarrel, did you not? I don’t wish to intrude, but I could not help noticing that Lady Matlin....”
Matlin nodded, chagrinned. Did everyone know the state of his marriage except himself?” I came to apologize to her. Look, Chase, if you will bring Thea out to me, I will be your debtor for life. I’ll wait here.” He indicated the lamp-post by which they stood.
“Very well, sir. I’ll meet you here in five minutes.” Still looking somewhat uncomfortable and bewildered, Tony Chase disappeared into the crowd. Matlin waited with growing impatience, an affectionate irritation. “Thea, sweet idiot, will you hurry up?” It seemed to him now that he had realized he loved her he must tell her at once, make her forgive him, make her love him. “Damnation, how long does it take to fetch someone across the park?”
“Douglas?”
His heart stopped, then started again. The feminine voice was not Thea’s. The delicate hand deliberately poised on his arm was Adele Towles’s.
“At least say good evening, my dear.” Her smile was intensely intimate.
“Good evening, Lady Towles. I hope I see you well?” He peered over her shoulder and hoped for a glimpse of his wife.
“Lady Towles? Come now, Douglas, we were never so formal before. Won’t you take me somewhere where we can talk?”
Good God. “I am sorry, ma’am, but I am waiting for someone.”
“Just someone, Douglas?” She ran one finger up his sleeve. “You don’t mean to say you can’t spare me a little time in favor of just someone?” When he looked at her unencouragingly, she went on. Her scent was very potent, and she pressed herself against his side in an outrageous manner. “Douglas, we were very close once. You wanted me, didn’t you?”
There was enough pleading in her voice so that he was distracted. He made himself answer her question, although his attention was on the faces in the crowd before him. “It was a long time ago, Adele.”
“Not so long. I never forgot you, Douglas, you know that. I was devastated when I thought you had died.”
“I’m gratified, Adele. Now you are a married woman....” Why in Hell would she not go away? The last thing he wanted was for Thea to find him speaking with Adele Towles, after the things she had said the night before.
“Does that bother you, that I married Charlie Towles? Douglas, darling, you mustn’t let that trouble you in the least. You know what Taffy is: the dearest creature in the world, but so slow, so amiable. All he wanted was a pretty face and a complaisant body, and he got both, but Douglas my darling, you don’t think he ever had my heart, do you? You had that, my dear, even when I thought you were dead....”
“Not when I was alive, if you recall.... We decided we did not suit then, Adele, and I have no reason to believe we were wrong. You have your husband. I have my wife.”
For the first time Adele Towles showed signs of annoyance. “That infant? I grant you, Douglas, she’s a pretty little baby, but hardly a woman. You need a woman, Douglas.”
He was aware, more with annoyance than with any other feeling, of the pressure of her breasts against his arm, her hip against his own. In the fading light her eyes shone avidly, and her mouth, half open, looked hungry. He stared at her for a moment with revulsion. “I need my wife, madam,” he said at last. “I’m flattered by your offer—it was an offer, I collect? I think I have gone a little past that sort of offer and had when we broke our engagement.” He peered over her shoulder again.
“What are you looking for?” she cried. Then, before he could tell in which direction she had looked, she turned back to him. “Is that who you’re waiting for? Weil, then, Douglas, if you don’t want me, the least you can do is bid me farewell. Properly.” And she reached up and drew him down to meet her kiss.
Flustered and angry, it still took him a moment to break her hold. He had no wish to hurt her or to cause a scene. When he straightened up from the embrace Ad
ele Towles was smiling, a strange hard smile. “My farewell present to you, my darling.” She turned, and when he followed her gaze he could see Thea, her hand on Tony Chase’s arm and her mouth open in a small “o” of surprise and hurt.
“Damn you to Hell, Adele. I don’t know what Charlie Towles did to deserve you, but it could not have been bad enough.” He shook off her hand and started to push through the crowd, but it was too late. By the time he reached the spot where Thea had been only a moment before, she was gone, disappeared without a trace in the milling crowd. Behind him he thought he heard Adele Towles’s laugh.
Chapter Thirteen
Thea had been grateful for the presence of Bess and Tony Chase when Joaquín arrived in Hill Street to take them all up in his carriage for the short drive to Ranelagh. She had successfully put off thinking about the debacle she had made of her plea to Matlin all day, but she was certain that sooner or later Joaquín would demand to know if she had spoken with her husband or not. She had a good notion of what her cousin’s reaction would be when she tried to explain what had happened. She had failed him, failed the cause, failed her marriage. She deserved every wretched epithet in the dictionary, and it was only the fear that Joaquín would actually call on her in Hill Street, if she did not give him a more circumspect meeting place, that had given her the strength to go tonight.
Her respite was brief. When they alit at Ranelagh and a groom had taken the carriage off, Joaquín neatly arranged it so that he was Thea’s escort into the park, while Tony Chase squired his sister. This was not to Bess’s liking or Tony’s; it was certainly not to Thea’s. Bess made a little face at Thea before Tony swept her down a green-hedged pathway.
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