by Joan Smith
“I shan’t bother to kneel, for I see you have made a shambles of your trousers. Standing will do for a rehearsal, though in a real offer kneeling is all the crack. You take the lady’s right hand—so.” He took Claudia’s hand in his, without once looking her in the face. “You had her left hand, Jonathon, the one with the emerald—didn’t you notice? You take the right hand, unless you are left-handed, in which case I suppose—but never mind, you are not left-handed, nor is Miss Milmont. Next you assume a suitably ardent expression—a mixture of hope, love, and eagerness with something of eternal devotion thrown in if you can manage it, but still firm and manly. Humility has no part in this particular expression. That will come later after she has accepted. I think the facial expression really half the battle. When my time comes, I shall think of a particular trout that has eluded me these several seasons and imagine I am about to land him.”
“Now see here, Thoreau,” the captain began, noticing a quivering of Claudia’s lips that augured ill for putting her into a romantic mood.
“Why must I keep asking you to call me Hillary? Is it so hard to remember? You are impatient for me to get on to the spoken part, I expect. Very well, if you’re sure you have appreciated the importance of the expression. You lift the lady’s hand—hold still, darling—clear your throat once for effect, and say, ‘Miss Milmont—or Jones, or Smith, of course, as the case may be—will you do me the honor to be my wife?’ Some recommend an enunciation of one’s own unworthiness first, but I intend to avoid that. No reason to point out the obvious. If the young lady has any wit she knows it, and if she hasn’t, there is no need to cut the ground from under your own feet. So you make the offer—short and simple—and then you wait. It’s time for your lines now, darling,” he said to Claudia, looking at her at last. It was a quizzical, penetrating glance, deep into her eyes. She was beyond speech.
“Do you need a little prompting, too?”
“No, she don’t!” the captain said.
Hillary looked at Jonathon, then again at Claudia. “She does, you know. You can see she hasn’t a notion how to reply. We are making you a proposal, darling. That means we are asking you to marry us. You must now say . . .”
“I know my part,” Claudia told him. “I shall be honored, sir, to accept your kind offer,” she said demurely, with the laughter lighting her eyes.
“That’s pretty good,” Hillary complimented her. “Just a moment’s hesitation might have taken that edge of eagerness from the acceptance, but for a first try. . .”
“What makes you think this is my first offer?” she asked.
“Surely it is your first acceptance,” he pointed out. “Otherwise you ought really to have said no. But you have been practicing up to say ‘yes,’ no doubt, to have your lines ready for the first man who asked you.”
“Oh, you hateful creature!” she flashed out at him. He bowed solemnly with a flash of his sardonic smile and replied, “Mr. Talkative, of Prating Row.”
“We’ll speak of this another time, Miss Milmont,” the captain said and stomped from the room in vexation.
“There—he has given you fair warning this time, darling, and you can be ready with your ‘yes’ before he has half the question out.”
She was amazed to see he was truly angry, for she had made sure he was funning the whole time. “Sir Hillary! You cannot think I meant to accept him!”
The hard look vanished from his eyes so quickly she thought she must have imagined it was ever there at all. “Oh, I don’t know what you deserve for that performance,” she laughed.
“Kean would ask about fifty pounds, but as a good amateur I wouldn’t ask more than the half of such a sum.”
“What an abominable trick to play on that poor man.”
“Never mind the man. Is that any way to thank me for rescuing you from your romantic quagmire? Or are you in the habit of letting him make love to you? I seem to recall your mentioning it on a former occasion.”
“You know I was only joking. He never makes love to me, but he should have been allowed to make an offer in peace.’’
“He will be the better for the lesson, and do the thing properly the next time.”
“Yes, I do know what you deserve. A good thrashing! And I wish he would give it to you.”
“I wish he would try,” Sir Hillary answered quietly and, hitching up the knees of his trousers, he sat down beside her.
“What can have gotten into him to do such a thing? I was never so shocked in my life.”
“It seems so ungallant to suggest it was anything but your beautiful blue eyes, but the unworthy possibility will keep obtruding in my mind that he mistakes you for an heiress.”
“How could he be so misguided? I haven’t a penny.”
“We have all mentioned that famous phrase ‘intervening year’ and wondered about its meaning. He has already had a go at Luane; I wonder if he thinks you might do as well, being also a niece. He could be right, for that matter.”
“I can’t make heads or tails of it. We were just talking about nothing at all, and all of a sudden he was on his knees.”
“Sweet nothings at all?” he asked.
“What? Oh, you idiot! Of course not. We were saying that we think mama will marry Mr. Blandings. He is come, by the way.”
“Say no more!” Sir Hillary said, waving his hands in a graceful way that was always a pleasure for Claudia to behold. “He knows a good thing when he sees it. If it is true your mama is at last to capitulate and have the Trump, then that accounts for his keen interest in you. What an awful thing to say! It is not my own feeling, I think you know.”
“It will make no difference to me,” she replied, noticing but not mentioning the latter part of his speech.
“You will likely stand to come into some of his blunt when he dies.”
“He is young, and the healthiest looking man I ever saw. Besides, he won’t leave a thing to me. He doesn’t even know I am mama’s daughter.”
“I beg your pardon? Do you actually mean she is palming you off as her sister?”
“No, her stepdaughter!” Claudia replied, laughing brightly, but Sir Hillary fell into another scowl.
“You mustn’t be angry with her. She dislikes to claim me as her own daughter, for then she would have to be so terribly old. Jonathon very nearly let the cat out of the bag last night. Oh, how I wished you were here, Sir Hillary! It was a famous visit.”
“Did you, Claudia? Then I wish I had been here, too. Tell me all about it.”
She told him about Jonathon’s saying bluntly she was Marcia’s daughter, adding, “And he never blinked an eye, though I think he tumbled to the truth on the instant. He is so shrewd, Sir Hillary, there is no keeping up to him. Made a million pounds, and with only two years wasted at school. Oh, and the best part, when he was shown my ring, he pulled a jeweler’s glass out of his pocket and held my hand to the light, giving its weight as fifteen carats on the spot. I bet he is right, too.”
“He’s a wonderful fellow. I like him excessively.”
“Do you know him quite well?”
“Only in a business way, but he would be quite an ornament to society if he cared to bother. He doesn’t, which I think is why your mama is so slow in having him. She’d better step smartly if she wants him. There are a dozen pretty chicks on the catch for him.”
“Jonathon says they were holding hands, so I think she must have accepted at last, and very likely he has to get Sophie’s diamonds to win her.”
“No, he doesn’t mean to do that.”
“You cannot know it.”
“Oh, yes, we had a charming visit last night.”
“So he was out carousing with you!” she said.
“Carousing?” he looked at her blankly, causing a blush to suffuse her face. “Where on earth did you get that idea? We were merely discussing the case.”
“Loo said very likely that was why you slept in so late this morning, and why Gabriel didn’t get up to see her. She was mad as a horne
t.”
“You didn’t heed my warning to disregard her slanders against me,” he smiled. “I knew how it would be. I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I came downstairs and saw he hadn’t had the sense to go up and say good-by to her while I slept. He thought to bludgeon me into letting him stay till Monday by that ruse, but it backfired. I hauled him right over to Maldon and put him on the coach. A close-run thing it was, too, to make it.”
“Didn’t he leave her any message or letter?”
“No, deep into the sulks, and hardly said a word. But you can fabricate all sorts of tender messages to lull the brat into peace. I suppose she’s been raising an almighty dust, has she?”
“She went straight to her room, and I must own I was relieved to be rid of her.”
“She’ll be scribbling him off a blast of a letter, libeling me as the villain of the peace. They correspond regularly. Well, they are as good as engaged, and there can be no harm in it.”
“It must be a splendid pastime for her. I love writing my letters to mama. It makes it seem as though you have a friend when you have someone to write to, and sometimes they answer you, too.”
Every word the girl uttered about her mother threw him into a spasm of anger, but he was aware of the uneven relationship between them by this time, and said nothing.
“And now I will have Luane to write to as well,” she finished up.
“Have you given up the idea of being her abigail then?” he asked, surprised.
“I given up? It is no such a thing. You didn’t mean a word of what you said, and I know it perfectly well. I knew it was just talk.”
“Claudia, my dear,” he said, a little angry as well as surprised, “that is not a very nice thing to say to me. I know it means a great deal to you, and I have every intention of carrying our plan through. You cannot have forgotten, I hope, that I mentioned there were some strings attached to it.”
“You haven’t mentioned it to mama.”
“I shall speak to your mama this very day. And I shall speak to you, too, alone, as soon as I have seen her.” He arose and began strolling to the door.
“Must you leave so soon?” she asked.
“I can’t in good faith eat Jonathon’s stringy mutton after the way I treated him this morning. And I can’t carry you off with me to Chanely, much as I would like to. I must see Fletcher. More developments in the case. Can I count on you to evade Jonathon’s importunities?”
“Yes, I’ll run and hide if I see him coming.”
“Good girl, and if he finds you, tell him you are already taken, and your lover is a fiend of jealousy.”
She looked a question at him. “I wouldn’t like to tell him such a plumper,” she replied.
He laughed lightly. “With six of the seven deadly sins under your belt, I wonder you should stick at that. And it isn’t a plumper, either. When do you think your mama and the Trump will be back?”
“By midafternoon I believe. They left around ten.”
“I’ll be back around three or four then, to speak to your mother.”
“I’ll try to cheer Loo up till you get here.”
She went with him to the outer door, where he stood with one hand on the handle looking at her, as if he were loth to leave. “Practice your lines, Claudia,” he said. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing each of her fingers in a row, then he turned and left, closing the door quietly after him.
She stood a few moments transfixed, before hopping to the saloon to have a view of his back as he rode away. ‘Practice your lines,’ he had said. The only interpretation she could put on his words was so marvelous she didn’t dare think it. It was not possible she had worked that smooth, elegant gentleman up to such a pitch he meant to propose to her. She, a tall, plain, old girl who had nothing to do with style but a craving for it.
She went to her room to consider in privacy, with a rose shawl about her shoulders, every detail of their acquaintance. She could find no allusion to marriage but the words he had said before departing. ‘Nasty strings’ and ‘moving her into his house bag and baggage,’ being ‘resigned’ to her mother and the flintlike face he wore every time he heard of her being slighted were not even considered. She dwelt instead on his tall and handsome figure, his noble-looking face, his two beautiful palaces with their multitude of servants, of the diamonds of the first water he brought to Chanely in ever-changing variety, and was sure she had misunderstood his meaning. She wouldn’t let herself believe anything else, for the disappointment of being wrong would surely kill her.
She didn’t go belowstairs till Miss Bliss called her for luncheon. Entertaining Loo was completely forgotten, but when her cousin failed to come to the table for luncheon, she went upstairs to get her and received an unpleasant shock. Luane was not in her room.
Chapter Fifteen
Upon her return from Chanely Saturday morning, Luane Beresford did precisely as Sir Hillary supposed she would do—went to her room to write a letter to her dilatory lover, chastising him and his guardian. She did not like writing letters. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, but somehow the words that ended up on her page, much crossed out and very unevenly aligned, did not express her thoughts. Before she had half a sheet filled, she had succeeded only in aggravating her feelings, not giving vent to them. She squashed the messy sheet into a ball, threw it into a corner, and jumped up from her chair. She put her ten pounds in the reticule, donned her riding hat and gloves, and let herself out the back way to go to the stables.
It was eleven o’clock. Gabriel would just be leaving Maldon for Cambridge. On a previous occasion when he had missed the post by a few minutes, Sir Hillary had dashed him on to the next stop—Witham it was. She would hasten to Witham and have a few words with Gab before he left. He would hear the full budget of his uncle’s iniquity, and if there was an ounce of pluck in him, he wouldn’t stand for it. Just what he would do in the five minutes she might have to see him she didn’t know, but she couldn’t sit still and do nothing. In her mind she may have realized she wouldn’t see him at all, but in her heart and in her fancy she envisioned a passionate meeting.
Maldon seemed a very long way off, and when she reached it, she was much of a mind to turn back, but there she heard the encouraging news that the post had been side-swiped not a mile out of town by a young buck playing hunt the squirrel, and had had to stop and send back to the village for a wheeler. Very likely it wasn’t more than a mile ahead of her. With the cheerful prospect of shouting at someone, she urged her mount on to a faster pace. She didn’t overtake the post, but various carriages loomed ahead of her that might have been it for all she could see through their dust, and in this fashion she got three-quarters of the way to Witham. Then she did see the post and slackened her pace to stay just behind it.
Gabriel, in a deep fit of the sullens, had no notion of getting down to stretch his legs at Witham, and Loo had to go to the carriage and request him to do so. “I have an urgent message from home,” she added, to put a good face on it before the other passengers. His astonishment, upon learning the truth, was exceeded only by his anger. How came she to do such a harebrained thing, he asked. Before she could defend herself, the driver was urging Tewksbury to take his seat. Then he realized it was impossible to leave a young lady unattended eighteen miles from home on a fagged animal, and very likely without a penny in her pocket.
“There’s another buck here is looking for a seat if you’ve a mind to wait for the stage,” the driver said impatiently.
“Oh, very well,” Gabriel replied, and the seat was sold. “I’ll have to poke along on the stage now,” he said to Loo, who was cheered to learn she would have two whole hours with her lover.
The local inn provided their joint necessities of a place to converse in private and a meal. With Sir Hillary a good, safe, eighteen miles away, they again hired a private parlor. Money was no problem—Luane had her ten pounds, and Gab too had money from his uncle. An hour passed pleasantly in abusing their gu
ardian, then they went to stroll about the village till the stage came.
“Your horse will be fagged by the time you get home,” Gabriel commented.
“I’ll just dawdle along and will likely be home before dark.”
The word ‘dark’ made him suddenly aware of the ineligibility of the scheme, and before he was through lecturing her, she had been called a mad woman for chasing after him, even in broad daylight.
“If I had known you only meant to abuse me, I wouldn’t have,” she returned. “It’s clear you wouldn’t have done as much for me. I suppose Sir Hillary has been running me down to you.”
“Certainly not! He blamed me for the whole.”
“Then you should be flattered.”
“I am, but dammit, Loo, how are you to get back? The whole house will be in an uproar by now if you didn’t tell anyone you were coming.”
“Nobody will notice. None of them cares a straw about me,” she said, letting a whine creep into her voice.
“Sir Hillary will notice.”
“Him again! You never think of me. I’ll be lucky if I ever get home at all this night. I’ll likely be waylaid by highwaymen or assaulters of some sort.”
“We’ll hire a chaise and pair for you right now, before the stage leaves.”
She objected to such a foolish waste of money, but when they got to the local stables there wasn’t a chaise or pair or even a gig or whisky to be had.
“It will have to be the stage for you, too, then,” Gab decided, unsure whether he did the right thing to put an unchaperoned lady on the stage, but very sure he did not wish to face his uncle again that day, in view of the strong words that had blistered his ears that morning. At least, it was a short trip for her. At their next stop at the office of the stage, they met discouraging news. Every seat was booked, and to clinch the matter, all customers were present, as the vehicle was leaving in minutes. The next was at midnight, and entirely inappropriate for a lady traveling alone.
These enquiries ate up so much of their time that Gabriel’s stage came and left without his even making an inquiry, and they were stranded at Witham, with only one tired nag between them. In a fit of depression, Gabriel suggested walking home, with the hope that some kind stranger might pick them up.
