by Robert Neill
‘There usually are, but you can’t have them this time.’
‘Anice, if you think---‘
Richard pushed forward quickly, thinking it was time he did. Luttrell swung round instantly, his horse moving with him and scraping a restless foot. He spoke first.
‘Yes?’
It was contemptuous, inviting anything that might follow, and then he sat utterly still, with his eyebrows pulled down and his brow thunderous. Richard stared back at him, tense and angry, but with the comfortable feeling that he at least knew what to do. He had been hardened to this sort of thing by some Captains he had served under.
‘Are you making threats?’ he asked. ‘To a lady?’
‘I don’t explain what I’m doing.’
‘No? Then Miss Anstey and I wish to talk--without your listening. Also--since you don’t seem to know it--this is not Paris. Or did you think of Badajoz?’
‘By God, sir, you’re insufferable!’
‘Stop it--both of you.’ Anice leaned forward urgently in her seat, and the groom behind her, who had been sitting with a pretence of hearing nothing, stirred suddenly as if he might be needed. ‘I won’t have you quarrelling, either of you. Tommy--if you want to talk to me, you can call on me at any decent time and I’ll let you in. But at this moment I want to talk to someone else, so, just for once, will you please do as I ask?’
‘All right.’ He answered her curtly while his arrogant eyes seemed to take in both of them. ‘Don’t overvalue yourself, will you? You aren’t quite what you were.’
He swung his horse brutally, and was away at a noisy canter before either of them could answer. Richard stood watching. Anice eased back, then gathered up the reins and took her driving poise again. The groom settled back between the springs, and everything was as it had been--except that the peace had hung by a thread, which might not hold another time. Richard, watching Luttrell’s retreating back as it disappeared behind a phaeton, wondered how it would be when next they met. He turned again to Anice, but the moment he took his eyes from Luttrell he was aware of more than Anice. The Row had no fence here to keep spectators back. There was merely a footpath by the road, and the onlookers had swarmed across the carriage-way, drawn to this altercation like bees to sugar. They were standing now agog, and it was plain that they had heard these exchanges and were avid for more. Anice looked at them, and then wasted no time.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Get in.’
She wriggled along the seat to make room for him, and then the reins flicked and the curricle swayed. A man raised his hat, and another, and Anice contrived a smile while she watched the horses. Richard raised his hat, and then the curricle was leaping away as if the greys were tired of waiting. Anice had to haul them back to avoid an oncoming gig.
‘You can’t move in this place,’ was her comment.
He nodded, with his thoughts on that ring of people. Anice and her curricle would be recognized anywhere, and with the gossip that was running he had no doubt that he had been recognized too. So, of course, had Luttrell, and the gossip would spread like a fire in the hold, perhaps turned into a quarrel for the Anstey’s favours. That would suit the Town, and they would be betting on it in the clubs before the day was out. Anice, perhaps, would like it. She needed notoriety, but for his own part. . .
‘You’re very quiet,’ she told him suddenly.
‘I was thinking that it’s awkward.’
‘Awkward! I don’t know what to do next. I was telling you so.’
‘Telling?’ His mind flew back to what she had said at first sight that afternoon. ‘Anice, what’s the matter? Is something wrong?’
‘Is anything right? Hey---‘ She swerved the curricle sharply to the verge as a young blade in a sulky went dangerously by. ‘I don’t know what driving’s coming to.’
‘Never mind the fool. What’s happened?’
‘Oh . . .’ She sounded quite cheerful about it. ‘Who do you think wants me now?’
‘Luttrell, by the look of it.’
‘I don’t mean Tommy. Who else?’
‘For heaven’s sake, tell me.’
‘Prinny.’
‘What!’
‘You can say worse than that--just when I thought I was settling, too. Sends an equerry--very polite--His Royal Highness’s compliments--desires the pleasure of my acquaintance. In other words, he’s heard about me, so he has to see me. Other gentlemen know me, so he must.’ ‘Hmm.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘All very well, if it were no more than making your acquaintance.’
‘Well, it can’t be any more, unless he wants to chuck me under the chin or something. You know what shape he is, and they say he’s let his belly down.’
‘Anice, what do you---‘
‘Don’t you know anything} Don’t you know he keeps his belly in with stays?’ She was chuckling delightedly now. ‘He must have found them uncomfortable, and they say he’s taken them off. What a sight! But I’ll have to go to Brighton--that’s where he is--and I don’t want to. I don’t want Prinny either. He’s quite safe, but he’s a bore. You should hear Hillie about him.’
‘Need you go?’
‘It’s a royal command, isn’t it, when he sends an equerry?’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘Suppose!’
She lapsed into an indignant silence, and then suddenly shook out the reins and let the greys go storming into a canter. They were nearing the end of the Row by now, past the press of people, and with a clear way before them the horses asked for nothing better. They leaped at it, pulling perfectly together, and the gentle sway of the curricle changed to something that set a sea officer thinking of Altair in the November days. He had to sit back, with his feet pressed hard against the splashboard, to keep his balance at all, and he was not quite sorry when the Row went curving gently to the left to join the Public Road along the high forbidding wall of Kensington Palace gardens. For another minute the canter continued, and then the greys were pulled smoothly to a halt as the road came to an end. Anice relaxed and looked carefully round her.
‘Where do we go now?’ she said.
He looked round also. In front of him was what seemed to be a block of stables. To the right was an arched gateway into the Palace grounds, and the gates were shut. To the left a lane ran a few yards to the Western Road, along which he had driven in a chariot with John Wickham. It would take them back to Knightsbridge if they went that way, but it looked busy and uninviting, no place for a curricle.
‘We’d better put about,’ he said. ‘Return as we’ve come.’
‘We certainly shan’t.’ She glanced quickly at him, her young face mutinous, and then she set the horses walking slowly down the lane. ‘We’ll try it this way. They won’t see us.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Everything. I told you it was.’
At the road she had to stop, holding the horses steady as a coach from Bath came pounding along with its passengers already groping for parcels and looking at watches. Then the curricle moved out and followed in its dusty wake. The other side of the road seemed filled with wagons and an impatient coach or two, and Anice looked resignedly at the coach in front.
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘We’ll never pass him. You can’t pass anybody on this road. It’s no good choking the horses.’
She pulled them back, to keep them out of the dust cloud from the coach, and then she began to look aggrieved again.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ she said suddenly, ‘about John back in Town?’
‘John Wickham? But is he? I didn’t know.’
‘I thought he’d have been to see you. Ah well . . .’ A gleam of amusement began to show. ‘He must have been thinking of somebody else. Do you know her?’
She shot it at him suddenly, but he caught her eye and saw the amusement again. Apparently she had mixed feelings about something.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘John?’ She
hauled suddenly across the road to get round a wagon piled high with beer barrels. ‘It’s this brewery down here. But listen---‘
‘I’m trying to.’
‘All right. Well then, I was turning into the Park just now, because I wanted to find you and tell you about Prinny. I always tell you my troubles. Well, there I was, turning through the gate, and you know how it is--there’s always some fool who can’t handle his horses and gets in the wrong place. We shan’t be able to move in London soon. There was a barouche in front of me, doing about half a mile an hour, a whisky coming out, and a phaeton stopped in the middle of everything while the man talked to his aunt. Well, she looked like his aunt. So I had to crawl behind that barouche.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, I had a look round--I’d nothing better to do--and who do you think I saw? I hadn’t seen him for years, but I knew him all right, and he knew me too. I’m sure he did.’
‘John? Was he looking at you.’
‘Gaping. So now he knows who Anice is. And what am I to do?’
‘It doesn’t matter if he knows, if he doesn’t tell the Town. I’ll see he doesn’t.’
‘If you’re not too late.’ She brooded darkly on it while they went lazily up Knightsbridge behind the laden coach. ‘It isn’t only the women who talk, whatever you say. The men can be pretty good at it, when they’re on the third bottle.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Just when I’ve to go to Brighton, too. Blast Prinny! Who was he with?’
‘John?’ He made a leaping guess, which was not very difficult. ‘He’d someone with him?’
‘It wouldn’t be John if he hadn’t.’ She laughed softly, with another change of mood. ‘Hanging on his arm--most affectionate. Rustic look about her. Not quite in fashion. Doesn’t know it.’
‘Did she know you?’
‘She waved at me--and that’s pretty rustic’
‘I’ve known you to wave.’
‘I’m different.’
‘Did you wave back?’
‘With half the Town to see it? What do you take me for? I looked away quick. Oh, it’s all right. I was watching that damned phaeton--I told you he was across the road--but as soon as I’d wriggled round I was off, and I didn’t look back. And that, by the way, is why we’re on this road now.’
She gestured to the side, where the Life Guards’ barracks stood between Knightsbridge and the Park. Beyond the barracks stood a row of small houses and the brewery, and between them they blocked the view completely. No one in the Park could see Miss Anstey in Knightsbridge.
‘Now tell me,’ she said firmly. ‘Who was she?’
‘At a guess--there was a girl called Masheter.’
‘Mary Ann?’ She nodded calmly. ‘That’s what I thought. So you’ve met her?’
‘Once.’
‘Quite enough. What’s she doing in Town?’
‘Looking for a start in life, by what she said.’
He explained it while the easy trot of the greys took them slowly to the Hyde Park turnpike. He was feeling for a shilling as the curricle came to a halt.
‘It’s like her,’ said Anice calmly. ‘She’ll have a lot to learn, though.’
‘She’s learned a good deal. Here you are.’ He handed the coin to the turnpike keeper. ‘She seems to have been Barford’s parlour-maid.’
‘Oh ho!’ She laughed delightedly, and then suddenly produced a smile that set the keeper leaping erect and touching his hat. ‘Thanks very much. She’ll be after me, I suppose?’
‘She didn’t say so.’
‘She will be. She knows who I am, now.’
‘Will you help her?’
‘Well, we used to be friends. But she’ll get what I think good for her, not what she wants, and I don’t know that she’ll like it. Now you’d better find John, and pretty quickly. Where will you look for him?’
‘Larkin’s perhaps, in the Haymarket. He likes to dine there.’
‘If he isn’t dining with Barford, and Miss Mary.’
‘Oh, hell!’
‘Hadn’t you thought of it?’ She chuckled delightedly. ‘You did say they were coming, so she may hear that you’ve been with me. Well, well! One trouble at a time. Are you for Larkin’s?’
‘Yes. I’ll walk along Piccadilly.’
‘Right. I’m going up Park Lane, so I’ll drop you here.’
‘When do you go to Brighton?’
‘As soon as I can, I suppose. In a day or two.’
‘I wish you weren’t.’
‘Well, I can’t help it. If you meet Mary Ann, tell her she can come and see me--if she’s quick about it. And, darling...’
‘Yes?’ He moved suddenly closer, drawn by the unexpected word.
‘Whether you see her or not, come to me yourself--tonight. I’ll be ready by ten o’clock.’
13 The Out-and-Outer
It was a quarter to six, and a blue haze of dusk was on the streets, when he turned into Larkin’s, but he did not see John. He stood by the door of the long crowded room, looking from table to table, and then he remembered Mary Ann. A chophouse was no place for a woman, and if John had her with him they would be more likely to dine in their hotel. He stood in thought, and then remembered Foggarty’s in Bond Street. John had once spoken of it and had seemed to know it, and it might well have been his choice this time. It was quiet and decent, and being on the extreme edge of the fashionable area it would be a convenient but not too prominent place for Mary Ann. Richard stood considering it, rather regretfully. He was hungry, and the tables at Larkin’s seemed attractive, but he thought he should try Foggarty’s. It was part of his promise to Anice, and a moment later he was in the street again, making for the lights of Piccadilly on his way to Bond Street.
It was only ten minutes’ walk, and a word with the porter at Foggarty’s was enough. He had guessed right, and a moment later he was in the small quiet dining-room where they were at dinner together, John and his Mary Ann, at a table by the fire. But the reception they gave him was surprising.
‘Oh ho!’ John was on his feet at the first glance, laughing as he reached for a wine-glass. ‘The man of the hour! Your good health, Richard, and your coachman’s too! Yours and hers!’
‘Now what the---‘
‘We saw her drive in, yellow-bellied curricle and all. The incomparable Anstey! Her excellent health!’
‘Really, John---‘
‘We heard about you, too--getting in next to her, driving away out of sight.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Who didn’t? You’re the talk of the Town. However . ..’ He lowered his glass and became suddenly quieter. ‘We’re very glad to see you, Richard. Have you dined?’
‘Not yet. I---‘
‘Then sit down. No, it’s no trouble at all. Waiter! A third cover. You--er--remember Mary Ann?’
‘Of course I do. Delighted, ma’am.’
‘I am greatly honoured, sir.’
It was the same careful courtesy, oddly out of date, and he looked at her now with a new interest, well able to believe that she had picked it up at Barford’s when she had been his parlour-maid. But she was doing it very well, and in her high-waisted gown of ivory silk, decorated with flowers of pink satin, she did not look out of place at Foggarty’s. It was Richard, indeed, who began to feel out of place, remembering that he had not yet changed his clothes and was still in the pantaloons that he had worn in the Park. He found himself apologizing, and John swept that aside.
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘This isn’t Almack’s. Look at ‘em.’ He gestured vaguely to the half-dozen other people in the room, and then his eyes steadied, as if he were coming to what mattered. ‘I suppose you were looking for us here? Any special business?’
‘A message from Anice.’
‘I was wondering what you’d call her.’ He nodded slightly. ‘She did see us, then?’
‘Yes. As she entered the Park.’
‘I thought so. She didn’t wait, though.’
‘At me? Oh, thank you, waiter. And another bottle of claret--two bottles. But a message from Anice, did you say?’
‘Yes.’ He was carefully tasting the soup that had just arrived. ‘What did you expect me to call her?’
‘It might have been Ann. You know who she is?’
‘Yes. I gather that you do?’
‘She hasn’t a face to forget. Dammit, man . . .’ John sat back, laughing softly. ‘There she was, the famous Anstey, coming in her curricle, and I’d never seen her before--the Anstey, I mean. But everyone told us who it was, so I was interested, and Mary Ann was a dither of excitement. So there she was--the famous Anstey. I used to tickle her, when I was so high, and Mary Ann fell into ponds with her. Then you say she was flustered! Spare a thought for us.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s not what you’d expect. Here’s some fish for you. She’s ahead of Julia Johnstone, and she looks like deposing Harriette Wilson, and that’s who she is.’
‘Yes. And that’s really the point of all this.’ He made play, for a moment, at dissecting the steak of turbot. ‘That’s really the message. She doesn’t want the tale all around the Town, so she asks you--for old times’ sake, so to speak--to keep it to yourselves and not let it out. It wouldn’t help her, just at present.’
‘I don’t suppose it would. All right . . .’ John nodded amiably. ‘Tell her we’ll keep it quiet--for old times’ sake, as she says. At least, I will. Mary Ann will do it for new times’ sake.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘She wants something. She usually does.’
‘It isn’t very much.’ Mary Ann spoke for herself, and she was more natural now; the Barford manners had left her as she looked earnestly at Richard. ‘Do you think she remembers me?’
‘Oh yes.’ He found himself smiling at her eager young face. ‘She says you may call on her if you wish to.’
‘Oh, thank you. But when?’
‘Whenever you please. You’d better not delay, though. She’s to go to Brighton at any moment.’
‘Brighton?’ John asked it sharply. ‘She’s flying high, isn’t she?’
‘She can fly high. But I fancy she’s been sent for.’
