She started a little at his use of her name. He looked amused.
“You would perhaps prefer that I do not call you by your Christian name?” he asked ironically. “You find it a trifle ah — intimate?”
“I —” Isabella choked, and could not for a moment continue. “Of — of course, you must use it if you wish — it is just that — it seems so strange —”
He waited until the end of her stumbling explanation, not attempting to help her out.
“Many things,” he reminded her, with a twisted smile, “will seem strange from now on.”
She blushed, and looked down at her plate.
“I — I suppose so,” she answered, in a voice a little above a whisper.
His smile widened, and he considered her out of half-closed eyes, as she remained motionless, head bent, cheeks flushed. The shapely hand that held her knife quivered slightly.
A dutiful, obedient daughter, he thought, remembering his father’s words; yes, she is that. Poor fool, why doesn’t she fight back, give me a run for my money? That might be sport — but this is an imperfect world, Charles, my boy. You must not look for more than duty and obedience in a wife. And she is handsome — she will do very well.
Across the table, Amanda had noticed her sister’s discomfiture, and turned impetuously to her neighbour.
“I wonder what your odious cousin has said to make Isabella look so wretched? ’Pon rep, he is a monster!”
The enormity of making such a comment to a member of Mr. Barsett’s own family suddenly smote her, and she put her hand quickly over her lips in a gesture of dismay.
“Oh! I beg your pardon! What have I said?”
“Don’t put yourself about,” he answered reassuringly. “We have all at times given vent to unguarded expressions of opinion, and yours is a frank and open nature. Truth to tell, I feel a little as you do.” He glanced surreptitiously at Isabella. “Your sister is discomposed. Charles must have been clumsy.”
“I believe it was deliberate!” declared Amanda emphatically. Then, with a change of tone, “But I must not offend you again.”
He shook his head, smiling. She leaned a little nearer, and said in a low, urgent tone, “Mr. Thurlston. There is something I must confide to you.”
He encouraged her with a look, but made no other reply.
“You may remember that I told you I had met a gentleman in the grounds of — of that place that shall be nameless? Well, I am convinced that it was none other than your cousin!”
She glanced at him sharply to see how he took this information.
“Quietly,” he admonished her, in a low voice. “We draw attention to ourselves.”
She looked up and met her mother’s eyes upon her in a warning glance. No one other than Mr. Thurlston could possibly have heard the words she had spoken; evidently her manner had been at fault.
“See if you cannot smile a little,” he suggested, in the same subdued tone. “Make believe that we are conducting a trifling conversation. Yes, that’s better.”
Amanda, quick to benefit from instruction, was endeavouring to follow out his directions.
“You are not surprised at what I tell you,” she accused.
“No. That is because I already know of my cousin’s connection with the Abbey.”
“What is the place? What goes on there?” asked Amanda eagerly. “Is it — something shameful?”
He forgot his caution for a moment, and gave her a grave look.
“I may not tell you what I know. Please forgive me, and forbear to question me further on that subject.”
“But I cannot!” burst out Amanda, in deep disappointment. “Who is to tell me, if not you? You surely can’t be so unkind!”.
“Why not ask my cousin?” he suggested, with a mocking lift of his eyebrows which momentarily gave him a fleeting resemblance to Charles Barsett.
“’Pon rep, I’ve a mind to do it!”
He looked at her curiously.
“Would you dare? Ah, I see I have said the wrong thing. I might have known that one of your spirit — but, seriously, Miss Amanda, I don’t advise such a step.”
“Do you not?” she replied, with a tilt of her determined chin. “And why not, pray?”
“I have already told you. It is not a fit subject —”
“La, sir! Is your cousin then such a model of propriety?”
“Quite the reverse — though he is the best of fellows, of course. But you would not wish to be doing anything improper, I know.”
“Then you know me very little,” said Amanda with a defiant laugh. “I have had my fill of propriety during my years under a governess, and am now ready to fling my bonnet over the windmill!”
“You will think better of it,” he said, smiling at her.
She shook her head, but said no more. She was quite determined to solve this stupid mystery, and did not greatly care how she came at a solution. As for Charles Barsett, she thought nothing of lowering herself in his eyes. She told herself that she would dearly love to shock him, if such a thing were possible.
Dinner over, the ladies rose to leave the gentlemen over their wine for a space. Mrs. Thurlston led the way back into the drawing-room, and, seating herself beside Lady Twyford, began a conversation.
“So very charming a girl, your eldest daughter, if I may say so. Charles is fortunate indeed.”
“There is good fortune on both sides, I believe,” replied my lady, complacently.
“To be sure, oh, yes. Charles, of course, has been somewhat of a disappointment to his father, but I daresay all that is past, now that he is to wed. And dear Isabella must be a steadying influence upon any man, I am sure. It is strange, is it not, how different blood relations can be? My own son, Roger, has never given us a moment’s uneasiness.”
Lady Twyford made some polite reply, and signalled with her eyes to Amanda to come over to the sofa where she and Mrs. Thurlston were sitting. She wanted to have a few moments’ conversation with Isabella, who was standing by the spinet, idly turning over some music, an air of dejection on her lovely face. Amanda, always quick to take a hint, obeyed, and after Lady Twyford had drawn her younger daughter into conversation with Mrs. Thurlston, she rose and went over to the elder girl.
“Isabella!” she said sharply, in a low tone that could not carry to the others. “Whatever is amiss with you?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mama,” replied Isabella, in a dull voice.
“This mooning air of yours, and the lack of your usual spirits. This is no way, silly girl, to hold a man. Why, Mr. Barsett looked positively bored at dinner.”
“I cannot help it,” said Isabella, a shade truculently. “I do not happen to feel in spirits today.”
“Then you had better look to your interest, and pull yourself together. A man wants something more from his betrothed than blushes and a straight face! You can be animated enough when you choose — why, I remember only a few short months ago, at the Hunt Ball —”
“Pray, Mama, do not speak of that.” Lady Twyford looked in amazement at the pain in her daughter’s voice. What could ail the child? Nerves, she supposed.
“Well, well,” she said soothingly. “It is one thing, to be sure, to flirt with an agreeable young man, and quite another to know how best to conduct oneself with one’s affianced! But you need have no fears, my child; Mr. Barsett has been about the world a little, and will do nothing to embarrass you — you may safely be a little less guarded, more animated, more yourself. It will not do to make him tired of you quite so soon.”
“You think he — feels anything at all for me, Mama?”
The words were painfully drawn out of her. Her mother looked at her pale face in alarm.
“To be sure he does! Or, at least, that must depend upon you. Gentlemen are only too ready to fall in love, but we must give them some small encouragement — as much as is proper, of course. He cannot fail to admire you, lovely as you are — though perhaps I should not say so! See to it that he find
s you gay and charming as well, and his conquest is complete. No more of these dull looks and missish airs, I charge you strictly, mind.”
“Very well, Mama, I’ll — I’ll try,” whispered Isabella dutifully and at that moment the gentlemen came into the room.
Music was proposed, and Isabella prevailed upon to sit down at the instrument. Charles Barsett moved to her side, in order to turn the pages of the music for her; Lady Twyford noticed with approval that her daughter gave him a coy look that must, reflected the lady, have been vastly fetching. Indeed, there was now a welcome change in Isabella’s manner. She chatted and laughed a great deal, in the intervals between one piece of music and another, and glanced roguishly out of her bewitching hazel eyes at Charles. Two spots of colour tinged the cheeks that had been pale before, and when she talked her hands fluttered restlessly.
Amanda noticed this with a frown, and watched Charles Barsett’s reaction to it, but there was no reading anything into his habitual expression of bored cynicism. Presently she was invited to take her sister’s place at the spinet. By what she afterwards saw was an unlucky chance, she broke into the opening chords of ‘Barbara Allen’. It was an old family favourite, and had been sung in the past on many an evening when John Webster and his parents had been dining with the Twyfords. Amanda’s clear, childish treble underlined the pathos of the simple words.
“All in the merry month of May When green buds they were swellin’, Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay For love of Barbara Allen.”
As she sang the final verse, her glance strayed across the room to her sister. To her dismay, she saw that Isabella’s eyes were misty, and realised that she was not far from tears.
“Oh, do let us have something gay!” cried Amanda, crashing a last chord in undue haste. “I know what — Mr. Thurlston and his cousin shall dance us a reel!”
There was a general laugh at this. Charles Barsett sauntered over towards her.
“A splendid notion,” he approved, in his lazy drawl. “But Roger and myself are ill-sorted partners. Perchance you and I, Miss Amanda, might cut a better caper.”
“You think so?” she replied, smiling archly.
She was thankful to focus the attention of the room upon herself for a while: it might give Isabella a chance to recover.
“I am nearly sure of it,” he answered, with his twisted smile.
“Oh, no, sir,” protested Amanda, giving him a meaning look. “I am not yet sufficiently versed in the art of the dance to do you credit. After all, I am only a schoolgirl.”
There was a pregnant pause. Out of the corner of her eye Amanda observed that Isabella had recovered, and was watching her sister in amazement.
“But no!” protested Charles Barsett gently. “What can make you say such a thing?”
“Someone told me so once,” said Amanda, looking him straight between the eyes. “A curious schoolgirl — that was the expression, if I remember rightly.”
“Indeed?” He raised his quizzing glass, and studied her attentively. “It was — ungallant of — the person concerned.”
“He was an ungallant person,” stated Amanda, forthrightly.
At this point, Lady Twyford considered that it was high time to put an end to this extraordinary conversation.
“La, child!” she exclaimed impatiently. “How you do run on! Really, she says the oddest things, my Lord,” she apologised, turning to Lord Barsett, who sat beside her.
“I knew someone else, once,” he answered, reminiscently, “who said — and did — the oddest things. It did not prevent her from being the most charming woman on earth.”
And he looked up at the portrait over the mantelshelf. All present followed his gaze.
“Thank you, my lord,” said Amanda, softly.
Chapter VII: The Conspiracy
Amanda awoke early the next morning. She leapt out of bed, and drew the curtains hastily back from the window. Bright spring sunshine flooded into the room; across the rooftops the fresh green of the budding trees in the park caught her gaze. On a sudden impulse, she decided to go riding; Isabella had told her that everyone went riding, driving or walking in the park when the weather was fine. However, she supposed that she would scarcely encounter many people there at this hour. It was close on seven o’clock, an unfashionable time of day in Town.
Quickly donning a smart brown riding habit and a tricorne hat trimmed with yellow plumes, she made her way quietly to the stables. Here she encountered Tom, busy polishing the harness. She asked him to saddle her mare.
“Will you be wantin’ me to go with you, Miss?” he asked, as he set about the task.
She shook her head. “It’s only a step away, Tom, and I daresay you have enough to do.”
Tom looked troubled. “Reckon as ’ow ’er ladyship wouldn’t like for you to go off on your own, beggin’ your pardon, Miss.”
“Nonsense,” said Amanda, briskly. “Anyway, my lady cannot mind, for she will not know; she is not yet astir and I shall be back directly for breakfast.”
The groom did not presume to argue the matter further, and leading out the horse, assisted his mistress to mount.
A short trot brought her to the park. She had judged aright: at that hour it was deserted. She found an open stretch of ground and urged the mare to a gallop. She and the horse moved in one rhythm, the air seeming to rush towards them, her curls blowing back from her face. She reined in at last, exhilarated and panting slightly, with flushed cheeks. She leaned over and patted the animal’s neck.
“Good girl, Sukey! That was prodigious.”
It was then that she noticed a figure strolling aimlessly in her direction. A second glance told her that it was John Webster. She hailed him with delight, and rode forward to meet him. He put out a hand to assist her to alight, but she came lightly down without his aid, and stood beside him on the grass.
“Of all people, you are the very one I most wished to see!” she exclaimed animatedly.
He looked at her with lacklustre eyes.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Mandy. I — I’m sorry — about the other day.”
“You mean when you charged past me in our house with scarce a word?” she asked, with a little teasing smile.
“It was abominable of me to be so rude! But —”
“I know!” she broke in gently, seeing that he was uncertain how to finish. “Bella told me all.”
“All?” His tone was something between anxious and eager.
Amanda studied him with compassion in her blue eyes.
“Well, at any rate, she told me that you’d offered for her, and that she had refused you,” she replied gently.
“So now you know why I was blue-devilled,” he said shortly.
There was a pause of several minutes. He stared out unhappily over the fresh green of the sunlit grass.
“I suppose,” he said at last, awkwardly, “I suppose she has — accepted that other fellow?”
Amanda nodded sympathetically.
“But I don’t believe she has much joy of the contract, John, give you my word! You should have seen the miserable countenance she put on yesterday evening when we were all dining at my Lord Barsett’s! And later, when I sang ‘Barbara Allen’, she was close to tears.”
This seeming betrayal of her sister was calculated to put some heart into John. Amanda felt very strongly that, in accepting Mr. Barsett, Isabella had chosen against the dictates of her own feelings and under the compulsion of her mother’s persuasion. There could be no doubt in Amanda’s mind that her sister truly loved John Webster, and therefore no good reason for discouraging his suit of Bella. Her efforts appeared to have small success, however, for he shook his head dismally.
“She may perhaps feel some sentimental attachment to what is past,” he said, in a bitter tone, “but she made it quite clear that nothing would prevent her from marrying Barsett. Your mother has fired her with ambition, and I can offer nothing to compete with his possessions.”
“Then what do you mean
to do?”
He stared at her, and shrugged hopelessly.
“What is there to do? I thought that perhaps I might make the Grand Tour. I have never travelled beyond spending a week or two in France; and at least I shall be far away when the marriage takes place. I shall perhaps have accustomed myself to the notion by the time I return — if, indeed, I ever return.”
The last words had a tragic ring. Amanda did not seem to be impressed.
“I see,” she said, bitingly. “So you mean to run away, John Webster! Have you forgotten the apple-loft?”
He shot a startled glance at her, and then grinned.
“Egad, no! What a hoyden you were in those days, Mandy.”
“Perhaps we were all a little different then, but I did not think to find you so much changed. You were prepared to take a whacking on that occasion, so that I might not get into trouble, I remember.”
He shrugged, and the grin widened.
“What’s one whacking more or less? But you saved me by owning up, stupid creature!”
“It was no good, John; I shouldn’t have slept at nights with that on my conscience. But why is it that you have grown so very poor-spirited now?”
“Poor —! Egad, that’s coming it too strong, Mandy!”
“It is not,” she answered, emphatically. “What else do you call it, to run away and leave Bella to marry a man whom she does not care for, and who is, moreover — I know not what, but some kind of fiend!”
“His reputation is a wild one, to be sure,” he said, consideringly. “But that may alter — marriage often settles a man —”
“You sound for all the world like Mama!” she exclaimed in disgust.
“It may very well be true,” he said, soberly.
“His reputation is not all the trouble.” She looked about her, and sank her voice a little. “John, do you happen to have heard speak of Medmenham Abbey?”
“Of what Abbey?”
She repeated the name in a voice of foreboding. He looked puzzled at her manner, as well he might, and shook his head.
“No, should I have done? What is all the mystery?”
The Georgian Rake Page 7
