Babe

by Joan Smith

  It was sheer vexation that lent the rosy hue to her cheeks as she made them known to each other, and that caused her to babble a host of irrelevancies. Vexation had the opposite effect on Clivedon. He was next to mute with anger, but he managed to get out a few commands.

  “Ellingwood, take that rig to my stables, if you please. Lady Barbara is coming with me.”

  “I have permission to keep my phaeton at Lady Graham’s,” she replied, with a bold tilt of her chin.

  “Lady Graham is not your guardian, ma’am. She is only your chaperone. I say what you are to have, and I say the phaeton goes to my place. I will take you home. Come along.”

  Gentz looked on with the keenest interest. The embarrassing scene caused a smile to light on his face, and he observed Barbara eagerly to see what she would do. She thought there was a challenge in his look, an urging to come to cuffs with her guardian.

  “Now!” Clivedon rapped out. His tone was glacial, but she discerned fire beneath the ice. The next step, she feared, would be for him to remove her by force, and to forestall this degrading step, she spoke to Ellingwood.

  “Would you mind terribly? Such an imposition, but you see this Gothic guardian of mine is an utter dictator. If I refuse to humor him, he’ll send me to my room for the night with bread and water, and I wouldn’t like to miss the play at Drury Lane. Shall I see you there?”

  “I hope so indeed,” Ellingwood answered, while Gentz took note of the fact as well. It was Gentz who helped her down from the phaeton, swinging her lightly in his arms, and Gentz again who aided her into the other curricle.

  “Thank you, Theo,” she said, embarrassed, annoyed, and also a little fearful.

  “Always a pleasure, Babe,” he replied, and lifted a hand to salute her as she was driven off.

  “I hope you’re satisfied, making a fool of me in front of my friends!” she said to Clivedon as soon as they began moving.

  “You do a pretty good job of that by yourself. I have spoken to you before about Gentz. I now tell you categorically, you are not to speak to him again. If you so much as look at him, steps will be taken to remove you from the city.”

  “It is hard not to speak to one’s friends when they are met.”

  “Yes, particularly when they are met by prearrangement.”

  “It was not arranged in advance.”

  “I have reason to know otherwise.”

  “You have been gossiping with Lady Angela again, I see. I marvel you two lovebirds can find nothing more interesting to discuss than me. I know well enough where you received this misinformation.”

  “The information proved accurate enough.”

  “I didn’t plan to meet him there. I only meant to drive out the Chelsea Road. It was Ellingwood who suggested the park.”

  “He would not be hard to lead into suggesting your own wishes.”

  “I suppose you mean to use this as an excuse to forbid me my carriage.”

  “You have heard where the carriage is going. You may be sure no note from Lady Graham will see it removed to Mecklenberg Square. I use it as well as a reason to cancel this evening’s play, as you were at pains to let Gentz know where he might find you.”

  “That’s not why I said it! I was only trying to lend a semblance of normality to the very embarrassing scene you created.”

  “The scene was not of my making.”

  “Don’t think you’re going to run my life, Clivedon. I shall see whom I want. I shall go where I want, and I’d like to see you stop me.”

  “Keep your eyes open. You’ll see it right enough.”

  At Lady Graham’s, he told the dame that Lady Barbara was feeling unwell after a little accident in the park, which had caused the sending of her carriage to a wheeler. He said as well that her guest had decided to remain home this evening, to recuperate her nerves.

  “She does look flushed,” Mabel ventured, with a worried glance to her sister.

  “Flushed? She is pale as a ghost. Certainly she shall have a lie-down,” the chief mandarin decreed.

  “A little broth and some bread and butter later on,” Clivedon added.

  Lady Barbara stood mute, but directed such a penetrating stare on Clivedon, from a pair of eyes blazing with fury, that he felt a little trepidation. What if all this suppressed indignation should discover an outlet? Before the other ladies, he could say very little, however. “As you enjoy driving in the park so much, I shall call on you tomorrow,” he said. “A pity you must miss the play tonight, but there will be other plays. I shall bring you an account of it tomorrow.”

  To these overtures she did no more than look, unsmiling.

  “She’s had a shock. Best let her get to bed,” Lady Graham said.

  She was taken at once to her room, while her chaperone asked a dozen questions about the accident, and commiserated with her on the misfortune of a broken wheel. No one knew how to make a wheel or anything else nowadays. It was all due to moral laxity, and would not be changed till the world got religion. Any answers received were quite at random. There was only one thought in Barbara’s head. She must attend the play at Drury Lane that night, by hook or by crook, and she wished, as well, to do it in Colonel Gentz’s company. She would show that man once and for all who was in charge.

  She had no ally in her plan. Even Harper would not assist her. They were not close enough for that. She must evade the ladies, and get from the edge of Somers Town to the heart of the city, without a carriage and without much money. How was it to be done? Her first move must be to allay suspicion. She would ask for a little laudanum to allow her a good night’s sleep. She would close her door carefully, make her own toilette—unfortunately not so daring a gown as she would like to wear, thanks to Clivedon’s interference—and she would get a note to Gentz. How she regretted not having given him her direction. She had several hours in which to make and revise her plans, but during that time, no idea occurred to her how to get a note to Gentz. At five o’clock, she saw the stage from Islington to London bowling past, and looked at it with rising interest. There would be another at seven. She would take it, and hire a cab from the hostelry to go to Gentz. No, impossible to call at a gentleman's home unescorted. She’d go to Fannie’s. There was still a small staff on, and she had a key if they were not there.

  She followed her plan, finding less difficulty than she had feared. Lady Graham, as it happened, approved of laudanum, and had a bottle on hand to treat an ailing tooth of Mabel’s. This medication was poured into the pitcher by the bed and the toilette was begun. The hair was a long and laborious job, and her gown too, buttoned down the back, took an age to fasten. Getting past the saloon, with the ladies sitting before the grate, was the most dangerous step. It too was overcome, by remembering a side door, away from the butler.

  She ran a few hundred yards down the road, to prevent waiting for her ride right in front of Lady Graham’s house. She felt startlingly out of place on the common stage, wearing an evening outfit, but though the passengers stared as hard as they could, they none of them said anything. She got a cab to Fannie’s, and was admitted without using her own key. The small staff were not so surprised to see her as servants in a well-ordered house would be. Certainly it did not occur to any of them to notify her guardian. She had the footboy take a note around to Gentz, and sat awaiting his arrival.

  Within an hour he came, smiling his approval. “Excellent, Babe! You can’t keep a good girl down, eh?”

  She took his arm at once to go to his carriage, and outlined her adventure as they drove along. “The pièce de résistance will be when I waltz into Drury Lane on your arm,” she told him, with a triumphant smile.

  “That’s a bit heavy for me, my girl. I’ll end up in the Court of Twelve Paces with Clivedon. Charming as you are, I’m not ready to die for you. We’ll go to the Pantheon instead.”

  “No! It is for the pleasure of seeing his face when I enter that I have gone to all this bother.”

  “Have you considered what he will do in re
tribution?”

  “What more can he do? He has me locked up in a prison, with my carriage taken away. He can only send me home, and I wouldn’t mind that.”

  “He can do plenty to me.”

  “Pooh—he won’t challenge you to a duel. Are you afraid of him, Theo?” she asked.

  “Not in the least, but what is my reward for bringing him down on my head?”

  “Am I not reward enough?”

  “You would be, but one evening of your company is hardly sufficient. Marry me—that would be more than enough reward.”

  “I may have to,” she laughed recklessly, for she was beginning to wonder just what Clivedon would do.

  “You make it sound like a penance,” Gentz said, feigning offence.

  “You would suit me better than some I can think of,” she rallied, but said no more, in case he should begin to take her seriously.

  The delays involved at every step of her flight insured a tardy entrance to the theater, which was exactly what she wanted. It was no surreptitious sneaking in, unnoticed in the confusion, that she had in her mind, but a noisy entrance to create the maximum of disturbance and gain the most attention. The curtain was about to arise.

  That hush of anticipation that precedes the commencement of the drama had fallen over the hall when Theo held the door of his box for her. The rest of his party was already there, a minor Russian diplomat and a female of doubtful background. Both were older, somewhat tawdry persons, not even friends of Fannie, and completely unknown to Barbara. She scarcely glanced at them. Her mind was on Clivedon and her eyes on his box, whose location she knew well. In common with several other heads, his was turned to view her entrance. She walked to the front of Gentz’s box and remained standing a moment, to insure being seen, waving and nodding to a few friends, before turning to recognize Clivedon.

  His expression was hard to read, several yards away, but she could sense the tenseness of his posture. She raised a gloved hand and waved to him. He nodded his head almost imperceptibly, then turned away. She saw he was with his sister and her husband and another lady, not Angela. Someone asked at the last minute to replace herself, then. She had been expecting an immediate and violent reaction from him. She thought he would jump up at once and come to her, make a clamor, and drag her home.

  He sat immobile, gazing at the stage as the curtains drew open, with every appearance of interest in the play, while his blood thudded angrily in his ears and he considered what he should do. Whatever he did would be done in private, for making her once again the center of attention was not his wish. She had already been seen with Gentz, so the best course was to seem to be aware of her coming. No one would believe it, sitting with that motley crew of foreign nobodies. Agnes leaned over and poked his ribs. “Larry, what are you going to do?” she whispered.

  “I am going to enjoy the play, and suggest you do the same,” he told her, in a damping tone.

  All through the first act, Barbara kept darting peeps towards her guardian’s box, wondering if he had not seen her, and knowing full well he had. She was first deflated, then curious, and finally uneasy in the extreme. The first intermission seemed a very long wait, but at last it came, and she tensed herself for his visit, certain he would come to her. He left his box. When Gentz arose to do likewise, she told him she would stay behind, and was unhappy when he elected to stay with her. She waited, but when the door opened, it was only Lady Withers and her husband who came in and took up the seats vacated by the Russian and his friend. They were coolly polite, so distant that one wondered they should have bothered coming at all. They remained till the intermission was over, saying nothing about Clivedon, nor did Barbara.

  When Agnes returned to her own box, she said to her brother, “I have done as you suggested and tried to lend her an air of respectability, but pray don’t ask me to repeat the performance at the next break, for I couldn’t think of a single word to say.”

  At the recommencement of the play, Barbara again risked a glance at Clivedon. He did not so much as turn his head towards her. What was going on? She could not believe he was going to ignore her move. Her nerves stretched taut as she fidgeted in her seat, having a perfectly miserable evening. She was grateful it was not a comedy being performed, for to have to try to laugh at such a time would have been impossible. The frown she wore was in keeping with the general mood in the theater, but its cause was unique to herself.

  At the second intermission, she could remain cooped up no longer. She took Gentz’s arm to go into the lobby for a walk, and saw Clivedon standing with a large group of the very tip of society, chatting unconcernedly. Lady Angela, she noticed, was of the party. And still no attention was paid to herself. The uncertainty mounted, till she could stand it no longer. She started walking towards the group, Gentz clearly unwilling and trying to hold back, so that she was required to take his arm most forcefully, while her own insides were quaking. As she got up to the large party, she looked to the left, as though she had just that moment spotted Clivedon.

  “Good evening, Lady Barbara,” he said over his shoulder, in a polite tone. “Enjoying the play?”

  “Very much, thank you,” she answered with a challenging smile. “No doubt you are surprised to see me here.”

  “Not at all,”’ he answered, and turned his head away.

  “I made sure you would be surprised, as you ordered me to stay at home!” she said in a loud, sharp tone. There was an uncomfortable silence over the group, as the well-bred collectively wondered how they should pretend not to have understood her.

  “Come along, Babe,” Gentz said, urging her past.

  “No! I want to hear what my guardian has to say,” she answered, with a bold, questioning look at him.

  “Your guardian will deal with you later,” was all he said, still in a pleasant tone, though there was an edge creeping on to it. The black eye he turned on Gentz was less pleasant still.

  “You see, you have been frightened for nothing, Theo,” she said, with a mocking smile at her alleged protector.

  “I was not frightened!” Gentz felt compelled to announce.

  “Lady Barbara’s guardian will deal with you later as well, Colonel,” the guardian said, in a low tone that sounded absolutely menacing.

  Even the well-bred gave up any pretense of doing anything but listening and staring, their faces full of greedy curiosity.

  Barbara began to perceive she had misread the seeming indifference that had greeted her earlier. She was struck with a sudden fear that even a duel was possible, for she had never seen Clivedon so quietly furious. His anger in the park was nothing to this. He looked exactly like the tigers at the Exchange, ready to pounce. “Clivedon!” she said in alarm, “it was not Theo’s fault. It was my idea to come.”

  “Later!” he said, in a voice so charged with fury that it had an electrical quality to it.

  “Indeed it is not his fault!” she repeated, more loudly, and more frightened.

  “There is no fault in it,” Theo said hastily.

  Angela fixed her face into a proper pose and spoke up. “When a lady disobeys her guardian, most people would consider it a grave fault,” she informed Colonel Gentz. Looking to Clivedon for approval of her championship, she was stunned to see the way he looked at her. “Well, certainly she should do as you say, unless . . .” But she could find in neither heart nor head any excuse for Babe.

  “Lord Clivedon recognizes that I have some influence with the lady as well,” Gentz said, and knew he had erred, though he was in fact trying to smooth the matter over. “That is . . . as . . .” There was a dreadful hush, while he stumbled to a halt.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Theo,” Barbara said, then laughed nervously.

  “You were saying?” Clivedon asked him.

  “As Babe’s fiancé my wishes are to be considered as well,” Theo answered back.

  “Fiancé! I knew it!” Angela declared.

  “A joke,” Clivedon told her, but neither his face nor tone was at all facet
ious. “You have not forgotten Lady Withers’ party after the play, Lady Barbara? I shall take you,” he added.

  Never was anyone so happy to hear the box boys announce the return to the play as Lord Clivedon was that night, unless lit should be Barbara.

  She turned and walked away, her knees like jelly. “Theo, what possessed you to say such a thing!”

  “I know when I see murder in a man’s eyes. He plans to kill me. He can hardly call out his own charge’s fiancé. We are engaged, milady, at least until I get safely out of London. I’m off to Burrells’ tonight.”

  “You can’t abandon me! Oh, Theo, he will kill me instead! I know he will. I'm sorry I ever came.”

  “I wanted to go to the Pantheon instead. You are the one insisted we come here. I’ll be lucky to get home in one piece. Don’t tell him you don’t plan to marry me till I am out of here.”

  “The thing to do is to leave at once and go to Burrells’, both of us.”

  “Suit yourself. I wouldn’t mind leaving now, but I'll take you home. You are very lovely, ma mie, but you are not worth my life.”

  They had reached their box, but instead of entering, they went around the corner towards the stairs, to see Clivedon standing at the top with his arms folded, and a look on his face that invited trouble.

  “Leaving, Colonel Gentz?” he asked. “What an excellent idea. I would do the same if I were in your boots, and I wouldn’t stop running till I got out of town. Won’t you join my party, Lady Barbara? There are six seats, and only four of us attended, so you won’t have the pleasure of sitting on anyone’s knee or the edge of the balcony railing, but with luck you will find some other means of making a show of yourself.”

  Gentz nipped off down the stairs, while Clivedon took Lady Barbara’s elbow in a grip that left two bruises, as he led her to his box. “Can you behave yourself for thirty minutes, or is that beyond you?” he asked in a voice of mock solicitude.

  “Clivedon . . .”

  “Does Lady Graham know you are gone?”