by Fiona Hill
Caroline, who was sophisticated enough to grasp at once just exactly what the lady in question could have done, was about to cut a joke to make her naïve companion drop the subject when an all-too-familiar figure appeared in the doorway of the box. “Mr. Walfish,” she whispered quickly, leaning forward, “is there any civil way to deny a person entrance to one’s box?”
Ansel regarded her in surprise, then lifted his quizzing-glass and looked towards the door. The first thing he saw was a snowy white cravat tied in the style known as Irlandaise. The second thing he saw was the face above it: the sallow, wolf-like face of Baron Mockabee.
Chapter III
“I hope I may join you for a moment,” Mockabee began, addressing himself chiefly to Mrs. Henry. “It is not often one meets with so beautiful a party as this; it would be too unkind to allow no one but Mr. Walfish to enjoy it.” Even as he begged permission, he made his way into the box, bowing to each lady and speaking in deep, flowing accents.
“I protest, we are too crowded already,” Lady Caro broke in, though this was a perfectly indefensible lie.
The baron would probably have bowed to this not very subtle intimation and retired at once, had not Miss Meredith suddenly proclaimed, “I do not feel the least bit crowded; come, sir, and sit next to me.” Her brown eyes sparkled gaily at Mockabee, and she showed him a smile much broader than the one she had displayed to Walfish. To her discomfiture, the newcomer did not take the chair she offered, but remained standing.
“You are extremely good, Miss Meredith,” said he, “but I cannot risk her ladyship’s displeasure. She is sufficiently out of charity with me as it is, I think.”
“Her ladyship—oh, Caro,” Amy took up. “No, Caroline could not be out of charity with you, could you, Caro?”
“I rather fancy I could, yes, Amy.”
The younger lady looked, in confusion, from Caroline to Mockabee and back again. The objects of her attention were staring at one another very steadily—far too steadily, the observant Walfish noted—but saying nothing. Lady Caro’s gaze was positively grim; she was in fact at that moment wishing her eyes could bore holes into the baron. Mockabee was reading the expression of her face; he could perceive anger, but he could not guess its extent; nor could he judge how easily it might be dispelled.
“Then I will not intrude myself upon you,” Mockabee finally said, very quietly. He bowed and vanished in a moment.
“Why did you do that?” Amy Meredith whined, as soon as he had gone. She looked seriously agitated.
“It was crowded,” Caro said simply.
Miss Windle jumped into the fray. “Lady Caroline did very right. Lord Seabury had no idea Baron Mockabee might visit us; he might not have liked it.”
“That is not why Caro turned him away,” Amy insisted, accurately but rudely. “It was not, was it? Caro is not afraid of Seabury. Caro is afraid of no one. It was pure spite, confess it, Caroline. You did it to deprive me of some pleasant discourse.”
“Merciful Heavens, why should I desire to spite you?” Caro said, sincerely puzzled. “In any case, we ought not to discuss it here; what a scene we are making for poor Mr. Walfish!”
“You are the one who is said to be so frank,” Amy persisted maddeningly, even as Walfish mendaciously proclaimed his perfect ease. “Why will you not answer me?”
“My dear Miss Meredith,” Mrs. Henry stepped in, “this is really not the time to pursue the topic!” It cost the poor lady a good deal to say this, for she doted on Amy despite all her faults, but the situation was becoming distinctly critical.
Ansel Walfish looked miserable, and the moment Lord Seabury returned—which fortunately for the dandy was well before the curtain rose again—he fled the box. Their only visitor during the next interval was Charles Stickney, by far too innocuous a man to be the occasion of contention, and the remainder of the evening passed without incident. On the way home Lord Seabury contrived—or at least it seemed to Caroline that he had had to expend some effort to achieve this result—to sit next to her ladyship in the barouche. Miss Windle was with them (the others were in a second carriage) but still there was some degree of privacy there. “What has put Amy into such high dudgeon?” he inquired, for the lady to whom he referred had indeed stubbornly maintained a dispirited air all evening.
“I cannot guess,” said Caroline, as the carriage took a sudden lurch that threw her lightly against the viscount.
“My lady, it was very clear what disturbed—” Miss Windle began to object, but a glance from her mistress, even in the shadowy coach, silenced her before she completed her thought.
“I trust Lady Susan and her parents are well,” Caro remarked, to turn the topic.
“Very well indeed. The marquis—Lord Safford I mean—is an admirable man, you know; he has done a great deal for me, particularly in helping me to act properly in Parliament. My own father, I am sorry to say, is very likely incapable of spelling the word, let alone speaking there.”
“You are very hard on your father,” Caro observed. The carriage lurched in the other direction, but Seabury braced himself immediately and remained where he was. His handsome, pronounced features were but dimly visible; still, Caro thought she saw a grimace of some sort pass over them before he spoke.
“My father has been a little hard on me in his time,” said he, “but I will not seek to exonerate myself. I am not—” He paused for quite half a minute; then said very slowly, “I am not at all certain that what I did was well done—I mean, taking control of his fortune. If I had not done so, there is every likelihood we would be penniless today; and yet…I have turned over the question with the rector at Twineham many times; he always assures me I acted for the best.” The viscount was silent a few more moments; then, “It surprises you to hear me say such a thing, does it not?” he added heavily.
Lady Caroline was moved to speak frankly. “Yes it does, rather. Yes, indeed.”
“You think I am a hard man all round, doubtless?” he suggested, smiling more ironically than she ever expected to see him do.
“I—I have thought so, yes.”
“Yes.” His lordship appeared to be lost in reflection. After what seemed, to the wondering Caroline, an eternity, “So I am indeed,” he declared. “Very hard.”
They drove on in silence a little while longer. “You will not take it amiss that I answered you so bluntly, will you, my lord?” Caroline suddenly blurted out.
“Do you care for my opinion?” His tone expressed surprise.
Caro, though she later upbraided herself for having done so, dodged the question. Forcing a smile and a lighter tone, she replied, “I care for anyone’s opinion, who is near enough to do me violence, sir. One ought to survey one’s enemies à la distance, I think—if one has any.”
Lord Seabury was too polite to demand a better answer. Instead he inquired of Miss Windle how she had enjoyed the excursion. The older lady was only too pleased with this kind attention, and replied at some length, waxing poetical about the Opera, which she compared (it would be hard to say why) to a carriage. The singers were the horses, the audience the passengers, the stage-manager the coachman, and so on. Lord Seabury took the whole ridiculous oration with a profound gravity it scarcely merited; Caroline, immune to all but the most acute of her chaperone’s absurdities, watched his lordship carefully. The sentiments he had just expressed in regard to his father were, she realized, frank, touching, and admirable. Yet they failed to move her; he was no more approachable after the admission than he had been before. On the contrary, he appeared if anything heavier, more solemn and sombre than usual. With a demeanour impossibly respectful he heard Miss Windle’s every foolish word. Caro simply could not find him sympathetic, though she knew she ought to do so. He was certainly very handsome, however, she concluded: here her feelings knew no division.
They arrived at Rucke House somewhat in advance of the other coach. Mr. Hedgepeth, the butler, opened the door to them with even greater alacrity than was customary; the reas
on of this, they soon discovered, was that a letter for his lordship had arrived a few minutes earlier. Seabury scanned it and his brow gathered darkly. He begged to be excused; the letter came from Lord Safford and related to some legislation they were concerned with in Parliament. Would the ladies be so kind as to permit his immediate withdrawal? Naturally they would, and so the viscount retired to his study forthwith, bowing his good-nights.
“Dear me,” yawned Miss Windle, returning his bow and watching his retreating back. “I am more fatigued than I knew. Come, my love; you must be exhausted.”
“No indeed, I am extraordinarily awake,” Caro disclaimed, striving mightily against the automatic yawn Miss Windle’s provoked. “I believe I shall go to the library and see if there is not some volume there to lull me to sleep.”
“Very well, if you wish to,” said the older lady, yawning again. “I shall accompany you.”
“Goodness no, I could not consider it,” Caro said firmly. “You are dreadfully fagged, it is obvious.” She took Miss Windle’s arm and led her towards the staircase.
“I am not so tired as all that, I find,” said Windle, ever eager to do her duty.
“Nonsense, nonsense,” protested her ladyship, casting about wildly for some more persuasive line. “Ah!” she finally said, triumphantly, “I hear carriage wheels. If you tarry a moment longer, my dear ma’am, Lord Romby will see how weary and haggard you are. I am certain you do not wish that to come to pass.”
“Dear me no!” cried the lady in alarm; then, recollecting herself, added, “I do detest to appear to disadvantage before any but my oldest friends, you know. Any,” she stressed.
“Oh yes, indeed, yes. I understand entirely,” said her charge, propelling her hastily up the stairs. “Good-night, good-night. I shall be along in a moment.”
Miss Windle safely out of the way, she skipped into the library, this being the rendezvous appointed between herself and Romby. It would be easier to meet with him there if the others assumed she had gone to bed. In due time, the old earl ambled into the room, a peculiarly satisfied expression on his face. Later Lady Caroline learned that his gratification proceeded from his having styled Mrs. Henry a sow, and Amy Meredith a piglet, but she was too concerned with her own projects now to quiz him on any of his.
“Will you do it?” she asked at once, even before the old gentleman had sat down.
“Quite desperate, are you?” he said, amused. Slowly he drew a chair up to the dying fire and settled himself among the velvet cushions. “Revenge is but a thin repast, some say, no sweeter to the palate than satisfying to the belly. But you will have it, eh?”
Irritated with his deliberate pace, Caroline placed herself squarely before him and nodded decisively. “You will do it, then?”
Romby paused, then cleared his throat. “I will,” he said finally.
“Ah, wonderful, wonderful!” exclaimed Caro, smiling with delight and just barely managing to refrain from throwing her arms around the old man’s neck—a gesture that she fancied (accurately) he would not appreciate. “When?”
“All haste, my dear! Such haste!” he observed teasingly. “Well, for one thing, we must wait till you learn to play at cards.”
“I can play at cards,” she defended herself.
“Not to win, I think. You will be playing with experts, and a good deal more will be at stake than in your country gentlewoman’s game.”
“But you will teach me,” she objected, her green eyes widening perceptibly.
Romby fixed her with a curious gaze. “No, that I shall not do,” he said firmly.
“Do you mean you will not help me fleece him?”
“On the contrary, I shall provide all the assistance you can hope for in that line. I mean very simply what I say: I shall not teach you how to win the game of brag. You must learn for yourself; and mind you lose any silly mannerisms that may have answered at home, but will not here. I’ll have no giggling at my table, no exclamations of distress or joy. You must learn to play hard, or not at all. You see, my dear, I have some interest in the proposition of doing Baron Mockabee a little mischief—indeed, there is hardly a member of Brooks’s who has not some cause to complain of him—but I have no interest at all in teaching you to play at cards. In fact, it sounds rather dull. You must work for your revenge a little; that is my philosophy.”
“This is odious,” cried she. “Why do you consent, if you only mean to help me by halves?”
“If you do not care for my bargain, you have only to refuse me,” he reminded her. “As to why I consent at all, I may tell you that Mockabee tried to have me blackballed at Brooks’s some years ago, when Seabury first instituted my allowance. He failed, naturally, but I did not take the attempt in good part. I thought it very low. I feel I owe him something in return. As for the confederates we shall be needing, my friend Lord Deatherage was at loggerheads with Mockabee on that issue of the blackballing, and will be delighted to aid us, I trust. Of course we need a fifth, and I have been pondering all evening who ought to have that honour. I have finally settled, among the many who would seek the position if they knew it to be open, upon Lord Wolfus, on the principle that his grievance against the baron is the freshest. Not three weeks ago Lord Mockabee and Wolfus were to stage a race to Brighton; large sums of money were wagered on it, not only between them but among other members too. At the last possible moment before they were to set off, one of Wolfus’ pair stumbled and contrived to throw a shoe. It was then Mockabee’s choice, by custom, whether to name a new date or insist on the old one and declare himself winner by default. Everyone assumed he would choose the former, but he did not. Wolfus was astonished, as we all were. I never pretend to excel in matters of honour, but this even pressed my limits! There was no explanation for Mockabee’s behaviour, unless he is desperate for cash. If he is, the circumstance may, come to think of it, aid your scheme considerably: a hungry man may forget his manners, and a gamester short on the ready sometimes makes mistakes.”
“What an abominable man,” Lady Caro could not help saying. “Why does no one blackball him?”
Romby shrugged. “For one thing, he is quicker than anybody else I know to accept a wager. That is a quality much valued among gaming men. But even if he were not, his conduct is never entirely reprehensible—at least, not so far as anyone has discovered. He treads near the borders of gentlemanly conduct, but he never deserts them altogether. Even in Wolfus’ case, it was undeniably his right to act as he did; it simply was not very handsome.”
Unmoved by this explanation, Lady Caroline raised her eyebrows. “All this merely increases my zeal,” said she. “I am determined to find a teacher well versed in all the subtleties of brag, so kindly proceed with your half of the bargain with all possible despatch.”
“Whom will you ask?” Romby inquired, with that look of amusement Caroline found so annoying.
“Seabury, if I must,” she said, still piqued at the earl’s refusal to be her tutor himself. “Mockabee, if need be. It does not signify; somehow I shall learn, depend upon it.” Upon these words she took her leave of the old man and went, yawning, up to bed. It had been a very fine closing speech, she reflected as her abigail helped her to undress—but who indeed might she ask without arousing suspicion? She would not have been surprised to find that Lady Beatrice was initiated into the finer mysteries of games of chance, but any inquiry in that quarter would be shrewdly made note of, no doubt, and would end in the discovery of her scheme. The same was true of Ansel Walfish, for Caro had noticed that this delicate gentleman repeated almost anything he learned, on almost any head, to his particular friend Lady Beatrice. Seabury of course could not be asked; that was mere prattle, nor Mockabee…and so she must ask…must ask…Lady Caroline dreamt that she asked a sphinx.
In the morning, however, a much more likely source of intelligence presented itself, in the plumpish form of one Sir Sidney Pettingill, Bart, who came most conveniently to call at Rucke House. Despite the rotundity of his figure, Sir Sid
ney was a widely admired man, with an earnest air and such manners as must please. His nose and eyes were good and his fair hair (only a little carroty) waved very fashionably. If it had not been for his chin—that dreadful, meaty, jowly round chin—he might have been positively attractive…but there was, after all, that chin. Set in its ample midst was a fleshy pair of lips, which ever glistened rather strangely—repellently, one might have said—and an excellent set of teeth. Besides these attributes, Sir Sidney had twenty thousand a year, no paltry sum. Between his manners and his purse, Sir Sidney succeeded pretty well in making himself agreeable aux dames, and could look nearly anywhere for a wife. Though only two-and-twenty, he had come into full possession of his father’s estate in Dorset, and was even (to the delight of numerous matchmaking mammas this season) quite frankly of a mind to marry and return there with his fortunate bride.
Lady Caroline did not care a pin for his excellent purse or his excellent teeth, but she did seem to recall—could she really be so fortunate?—that Pettingill played at cards a good deal, and was in fact a member of Crockfords’. They had met but once before this morning, at the come-out, and her memories of that evening were all jumbled together; but it did seem to her as if Sir Sidney might have been sent by the gods.
She found Miss Meredith, Mrs. Henry, and her own Windle already gathered in the drawing-room to which Sir Sidney had been shown. The talk, as she entered, appeared to be about the rain that had been falling abundantly since dawn. Miss Meredith was complaining of her hair, saying with some coyness that it always lost its curl in the damp, a circumstance most vexatious to her. “I suppose you know nothing of such difficulties, dear sir, with your fine waves. I protest, they would put Lord Byron to shame!”
Pettingill’s ordinarily pallid cheeks coloured at this sally, and he waved off the compliment saying, “You are a great deal too kind to me, and too hard upon yourself, Miss Meredith. Is she not, Mrs. Henry? I am sure any young lady in London would pay an hundred pounds, could she but look in the mirror and see such tresses as yours.”
