Honoria Or The Safety 0f The Frying Pan

by Catherine Bowness

  She had, during the course of the journey, acquired slightly more knowledge of the geography of the country through which she was passing, considerably more of the political situation, both past and present, and some slight inkling of the miles they must cover before they reached their destination.

  Every afternoon, as it began to grow dark, which was, at this time of year, not much more than halfway through the afternoon, they drove into the forecourt of a hostelry, consigned the horses to the care of an ostler, bespoke three rooms – the coachman and Matt were expected to share – and took their dinner early. In the morning, they rose betimes and, after breakfast, set off again.

  Honoria took her dinner by herself in a private room and passed the time in reading. Lady Angmering had furnished her with a German dictionary and one or two novels in that language. As learning tools these were inadequate but nevertheless Honoria did her best and, being young and eager to improve, soon gained a small vocabulary and even one or two phrases which, unfortunately, never seemed quite to fit any situation in which she found herself.

  It was a couple of days after she had parted from the Countess when, about to sit down to her solitary dinner with her book, she was informed by the waiter that a gentleman wished to speak with her.

  Chapter 25

  When Fraülein Brunner left, Cassie ate her nuncheon as usual before going upstairs to change into an afternoon gown – not much different from the morning one except that it was a little more embellished and an inch or two lower in the neck, revealing an expanse of creamy white bosom against the black silk. Cassie had not chosen to masquerade as a widow in order to wear a colour which became her but she was not unaware of the way black emphasised the delicate colouring of her skin, her startlingly blue eyes and bright gold hair.

  As a Bird of Paradise she had not dressed in black – exotic birds were clothed in feathers of many colours – and she had at first been convinced that she would dislike being confined to wearing such a dreary set of widow’s weeds. It had not, however, been long before she discovered an unexpected advantage: although her garments by no means always matched – there seemed to be a surprising number of different shades of black, mainly on account of the varying weights and styles of material - there was undoubtedly less pressure on what went with what and her wardrobe, which had once been extensive, was as a consequence much reduced.

  In addition, since she had originally come to Vienna in search of obscurity, she had not paid much attention to what she wore. Even after the injury to her nose, when she had acquired two gentlemen callers, she had not sought to dazzle either of them; her ambition had stretched no further than a desire not to disgust them. In any event, so far as Waldron was concerned, she had never thought of him other than as a sort of honorary nephew and the honesty of her dealings with him almost from the beginning of their acquaintance had rapidly made him seem like a member of the family she lacked.

  Until last night she had barely considered the Count’s physical attractions. She did not for a moment think he was interested in her in that respect: there had been no hot looks which, after nearly twenty-five years of receiving a great many, few women were in a better position to notice. He had – quite simply – not looked at her like that. He had at first been excessively courteous, no doubt forcing himself not to flinch when looking upon her face; later, as he became accustomed to the sight - and as it grew less hideous - he had been as affable as a man with impeccable manners could be without displaying any sign of overt admiration. The only compliments he had paid her had concerned her achievements in speaking his language.

  Apart from telling her that his son referred to her as “die schöne Frau’, there had been no acknowledgment that her looks were in any way remarkable; she had, indeed, begun to believe that, so far as he was concerned, they were not. So why did she all of a sudden wish more than anything to receive a hot look from him when she had shuddered at the many she had been subjected to over the years? Was it simply the all-too-human desire for what she did not have? She suspected that it was and resolved to put it out of her mind.

  When he arrived with Gustav, she was sitting at the pianoforte desultorily playing a recent piece by Franz Schubert, a composer she particularly admired but whose compositions required rather more energy and commitment than she was presently allowing this sonata.

  She rose as the pair came into the room.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs Morley,” the Austrians said in unison; as the meeting was in her house, they were required to speak English.

  “Good afternoon,” she replied, gesturing to her guests to be seated.

  “I have brought you a picture of the soldiers we saw yesterday,” Gustav said, holding out a piece of paper liberally covered in red and gold paint.

  “Thank you. This is a very good picture,” she said after she had studied it carefully for some moments. “But I think you must have imagined the fight you have depicted. I did not see anyone fighting yesterday.”

  “No, of course they did not,” Gustav agreed a little impatiently. “They are all on the same side.”

  “They seemed to be,” she agreed, always ready to propose an argument of some sort, “but you must not permit yourself always to believe the evidence of your eyes. There are, no doubt, many tensions between them as they vie for promotion to captain and so on.”

  “And perhaps some of them are spies,” Gustav said, following her lead with enthusiasm.

  “Perhaps, although I am certain the Emperor keeps a close eye on such things.” She stopped abruptly; she had been about to make a joke about the constantly changing fortunes of kings and emperors in Europe before realising that the Count might consider it poor taste to mock her guests’ country.

  “All is so stable in England, is it?” he asked in the rather cumbersome tone which she had learned to associate with an attempt at teasing on his part. Clearly he had noticed the abrupt way she had closed her lips and divined what she had refrained from voicing. “Your king cannot live much longer. Will there not be a power struggle when he dies?”

  “I should not imagine so; after all, the man who will become George IV has been ruling as regent for a very long time; he will simply become king in name as well as in effect.”

  “The English king,” the Count explained to his son, “is mad so that his son stands in for him and makes all the important decisions.”

  “Mad?” the boy asked, now fascinated. “What does that mean? How does he behave?”

  The rest of the afternoon was given over to attempting to explain madness in general and the English king’s particular form of it – which no one understood and into which state he appeared to enter and exit seemingly at random.

  It had become the custom for some subject to be raised at the beginning of the afternoon which then became the topic under discussion for the two hours or more that the trio laboured in whichever language was designated for that day. As always, it was a great deal easier to talk to the child than to the man, who said little except to amplify what he thought the child had not perfectly understood.

  When coffee and cake – and chocolate for the boy – were served halfway through the session, Gustav became even more expansive and Cassie shamelessly encouraged him.

  It was not until the end of the afternoon and the guests were on the point of departure that the Count said in French, a language which his son was learning but at which he was not yet sufficiently fluent to follow his father’s rapid speech, “I like to think we became better acquainted last night. I wonder if you would consider accompanying me to a concert in the Musikverein this evening. There is a string quartet playing and, although I know that you favour music played upon the pianoforte – for I have heard how well you play yourself – I hope that perhaps you might enjoy it.”

  Cassie, taken aback by what she suspected – and hoped – was an indication that the Count wished to pursue their friendship without his son taking centre stage, found herself blushing but managed, feeling like a schoolgirl, t
o accept the invitation.

  “I am so glad,” he said, still in French. “I will come for you in the carriage and hope that you will allow me to buy you supper afterwards. I do not think you need to be exercised about attending a concert in my company even though you are still in mourning as it is a very serious concert and perfectly appropriate for a widow to attend in the company of an old friend.”

  “Are you an old friend?” she asked quizzically.

  “Both old in years and long-standing in friendship, I hope,” he replied blandly.

  “I do not think you can be described as either with any degree of accuracy,” she countered. “We have not been acquainted for much more than a month. We can, I suppose, always pretend that we have known each other for years. Perhaps we met in France many moons ago?”

  “When you were ‘un oiseau du paradis’?” he asked to her surprise. She had been teasing him – and poking fun at herself – with her remark but had not expected the punctilious Count to respond with more than an embarrassed look.

  “What about birds?” the boy asked, understanding the one word.

  “They sing beautifully,” his father answered, ruffling his son’s hair.

  “And they generally have highly coloured plumage,” Cassie added, entering into the spirit of the child’s diversion. “I don’t think I have met you before,” she added in French, subjecting the man to a considering look as though struggling to recall whether he had ever been one of her admirers.

  “Why are you speaking French? Are we not supposed to be talking in English today?” Gustav asked, suspecting perhaps that he was no longer the main object of either of the grown-ups’ attention.

  “Yes, indeed we are, and we will not say another word in French,” Cassie promised. “It is laziness on our parts for we can both speak better French than I can German or your father English.”

  “I am learning French,” the boy said, “but I did not understand what you just said; you were speaking too fast.”

  “Yes; that is what is so difficult about a foreign language,” Cassie explained. “All the words seem to run together, which is what makes it hard to understand. Your language – German – does this intentionally: it puts several together, which makes it excessively confusing. French only seems to do so when one is not quite fluent.”

  “French is hard to pronounce,” Gustav said.

  “Yes, it is – and neither your father nor I sound altogether French when we speak, but we can understand each other and speak of more grown-up subjects than we can manage in either German or English.”

  “I think that’s why you started speaking in French,” Gustav observed, directing a penetrating look at his father. “You wanted to say something grown-up to Mrs Morley and did not wish me to understand.”

  “You are perfectly correct,” the Count admitted, again to Cassie’s surprise. “I asked her if she would accompany me to a concert tonight.”

  “Why did you not want me to know that?”

  Von Krems blushed but, faced with his son’s unwavering gaze, was forced to answer. “Last night Mrs Morley and I spoke together for a long time after you had gone to bed. We used French, which, as she has just explained, makes it easier for us to talk like grown-ups. I suppose I wished to convey to Mrs Morley that my invitation came as one grown-up to another.”

  “But why were you talking about birds when you invited her to attend a concert, Papa?”

  “I think you have asked enough questions,” his father retorted, now rather sternly; clearly he was afraid that, by conceding to one intrusive query, he had laid himself open to a veritable interrogation.

  “It was merely a little play on words,” Cassie explained. “It meant nothing. Will you have another cake, Gustav?”

  “Yes,” he said, taking one. “But you cannot bribe me with cakes all the time. I think my Papa admires you, Mrs Morley; were you flirting when you were talking about birds?”

  “Oh no!” she answered immediately. “Quite the reverse!”

  “Were you telling him off then?” the boy asked.

  “Not precisely; I think I was being provoking,” she admitted.

  “Now you are interrogating Mrs Morley,” the Count said. “Pray hold your tongue, Gustav.”

  “On second thoughts, I believe I was flirting,” Cassie said, seeing the boy’s crestfallen look and conscious of the mendacity of her denial. “I was trying to provoke him – and succeeded – but such conduct between the sexes is generally described as flirting. Pray forgive us, Gustav; you are now asking too many questions and both your papa and I are becoming uncomfortable beneath your interrogation; nevertheless it was our fault because we invited it by speaking in French. I think we should leave it now; will you have some more coffee?” she asked the Count.

  “No, thank you; it is time we left; I apologise for my son’s incivility.” He rose to his feet and added, still in English, “I shall look forward to this evening.”

  Cassie inclined her head graciously and the von Krems left. She thought, after they had gone, that the Count was an unusually indulgent father.

  That evening, when she had changed into yet another black dress – this time with an even lower neck and higher waist but which was otherwise almost without embellishment apart from a cluster of brilliants upon each of the short puffed sleeves – she taxed him with it when he apologised again for his son’s interrogation as soon as the carriage moved off.

  “I do not believe there is a great deal we can do to alter children’s characters,” she said. “Their conduct, however, is, to my mind, an entirely different matter; that is the province of their parents and tutors; if you do not like it, you have only yourself to blame.”

  Having delivered herself of this really quite outrageous opinion, she waited for the Count’s condemnation.

  To her surprise, he laughed in a somewhat shamefaced manner. “Of course; I take full responsibility for his behaviour this afternoon. I am well aware that I have indulged him and allowed him to express opinions which I am certain I would not have been permitted to air; my excuse is that I enjoy his company and find his ‘aperçus’ diverting. But I am exceedingly sorry if you were annoyed or upset by his persistence and understand now why people are usually so heavy-handed with children; it prevents such embarrassing scenes.”

  “I was neither annoyed nor upset, I promise,” Cassie said at once, relieved that he did not seem to have taken umbrage. “I find him altogether delightful. He will grow into a fine man and I think you can be very proud of him.”

  “Good God! I had thought from what you said that you were disgusted and considered me a weak and vacillating father.”

  “You may be; I am in no position to judge; but what I can see is that you care deeply for him. Were you much disciplined as a child?”

  “I could not call my soul my own; I saw little of either of my parents. I was consigned to a nursemaid when I was very small, and subsequently to a variety of tutors – some of whom were useless while others were unpleasant. I was not a happy child and did not, unfortunately, grow into a happy man. I would have something different for Gustav, but am aware that I have allowed him to run perhaps a little too free.”

  There was no time for more as the carriage drew up in front of the Musikverein.

  Chapter 26

  “Does the gentleman have a name?” Honoria enquired, adopting the haughty manner she had observed the Countess to employ although, when she received a blank look from the waiter, she realised that he did not understand and was obliged to try German; as a consequence she was by no means certain that she had asked the right question and, moreover, knew that her halting delivery was unlikely to have delivered the level of put-down she sought.

  “He has given me a card, Fraülein.” The servant spoke in heavily accented English and proffered a small tray, in the exact centre of which lay an engraved card.

  Honoria picked it up. During the several days she had been travelling with the Countess she had gradually lost her fear
of being pursued by Frank; indeed, she had begun to feel abandoned by him and to wish that he would come after her; why had he not? She had found herself looking for reasons why he could not find her – of which there were a good many, for why in the world would he think she might be in the middle of Europe, much less under the protection of Lady Angmering? On the other hand, the unreasonable portion of her mind, wounded by his failure to appear, tormented her with the notion that he did not care a button that she had disappeared and had no intention of coming after her.

  She did not therefore expect the card to bear his name and it did not. Nevertheless her sense of disappointment was acute.

  “Please ask him to step in,” she said, concealing her astonishment as best she could, and the next moment Lord Ninfield, still wearing his greatcoat and with a snow-dusted hat in his hand, came into the room and bowed.

  “Miss Ford. I see I find you well.”

  “Yes, thank you. How in the world did you know where to find me?”

  “Oh, I did not. It so happens that I was travelling in this part of the world and heard, at the last posting house at which I stopped, that a young English lady was a few hours ahead of me. When I made further enquiries, the description seemed to fit and I determined to find out if she was indeed the one I met recently in Tunbridge Wells.”

  “I see.” While she could find no obvious fault with this explanation, it nevertheless seemed remarkable that a man she had met once should have turned up by chance in the same hostelry several hundred miles from Tunbridge Wells.