22
Lord Bibbery’s Bobbery
Max Blunsden leaned back at his ease in an upholstered chair in the Sare Park library, his long legs crossed, and eyed his host and former commander mockingly. “So now what?”
“You can get on up to London and see the Archbishop of Canterbury,” responded Lord Sare smoothly.
“You mean to do it by special licence?”
“Well, yes. The alternative is to get Bigelow to read the banns. I think our principal may get cold feet if we choose that path.”
“Mm.” The burly Major Blunsden swallowed a sigh. “Poor damned girl. What a fate, being married to him.”
“It’s the best she can hope for.”
“True.” The Major eyed him curiously. “How much did you offer, Edward?”
“Never mind. Sufficient to sweeten the pill. Added to which, I got Dearborn to offer a decent dowry, which I think possibly tipped the scales for us.” He shrugged. “He seems to see it as some sort of revenge for Dearborn’s having enjoyed what should have been his father’s property, all these years.”
“Nasty little rat.” The Major clenched his large fist and looked at it ruminatively. “I’d have—”
“Yes, and he would have laughed at you. He certainly laughed as he suggested I might care to enforce my proposition by way of a sword.”
Major Blunsden’s craggy jaw dropped.
“‘Nasty little rat’ is flattering him, Max,” he explained sweetly. “What are you going to do now? Belview Manor is standing empty, you know.”
“Thanks. Um… Depends on what you do, I rather think, old man.”
Lord Sare wandered over to the window. “You mean, upon her reactions to what I must do, I think.”
“Yes. Well, all of that’s your own fault.”
“You would not be saying that,” he said mildly, “if she had turned out to be another like the brother.”
“Er—no. When are you seeing her?”
His Lordship turned from the window with a sigh. “Tomorrow morning. Lukey and Mercy are to spend the day with Miss French and her aunt.”
The Major eyed him drily. “How far under your thumb is French?”
Tranquilly he replied: “He is not under my thumb at all, and in fact any man who attempted to put him in such a position would come off very much second-best. Merely, he is… cooperating.”
The burly Major gave a terrific snort.
“He has lent his name to one or two associated little ventures, that is all.”
“Pooh! He—” He broke off. Lord Sare eyed him mockingly. “Do you meant to tell me it was your money behind the damned theatrical nonsense, Edward?” he cried.
“I don’t mean to tell you any such thing. But I will tell you that the Sowcot Theatre & Assembly Rooms ain’t likely to show a profit in our lifetimes, and that Meinhoff is not known for investing his money in ventures that don’t show a profit.”
After a moment Max Blunsden said slowly: “There are other sorts of profit than the merely monetary.”
“Oh, quite. Given that he wishes to establish his children respectably in England: quite,” he drawled.
“You might tell me, for God’s sake, Edward! –Don’t say anything,” he added with a sigh. “I suppose I don’t really expect it of you, any more. Too many years of playing it too close to the chest. Er, look, old man, far be it from me to sound like your damned sister Winifred, but if you intend marrying, it won’t precisely make for harmonious matrimonial relations if y’go on playing everything so close. Or so they tell me.”
“Do I intend marrying?” replied Lord Sare smoothly.
Max’s broad, broken-nosed face went very red and he got up. “Right. Play that one close to your chest, too, damn your eyes!” he said loudly, walking out.
Lord Sare looked up at the portrait of his ancestor. “Possibly also in your day, Henry Luton,” he murmured, “that took the agreement of two parties.”
Henry John Edward Amyes Luton’s gaze remained half-veiled and watchful. Perhaps he was just not interested in the topic: having been affianced in the cradle and married to his first wife at fifteen years of age, by the time he had reached Edward’s present age he had buried two wives, having had by them in all six daughters who had survived infancy, and was embarking on a third matrimonial venture with a girl who was to produce five sons and three more daughters for him and outlive him by over forty years, ruling his household and all his descendants with a rod of iron for every minute of that forty years.
The present Lord Sare sighed. “Perhaps it was easier in your day, Henry Luton,” he murmured. “But on the whole, given human nature, I should very much doubt it.”
An impressive butler showed Major Martin’s daughter into the library of Sare Park, directing her to a chair near the fireplace. She was far too nervous to be impressed, except by the butler’s size, the which it would have been hard to overlook, and did not even pause to wonder why the butler in person was favouring with his attention an obscure visitor, one who besides had been ordered to present herself to his master at such-and-such an hour, instead of deputing the task to an underling.
The library was a handsome apartment, featuring more books in the one place together than she had ever seen in her life. Apart from that, it was very much in the style of the previous century: a well-proportioned room, with wide polished floorboards of some dark wood, perhaps English oak, a white plastered ceiling, dark blue hangings at the tall windows, and more blue, rather faded, on the stretches of the walls which were not hidden by the bookshelves. Several upholstered chairs featured, largely covered in a faded blue brocade which one part of her mind silently determined, without its owner’s prompting, that she personally would have re-covered without delay. Near the fireplace a large desk stood at an angle; her chair was placed facing this desk. The room was lightened by a mirror over the fireplace, and by bowls of flowers on the mantelpiece and the desk.
No-one came. The house was absolutely silent: no sounds of voices, of children playing, or even of dogs barking: nothing. The only sound was the ticking of a gilt carriage clock which stood on the desk. Her eyes wandered slowly round the room. Almost directly opposite the door was a large portrait of a man in Elizabethan dress…
Her jaw dropped. She got up on legs that shook a little, and went to examine the portrait.
“Er—yes,” said an apologetic voice from the doorway. “Henry Luton. Very like me, is he not?”
She whirled round. Mr Peebles was lounging in the doorway, watching her with a wry expression on his face.
“You!” she cried loudly.
“Yes. Well, not me. I’m Lord Sare, Miss Martin.”
She just stared at him with her mouth open.
“Have they not brought you a tray? How very remiss,” he murmured. He wandered over to the fireplace and pulled the bell that hung there. “We have been trying a new tea, one of the experiments in India which the shippers think is turning out quite well,” he murmured. “Should you care to try it?”
She just stared at him.
“Ah, Harewood,” he said blandly as the butler came in. “A tray of tea, if you please. Perhaps a choice of the China which her Ladyship prefers, and the new Indian tea? And—er—sandwiches, or some such. Thank you.”
“Certainly, my Lord,” said the butler, bowing himself out.
“I suppose that proves,” said Major Martin’s daughter angrily, taking a very deep breath, “that you really are!”
“Well, yes, it must do. Or else he and I are in cahoots, having taken over the house for the day. –I do beg your pardon. My mind does that,” he said as she glared speechlessly, her face bright red. “Constructs innumerable scenarios: you know? Won’t you sit down? Where is Troilus, by the by?”
“I—I didn’t being him,” she said unsteadily. “I thought he might not be welcome at Sare Park. What are you— Why— I don’t understand.”
“No.” He came and took her elbow, very gently. “Sit down, Miss Martin, please.”
Limply she sank onto the chair by the fireplace.
Lord Sare did not sit down: he leaned against the desk. And looked down at her thoughtfully. Eventually he murmured: “It’s hard to know where to start.”
She nodded numbly. “So it—it was a masquerade?”
“Yes.”
She gulped, failed to control herself, and collapsed in a painful fit of laughter. “I—am not—hysterical!” she gasped, as he hovered anxiously, and asked if she would like a brandy. “Oh, dear,” she said at last, blowing her nose. “It is of all things the most ironic! I never dreamed for an instant that you were playing the rôle of Peebles, not even when Mr Lefayne spelled the entire plot out in Lord Bibbery’s Bobbery.”
“What?” he said limply.
She blew her nose again and stowed the handkerchief away in her reticule. “I mean Lord Stradley’s Stratagem. I congratulate you, sir: the mask never slipped,” she said on a dry note. “I suppose this means you were never a Peebles.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “Er—no. If you mean that the Peebles character was a complete fabrication, from beginning to end.”
“Well, I did not mean precisely that, no,” she returned, very dry. “I was referring to the caractère, not the personnage. Though I have to say that the caractère was as convincing as the factual accretions to it. Apple orchards? Fathers being taken off at Lord Nelson’s side? And of course, should anyone have cared to enquire in the district it would quickly have emerged that Peebles is a not uncommon name in these parts. You are very thorough: I must congratulate you.”
“Must you?” he said on a dry note. “I suppose some of it was factual enough. I was certainly born in Dorset. Perhaps I should explain that my father was old Neddy Sare’s younger brother, and their father was Baron Sare. Neddy was not the eldest son, but the eldest brother died young, and so he inherited the title, not so very many years after your father knew him. My grandfather did own several apple orchards. Or rather, he owned the land around here further than the eye can see, and many of his tenant farmers grew apples upon it, as the farmers do to this day.”
“Very amusing,” she replied tightly.
“And my father did fall at Trafalgar, at Nelson’s side.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” she said lamely.
“So am I. He was a very decent fellow,” said Lord Sare with a little sigh. “And had he lived, would now be burdened with the damned title, in my stead.”
After a moment she said uncertainly: “Is it a burden, then?”
“Yes. Well, certainly to a man who has led an active, busy and—er—somewhat intriguée life for the last twenty-five years.”
“I see. Did you get my letter?” she asked on a weak note.
“Yes, thank you. I have read it, and the letter to my uncle which it enclosed.”
She looked at him hard. Edward Luton did not make the mistake of assuming she was examining the faultlessly cut fawn breeches, the glossy boots from Hoby or the country coat from the hand of Mr Schultz, or even the shiny brown curls, slightly receded at the brow and just beginning to silver at the temples, out of which every vestige of the black dye used for the Peebles persona had now been washed. “No,” she said grimly. “You are not Mr Peebles at all.”
“No. But some of my closer acquaintance would claim, Miss Martin, that I possess some of his more irritating characteristics.”
“I can believe that,” she said tightly.
“I suppose I should apologise for deceiving you.”
“Oh, not if you are not sorry, sir!” she retorted smartly.
“No, well, I don’t know that I am. Why have you come to see me?” he said blandly.
She took a very deep breath indeed, largely in order to prevent herself from shouting at him. “I think, Lord Sare, that you are perfectly well aware of that.”
“No. I’m aware of why your friends urged you to, and certainly of why Lefayne insisted you must. I’m also aware that I sent you what was tantamount to a damned royal summons. But I wish to know why you came, Miss Martin. –Wait,” he murmured, as the door opened to admit not only Harewood with a silver tray, but one footman bearing a tall silver cake-stand, another footman bearing two plates of cakes, and a parlourmaid bearing two plates of sandwiches.
“Thank you, Harewood,” he said coolly as this retinue set out the feast and retreated.
“I suppose,” his guest noted tightly, “it keeps some of the neighbourhood in gainful employment.”
“Well, yes. But I hope you do not think I encourage such a display,” he murmured. “That scene was, I fear, provoked by vulgar curiosity. The maid and those two footmen will be, you see, in Harewood’s good books at this precise moment. And so were favoured with the privilege. Do you care to pour?”
She looked with extreme dislike at the two large silver teapots on the silver tray and replied sourly: “I do not think I could even lift one of those, empty, let alone with tea in it.”
“No, quite. It takes strength in the wrists, rather than science.”
She glared speechlessly at this reminder of Mr Peebles and the paving stones at Mr Buxleigh’s as he lifted a teapot.
“This is the Indian tea. Should you care to try it, Miss Martin?”
“Mr Peebles,” she said angrily, “any tea is a treat to me, as you very well know!”
“Mm,” he murmured, his lips twitching, as he poured carefully.
After a moment she said numbly: “Oh, help. I mean, Lord Sare.”
He handed her her cup. “Pray don’t regard it, Miss Martin. Personally, I do not give a damn. Have a cucumber sandwich.”
Numbly she accepted a sandwich. After a moment she said feebly: “What on earth happens to all the crusts?”
“What? Oh,” said the false Mr Peebles limply, staring at the plates of delicately dainty sandwiches. “I’ve never asked. Mrs Harmon would turn them into a bread pudding, would she not? –Supposing she had been silly enough in the first place to cut them off: yes,” he conceded. “Here I should suppose their best fate is to be thrown to the pigs. We do have pigs, on the Home Farm,” he said calmly.
Grimly she replied: “As a matter of fact, I know that, Lord Sare. I perceive that you do indeed have Mr Peebles’s worst attributes, and I must beg you to cease trying to disconcert me.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “How is the tea?”
“Perfectly acceptable, thank you.”
He sipped his own, smiling a little. “Different, is it not? Well, now, you were going to tell me why you came to see me.”
“Yes. I admit that my preference would have been to continue on with Mr Hartington’s company.” She put her pointed chin in the air. He merely nodded, and she struggled on: “But Mr Lefayne has absolutely forbidden it. I suppose I might have stood out against him, if it were not— Oh, dear, you don’t know all the rest that has happened!” she realised in dismay.
The false Mr Peebles sipped tea calmly. “About your cousins’ descent upon you? Yes, I do. Dinwoody has reported very fully.”
“So Mr Lefayne was right! He is your man!” she cried accusingly.
“Something like that: mm. Certainly I sent him down to Southampton in order to keep an eye on you.”
She swallowed. “I suppose I thank you, sir.”
“He likes you. He would have looked after you in any case,” he murmured.
“It is kind of you to say so, my Lord,” she replied arctically. “Well, as you know it all, I cannot see that there is any need for me to elaborate.” He was offering her another sandwich, so she took one, and chewed it angrily. “But,” she said crossly, swallowing, “I suppose, when all is said and done, that I came because I thought Lord Sare might concede I had a little claim upon him, in that I had been commended to his father’s, bother, I mean uncle’s care, and might perhaps assist me a little. With money. –I know Mr Lefayne’s idea was that he would take me in as his ward, but that is manifestly absurd!” she added loudly. “And I do not truly have any claim, I see that quite clearly, and if the two brothers had not died, it would not even be you, I mean him—no, you—and—”
“Don’t,” said Lord Sare, leaning forward to touch her knee gently. “You will choke upon these damned dainty cucumber sandwiches.”
Her eyes had filled with tears, but she scrubbed the back of her hand across them and warned: “I am not going to cry!”
“No, of course. Well, I did not truly think that you had expectations of becoming my ward.” He rubbed his chin slowly. “The reason I undertook the masquerade as Peebles, was, frankly, to ascertain whether you were fit to do so.”
“You must be mad!” she said in a shaking voice.
He raised his eyebrows. “What, given your father?”
“Not that! You could just have refused to see me, or to countenance the very idea of a claim! Why, you must have lawyers who would leap to obey the mere lift of your finger!”
“Mm. Hartley, Hartley, Fitch and French,” he said, very dry indeed.
“You mean they knew?” she gasped.
“Oh, Lord, no; they would not have approved at all. Merely, it gave me some solid background upon which to draw for the—er—rôle. There were,” he recalled with a little smile, “a couple of times when I was very thankful I had conscientiously got up in the part before embarking upon it. The first was when Mr Vanburgh, in all innocence, demanded an exact description of my offices and my own rôle therein, before he undertook the part of clerk for your second visit to the Horse Guards. And then there was one frightful day when Lefayne, whose suspicions had been aroused by the unexpected offer from a complete unknown to underwrite a series of engagements down on the south coast, interrogated me as to what was known of this Mr French’s lawyers. If I had not put in all that time boning up on the law firms of London, I would have well and truly been caught out!” he admitted with a laugh.
“Yes, it is clear that you are the sort of person who does things thoroughly, or not at all; but I have known that for some time,” said Major Martin’s daughter, eyeing him with unconcealed dislike. She took a deep breath. “I still don’t understand why a great lord, who owns all the land hereabouts further than the eye can see, would bother in the first place.”
“No. We-ell…” He rubbed his straight nose. “I haven’t always been a great lord, Miss Martin.”
She snorted.
His mouth twitched very, very slightly. “I think you misunderstand me. My father was a Navy man, as I mentioned, and I myself took up an Army career. We were in the thick of things in the Peninsula—around ’08, this would have been—when by a certain combination of circumstances, I undertook a, er, mission, of the sort which I found suited me down to the ground.” He grimaced. “Spying, Miss Martin. Or a little more than that: organising the whole thing, undertaking a great part of it, and seeing that it was carried through successfully. It was very successful, and after that I was asked to become a gatherer of intelligence for Lord Wellington, not to say for His Majesty, upon a full-time basis.”
The Major’s daughter swallowed. She had not thought for an instant that the milord would admit to this. “Even though you were a gentleman?” she croaked.
“Mm. Well, in war time, you know, that is of lesser account. My family knew nothing of it: they assumed I was still with the regiment. I was, though not in person.”
“‘I don’t understand.”
“I remained a serving officer, Miss Martin. Though I did not go back to the regiment as such until Waterloo.”
Major Martin’s family, of course, knew this. Very weakly his daughter said: “You were a spy all that time?”
“Certainly. Well, promoted to spy-master after a while, but very largely out in the field, yes. I had a little desk in Whitehall, at which I did not spend very much time, and in order to sustain the fiction, called myself Mr Frew, and played the rôle of an humble clerk: not unlike Peebles, y’see. Only a scattering of very senior officers, and of course Wellington himself, knew my real identity. Er—either of my real identities: knew on the one hand that I was Edward Luton, old Neddy’s heir, or on t’other that I was still a commissioned officer, and in fact reached the rank of full Colonel some years since. –My office,” he said clearly, “was at the Horse Guards, Miss Martin, and General Sir Arthur Murray was one of the senior officers in the secret. On the day you first called on him I was in the process of clearing out my desk: I had resigned my commission on inheriting the title. He came and saw me immediately.”
“Yes,” she said faintly. “I see. Yes, we did go to Whitehall. It was a street, not a hall.”
“Mm.” He leaned forward, freshened her cup, and pushed it into her hand. “Drink it.”
She drank, a numbed expression on her face.
“When I was a lad I greatly enjoyed amateur theatrics,” said Lord Sare mildly. “Though at the same time feeling vaguely dissatisfied; I could not have defined it as a boy, but the feeling was that they did not offer quite enough scope. The life I have led these past fifteen years has certainly offered scope.”
She gave a feeble nod.
“I did undertake the Peebles thing,” he said slowly, “in order to make sure you were a fit person to be received at Sare Park. At least, that was the reason I gave myself. But also, I think, because I was grasping at…” He shrugged. “The last chance for something like the old life? Well, something like that. I envisaged a few weeks, at the most.”
She thought it over, frowning. “Yes. Given the circumstances, I suppose I can understand.”
“Mm. I admit that when your Dearborn cousins offered to take you, I was relieved.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her mouth tightening.
“Then, when the Dearborn venture did not work out, I—” He bit his lip. “I succumbed to the temptation of watching to see how you would manage, I’m afraid. I knew you would be quite safe, with Dinwoody keeping an eye on you. And then, the Peebles persona was ready to hand, and… I didn’t want to end it,” he said with a little sigh.
Major Martin’s daughter returned grimly: “No, well, most persons would probably not see the existence a rich lord is expected to lead as so very restrictive as all that, but I concede that given your past life, it must have been difficult for you to settle down.”
“Something very like that,” he agreed. “Then, when Master Ricky got into the act, I decided it might be wise to—er—let him go the length of his rope. Unfortunately,” he said, grimacing, “he did.”
“Yes. I had warned Mr Dinwoody about him,” she said, biting her lip.
“Yes, and I should have taken the warning far more seriously than I did. Though one of the things I wished to ascertain was whether he would assume the responsibilities of a guardian towards yourself. Er—to see if he had any vestiges of decent feeling in him.”
Ricky’s sister bit her lip again. To let him believe Ricky did not would be scarcely fair to him—especially as he was so very far in the milord’s bad books already, for having ruined poor, silly Josephine. But on the other hand, the Martin children’s plan did not include acquainting the milord with any part of their plot, even that which involved Ricky’s keeping an eye on what his sister was up to…
“Clearly he does not,” said Lord Sare with a little shrug, before she had made up her mind whether or not to let the sacré milord believe whatever he wished to believe.
She licked her lips. “If you knew everything, why did you write Cousin Dearborn that you had never laid eyes on Ricky?”
“Because I had not, Miss Martin. He had never come to Sare Park and he was not hiding here after the fugue with Miss Josephine, as Dearborn assumed. I did not, however, sit back and do nothing. Dinwoody had a tale of some bolt-hole the fellow had had in Dorchester, and I sent my men off after him. But he wasn’t there, and by the time they got to Axminster, the trail was very cold. I had no news of him until around the time Dinwoody came up to the house with your note. At which point there was a sighting of him, and so we set off in pursuit. Er, I’m afraid I let Dinwoody take the unfortunate exciseman’s horse: it lent verisimilitude,” he murmured.
“You went together?” said Ricky’s sister dazedly, ignoring this aside.
“Yes.”
“But where is he?”
“We found him in Bournemouth, Miss Martin. With his legs under the table of a fat widow.”
“You’ve found Ricky?”
“Yes. We have managed to persuade him that marrying Miss Josephine will be the prudent course.”
She went very red. “Persuade Ricky? Lord Sare, how much money have you paid him?”
“Well, none, as yet: I am not a gaby. But we have signed documents to the effect that on his marriage to Miss Josephine he will receive a certain sum, and a decent income until his twenty-fifth birthday, when, as of course you know, he will come into most of your grandfather’s property.”
“I cannot imagine he would agree to it for anything but an immense sum,” she said dazedly.
“It was not so immense as all that,” he murmured. “Certain other methods of persuasion were used.”
“You did not fight him?” she cried in horror.
His lips twitched. “No; he appeared to find the thought that I might offer a duel an intensely amusing one.”
“He would,” said his sister limply. “Was he very rude?”
“Impertinent, I would say. He appears to have made a study of it.”
“Yes. I’m very sorry,” she said, her cheeks glowing.
“You have nothing for which to apologise, Miss Martin.”
He had thought that perhaps she had been distracted from her earlier point; but no; she frowned over it and said: “But what else could you possibly do but offer him money? Mrs Jessop and I could not think of a thing.”
“No,” agreed Lord Sare tranquilly, refraining from smiling. “We put it to him that if he wished to cut any sort of figure in elegant society, he would be very well advised not to cross me at the outset of his career. He saw our point.”
“Of course!” she said with a great sigh. “He always did want to be a gentleman.”
“Mm.”
She took a deep breath. “We are greatly in your debt, sir. I can never thank you enough. So—so will Cousin Dearborn come and collect Josephine?”
“Well, no: he seemed content to leave all that side of it to me. Your brother is due to arrive here within the week, at which point they will be married, and will leave for Pudsey House. Dearborn was persuaded to give the tenants notice.”
“I see. Thank you very much. –No wonder you sent all those fine ladies and gentlemen away!” she said with a shudder.
“What? Oh. No, well, I did not think we needed your poor cousin’s story to become common knowledge.”
“No. Thank you.” She got up. “I had best go and set her mind at rest immediately. Thank you, Lord Sare.” She held out her hand.
He took it but instead of bowing over it, held it lightly. “Don’t go just yet. We haven’t discussed your own future.”
“Well, I suppose that Cousin Dearborn will take Belle back, now, and so I shall be free to carry on with Hartington’s Players.”
“No,” he said, his hand tightening on hers. “I thought you understood? There can be no question of that, for a woman of gentle birth. I have had my lawyers look closely at the wording of that note of your father’s, and they conclude that you do have a claim on me. There is even a question as to whether the note might be read as being addressed to myself, rather than Uncle Neddy.”
This point was, of course, precisely what the Martin children had intended to bring to Lord Sare’s notice—in their own time, and should the circumstances require they do so. The next step was, of course, that Major Martin’s daughter should let herself be persuaded to accept Lord Sare’s offer of guardianship.
“What? Nonsense!” she cried, wrenching her hand out of his. “You never even met Papa!” –The vigour of this response had nothing at all to do with the Martins’ plot, alas, but very much indeed to do with the discovery that Mr Peebles had been the milord in disguise all along.
Lord Sare returned calmly: “On the contrary. I met him during the course of my profession. –Sit down, Miss Martin.”
Slowly she subsided back onto her chair. Limply she said: “You knew him?”
“Quite well, yes. Well enough to be very wary about inviting any of his offspring to share my house and my life.”
“I should think so!” she agreed with feeling.
“Mm. Well, since your brother refuses to be responsible for you, Miss Martin, I think clearly the charge must fall on me,” he said lightly.
“Nonsense,” she croaked, her cheeks very pink.
“Would you say it was nonsense if you had not known me as Peebles?” he murmured.
“In the first place,” replied the Major’s daughter grimly, holding her chin up very high, “I do not think any of us ever knew you, as Mr Peebles: deviousness, to name but one, was never part of his character; and in the second place, that is all speculation, so it is pointless to discuss it! You know very well I have never had any ambitions to be a lady.”
“The point is that you are a lady, and that this is your rightful place in society, and I really do think, you know,” he said, at his mildest, “that I must insist. And I don’t think Lefayne will countenance your rejoining the players. Unlike some, he is a man with vestiges of decent feeling.”
“I shall persuade Mr Hartington!” she cried, very flushed.
“Well, I don’t think you will, Miss Martin. You see, Lefayne is far and away the greatest asset his company has, and so if he don’t wish for something, Hartington will not hold out against him.”
She got up. “You will not force me to come and live in this horrid great house and be a boring, prim lady! And,” she said, her jaw trembling, “it is not the fact of having known you as Mr Peebles, but the—the deviousness and—and underhandedness of your conduct throughout, which has given me a disgust of you, sir! –In spite of your very great kindness to my poor cousin, for which the family must remain forever in your debt. I have kind friends and the promise of gainful employment, and I shall go back to them now.”
He rose slowly. “And if I insist?” he drawled, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, you would, would you not? For I see now, you are not Mr Peebles at all, and he was never real!” she said on a choked sob. “You will have to tie me down, to make me live in your house!”
She went over to the door, fully expecting him to stop her: but he did not. And so she went out, and into the impressive front hall of Sare Park. Where the large butler in person opened the front door to her and bowed her out. Noticing nothing odd in this, Major Martin’s daughter said in a choked voice: “Thank you.” And hurried down the steps and away.
In the front hall, Harewood hesitated for moment. He had known the present Lord Sare since his boyhood, though he had not seen very much of him during his adult life. Then he went slowly along to the library. Lord Sare was at the window.
“My Lord, is there anything I can do to help?” asked the butler in a firm voice.
He turned very slowly. The butler looked him in the eye.
“No, Harewood, I don’t think there is. Well, you may tell me I am a damned fool, but Major Blunsden has already done that,” he said on a little sigh.
“I should be very happy to speak to the young lady, my Lord.”
“Should you, indeed?” he said in astonishment, staring at him.
Harewood did not cease to look him in the eye. “Yes, Master Edward.”
He gave the ghost of a laugh. “And represent my good qualities to her?”
“Exactly,” said the butler stolidly.
“Mm. Well, I thank you sincerely for the offer, but I think she might think you were partisan, and discount anything you said. Added to which, I was stupid enough,” he admitted with a frown, “to tell her I did not wish her to become my ward.”
“Out of course you don’t, my Lord,” said the butler sympathetically.
“She took it the wrong way,” he said with a twist of the lips.
Harewood waited, but his master said nothing more. So he ventured: “What shall you do next, my Lord? Could her Ladyship help, perhaps?”
“What, Lukey?” he said with a startled laugh. “No, well, she’d be willing, I grant you, but she’s hardly an object lesson to hold up to a common-sensical young woman who has a very low opinion of the upper classes, is she? Um… Wait and see, I suppose,” he said, frowning.
“Yes, my Lord. They tell me,” said the butler in a respectful voice, “that Mrs Jessop from the village is a very good sort of a woman indeed.”
“Yes. Thank you, Harewood,” said his Lordship with a sigh, passing his hand over the glossy curls.
It was not, perhaps, a dismissal, but the butler feigned to take it as such, and considerately bowed himself out.
After a while Edward went over to the portrait of his ancestor. He did not say anything, just gave it a sour look.
Major Martin’s daughter was more than halfway back to the village before her legs gave way and she sank down onto a grassy bank and burst into snorting sobs. Belle, who had waited as long as she humanly could and then been overtaken by consuming curiosity to know the outcome of the meeting with Lord Sare, found her there about five minutes later.
“Cressida! What happened? Did he throw you out of his house?” she gasped, sinking to her knees beside her.
“No! He’s—Mr—Peebles! And I—hate—him!” she sobbed, lifting a face swollen with tears to hers.
Belle put a kind arm round her. “Hush, don’t cry. We are no worse off than we were before,” she said valiantly.
Her cousin at this leaned her head on her shoulder, and sobbed and sobbed.
It took the bewildered Belle nearly an hour to calm her down and get the story of Lord Sare’s masquerade out of her. Perhaps it helped that she had brought Troilus, who got upon his mistress’s knee and licked her face.
“Stop that, mauvais chien,” she said wanly, hugging him. “Do you see, Belle?”
Belle nodded dazedly. “He must be a very eccentric sort of man, Cressida.”
“He is underhand, devious, and incredibly cunning,” she said grimly.
“Er—yes. But to go to all that trouble… Can it be that he affects you, my dear Cousin?”
“No!” she said crossly, going very red. “I thought I explained? He did it because he wanted one last masquerade, before he gave up his former life.”
“Ye-es…” Belle’s mind was, of course, not a subtle one, but that perhaps meant that in matters of the emotions she sometimes saw more clearly than persons such as her cousin or Edward Luton himself. “I think it must have been more than that, dearest.”
“Pooh. A person who cared at all would have put an end to the stupid play-acting when I had to go to Cousin Dearborn, and—and declared himself. And given me a choice!” she said angrily.
“Ye-es… Oh! Declared himself as Lord Sare? Yes, of course. Um, I suppose,” Belle amended lamely. “Yes, well never mind, dear Cousin. We may stay on with dear Mrs Jessop, and have our cottage, just as we planned.”
“No.” She mopped her eyes. “I thought we might, too. But you must go back to Cousin Dearborn and Cousin Evangeline. And we shall have to give the money back to Miss French: it was not for us, truly, you know, but for Josephine.”
Belle’s wide, fair face fell. “Oh. Of course.”
Her cousin blew her nose. “At least Josephine is saved.”
“Yes! Oh, Cressida! We can never thank Lord Sare enough!” sighed Belle, clasping her hands to her bosom.
“That is true enough,” she agreed grimly.
“Cressida, do you not think he did it for you?” she ventured.
Her lip wobbled. “No. If he had truly been Mr Peebles— What I mean is, Mr Peebles would have. But the milord—I mean, Lord Sare—did it out of a sense of noblesse oblige.”
“But dearest Cousin—!”
“I have never denied that where the less fortunate in life are concerned, he is a man of proper feeling,” said Major Martin’s daughter grimly. “Witness his treatment of Mr Bagshot.”—Belle nodded uncertainly.—“But when I think of his duplicity… I have just recalled,” she said, tears starting to her eyes again, “that time we took him to the play. Took Mr Peebles, as we believed him to be. He must have been laughing up his sleeve at us the entire time! And poor Mr Buxleigh, thinking he was introducing him to the way a gentleman behaves at the playhouse, fetching refreshment, and so forth. And,” she said fiercely, her cheeks flaming, “every instant of that business of the hand in the waistcoat like the Emperor was entirely deliberate! And I shall never forgive him!” Forthwith she burst once more into snorting sobs.
Belle of course had no idea what she was talking about; she merely hugged her and murmured: “Hush, dearest. Hush.” And was, to say truth, very relieved, even although Troilus was again doing his best to help her console her, when a burly figure hove into sight and a deep voice said: “’Ere, what’s all this? Never tell us his Lordship slung ’er out on ’er ear?” And Mr Dinwoody sank down onto the grass beside them.
“No, indeed, quite the reverse! Oh, Mr Dinwoody, I am so glad you have come!” gasped Belle. “She is completely obdurate against him, and he has been so gallant and magnanimous and generous, and utterly saved poor Josephine!”
“Well, I thought ’e would,” owned Mr Dinwoody mildly. “Come on, little Missy; it’s all over,” he said, putting a kindly hand on her shoulder.
“It isn’t,” she said indistinctly into Belle’s bosom.
“Well, it would be, if you’d have a bit of common sense,” he returned stolidly.
At this she sat up indignantly, the sobs drying up, and cried: “Common sense? Go and live with that—that devious masquerader? I would sooner any fate! And you are as bad as he, Mr Dinwoody: you were in the plot all along!”
“No, I wasn’t. Well, don’t deny I was his Lordship’s agent,” said the blue-chinned one on a cautious note.
“Exactly! Reporting back to him everything that went on! So he knew exactly when to turn up and be Mr Peebles again!” she said through her teeth.
“Er—aye. More or less.”
“And you let me believe that Mr Lefayne was behind it all!” she cried accusingly.
“No, I never, Missy. Well, I didn’t stop you. Maybe you wanted to believe it, hey?”
“No, I—” She broke off, very red, as she recalled that episode by the stream with Mr Lefayne.
“She—she seems very obdurate against his Lordship,” said Miss Dearborn cautiously. “And swears she will not go and live in his house.”
“No,” she confirmed with a shudder.
“No, well, what’s the alternative? Lefayne won’t let her go back to the players, y’know, once he knows Lord Sare’s offered to take her. But she can hardly stay here by herself.”
“No,” said Belle slowly, frowning over, it, and not noticing the unusual preponderance of articulated aitches in this last speech of Mr Dinwoody’s. “Um… Well,” she decided, lifting her plump chin, “I shall stay on at Mrs Jessop’s with her; and I dare say I can learn to assist with the stitchery, and indeed, if Miss Lucy truly needs an assistant, I could take Josephine’s place.”
“Belle, you must go back to your parents,” said her cousin drearily, blowing her nose on Belle’s soaked handkerchief.
“’Ave mine,” said Mr Dinwoody, passing her a flag-like red-spotted one, more usually seen around his neck. “She’s right, Miss Dearborn.”
Belle frowned. “Pray do not address me by that name, dear Mr Dinwoody; it is one which I am ashamed to own. I should be very grateful if you would just call me Miss Belle, in the future.”
Mr Dinwoody scratched his jaw, but agreed: “Right you are, Miss Belle. Glad to.”
Belle’s cousin blew her nose angrily. “Good. And I shall retain the name Martingale!” she added fiercely.
Neither Mr Dinwoody nor Miss Belle could seize the precise reasoning of this remark, though doubtless it had something to do with Ricky Martin’s behaviour; but they nodded kindly.
“I shall not go back to Papa’s house. I shall reach my majority at the end of this month, so he cannot force me,” added Belle, again lifting her rounded chin.
Mr Dinwoody looked at the chin with interest. “True enough.”
“I shall stay here and support dearest Cressida, for if no-one else in our family is capable of true gratitude, I am!” said Belle determinedly. “And in any case, if I do go back to Mamma and Papa, I dare say it will all be horrid,” she owned candidly. “For they will be sure to blame me for everything, and my disappearance will have caused a scandal in any case. And the neighbourhood will be sure to shun us even when it becomes know that Josephine is married, and even if they should not, you may be very sure that Mamma will not allow me to attend any parties for the rest of the year.”
“Actually, that is probably true,” conceded her cousin, blowing her nose.
Mr Dinwoody sniffed slightly. “Aye, I can see that, right enough. Well, back to Ma Jessop’s, then?”
The soi-disant Miss Martingale blew her nose again, stowed the red-spotted handkerchief in her reticule, and got up. “Yes,” she said firmly.
Mr Dinwoody rose slowly, holding out his hand to Belle. “Sure, Miss Belle?” he said as she took the hand.
“Very sure,” replied Miss Belle firmly.
“So be it.” He released her hand but only in order to put his own hard one firmly under her plump elbow. “Come along, then,” he said mildly, taking Miss Martingale’s elbow with his other hand. “Come out of that, you, Troilus! Come on!” he adjured the little dog sternly.
And, Troilus having disengaged his nose from what had looked like, if not positively the outer entrance to a badger set or rabbit warren, at least the home of a humble vole or such-like, the party proceeded on down the leafy Dorset lane, the soi-disant Mr Dinwoody very much at his ease with two strings to his bow, whistling gently through those gappy teeth.
“What?” said Lord Sare numbly.
“Never thought of that, did you?” replied his old comrade-in-arms genially.
“Max, if they give that money back they will have nothing to live on!”
“No, well, she's got a few shillings put by, and I dare say Ma Jessop will feed them until they get paid for their damned stitching.”
“It will not do!” he said angrily, striding up and down the library.
Major Blunsden collapsed into an easy chair. “You should have insisted,” he drawled.
“I wanted her to choose it for herself!’” he said angrily.
“I know that.”
“She is furious with me over the Peebles thing. Well, over letting it drag on,” he admitted lamely.
“Told you so. Miss Belle seems to think some damned episode where the Peebles character went to the play with ’em has really got under her skin; ring any bells?”
Edward looked at him blankly. “N— Uh, naturally I recall the episode. I could not think what the Devil a Peebles might wear to make himself fine at the play, and fell back upon one of those damned spotted neckcloths of the F.H.C.’s. Tied it in a bow,” he admitted, grinning sheepishly.
The Major choked, but returned: “Wasn’t that. Laughing up your sleeve came into it. And something about emperors, but Miss Belle couldn’t make head nor tail of that one.”
“Emp— Oh!” he said, shaking slightly. “I had slicked my hair down into a Brutus—took weeks to get the dye out, y’know: had to wear a damned wig whenever I showed my face at White’s. –Sorry, where was I? Oh, yes. It was rather the style Boney favoured. So I stuck me fist inside me waistcoat. Well,” he said, as Max choked violently, “I did not, truly, think that any of them would get the reference.”
“No, well, no wonder the phrase laughing up your sleeve was used!”
“Mm,” he said, biting his lip.
“So what’s next? Insist she come to you?”
“No. She must want it for herself,” he said tightly.
“You’re mad, but then, I’ve always know that. But if you cannot stand the thought of her with only a few shillings in her purse—”
“I shall speak to French,” he said grimly.
“He's certainly got more than a few shillings,” owned the Major placidly. “And?”
“Get him to renew the offer of a cottage. There are several in Foxes’ Lane: it is quite near to the village.”
The Major rubbed his blue jaw. “Think I might take the cottage next-door.”
“That’s very good of you, Max, but there’s absolutely no need,” he said in astonishment.
“I don’t know that I’m doing it entirely for your sake, old fellow,” he said mildly.
Edward looked at him dubiously. “Not Miss Dearborn?”
“It might be,” he said blandly.
“But dear old fellow, if you do it as Dinwoody she will never look twice at you!”
The false Mr Dinwoody grinned at him. “We’ll see. She’s come a long way in a few weeks, you know. Spoke up to her Ma, told her what the Christian thing was, and lit out all on her ownsome to help her sister. Not to mention crossing the county in the common stage and journeying down here from Dorchester on a waggon! Not to mention, letting the theatricals trick her out in a little print gown that makes her look like some damned village Goody in person! From behind, at any rate,” he said, slowly closing one eye.
“Max, I realise you are not asking my opinion, but I think perhaps she has a very persuadable personality. And while she was quite content, living in the mother’s orbit, to accept her standards, is now simply adapting herself to Miss Martin’s.”
“I think it’s a bit more than that. She did have the guts to look for the sister and come on over here after Miss Martin. But on the whole I’d agree: biddable, is the word that springs to mind.”
Edward eyed him dubiously. “Mm.”
“I ain’t like you, old man!” he said with a laugh. “While I admire little Missy tremendously, all that grit and determination of hers would wear me out within a twelvemonth!”
“I see. Well, I am sure I wish you well. But change though she may, I still cannot see Miss Dearborn of Dearborn House turning to that stout fellow, Albert Dinwoody.”
“We’ll see,” he said placidly. “Lord Bibbery’s bobbery did not work all that well for you, but then, as I say, little Miss Martin is a very different kettle of fish.”
“Mm,” said Lord Sare glumly. “Is she not?”
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