Scene, London Town

26

Scene, London Town

    Lord Sare had received a note, and the Sare House household had consequently been in a bustle. Lady Hartwell and her daughter had come to stay, and another room, next to Miss Mercy’s, had been readied, and the Sare House butler himself was primed and ready, should anything approximating the expected visitor appear on the imposing flight of steps outside the town house.

    Lukey pouted. “What if she be utterly impossible, after all?”

    “I am sure she cannot be; Uncle Edward has exquisite taste,” replied Mercy firmly.

    She shrugged, and sighed. “London is so thin of company as yet! It is all a terrible bore!”

    “The Season is not yet properly under way. There will be plenty to do, very soon,” said Mercy composedly.

    “You mean, I shall be expected to be totally occupied in fending off the cats and countering vulgar speculation!”

    Mercy took a deep breath. “Mamma, you are being very naughty. You should not have agreed to be Uncle Edward’s hostess if you did not truly wish for it.”

    Pouting, Lukey replied: “‘Hurry and dress. He will sulk, an we are late down for dinner.”

    “Uncle Edward does not sulk,” she said firmly.

    “Gentlemen always do,” she returned sourly, going out.

    Mercy sighed. There was more than one reason for Mamma’s uncertain temper: not only the imminent arrival of an unknown quantity, but the fact that Mr Rowbotham, alas, was not in town and Penny Greatorex reported that they did not know when or if he might be…

    “If this is not it, I shall go home!” said Lukey crossly, several days later, as a knock was heard while the Hartwell ladies were seated in the morning room, Mercy working on some embroidery and Lukey merely fidgeting.

    “I dare say it may be. But you cannot go home: Hartwell House is closed up and the servants on board wag—”

    “Must you be so relentlessly literal?” she cried, bounding up and rushing out like a little whirlwind.

    Mercy sighed, but got on conscientiously with her stitchery.

    Miss Martin was shown into the library of Sare House, and looked about her with bright-eyed interest. It was a panelled room, featuring several heavy desks, some doubtless fine Persian rugs on the polished oaken floor, and a variety of upholstered chairs, mostly covered in a particularly nasty faded mustard brocade. A bright little fire burned in the grate of the white marble fireplace, and above the mantel a bowl of spring flowers was reflected in a giant mirror. Miss Martin smiled: it was a pleasing effect.

    “Do you like it better than the library at Sare Park?” said a quiet voice from the doorway.

    She turned without haste, and smiled at him. “I think they are not dissimilar. I was admiring the spring blooms.”

    “Mm, very pretty.” Edward came slowly into the room. “But I suppose I meant the colours chosen for the rooms: which do you prefer?”

    “I think, the blue, though it does fade so; and in your place, I would have the chairs in the Sare Park library re-covered and the hangings replaced. I certainly do not care for this yellowish shade.”

    “Mm; nor I.” He came over to her and bowed. “Welcome to my house, Miss Martin.”

    “Thank you,” said Cressida composedly, with a little curtsey. “And thank you for seeing me, sir.”

    “Not at all. Please—sit down.” She took a place near the fire and he seated himself opposite her. “So, you have changed your mind, Miss Martin. May I ask why?”

    “My responsibilities have changed. As I think you know, my Cousin Belle has become engaged to Major Blunsden; in fact he has taken her to Norfolk until the wedding, which they intend shall be very soon.”

    “Mm.” Edward rubbed his chin slowly. “I had heard you had other responsibilities.”

    “Mr Bagshot and Fred Hinks: yes,” she replied readily. “I do not intend abandoning them. But for the moment, they are quite happy in Sowcot, helping Mr Hartington with the theatre.”

    “I see. –Ah: tea,” he said as it was brought in.

    “No panoply,” murmured Miss Martin with a twinkle in her eye, as the single footman and parlourmaid set out their trays of tea and sandwiches, were thanked by their master, and withdrew.

    He smiled. “No. –Do you like this tea-set? It is one of the Wedgwood designs. Oh—perhaps you have not heard of them: it is an English manufactory, with this quite unique idea of setting the white on the blue.”

    “Ye-es… It is a very pretty set, my Lord. But will the teapot draw well?” said the practical-minded Miss Martin dubiously.

    “We shall see.” He poured, the tea was approved, and she took a sandwich.

    “You are either very well primed,” he murmured, as she set down her cup, “or you are in fact the sister who came to see me at Sare.”

    Cressida replied with the utmost composure: “I was wondering how much you knew. Given that you have not always been a milord.”

    “Quite. Permit me to say that so far, I have remarked that you did not use either my name or my title until the footman had addressed me by the title, and that you have made precisely the right remarks about the furnishings of my two libraries.”

    “I am Cressida Martin, Lord Sare,” she said composedly. “But I do not see precisely how I may prove it to you.”

    He rose. “Please come over to the window.”

    Cressida set down her sandwich and came over to the window.

    Lord Sare pushed the heavy mustard drapes right back, so that a yellowish English spring light fell on her pointed face. “May I?” he said grimly.

    “Yes,” replied Cressida simply.

    He put a hand under her chin, turning her face to the light, and looked very, very closely at the tiny mole near the outer corner of her right eye. Cressida did not flinch, but her heart did beat very fast and she did admit to herself that, so close, the deep grey-blue of those eyes was quite devastatingly beautiful.

    “That is a genuine little mole,” he said with a tiny sigh, releasing her at last.

    “Yes.”

    “Therefore, if my information is correct, and certainly the last man I had look into it is very thorough—please, come back to the fire,” he said courteously, taking her elbow gently, “—as I was saying, if my information is correct, you are Cressida Martin.”

    “Yes, I am Cressida Martin,” she said, smiling shyly and re-seating herself. “My sister does not have the mole. Otherwise, we are very alike. Her name is Isabelle.”

    “So I am informed. Why did you never mention her?”

    She made a rueful little face. “I suppose, very largely because I did not wish to give the impression that I had any dependants. Not that Isabelle care to hear me describe her, so!” she admitted with a smothered laugh. “She is quite fiercely independent. But—well, I was not even able to support myself without the aid of my kind friends at Mr Buxleigh’s. If Cousin Dearborn had been a different man I would have told him about her and tried to get him to do something for her,” she admitted on a rueful note.

    “I see. And did you intend to tell me about her, Miss Martin?”

    “Not at first, no. Oh! Do you mean today?” said Cressida with a smile. “Yes, certainly; I have decided to make a clean breast of it all.” She pushed her half-eaten sandwich to the side of the plate and added: “I made a list.”

    “A list?”

    “To myself: of the things to do. I do, sometimes, when it’s important and my nerves may betray me.”

    “I see. I confess, I am a list-maker myself. Er—most of mine, in the past, I had to burn before I could use ’em,” he said with the ghost of a laugh. “Do you have it with you?”

    Cressida Martin was not unprepared for this question, and bit her lip in a gesture that she was careful to make appear ingenuous. “‘Mm,” she admitted, opening her reticule.

    “May I?” He read it through silently, his lips twitching, and handed it back to her without comment. “Do you not care for my sandwiches, Miss Martin?”

    “What? Oh,” she said, looking awkward. “No, well, the thing is, we have been almost living off watercress at Honeysuckle Cottage for the past month, and really—! I’m sorry.”

    “Let me ring for something else.”

    “No, please do not: I am not hungry.”

    “Very well: if you are sure?” he murmured.

    “Thank you, yes.”

    “So where is your sister now?” he asked abruptly.

    “In Belgium. She broke her leg over a year back, and was very invalidish for quite some time, and when she was well enough to travel, went to some distant cousins—um, well, strictly speaking,” she said, swallowing, “they are cousins of mine and Ricky’s—she went to them, in Belgium. We had stayed with them one summer when we were younger: they were very kind. But I had dreadful hay fever: the visit was ruined for me, I’m afraid!” she admitted with a smile.

    “I see. And what are her plans?”

    “I am not perfectly sure, but she is very fond of those cousins, and they of her, and they are simple people, who do not care about her birth: I think, if it works out, she may stay with them. Um, I think,” she admitted with a twinkle, “that one of the sons affects her, and she him!”

    “Good. Do you have the address?” he said coolly.

    “More or less. They live on a farm,” said Cressida with a little smile, “and it is one of those addresses which in English have ‘near to’s’ in them! –I beg your pardon; perhaps you will not seize the reference, as you were not with us for the visit to the Horse Guards.”

    “I recall Mrs Pontifex mentioning—I think it was the absence of a ‘near to’, at one point.”

    “Yes!” she agreed, nodding and smiling very much. “Have you pen and ink? I shall write it,” she said, getting up, as he indicated one of the desks, “but if one goes in person, it necessitates asking in the village.”

    “Yes, of course. Er—you were remarkably coy about these relatives,” he murmured as she handed him the address.

    “I have no claim on them. And they could most certainly not afford to support Ricky, and I would not dream of foisting him on them!” replied Cressida with feeling. “But also, I supposed I wished to—um—well, give the impression that I was rather more friendless than I was. ‘Suspect everybody; trust nobody’ was ever my father’s motto.”

    “Yes,” he said slowly. “You are more his daughter than we had thought: I see.”

    Cressida looked at him anxiously but did not say anything.

    “I applaud your caution, Miss Martin,” he said levelly. “I am a cautious man myself.”

    “Yes, well, in a way I was testing all of you,” she admitted. “Dear Mr Buxleigh and Mrs Pontifex… All of you,” she said, swallowing.

    He passed his hand over his curls. “Quite. As I was doing precisely the same—testing you—I cannot blame you for it.”

    “You might not be justified in doing so, no, but given your background, and given human nature itself, I should not expect you to refrain,” said Cressida coolly, with a lift of her chin.

    He laughed a little. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a quite horridly logical mind?”

    It appeared a genuine remark, quite spontaneous; but Miss Martin, of course, would not have trusted Edward Luton in anything for a moment. She replied very readily, hoping that she was giving the appearance of candour: “Most of my family, sir, times innumerable; though their claim was I am not anything like as bad as my sister, in that regard!”

    He laughed again, so possibly that was all right. Miss Martin, who had met few foes worthy of her steel before encountering Edward John Amyes Luton, Baron Sare, smiled her frank smile into his blue-grey eyes. And mentally adjured herself not to let her guard down for an instant.

    “I think the next thing on the list is ‘toto’,” he murmured. “That is petit chien, no? Yes,” he said as she nodded. “Where is he?”

    “At Mr Buxleigh’s. Cook and Bessy are making the most terrific fuss of him.” She looked at him awkwardly.

    “Surely you did not imagine that I would object to your bringing your little dog to live in my house?”

    She took a deep breath, preparatory to introducing the topic that would either mend all those broken fences of Isabelle’s, or put paid to any hope of Lord Sare’s taking up one of Major Martin’s daughters.

    “I could not imagine Mr Peebles objecting, no, but you are not he.”

    He looked at the flush on her cheeks and the angry sparkle which had appeared in her eye, and tried not to smile. “Have you not forgiven me for not being Peebles, then?”

    Cressida licked her lips and admitted in a small voice: “I suppose, not wholly.”

    “I perfectly understand. Thank you for being so frank. I—I was hoping,” he said in a voice which shook just a little, “that perhaps in the future you might be able to see that Edward Luton has some qualities which Peebles lacked, and—and perhaps that I do not have some of his shortcomings. Even if I do not have all of his virtues.”

    Oh, dear! Poor man! thought Cressida, looking at him with a very great deal of sympathy which she was careful not to betray. Well, Isabelle was a minx, but it was not her fault that the man had fallen for her, and then, not her fault that she was half in love with him herself, poor girl. But could she, Cressida, ever feel for him in that way? Well, he was very attractive, in a way which appealed to her, there was no denying it; and then, he had more brains than she had ever expected to find in any man, and certainly as devious a mind as she had ever expected to meet in any creature, man or woman… Well, a period as his ward would certainly give her time to find out if the initial strong appeal—and there was no doubt she felt that—could develop into anything more permanent. And give him time to be certain of his feelings, also, thought the practical and fair-minded Cressida Martin firmly.

    “I was thinking very much the same thing, my Lord,” she said with a lift of the chin. “I do not deny I was very angry and disappointed, at first. But I have decided that I judged you too harshly.”

    “Good,” he said shakily. “Well, if you feel you can support living in my household, I have got my sister, Lukey, Lady Hartwell, to agree to stay for the Season. You will probably not be able to bear her,” he said with grimace: “she is the Madam Campion sort, though without the looks. But her daughter, Mercy, is a very sensible, pleasant girl, whom I think you will like. And we are all looking forward very much to having Troilus in the house,” he ended on a firm note.

    “Good. But—um—although Fred has of course taken him out rabbiting a great deal, which helps him to work it off, um, I think he is missing the spoiling. Particularly the tidbids which the actresses and Georgy used to give him,” she said faintly. “Um, he has become very naughty since the players left us, in fact.”

    His lips twitched. “What’s he done, Miss Martin?”

    The talented Miss Martin shut her eyes. “He barked at Mr Hartington when he called at Honeysuckle Cottage, and—and tried to chase him off.”

    Lord Sare gave a shout of laughter.

    She opened her eyes. “It is funny in—in retrospect, but it was dreadful at the time!”

    “I’m sure,” he said weakly. “Poor, well-meaning fellow! Anything else?”

    “Well, when we arrived at Mr Buxleigh’s house he barked at Bessy, but the thing was, she rushed up to him; and it is so many months since— It was not amusing,” she said with dignity, as he choked.

    “Is there more? –Pray, do go on,” he said, his shoulders shaking.

    Allowing her features to assume a fleeting expression of annoyance with his Lordship, Miss Martin obediently went on: “At first he would not let Cook pat him, but then she gave him a bone, so that was all right; but a little later we discovered him trying to bury it under Mr Buxleigh’s sofa cushions. –Don’t laugh!” she cried loudly as his Lordship went into a paroxysm. “It was dreadful: he has disgraced himself!”

    “He—needs—discipline,” he said shakily, wiping his eyes.

    Miss Martin glared at him. “You sound exactly like Ricky and my father!”

    “Any man,” said his Lordship limply, “would say so. Fetch him along, Miss Martin, and we shall take him for severely disciplinary walks, in which he will walk to heel, will not bark at unaccustomed sights such as horses, pedestrians, and wheeled vehicles— yes, I thought so,” he said as she produced a loud gulp, “and, in short, will learn all over again that life does not consist of tidbids from besotted admirers!”

    “Thank you,” said Miss Martin weakly. “Do you really mean it?”

    “Certainly.”

    “No, um, I mean really mean that you will help me with him?”

    “Of course,” he said with a smile. “Miss Martin’s German badger-hound is destined to become as accustomed a sight amongst the Upper Ten Thousand as ever Poodle Byng’s dashed poodle was.”

    “Thank you!” she beamed. “Just so long as he becomes a well-behaved sight!”

    He smiled and nodded; and the sensible and practical-minded Miss Martin, reflecting that that was that hurdle safely over, then, did not disclose her further reflections, to wit, that a German badger-hound a year younger than his half-brother, who was used to the appellation “Petit Louis” and had not in fact heard any English until two months back, was not doing too badly at all, in merely barking at a large, booted gentleman whom he had never met in his short life, ditto at a bouncing, red-faced, loud-voiced kitchenmaid whom ditto, and answering to the name Troilus almost half the time. And thank God Mme de Brissac’s bitch’s litter of that year had not been all females!

    He took her into the morning-room, then, and introduced her to his sister and niece with a very hopeful expression on his face; and Cressida, who had been used for most of her nearly nineteen years to rule her father’s household, Petite Maman and all, just as Mr French had reported to Lord Sare, looked at him with a kindly eye and found him just a little pathetic; and, though still very much aware of the intricate mind that lay behind the blue-grey eyes, reflected that he was not, after all, so unlike all the rest. By which Miss Martin meant, alas, all of the male half of humanity. The reflection did not, however, suggest to her that perhaps he might not do, after that period of guardianship. If anything, though she did not analyse it at all, it strengthened her feeling that he was an attractive but rather sad man, very much as Isabelle had described Mr Peebles, who only needed to be taken in hand by the right woman to settle down in happy domesticity for the rest of his days. In the which she was probably not so very unlike the rest of the female half.

    Mr Lefayne’s handsome face went very red. “What do you mean, she was here?” he cried.

    Mr Buxleigh eyed him drily. “Here. In the house,” he said, the aitches very aspirate.

    “Damn you, Beau!” he cried.

    “Your own fault, waltzing orf to God knows where with Madam and her damned friends.”

    “Sir George Drew,” said Sid, looking sulky, “invited us over to Paris for a week. His sister has married a vicomte.”

    “Dare say she may ’ave done. That ain’t no way to run a theatre.”

    “Joe’s man is perfectly capable—”

    “He ain’t,” said Mr Buxleigh flatly. “He may know everything about high finance, but he don’t know nothing about the theatre. Been round ’ere every other day since you took orf. And ’is last message was, you’ll go broke if yer don’t pull yer stockings up. And yer brother’s ’opping mad.”

    Scowling, Sid threw himself into an easy-chair before Mr Buxleigh’s fire.

    “Harold,” noted the Beau neutrally, “reckoned that the responsibility would do you good. Dare say ’e didn’t envisage at the time that your brother ’ud be dotty enough to go the whole hog and buy the lease of a theatre for you. Nevertheless.”

    Sid said nothing.

    “Wish I’d of ’ad a pony on it,” he said regretfully.

    “All RIGHT!” he shouted.

    “Don’t shout at me; no skin orf my nose.”

    There was a short silence in the Beau’s comfortable ground-floor apartment.

    “Very well, I apologise, Beau,” said Sid with a sigh.

    Mr Buxleigh sniffed slightly, but allowed: “So I should think.”

    “Go on,” said Sid, biting his lip: “tell me about her visit, Beau.”

    “Stayed ’ere three days, in all. Well, not three whole days,” he said regretfully. “Arrived in the afternoon. Troilus didn’t recognise none of us; well, that Bessy went and frightened ’im, bellowing at ’im, poor little sod. Only then Cook give ’im a bone and ’e come right. She says he’s been naughty like you wouldn’t believe, since you lot got on out of it.” He gave him a hard look.

    “Beau, for God’s sake! The tour was arranged in advance; and we could not take Miss Martin with us!”

    “Not once you’d decided she was a lady: no.”

    Sid sighed. “I did not decide— Never mind. I suppose the little dog’s been pining.”

    “Not the only one,” murmured the Beau half under his breath. “No, well, missing the little treats them lot of noddies kept slipping ’im, more like.”

    “No doubt. How was she?” he said determinedly, since it was very apparent that Beau Buxleigh was not going to tell him until he asked.

    “Looking very well. Put on a bit of weight; it suits her. Made up her mind that since Lord S. wants her, she had best make the most of it, and turn herself into a lady.”

    “She is a lady,” he replied tightly.

    “Um, yes. I meant nothing by it, Sid.”

    “No, of course.”

    The Beau rubbed his nose slowly. “Very nervous, the first day, in anticipation of calling on his Lordship at his town house.”

    “That is natural enough.”

    “Aye… I don’t mind admitting to you, Sid, that I cannot see Peebles in the rôle,” he said, at his most judicious.

    “Er—no. And after she had seen him?”

    “Well, ’e didn’t let ’er go until it was blamed dark, Sid! Me and Cook had started to worry, I don't mind telling you, and Daniel was saying maybe he'd better get round there, find out what had happened. Only then she turns up in his town coach.”

    “I see. Was he with her?”

    “No. You can give your considered opinion on this one: Cook maintains it was cold feet. He sent a message to say, would it be all right for ’im to call tomorrow?”

    “On her?” said the actor uncertainly.

    “No, yer noddy! On us! Call ’ere!”

    “C— Oh. Good God.”

    “Well?” demanded the Beau.

    Sid grimaced. “Lord, I don’t know, Beau! If he was Peebles, I’d say cold feet. But damned Lord Sare, who owns half of southern England? Manners? Uh—consideration?”

    The Beau sniffed, in a manner worthy of Mrs Pontifex herself. “Showing us up?”

    “Er—no, I really do not think so.” Sid thought about it. “Look, if you ask me, the man never had cold feet in his life,” he said grimly. “Damned manners.”

    Beau Buxleigh nodded weightily. “My own assumption,” he conceded.

    “So, um, how did she seem?”

    The Beau licked his lips. “Pleased as punch, if you must know. Well, not over the moon. But ’appy. ’Eard her humming in her room, later on.”

    He sighed. “I see. And did he come, on the morrow?”

    “Yes,” he said, with a sour grimace. “Pleasant as you please, in a ruddy blue coat and yaller pantaloons, like a Pink of the ton. She was pleased to see ’im, no doubt about it.”

    “Good,” said Sid on a grim note.

    A twinkle appeared on Mr Buxleigh’s wide countenance. “Troilus growled at ’im somethink awful!”

    “Serve him damn’ well right. –No, well, either he’d forgotten him, or he sensed the fellow has it in mind to replace him in his mistress’s affections,” he said with a shrug.

    “Not replace him, exact, but I takes your meaning. Yes, well, they say dogs ’as clever instincts.”

    “Quite. Didn’t go so far as to bite him, did he?”

    “No, but according to your theory, would that be good or bad, Sid?”

    Sid just sighed, and said: “Don’t suppose Peeb—I mean Lord Sare, damn his eyes. Don’t suppose he condescended to bring gifts, did he? –Timeo Danaos,” he muttered, sotto voce.

    “I don’t know no Timmy Daniels,” replied the Beau cautiously, “but he brought a black silk bonnet for Cook and a box of fancy sweetmeats like what ladies ’as for that Bessy, and if she ain’t in bed with a bellyache this minute it’s because Cook is a damned strong-minded woman. What proves ’e’s a blamed idiot, if ’e ain’t no Peebles.”

    “Beau, can you not imagine what a tremendous treat— Never mind,” he sighed.

    “Yes, well, the girl thought she were Christmas,” he conceded with a scowl.

    “And were you favoured?”

    Pugnaciously the Beau retorted: “’E brung a bottle of port what ’e said were for the ’ouse’old: so?”

    “Nothing. Good drop, is it?”

    “Well, yes. Extra,” he admitted.

    “Good. Well, since we’re on the topic, fancy a drop of something warming? Damned cold day, ain’t it?”

    The Beau not dissenting, the more so as Sid did not suggest the sacred cupboard be opened, Bessy was summoned in the usual manner. Mr Lefayne then supported with remarkable equanimity her very full report of Miss Martin’s and Troilus’s visit. Though on her reporting that there weren’t no lemons, and Cook said it was the wrong time of year, and the ’ouse weren’t made of money, he waxed very cross indeed. And did not offer her a taste of the resultant mixture.

    “She went orf to ’im on the third day,” said the Beau heavily.

    “So one would imagine.”

    “This barouche draws up, see, and Daniel’s in ’ere with me and Vic, and he says barouche ’im no barouches, ’e don't care if it’s the Lady Bountiful ’erself, and goes out, looking cross as crabs. And Vic, he doesn’t say much, just will we h’excuse him. And orf he goes.—Miss Martin’s in the kitchen, talking to Cook.—So then Bessy shoots in and wants to know will she open the door. What I damned nearly said No; only the thing is, that wouldn’t of stopped Miss Martin with the bit between ’er teeth.”

    “No.”

    The Beau eyed him doubtfully but proceeded with his narrative. “So I goes to the door meself, you see, and the barouche is full of ladies what don’t get down, and this footman feller, he’s a-standing on the step. So at first I thinks maybe they’ve come for you. Only then the footman, ’e ’as the cheek to say ‘Is Miss Martin ready?’”

    Sid blenched slightly, but murmured: “I see.”

    “So I says ‘No, she ain’t, and ’oo the Devil might you be, me good fellow?’ And ’e looks down ’is nose and says ’e’s come from Sare ’Ouse. So I says as she ain't ready, and since them fine ladies ain’t condescended to get down, the lot of you can damn’ well kick your ’eels; and I shuts the door!”

    “Er—possibly no insult to yourself was intended,” offered Sid on a weak note.

    “Ho! Not much!”

    “They may have been waiting to be asked inside,” he suggested mildly.

    “And they may have been considering themselves much too fine for the likes of us! There I was, large as life and twice as natural,”—Sid here had to bite his lip—“and they ain’t blind. But do they beckon me over, let alone smile, or even bow? Do they ’Ell as like!” said the Beau, red as a turkey cock.

    “So you left them sitting in the barouche. Good for you.”

    “Yes. Pity it didn’t rain. Only then Miss Martin gets her bag and collects up Troilus, and says she ’as to go.”

    “Mm.”

    The Beau produced a large handkerchief and trumpeted into it. “I shall draw a veil over what was an affecting scene of farewell,” he said grandly.

    Roland Lefayne swallowed painfully, with no impulse at all to smile. “Mm.”

    “Oh, she left you a note,” he recalled.

    “What?” he cried. “Why didn’t you give it to me straight away?”

    “Sorry, Sid.” Grunting, the Beau arose and retrieved it from behind a spill vase on the mantelshelf. “Had to use a bit of your writing paper,” he apologised. “No-one else didn’t have none to hand.”

    “What? That does not signify. Excuse me,” he said, hurrying out.

    Mr Buxleigh sat down, looking sad, though he had not really expected that Sid would offer to share Miss Martin’s note. After a while his eyes brightened and he looked at the remains of the mixture in the large pewter jug. Obviously Sid was not coming back, so— Scientifically he applied the poker to the flames and then the jug. Forthwith pouring the mixture, now steaming, into his tankard. “Aah!” he reported.

    Miss Martin’s note to Mr Lefayne was quite a formal little thing, merely expressing her disappointment that she had missed him at Mr Buxleigh’s. Mr Lefayne read it through several times, scowling. Then he folded it up and put it in his pocket-book, and threw himself upon his bed, where he remained for some time, arms linked behind his head, frowning at the slightly cracked ceiling of the Beau’s first-floor suite of rooms. After a considerable interval, however, an amazed expression overtook the frown, and he got up, took the note out, and took it over to the window. A grey dusk was now filling the respectable but not entirely salubrious street adorned by Mr Buxleigh’s lodging house. Scowling, Mr Lefayne retreated to the door, and shouted for Bessy and candles.

    The candles not having produced very much illumination, physical nor mental, he strode up and down for a little, chewing on his lip. Then he shrugged, and ran lightly downstairs.

    “Beau, do you have any notes from Miss Martin?” he demanded without preamble.

    Mr Buxleigh roused with a start in his large armchair. “Eh? What? Uh—no. I give it you,” he said groggily.

    “Yes! Not that! From before!” said Mr Lefayne loudly.

    “Eh?”

    “Do you have a note in Miss Martin’s handwriting?” he said loudly.

    Mr Vanburgh, who had been reading quietly by the fire, at this looked up and said with a sigh: “For God’s sake, don’t tell us you’ve another bee in your bonnet, Sid. That Oxley fellow was round here three or four times while you were away. Your brother’s reported to be—”

    “Hopping mad; we know,” said Sid, investigating the Beau’s untidy desk. “Where?” he said loudly.

    Mr Buxleigh groaned but admitted: “There was a little note. It’s in me top little drawer. Little drawer!” he said testily as Sid opened a large drawer and blenched at the mess revealed.

    “Little drawer.” He opened it. It appeared to contain billets doux: certainly a delicious scent hung about it, and several of the tiny notes therein were tied with ends of faded ribbon. Mr Lefayne had the grace to blush.

    “It’s on top, and leave them others,” said the Beau crossly.

    “Yes,” he murmured, cautiously inspecting the top one. The superscription certainly bore no resemblance whatsoever to the hand of Miss Martin’s note to him. He opened it cautiously…

    “Is it?” said Mr Vanburgh in a bored voice as the silence lengthened.

    “It is certainly addressed,” said Sid in an odd tone, “from Sowcot. Some months ago.”

    “And?” returned Mr Vanburgh in a very bored voice indeed.

    “It is signed by Miss Martin. Well, signed ‘Cressida Martingale’.”

    “Same difference,” said Mr Vanburgh, returning to his book.

    “Possibly,” he said in a significant tone.

    “Stop being so damned mysterious. Go and do some work. Rescue your theatre before it goes bankrupt,” said Mr Vanburgh, all without looking up.

    “Yes,” agreed the Beau.

    “Look, come upstairs, Vic!” he said loudly.

    Mr Vanburgh groaned, but got up, and accompanied him upstairs.

    “This hand,” said Mr Lefayne grimly, “is not the same as this. This was writ by Miss Martin a few days ago from this very house, and this came for Beau several months back. Read them.”

    The comic sighed heavily, but read them. “Both evince,” he said in a nasty tone, “the same degree of knowledge, as far as my poor abilities can make out, of the characters and scene in this house. Was there more?”

    “Look at the handwriting, you fool!” said Sid tensely.

    Mr Vanburgh looked dubiously at the two hands.

    “Well?”

    “A sore finger?” he drawled, handing the notes back.

    This solution to the mystery had not occurred to Mr Lefayne. He gulped. But rallied to protest: “No, the hands are equally firm and sure. Just completely different!”

    “I have known people who wrote in two hands,” said Mr Vanburgh, very unconvincingly.

    “Rubbish.”

    “Look, perhaps she had hurt her hand earlier, and got the cousin or someone to write this note from Sowcot, so as old Beau would not feel hurt at not having received a letter. And if that is not the solution,” he said before Sid could tell him so, “what the Devil is?”

    “Um—I don’t know,” he admitted lamely.

    “Quite. Try doing some hard work. It will take your mind off things,” said Mr Vanburgh not altogether unkindly, going out.

    Sid sank slowly down onto a chair, staring at the two notes.

Dearest Cressida, wrote Isabelle, prudently addressing the letter to the London house adorned by Mr and Mrs Richard Martin.

    You were so very right! But then, of course you always are. They came. Well, it was one man, on a very tired horse. I think the villagers, in that horridly stolid fashion which is endemic to the whole of the Lowlands, had simply refrained from offering him a fresh one. They had slightly misdirected him, of course, but after going off for not so very far on the road to Lisle, he realised his mistake, turned back, and found us. Cousine Marthe was wonderful. Arms akimbo, ready to beat off any advances towards her girls with a threshing flail: you know the style of thing! Berthe, Marie-Louise and I were all wide-eyed gawping and smothered giggles. I limped, just a little: very artistic, tu sais? Perhaps fortunately, Cousin Jean-Pierre was out in the fields and did not see the fellow, for as you know, he was prepared to give him very short shrift indeed, and that would only have resulted in arousing his principal’s suspicions. Cousine Marthe eventually let him come in for a bite, since it was around midday when he arrived, and we were all enabled to add innumerable artless accretions to the story. It went very well, and no-one overdid it. Dearest Colas obligingly made sheep’s eyes of the most dumbly devoted kind at me over the table. I was sprightly, except when I limped, naturellement, but not wholly unencouraging. I think the spy was convinced.

    The dates fitted, more or less, given that the spy had only us dim-witted country folk on Cousin Jean-Pierre’s farm from whom to obtain his information; and I can assure you there is no evidence at all of any young woman’s having travelled from England at around the time in question. Possibly if the spy-master thinks to enquire about cheeky young lads he will discover a different story; but then, will he, and will he be able to isolate any one cheeky young lad from any other? True, there is no direct evidence of anyone’s having travelled all the way from The Hague, either, but trust Mevrouw Hos to have muddied the trail at that end!

    She has been completely wonderful from beginning to end and I only wish there was some way we could repay her. Well, possibly your not taking poor old Piet will go some way towards it! She writes that they have had no further suspicious characters sniffing around the neighbourhood, and that Mme de Brissac’s latest litter is all females, so all I can say is, a kindly providence must have been watching over us. That or Lady Luck.

    I realise that Mrs Jessop can hardly write you outright how Troilus is going on, immured in the cottage and only being walked at night, poor darling. Mind you, badgers are abroad at night, so I dare say he is not too badly off! But if you receive a hint, pray let me know. Only, bear in mind that in spite of those gentlemanly coats, he will stoop to opening your letters, dearest sister!

    Seriously, both I and Cousine Marthe think that this last visit must end it. It was a gloriously clear day and I let the spy peer at my face, totally innocent of anything approaching a beauty spot, and, as I say, limped delicately for him. N.B., I have also been limping for the benefit of the farm hands and the village, just in case. Not that there is anybody hereabouts, after centuries of continuous battling armies of foreigners swaying back and forth across their lands, who would give a damned foreigner so much as the time of day, let alone actual information. But one cannot be too careful.

    There is no other news at this end, except that they are almost certain that, if the dot be acceptable by the family Dumas, Berthe will take that oafish Jeannot. Well, his portion is large, and she seems resigned to her fate, in especial as it will include that pleasant little house by the stream where we caught the huge eel. I think you were in bed drinking tisanes with your hay fever very bad, that day. It has not suddenly crept up and struck me, although everything seems to be in bloom here, so that is one thing the less to worry about! I am very sure the spy-master would never accept the simple fact that if one sister be prone to the malady all her life the other sister might suddenly succumb to it in later life. He is not one given to accepting simple facts, as you have no doubt discovered for yourself.

    Seriously, dearest Cressida, if you cannot like him enough, do not do it. Ricky has more than enough money to launch you into Society from his house. I dare say he would made you pay back every sou when you came into your share of Grandfather Martin's estate, but then, that is Ricky, and the leopard does not change its spots. Even if the spots are not all black!

    If the spy-master lets you call at dear Mr Buxleigh’s again, write me how they are all going on, I beg. But do not forget, if Mr Lefayne should be there this time, he has very sharp eyes and even sharper wits. Though not always rousing himself to apply the latter.

    All love, dearest Cressida, and the cousins all send a thousand messages of good will.

Your loving sister,

Isabelle.

    London was filled with fashionables, the Season was in full swing, the theatres were full, and, as far as concentrating on the management of the theatre and the re-formed Hartington’s Players went, Mr Lefayne’s nose was certainly to the grindstone. Or his stockings pulled up. In more personal matters, however, the stockings might have been said to be round the ankles. A not altogether inappropriate metaphor, as Mr Vanburgh remarked grimly, on Mr Deane’s producing it.

    “Well,” said that worthy, scratching the blue chin, “the ladies always did adore him, and vice versa, Vic.”

    “At his age, he is perilously near the point of making a ridiculous spectacle of himself.”

    Mr Deane sighed. “Not for another twenty year or so, by my reckoning. If his strength holds out: yes. And for my part, if I could think of any way to award him little Miss M., I would do so. But we’ve said it a thousand times, Vic: she’s a lady. It won't do.”

    “No.”

    Mr Deane cleared his throat. “Look, is he serious about putting on Twelfth Night?”

    “His claim is,” said the comic with a shrug, “that it will round off the current Season gloriously.”

    “Take us all off with our cloaks over our faces, more like, if he lets Clarissa take Viola!” he said with feeling. “And who the Devil’s going to do Sir Toby? Percy Brentwood will never consent to play for Hartington’s, not even with Sid owning the theatre lease, and there isn’t another fellow in London who’s up to the weight of it!”

    “Literally or figuratively, Daniel?” he murmured.

    Mr Deane gulped slightly but retorted: “You know what I mean!”

    “Mm. Well, I own I have no ambition to do Malvolio in the greatest flop of the decade.”

    “Century, with her in it,” said Mr Deane glumly.

    “Mm. But I suppose we owe him some loyalty.”

    “Rubbish, Vic! You don’t owe him a thing! Well, if it were Harold I’d say, yes. But Roland Ruddy Lefayne? Rubbish!” Mr Deane strode out, a horrible scowl on his dark countenance.

    Mr Vanburgh swallowed. Presumably Sid had not yet broached the suggestion that Daniel himself, after his succès fou as the Duke of Ironside, should have a go at Sir Toby…

    Miss Martin smiled, drawing off her gloves, and replied composedly to her Ladyship’s enquiry: “I have been to see my brother and his wife, Lady Hartwell.”

    Lukey sighed. It was not that Cressida was not a conformably behaved young woman: not at all. And certainly she seemed to enjoy the parties and other little jollifications to which they took her. But she was so managing, and so determined! Quietly determined, the which was impossible to deal with. “I do not think Edward approves of the connection, my dear Cressida.”

    “No, but he will not stop me,” she replied calmly.

    “He would not see it as correct to do so, Mamma,” agreed Mercy.

    Lady Hartwell threw her an impatient look. Two of them! Her own presence as chaperone was entirely redundant: entirely! And, besides, a total bore. Miss Martin did not even show any signs of flirting with undesirable young men. She was certainly pleasant to the young men, and there were enough of them that clustered round her at any dance she went to, for with those unusual eyes and pretty little face, and that way she had of tilting her head and giving a teasing smile, there was plenty to attract them. And then, with a third of old Martin’s estate, she would not be portionless. But if only she would flirt in an unbecoming manner, Lukey would be enabled to feel that they had something in common! Not to say, have something to do, in endeavouring to control her.

    “How are they?” she said grimly.

    “They are very well, thank you, Lady Hartwell. But Josephine is a little down: rather bored, I think. He is not bothering to take her out and about very much.”

    Lukey sighed. “What do you wish us to do?”

    “Dear Lady Hartwell,” said Cressida on a firm note, drawing up a chair beside her sofa, “I do not wish you to do anything you would not like. Josephine is used to doing everything with he sister, and I think she is pining for her.”

    “Not everything, I think,” replied Lady Hartwell on a hard note.

    “Almost everything, except those very silly things to which her inability to control the imperatives of her gender impels her. I think it is so, with many sisters,” said Cressida with a twinkle in her amber eye. “After they have captured the husbands—one way or another, I freely admit it!” she admitted with a gurgle, “and the babies come, then they very often return almost entirely to each other’s company—do you not find?”

    “Yes! Mamma, is it is exactly the case of Cousins Mary and Paulina Hartwell that were!” cried Mercy, clapping her hands. “How very acute you are, dearest Cressida!”

    “Yes,” said Lukey with a sigh. “Very. But as the sister is in Norfolk, what are you suggesting?”

    “Only that perhaps Josephine might accompany Troilus and myself on our early morning strolls, dear ma’am.”

    “And me!” agreed Miss Hartwell, nodding.

    “I do not think that your mamma would care for it,” said Cressida calmly. “We may walk together on the days on which you do not go riding with your friends, Mercy.”

    Mercy looked dubiously at her Stern Mamma.

    “You have certainly been neglecting your riding, but as the Park is full of fribbles, I suppose the one is nigh as bad as t’other,” said her Ladyship with a pettish shrug. “Though I cannot see why you may not all ride.”

    “Josephine is not in a fit state to do so, ma’am, and I myself am barely capable of sitting on a horse without falling off!” said Cressida with a laugh.

    “Dear me: there is something you cannot do?” returned Lukey, raising her eyebrows, what time Mercy turned scarlet and stared at the floor. “No, well, I own I do not wish to see my daughter in the company of your Dearborn cousins.”

    “No, I know,” said Cressida simply. “But I should like to walk with Josephine myself, if you will allow it, ma’am.”

    “At least you are not saying, if I should not object,” said Lukey, tossing her head pettishly.

    “No. I quite realise you do object. Any lady would,” said Cressida solemnly.

    Lukey sighed again. “Oh, very well, do it.” She gave her an ironic look. “That is, if even you be capable of getting the creature out to take healthy exercise in the early morning.”

    “That is a point! Well, perhaps it should not be so very early, and Troilus will have to await our pleasure! Now, if you will excuse me, ma’am, I think I should pen her a little note.” She went out, smiling.

    “One cannot dislike her,” said Lukey on a grim note to her daughter.

    “No, indeed, Mamma,” agreed Mercy with an anxious look.

    “Oh, I know you like her: there is no need to put on that face! Well, all I can say is,” said Lukey, opening a large box of sweetmeats with a scowl on her little crooked, pixie-like features, “she and damned Edward deserve each other!”

    Mercy swallowed, and did not venture to ask, who were those from? And, in the case they were from the optimistic Mr Naughton, should Stern Mamma be encouraging him to suppose that his advances were welcome?

    Lukey ate three sweetmeats before they sweetened her temper sufficiently for her to pass her daughter the box. And to admit: “I suppose we should invite the Josephine creature to something. Not to dinner, though: Ricky Martin would make eyes at yours truly in front of her, not to mention in front of Edward.”

    “Mm. Well, the opera?”

    “She strikes me as a fidgeter, my dear, and though Edward will not say anything—watch out for those little round ones, they have hazelnuts in them—he will sulk all night.”

    Mercy swallowed a sigh and did not bother to point out yet again that Uncle Edward did not sulk. “The play?”

    Lukey eyed her ironically. “I think it will have to be. I shall suggest Edward takes a box for Roland Lefayne’s new piece.”

    Mercy went very red. “Mamma!”

    Lukey picked up a sweetmeat and looked at it thoughtfully. “If a man,” she said slowly, “cannot face his competition, then he is not worthy of the name. And if that be the case, she had better find it out before he makes an offer. Added to which, he had better find out if she still affects the fellow.” She popped the sweetmeat into her mouth and chewed it vigorously. Adding: “Don’t take any of these square ones, darling, they are filled with a violet cream: irresistible.”

    Obligingly Mercy took a round one instead. “Um, what is the piece?” she said in a sheepish voice.

    Lukey shrugged. “I have no notion. But in any case, we have seen everything else and they are all deadly dull, and nothing would induce me to see any of them again. So it will have to be, will it not?” Smiling airily, she took another violet cream sweetmeat. Adding thickly through it: “And don’ give any ob thezshe to the dear li’l dog.” She swallowed. “Or she,” she said with a moue, “will let you know she disapproves!”

    Mercy nodded weakly. There was very little doubt of that.

    The current piece was a sufficiently feeble social comedy for which Hartington’s Players had already purchased the rights, so Sid was putting it on regardless. It was in modern dress but nevertheless he had managed to work in five costume changes for himself. He had been unable to find a leading lady of the stature of Madam Campion for it, and had fallen back upon Miss Trueblood, perforce. Tilda was not nearly strong enough for the rôle. Or, perhaps, had not sufficient of what it took to hold the attention of the male members of the audience for the long periods during which her character was on stage.

    Mr Deane, who played a stern father, had little to do but don the uniform of a major-general and huff and puff, so he was very bored and had descended to, imprimis, bringing a book which he read even in the shortest periods during which his character was retired to the wings waiting to re-enter, secundus, watching the audience during the long periods when his character was supposed to be asleep in an armchair on stage, and tertius, alas, relentlessly upstaging the magnificent Mr Grantleigh, who played his aide, a rôle combining full dress uniform and very few lines.

    “Guess who,” he said in the first interval to Mr Vanburgh, who took the part of a comic neighbour, in the which he was wasted, “has a box tonight.”

    “The King?” said Mr Vanburgh in a bored voice.

    “No. Not far off, though, Vic.”

    “The Duke,” said Mr Vanburgh, giving him a very dry look indeed, “of Wellington?”

    “No!” he choked, going into a wheezing paroxysm.

    “Then I don’t know, and as I don’t intend going through the whole of the peerage, you had best tell me, Daniel.”

    Instead Mr Deane grasped his arm and led him over to the peephole. “Stage left.”

    Resignedly Mr Vanburgh peered. “I count six of his current inamorate, if that be the plural,” he drawled.

    “Et—I made it three. No, look!” He shook his arm fiercely.

    “Don’t do that.” Mr Vanburgh peered. “Ugh. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.”

    “Why now, though? In a piece with us in it?”

    “Malign fate? –Perhaps he won’t notice.”

    “Perhaps pigs may fly,” said Mr Deane glumly. “I wish to God I’d accepted Sam’s offer to go down to Dorchester.”

    Kindly Mr Vanburgh patted his back. “Dare say they may not wish to come round, afterwards.”

    Mr Deane merely shuddered, and did not even offer him a bet.

    None of the reconstituted Hartington’s Players had the temerity or, as their new manager put it grimly to himself, the bottle, to point out Lord Sare and Miss Martin in a box, but Sid had noticed them for himself. And as, every night he had been on in London, his eyes had involuntarily searched the boxes for her face, there was very little chance of his missing her, was there? Crossly he reflected that it had had to be this feeble piece, and there was nothing in the rôle, and there were all those stupid changes for no reason except the obvious one, which she would of course immediately guess, and— Well, damn! It was not even much consolation that at least he was not playing Orsino on the London stage in pink watered silk, for if there was nothing in that rôle either, at least he was able to come over in it as a damn’ fine figure of a man, pace the pink aforesaid, and at least he might have been able to show her that he could put on a decent production. But this thing—!

    After considerable brooding he went glumly along to Miss Trueblood’s dressing-room and coolly asked her mother, who was taking a small rôle and also acting as her dresser, to leave. He was aware that Mrs Timms would go no further than the other side of the door, to which her ear would be immediately glued, but too bad.

    “Tilda,” he said, sitting down heavily, “did you notice Miss Martin in the audience?”

    “Yes,” said Tilda, blushing. “I am afraid that she would make more of the rôle than I can, Mr Sid.”

    Sid ran his hand through his hair; tonight amazingly curled and pomaded. “Probably. But were she allowed to, then the world would have ceased turning and none of it would matter any more, would it?”

    Tilda looked at him very sympathetically but could think of nothing to say.

    “Would you write her a note and ask her to come round?” he asked, swallowing.

    “Yes,” said the little actress, her eyes filling with tears.

    “Don’t,” said Sid. He brushed his hand across his eyes. “Oh, God.”

    Silently Tilda handed him a handkerchief. “Thanks,” he said huskily, blowing his nose hard.

    “I’ll write it; you’d better go and fix your make-up, Mr Sid.”

    “Mm.” He got up and made a rueful grimace. “Once more into the breach, hey? Thanks, Tilda.” Taking a deep breath, he went out.

    Tilda let Ma get right through the speech urging her to pick up the pieces, seize the chance while it was offering, strike while the iron was hot, and set herself up for life as the mistress of Hartington’s Players and sister-in-law to Mr Joseph Bottomley-Pugh.

    “No, Ma,” she said firmly. “The mere suggestion is unworthy of you.”

    Mrs Timms’s thin jaw dropped.

    “And anyway,” said Tilda on a defiant note, “I’m in love with Mr Vic, and I don't want no-one else, and if I can’t have him, I won’t take no-one else. And I do not wish to discuss it. Excuse me, I have to write Mr Sid’s note.” Forthwith, under her mother’s starting eyes, doing so.

    “Tilda, why didn’t you tell me?” she said faintly at last.

    “I didn’t think you’d approve. He’s nothing very much, except a competent member of the profession. –I’m on,” she said as the call-boy knocked at the door. “Could you see Miss Martin gets this, Ma?”

    “What did you put?” said Mrs Timms feebly, taking the note.

    “Read it, if you like. Only that we would all be glad if she would come round.” Tilda went to the door and opened it. “I’m sorry, Ma,” she said firmly. “But I don’t like gentlemen.” She hesitated. Then she added: “They’re all lies and deception, one way or another: think they got a right. Well, look at ’im!” she said with a fierce jerk of her head.

    “Who? Oh, Miss Martin’s lord? But—”

    But Tilda, looking very firm, had vanished.

    Mrs Timms stared numbly at the note. “But ain’t that different, though?” she said feebly.

    Miss Trueblood’s brown curls were scarcely visible for the press of very young gentlemen in choking neckcloths and glorious waistcoats, with a scattering of rather older gentlemen of the ilk of Lord Edenlyn. Who, in fact, was present in person.

    “Evening, Edenlyn,” said Lord Sare on a dry note.

    His Lordship started, and swung round. “Oh—ah—evening, Sare; Lady Hartwell.” He stared confusedly at the young woman on Lord Sare’s other arm.

    “I don’t think you know Miss Martin? The Kentish family. My sister is giving her a come-out this year,” said Edward in a detached tone. “Lord Edenlyn, Miss Martin.”

    “Enchanted, Miss Martin!” he bowed, though not without a puzzled look.

    Cressida smiled at him. “How do you do, Lord Edenlyn? Do you know, I have the oddest feeling that we have met before! But it cannot be, for I was never in London before this Season. Unless perhaps you know The Hague?” she said, opening her eyes very wide at him.

    “Ah—no. The Hague? No,” he stuttered.

    “Then it must be a chance likeness,” she said sunnily. “And are you here to see the pretty actresses?”

    Confusedly his Lordship, with a very muddled disclaimer, bowed himself off.

    Lady Hartwell immediately went into a trill of laughter, crying: “My dear Cressida, I did not think you had it in you! Well done! He is the horridest thing, reputed only to bestow his favours on poor little creatures of sixteen years of age or less.”

    “Thank you, ma’am,” replied Cressida primly.

    “One collects you had met him before?” said Edward drily.

    She rolled her eyes. “Dozens of him, I fear, dear sir!”

    Lukey went into a spluttering paroxysm.

    “No, well, I think he was the one we met the first evening we came to the play,” Cressida admitted. “When you were not with us.”

    “That is one for me,” he acknowledged, biting his lip

    “This is very mysterious, Uncle!” said his niece with a giggle. –Mercy, tonight escorted by a very young Mr Rowbotham in a choking neckcloth, one of Penny Greatorex’s cousins, had of course insisted on coming behind the scenes with her uncle and Cressida. Edward was aware that nothing would have stopped Lukey, and in any case he was quite glad to have Miss Martin appear in his company with a chaperone. But he had been silently relieved when Ricky Martin had conceded that the crush would be too much for Josephine, and he had best get her home to bed.

    “What?” he said blankly. “Oh. No, well, it is not, and Cressida will explain it to you some time. Come along, then.”

    “Can you get us through this lot, Edward?” drawled Lukey, raising her eyebrows. And not betraying by so much as a flicker of an eyelash that she had noticed that her careful brother had forgot himself, and called Miss Martin by her name.

    He shrugged a little, and proceeded to do so.

    “The mark of a true man!” hissed Lady Hartwell in Miss Martin’s ear.

    “I do not think so,” she replied, looking impossibly prim, and trying not to laugh.

    Lukey’s sharp little eyes twinkled and she said quite amiably: “Well, come along, my dear, introduce us to them all. But do not forget, we have met some of them.”

    Tilda was, of course, very glad to see Cressida; and for her part, Miss Martin was very glad to see that, as promised by Isabelle, Mrs Trueblood had seen to it that Tilda’s candles were arranged just so—in order to set her daughter off to her best advantage, naturally—and that therefore if one stood just there, one’s face would not be wholly illuminated. Cressida went and stood just there, silently thanking her lucky stars that Master Trueblood was not in evidence. For it appeared that Isabelle had seen a very great deal of him, and rather thought that children did not quite look at one in the same way adults did. Perhaps seeing what was there, rather than what they were supposed to see—you see? Isabelle had also pointed out that Georgy had seen a very great deal of Troilus and would immediately be able to spot that Petit Louis de Brissac was not he. The hair did not grow under his tummy just so— Etcetera. Cressida had reflected more than once since coming to England that Ricky had been right all along, and that the introduction of the toto into the plot risked bringing it all down around their ears.

    Mr Lefayne’s glossy dark curls were scarcely visible for the press of eager ladies in feathers, silks and jewels, telling him how wonderful he was. With the usual scattering of resigned-looking escorts in their trains.

    “Now, get us through this lot, Edward, dearest!” gurgled Lukey.

    Again he shrugged, and proceeded to do so.

    “The mark of a true hero, dear ma’am,” murmured Miss Martin drily in Lady Hartwell’s ear.

    “I am glad you think so!” Lukey gave her a sharp look, but Cressida merely smiled a little.

    Mr Lefayne was glorious, with his curls in affecting disarray and a crimson silk shawl negligently draped over a gold brocade dressing-gown; but as Isabelle had warned her sister that this was his preferred garb for receiving deputations of besotted ladies in his dressing-room, she was prepared. And was able to see that under the rig-out and the striking good-looks he was a rather unhappy man in his mid-years, who would be all the better for being taken in hand by a sensible woman. The only question remaining being, had Isabelle the strength of character to do it?

    He rose to his feet, bowed, and gave her an ironic look. “Fine as fivepence, Miss Martin.”

    Cressida held out her hand. “I must return the compliment, Mr Lefayne! –The piece went quite well, I think?”

    He bowed over the hand, and shrugged. “As well as one could expect. I am sorry we could not offer you something better.”

    Smiling, she returned: “And I am sorry to have missed the London production of Lord Bibbery’s Bobbery, with Mr Deane as the Duke!”

    “My dear, it was a riot!” put in Lukey eagerly. “Of course, Old Hooky had to pretend to be indifferent, but Geddings told dear Willie Naughton that underneath, he was furious!”

    “Mm, well, mayhap we should revive it some time,” said Sid on a dry note. “How are you, Lady Hartwell? Delighted to see you again, Miss Hartwell.” He paused. “Lord Sare,” he said, with a stately bow.

    Edward held out his hand. “I don’t think we have met without the disguises before, have we, Mr Lefayne?”

    “No, well, it was Learish whiskers the last time, my Lord, though I was not going to bring the point up, myself,” said Sid, perforce shaking the hand. It gripped firmly, though possibly it was only his imagination suggesting that it seemed both dry and cool where Peebles’s had always been warm and damp.

    “Mm. I can only apologise, and hope you will come to see in time that it was in a good cause.”

    Right, well, and that left Sid Bottomley with nothing to do but bow and retire gracefully, didn’t it? And she was looking at the fellow approvingly, damn him!

    “Perhaps Miss Hartwell would care to see a little of the theatre?” he murmured.

    Miss Hartwell accepted eagerly, and eagerly introduced the young gentleman in the swaddling neckcloth, and Sid conducted them round his theatre. With Lukey Hartwell in the group there was not much chance of an awkward silence’s falling. He refrained, as much as possible, from either addressing or looking at Miss Martin directly. And had the feeling that, though she was perfectly amiable, she was doing the same. Oh, well.

    No-one suggested they combine their parties for supper, thank God, and he was able to get rid of them fairly soon. And to shut his dressing-room door upon the world.

    “Handwriting apart,” said Mr Vanburgh drily over a belated breakfast in the Beau’s dining-room the following morning, “she was looking well, I thought, Sid.”

    “Yes, well, no doubt she is getting the best of feeding and watering in his house,” he said sourly. “Not to mention being tricked out in silks and satins.”

    “Silk and gauze, I thought.”

    “Quite.”

    “Wouldn’t have chosen that pale blue, meself. Not that she’s not a pretty piece, and has the fair skin to support it. But probably Lady H. chose it; dare say she’s got as much taste as the most of the nobs,” said Mr Vanburgh with a little shrug.

    “Ye-es.” Sid stared at the coffee-pot, a half-eaten roll suspended.

    “Not a tooth, Sid?” said Mr Vanburgh in sympathetic dismay.

    “Mm? No, no,” he said, jumping, and conveying the roll to his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, but then said: “I was forgetting the handwriting… I’ve never seen her wear blue before, at all. Vic, did you get a close look at her?”

    Mr Vanburgh groaned wildly and seized his head with both hands. “Sid, don’t! You will torture yourself for nothing!”

    “I thought her manner seemed… different,” he said slowly.

    “Sid,” cried the driven comic actor, “she’s taken the other fellow, for God’s sake! Of course her manner seemed different!”

    “Mm, dare say you’re right,” he said wryly. “Oh, well.”

    “Have a sausage,” said Mr Vanburgh limply.

    “No, thanks,” he said with a grimace.

    Looking resigned, Mr Vanburgh finished the sausages, while Mr Lefayne stared glumly into space, letting his coffee go cold.

Next chapter:

https://theoldchiphat.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-sowcot-assembly.html