Further Perils Of London Town

17

Further Perils Of London Town

    General Sir Francis Kernohan was a remarkably handsome older gentleman. As the recently bestowed knighthood indicated, he had distinguished himself at Waterloo, and with the Peace had accepted a post at the Horse Guards. Mrs Urqhart did not know him very well, but that sort of consideration had never stopped Betsy Urqhart yet.

    A pink-cheeked aide having appeared in his office with the announcement: “Excuse me, sir! It’s a lady—well, she isn’t a lady, I’m afraid, sir! But she claims to know you!” the General laid down his pen.

    “Oh?” he said without emotion. “What is her name?”

    “Urqhart, sir. A Mrs Urqhart. Shall I send for—”

    “Send for tea,” said the General with a twinkle in his eye. “And see if you can rustle up some cakes or some such: she likes those. –Show her in, dear boy.”

    Staggered at being addressed as “dear boy” by one who in his private firmament ranked considerably above the Almighty Himself, Lieutenant Charteris bowed, tottered out, and asked the visitor to step in.

    Mrs Urqhart came in on a surge of scarlet velvet, rich brown sables, black ostrich plumes and sandalwood. “Them—stairs!” she gasped by way of greeting and explanation.

    “Pray get your breath, dear ma’am,” he said courteously.

    She panted and gasped, finally saying: “Phew! We is none of us as young as we were. But you is lookin’ in fine fettle, Sir Francis.”

    “Thank you; I am very well. And yourself, Mrs Urqhart?”

    “Naught but a twinge of the gout, thank the Lord!” She sank into a large leather chair with a sigh, spreading the scarlet velvet skirt of the pelisse carefully, to reveal a pink and grey striped silk, elaborately flounced—the General had an excellent eye for colour: he repressed a wince—and hurling the huge black ostrich-feather muff that matched the plumes on her black satin bonnet vaguely in the direction of a couch. It missed: General Sir Francis retrieved it and placed it on a small table.

    “Thanks. Dunno why I brung the blamed thing.” She unfurled a small fan which depended from her right wrist, and fanning herself briskly. “Like it?” she said, holding it out with a smile, as she perceived he was looking at it.

    He took it, in some amaze. “Extraordinary! Tortoiseshell, is it? I have never seen it worked so fine.”

    “Nor I. My Timmy picked it up, last time he was out East. Came from Macao, original. Dunno whether it be Oriental work, or not.”

    “I would say, a Chinese influence in this design of blossoms. Cherry blossom?” he said dubiously.

    “Aye,” said Mrs Urqhart, regarding him with great approval. “We think so. There be a pair: t’other one is heavier in the hand: mother of pearl. The blossom comes across better on that, I think.”

    “It has the exact same design? Fascinating!” he said as she nodded.

    Over the tea and little cakes she broached the topic of why she had come. “I has got staying with me, General—”

    General Sir Francis laughed suddenly. “A girl or two? Why did you not bring them, dear ma’am? My aide, young Charteris, would have been delighted!”

    “I make sure he would: only seein’ dull old sticks of the likes of you all day long, poor lad! Well, at the moment, it is only one, and she ain’t exactly a girl, though she is young enough, the lamb: but there is four more due soon!”

    He laughed again. “Bring ’em: we shall all take tea and astonish young Charteris!”

    “I might, at that. No, it is Nan I wished to speak of to you, Sir Francis. You might’ve known her late grandfather, actual. Jeffreys. Sussex branch,” she said airily.

    He passed a hand across his forehead. “Jeffreys? Did you say her name is Nan?”

    “Mm. She is Lady Benedict. You may have heard of her,” she said blandly.

    He took a deep breath. “Dear Mrs Urqhart, I think you are playing with me. Whether it be my brother, Henry, you have spoken with, or your cousin, Colonel Amory—”

    She grinned, unabashed. “Well, I have spoke with Richard and got the family history, more or less. And Henry did mention as you was lookin’ into the matter, yes.”

    “Yes. I would ask how on earth you met her, only I suppose it was inevitable! So she is your guest, ma’am? Er—she was recently in mourning, I think?”

    “Aye, but he died a year agone!” she said on an aggrieved note. “And she will still be in her blacks, or at the most a grey silk, and it is naught but a waste!”

    The General smiled very much. “Pretty, is she?”

    “Very. Dark curls, big black eyes. The little sister is very like her. Young Daphne. Scarce eighteen. Not out.”

    The conventionally-minded older gentleman immediately protested: “But she should be brought out this Season!”

    Mrs Urqhart had rather expected this; but she looked at him hard. “Aye. But should she? That is the question.”

    “Most certainly,” he said on a grim note.—The chiselled nostrils flared, the long, oddly tender-looking mouth firmed, and Mrs Urqhart looked at him with simple admiration, very like that which she accorded her tortoiseshell fan. He was as much a piece of perfection, in his way.—“I have staying with me at this moment her uncle, General Érico Baldaya, and her cousin the Senhor Mauro Cavalcanti de Albuquerque.”

    “Lawks. Well, the names sound fancy enough.”

    “They are fancy enough to be well received in the highest circles in Portugal, certainly,” he said stiffly.

    Mrs Urqhart eyed him knowingly. “Cross, is they?”

    “Er—” He met her sapient eye. “Very,” he said limply.

    “Good. Pity we ain’t in Bath, really, I should like to see some of them cats being put down by a General Whosis and a Senhor Dunno-Many-Names. –Is he married?”

    “Which?” said the General limply.

    “The cousin!”

    “I believe not. He is quite a young man, the eldest son of one of Lady Benedict’s paternal aunts.”

    “Got it. –Go on, who let it out about her India fortune?”

    “Really, my dear Mrs Urqhart!” The old lady merely looked at him blandly. “Um—well, naturally I mentioned in my letter to Érico Baldaya that the family is not in need of—er—financial rescue.”

    “Well, good, now she’ll have all the fortune-hungers of the Peninsula on her doorstep in addition to all the English ones.”

    “At least they are recognizing her!” he said in exasperation.

    Mrs Urqhart gave a wolf-like grin. “Yes. You done real good, Sir Francis, and if I was the King— Here, funny to think old Prinny has made it at last, eh? Wonder if ’e’s happy, poor old sod?—No, as I say, if I was the King I’d give you another medal.”

    “Thank you.”

    “Or even another knighthood, only I don’t think as a man can use two, can he?”

    “No!” he said with a laugh. “I think not! But seriously, Mrs Urqhart, I was only too happy to do what I could. And Érico Baldaya was very glad to hear from me. They had lost touch with the family when they moved to India. And—er—I gather there was some question of a rascally cousin having misappropriated the property.”

    Mrs Urqhart had long since got out of the Baldayas what little they knew about the family property in Portugal. She merely replied: “That right?”

    “Yes. The General—he is not, strictly, speaking, an uncle; more properly I should have said he is a cousin of Lady Benedict’s late Papa—he has, I gather, straightened the matter out. The property is the boy’s whenever he cares to return to it.”

    “Young Dom? Go off to Portugal?” she said limply.

    “It is his heritage.”

    “Aye, s’pose it is.” Mrs Urqhart heaved herself up. “Come on round to the house, you must tell Nan the good news yourself. What do you say to dinner tonight?”

    She retreated from the Horse Guards in good order, chuckling to herself. So Nan was one of the nobs, back in Portugal! Well, so much for the Bath cats! And them niffy-naffy, nose-in-the-air Jeffreyses, too!

    “Well,” she said heavily that evening: “I will admit, Nan, as you is a woman what can wear grey: makes your skin glow, dunnit? Only I would so like to see you in colours, me lovey!”

    “Later,” murmured Nan.

    “At least you is wearing your pearls: good,” she conceded.

    The milky pearls were wound twice about Nan’s throat and allowed to fall in a loop to her waist. Bapsee had shown her and Sita a trick of fastening them at the throat with a brooch. It was of diamonds and pearls: Nan touched it dubiously.

    “The brooch ees not too much?”

    “No, looks lovely.” Mrs Urqhart took a deep breath. “Look, before he gets here, I wants to warn you about General Sir Francis.”

    “Warn me, ma’am?” said Nan in surprise.

     Aye,” she said heavily. “If I was to say he’s handsomest man as I ever laid eyes on, that might give you the wrong idea.”

    Nan goggled at her.

    “Well, he is, but how can I put it? Look, he has a nevvy as has the same looks, exact. When I say the general’s the handsomest man I ever laid eyes on, and then I say the nevvy, Parkinson’s his name, has the same looks, you’d say I was lying, wouldn’t you? That the younger fellow, he must be the better looking, eh?”—Nan merely looked at her in bewilderment.—“Aye, I knew I couldn’t explain it,” she said heavily. “Hilary Parkinson, he ain’t handsome, deary. He’s beautiful. Like a—well, a beautiful painting, or a objet d’art.”

    “I theenk I see.”

    “Aye. Mind you, he ain’t got that much character. The General, he has a lot more go in him. But he ain’t the brightest of the bright: more a plodder. I heard Wellington, onct—did I tell you I met the Duke, deary? At a grand ball at Daynesford Place. –I heard him with me own ears call him ‘My reliable Kernohan.’ Geddit?”

    Nan nodded, smiling at her. “I theenk you have explained eet vairy well.”

    “No, I ain’t, I ain’t warned you enough,” she said glumly.

    “Well, describe hees looks!” said Nan gaily.

    Mrs Urqhart floundered. “His eyes sort of slant. –Drat. Well, they does, only he ain’t a squint-eyed Chinee, that is for sure!”

    “No!” choked Nan.

    Mrs Urqhart frowned at her. “Silver curls. Receded some over the temples. Only improves ’im,” she said gloomily.

    Nan’s shoulders shook.

    “You may snigger, but don’t say you ain’t been warned. Straightish nose. Not like the Amory nose. Bit more curved. –Drat, I ain’t got that right, neither. And his mouth...” She sighed. “When I was a girl I woulda walked barefoot to wherever-it-was for a touch of his nether lip, I can tell you! Only I never knowed him, then. –Here, that is Shakespeare, eh?”

    Nan nodded, smiling.

    “Aye: told you I knowed some. –And I tell you what, deary, maybe if you was just to tell us what happens in the end, in that play we is to go to, eh?”

    Smiling, Nan told her.

    “Oh,” she said. “So ’e did tame ’is shrew. Thought ’e would—now, he were a man what had a strong hand, eh?”

    Timothy Urqhart had just come in. “Piker,” he said to his mother.

    “When it comes to Shakespeare, I am. –When is we to go, again?”

    “On Friday,” said Tim on a grim note.

    “Think I won’t bother,” she said airily.

    “Mother, Lady Benedict will need you as chaperone!”

    “I do not need to go!” said Nan quickly.

    “Out of course you do. Well, if I can’t think of someone as would do, me love, I’ll come, don’t you fear. Only if I nods off, don’t go for to wake me.”

    “She is always like this, once she knows the ending of a piece,” said Tim heavily.

    Nan bit her lip. “Oh, dear!”

    Tim offered sherry and sat down with his. “It’s a comedy, Mother.”

    “Don’t sound that funny to me,” she said suspiciously.

    “Eet ees vairy funny, to read,” said Nan cautiously.

    “Last time he took me to a Shakespeare play,” she said, glaring at her son, “there was this blackamoor, y’see,”—Nan avoided poor Mr Urqhart’s eye—“what done in his nice little white wife, all for nothing! It were all in his head, y’see, she hadn’t done nothing! Only this other feller, he set him on for spite. Well, fellers: they is all alike. Did he even try to find out if them rumours were true? Not he! Up in the boughs ‘e flies, and strangles the life out of the poor little thing!”

    “She’s certainly grasped the plot,” said Tim drily.

    Nan nodded, unable to utter.

    “Not a laugh in the piece, neither!” said Mrs Urqhart aggrievedly.

    “Stop it, Mother. She is doing it on purpose, Lady Benedict, I’m afraid.”

    “Well,” said Mrs Urqhart, finishing her sherry, “I must admit I prefers a piece as has a happy ending and makes me laugh in the middle of it. But if you wants perception of the true waywardness and bull-headedness of human nature, I will allow as Shakespeare be your man.”

    “Eendeed,” said Nan, looking at her with affection and considerable respect.

    Mrs Urqhart’s animadversions on the Bard had more or less distracted Nan from the topic of General Sir Francis Kernohan. When he walked in, therefore, she could not repress a little start. Mrs Urqhart took a very deep breath before rising to greet him. Nan’s lovely cheeks had flushed up a little, and her full bosom was noticeably rising and falling faster. Well, it was only to be expected.

    General Sir Francis Kernohan was a tall man. His hair was, as Mrs Urqhart had said, silver, and receding a little. In spite of his years it was, however, quite thick, and wavy. Mrs Urqhart had neglected to mention the delicate, rather slanted eyebrows, which, together with the winged jaw and the high cheekbones, imparted to his lean face a slightly elfin expression. The widely-set eyes were not precisely slanted but very definitely almond-shaped: not Oriental, but literally the shape of a well-formed almond kernel: long, and narrowed very much toward the side of the face. The old lady had been right about the mouth: it was long but delicately curved, with an astoundingly tender look to it. When he smiled Nan found herself wondering if she could get through the evening without making herself remarked by staring at him.

    If Nan flushed up at the sight of this male paragon, the General, Mrs Urqhart saw with something of a sinking feeling, also flushed a little as she rose gracefully and smiled at him, holding out her hand. Well, he would never overstep the line, but all the same she had best watch out for the pair of ’em. If either of them was to fall serious for the other it would be sad: the age difference was too great, it would never do. And, though General Sir Francis Kernohan was very hale and hearty, Nan did not need to be widowed three times before she was thirty!

    “The General has got something to say to you, me lovey,” said Mrs Urqhart, once they were all provided with sherry and had sat down. “It be a surprise.”

    “Yes, sir?” said Nan in bewilderment.

    The General cleared his throat. “When I was in the Peninsula I knew your uncle quite well, Lady Benedict. I should say, your late father’s cousin and the head of the Baldaya family, General Érico Baldaya.”

    “Oh,” said Nan in a small voice.

    General Kernohan was conscious of a strong wish to take the little, rosy-tipped hand in his and press it comfortingly. He cleared his throat again. “Your connexion, Colonel Amory, was—er—was worried about the reception he felt you might be receiving in England—”

    “Worried about our reception?” cried Nan, flushing up very much. “Sir, he never came near us!”

    “No—ah—“ he fumbled.

    “Knew as he’d make a mull of it,” said Mrs Urqhart to her son’s ceiling. Timothy glared: she affected not to notice him.

    “In any case,” said the General quickly: “he asked me to contact your relatives in Portugal, which I was very pleased to do, believe me!”

    “Thank you, sir,” said Nan limply.

    He gave her his lovely smile: unexpectedly Nan found her eyes had filled with tears; she said huskily: “What ees eet you have found out, sir? I can bear eet.”

    “There!” cried Mrs Urqhart loudly. “Drat the man! I should never have trusted him to a-open of his great mouth!”

    “My dear Lady Benedict, it is only good news!” he cried in distress.

    “Oh,” said Nan limply, sinking back in her seat and essaying a smile.

    General Sir Francis Kernohan sprang to his feet, producing a large handkerchief, “Pray forgive me.”

    “Oh!” said Nan, sniffing and taking the handkerchief, “you must theenk I am such a fool! But somehow I had prepared myself for the worst.”

    “No, no, my dear: it is quite the reverse, quite the reverse!” he said anxiously.

    “Thank you,” she said, smiling at him mistily. With a kind of despair Mrs Urqhart remarked that tiny droplets sparkled on the ends of the amazingly long, curled black lashes and that her nose had not turned in the least red.

    General Sir Francis received his handkerchief back with a hand that visibly shook. “All right now, my dear Lady Benedict?”

    Nan nodded, smiling.

    “You ain’t actual told her, yet,” pointed out Mrs Urqhart on a sour note.

    “Er—nor I have! Your uncle was very relieved indeed to have news of you and your brothers and sisters, and most annoyed to hear of the way you had been treated in Bath—and in short, he has come hot-foot to London to make sure your reputation is established!” He smiled the smile at her. –His teeth, noted Mrs Urqhart glumly, were excellent for a man of his age. Not the pearly opalescence of his nephew’s, true. But real good. Straight. No visible gaps. Curse the feller.

    “General Baldaya has come to London?” gasped Nan.

    “Indeed. He is staying in my house as we speak. I did not care to bring him with me tonight, I feared the shock might be too much for you.”

    Mrs Urqhart was about to rubbish this last robustly when she saw that Nan’s hand had gone to her bosom and she did, indeed, look shocked half out of her wits. “Get her a drink, what are you sitting there for?” she snarled at her luckless son.

    Poor Mr Urqhart reddened, and fetched Nan another glass of sherry.

    “Thank you,” she said dizzily, sipping it.

    “Well, go on, General,” said Mrs Urqhart sourly.

    “Er—I am afraid I do not understand you, ma’am,” he said politely.

    “T’other one! You ain’t mentioned him! The cousin!”

    “Er—oh, yes. My dear Lady Benedict, you perhaps may be aware that the property in Portugal occupied by your late father was in fact his birthright—”

    “Yes. Only I theenk he allowed hees cousin to live there, no? At least, when we tried to contact Portugal, we heard nothing, and we concluded the property was lost.”

    “Quite,” he said grimly, the nostrils flaring. Mrs Urqhart could scarce repress a groan. Lord, he were downright thrilling when he done that, and no mistake! Small wonder that Nan was a-gogglin’ at him with her eyes on stalks.

    General Sir Francis explained about the property being restored to Dom’s possession: Nan flushed up very much and tried to stammer her gratitude but he would have none of it, declaring he was only the messenger.

    Mrs Urqhart came to around about the point where he was inviting her warmly to accompany himself, General Baldaya and her cousin Mauro to a reception at the Portuguese Embassy. “When?” she demanded.

    “Next week, Mrs Urqhart: His Excellency the Ambassador has graciously expressed his desire to meet Lady Benedict.”

    “This excellent Ambassador, he’s got several sons to get orf, has ’e?” she demanded grimly.

    “Dear Mrs Urqhart—!” protested Nan with a laugh and a blush.

    “Lovey, I’m a-goin’ to spell it out for you,” she said heavily: “acos you can bet your boots, he won’t!” She gave General Sir Francis an evil look. “I dessay General Baldaya be a decent enough fellow within ‘is lights. Only he ain’t brung an unmarried cousin of yours all this way over here for nothing. The minute the word gets out about your India fortune—which it will, choose how—all the fortune-hunters of England is a-going to be buzzin’ round you like the bees round the honey. I don’t say as your pretty face won’t help, but it won’t be the main thing! And this cousin and uncle, what they is thinkin’, see, is they had better get their dibs in first.”

    Nan bit her lip. “I see.”

    “My dear ma’am, I think that is a little hard,” said the General.

    “It ain’t,” she retorted flatly.

    “I fear that Mother is in the right of it, Lady Benedict,” said Mr Urqhart awkwardly. “We had very much the same experience when my business partner’s daughter was launched into Society, did we not, Mother? Though fortunately he was more than capable of sending the fortune-hunters to the rightabout.”

    “I see,” said Nan limply.

    “Only you ain’t got no-one but that brother to protect you, and a pretty young lad like that, he won’t know a chevalier d’industrie nor a Captain Sharp from a honest man!” said Mrs Urqhart, very red in the face. And so stirred up that she did not perceive until far too late where this speech might lead.

    General Sir Francis Kernohan cleared his throat. “Allow me to say that I would be only too glad to volunteer my services as your protector for the Season, Lady Benedict.”

    And that did it. What with her blushing acceptance… Gawdelpus, thought Mrs Urqhart bleakly. Not but what the girl was in need of a protector. But she had seldom, in a long lifetime observing the species, seen a man fall so heavily.

    “Don’t tell us what you thought of ’im, ’cos it were writ all over you,” she said, coming into Nan’s room much later that evening, and collapsing onto the edge of the bed.

    Nan was at the dressing-table, in her white satin underdress: Sita Ayah was carefully removing the pearls. She turned, smiling; Mrs Urqhart noting by the by that that was not half a sight for sore eyes, and just as well the fashion for letting a gent into your bedroom after your hair was powdered was well and truly past, acos if old Sir Francis got a look at that—! She would bet her own pearls that he’d forget all considerations of age that might be a-holding him back at the moment.

    “Go on, admit it: ain’t he the handsomest feller you ever laid eyes on?”

    “Oh, yes! You deed not nearly do heem justice, dear ma’am! He ees—he ees male perfection, I theenk!”

    “So do I,” she said dully.

    “But quite apart from that, he ees such a lovely man! So vairy, vairy kind!” she cried, the great eyes sparkling.

    “Aye. Lovey, would you mind not sayin’ that? Just for now, if you can manage it?” she said, wincing.

    “What?” asked Nan in astonishment.

    “‘Vairy, vairy’. Every time you said it he looked at you like a besotted spaniel pup what has discovered its master.”

    After a disconcerted moment, Nan went scarlet. “Surely you cannot mean—”

    “He’ll never be more than fatherly towards you, my dear, and God knows you needs a protector, all right. But just—just remember from time to time that he’s a human being with feelings like the rest of us.”

    Nan swallowed. “I theenk you are exaggerating the case. But I shall take care to—to treat heem weeth kindness always. After all, we owe heem so much; I can never repay heem!”

    “Yes,” she said with a sigh, getting up. “Be kind to him, Nan.”

    “I shall take care never to hurt heem,” said Nan in a low voice. “Would eet be kinder to—to refuse hees offer of protection, Mrs Urqhart?”

    “Never have believed in bein’ cruel to be kind. Life’s short enough and hard enough without that. No, let him have his crumb of comfort while he may. –And listen,” she said, pausing with her hand on the doorknob.

    Nan looked at her obediently. “Yes?”

    It was one of the doe-eyed looks with which she had favoured the General during the evening. Mrs Urqhart winced slightly.

    “If you should meet a feller who you falls heavy for, just don’t drop the old man like a hot potato acos you don’t care about nothing but your new interest—all right?”

    Nan went very red but met her eye steadily. “I shall take vairy good care not to.”

    “Good girl. Sleep well.”

    “Good-night, dear Mrs Urqhart,” said the soft, low voice.

    Mrs Urqhart tottered out and staggered off to her own room.

    “Well!” she said to the faithful Bapsee. “You shoulda seen the pair of ‘em! She can’t help herself, out of course, and he’s the handsomest thing on two legs—and if only there wasn’t forty year atween them if a day, I’d say go for it!”

    Bapsee burst into an excited speech-in-reply in Urdoo. The which was so downright down-to-earth and to the point that even the forthright Mrs Urqhart could not but reflect it was as well there was no-one but herself present to hear it.

    “Got your note, thought I might as well come straight on up,” said Dom with his easy grin after the cries of surprise and greeting had died down and he had suffered his sister and Mrs Urqhart both to embrace him heartily.

    “Thank God for it,” said Mrs Urqhart, collapsing onto the sofa and putting her feet up: “for you may go with her to the play tonight, ’stead o’ me. –I think that will be chaperones enough, eh?” she said to Nan. “Timmy will be with you, and poor Cousin Clorinda, out o’ course.”

    Nan nodded, biting her lip a little. “Poor Cousin Clorinda” was a distant connexion on the Urqhart side, who could not have protected her from a fly. She was a short, shy, faded maiden lady much given to  trimming of her attire with little bows, bunches of lace, rosettes of ribbon and so forth, rather in the style of Miss Diddy Carey from Bath, except that where Miss Diddy was large, lazy and plump, Miss Clorinda Urqhart-Smyth was tiny, anxious and very slender. She looked, indeed, as if a gust of wind might blow her away, were it not for the bows, rosettes, etcetera, weighing her down.

    In the event, Mr Urqhart could not make it to the play, either: one of the firm’s ships that had been thought lost at sea had limped back to her home port after all, and the London office was in an excited turmoil.

    “He does not have to be there, out of course, but there: that is Timmy all over: conscientious ain’t the word,” noted his mother with a sigh. “Now, Dom has charge of the tickets: and mind, it be a whole box, Dom, don’t you let ‘em fob you off with nothing else. And you mind what I told you, Clorinda.”

    “Oh, indeed, dear ma’am! Absolutely!” squeaked the little lady.

    Mrs Urqhart sniffed. “Aye. Well, off you goes, then.”

    And off they went, Nan and Dom almost as excited as was Cousin Clorinda.

    The theatre was lighted with myriads of candles, and crammed with a colourful throng: the minutes before the curtain went up passed in a flash. The play itself proved entirely absorbing, and although Dom had protested at first that he did not care overmuch for classical drama, be it Portuguese or English, he laughed as heartily as anyone there. And, regrettably, ogled the blonde actress who was playing Mistress Bianca as openly as anyone there. Though at least he did not call out and actually throw things as did a thin-featured, much older gentleman who was seated in one of  the stage boxes.

    “That is a very bad man, my dear!” hissed Cousin Clorinda in Nan’s ear during the first interval. “He is a great lord, of course, but a very bad man!”

    “Oh? What ees hees name, Cousin Cloreenda?”—Cousin Clorinda had begged her to call her so and had declared also her enchantment with Nan’s accent when she did it. Nan had felt rather embarrassed: no-one in England had so far remarked in her hearing on her accent except little Mina, who had done so with innocent interest, and Hugo, who had teased her about it greatly, but only in private.

    “He is Lord Curwellion, and do not look his way, I beg you, or he will quizz you!” the maiden lady hissed.

    Nan smiled a little, but did not look that way: she did not think that being quizzed would be so very dreadful, and nor did she think that anyone whom Cousin Clorinda declared to be a very bad man necessarily was: but she could see for herself that he was certainly a man of unsuitably free manners.

    The rest of that interval was spent in examining the persons present in the house, in Dom’s part on venturing boldly forth in search of refreshment, and in comparing the ladies’ gowns.

    Dom came back, panting, just as the curtain was about to rise again. “Thought I saw Ferdy een the crowd!” he gasped.

    “Ssh!” replied his sister crossly.

    He lapsed into silence but in the intervals of laughing uproariously and ogling Mistress Bianca, peered around the pit for a glimpse of Ferdy.

    “Ees Mr Sotheby even een London?” said Nan on a resigned note, as the peering devolved into actual hanging over the edge of the box during the next interval.

    “Yes!” he replied crossly. “There he—No, eet eesn’t. Rats.” He peered again.

    Half the theatre was on its feet peering, too, not to say waving and beckoning, or Nan would have reproved him. She sighed, sat back and fanned herself.

    This interval went on for a very long time. Even Cousin Clorinda had virtually exhausted the topic of the ladies’ dresses and was reduced to pointing out the notables. Of whom she knew very few and, it gradually dawned on Nan with a tinge of amusement mixed with pity, no-one under the age of forty-five.

    “Dom,” she sighed, “pray stop feedgetting, you are driving me mad. Go and look for Ferdy, eef you must.”

    Brightening, Dom promised to send them in some refreshment, and hurried out. He popped his head back. “No matter who waves or smiles at you, don’t wave or smile back,” he said impressively to his sister.

    “I am not an eediot!” she cried.

    “Not much,” he muttered, withdrawing his head.

    The ladies waited, but for some time no refreshments eventuated, and Nan concluded without surprise that Dom had forgotten about them. Then a waiter arrived with a tray of champagne. Nan hesitated, after her experience with the Madeira at Miss Fishe’s house. But after all, she was in such safe company, with Cousin Clorinda—and she loved champagne. She drank a glass, smiling, and raising it in a toast to the faded little lady.

    “Delicious!” squeaked Cousin Clorinda.

    “Yes,” sighed Nan.

    Miss Urqhart-Smyth then embarked on a long, rambling story which involved a posy, a certain gentleman, and the perfidy of one, Miss Ariadne Something-Or-Another. Nan found she did not have to listen, just nod, smile and make a murmuring noise at intervals. She allowed her eyes to roam pleasurably around the house...

    She blushed, and hurriedly averted her eyes. Cousin Clorinda’s warnings had not been entirely without point: the bad Lord Curwellion had just bowed and smiled in a most marked manner!

    “What is it?” gasped the little lady.

    “Nothing. Just a rude man.”

    “My love, look the other way!” she quavered.

    “I am,” said Nan, determinedly doing so.

    After some time Cousin Clorinda risked a glance over her shoulder. “Oh, good gracious, do not look, he is waving!” she squeaked.

    Nan scowled.

    “My dear Lady Benedict, you have never met him, have you?” she quavered.

    “No, of course I have not! And please, I thought we had agreed eet was to be ‘Nan’, Cousin Cloreenda.”

    Very fluttered, Cousin Clorinda agreed that of course it was. But Lord Curwellion had looked so particular, and the ladies with him had also waved!

    His Lordship’s box was very crowded: mostly with persons of the female sex, who to say truth did not look at all like ladies. Nan picked up her fan. From behind it she risked a glance. She went very red.

    “Cousin Cloreenda, there ees a—a lady een that box whom I do not weesh to meet. Please could you look around for Dom? I—I theenk perhaps I should— Well, eef Dom comes back eet may be all right...”

    The horrified little lady peered over the front of the box for Mr Baldaya.

    Nan hid behind her fan as best she could. Crowded though the bad Lord Curwellion’s box was, she had recognized unmistakeably in one of the liveliest ladies, Mrs Pippa Storey! In giant blue ostrich plumes and a pink satin dress of exaggerated cut which more than displayed her ample, mature charms.

    Cousin Clorinda waved frantically but either the back at which she was waving was not Dom, or it had not seen her. Nan risked another glance from behind her fan. Mrs Storey had come right to the front of the box and was looking straight at their box. She raised a hand and gave a little wave..

    Nan bit her lip. She had not disliked Mrs Storey and had not thought that her behaviour that afternoon had been entirely to her discredit. But...

    “Can you see heem?” she hissed.

    “No!” gasped Miss Urqhart-Smyth. “Oh, dear, what shall we do?”

    “Wait for heem, I suppose,” said Nan grimly.

    Miss Urqhart-Smyth risked a glance at his Lordship’s box. “At least he does not seem to—to wish to make a move in our direction, my dear.”

    “No,” Nan agreed faintly

    Cousin Clorinda resumed her peering activity and Nan looked determinedly in the opposite direction from the bad Lord Curwellion’s box. After a little she said: “Ees that not Mr Amory?”

    “What, dear Cousin Bobby? Where, my dear?”

    “Over een that box, no?” said Nan a trifle uncertainly, nodding in its. direction. “There ees a lady with a vairy pretty spangled lilac gown, do you see?”

    “Oh, yes,” said Miss Urqhart-Smyth, screwing up her eyes very much. “It does look like him, certainly... No, stay, is it not dearest Noël?”

    “Er—well, I do not know heem. Eet looks like Mr Amory to me.”

    “I am sure you are right!” Eyes still screwed up, she waved.

    Nan herself was just a little short-sighted. They were more than near enough to see the stage clearly and to see Lord Curwellion’s box with horrid clarity. But on the farthest curve of the circle the faces in the boxes were a little unclear. Biting her lip, she realized that the faded little spinster was even more short-sighted than she. Small wonder she had not spotted Dom amongst the crowd in the pit!

    “I shall try to attract his attention! He will come to our rescue, I am sure!” Miss Urqhart-Smyth waved, beckoned and smiled. The gentleman who was with the lady in the spangled lilac and her party did not see her.

    “Do you try, my dear!” she said at last.

    It was true the box was in quite the opposite direction from Lord Curwellion’s, but— Nan came forward and waved timidly. The lady in the lilac twitched at the sleeve of the tall figure in the dark evening clothes. He looked round.

    “Ees eet Mr Amory?” said Nan uncertainly.

    “Of course, my dear!” Miss Urqhart-Smyth nodded and beckoned. Nan bowed and smiled.

    The gentleman was seen to raise his quizzing glass: he bowed, said something to the lady in the lilac and disappeared from the box.

    “Thank goodness!” sighed Miss Urqhart-Smyth. “I shall station myself at the door of the box, and the minute he comes I shall run down to the pit and find Mr Dom!”

    Nan did not think that was entirely appropriate: even a lady of such advanced years as Miss Urqhart-Smyth should not venture into the pit unescorted, but she did not see, really, how to better the scheme. Unless they were to dispatch Mr Amory in search of Dom? Nan was in no doubt he would do it, he had beautiful manners, but he would find it odd... And then, it would leave her and Cousin Clorinda still in the box without a protector, and she had no doubt that if he wished to invade the box, Lord Curwellion would not consider Miss Urqhart-Smyth’s presence a bar to his doing so. She sneaked a glance from behind her fan: oh, horrors! His Lordship had joined Mrs Storey as the front of the box and, with his arm around her ample waist, was studying their box through his quizzing glass!

    “Yes,” she said in a hollow voice: “the meenute he comes, please.”

    “I shall wait just outside in the corridor—and that, you know, will deter any horrid person who dares to approach!” She disappeared.

    Nan blenched. She drew her chair back. After a few moments she looked quickly sideways at the stage box. Lord Curwellion and Mrs Storey had vanished. Horrors: could they be heading her way? She gripped her hands in her lap.

    There was not really long to wait, though to Nan in her agony it seemed forever. The sound of Miss Urqhart-Smyth’s high-pitched twittering was heard. Then a man’s voice was heard to laugh, and to say something. Then the box door was heard to open and the red velvet curtain which shielded it was swept back.

    Nan leapt up, hands outstretched.

   “I believe you are in need of—”

    “Thank God you are come!” she cried.

    “—a protector,” ended Noël Amory limply, as she tripped on her gown and fell into his arms.

   “‘Oh, good gracious, eet eesn’t you!” gasped Nan, staring up at a handsome, laughing face that was eerily similar, but was definitely not Bobby Amory’s.

    Noël’s arms tightened. “I assure you, ma’am, it is me.”

    Nan at this realized that he was holding her far too tightly, that he should not be holding her at all, that his holding her like that was entirely delicious, and that the gentleman himself evidently shared the sentiment. She crimsoned.

    Noël smiled down at her mockingly, wondering where in God’s name old Cousin Clorinda Urqhart-Smyth had picked up such a cuddly morsel. A cuddly morsel who did not hesitate to beckon to men at the theatre whom she did not know. “Can I release you without fear of your hurling yourself into my arms again, ma’am?”

    “Yes!” said Nan crossly. “I treepped!”

    He laughed, and released her, putting a hand under her elbow and assisting her to reseat herself. “May I say, I would not be sorry if you ‘treepped’ again?” he said, pulling up a chair beside her.

    “No! You are vairy rude! And—and I would not have dreamed of asking Cousin Cloreenda to attract your attention, eef I had not thought you were Mr Bobby Amory!”

    “That puts me in my place,” he noted. “I am Noël Amory,  ma’am. In what way may I serve you?”

    “Deed—deed Cousin Cloreenda not say?” faltered Nan.

    “Er—her monologue was largely incomprehensible. I did gather that you wish for my protection against some unknown danger, however.”

    “Yes, eet—eet—Help,” ended Nan in a hollow voice as the door opened again, the curtain was held back and a light, drawling, mocking voice said: “Go in, Pippa; if it be not she, tant pis, we shall make her acquaintance all the same.”

    “I see,” said Noël. He got up. “Good evening, Curwellion.’

    His Lordship’s thin, curved eyebrows rose. “I see you are before me, Amory.”

    “Quite,” said Noël evenly.

    “Lucky fellow,” he drawled.

    Noël bowed.

    “Do, at least, introduce me?” suggested his Lordship.

    “Do you know, I have the feeling I shall not,” he murmured.

    Lord Curwellion raised his glass and looked Nan up and down. “Ain’t there enough here for two?”

    “Go away, you horrid person!” she flashed.

    “Oh, but lovely one: when you drank my champagne with so much enthusiasm?” he sighed.

    Nan gasped. “I thought my brother sent eet!”

    “I did say as I thought you wouldn’t welcome a visit,” allowed Mrs Pippa Storey. “Champagne or no.”

    Nan’s lips trembled a little. “Mrs Storey, I had thought better of you,” she said in a low voice.

    “Well,” said Mrs Pippa Storey on an apologetic note, “the thing is, you know what I am when I have drink taken, me dear. But all I said was, I had met you. And that from my observances, he had no chance, for setting aside as you was a lady what would not look twice at him, your taste was for something a good deal younger.”

    Nan went very red.

    “As you see, you were right, ma’am,” said Noël with a sparkle in his eye. “Though at that you flatter me, I feel. –My dear Curwellion, I hope very much this will not have to come to—er—gloves applied to the cheek, or some such.”

    “No!” gasped Nan in horror.

    The thin-faced, elegant old roué raised his quizzing glass and drawled: “Imprimis, I never fight over anything less than a question of competing vintages, as I think you must be aware, my dear Amory; and secundus, supposing we were to do anything so silly, I would spit you like a capon within approximately five minutes, as I think you also must be very well aware. –Still go to Fioravanti, do you?”

    Sir Noël bowed.

    “And has he managed to teach you his damned passa straordinaria?” he drawled.

    “Not quite yet,” murmured Noel.

    “Two minutes, then,” said his Lordship.

    “That is probably true, me dear,” said Mrs Storey on a regretful note to Nan, hiccoughing and banging herself on her well-displayed bosom. “—Pardon. Acos he was a great duellist in his day, you know. Killed his man, an’ all.”

    “Several men, as I heard it,” said Noël.

    His Lordship bowed.

    “Your forbearance amazes me, Curwellion,” said Noël with a twinkle in his eye. “Though I own to some slight regret at being denied the chance to see you demonstrate old Fioravanti’s passa. May I ask you to add to it by—er—deprivin’ us of your company?”

    “Without even an introduction?” said his Lordship sadly.

    “I fear so, alas,” he sighed.

    Lord Curwellion bowed very low to Nan, gave Noël an ironic look, said: “Alors, bonne chance,” and, grasping Mrs Storey’s plump elbow tightly, went away.

    “I suppose you theenk that was most amusing and sopheesticated!” said Nan furiously to her gallant protector.

    “Er—well, something of the sort, ma’am. Thought I managed rather well, indeed. I swear he had no idea we had not yet been introduced.”

    “Oh,” said Nan, gulping. “I am Lady Benedict.”

    “Lady—Good grief,” said Noel limply, looking at the notorious Nancy Jeffreys’s daughter.

    Nan scowled horribly.

    “I beg your pardon!” he said with a laugh in his voice. “Good evening, Lady Benedict. May I say, I am delighted to make your acquaintance at last?”

    “What does that mean?” she retorted suspiciously.

    “Only that I had heard you were in Bath, and was desolated not to have the opportunity of meeting you then.”

    She took a deep breath and did not reply.

    “May I say, you are quite irresistible when you are cross?” he murmured.

    “No,” said Nan through her teeth.

    He laughed a little. “Dare I inquire how you came to make the acquaintance of er—the lady who is accompanying Lord Curwellion?”

    “No,” said Nan through her teeth.

    “I thought it had been something like that, mm.”

    “You know nothing whatsoever of the circumstances! Eef—eef you must know, your uncle warned me eet was inadvisable to—to visit at that house, and—and eet was most unwise of me to eegnore heem.”

    The expression “at that house” could not but reinforce considerably the impression Noël had already gained. What with the hurling of herself into his arms, “treepped” or no, the lack of modest confusion when she had done so, and the company she apparently kept... He was in two minds as to whether she had really believed him to have been Bobby when she had beckoned to him, too. Surely Cousin Clorinda must have seen it was he and not his uncle? The only question was, where in God’s name had the Portuguese Widow picked up the old lady? Or had Miss Urqhart-Smyth started hiring herself out as duenna to ladies of doubtful reputation who wished to get about the town in an aura of false respectability while they cast their nets for the unwary? Mentally Noël winced a little. He had best speak to the poor old thing: see if she was truly in want.

    “Unwise, indeed,” he drawled, his eyebrows raised a little.

    Nan took a deep breath. “I must express my thanks, Sir Noël. I am truly grateful. Lord Curwellion ees a horrid old man, ees he not?”

    “Oh, very horrid, mm.”

    “I  wish I had never touched that champagne!” she said, shuddering.

    “Understandable,” he drawled.

    “I said: I thought my brother had sent eet!” she said angrily.

    “Of course you did, ma’am.”

    After quite some time, during which her infuriating rescuer said nothing more, Nan took a deep breath and said stiffly: “You must be finding all thees vairy odd, Sir Noel.”

    “On the contrary,” he murmured.

    She gulped. “Eet—eet was a chapter of accidents.”

    “Mrs Whatever-her-name-be, in the pink with the blue feathers on the head, certainly looks a whole chapter of accidents by herself, I grant you.”

    Nan found she was taking another very deep breath. “Sir Noël, please believe me: you have gained quite the wrong impression of me from this evening!”

    “I am sure, ma’am. May I just ask, how did you come to meet my connexion, Miss Urqhart-Smyth?”

    “Mrs Urqhart introduced us, sir.”

    Cousin Betsy certainly knew some queer fish, but really—! Poor little old Cousin Clorinda! Noël’s eyebrows rose slightly but he merely said: “I see. I believe you met Mrs Urqhart in Bath, would that be correct?”

    “Yes. She has been vairy, vairy kind to me,” said Nan in a stifled voice, “and I have been staying weeth her these past several weeks.”

    Noël’s brows snapped together. “What?”

    “At—at her home in the country, sir,” she faltered.

    By God: so Cherry had been exposed to the creature! His nostrils flared: for a moment he was so angry that he was unable to speak. “I see,” he said at last.

    Silence fell.

    Miss Urqhart-Smyth returned with Dom and Mr Ferdy Sotheby in tow just as the curtain rose again at long last.

    “Sorry!” gasped Dom, subsiding into his seat.

    Noël had got up. “I shall go. –I will be in touch very shortly, Cousin,” he said to the little faded lady.

    “Oh! Yes! So obliging, dear Sir Noel! Cannot express—”

    “Do not try,” he murmured.

    Miss Urqhart-Smyth looked up at him awkwardly. Suddenly Noël bent and kissed the withered little cheek. “Good-night.”

    Cousin Clorinda was too fluttered even to reply.

    “Sir, I must repeat my thanks—” began Nan.

    “There is no need,” he said curtly. He bowed and went out.

    Even though both Mr Baldaya and Mr Sotheby spent the rest of the evening making themselves undesirably conspicuous by their loud appreciation of Mistress Bianca’s charms, their box was not importuned again that evening.

    Nan went to bed that night with her feelings in a turmoil. Sir Noël was so vastly attractive: after meeting him she felt rather as if Mr Bobby had been but his shadow! Yet she had not truly liked him—the which, alas, made no difference! Horrors.

    And both he and Lord Curwellion had gained quite the wrong impression of her, it was only too horridly clear. Having thought it over she decided to tell Mrs Urqhart nothing more than what she had already imparted: that at Cousin Clorinda’s request, Sir Noël had kindly come to her rescue. There was nothing Mrs Urqhart could do about it. She must just hope that being seen in London in the company of her Uncle Érico and being received at the Portuguese Embassy would be enough to scotch any malicious rumours that Sir Noël or Lord Curwellion might spread.

    And for herself, thought Nan angrily, she would not give a fig! But there were Daphne and Susan to consider.

    Oh, dear; if only she had never, never gone to Mr Fishe’s house!