Althea (32 page)

She had planned to stop at noon and partake of some sort of
nuncheon. When a glance at the watch pinned to her gown assured her it was some
minutes past the hour, she unwound the scarf from her head and shook out her
curls, which were full of dust despite the turban. She made to look over her
list of the most immediate projects to be done, and did not look up when the
door opened.

“Is the nuncheon ready, Firth?” she asked abstractedly.

“I really haven’t the slightest idea, love,” said Tracy
Calendar.

“I wish I understood why it amuses you so to provoke me,”
Althea said crossly. Her face was hidden from his view by a spray of roses
conveniently located on a table between them, and her voice conveyed such a
combination of feelings that Tracy could not define her emotion. Still, finding
her there, in health and active enough to be cleaning the house, cheered him
somewhat and renewed his confidence.

“I wonder if perhaps it doesn’t please you just as well to
plague me. We will be a frightening pair, love: all London will go in terror of
us. I can only hope that the Bevans will provide us with an example of how a
married couple goes on.” He advanced around the table to her. “But we won’t be
bored, I imagine, if these last weeks can tell anything at all. Of course, I
will not answer for an occasional urge to throttle you, but I am sure that
that, too, can be managed — you handle almost everything in the most admirable
way, my dear.”

Althea said nothing, but hung her head, scarlet faced.

“And of course, if you should become bored in between
fending off my destructive tempers and attempting to instill the usual virtues
in our children, you could always take up writing scholarly dissertations on
the insipidity of Cowper, or the infinite superiority of —”

“Dreadful!” Althea broke in, willing to argue anything
rather than attend to the plunging feeling that had hit her when he had spoken
of
their
children. “You think that I could not write dissertations? Or
something of the sort?” she flashed back.

“I have the utmost confidence that you can do anything,
love, except possibly answer a declaration in form. But we shall see to that.”

“I will not marry you,” Althea said flatly.

“This is a shame. Why not?” Tracy asked with maddening calm.
Althea was spared the necessity of an answer to this trying question by the
appearance of her brother and father at the garden door. They were arguing over
something, and Sir George’s face was a choleric red.

“I will remind you, sir, that I am your father, and the
master in this house, and an indulgent one at that! No need for me to listen to
this disrespectful hogwash! If I hear one more word on this disgraceful
subject, I shall be — oh, what’s all this, hey?”

It had dawned upon her father that Althea was not alone in
the room.

Merrit spared a peevish glance and a nod for the visitor,
then returned to kicking the leg of the sofa.

Sir George, on the other hand, crossed to his daughter with
a look of pompous cordiality, not unmixed with suspicion, on his face.

“Well, Ally, who’s this? Got one of your London beaux to
visit, hey? Well, sir, I’m the gal’s father. You may address all inquiries to
me. Who’re you, hey?”

Althea blushed for her father. She could be sure that even
Sir Tracy’s fancied partiality for herself would not keep him from thinking her
father excessively ill-bred.

“My name is Calendar, sir, and my intentions are honorable.
My family is good — I am remotely in line to an earldom, which I am thankfully
not likely to ascend to at any time. I have a good income, several seats, and
drive a phaeton. And I intend to marry your daughter.”

“No you don’t,” Althea gasped.

Sir George seemed a trifle taken aback by the wealth of
information provided him, coupled with the blunt manner Tracy had adopted in
speaking to him. “Now, sir, why don’t we just go into the library? It don’t do
to let the womenfolk know too much of these arrangements: gives ’em notions and
nothing is more ruinous to their looks. Knew a lady novelist once — only
published one volume, but it made her absolutely fubsy faced. Thinking will do
it. Just this way through to the library, sir.”

“There is no reason for him to follow you, sir, I promise
you. I will not marry him, even if I have to become a novelist to avoid it.”

“But no, love, did I not say that I expressly wished that
you should write, if you would like to? Of course, I thought you would prefer
to do literary critiques, but if you had rather write a novel, I could always
suggest a plot myself.”

“I imagine you could suggest several,” Althea said.

Sir George chortled. “That’s the way, sir. Humor her now,
but don’t never let her bother her mind with notions. Looks couldn’t stand it.
The library, sir? Merrit, go see what Firth has done with my port.”

“No port, Father, until Doctor Phillips says that your gout
is completely gone. And in any case, I forbid you to speak to this man. I am
not going to marry him, and even if I was” — a long, shaky breath — “I am above
age, and what I do need not concern you in the least. I shall show Sir Tracy
out, and that will be an end to it. You may continue to argue with Merrit if
you like. I believe that I have the headache, so I shall be retiring to my room
directly. Or, if I don’t have it now” — a wrathful look at Calendar — “I am
sure that I shall have it by and by. Father, do please go away.”

“You forbid me? You are ordering me about? You forget
yourself, my girl! I have forgiven you often enough for your disrespect to me
and your brother, but you will recall who is master in this household! Or else,
by God, I shall scratch your name from the Bible and forbid you ever to darken
my halls again.”

“Oh, go ahead, Father, you’ve done it often enough before.”
Althea sighed. “And it will only mean that you will have to hire a housekeeper.
Only think of the expense.”

There was a long pause while Tracy and Merrit studied the
father and child and Sir George strove to understand exactly what his daughter
had just said to him. Realization broke like dawn over the sea when he
understood that this was just another of his daughter’s unaccountably
disrespectful remarks. His face darkened and he bellowed something about
insolence and ingratitude. He was about to banish her forever from the house
when the second part of her statement occurred to him with renewed force, and
he recalled anxious hours bent over the ledgers. He croaked something about
leaving Althea to consider her outrageous behavior and, gathering his dignity and
his son to him, left the room with an injured air.

Althea sank rather limply to the sofa. Tracy observed his
beloved with some concern; her face was pale and there was a bleakness in her
expression.

“If nothing else could convince you, Tracy, this must. I
cannot marry you. It was perfectly all right for Francis to marry Mary, that
was merely a case of one widgeon marrying into a family of equally silly
people. Francis even thinks that Papa is, in his own words, ‘a devilish good
’un, albeit a trifle high in the instep!’ How could I inflict my father and my
brother upon you? You have already been much involved with the foibles of my
poor sister, and believe me, she is quite the best of the Ervines.”

“Not quite the best.”

“Please don’t be gallant. It rather unmans me, you know. You
are concerned for me, I suppose — we were become friends in London for a time,
despite the muddles and stupidity, and one cares for one’s friends. I’m very
glad that I had such a friend there. But how could you possibly explain to your
aunt that you’d married such a one as Sir George Ervine’s daughter? You know
that I love Lady Boskingram dearly, but even if she didn’t cavil at my family,
Boskingram would, for you know that within the week Papa would begin to speak
of ‘Calendar, my girl’s husband — the heir to Boskingram’s title, you know.’”

She swallowed, then continued ahead, rather fiercely.

“I know just how vulgar and pompous he is, and to myself I
make fun of him no end, but he is my father, and I will not have other people
laugh at him. Nor should I care to make you a laughingstock among your friends
on account of my family. Oh, for pity’s sake, Tracy, go back to London and
leave me alone!”

She attempted a laugh. “You can have no idea what has to be
attended to here. Papa lets things become so dreadfully snarled up. It was no
idle threat when I told him that if I left he would have to engage a
housekeeper; as it is, I shall be quite frantically busy for the next few
weeks.” She stopped speaking and became aware that Calendar was observing her
with that rather inscrutable, vaguely amused glance that she had first noticed
at the Fforydings’ party.

“I think your father has the right idea,” he said at length.
This declaration so startled Althea that she was unable to think of a suitable
rejoinder except to croak out a faint “What?”

“I think your father has suggested the best thing. He will
cast you out on the mercy of the world and I shall, of course, be there to
catch you. Although I realize that that is not quite what he had in mind. So he
must needs engage an housekeeper anyway. And while I really cannot continue to
allow you to stay in a household where thinking is held to be injurious to your
beauty, I also think that you have been thinking in entirely the wrong way if
you can come to such ridiculous conclusions. In any case, I find it far more
likely that you might kill one of your own family than that you and I should do
each other any irreparable harm.” Althea had begun to smile unwillingly so he
allowed himself to continue in a more serious tone.

“I do respect your feelings very much — if I didn’t fear to
sound like that pompous fool Pendarly, I would say that I honored your
feelings. Up to a point. But do you imagine that I am such a weak sort of
fellow that I would allow your relations to annoy me? You have a foolish
father, but I have my cousin Boskingram, and worse than that, his estimable and
wholly unbearable wife, Amalia. So if I attempt to overlook your father’s
deficiencies, cannot you overlook those of my cousins?” He sat close to her on
the sofa. “You know, Ally, the only reason I can think of for your refusing to
have me is that you cannot love me. If
that
is the case I wish you would
tell me so, and I will not importune you any more.”

The silence that followed was oppressive in the extreme.

Althea sat with her head bowed, examining her fingers as she
knotted and reknotted the scarf she had removed from her hair.

“Do you know how much I hate to be in the position of saying
missish things? All my life I have tried to avoid it, but in the last weeks I
have said more horridly missish things than I can remember — and always in your
company, so I knew that you would be sure to notice it.” She gave a
particularly fierce tug at her scarf and the corner came away with a rending noise.

“Althea. Do you love me?”

“You are a fine one to speak of love! To marry to establish
your home, or to get an heir, and oh, to rescue me from Papa, and because you
think I have been ill used, and because you think that we could go on together
— although where you acquired that notion I am sure I cannot tell! — and
because I thought such dreadful things of you, and perhaps because you don’t
like to be thwarted, and lord, I don’t know what. And then to speak of
love
to me! I don’t know why you offered for me in the first place, although I need
not scruple to say that
I
know you know why I accepted your offer.”

“I offered for you in the first place, my love, for the same
reason that I offer for you now. I love you.” This admission startled Althea
from the examination of her torn scarf, but her reaction was quite the other
from what he had hoped. She stood up suddenly.

“No Canterbury tales, Tracy.”

Sir Tracy sighed wearily, but stood up also.

“My love, you are behaving in the most tiresome way,” he
said, and kissed her. Althea felt as if a great weight had been lifted from
her: she drew her arms up around Tracy’s neck and surprised herself with the
response she gave. A moment of timelessness, while Tracy answered her
cooperation by tightening the hold he had taken on her. At last, breathless,
she emerged from the embrace, satisfied as to the truth of Sir Tracy’s
declarations.

“Will you always punish me so when I am tiresome? If so I
fear I shall grow more and more tiresome.”

“Hush,” was all Sir Tracy would say.

Some minutes later, when they had retired to the garden in
hopes of attaining a little privacy from her family, as they wandered aimlessly
arm in arm, Sir Tracy Calendar renewed, and Miss Althea Ervine accepted, an
offer of marriage. Not only did they renew their troth, they spent some time
discussing their household, the number of children that should grace it, what
their names would be — in short, they planned every facet of their domestic
felicity.

“Here’s proof of love indeed!” Althea declared at length.
“The mighty social lion discussing nursery and governesses as calmly as be
might speak of snuff or lacquered boxes.”

“No, love, it’s Petersham for snuff and Brummell for old
lac. I have an interest in chinoiserie.”

“That sounds positively improper. What a thing to say to a
woman so newly betrothed!”

“And will you much mind being married to a fribble, love?”

“Not if you are a very good fribble, Tracy. I should hate to
see you second rate at anything.”

“And you, my dear, are going to be content to be a married
woman and have no more adventures running away in the middle of the night?
Think how their father would feel, explaining to the children that Mama has run
off yet again.”

“If their father treats me as he does now, I shall have no
reason to make any moonlight escapes. They pall after a while, anyhow.” Althea
sighed and allowed herself to rest more heavily on his shoulder. Tracy realized
that she was very weary.