Babe (10 page)

“You are naive. That was not his reason. He’s barking up the wrong tree if he thinks . . . I’ll go down to see him immediately, as soon as I have written a retraction to the Morning Observer.”

“It’s in the Morning Herald as well,” Agnes warned. “I haven’t found it in any others.”

“Please do it.” Barbara said at once to Clivedon. “I don’t want to have to marry him.”

“Pity you hadn’t told him so!” he answered, his voice rising.

“I never said I would! Never had the least intention of it.”

“Just when we thought we had managed to make a joke of it,” Agnes lamented. “This coming on top of last night . . . I think Barbara must be taken to the country, Larry.”

“No, it will only serve to confirm the rumor if we hustle her out of town to hide her shame. Best to print the retraction, and assume an air of injured dignity at someone’s poor taste. If it was Gentz, I’ll strangle him.” He turned at once to leave the room, and was stopped at the door by Lady Angela, who entered holding in her hands two newspapers.

“I see you have already read it,” she said, smiling. “I think we managed this pretty well. When you told me last night to do what I could to stop the scandal, Clivedon, I hit on the idea of getting the advertisement into the papers at once, that everyone might see this match had your approval. So odd for it to come unexpectedly from Gentz, in such a scrambling way, but this will show you were aware of it beforehand, had already sent the notices in, and it will look less shabby. It will be in the Gazette this afternoon as well. I went straight home after the play and wrote up three announcements, and had them taken around to the paper offices last night. It is why I missed your lovely party, Lady Withers.”

There was a stunned silence. “You are amazed at my foresight, I see,” she laughed merrily.

“I am amazed at your insolent interference,” Clivedon replied, glaring.

“Interference? Why, you told me to do what I could! Lady Barbara’s name is already in sufficient shade that a marriage without your sanction would finish her. She can hardly jilt the man, after he announced in public they were engaged. It is best to put a decent wrapping on it. Smile and pretend we are satisfied. I daresay she and Gentz will rub along well enough.”

“She is not marrying Gentz!” Clivedon said. “We spent the night convincing everyone it was an ill-advised joke.”

“It was ill-advised for him to say he was her fiancé if she doesn’t plan to marry him.
She
didn’t deny it. Certainly it was not seen as a joke by anyone
I
spoke to last night.”

“You were busy circulating the story, in other words,” Clivedon rounded on her. “You will have this morning’s gossip cut out as well, explaining how you took upon yourself to make this announcement, without so much as consulting me.”

“You told me to do what I could! It was an excellent idea. Mama and Aunt Cleo were in complete agreement with me. When you have reconsidered the matter more coolly, you will see it is for the best. Lady Barbara has been meeting him quite publicly at the park every day. It will be no surprise to anyone that she will marry him. Indeed, it will look extremely odd if she does not now.”

“As to that, everyone is accustomed to oddness from Barbara,” Agnes said wearily. “Perhaps it is for the best, Larry . . .”

“No, please! You must do something,” Barbara implored, with a desperate glance to Clivedon.

“I suppose even Barbara will recover from one broken engagement,” Clivedon said, then strode from the room to write up three retractions.

Angela trailed after him. “I am sorry if I did something you dislike, Larry. I meant it for the best.”

“No doubt,” he said curtly over his shoulder as his pen scratched quickly across the sheet.

“If there is anything I can do to lend a hand in the predicament . . .”

“No, I wouldn’t want you lending any more hands.”

“You may be sure I will not cut her. I shall behave as though nothing has happened. Mama will dislike it, but I shan’t cut her only for this.”

“Generous of you, considering it is yourself who put her in this fix.”

“The announcement didn’t come from me initially. I would just make sure she doesn’t intend to slip off behind your back and marry him before I took that note around to the papers. You will look extremely foolish if that were to happen.”

“Thank you for the suggestion. I shall bear it in mind.”

“With a girl like that, you know . . .”

“Don’t you have some calls to make now, Lady Angela?”

“Yes, I must run along. Sorry if I caused any bother.”

“Not at all,” he said, on a note of heavy sarcasm, and she left.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Clivedon said to his sister before leaving. “With luck I’ll get the retraction instead of another announcement into the afternoon papers. If anyone calls, admit them and explain that this announcement did not come from us.”

“I can’t believe Angela would take so much on herself. But she meant well, of course.”

“Very likely. It saves me the nuisance of pelting down to Burrells’ to give Gentz a thrashing at least. I shall be on hand to smooth things over this afternoon.”

“So unpleasant. I hadn’t thought having Barbara would be quiet, but I didn’t expect so much activity so soon.”

“You should have!” he replied, and laughed. “We both should have. But really I think the worst is over, with Gentz out of the way. She is not completely lost to all sense of propriety, you know. We had a little talk this morning about men and morals. And Fannie—the trollop.”

“Her going to apologize to Lady Graham was better than I expected of her. I wouldn’t have had the bottom for it myself.”

“Whatever else one may say of Babe, I never heard her accused of a lack of pluck. We’ll squeak through, old girl.” He tapped her chin with his letters, and left, smiling, which struck Lady Withers as an insensitive attitude to adopt to all their troubles.

Chapter Ten

It was a tight squeak, but over a few days the rumors of Lady Barbara’s engagement were dead. She did not hide her head at home, but went on very proper excursions with either her chaperone or her guardian, sometimes both. With such companions, the engagement was no more than mentioned. It was only Fannie’s old friends who teased her about it. “You sly rascal, Babe,” they would roast her, “giving Gentz his congé. Some other fellow in your eye, eh?” But her old friends were finding access to her less easy. She was “out” when they called at Cavendish Square, and they were not met at the dignified do’s she attended in the evenings. It was only in the park or at the theater that they accosted her. Lady Angela made good her threat and came to honor Lady Barbara with another spin in the park.

“Get that creature out of here,” was Clivedon’s order, and she was not allowed into the saloon. Barbara was relieved to be rid of the girl, but she noticed too that Clivedon could be remarkably ruthless when he took someone in dislike.

“She didn’t mean any harm,” Barbara offered.

“You are generous. Excessively so,” he told her.

A week after the affair, Clivedon decided she had reformed sufficiently to be let out in her phaeton. To insure she did not take up any seedy foreign friends with her, he occupied the passenger’s seat himself.

“Let us see how you handle the ribbons,” he said. “I seem to remember seeing you bolt down Oxford Street out of control last month.”

“They are not so biddable a team as I would like,” she admitted. “I had them of Bradbury, and I think he was happy to be rid of them.”

“Don’t tell me this is the leather-mouthed set of grays Bradbury has been trying to be rid of forever! Barbara, I didn’t take you for such a greenhead. What did you pay for them?”

“Four hundred.”

“He offered them to me at three. He saw you coming.”

They were a flashy team, high-steppers, and not noticeably bad-natured, but difficult for a lady to control. “We'll avoid heavy traffic today,” he told her. “If you can learn to handle them on the quiet roads, you may try them in the city later.”

“I have driven them in the city before.”

“I know. I happen to be acquainted with one of the gentlemen who had the poor luck to be sideswiped by you.”

“It was as much his fault as mine. He wouldn’t give way to let me pass.”

“And you couldn’t hold them back. I see how it was.”

As this was exactly how it had been, she ignored the comment and concentrated all her efforts to keeping them back to a trot, till they were on the Chelsea Road. They went along with no mishap for a few miles, which emboldened her to let them out. An easy canter soon stepped up to an outright gallop, at which time Clivedon suggested she rein in. “I’m trying to,” she said, becoming frightened.

“Pull harder. Watch out for that gig pulling out ahead, there to your left.”

She had already seen it, and was yanking desperately at the reins, which had the unwanted effect of inciting her team to greater speed. It was apparent to Clivedon as quickly as to herself that she had lost any semblance of control over them. They were flying down the road at a breakneck speed. It was less clear to the driver of the gig, who felt he had the right of way, and pulled into the main road before them, expecting her to hold back.

Clivedon lurched wildly against her, in an effort to get the reins out of her fingers. She very nearly fell off the seat of her high-perch carriage, only managing to hang on by her fingertips. The added confusion of trying to lend her a hand left Clivedon only half his attention for controlling the team. The right rein fell from him entirely, and the unchecked horse galloped smartly into the ditch, pulling its mate with it, barely avoiding an accident with the rear end of the gig. The driver of the other vehicle looked over his shoulder, but, seeing the occupants to be unharmed, he proceeded on his way, with no more than a breath of relief and a quiet imprecation on the manners of the smarts and swells, who thought they owned the road.

There was a tense moment while they both waited for the sickening snap of broken wood or the creak of leather giving way, the whinnying of a horse in agony, or the shooting of a pain in their own bodies. They experienced only one of these omens of disaster. There was a shattering sound as the front axle snapped. Their own physical reaction was no more than a heart pumping tumultuously, and a sudden lurch as the carriage tipped. The runaway horses had pulled the carriage’s front end off the built-up portion of the road, to tip at a precarious angle towards the ditch, with the axle broken, while one wheel spun futilely in the air, a foot off the ground below.

With Clivedon’s arm still steadying her, Barbara wilted in shock and fright against his shoulder, shivering. He put his other arm around her, badly shaken himself. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Her head sank on his chest to gain her breath. In a moment she looked up, laughing nervously. “I couldn’t have made a much worse mess than this by myself. Thank you for your help. We’d better unhitch this demmed team. I hope their knees aren’t broken.”

He half expected tears or hysteria, and was surprised to see her laughing. He was able to relax then himself. “It would save hauling them to auction. Sure you’re all right?”

She tried her neck with a jerk of her head to left and right, flexed her elbows and knees, and proclaimed herself unharmed. “Better dismount carefully or we’ll tip this whole rig into the ditch,” he cautioned. He hopped down and steadied it while she descended. Together they hurried to the team to calm the nags and unhitch them.

“We’re in for a walk,” he informed her. “This front axle is snapped clean through where it hit the road-edge. The prads seem unharmed, but very nervous. Better stand back, Babe.”

“Be careful, Clivedon,” she warned. “Silver bites.”

“Which one . . . ouch!” He leapt forward as the biter got her teeth into his forearm.

“Oh, did she hurt you? Horses bite so demmed hard.”

“It was nine-tenths sleeve she got ahold of.” Still, he was wincing with the one-tenth of the bite that was not sleeve, but his own flesh.

“What shall we do with my phaeton? Can we go away and leave it here?”

“We’ll have to walk on to the nearest coaching house and have them come back for it. It’s nearly off the road, and highly visible. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“Only my pride,” she admitted.

“Let it be a lesson to you,” he said, as they began to trudge down the road, leading the team.

“You may be sure I’ll never ride with you again. Once bitten, twice shy.”

“Surely that should be my line. I hate a horse that bites. What I referred to, of course, was my wisdom in not letting you careen through town with this pair. We’ll see if we can palm them off on some strong-armed gent at Tatt’s, and get you something tamer. What possessed you to think you could handle them? You selected them yourself, you said. Didn’t you try them before buying?”

“I didn’t exactly choose this particular pair,” she said, glowering at them. “I said I wanted grays, and a friend chose them for me.”

“Gentz?”

“Yes.”

“You were seeing a good bit of him, I take it?”

“He is Count Bagstorff’s best friend, you see, and naturally he came to Fannie’s with the count all the time, so I was frequently in his company, but it was not a—a romance. More of a flirtation, you could call it. We neither of us meant anything. He was very gallant and let on he was madly in love with me, but he didn’t mean it.”

“How do you sort out the phonies?”

“It’s easy to tell when a man is shamming it. He thinks only of himself, and it comes out in little ways. He says all sorts of chivalrous nonsense, but doesn’t go an inch out of his way to really please you. Talk is cheap.”

“It seems to me you dragged Gentz several miles out of his way last week, hauling him up to Mecklenberg Square. How did you get a note to him, incidentally? I can’t believe Lady Graham’s servants would be so obliging.”

“I didn’t write him from there. I met him at Fannie’s—sent a note from there.”

He came to a dead halt in the middle of the road. “Am I to understand you met him all alone at Fannie’s house? How did you get there?”