Babe (7 page)

“Very dark,” he emended.

“You didn’t used to be so stuffy a few years ago. You weren’t forever pinching at me then.”

“I was not your guardian then. In my new position, I feel a moral duty to—”

“Fiddlesticks! It is not immoral to say prads, or demmed. I wonder what can account for these angelic heights your propriety is reaching.”

“You accredit the improvement to the wrong source.”

“It is no credit at all. I consider it a distinct liability. You are becoming a governess as well as a guardian. How very boring for you.”

“You are too hard on yourself. You are a wretched nuisance; you were never a bore.”

“It is very odd I’m not, for I am so often bored myself.”

“When can you possibly find time to be bored?” he asked.

“It hits me at odd moments, right in the middle of balls or routs even. Like tonight, when Camfreys started telling me about his demmed—very superior hunter, which is a spavin-backed old jade, as everyone knows. I so wished to sneak out for a cigar.”

“Did you do it?” he asked warily.

“No, I didn’t think my governess would like it.”

“But you have done so, in the past?”

“A few times, with Gentz.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said, more mildly than she expected. “Bad ton. If anyone should see you . . .”

“Don’t take me for a greenhead. I’d never get caught.”

There was a longish and uncomfortable silence. “I don’t sneak out for any other reason, and I know perfectly well that’s what you’re wondering, sitting there silent as a mouse, isn’t it?” she asked angrily.

“It occurred to me.”

“I knew, when you started to puff up like that—”

“I am not puffing up, and if I were,” he said, unpuffing his chest, “you couldn’t see it in the dark.”

“I can feel it from here. You always used to take a big breath and hold it. Well, maybe I imagined it, but I was right.”

“I don’t recall holding my breath in the past.”

“You nearly turned purple the time . . .” She stopped suddenly. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. That is all in the past.”

“Which time was that?”

“The time I was having a champagne-drinking contest with Lord Cherney. Gracious, and we only had one bottle between us. I could hold more than three glasses then, and a good deal more than that now.”

“You have a good memory, Barbara. Odd you have forgotten Richmond Park.”

She could see nothing in the dark, and was grateful she too was not on view, for she had a strong impression she was blushing.

“My good memory has not forgotten one thing. Am I to get my team back tomorrow?”

“Oh no. It is a truce, not total surrender. You will have to try more tact than bragging about your drinking. And smoking,” he added in an ironic voice.

Chapter Seven

Lady Barbara got her team the next day, by the quite simple expedient of asking Lady Graham if she objected to having them in her stable, as Clivedon thought she would.

“I have no objection in the least. Where did he get such a notion? Mind, you must not drive out alone, Barbara. I shall send a groom with you, for I am too old to sit up on a high seat, and Mabel would certainly fall off. She has no balance or coordination. She never could walk across the street without bumping into someone. I used to drive a gig myself when I was young. Exercise would do you a world of good. Certainly you must have your rig sent around.”

When Lady Withers received the note from Lady Graham, she complied at once, without a thought that Clivedon would dislike it. That same afternoon the blue phaeton was dashing into town, with a groom in ancient gray livery sitting behind to lend the driver cachet and an unaccustomed air of respectability. She drove down Bond Street at a careful pace to avoid any accident, while she looked about for friends or a guardian. When Lord Ellingwood waved, she pulled up beside him for a chat, for she felt just a little fear that Clivedon would take revenge on her, and wanted to appease him in advance.

“Can I take you for a spin, sir, or are you afraid I’ll land you in a ditch?” she asked.

“It would not be too high a price to pay for the honor,” he replied, feeling himself very chivalrous.

“Will it be the park, or the Chelsea Road?” she asked.

“Let us go to the park,” he answered promptly. It was not often Ellingwood had such a dashing companion to show off to the town, and he wished to make the most of it.

Colonel Gentz had slipped out of her mind entirely, but he was there at his post, hoping for a glimpse of her, and was the first to accost her at the barrier. “Babe—good of you to come. You got your prads back, I see. Good show.” They chatted for a few moments, and while still she leaned over talking to him, Clivedon reared up behind her carriage, in his own curricle, harnessed tandem.

It was sheer vexation that lent the rosy hue to her cheeks as she made them known to each other, and that caused her to babble a host of irrelevancies. Vexation had the opposite effect on Clivedon. He was next to mute with anger, but he managed to get out a few commands.

“Ellingwood, take that rig to my stables, if you please. Lady Barbara is coming with me.”

“I have permission to keep my phaeton at Lady Graham’s,” she replied, with a bold tilt of her chin.

“Lady Graham is not your guardian, ma’am. She is only your chaperone. I say what you are to have, and I say the phaeton goes to my place. I will take you home. Come along.”

Gentz looked on with the keenest interest. The embarrassing scene caused a smile to light on his face, and he observed Barbara eagerly to see what she would do. She thought there was a challenge in his look, an urging to come to cuffs with her guardian.

“Now!” Clivedon rapped out. His tone was glacial, but she discerned fire beneath the ice. The next step, she feared, would be for him to remove her by force, and to forestall this degrading step, she spoke to Ellingwood.

“Would you mind terribly? Such an imposition, but you see this Gothic guardian of mine is an utter dictator. If I refuse to humor him, he’ll send me to my room for the night with bread and water, and I wouldn’t like to miss the play at Drury Lane. Shall I see you there?”

“I hope so indeed,” Ellingwood answered, while Gentz took note of the fact as well. It was Gentz who helped her down from the phaeton, swinging her lightly in his arms, and Gentz again who aided her into the other curricle.

“Thank you, Theo,” she said, embarrassed, annoyed, and also a little fearful.

“Always a pleasure, Babe,” he replied, and lifted a hand to salute her as she was driven off.

“I hope you’re satisfied, making a fool of me in front of my friends!” she said to Clivedon as soon as they began moving.

“You do a pretty good job of that by yourself. I have spoken to you before about Gentz. I now tell you categorically, you are not to speak to him again. If you so much as look at him, steps will be taken to remove you from the city.”

“It is hard not to speak to one’s friends when they are met.”

“Yes, particularly when they are met by prearrangement.”

“It was not arranged in advance.”

“I have reason to know otherwise.”

“You have been gossiping with Lady Angela again, I see. I marvel you two lovebirds can find nothing more interesting to discuss than me. I know well enough where you received this misinformation.”

“The information proved accurate enough.”

“I didn’t plan to meet him there. I only meant to drive out the Chelsea Road. It was Ellingwood who suggested the park.”

“He would not be hard to lead into suggesting your own wishes.”

“I suppose you mean to use this as an excuse to forbid me my carriage.”

“You have heard where the carriage is going. You may be sure no note from Lady Graham will see it removed to Mecklenberg Square. I use it as well as a reason to cancel this evening’s play, as you were at pains to let Gentz know where he might find you.”

“That’s not why I said it! I was only trying to lend a semblance of normality to the very embarrassing scene you created.”

“The scene was not of my making.”

“Don’t think you’re going to run my life, Clivedon. I shall see whom I want. I shall go where I want, and I’d like to see you stop me.”

“Keep your eyes open. You’ll see it right enough.”

At Lady Graham’s, he told the dame that Lady Barbara was feeling unwell after a little accident in the park, which had caused the sending of her carriage to a wheeler. He said as well that her guest had decided to remain home this evening, to recuperate her nerves.

“She does look flushed,” Mabel ventured, with a worried glance to her sister.

“Flushed? She is pale as a ghost. Certainly she shall have a lie-down,” the chief mandarin decreed.

“A little broth and some bread and butter later on,” Clivedon added.

Lady Barbara stood mute, but directed such a penetrating stare on Clivedon, from a pair of eyes blazing with fury, that he felt a little trepidation. What if all this suppressed indignation should discover an outlet? Before the other ladies, he could say very little, however. “As you enjoy driving in the park so much, I shall call on you tomorrow,” he said. “A pity you must miss the play tonight, but there will be other plays. I shall bring you an account of it tomorrow.”

To these overtures she did no more than look, unsmiling.

“She’s had a shock. Best let her get to bed,” Lady Graham said.

She was taken at once to her room, while her chaperone asked a dozen questions about the accident, and commiserated with her on the misfortune of a broken wheel. No one knew how to make a wheel or anything else nowadays. It was all due to moral laxity, and would not be changed till the world got religion. Any answers received were quite at random. There was only one thought in Barbara’s head. She must attend the play at Drury Lane that night, by hook or by crook, and she wished, as well, to do it in Colonel Gentz’s company. She would show that man once and for all who was in charge.

She had no ally in her plan. Even Harper would not assist her. They were not close enough for that. She must evade the ladies, and get from the edge of Somers Town to the heart of the city, without a carriage and without much money. How was it to be done? Her first move must be to allay suspicion. She would ask for a little laudanum to allow her a good night’s sleep. She would close her door carefully, make her own toilette—unfortunately not so daring a gown as she would like to wear, thanks to Clivedon’s interference—and she would get a note to Gentz. How she regretted not having given him her direction. She had several hours in which to make and revise her plans, but during that time, no idea occurred to her how to get a note to Gentz. At five o’clock, she saw the stage from Islington to London bowling past, and looked at it with rising interest. There would be another at seven. She would take it, and hire a cab from the hostelry to go to Gentz. No, impossible to call at a gentleman's home unescorted. She’d go to Fannie’s. There was still a small staff on, and she had a key if they were not there.

She followed her plan, finding less difficulty than she had feared. Lady Graham, as it happened, approved of laudanum, and had a bottle on hand to treat an ailing tooth of Mabel’s. This medication was poured into the pitcher by the bed and the toilette was begun. The hair was a long and laborious job, and her gown too, buttoned down the back, took an age to fasten. Getting past the saloon, with the ladies sitting before the grate, was the most dangerous step. It too was overcome, by remembering a side door, away from the butler.

She ran a few hundred yards down the road, to prevent waiting for her ride right in front of Lady Graham’s house. She felt startlingly out of place on the common stage, wearing an evening outfit, but though the passengers stared as hard as they could, they none of them said anything. She got a cab to Fannie’s, and was admitted without using her own key. The small staff were not so surprised to see her as servants in a well-ordered house would be. Certainly it did not occur to any of them to notify her guardian. She had the footboy take a note around to Gentz, and sat awaiting his arrival.

Within an hour he came, smiling his approval. “Excellent, Babe! You can’t keep a good girl down, eh?”

She took his arm at once to go to his carriage, and outlined her adventure as they drove along. “The
pièce de résistance
will be when I waltz into Drury Lane on your arm,” she told him, with a triumphant smile.

“That’s a bit heavy for me, my girl. I’ll end up in the Court of Twelve Paces with Clivedon. Charming as you are, I’m not ready to die for you. We’ll go to the Pantheon instead.”

“No! It is for the pleasure of seeing his face when I enter that I have gone to all this bother.”

“Have you considered what he will do in retribution?”

“What more can he do? He has me locked up in a prison, with my carriage taken away. He can only send me home, and I wouldn’t mind that.”

“He can do plenty to me.”

“Pooh—he won’t challenge you to a duel. Are you afraid of him, Theo?” she asked.

“Not in the least, but what is my reward for bringing him down on my head?”

“Am I not reward enough?”

“You would be, but one evening of your company is hardly sufficient. Marry me—that would be more than enough reward.”

“I may have to,” she laughed recklessly, for she was beginning to wonder just what Clivedon would do.

“You make it sound like a penance,” Gentz said, feigning offence.

“You would suit me better than some I can think of,” she rallied, but said no more, in case he should begin to take her seriously.

The delays involved at every step of her flight insured a tardy entrance to the theater, which was exactly what she wanted. It was no surreptitious sneaking in, unnoticed in the confusion, that she had in her mind, but a noisy entrance to create the maximum of disturbance and gain the most attention. The curtain was about to arise.

That hush of anticipation that precedes the commencement of the drama had fallen over the hall when Theo held the door of his box for her. The rest of his party was already there, a minor Russian diplomat and a female of doubtful background. Both were older, somewhat tawdry persons, not even friends of Fannie, and completely unknown to Barbara. She scarcely glanced at them. Her mind was on Clivedon and her eyes on his box, whose location she knew well. In common with several other heads, his was turned to view her entrance. She walked to the front of Gentz’s box and remained standing a moment, to insure being seen, waving and nodding to a few friends, before turning to recognize Clivedon.