Babe (9 page)

“You’re quite sure you didn’t plant the idea in his head?”

“Oh, the idea has been there an age, but I have not encouraged it.”

“It seems to me that with any real conviction you might have removed it before now.”

“He was only afraid you’d call him out, and thought propriety might deter you, if he were thought to be my fiancé. He is well aware how high you hold yourself, you see.”

“Simpleton! That’s not why he said it. He thinks to force my hand by that announcement.”

Barbara had not set out to conciliate him, and was very surprised to see he had calmed down considerably. His next speech was hardly angry-sounding. “I think we smoothed it over as well as could be done, calling it a joke. Though, according to Angela, there was plenty of tattle. Hardly the first time you’ve managed to make yourself the center of vulgar attention.”

“No, and not likely the last either,” she answered very pertly. “What are your plans for me?”

“It will be the last, if you know what is good for you.” A hurried discussion with his sister had decided him to remove her from Lady Graham to Agnes at once. The former dame was too old, too strict, and antique in her activities to hope to appeal to Barbara, and her home too was proving an inconvenient distance from them. He did not wish to seem to be giving in to her, certainly not rewarding her for her trick, but as he had previously mentioned the change, he hoped to imply he was only executing his own plans.

“I have asked Lady Graham to send your things here. You are too great a burden to foist on one of her years. My sister will keep you for the time being. And I will just drop the hint, she is not at all happy to do it. If you cause her the least bother, you will be sent packing.”

“Who will be stuck with me next?” she asked.

“Running out of places where you are welcome, are you? Just as well you realize it. The next step will be for you to set up in a rented house with a hired companion. You may imagine what that will do to your reputation. You haven’t been welcome at Almack’s for several Seasons, milady. If you wish to continue visiting any respectable establishments, you had better change your tune.”

“I could go to Almack’s if I wanted to. I still pay my ten guineas a year. I stay away through choice, as it is so monstrously dull.” Her name was still on the lists of the prestigious and highly respectable club, but she had been treated with such frosty civility at her last visit that she knew she was not far from being asked to resign. What was it had happened? Ah—she had sneaked a couple of fellows in the back door after eleven o’clock. That was her great crime. The doors closed at eleven, and King George himself might knock in vain after that hour.

“They are kind enough to take your money, in other words, as long as they don’t have to take you along with it. If you are seen again in public with the likes of Gentz and that pair of libertines he had along tonight, you may expect to receive a cancellation of your membership in the mail.”

“I didn’t know who he would invite.”

“A petty clerk who owes every tradesman in the city, and a lightskirt more often seen on the stage than in the audience. Who did you expect he would ask? Princess Esterhazy?”

“Oh no, hardly one of the patronesses of Almack’s. Though, as one of his countrywomen, she was kind enough to stand up with him at an embassy party not too long ago.”

“You may be damned sure she wouldn’t do it at a more public reception.”

“
Very
sure, Clivedon. No vulgarity, if you please. Lady Angela would despise it. And lay it at my door too. I am already in such disgrace with her that I shan’t sleep a wink for worrying about it.”

“I wonder you can sleep. If you had any conscience, you couldn’t. You may imagine what Lady Graham has suffered this night because of you. You have caused my sister and myself great embarrassment, and tomorrow the streets will be buzzing with news of your engagement to a gazetted fortune-hunter. You are not his first choice either. He’s already left one victim high and dry in Austria. I wonder if that is why he doesn’t return. He seems mighty shy of a duel. But then, being pointed out as a jilt will hardly be a new experience for you. Pleasant dreams, Lady Barbara,” he said, and arose to stride from the room.

She sat looking at the empty doorway, then arose and went out after him. A servant showed her to her room, where Lady Withers had laid out one of her own nightdresses for her. She had kept up a brave front, but was assailed with doubts as she got into bed. She had never been made to feel so guilty before, at any of her scrapes. Fannie would have laughed at tonight as well, but she saw that amidst people of Clivedon’s sort, it was taken more seriously.

She knew Fannie’s circle was not the highest circle. Some of her friends were hardly accepted at all in real Society. It had been otherwise before her connection with Bagstorff, but lately they had both been omitted from parties they had expected to be asked to. The new set, while amusing, were not the set she would hope to make a permanent alliance with. When she married, as she hoped soon to do, it would be one from the better society she sought. The fact was, when she received any offers, they did not come from the higher society. They came from the likes of Gentz. She had about run out of respectable friends, and made some resolution to improve. It would not be easy when she already knew Lady Withers didn’t want her, accepted her under duress from Clivedon very likely, but she would try.

The morrow loomed unpleasantly. She would have to go and apologize to Lady Graham, and have a bell peeled over her for half an hour. What on earth could she say to excuse herself? Clivedon had spoken earlier of taking her to the park, but of course that outing would be canceled. She was angry that her carriage and team were still denied her, that her gowns had been taken away, and that she had no money, but she would try to be polite to everyone. And if she failed, she would go home to Drumbeig. It was of home that she dreamed when at last she slept.

Chapter Nine

Barbara was cross and irritable in the morning, with a combination of poor sleep and the visit to Lady Graham hanging over her head, but she adopted a polite tone as she sat down across from Lady Withers in the breakfast parlor. She apologized very civilly, then said, “I wish to visit Lady Graham this morning, ma’am. Will it be possible for me to use your carriage, or do you plan to use it yourself?”

“Visit Lady Graham? What on earth for?” Agnes asked, with a dreaded premonition that a trick was behind the request. That the dashing Babe should actually be going to apologize to anyone was hard to believe.

“To thank her for her kindness in having had me, and to beg her forgiveness for last night,” she answered.

“I see,” she said weakly. The obvious course was to accompany Barbara on this visit, yet she was strangely loath to pass so much as half an hour with the Tartar in the wilds of Somers Town. Larry was coming by; she would palm the unpleasant duty off on him. The wary face her guest wore at this suggestion confirmed her suspicions as to the visit being no more than a ruse to get out.

When her brother came by, Agnes met him alone and voiced her fears. “It is undoubtedly a dash to Gentz that is in the back of her mind.”

“He’s left town. I called on him last night to hint him away, and he’d left for Burrells’, they tell me at his place.”

“I don’t suppose she knows that. If she finds it out, she’ll be off after him.”

“She’s going to take close watching. I’ll look after the visit today, in any case. She’ll find herself stuck with carrying out her pious little sentiment of begging forgiveness. She’ll be lucky if Graham doesn’t take a stick to her back.”

Babe was considered a very accomplished actress when she exhibited none of the vexation expected of her at Clivedon’s escort to see Lady Graham. She did not harass him for the return of her phaeton or any money, nor do a thing but sit as silent as a jug all the way north dreading the ordeal. The dame was very much on her high ropes, but after a lengthy, lively, and thoroughly enjoyable tirade, during which her erstwhile guest was suitably humble, even at one point hard pressed to blink away a tear, the Tartar accepted her hand.

The whole world was rotten, she allowed, and this lady likely no worse than the rest, if the truth were known. At least she had the manners to come and apologize and the breeding to do it at once, as she ought. Miss Mabel whispered aside that she would miss her very much, and to remember to eat her crusts for the hair. Weak with relief that it was over, Barbara relaxed into some quiet conversation on the way home.

She was curious to learn whether she was a prisoner or a guest at Cavendish Square, and worded this question somewhat more adroitly.

“You may have callers and go out,” he allowed, “but for the present, we would prefer you not see your foreign friends till this affair blows over. Agnes will determine who is to be allowed to see you, and she or myself will escort you when you wish to go out.”

“I am putting you to a great deal of trouble.”

“Not at all,” he answered in a voice not quite sincere.

She was heartened to learn that she was not in such deep disgrace as she feared. She even had some hopes that she would see her phaeton again, if she towed the line. She was determined to do it. Their kindness was a better influence than harsh treatment. Eager to be liked, to make friends, she firmed her resolve to be an unexceptionable guest.

“You are quiet today,” Clivedon mentioned after they had gone a block without any talk. “One of your fits of boredom fallen on you?”

“No, it is impossible to be bored today. Merely I am flattened with relief, to have the visit over. I worried for hours about it last night.”

He could see she had lost sleep over something, and wondered if she had actually intended all along to do no more than see Lady Graham. She did not seem to be fidgety, as though she were forming alternative plans. “You have not forgotten we are to have a ride this afternoon?” he reminded her.

“Do you still mean to do it? I thought after last night . . .”

“Certainly I do. I am looking forward to a reward after this morning’s visit. If you have changed your mind, you ought really to have let me know. Folks do appreciate being informed when an engagement is to be canceled.”

She suspected a reference to Richmond Park in this speech, but decided not to recognize it. “You can tell me about the play, as you said you would. I didn’t hear a word of it, I was so worried you’d kill me.”

“Do I strike you as being so lethal?”

“More wrathful, especially when you kept putting it off. I own I feared the worst, to see you ignoring me at the theater and enjoying the play as though nothing had happened.”

“Don’t expect too coherent an explanation of it,” he said, allowing a small smile to lighten his features.

“Clivedon, were you acting? I would not have expected it from you. I didn’t know you were so deceitful,” she laughed, easily lured into her customary high spirits.

He was not inclined to depress her. “There is a good deal of deceit and hiding of our true feelings necessary in polite Society, to soften the collisions of taste and opinions. We don’t always confess to disliking a lady’s uglier bonnets, or to admiring her more risqué gowns either, if she is a young lady. I once failed to mention as well that a certain duke was using a shaved deck at a game of cards. That one piece of politeness I have often regretted. There is such a thing as carrying civility too far. In matters of mores, where manners blend into morals, there is an ambiguous gray ground that is tricky. A young lady’s behavior, for instance, often falls into this questionable gray area.”

“How very wise you are,” she congratulated him. “I have often been bothered by that myself, though I never sorted it out so clearly in words. I have often wondered how blind one should be in such matters. I expect I have not been blind enough, and that is why I have the reputation for being horrid, because I always can see very well when someone is trying to lure me on to doing something I shouldn’t, and take him to task for it. I suppose the polite thing would be to ignore it.”

“What sorts of incidents are you speaking of?” he asked, with the liveliest interest.

“Men, what else? They are the ones who will try to lead us amok. They will often want you to slip away from a polite party, and when you call them to account, they fly up in the boughs. You stand accused of either having jilted them, or been jilted by them. Fannie says I ought to make a joke of their tricks, but it goes past joking sometimes.”

“You have been poorly advised by your last chaperone,” he said brusquely. “In future I would like to be told if anyone makes such a suggestion to you.”

Their promising chat soon disintegrated into a lecture, and the comfortable familiarity was all gone from it, as he hinted that a lady who behaved herself was not likely to receive the offers she spoke of. But she said not a word about Lady Angela, for she was quite determined to improve.

Fresh trials awaited Babe when they reached Cavendish Square. Lady Withers attended them, sitting amidst a welter of newspapers that strewed the sofa and spilled over to the floor, while she rooted through them in a state of distraction. “Larry! The worst thing! Barbara is truly engaged!” she exclaimed in a dying voice, with an offended glance to her guest. She shoved a paper into his hands, and he glanced at it briefly, his lips compressing into a line.

“This is your doing?” he asked Barbara.

“What are you talking about?” She grabbed the paper from him, to read in black and white that Lord Clivedon was pleased to announce the betrothal of his ward, Lady Barbara Manfred, to Colonel Gentz. “Clivedon—what does it mean?” she asked, round-eyed. “Who can have done this?”

“You didn’t drop this announcement off on your way to the play last night?”

“Good God, no! And neither did Theo. Oh who can have done it?”

“It uses your name, Larry,” Agnes pointed out. “It must be Gentz.”

“No wonder he darted off to Burrells’!”

“I am sure Theo didn’t do it,” Barbara insisted. “He planned to leave at once. He only said it because he was afraid you meant to call him out, Clivedon.”