Fragile Mask (18 page)

Movement on the periphery of her vision made her glance up,
blinking. In the doorway stood two little night-shirted boys, their
young faces pale and uncertain.

Felix and Miles! They had woken, disturbed by the strange
happenings in the night. Her heart contracted. Poor, frightened
little things. Instinctively she held out her arms, and they ran to
her, nuzzling into her and bursting into sobs.

‘
Hush, now, hush,’ she crooned, all thought of her own
confusions swept away. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of. Listen to
me, both of you. Your papa will come presently, but he is with your
mama just at this moment. And he has the most wonderful news. Do
you wish to know what it is?’

Two small faces, the tears smudged away by knuckling hands,
looked up at her expectantly. Verena smiled.

‘
God has brought you a little sister.’

That was enough for Felix. Questions rained on Verena, and
Miles climbed into her lap, sticking a thumb in his mouth and
preparing to sleep again, satisfied with an explanation, even
though its significance was beyond him.

A few moments later, when Osmond appeared in the doorway,
the two boys leaped up and ran to their father, who lifted them
bodily from the floor, both together, and hugged them, laughing in
an excess of joy, repeating the momentous news.

Verena discovered that tears were pouring down her face.
Osmond saw it, and put the boys down, coming towards her, his
children at his heels.

‘
Miss Chaceley! Why, what is the matter?’

But Verena was smiling, even while she hunted in the hidden
pocket of her gown for a handkerchief. ‘Pay no heed to me, Mr
Ruishton. It is—it is merely an expression of—of joy. I am so happy
for you!’

Osmond reached out and, leaning over her, took both her
hands in his.

‘
I cannot thank you enough, Miss Chaceley.’

‘
Oh, don’t,’ begged Verena. ‘It may seem an odd
thing to say, but I have—I have had so much
pleasure
tonight.’

She returned the pressure of his hands, and then let them
go, using the handkerchief to dry her eyes. Smiling, she added, ‘I
think we may dispense with formality after this, don’t you,
Osmond?’

Osmond laughed. ‘You are a remarkable
female—Verena.’

Felix and Miles were clinging to his legs. Detaching the
younger boy, he lifted him up into his arms again, and took the
other by the hand. It was obvious that his joy in his family was
unbounded.

‘
I can only say, Verena, that I wish you might one day know
the happiness I am experiencing tonight. Marriage is bliss, you
know. I can thoroughly recommend it.’

***

From a few feet away, Denzell watched his sister’s face as
she turned to whisper to her new husband. Lord, but Teresa was
radiant. He had thought her determined pursuit of poor Freddy to
have been for the advantage of position, but he was clearly wrong.
And Freddy himself. One only had to look at him.

Lord Rowner, receiving the murmurs of his bride
into his ear, responded with a glowing look that told its own tale.
An unexpected pang smote Denzell. This was a
love
match.
Though why it should affect him in such a way he was at a loss to
imagine. He should be happy for them. He
was
happy for
them—for Teresa. At least one Hawkeridge could look forward to a
rosy future.

He turned away on the thought, conscious that for some
little time now he had himself been something less than happy. He
was hanged if he knew why. Life had somehow become empty,
meaningless. Deuce take it, but it was a ridiculous state of
affairs. He had everything he could want, did he not? What more
could there be? Trying to shrug off the mood, he threw himself into
the business of the day.

The wedding breakfast celebrating the nuptials of the new
Lady Rowner was held, as was proper, at Tuttingham, in the home of
the lady’s parents. Hawkeridge Hall, the Baron’s seat, was an
old-fashioned edifice, erected in the days of Queen Anne before the
Palladian craze had swept the country. It was solid, but not
imposing, of good proportions, and much more comfortable to inhabit
than the windswept baronial hall that had preceded it.

The gardens, tending rather to the natural than the formal,
were admirably suited to occasions of this kind, and the guests,
having eaten and drunk of their host’s plenty, had been invited on
this warm summer day to amble the lawns, studded for the purpose
with pockets of chairs and tables for the comfort of the less
energetic.

Denzell’s duties as son of the house—attired for the
occasion in a suit that was for him unusually bright in colours of
russet brown over apricot and cream—had kept him sufficiently
occupied to set uncomfortable thoughts at bay for the moment.
Later, as he was taking a respite, enjoying the idle jocularity of
his particular friends—including Osmond who had travelled up for
the occasion—he was hailed by another young man.

‘
Hawk, old fellow! I have not seen you this age. I suppose
you have been gallivanting in London all winter.’

Turning, Denzell beheld a lad some years his junior, smart
in the blue coat with buttoned-back revers and white breeches of a
naval lieutenant. He grinned and came forward to shake
hands.

‘
And I must suppose that you, Kenrick, have been sailing the
high seas.’

‘
Alas, yes. Nothing but the sea for us Chaceleys, you
know.’

Denzell stared at him, stricken to silence. A
hollow seemed to have opened up inside him. Deuce take it, why had
he not thought of it before? Verena
Chaceley
. And here he
had a whole swarm of that name on his very
doorstep.

Pittlesthorp Place was but a mile or two away, near to
Ivingho, but so close that all the Chaceley boys had been the
neighbouring companions of his youth. So much a part of his
background were they that their Christian names—Kenrick, Fulbert
and Walter, to call but three to mind—were perhaps too familiar for
him to be recalling their family name.

Kenrick Chaceley was blinking at him. ‘What in thunder ails
you, Hawk? Look as if you had seen a ghost.’

Denzell felt almost as if he had. A need, urgent and
compelling, forced him out of his abstraction.

He grasped the young lad’s arm. ‘Kenrick, bring me to your
grandfather. I have the greatest desire to renew my acquaintance
with him.’

‘
You must, be mad,’ returned the young gentleman, standing
firm. ‘My whole desire is to keep as far away from the old tartar
as possible. If you want him, you go and find him for
yourself.’

‘
Oh, come, he’s not as bad as all that.’

‘
No, he’s worse,’ retorted Kenrick. ‘He may not bite your
nose off, but then you ain’t related to him.’

Denzell smiled over his unnatural impatience. ‘Dear boy, I
am convinced he cannot even notice you among so many.’

‘
That’s just what I rely on. I thank God I am not the
eldest, for although a naval career is not what I would have
chosen, at least it keeps me away. Poor Fulbert is obliged to
remain, just as my father is.’

Yes, and his reverend Uncle Hartley had the Pittlesthorp
living, Denzell remembered, so that his cousin Walter must be much
under old man Chaceley’s eye. There were several females, too, were
there not? They were all in attendance at the wedding, even the
Chaceley sisters, who had moved away on their marriages, returning
with their families to make an appearance here.

‘
Lord, yes, I had not thought,’ he said aloud. ‘Your house
must be pretty full at this present.’

‘
Bursting at the seams,’ said Kenrick. ‘Which is all to the
good. Grandpapa has too many distractions to be concerning himself
over one insignificant naval officer.’ He tapped his own chest.
‘Me.’

Denzell glanced around them, saw with satisfaction that his
friends were all deep in discussion, and pulled Kenrick apart,
obliging him to walk as he said in an urgent under-voice, ‘I have
something I particularly wish to ask you.’

‘
What?’ demanded Kenrick, intrigued.

‘
Have you any relatives down Sussex way?’

‘
Not that I know of. Why?’

‘
Are you sure?’ urged Denzell, ignoring the
question.

‘
Sure? No! How in thunder should I know all the ins and outs
of the family? My grandfather was one of five, and I can’t account
for the half of them.’

‘
Oh,’ said Denzell, dashed. ‘Damnation. Then it might go
years back, and you would not know of it.’

‘
Talking in riddles, old fellow. I wish you’d tell me what’s
in your mind.’

Denzell suddenly wondered why he was doing this.
If Verena Chaceley had wanted him to investigate the ramifications
of her family, no doubt she would have asked him to do so. Yes,
when the moon turned to green cheese. What the devil was he
doing?

He shook his head. ‘It does not matter. I met someone—but
it is not important.’

Kenrick’s interest was not so readily depressed,
however.

‘
What, you mean you have met a Chaceley? In
Sussex?’

‘
No, in Tunbridge Wells, but—’

‘
Tunbridge Wells? Lord, Hawk, what in thunder took you to a
tumbledown rack of a place like that?’

Denzell grinned. ‘I know. Though it is quite a thriving
community these days, you must realise—if aged on the whole. My
friend Osmond Ruishton lives there.’

‘
He must be mad.’

‘
Probably.’

Kenrick slapped his shoulder. ‘Tell you what, Hawk. We’ll
ask my father. Knows the family tree inside out, does my father.
Ten to one, though, there ain’t no Chaceley in Tunbridge
Wells.’

But Bevis Chaceley, when accosted by his son, could not
enlighten them. Could not, or would not? Denzell wondered, the
urgency returning despite himself. Had there not been even a slight
reaction from the fellow?

Kenrick’s father was a handsome man of middle years,
running a little to the portly, but still able to cut a fine figure
in a suit of green-toned ditto. He was a calm personage, with a
pleasant manner and an easy temperament. Although Denzell knew
Bevis Chaceley for a stern parent, he was not as rigid in his views
as old man Chaceley.

‘
Sussex!’ he exclaimed, as if there was meaning in
it.

Something leapt in Denzell’s chest. He knew
something.

But then the gentleman frowned a little, pursing up his
lips. ‘What part of Sussex?’

‘
A place called Fittleworth,’ Denzell answered, an odd
sensation inside him, as of a hunger—for information.

Bevis shook his head. ‘I think not. It may be some other
family.’ He smiled. ‘We are not the only Chaceleys to bear the
name, my boy.’

Denzell scarcely had time to register the disappointment
that attacked him before a new voice interrupted them.

‘
Ha, young Hawkeridge!’

It was a gruff voice, proceeding from an elderly gentleman,
poker stiff, with the figure of a much younger man, but a defiant
show of his own grizzled head and well-cut clothing in keeping with
the times. Armed with a cane, which he leaned on but slightly, he
walked slowly towards them, at his heels two matronly ladies in
whom Denzell recognised Mrs Esther Chaceley, wife to Bevis, the
heir, and Mrs Camilla Chaceley, the Reverend Hartley’s
helpmeet.

Recovering his company face, Denzell greeted them all with
a mixture of deference and bonhomie, which sat well with the
ladies, at least. It did not appear to do him any harm in old Mr
Chaceley’s eyes, either. The patriarch seemed well pleased, and the
reason was soon established.

‘
Mean to congratulate your mother, boy. She’s done excellent
well by her girl, excellent well. Rowner, eh? It’s a good match.
Very good match, indeed. Well done.’

Denzell took the hand held out to him, and found himself
the recipient of a hearty, and surprisingly strong,
handshake.

‘
I thank you, sir, and have no hesitation in accepting your
words of praise to myself. Lord Rowner is a close friend of mine,
and if there has been any matchmaking, I must take all credit, for
Teresa met him through me.’

A bark of laughter from the old man rewarded him, and the
ladies tittered.

‘
For shame, Denzell,’ scolded Mrs Esther Chaceley, closing
her fan and rapping his hand. ‘You will not pretend that it is not
your mama who has brought him up to scratch.’

‘
No, I will not, ma’am,’ agreed Denzell. ‘The truth is that
it is Teresa herself who brought poor Freddy up to scratch, without
any assistance from anyone else.’

The gentlemen hugely enjoyed what they took to be a joke,
while the ladies shrieked and scolded, Mrs Camilla Chaceley going
on to tease Denzell that his turn must be next. An idea that, for
some reason, clouded Denzell’s amusement. He maintained a cool
front, however.