Fragile Mask (35 page)

The two protagonists were still glaring. Verena knew she
was manifestly in the wrong. She ought to apologise. But the words
refused to be uttered.

‘
Verena!’ pleaded Mrs Peverill again.

But quite suddenly, the old man threw back his head and
uttered a shout of laughter. ‘By God, you’re a plucky little piece!
Here’s my hand, girl. I’m proud to call you
granddaughter.’

Verena sighed out her resentment, and accepted the
proffered hand, her stiffness melting away. She smiled.

‘
Indeed I do beg your pardon, sir.’

‘
Well, don’t spoil it, girl,’ protested her grandfather.
‘Only female in the family who ever dared stand up to
me.’

‘
It seems,’ put in Bevis, his amusement plain to see, ‘that
your granddaughter is practised in standing up to
authority.’

‘
I have had to fend for myself, perhaps,’ Verena said,
wondering how much he knew. ‘But I should not have spoken so. Let
my excuse be that I have endured a morning of dreadful
anxiety.’

‘
Oh, my poor love,’ exclaimed Mrs Peverill.

‘
I thought you had gone away with Nathaniel and Adam,’
Verena uttered, with a resurgence of her earlier fears. ‘He has
gone, you know.’

Mrs Peverill took her hands. ‘Yes, Betsey told me. My
dearest, I knew he would, for I sent to him last night after we
talked.’

Verena blinked. ‘You wrote to him?’

Her mother nodded. ‘I told him I would not come home, not
for fear of what he might do, but because I could no longer bear to
distress you with the thought of my going.’

Tears started to Verena’s eyes and her mother embraced
her.

Denzell, watching the two visitors, thought Bevis Chaceley
looked to be quite as affected as he was himself. But the old man
looked on, apparently unmoved, yet with a look of interest as if he
was still summing up his granddaughter.

‘
If only I had known,’ Verena said huskily, when they
separated again. ‘I went to the New Inn to find you.’

‘
I should have left you a message by Betsey. I am so sorry,
dearest, but you see, when your grandfather’s note arrived, asking
me to go and visit him at the Angel—that is where your grandfather
is putting up, you must know—I was so shocked that I could not
think straight.’

‘
You see, my dear,’ explained Bevis, ‘if it transpired that
you were my brother’s daughter, it seemed incumbent upon us to
discover under what circumstances you had found yourselves obliged
to come to Tunbridge Wells thus alone.’

Verena looked towards Denzell, frowning. ‘What did you tell
them?’

‘
That you and your mother were living in lodgings together,’
he answered. ‘Also that there was some mystery attached to your
presence, and that you, my princess, were quite clearly in some
fear and distress—upon what account, of course, I was unable to
say.’

Mrs Peverill’s ears pricked up at his use of this
suggestive form of address, and she looked across at Denzell with
an expression that seemed to indicate she had only just taken in
his presence, and was beginning to realise its implications. A
gleam of amusement lit his eyes, but his attention was claimed by
Verena.

‘
But why did you say anything at all?’ she demanded, unsure
as yet if she was glad or sorry he had done so.

He met the uncertainty in her gaze, and admitted frankly,
‘Because I was intrigued—or so I believed then. Yet only at my
sister’s wedding did I recall I had neighbours who bore the same
name as you.’

‘
Neighbours!’

‘
My father’s estates are within a few miles of Mr
Chaceley’s. I know almost all your relatives, I believe.’ He
grinned. ‘You don’t know it, but you have numerous uncles and aunts
and cousins.’

‘
Have I?’

‘
Indeed you have, my dear,’ broke in Bevis Chaceley, ‘and
you shall meet them all.’

A frown came into her face. ‘I don’t know that, sir.’ She
turned to her grandfather. ‘Why have you come?’

Mrs Peverill bustled in again, seizing her daughter’s
hands. ‘That is just what I have been dying to tell you, my love.
Come, why do we not all make ourselves comfortable? Betsey will
bring wine, and—’

It was some moments before the company had settled
themselves, turning the armchairs inwards so that they might all
face each other. Mrs Peverill, whispering in her daughter’s ear her
satisfaction that she should luckily have chosen to don her lilac
chemise gown today, settled with Verena at her side on the
day-bed.

The two older gentlemen occupied the armchairs, and
Denzell, having first gone as he was requested to ask the maid for
refreshments, took up a position on a straight-backed chair
opposite the day-bed at the other side of the fireplace, from where
he could watch Verena’s wondering features as the tale
unfolded.

It seemed that Mr Whicham, Verena’s maternal grandfather,
had written to inform old man Chaceley of the existence of his new
granddaughter after Verena’s birth.

‘
He had the audacity to add—all the same, these lawyers—the
exact terms of his will, with the purpose of letting me understand,
I don’t doubt, that he would provide for the chit without any
assistance from me. It was a stiff letter your father wrote me,’ he
said, turning his fierce gaze upon Mrs Peverill, ‘and stiffly
proud. Don’t mind telling you I was infuriated by it. Pleased, too,
at the same time. Relieved me of the necessity of worrying about
the girl.’

‘
Naturally you need not have concerned yourself, sir,’ put
in Mrs Peverill, ‘once my papa had informed you I was remarried,
for he told me he had done so.’

‘
He had, and damned impertinent I thought him! What the
deuce had it to do with me?’

‘
It was, however, another matter,’ put in Bevis, taking up
the tale, ‘when we discovered that you, my dear Verena, were no
longer sheltered under your stepfather’s roof.’

‘
Sheltered!’ uttered Verena involuntarily.

Reassurance entered Bevis Chaceley’s handsome countenance.
‘We know all about it, my dear. Your mama has been very
frank.’

‘
You need not look reproachful,’ barked her grandfather.
‘Your mother had no choice, for I demanded to know why she had left
the protection of her husband.’

Mrs Peverill had averted her gaze, looking shamefaced.
Verena put an arm about her, and she groped for her daughter’s free
hand, holding it rather tightly. Denzell saw Bevis nod with
approval.

‘
That’s the way,’ he encouraged her. ‘Your poor mama has
given us the full sum of it. How you helped her to escape, and
brought her here in secret, using your own means to do so. I’ve
never heard of such selflessness. Dashed if you aren’t a little
heroine, Verena!’

‘
I am nothing of the kind,’ Verena said. ‘I have been all
too long a coward. I should have killed him long ago!’

There was an outcry at this from both Bevis and Mrs
Peverill. But Denzell, watching old man Chaceley, saw a light in
the aged eyes that he had never thought to see. He belonged to a
bloodier age than this, when a man might have been called to
account for such doings as Nathaniel Peverill had been engaged in.
It was plain that to Chaceley, Verena’s words evoked a spirit that
spoke to his depths. Perhaps it even reminded him of his dead son,
for Denzell could swear there was a shade of grief lurking in the
iron gaze.

Here was the source of Verena’s strength of will. That
incredible iron control that had upheld her through the years of
pain and dread. Iron that had so nearly shielded her heart from the
penetration of his own deep feelings. For it was pierced. He could
not doubt it now. Only, would Verena admit it?

The remembrance of the barrier that kept her from him made
him glance from the Chaceley men to Mrs Peverill and back again. By
George, was this deliverance? Had they come with something more
than good intentions—those dictated by old man Chaceley’s
conscience, that was clear.

As if she read his mind, Mrs Peverill answered the question
at that precise moment.

‘
Never mind all that now, my dearest,’ she was saying, a
flush of excitement entering her cheeks. ‘We have not yet told you
the best. Your grandfather has offered us a refuge.’

Verena stared at her. ‘What?’ she uttered
faintly.

‘
Yes, my dear child,’ said Bevis Chaceley, leaning towards
her. ‘You must not believe your grandfather to be all stone, you
know. As soon as I told him what I had heard, he resolved to bring
you home to Pittlesthorp—and your mama, too—should circumstances
turn out in such a way that this might be desirable.’

‘
Is it not wonderful, dearest?’ uttered her mother, radiance
in her face.

Verena blinked. It was the answer to a prayer. And yet—how
was it that the prospect did not fill her with the bubbling
enthusiasm that Mama evidently felt?

‘
You may rest easy, for I will be safe, and we
need not hide away,’ she was saying, such a note of hope and joy in
her voice as warmed Verena’s heart. ‘Adam may visit us at any time
he wishes, for Mr Chaceley has said so, and also that he will not
permit Nathaniel to bring me away. We will have a new family,
dearest, for as your uncle Bevis has pointed out, these were once
my relatives-in-law. But best of all, Verena, you will be
free.
You may seek the future you deserve, and that will make me
the happiest creature in the world.’

Verena knew that it was incumbent upon her to reciprocate
Mama’s delight. But she could not. All at once the concept of
‘freedom’ seemed altogether unreal and—empty. Yet she must say
something.

‘
Mama, you must be—why, that is—’ She faltered to a stop,
unable to think of anything beyond the dreadful notion that all she
would be left with was the most appalling sense of loss.

Her glance flicked from her uncle’s face to that of her
grandfather. Then, as she turned to bring her gaze back to her
mother, she caught sight of Denzell’s countenance and her eyes
became riveted there, as of their own volition.

There was a slight question in his face, as if he sought to
know what was passing in her mind. Quite suddenly, it was as if
they were alone in the room, and it seemed the most urgent thing in
the world that he should be consulted.

‘
Denzell, what do you think?’

He regarded her gravely. ‘I think your mama should
accept.’

‘
Mama! But—’

Denzell smiled at her, and the world suddenly seemed
brighter. ‘I have no desire to see you living with your
grandfather. I want you to live with me.’

A slow pulse began to beat in her veins. It was
as if she was hearing the idea for the very first time. She was, in
one sense. For the first time, it had become a
possibility.

She hardly noticed the stunned silence of the others in the
room, for she was scarcely aware of their presence, until old man
Chaceley erupted, pushing himself to his feet.

‘
What in thunder do you mean, sir? I’ll thank you
to keep your disrespectful suggestions to yourself, you impertinent
puppy! Do you dare to offer my granddaughter a
carte blanche?
’

Denzell rose, but there was a twinkle in his eye
as he answered. ‘You misunderstand me, sir. It is—and has been for
some days—my most ardent desire to
marry
your
granddaughter.’

‘
You young dog, Denzell,’ came from a laughing Bevis, who
had also got up. ‘Do you wish to give my father an
apoplexy?’

‘
I had no intention of expressing myself so maladroitly,’
Denzell said apologetically. ‘I was speaking to Verena, and she is
already very well aware of my suit.’

The old gentleman glared at him. ‘I ought to give you the
thrashing of your life, boy!’

‘
Pray don’t, sir,’ begged Denzell. He added seriously, ‘I
think Verena has had her fill of violent proceedings.’

He looked round as he spoke, and discovered that Verena was
looking at him oddly. There was both bewilderment and distress in
her face, and—surprise, was it? She looked as if she did not even
know that Mrs Peverill, beside her, was clutching her arm in
obvious delight. He crossed to the day-bed. Reaching down, he took
her hands and drew her to her feet.

‘
Don’t look so troubled, my princess.’

But Verena was not ready for this. She withdrew her hands,
her head in a whirl, and her heart now beating like a
drum.

‘
This is all too fast! You speak as if everything were in a
way to be settled already.’

‘
On the contrary,’ he said. ‘I am all too aware that I have
a long way to go. But it would be most improper for me to continue
wooing you now, without the consent of your guardians.’

‘
You mean my grandfather?’ Verena asked in a flurried sort
of way. ‘But what has it to do with him? He has offered us a home,
yes, but he does not control my life. Besides, I am of
age.’