Joan Smith (3 page)

“Had a little set-to. She accused me of running wild, when I have been swotting up my Latin and watching my blunt like a regular skint. Some old crone told her about a little imbroglio Nick and I were involved in,” he added obliquely. Mrs. Harrington remonstrated with him, but he made little of it.

Trudie, eager to learn the nature of this affair, waited her chance. When her aunt went to fetch wine, she put the question to him, and he opened his budget.

“A couple of girls we have been seeing. Nothing wrong in it. We only took them to the masquerade at the Pantheon, and out to Richmond Park one afternoon. Fannie did hit me up for a couple of quid the second time, but when she started hinting for an apartment and a fur wrap, I dropped her like a live coal. I can’t afford a mistress at the moment.”

“Can you afford a hotel?” Trudie asked.

“Lord, no! I’m putting up with Nick, only for a few days till Mama cools down.”

This interesting anecdote was interrupted when Mrs. Harrington returned with the wine. There followed a lengthy discussion about Firebird and related equine matters. It was close to an hour later when Lord Clappet took his leave to meet Nick at the Daffy Club. Nick was a member of the Fancy as well as a horseman. He had shares in a boxer.

“I’ll drop in to say good-bye before we leave tomorrow, and see if you have any messages for Norman,” Clappet said.

“Auntie has hemmed some new cravats and handkerchiefs,” Trudie mentioned.

“Be happy to deliver his linens for you,” he told her, placing his curled beaver on his head with great attention to its position and slant.

Miss Barten opened the door for him. At the foot of the stairs, Mrs. Rolfe’s ear was to the door, and her eyes on her watch, to time the caller’s visit. One hour, as regular as clockwork. It struck her as the optimum time for the business the occupants abovestairs were running. If a decent Christian were obliged to share a domicile with such females, it was more than
she
knew!

“Don’t mention this to anyone, will you, Trudie?” Clappet called back over his shoulder. “Mama would ring a peal over me if she knew.”

“I think you should tell her,” the brazen hussy advised.

Mrs. Rolfe put a shawl over her shoulders and trotted down to speak to Mr. Evans as soon as young Clappet had entered his carriage. Either those females went, or she and the rest of the decent tenants would!

An evening at the Daffy Club celebrating in advance the winning of the Triple Crown did not leave Lord Clappet and Sir Charles in the very best form for their trip to Brighton the next morning. It was ten o’clock before they were finished breakfast.

“Lord Luten to see his nephew,” the butler informed them, causing some joy to the nephew, for in the normal way Luten seldom sought out his company.

“Show him right in, my good fellow,” Clappet ordered.

But Luten had already found his own way to the breakfast parlor. “Peter, Nick,” he said, his sharp eyes taking in the ravages of their late night—the pallor of the cheeks, the dark circles under the eyes, and the traces of red around the rims.

Sir Charles Nicolson was pale and slight to begin with. He was an overly elegant young buck with a collar rising up nearly to reach the blond curls at his ears. He
was afflicted with a pair of angelic dimples. These, combined with his long-lashed eyes, gave him a dainty air that he was at pains to lessen, and upon occasion to refute by an outright challenge. He modestly called himself the third-best shot in London. He could culp a wafer without even taking careful aim. It was well known in his circle that he was eager to try his luck on a live, human target.

“Have a seat, Uncle,” Peter said. “Have you breakfasted yet?”

“Several hours ago,” Luten answered, pulling back a chair to sit at an angle from the table. Staring hard at Clappet, he asked, “I take it you had a late night?”

“We had a couple of wets at the Daffy Club,” Peter admitted.

“You hold your liquor ill, if a couple of wets have kept you in bed till this hour and turned you into a ghost besides. What other charms did the evening hold for you?” Luten looked for signs of evasiveness but saw only petulance.

Peter knew what the call was about, knew he would have to go home soon, but with a visit to Brighton and thence on to Newmarket pending, about which he wished to maintain total secrecy from his mother and uncle, he wasn’t about to knuckle under yet. “I suppose Mama sent you?” he asked, avoiding the question.

“I’ve had a word with her, yes.” Luten flicked a glance to Nicolson, who was well-bred and obliging enough to take the hint and leave them alone. “You see the inconvenience of battening yourself on friends—any privacy is impossible,” he said. “When a gentleman takes into his head to leave the parental roof, he must hire quarters or be prepared to hear himself described as a barnacle.” This advice was given in the hope of leading Peter back to Berkeley Square. “I should think you’d have more pride than to squeeze yourself into this cubicle on top of Nick.”

“I’m not going home yet, Uncle. Mama must realize I am a man, not a boy in short coats.”

“The fault is not entirely your own. Your mother is difficult to live with, but the best way for her to realize you are now a man is to behave like one.”

“Dash it, I try to behave like one! None of the other fellows are clocked in and out of their home as though they were young ladies. I haven’t done anything wrong. For her to be cutting up stiff over
...
” He stopped, wondering whether he was not revealing more than he need.

“I know all about it,” Luten said bluntly. “You want to be careful with women of that sort, Peter.” Peter’s sulking expression made him look like a very child.

“I only saw her a couple of times.”

“Sure you didn’t see her last night? You look burnt to the socket.”

“We stayed late at the Daffy Club. You know women are not allowed there.”

“There is no serious involvement with the woman, then?”

“Good God, no! She is nothing to me. She’s a friend of a friend of Nick’s, that’s all. We only had a couple of outings.”

“An older woman can accomplish a good deal on a couple of outings.”

“She’s not old,” Peter corrected hastily. “She’s very young and pretty.”

“Say experienced, then. A divorcee, is she?”

“Certainly not! At least she didn’t say so. I don’t think it at all likely,” he added, but with some doubt creeping in.

“I understood her door plate indicated it.”

“I didn’t notice it if it did.”

“What has she cost you thus far? Is it her inroads on your purse that have reduced you to billeting yourself on Nick?”

“I’ve only given her a couple of guineas. Truth to tell, she was hinting pretty strong for more—wanted me to set her up permanently, but I am not such a flat as that.”

“I am vastly relieved to hear it. Those women make a job of catching a well-oiled youngst—young gentleman like you and plucking him clean. You have an ample allowance to enjoy yourself, but not to establish a bird of paradise and shower her with expensive jewels. Your trust was set up carefully to see you are not rooked. When you’re older, you will have a better idea how to go on. For the present, then, may I assure your mother this affair is over?”

“Lord, I would not call it an affair!” Peter objected, though he was somewhat gratified to hear it described so. Luten himself had enjoyed numerous affairs.

“But would you call it finished—over?” Luten persisted.

“I have no intention of ever seeing her again,” Peter said firmly.

“Good, then you’ll be going home. Your mother is considerably worried.”

“Oh, as to that
...
” Peter said vaguely.

Luten fixed him with a derogatory eye. “Yes, barnacle?”

“I ain’t sponging on Nick! The fact is, Nick is going to Newmarket and I am tagging along with him.” Peter purposely avoided mentioning Brighton, lest Luten take the idea to go with him; it was close to London.

“The races are not for several weeks yet.”

“We know a fellow has some fillies training up, and we are going to have a look around. Well, the Season ain’t open yet here, in any case, and it is an excellent chance for a bit of a holiday.”

Sir Charles was known to be deeply interested in the turf. This sounded not only a reasonable destination but one that would keep Peter out of mischief and away from the petticoats.

“I expect I’ll be going to Danebury myself before long, to speak to my trainer,” Luten mentioned.

This did not throw Clappet into a conniption, as the famous Danebury training camp was not where his friend Norman had mentioned stabling and training True Lady nor where he planned to put his own Firebird. The harsh Danebury method of riding its racers into the ground was not what appealed to these young, tender-hearted amateurs of the sport.

“Perhaps I’ll see you there, then,” Peter
answered with tolerable ease.

“We’ll likely bump into each other. When are you leaving?”

“Right away—this morning.”

“It would set your mother’s mind at rest if you visited her before going,” Luten suggested.

“You know she hates anything to do with racing, Uncle. She even rips up at
you,
and you have won the Oaks twice. I should think she’d be proud of you, instead of calling you a gambling fool.”

“As long as you’re going as an onlooker and not taking the plunge yourself, I doubt she’ll say much against it,” Luten said. He reached for the coffeepot as he spoke, and thus missed the stricken, guilty look that flashed across his nephew’s face.

“I suppose it can do no harm to drop by,” Peter said reluctantly. “I’ll need my topboots and buckskins, and want to get more linen, but I won’t let her talk me out of it.”

“Stand up to her,” Luten advised carelessly, thinking it was time Maggie realized she would soon have a grown man on her hands,

“I will.”

Sir Charles, hovering impatiently at the doorway, was invited to join them once the lecture was over. Luten was soon being pestered so hard for his advice on tying cravats, harnessing up teams, beating the odds at the races, and other matters presumably within a Corinthian’s ken that he rose and took a polite departure.

“What had Luten to say?” Nick asked eagerly as soon as he was alone with Peter.

Clappet had no intention of revealing the whole of the lecture. He answered, “Oh, Luten thinks I ought to hire myself a set of rooms instead of squeezing in here with you. That’s all.”

Sir Charles, fearing a prolonged squeezing, took his theme up with great vigor. “I was never so happy as when I got my own space.”

“Yes, well there’s no point going to such expense now, when we plan to spend time at Newmarket.”

“Thing is, after the races are over, we’ll be coming back to London, and the same old story will start up again. Your Mama will be timing you in and out. None of the fellows will feel free to drop in. And rooms are impossible to come by once the Season is started. I'll tell you who has a dandy little place he wants to sublet is Ankerson. It comes furnished and all—you might pick it up for an old song.”

This plan found some favor with Peter, but he didn’t want to spend his blunt on anything but Firebird, and gave some indication of this.

“You had two-fifty budgeted for Firebird. Got her for two hundred. You could take Ankerson’s place for the difference.”

‘‘For the whole Season? Where the devil is it, in the country?”

“Not at all. It’s on the corner of Poland Street, just south of Oxford. It’ll be gone in two minutes, Peter. You’d better pick it up before we go.”

“Well, I’ll have a look at least,” Peter agreed.

The place, though small and modest, was set up “dashed conveniently,” just as Nick had described it. The glory of at last shaking free of his mother was an even stronger inducement, and with Nick’s warning ringing in his ears that it would be picked up in two minutes, Lord Clappet laid down his blunt and became a paying tenant for the Season.

While this transaction was going forth, Luten drove to Berkeley Square to set his sister’s mind at ease. “Could you not have talked him out of Newmarket?” Maggie asked.

“It’s best to put a hundred miles between him and the female,” Luten decreed.

“Yes, but if he is bitten with the racing bug while he is there, it is hardly better than the other. It is all Nicolson’s fault. He is the one turning Peter’s head in this direction
.
”

“Peter could be worse occupied. I’ll soon be going up that way myself, and will keep an eye on him. At least there was no serious attachment to the woman Mrs. Rolfe spoke of. It was a passing fancy—a few days’ flirtation. He had the sense to cry off when she turned grasping.”

“I don’t see why children must take so long to grow up,” she complained, but was soon complaining of the speed with which Peter had changed from a beautiful, docile child to a headstrong young man. Her whining did much to hasten Lord Luten from her saloon and into the sunlight.

It was nearing noon the next day before Mrs. Rolfe conveyed to Lady Clappet the news of her son’s two recent visits to Mrs. Harrington. Her voice throbbed with sympathy and her eyes gleamed with delight as she reenacted the melodrama: Clappet’s desire for secrecy and the hussy’s insistence that he should tell his mother all. The morning’s visit had new plot thickenings to conjure over.

Scarcely a minute after the dame had left the door of Berkeley Square, a hastily scribbled, tear-stained epistle was being trotted around to Luten’s doorway in Belgrave Square. As he was not home, however, several more hours of weeping occupied the widow before her brother stood before her, elegantly attired in those black vestments considered suitable for a night on the town.

“What is it now?” he asked testily. “I wish you would find yourself a new husband and surrogate father for Peter. I am becoming demmed tired of these summonses, Maggie.”

“It has happened!” she wailed, dissolving into a fresh burst of tears on the hard sofa.