My Dear Jenny (12 page)

“Never mind Feabers, Artie. He never thought much of me,
either. Wait until Miss Emily and I are wed, then see what a change there’ll
be.”

“I’ll wait to see it.” Reagham answered, unconvinced. “I don’t
like this at all, cousin. D’you realize I could be arrested for what I just
did?”

“Artie, d’you want the money I owe you or no?”

“Damme, Adrian, do you think I’d play this confounded rig if
I didn’t? What a ninnyhammer of a chit, sitting there, agape and a-sighing and
almost purring at me by the time I’d done. You think she feels ill about you?
Well, either she thought I was from someone else, or she’s forgiven you your
excesses by way of the tankard at that place you were stuck in.” Mr. Reagham
eyed his companion with interest. “Prime little bit of a thing, too, if you
like ’em pretty and a little over-dainty. She’ll run to fat, you know.”

“As long as she runs to her father’s money,” Ratherscombe
replied simply.

“And are you so sure that they’ll pay over her dowry no
matter who it is she weds?”

“The way I see it, Artie: If you were a fond parent, and
your only child ran off and married a penniless fellow, and the two had not a
farthing to bless themselves with, wouldn’t you give the child her due just to
keep her from the cold?”

“I’d drown the wench first,” Reagham said simply.

“Artie, that’s hardly the attitude.”

“Whatever the attitude is, she expects to see you on Sunday
morning by the Serpentine, at eight o’clock.”

“Eight? In the morning? B’gad, Artie, I can’t meet anyone at
that hour—it’s positively indecent.”

“No help for it, Adrian.” Reagham said innocently. “The chit
herself specified the hour. Said it was safest.”

“Well, perhaps it is. The game’s worth it, I suppose.”

“Adrian, you ain’t taken with her yourself, are you?”
Reagham asked with suspicion.

“She’ll do well enough, ain’t I said so? But she’s mighty
well endowed, and you ain’t the only one I owe to, Artie. And she owes
me
for the embarrassment I suffered at the Green Falconer, and for the facer that
black-browed braggart planted me.” Ratherscombe’s look changed from well-bred
avarice to positive malevolence. “I wonder who it is she’s pining for, if it
ain’t me?”

“Damned if I know. Look, Adrian, you’ve nothing you can
advance me for this afternoon’s work, have you?”

“Leave off, Artie. There won’t be nothing until I have my
hands on Emmy’s money. And Emmy,” he added, with a smile.

Reagham, a realist at the worst of times, shrugged and
loosed his cousin’s sleeve. “Well enough, come round and tell me how your
marriage goes when you’re a husband. With the four hundred you owe me.”

Ratherscombe nodded civilly and walked away, his mind full
of plots and speculation, leaving his cousin to make his own way back to his
lodgings, not even a farthing richer than he had begun that morning.

o0o

Emily’s behavior for the next few days was baffling both to
Lady Graybarr and to Jenny. Where, following the opera, she had been
unnaturally subdued and mannerly, she was now animated almost to the point of
hysteria, but incapable, it seemed, of leaving the house. “Almost as if she
were expecting someone or something,” Jenny hazarded. Even on those afternoons
when Peter Teverley appeared, Emily showed no signs of her excitement abating.
She was playful and pretty in her manners, but seemed somehow preoccupied. When
Peter Teverley and Domenic appeared one afternoon and requested the company of
Miss Prydd and Miss Pellering for a drive to Richmond, Emily amazed
everyone-including herself-by pleading fatigue and suggesting that they enlist
Mirabelle Temple, who was present, to go along with them. Jenny on her part
felt that there was some impropriety in her going if Emily did not. But then
Mirabelle Temple added her pleas to Domenic’s. And Peter Teverley looked at
Jenny with his peculiar half-amused, half-challenging stare and at last Jenny
assented to the plan.

“Although I’m still not convinced that I should go,” she
murmured as Teverley wheeled westward toward Richmond.

“My dear Prydd—ah—Jenny. You’ve been released of
your charge for the afternoon! Enjoy it!” Teverley suggested enthusiastically. “And
if Dom can keep that pretty widgeon properly away from me”—he nodded at
Mirabelle, who chattered noisily to Dom and was unaware that she had become a
topic of conversation among her fellows— “I shall endeavor to enjoy my
holiday as well.”

“What are you holidaying from?” Jenny asked.

“You think to accuse me of frittering my time away as
uselessly as any sprig of fashion, don’t you, my dear?” Teverley smiled down at
her. “My entire stay in London is in the nature of a holiday for me, especially
since I received word from India yesterday of indications that I may well have
to return before the year is out. And I’ve been closeted here with lawyers and
clerks since that time, trying to straighten out some things I left to others
to do here—and should not have done.”

Jenny disregarded the sinking feeling this news engendered
in her. “So you are putting your affairs here back in order so that you will be
free to return, is that it?”

“If I must,” Teverley said briefly.

“You must be pleased with the chance to return to India,
surely?” she asked.

“My dear Prydd—damn it!—Jenny. I beg your
pardon. No, having been back in my own country for a mere four months, I find
that I had missed her, and don’t particularly care to go traveling just now. It
may prove unnecessary, and in any case, I should not have to leave here before
the winter begins.”

“But sailing in the winter—isn’t that dangerous?”
Quick concern filled her voice.

Teverley looked a little gratified by this show of feeling,
but said only: “Sailing at any time, with our waters threatened by Bonaparte’s
adherents and the various pirates and idiots who manage the seas these days, is
never particularly safe, ma’am. I shall be all right, I’m sure.”

“Pirates, perhaps. Bonaparte and his company, certainly. But
idiots?”

“Idiots one finds everywhere, even on the high seas, my dear
Prydd—”

“Jenny,” she corrected automatically. “Oh, heavens, now you
have me doing that!”

“Delightful,” Teverley assured her. “I thought I would
prevail upon you at last. After all, we are almost family by this time.” He
eased his carriage skillfully to the side of the road to let a mail coach,
inexpertly driven by a very foxed young man, tremble past at appalling speed.
He did not elaborate on his last comment, but continued, nodding over his
shoulder at the retreating mail coach. “Idiots, as I said, one finds
everywhere, and they are the greatest danger there is—to themselves and
everyone else.”

“Indeed.” Jenny swallowed.

For a few minutes the only sound came from Mirabelle Temple,
chattering at a bemused Dom.

“Have I offended you?” Teverley asked at last.

“No, certainly not.” Jenny smiled up at him. “I only wonder—”

“Yes?”

“What has brought you to such a mood, where you must inveigh
against the idiots of the world. Not that you have not ample cause, I suppose,
but you do seem a bit overwrought.”

“If I were to explain it to you, you would call me the worst
bore you had ever encountered, as well as shockingly uncivil to worry you with
my frustrations.”

“If I have asked the question, I can hardly accuse you of
prosing on unprovoked. But if you would rather not speak of it—-explain
it, indeed, for I’ve no notion of business, as you may imagine—then that
is certainly your privilege.”

“You make me sound the worst prig in history,” Teverley
protested. “I simply had thought you would not be interested.”

“Mr. Teverley.” He looked down at her. “I am interested.
Particularly if it means that I do not have to listen, for the fourth time, to
Miss Temple’s recitation of the gowns her mamma has ordered for her this week.”

Thus Peter Teverley found himself engaged to explain a
portion of his business dealings to Miss Prydd as the carriage wheeled toward
Richmond, and when they had arrived, she found that she had a fair notion of
the problem he was confronting. In between dutifully made remarks admiring the
ducks and the vistas, they continued their discussion. To Teverley’s surprise,
Jenny not only listened attentively and with some intelligence, but made, now
and then, such comments and suggestions as indicated that she was not only
interested but rather good at solving such problems. Jenny, on her part, was
surprised to find that Teverley was quite ready to accept her criticisms and
her ideas, or at least to argue with her about them until he saw the point of
her comment.

“But I had no notion to tell you how to run your business,”
she protested at one point.

“Nor have I any notion of allowing you to do so,” he
agreed.-”But if you make an intelligent suggestion, I would be a fool to refuse
to listen to it, wouldn’t I?”

“All I said was from a little curiosity and a bit of common sense.”

“Which is more than a good number of your sex—or any
of my own—allow themselves to exhibit.” Teverley nodded toward Mirabelle,
who still rattled on behind them. “My dear Prydd, common sense is not
particularly common among either sex, especially among the people of fashion.”

“But that is where you have it, sir. I am not a member of
the
ton
, despite Emily’s attempts to make me appear so. A plain,
sensible countrywoman. If William had lived to be a clergyman, what a clergyman’s
housekeeper I should have made!”

“William?” Teverley steered her away from the green river
toward the carriage. “It is time, I suppose, that we began to return to town. I
am sure you have engagements, as Miss Temple must as well.” He paused. “Who was
William?” He motioned for Domenic and Miss Temple to join them at the carriage.

“My brother. I mentioned him to you once before, I think—he
died many years ago, and while I was fond of him—indeed, he was my
favorite in the family—he could also be the most horrendous tease.”

“In which case, he might have made a rather lamentable
clergyman.” Teverley tossed her neatly into the carriage.

“Yes, perhaps, but I would have made the most splendid housekeeper for him! I would have
had an establishment, and my concerns, and church work, perhaps some books and
music, if he had a good living, and—of course, if he had married, I
should have ended with my Aunt Winchell all the same.”

“And your Aunt Winchell is the lady, I collect, with whom
you make your home, when you are not rescuing dim-witted damsels from
elopements.”

“I was not the hero on that occasion,” Jenny demurred.

“No, I was, and have been made to pay for it ever since.
Look you, Prydd my dear, have you any notion of how I can shift Miss Pellering’s
tendre
for me to a worthier candidate? Domenic, perhaps?”

“I wish I did, sir. No matter what I say, or her mother, or
even you—unless you were to be unconscionably rude to her, and even then,
I am not sure that that would make an impression upon her!—Well, I can
only suggest that you ignore it and put up with it,” Jenny ran on, horrified by
the fact that she couldn’t really stop. If she did, she would only ask him why
he made such frequent visits to the Graybarrs’ house if he so disliked Emily’s
adoration. “Until she finds a new—”

“Who is this?” Miss Temple broke in from the rear seat,
where she and Domenic had broken off their conversation and were listening with
no little interest to that of Teverley and Miss Prydd.

“Someone with whom I have dealt business,” Teverley said
calmly, strongly suppressing the urge to box the girl’s ears. “I have been
explaining my business to Miss Prydd, who has been kind enough to make some
very sound suggestions, which I mean to consider closely.” He smiled again at
Jenny. “I intend it, you know,” he continued, when Mirabelle and Domenic had
returned to their own conversation. “Especially as regards your comments about
the overseers’ families on the plantation.”

“Only a little common sense.” Jenny answered, a little
overwhelmed. “The sort of answer we might come up with in my church work.”

“What a pity you are not a businesswoman, Prydd my dear. You’re
wasted on your aunt’s nursery and your curate’s problems.” He clucked at the
horses impatiently.

As they returned to London they spoke of more general
things, so that Domenic and Miss Temple were able to join in. When at last they
had returned to the Graybarrs’ house, Jenny was able to assure her hosts that
she had rarely enjoyed a holiday more, and blushed only slightly when Teverley
bowed over her hand and assured her that he had enjoyed his holiday greatly as
well.

She found Emily waiting inside, looking as if she rather
regretted her refusal, but still in good spirits. “No one called while you were
gone, but I had a nice rest and made a collar for my old blue morning gown. Did
you have a good drive?”

“Why, yes.” Jenny smiled. “I had a lovely drive. We spent
most of the time discussing Mr. Teverley’s business.”

Emily’s nose wrinkled in distress. “I cannot imagine
anything worse! I certainly can’t imagine Mirabelle Temple speaking of such
things.”

“Oh, no,” Jenny assured her. “She and Dom found a great deal
to talk about all alone, and it was Teverley and I who spoke of business.”

Emily’s look was bewildered now, but Jenny was too
preoccupied with her own thoughts to notice. “I had better dress now, hadn’t I?”
she asked absently. “I’ll be back to talk with you in a bit, my dear.” And she
made her escape to her own room. Jenny tried very hard to recall the rules she
had made for herself, and the obvious facts concerning her situation, primary
among them the fact that there was no point in setting any importance on the
attentions of Peter Teverley. It had been, for her, a delightful afternoon, but
Jenny knew that it would not be wise to rely on the pleasure of Mr. Teverley’s
abrasive but enormously attractive presence. She began to dress for dinner,
resolving to give it no more thought.