Rebel Heiress (28 page)

‘With dear Mr. Rivers at your side,' concluded Miss Giddy.

‘And dearest Lady Marchmont,' added Miss Patricia.

‘Only to think of our finding Miss Jenkinson here,' said Miss Giddy.

‘But where is Lord Beaufrage?' asked Miss Patricia.

‘Where, indeed?' said Miss Jenkinson. ‘I bet him a tenner to a twilled silk that I would be here before he was up, and look, here he comes.'

And indeed, Henrietta, who had retired to the window alcove, saw Cedric leap off his horse on the carriage sweep and hurry towards the house.

Miss Jenkinson greeted him with teasing laughter and a demand for her twilled silk. ‘And I shall choose it myself, mind. I'll not be fobbed off with any of your Bond Street bargains. But what is this? Have you not told your mother?'

For almost the first time, Henrietta saw Lady Marchmont looking at a loss. ‘Told me what?' she asked.

‘Why, of our engagement,' said Miss Jenkinson. ‘Dear Lady Marchmont (as Miss Giddy would say), can it be that I am to have the happiness of breaking it to you that I am to marry your son? Cedric, you absurd creature, I told you to tell no one,
but surely you knew I did not mean your mama. Dearest Lady Marchmont, will you bear with my vulgarity and my nonsense and be a mother to me?'

Lady Marchmont surprised everyone, herself included, by bursting into tears, through which came an incoherent muttering of ‘So happy,' ‘Dear Sally — I must call you so,' and ‘Dear, dear Cedric.'

As for the Miss Giddys, their cup was running over, and they lost no time in taking their leave and hurrying off to tell the news all over town.

To Henrietta's disappointment, Rivers, too, had to leave soon in order to visit his grandparents in Wimbledon and to execute the many commissions he had undertaken to fulfil while he was in England. Henrietta longed to suggest that she give him the meeting in Wimbledon, but forbore to do so, since he did not, and spent the afternoon, instead, in devising a particularly devastating toilette for Lady Liverpool's rout. When Rivers called to escort them there he rewarded her with an admiring glance and a murmured compliment. She had the satisfaction, as they drove up in the queue of carriages to Lady Liverpool's house, of knowing that she looked almost more than her best. Happiness had given her cheeks a glow they had recently lacked, and Rivers' company was ample protection against the whims of society. For once, she found herself looking forward to an evening out with pure pleasure.

It passed all too quickly. Lord Liverpool's house was so crowded that it took all Rivers' firmness to make a way for Henrietta and her stepmother to the top of the stairs where Miss Jenkinson stood by her cousin to receive their guests. In the next room a few couples were contriving to dance their way through the crowd, and here Peveril soon claimed Lady Marchmont's hand, leaving Henrietta free to dance with Rivers. It was such happiness to meet him in the pattern of the dance, to touch his hand, and then, again, to see him returning to her through the crowded room, that she did not mind the fact that there was little opportunity for talk. There would be time enough one day. For the present, it was ample bliss just to be with him.

If there were still rumours afloat linking her with Clinton's escape, she heard nothing of them. After the months of loneliness, it was a very different matter to appear in public with Rivers at her side. He stayed with her all evening, successfully
pleading a soldier's rights to any partner who sought her for the dance. It was he who brought her cold chicken and champagne at suppertime, and he, at last, who handed her into her carriage after Lady Marchmont in the cold hours of the dawn.

She leaned down towards him. ‘Shall I see you tomorrow? Today, I should say?'

‘My love' — he still had her hand — ‘I fear not. I would not tell you before, for fear of spoiling your evening, but I must leave town at once. My despatches are ready. It is but Lord Liverpool's kindness that has given me these few hours of happiness. Now, I must go home and change my dress and it is time to start.'

‘Oh, Charles.' Her hand trembled in his.

‘Good-bye, my love.' He gathered both her hands for a moment to his breath, then bent to kiss them and, very gently, disengage himself. ‘Take care of yourself, I beg. And, Henrietta, for my sake, no more scrapes!'

She laughed down at him, forbidding tears. ‘My darling, I promise you shall come back to find me a perfect paragon, a monument of the dullest virtue. Oh, Charles' — she echoed him — ‘do you be careful too.'

But the horses were getting restless. ‘Lady Marchmont's carriage blocks the way,' cried a footman in stentorian tones. Rivers bowed low and stepped back, the coachman whipped up his horses, and Henrietta sank back, sobbing, in her corner. It was only then, so absorbed had she been in her thoughts of Charles, that she realised Lady Marchmont had, inevitably, witnessed the whole scene. She was sitting now, very silent in her own corner. For a moment, Henrietta was tempted to go to her, to break down the barrier between them, so that they might share their tears.

Lady Marchmont forestalled her. ‘A very touching scene,' she said dryly. ‘I am glad you have made your peace with Charles so easily.' But her voice betrayed her. For the first time, Henrietta, in the flush of her own happiness, realised what her stepmother must be suffering. But there was nothing to be said. In the face of Lady Marchmont's grief, she could only be silent and admit that her own sorrow was but the mask of a deep happiness. Charles was hers now. The quarrel was over. It was but to wait his return and all would be well. She slept that night, sweet and deeply, as, it seemed, she had not for weeks, and woke to believe in happiness.

To her relief, Lady Marchmont, too, contrived to present at least an appearance of content next morning. She was full of plans for Cedric's wedding, which was to take place as soon as possible.

‘In October at the very latest,' said Lady Marchmont. ‘I am sorry your father cannot be here for it, my love, but he seems fixed with the Czar for the duration of the war. Lord Liverpool was telling me only the other day that we owe the new agreement between the Allies entirely to his negotiations.' She sighed. ‘I am almost tempted to wish he had been less successful, if it means he must stay still longer from home. But as for dear Cedric's wedding, I am sure you will agree with me that it would be foolish to allow of any delay.'

Henrietta smiled and agreed. Lady Marchmont, she knew, was prey to a gnawing fear that Miss Jenkinson would change her mind. For herself, she thought this unlikely. She was very fond of Sally Jenkinson by now, and gave her credit for being admirably clear about her own intentions. If she had decided to have Cedric, she would do so, come what might. Henrietta's real anxiety was for Lady Marchmont herself. Deprived of Cedric, as well as of Rivers and her husband, how would she contrive to go on? It was a curious thing, but despite all the reasons she had to distrust and even hate her stepmother, she found herself, these days, increasingly pitying her. She seemed, somehow, so lost, so helpless. What could be the matter with her?

She was growing thin and losing her gay young looks. Peveril and Stanmore came to the house more rarely, and when she and Henrietta rode in the park, it was often alone. The young idlers about town had found themselves other interests. Lady Marchmont was being relegated, whether she liked it or not, to middle age.

Increasingly anxious about her stepmother's altered looks, Henrietta frequently debated with herself whether she ought to say anything to her about little Caroline, who was at last beginning to bloom and thrive at Miss Gilbert's school. Presumably, Mrs. Muggeridge must have reported that the child was lost, and Henrietta sometimes wondered if Lady Marchmont's drawn appearance could possibly be due to anxiety on her behalf. But how could this be so? According to Miss Muggeridge, Lady Marchmont had certainly acquiesced in if not encouraged, the diabolical project of the ‘accident'. Why, then,
should she peak and pine at the news that it had been successfully accomplished? No; Henrietta hardened her heart. What had been planned once, might be again. For the child's own sake she dared not let Lady Marchmont know of her whereabouts. She wondered, sometimes, what Cedric thought of the affair. Did he take it for granted that, having failed to enlist his assistance, she had given up all idea of trying to rescue little Caroline? Did he, too, believe that the child was genuinely lost? She did not know and did not mean to ask. Cedric, anyway, was at home so little these days that she seldom saw him. He was more deeply involved in Sally's life and was even, at her instigation, spending a good deal of time at her different properties, being instructed by her patient managers in the ways of business.

Sally told Henrietta that Cedric was making an extremely favourable impression. ‘I told you,' she said triumphantly, one hot September morning, ‘that he was only extravagant because he had nothing else to do. We shall see him a man of affairs yet. And one thing I will say for him — he has no false pride about turning businessman. I was afraid he might not like to be talking about hides in Birmingham and pottery in Manchester, but he takes it all as the greatest joke in the world. I believe he and I will do very well, Henrietta.'

Henrietta thought so too, and was able to agree with her friend wholeheartedly. There was no doubt about it, Cedric was a different creature these days. After a few painful sessions with Sally's lawyers, he had been freed for the first time from his burden of debt, and confided to Henrietta what an astonishing change he found it to be able to look the world in the eye without fear of a dun. ‘I am a reformed character, believe me.'

She did believe him and, more important still, began to think that his gratitude to his betrothed, who had handled the whole affair with the greatest tact and generosity, was developing, without his realising it himself, into a stronger feeling. ‘Truly, Henrietta, she is the best girl in the world!' He had gone on more surprisingly still. ‘And do you not think that she is developing into quite a beauty now she has got a little town bronze?'

Henrietta privately doubted whether her short and freckled friend would ever come within a mile of beauty, but was delighted to find that Cedric's affection for her was beginning to
overpower his judgment. She temporised and turned instead to praise of Sally's disposition.

The wedding was celebrated with all possible pomp. Lord Liverpool gave away the bride. Lady Marchmont, every inch the matron in plum-coloured satin and a turban, sobbed discreetly into her pocket handkerchief. Henrietta, carrying the bride's bouquet of hothouse flowers, wished Charles was there and blessed Sally in her heart for her thoughtfulness in inviting Simon. Society was her friend again these days, having lost interest in her and turned instead in full cry after Lady Caroline Lamb, who had recently, so the Miss Giddys said, attempted suicide at an evening party. Henrietta, whose indiscretions certainly paled in comparison to this, nevertheless found herself increasingly weary of her position as an engaged young lady without a fiancé. It was a very pleasant change to have Simon at her elbow, glad to dance with her, ready to hold her fan or fetch her gloves, ready even, at her request, to perform similar errands for Lady Marchmont.

He was in tearing spirits, and after the happy couple had driven off in a shower of rose petals and good wishes he seized a quiet moment in the ebb of the party to tell Henrietta why.

‘Is it not famous?' He led her to a quiet corner of the emptying room, ‘My grandfather has agreed at last. I am to leave Oxford and come to London with Matt Gurney to try our hand as clerks in his father's bank. Mr. Gurney says it is the best possible start for a businessman. We are to begin at the very bottom, and if we show promise — and work hard, of course — he will find us openings later on. And to think that I owe it all to you, Miss Marchmont.'

‘To me?'

‘Why, yes. I did not like to tell you before, because I was afraid it would trouble you, but old inkhorn — my tutor — spotted me when I was climbing back into college after we went to Shrovebridge that day. There was the devil to pay, I can tell you, with lecturings and gatings and letters to my grandfather — and the long and the short of it was that they decided between them I am not cut out to be a clergyman. Which is what I have been telling them these three years past or more. So you see that I really owe it all to you.'

Henrietta was horrified ‘What! You have been in all this trouble for my sake, and never even let me know? I might at least have spoken to your grandfather on your behalf.'

‘But you could not,' he pointed out, ‘since the reason for your going to Shrovebridge was a secret. And that reminds me, now that I am a free man at last, I contrived to ride down there yesterday to see how little miss was doing.'

‘Did you really? How
good
you are, Mr. Rivers.'

He coloured. ‘Not at all. I promised her I would, poor little thing, and have felt guilty not to have done so sooner. They tell me she still does not speak.'

‘No, the poor lamb. Miss Gilbert begins to fear there may be some congenital deficiency, but I still hope it is but the result of what she has suffered. If you had but
seen
the place and the people I rescued her from.'

‘I can well imagine it. I tell you, Miss Marchmont, there is so much suffering, so much to be done in the world that I do not know how I can bear to lose time as a clerk. I met a man called Shelley the other day — he was up at Oxford for a while, but was sent down last year — and you should just hear his plans for improving the world! He is to found an ideal community, with everyone equal and all working in common for what they need. Pantisocracy, he calls it. I tell you, I was sorely tempted to throw in my lot with him.'

‘But you did not?'

‘Why, no.' Again he coloured. ‘To tell truth, I was not sure that it would work. Dreams are all very well, and when one listened to him talk it seemed possible enough, but I do not believe one can reform things so suddenly. No, I mean to go the slow way about it. First I must make a place for myself in the world, then, perhaps, I can do some good. Besides, I am afraid I am selfish enough after all. I want to marry some day and have children, and I do not see how I could support them if I lived in Mr. Shelley's ideal community. It is all very well for him: His father is a baronet, and I suppose he has always had money, but you know my case is quite different. What there is must go to Charles with the title and I will have only what I can earn. But that is nothing — only look what your father has achieved. I cannot tell you what an inspiration he has been to me.'