Curtsying, Chloe managed to stammer some sort of reply.
“Miss Georgina has often spoken of her aunt,” he continued. “I am happy to make your acquaintance. May I present my niece, Arabella Molesworth?”
A freckle-faced young lady with a friendly smile curtsied to Chloe. “Uncle Lionel has promised to take Georgie and me to Kensington Gardens to see the spring flowers,” she said, then darted a quick glance at Sir Lionel. “Do say you will come too, ma’am.”
“Yes, do come, Aunt Chloe.” Georgina’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “It is far too fine to be shut up indoors.”
“Since you’re here,” said Edgar, “you might as well make yourself useful. Georgina ought to have a chaperon and I’ve better things to do with my time than looking at flowers.”
Lady Chingford added her approval, which settled the matter. In no time, Chloe found herself seated beside Sir Lionel in the landaulet, facing the two girls. The groom mounted to the box and they set off.
Chloe hardly dared open her mouth for fear of saying the wrong thing. Obviously Sir Lionel had planned carefully to keep their prior acquaintance secret from Edgar and Lady Chingford—so very generous when Chloe was after all out to thwart him. He had enlisted Miss Molesworth in his plot, but did she know the reason for it, or even that her uncle was in love with her friend?
“I am so glad you arrived in time to come with us, ma’am,” the girl said gaily. “When Georgie told me last night at Lady Jersey’s that you had arrived in Town, Uncle Lionel suggested it would be just the thing. He had already offered to take us to Kensington Gardens, you see. Then, you were not there when we reached Chingford House, and since Lady Welch was out, too, if you had not come back Mr Bannister would have insisted on chaperoning Georgie.”
“Cease, chatterbox,” said Sir Lionel. “Must you put me to the blush?”
Miss Molesworth was mildly abashed. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, I quite forgot he is your brother. I did not mean.... Only Mr Bannister would have offered me his arm, and I have a great deal to say to Georgie. Besides, I don’t see why she needs another chaperon when my uncle is escorting us, any more than if Papa took us somewhere.”
“Pray disregard my abominable niece, ma’am,” Sir Lionel said ruefully to Chloe, “and consider yourself invited less to chaperon your niece than to shield me from their prattle!”
At this the girls went off into fits of giggles. Chloe was amazed at Georgie’s cheerfulness in the presence of the gentleman she was determined to escape. She was so plainly on friendly terms with him, it seemed a great pity she could not bring herself to overlook the difference in age. She was not likely ever to find a more amiable husband.
Yet she did not want him, so her cheerfulness indicated she had great faith in her aunt’s ability to extricate her from the threatened marriage. Chloe prayed she was up to the challenge.
Her companions soon distracted her from her worries, pointing out the sights as the landaulet drove down Piccadilly, past Devonshire House and Green Park. Just short of the toll gate they turned into Hyde Park, to roll along Rotten Row by the still, blue waters of the Serpentine, reflecting the azure sky. They came to the public part of the gardens of Kensington Palace. The carriage stopped in an avenue bordered with elms, their leaf-buds just breaking amidst clusters of winged seeds.
Not waiting for assistance, the girls bounced down to the gravel drive. Sir Lionel descended next, and turned to help Chloe. As he handed her down, he smiled at her and waved at their nieces, already several paces away, their heads together, chatting busily.
“You see, ma’am, with those two I have a choice of bombardment with babble or silent solitude. By combining our interview with their excursion, I have, I trust, pleased everyone.”
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you contrived to prevent my brother’s finding out we had already met. I was dreading—”
“Oh ma’am!” Miss Molesworth turned back. “You will not mind if Georgie and I go ahead? We want to see everything, but pray do not trouble to follow us. If you grow fatigued, there are benches everywhere.”
“You are a ninnyhammer, Bella!” Georgie said scornfully. “Looking at flowers will not tire Aunt Chloe. At home, at Dene, we walk for miles. I wager your uncle is more likely to grow tired.”
“Wretches!” said Sir Lionel. “Go away, do, and leave us old folks in peace.” As the laughing girls scampered off between two elms and down a walk, he continued, “I scarcely dare offer you my arm now, Miss Bannister, lest you should take it as a reflection upon your stamina.”
“Thank you, sir, but I cannot think even my aged bones need support when the path appears perfectly smooth,” Chloe said, trying not to sound regretful. She could not recall when last a gentleman had offered her his arm.
Side by side they strolled after Georgie and Miss Molesworth. “Not a single puddle to be seen,” said Sir Lionel mournfully. “I shall not even be able to emulate the gallantry of that other Ancient Mariner, Sir Walter Raleigh.”
“You have no cloak, and besides, I am no Queen Elizabeth.” Chloe gazed down at the toes of her shoes as they appeared alternately from beneath the hem of her dress. “She would never have behaved as ill as I did yesterday. I must apologise for making such a cake of myself.”
“You were ill, and besides, I am not one of those males who affect to despise sweet things.”
For a moment she pondered this in silent perplexity. What did he mean? Could he possibly think she was sweet? No, “sweet” was a word for lovers, or children, not maiden aunts. He was just indulging a penchant for plays on words.
She peeked up at him, to find him looking down at her with an enigmatic light in his eyes. “Well, I assure you,” she said hastily, “I am not usually so caperwitted nor so shockingly wanting in conduct. I am still mortified by the memory...,” she hesitated, “...though I confess I have no very clear memory of exactly what I said to you.”
“No wonder! By the time I took you home you were talking in your sleep.”
“I did not... Surely I did not refer to you as the Ancient Mariner?”
“Good Lord no. I very much doubt whether even in your sleep you are capable of such a want of conduct.” He laughed. “No, that is an epithet I applied to myself. You merely informed me that Miss Georgina had described me to you as an elderly gentleman.”
“Oh dear!” Chloe raised her hands to cover her hot cheeks. “It is true, I fear, but I might have put it more tactfully had I been more
compos mentis
. I did explain why I came to Town? Why I came to see you?”
“You did,” he said dryly, “but do you know, I find I don’t want to waste a fine afternoon in a beautiful garden with a charming companion discussing such a painful matter. Let us postpone it till a dull day.”
“I cannot. My brother expects me to return to Dene tomorrow.”
“Disappoint your brother’s expectations for once.”
“I dare not.” She could not help the waver in her voice. “You cannot imagine what he is like when he is angry.”
Sir Lionel’s face hardened. For the first time, Chloe could picture him as a resolute, authoritative sea-captain, in command of his crew and responsible for his ship through calm and storm, peace and war.
Yet he spoke mildly, coaxing not commanding. “You have already braved Mr Bannister’s anger by coming to Town,” he pointed out, “and I have freed you, at least for the present, from the confrontation over his daughter. Take the courage you had stored for that battle and use it instead to defy him as to the date of your departure.”
“Courage! I only wish I possessed any.”
“On that subject, you may recall, we have agreed to disagree. Well, will you do it?”
“I wish I could.”
“Look at it this way,” he said persuasively. “If you choose to avoid conflict over your wish to stay a few more days, you condemn yourself to an immediate fight over Miss Georgina’s marital prospects, since you have not yet dissuaded me from offering.”
“You will not let me try?”
Sir Lionel was adamant. “Not today.”
Nonetheless, Chloe ventured to set before him the most formidable side of her predicament. “If it were only a question of when I am to leave London, I might nerve myself—as my nephews say—to face Edgar’s wrath, though I would not encourage anyone to wager on my victory. But if I stay, what am I to do about the gowns?”
“Gowns?” he asked blankly.
“Georgie did not tell you that Lady Chingford took me to the dressmaker this morning? She has ordered dozens of new dresses for me, I cannot guess how many. I am sure they must be horridly expensive. If I go home to Dene, Edgar will be able to cancel the order and save a great deal of money.”
“And if you stay?”
“I daresay I could cancel it anyway,” Chloe said hesitantly, “but Lady Chingford was most insistent that I must have a new wardrobe for London. I should not wish to offend her when she has been so kind, and I doubt Edgar is willing to cross her.”
Sir Lionel smiled. “Then your course is clear. Don’t inform him in advance, but when the gowns and the bills begin to arrive, refer him to her ladyship. Now enough of that. You have not yet spared a glance for the flowers. I rely upon you to tell me what I am admiring, for we mariners are ignorant fellows when it comes to gardens.”
Chloe had indeed been totally oblivious of her surroundings. She looked around now and exclaimed in delight. The extensive gardens were laid out in lawns, walks, and avenues, with statues and bowers here and there, and flowerbeds everywhere.
As they walked on, Chloe named the flowers they passed. Narcissus, hyacinths and stocks scented the air; violets and forget-me-nots clustered in shady nooks; marigolds blazed in the sun; pansies raised their funny faces; the pure white of candytuft offset clumps of vivid purple honesty.
“Honesty? Why so?”
“The seedcases look like silver coins. It is sometimes called penny-flower.”
“Have you all these in your garden?”
“Many of them. The old-fashioned ones which grow easily. New varieties can be quite expensive and...and I have little time to cosset delicate plants.”
“And your brother has no interest in flowers.” Sir Lionel sounded angry.
“Edgar is more interested in the kitchen garden,” Chloe admitted. “I thought all men were.”
“A kitchen garden has its merits,” he mused.
“I do not want to bore you with looking at flowers,” she said anxiously.
“My dear Miss Bannister, I am enjoying myself no end. Look, those are tulips, are they not? What a splendid array.”
The tulips stood stiffly ranked like soldiers of a score of regiments in multicoloured uniforms, pink, scarlet, yellow, and white, glowing flame and a crimson so dark it was almost black. Beyond their orderly bed, daffodils sprawled in careless drifts across the lawns beneath the trees.
“‘I wandered lonely as a cloud,’“ Sir Lionel quoted, “‘That floats on high o’er vales and hills.’“
Surprised, Chloe continued the verse. “‘When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils.’“
With a smile, he jumped to the end: “‘And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.’ There is little to beat Mr Wordsworth’s poetry when one is far from home.”
“Coleridge’s
Ancient Mariner
, and now Wordsworth! I should not have supposed sailors to be great readers.”
“It is not uncommon. I claim no particular merit. We have long hours at sea with little choice of occupation.”
“Like the long winter evenings at home in the North. Georgie and I read a great deal together.” Chloe recalled her niece’s conviction that gentlemen do not like intelligence in a wife. “Georgina is very clever,” she said. “Indeed, in my opinion she would have profited more from proper schooling than my nephews.”
Sir Lionel confounded her. “It is a pity that society as presently constituted fails to utilise the talents of women. You taught your nieces yourself?”
“Yes, to the best of my poor ability. Though my father sent me to school when my mother died, we were taught little beyond housewifery and a few genteel accomplishments. What else I know I learned from my own reading, and I flatter myself I have passed on a love of books to Georgie, if not to Dorothea.”
“A love of books is the best gift any teacher can give. What do you like to read?”
They talked of books as they wandered on, until they came to the bank of the Long Water, the continuation of the Serpentine, where they found the girls.
Georgina and Miss Molesworth had made the acquaintance of a nursemaid and her two charges who were feeding the ducks and gulls. The young ladies had joined in and were having a wonderful time, grown-up decorum forgotten, tossing crusts to the voracious flock. They were a charming sight in their coloured muslins beside the sparkling waters, surrounded by the mallard drakes with their glossy blue-green heads.
Charming also in their childlike delight, Chloe thought, hoping Sir Lionel would take note of Georgie’s youthful behaviour and decide he was too old for her.
He sighed. “I would not deprive them of their pleasure by begging a few crumbs,” he said, “but we shall have to come again bringing our own supplies. So much for birdlike appetites—look at that seagull! Did you see? It caught the bread in midair. When I was a midshipman I used to throw scraps to the gulls. Beneath the dignity of a captain, alas.”
“But not beneath the dignity of a baronet?” Chloe teasingly enquired.
“Good Lord, I’d forgotten. I suppose I ought not?” he said with a wistful air.
“Why not? As captain you had to uphold your authority, but if a baronet cannot please himself in so small a matter, what is the use of being one?”
“Well said, Miss Bannister!” Which was all very well, but did not in the least advance Georgie’s cause. “When shall we come? Tomorrow morning? Do you ride?”
“Yes, but I don’t think—”
“Come now, ma’am,” said Sir Lionel sternly, “if we don’t meet, how are you to plead Miss Georgina’s case?”
* * * *
Georgie followed Chloe into her chamber and closed the door. “Thank you, dearest Aunt,” she cried. “Was it horridly embarrassing?”