A Strange Likeness (13 page)

‘If that's what you wish,' returned Alan indifferently. ‘But you'll do so in the Marshalsea sooner or later if you refuse my offer. As for being a gentleman, I suppose that a gentleman can let his women starve. My gentlemanly grandfather, Fred, was perfectly prepared to leave my mother destitute, even if my common father wasn't. It's your choice.'

‘To work for you!'

‘No,' said Alan. ‘You won't see much of me. You'll be a junior clerk, remember. It's Dilhorne and Sons you'll work for.'

‘It's all one.'

‘It's as you please,' said Alan indifferently. ‘I can do no more. Rot in the Marshalsea or work in the City. Your choice, always your choice.'

He swung round to leave. Before he could reach the door Victor spoke.

‘Alan,' he said. His voice had changed. His eyes dropped when he met Alan's direct gaze.

He walked across the room and put out his hand. ‘I'm a swine,' he said stiffly, ‘and ungrateful, too. I suppose that you've spent all day on this, and never a word of thanks from me for that. You had no call. Sir John left your mother the money fair and square—the lawyers said so.'

‘He played you a rotten trick, though,' said Alan soberly.

‘Other people seem to have it so easy,' said Victor. He could not stop himself from adding, ‘You, for instance.'

‘I?' Alan said. ‘You mistake again. When did you stand before the mast in a typhoon in the China Seas? Or hump loads for ten hours a day on the wharf at Sydney,
as I did? I'd say that you'd had it easy and don't know it, and that's your trouble, all of you.'

Victor stared at him again. ‘So that was where the shoulders came from,' he said involuntarily. ‘No wonder that you're not really like Ned. Well, I'll try it your way. I can't say more—I'm afraid of making promises I can't keep. Go ahead with the deal. I suppose that we'll have to sell up and leave here?'

‘Yes,' said Alan. ‘I trust you to go to Waldheim's first thing in the morning, and report to Phipps when you've finished there.'

‘Tomorrow?' said Victor, paling. ‘So soon?'

‘What better day?' asked Alan cheerfully. ‘Wear something sober. It wouldn't do to begin by offending the other clerks on the first day. Who knows? You might even like working.'

He pulled out his watch. ‘That's all. Try not to let Clara and Caroline down—they depend on you. I have to go now. If anything troubles you about the deal you may contact me through Phipps.'

He was at the door again before Victor said slowly. ‘I'll do my best, cousin Alan, but it will be a hard row for me to hoe, you know that, don't you?'

‘Yes, I do know that, but try to remember that many men have been given even harder ones and come through in the end.'

He nearly added, My father for one, but thought that Victor had had enough sermons for one day, and Gurney would be growing impatient.

Besides, Gresham and the rest would be waiting for him.

‘G
oodness! What have you all being doing to make you look so cheerful?'

Ned had returned home to discover a lively tea-party taking place in Almeria's usually sedate drawing room.

Alan had arrived shortly after luncheon—he had a standing invitation from Eleanor's great-aunt to visit whenever he wished—and had proposed a trip to the Zoological Gardens at Regent's Park. Charles had wanted to see the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus—he had talked enthusiastically about them to Alan on a previous visit.

Off they all had gone: Eleanor, Charles, Charles's tutor, Mr Dudley, and Alan, who had arranged the visit as much to be with Eleanor and away from the formality of high society as to satisfy his and Charles's curiosity. If he had enjoyed the opportunity of allowing her to take his arm while they walked around the Zoo, Eleanor had taken delight in Alan's grave pleasure in the animals. She could not help contrasting it with Ned's boredom whenever he was asked to do something to entertain his young cousin.

As for Victor Loring! Well, the mere idea that he
should occupy himself by amusing a small boy was ludicrous in the extreme. Alan, however, had not only admired the animals but had found a small kiosk where they sold coffee, tea, lemonade and ices, which they'd eaten and drunk at a table in the shade of some trees. After that, to Charles's delight, they had thrown buns to the bears, who had climbed their poles to reach them.

Not only had Charles been on his highest ropes, but his tutor, who had never before been allowed out with the family—other than his charge—had rapidly lost his awe of Alan sufficiently to ask him about the plants and animals of New South Wales.

Alan and Eleanor hadn't walked hand in hand—it would not have been proper. They had reached the early stage of attraction when simply to be with the relatively unknown other was exciting in itself—or that was Eleanor's condition.

Alan's reactions to being with Eleanor were more complex. She was beginning to present a real temptation to him: a temptation which was increased by her charming artlessness and inexperience. She had no notion of the effect which her smiles—and her mere presence—had on him, and the conventions of the society in which they were living meant that they could never be alone together. All in all, he thought ruefully, that was probably a good thing: merely to be with her was becoming sufficient to rouse him. He had always prided himself on his ability to control his love life, and to find himself vulnerable to passion was a new—and salutary—thing for him.

Their happy afternoon had flown by so rapidly that they had barely arrived in time for tea with Almeria, as they had promised. Alan had taken the tutor by the arm when he'd been about to start upstairs and steered him into the drawing room. Fortunately Beastly Beverley was
absent, for once, and Almeria was now gracious enough to pass Mr Dudley his tea while being favoured by Charles with a lengthy description of his happy afternoon.

Ned listened to this nursery conversation with a smile and, on being informed that Alan and Eleanor had formed part of the party—Alan taking the afternoon off, for once—exclaimed, ‘What next! After the news about Victor, though, one supposes little that one hears these days could shock.'

‘What news is that?' asked Almeria, who disliked Victor.

‘Oh, Alan is a sly one, isn't he, to say nothing? How did you get Victor to agree to keep quiet?'

Both Almeria and Eleanor said exasperatedly, ‘Goodness, Ned, for once tell a story straight!'

‘Well, then,' said Ned, rolling his eyes at them, ‘old slyboots, Alan here, fails to tell us that Victor Loring, totally strapped for cash, has taken up a clerkship at Dilhorne's. The word is that the Lorings are selling the white elephant in Russell Square and are buying a little place in Chelsea—I ask you—since Anthony Beauchamp has offered for Caroline. Did you know all this, Alan?'

‘No, not all of it. Only that he's coming to Dilhorne's. He needed money and an occupation and he had neither.'

‘I can't see Victor reformed,' commented Ned dubiously. ‘But with Caroline off their hands they might have enough to live on, I suppose. I'm surprised that you wanted him, Alan.'

‘Really, Ned,' said Eleanor angrily, ‘I know that you don't like Victor these days, but he is Alan's cousin, after all, and poor Clara Loring deserves more than to be thrown to the wolves.'

Alan was wryly amused at Ned's cheerful heartlessness. Freed, temporarily, from his own money worries,
he had little sympathy for the ruined Victor and his wretched family, although a fortnight ago he had been willing to sell Eleanor to him in order to clear his own debts. He put in a mild word.

‘He has to be given a chance, Ned. Sir John did him a bad turn, even if he was my great-uncle, leading him to expect money, encouraging him to believe that he didn't need to do anything but wait for the estate to fall into his open mouth—that's bad enough—and then disinheriting him when he was too old to learn a trade.'

‘Learn a trade!' cried Ned, struck. ‘But Victor's a gentleman.'

‘Well, I learned several trades,' said Alan severely, ‘so you'd better strike me off your list of friends, because I'm not a gentleman, either.'

‘Oh, you, you're different,' said Ned cheerfully. ‘You're a colonial; Victor isn't.'

Eleanor and Almeria exclaimed at this together, much to Alan's amusement.

‘Oh, Ned, you are too bad,' said Almeria angrily. ‘You have neither sense nor manners. I really think that Alan has the right of it. It's a pity you weren't put to anything.'

Charles listened to this, his mouth open. The idea of Ned working at anything beggared belief. He looked at his new friend Alan with some respect.

‘Do you know any Latin, Mr Dilhorne?'

‘Alan to you, Charles,' said Alan. ‘A little, why?'

‘Then you must be a gentleman, Alan,' said Charles earnestly. ‘Mr Dudley says that only gentlemen know Latin.'

This also caused general amusement.

‘
I
don't know much Latin,' said Ned.

‘You don't know anything,' said Eleanor severely. ‘Which is what Sir Hart complains of. I think Alan's
right. A year at a desk in the City might do you some good.'

Alan caught the tutor's slightly satiric eye. ‘Oh, I don't know,' he returned. ‘A year on the China run might be better.'

Ned laughed at that, and said cheerfully, ‘Well, I don't need to do either, thank God. Like it or not I'm Sir Hart's heir, and he isn't going to do a Sir John on me. No long-lost cousins in the Hatton family are going to pop up to take away the money and the title—'

He got no further. Alan was laughing, and Almeria and Eleanor began reprimanding him again.

‘But Alan doesn't mind what I say, do you, old fellow?' he drawled when the noise died down. ‘It isn't his fault that his mother appeared out of nowhere, is it?'

Uproar reigned once more. Almeria said, breathing heavily, ‘If you were Charles's age, Ned, I'd send you to your room. As it is I can only thank God for my brother's long life. The thought of you inheriting as you are is too painful. You should really apologise to Alan for your discourtesy.'

‘What for?' asked Ned, who honestly could not see why.

‘No,' said Alan. He privately thought that despite his chronological age Ned was little older than Charles, and possessed a great deal less sense. Little ruffled him since he was too far gone to understand his own limitations.

Order finally reigned when Eleanor, who was daily learning more tact, turned the conversation in the direction of other matters—particularly about their move to Yorkshire once the season was over. This was something which Alan was beginning to regret: the more he saw of Eleanor, the more he was drawn to her. He did not wish
to see her disappear just as the relationship between them was beginning to flower.

He wryly considered that although it was the brother who had introduced him to society, it was the sister who was now the one whose company he sought. Ned's attraction for him had rapidly palled; Eleanor's was growing equally rapidly.

 

Victor Loring's transition from idle and dissolute man about town to a clerk in a City office was a nine days' wonder, soon forgotten. Shortly after he had started work at Dilhorne and Sons Eleanor arrived home late one afternoon to find that Victor was in the drawing room waiting to see her.

‘Tea?' she asked, once the formality of greetings was over.

He shook his head. He was wearing a plain and sober suit, and a modest cravat. He looked rather ill.

‘It's not a social call. I asked permission to leave a little early to make it. I've come to say goodbye, Eleanor.'

His manner was so changed that she hardly knew him.

‘I suppose you know that we've sold up. It's all gone: the house, the horses, everything, even the cottage in Surrey. There was little left at the end, when Mother's debts were paid. We're going to live in Chelsea. Caroline will be with us until she marries Beauchamp. I don't suppose that you'll want to know us now that Dilhorne has told you all about everything to do with us.'

‘Oh, Victor, you know that's not true. He never mentioned your name or affairs to any of us until Ned raised the matter by telling us that you'd gone to Dilhorne's. Alan merely said then that you needed a steady income
and that's why you'd gone into the City. He also said that Sir John had dealt hardly by you.'

‘Well, leave that,' he said roughly. ‘I don't know whether I shall last there. The days are long, the work is hard, and I miss my old life cruelly. The only reason I stick at it is so that
he
won't have an opportunity to jeer at me for failing.'

By ‘he', he meant Alan. He paused, and said more gently, ‘There's something I have to ask you. Was there ever any hope for me with you? Even without cousin Alan coming?'

‘I can't lie to you, Victor. I thought once, when we first met, that there might be, but even before your cousin arrived in London I knew that we could never be more than friends. I know that won't comfort you, but, truly, it was not Alan's fault.'

He looked at the ground. ‘In any case, I can't offer for you now, when I have nothing.'

‘If I'd loved you, you could have had nothing or something, and we could have made a life together. Whether you are rich or poor has nothing to do with it. I don't care for you in that way.'

‘At least you're honest, Eleanor. I never thought otherwise. I don't suppose that we shall meet again, although I hope that you will visit mother occasionally.'

He had been standing, having refused to sit down. He picked his hat and gloves up from a side-table and made for the door.

Eleanor stopped him. She put out her hand and said, ‘At least let us part friends, Victor. You must know that I wish you well in your new life.'

His face lightened a little and he smiled at her. ‘You're a good girl, Eleanor, quite unlike Ned. One would scarcely think you were related. I wish you happy, too,
and if that means you take up with cousin Alan, then at least I know that he will look after you. He looks after everyone, damn him. Forgive me for saying that, but you look at me with such truthful eyes that I must tell
you
the truth.'

He took her hand, but did not shake it. In lieu of anything else he kissed the back of it, said, ‘Adieu,' and was gone before she could answer him.

A part of her life was over, she thought, but the rest of it was still there to live.

 

Ned told Alan that once the season ended everyone would leave London. ‘It never lasts much beyond the middle of August,' he said, ‘and even before that many members of society return to their country homes. Town will be empty,' he added gloomily.

Alan laughed a little at this. Ned's ‘everyone' was the few people at the top of society, and when they had gone, although their town-houses were closed and the rooms were shrouded in dust sheets, the rest of London scarcely noticed their going and went on with its work as usual. This year that included Victor Loring, who was still in his cubby-hole at Dilhorne's.

Ned and his family were leaving in early August, and Stanton House would be closed thereafter. One evening after dinner he said, as though the inspiration had just struck him, ‘Why don't you pay a visit to us at Temple Hatton? Even you need a holiday, old fellow. You've been at it ever since you landed here. You know the saying—“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Mustn't be a dull boy, Alan, wouldn't do.'

‘I'll think about it,' replied Alan.

He duly did, and concluded that affairs at Dilhorne and Sons were so improved that he would be able to leave
them for a few weeks. It might, in fact, be a good idea to demonstrate his trust in George by putting him in charge during his absence.

Consequently he told Ned that he would be delighted to take up his invitation. The real reason for his acceptance was Eleanor. He wanted to meet her mother, and her grandfather, Sir Hartley. Ned had told him that Sir Hart was Eleanor's guardian, and that it was to him he was to apply for her hand in marriage, not her mother.

He was still not sure whether Eleanor felt for him what he was beginning to feel for her. He believed that inside the decorous conventions which prevailed between young men and women Eleanor was showing an interest in him. She was, however, so innocent, and so unversed in the give and take of sexual interplay of even the most elementary kind, that he had, to some extent, to take her feelings for granted. In the weeks before she left for Temple Hatton he hoped to test these feelings further.

More than that, he was not sure whether Sir Hartley Hatton would find a brash young businessman, the son of a felon, however rich, to be a suitable husband for Eleanor. Ned, whose frank carelessness caused him to pour out everything he knew, had told him that Sir Hart favoured Stacy Trent, the son of a near neighbour, as a suitable husband for her.