Althea (14 page)

Sir Tracy, completely unaware of Althea’s passing, or of her
troubled thoughts, went on to Manton’s and spent his hour there sharpening his
already impeccable aim, then returned to his house. If anyone at Manton’s
noticed that Calendar was a trifle preoccupied, no one thought of asking him the
cause: Calendar’s regard for his own privacy was well known, and the sight of
his targets, when he had done shooting, had the peculiar effect of making one
undesirous of disturbing him. It remained for Lady Boskingram to ask the
question. On his return to Cavendish Street he found his aunt in the library,
reading poetry and sipping tea. When he entered the room she put away the book,
drained her cup and put it down in a purposeful manner, and settled herself
into the couch.

“You look as though you are setting yourself up for a siege,
Aunt,” he said lazily.

“How unbecoming of you to notice it, Tracy. And you look to
be in a brown study. What occasions so much thought?” She watched the eyebrows
take their sudden swoop upward. “There is your supercilious look again. Do you
know, I feel almost married to you — dreadful idea — for I see you so little we
are become like a fashionable couple, going our own ways.”

“But you cut me to the quick, ma’am. A dreadful idea? When
all that has kept me from sweeping you off to Gretna is the fact that we are
related.” He expressed his hurt by strolling over and kissing her powdery cheek
lightly.

“Beside my well-known affection for you, scandalous Aunt,
did you not say I was to treat my house as my own, so long as I gave you prior
warning of any and all orgies, scandals, and similarly intemperate behavior I
planned? In fact, I was sure I had been a model host, for I have foregone my
orgies (which you know I hold on a regular basis), all so you might not be
troubled to hide in your room.” Tracy crossed his long legs and toyed idly with
the fob at his waist.

“Since this is your house and I the interloper, I collect
that you are trying to shame me into admitting that you are a very fine host to
me. But you are dodging my question, which I greatly dislike. All your banter
and foolishness may fool others. It don’t distract me.” She glowered at him
sternly. “I demand to know what could possibly be more absorbing than fending
off the complaints of your aged aunt.”

“I am sorry, ma’am. It is abysmal of me, I know.” Tracy
smiled thoughtfully. “To tell the truth, I am planning something of a rather
intemperate nature — at least something original. And I am not altogether sure
of the propriety of my plans — not that I will let that stop me, but ….”

Lady Boskingram was intrigued by this leading statement and
demanded to know what was the ending to such a provoking beginning.

“I am contemplating matrimony,” Tracy threw into the silence
and sat back to admire the dramatic effect.

“Don’t try to fool with me, Tracy, for I’ll have the truth
from you sooner or later, you know,” his aunt warned. After a moment or two,
during which he regarded her solemnly, she gasped, “Don’t tell me that Amalia
has finally converted you to husband by dint of one of those infamous
schoolroom misses with all the accomplishments!”

“Not at all, I am thankful to say. She is no schoolroom
miss, and I owe no thanks to Amalia for her discovery. She — the lady — has, if
I understand it, divided her last few years between managing her father’s house
and much of his estate, and studying classical literature. She is rather an
exceptional woman, Aunt.”

“I collect she must be if she has gotten you to moon after a
bluestocking. How very unlike you, Tracy. And what a change from your adulation
of Bessborough’s girl. That’s the only other female I can remember your having
admired in all these years.”

“I beg you will not bring up attachments I held when I was
only in short coats, ma’am. And you know well enough that if she were merely a
bluestocking, I would not have found her so enchanting.” He paused, saw she was
about to speak, and began again. “I will withdraw the last word, for I can see
it leaves me open to all manner of your disparaging remarks.”

“Well, you have told me that she is a learned woman but not
a bluestocking, that she managed her father’s estate (what was her father doing
in all that while?), and that she is enchanting. Do you think you could now
tell me her name?”

“Why, had I not? Her name is Ervine, Aunt, Althea Ervine.”

“Ervine. Is it possible I saw her at Esterhazy’s drum,
talking to George Brummell quite as if he were not the God of Fashion but only
an ordinary mortal? But Tracy, that girl’s not beautiful — taking enough, I
warrant you, and she dresses well enough, but I would have thought that for you
—”

“For me she does excellently well, thank you. I can find
nothing wrong in her appearance, and as for her character! She is bright and
maddening and wise as a sage about some things, and the greenest greenhead
about others. And what a tongue! I don’t doubt but that she will lead me a
dance if ever I can persuade her to wed me, but I am ready to wed her and
welcome the dance, her flighty sister, her overbearing papa, and all.”

“You love her!” the dowager accused.

“Did I not say so?” he asked lightly.

“I only hope that she can appreciate your finer qualities,
buried as they are under that dreadful dandified exterior and your shockingly
disrespectful manners to you elders.” Sir Tracy shook his head in bereaved
denial. “I hope she knows you’re worth ten of the grandest beaux in town.”

Lady Boskingram paused to wipe her eyes, while Tracy
refreshed himself with a walk the length of the room and back.

“You said
if
, Tracy. Is there any question that she
won’t take you?”

“Not everyone is so kind as to see me with your affection
Aunt. It is possible that her affections are permanently attached somewhere
else.”

“Nonsense. If the girl you described to me ain’t got the
sense to leap at you, then you described her very ill,” Lady Boskingram said
fondly. This assurance did not seem to cheer Sir Tracy greatly.

“Ma’am, I could only have understated where Althea is
concerned. But you know that I am not the only male on the Matrimonial Market,
and there have been others who have evinced the same interest as I. I fancy
that one of them — just the wrong one, too — was on the point of making her —
of fixing his interest with her. And while I deplore her lack of taste, she may
still prefer him to me. The devil is in it that the fellow — Pendarly — is contracted
to Georgiana Laverham. You remember her? Tiny fair thing, pretty in a dollish
sort of manner, with no conversation and little countenance, Fulvia Laverham’s
daughter. I see
that
rings a bell for you. The man has been paying Miss
Ervine as formal a court as any I’ve seen. You know Mrs. Laverham. I cannot
believe that he has been released from his betrothal just to suit his own
convenience or Althea’s happiness — not by her.”

“And your Miss Ervine knows nothing of all this?”

“I have a notion that she learned of it all somehow last
night at the opera. Fulvia Laverham was there, and I would not put it past her
to have accosted Althea and apprised her of the situation in no uncertain
terms. If Althea — Miss Ervine — knows, then she will put an end to her
attachment to Pendarly at once. I know that. But I am not sure how deep her
affection for him goes, and I know that he is much smitten with her, for all
his responsibilities to Miss Laverham. I did try, once or twice, to hint him
away or give Althea some notion of how the land lay, but I could not say ‘This
man is betrothed — best keep your distance!’ So I fear that she has taken me
amiss and all I have done is to alienate her from myself.” Calendar smiled
bitterly. “A charming state of affairs, is it not?”

“You have made a fine mull of it, haven’t you, my dear?”
Lady Boskingram admitted comfortably. “But it may all come aright in the end
with some patience from you — not that you have overmuch of that commodity.”

“I expect to be, let us say, rather
impatient
this
afternoon.”

“Tracy, do please restrain yourself from dropping mysterious
hints. I am on tenterhooks. Have a little pity and tell me straight out what
you mean.”

“I intend to offer for her this afternoon.”

“Just out of the other fellow’s arms? Dear boy, if you have
any sense about military campaigns, you should know not to rush the enemy that
way. Or a woman.” Lady Boskingram shook her head in bewilderment.

“That’s just the thing, ma’am,” Tracy insisted. “If I don’t
make sure of her now, I may never have the chance again. You have no idea the
ways we contrive to stay at odds with each other, but if I approach her the
right way — and God knows what that is — it may suit her down to the ground to
be betrothed just now. If I wait until her temper is cooled, why then she will
probably be rational and say we should not suit, and we should quarrel over
that
,
and so you see I should never win her to me.”

This tangle of logic so exhausted Tracy that he dropped back
onto the couch and spent some minutes scowling fiercely at the andirons.

“I seem to recall that we did things more simply when I was
young,” his aunt offered weakly.

“I collect I have been trying to convince myself more than
you, Aunt, but if you only knew the way I affect her now — it will change, I’m
sure of it, but good God, ma’am, now! There seems to be only the method I plan
to try. And,” he added softly, “as you surmised, and for all and no good
reasons, I do love her.”

“Well,” Lady Boskingram sighed philosophically, “if you know
that much, I suppose I must leave you to your own affairs.”

o0o

Three-thirty that afternoon found Althea awaiting
inspiration to govern her actions: should she go out in order to avoid a visit
by Pendarly, or stay in to receive Calendar should he call? Fortunately, before
inspiration arrived, Sir Tracy himself did, and Althea was happily absolved of
concern for the matter. He had called to ask her driving, and if during the
Promenade he said nothing to her of the cut he had given her earlier in the
day, Althea regarded it as hopeful that he had called at all.

They drove silently for a few minutes: Tracy was unsure how
to preface a proposal of marriage to such a reluctant idol, and Althea was
worrying over the fancied slight she had received that morning. She would wait,
she resolved, to hear him speak of it in order to forgive him handsomely.
Strangely, though, he did not speak of it, and she grew more stiff and the
resolve to forgive handsomely grew less handsome and less firm. Tracy, for all
his noted address, found himself completely at a loss to begin; he could not
even think of a plausible excuse to send Eustace away to afford them some
privacy. Eustace himself, sitting glumly behind, reflected that it was probably
the gentry mort what had the master so terrible blue-deviled, and he heartily
wished them rid of her.

Althea finally took matters into her own hands and said the
first thing that occurred to her. “That is the most beautiful pair of horses I
have yet seen in London, Sir Tracy,” she began inconsequentially. Tracy,
relieved by the introduction of the topic — or any topic at all — delved into
it wholeheartedly, with rather more fervor than he was wont to expend on such a
discussion.

“I am judged to be a tolerable critic of horseflesh, Miss
Ervine,” he said enthusiastically.

“Tolerable?” Althea laughed brittlely. “You are known to be
top of the trees! I have often wished I could have a phaeton, especially in
town, but my fortune will hardly admit of such an extravagance.”

“You tell me that you drive, Miss Ervine?” Eustace, divining
the inevitable outcome of this discussion, cowered in the back, glaring at his
master’s neck. Tracy, mercilessly unaware of the grimaces aimed at him,
continued to drive on as Miss Ervine elaborated.

“Certainly I do. My brother taught me, back in Lancashire,
and I have always wished I could do so in town; there is something very
striking about a smartly driven phaeton. And Mr. Brummell told me that I should
never be backward in doing what is striking.”

“I would never dare quarrel with Brummell’s taste, ma’am.
But I would add that there is generally something striking about
any
carriage that is smartly driven: the number of gentlemen who think they can
drive to an inch and are really quite ham-fisted would shock you, ma’am. I
would have thought, from your descriptions of him, that your brother would not
prove a great driver or a patient teacher.”

“He had ample motive for patience, sir, although he would
never be my instructor of choice. But with that motive he became a satisfactory
teacher. You see, I blackmailed him — is that the word? — into giving me
lessons, some three years ago when Papa had gone visiting.”

“Your methods are a trifle unorthodox, certainly,” Calendar
said dryly, with a twist of that speaking brow.

“Oh, I know it. You see, Merrit had been sent down from
university for some prank involving the chancellor’s nightcap and a lady of —
of — somewhat
generous nature
, known as High Flung Jenny. Merrit feared
Papa’s reaction to his mess no end, and I was entirely ruthless in using it against
him for my own ends. Yes, I know exactly how sordid it sounds, and it was
rather.”

“It sounds like excellent romance, Miss Ervine, but did you
learn to drive, in truth?”

“Oh yes, for while Merrit is too racketty for anything, and
cannot chose a horse but it must be some mean, showy nag, all chest and no
breath, he is a good driver. And I am a better, I think, for at least I respect
my horses.”

Eustace, feeling the shadow of ignominy hovering over him,
sank down as low as he could, hoping the world would not connect him with this
obviously deranged pair in the curricle.

“If that is the case, ma’am, do you object to showing me
your prowess?” Tracy asked, heedless of Eustace’s now audible groans. “I will
ask you to relieve me while I recover my strength.” The exchange was made, and
Calendar turned to give Eustace one exquisitely quelling glance before they
were under way again. Althea, sensing that mutiny had been put down, flicked
the whip expertly out over the heads of her leaders, caught the thong neatly,
and proceeded forward. A very few minutes in this fashion convinced Calendar
that she had not exaggerated — she was a good driver, needing only a little
experience with town traffic to sharpen her nicely. Even Eustace, who for the
sake of his reputation had slid his head so deep into his collar that he began
to look deformed, grumbled less loudly than before. Althea took the phaeton
once around the Park, to the admiration of several acquaintances, who
understood better than she what a signal honor she was being done.