Elisabeth Kidd (30 page)

Propelled by this superior force, Isabel and Octavian made their way back to the Round Pond, where they had last seen their supposed
chaperones. Miss Coverley had disappeared, but Philip Kenyon was
exactly as they had left him, stretched out in a camp chair, his feet up on
another, watching a tall blond lady on the other side of the pond
through a pair of field glasses. Harley Chatham-Hill sat beside him,
finding more entertainment in watching Mr Kenyon than in admiring
the lady. He began to whistle, but stopped abruptly when he saw Isabel
and stood up to greet her. Philip looked up first to see who it was before
half-rising and then sinking gratefully back into his chair when Isabel
motioned him to do so.

“Where is Miss Coverley, Uncle Philip?” she asked when Carey had
taken Harley aside to explain the theory of rocket propulsion to him.

“She went off with the Beecham girl to look for a misplaced governess.
The Beecham’s governess, it was. Seems she came with one this morn
ing and lost her.” Mr Kenyon shook his head sadly. “Careless of her.”

Isabel giggled, struck by the vision of Cloris beating the shrubbery of
Hyde Park for the errant Miss Blaine. Octavian informed Mr Kenyon,
since Carey had been diverted from his purpose, of the treat in store for
them that evening, and asked if he thought Miss Fairfax would care to
accompany them.

“Shouldn’t think so. Heard Charles say something about their being
engaged with the Worthings for the ballet—depressing company if you
ask me. He creaks when he bows, and she looks everyone over as if they’d
just been offered her at a bargain. Not the sort of outing I’d care for
myself, but then, they didn’t invite me! Am I invited to the fireworks?”

Isabel assured him that he was, so that by the time Carey recalled his
errand, the matter was settled. Mr Kenyon dusted off one of his chairs with his handkerchief and relinquished it to Isabel. Harley bought ices for everyone from a passing vendor. Octavian sat on the grass beside
Isabel’s chair, and Carey, having taken off his coat and waistcoat, lay on
his back next to Octavian. A few moments passed, during which no one spoke, and only the distant patter of hooves on the road and the muted
cries of children broke the silence of the sunny afternoon. Presently,
however, a thought occurred to Carey and he sat up, demanding his
Uncle Philip’s attention.

“Hmmm? What?’’“ Mr Kenyon stirred somnolently and removed his
handkerchief from over his eyes.

“It’s about Tonia and Charles, Uncle Phil! Been thinking.... Here we
are lying about on our backs doing nothing”—Isabel objected that she for
one was sitting up quite properly—“doing nothing while they set off on a
sure course to ruining their lives, not to mention Octavian and Izzy’s,
who can’t get married until Tonia comes to her senses, and—well, what’s
to be done, eh?”

“Don’t ask me,” Mr Kenyon said unhelpfully. “I’m not responsible for
the follies of the world.”

Mr Chatham-Hill, not wishing to intrude on these family matters, wandered down to the edge of the pond to finish his ice. Mr Kenyon’s
eyes followed him enviously, but being pressed by Carey, he ventured to
suggest that the objects of his concern were both adults and presumably
knew their own minds.

“No, they ain’t and they don’t! Tonia don’t, anyway. She’s made Charles
fall in love with her because she was once in love with him, and she’s too
stubborn to break her word to him now, even if she sees her mistake.”

“Why, that’s right!” Isabel said, turning to Carey. “We’ve been looking at this always from our point of view. We never stopped to think why
Antonia did accept Charles. She loved him once, I’m sure of that, but I
think you’re right that she may be beginning to regret it. But how can she
cry off? She would never deliberately hurt Charles.”

“If she marries him,” Carey pointed out, “they’ll both be hurt.”

Octavian smiled wryly. “Hearts mend, Lord Kedrington told me once.
I know he didn’t believe it, though.”

There was a moment’s silence at the mention of the name no one had
wanted to speak until now but which was on everyone’s mind. At last,
Carey said, with feeling, “I wish he’d elope with her! That would solve everything.”

“He’d have to abduct her,” Mr Kenyon said, following Carey’s pro
nouns as best he could. “She wouldn’t consent to an elopement. On the
other hand, I don’t suppose she’d take kindly to being abducted either.”

“If there were some way to make Charles believe they’d run away
together, he’d have to cry off,” Isabel said hopefully, but Carey stood up and began to pace the ground, complaining that he hadn’t heard so many
silly plots since the last time he attended the pantomime.

His companions were momentarily distracted from concocting further schemes,
however, by the reappearance of Cloris Beecham, followed by Miss Coverley.

“Well!” said Miss Beecham, torn between exasperation and admiration.
“You will never guess what she’s gone and done!”

No one saw any reason to doubt her, or to indulge in idle conjecture
when it was apparent that Cloris was about to enlighten them on Miss Elaine’s presumably dire fate. Octavian stood up to turn Harley’s vacant
chair around for Miss Coverley, who thanked him and fluttered down
into it. Everyone stared expectantly at Cloris.

“She has
compromised
herself!” she announced breathlessly.

“Good God!” Octavian exclaimed. “With whom?”

“How?” Carey asked, more to the point. Clory gave him a scornful
look.

“With that weedy little clerk from Hatchard’s!” she said. “Apparently
she was so taken with him, and so fearful that he did not return her
regard, that she accosted him in the street and pleaded with him to
rescue her from her unhappy existence—although what she’s had to be
unhappy about, I’ll never understand. But he seemed to, and was so
affected by her pleas that he began to weep in the street.”

She paused, reflected for a moment, and sighed. “I don’t know why I’m
working myself into such a state! I never thought Frances had it in her,
but I ought to be pleased to see she had
some
gumption after all. I’m sure
I wish them both very happy. Why are you looking so oddly, Carey?”

Carey, who had not attended the last part of Clory’s speech, was
tracking down some elusive idea of his own. Startled off the trail, he said,
“Eh? Oh, right! I think I may have a solution!”

Cloris could not imagine why he should think Miss Blaine’s situation
any longer soluble, but those who had been present during the previous
discussion now turned to gaze at Carey, while—judging from his fierce
concentration—he laboured to formulate his plan in words.

“Izzy, did you say Charles would cry off if he thought Tonia had...ah,
compromised herself with Kedrington?”

“I don’t know,” Isabel replied doubtfully. “It is not customarily the gentleman who ends an engagement, but he does care a great deal for maintaining a correct appearance….”

“He cares excessively!” complained Charles’s parent.

“But if he cares enough for Antonia, I rather think him capable of
overlooking appearances.”

“But if we—and I think we may depend on Lobo—dash it, I mean
Kedrington—to see to it—that is, if there is sufficient substance behind
the appearances, even Charles may be discouraged from behaving nobly.”

Miss Coverley, never one to let scruples about intruding in personal
matters deter her, had up to this point said nothing, but had listened
intently to the highly interesting conversation going on around her. No
one had remarked her uncharacteristic silence until suddenly she broke it
by saying, “You will naturally be obliged to remove Mr Kenyon temporar
ily from the scene—oh, I beg your pardon, sir, I did not mean you, but
your son, Mr Charles Kenyon.”

Philip’s and every other pair of eyes turned to Miss Coverley. Octavian,
who knew the lady best, smiled and said, “Miss Hester, if I am not mistaken, you are hatching a plot of your own!”

Hester’s eyes widened. “Oh, my dear boy, I never descend to plots—so melodramatic! I do not know how you think such a thing. However,
...”

“Yes?” prompted Isabel and Carey in unison.

Gratified by their eager interest, Miss Coverley proceeded to tell them
her idea. It was apparent that she had been thinking it over for some
time, for it sprang full-grown into the light of day, leaving Carey chuckling,
Isabel bemused but hopeful, and Mr Kenyon lost in admiration. Every
one agreed that it was not too soon to set the plot—the plan, that was to
say—
en train
, and they all went away to do so.

Miss Coverley had, in fact, already taken the first action in the campaign.
Having discovered by means known only to herself that an announce
ment from Mount Street was to be expected any day—and that it did not
concern the younger Miss Fairfax—she had invited herself to supper at
Brook Street the night before, in the course of which she contrived to
mention the matter, offhandedly but at the same time in the light of an
accomplished fact. She did not wait to see the effect of this revelation on
her nephew, but had she done so she would have been gratified indeed—
for when she had gone, the viscount had stared at the closed door for a moment, then got up to fetch a bottle of brandy. He did not trouble to
decant it, but loosened his neckcloth, opened the window with one hand,
sat down facing it, and poured himself a generous glass.

Long experience and a not inconsiderable talent for dissemblance hid
from all but the keenest eye that Kedrington was not in the best of humours the next morning. But Wellington, calling him over as the troops were assembling for the review, took one look and said, “Hard
night, eh?”

Kedrington shrugged and enquired how His Grace did this morning. Wellington snorted contemptuously.

“As well as may be expected! Better when this nonsense is over with.
Devilish weather, too. We’d all be better off indoors and out of the sun.”

Since only Kedrington was privileged, and accustomed, to hear the duke’s salty under-the-breath comments, made at the same time that he was doffing his hat and smiling benignly at various ladies, no one took
offence to them.

Marshal Prince von Blücher, by contrast enjoying
himself very much, soon joined the duke’s party, and as they made to pass in front of the rigid, stiffly groomed troops, Wellington called back to
Kedrington, “Don’t leave! Have a word with you by and by.”

So it was that, having become unofficially attached to the duke’s
entourage, Kedrington was unable to do more than bow in passing to the
Fairfaxes before following the duke out of the park toward Apsley House,
the Wellesley family mansion, which the new duke had recently purchased from his brother Richard.

Meanwhile, happily unaware that her future was no longer in her
hands, Antonia was enjoying a leisurely drive along Rotten Row, with
Imogen Curtiz seated beside her and Charles Kenyon riding alongside
the carriage. Their progress was halted with increasing frequency when acquaintances of one or the other lady hailed them and approached to
exchange a few words. A number of Carey’s military cronies, splendid in
their dress uniforms, raised their shakos to them. Charles bristled
defensively at each fresh assault, until Lord Alvanley appeared, looked
him up and down, and suggested that he might accompany the ladies himself for a time, if Charles cared to take a canter.

“That is a most fine and excellent horse you sit upon,
mon cher
Charles, but she is very young and a little—how shall we say? —skittish, I
think. Is she not?”

Charles was not eager to concede his inability to handle any horse in
his stables, but by a stroke of good luck, he just then espied a business
acquaintance riding past in the opposite direction and, making his excuses, he rode off to catch him up. Lord Alvanley told the ladies he was thinking of travelling to Paris, now that half the world seemed to be doing so—the
other half having descended upon London.

“I have already promised Miss Coverley to bring her a bonnet back, and
I insist upon your both telling me what I may bring for you ladies.
Imogen—a shawl, I think? There is a delightful shop on the Rue de la
Paix, as I recall —

“If you mean Estelle’s,” advised a cheerful voice coming up to them at
that moment, “stay away from it! Costs you the earth, and for what? The
next week your lady has a new fan and forgets all about you!”

“Good lord!” Alvanley protested, seeing that the owner of the voice,
one Lieutenant Fitzroy, was followed by a number of his comrades-in-
arms, “England has been invaded after all!”