Babe (12 page)

Before she was totally respectable, she had to appear at Almack’s and be seen to be not only permitted but welcome in that social holy of holies. His own and Lady Withers’ influence with the patronesses was to be the lever to raise Barbara to these heights. She was still a member at least, which had happily surprised him. Lady Jersey and Lady Cowper were invited to tea at Cavendish Square, where Barbara sat in her most demure gown, between her respectable relations. Another set of patronesses received a visit to their box at Covent Garden, and not less than four of them had the unexpected pleasure of standing up with Clivedon at balls that week. “We haven’t seen you at Almack’s lately, Clivedon,” Lady Jersey reminded him on this occasion.

“I plan to attend Thursday,” he told her. “Now that I am Lady Barbara’s guardian, I must escort her to such places,” he explained, not allowing any trace of strain to creep into his words.

“To be sure,” the lady replied, astonished. “Lady Barbara is going to come back to us, is she? So long as you bring her, it will be all right,” she allowed.

This was by no means a welcome, but he had at least given warning that she would attend, to divert the impact of her arrival. When the two entered the door on Thursday evening, they were accompanied by Lord and Lady Withers. Before they were three steps inside the hall, Lady Angela, never giving up the chase, dashed towards them, with her mother and Aunt Chloe in tow. Ellingwood too stepped forward with the greatest alacrity to claim a dance.

There were plenty of interested looks at the dasher, but this was only to be expected. There were, as well, enough distinguished friends to give an appearance of a welcome reception, and Clivedon and Agnes were on the alert to see that no gentlemen but acknowledged prudes got near her, at least for the first while. By then the excitement of this rare bird’s presence had worn off, and the whole party, including herself, relaxed.

There was another person present who claimed quite as much attention as the infamous Babe. This was Lord Romeo Rutledge, the younger son of the Duke of Stapford. He had been in Greece and Italy for the past fifteen years, in an effort to strengthen a pair of weak lungs that had affected him since childhood, and was just lately returned. He had left a sickly boy of ten, white-faced, hollow-eyed and studious. He returned still a trifle on the slim side, but with his eyes restored to a youthful luster, his hair bleached golden by the Adriatic sun, his soul full of the glory of Greece and the splendor of Rome, and his mouth full of the literature of each. He was a dreamer, an idealist, an artist, and an outstanding Adonis. He was also single and a pretty eligible catch, for though but a younger son, he was of noble blood, and it was not supposed that old Stapford would leave even a younger son quite penniless.

Lord Romeo had been in the country already for six months, but till the present had got no farther than Taunton. In that most unlikely of spots, he had discovered a serving wench of classical beauty, whom he had been painting and pestering, till her father, a publican, had taken the idea of sending her away to the country to be rid of the moonling.

Lord Romeo then packed up his pigments, and meandered on to London to seek another model. The ladies were all eager to meet him, but could not but be disconcerted to be told, with an innocent, searching smile, that their nose was too big, or their eyes too close together. There was no polite preamble to his verdicts. He came, he looked, he decreed. He cared not whether the body before his eyes was that of a princess, a duchess, or an upstairs maid. If physical perfection fell short of the Greek ideal, he had no use for the woman.

He had been staring at the doorway, alert for a model, for half an hour before Lady Barbara entered. His eyes widened upon observing her. For the occasion, her long blond hair was dressed à la Grecque, framing her classic face. Her white gown was draped in a vaguely Grecian line, and had as an edging a Greek key pattern done in gold. To match this, she wore gold-strapped sandals on her feet. From head to toe, she was designed to please him. Lord Romeo thought he was having a vision, after the manner of a desert traveler thirsting after water. He could not quite credit that Aphrodite or Venus had been reincarnated in the nineteenth century.

He walked with a palpitating heart to a good vantage point and stood stock-still, staring at her. He watched transfixed as she stood up to dance with a mere mortal, then, reassured that she was real flesh and blood, he got hold of a score pad and pen from the cards room and sat to sketch her. His hand trembled, but he knew it was not the makeshift nature of his drawing equipment that was at fault. Just so must the hand of Praxiteles have shaken when he modeled his Aphrodite of Cnidus. He was too distraught to do the goddess justice. He sat another quarter of an hour gazing at her, while several persons stared at him, nonplussed at his foolishness.

When he saw the vision being walked to the edge of the dance floor, he arose, trancelike, and wafted towards her. He came to stand face to face with her, not so much taller than herself, for he was of small but perfectly proportioned stature. He looked into her eyes for about fifty seconds longer than was seemly, then spoke. “I am Romeo of Athens.” His voice was low-pitched, well-modulated, a soothing voice. He did not bow, scrape a leg, or offer a hand, but just stood, gazing.

“I thought he was from Verona,” she replied, intrigued at his odd behavior and not unaware of his beauty either.

His face softened into a very sweet smile. “You have a sense of humor too. You are perfect. I shall paint you, Golden Aphrodite.”

The coming together of the two most interesting persons at the assembly drew considerable attention. As a little crowd seemed to be drawing close around them, Clivedon hastened his steps in the same direction. Like everyone else, he had been informed of the young man’s peculiar habits, and was sorry to see anyone of questionable behavior near his charge. But at least he was a gentleman, one of whom no worse was said but that he was odd. He watched, alert to intervene, and waited.

Barbara had heard about the artist as well by this time, and decided to be rid of him by a gentle teasing. “What color do you mean to paint me, sir?” she asked.

“Silver and gold, like a moonbeam, is the effect I shall strive for. Hair gold as sun-kissed wheat, skin luminous as an opening rose, cherry-ripe lips, cornflower eyes and . . .” He raised his hands like a priest making a sacrificial offering. “That neck defies comparison.”

“I see,” she said, blushing in confusion at this outpouring. “What shall you do after it is done? Eat it, or put it in a vase to water it?”

“After I am done, I shall marry you, Zeus permitting,” was his simple answer, accompanied by a bow of superb grace.

Clivedon concluded this came close enough to scandal that he stepped forward to rescue her. “Lady Barbara, have you met Lord Romeo?” he asked. He had not done so himself, and felt rather foolish.

“Not exactly,” she admitted, seeing Clivedon was displeased.

“Allow me to make you known to him. The Duke of Stapford’s younger son. Lord Romeo, this is my ward, Lady Barbara Manfred.” He hastily considered introducing himself as well, and was about to do so when Romeo spoke.

“What a delightful irony! I adore it. But I would have recognized Aphrodite; I have known her before, in many guises. Come, my sweet Barbarian, we shall move together.” Without more speech, and without so much as a glance at Clivedon, Romeo took her hand and walked to the very center of the floor, where no sets were yet forming. Horrified as to what might ensue, Clivedon grabbed the closest lady, who was Lady Angela, and walked swiftly after them, to try to give an air of standing idly waiting for the music.

“You are just returned from Greece, I understand?” he mentioned.

“Via Taunton,” Lord Romeo told him, sparing a quick look. He then cast a glance at Angela and shook his head sadly. “You should go to Greece to improve your complexion, ma’am,” he told her, with a face perfectly innocent of malice.

She said nothing, but looked to her partner, bewildered. The distracted lord could think of nothing more to the point than performing another introduction, which he did, and again silence descended.

“How did you like Greece, Lord Romeo?” Barbara asked, with a helpless look at the others.

“The Grecian women are not so beautiful as they were in days of yore. The features are coarsened by the invasions from the north. When we go there, we shall breed a new race in the Hellenic mold.”

Stunned, she said nothing for a moment. Her partner seemed to prefer silence. At length she asked, “Have you seen the Elgin Marbles yet? Perhaps you would be interested in them.”

“Lord Elgin should be drawn and quartered for having removed them,” he told her in a soft, silken voice. “Gold does not confer the right to rob a people of its cultural heritage. There is a good deal of resentment in Greece over it.”

“I don’t fancy they resented the thirty-five thousand pounds paid for them,” Clivedon said.

“I shall not go to see them, as an act of disapproval,” the soft voice spoke on. “I don’t need cold marble. You will be my inspiration,” he said to Barbara.

Three of the four were vastly relieved when two more couples joined them. Lord Romeo ignored the newcomers, which was better than he might have done. One of the ladies had a figure not even an Englishman would find attractive, and which a lover of the Hellenic ideal was bound to denigrate.

Lord Romeo was sufficiently in the world to realize that motion was expected from him on a dance floor, and was graceful enough in his movements that he did not look quite absurd, though his steps were at odds with those of his partner and everyone else in his set. His mincings and gyrations, quite lovely as a solo performance, occupied him enough that he uttered no more outrages till the dance was over. At its end, Clivedon took Lady Barbara’s arm and began to lead her off.

Lord Romeo was hard at his heels. “Did I understand you to say you are the lady’s guardian, sir?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“I must marry her. When Olympus decrees, man obeys.”

Clivedon cleared his throat impatiently. “We’ll speak of this another time, if you please.”

“Where may I call on you, and when?”

“We’ll be in touch,” was the only answer he received.

“My goodness, what a strange young man,” Barbara exclaimed.

“He is a knock-in-the-cradle,” Lady Angela assured her at once, for she was on Clivedon’s other arm.

“Queer as Dick’s hatband,” he agreed.

Peering over her shoulder, Barbara saw that he still stood in the center of the floor, gazing after her, besotted. “I wouldn’t encourage him if I were you,” Angela suggested.

“I’m not! I was afraid he meant to follow me, but I see Lady Drummond-Burrell has taken his arm to lead him off. I hope he is not going to prove a nuisance.”

“You are an optimist,” her guardian stated, with an awful foreboding that the majority of the nuisance would fall on his own shoulders.

The greatest, really the only flaw of the evening was that Lord Romeo continued making an ass of himself, staring at Barbara and refusing to stand up with anyone else, but this could not be attributed to any encouragement on her part, and she escaped censure. It was the strange young artist that was discussed that night. Princess Lieven was charmed with him for telling her she was so ugly she achieved a strange sort of inverted beauty. She was equally charmed with his verdicts on her friends and enemies. She was delighted to inform Sally Jersey that Romeo thought she must have been quite tolerable twenty years ago, and her hair was still not utterly contemptible. Everyone had to meet him and express amusement at his sayings, and repeat them themselves to show how little they minded. He was proclaimed an Original and adopted on the spot by Society.

Before Clivedon’s party left, Romeo had discovered not only where he might present his offer to Lord Clivedon next day, but where he should find his model as well.

“I will come to you at Cavendish Square tomorrow morning,” he told her as she tried to edge out the door on her guardian’s far side.

“Oh,” was all she could think of to say, yet she was not depressed to have attached Society’s new darling.

“Lady Barbara is busy tomorrow morning,” Clivedon told him in a dismissing way.

“Please, the Fates have not given me a patient soul,” Romeo explained to the hiding lady. “May I come in the afternoon—at three?”

With a strong wish to get out the door, Clivedon nodded his approval to Barbara.

“All right,” she answered.

“Till then, my soul is in your keeping,” he told her, with a perfectly serious face. Then he lifted her gloved hand, slowly unfastened the wrist snap, placed a kiss on her inner wrist, and stepped back with a bow for her to leave.

“The boy is mad,” Lady Withers declared as they got beyond his hearing.

“Yes, but he’s awfully sweet, isn’t he?” Lady Barbara replied, with a peep over her shoulder. Her guardian and chaperone exchanged a crestfallen look and hastened her steps towards the carriage.

Chapter Twelve

Lord Romeo may have been insane; several people thought so, but he had enough wits about him to know what he wanted, and enough tenacity of purpose to pursue his goal doggedly. With a morning to be got in before he could go to his lady, he made use of it by calling on her guardian. In his hands he bore a slim leather case, which Clivedon presumed to be a sort of folio of his smaller art works. With some curiosity and more annoyance he had the fellow shown in. “I have come to ask your permission to court Lady Barbara,” Romeo told him, with no time wasted on banalities.

“Have a seat,” Clivedon invited. The graceful form folded itself onto a chair.

At this point, the visitor’s eyes alit on a Grecian vase that stood on top of a bookcase in Clivedon’s study. “Ah, you have got one of Spiro’s forgeries,” he said, arising to examine the piece. “He does a good imitation of Clitias, especially the black figures on the exterior, but the handles give him away. He doesn’t take time to form his handles properly, Spiro. They are invariably crude, and poorly joined too. Yes, you see they do not hold at all,” he continued, pulling off the right handle and returning Clivedon’s vase to him in two pieces.