Babe (3 page)

“You’re overdrawn. There won’t be any allowance this quarter,” he answered blandly.

“No allowance? Don’t be absurd. I am only overdrawn a few hundred pounds. How should I jog along on no money?”

“Actually, you are overdrawn several hundreds—well into the next quarter’s installment as well. That phaeton, I fancy, is the culprit, and the team that draws it. No, on second thought, you could not have paid much for that pair of lame screws I see in the park.”

The team spoken of were not to her taste. Too leather-mouthed for a lady to control with any ease. Gentz had purchased them for her, and paid a handsome price too, but she said none of this. “I am paying for the phaeton by installments, Clivedon, and the grays were selected and paid for by myself.”

“I have paid off the full price of the phaeton. I dislike to see you run into debt.”

“You did
what
?” she asked, jumping to her feet.

“Paid for the phaeton. It is quite a common custom to pay for one’s purchases. I can’t think why you are excited about it.”

“I didn’t intend paying cash. Oh, what a mess you’ve made of things already. You must give me an advance from the next quarter’s money, then. I need a new ball gown this very week.”

“There will be no advances, Lady Barbara. You must learn to cut your coat to fit the cloth, like everyone else.”

She inhaled a deep breath and resumed her seat. Her credit was good; she wouldn’t make a fuss about this. As he had charge of her monies, she must humor him. He spoke on. “I have taken the liberty, as well, of sending a note around to the more stylish modistes that I do not wish them to extend you credit,” he added.

“You take a great deal of liberty, sir!” she answered hotly.

“I mean to employ the full prerogative of guiding my charge, Lady Barbara,” he answered with a smile.

“And I wish you will stop calling me Lady Barbara every minute. Call me Babe. Everyone does.”

“It is a sad comment on your dignity that you allow everyone to be so free with you. I will expect more discretion, now that your behavior will reflect somewhat on myself.”

Her dark eyes narrowed dangerously, and she was aware of a rising heat in her blood. “Don’t think to exercise this prerogative you speak of as though I were a child, sir. I am very much accustomed to being my own mistress. I will behave exactly as I always have, and you may go to the devil.”

“Eventually, no doubt, but in the interim I shall attempt to keep you from doing likewise.” He arose languidly and looked at her, in a fairly disinterested way.

“Are you ready to leave? I’ll take you to Lady Graham now.”

“Lady Graham?” she asked. “I don’t want to visit that old Tartar. Take me to your sister, at once.”

“My sister? But surely I mentioned Boo has thrown out a few spots. Nickie as well, I think, which leads me to suspect a contagious disease. Measles very likely. You will be staying with Lady Graham.”

“Clivedon! You can’t be serious. I will not stay with her. She is a positive ogre. I’ll go to Lady Withers. I have had the measles. I don’t mind that.”

“I mind for you. Measles can be caught more than once, and you would not like to be ill at the height of the Season.”

“I’d rather catch smallpox that go to that mausoleum in Mecklenberg Square. Why, she lives away out at the edge of Somers Town, miles from anywhere.”

“There has been an excellent new road put in. You’ll see four or five stages a day pass by, to relieve the quiet. Till you are back in looks, Lady Barbara, I want you to lessen the pace of your socializing. It is a shame to see you run to seed at a relatively young age.” He turned and strolled at a slow pace towards the door. She remained where she stood. “Come along,” he invited.

“I am not going to Lady Graham’s place. I refuse to be fobbed off in this manner.”

He smiled at her fondly, as though she were an unruly child. “Oh, I have not the least intention of fobbing you off. I mean to take a very active concern for your well-being. You will find me tediously interested in all your doings. I have arranged outings for you both this afternoon and this evening.”

She listened to this and found it gratifying. She still disliked both the location and character of her new keeper, but if Clivedon meant to dance attendance on her, it would be supportable. Rather a feather in her cap, to have him running at her heels.

“Are you quite sure Lady Angela will approve of that?” she asked with a pert smile.

“I have not discussed the matter with her,” he replied, smiling as he ushered her out the door and led her to his carriage.

He was amusing all during the longish drive to Mecklenberg Square, talking of social doings. As he left her with Lady Graham, he mentioned that he would see her very soon. She assumed he meant that same afternoon, and wondered that he did not stay to luncheon, as the drive home and back again was long enough to occasion some inconvenience.

Chapter 4

Luncheon found Lady Barbara sitting across the table from a pair of ladies who strangely resembled Chinese mandarins. Age had yellowed their skin and slanted their eyes down at the outer edges to give them doleful expressions. Lady Graham was the chief mandarin, an overbearing dame with gray hair and wearing the last pair of tiered sleeves in London. The lace from these ancient relics was entrusted to no hands but her own, where it received twice weekly a washing in cream. It was the major physical act she had performed during the normal course of her days, but she had girded herself for more strenuous pursuits to amuse her guest. Her sister was slightly less ancient and a good deal less overbearing. In fact, she was a slave in all but name to the elder.

“You look peaked, Lady Barbara,” Lady Graham accused. “Have you been ill?”

“No, not at all.”

“You are too thin. All skin and bone, like Mabel.” A glare was leveled on Mabel, who was indeed much less well fleshed than her corpulent sister. “Here, have a dish of this soft pudding. It will help pad you out. Ladies want padding; it pleases the gentlemen. And you will want nourishment for your outing this afternoon too. It is very wearing, racketing into town. We like our privacy here very well, but of course they stuck in a metaled road as soon as ever we got here.”

Barbara accepted a heaping load of soft pudding, which she tasted before concealing it behind a bowl of fruit.

“Have you ever been to Bullock’s Museum?” was the next speech.

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Good. You will like to see Napoleon’s carriage. It is on view there. One ought to take some interest in history, and I daresay that Corsican upstart will be remembered a few years.

“We must go some time,” Barbara answered politely, smiling to herself at the drabness of the outing.

“We go this afternoon,” she was told.

Mabel peeped up as though she would like to say a word, but she was ordered to eat her soft pudding, and did it obediently.

“Clivedon plans to return this afternoon,” Barbara mentioned.

“Clivedon? Nonsense. He is off to a weekend party at Haddon’s place in Kent, with Lady Angela. He left from here. There will be a match, mark my words.”

“He said . . .” Yet he had not actually said he would accompany her on the outing, merely that he had arranged one. An angry feeling began sprouting in her bosom, of having been outwitted by him.

“It was his suggestion you would like to see it. And this evening we go to a concert of antique music. They are resuscitating the Elizabethan madrigal this month,” Lady Graham told her, with a satisfied nod of her head. “I don’t usually racket around so much, but to hear the madrigals is worth any exertion. It will be interesting for you. It will not be a late night at all; you will get plenty of sleep, as Clivedon suggested.”

“Clivedon suggested it, did he?” she asked, her voice strangely tense.

“Certainly he did. You should call him Lord Clivedon, by the by. Brassy manners will not do on Mecklenberg Square. You want to show him proper respect. I was surprised to hear such good sense from him. I was afraid he would expect me to drag you off to drums and gay revels, but he knew better. Clivedon is a little loose in his own amusements, there is no denying. But then, men are more free than ladies; always have been and always will be. Eat your crust, Mabel,” she added, sparing an eye for her other charge. “It will curl your hair.” This caused the old witch to emit a nasty laugh.

Feeling sorry for the sister, Barbara mentioned the annoyance of straight hair.

Lady Graham frowned at her having uttered a word on her own initiative, and again took over the conversation. “Sunday of course we shall do no more than go to church, but Monday I mean to take you to Burlington House to see the Elgin Marbles.”

“I have seen the Elgin Marbles, Lady Graham,” Barbara said in a firm voice.

“I saw them as well, when Elgin had them at his own place in Park Street, but they are much better displayed now, I hear. That great sculptured slab from the Temple of Nike was off in a corner where the work could not be appreciated. Take your sketch pad along, Lady Barbara. It will be an educational afternoon, to appreciate the Hellenic touch in sculpture.”

Barbara said nothing. By Monday, she trusted, Clivedon would be home from the party, and if he thought she was to spend the Season in this manner, he would have something to learn. She went to Bullock’s Museum to view Napoleon’s carriage that afternoon, and in the evening she dozed through a very inferior rendition of Elizabethan madrigals. The audience was composed of ladies and gentlemen who looked nearly as old as the music. She doubted half of them were awake to hear it. Heads nodded on shoulders, and the snores were louder than the lyre. Both Lady Graham and Miss Mabel sat at attention, their noses quivering with the unwonted excitement. As Barbara was tired, she tolerated the dull evening without uttering a single word of complaint, though she was slow to rise to appreciation on the scale of her hostess.

Church was attended on Sunday morning. Not the chapel royal, but a little out-of-the-way building in Somers Town, the building smelling of new bricks and mortar and the sermon of brimstone. The black coats of the men and black bombazine gowns of the ladies both smelled of camphor. Lady Barbara realized she had fallen amongst Dissenters, and racked it up in her account against her foe.

Lady Graham did not approve of any frivolity such as museums and music on the Sabbath. There were Bible readings after each of the three meals, and there was a “period of contemplation” from two to four, for the meals, of course, were served at country hours. The guest spent not a moment contemplating the hereafter, the subject suggested by her hostess. She contemplated instead revenge on her guardian.

After her quiet weekend, she was well rested up to take him on. It was only the anticipation of it the next day that kept her from coming to cuffs with the chief mandarin when she scolded Miss Mabel for dropping a spot of gravy on the tablecloth, as though she were a child. She would not satisfy him to have Lady Graham report any misconduct on her part. She volunteered to play a few hymns on the old clavichord in the corner that evening, but the idea was vetoed. Music should not intrude on the Sabbath, except possibly in a church, and even there, it was suggested, it had a whiff of papacy about it.

It was not yet nine when Lady Graham began to yawn into her tiered sleeves and her sister to eye the lamps, preparatory to extinguishing them. The striking of the long-case clock in the corner would be the cue to lay aside their books of sermons. Not even netting or knitting was allowed on the Sabbath. At one minute before nine, the door-knocker sounded. “Who on earth could be calling at this hour of the night?” Mabel wondered. One would think it were midnight at least.

“Clivedon, of course, ninny,” her sister informed her. “No one else we know would consider a call in the middle of the night eligible. I am remarkably glad he sent you to me, Lady Barbara. I was afraid, when Lady Withers spoke to me of the plan, he meant to send you to her, and she is a sad, runabout creature. You would not want to stay with her. It would ruin your chances for a good match, meeting nothing but rakes and rattles.” Barbara listened, wondering which of the few octogenarians she had been introduced to her cousin was lining up for her. “Ah, Clivedon,” the dame continued, assessing her caller’s bow as he came in.

“Good evening, ladies. Sorry to importune you at such a farouche hour. I was driving past on my way home from my visit and, as your lights were still on, I hoped I caught you before retiring.”

“We were about to retire,” he was told, while Barbara figured that if he was on his way home from Kent, he had not been passing by, but had come several miles out of his way.

“I shan’t detain you a moment. Merely I wanted to inquire how Lady Barbara is getting on.” He glanced at her, a fleeting look only, but long enough for her to glimpse the laughter in his eyes, before he turned back to the hostess. “You are to be congratulated, ma’am. She looks improved already. I can see you have followed my wishes and not let her stay up till all hours.”

“I must confess we didn’t get into our beds till after ten last night,” Lady Graham admitted. “But we attended the late service this morning to catch up on our rest. Lady Barbara got her ten hours, and will have eleven this night.”

“Excellent.” He smiled, looking about for a comfortable seat and finding none. The one sofa held the mandarins, while Lady Barbara sat on a hard-backed, unpadded seat that gave a view from the window. She had been sitting there since before darkness had fallen, looking into a perfectly empty road. He took a matching chair beside her.

“I hope you enjoyed the house party at Oak Bay, Clivedon,” she said. “I didn’t realize, when you left us, where you were going, or I would have wished you a happy visit.”

“I have already spoken to you about that, Lady Barbara,” Lady Graham intervened. “About treating Lord Clivedon with respect.”

“I hope I show no disrespect to apologize, ma’am,” Barbara said, wondering what freakish nonsense she was to hear now.

“You called him Clivedon! Watch your manners, missie. Lord Clivedon is what you should call your elders.”