Holiday in Bath (25 page)

“No, no, I appreciate your consideration, Mr. Rowle. What a despicable thing to do! I would never have believed them possible of such villainy.” Trelenny allowed her lower lip to tremble just the slightest bit. “Wretched girl! How I feel for her.”

“I made sure you would enter into my sentiments in the matter, dear girl. Your sensibility does you honor. But don’t repine. Forewarned is forearmed. I remember the snickers when Miss Ponsonby left town and I thought them dreadfully callous. For a week I stayed away from every assembly and concert because I could not bear such contemptuous ridicule. The poor girl was not to blame for her lack of sophistication. She had spent all her life in the country and had no idea how cruel and heartless society can be. I never heard anyone sympathize with her, I promise you.”

“I am sure you felt just as you ought, and the others should be ashamed of themselves,” Trelenny remarked fervently.

They had entered the maze and Mr. Rowle placed a hand on her arm, his eyes grave. “Please don’t misunderstand me, Miss Storwood. The situation is not the same with you! Anyone with eyes can see your beauty; anyone with a grain of perception can appreciate your charm; anyone with the least pretension to ton can recognize your innate poise, your refinement, your natural grace. Your innocence is not that of rusticity but of ingenuousness.” He shook his head wonderingly. “To find such spirit and such sensibility in one woman! Such understanding and amiability. I had not thought it possible.”

“You flatter me, Mr. Rowle.” Trelenny nervously clasped her hands together and stared at the top button on his coat, which was gold and glittered in the afternoon sunlight.

“No,” he said gruffly, “I fail to express even the hundredth part. Come, walk with me. I have never told you of my adventures in the West Indies. Should you like to hear of the day I encountered a ferocious beast or sailed into a smuggling ring?”

Trelenny was all rapt attention, her eyes aglow with admiration. “Oh, tell me them both,” she breathed.

As he regaled her with anecdotes they wandered aimlessly (or so it seemed) through the maze. They passed several other strollers, but he was so wrapped up in the telling and she in the hearing of his exploits that they paid no attention to anyone else. At length Mr. Rowle looked about him with a bemused expression. “I’m afraid I’ve mistaken the way,” he said ruefully.

“No matter.” Trelenny opened the reticule which swung from her arm and extracted twenty guineas, while he watched, frowning. “I should like to repay my debt now, Mr. Rowle, before we return to Mama. It was twenty, was it not?”

“Well, yes,” he said hesitantly, making no attempt to take the money.

“I was sure it was.” She stood with both hands full, held out to him.

He muttered what might have been an oath and waved the coins aside. “I can’t take your money.”

“But you must! A gambling debt is a debt of honor and I would never renege on such a thing. Come, take them.”

Reluctantly he emptied first one hand and then the other, dumping the coins in his coat pockets where they jangled against one another cheerfully. “Never again will I allow myself to be put in such a position,” he said fiercely as he wiped his hands against his pantaloons as though to remove the taint of the money.

“You make too much of the matter, my dear sir. What is twenty guineas?”

So moved by her generous attitude that he could not express himself, he caught her lightly to him and kissed her. “Dearest of creatures! Most remarkable of women! How does it come about that one of your tender years has such nobility?” And because she made no protest, either of his kiss or his effusions, he kissed her again.

An ominous voice roared from a short distance away. “Trelenny! Where the devil is your mother?”

Showing no sign of embarrassment, Trelenny turned to where Cranford stood with Lady Babthorpe at the edge of the hedges. “She’s with Mrs. Lyegrove in an arbor near the entrance, Cranford. Had you some particular need to see her?”

“I have a very particular desire to take you to her,” he growled with a scathing glance at Mr. Rowle, who had uncomfortably backed away.

“But we have not reached the center of the maze yet!”

“It does not appear that you are likely to. This is about as far from it as you could get.”

“Then what are you doing here?” she asked impudently, her eyes covertly surveying Lady Babthorpe.

The lady chose to be amused. “Our intent was much the same as yours, Miss Storwood—a little privacy.”

“Well, Mr. Rowle and I will leave you to it,” Trelenny replied with dignity. She inclined her head very slightly to Lady Babthorpe and threw Cranford a look of profound disapproval before adjusting the reticule on her arm and preparing to depart.

“I will take you to your mother, Trelenny,” Cranford announced, “to see that you don’t lose your way again.”

Trelenny turned to Lady Babthorpe and Mr. Rowle, the former watching with amusement and the latter with displeasure. “If you would excuse us a moment, I would like a word alone with Cranford.” Imperatively she beckoned him to follow her around the hedges, out of sight of the others. “You are making a scene, Cranford. Shame on you! If you take me back to Mama it will only upset her, for you are sure to be so Friday-faced that she will assume something is amiss. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Have you sunk so far as to consider allowing that jackanapes to kiss you a commonplace, my girl?” he demanded furiously.

“Don’t be so stuffy, Cranford. There’s no harm in it. In fact, I rather liked it.” Her eyes danced mischievously at the thunderous lowering of his brows. “Didn’t you bring Lady Babthorpe here to kiss her?”

"No, I did not!”

“Tsk, tsk. I cannot believe you are telling me the whole truth, sir. However, I will not impugn your word, as I know that makes you quite liverish. Cranford, have you any faith in my understanding?” When he seemed at a loss how to answer,  she laughed. “Mr. Rowle says I have an excellent understanding, but there, he doesn’t know me so well as you do, does he? Believe me, I know precisely what I’m doing, Cranford, and I’m having a marvelous time, so don’t spoil everything, will you? I promise you we will go straight back to Mama.”

Irritated, upset, even a little hurt, Cranford stared at her impassively for some time. “Very well, see that you do.”

Impulsively, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you!” And then she was gone, leaving him to sort out the conflicting emotions which raged within him.

“I tell you, Jane, she’s the veriest child! You know what he is, and there she was allowing him to kiss her with nary a protest. By God, she told me she rather liked it! For heaven’s sake, please talk to her. She wouldn’t listen to me; I put her back up. But she’s like a toddler on the edge of a cliff and you can’t be sure she has enough sense not to try to fly. You said yourself that he’s a very plausible rogue. I can’t bear to think what the consequences will be if she marries him.”

"No,” Lady Jane said thoughtfully, “that would be disastrous. I’ll call on her first thing tomorrow morning and see what I can do. Cranford, have you allowed yourself to become involved with Lady Babthorpe again?”

For a moment she thought he would not answer her. The reserved look shuttered his eyes and a certain stiffness about his shoulders proclaimed his withdrawal, but after a moment he shrugged and shook his head. “No. I have lost my taste for that sort of intrigue. Forgive me. Am I speaking too bluntly, Jane?”

She smiled gently. “We’ve always spoken as brother and sister. It is I who am being impertinent, I fear, but it occurs to me that Miss Storwood could put a great significance on your being in the maze with her ladyship.”

“Oh, she will, the little baggage.”

Lady Jane pursed her lips reprovingly. “The appearance of evil…You have set yourself up as a model of propriety to Miss Storwood. She can hardly see anything wrong in her kissing Mr. Rowle if you are playing fast and loose with a married woman.”

“I can’t very well explain to Trelenny what I was doing there. Actually, I had refused an assignation and Drucilla waylaid me in Broad Street, spitting fire, and I thought it only fair to give her an opportunity to vent her rage—albeit in a more private location. Mr. Rowle knows precisely the same, unfrequented spot in the labyrinth.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s time we left for the theatre if we don’t wish to be late.”

“I invited Trelenny to go with us but she was engaged.”

Lady Jane cast her eyes heavenward and said nothing.

The weather turned chill and dreary overnight, and a light rain had begun to fall by the time Lady Jane arrived in Henrietta Street. She was laughing and shaking the drops from her shawl as she was shown into the first-floor sitting room where Trelenny was practicing while her mother painstakingly removed two rows of stitches from a pillow cover she was embroidering. “I think we are about to have a Bath winter after all. Good morning, Mrs. Storwood, Miss Storwood. Was that you I heard as I came up the stairs? Your playing has improved tremendously.”

“I’ve been working on it a little,” Trelenny admitted. “Do sit by the fire, Lady Jane. Mrs. Waplington says we’ve been lucky in our weather so far, and that this is much more normal.”

“I fear she’s right. It’s difficult to get a chair when the rains come, though, and some of them leak, so be prepared! My father is always threatening to order a chair of our own and have the footmen carry me about. What exquisite work you do, Mrs. Storwood!”

Trelenny was vaguely aware during the ensuing conversation that Lady Jane was observing her, and it occurred to her, dishearteningly, that perhaps Lady Jane wished them to be alone so she might discuss Cranford. Although Trelenny had no desire to be her confidante, and had to steel herself to suggest it, after a while she said, “Lady Jane, I wonder if you would like to see the new reticule Mama bought me yesterday. It’s rather unique and I was debating whether to purchase one for Clare.”

Her guest accepted the invitation with alacrity and surveyed Trelenny’s room with dancing eyes. “A most unusual decor.”

“Yes,” Trelenny laughed. “Mrs. Waplington meant to remove the prints and replace them with dogs or scenes of Somerset, but she forgot. Her husband uses the room for his guests, apparently. I don’t mind them; they’re rather charming.”

“They may, perhaps, have led you to believe that a gentleman kissing a lady is a very natural thing, which it is, of course, but society has seen fit to place restrictions on who may do so with propriety.”

“Cranford told you! What a mean, underhanded thing to do! Did he tell you he was there with Lady Babthorpe?” Trelenny could have bit her tongue but it was too late.

“Yes, he did. Don’t make too much of that, my dear Miss Storwood. In the past ... well, he has assured me there is no current. . . Lord, it is so difficult to know just how to put it.”

“I understand what you are saying, Lady Jane. You need never hesitate to be frank with me. Mama didn’t want me to be an ignoramus about relations between men and women and explained things to me some time ago.” Trelenny busied herself searching in the drawer for the reticule as she said, “Cranford is very open with you. I would never have expected him to be so forthcoming.”

“We’ve been friends a long time. I asked him.”

“He wouldn’t have told me if I’d asked him. He’d have told me it was none of my business.”

“Would he?” Lady Jane grinned as Trelenny returned to her. “I feel sure he was about to say the same to me but changed his mind. Is that the reticule? I don’t know Clare so well as you do, of course, but I think she’d be enchanted with it. Where did your mother find it?”

“At White’s. She said they had several.”

“Miss Storwood, I’m not one for beating about the bush. There is something I feel I should tell you, and with your permission I will do so. I think it’s very important, or I wouldn’t impose so on you.”

“Please sit down.” Trelenny made a nervous gesture toward the chairs, a sinking feeling in her heart. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Lady Jane.” She was too agitated to notice the curious glance her companion leveled at her.

“My father and I come to Bath perhaps once or twice a year, Miss Storwood, and I have an opportunity to meet quite a few people when we are here. Some of the acquaintances are superficial, of course, and I would not presume to judge character on the basis of them. Others, for one reason or another, one gains more knowledge of, and feels confident in appraising. I do not think I am hasty in my determinations; years of social intercourse have confirmed me in the opinion that it takes time to gauge the virtues and failings of our fellow human beings. Now I am beating about the bush, aren’t I? Miss Storwood, I have every reason to believe that Mr. Rowle is a contemptible villain.”

“I know.”

Lady Jane regarded her with astonishment. “You know?”

“Yes, I have suspected it for some time, but I knew for sure the other night. He’s what my groom would call ‘a nasty bit o’ goods.’ Really, how naive did he think I was? I am an excellent card player, Lady Jane; even Cranford could not dispute that. Mr. Rowle and his friends set me up! How could he think I wouldn’t know? I had given him credit for some intelligence, at least.”

Her indignation was so real that Lady Jane fell into gales of laughter. “You naughty child! Were you leading him up the garden path, then?”

“Well, I thought he deserved it. Twenty guineas! The better part of my quarter’s allowance. And now I shall have to wait until next quarter to give Cranford some money for the trip. Do you know that Mr. Rowle’s Christian name is Morton? Now I ask you, have you ever known anything good of a man named Morton? I beg your pardon! This is being prematurely judgmental, is it not? Still, it gave me some indication.”

“What is it you are trying to do to him, Miss Storwood?”

“I have led him to believe that I am a magnificent heiress. God will forgive me for a few exaggerations in a good cause, won’t He? I quadrupled the size of my father’s estate and augmented his staff a trifle. You should have seen Mr. Rowle’s eyes shine! I had the most difficult time refraining from laughing. Do you think I shouldn’t have let him kiss me? I have wondered what it was like to be kissed,” she said wistfully. “And I do believe it encouraged him to think I would welcome an offer from him.”