Lady Hathaway's House Party (18 page)

Oliver smiled a commiserating smile at her down the table, and lifted his glass to drink a toast. She gagged over stale macaroons and lifted her glass in return. Have a glass of wine, Lady Hathaway. Toast your old sister Anne. Don’t mind if I do. You wouldn’t have a dash of laudanum to liven it up? I’d prefer to sleep away the rest of this meal. Coffee bitter and an inch of sludge in the bottom of the cup. Never mind, pass the champagne.

It was over at last, and the lucky gentlemen got to stay for more wine, while the ladies, who must be surely starving and drunk, were packed off to the green saloon to await them. Kay had the inspiration of serving bonbons and salted nuts, dried cherries, and anything else that came in a box or bottle and didn’t require cooking. Every such crumb in the house was consumed, as though it were manna. Lady Dempster reached out and took the last nut from the plate. “I’ll be the old maid,” she laughed roguishly, and popped it into her mouth while the others watched in envy.

The eyes of the city crowd were on Avondale when the gentlemen joined them, but he wore his old stone face, and was officially unaware of it. Again he stayed away from Belle, and took up a chair beside the Delfords, which Kay thought rather a low trick as they had been asked on Belle’s account. Maybe he was trying to worm his way into her company by this devious route. If he was, he failed.

Mr. Higgins went to her, and asked her if she spoke any Italian at all, and tried to memorize her few phrases, though it wasn’t really
buon giorno
and certainly not
arrivederci
he was interested to learn.
Bambino
and
pianissimo
were similarly useless, but they pretty well exhausted Belle’s store, and when she suggested he ask Signora Travalli he became so flustered she didn’t know what to make of it. With her head full of her own problems, she was one of the few not to realize the purpose of his interest in the language. Lady Dempster had been teasing him about the signora, and he was letting on he didn’t see her, waving and smiling at him, and motioning to the empty chair beside her.

Kay fully expected the musicians would not show up, or would forget their instruments, or perform some deed to ruin the rest of the evening, but she was wrong. They came with fiddles and with the piano player, and it began to seem after a few more glasses of champagne, still flowing freely, as though some entertainment might yet be wrested from this abominable evening.

It was only a rout, so she didn’t bother coping with the problem of who should lead off. Let anyone with the energy and inclination do it. There, Mr. Peoples and his fat old wife making a jig of the waltz. Who had told those fool musicians to begin with a waltz? Since learning it, they didn’t want to play anything else. Lord, and making it sound as jerky as a polka. Where was Oliver? My God, he’d fallen into La Travalli’s clutches. Belle would have a conniption. Better rescue him.

“Get to bed, trollop,” she ordered the singer, and was rewarded with the customary string of jabberwocky. “Not
mine
either. Or Mr. Higgins’. I found her in my bed this afternoon, Oliver. Better nip up and lock your door. We don’t need
her
found in your room, do we?”

“Hmm.” He examined her rather closely, and didn’t seem exactly repelled at the notion.

“Oliver!”

“If a man can’t eat he must do something, and really that was a
terrible
dinner you served us, old girl.”

“I have half a mind to slip down to the kitchen for a slice of bread and butter.”

“I have three-quarters of a mind to join you. Have you got any jam?”

“I’ll see if there’s anything can be rustled up for a midnight supper. Cold ham and cheese and such laborers’ fare it will be, if we’re lucky.”

“I see you got Belle to come down. How did you do it?” he asked, across the smiling face of the signora.

“Why
did I do it, if you’re going to pretend she isn’t here? Go and dance with her, idiot.”

“I didn’t want to scare her off. You told me to behave with the greatest discretion.”

They both looked towards Belle, to see her stand up with the young gentleman who had been her partner at dinner.

“Who’s that?” Avondale asked, with some suggestion of incipient jealousy, which surely would not be followed by discretion.

“Neville Brewster, and I would prefer you not to flatten him if it’s all the same to you. His mama is a good friend of mine.”

“I’ll ask her when this dance is over, if I have the strength.”

“The meal wasn’t that bad.”

“I refer to the jeroboam of wine it was necessary to wash it down with.”

Mr. Higgins sidled up to them, after first ascertaining that Lady Dempster was on the other side of the room, and with no great difficulty seduced La Travalli away from them.

“I’ve a mind to tell Eldon what that one’s up to,” Kay said.

“He ain’t blind, and is keeping a pretty sharp eye on the signora himself.” He then wandered off to keep an eye on Mr. Brewster himself, and to rush out and replace him at the last beat of the music.

Belle was not totally unconscious of her husband watching her with his arms crossed and his face a graven mask. It was his old city face, one that did not denote pending violence. When he came out toward her, she felt uneasy, but not frightened.

“Avondale,” she said, inclining her head slightly, and made him known to Mr. Brewster. Less versed in the many faces of the duke, Mr. Brewster did not realize he was safe, and walked away at a brisk pace. The formal “Avondale” annoyed him to a point it was hard to disregard, but his own recent behavior forbade his taking oral offense at it.

“Belle,” he said in a tone that was trying to be pleasant. “I’m glad you saw fit to come to the rout.”

“Why should I not?” she asked, ready to read insult into anything.

“You should, and I’m glad you did. A pity about Kay’s cook taking ill.”

“She’s very upset about it.”

“It was an awful meal.” Talk—say something. The advice received from his gentlemen friends must be put into effect.

“I hardly ate a bite.”

“The wine was good at least.” He didn’t see any flood of revelations as being at all likely to issue from this sterile conversation. It sounded much like their old exchanges in London after their marriage. “Wasn’t it a lovely ball?” “Very nice. Lady Castlereagh throws the best balls in town.” “Did you enjoy the concert?” “Very nice.”

“Belle, I want to talk to you,” he said, in a whole new and intimate tone. She looked wary in the extreme. “I want to explain about Mrs. Traveller.”

“You have explained already, a couple of times. It’s quite enough.”

If she hadn’t added the redeeming Oliver” he might have flown into a passion. “This time I want to tell you the truth.”

“That will be a change.”

“Don’t goad me. I’m only hanging on by a thread.”

“Don’t threaten me. I’m becoming a little fed up myself. You aren’t the only one who can throw a scene.”

“I’d like to see you throw one. I’d like to see the ice melt for once, and try to discover what’s underneath it all.”

“More ice. Layers and layers of it, heaped up there by
you!”
she answered in a hot voice that must have melted a polar icecap.

He was cheered at her warm answer that augured a flood. “By God, they’re right!” he said, and grabbing her hand pulled her from the room, before she should clam up on him again. He felt the flood was about to be unleashed.

Lady Dempster, watching the whole through her lorgnette from the sidelines, arose and tripped out after them. “We’ll let you know how it comes out,” Oliver said when he discovered what she was up to. She was not so easily put off, and kept on following them, but at a little distance. Oliver went to the same study where he had laid the stage for their reconciliation earlier and opened the door. There was no fire, and no champagne, but a light at least, and he ushered Belle into the room with no great ceremony. Seeing Lady Dempster peeking around the corner, he called, “This is private. Do you mind?” Then he entered the room himself and slammed the door after him.

“Now
—now, Belle, we’re going to
talk.
”

Chapter Fourteen

Belle looked to the slammed door, and wondered if Lady Dempster’s ear was to the keyhole. Very likely. Then she looked to Oliver. “Well, talk,” she said. “Let’s hear the latest installment in the continuing saga of Mrs. Traveller and the Duke of Avondale.”

The look of an oncoming flood had left her. She looked cold again. Without a word of preamble, he blurted into the middle of his excuse. “Her husband is a thief. He was holding the bets at the Doncaster Race Meet for some men, and some duns from London caught up to him. They were threatening to haul him off to debtors’ prison, and he paid them off with the holdings—not his own money. He sent Honey here to borrow money from me to pay the wagers. That’s all there is to it. It was a thousand pounds he needed. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I knew it. Why did you lie to me?” She knew instinctively he wasn’t lying now.

“He’s my cousin. Not a member of the family we brag about, or are proud of. He has made a career of such doings as this. I try to sweep him under the mat so no one will know.”

“I’m a member of your family too. If he’s
your
cousin,
your
family, then he’s mine too. Why should you hide him from
me?
I’m your wife.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” he said in a strange voice. “How could I think of you as my wife, Belle, when you act like a stranger? You’re so—so
indifferent
to everything I do.”

“You should be glad I am, the things
you
do.”

“Like what? Tell me one thing I’ve done that’s wrong.”

“I can’t tell you. You don’t think it’s wrong.”

“Tell me. If you think I’m going to hell, you should tell me. A wife has duties as well as privileges.”

“Does she have anything except duties? I don’t seem to recall the privileges.”

“Strange, I have very little recollection of the duties, unless you refer to my occasional conjugal demands on you.”

“I’m not talking about that.”

“What other duties did you have, or fulfill at least? Did you take any interest in my welfare—social, emotional, moral, anything? Did you once condescend to tell me I was doing something you disapproved of? Our whole relationship was as infertile as the marriage itself. No issue, to use Mr. Sangster’s dry phrase. You might as well have been a toy doll for all the interest you took. I was only a dummy called a duke, that poured forth money and diamonds when you pushed the right button.”

“I didn’t even have to push buttons. You poured them forth whether I wanted them or not, and I didn’t want them! I left them behind for you to pour on somebody else. Somebody better suited to gaudy, garish ornaments in bad taste. Try Mrs. Traveller.”

“What did you want, then? Are you a deaf mute? Can't you
tell
me what was wrong? Never mind the jibes and innuendo, Belle. I’ve explained about Mrs. Traveller.”

“I’ll talk to you. If it’s moral guidance you want, I’ll tell you. You said you loved me. You took better care of your horses and servants than you took of me. You
knew
I was stupid; you told me often enough.”

“’Unpolished’ was what I said.”

“‘Stupid’ was what you meant, and you were right. But if I was stupid, I was
your
stupid wife, and you should have looked after me till I got smarter. You shouldn't have turned me over to Lady Hasborough to get my city education from that set of harpies she  bear-leads.”

“You had your aunt, Mrs. Rankin.”

"Oh, Mrs. Rankin! She is as stupid as I was myself. She didn’t know what was going on, and when I found out I was ashamed to tell her what sort of a crowd I was mixed up with. She wouldn’t have believed it anyway. She thought a title was like a halo. A lord or a lady could do no wrong.”

“She’s over fifty. She can’t be that ignorant. And in any case you had Lady Hasborough,” he said, then stopped as he realized this was the lady being derided. But he knew no ill of her, and went on to add, “She is quite unexceptionable, I believe. My own cousin.”

“You number some extremely dirty dishes amongst your cousins. It’s her you should be sweeping under the mat.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Lady Hasborough.”

“She’s a bitch, to use plain English. Her main pleasure in life is disillusioning the innocent, and trying to lead them astray, trying to stir up trouble, to have a juicy new morsel to laugh over.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, staring hard.

“I mean her setting Jackson and Fischer and half a dozen of her own gouty old beaux onto me, to follow me around and try to stir up mischief.”

“Belle, you should have told me!”

“You should have known! She’s your cousin, a byword in London. Everyone knows what she is. Her being accepted at court doesn’t make her decent—quite otherwise! I had to learn from the Delfords to avoid her. You wouldn’t turn a horse over to a trainer without checking up on him, but you turned
me
over to that licentious crew, while you racketed around with your own friends and took no more notice of me than if I were an unwanted guest in your house.”

Avondale began raking his fingers through his hair, and with a great effort stayed in the room, while every instinct told him to dash to London and begin issuing challenges. “All right. I was wrong. It was my fault, and I should have known. What else?”

“Where shall I begin?” she asked, looking at him with contempt.

“You have begun. Don’t clam up on me now. But the wrong wasn’t all on my side. Maybe I neglected you a little—well, I did, but you never
once
asked me where I was going, or when I would return, or
if
I would return. You never asked me to go with you. Your indifference was the most outstanding aspect of our marriage.”

“I disagree. Your philandering outdid it in being the talk of London.”

“You could have changed it with a word. The way I felt about you, I would have done anything you asked. And you wouldn’t have found it necessary to ask more than once. You never asked, nor showed by so much as a frown that you gave a damn where I went, or with whom, or what I did. Why do you think I flirted a little?—and that’s all it was!—with the dashers if not to try to prod you out of your indifference—to make you show
something,
even if it was only anger.”