Lady John (20 page)

“It is absolutely true,” Olivia
was saying as he drew near. “And she has the temerity to complain of Matthew’s
vices to Mr. Haikestill, who then runs to tell them to me! A pretty odd notion
of propriety, that.”

Lady Susannah murmured something soothing. Menwin stopped
for a moment, loath to break in to this interesting conversation.

“Sue,” Olivia continued, her voice low and desperate. “He
cannot
marry her. He must not! I’m afraid that
nothing will happen to stop it, and he will feel himself honor-bound to marry
her, and I shall have to sit by and be miserable and watch Matthew be twice as
miserable and—”

“Shhhhhh,” Lady Susannah drew Olivia into a quick embrace.
Menwin did not hear the words of comfort she whispered, but Olivia withdrew a
moment later, laughing shakily. Menwin, watching self-consciously, decided he
had best announce himself now.

“Making a cake of yourself, Olivia?”

“I certainly am,” she smiled, dabbing at her eyes with a
corner of her shawl. “Was there ever such an idiot? How fared your talk with
Miss Casserley?”

Menwin smiled ruefully. “I cannot tell if I gave her a
disgust of me, but I would turn away immediately from the empty-headed nodcock
who said any of the remarkably stupid things I have been saying to entertain my
betrothed.”

“And do you think it has taken, Matt?” Susannah asked.

“I cannot say. I hope so.” He reached down easily to help
each lady in turn up from the ground. “High time we returned to London, I
think.”

“Yes, I think so. This has not been the most successful
party, has it?” Susannah tied her bonnet anew and dusted leaves from her muslin
skirt. Then, smiling hopefully at Olivia and Menwin, “Never fret, my dears.
Mamma will think of something else.”

“I hope so,” Olivia murmured, but not so loudly that
Susannah could hear.

And half an hour later Lady Susannah echoed the thought
herself. She sat in the barouche with Haikestill, Miss Casserley, and Kit, and
pretended expertly to be so fast asleep that she could not be drawn into the
conversation in the carriage. Olivia had been seated in Tylmath’s phaeton, as
Lady Bette solidly refused to go another ten paces with her brother, and the
Duke and his sister-at-law rode in silence all the way back to Town.

“Mamma had best think of something,” Lady Susannah thought
hazily, listening to Miss Casserley’s insistent commentary. “For if Livvy don’t
kill the woman, I may wring her neck myself!”

Her Grace of Tylmath refused to be dismayed by reports of
the Richmond outing. She sent Olivia home in Kit’s care, and sat, nibbling soda
biscuits and plotting.

“Was your trip back very bad?” Kit asked as they left the
house.

“Oh, no of course not.” Olivia looped the slight train of
her walking dress over one wrist with a deft twist. “Tylmath merely glowered at
his horses’ necks for the entire hour of the ride. I wonder the poor animals
did not die of the venom he looked at them.”

Kit snorted. “’Twas no better in the barouche, Livvy. Sue
and I pretended to be asleep all the way back. Which is easy enough for our
Sukey: she’s close enough to sleeping most of the time. But as for me… well,
all I can say is, I more and more understand Menwin’s point of view. Not that
you ain’t a fine female, but even had he no alternative, I cannot see Matt
leg-shackled to Miss Casserley, be she never so pretty. D’you know that she and
Haikestill, not content with jawing all the trip out, nattered on about Bibles
and stockings all the trip back as well.” He shot her a sideways glance. “I
shall not be offending you if I say that both Miss C. and your Mr. Haikestill
are a prime pair of chuckleheads, shall I?”

“Not at all. But he is not
my
Mr.
Haikestill, thank you.” She would say nothing more on that subject, but once
safely indoors Olivia sped straight to her mother to discuss the afternoon’s
painful interviews.

o0o

Unfortunately for Olivia’s peace of mind, Mr. Haikestill
refused to remain a dead issue. He presented himself in Queen Anne’s Street the
next afternoon at three; his card was brought in to Lady John and her mother as
they sat in the salon talking. Olivia regarded the card apprehensively, as if
on its own it might rise up and attack her. But where she might have refused
the man entrance, Mrs. Martingale bade Puddlesey admit him. “I brought you up
better than that, my dear. The man, no matter in what unfortunate fashion, did
you the honor to make you an offer. You owe him some courtesy, at least.”

Lady John fixed her mother with an expression of amused
despair. “You know, Mamma, I think I liked it better when I was the reasonable
one and you were particular.”

Any rejoinder Mrs. Martingale might have made was cut short
by Mr. Haikestill’s appearance at the door. He paused as if trying to make an
impression, or to gauge the thoughts of the room’s occupants. Then he advanced
with pleasurable dignity upon Mrs. Martingale and made his bow to her.

“My dear madam,” he began with stately formality. “Your
daughter cannot have failed to have apprised you of my offer to her yesterday.
I make my apologies, indeed, that I did not apply to you first, as would be proper;
I considered that Lady John, as she is of full age and a widow beside, might
properly be considered her own mistress.” He had not yet taken formal notice of
Olivia’s presence, and seemed to be bending all his efforts to charm her mother
instead. In a flash of horrified amusement Olivia understood that he thought
her acceptance of his proposals contingent upon her mother’s consent.

Mrs. Martingale, on her part, recoiled slightly from the
oppressiveness of Haikestill’s genial formality and begged the gentleman to
take a chair. “I hope you will understand, sir, that my daughter is, indeed,
her own mistress. I might give her my advice, but she is in no wise obligated
to take it.”

Haikestill smiled knowingly. “Ah, but a dutiful daughter, ma’am?
I only ask you to play my friend with her and urge her to accept an offer which
I believe will secure my own happiness, hers, and might I add, your own.”

Olivia watched this performance unnoticed from her chair,
and was gratified by the militant flash which lit her mother’s eye.

“Mr. Haikestill, I have said before: Olivia is her own
mistress. I would no more try to order her marriage than I would seek to fly.
She must be the best arbiter of her happiness, and if she has determined
against your suit, no advice from me will serve to sway her feelings. My
daughter can be extremely stubborn, Mr. Haikestill.”

Haikestill, who had been leaning forward in pleasant
certainty of the outcome of his suit, now slumped back, looking perplexed. “Stubbornness
is indeed a regrettable failing, Mrs. Martingale, and one I should have thought
Lady John quite grown out of at her age. However, I make no doubt that marriage
will—”

“You forget that my daughter has been married, Mr.
Haikestill.” Mrs. Martingale was an easygoing woman, but her love of her child
would bear no criticism, and certainly none from a long-winded pomp-monger such
as this fellow. Forgetting that she had urged Olivia to civility, Mrs.
Martingale rose to her fullest height and stared icily at the gentleman.

“My daughter will marry whom and when she pleases, sir. If
you wish to address the question to her I suggest that you do so. But I do not
think that a marriage she disliked would do anything to improve Olivia.”

Haikestill’s jaw worked with comical distress and he began
to stammer something about his intentions, his goodwill, he had never intended
to cast the faintest slur upon Lady John... Finally, when he had done with his
disjointed phrases, he turned to regard the reluctant object of his affections.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Haikestill.” Olivia laid aside her
tambour frame calmly.

Encouraged by her civility, Haikestill stepped toward her,
one hand outstretched beseechingly. “My dear Lady John, I am come to renew
those offers which I tendered to you yesterday—”

There Olivia cut him off. “I thank you, as I did yesterday,
for the compliment you pay me.” She and her mother exchanged meaningful
glances. “But I was quite firm in my answer to you yesterday. I have
appreciated your friendship, and hope that we may continue to value you as a
friend. But I cannot accept your kind offer without doing us both the very
greatest harm. Pray believe me, Mr. Haikestill, such a marriage would not make
you happy, nor would it me.”

Haikestill cast about for an argument. Olivia suspected that
by this time he was pressing his suit less from infatuation than obstinacy and
a mulish disbelief that her refusal was honest. At last a glimmer of outraged
light seemed to come to him. “I should be loath to think, my lady,” he began
awfully, “that propinquity with those of the nobility has turned your head to
such an extent that you cannot understand the worth of a common man.”

Olivia folded her hands together and smiled very politely. “Indeed,
I should hate to think it myself, sir. I believe I can be acquitted of it.
Please believe me, sir, I am fully aware of your merits. But I think that my ‘stubbornness’
and my—what did you call them yesterday?—my ‘youthful mannerisms’ would give
you a disgust of me shortly we were wed, which not even the attractions of my
person could assuage.”

“I am prepared to overlook—” Haikestill began.

“But I am not.” Lady John smiled a smile of sweet finality.

The gentleman looked round him. Mrs. Martingale showed no
sign of entreating her daughter to act with sense, and Olivia was certainly
deficient in her role as betrothed-to-be. “Is that your final word, ma am?”

Olivia nodded kindly but immovably. “It is, sir.”

“Well then.” Mr. Haikestill picked up his hat from the chair
where he had dropped it. “I will take my leave of you, ladies.” He bowed
precisely to them and stalked from the room.

Mrs. Martingale and her daughter sat quietly for some
moments. Then mother suggested to daughter that they both stood in need of
restoratives, and rang for Puddlesey.

o0o

Escaping from her mother, who wished to discuss the pressing
matters of wedding invitations and her presentation, Jane Casserley took her
abigail and set out from her parents’ house in Hill Street, intending to do
some shopping in the Burlington Arcade and to consider in privacy what was to
be done regarding her fiancé. She proceeded in a businesslike fashion through
Berkeley Square and along Bruton Street, intending to peruse the shop windows
on New Bond Street before proceeding to the Arcade, with her maid trailing
behind her. Whatever her notions on the spiritual nourishment and equality of
mankind, Miss Casserley was not the sort of woman who confided in her abigail,
holding that this sort of practice made a bad example for the servant in
question.

More than the purchase of a paper of pins and some other necessaries
had driven Miss Casserley out this afternoon. The subject of Menwin, which had
been a relatively minor part of her thoughts until lately, was becoming much
too worrisome. Ever since—when? she thought. Since the night of her mother’s
card party, at least, when their engagement had been announced, Menwin had
changed unaccountably. His manner toward her, once properly and comfortably
distant, had altered, first to a distraught but still comfortable distance, and
now to this strange familiarity which invited her to take interest in things
such as dogfights, coats by Weston, and pistols from Manton’s. The marriage had
been arranged, certainly, and there were things to discover about each other,
Jane supposed as she blankly eyed the millinery in the window before her. But
this new Menwin was disturbing and sadly frivolous.

He had dismissed her efforts at a serious conversation with
a jest or a smile. He had teased her about the dress she wore, and even made
comments about her plans for books for the poor. None of this, she told
herself, augured well for the future. When first she had agreed to marry, Jane
Casserley had thought privately that what she did not like in her new husband
she could speedily change. Now she was increasingly left to doubt whether even
she could effect the required changes in her fiancé.

Arriving at the Arcade, Miss Casserley purchased three pairs
of woolen stockings, a paper of pins, five ells of strawberry ribbon, and a
length of unbleached muslin to be made into a nightgown. All the time, as she
carefully counted out her money and as carefully counted the change she was
given, she considered the problem of Menwin.

It was one of Miss Casserley’s precepts that any obstacle
could be surmounted. But when she considered Lord Menwin it must be confessed
that Miss Casserley’s determination for diligent reform flagged greatly. Could
it be, she wondered, that she and Menwin simply did not suit?

In the middle of her doubts, as she was turning the corner
onto Glasshouse Street, she heard a voice call her name.

“Miss Casserley?” She turned to find the speaker.

“Mr. Haikestill. How do you do, sir?”

Haikestill waved the question away as one he had as soon not
answer. “But you, dear lady? How do you do?”

With the sense that she was practicing a gross deception,
Jane Casserley replied that she did very well indeed.

“May I accompany you on your walk?” Haikestill asked, and
was granted permission with a gracious smile. As she had had occasion to do
more than once in the last few days, Miss Casserley compared Lord Menwin to Mr.
Haikestill, and Menwin was the one who came up lacking. Lord Menwin, as she
might have explained to anyone, had address, it was true, and the air of a man
of fashion, and even a well-informed mind of some quickness. But Mr. Haikestill’s
address was that of a truly worthy man, and he was well informed upon all those
topics which Jane Casserley held most dear. When the gentleman offered his arm,
the lady was pleased to take it, and together, talking of Sunday classes in the
Bible, they proceeded toward Hill Street with Miss Casserley’s abigail trailing
after with the parcels.