The Constant Companion (11 page)

In a faltering voice, Constance said, “I do,” and then everything seemed to happen at once. Lord Philip gave her an almighty push which sent her flying backwards down the aisle as a deafening report rang out. The ball, meant for Constance, hit the squire who had stumbled forward to her aid, and he collapsed like a stone.

Scream after feminine scream rent the congregation as Philip nimbly sprang up the pulpit and leapt from the top of it so that his fingers grasped the brass rail of the gallery. He heaved himself over and then stared wildly around. Nothing. No one.

Down below, the ceremony was in total chaos. Several rowdy bloods at the back of the church who did not know about the shooting thought the whole thing was some mad jest, and began leaping towards the gallery from the top of the pews, cheered on by wild hunting calls from their less agile friends. Every single female in the congregation, with the exception of Constance, seemed to find it an excellent opportunity to prove the aristocratic delicacy of their nerves to the stronger sex, and it seemed as one woman, fainted dead away.

Philip climbed back down the way he had gone up and dropped beside Constance who was being supported by Peter. He pushed roughly past them and knelt beside the fallen squire, opening his waistcoat and feeling for his heart.

Squire Benjamin slowly opened one blue eye and then cautiously opened the other. His broad hand scrabbled inside his coat, and then he began to laugh as he hauled himself to his feet.

“The ball must have bounced off the steel of my demned corset,” he said cheerfully. “And to think how I cursed when my wife insisted I wear the contraption!”

Constance began to giggle nervously, and Lord Philip’s head snapped round and he stared at her with some impatience.

“I really think, my lord,” came the gentle voice of the bishop, “that we should postpone the rest of the ceremony until another day.”

“Oh, get on with it,” said Philip rudely. He found he was very much shaken. “I don’t want to have to go through this curst ceremony again.” Like the shadow which fell on Constance’s face, a cloud covered the sun outside and the church grew dim.

Somehow, the bishop managed to bring order to his unruly flock, and the ceremony went on, Philip angry and worried and Constance white and miserable.

“He didn’t want to marry me!” said a nagging voice, over and over again in her brain.

The wedding feast was to be held at Lady Eleanor’s Kensington villa. The carriages made their stately way along the Chiswick Road under a now lowering sky. Great gusts of hot wind whirled the dust round in miniature tornados, and the old trees beside the road sighed like the sea as the wind swept through the thick summer foliage.

Constance sat awkwardly in her wedding finery and stole a look at her husband. He was leaning back, his head against the squabs, with his eyes half closed.

Suddenly he opened them and stared at her. “Who do you think would want to kill you?” he said in a very matter-of-fact voice.

“No one,” said Constance. “Surely it was some maniac, some radical.”

“Taking potshots at the aristocracy? No, I don’t think so,” said Lord Philip and fell silent again.

A sudden squall of rain streamed down the windows of the chariot through which the villas of Kensington danced and wavered as if underwater.

Constance felt the beginnings of anger. Someone had nearly killed her on her wedding day, and yet this brand-new husband of hers had never so much as held her hand or tried in any way to allay her fears.

She bit her lip as she thought of the night ahead. Would he? But of course he would. Memories of Amelia’s salacious conversation thudded in her ears and her face burned.

She knew, of course, that it was considered extremely vulgar of ladies and gentlemen of the
ton
to betray the slightest sign of emotion, neither anger, grief, or, it seemed, passion.

Constance reflected that she had been very naive. She had expected that the minute they were married, Lord Philip would immediately change from his aloof self and, well…
woo
her.

The marquees were again erected on the lawn, heaving and straining at their guy ropes like tethered elephants.

Now, Constance had not drunk any wine since her experience with the Riders’ champagne. But she was overcome by the need for some Dutch courage. She had at first been relieved to notice the absence of Lady Amelia, but the green-eyed monster soon reared its ugly head in the shape of a captain’s pretty wife, Marjorie Banks-Jyce. She was a pert little brunette with a perfect figure and a roguish, roving eye. Various wives sat and smouldered as she flirted with their husbands, and Constance sat and smouldered with the best of them, particularly when she noticed that Marjorie had succeeded in making her husband smile for the first time that day.

Instead of having one long formal table for the wedding breakfast, Lady Eleanor had had separate little tables arranged around the marquee, with the result that the occasion had turned into a sort of moveable feast with everyone wandering from table to table. As Constance watched narrow-eyed, drinking her fifth glass of burgundy, Lord Philip bestowed a light flirtatious kiss on Mrs. Banks-Jyce’s wrist and then strolled back towards his wife.

He had a grin on his face and Constance quickly lowered her eyes. She did not know that Philip had just been thinking how pretty his wife looked, and that the Mrs. Banks-Jyces of this world were all very well but thank goodness he hadn’t married one.

“How is my bride?” he asked in a light, teasing voice.

“‘They were as fed horses in the morning; every one neighed after his neighbor’s wife,’” said Constance bitterly.

“Dear God,” said Philip acidly. “Only you, dear Constance, would think of quoting Jeremiah on your wedding day.”

“And only you, dear Philip, would think of flirting with another woman on your wedding day,” countered Constance sweetly.

Philip’s face was a mask of hauteur. “Madam, I find you insolent,” he remarked in chilling accents and strode away, only to have his bad temper fanned by Peter Potter who asked him what he thought he was doing, paying court to that Banks-Jyce woman.

“I don’t know what’s come over you, Peter,” he said, regarding his friend’s amiable sheep-like face with irritation. “In all the years of our friendship, I’ve never known you to carp and nag as much as you’ve been doing recently.”

“Never had to,” said Peter, quite unabashed. “You won’t find me standing champion to a lot of Haymarket ware. Those ladybirds were
paid
for their services, after all. I mean, that’s pretty much all they expected. You’re a fair man with your servants and a good landlord, but up till now you’ve never really had to consider anyone’s feelings but your own.”

“I should not have to concern myself with them in this case,” said Lord Philip. “She owes me a debt of gratitude. She has no right to twit me on my behavior. Just look at her now!”

Constance, fortified by a great deal of wine, was attempting to play the flirt with Mr. Evans, of all people, and to Lord Philip’s fury, the secretary seemed to be enjoying the experience very much.

Lord Philip was about to go and join them when his arm was firmly imprisoned by Squire Benjamin. The squire felt that Lord Philip ought to have the benefit of his advice. After all, he, the squire, was the proud father of four daughters and felt he was qualified to discourse on the gentler sex. Philip could see no way of escape. He allowed Squire Benjamin to draw him aside and then, never once taking his hard, green stare from his wife, he listened to not one word of the good squire’s advice.

By the time he escaped, the dancing had commenced. The first dance was a country one, affording him no opportunity to tell Constance how much her behavior had shocked him. Her pretty face was flushed and her eyes were like stars. Constance was enjoying the novelty of being headily intoxicated and having a great deal of compliments paid to her by the gentlemen guests. She did notice that Philip was glaring at her, but all it did was want to make her giggle.

Lord Philip endured the next hour as Constance flirted and the guests gossipped about the shooting, and sighed with relief when it was time to take his wife away.

He remembered he had told her that they would move immediately to his town house. Now he felt that he really should have taken her somewhere more romantic on their first night together, and the fact that he hadn’t suddenly caused him to feel guilty, and the unaccustomed feeling of guilt made him more bad-tempered than ever.

She was waltzing with Peter Potter and laughing helplessly at something that gentleman was saying, and Lord Philip was waiting for the end of the dance impatiently so that he could say goodbye to this curst reception, when, all at once, it seemed as if the gods had taken pity on him at last.

With a great whoosh, a tremendous gust of wind tore the marquee from its moorings and whipped it up and across the garden. Rain swept across the wedding guests, drenching gowns and coats and jewels and feathers, and giving a great proportion of the party the first decent wash they had had in months.

A battalion of footmen soon appeared with umbrellas and rugs, and the soaking guests were huddled into the house to change. Lord Philip caught Constance as she was about to race across the garden.

“Home,” he said grimly.

“I can’t go home now,” yelled Constance above the clamor of the storm and the shrieks of the guests. “I am soaking wet.”

“You can dry yourself at home just as well as you can here,” said Lord Philip. He snapped his fingers and told one of the footmen to have his carriage brought round.

It was a horrendous journey back. Twice it seemed as if the chariot would be hurtled into the ditch, and once the coachman was blown from his box, and although unhurt, was nearly in tears over the damage done to his finery.

Constance had never believed until now that hate could be akin to love. But in that minute she hated Lord Philip who could dismiss the poor coachman’s grief as “tiresome rubbish.”

Constance hardly noticed her new quarters as she allowed herself to be dried and changed by her lady’s maid. The lady’s maid was French, a grim, silent woman with her hair screwed painfully up on top of her head and snapping black eyes which reminded Constance of the comte. She felt even more furious with her husband, feeling that she should have had some say in hiring her own lady’s maid.

Wearing a white muslin dress, its deep flounces decorated with little garlands of artificial flowers—a present from Lady Agatha—Constance surveyed herself critically in the pier glass before going downstairs to join her husband.

She grudgingly admitted to herself that her maid, Bouchard, knew her job well. Her hair had been changed from its usual severe coronet to a rioting mass of curls on top with one heavy soft ringlet falling onto her shoulders.

Lord Philip was waiting for her in his dark and rather sparsely furnished drawing room. The heavy dark curtains cut off whatever light there was from the stormy day outside. The walls were covered with hunting pictures and various studies of horses. There was no fire burning on the hearth and the floor was bare of rugs. It smelled faintly of dry rot and disuse.

Her lord looked at her enigmatically as she entered and poured her a glass of brandy.

“The coachman, my lord,” said Constance firmly. “I would like to send a note to the stables assuring him of a new livery.”

Lord Philip looked at her in haughty surprise. “The one he has will do quite well when it is cleaned.”

“But don’t you see,” cried Constance, made courageous by the effects of brandy descending on top of an already wine-filled stomach. “It means so much to him. It will never look so grand when it is cleaned. Coachmen are very conscious of their appearance, you know. It would quite spoil things for him at the next grand occasion were he not as fine as his fellow coachmen.”

“I am not about to concern myself with the vanities of my coachman…” began Lord Philip but was interrupted by a quiet, “Please,” from Constance.

He surveyed her from under his heavy lids and at last said coldly, “Very well. You may have your wish.”

He scribbled a note, standing at a desk in the corner. He sanded it and gave it to a footman who ran round to the mews at the back of the house with it. The coachman could not read, so the second footman, a garrulous man considered to be greatly educated, read the contents to him. In the mysterious way of servants, they immediately knew the unexpected kindness was all Constance’s doing and the lady’s maid, Bouchard, who tried that evening to relate in scornful accents the paucity of my lady’s wardrobe was firmly put in her place by no less a personage than Mr. Masters, my lord’s butler.

Supper was served to the newly-married couple in the dining room. A stormy night had fallen outside. The couple ate silently, facing each other down the long expanse of mahogany. The room was heavily silent, broken only by the wailing of the wind outside and the occasional jingle of harness as some brave members of the
ton
braved the filthy evening. The candles streamed and flickered, sending little white rivers of wax dripping onto the crystals of the chandelier.

“It was an unusual wedding, my lord,” said Constance at last in a thin voice.

“Quite,” replied her spouse, studying the contents of his plate as if he had just found the mutton guilty of a social gaffe.

“I was very frightened,” added Constance, determined to make some sort of conversation.

“Of course,” replied her lord infuriatingly. “I have been wondering who attempted to kill you. You didn’t leave any broken hearts down in that godforsaken part of the peasantry you hail from? No lovelorn ploughmen sighing in anguish?”

Constance picked up her wineglass, glad to notice her hand was steady, and stared at him over the rim. “Not I, my lord,” she remarked. “It is more likely to be some relic of your own highly colored past than mine.”

“Explain yourself!”

Constance drank the contents of her glass in one gulp. “I have heard,” she said slowly and distinctly, “that the members of the corps de ballet at the opera are notoriously hot-headed.”