The Country Gentleman (28 page)

Out of the corner of her eye Anne saw, as she chattered to Miss Lemon of her enchanting tiara, Henry Highet watching her. The thought that it might be Miss Lemon and not herself he was observing passed through her mind; but a few minutes later, when Arabella had moved off to sit with her mother, she caught his eyes on herself again and knew she had not been wrong. She could not read his expression. Had he seen her speaking with Ensley? Seen him turn away from her? What did her own countenance show? If she had been pressed to read the look on Mr. Highet’s, she would have called it kindness, or sympathy. But perhaps she merely fancied that.

Not many minutes afterwards, Ensley came to bid her good night. Juliana was on his arm, her expression as timid and tentative as ever. Ensley was unmistakably stricken. Stiffly, and in such evident pain that Anne could scarcely regard him without bursting into tears, he thanked her for the evening, made his bow, and departed. She watched him go, torn between relief and a miserable feeling that half her life was walking out the door with him. When Mr. Highet appeared at her side a moment later, and took her arm, and bracingly asked her what on
earth had gone into those delicious veal olives, she knew for certain it had been kindness in his face after all, and that he was aware—at least in part—of what had passed.

“Oh, eye of newt and toe of frog,” she replied, gratefully slipping a hand into the arm he offered. Though her voice had a tell-tale quaver in it, his very presence—warm and solid—reassured her and helped her to find this light answer.

“Wool of bat and tongue of inquisitive gentleman?” he suggested.

“Dear me, no. At least, I do not think so. You had best ask Cook. It is her secret.”

“I dare not go near her until I know for certain,” he replied, laughing a little. They began to stroll towards an open window at one end of the room. “I mean to return to Somerset Place,” he went on presently. “There is a painting there I wish to buy for Fevermere. If it is not too much trouble, I should very much like your opinion first. Will you go with me to look at it to-morrow?”

Surprised, “Certainly, since you ask me. Only I had best warn you, I am no judge of art. You ought really to take Celia,” she said.

“With all deference to her ladyship,” he answered in a low tone, “I prefer your company. Any how, you are more likely to see it again than she, so your self-interest is involved. I know you have a high opinion of self-interest,” he added, smiling.

Anne caught the reference to the astonishment she had voiced, the day he offered for her, at his neighbourly assistance when she first went into Cheshire. She coloured a little, thinking of herself and Lady Juliana. “My opinion of self-interest has come down a little since those days,” she murmured.

“Has it!” he exclaimed. He laid his hand over the little one tucked into his arm, then patted it awkwardly. “Well, well! And here I had been thinking town wits did not change their own opinions, but only those of other people.”

“On the contrary, they change them more often than anyone else—as town tulips do their linen. Come help me talk to Lady Sandys, won’t you? No one has in quite half an hour, I fear, and if she falls asleep—as I see she is about to—she is the very devil to wake up!”

In the event, Mr. Highet not only helped his wife talk to the old marchioness, he kept by Anne’s side through the end of the party, though it went on past two and she knew he must be dropping with sleep. She accepted this support with silent gratitude and felt a deep twinge of guilt on learning, when she stumbled downstairs the next morning at half past eleven, that he had been unable to sleep later than six, the hour at which he habitually rose. Still, he seemed cheerful and rested enough. Meeting her in the front hall, he informed her he had already gone for a gallop through Hyde Park, stopped in at Clarendon’s to talk to a German baron he had met (in England to buy sheep and interested in Mr. Highet’s) and made a hearty breakfast with him.

“I suppose you wish to rush off to Somerset Place at once, lest someone else snatch away your painting?” Anne hazarded, suppressing a yawn and wearily rubbing at her forehead. The memory that she had broke with Ensley definitively last night lay in her heart like a lump of ice; but, as was usual with her, the pain only sharpened her humour. She dropped into an elbow chair whose gilded arms were carved into serpents, ran her fingers idly over
the hooded eyes and hissing tongue of one of these, then bent to it and asked solicitously, “You are sleepy too, aren’t you, poor thing? Yes, we all are.”

“Dear ma’am, if you are so tired as that—” Mr. Highet began; but Anne interrupted, staggering to her feet,

“No, no! Never let it be said I was afraid to martyr myself for Art. Go we must and go we shall. What is that bright light?” she demanded, affrightedly clapping an arm over her eyes after glancing out the long window beside the front door. Face buried, she muttered into the crook of her arm, “Dolphim, would you ask Lizzie to fetch down my green velvet pelisse? The one with the satin epaulets—she will know. And my black chip bonnet.”

“We call that light the sun,” Mr. Highet informed her while the butler went on his errand. Gently he took her arm and coaxed it from her face. “It will not harm you, if you let it alone.”

“Like a bee,” she mused, blinking at the window. “But what is it doing up at this hour? And what of ourselves? I do not wish to offend you, sir,” she continued, changing her tack slightly and collapsing again into the chair, “but your extreme cheerfulness at such a moment is not at all the thing. In fact, it shows an appalling lack of taste.” She nipped what would have been a vast yawn in the bud, then continued, “Here in town a man of breeding leaves the hours between six and ten
A
.
M
. to his servants. I can’t explain it. He just does. It’s something he knows to do. Perhaps he’s born with the instinct— Oh, thank you, Dolphim,” she interrupted herself, languidly standing, raising her arms, and shrugging herself into the pelisse the butler held for her. “It is true, what I’ve been saying to Mr. Highet, is not it? You are not acquainted
with any respectable butlers who buttle before, say, nine-thirty or so, are you?”

With admirable aplomb, Mr. Dolphim replied smoothly, “It is certainly true that madam never rises before that hour without ill result.” He proferred her her bonnet.

“There, you see?” Placing the bonnet on her head and fumbling at the ribands she went on, “Of course, you are not to blame for being ignorant of these things. On the contrary, since you have scarcely lived in town—”

“Don’t you want some breakfast before we leave?” Mr. Highet broke in as Dolphim moved to open the door to them. She thought, as she looked sidewards at him, that she saw on his countenance an expression more explicitly amused than the bland, friendly one with which he usually met her pleasantries.

“Breakfast?” she echoed hollowly. “Do you mean that sitting-down thing at the table? With eggs in it and things?” She watched him carefully. His smile broadened. She had finally succeeded in amusing him, after all this time! “No, actually. I seem to recall having tried that once. It ended badly, I think. Any how, I am sure a few mouthfuls of brisk morning air will suffice to sustain me. Thank you, Dolphim,” she murmured, as that gentleman opened the door and bowed her through it. She gave a little shriek as she gained the front steps, averted her eyes, and shrinkingly descended to the waiting carriage. Mr. Highet handed her in. “Oh, yes,” she said weakly. She took a deep breath and gagged. “I feel much better already.”

Mr. Highet closed the door, shutting her in. Actually, it was a rather pleasant day, cold but dry, and with a blue, open sky. It was almost a shame to be inside a closed
carriage. Mr. Highet gave his orders to the groom, then climbed in next to Anne. As they crossed Mayfair he told her where he meant to hang the picture they were going to see, and explained what had drawn him to it. “It shows a harbour. At, if you will excuse my mentioning it, dawn. An artist named Turner.”

“Yes, I remember a picture of his from last year, of a brook I think. Aqueous sort of fellow.”

“Did you like it? You must be frank,” he warned. “If you do not care for this one, say so. Don’t spare my feelings.”

“I shall be brutal,” she promised. “I shall make you wish you never confessed to admiring it at all. You will squirm under the crushing heel of my—”

“Yes, thank you. Simple candour will answer nicely,” he cut her off. But he smiled at the same time, in that lively way she had not seen before, and she smiled back.

Inside the gallery, whose high walls were covered nearly from floor to ceiling with paintings, he offered her his arm and began to lead her through the thin crowd of viewers to the picture that interested him. But they had gone no more than a few steps before a small, very portly, extremely well-dressed young gentleman spotted them and strolled over.

“Bless me if it isn’t the brown top-boots!” he exclaimed, holding a hand out to shake Mr. Highet’s. “Cut very high, if I recall, and particularly thick in the sole? And with Miss Guilfoyle, too,” he went on, turning to Anne and bowing. “How d’ye do? Your friend and I last met among the lasts at Hoby’s—and now we brush together midst the brushstrokes!”

“Lord Alvanley,” Anne bowed, smiling, even as she wondered frantically how on earth it had happened that
Henry Highet struck up an acquaintance with the sharpest and most celebrated wit in London. And at Hoby’s! What freak had tempted the plain-living master of Fevermere into that Temple of Dandyism? “But I am no longer Miss Guilfoyle,” she told him. “You must call me Mrs. Highet. And this gentleman is my husband, as well as my friend.”

“Indeed?” Alvanley passed his keen glance over them both, nodded incisively, and said, “Smart fellow. Interesting match. Seen these?” He waved a plump hand vaguely at the scores of pictures round them. “One or two good things. The rest—” He shook his head in a melancholy fashion. “Pity to think of all the useful gaiters and sails and breeches that could have been made from the canvas.”

“You are too severe,” Mr. Highet reproved him.

“Ah! Now I see your game. Last time we met, you told me my cuffs were too long.” (Here Anne stole a look at his cuffs, which indeed reached nearly past his knuckles.) “Now you say I am too severe. You are the sort of person who goes about town telling people how they are excessive. Ha! If you want to see real excess, stop by my house about nine to-night. A whole expendable crowd of us will gather to eat a superfluous dinner, after which we shall have some nice, immoderate play.” He winked, then apologized to Anne for being unable to invite her too. “Not that sort of evening. Well, don’t want to stay talking too long! Perish the thought! Twelve Bruton Street,” he called over his shoulder and walked off without waiting for an answer.

He left in his wake a woman who merely gaped, for some moments, at her husband.

“Friendly fellow,” that gentleman observed pleasantly, when the friendly fellow had gone out of earshot.

“Friendly?” Anne gasped. “Lord Alvanley is at the centre of one of the most exclusive sets in London! He’s cut more people than the guillotine. What did you say to him at Hoby’s?” she demanded. “And what made you go into Hoby’s any how?”

“I wanted boots,” he said simply.

“But Hoby’s?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps my visit to town is turning my head. I am sure they will be good boots, at all events, as well as stylish. You don’t object?” he asked as an afterthought.

“Certainly not! It is none of my affair any how. Order some coats at Weston’s, why don’t you? I am sure Lord Alvanley will be happy to put you up for membership at Brook’s or Crockford’s. Gamble Fevermere away! It is nothing to me.”

Seriously, “You are not anxious about money, I hope?” he asked, pitching his voice low. “The estate is doing extremely well.”

“Of course I am not,” Anne broke in impatiently. “Only if I have to watch you turned into a—a fashionable fribble by those—those fops—!” She sputtered to a halt. The truth was, the mere idea of Mr. Highet becoming a coxcomb, concerned with the height of his boots and the folds of his cravat and the stripes on his waistcoat, made her half ill. But,

“Did you suppose—? Do you really think—?” he commenced, then flung his head forward and back. To her horror, Anne realized he was going to give one of his horse laughs at her right here, in the middle of Somerset Place.

“Sir!” She tugged at his coat-sleeve as unobtrusively as she could, hissing again, “Sir!”

Too late. He held his silent pose as usual, then burst into the noisy explosion she knew so well, and hated so much. Only this time she was more embarrassed by his public display than piqued by his laughing at her. “You imagine I will become a dandy!” he at last brought out, wheezing with hilarity. “I! A dandy! Oh, rich, rich!” He wiped tears from his eyes while she implored in a frantic whisper,

“Dear Mr. Highet, laugh at me later, can’t you? People are staring!”

He shook his head, wiped away more helpless tears, apologized, and tried vainly to recover himself. Anne bowed with as much dignity as she could muster to a viscountess she remembered to have met at Lady Bambrick’s, put her arm through Mr. Highet’s, and dragged him forcefully into the nearest corner. Here she apparently scrutinized the buckle of a shoe on a foot of a personage painted by Raeburn.

When some minutes had passed, “Can you govern yourself now?” she asked fiercely. “I feel as if I shall see this buckle in my dreams if I look at it much longer.”

He nodded, gulped, nodded again, and replied in a slightly breathless voice, “Yes, quite. I am so extremely sorry. I don’t know how it was, only the very notion of your…It seemed so…It suddenly struck me as terribly—”

“Yes, I
know
what it struck you as, only for God’s sake don’t say it! You’ll be off all over again,” she scolded him. Sternly, she adjusted his collar, which had come askew during his fit, and gave a smoothing pat to his stock. “Just calm yourself. Think of seed drills, or harrows, or something, and take me to the picture you like at once.”

Mr. Highet at last succeeding in regaining a tolerable measure of composure, the two accomplished their errand. Anne whole-heartedly approved the Turner, and indeed was much impressed with her husband’s taste. They managed to quit the gallery without any further contretemps.