‘Let me guess.’ He smiled down at her, dark eyes smiling too. ‘It must be the missing maiden, the haunter of libraries.’ He held out his hand. ‘Charles Mattingley, very much at your service, Minerva.’
Despite what Charlotte and Amelia had said, he was quite old, she thought, which made him less formidable.
‘Not so very wise, I am afraid.’ She smiled back at him. ‘But has the word really got about that I am a bluestocking? Am I sunk beyond recall?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ He tucked her arm under his and led her forward into the crowded room that was gradually coming into focus for her. ‘Nothing that we cannot cope with if we put our minds to it.’
‘We?’ She looked up at him with the question.
‘I have the Duchess’ orders to see to it that you enjoy yourself tonight. What she did not tell me was that I should find myself enjoying the task.’ It had only half surprised him that it should be the Duchess, rather than her mother, Mrs Winterton, who had taken thought for Caroline’s first London appearance, but he had been looking forward to his task as the most appalling of bores until he had been roused by an overheard scrap of talk between Charlotte and Amelia:
‘Won’t she just look the mouse she is, when she comes in with that blind look of hers,’ had said Charlotte.
And, ‘Not so much mouse as dormouse,’ agreed Amelia, then turned, saw him, and was all radiant smiles.
It was true, he thought, steering Caroline expertly towards a quiet corner where she could get her bearings a little, there had been something a little blind about her gaze round the room. Had Frances Winterton ever thought to have the child’s eyes examined? But then, did Frances Winterton ever think of anything but Frances Winterton? Impervious to her charms himself, it always amazed him to see how completely his dear friend the Duchess continued under her spell.
‘There.’ He placed Caroline with her back to a curtained window, and noticed how admirably the crimson velvet threw up her delicate colouring. ‘I wish I was a painter.’
‘A painter?’ Surprised, she sounded less stiff.
‘Yes. I would paint you against that red velvet, Miss Thorpe, and call the picture Youth at the Helm.’
‘Is that a compliment, perhaps? Because if it is, it’s almost my first.’ And then, eagerly, ‘Do you read Mr Gray?’ She coloured. ‘I thought it was Youth on the Prow. Oh, why are you laughing?’
‘At you, of course, admired Minerva. Yes, I do read Mr Gray, and I did misquote him, and I am to tell you that no young lady ever corrects a gentleman, most particularly not when he has just paid her her first compliment.’
‘Oh, I am sorry! But, please, why not? Wouldn’t you rather get it right next time?’
‘You think it so important to get it right?’
‘Of course! I suppose “at” for “on” does not really make much difference, but “helm” for “prow”! The change in a word can make the whole difference to the feel of a poem.’
‘You speak from experience, Minerva? Am I privileged, perhaps, to be talking to a poet?’
‘Are you laughing at me again?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Not the least in the world.’ He noticed Charlotte’s darkling eye fixed on them. ‘But I am monopolising you, and that will not do. Let me see.’ He looked about him. ‘To whom shall I grant the privilege of meeting you? Ah,’ a smile lightened the dark, expressive face. ‘Would you like to meet a poet, Minerva?’
‘A poet? Oh, yes!’ She looked about her. ‘Is it someone I will have heard of?’
‘Not yet. But he is a coming man in poetry. I know it. He told me so himself.’
‘Oh?’ She looked up at him doubtfully. ‘Have you seen any of his poems?’
‘No, for the good reason that I did not ask to. But I am sure you will.’ He reached out a long arm and touched the shoulder of a golden-haired young man who was standing with his back to them. ‘Tremadoc, let me tear you away from Lady Charlotte and present you to Miss Thorpe, who can quote to you from Mr Gray’s Bard, if you will let her.’
‘Miss Thorpe?’ The young man turned round and showed Caroline the most beautiful face she had ever seen. This, she thought, was what a poet should look like. ‘The bluestocking?’ he asked, surprised. ‘But you said she was plain, Charlie.’
‘Don’t call me that! We’re not children now.’ Charlotte turned a cross shoulder to him and concentrated all her attention on Mattingley. ‘Tell me all the on dits, Mat, dear, and let us leave the children to entertain each other.’
‘Well of all the rude starts!’ said Tremadoc to Caroline. ‘I’m three years older than her if I’m a day. Just because I used to help her on to her pony when we rode in the Park. And that was only because Mamma made me,’ he went on. ‘A Duke’s daughter, after all, but I always thought them both dead bores. Now you’re from quite a different stable, Miss Thorpe, I can see that. Did you really spend all your time, down at Cley, reading in the old Duke’s library?’
‘All I could. But, please, tell about your poetry. I never met a poet before. Have you published anything yet?’
‘Well, not to say exactly published, but I did have a little volume printed, just to give pleasure to my friends. Maybe, with your permission, Miss Thorpe, I might send you one?’
‘Oh, would you really?’ Her awed delight made him her slave at once. But now she was looking past him to where a young man in uniform was standing in the doorway, looking about him with bright, amused, enquiring eyes. ‘It can’t be Blakeney?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ He did not like to lose her attention so soon. ‘He’s raised his own tame regiment of volunteers, I believe, and rather likes himself in uniform.’ He turned to look over his shoulder. ‘Very much the lord of creation, is he not? I tell you, Miss Thorpe, I get tired to death of these military boors and their lack of culture?’
‘Blakeney went to Harrow,’ said Caroline, and, aware that she was not paying him enough attention: ‘Where did you go to school?’
‘School? Oh, too barbarous. I was delicate, still am. My mamma would not think of letting me go to one of those rough and tumble public schools. I was educated at home. My uncle fussed, but my mamma could not bear to part with me. She’s a very perceptive woman, my mamma. She understands my poetry better than anyone.’
She smiled up at him. ‘Oh, are you not lucky! To have a mother who understands you!’ And then turned aside to put out a hand. ‘Blakeney! You’re never passing without a word to me!’
He stopped and looked down at her, puzzled for a moment. He had gone abroad with his parents and Mrs Winterton after the peace of Amiens and his father had seen to it that he had not been to Cley since. ‘It’s…It’s little Caro!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’d never have known you if you had not spoken!’ He took both her hands and pressed them warmly. ‘My little library mouse turned into a young lady. And a pretty one, too.’
‘Oh, Blakeney, don’t sound so surprised! Just because Tench makes my life a misery with her curl papers!’ She smiled impartially from him to Tremadoc. ‘Now I have shocked you both. Am I supposed to pretend it is all done by nature?’
‘Your exquisite colour most certainly is, Miss Thorpe,’ said Tremadoc.
‘Blakeney,’ said the Duke, looming behind him. ‘You are neglecting our guests. It is time to go into dinner.’
Blakeney turned a smiling face to his father. ‘I beg pardon, sir. I was congratulating Caro here on having become a young lady. Au revoir, Caro dear, I must take a dowager in to dinner. But I will call tomorrow and mean to hear all your news.’
‘Call?’
‘I have my own lodgings now,’ he explained. ‘In St James’.’
‘Of course. Stupid of me.’ She was relieved to see that the Duke had moved away, obviously taking Blakeney’s obedience for granted. ‘Blakeney, you must find your dowager. Your father does not like to be kept waiting.’
‘No, but it’s good for him, just once in a way,’ said Blakeney, and she wondered with awe if he was not perhaps t
he only person in the world who was not afraid of the Duke. ‘Who is taking you in, Caro?’ he asked now.
‘I don’t know. Nobody, I expect.’ It had been troubling her a little.
‘If I might?’ Tremadoc took an eager step forward, but as he did so, Mattingley reappeared behind him.
‘Miss Thorpe,’ he said. ‘The Duchess has given me the pleasure of taking you to dinner.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ She smiled from Blakeney to Tremadoc and moved off on the older man’s arm, quite unaware of the impression she had made.
Chapter Six
Tremadoc called next day, bringing his elegantly slim cream-and-gilt volume with him, and Caroline was overwhelmed by the attention.
‘It’s beautiful.’ She stroked the volume lovingly before putting it down on the table where her work lay abandoned. ‘I shall read it the very minute I am alone. One cannot read poetry in company. Do you not find it so?’
He had rather hoped that she would open it then and there and read his stirring verses aloud to him, but hastened to agree with her. ‘No, it is too sacred, is it not? The divine flame? Do you, perhaps, write a little yourself, Miss Thorpe? I almost think you must, to be so understanding about the problems of a poet. And I believe young ladies do sometimes write quite passable verses. Of course, mine are in a strong vein.’ He reached down carelessly and picked up the volume. ‘I sing of war: its glory and its terror. I think you must be moved by the description of my hero, Mandragon, charging the enemy on his milk-white steed.’
‘All by himself?’ asked a mocking voice behind him. ‘I hope his milk-white steed got him safe away again.’
‘Mr Mattingley,’ said Caroline warmly. ‘How do you do? Just look, Mr Tremadoc has brought me his first volume of poems. Am I not a lucky girl?’
‘Tell me that when you have read them,’ said Charles Mattingley.
Charlotte and Amelia, returning from a ride in the Park to which they had not invited Caroline, were surprised and displeased to find her entertaining Mattingley and Tremadoc. They were soon joined by Blakeney, also glowing with fresh air from exercising with the Queen’s Royal Volunteers.
‘I have brought you a present, Caro.’ He sat down beside her, while the four others stood in an animated group at the other end of the room. ‘I bought it for you a while ago,’ he went on. ’Thinking it perhaps the kind of thing you would like, but it is such an age since I have been to Cley, and I never was much of a hand at parcels.’ He handed her a leatherbound volume. ‘I do hope you will like it.’
‘Blake’s Songs of Innocence! And engraved by himself! Oh, Blakeney, how did you know! Miss Skinner told me about them. Her brother has them and I always longed to ask if I might borrow them for a while, but never quite dared. Oh, I do thank you!’ She smiled up at him. ‘I shall always value them particularly for your sake. Do look what Blakeney has given me,’ she said to Tremadoc. ‘Mr Blake’s Songs of Innocence!’ And then, recognising his look of affront, ‘What a happy day! Two volumes of poetry. Just think, Blakeney, Mr Tremadoc has been so good as to give me his own poems. I shall not know where to begin.’
Charlotte and her parents were dining out that day, so Caroline found herself alone with a very cross Amelia. ‘It’s not fair!’ She helped herself angrily to fricassee of chicken. ‘Just one year’s difference, and Charlie is to go everywhere, while I am to appear in company at home here, or, for a special treat, when we go to the play. It’s lucky I’ve got you for company, Caroline, or I’d die of boredom. And there’s Blakeney with his own establishment, and he’s not even quite as old as you are.’
‘He seems much older.’
‘And the world his oyster. Oh, why wasn’t I born a boy! Just think, I’d be the heir then, with everything handsome about me, and Blakeney just a younger brother. Wouldn’t I just keep him and Charlotte in their place. Or even to be Gaston. The way father treats him he might as well be the son of the house. He’s much kinder to him than he is to you, isn’t he? I think he must have liked his parents better than yours. Lord, Gaston’s handsome these days. Have you seen him yet? Oh, no, of course not. It was in the park we met him yesterday. Uniform becomes him to a marvel. He makes Blakeney look a little shrimp like you.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ began Caroline warmly, and was interrupted by the appearance of Blakeney and Gaston themselves.
‘Just as I thought,’ said Gaston. ‘A couple of damsels in distress, boring themselves to distraction, and each other too, by the look of it. Ring the bell, Blakeney, there’s a good fellow, and get us a bottle worth drinking while we tell the young ladies how little they have missed at Lady Benchley’s rout.’
‘A terrible squeeze,’ agreed Blakeney. ‘I cannot imagine that anyone will notice we have left. Ah, Sims,’ he smiled his engaging smile at the rigid-looking butler. ‘Mr Gaston and I will take a glass of wine with the young ladies.’ He turned, laughing, to Caroline as the man retreated, disapproval in every inch of his back, ‘You are looking very fetching tonight, Caro. You should always wear colours. Now, do tell me.’ He had drawn up a chair close to hers, while Gaston settled beside Amelia on the other side of the table, ‘What did you think of Tremadoc’s poems?’
‘Oh, Blakeney, I am so glad to see you! To tell truth, I don’t know what in the world to say to him! They’re…Blakeney, they are quite dreadful. They are all about war, and even I can see that he doesn’t know the first thing about it. And he never talks about a horse, or a man, or anything plain. It’s always a gallant steed or a noble warrior and it goes on and on and on. In blank verse, too, if you can call it blank verse.’
‘Poor Caro! And he is bound to call tomorrow and ask how you like them. So we had best think what you are going to say.’ He poured them both a glass of the wine Sims had brought. ‘You will have to admit to having read them, I suppose. And I know how you hate to lie. Can you not say something about not being qualified to judge, being a woman and ignorant of military affairs?’
‘Yes, thank you. That might do,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But whether it will satisfy him…’
‘Oh, nothing will satisfy him. That mother of his has so filled him up with praise that he really fancies himself the next laureate.’
‘Well,’ she said fairly, ‘he could hardly be more of a butt than poor Mr Pye. But, Blakeney, I have been longing to thank you for Mr Blake’s poems. Now, that really is poetry! I am going to get some of it by heart, just as soon as I have time, but it is difficult. He doesn’t seem to care about the rules of scansion at all.’
‘And you do?’ He found himself thinking how very different this conversation was from the ones he usually had with young ladies.
‘Well.’ She looked at him doubtfully. ‘Do you know, the strange thing is, after reading Mr Blake, I’m not so sure as I was. Do you read poetry at all, Blakeney?’
‘Not much.’ To most young ladies he would have told a cheerful lie and hoped to get away with it. ‘To tell truth, it was a college friend who told me about Mr Blake. But I’ll read some if you will lend me the book, Caro.’
‘Of course I will! Just as soon as I have got one or two by heart — or copied them. There seems to be so little time here in London,’ she said regretfully.
‘But you are enjoying yourself?’ He looked at her keenly. ‘You’re pale, Caro. It suits you, but…’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘Why were you not with the girls in the park yesterday?’
‘They did not ask me.’ A quick glance had shown her Amelia deep in laughing talk with Gaston, who was indeed handsomer than ever. ‘And, besides, there does not seem to be a pony for me in the stables here.’
‘No pony! But that’s absurd. I’ll speak to my father.’
‘No, please!’ She held out a pleading hand. ‘Blakeney, I am so beholden to him already, to you all…’ If she had been pale before; she was white now, her lips trembling. ‘Blakeney, please…’
‘Don’t look so frightened, Miss Mouse.’ The childhood nickname came out by long habit and surprised the
m both. ‘I’ll think of some plan that will not embarrass you, I promise. And now we must be going. We are to meet the others at Drury Lane for the after-piece. We would be missed there. Come, Gaston, we must be off.’
‘I am very well where I am,’ said Gaston, with a languishing glance for Amelia.
‘So am I.’ He smiled down at Caroline. ‘But you know we are expected. We agreed we would only give the girls a quick look-in, and see how long we have stayed.’
‘The attraction was irresistible.’ Gaston kissed Amelia’s hand. ‘But you are right, as usual, Blakeney. Should we grease old Sims’ palm, and tell him we have not been here?’
‘No need for that,’ said Blakeney stiffly. ‘Sims and I are old friends.’ He saw nervous colour flushing Caroline’s cheek, and touched it gently. ‘Don’t look so conscious, Miss Mouse, it’s the way of the world, that’s all. What the parent doesn’t know, his heart does not grieve over.’
Caroline sat up late that night reading and rereading Tremadoc’s poems and trying to think what she could say about them. But when he called next day, as Blakeney had predicted, she found it easy enough. It had never for a moment occurred to him that she would be anything but overwhelmed by them and he occupied himself happily in reading her his favourite passages until they were interrupted by Blakeney with a small bunch of primroses.
‘I picked them for you in the Green Park.’ He handed them to Caroline. ‘It’s an amazing year. Only February, and the spring flowers are all out. I’ve come to ask a favour of you,’ he went on, as she sniffed ecstatically at the fragrant, creamy flowers. ‘I’ve a mare in my stables that’s no longer up to my weight; she’d be just the thing for you and needs exercise badly. I’ve taken the liberty of bringing her with me in the hope that I can persuade you to come out for an airing.’
‘Oh, I’d like it above anything! Will you mind waiting while I change my dress?’ And then, hesitating. ‘But, Blakeney, should I?’
The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5) Page 10