by Joan Smith
“You might have told us you were taking it back to the shop,” I said.
“If you want it so badly, I daresay it can be bought from Wingdale. He would not know a Queen Anne tea service from a tin tray.”
“He knew enough to snap it up in any case,” Nora said.
“He is fond of Queen Anne,” I said, and laughed to myself.
Tom was so unhappy with the visit that he rose to his feet. “Well, do you want to come to the ball in my carriage or not? That is really the only reason I came. I had a look at yours while I was at the stable, and know you will not want to submit your gowns to it.”
“That is true,” Nora said, looking to me for directions.
I disliked to accept so ungracious an offer; disliked even more to arrive at a ball reeking of smoke. “Thank you, Tom, we would appreciate it very much.”
“Seven o’clock then?”
“Seven,” we agreed.
I accompanied him to the door, in case he was dashing enough to broach the subject of marriage. And I would refuse him this time very firmly. He said nothing at all about it. Neither did he make any attempt at taking my hands, at touching me. He left with a stiff, angry face. He could be very unattractive when he pokered up in this way.
Chapter Twenty-one
The gala night of the ball finally arrived. Tom called for us and took us in state to Carnforth Hall. More improvements had been made since our last visit. There was some attempt at shaping the shrubberies, and fresh pebbles had been laid to cover those spots where grass invaded the drive. It is one of life’s little mysteries how it will grow so profusely where it is not wanted and refuse to come up on one’s lawn, except in patches. Within, the changes were more dramatic. One had the sensation of entering a fine home, well cared for, with perhaps just a touch more of newness in carpets, window hangings, and sofa coverings than is usually encountered. There were splendidly-outfitted guests, most of whom were strangers to us. While Nora and Tom stood discussing between themselves which were titled and which less interesting personages, Gamble came forward to make us welcome. The strangers, upon introduction, proved to be friends and relations from the Western Lakes.
Entering the main saloon, I looked in vain for elephant feet, Indian blankets, and other objectionable bric-a-brac, to be told by the mind reader that if I had an umbrella I wished to store, I would find the pachyderm’s foot in his study.
“You are looking very elegant this evening, Chloe,” he added, scanning me quickly from head to toe.
“I had thought so till I got here,” I admitted, for I am sure he knew it anyway. “I see you, too, have got a new bib and tucker for the occasion.”
“Like it?” he asked, brushing his lapel and looking down at himself.
It was a handsome suit. There is nothing like a black jacket and white cravat to bring out the best in a man. Edward, too, was looking very aristocratic. Even Tom had less the air of a country squire than usual.
I felt the evening was going to be wonderful. There was champagne, an unaccustomed luxury in our simple lives. Lady Emily was beautiful in a white gown with silk roses catching up the skirt in ruches. When she smiled at Edward I did not see how he could well resist her, but his attention had been caught by a businessman from the west who was enlightening him as to the best way to invest his spare capital. Edward listened as closely as if he had a thousand guineas to dispose of. It was for Tom to do the pretty with Emily. I watched him closely. There was surely love shining in his eyes, and as surely none being returned by hers. Dinner, when it was served, proved to be no less than a banquet, with every manner of delicacy. I thought with dismay of the meager dinner we had served Jack at Ambledown. But we had not called it a feast, nor been expecting company.
Lady Irene was set at Jack’s right hand, some elderly aunt on his left. I was placed between Tom and a gentleman called Sir Arthur something or other, who mined copper, and spent the meal complaining of the high cost and low productivity of his workers. Despite these twin destroyers, however, he had a diamond twice as big as a cherry pip in his shirt front, and the lady who was his wife had a whole set of them around her wattled neck.
I was unhappy to hear Captain Wingdale announced, when the guests for the ball began arriving, but was glad he had not been invited to dinner at least. When the minuet struck up, it was Lady Irene who began the dancing with Gamble. Had the purpose of this ball been to announce his wedding to Emily, she would have been given the honour. This settled in my mind that there was to be no announcement made. If any serious attachment were forming it seemed Lady Irene was to be the lady, as Hennie had said. Mrs. Crawford happened to be standing by me at the time. She had removed her black mittens for the occasion, and had tried to alter her customary flavour with cloves. Onions and cloves combined, I learned, give off a worse aroma than onions alone. Positively pungent.
“Lord Carnforth is unable to come down, is he?” I asked her. We had seen nothing of him since arriving, though I thought I heard a song coming down the stairs shortly after entering. Death and the Lady it was, so lugubrious.
“He was brought down for lunch. It knocked him about so that he is resting.” I murmured my regrets.
Her eyes trailed off after Irene as she spoke on about fatigue and old age. She became quite a pest to me that night, though it was Tom who drew her to me. I stood up with him for the minuet. As soon as it was over, Hennie ran up to us again. “Where is Emily?” she asked.
It seemed significant to me that he could point out the precise corner where she stood. Neither did I fail to notice his feet were soon following his eyes after her. Hennie’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “Mr. Carrick is a good friend of yours I believe, Miss Barwick?” she asked.
“We have known him a few years.”
“I have known his mama socially a little, but was never at Tarnmere till last week. A very fine estate,” she said, making it somehow a suggestion that I was a fool not to nab it and a hint to know my intentions on that score.
What did one say to such a thing? “Yes,” I agreed. “Very fine indeed.”
“I wonder what the income would be on such a place. Not a penny under five thousand, I should say.”
I did not deny it. Her thinking was no mystery to me. Having lost out on becoming mistress of Carnforth Hall, she was thinking of setting Emily and herself up at Tarn-mere. She would meet her match in Tom’s mother, but let her worry about that.
Jack had spotted us and was fast approaching. “Chloe,” he said, “do you think Tom would break both my legs if I asked you for a dance?”
“I cannot think so. He is not at all a violent man.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Jack is always joking,” Hennie told me.
“Especially when he is half full of champagne,” he agreed.
She turned aside to speak to some acquaintance, and Jack suddenly had me by the elbow. “We’ll escape while it is possible to do so,” he said, in a conspiratorial voice. “I don’t wish to have my two duty dances in a row. I refer to Cousin Emily as the second, in case you wonder.”
“Oh, I thought you meant Mrs. Crawford.”
“Hennie don’t dance. Her specialty is making others do so—to her tune. Having failed to bring about a match between Emily and me, she is now determined I must incite Tom to such a pitch of jealousy that he offers for her. I expect you would have something to say about that!” He regarded me closely.
“That depends on how you propose to set about it. I expect Lady Irene might have something to say as well,” I countered.
“Was Hennie hinting it is Irene’s mature charms that brought about the termination of the grand romance with Emmie?”
“Not in the least. She did not actually mention any termination.”
“Well, I am mentioning it now. She turned me down flat, thank God.”
I felt a weight fall from my shoulders. That match had never seemed a good idea to me. As the name of Lady Irene had arisen, I decided to discover whether she was
in fact gaining any ground. “Lady Irene will make an unexceptional match for you. She will give you some of that quality you so sadly lack,” I told him, with a pert glance that made it half a joke, a useful device for saying what we hesitate to advance in complete earnest but wish to get off our chests all the same.
The music began—a waltz. I had been half hoping for one, half fearing it. There were not a great many opportunities to practice this new dance (unless one were an habitué of Wingdale’s soirées) so that I feared I would make a botch of it. Gamble’s visits there had paid off. He could not have encountered the waltz before returning to England, but he executed it smoothly, flawlessly, while still continuing our conversation.
“Very true, she would take the edge of the savage from my social conduct in two days, but then she would also have to be the mother of my children, and the begetting of them with her is not a thing I anticipate with the least relish.”
‘I’m sure Lady Irene is—is very good at it,” I said, blurting out what I should have kept as an unstated thought.
“Too good, and in a lady, that is worse than no good at all, if it is marriage we speak of.’’
“I wish we might speak of something else. Carnforth is hors de combat, is he?” I asked, reaching for the first thing that came to mind.
When at last the dance was over, I looked across the room to see Tom mincing about like a dancing master, smiling and fawning on a thoroughly bored Emily. Bored with him, that is to say, she looked with plenty of interest out of the crevice of her eye towards Edward. Jack followed my glance.
“Edward had better look lively if he means to have her,” he said. “Hennie is ripe for marriage. She’ll talk Cousin into the first match that offers.”
“You have changed your mind about Edward’s ineligibility, have you? Your first comment on that match used the word misalliance, if I am not mistaken.”
“I have changed my mind about a good many things. So has Edward changed. He is no longer a destitute poet, but a reasonably sane man of business. Ambledown is spruced up considerably—a home to be proud of, in fact.”
I wondered if the renovations at home had been urged on Edward with this in mind. “The sprucing up has put Edward considerably in debt. Emily has still no dowry.”
“How much must she have to suit for your brother?”
“You are the one who knows how much money he owes. He never tells me anything. And I was not hinting for money either. I am only pointing out that the match is as ineligible as it ever was—more so in fact. Nothing has changed.”
“It has,” he answered reasonably. “I no longer mean to have her. And for my own part, I don’t care a groat who marries her, so long as the fellow is not an out-and-out rotter. Unfortunately, all the matches trying to go forward here have one unwilling partner.” His eyes slid warily towards Lady Irene, who watched him like a hawk.
“And in some cases two,” I said, thinking of Tom and myself, who were about equally eager to be rid of each other.
“A pity we could not take a large wooden spoon and stir up all ingredients into a more acceptable form. There is Emily mooning after Edward, Tom mooning after her…”
“Irene chasing Gamble,” I added with a laugh.
“And Gamble chasing you,” he said, leaning his head down to mine. The air was crackling again. I felt suffocated with it. “Who are you hankering after, Chloe?” he asked.
“No one,” I said.
“Liar! Ah, you lead a charmed life. Here comes Tom to your rescue. Emmie must have given him goodbye,” he said, with a little ironic laugh.
Tom was looking piqued. Emily never minded her tongue, any more than her cousin did. She had no vice in her, but was apt to say something offensive through carelessness. In any case, Tom looked bruised. “Running back to Mama,” Jack continued, ignoring my stiff back. “Kiss his wounds and make him all better, Chloe, like a good little mother.” He fixed a peculiar, questioning look on me when I turned to hush him. The strangest thing of all was that I felt like doing exactly as he said, like patting Tom’s head and soothing his hurt.
“But don’t mistake your pity for love,” he said, then stepped lightly away, just nodding to Tom as he left.
“Is something the matter, Tom?” I asked, sounding dreadfully like a mother.
Tom did not appear to notice it. “That Emily is a rude girl,” he said. Clearly Hennie’s plan for advancing his cause with Emily had failed. My closest questioning could not reveal what she had said. I sat out a dance with him, smoothing his ruffled feathers. He was happy to turn his talk to topics other than romance. After he had simmered down (it took two rapidly gulped glasses of wine to accomplish it) he said, “I was speaking to Wingdale earlier. You’ll be interested to hear what he had to say, Chloe. He offered to sell me some shares in his place. What do you think of the idea?”
“How outrageous! He knows how we feel about that place!” I answered hotly. After the words were out, I recalled that Tom did not share perfectly in my aversion to it.
“Just as an investment, you know. I would not be an active partner at all, standing behind a desk, or anything of that sort. He is in a bit of a financial bind, I gather, and is trying to peddle some shares in his business.”
“I wonder his friend Jack Gamble does not bail him out.”
“Exactly what I suggested to him myself. He didn’t take to the idea one bit. Said something about Gamble wanting to take over. I ain’t much of a businessman, but from what I gather, Gamble has already got close to half interest in his new village, and if more than fifty percent goes out of Wingdale’s control, then of course he loses any say in what form the whole effort will take.”
“Their ideas run side by side as far as I can see.”
“Not really. Gamble has much grander ideas, or so Wingdale says. This business of developing the lakeside, for instance, came from Gamble. It is the heavy development of Wingdale’s side of it that has got him in this tight money corner. Gamble urged him to make it a regular huge commercial affair, with swinging boats and a dance hall and lovers’ walks—well, he convinced Wingdale it would bring him a fortune, and so it would too, but in the meanwhile it has to be financed, and that is why Wingdale is after me for money. I wish I knew how much risk there is in it,” he added, worried.
“Tom, you cannot mean you are considering going into this venture!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, deuce take it, Chloe. Someone will do it, and if there is a pot of gold to be picked up from it, I might as well have it as the next fellow.”
“You men are all alike! You’d sell your souls for gold.”
“Wouldn’t go that far,” he assured me, shocked at the idea. “I think the thing to do is to speak to Gamble about it.”
“Would you trust him?”
“He is a gentleman at least. Mean to say Wingdale…”
“I wouldn’t consider it if I were you, Tom.”
“Yes, but you ain’t me,” he pointed out.
“No, it is pretty clear my desires have no influence with you,” I answered angrily, then I got up, preparatory to flouncing out of the room but holding myself ready to be stopped. He did not stir a finger to stop me. I left, chancing to encounter Gamble while I was still on my high ropes.
“Don’t tell me Tom has got out of hand,” he said. “I haven’t seen you look so angry since you rattled me off for going to fetch Emily home from your place just after I arrived home.”
“Not out of hand in the way you think, but then his mind does not constantly run on lechery.”
“Never wanders anywhere near it, I shouldn’t think.”
“You share something in common for all that.”
“You intrigue me. What can I possibly have in common with that tame fellow?”
“Greed, Mr. Gamble. Greed. He would like to talk to you about the best way to get rich quick, without too much concern for anyone else’s welfare.”
“He’s chosen the right man,” he answered, smiling triumphantly. Before I c
ould say more, he ran off after Tom.
Chapter Twenty-two
I stationed myself on a chair that gave me a good view of the parlour where Tom and Jack were having their discussion. I was positively aching to know what was being said between them, but was too proud to enter. I meant to nab Tom on his way out and discover whether he had decided to put his money into the venture. If he had done so, I needed no more excuse to turn him off. Indeed, his disregarding my wishes would be tantamount to his having rescinded his offer.
The two of them came out after about five minutes, and I arose to meet them. They were not looking towards me, nor towards the ballroom at all. They turned sharply to the right, to proceed to an even more private parlour— Gamble’s study, it was. While I stood trying to work up my courage to go after them, a servant popped along carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses on a silver tray. He took it into the study, indicating it was a long session ahead of them. In frustration I returned to the ballroom and got stuck to stand up with Sir Arthur, who was well into his cups by this time, and admitting he had made nineteen thousand pounds clear last year from that unproductive copper mine of his. One wonders how much he would have made had his miners not been lazy and overpaid!
After I had led a staggering Sir Arthur to a chair I returned to the hallway, to see the door still firmly closed. What a way for a host to treat his guests, to disappear for an hour and talk business. My next partner, Reverend Barrel, our minister, danced very much like a puppet, with little jerky, twitchy movements, frequently in unexpected directions. When the music stopped I again sidled towards the doorway into the hall, to scan that other, more interesting door. It stood open now. I walked quickly towards it, thinking to glance in, hoping for an invitation to join the gentlemen and be told Tom’s decision.
Only Tom was there, sitting with his head at an odd angle. A closer look showed me his eyelids were also at a peculiar position, more closed than open. The poor man was on the way to becoming foxed, with all the champagne. He shook his head, and after frowning at me for a minute asked, “Chloe?” in an uncertain voice.