by KJ Charles
Pat and Fen ate in silence. Fen presumably did so because she had nothing to contribute to the discussion of what bore rifle to use for different types of game, and because her fiancé, sitting next to her, did not manage a word on a subject that might interest her. Pat didn’t speak because she was confused, disturbed, and, she realised as the meal proceeded, furious.
She moved swiftly as soon as they rose from the table. “Do you know, I haven’t been around the lake. Fen, would you show me, if you aren’t busy?”
“I dare say I can find an unoccupied hour.” Fen spoke with a smile, and addressed the words only to Pat, but behind her Jimmy winced. It served him right.
CHAPTER FIVE
They strolled down to the lake together in silence. It was full sun now, a glorious day, though the sky had a hint of yellow to it that suggested storms might not be out of the question.
“Are you all right?” Pat asked at last.
Fen turned her head, looking startled. “Me? Yes, of course. My arms are a little tired, but nothing terrible.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean...” She tailed off, wondering if this was too much of an intrusion. It was none of her business, but the whole thing was becoming unbearable to witness. “How long have you and Jimmy known one another?”
“Oh, about three months.”
“And you said you haven’t visited him here before.”
“No. This is my first time in this part of the world.”
“Mmm.”
Fen shot a glance under the brim of her bonnet. “You seem to want to say something. It probably isn’t anything I haven’t heard before.”
“How do you mean?” Pat asked, though she knew very well what Fen meant.
Fen confirmed that in the next breath. “Oh, let me see. Haven’t I been engaged before? Yes, twice. Isn’t this something of a whirlwind romance too? Yes, it is. Am I going to jilt him as I did the last two? Ooh, I simply don’t know yet.” Her voice was as sweet as ever, but there was a definite edge to it. “Have I thought about it sensibly?—”
“I’m sure you did,” Pat said over her. “And Jimmy is—or I always thought he was—a very decent man. I wouldn’t have thought a girl could do better than a sensible, pleasant fellow like him.”
“Well, then, that’s all right isn’t it?”
“No,” Pat said. “That’s why I wanted to know how you are. Because if I’d been asked to guess how Jimmy would treat the woman he’d just got engaged to, in his own home, where she was visiting for the first time—”
Fen held her hand up. It was a sudden, sharp gesture, almost jerky, and Pat stopped talking. They walked on, skirts rustling, feet crunching on the gravel path that ran around the lake.
“Is it terribly obvious?” Fen said at last. “Or is this just because you know him well?”
“I’d call it obvious,” Pat said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I knew it, really. It certainly seems obvious to Maurice Haworth, judging by the way he smiles.”
“He’s a piece of work, isn’t he? Look, I’m a friend of Jimmy’s but in a, well, a mannish sort of way. I’ve never known him with a girl. I don’t really know if he’s used to being a fiancé, or if he understands that he’s not paying as much attention as he ought.”
“Are you making excuses for him?” Fen asked. “That is, do you think I ought to disregard the fact that he barely listens to me, had nothing to say to Mr. Haworth when he insulted me last night, and very obviously finds my presence an inconvenience at his party?”
That was a deal blunter than Pat had expected; in fact, blunt enough to make one reflect that this deliciously frothy young lady’s father, at least, must be both fiercely intelligent and fiercely determined. She took a moment to adjust her expectations before replying. “I’m not making excuses, no. And I’ve no idea what you ought to do. But I’m fairly sure that if he’s disregarding you now, before your father—” She clamped her lips shut, too late.
“Before my father has made over the large sum of money that’s his reason for wanting to marry me. You might as well say it. Everyone knows it. I know it.”
“If that was his reason—or his only reason—for proposing, he’s stupider than I realised,” Pat said. “Any man ought to think himself lucky to have you, leaving the money out of the question. But, yes, it is in question, and—” Loyalty to Jimmy and liking for Fen warred for a moment, along with a weaselly awareness that she wouldn’t mind at all knowing that the engagement was off. That was unworthy, but Fen was alone and distressed and needed a friend. Pat salved her conscience with determination to be that friend. “Look, since you ask, he isn’t showing himself to advantage in the slightest, and I think you’d be advised to have it out with him before you take an irreversible step. I do think he’s capable of better,” she made herself add. “I have the impression he’s under a lot of stress at the moment. But he might need reminding of his responsibilities.”
“You’re contorting yourself to be fair to him,” Fen observed. “I don’t suppose you’d tolerate a fiancé treating you with disinterest.”
“To be honest, if I had to marry, I’d far prefer a husband who was mostly unaware of my existence.”
Fen gave a yelp of laughter. “Pat!”
“Well, I don’t see the appeal,” Pat said, grinning. “Men are dreadfully self-centred in my experience. One is expected to listen to everything they want to say while making their lives pleasant and all without a word of thanks. I may be biased,” she added fairly. “I mostly know brothers, not husbands, and I’ve never felt any urge to marry, so you probably shouldn’t ask my opinion. But I do feel that if you are to marry, if you want to, then—well, the other party ought to want to just as much.”
“And Jimmy’s not giving that impression,” Fen said. “Is he?”
“Men do get cold feet, I understand,” Pat said, before remembering she was talking to a double jilt. “Er...”
“And so do women, yes, yes. I didn’t actually want to get cold feet again, you know. If I end a third engagement, people will say the most ghastly things about me, and Daddy will be quite exasperated. I’ve been telling myself that it’s my fault for inviting myself here, trying to believe there’s nothing at all to worry about and I’m just being silly. But there is something wrong. Isn’t there?”
“Sorry,” Pat said wretchedly. “Though I really don’t know if—well, if it’s anything to do with you.”
“Who else would it be to do with?”
“Has Jimmy told you he’s been having some sort of trouble with Haworth?”
“No,” Fen said. “He hasn’t told me anything. He hasn’t said anything of any significance to me at all.”
“Oh. Well, he did mention it, and...” Oh God. Was Haworth’s victim Jimmy? He’d told her he couldn’t retaliate against the man as he’d have liked. Suppose Jimmy was under his brother-in-law’s thumb in some way?
She couldn’t say so. To stain Jimmy with the suspicion that he’d done something worthy of blackmail would be utterly unfair. “I don’t know. I have the impression there’s more wrong with Haworth than just being a remarkably unpleasant man.”
“Well, yes,” Fen said. “For one thing, he’s all but bankrupt. He was a junior partner in Threppel and Swing, the stockbroker business that collapsed six months ago and took a number of fortunes with it, including much of the Earl’s. And for another—well, have you ever seen a more obvious drug fiend?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you not think so?”
“I have absolutely no idea what a drug fiend might look like,” Pat said. “Do you?”
“One meets them in London often enough—oh yes, in Society. The nervous tension and irritability are common signs. The thinness as well, in Lady Anna’s case. I am pleased to know I shall never be suspected,” she added, with a saucy look. “I should guess both Lady Anna and Mr. Haworth are habitual users of cocaine or some such, and if he is deprived of his supply here, or finding it hard to ind
ulge freely, that will no doubt contribute to his dreadful ill temper.”
“Well,” Pat said, impressed. “Goodness. Lady Anna, really?”
“She’s in with an awfully fast set. But, you know, none of that has changed from how it was when Jimmy proposed to me. I can’t see what difference it makes.”
“Having Haworth under his eyes, I suppose. Or maybe something did change that we don’t know about. Or perhaps he’s just an idiot. What are you going to do?”
“I really don’t know,” Fen said. “I thought that this would be a sensible choice. I didn’t expect him to be terribly romantic, although he did propose awfully nicely, but I thought he would be solid. Do you know what I mean? I’m so tired of faces.”
“Of what?”
“Faces. One meets someone, a man, and he has his society face for a stranger, and then a face for women, and another for his family, and one with his friends which is different from all the rest. That was why I ended my first engagement, you know. I heard him speaking of me to his friends. But I thought Jimmy was straightforward.”
“I think that’s a great deal to ask of anyone,” Pat said. “Saying what one means and not doing the pretty leads to one being considered eccentric, or mannerless, and that’s not awfully enjoyable. It’s a great deal easier for everyone if we behave as expected in the circumstances.”
“You don’t.”
That didn’t come as a surprise, but it was still a blow. “I do try to. I wish I could do it more easily.”
“I didn’t mean it as a criticism,” Fen said swiftly. “The opposite. I think it’s marvellous. You say what you mean.”
“Yes, and people think I’m dreadfully odd for it. But if one has four older brothers, the choice is to be uncompromising or a hopeless doormat. I chose to be uncompromising, and when one has acquired the habit of that, it’s hard to stop. It feels like giving in, and I don’t have any great urge to pander to others.”
Fen stopped and swung around to face her. “No,” she said forcefully. “Nor do I, at all, not inside, and yet I do it, all the time. Because that’s what one is supposed to do. One is meant to be pleasing, and—and cherishable, as you said, and all those other things, and I’ve tried not to be like that, but it just doesn’t work!”
“But I can’t see why it would.” Pat was hopelessly out of her depth. “That is, if you want Jimmy to be straightforward with you, why are you putting on an act with him?”
Fen’s lips parted. Pat pressed on, recklessly. “Take the shooting. You did awfully well, you worked so hard, but as soon as Jimmy arrived, you started the fluffy business again. And he’d love to know you could shoot. He’d be thrilled. Why didn’t you tell him?”
Fen didn’t reply. Her eyes were huge.
“Why didn’t you say?” Pat asked again. “Because I’m sure you don’t need to put on a difference face for Jimmy. You’re lovely as you are, and if he saw you as you are, surely—”
“But he didn’t,” Fen said. “He didn’t see me; he didn’t even propose to me. He proposed to rich Sir Peter Carruth’s daughter. And I do understand he needs the money—but if he liked me, wouldn’t he have looked at me properly?”
“But if you liked him, why wouldn’t you show yourself properly, instead of pretending?”
“Because one can’t,” Fen said. “That’s the whole point of different faces, that’s why we have them. Because if you let people know who you really are and still all they see is a stupid trollop with delusions of being a New Woman—”
“Fen!”
“Look at me. I don’t look serious. I’ve got a big bosom and a giggle. Nobody ever takes me seriously. Daddy has never explained telephones to me, not once, and when I set myself to learn he looked at me as though I were a dog that had set itself to turn head over heels, and laughed, and then two days later he sent me to finishing school. So that was that. I am pretty and sweet.” She enunciated the words. “I have been brought up to be pretty and sweet just as you’ve been brought up to be uncompromising and I want to be uncompromising. I want to absolutely smash Maurice Haworth when he says vile things instead of turning it away and pretending not to be offended in order to smooth things over. You wouldn’t giggle if he insinuated something horrible about you.”
Pat wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t. “I don’t know what I’d do if he was openly rude to my face, though we may well find out before this party is over. But there’s nothing wrong with trying to keep the peace. Guests at the Earl’s table can’t get into brawls with his son-in-law.”
“Yes, but I bet you won’t just giggle.” Fen sounded furious, possibly with herself. “Whereas I always react with—with fluff.”
“That’s not a virtue of mine, it’s an incapacity. I’m no good at smoothing over situations and making things easy for people, and I couldn’t be fluffy to save my life. May I make an observation?”
“Go on.”
“You’re awfully down on yourself, and I don’t see why,” Pat said. “There’s nothing in the world wrong with you, including your laugh.” She didn’t mention the bosom, with which there was absolutely nothing wrong at all. Quite the opposite. “And really, it seems to me that you’d have less trouble getting people to treat you with respect if you gave yourself a little more. People are awfully lazy, and ready to take other people at the value they put on themselves without thinking twice. You can’t expect someone like Jimmy to, to—”
“Have any insight into his future wife’s character?”
“I don’t know how you get away with the fluffy business for a minute,” Pat said with feeling. “All right, yes. But that’s in your hands as well as his. If you want to marry him and be happy, perhaps you need to have a frank conversation about what you’re both hoping for before you find yourselves stuck with one another for good under a lot of misapprehensions.”
“Yes,” Fen said. “We should. Only, I have been here for three days now, and every time I have asked Jimmy to explain how something works, or to talk about the future, he’s changed the subject. That walk around the lake we had earlier—I hoped he might talk to me, and I thought he might make love to me, but do you know what he actually did?”
“No,” Pat said, with foreboding.
“Talked about you.”
“What?”
“He talked about all your shooting achievements,” Fen said with precision, “and then he talked about how he’d met you, which led him on to a number of reminiscences of your brother at Oxford and visits to your family and how marvellously you ran the house and what a wonderfully quiet, soothing person you are—”
“Fen! Listen. If you are afraid Jimmy harbours any sort of—of feelings for me, you couldn’t be more wrong. We’ve known one another for years. He could have proposed at any time if he wanted to, and he didn’t.”
“Did you want him to?” Fen asked, then caught herself. “I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“It’s all right,” Pat said. “I considered it as a possibility, in a theoretical sort of way, but not because of any feelings I have for Jimmy. I’d love to live somewhere like this, to run this estate, and I think I’d do it well, but the husband would be the means to an end. I did wonder if Jimmy might want that sort of business partnership because he’s never seemed terribly interested in love affairs, but it seems he just hadn’t met the right woman.”
Fen gave her a look. Pat winced. “Sorry, that was trite. But you must agree, if he hardly seemed interested in women before and then fell in love with you more or less at first sight, that says something.”
“It could say a number of things. Such as that the woman he really wanted simply wasn’t interested, so he might as well make an advantageous match—”
“No, I am not having this,” Pat said, setting off walking again. “It’s honestly not right. I may not be one for romance but I’m sure I’d have known if Jimmy thought of me that way. And he’s Bill’s best pal; he would have said something. You’re wrong there.”
&nb
sp; Fen sighed. “I’m not sure if I’m pleased to hear you say so.”
“Why not?”
“I was preparing to renounce him nobly. Nobody could blame me for breaking an engagement to a man who promptly married someone else.”
“You’re thinking seriously of breaking the engagement?” Do. He’s all wrong for you. He won’t appreciate you. You ought not be weighted down by men and marriage and motherhood. Pat bit all that back. “Should you not talk to him first, have that frank conversation?”
Fen didn’t answer for a while. They paced on together, rounding the end of the lake and heading back up the other side, towards the house.
“The thing is...” Fen said at last. “This will probably sound terribly self-centred, but I am so tired of not being seen. I want someone to be interested in what I want, and who I am. Not all the time, but just a little. Just to notice. Just to talk to me instead of flirting with rich Peter Carruth’s daughter, or expecting me to sit and listen while they speak. It’s why I got engaged the first time. He paid me so much attention and it felt like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was an awfully good technique, if he’d been more careful about being overheard. And Jimmy...well, he’s terribly nice, but he isn’t looking at me. He hasn’t since I arrived. And if he isn’t interested in doing that, I don’t want to ask him to. I oughtn’t have to ask for the most basic acknowledgement of my existence.”
“I don’t understand,” Pat said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. How would anyone not notice you?”
“I don’t mean being looked at or being the centre of attention at a party because I have jewels and dresses and the bosom. Well, in fact, that’s the point. Everyone looks at those. Everyone thinks silly, frothy Miss Carruth with the—” She made a hand gesture indicating a chest twice the size of her own that made Pat’s stomach flutter. “Nobody looks past it.”
“But you— Oh. That’s the fluffy business, isn’t it?” Pat said. “You’re daring people not to see.”
“Not daring. It’s just, if they aren’t going to see me anyway, I’d rather they ignored me for an act than for the real thing.”