‘Oh, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child,”’ intoned her mother, quoting from Shakespeare and rolling her eyes towards heaven. ‘Your father had no business leaving so much to you. Mr Mitchell has five of us to keep and there is only one of you.’
‘Well, Mr Mitchell made sure that I remained only one when he wrecked my marriage, so you had better reproach him. No, Mother—’ as her mother raised her arms to heaven like an Old Testament prophet, ready to rain fire and brimstone on her ‘—I am sorry that Mr Mitchell has brought this disaster on you. It was none of my doing, and I agreed with my lawyers that he should not be arrested for his misdeeds. Had I insisted, he would have either been hanged or transported, for those are the punishments for embezzlement. Be thankful that you still have him, and pray that he uses his talents for business more honestly in the future.’
‘No,’ said her mother, pushing her open hands at Susanna as though she was about to attack her, ‘no, I will not listen to you. I am sure that my poor husband is innocent and that the truth will come out one day. Until then I have no wish to see you again.’
‘Well, you have lived without seeing me for the last four years, so a longer parting will make little odds.’
She stopped, and then tried to take one of her mother’s hands, ‘Oh, Mother, remember that I am your child as well, and try to understand how I must have felt when I learned the dreadful truth. And how I feel now when you disown me so cruelly although I have done you no wrong—and have even saved your husband from the implacable hands of the law despite all that he has done to me.’
Her mother pushed her away. ‘That is enough. I won’t hear any more. Stay with your fancy Frenchwoman—oh, how it hurts me to think that she may be enjoying herself in my home while I suffer the privations of poverty.’
Ignoring Susanna’s pleading face, she walked to the door. ‘You need not have me shown out. I want no favours from you or anyone who lives with you. I know that you disliked Mr Mitchell, but I never thought that you would have gone so far as to ruin him—and us.’
She went. Susanna sank on to the sofa which her mother had briefly inhabited and found that, broken though she was, she could not cry. Or rather, she thought grimly, I will not.
Madame came in a few moments later, took one look at her and rang for the teaboard.
‘Dear child,’ she said kindly, ‘I will not ask you what passed. Knowing the world as I do, I assume that your mother was far from kind to you. No, do not answer me. There is nothing which either of us can say at present other than to admit that life is often too difficult for us to bear. The only comfort which I can offer you is one that I have found to be true— “This, too, will pass,” which is cold comfort enough, I admit. Now, drink your tea.’
Susanna reflected sadly that these days everyone seemed determined to make her drink some liquid or other. Mr Wolfe had begun this apparent ritual and everyone else she had encountered had followed his example. Nevertheless she did as she was bid, wondering what else the afternoon had in store for her.
She was not in the least surprised when Mr Wolfe was announced—he seemed to haunt her these days. Even her refusal of his proposal—of which she had not informed Madame—did not seem to have deterred him.
In Madame’s little drawing room he seemed larger than ever. He refused the tea which Madame offered him, saying, ‘Another time, perhaps. It is a fine day, I have a new carriage outside and four splendid horses and am determined that, if you have no other engagement, you will allow me to drive you both to Hyde Park to enjoy the sun.’
He could have said nothing more calculated to allow Susanna to recover herself. Before her mother’s unhappy visit she would have thought that her reaction to it would have been to wish to hide herself away. Instead, she was possessed with a fierce determination to show the world that she would not be put down. Which was stupid, she thought wryly, because no one but her mother and herself were aware of what had so recently passed between them.
Knowing Ben Wolfe as well as she did, she also knew that his new carriage would be as splendid as his horses and that it would be a privilege to sit behind them. Nevertheless, having agreed almost immediately, she was a little perturbed to hear Madame say that she was suffering from a light megrim and would prefer not to sit in the hot sun—if Mr Wolfe would be so good as to allow her to make her excuses.
‘In that case,’ began Susanna, a trifle unhappily, ‘perhaps I—’
For once Madame’s perfect manners deserted her. She cut Susanna off in mid-sentence, announcing briskly, ‘Do not allow my malaise to prevent you from enjoying a well-earned excursion, my dear. Without yet being past your last prayers, you are mature enough to sit beside Mr Wolfe in a public place such as Hyde Park without causing scandal.’
‘Or perhaps because I have already caused so much,’ Susanna riposted lightly, ‘one more bêtise will not count against me!’
‘Nonsense,’ said Madame and Ben together.
‘Your presence in Madame’s home,’ said the latter, ‘will suffice to stifle any scandal. And you need a run in the Park. You are a trifle pale this afternoon—too much staying indoors, I presume.’
Madame again answered for her. ‘You mistake, Mr Wolfe. Miss Beverly has recently received two pieces of news, one good and the other much less so. The first is that she has received notice that her fortune, which her lawyers had allowed her to be cheated of by her stepfather, has been restored to her, so she is no longer dependent on cold charity. The second is that her mother has visited her and has been most unkind to her because of the change in her own circumstances. Not that she has told me so directly—it is what I have gathered from her manner.’
‘Is this true, Miss Beverly?’ asked Ben, his face grim. He had, at Madame’s urgings, taken a seat, and he leaned forward from it to add, ‘Most unwarranted, if so, seeing that by all accounts her husband stole your inheritance from you.’
‘Both statements are true,’ she told him, ‘but I confess to feeling a trifle unhappy that my good luck is at the expense of my mother and half-sisters’ bad luck.’
‘Do not reproach yourself,’ he said earnestly. ‘You have had a great wrong done to you, and your mother and sisters have been living a comfortable life while you have been struggling. You were turned out of your home, were you not?’
Susanna nodded a brief agreement.
‘Well, then!’ said Ben sturdily. ‘Your sentiments do your soft heart credit, but I advise you to forget the unhappy past, accept my invitation and tell me what you think of my carriage and four.’
‘But I am not really dressed to go to the Park,’ objected Susanna.
‘Nonsense, you look as you always do whatever you wear, quite a` point. You simply need to equip yourself with a parasol to arm yourself against the sun and a light shawl to protect your arms.’
Madame nodded agreement and sent her away to dress herself as Ben had advised. Once Susanna was out of the room, Madame rose and walked to the mantelpiece to rearrange some objects of vertu there.
‘Do I detect your fine Italian hand in this sudden access of wealth which Miss Beverly is enjoying?’
‘Now, why in the world should you think that?’
‘You forget how well I know you, cher ami! What I don’t understand is why you don’t simply propose to her and have done with it.’
Ben said in his most winning voice, ‘Oh, but I have, and…’ He paused tantalisingly.
Madame turned to face him. ‘You really are provoking,’ and her voice had quite lost its pretty French accent and was disturbingly downright in the English fashion. ‘I am growing too old to be teased.’
‘Never—you are timeless, as you well know,’ he said. ‘But, all the same, I will oblige you and finish my sentence. She refused me. Perhaps because neither the manner of it, nor the occasion on which it was made, could be described as either tactful or auspicious.’
‘You are, as usual, being remarkably cold-blooded about the whole bu
siness,’ said Madame sternly, ‘but that is your way. Are you cold-blooded about her? Do you feel anything for her?’
‘You are not to ask me that. I can only tell you that I would not hurt her for the world. She has been hurt enough.’
‘Only that? Is that all you feel for her?’
‘Better that than loud protestations of undying love which mean nothing.’
If Madame thought that he was not quite telling her the truth, she did not say so. In any case, the arrival of Susanna, looking enchanting in cool pale blue and cream, with kid shoes, bonnet and parasol to match, brought an end to their conversation.
‘Charming,’ said Ben, bending over to kiss her hand. ‘Quite charming. I shall be the envy of Hyde Park.’
He was not far wrong. On his own he would have created gossip, because all the world was excitedly chattering about the mysterious nabob, and the new on dit running around the ton suggested that he was not a member of the Wolfe family at all, but merely an adventurer who had assumed the name and had subsequently misappropriated what was left of the Wolfe estates.
Escorting Susanna, however, who had remained anonymous for the four years since her jilting when she had made such a scandalous, if fleeting, impression on the London scene, he was the subject of even more gossip and interest. Pieces of excited conversation flew around the Park such as:
‘Who is he with?’
‘Oh, is that the young woman whom Sylvester jilted? What a beauty she is now. Where has she been?’
‘Madame la Comtesse de Saulx is sponsoring her, you say? Then what is she doing with him? Madame is respectability itself.’
‘Had her fortune restored to her, I understand. Is that why Wolfe is with her?’
‘And Madame is sponsoring Wolfe, as well, is she? Odd, that! Best go over and pay our respects. Wouldn’t want to be backward in coming forward if he is the coming man, which they say he is.’
And so on…
Susanna was sublimely unaware of the excitement which she was creating. She only knew that she was happy. Ben had driven the carriage into the shade of some trees and his two grooms were holding the horses steady. She and Ben became the subject of a little court. Men and women on foot, either because they had walked to the Park or had left their horse or carriage for the moment, made their way to them out of sheer curiosity if nothing else.
‘I had no notion that you were so popular, Mr Wolfe,’ said Susanna, intrigued by all this excitement.
‘I am a novelty,’ he whispered to her. ‘In a few months I shall become a commonplace and a new sensation will be found to exclaim over. And you are a novelty as well, a beautiful woman whom, I dare say, few know. And remember, the story of your lost-and-found inheritance is probably an on dit already. Prepare to be boarded by ambitious and fortune-hunting suitors.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Susanna admitted artlessly. She had been so busy worrying about all the other implications of her new-found wealth that she had forgotten that one.
‘Best to remember it.’ Ben’s voice was now sober, its usually wryly jesting overtones absent for once.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She sighed. ‘Ah, well, I suppose every silver lining has its cloud.’
Before he could answer her, a mature beauty on the arm of a large man in the uniform of a Hussar approached them and began to gush at Ben as though he were alone.
‘So happy to see you. You remember me from India, I trust. Charlotte Campion I was then, but my husband died of a fever out there and here I am, home again and married now to Colonel Bob Beauchamp—you know him too, I believe.’
‘We have met.’ Ben’s voice was dry. ‘You will allow me to present Miss Susanna Beverly to you. Miss Beverly, Colonel and Mrs Beauchamp.’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Beauchamp, at last acknowledging Susanna’s existence. ‘So you are the little heiress who has recovered her lost fortune!’
She said this as though Susanna’s carelessness had caused this sad mishap through conduct on a par with her mislaying her reticule or her kerchief.
‘An heiress, true, but not little,’ said Ben before Susanna could answer—something, she thought crossly, which was happening to her too often these days. She was perfectly capable of defending herself, both Ben and Madame were doing it a little too brown by deciding otherwise.
She was reduced to smiling vaguely at Mrs Beauchamp whilst wondering if she had ever been Ben’s mistress—or even a passing lover. Her manner seemed to suggest so.
Colonel Beauchamp had produced a monocle which he jammed in his right eye to enable him to survey Susanna more closely after a fashion for which she did not care.
‘Must come to supper with us soon,’ he offered. ‘Eh, Charlie?’
‘Oh, indeed. I can gossip about old times with Ben and you can tell Miss—Beverly, is it?—all about Waterloo, leaving out all the gory bits, of course.’
‘Supposing I wanted to hear about the gory bits,’ Susanna raged at Ben when the Beauchamps had departed after Mrs Beauchamp had hurled a few more poisoned darts at Susanna. ‘What then? How well did you know her in India?’
To his inward horror, Ben realised that he was delighted to detect a note of jealousy in Susanna’s response to Charlotte Beauchamp’s overblown charms. He must be going mad. Worse, it was even madder of him to stoke the fire by saying confidentially, ‘Very well. Every man in Indian society knew her very well.’
‘How fortunate for them all,’ said Susanna tartly, ‘to find someone so obliging.’
‘True,’ said Ben naughtily. ‘Particularly when there was such a dearth of females who were.’
He was highly entertained when Susanna closed her parasol, produced a fan and began to wave it vigorously in front of her, saying crossly, ‘You really should not talk like this to me, you know. I am an unmarried female whose innocence ought to be protected.’
‘I am taking my tone from you,’ retorted Ben primly. ‘If you wish to discuss something less…inflammatory…we can embark on some more respectable topic.’
‘Oh, so you admit that the lady is not respectable.’ The accusation shot out of Susanna without her willing it.
What on earth is the matter with me, she thought dismally, that every time I am with Mr Big Bad Wolfe I find myself saying the most dreadful things and behaving like Lady Caroline Lamb at her worst? I never do it with anyone else. Quite the contrary, I am usually as solemn as a parson or a judge—more, in fact. I really must compose myself.
Ben watched the play of emotion on her face, guessing a little of what she was thinking.
‘Cannot you think of anything suitable to discuss?’ he offered helpfully. ‘If you cannot, might I suggest we converse on the state of the King’s health. I hear that it is declining rapidly.’
‘I shall decline rapidly if you don’t behave yourself,’ retorted Susanna, watching another group of curious sightseers approaching their carriage. Among them were the Westerns and Amelia. Amelia was wearing a brilliant purple walking dress which did nothing for her complexion. Her mouth was turned down at the corners, too.
‘Whatever can be the matter with her?’ whispered Susanna to Ben. ‘She is generally so high-spirited as to be unendurable.’
‘Her marriage to Lord Darlington will not take place,’ Ben whispered back. ‘Yours is not the only sensation here today. The on dit is that Babbacombe’s financial situation is so dire that the Westerns cried off shortly after learning of it. Apparently they concluded that even to gain a title was a game not worth the candle if by doing so they risked bankruptcy themselves in order to save Babbacombe. Smile at them; for the moment you are up and they are down.’
Susanna duly obeyed him when they finally reached the carriage. It appeared that the Westerns had decided that they might recognise Mr Wolfe and his companion after all.
Preliminaries over, Amelia said to Susanna, ‘I suppose that I ought to congratulate you, so I will.’
‘Thank you,’ said Susanna, ignoring the graceless nature of this remark and won
dering what to say in reply, but Amelia, joining the growing throng of those who never allowed her to finish a sentence, added immediately,
‘I suppose that you have heard of my bad news?’
‘Mr Wolfe has just informed me of it.’
‘No doubt—he seems to know everything. Who would have thought that Lord Babbacombe would be so deceitful? M’lord told Papa a series of lies when the marriage settlement was being arranged. His estates were heavily mortgaged, he was deep in debt, the moneylenders were after him, and only an anonymous letter informing our lawyers of the true state of things prevented us from becoming part of his general ruin. I was sorry to lose George, of course, but I’m sure that you will agree that I could not marry him and end up a pauper.’
‘But I thought that you shared a deathless love with him?’
Oh, dear, now she was beginning to sound exactly like Ben Wolfe himself, coolly sardonic!
Amelia stared at her. ‘Deathless love would be hard to manage in a garret,’ she said at last.
‘Oh, indeed. On the other hand, I believe that deathless love is hard to manage anywhere.’
And now I’ve done it again. I must stop before I say something which I shall regret.
Ben, who had been conversing with the Westerns—on a respectable topic, Susanna hoped—overheard this and made his contribution to the wake for George and Amelia’s marriage.
‘If you believe in love, that is. In any case, outside of novels, it seems to me that love and marriage have little to do with one another.’
Well, one might have expected Ben Wolfe to say something like that. It killed the conversation dead. Amelia dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, but whether she was crying for George, or the loss of his title, was difficult to guess.
After that the conversation went even further downhill until at last the Westerns drifted away, leaving Ben and Susanna alone for a moment.
The Wolfe's Mate Page 11