by Joan Smith
“What fun!” she said in a loud whisper to Belle. “Mrs. Traveller is here. They didn’t know you were to be here, my dear, and have set up this meeting. And you catching them dead to rights, same as he caught you and Henderson. So that’s who he was looking around for! Wanted to warn her away. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, and if Kay didn’t stage-manage the whole, it’s more than I know.” She turned to relay the precious joke to Mrs. Sloane, who looked at Belle with a rueful smile of sympathy.
Belle first thought she was going to faint. Her mind blanked out entirely, and it was only luck that kept her on her chair. It was too much to have this to contend with on her first venture back into the world. Oliver alone had been bad enough. She was still half afraid of his aristocratic face, too fast to sneer, but to have his girl friend too under the same roof was just too much. He had planned all along to meet that woman here, and had dared to make love to herself that same day. Had begged her to go back to him, implying things had changed, that they would stay at Belwood. She would be stuck off at Belwood was more like it, while he roared around London with this woman.
Her only redemption was anger. She was too mad to faint dead away, almost too mad to look to the doorway, but her eyes were drawn there involuntarily, and she saw what everyone else was seeing—Mrs. Traveller beaming at Oliver, taking his arm and talking to him in an excited and intimate way. Yes, this was why he had torn himself away from the port hour, to come and greet his vulgar, fat lover, in front of the whole room.
Lady Hathaway’s anger was not great enough to keep her from fainting. It was her vinaigrette that saved her day. She pulled it from her pocket and unscrewed the lid to take a good, long sniff, before everyone. Lady Dempster, with her eyes darting all over the room to gauge everyone’s reaction, went off into not very silent whoops of mirth, and said she would have crossed the Channel to see this. Kay looked to Belle, a desperate appeal in her eyes. Don’t spoil my party, she wanted to convey, and soon dashed to her side to convey it in words. “She was not invited!” was all she got out, which sent Lady Dempster into fresh peals of glee.
“Not invited! She had the temerity to come without an invitation! Avondale put her up to it. She has the brass of a canal horse, that hussy,” the old gossip confided to Belle, who glared at her in silence. “Don’t pout, miss. You can’t say a word against him, for you came with Mr. Henderson yourself.”
Here was some shred of face-saving. She had Arnold to hold up to these devils and pretend he was her beau.
Mrs. Traveller was soon into the room, where she could be inspected in more detail by them all, most particularly the Duchess of Avondale, who was extremely curious to see how her aging charms were holding out. She was still bordering on the fat, but had not passed over the border; she was still attractive in a mature, sensual way. She was swathed in a voluminous blue pelisse that gave only an indefinite idea of the figure beneath, but it could be seen well enough to indicate its general conformation. Over her blond curls she wore a dashing bonnet, weaving an ostrich plume behind her. Even at a distance of a few yards her overpowering scent could be noticed.
“Darling, don’t kill me!” the unexpected visitor called in a loud voice to Lady Hathaway, then began walking toward her. Kay maintained just enough sense to walk forth to meet her, otherwise she would have been directly on top of Belle. They met in the middle of the room, and Mrs. Traveller talked on, in a carrying tone.
“I am not staying—only a poor refugee throwing myself on your mercy for one night. You must give me lodgings.”
Lady Dempster jostled Belle’s elbow and said, “There, your husband has warned her away. What did it tell you? What did I tell you? You may depend on Avondale to wrap the whole up in clean linen.”
“I was to meet my husband at the inn, and he didn’t come,” Mrs. Traveller went on. “I am without funds—am I ever any other way?—and mercifully remembered you live nearby. I had no idea you were entertaining, or I would have sent word first and asked you. Any cubbyhole will do for me. Let me have three chairs and a bolster by the fireplace.” She then threw her arms around Kay in a theatrical gesture of welcome and laughed.
“Why didn’t you invite me, darling? It looks an excellent party.” Mrs. Traveller scanned the room as she spoke, waving to this and that one as she recognized them.
Further confusion was added as the other gentlemen began to straggle in from their port. “Oh, we can do better than a chair by the fireplace,” Kay said, rallying from her state of shock. “We’re not quite filled to the rafters. It’s only a small party.”
“We know where she’ll end up,” Lady Dempster whispered aside to Belle, meaning of course in Oliver’s room.
“Come and I’ll see if I can’t find a room for you,” Kay said, and rushed her unwanted guest from the room.
“I haven’t had a bite to eat,” Mrs. Traveller was heard to say as she left. Avondale still stood at the doorway, still looking around for Henderson too, though no one noticed it now. Mrs. Traveller turned to him and said a few words on her way out. He nodded and smiled, and she went on out.
As though it had never happened, as though Mrs. Traveller had not come here at his urging and practically thrown herself on his breast, Oliver walked forward from the doorway and stood looking about for a chair beside Belle. None was vacant, but undaunted, he took up a standing position as close as it was possible for him to get to her, and said, “I wonder if Signora Travalli is to sing for us this evening. You missed her last night, Belle, and you particularly wanted to hear her. She’s very good. I caught only the end of her concert, and would like to hear her again.”
His wife stared at him in dumbfounded fascination. What kind of a man was he, that he could carry on as though nothing had happened, when he had just made a complete fool of both her and himself? She didn’t say a word. Her throat was constricted.
“Are you not feeling well?” he went on, and even injected a note of concern into his voice. Still, speech was impossible. She could only stare, such a look of utter contempt and misery that he was shaken.
“Belle, are you all right?” he asked, loudly enough that several heads turned to examine her, thus increasing her agitation.
“I’m fine,” she replied in a hollow tone.
“You look awful. Let me get you a glass of wine,” he said, and turned to do it.
“He’s a cool one,” Lady Dempster informed Lady Avondale.
She accepted the glass without a word and sipped it, while Avondale stood beside her. “May I have your chair, please?” he asked Lady Dempster. “I don’t think my wife is feeling well.”
It was the best chair in the room from which to view this unmatchable show, but Lady Dempster didn’t know how to refuse a direct request. “Certainly,” she said, and arose to take up his spot on the floor, from which she could see things just as well, if less comfortably.
“What’s the matter, darling?” he asked, leaning over and placing an arm behind her shoulders.
He was shocked at the expression she showed him. It was back to hatred, and he hadn’t done a thing. Her face was white, her eyes two dark pools of accusation. She leaned forward as though to avoid contact with him.
“Nothing’s the matter,” she answered in a fairly collected voice. “I feel a little warm, that’s all. I think I’ll walk a bit.”
“That’s a good idea,” he agreed, rising to offer her his arm. She disliked to touch it, but needed the support.
Once beyond hearing of the others he asked, “Belle, what is it? Are you ill?”
“Yes, I’m sick to death of you,” she told him in a fierce way, and bolted up the stairs.
He was right behind her. The fact of her turning on him as soon as Mrs. Traveller had arrived had not completely escaped him. He seemed to remember that Belle didn’t like the woman, but he could hardly be held responsible for her coming, and if that was what she thought, he meant to enlighten her immediately.
“Listen, if it’s Mrs. Traveller that
has you in the boughs, it’s not my fault she came.”
“Don’t touch me, Oliver,” she said in a carefully controlled voice as he reached out a hand.
“I’m not poison,” he answered, stirred to anger.
“Yes you are. You’re deadly as a cobra,” she replied, and opened the door into her room, closing it in his face.
Her dresser was there, arranging things on the night table, and Belle said quietly, “You can go now, Marie. I won’t need you for a while.”
“Yes, milady,” Marie said, and ducked through the door, wondering what was amiss.
Belle stood before the mirror looking at her image. She was white, with two red spots burning on her cheeks. She had made a fool of herself. “You lack polish, my dear,” she said to the image, and laughed a mirthless, hollow laugh. Oh yes, you really do lack polish, widegeon! You haven’t got on to the run of things at all, she went on, but no longer speaking aloud. You mustn’t go taking the notion that just because your husband loves you, or says he does, that he doesn’t also love half a dozen others on the side. He is too loving to confine himself to one woman. I wonder who he has lined up at Belwood that he is so eager to go there. It won’t be a simple dairymaid or innkeeper’s daughter. It will be some local lord’s wife—nothing but ladies for his grace. Or possibly actresses that can pass for ladies due to their high gloss of polish.
She went on staring into the mirror. She looked sophisticated enough, but she was still the green Belle Anderson beneath. She hadn’t learned a thing. She knew how these people carried on, in her mind she knew, but she couldn’t cope with it. When it happened to herself, she went to pieces—in public. Right under the nose of that damned Lady Dempster. What a story she would make of it.
They had beat her. She had set out to show them she could play their game, but she couldn’t. It would be back to Easthill and Arnold Henderson for her. She looked at her elegant gown, light-green chiffon tonight. The right color, green, but not the right shade. It should be green as grass, like herself. She continued on immobile, still examining the girl in the mirror.
She was prettier than Mrs. Traveller. Prettier and a good ten years younger. Why should she let that woman walk off with her husband? Why not go down and make a fight for him? But she knew she wouldn’t do it. She’d sit back and watch her run after him, flirt and carry on, while Lady Dempster clucked and gabbled. Her only defense would be a hollow show of indifference. That was how she told the world she didn’t mind if her husband carried on. She was indifferent.
Well, maybe tonight she’d do a little carrying on of her own, if she could get Arnold to come near her. With Avondale amusing Mrs. Traveller, perhaps Arnold would dare to come wagging his tail and sitting by her side. She wouldn’t stay up here sulking, anyway. She’d go down and hear Signora Travalli sing, and try to think of a good setdown for Lady Dempster.
In less than ten minutes she was going back downstairs, to ask Kay in quite a normal voice if there was to be any singing that evening. Kay was heartily relieved to see Belle behaving so reasonably, and the concert was rushed forth in all haste, as soon as they could find Signora Travalli.
The woman had vanished. Always there when you didn’t want her, sitting at your table and laughing at your guests, but when it was time for her to earn her money, where was she? Servants were sent upstairs to take a quick look about the bedrooms, but there was no sign of her. Not in any of the parlors or study or library. Kay was just about to turn to leave the library when she saw her through the window, out on a bench in the garden with Arnold, of all people.
She called her in, and the singer handed Arnold back his cigar before entering the house. She had been smoking! “Arnold, why the deuce did you—” Kay began.
“She took it!” he said. “Just reached out and took it from my fingers, and there’s no talking to her, you know.”
“Here, you old fool, get in here and sing!” Kay told the woman. “Cantare—dash it, Arnold, how do you say it in Italian?”
“I don’t speak Italian,” he said, but the signora grasped what was expected of her and began singing. She was still trilling out her clear notes when the harried hostess led her to the music room. Arnold thought this his chance to get into the house, hiding behind his cousin’s skirts, and took up a seat well to the rear of the room.
Belle could discover no sign of either Mrs. Traveller or her husband when she went below, and was escorted to the concert by Mr. Ralph Ponsonby. She sat as though entranced by the music. One would have taken her for the greatest connoisseur of music, but she didn’t hear a note. Between songs Lady Dempster came over and chatted to her. She had sat on the edge of a row, which she realized too late was an error.
“You are behaving very properly, my dear. I had a bet on with the Traywards that you wouldn’t come down. You have cost me a guinea, but I’m glad for it. He is with her this minute, you must know, Avondale. But it was all her doing. She sent for him to join her where she is having her dinner. I think it is disgraceful the way she runs after him. We’ll see how they behave when they come.”
La Travalli began singing again, and Lady Dempster bounced back to her seat, her eyes swiveling between the door, Belle and the stage. She could not find Mr. Henderson, so well had he concealed himself behind the broad bulk of Lord Eldon.
No one could get through to La Travalli that there had been sufficient music, and she kept on singing long after everyone had had enough. People began slipping out, and when the room had thinned to half its initial audience, Belle too left with Mr. Ponsonby. She saw Avondale and Mrs. Traveller coming from the morning parlor, and he immediately stepped up to her.
“Did I miss the concert?” he asked.
“No, she’s still at it. You can catch her if you hurry,” Belle answered indifferently, and walked on with Mr. Ponsonby.
Mrs. Traveller, upon learning who was singing, went to the music room, but Avondale walked along with his wife. Belle was in improved spirits, he thought, and he set about charming her. In a sort of daze, she sat listening while he told her how it had come that Mrs. Traveller was with them. The same story the woman had told herself, with a few additions. She was only staying the one night; he had
had no idea she was coming. “She is married to my cousin, you know,” he finished up, and of course Belle did know this. “Actually what she wanted to speak to me about was borrowing a little money, for she has spent the afternoon at the inn waiting for George, and owes them something.”
She sat weighing his story, finding it pretty implausible. But when Mrs. Traveller came into the saloon later, she didn’t glance at Oliver at all, and he made no move to go near her. “I suppose that old bitch of a Dempster put some foolish idea into your head,” Oliver pressed on. “She’s a trouble maker, Belle. She lives on it. Don’t pay any attention to her gossip-mongering. I don’t see how you can hold it against me that she happened to drop in here, when you came with Henderson.”
For an hour he talked persuasively, paying her every attention and ignoring Mrs. Traveller completely. If the hyenas had thought to have a good laugh at her tonight, it was Mrs. Traveller who turned out to be the butt. For once, she, Belle Anderson, had come out on top. Avondale was showing them in no uncertain manner which he preferred. If Mrs. Traveller had come scrambling from London to be with him, she had had her trip for nothing. Avondale couldn’t, and certainly wouldn’t, have been more attentive had there been no estrangement between them. She was uncertain in her mind. She wanted to believe him, and wanted too to go to Belwood and try again to make something of her marriage. It was foolish to let an innocent incident spoil everything. Mrs. Traveller would be gone tomorrow, and it would be forgotten.
When it was time to retire, she half thought she had misjudged the woman. She seemed very jolly and good-natured, rattling along to a dozen others in the same frank and merry way she had spoken to Oliver. No one was quite daring enough to perform an introduction between them, so when Belle went up to bed, she had still not officiall
y met Mrs. Traveller, who had retired a quarter of an hour before her.
Oliver remained behind, talking to Lord Eldon and having a glass of wine. But he didn’t intend to remain there long. With his gear now put into the room beside Belle’s, and with her talked around to some semblance of humor again, he meant to go up shortly.
Chapter Nine
Walking past the room next to her own, Belle noticed lights within, and thought with a grimace that Kay had put Mrs. Traveller there. She disliked it, but supposed that with guests there was no other room vacant. She went into her own room and called Marie, who came and helped her get ready for bed. A white lawn nightgown and matching peignoir with rosebuds worked around the yoke. After Marie left, she went to the door of the adjoining room and heard the unmistakable sound of movement in the room. The Traveller making her preparations for the night. She went to her dressing table and began brushing out her hair. There was suddenly a light tap at the door, and she paused, brush in midair.
What could the woman want? It darted into her head that she was about to become involved in a scene, a confrontation with “the other woman.” Every atom of her body recoiled against such vulgar melodrama. She made no reply, hoping the tap wouldn’t be repeated, and even as she sat hoping, it came again, a little more loudly. She’d let on she was asleep—the door was locked, and the woman couldn’t enter.
But Mrs. Traveller had come up before her— she would know she couldn’t be asleep yet, and would take the idea she was afraid of her if she didn’t answer. Again it came, quite loudly now. She might want only to borrow something, Belle equivocated, and went, still holding her brush, to open the door.
I’m not afraid of her, she thought to herself, and undid the bolt, pulling the door wide with a pugnacious set to her jaw, to see Oliver standing there, looking uncertain. “Oliver, what are you doing in there?” she asked, peering over his shoulder to ascertain with whom he was doing the unspecified what.