by Joan Smith
“Thank you,” Hillary said with a quelling look at his ward, who smiled sweetly back at him.
“Let’s eat, before everything gets cold,” Loo suggested. Whatever they had managed to find to eat at Swallowcourt did not appear to have dulled their appetites, for every drop of the coffee and every bit of the scones was dispatched within twenty minutes.
Settling back amidst the pagan luxury, Claudia said to her companion, “I take it you talked Jonathon into staying the night? I didn’t hear him come home.”
“He’s still sleeping, or was when I left. The accounts are in such a state we were up till midnight trying to make any sense of them. Old Sophie was a dreadful rackrent. If Jonathon had known the way she was letting the whole place go to ruin, he would have been justified in having in the authorities. An entailed estate is subject to minimal maintenance. I mentioned it to him more than once, but he was afraid it would turn her against him. I never thought he had much hope of getting anything more than the estate.”
“It seems a pity, and he can’t sell it either since it’s entailed.”
“Nor rent it, unless he brings it into some sort of order. It was really very bad of Sophie to serve him such a trick. I wonder if she had in her mind to do more for him when the rest of the will is read.”
“The diamonds, you mean? Is that why you’re bound and bent Loo shan’t have them?”
“I’m not bound and bent Loo shan’t have them! And it isn’t the diamonds he’d get if he got anything else. I only want to keep you two gravediggers out of Bridewell.”
“If you would help us . . .”
“Shall we speak of something else? I had hoped to escape the whole saga of the Beresford Diamonds for this one day.”
They spoke of other things—of what they were to do that day first, then carefully Hillary steered the conversation to a more personal vein. What were Claudia’s grandparents like, and her uncle and aunt, the children. How did she amuse herself at home, and did she go to many parties? How did she usually pass her holiday with her mother?
A picture emerged of a dreary existence under the thumb of an austere grandmother who was dead set against frivolity, and a grandfather under the cat’s paw, though of more lenient tendencies himself. The yearly holiday with Marcia sounded equally boring. Always in the late winter—the worst time of the year for any gaiety in the city, chosen, of course, to keep the girl’s age a secret. He also asked casually when her father had died and, a few moments later, how old she had been at the time. When London was reached, he had a pretty accurate picture of Miss Milmont’s age and circumstances and a confirmed dislike of her mother.
The interest of all the occupants of the carriage turned to the scenery as they entered the city, and Gabriel said, “You’re going out of your way, aren’t you, Uncle? I thought we would be going downtown.”
“We’ll stop at my place first to freshen up,” he replied, as they continued through the fashionable West End. Claudia recognized the district, but was not very familiar with it as mama lived farther south in Belgrave Square.
“Another Palace Beautiful!” she said as the carriage pulled up in front of a mansion done in the Palladian style, brick with columns in front. “Do you live here too?” she asked Sir Hillary.
“I spoil myself,” he admitted. “Your grandmother would have a poor opinion of me.”
They alighted, and he said to his driver, “I’ll leave this team here. Hitch up the other and have the carriage ready in an hour.”
They were admitted through double oak portals by a butler, and the ladies were shown upstairs by a maid.
“Sir Hillary must be very rich,” Claudia said in an awed voice to her cousin, when they had been left alone in a large, handsome chamber.
“He has a lot of Consoles or something that seem to make one very rich,” Loo told her. “Aunt Sophie has them, too.”
“What can they be?” Claudia asked in perplexity. Luane shrugged her shoulders and pulled off her bonnet. “I wish I could stay here when I come to London, but as Hillary is a bachelor . . . But what a pair of gossoons we are, cousin! We ought to get busy and find him a wife.”
“Does he not have anyone in mind? He seems very old to be still a bachelor.”
They brushed their hair and splashed water on their faces and hands as they talked, turning aside from time to admire some ornament or piece of furniture.
“He’s thirty-two. He has a new flirt every year,” Loo said. “I’ve met some of them when he brings parties to Chanely, but he never brings the same girl twice.”
“I expect they are very pretty.”
“Diamonds of the first water, Gabriel calls them. Shall we go? He hates to be kept waiting.”
“Yes, let’s, or he’ll get snarky again.” The two scampered down the long staircase. “He told the driver not to come back for an hour,” Claudia said. “What can he mean to do here for so long?”
“His man of business might come here to save going into the city.”
They discovered when they went below that the hour was to be spent much more pleasantly than that. A fine luncheon was laid, awaiting them in a small dining parlor. “This will save time,” he explained.
“I thought we’d get to eat out at an hotel or restaurant,” Loo pouted.
Claudia could not think any hotel would provide a more sumptuous repast than that awaiting their pleasure—roast fowl and sliced ham, a raised pigeon pie, and side dishes of vegetables promised a pleasant break in the day.
“Don’t worry, brat. I didn’t forget your cream buns,” Hillary said, and she was satisfied with that bribe.
“Did you send word ahead we were coming?” Gab asked.
“Yes, my cook is at Chanely, and my housekeeper had to make the meal by herself. I didn’t want to leave it to chance.”
Loo engaged Gabriel in a discussion of their schedule, and Claudia sat stunned in consideration of this elevated style of living. When she and grandpapa went to the city for a visit, they usually took a boxed lunch, and grandpa told her not to mention to his wife that they stopped for an ice or pastries and coffee.
“By the way,” Hillary said aside to Claudia, “I told your mama a whisker that I kept two chefs. You might not mention what I just said. It would set me down a peg in her eyes.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t want to risk that!” she quizzed him.
“No, I mean to remain on terms with her if I can.”
“You might even induce her to come to one of your London parties, if you butter her up sufficiently,” she said, smiling.
“I have quite resign-. . . decided on it.”
“I can’t think why you should have resigned yourself to anything of the sort.”
“Can you not, little Claudia? Then I have not been making myself as clear as I thought I had.”
“What—you cannot mean it! Do you really intend to make me Loo’s chaperone?”
“Yes, that is my intention.”
“Surely I am not old enough.”
“You’ve aged a few years since yesterday, when you were twenty.”
She was unoffended. “I have no experience along such lines. Oh, I should love it, of course.”
“You’re not going to do a Lady Turn-about on me, I trust?”
“It will not serve. You know it will not, and it is unkind of you to raise my hopes so.”
“Don’t raise your hopes too high. I have some nasty strings attached to the scheme.”
“You mean to move us both in with mama, don’t you?”
“No, my wheedling powers are not so enormous. But what an undutiful daughter you are, to consider living with your mama a nasty string.”
“I didn’t mean that! I have always wished she would let me stay with her, but she wouldn’t have us. Not even you could arrange it.”
His eyes hardened. “As it happens, that was not the stipulation I had in mind.”
“Miss Bliss? But she would not be nasty in the least. I like her excessively.”
&
nbsp; “You fatigue your poor little brain to no account. I shall reveal the whole of my fell scheme in due time.”
Despite his warning, she went on belaboring her brain. “If you mean to hire Miss Bliss—well, in fact, you already have—then I see no place for me in your scheme. Unless I could be Loo’s abigail. I could handle that very well, if mama would permit it. But she wouldn’t, not in London at least.”
“It seems strange to me you should be interested in being a servant to your niece, or indeed to anyone.” His face was taking on its angry aspect, and Claudia did not continue the matter aloud. “Try this pigeon pie,” he said a moment later. “You will be back at Swallowcourt for dinner, you know.”
She accepted a large wedge of it and other treats, and though Sir Hillary succeeded in diverting the conversation to other channels, her thoughts were still half on trying to decipher what plan he had in mind.
At the end of half an hour they had been fed and got back into their bonnets and pelisses for the beginning of their sight-seeing. Thoreau was to leave them for half an hour to attend to his business, while Gabriel took the ladies to stroll along Bond Street and see the shops.
“I expect you will want some blunt,” Hillary said to Luane. She held out her hand, and he folded some bills into it.
“Look, cousin, we are rich!” she said, showing the money to Claudia. “I shall buy you something, too, so you can save your guinea.”
“Did your mother not think to give you some money?” he asked Claudia.
“I have some money,” she replied, embarrassed.
He did not, of course, enquire how much, but he was pretty sure the guinea was the extent of it. Again Claudia looked at him and wondered why he had that hard look in his eyes.
“Shall I buy my caps?” she asked, to ease the strain.
“No, take my advice, and buy yourself some heathen luxury,” he replied, his expression softening. Then he turned on his heel and left, to get back into the carriage.
Loo found a shop carrying her favorite coconut rolled in chocolate and cream, and another that purveyed all manner of “toys” for ladies. There she bought a hideous pair of paste stars for dancing slippers which she did not own and a chicken-skin fan for her cousin. With a guilty conscience and a streak of practicality, she then went to a clothing store and bought a pair of woolen hose to ward off the chill blasts of Swallowcourt. With wealth left to spare, she got Miss Bliss some wool, and a new red bridle for her horse.
Claudia looked in vain for a heathen luxury worth a guinea, and finding none, got some muslin to make handkerchiefs for grandpa.
When Sir Hillary left the group to attend to his business, he made only one short stop, at Hamlet the Jeweler’s at the corner of Cranbourne Alley. He asked for Hamlet himself and presented to him that same packet given to him by Miss Bliss some hours before. The contents were examined carefully by the jeweler and, when Thoreau returned the parcel to his inner pocket, he wore a satisfied smile. He went to meet the others for the matinee performance of the horses at Astley’s Circus.
Gabriel was still child enough to be delighted by the show, and man enough not to care to show it. He smiled quite condescendingly at Loo when she grabbed his arm and said she was sure the lady with hardly any clothes on was going to fall off the white horse, for she was standing up and at a canter, too, without even holding on.
The day was mercilessly short. They went for a drive in the carriage to see Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey from the outside only—there was no time to go inside. At four they had to depart, and it was with a forlorn sigh and a last look out the windows that they took their leave of London.
Luane had to open her parcels and show her guardian how wisely she had invested her money. He winced at the paste stars, shook his head at the fan, and smiled at the woolen hose. “Not completely given over to dissipation, I see,” he congratulated her. “And what sybaritic indulgence have you been squandering your guinea on, Miss Milmont?”
She showed him her muslin. “Oh, for your caps,” Loo said.
“Just so, and with the remainder I shall get blue ribbons, to match my eyes,” she prevaricated.
“To seduce the widowers,” Hillary nodded. “Tell me, is it a necessity that the gentleman be a widower, or would an elderly bachelor do?”
“A bachelor would not have a ready-made family,” Claudia pointed out.
“I happen to know one who has.”
“Then he cannot be a very proper person, sir, and I am surprised you speak to me of him.”
“What a nasty mind you have, little Claudia. There are other ways to acquire a family than to sire them yourself. All it takes is a death in the family, and a bachelor may find himself saddled with a couple of brats.”
“I didn’t think of that,” she confessed, chastened.
“It’s pretty clear your mind was straying where a young girl’s mind has no right to be. I’m shocked at you,” he charged with mock severity.
“It comes from reading of so much lechery in the Bible,” she replied.
“Yes, there is nothing like the Bible to pervert a pure mind,” he agreed, and the subject was allowed to drop.
They stopped at Hornchurch for tea, and were back at Swallowcourt at seven-thirty, only a half hour later than planned. The gentlemen descended from the carriage, and as Hillary sent the driver around to the stable, it was assumed they meant to come inside for a while.
Luane bustled in first, eager to tell of her marvelous activities, but she was greeted by a captain pacing up and down the Crimson Saloon, with a full budget of his own to be disclosed, and an irate Mrs. Milmont, willing to help him. Before the visiting gentlemen had their curled beavers and capes bestowed, they were hauled into the Saloon.
“You’ve gone too far this time, Thoreau,” Tewksbury charged. “I’ve had the constable at my door—my door! threatening to take against me because of them wild beasts you’ve had set to watch Aunt Sophie’s grave.”
“It cannot be illegal,” Thoreau replied calmly. “Fletcher would not have done it if it were.”
“No, and if you and Fletcher hadn’t done it, the dogs wouldn’t have gone chewing up the vicar’s brat. Well, I wash my hands of the matter. Told him I had nothing to do with it, and he must see you and Fletcher. If there’s to be a legal action and damages and so on, it won’t come out of my pockets.”
“It is impossible to take out what is not in,” Thoreau agreed. “The vicar’s boy—was he badly mauled?”
“They’ve had the sawbones sent over—and that will come out of your purse, too.”
“I thought at the time it was a barbarous idea,” Marcia added her two groats.
“Strange you didn’t express your thoughts; you are not usually so reticent, Marcia,” Thoreau said in an ironic tone.
“How badly was the boy hurt?” Loo asked, as her guardian’s question was not answered.
“How the deuce should we know?” Jonathon snapped. “The constable said he was bitten badly.”
“Bronfman was not to let the dogs run loose. I can’t believe he let them consume the boy entirely. It is likely no more than a nip,” Thoreau said, tossing his cape on a chair, and throwing his hat on top of it,
“Well, whatever they did, the constable says he’s getting an injunction to have the dogs called off, and he’s going to see you tomorrow—and the vicar, too.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Hillary nodded. “I shall have my purse ready. Well, well, how exciting. Perhaps we should have stayed home, eh, girls? Always in the wrong place at the wrong time. See what an adventure you have missed.”
“Are the dogs still there tonight?” Miss Milmont asked, which brought a resigned sigh to Thoreau’s lips.
“Yes, Bronfman wouldn’t leave without Sir Hillary telling him so, but he’s keeping the dogs on a short leash,” Jonathon answered.
“Oh.” Her monosyllable was despondent. “But they will he gone tomorrow night?”
“Positively,” Sir Hillary assured
her. “We can’t have them eating up any innocent child who wanders through the place. One would think they took their meals at Swallowcourt.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jonathon asked, on the defensive.
“Exactly what you think,” Hillary replied. Then he turned to Mrs. Milmont. “You see I have brought your little girl back safe and sound, as I promised. And you forgot to give her pocket money. A regrettable oversight. She couldn’t buy the ribbons for her caps.”
“Caps? What nonsense is this? My little girl won’t be putting on her caps for decades yet, and I am sure she had plenty of money, if she wanted to buy some ribbons.”
“I daresay she could have got both the ribbons and the muslin from her guinea if she had shopped wisely.”
“Why, I bought her ribbons in Maldon just the other day.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him, mama,” Claudia said. “He is only funning, you know.” She then directed a quelling stare on Sir Hillary.
He turned aside to her and said in a low voice, “I forget myself. My intentions will not prosper if I rattle on so heedlessly. And besides, I have something of much greater interest to discuss than your caps.”
He then turned to the group and cleared his throat. “Attention, s’il vous plaît! Have you been into your cellars yet, Jonathon? I hope they yield something better than that inferior sherry usually served. I have an announcement of some significance to make. It really calls for champagne, as it regards diamonds.”
“Eh?” Jonathon’s eyes nearly started from his head.
“Yes, you heard aright. It involves the Beresford Diamonds, or to be more precise, Diamond, in the singular.”
“What, just one?” Jonathon asked sharply.
“That’s what I said. Just one. Yes, you are looking at an heiress,” his eyes turned to Luane, who was looking as much mystified as the others. “One of the stones in the necklace you were given was the genuine article, brat. The biggest one too, that great egg that hangs off the front of the necklace.”