by Joan Smith
“If he comes at night he’ll soon learn he’d better be up to good or nothing. I don’t mean to let him make a mockery of me before this whole damned village. I don’t suppose the Duchess will come. He might bring Egbert. Egbert would be happy enough for an excuse to get his form inside my door. Maybe you should take a crack at Egbert, Abbott.”
“Not with that watch dog of a Lady Sara guarding him. They say the Duke is a rare one. I think you’re flying too high, Blanche. You’d best watch your step.”
“It’s only April. If nothing comes of this month, I’ll go on up to London for the Season. I don’t mean to let a duke go by without stirring a finger to nab him.”
“He’s a handsome rascal.”
“Yes, more’s the pity. If he were an ugly old coot like Bertie, my chances would be better. This one has as many girls as he wants for the asking, I make no doubt.”
“I think you’re wasting your energy; but, as we don’t leave for a few weeks, it will be something to pass the time.”
“If you’d seen the way he scooted across the street to meet me, you wouldn’t be so sure. He’s interested, but in what? I made it as clear as I could that I was respectable.”
Their discussion was interrupted by a loud sound of the knocker. They looked at each other. “Damn!” Blanche said. “I did hope he’d come in the morning.”
But when Helver was shown in, her pretty face bore no trace of resentment at his nocturnal visit. “Why, Helver, come so soon to bear me company. How sweet of you.”
Helver’s eyes flickered from the stunner to the trappings of her quasi-bordello, as he considered her saloon, and halted at the bale of bombazine occupying the chair by the grate.
“My aunt, Mrs. Abbott,” Blanche said. “This is the Duke of Saymore, Auntie. A good friend of Bertie’s; and, of course, you know his mama, the Duchess.”
The two said what was necessary, and Helver was given a seat beside Lady De Courcy on the gold sofa. “How is the Duchess?” Blanche asked, determined to keep a decorous tone to the proceedings.
“Well. That is, her throat is bothering her a little. I came to town to get her some peppermint drops and dropped by, as you were so kind as to ask me.”
“So that’s why you are paying an evening call! I did wonder as I mentioned quite specifically I am at home most mornings. But I am always happy to see Bertie’s friends any time you are in the village,” Blanche said. She wished to be both friendly and firm at the same time.
“My mornings, and also afternoons, are greatly occupied these days with all the work to do on the estate. It has had an absentee landlord for nearly a year and a half, as I was abroad when my father died.”
Blanche digested this, and while she asked for a recital of his trip and got it she came to the hard decision that she must allow evening visits. It was asking for trouble, not what she wanted at all; but no visits she wanted even less, and there might be some truth in his claim of being busy. And the nights were endless to get through for that matter. What was the point in getting all dressed up with no one to see her but Abbott?
They chatted for half an hour, had a glass of wine and, at the end of that period, Helver began glancing at Aunt Abbott in a questioning manner. If the old bale of bombazine was to remain the whole time, he might as well leave. Blanche read and correctly interpreted his every glance and gesture. When he pulled out his timepiece, she said suddenly, “Oh, Auntie, did you remember to ask Cook to buy a goose for tomorrow?”
Abbott, more jealous of Blanche’s virtue than the lady herself, replied firmly, “Yes, I did, Lady De Courcy.”
“Dear Auntie, she never forgets a thing,” Blanche said to Helver with an apologetic smile. “Would you care for some macaroons with your wine, Helver?”
He wanted a macaroon as much as he wanted a bout of measles, but, sensing that Abbott was to go for them, he declared there was nothing he preferred to a macaroon.
“Would you be so kind, Auntie?” Blanche asked, with a steely command in her eyes.
Abbott had no option but to go, but meant to be back within three minutes. Her short absence was enough for Helver to get right to the point.
“Does your aunt always sit with you in the evenings?” he asked.
“Why, Helver you must know it wouldn’t be at all the thing for me to entertain a male guest unchaperoned.”
“You’re not a deb,” he pointed out, “but a married lady. Surely a widow may be deemed capable of entertaining whom she wishes without a doyenne.”
“People do talk, you know, and I don’t want them talking about me.” This confirmed her uncertain standing within the realm of respectability. A lady born and bred need not be so jealous of her reputation.
“You never entertain a man without a chaperone, then?” he asked bluntly.
Blanche knew as surely as he was sitting on her gold settee that he would never occupy it again if she told him this was the case. “She often retires early,” she compromised.
“How early?” he asked, not choosing, apparently, to waste a single minute in chaperoned activity.
Blanche was not willing to throw herself on his mercy so easily and equivocated. “Why, earlier some evenings than others. It depends on how tired she is."
“She appears to be unfatigued this evening. May I count on you to take her for a long walk tomorrow and send her to bed early?”
“I believe the stories one hears of you are true, Helver. I’m not sure I care to have you call on such terms as you outline.”
He hunched his shoulders in complete indifference and arose to leave, the macaroons forgotten. He was an imposing figure, standing in her saloon in his well-cut jacket, with his black hair styled in the latest mode and his dark eyes running over her décolleté gown. And he was a duke. This was more important in the long run than the rest, but for that fraction of a moment it was more the man than the duke she regretted losing.
“Well?” he asked. There was not even the saving pretence of his being interested in anything but an affair. Her staunch resolve had been to permit nothing of the sort, but she wavered.
“If you care to come by tomorrow evening, we might discuss it.”
“I’ll be here at nine-thirty,” he said. “Good evening, Lady De Courcy.”
“You were used to call me Blanche,” she reminded him.
“Is that your name?” he asked blandly. “Good evening, Blanche.”
With a smile he was off; and, when Abbott returned with the macaroons within three minutes, Blanche was sitting alone, her chin in her hands.
“Had to send him packing already?” Abbott asked. “I told you how it would be. A gentleman who makes his first call in the evening is up to no good.”
“Shut up, Abbott,” Blanche said.
“Never mind, there will be London to look forward to. There’s more than one fish in the sea.”
“There aren’t many as worth landing as this one. I rather fancy this particular fish.”
“The one that got away is always the one a body particularly wanted.”
“He hasn’t got away yet. He returns tomorrow evening, and you will bear me company, as usual.”
“If he don’t throw me in the cellar and bolt the door. He looked as if he wanted to.”
A soft laugh emitted from the divinely obscene lips of Milady, and the two women sat down to consume the macaroons and lay plans.
In the houses of the village the arrival and departure of the curricle—he hadn’t driven his crested carriage—were noted, and it was a matter for deep consideration whether half an hour was long enough for the lecherous goings-on that they imagined to have been consummated.
The Duke of Saymore was on time for his meeting the next evening, and Aunt Abbott, as well as Lady De Courcy, was there to greet him. And there they both stayed. A half an hour might possibly have encompassed an abbreviated orgy, but a quarter of an hour clearly had not, and there was rampant speculation as to what had gone forth. It was feared by some
that Milady was winning, and they would soon have the galling view of the old Duchess trotting into the red-doored domicile. Then two nights passed without any sign of the curricle, and Tisbury breathed a sigh of relief.
A chance meeting in the village on the third day after Helver’s last visit rekindled his hopes of yet getting the delicious widow to himself.
“Aunt Abbott and I have been walking for miles,” Blanche said with a provocative smile. “I daresay she will be dead tired by this evening.”
“Does walking not tire you, Blanche?” he asked with a significant question in his voice.
“I never go to bed till all hours. I shall be up half the night. I’ll just sit alone and read till one o’clock or two o’clock.”
“Would you care for some company?” he asked promptly.
“How kind you are. That would be lovely.”
“About ten o’clock?” he asked—an unseemly hour for a call and one that would tell the villagers only too surely the reason for it.
“Say nine-thirty,” she countered.
He misconstrued this as a sign of eagerness on the lady’s part and was there at nine-thirty on the dot with a garnet bracelet in his pocket, only to be met once again by the omnipresent Abbott, her whiskers bristling at Blanche’s stunt. The angry look he directed at Blanche was sufficient for her to blush, and she suggested to Abbott that she was looking haggard. This and a few more hints went unheeded, and she finally had to stamp her little foot and command, “Go, I say, Abbott.”
Abbott went but was back every five minutes with some foolish question or other so that Helver no sooner got his arm around Milady’s waist than they were interrupted. He didn’t get the opportunity to produce the garnet bracelet at all, which might very well have turned the trick. He left, but the visit had stretched to nearly an hour, and there was no doubt in the mind of the village that “that Helver Trebourne” had done it again. They were in no way displeased with their boy this time, much as they chided him behind his back. Their real fear was that the Duchess would take to calling on the bold hussy, and clearly this fear could be set aside.
There were a few more visits spread out over the next two weeks, but it had become clear to Blanche that she would get no more than the necklace and earrings to go with the bracelet; and as she knew to a penny what they were worth, she wrote off to London to hire a flat for the Season. Helver was angry with himself for having been made a May-game of. Really, he hardly even found Milady attractive. Was he becoming so discriminating, then, in his maturity, he wondered.
But before it was broken off—the lady considered it still possible of some gain before she left for the City—the news of the affair was ripping through the neighbourhood and soon came to the ears of his family.
“Helver Trebourne, you have been to see that woman!” his mother accused on the day after the second visit.
“You mean Lady De Courcy?” he asked nonchalantly. “Yes, I have called on her.”
“We do not call on her,” Sara reminded him.
“You will observe that I have not asked you to call on her,” he pointed out.
“I should hope not, for an evening call, you know, has such a very odd appearance to it.”
“I happened to be in the village and am rather busy during the daytime.”
“Happened to be in the village two nights in a row! Gone there only to call on that vixen, and for no other reason,” Sara charged angrily.
“But how is this? It is usually the lowness of my companions that irks you. I had thought a Baroness must be unexceptionable.”
“Baroness, hah. Actress is more like it.”
“You are quite out. She was married to Baron De Courcy, who was personally known to me. She is always chaperoned by a formidable lady twice my size, as well. I couldn’t have my way with her if I tried.”
“Such talk as this is not suitable for the dinner table, Helver,” his mother decreed. “You did not talk so at table when your father was alive.”
“I did not talk at all, for my father never gave me the chance. But it appears to have slipped your notice this is now my house, and I shall talk as I please at my own table. This particular subject was not of my choosing, however; and as it is no one’s business but my own whom I choose to associate with, we shall not discuss it further.”
There was little discussion of any sort after this snub; and, immediately the meal was over, Helver went to the stable and climbed into his curricle to go in search of amusement.
“Something must be done or that woman will marry Helver!” Lady Sara said to the Duchess after he had gone.
“What he needs is a wife,” Egbert pointed out. Being a male, he could think of no finer wife for Helver than the widow, but he did not actually say it.
“Indeed, it is God’s plan that man should marry,” the Duchess told them. “It is high time Helver brought us home a bride.”
“Yes, and it is not Milady he will bring us,” Sara said firmly. “He must marry a real lady; someone we will not be ashamed to be related to, who will not go turning the Blue Saloon into a bordello.”
“Now who shall he marry, Dora?” Sara asked her sister.
“Eddie Durden is a nice girl,” Travers mentioned.
“Yes, she is a nice little thing,” Sara said consideringly, “but Dame Durden wouldn’t hear of it. She calls us mongrels. Besides, Helver might look higher than an armiger’s daughter for a wife.”
“Squire Durden was never in the army,” Egbert objected at once.
“Dame Durden was telling us at the Historical Society meeting that an armiger is someone who is entitled to a coat of arms. Her husband was an armiger, for what it’s worth; but still they are not titled, for all their airs, and a man in Helver’s position ought to align himself with one of the other noble families. Hasn’t Lord Carlton an unmarried daughter, Dora?” Sara asked.
Lord Carlton’s estate was only twenty-five miles away and the family well known to the Trebournes, but still Dora could not quite recall whether it was a son or daughter Carlton had living at home.
“It’s a daughter, all right,” Travers told them. “As near to a moonling as may be, but a pretty little thing.”
“Well, there you are then,” Sara said at once. Imbecility was no bar to eligibility; so long as the girl was pretty Helver would like her. “Write Lord Carlton a note, Dora, and invite the girl—now what is her name?”
“Anne,” Travers told them.
“Ask them to send Lady Anne to us for a few weeks, and we’ll see if Helver don’t marry her.”
“An excellent idea. Write to her, Travers, and I’ll sign my name,” the Duchess declared, well satisfied with this cunning way of managing matters.
“All right,” Travers agreed, shaking her head at their simple scheme. As though Helver would be caught by a witless girl of sixteen years!
The letter was written that same night and posted in the morning. It was received with joy in the Carlton household, where hopes of getting Annie settled favourably did not run high due to her feebleness of mind. The invitation was considered as leading possibly to a match; and though Helver was called “a bit of a high flyer” by the Earl when he talked the matter over with his countess, he was by no means to be turned off for such a paltry consideration. Lady Anne was put into a carriage and sent off the very next day, and arrived before nightfall. Helver talked to her, or rather at her (she seldom spoke), for fifteen minutes after the tea tray was brought in before excusing himself and reverting to less elevated but more articulate associates for the remainder of the evening.
* * *
Chapter 7
It had been becoming increasingly clear to Dame Durden for some few days that Edith was out of spirits. She mooned about the house in a trance, and, as this fit of melancholy had arrived hard on Helver Trebourne’s heels, she thought she knew the cause of it. She had heard from Sally that Helver had made a good long stay on his visit, and, if that ninny of an Edith was not fal
ling in love with him, it was more than she knew. She revised her opinion of mentioning him, for it was clearly her duty to let her daughter know what he was up to.
“I hear Helver is up to his old tricks,” she said one fine afternoon.
“What has he done now, Mama?” Edith asked with a sinking heart.
“He is traipsing after that Lady De Courcy, from what I hear in the village.”
“Oh dear!” Edith said. She took as active an interest in Milady’s conduct as everyone else, but, living out of the village, she was not aware of the watching through the curtains that went on there. She had been thinking so much of Helver and herself that it had never even occurred to her that he would be entertaining himself in that direction; but once the idea was presented to her, she felt it to have been inevitable. She had never so much as said hello to Milady, and, as she had no familiarity with city fashions, she knew neither that the widow was a vulgar trollop nor dressed like a strumpet. She knew only that she was a beautiful, titled lady that every man in Tisbury loved and that Helver might very well marry.
“It is only what everyone expected, I’m sure,” the Dame went on. “The romance must be catching fire. That fool of a Dora has brought in Carlton’s simple-minded daughter as a counterattack. They’ll try to push that moonling on him, when they should be looking about for a decent match for him. Not that any decent woman would have him.”
“Do you not think he will marry Lady De Courcy?” Edith asked.
“My dear, she is not the sort of a woman a man marries. I don’t doubt for a moment he is leading her on, promising marriage perhaps; but you may be sure he won’t offer his title to a rackety widow without a sou to her name.”
“He wouldn’t do that, Mama. If he has said he will marry her, he will.”
“I haven’t actually heard that he said anything of the sort. It cannot be the case that he has marriage in mind, for the Duchess has not been next or nigh the woman. No, she is his latest flirt, but sly as a fox; and she may wangle an offer yet. I must say, I am glad he never came back here. We don’t want him hanging around, giving you a bad name.”