“He’s a friend of Greville’s,” said Mrs. Standish. “Oh, it’s hopeless . . . hopeless.”
“But if Greville is in Naples?”
“Greville is not in Naples.” Mrs. Standish sat up straight on the sofa. “That’s the cream of it. He sent her out there. To his uncle, Sir William Hamilton. The great connoisseur.” She pronounced the word oddly. “Our representative at the Court of Naples. He married money, years ago, when I was a girl. What was her name? Catherine something or other. Played the pianoforte like an angel.” She did not see Helen wince at the last word. “And died childless. There was talk of his remarrying. Well, there always is. Lady Clarges nearly had him, I believe. Which would not have suited Charles Greville at all.”
“Why not?” Helen was at sea.
“Why not? Because young Greville has always looked on himself as his uncle’s heir, that’s why. A second marriage is the last thing he would want, with the chance of children this time. Though, mind you, I’ve always thought Sir William . . .” She dwindled to a stop, then started again. “Anyway, last time Sir William was home on leave, he paid his devoirs to Mrs. Hart, as all Greville’s men friends do.” She put a heavy accent on the word “men.” “And it ended with young Greville packing her up, for all the world like one of his uncle’s precious antique vases, and sending her off to him at Naples. Oh, very respectable; she has a mother these days, who goes by the name of Mrs. Cadogan, with as much right, no doubt, as her daughter has to be Mrs. Hart. That was about four years ago, as I recall; and Greville was dangling after one of Lord Middleton’s girls, but nothing came of it. And serve him right, say I!” Drink mellowed Mrs. Standish, “A man who will cast off a mistress so, hardly promises well as a husband. I thought Middleton showed good sense, myself. And, besides, Greville’s expectations are all from Sir William, and it begins to look as if he may have been fair and far off in that business.”
“What do you mean, Aunt?” Helen’s heart was rent at the idea of the girl’s fate . . . looking back, she realised how young her angel must have been that day in Uppark. And after all, to be passed on, like a bit of used goods, from nephew to uncle. Intolerable. “How old is Sir William?” she asked.
“Old enough to be the girl’s grandfather. He must be sixty if he’s a day. But that’s the cream of it. She’s a clever one, that Emmy Hart. By all reports she held the old man off for so long that he was almost a figure of fun, but now everything’s going her way and the talk is he’ll marry her in the end. And then where will Charles Greville be?”
“Serve him right,” said Helen. “But would Sir William really? In his position?”
“You would hardly think so, but it seems that Queen Maria Carolina of Naples has taken a great fancy to Mrs. Hart. Of course they can’t meet formally as things stand now, but there’s nothing much formal, by all reports, about the Court of Naples.”
“Good God.” Helen was taking it all in. “Maria Carolina? The Queen of France’s sister?”
“Yes, one of those stiff-necked daughters of the Empress of Austria. Well”—Mrs. Standish finished her drink and rose to her feet—“Maria Carolina may receive her, if she does catch Sir William and make herself Lady Hamilton, but I know our own Queen Charlotte will do nothing of the kind.”
“No.” It was certainly hard to imagine.
“And in the meanwhile”—the glow faded from Mrs. Standish’s cheek—“what in the world are we to do about this hell broth of a scandal you’ve stirred up?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, Aunt, and, truly, I believe you are taking the business too hard. Oh, I grant you, it was an appalling gaffe of mine, but I think you do Mr. Scroope and Mr. Fysshe less than justice. Why should they repeat it?”
“Why should they not?” asked Mrs. Standish. “A couple of young rattles like that with nothing to do but talk and drink. You might just as well expect my macaw to keep silent. Yes, James?” She turned her basilisk stare on the footman.
“A note, ma’am. Most urgent. For Miss Telfair.”
“Thank you.” She held out an imperious hand, and he proffered his silver salver with the hint of an apologetic glance at Helen. “That will do.” And, as the door closed on him, she rounded on Helen. “So now it’s secret correspondence?” She tore open the folded letter without more ado and scanned its contents rapidly, while Helen fought down fury. “Oh, well.” At last Mrs. Standish condescended to hand over the note. “It could be worse, I suppose. That young Scroope seems to have more sense than I gave him credit for.”
He had a great deal, Helen thought, for he had quite evidently drafted his missive on the assumption that Mrs. Standish would read it. It was short and to the point. He was sorry their pleasure party had been spoiled by such an unlucky misunderstanding. He himself had only realised after they parted that Miss Telfair must have seen the subject of Mr. Romney’s picture many years ago, when she was a child—an infant he might say—and presumably in the street at Petersfield. No wonder if she had been surprised at sight of Mr. Romney’s excellent picture, but perhaps it was a subject best forgotten. And then, a significant afterthought: “Mr. Fysshe and I have been at Tattersall’s, he has bought a bay mare and thinks of nothing else.” He was hers to command, Charles Scroope.
“Well, thank God for that.” Mrs. Standish summed it up, and then with a logical connection Helen found at once inevitable and distasteful, “A sensible young man. Pity he has no prospects.”
Chapter 3
ONE of the last big parties of that season was given by Pitt’s friend Henry Dundas at his house in Wimbledon, and for once Helen was eager to go. Pitt, she knew, often went home from Parliament with Dundas, and indeed had his own rooms in the house his friend had bought a few years before, and above all things Helen longed to meet the great statesman. But for a while it looked as if Mrs. Standish was going to jib at the effort involved, and Mr. Standish at the fatigue to the horses of the long drive out of town. “Besides,” he said darkly, “you might meet with a highwayman on the way back.”
“From a breakfast,” Helen objected. “I know the name’s an absurd one, but we would hardly be as late as that.”
“All a waste of time,” said Mr. Standish. “Spent money like water on you two girls, and not a proposal to show for it.”
It was a fortunate interjection for Helen. Mrs. Standish made a point of disagreeing with her husband wherever this was at all possible, and now she came down firmly in favour of going. “Dundas is a coming man, I believe. There’s talk of a cabinet post . . . And young Robert must be rising twenty. We’ll go.”
The day of the party was brilliantly fine, but Helen soon learned that her main hope was to be disappointed. Mr. Pitt was in the house, but suffering from one of his bouts of ill health, and would not appear. “I can’t say that I blame him,” Helen confided to Charlotte as they walked out into the sunken garden beside the house. “It’s pretty much of a crush, isn’t it?”
“And not a soul one knows.” Charlotte was looking about her gloomily. “I don’t know what M . . . M . . . M . . .”
“Will say at our walking about together,” said Helen helpfully. “Never mind, love, here comes rescue. Will you have Mr. Fysshe and I Mr. Scroope, or vice versa?”
“Perhaps we should let them choose,” said Charlotte.
“Nonsense.” But curiously enough, Helen did, five minutes later, find herself, without intention of her own, walking down on Mr. Scroope’s arm to look at the ornamental pond where, he said, Mr. Dundas was experimenting with various kinds of rare waterfowl.
“No need to look so anxious,” he said, as she glanced quickly back to where Charlotte and Fysshe were standing, obviously at a loss. “Fysshe may not be rich, but he’s well born and harmless. The old dragon can’t possibly object.”
“The old . . . ”Helen could hardly believe her ears.
“We all call her that.” Cheerfully. “Married off six daughters by force majeure and it won’t be her fault if she don’t succeed with this one.”
“Poor Charlotte.”
“What about poor Helen?” And then, frozen by a glance, “Oh, very well, poor Miss Telfair.”
“She is wondering,” said Helen frostily, as they came to a halt, again at his instigation, beside the pond, “what has become of Mr. Dundas’s ornamental fowls.”
“You may well ask.” The small pond was ornamented only by water plants and a gracefully drooping willow. “But I had to get you away somehow.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” He was looking, for him, remarkably grave. “I have something to say to you. I’ve no right to, and I know it, but, Helen, I love you. No, please hear me out. No need for you to tell me that we are both penniless, with not a prospect between us, but if you would only give me hope, I promise you I’d be a different man. I’m not stupid,” he said it without either pride or false modesty. “Just lazy. So far. There’s never seemed an inducement to do anything. Now . . . there is. I have an uncle with some influence. I’d thought of politics. You’d be worth a fortune as a politician’s wife.”
“Thank you.” Dryly. “Had you, by any chance, decided which party you would favour with your patronage?”
He coloured angrily, then threw out a deprecatory hand. “I suppose I deserve that. The war party, of course. Mr. Pitt’s. To tell truth, I had hoped to see him today. As well as you,” he hurried on.
“Thank you again. And, I take it, your useful uncle is of Mr. Pitt’s persuasion.”
“Oh, very much so. He thinks me, I should tell you, a useless young scoundrel. He told me so last time we met.”
“And on that basis you expect him to advance your career?”
“Well, he told me that too. It was he, in fact, who said I was not stupid. I have been thinking it over since, and do you know, I find myself inclined to agree with him. Only give me the faintest shadow of encouragement. Let me hope that I shall be working for you as well as for myself, and, seriously, I believe I might find myself moving mountains. And, Helen”—she had given up trying to protest at his use of her name—“before you demolish me with a word, think a little. We are two solitaries, you and I. You must know what a pleasure your company has been to me, what a refreshment in the vapidities of the season. And, sometimes, I have flattered myself that you, too, found a certain ease in talking to me. And . . . forgive me if I speak plainly, but it would be idle to pretend that your prospects are bright. God knows you’re lovely enough to turn a man’s heart over, but what is that in the marriage market as it exists today? Besides, you frighten people.”
“I know,” said Helen. She did not mean to tell him, any more than she had her aunt, of the surprising proposals she had rejected, or, better still, managed to cut off unmade. “But”—after going through rage to unwilling sympathy and back to rage again, she had decided that his frankness deserved to be reciprocated—“you see, I do not intend to marry.”
“Not marry?” He was appalled. “But how will you live? Have you considered, Helen, what life is like for a single lady?”
“Yes. I don’t care.” No need to tell him of the legacy that she hoped would make her life tolerable. But odd to think what a difference it would make if she should be tempted to accept his surprising offer. Suppose she were to let him find his political niche and then surprise him with the news that she was not the penniless bride he had worked for. It was curiously tempting. He looked, in his earnest eagerness, handsomer than she had ever seen him, but also younger. If there had been a moment of doubt, of actual wavering, this settled it. “Madness.” Was she saying it to herself as well as to him? “It would be sheer lunacy, and, Mr. Scroope, you must know it as well as I do. An engagement so long, so doubtful . . . It is not to be thought of, even if . . .” She stopped. Where was this taking her?
“Even if you cared for me? Helen, only tell me there is a shadow of hope and I shall be bound, and you free.” They had been moving, as they talked, up a slight hill into one of the shrubberies with which Mr. Dundas had ornamented his garden, and now found themselves alone for a moment, deep among flowering bushes. He took her hand and turned her to face him. “Look me in the eye, Helen, and tell me you care nothing for me, and I will go to the devil any way you please.”
“No! Don’t do that.” Was the surprising magic of his touch to destroy all the plans she and Miss Tillingdon had laid between them? Was this how all the disastrous marriages she had seen came about? She pulled her hand away. “Of course I care for you—as a friend. No more.” It was hard to say it, but she managed, and with conviction. “And as your friend,” she went on before he had time to intervene, “let me beg you to go ahead with your plans for a career. I have minded seeing the idle life you lead, now, when the world needs good men.”
He looked suddenly much older, the bones of his face showing the shape of things to come. Still facing her, “I wonder, Helen, what would happen if I were to kiss you. Forcibly.”
“I suppose I should scream,” she said.
“Mrs. Standish would not be pleased.” But his tone was light again, the crisis past. “Nor will she like our spending so much time together. I had better return you to her tender care.” He took her arm to guide her up the path, where a little spring had roughened the ground, and once again she felt herself succumbing to the extraordinary magic of his touch. She must say something, anything, and quickly. “I shall come and listen to your first speech in the House.”
“You won’t,” he said. “Politics would have done for Benedict, the married man, but without you, I’ve nothing to lose. I shall join the navy—we’ll be at war within the year. Perhaps by then I shall be fit for service. My uncle is an admiral. His dearest wish has always been that I should go to sea. How surprised he will be to find it gratified.”
“Oh—” Intolerable to have driven him to what might so easily mean his death. But before she could muster her wits, they had emerged on to the open lawn, where, as Charles Scroope had predicted, her aunt was waiting with a brow of thunder.
“My apologies, ma’am.” As always, he was quick to deal with the situation. “I have been boring your niece with talk of my plans to join the navy. My uncle the admiral has been urging it this long time past, and Miss Telfair, as a member of a naval family herself, has been so good as to encourage me.”
It was all over. He was bowing over her hand as if this was indeed all they had been talking about. He would join the navy; presently she would read of his death, and know that she had killed him.
“The heat is insufferable,” said Mrs. Standish. “Charlotte is tired already, and you looked fagged to death, Helen. Perhaps, Mr. Scroope, you would be so good as to have our carriage called.” If Helen half hoped her aunt might invite him to join them in the drive back to London, she was to be disappointed. Helping her into the carriage, he held her hand for one almost unbearable moment. “This must be good-bye,” he said. “My uncle lives in Norwich. I shall ride there tomorrow.”
“Quite right too,” said Mrs. Standish. “Come, Helen, the men are waiting.”
“Good-bye.” What else could she say? “Good”—she swallowed something that felt like a sob—“good luck.”
“Thank you.” He stood back, the horses sprang forward. It was over.
Helen did not sleep that night, and was angry with herself for it. But in the long, wretched hours she at least made up her mind to a course of action that she had often considered but never so far undertaken. Before the season ended, and she went home to face her parents’ reproaches, she must find out more about her own expectations, those financial hopes that were to make life with Miss Tillingdon a possibility. It had been easy enough to learn the name and address of the lawyers who handled the Glendale family affairs. Mrs. Standish wrote to them once a week about what she considered the grave mismanagement of her own.
But to know that the answer to her question must lie with one of the partners of the law firm of Presse, Presse, Bartlett, and Furnival was one thing. To get in touch with them at their office in Chancery Lane
was quite another. Mrs. Standish did not always open her niece’s letters, as she did her daughter’s, but she often did. Helen did not dare risk writing to ask for an appointment. Inspiration came with a short notice in the morning paper, to which she had acquired a kind of right after her uncle had finished muttering over it. Mr. Flood, M.P., was to introduce a bill for the reform of Parliament. To appear, suitably escorted, in the Stranger’s Gallery of the House of Commons was as respectable, she knew, as to attend the endless trial of Warren Hastings, which was providing a Roman holiday for society. Lying ruthlessly, she invented a female cousin for Mr. Fysshe and convinced her aunt that he had arranged the outing when they had met at the opera a few nights before.
Luck was on her side. Her aunt was suffering from the exhaustion of the long, unsuccessful season. Lying prone on her sofa, she merely muttered that Helen had the oddest tastes of any girl she had ever encountered, and closed her eyes again. Charlotte was visiting a school friend. The only problem now was to get out of the house. Helen waited until the butler would have retired to his parlour, went downstairs to the hall where only James was in attendance, and asked him to call her a sedan chair.
“A sedan? But, miss!”
“Please, James.” She had considered trying to bribe him, but decided against it. She thought him her friend, in a quiet way, and was justified. “It’s nothing out of the way, I promise you,” she said. “Just an errand I must do before I go home.”
“You’ll be careful, miss? It’s not at all the thing.” But he had yielded.
It was delightful to be jogging through the streets of London alone, and fascinating to find herself in the narrow lanes of the city, far farther east than she had ever been before. And the lawyers’ offices, when the men stopped in front of them, looked reassuringly respectable. She debated asking the men to wait, but decided against it. She had no idea how long she might have to wait herself.
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