The Constant Companion

by M C Beaton

  “Her eyes,” said Peter. “Her eyes have little gold flecks in them. I shall go and have a closer look.”

  He ambled off and Lord Philip gave his retreating back an indulgent smile. He hoped Peter would remember that the next dance was a quadrille and not try to perform the waltz!

  But the quadrille was a new dance and Constance had not learned the steps which looked very baffling and intricate, more like a minature ballet than a dance. She felt sure she could have acquitted herself tolerably well in a country dance, for she had learned the figures of most of them a long time ago when she was a little girl. So she hung her head and explained softly that she had not yet learned to dance the quadrille.

  “Then I shall sit and talk to you,” said the amiable Peter, pulling forward a little gilt rout chair and placing it so that his back was to the ballroom and he was directly facing Constance.

  “Your eyes are very beautiful,” he said.

  “Thank you,” said Constance in an embarrassed voice and becoming aware of the stares of the dowagers next to her.

  “Mr. Pope says,” went on Peter, stretching out his long legs, “‘True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance.’ Do you agree? I ask because I am a poet, you see.”

  Constance searched her mind feverishly for something witty and scintillating to say to this odd young man but finally came up with “Oh!”

  “Ah, so you say! So you say!” cried Peter, leaving Constance with the horrible thought that she had said something completely different. “But you see I believe in inspiration. Sometimes I sit for days and not a word comes to me and then—Boom!—my fickle Muse bends to my ears and whispers divine words.”

  “I cannot imagine a Muse saying ‘Boom!’” said Constance.

  “She doesn’t say ‘Boom!’ She appears like a… a… a muffin man ringing his curst bell.”

  Constance began to giggle helplessly, wondering if they were both mad.

  “Pray you, sir,” she gasped finally, “say your Muse appears like a flash of lightning… or… or a golden bird alighting on your shoulder, but—oh, dear—the muffin man!”

  “Very good, very good,” said Peter producing a small, grimy piece of paper from the pocket of his evening coat and a piece of lead pencil. “Let me see… what was that? Ah! Golden bird… yes, very good. You have a good ear, Miss… er… never mind, I shall read my latest poem to you. It is called ‘Twilight in London.’ He searched frantically about his person and then heaved a sigh. “I have it not. No matter. I shall call on you as soon as possible.”

  “May I know your name, sir,” ventured Constance, slightly embarrassed by this young eccentric but glad of his company.

  “I am Peter Potter. I am a friend of Philip. You know, Cautry. Chap over there with green eyes like a parrot.”

  “Cat,” said Constance gently. “Cats have green eyes, Mr. Potter. I think parrots have black eyes.”

  “We shall make a marvelous team,” said Peter. “Your imagery and my genius. Oh, it is the waltz. Famous! We shall dance.”

  “I cannot,” said Constance dismally. “I have not been given permission, and in any case I do not know the steps of the waltz any more than I know the steps of the quadrille.”

  “Oh, the waltz is easy. You just follow me. But I shall find permission first.”

  And to Constance’s surprise that is exactly what Peter did. He did it by way of interrupting Lady Jersey in the middle of her favorite anecdote and saying, “I wish to ask Miss Lamberton to dance. You do not object? Good. Good!” and with that he ambled off leaving Lady Jersey, who had not said a word, to stare after him.

  Constance timidly took the floor. She was sure Amelia would be annoyed with her for dancing, but, on the other hand, Mr. Potter was Amelia’s future husband’s closest friend.

  For all his eccentricity, Peter turned out to be a remarkably good dancer and an even better teacher, and soon Constance was floating round happily in his bony arms, oblivious of Lord Philip Cautry’s sudden stare and Lady Amelia’s raised eyebrows.

  Constance was slightly disappointed when the dance ended, but Peter was still at her side. He took his former chair and seemed to have settled in for the evening.

  “What a beautiful fan,” he said, taking Constance’s fan from her hands.

  “It is the only thing I have of my late mother,” said Constance.

  “Peter, a word with you if Miss Lamberton can spare you.”

  Constance looked up quickly into the emerald eyes of Lord Philip Cautry.

  “Certainly,” Peter got lazily to his feet and absentmindedly walked off with Lord Philip, still carrying Constance’s fan.

  “I am grateful to you for giving Miss Lamberton a dance,” said Lord Philip, as soon as they were out of earshot. “But you are making such a play for the girl that everyone expects you to put up the banns.”

  Peter made no reply. He had suddenly realized he was very hungry indeed. He forgot he was with Philip, he forgot he was still carrying Constance’s fan. He saw the food in an adjoining room and headed straight for it with single-minded intent.

  Lord Philip shook his head and let him go. He was used to his friend’s eccentricities, and in fact tolerated a great deal of eccentricity from many of his aristocratic acquaintances but would have dismissed a servant on the spot for one hundredth of their vagaries of behavior.

  Meanwhile, Lady Amelia had decided that the time was ripe for a little genteel seduction. She could not flirt too openly with Lord Philip in the ballroom—but if she got him to return with her to her home, there she could really set the stage. Constance, of course, would have to be present, but that had not deterred her in the past.

  She had one more dance with Lord Philip, her second, a circumstance which started the gossiping tongues wagging. As she curtsyed to him at the end of the dance, she gazed up at him with a discreet invitation in her eyes. “I am fatigued by all these people, my lord,” she murmured. “But I am always prepared to receive favored guests in my home later in the evening.…” She let her voice trail away and lowered her long lashes.

  “Then I hope I am a favored guest,” replied Lord Philip, taking his cue. He was conscious of a feeling of relief. It was already eleven o’clock. Respectable, marriageable young ladies did not ask gentlemen to their home at such a late hour. He could have what he desired without marrying in order to get it.

  Looking slyly up at him from under her lashes, Amelia saw the glint in his eye and wondered if she had gone too far, too soon.

  No matter. When she had him alone—well, alone apart from Constance who didn’t count, she would lure him on just enough to tease him into marriage!

  Philip watched her leave and then went in search of Peter who was engaged in munching a plate of rather stale-looking sandwiches. He was fanning himself absentmindedly with Constance’s fan. Lord Philip looked down at him with a smile of amusement curling his lips. “My dear Peter,” he drawled. “Have you joined the Macaroni set?”

  “No!” said Peter, wildly looking down at his evening dress, expecting to find he had left something off or had put something too much on. “No, I’m all right, you know. Ain’t got high heels on my shoes, ain’t got the skirt of my coat boned, ain’t wearing a corset, ain’t…”

  “The fan,” said Lord Philip gently interrupting this inventory. “You are fanning yourself with a lady’s fan.”

  Peter looked at the pretty, painted fan with its slender ivory sticks in some amazement. Then his face cleared. “It’s Miss Lamberton’s,” he said. “I shall call on her and return it.”

  “Let me do it for you,” said the friend. “I think you have paid Miss Lamberton quite enough attention for one evening!”

  “Now you understand your instructions,” snapped Lady Amelia to Constance. “You are to sit in that corner and not interfere by look or deed. I am desirous of wedding my Lord Cautry, and should you do aught to put a spoke in my wheel you will find yourself in the streets begging for you
r bread. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Amelia,” said Constance, biting her lip to repress a sigh. Lady Amelia was her old, taciturn self since their return from the ball. She did not know that Amelia had noticed for the first time how pretty her companion had become, and did not like it one bit.

  “Say, ‘Yes, my lady,’” ordered Amelia, “and take those stupid looking things out of your hair.” She wrenched the violets from their moorings and threw them on the fire.

  Amelia narrowed her blue eyes as she stared at her companion. Something must be done to dim the girl’s looks. She rang the bell and demanded to see her lady’s maid.

  When Eliot appeared, Amelia turned her cold blue eyes on her. “Eliot,” she commanded the lady’s maid, “You will go to my rooms with Miss Lamberton and make sure she changes into a dress befitting a chaperone. I have an old brown velvet which should do quite well. Hurry! I hear a carriage arriving.”

  Lady Amelia was alone when Philip was ushered into the room. Amelia was torn between playing propriety and ringing for the tea tray, or offering my lord some strong drink to fortify him. She decided strong drink would answer better and informed her butler to fetch the brandy decanter. The brandy was excellent, better than Lord Philip had tasted for a long time.

  “A present from one of my admirers,” smiled Amelia in answer to his query.

  “The Comte Duval, no doubt,” murmured Lord Philip. “French brandy of this quality is hard to come by these days.”

  “Well, he is my admirer no longer,” laughed Amelia. “He is paying ardent court to that Friday-faced General’s daughter, Fanny Braintree.”

  Philip raised his eyebrows. “Indeed! Then it is a good thing our dear comte is a royalist. Were he a Bonapartist one would suspect his intentions. The General corresponds frequently with Wellesley, you know.”

  “Oh that silly war,” yawned Amelia, dismissing the whole Peninsular campaign. “I wonder you want to talk about it, considering you spent two years in Spain and were wounded for your pains. Where were you wounded by the way? Anywhere that matters?”

  Philip nearly dropped his glass. That was the sort of remark he would have expected from a Haymarket Cyprian. But he rallied quickly and was about to reply, when the door opened and Constance came quietly into the room. Philip got to his feet and bent punctiliously over her hand, and then returned her fan to her.

  “Oh, thank you!” cried Constance with a radiant smile (“Just as if she were getting the crown jewels,” thought Amelia bitterly, “and just wait until I get my hands on Eliot!”)

  For the lady’s maid’s idea of suitable attire for a companion was, indeed, a brown velvet dress, but not the old one that Amelia had meant. This was more gold than brown, highwaisted in the current mode and with a little stiff collar of gold lace at the neck. It brought out the gold flecks in Constance’s large eyes and flattered her slight figure.

  Constance caught Amelia’s angry stare and retired to a ladder-backed chair in the far corner of the room with her work basket, took out her sewing, and proceeded to work diligently.

  Amelia was sitting on a gilt and painted sofa which she had bought after seeing David’s painting of Madame de Recamier reclining on one like it. She leaned against the bolster cushion at one end and patted the space beside her invitingly. “Come and sit by me… Philip,” she said, looking at him with a lazy seductive smile.

  Lord Philip glanced over at Constance but that young lady’s head was bent over her sewing and she did not look up. “She has been through this before,” he thought suddenly.

  But this pretty bird of paradise waiting for him so eagerly on the sofa was not to be ignored. He resolutely put Constance from his mind and sat down next to Amelia.

  She promptly leaned against him and put her hand on his knee. He slid his arm round her waist and drew her close. It was then that he looked over her gold head and met Constance’s wide and troubled gaze.

  He suddenly felt as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over him. How could he proceed with this affair while the innocent daughter of one of his old friends looked on?

  So he bent and kissed Amelia briefly on the cheek. “And now I must go,” he said abruptly, releasing her and rising to his feet.

  “Your most humble servant, Lady Amelia.” He made a magnificent leg and then turned briefly towards Constance and bowed. “I bid you good evening, Miss Lamberton. Mr. Potter will be happy to know that I have delivered your fan.”

  And then with a small, general bow to both ladies, he turned and walked from the room. Amelia ran after him into the hall and grasped his arm.

  “Come now, Philip,” she cried in a breathless voice. “I fear I have shocked you. I am perhaps too much accustomed to the freer ways of a married woman. But, nonetheless, I shall make some gentleman a very good wife, think you.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Lord Philip, gently detaching himself, “I assure you, I enjoyed my visit and I am pleased to see Miss Lamberton in such good looks. Goodnight, Lady Amelia… again.”

  The street door banged. He was gone.

  “Constance!” called Lady Amelia. “Come here!”

  Constance appeared in the doorway of the drawing room, her wide eyes looking questioningly at Lady Amelia. Amelia’s jealous eyes raked her from head to toe.

  “Turned very fine, haven’t you?” she sneered. “But you are to stop wearing my clothes, miss, and in future wear your own. Fine feathers make fine vultures. So Lord Philip Cautry thinks you are in good looks. Well, we’ll see what our high and mighty Lord thinks of you next time he sees you! Oh, go to bed. That stupid face of yours makes me feel sick!”

  She stared furiously at Constance as the girl moved past her to mount the stair, unconscious grace in every line and movement. Amelia had consumed too much brandy, and her never stable temper broke completely. As Constance was beginning to mount the stairs, Amelia seized a carriage whip from the hall stand and lashed Constance across the back with it so viciously that the wicked thong slashed through the fine velvet of the dress and cut into the girl’s flesh.

  Constance swung round, her face parchment-white and her eyes glittering with rage. She slowly walked towards her mistress.

  “Bergen!” called Amelia, summoning the butler before Constance could reach her. The butler scuttled forward as if he had been waiting in the shadows. “Make sure Miss Lamberton finds her room,” said Amelia, breathing hard. “The house is still strange to her and I fear she may become lost.”

  “Very good, my lady,” said Bergen with a slow smile. Constance stared at the ill-assorted pair, the butler with his sinister smile and Lady Amelia with her beautiful face contorted with rage and malice and spite.

  The full shock of the attack on her struck her, and Constance turned and fled. She ran as hard as she could to her rooms and only when she had barricaded the door, did she allow herself the luxury of bursting into tears, sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped tightly round her middle, rocking herself back and forth in an agony of pain and humiliation, crying over and over again to the uncaring silk-covered walls, “What is to become of me? How can I escape? What can I do?”

  Chapter Six

  Lord Philip Cautry was angry with Miss Constance Lamberton. Looking back on his evening at Amelia’s in the damp, sober light of a misty London afternoon, he finally came to the conclusion it was all Constance’s fault. What right had she to play Miss Propriety? No one could live for longer than a day with Amelia and not realize she had the morals of a cat, thought his lordship sourly, forgetting that he had only too recently considered Amelia innocent of the scandal that surrounded her name.

  He had been celibate for over a year and had been happily on the point of putting an end to that uncomfortable state. He felt somewhere in the back of his mind that Amelia hoped for marriage. But didn’t they all? Even the little opera dancer that he had kept in such style for several months some time ago had begun to show alarming signs that she wished to legalize the romance. The effrontery of some women was
past all believing, thought Lord Philip. He came from an ancient family and had no intention of tainting his family tree with doubtful branches of the Fashionable Impure.

  Miss Constance Lamberton would just have to learn the ways of the world and not sit around like some sort of chaste angel giving gentlemen of the ton, hell-bent on seduction, a guilty conscience.

  He voiced as much to his friend, Peter, when that young man called round to see him. Peter was wearing an impeccably tailored blue swallowtail coat of Bath superfine. His waistcoat was a subdued rose color, his pantaloons were without a crease and his cravat was a miracle of starched perfection. But he had spoiled the whole effect by forgetting to put on his boots, and his long narrow feet were encased in a pair of red Morocco slippers.

  “Don’t think that’s the case.” said Peter after much hard thought. “Amelia is said to keep Constance with her the whole time—even when she’s playing hot-in-the-hand in her drawing room with the Comte Duval.”

  “I think the prim Miss Lamberton may be a malicious gossip,” said Lord Philip. “Must you pick your teeth with the end of your quizzing glass, Peter? Sometimes your mannerisms are just as irritating as Miss Lamberton’s stately virginity. And you have forgot your boots, man. You’re wearing your slippers.”

  “No. Not Miss Lamberton. Amelia’s lady’s maid is related to my cook, and she told my second footman who told my butler who told my valet. So there! I’m not picking my teeth. I’m polishing ’em. And damn my slippers. What’s that man of mine about? But I suppose he’ll be along directly,” said Peter, replying to each of Lord Philip’s points in turn.

  Lord Philip’s thin eyebrows raised in distaste. “Servants’ gossip, Peter. I had thought better of you. A gentleman should never listen to servants’ gossip.”

  “Why not?” exclaimed Peter in surprise, removing the end of the quizzing glass from his mouth and beginning to scratch his head with it. “I always do. I wouldn’t dream of having my morning chocolate without it,” he added with the air of someone advocating rhubarb pills. “I like your coat. Weston, I suppose. I wish they would take away that little bag at the back of the neck. No need for it now. It ain’t as if we still wear periwigs. Come to think of it, your own hair’s too long for a man of fashion. Why don’t you get a Brutus crop? Then you wouldn’t have to tie it back in that bow. Mine is called the Windswept. Do you like it?”