Babe

by Joan Smith

  “I didn’t realize you were such a fast worker, but I should have expected it of Babe Manfred.”

  “As you are so intimately aware of my true character, you had better not goad me too far. There is more than one way to get married, and I don’t fancy you would care for any but the proper, established mode, as my behavior now is to reflect on yourself.”

  “Hinting you mean to dash up to Gretna Green and get married by the smitty? You’ll have uphill work getting Ellingwood moving in that direction. The wealthy aunts would disapprove.”

  “He’s not the only man in England.”

  “Surely, as you speak of marrying him, he is the only one you love.”

  “This marriage has nothing to do with love, and you know it!”

  “Does Charles know it?”

  “He loves me! I’m marrying him because you convinced me it was the only course open to me. You told me I was a step from ruin.”

  “You were.”

  “Well, then!” She looked to see some recognition of her logic, and saw only an intransigent mask. “I come to see it’s better than being your ward in any case. I'd rather marry a donkey than spend one more week under your dubious protection.”

  “In that case, send Ellingwood to me, and it will be arranged at once.”

  The scorching reply she was preparing died on her lips. She looked at him, too confused to continue.

  “Well?” he said. “I can forbid it, you know.”

  “You risk creating a greater scandal than I have ever done, if you refuse such an unexceptionable match, one that has your sister’s approval, too, with no reason.”

  “Call it a caprice on my part,” he suggested loftily.

  “A conundrum is more like it. You are incomprehensible.”

  “Babe, you know he wouldn’t suit you,” he said, seeming to simmer down, though there was still a good head of steam waiting to blow.

  “Why did you suggest him, then? What were you about all these weeks, but trying to get me married to him?”

  “It wasn’t my intention to see you gallop to the altar with the first man who asked.”

  “Actually, that would have been Romeo.”

  “Don’t mention that lunatic’s name to me.”

  “You two have one thing in common at least. He feels precisely the same about you. And you didn’t make him leave last night, either, when he asked me to dance. I come to think you want me to do something foolish. Don’t push me too far with this capricious guardianship of yours, Clivedon.”

  “What is it you have in mind? Dancing nude in the streets? Announcing an engagement to an actor? Or becoming one yourself. Yes, that’s more like it, front stage center. Fairly amusing. Right in your old style. The donkey, I fancy, would bray, but the rest of your audience would applaud the return of Babe.”

  “Have you finished? I hope so, for I have finished with being Babe. You have thrown her in my face for the last time.”

  “Do you know, I come to think I like her better than the new Lady Barbara, so encumbered with fichus and calls on dowagers.”

  “Lady Barbara is greatly flattered at the comparison, but quite frankly, she will not heed your implicit advice to make a spectacle of herself. There will be no dancing in the streets to entertain you. If you wish to see me dance, come to my ball, and you’ll see me open it with my bridegroom.”

  “You mean to have him, then?”

  “Unless you have someone else in mind for me for the next week or so? Don’t be shy to tell me if you have changed your mind,” she said with as much sarcasm as she could find.

  “You have already admitted you don’t love him.”

  “At least I understand him. He isn’t a moralist one day and a—a fiend the next.”

  “Now, surely it was yourself who told me variety is the spice of life. How will you take to such a bland diet as undiluted Ellingwood, I wonder.”

  “I’ll provide the spice, if that is what worries you.”

  “God pity Ellingwood! He doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for.”

  “He’s not deaf or blind.”

  “Only dumb, alas, but then, he can’t help that.”

  “He knows well enough what I have been in the past. Unlike yourself, he has some confidence that I can continue, with his help, to be what I am now.”

  “I wonder if that confidence isn’t misplaced,” he suggested in a conversational spirit.

  There was no sense to be made of his conversation today. In a final, uncontrollable fit of pique, Babe surfaced and said, “Go to hell!” then turned and stormed from the room.

  “See you there, Babe,” he called after her, and laughed as he slammed the door behind her, but the laughter did not long remain on his lips. He took two hasty steps after her, then turned back, hit a chair with his fist and uttered an accomplished and original curse, before going to take a fairly polite leave of his sister.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Lord Ellingwood went to call on Clivedon the next morning, the latter’s secretary was very surprised indeed to be asked to inform the caller his lordship was not at home, and not expected home that day. “He sent around a note yesterday to make the appointment, sir, and you directed me to tell him you would see him at eleven.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “It was an important matter, you recall, sir.”

  “You mistake your duties, Smythe. You are my servant, not my advisor.”

  Mr. Smythe left in confusion to do his duty. He realized Clivedon was in a pelter over something, and though he was a good-natured employer in the general way, one did not argue when he was out of sorts. Smythe did not trouble to tell his employer when the next gentleman called. If he had turned Ellingwood from the door, he would not want to see Lord Romeo. The instant the strangely persistent young artist was got rid of, Clivedon sent to ask who had called.

  “You turned young Rutledge away without telling me!” Clivedon asked, at his most arrogant. “Go after him at once. In future you will be kind enough to inform me when my friends call, and let me decide whether I wish to see them.”

  To Mr. Smythe’s infinite relief, Lord Romeo had got no farther than the edge of the street, where he stood gazing at the red brick facade of Clivedon House envisioning its revision.

  “His lordship is in now, sir,” Smythe said, feeling very foolish indeed.

  “Oh, good,” Lord Romeo said, and smiled sweetly. “I hope he is in a good mood.”

  “Not exactly, sir.”

  “Angry?”

  “Rather.”

  “He’s seen me, then. It cannot be helped.”

  Clivedon looked less angry than calculating when the young gentleman was shown in. “What is it you want now?” was his blunt greeting.

  “I am leaving town almost immediately. I know you dislike me, but still I feel the honorable thing to do is to come and ask you for Lady Barbara’s hand, as I am going to marry her.”

  “Lady Barbara’s hand is taken.”

  “You’re making her marry you!”

  “It is another gentleman who has done us both out.”

  “Elderwood?”

  “Close enough,” Clivedon told him, smiling a smile that held an invitation, or a challenge. “She prefers him to us, it seems.”

  “I had not thought you were quite so stupid,” Romeo replied. “I was afraid you might beat me out, but she cannot prefer Elderwood to me, or even you.”

  “Thank you.”'

  “That carrot possibly be misconstrued as a compliment. The man is a wooden dummy,”

  “I tend to agree with you.”

  “Enough to make me doubt my opinion but no . . . You are in a position to prevent her making this match.”

  “I fear any prevention on my part might lead her to a different, and in my own view worse, mistake. I would not agree to her marrying you under any circumstances.”

  “I know you hate me. It is jealousy, of course. I hate you, too. Always have. You’re so . . .” Romeo
stopped and looked at his host with unveiled hate.

  “Spit it out.”

  “When I struggle to be brief, I become obscure.”

  “Quoting Horace today, are we?”

  “I enjoy to wander in the groves of academe.”

  “And carry back the fruits to enliven your chatter. But you surely didn’t come to bring me this basket of quotations.”

  “Ah, I see you have got that dreadful forgery patched together again. Are you interested in the original?”

  “No, I have come to admire my broken forgery. Is it Art we are to discuss?”

  “Art and Love—the two eternal verities. You have given me your views on my Beloved, now we shall discuss Art. You mentioned once being interested in procuring my portrait of Aphrodite. It happens I require ready cash. Do you still want it?”

  “I’m interested if the price is right.”

  “I make a gift of it to you, for the nominal sum of one hundred pounds.”

  “Magnanimous,” Clivedon replied, with unsteady lips. “You’re not likely to be long in need of ready cash, with such gifts.”

  “It was a gift that occasioned the shortage. I have discharged my mistress and gave her a hundred. It has left me short for my trip.”

  “How soon do you plan to leave?”

  “Right after . . . Tomorrow, I think.”

  “Returning to Greece, are you?” Clivedon asked, settling down to an appearance of friendliness.

  “Ultimately. My psychë cannot long endure this alien climate.”

  “You will want to visit your parents before leaving.”

  Lord Clivedon found it a strange experience to see that innocently open face try to assume a veneer of cunning. “I didn’t say I was going home. It happens I have other business in the country. Some orders for—for Grecian artifacts.”

  “You’ll have to have yourself drawn and quartered for removing them from the country of their origin The Clitias vase too, that you peddle so assiduously, will be a loss.”

  “I ought not to let it out of the country, really. The fact is, the Greeks do not appreciate their heritage. Plenty of owls in Athens, of course, if you follow my allusion. But these baubles I speak of are not on the scale of the marbles stolen by Elgin. Do you think he would be susceptible to a plea to return them?”

  “I wouldn’t suggest you waste a moment on the project. They were stolen at a price of thirty-five thousand pounds.”

  “I haven’t time to raise that kind of money. I daresay it would take days.”

  “Maybe even a week,” Clivedon agreed blandly.

  “You wouldn’t care to consider setting up a fund . . . No, I see you would not. I’ll send the painting around. Can I have the money now?”

  “I will give it to your man when he delivers the painting.”

  “Is it that you don’t trust me, or that you don’t have the sum, and are embarrassed to say so?”

  “How have you survived so long, I wonder,” Clivedon said, arising to show his caller out the door.

  There were a number of calls at Clivedon House that day, every one of them handled in a manner displeasing to the master. Ellingwood dashed to Cavendish Square to ask where he might find Lord Clivedon, which got Lady Withers over to Grosvenor Square within the half hour. Smythe went to inform his employer his sister wished to see him, most urgently, and had his ears scorched for saying he was at home. “Tell her I am out, and will be out all day.”

  “I have already intimated you are at home.”

  “Then you had better unintimate it. And before you make any more of these colossal blunders, I am also not home if Lady Barbara should call. Do you think you can remember that, Smythe, or shall I have a sign painted and hang it around your neck?”

  “I shall undertake to remember it, milord.”

  It was not unnatural in the face of this confusion that Smythe should turn a mere acquaintance away, but he was dressed down nevertheless for not allowing Mr. Empey entrance. The portrait was delivered within the hour. Taking no chances, Mr. Smythe, with ill-concealed impatience, told his employer that he had asked the man to wait, till he discovered whether or not Lord Clivedon was home at that particular instant.

  “Ass. Give him a hundred pounds, and bring me the portrait at once.”

  The painting was brought in, and for the next half hour Clivedon tilted back his chair, locked his door, and sat gazing at it, with a musing smile on his face. Smythe, with the worrisome chore of announcing Lady Millington, tapped nervously at the door, and was told in a shout quite audible to the waiting lady to get rid of her. And if he pestered him again, he may consider himself discharged, and write himself up a checque for a week’s wages.

  “What can have happened to Larry?” Agnes wondered, when she returned to Cavendish Square. “The very day of your ball, and Ellingwood not allowed in to see him. We wished to announce the engagement tonight. I shall give him permission myself, Barbara. I am your chaperone, after all, and it is not as though Larry will object. He will think it an excellent match for you. I can’t imagine where he is gone. Chasing off after some piece of horseflesh, I expect.”

  “You had better wait and let Clivedon decide,” Barbara suggested. “He will be here for dinner before the ball, and Charles can speak to him then.” Barbara felt strangely listless. Her desire to become Lady Ellingwood was not acute enough that she worried about Clivedon’s breaking the appointment. In fact, she was rather relieved to have the sealing of her fate delayed a little. Was it possible Clivedon meant to insist she pass another Season in London? There was no possible way she could make any other match in so short a time as the week that remained of the Season. It was likely this uncertainty that made her feel so wretched. “I have a headache, and seem to be running a little fever. I am going to lie down to be recovered for tonight,” she told her chaperone.

  It was exactly the sort of nuisance that was bound to crop up, that the star of the evening should fall ill, with four hundred guests invited. All of a piece with the cream curdling and the servants spilling a batch of grease on the carpet in the dining room. She was strongly advised to go to bed at once and stay there till she felt quite well. Lying down had not the least good effect. The headache worsened, but by late afternoon, groggy with laudanum and determined not to miss her ball, she got up from bed and went to her window to sit looking out on the little rose garden, which Romeo called “their” garden. She opened the casement window and brought a chair to it. The cool breeze felt good against her feverish cheeks. For half an hour she sat on, sipping a cup of tea, and imagining she felt somewhat better. She mentally compared Romeo and Charles, not at all pleased with the prospect of spending the rest of her life with either, but determined not to go to Drumbeig with a hired companion.

  While she sat having her tea, a call came from below that Lord Clivedon wished to see her. She didn’t feel up to it. She knew Lady Withers was at a meeting of one of her charity organizations, and knew that Clivedon was aware of it, for she had complained a dozen times of the inconvenience of having to go out on that particular afternoon.

  He wished to badger and pester her some more with his incomprehensible and ever-shifting views on her marriage. She was so weary she was afraid she'd do whatever he suggested, only to be rid of him. She felt so drained she would even marry Romeo, if that was what he wanted today. After he left, the green Italian crepe was brought to her door, with a note from Clivedon, succinct and offensive:

  Babe: l wouldn’t want you to have your last fling in too modest a gown. You have my permission to wear this one. Save me a waltz, if your toes are in a dancing mood. Clivedon.

  Her toes were not in the mood; neither was her head. She ripped the note to bits and threw the gown on the bed, then sat on it. He expected her to do something outrageous tonight—even the gown would outrage Lady Anstrom and Lady Nathorn. She was determined to show him she had changed. She put on the white crepe de chine agreed upon with her hostess, added the gaudy, unattractive corsage sent by Charle
s—pink roses with an excess of lace and ribbons—had her hair carefully arranged, not in coils. Her color was high, too high, from the fever, and her eyes held a febrile glaze as well, which in no way detracted from their beauty.

  How could she look so vibrant, when she felt as limp as a dishrag? She was too upset to be much surprised or disappointed when Clivedon sent a note excusing himself from the dinner party. Something had come up, but be would be at the ball. What could this mysterious something be? Not chasing after a new horse, for he had come here this afternoon. Whatever it was, it would prevent Charles from speaking to him before the ball. Her engagement would not be announced that night.

  Clivedon ate at home alone, in thoughtful silence. It was the more usual custom for Smythe to accompany him at the table on those rare occasions when he took dinner at home alone, but, to the secretary’s relief, no invitation came to him this evening. Cook's nose was out of joint when a nearly full plate was returned to the kitchen. The butler tried the claret himself to insure it was not corked, for his lordship had not finished even one glass. His valet examined his clothing with a nervous eye, for a charge of carelessness to this paragon had been issued on the last occasion when Clivedon left his dinner on his plate. No such charge was laid this evening.

  Clivedon donned his satin knee breeches and white silk stockings without the usual tirade against this antique outfit, shrugged himself into the close-fitting black coat, selected from the case held out to him a discreet diamond tie pin, all without a single word. “I'll be late,” he said just as he stepped from the room. Then he turned back to add, “Tell Smythe I want him at home this evening. I may have need of him.”

  This titillating speech caused a good deal of discussion after his lordship had left. Was it a matter of a challenge having been issued? Nothing else of sufficient importance to account for the day’s unusual proceedings occurred to any of the hirelings who sat around the kitchen table arguing the matter. Smythe wasted half an hour cleaning and oiling his dueling pistols, and the valet went through closets selecting a suitable dark coat, choosing his own least favorite, in case of bullet wounds.