“Yes, miss. I think so,” he added after a moment’s consideration.
“It isn’t Mr. Teverley, is it?”
“If I may say so, miss, I know Mr. Teverley upon sight. Both Mr. Teverleys,” Feabers said aggrievedly. “This gentleman ain’t neither of them.”
Torn between sleepiness and curiosity, “Ask him for his card,” Emily suggested.
Feabers left the room with a martial air. Emily wondered if the stranger would have the temerity to deny the butler’s awesome authority. Evidently he did not, for a moment later Feabers reappeared with the card on a tray.
Emily glanced at it curiously. “I don’t know any Arthur Reagham, do I?” she asked.
“The gentleman asked most specifically for you, miss.”
“Did he?” Emily smiled. “Well, send him in before I die of curiosity!” Disregarding the butler’s sour expression, Emily tucked a strand of hair back in its place and unwound her leg from its inappropriate position beneath her in the chair.
The man Feabers presented to her looked unremarkable enough. He was dressed in plain, well-cut clothes, his dark hair combed in an unfashionable style away from his face and severely kept there, she assumed from his scent, by patchouli pomade. Emily shivered with delectable uneasiness: Whoever this man was, he had an air of familiarity that was slightly sinister.
“Miss Emily Pellering?” the man wheezed. He had a strange high-pitched voice that issued from his nose.
“Mr. Reagham?”
“The same, ma’am.” He bowed. Then, for a full minute, each waited for the other to say something. At last Mr. Reagham, seemingly overwhelmed by the awkwardness of his situation, began to speak.
“I have been commissioned by one who wishes to meet with you somewhere away from this house and the prying ears of—ah—your servants.”
Emily brightened immediately at the scent of intrigue. “Who?”
“Need I say? One who holds you in the greatest esteem and dearest affection.” Reagham stated. “Of course, I cannot speak his name here ….”
“Of course not,” Emily agreed eagerly, wondering why not, and all the while convincing herself that it must be Teverley. She was right, and Jenny and Mamma, and that hateful Mirabelle Temple, were all a humbug.
“May I continue?” Reagham asked silkily.
“Please do,” Emily nodded graciously.
“This person—ah—gentleman—would like to have the chance to speak privately with you, and has sent me for the purpose of arranging a—ah—rendezvous. For no reason that is not strictly honorable, of course,” Reagham assured her. “He is loath to cause you any embarrassment, and has cause to believe that his suit for you is not—entirely—ahum—well, appreciated, perhaps? In certain quarters?”
Absolutely Teverley, Emily concluded.
Reagham paused to gauge the effect of his words on Miss Pellering. He could not have wished for a better audience: Emily sat on the edge of her chair, hands clasped before her, her mouth charmingly agape, her eyes glowing.
“This gentleman has asked that I speak to you, to learn if—ah—you would be agreeable to a meeting.” As Emily showed no signs of disgust, Reagham continued. “Would you be able to meet with him, perhaps next Sunday, by the Serpentine?”
“Sunday? But—” Emily broke in, practicality vying with romance, for she was engaged to go riding that afternoon.
“Well, perhaps at an early hour, when you may slip from the house unseen and return the same way before your family has stirred from its—ah—first sleep?” Reagham paused, and the slightest edge of malice came into his voice. “At eight o’clock, perhaps?”
Emily swallowed at the thought of this early a rising, for, left to her own devices, she rarely rose before noon. “I shall do it, of course!” she declared to Reagham, thinking to herself that if Teverley preferred early rising she would learn to do so herself. “By the Serpentine at eight o’clock on Sunday morning next.”
“You have it right, dear lady,” Reagham approved.
Feeling that, much as she was coming to dislike this messenger, the occasion demanded extraordinary civility, Emily rose and gave him her hand.
“Pray give my regards to—ah—your friend,” she begged, unconsciously aping Reagham’s manner.
“Our friend.”
With a nod over her hand that stood in stead of another bow, Reagham ambled toward the doorway. Emily, in unfocused stupor, sank back into the chair and watched him go. Only when the door had closed behind him did furor replace stupor: She gave a great whoop and tossed several sofa cushions high in the air over her head.
“Not particular! Not particular! I’ll show Mamma, and Jenny, and Dom, and that hateful, hateful Mirabelle Temple, what particular is! Sunday morning in the park!” Sinking again into her chair, this time half buried under sofa cushions, Emily began to giggle to herself. When Feabers knocked and entered, wondering what the noise was about, it was all Emily could do to produce an appearance of sanity as she straightened herself, knocked aside most of the cushions, and pretended to be immersed in a book that she held, upside down, before her. While Feabers could find nothing untoward in her behavior, he nodded his head in a way that indicated he did not for a moment believe the picture she presented. He returned to the hallway and his brasses.
o0o
Once in the street, Mr. Arthur Reagham walked briskly to the corner, turned it, walked several streets so quickly one might almost have supposed him in flight, and turned into a small mews, where another gentleman awaited him.
“Well?” the second man prodded. “What did the chit say? Was she alone? Was the dragon there, or her dear mamma?”
“No one there but a dried-up manservant who didn’t like my looks,” Reagham answered sourly.
“Never mind Feabers, Artie. He never thought much of me, either. Wait until Miss Emily and I are wed, then see what a change there’ll be.”
“I’ll wait to see it.” Reagham answered, unconvinced. “I don’t like this at all, cousin. D’you realize I could be arrested for what I just did?”
“Artie, d’you want the money I owe you or no?”
“Damme, Adrian, do you think I’d play this confounded rig if I didn’t? What a ninnyhammer of a chit, sitting there, agape and a-sighing and almost purring at me by the time I’d done. You think she feels ill about you? Well, either she thought I was from someone else, or she’s forgiven you your excesses by way of the tankard at that place you were stuck in.” Mr. Reagham eyed his companion with interest. “Prime little bit of a thing, too, if you like ’em pretty and a little over-dainty. She’ll run to fat, you know.”
“As long as she runs to her father’s money,” Ratherscombe replied simply.
“And are you so sure that they’ll pay over her dowry no matter who it is she weds?”
“The way I see it, Artie: If you were a fond parent, and your only child ran off and married a penniless fellow, and the two had not a farthing to bless themselves with, wouldn’t you give the child her due just to keep her from the cold?”
“I’d drown the wench first,” Reagham said simply.
“Artie, that’s hardly the attitude.”
“Whatever the attitude is, she expects to see you on Sunday morning by the Serpentine, at eight o’clock.”
“Eight? In the morning? B’gad, Artie, I can’t meet anyone at that hour—it’s positively indecent.”
“No help for it, Adrian.” Reagham said innocently. “The chit herself specified the hour. Said it was safest.”
“Well, perhaps it is. The game’s worth it, I suppose.”
“Adrian, you ain’t taken with her yourself, are you?” Reagham asked with suspicion.
“She’ll do well enough, ain’t I said so? But she’s mighty well endowed, and you ain’t the only one I owe to, Artie. And she owes me for the embarrassment I suffered at the Green Falconer, and for the facer that black-browed braggart planted me.” Ratherscombe’s look changed from well-bred avarice to positive malevolence. “I wonder who it is she
’s pining for, if it ain’t me?”
“Damned if I know. Look, Adrian, you’ve nothing you can advance me for this afternoon’s work, have you?”
“Leave off, Artie. There won’t be nothing until I have my hands on Emmy’s money. And Emmy,” he added, with a smile.
Reagham, a realist at the worst of times, shrugged and loosed his cousin’s sleeve. “Well enough, come round and tell me how your marriage goes when you’re a husband. With the four hundred you owe me.”
Ratherscombe nodded civilly and walked away, his mind full of plots and speculation, leaving his cousin to make his own way back to his lodgings, not even a farthing richer than he had begun that morning.
o0o
Emily’s behavior for the next few days was baffling both to Lady Graybarr and to Jenny. Where, following the opera, she had been unnaturally subdued and mannerly, she was now animated almost to the point of hysteria, but incapable, it seemed, of leaving the house. “Almost as if she were expecting someone or something,” Jenny hazarded. Even on those afternoons when Peter Teverley appeared, Emily showed no signs of her excitement abating. She was playful and pretty in her manners, but seemed somehow preoccupied. When Peter Teverley and Domenic appeared one afternoon and requested the company of Miss Prydd and Miss Pellering for a drive to Richmond, Emily amazed everyone-including herself-by pleading fatigue and suggesting that they enlist Mirabelle Temple, who was present, to go along with them. Jenny on her part felt that there was some impropriety in her going if Emily did not. But then Mirabelle Temple added her pleas to Domenic’s. And Peter Teverley looked at Jenny with his peculiar half-amused, half-challenging stare and at last Jenny assented to the plan.
“Although I’m still not convinced that I should go,” she murmured as Teverley wheeled westward toward Richmond.
“My dear Prydd—ah—Jenny. You’ve been released of your charge for the afternoon! Enjoy it!” Teverley suggested enthusiastically. “And if Dom can keep that pretty widgeon properly away from me”—he nodded at Mirabelle, who chattered noisily to Dom and was unaware that she had become a topic of conversation among her fellows— “I shall endeavor to enjoy my holiday as well.”
“What are you holidaying from?” Jenny asked.
“You think to accuse me of frittering my time away as uselessly as any sprig of fashion, don’t you, my dear?” Teverley smiled down at her. “My entire stay in London is in the nature of a holiday for me, especially since I received word from India yesterday of indications that I may well have to return before the year is out. And I’ve been closeted here with lawyers and clerks since that time, trying to straighten out some things I left to others to do here—and should not have done.”
Jenny disregarded the sinking feeling this news engendered in her. “So you are putting your affairs here back in order so that you will be free to return, is that it?”
“If I must,” Teverley said briefly.
“You must be pleased with the chance to return to India, surely?” she asked.
“My dear Prydd—damn it!—Jenny. I beg your pardon. No, having been back in my own country for a mere four months, I find that I had missed her, and don’t particularly care to go traveling just now. It may prove unnecessary, and in any case, I should not have to leave here before the winter begins.”
“But sailing in the winter—isn’t that dangerous?” Quick concern filled her voice.
Teverley looked a little gratified by this show of feeling, but said only: “Sailing at any time, with our waters threatened by Bonaparte’s adherents and the various pirates and idiots who manage the seas these days, is never particularly safe, ma’am. I shall be all right, I’m sure.”
“Pirates, perhaps. Bonaparte and his company, certainly. But idiots?”
“Idiots one finds everywhere, even on the high seas, my dear Prydd—”
“Jenny,” she corrected automatically. “Oh, heavens, now you have me doing that!”
“Delightful,” Teverley assured her. “I thought I would prevail upon you at last. After all, we are almost family by this time.” He eased his carriage skillfully to the side of the road to let a mail coach, inexpertly driven by a very foxed young man, tremble past at appalling speed. He did not elaborate on his last comment, but continued, nodding over his shoulder at the retreating mail coach. “Idiots, as I said, one finds everywhere, and they are the greatest danger there is—to themselves and everyone else.”
“Indeed.” Jenny swallowed.
For a few minutes the only sound came from Mirabelle Temple, chattering at a bemused Dom.
“Have I offended you?” Teverley asked at last.
“No, certainly not.” Jenny smiled up at him. “I only wonder—”
“Yes?”
“What has brought you to such a mood, where you must inveigh against the idiots of the world. Not that you have not ample cause, I suppose, but you do seem a bit overwrought.”
“If I were to explain it to you, you would call me the worst bore you had ever encountered, as well as shockingly uncivil to worry you with my frustrations.”
“If I have asked the question, I can hardly accuse you of prosing on unprovoked. But if you would rather not speak of it—-explain it, indeed, for I’ve no notion of business, as you may imagine—then that is certainly your privilege.”
“You make me sound the worst prig in history,” Teverley protested. “I simply had thought you would not be interested.”
“Mr. Teverley.” He looked down at her. “I am interested. Particularly if it means that I do not have to listen, for the fourth time, to Miss Temple’s recitation of the gowns her mamma has ordered for her this week.”
Thus Peter Teverley found himself engaged to explain a portion of his business dealings to Miss Prydd as the carriage wheeled toward Richmond, and when they had arrived, she found that she had a fair notion of the problem he was confronting. In between dutifully made remarks admiring the ducks and the vistas, they continued their discussion. To Teverley’s surprise, Jenny not only listened attentively and with some intelligence, but made, now and then, such comments and suggestions as indicated that she was not only interested but rather good at solving such problems. Jenny, on her part, was surprised to find that Teverley was quite ready to accept her criticisms and her ideas, or at least to argue with her about them until he saw the point of her comment.
“But I had no notion to tell you how to run your business,” she protested at one point.
“Nor have I any notion of allowing you to do so,” he agreed.-”But if you make an intelligent suggestion, I would be a fool to refuse to listen to it, wouldn’t I?”
“All I said was from a little curiosity and a bit of common sense.”
“Which is more than a good number of your sex—or any of my own—allow themselves to exhibit.” Teverley nodded toward Mirabelle, who still rattled on behind them. “My dear Prydd, common sense is not particularly common among either sex, especially among the people of fashion.”
“But that is where you have it, sir. I am not a member of the ton, despite Emily’s attempts to make me appear so. A plain, sensible countrywoman. If William had lived to be a clergyman, what a clergyman’s housekeeper I should have made!”
“William?” Teverley steered her away from the green river toward the carriage. “It is time, I suppose, that we began to return to town. I am sure you have engagements, as Miss Temple must as well.” He paused. “Who was William?” He motioned for Domenic and Miss Temple to join them at the carriage.
“My brother. I mentioned him to you once before, I think—he died many years ago, and while I was fond of him—indeed, he was my favorite in the family—he could also be the most horrendous tease.”
“In which case, he might have made a rather lamentable clergyman.” Teverley tossed her neatly into the carriage.
“Yes, perhaps, but I would have made the most splendid housekeeper for him! I would have had an establishment, and my concerns, and church work, perhaps some books and music, if he
had a good living, and—of course, if he had married, I should have ended with my Aunt Winchell all the same.”
“And your Aunt Winchell is the lady, I collect, with whom you make your home, when you are not rescuing dim-witted damsels from elopements.”
“I was not the hero on that occasion,” Jenny demurred.
“No, I was, and have been made to pay for it ever since. Look you, Prydd my dear, have you any notion of how I can shift Miss Pellering’s tendre for me to a worthier candidate? Domenic, perhaps?”
“I wish I did, sir. No matter what I say, or her mother, or even you—unless you were to be unconscionably rude to her, and even then, I am not sure that that would make an impression upon her!—Well, I can only suggest that you ignore it and put up with it,” Jenny ran on, horrified by the fact that she couldn’t really stop. If she did, she would only ask him why he made such frequent visits to the Graybarrs’ house if he so disliked Emily’s adoration. “Until she finds a new—”
“Who is this?” Miss Temple broke in from the rear seat, where she and Domenic had broken off their conversation and were listening with no little interest to that of Teverley and Miss Prydd.
“Someone with whom I have dealt business,” Teverley said calmly, strongly suppressing the urge to box the girl’s ears. “I have been explaining my business to Miss Prydd, who has been kind enough to make some very sound suggestions, which I mean to consider closely.” He smiled again at Jenny. “I intend it, you know,” he continued, when Mirabelle and Domenic had returned to their own conversation. “Especially as regards your comments about the overseers’ families on the plantation.”
“Only a little common sense.” Jenny answered, a little overwhelmed. “The sort of answer we might come up with in my church work.”
“What a pity you are not a businesswoman, Prydd my dear. You’re wasted on your aunt’s nursery and your curate’s problems.” He clucked at the horses impatiently.
As they returned to London they spoke of more general things, so that Domenic and Miss Temple were able to join in. When at last they had returned to the Graybarrs’ house, Jenny was able to assure her hosts that she had rarely enjoyed a holiday more, and blushed only slightly when Teverley bowed over her hand and assured her that he had enjoyed his holiday greatly as well.
My Dear Jenny Page 9