by Jane Toombs
"I expect Edward is quite well,” Deirdre said, rather more tartly than she had intended, “and will reappear when it suits his fancy to do so.” Although she found it difficult, Deirdre did her best to keep her anger at Edward concealed, even from Alcida.
"Phoebe is even more puzzled than I am by what happened at the Hall,” Alcida said. “As you and I were both aware, Edward had been paying considerable attention to her despite her betrothal and I suspect she considered him to be one of her many conquests. So she must have suffered gall and wormwood to have you be the center of attention both at the picnic and afterward."
"There is absolutely nothing for either of you to be puzzled about,” Deirdre said, “since the entire matter is easily explained. After the three of us, Edward, myself, and Clive, sought shelter from the rain in the Pantheon, Edward told us he had been summoned to town on a matter of great urgency and Clive was kind enough to offer to escort me back to the Hall. I fail to find what happened either puzzling or mysterious."
This had been her account of the incident from the very beginning and, since it was the truth as far as it went, which, she was forced to admit to herself, was not a very great distance, Deirdre was able to relate it without feeling too uncomfortable or finding herself entangled in the revealing contradictions that were so often the residue of lies.
"Poor dear Clive,” Alcida said. “Vincent tells me he continues to struggle against his despondency, but with little success. I do wish Phoebe would agree to set a date for their wedding instead of keeping him dangling."
"Perhaps Phoebe is having second thoughts about marriage, whether to Clive or to someone else. I suspect Phoebe may be coming to realize no man, Clive included, can be trusted.” If Phoebe had not, Deirdre told herself, she most certainly should.
Alcida gave her sister a sharp glance. “Why, whatever do you mean? I never heard you speak so bitterly before, so cynically. Surely gentlemen are no better or worse than women."
"I fear the books you read, Alcida, give you a false picture of men. Few if any men, at least those of my acquaintance, resemble the heroes of literature. They care for no one but themselves, they seek only the gratification of their senses."
"Not Clive Chadbourne. And certainly not Vincent. Can you possibly imagine a kinder, gentler, more thoughtful man than Dr. Leicester?"
"What you say only proves the truth of the proverb—love is blind. Not,” Deirdre hastened to add, “that I have any reason to think ill of Dr. Leicester. He may well possess all the virtues you claim for him."
Alcida reddened. “Love? How did you—"
She looked quickly away, her face hidden by her parasol. When she turned to Deirdre, tears were glistening in her eyes. “I do love Vincent,” she admitted. “I love him with all my heart.” Alcida shook her head sadly. “And he cares not one whit for me. How could he when every time he looks at me—” Her fingers ran along her scarred cheek, brushing away her tears. “Oh, Deirdre,” she cried, “how miserable I am. What am I to do?"
Deirdre took Alcida in her arms and hugged her. What could she tell her sister? How could she comfort her when Alcida's fears were probably justified? No man could be trusted to see past a scarred face to a kind and loving heart. “There will be someone for you,” she whispered, “someday. I promise you there will."
Alcida drew in a deep breath and stepped back. “I will try to believe,” she said dully, without conviction, “that there will be somebody, someday. Oh, Deirdre, what would I ever do without you?"
Deirdre felt a sharp pang of guilt. Only the evening before she had written to her grandmother suggesting she be invited to East Sussex for the Christmas holiday. A short visit that Deirdre hoped she would be able to extend indefinitely.
"You would do very well without me,” Deirdre said even as she wondered what the future might hold for Alcida. Would she become, as she evidently feared, a spinster? There were worse fates, Deirdre told herself.
"I detest self-pity,” Alcida said as they started back to the Darrington house. Attempting a smile, she changed the subject. “Did I tell you I was re-reading Castle Rackrent, one of Maria Edgeworth's Irish tales, a most lively and rewarding novel and therefore certain to raise my spirits? Men may disappoint, but books seldom do."
They left the park, Deirdre locking the gate behind them, just as a young gentleman of the ton, a stranger to Deirdre, drove by in his curricle. He glanced idly at the two sisters, touched his hat, looked away and then back again to stare at Deirdre. As they walked across the cobbled street, Deirdre noticed that the young man was on his way around the square and, as they climbed the steps to the Darrington house, he drove past them again, a great deal more slowly this time, his gaze fixed on Deirdre.
"Who can he be?” Alcida asked after they entered the house. “Are you acquainted with him? I suspect you have attracted a secret admirer."
Deirdre shook her head. “He might possibly have been at the Harmon ball, but I have no recollection of dancing with him or speaking to him or even seeing him, none at all."
"How strange. He stared at you as though he knew you, or thought he did and for some reason wanted to be certain.” She touched Deirdre lightly on the arm. “Do you recall that elderly couple? When we were on our way to the outing at Harmon Hall, remember how they stared at you, much the way this young man did?"
Deirdre nodded. “Perhaps someone who makes her home in London resembles me,” she suggested. “After all, there must be thousands upon thousands of young women my age living here in town."
"With your flaming red hair? And residing in Mayfair? Surely I would have noticed anyone as distinctive looking as you, Deirdre, and yet I never have."
At dinner that evening, the family offered their solutions to the mystery.
"I must agree with Deirdre,” Sybil said. “She no doubt bears a resemblance to someone, a young lady we have never met because she is newly arrived in town."
"I have a rather different notion,” Roger Darrington said. “Is it possible that the elderly couple and the young man have all seen Deirdre in East Sussex, perhaps recently, perhaps some years ago, and now are surprised to find her here in London?"
"In my opinion,” Phoebe put in, “the entire matter is nothing more than a figment of my two sisters’ over-lively imaginations. They have succeeded in transforming the idle glances of strangers, probably occasioned by nothing more than the sight of Deirdre's unruly red hair, into enraptured stares."
Alcida shook her head. “It was not my imagination,” she protested with uncommon fervor.
Phoebe, rising from the table, tossed her head in dismissal. “I myself have been the object of many stares and sidelong glances, but I have never seen fit to make them a subject for dinner table discussion.” She walked away from the table.
"Phoebe!” Sybil called after her.
Phoebe turned in the doorway, obviously surprised at her mother's harsh tone.
"Phoebe,” Sybil said, more softly, “I consider your remarks both unkind and uncalled for. You will apologize to your sisters at once."
Alcida stared across the table at her mother, mouth agape, glanced at Deirdre, then looked at Phoebe. Her father, Deirdre noted, gave Sybil a slight nod, leaving her with the impression that he was not at all surprised by his wife's reprimand, that he might, in fact, have had something to do with it.
Phoebe started to speak, stopped, and for a moment Deirdre expected her to flounce defiantly from the room. Instead, she nodded to Deirdre and Alcida. “If my attempt at truth-telling inadvertently wounded either of you, I most certainly apologize."
Alcida leaned to Deirdre. “She means not a word of it,” she whispered.
Phoebe expects too much, Deirdre thought, admiration—nay, adulation—wealth, social position, she sees all these things and much, much more as her due in life. Since few people ever acquired all they wanted, Phoebe would suffer until she lowered her sights.
"To my way of thinking,” Alcida went on, speaking so only Deirdre could hear,
“Phoebe has a mean and nasty spirit, pure and simple. I can still recall Phoebe giving herself airs and ordering me about when I was small, making me fetch and carry for her if I wanted to be rewarded by her companionship."
Phoebe did make herself difficult to like, Deirdre admitted to herself, but Deirdre still, despite all the slights and put-downs she had received from Phoebe, felt a sympathy for her stepsister that she was unable to explain. If only Phoebe were less beautiful, Deirdre told herself, as well as not so spoiled, her expectations might not be so high. And Phoebe might be a much happier and contented young lady.
Later that evening, as Deirdre was on her way to her bed chamber, she heard someone playing the pianoforte in the music room. Looking in from the doorway, she saw Phoebe at the keyboard, softly singing the sad strains of Clive's favorite song, “Jamie Douglas."
"'Fare thee well, Jamie Douglas!
Fare thee well, my ever dear to me!
Fare thee well, Jamie Douglas,
Fare thee well ... ‘"
The song, Deirdre recalled, was the lament of a young woman cruelly abandoned by her wealthy Scottish husband. It represented, she told herself, thinking of Edward's betrayal, a warning that most women failed to heed—men were not to be trusted.
Deirdre, on an impulse, went into the music room and sat unobserved until Phoebe finished the last stanza of the ballad. “Such a sad, sad song,” she said softly so as not to unduly startle her stepsister. With a slight start of her own, she realized that she had come to consider Alcida her sister while she continued to think of Phoebe as merely a stepsister.
Phoebe played a few dissonant chords before turning on the piano bench to look at Deirdre. “Mercy,” she said coolly, “here we have the young lady who attracts so much attention from passing strangers. And also the last person to see Edward before his sudden disappearance from Harmon Hall. I wonder if you just happened to say something to him that caused him to leave so abruptly."
What could Phoebe have in mind? “I think not,” Deirdre said.
"He was quite amiable and certainly attentive while the two of us were nutting, never hinting at business in town, and then later he left without a word to anyone except you and Clive. Is it possible you cast some aspersions on me, spun some lurid tale from your fertile imagination for his benefit."
Deirdre was outraged. “I most certainly did nothing of the sort. I never discussed you with Edward, I never have and I never will."
"I wonder. If what you claim is true, his rude behavior toward me is quite inexplicable."
Deirdre quelled her annoyance and leaned forward, eager to do whatever she could to make peace. “Phoebe,” she pleaded, “when I came to live here, I hoped we could become friends, if not at first, then in time. Can we? Will you allow me to be your friend?"
"But we are friends as well as sisters.” Phoebe smiled coldly. “Your father says we are, my mother agrees with him as she is wont to do, and so we must be friends, the very best of friends."
Deirdre stood and, too angry and exasperated to answer, walked to the door where she turned to look at Phoebe. “A friendly word of warning ... Edward is everything they accuse him of being, for all his wealth and charm, all his compliments and other pleasantries, Edward is a rake and not to be trusted."
Phoebe rose slowly from the piano bench. “And how did you come by this intimate knowledge of Edward's character? Is it possible, Deirdre, that after dangling for him and failing to land him you lowered your opinion of him? Could it be, Deirdre, that you have failed to tell us everything that occurred your visit to the Pantheon?"
Sorry she had spoken, Deirdre said, “I thought I should warn you about Edward, for your sake. Whether you heed the warning or not is up to you."
Phoebe crossed the room to Deirdre. “The reason for your so-called warning is quite obvious to me,” she said in a low, intense voice. “You, Deirdre, are obviously jealous of me. From the first day you came into this house, you envied me. In the beginning, because of Clive Chadbourne, because you wanted Clive for yourself and were devastated when he chose me."
Deirdre, realizing the hopelessness of talking rationally to Phoebe, shook her head. “I was never envious of you."
"You may shake your head as much as you wish and deny the truth time after time, but I can tell from the guilt written on your face how right I am. And then, after you lost Clive to me, there was Edward. You noticed him being attentive to me and you decided to try your best to entice him away from me by wearing that disgraceful gown to the picnic at Harmon Hall."
Deirdre could only shake her head in denial.
"Everyone was either aghast when they saw you,” Phoebe went on, “or they were laughing at you behind your back. You never realized that, did you, Deirdre? And when you failed to entrap Edward with your wiles, you must have told him something about me that caused him to leave the Hall without a word of explanation."
"Good-night, Phoebe.” Deirdre whirled around and walked to the stairs.
"Everyone at the picnic was laughing at you,” Phoebe called after her.
I belong in East Sussex, not here in London, Deirdre told herself as she lay in bed waiting impatiently for sleep to come. On the other hand, Phoebe had thrown down the gauntlet to her and to leave town now would seem like an ignominious retreat, would mean giving a gloating Phoebe sole possession of the field of battle. And she would be deserting poor Alcida, leaving her without a champion, without a friend.
How impossibly self-centered Phoebe was, believing whatever happened to Edward or anyone else must be because of her, because of Miss Phoebe Langdon, the only person who deserved to be the center of attention in all of the known world as well as in the terra incognito, a young lady who buttressed her belief in her own importance with complicated tales of betrayal concocted from truths, half-truths and complete fabrications.
How could she ever come to consider such a schemer as her sister? Deirdre asked herself. And yet her grandmother always insisted that good lay within every heart, good that would eventually make itself known if only one was patient enough. Was that true? Clive, despite what he had done, meant well. But how could she ever forgive Edward's atrocious behavior? Or explain away Phoebe's cruel and unjust taunts?
I must not allow her to upset me, Deirdre told herself, even as she admitted that, from time to time, Phoebe's barbs struck distressingly close to her heart. What shall I do? she wondered. Shall I stay here or go home to East Sussex? she asked herself as she slipped into sleep, little realizing that the question would be answered for her within the next twenty-four hours. In a quite startling and dramatic fashion.
* * * *
The three sisters and Sybil were alone in the house the next afternoon, Mr. Darrington having business with his solicitor in the City, when Clive Chadbourne was announced. Clive, Deirdre noted with a rush of hope, looked more buoyant than she had seen him since his return to England. No matter what had passed between them, she longed for him recover from his terrible experience in battle.
"Do you recall,” he said to Alcida after a hurried and perfunctory exchange of pleasantries, “a conversation you and I had while at Harmon Hall?"
Alcida, flustered at being singled out, shook her head. “You must remember,” Clive persisted. “It concerned something that happened here in town when you and Deirdre entered you carriage on your way to the Hall."
Alcida nodded. “I recall telling you about an elderly couple staring and nodding at Deirdre as if they recognized her.” When Clive started speak, she added, “In fact, we had a very similar experience only yesterday.” She glanced at Phoebe as though expecting her sister to again suggest her story was more imagination than face, but Phoebe merely raised her eyebrows expressively.
"With the same couple?” Clive asked.
"No, this time a young man driving a curricle made a circuit of the park so he could return for a second look at Deirdre."
Clive nodded. “Just so, Alcida. I am surprised, not at the two occurrences you desc
ribe, but because there have not been many more than two. At all events, last evening I solved the puzzle. I now know why Deirdre has attracted the attention of strangers on the streets of Mayfair and, if you four ladies will be kind enough to don your wraps and accompany me, I shall be most happy to take you where you will be able to witness the explanation of the mystery with your own eyes."
CHAPTER 13
"Where are we bound?” Phoebe asked as Clive's traveling chaise turned onto Swallow Street
.
"To Queen Anne Street
,” he told her.
"Queen Anne?” she echoed. “We have no acquaintances there."
"Quite right,” Clive said. “Neither your family nor I do."
"Then why—” Phoebe began.
"The answer to that question must wait until we arrive at Queen Anne Street
. My surprise would be a great disappointment, in fact would be no surprise at all if I revealed it now."
They rode on in an expectant though puzzled silence until the chaise stopped in front of a respectable though not grand house on a street of other respectable though not grand houses. As they stepped down from the carriage, Deirdre saw a couple entering the house nod to two gentlemen who were leaving.
Deirdre pulled her paisley shawl tightly around her to ward off the chill of the north wind sweeping down the street and, accompanied by Sybil and Alcida, followed Clive and Phoebe along the walkway to the house. One of the departing gentlemen, florid-faced and graying, glanced at her casually, blinked, and then stared, open-mouthed. When she frowned, he looked away, evidently embarrassed.
Rather than using the bell pull, Clive opened the door himself and ushered them inside. Once in the front hall, Deirdre was surprised to find no one, neither servant nor host, to greet them.
"I suggest we all keep our wraps on,” Clive said, “since unfortunately the heating here is practically nonexistent. The housekeeping, I fear, also leaves a great deal to be desired. Of course we came not for warmth nor to view a well-ordered household."
Why have we come here? Deirdre wondered.