Having punctuated the story with proper exclamations of amazement and horror, Lady Beresford summed it up at last: ‘A hoyden indeed, and an impostor to boot. But what purpose, think you—if indeed he is behind it—can Mainwaring hope to serve by this imposture? And, truly, my dearest creature, from what you tell me of his behaviour to her at your house, it is hard to believe him enamoured of her.’
‘No, I confess, I had no idea of such a thing. Had you but seen his fury when she came cantering up, all blowsy with exercise, on his Lightning, you would have thought him safe enough. But how else to account for his foisting her upon his grandmother?’
‘It is indeed a puzzle,’ said her friend. ‘Or,—I believe I have it! Could it be for a wager? My dearest life, that is it for a certainty. And, if so, Mainwaring will not thank us for spoiling his game. There must be a fortune at stake or, so wild as he is, he would never have involved his grandmother.’
Lady Laverstoke looked doubt and then, slowly, conviction. ‘You must be right. But how then shall we proceed? What shall I do when, as I apprehend I will, I meet my former governess at Almack’s?’
‘Why, that is easy. Behave as if you have never seen her before in your life and tell Laverstoke he must do the same. Only think of the anguish the silly creature will suffer wondering when you will choose to expose her. It is almost better than to do it at once. For she will be in a sad puzzle to account for your not recognising her.’
‘But are we then to let her get off scot free?’ asked Lady Laverstoke.
Here was a difficulty. Neither lady had the slightest inclination to show mercy to Jennifer, but both were extremely anxious not to offend Mainwaring, Lady Beresford because she began to think his engagement would come to nothing and had hopes of his hand for her daughter, Lady Laverstoke because she had similar ambitions on her own account.
‘And besides,’ said Lady Laverstoke, summing up much that had been unspoken between them. ‘It would be the greatest pity in the world to do anything precipitate and so alienate his grandmother from him.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed her friend. ‘I do not like to think what she would do if she were to learn what kind of a ladybird Mainwaring has foisted upon her. We must proceed, my dearest creature, with the greatest circumspection.’
So agreed, they admired each other’s toilettes and left for Almack’s. To Lady Laverstoke’s relief, she found her son positively there before her and took him aside to prepare him for a meeting with Miss Fairbank. He looked amazed.
‘Miss Fairbank? Here? You are roasting me, ma’am. I always thought Miss Fairbank a prime article, but to get herself here is a trifle above her touch.’
‘You might well think so, Charles, but you will find yourself mistaken. Only, I must beg you to do nothing to disclose her true identity!’
‘What? Let her get away with it? Mother, that is the outside of enough. Only consider what those starchy lady patronesses would say if they knew.’
‘That is exactly what I am thinking of. Imagine the scandal. And she is living, I must tell you, in Grosvenor Square with the Duchess of Lewes.’
‘With Mainwaring’s grandmother!’ He let out a low whistle. ‘Sits the wind in that corner. Very well, ma’am, I am dumb. But may I not tease her a little with our previous acquaintance? No need to say where or when, after all?’
This seemed entirely reasonable to his mother, who had never objected to his teasing his horse or dogs—or even his younger brothers and sister—when he was a boy. He left her almost at once and made his way through the crowded rooms, eager to find Miss Fairbank and commence operations.
But when he found her, she was in animated conversation with Pamela and the Duke of Devonshire, of whom he was in considerable awe. It did not, somehow, seem the moment to begin his campaign. And, besides, he had not seen Pamela for several years and now found her most remarkably improved from the shy miss he remembered. He begged her hand for the waltz that was then commencing, was accepted, and forgot all about Jennifer.
She meanwhile, having steeled herself for this moment ever since the morning’s near encounter with Lady Laverstoke, was amazed and relieved to receive nothing more than a conventional bow and greeting. Could it be that he and his mother would not expose her after all? As the agonising evening wore slowly away, she began to think that this must indeed be the case. It was impossible, but it must be true. She could not understand it. She saw Lady Laverstoke in deep confabulation with Lady Beresford and soon afterwards received haughty but impeccable notice from both. The disaster that had loomed so large before her all day was incomprehensibly postponed. Could it be that they feared the scandal of a scene at Almack’s? Or did they hesitate to expose her for fear of the shock to the Duchess? Whatever the reason, for tonight it seemed that she was safe.
For the hundredth time she looked eagerly round the room for Lord Mainwaring. If only he would come and she could ask his advice in her new predicament. But he was doubtless celebrating his morning’s victory in the arms of Harriette Wilson. Furious with him, and with herself for her fury, she took the floor to waltz so vigorously with the Duke that Mrs Drummond Burrell raised her eyebrows and Lady Laverstoke and Lady Beresford exchanged one silent, speaking look.
CHAPTER XII
As for Mainwaring, he had spent a maddening day in pursuit of Jennifer, who must be told of Mandeville’s silencing. Calling in Grosvenor Square at what he considered the earliest possible moment, he had found her just ridden out; returning, later, he had learned from his friend the butler that Lady Beresford was in possession of the field, and had retired without leaving his name. He was in no mood for his aunt. The butler, however, had told him that the Duchess and Jennifer were engaged to Lady Sefton and he had gone there, hoping for a quiet moment with Jennifer, but had encountered Charles Laverstoke on the way. This was a fresh shock. Jennifer must be warned of the Laverstokes’ presence in town. But Charles, who was genuinely fond of his formidable guardian, proved hard to shake off and Mainwaring arrived at Lady Sefton’s only to learn that his grandmother and Jennifer had just left for Almack’s. His luck was out indeed, for Lord Sefton then pounced on him with a long account of a recently contested by-election in one of his boroughs. It was impossible not to listen politely to his host and essential to pretend an interest in a subject supposed to be so near to his heart. When he finally managed to disengage himself, it was only to realise with something like despair that it was half past ten and he was wearing trousers. There was no hope of getting home, changing into the knee breeches essential for Almack’s and reaching there before the doors’ inexorable closing at eleven o’clock.
He spent a bad-tempered, restless evening wandering between various clubs and gaming houses in St James’s, choosing them more for their nearness to King Street and therefore to Almack’s than from any preference of his own. He did not admit to himself that he hoped, by ‘accident’ to encounter his grandmother and Jennifer on their way home, but the fact remained that he spent a remarkable amount of time in and about King Street. Inevitably, as he went from place to place, meeting a friend here, joining in a game of cards there, he drank rather more than he would have if he had fixed himself in one spot. This did nothing to improve his temper. It had been a long, hard day; in fact, he reminded himself, saying an irritable goodnight to the doorman at Brooks’, it had been two hard days; he had not been to bed at all the night before. It was not surprising that he was feeling a considerable effect from the wine he had drunk.
But at last his patience, such as it was, was rewarded. Loitering in the doorway of Frank’s Parlour in King Street, he heard, from across the road, the stentorian cry for the Duchess of Lewes’s carriage. He said a brisk farewell to the friends to whom he had been saying a slow one for ten minutes and walked casually across the road, arriving at the entrance of Almack’s as the Duchess and Jennifer came out to the carriage. But, to his fury, he saw that they were accompanied by Pamela and, of all people, Charles Laverstoke. Impossible to speak freely in fr
ont of them. He ground his teeth—a habit for which his nurse had often rebuked him as a child—and watched, from the shadows, as Laverstoke handed the ladies into the carriage. Then he came forward, greeted, and firmly dismissed him. Charles Laverstoke was far from pleased; he had counted on seeing Pamela home and thus cementing their new friendship; but he was too thoroughly in awe of his guardian, who looked more than usually formidable this evening, to protest. He turned reluctantly towards Bruton Street and dreams of Pamela.
Mainwaring, meanwhile, had given the coachman his orders and taken his seat in the carriage beside Jennifer. He was at once aware of a stiff withdrawal on her part and understood it when his grandmother began to twit him unmercifully about his duel with Mandeville.
‘I apprehend you think yourself heroic, George,’ she began the attack, ‘having wounded a poltroon in a duel about a piece of Covent Garden trash. Miss Fairbank and I were vastly entertained when we heard the story, were we not, Miss Fairbank?’
‘Oh, excessively.’ Jennifer seemed to shrink still further into her corner of the carriage.
‘And you are wounded yourself, I see.’ The old lady pointed her fan accusingly at the piece of court plaster with which he had covered the graze on his cheek. ‘Love’s scars indeed: I hope Miss Wilson has proved sufficiently grateful for the honour you have done her. But in truth, George, I am angry with you. Your grandfather killed his man, of course, but his opponent was worthy of his notice and it was politics, not petticoats they fought over. You have done yourself harm, I fear, among thinking people, by this day’s work, and if you will be ruled by me, you will find yourself some urgent business to take you out of town. Join your fat friend Prinney in Brighton, or find yourself a political pretext elsewhere, but at all costs get away and let the tittle-tattle die down. We can well spare your escort, now young Laverstoke is come to town, can we not, Miss Fairbank.’
‘Oh, admirably,’ said Jennifer. ‘We have managed excellently well tonight under his care.’
‘And the Duke’s,’ said the Duchess, ‘it would be ungrateful in you, child, to forget the Duke of Devonshire who did much, I apprehend, to make your evening pleasant.’
‘I would not forget him for the world,’ said Jennifer, delighted with this opportunity of making clear to Mainwaring how little she had missed his company.
He ground his teeth silently, realising, too late, that in his anxiety to protect Jennifer’s good name he had done his work too well. To Jennifer herself he might, he thought, have explained the true reasons for his duel with Mandeville, but not now, not since he had felt her scorn and seen how easily she believed the story against him. Surely she should have realised that he had used Harriette merely to spare her? Having failed to observe Jennifer’s quick retreat in the park that morning, he was not aware that she had been a witness to the flaunted flirtation with Harriette Wilson by which he had hoped to lend credence to that explanation of the duel. It seemed, therefore, to him that Jennifer had decided against him on the very slightest of grounds. He was in doubt whether to be angrier at her stupidity, or at her readiness, after all he had done for her, to believe ill of him. But if that was what she thought of him, very well, he was glad to have discovered it. He proceeded to take the best revenge he could by paying his entire attention to Pamela and talking to her extensively about his friends, the Laverstokes, sure that with every reference to them he must be increasing Jennifer’s anxieties. When they reached the Beresfords’ house in Bruton Street, he took his leave of his grandmother.
‘You have Miss Fairbank’s admirable company; you can have no need of mine.’ His tone made it an insult to Jennifer, to whom he contrived to pay no further attention while taking an elaborate farewell of the Duchess.
‘Think well of my advice,’ she reminded him. ‘You had much best leave London for a while.’
‘Ma’am, you have already persuaded me. I shall go down to Sussex tomorrow. I recollect that my esteemed uncle-to-be spoke of a forthcoming meeting of the Hampden Club at which he anticipated some trouble with the more radical elements in the district.’ (His tongue blurred a little on the words and he pulled himself more upright as he leaned in at the carriage door.) ‘I shall be happier, I am sure, talking sense to his Sussex bumpkins than exchanging nonsenses with Harriette and her kind.’ He closed the carriage door with a bang and none too steadily, helped Pamela up the steps to her front door.
His grandmother, meanwhile, had settled comfortably back against the squabs. ‘Remarkable,’ she said conversationally. ‘In all his thirty-five years, I do not recollect ever to have seen George disguised before. Miss Wilson must be attractive indeed.’ She waited for Jennifer’s answer.
But Jennifer was too angry to speak.
As for Mainwaring, waking next morning with a rending headache, he convinced himself that he was delighted Miss Fairbank would never know he had fought his duel on her account. His grandmother was right, although, of course, for the wrong reasons. The sooner he left town the better. But could he honourably do so leaving Jennifer in what had become a highly explosive situation? Apparently, from Laverstoke’s amicable presence with them last night, he and his mother had made no sign of recognition on encountering their vanished governess at Almack’s. But that might well have been out of respect for the portentous lady patronesses. No doubt Lady Laverstoke’s first action, this morning, would be to hurry round with the whole amazing story to his grandmother, or, worse still, to Lady Beresford who, he remembered, was a strong friend of hers. He groaned, drank a little more soda water and looked at his watch. As he had feared, it was very late indeed. Whatever Lady Laverstoke’s first action might be, it was far too late to prevent it. Cursing himself for a bungler, he began angrily to shuffle through his post letters. Bills, bills, invitations, bills, a political manifesto—and then a delicately scented lavender-coloured note in Lady Laverstoke’s unmistakably illegible hand. Her first action, it seemed, had been to write to him, and in the most affectionate terms too. Not for the first time, as he deciphered the much-crossed, spidery handwriting, he cursed his friend Laverstoke who had died leaving him his children’s guardian and therefore subject to his widow’s unwelcome advances. The letter seemed to be about nothing whatever, or rather a concatenation of nothings. He threw it down angrily and drank some more soda water, thinking about his friends and the trouble they had brought on him. Laverstoke’s wife, the Purchases’ sister...Odd, he thought again, that she, too, should be a Jennifer. A Cornish name. Was Miss Fairbank perhaps a fugitive from some fierce moronic Cornishman? Well, the sooner she went back home to him, the better for everyone. Thinking of her, he caught sight of her name on the second, still unread page of Lady Laverstoke’s letter and, thus aroused, applied himself once again to deciphering it. At last he made it out. With much would-be kittenish teasing and much hinted self-praise for her silence, Lady Laverstoke accused him of foisting her ex-governess on his grandmother for a bet. If she suspected more, and worse, she was far too much the lady even to hint at it. All she wanted, it seemed, was proper credit for her amazing discretion and that of Lady Beresford, whom, she boasted, she had contrived to silence.
So his aunt knew the story too. He crumpled the fragrant paper angrily in his hand. A bet. It was a lucky thought. Perhaps all might yet be well. But he must think it out...he must have time.
His head ached worse than ever. He rang for his man and demanded champagne. Getting it, and a reproachful look from Hudson, who had served him through the Peninsular war and thought him above such things, he applied himself to composing a letter to Lady Laverstoke which should at once satisfy and silence her—and tell her nothing. It was not easy and he was not altogether pleased with the result. Vying with her in the elegant saying of nothing, he seemed to have caught some of her coyness. But no doubt that would please her. And it would give him time to think of some stratagem for bringing his grandmother out of the imbroglio unscathed. Jennifer was unimportant; he no longer cared, he told himself, what became of her, but his gran
dmother must at all costs be protected from scene and scandal. Thinking thus, he conveniently forgot how she loved them both, reminding himself instead that the political meeting he had mentioned the night before was not for another week. He would take her first advice and pay a last bachelor visit to his friend the Prince Regent in Brighton before he gave himself up to meek Miss Purchas and marriage.
Receiving his note, Lady Laverstoke was delighted. If not, alas, a proposal of marriage, it seemed to her the next best thing, strong encouragement. Rereading it, she was less pleased. There was disappointingly little in it that one could get hold of. Though full of admiration at her perspicacity in deducing the bet that had placed Miss Fairbank in the Duchess’s house, he gave her oddly little information about it. But then, he had always been silent and secretive. Her problem now was to see that Lady Beresford maintained the silence he asked for without giving her any inkling of her own hopes.
This proved easier than she expected, for Lady Beresford had her own hopes about Mainwaring. Had he not brought Pamela home last night, ignoring the rival attractions of Miss Fairbank? And was not Pamela, today, in that wide-eyed dreamy state that to so experienced an eye as her mother’s betrayed the pangs of dawning love? It was disappointing, of course, to hear from Lady Laverstoke that Mainwaring had had to leave town suddenly on urgent business, but then, they reassured each other, there was the small matter of yesterday’s duel to be taken into account. He was doubtless well-advised to go away and let the resulting gossip die down. For each of them had her own reasons to be concerned for his political career. Lady Laverstoke fancied herself as the great Whig hostess, Lady Beresford thought how admirably she would control Pamela in a similar situation. Visions of salons bright in their heads, they answered each other somewhat at cross-purposes, but were too preoccupied with future bliss to notice it. The first point upon which they easily reached agreement was a compact of silence as to the odious Miss Fairbank. If Lord Mainwaring wished it, of course it should be so.
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