An Affair of the Heart (11 page)

“There is the door knocker,” Wanda broke in. “Oh, I
hope
it is the Langdons.”

* * * *

Homberly and Claymore left early in the afternoon for Bath, and by the next afternoon they had attended to such duties as entering their names in the subscription books at the Lower and New Assembly Rooms, and had strolled through Sydney Gardens to ogle the beauties. A considerable number of persons had already arrived, and when they entered the Pump Room, they were accosted by a pair of London bucks who formed part of their London set.

It was Rodney Lucknow who initiated the conversation. “So this is where you are slunk off to, Clay, with your tail between your legs.”

Clay looked at him with a quizzical frown on his brow. “Slunk off to? What do you mean by that, Lucknow?”

“As if all London don’t know about the blow the Rose dealt you, thumbing her nose at you after letting you dangle after her all Season. Well, I don’t blame you for ducking out, my friend. Can’t be much fun to be the subject of common gossip. Making a great story of it, the Rose. How you tried to get her to dash for Gretna Green and all.”

“How does Everleigh take it?” Clay asked, forcing down the ire that rose and burned his throat. “I am surprised he lets her make such a cake of herself.”

“Can’t do much till the knot’s tied. Daresay he’ll come down heavy then. On the other hand, though,
he
was spreading the story himself. Well, it would please a homely old fellow like him, I suppose, to know the Rose chose him over a young chap like you.”

The other fellow, Ivor Milthrong, added his two cents’ worth. “I thought you’d go into rustication at your country place till this blows over. Your mama’s at Claymore Hall, ain’t she?”

“Yes, she didn’t come to London at all this year.”

“You wouldn’t be any better off there then, for she’s as bad as any to turn the screw when the cards are stacked against you,” Ivor opined, with a quite careless mixing of his metaphors.

This slur on his parent would not have been borne but for the fact that Ivor was his cousin, and a special friend of his mama. Besides, it was true enough. Sometimes Clay thought he must have the most unnatural mother in the world. Nothing so pleased her as to have something to hold over your head, and pester you with. Did she commiserate if you lost a bundle, or took a degrading tumble from your horse, or lost a girl? No such a thing! She was tickled pink to be able to rag you. It was the reason he was so assiduously avoiding his own home at this time. Mama would have the whole story from her London cronies; even if she didn’t much bother with coming to town herself anymore, she took an overweaning interest in city happenings, particularly, of course, as they related to her son.

“Bath is as good a place to hide out as any,” Rex took it up. “Nobody here but a batch of old ladies. Wouldn’t be here myself but for the fact that Mama has that old falling-apart house at Laura Place.”

“You putting up at your mother’s house at Laura Place?” Ivor asked, hoping, perhaps, to exchange his barracks at Lucknow’s old falling-apart house for a superior dwelling in the same district

“Yes, but there’s only the one servant there, and we’re eating out.”

“Oh, I see.” Better a tumble-down house with meals than a mansion without.

“You’d have to face the public several times a day then,” Lucknow said, hoping to get a rise out of his friend. “Pity, that.”

Rex, belatedly, sprang to his friend’s defense. “Just goes to show you how little you know about it. Why, Clay has been on the verge of offering for another girl since that Golden Rose business. Got over her in no time. Always preferred brunettes. Just a passing fancy, you might say.”

“Who’s that, then?” Rodney asked, his interest quickening, not that he believed a word of it.

“One of the Wanderley girls,”
Rex told him.

“The Wanderleys—oh, one of
them,”
Ivor butted in. “I suppose you must mean Miss Wanda?”

“That’s it,” Rex replied with satisfaction. “And she’s got the Rose beat all hollow for looks too. Only a passing fancy, that’s all it was.”

Clay’s spirits sank even further as he remembered that Wanda, too, was about to announce her betrothal. It might appear in the papers today—yet another blow to his dignity. “It wasn’t Wanda, Rex,” he said helplessly.

“Ellie, then,”
Rex obediently changed his opinion.

“Ellie? Which one is she?” Ivor asked.

“Why, she’s the best of the lot,” Rex answered promptly. “Wonderfully taken with her, was Clay.”

“I don’t recall a Miss Ellie,” Rodney said. “Surely the girl’s name was Wanda.”

“There is a Wanda, but she ain’t the one Clay fancies,” Rex explained with great condescension.

“A beauty, is she?” Rodney persisted.

“An Incomparable,”
Rex returned.

“I am looking forward to meeting her,” Rodney said, and he looked so smug that there was every reason to doubt he believed the story.

“And so you will, next Season,”
Rex said.

“Stealing a march on us, you sly old dog,” Ivor chided his cousin. “Trying
get this one tied up before ever she hits the market.”

“You’ve learned something from your experience with the Rose,” Rodney added. “Not taking any chances. A hard teacher, experience, but an effective one.”

They continued in this bantering spirit for some time, till Claymore felt he could decently leave without appearing to run away.

“Hell and damnation,” he cursed softly when they were beyond earshot “It is just as I feared. Everyone is talking about it, laughing at me. I wish I
had
offered for Wanda.”

“Wouldn’t have done you no good, Clay. She was three-quarters engaged to Hibbard before ever we got there. Pity you hadn’t tumbled for Ellie, for she’d have done as well when you got her dolled up a bit.”

“That wouldn’t have done me any good either. She hates me.”

Rex looked at him, dumbfounded. “No, what do you mean, Clay? Ellie don’t hate you. Don’t hate anyone. Not that sort of a girl. Wanda now,
she’s
a hater. Fact, Clay. Hates me only because I happen to be an inch or so shorter than she is.”

“Forget about Wanda.”

“Forgot about her years ago. Haven’t had a bit of use for her ever since—well, never mind that.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Clay arose and dragged his companion from the Pump Room within two minutes of having taken a seat.

A dismal two weeks ensued. This was by no means because of the lack of amenities, for even if Bath had been eclipsed by Brighton, it still offered card parties, balls, concerts, assemblies, parks, pleasant drives, and plenty of company. A surfeit of company, it seemed, all of it full of two subjects: Rose’s jilting of himself, and her approaching nuptials. The town was buzzing with it. If they dined at the York Inn, they met the older set, who smiled pityingly; and if, to avoid them, they tried the White Hart, they met their own friends, which was even worse. Even the Pelican was not safe, for there would always be a few fellows with their pockets to let putting up at the cheaper establishment. Clay couldn’t eat a bite, and Rex was getting chubbier from eating for two.

While his male acquaintances made not the slightest demur in roasting him over his jilting, the females were even worse. Not that they roasted, but they were so commiserating. They looked at him as an object of pity. Every time he passed a pair of them, he heard whispers behind fans or raised fingers—”Rose,” “Miss Golden,” “jilted,” “Gretna Green,” till his head spun with it. He was of a proud disposition, but even the most humble soul would have been cast into despair at being so openly scorned and pitied.

Through it all there was the unsettling thought that he really could have been quite happy with Ellie. Never once had she mentioned the name of Miss Golden to him. She was damnably attractive, in her sister’s gown. Especially that night in the garden, at the assembly. She was not a forward girl like Miss Golden, or Wanda. No stolen kisses for her. She had very nearly knocked him off the seat when he had tried to take her hand. A violent temper the girl had. He could handle that. It was all an academic matter, however, as she had stated quite categorically that she loathed him, and was glad he had saved her the bother of rejecting his offer. Knew about his fortune and title too. Even that had not induced her to be conciliating toward him.

He was on the verge of going to Claymore Hall in Somerset and enduring his mother’s disparaging comments for a few weeks, till Rose’s wedding should be over, when it happened. He was walking down Milsom Street with Rex one afternoon, looking desultorily in a few shop windows, when he saw approaching Everleigh’s cousin, Aubrey Hansom. The sort of a fellow you hated on sight, and there had been a good deal more than mere sight between them over the years. Suffered through Eton and Oxford with the curst fellow, and met him every time you set foot in your club, or the park, or at a ball. He was everywhere, smiling snidely and being condescending, and ready to knife you in the back if you so much as blinked.

“Ah, Claymore, heard you was here,” Hansom said, smiling in his hateful way, with mockery lurking behind those old yellow eyes, like a tiger’s. Naturally he pulled up for a chat.

“And Rumor, for once, was correct,” Claymore informed him, with a barely civil nod.

“Ah yes. Rumor,” Hansom replied, in a sardonic way. “But it is perhaps a subject best avoided at this time,
n’est-ce pas?”

“There is no subject you need avoid in my presence,” Clay said, anger gripping him.

“Recovering, old boy? You don’t look too chipper to me, but there, it will soon be all over, and society will find something else to chatter about. A nine days’ wonder— well, say nineteen.” He laughed teasingly.

“What will soon be over?” Clay asked, just as though he didn’t know the answer.

“Why, the Rose’s wedding to Everleigh. What else is anyone talking about?”

“I thought perhaps you alluded to my own wedding.” Fool, fool, fool! He knew while the words were being uttered that he had gone too far.

“Your wedding?” The tiger eyes popped. For one exquisite moment the difficulties looming ahead were worth the price, to have had the pleasure of routing this antagonist

“Not official, old chap. Pray, keep it under your hat.”

“But what is this? Whom are you marrying?”

Rex was looking as curious as Hansom, and Claymore cleared his throat nervously. “Not official yet. You’ll hear of it soon enough.”

“It’s the Wanderley girl, that’s who it is,” Hansom challenged. “Had it of Lucknow, but I thought it was all a hum. So you really mean to have her. It can’t be the one who came out this past Season, for she’s engaged to someone else, Siderow was telling me. It must be the twin.”

Aware that he was slipping into deeper waters than he cared to, Clay began backing off. “Nothing official. I daresay I ought not to have mentioned it yet.”

He was not to be let off so easily. “Pretty, is she?” Hansom asked eagerly. “As pretty as Wanda?”

“Prettier,” Rex removed his cane from his mouth long enough to answer. “Twins, but Ellie’s prettier. And older.”                                              

“Well, by Jove.” Hansom smiled. One victim had escaped him, but his malice was pretty evenly distributed, and he would not mind giving the Rose’s nose a tweak. “Then she must be prettier than Miss Golden too, for I thought she and Wanda Wanderley were evenly  matched.”                                          

“The announcement is not to be made yet,” Claymore reminded him in desperation. “The lady is not even out.”

“Ho, you’ve got the jump on us all this time. She must be something special if you are getting her locked up before anyone else gets a look in. Mum’s the word, old chap. Mum’s the word.” Then he dashed off to tell, in the greatest secrecy, several persons the news that Claymore was as well as hitched to one of the Wanderley Beauties.

“What did you say that for?” Rex asked flatly, as soon as they were alone.

“Because I’m a damned fool, that’s why. And I’m sick and tired of being pitied by every school miss and Bath quiz in town. Yes, and I’m sick and tired of hearing whispers behind my back about Miss Golden. I wish I had never met the girl.”

“Yes, but the thing is—said Ellie hated you. Don’t think she does, but you oughtn’t to have said you was engaged, Clay. Not the thing.”

“You don’t have to tell me! I hope Hansom keeps his face shut.”

“Half of Bath knows it already, if I know Hansom. Yes, and the Rose will know before many hours too. He’ll make the trip to London special to tell her. Spiteful fellow. Pity you told this Banbury tale to
him,
of all people.”

“It was almost worth it, to see him stare.”

“His jaw fell an inch.”

“There’s only one thing to do now. We’ll go back to the Abbey, and I will offer for Ellie.”

“That don’t solve nothing. Not if she hates you. Don’t know why you think so, Clay.”

“Because she
told
me so, that’s why,” he explained in exasperation.

“The devil you say! Came right out with it? Don’t sound like Ellie. On the other hand, though, she talks plain. Well, I’ll tell you, Clay, there’s no point in going. She ain’t going to have you if she hates you. Stands to reason. Even I can see that.”

“But does she hate my title and fortune?”

“No, she ain’t that dumb, but she has to take
you
to get her hands on them, and Ellie won’t marry you if she hates you. I mean, even Wanda wouldn’t have you, so that goes to show you they ain’t the kind that goes marrying for money, whatever you may say.”

“I don’t know why she should hate me. I never did her any harm.” This was a point that had bothered Claymore considerably over the past weeks. Ellie had seemed to like him well enough till that night in the garden, or perhaps in the dining hall before they had gone into the garden she had already been glaring at him. But why? All he had done was to tease and flirt a little. Lord, what was there in that to give her a disgust of him, and to go saying that if London beaux were like him, she didn’t want to meet any of them. A very unnatural girl was what she was. But the more he thought of her, seated in the garden, hiccoughing into her hankie, the more he longed to see her.