Intermezzo (15 page)

“No, Charles Beaumont is something quite different. He’s a man and knows it—you don’t have to pretend with him. I don’t give a fig for the others. Is he ... is he about to marry Lady Diana?”

“His family certain believes he will marry Lady Diana, but we don’t know when, Miss Oliver.”

Jeanette Oliver nodded and silently held out her empty glass which Adela refilled from the decanter.

“Thank you, Miss Trowle and please to call me Jenny. Oliver is not my real name anyway. My real name is Pike. Jenny Pike. And I am getting just a little tired of Jeanette Oliver.”

“Oh dear, is she a heavy burden?”

“Oh yes, a very, very heavy burden,” the actress said with a bitter little grimace. “But,
my,
isn’t she as fine as fivepence?” Jenny Pike asked, examining Jeanette Oliver.

“Yes, precise to a pin.” Adela smiled.

“Nothing shabby genteel about our Miss Oliver.” Suddenly she was hiding her face in her hands.

Adela attempted to soothe her. “Jenny, you
are
very lovely.”

“As lovely as Lady Diana?”

“Lovelier, I think. You have more spirit.”

“Yes, I think I have. I did not think he would ever leave me for her. I didn’t even think she would want him to. I’m more beautiful, but you see he
has
left me, Miss Trowle.” She burst into tears.

“Now, now, Jenny. Please don’t cry.”

“I’m making a cake of myself, ain’t I?”

“No,
I
don’t think so.”

“Well I
am.
Comparing the likes of me with Lady Diana. I’m nothing but a high-class damned whore.” Now Jenny Pike was sobbing.

Adela gathered the figure in green into her arms and soothed her as she would have soothed a troubled Rebecka.

“There, there, now, take my handkerchief.”

“You see I
need
him. The silks and satins and diamonds don’t mean anything. Lord, why do I need a stiff-rumped cove, and him without an ounce of honest feeling. I’m naught but his whore. Jumps into bed with me after wining and dining that bitch Diana. He hasn’t even come to me in two months. Just sends the money first of the week, pays the rent, and expects me to wait for him. Do you know what it is to wait night after night after night?” Miss Trowle shook her head mutely.

Adela, had she thought about it, would have been shocked to see Jeanette Oliver disintegrate in front of her eyes. But Adela was too fascinated to think and too moved to be shocked.

“Oh God, ma’am, I shouldn’t be talking to a young lady like this.”

“Nonsense, I may be a spinster, but I am not an
ignorant
spinster.”

“But you’re
quality
, ma’am, true quality. Don’t go onto the stage. It’ll be astealing your soul.”

“No, no, many a times I’ve tried to sell my soul. I thought I would sell my soul for this employment. I was
that
desperate. But so many times as I sell my soul it comes back. It has a stubborn attachment to me and
will
not wander off.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“Jenny, I think if you looked carefully, you would find that you have never sold your soul either.”

“Yes, but I’ve sold my body. And what’s more I enjoyed it excessively, at least with Lord Waterston, and so as my poor deceased pa would have said, I am most surely damned.”

“I do not think God is as strict a judge as your late father. Now dry your eyes, Jenny, his lordship will be here shortly.”

“Yes, yes. I must look a shambles.” Clutching her reticule, she opened it, withdrew a small mirror, and began making repairs to her tumbled hair and her ravaged face. Adela watched, fascinated, as Jenny Pike, flustered at first, began to recreate Jeanette Oliver.

“There now, done,” she said, packing away her reticule, “and now I can face his lordship, thanks to you, miss. His lordship would never look at me if I ain’t, I mean weren’t, precise. He does not care for a show of passion, you know.”

“He doesn’t?” Adela asked, her voice bubbling.

“There, there, now, miss, I’ll not be corrupting you with all that. And you know very well what I mean.” It was on this scene of two women smiling almost shyly at each other that his lordship entered.

He came into the room, unannounced, having reduced Soames to a quivering mass of apologies and then having dismissed him to the kitchens to Mrs. Soames.

Simultaneously the two faces turned to him, and for a moment or two, there was a dead silence in the room.

Adela was the first to speak. “Lord Waterston, Miss Oliver has come to call on you and we have been entertaining each other over tea. Would you care for some tea?”

“Miss Trowle, leave the room,” was all the answer his lordship allowed himself.

Looking quickly from his lordship to Miss Oliver, Adela excused herself, and then, almost as an afterthought, as she arrived at the door his lordship was holding for her, she turned back toward the actress and, determined to remain civil in the face of Waterston’s rage, said, “I’m so pleased to have met you, Miss Oliver, I hope to see you again.”

Waterston repeated the single word, “
Leave,”
and Adela left.

As she made her way down the hall she heard a passionate, “Oh, Charles, my darling, I have missed you so.” The door was closed and Adela tried not to imagine the beautiful Jenny in his lordship’s arms.

His lordship came to luncheon late, bid them all a very restrained good afternoon, and sat down to attack a piece of ham with surgical precision. Adela and Becka, taking the lead from him, remained silent as they managed their luncheon with rather more delicacy.

His lordship looked up only once as he was slicing his apple, stared directly at Adela, and requested, with only the barest show of civility, that Miss Trowle come to the library directly after luncheon.

Becka, observing her uncle’s eyes, objected, “Oh no, Uncle Charles, not really. Can’t it wait? Adela has
promised
to take me to buy sheet music this afternoon.”

“It
cannot
wait, Rebecka.”

“Well, don’t go snapping my nose off, Uncle Charles.”

“Rebecka, leave the room until you have learned to mind your manners,” her uncle growled.

Adela sent Becka a moderately good imitation of a reassuring smile and the child ran from the room.

The meal was completed in absolute silence after which his lordship rose, opened the door for Adela, and led her to the library.

Lord Waterston stood with his arm on the mantel, waiting. Adela at the other end of the room, her eyes demurely downcast, waited also. Both of them expected the other to break the silence with an explanation.

Finally his lordship, growing even more impatient, addressed her. “Miss Trowle, I expect an explanation.”

“Yes, to be sure, my lord, an explanation of what?”

“Of why, when I come into my home, I find you entertaining a ... a ...”

“A what, sir?” Adela asked, looking into his eyes while attempting to smile demurely.

“Miss Trowle, an explanation! Surely even you are not so very green. You must know that women of a certain sort are not served tea by ladies of quality.”

“I’m afraid, sir, that I did not stop to consider whether Miss Oliver was a woman of this or that sort. She was obviously distressed and she wished to see you. It seemed an emergency and I believed it just possible that you wished to see her.”

“Any idiot would know that I would not choose to see Miss Oliver in my home.”

“Sir, I do not pretend to understand all the nuances of behavior in polite society. But if someone offers me hospitality, I should think it only decent for me to return that hospitality.”

“What has that to say to the matter?”

“Clearly, Miss Oliver has been offering you hospitality for some time. I, quite naturally, assumed that you would not choose to have her, agitated as she was, thrown back onto the street.”

His lordship continued to stare.

“What difference does it make, sir, her house or yours?”

Waterston was now aware that Adela, who should by rights have been abjectly apologetic, was hugely enjoying this conversation. Blast, didn’t Miss Muffet know she was not to laugh at the spider. He stared for a moment longer and then he began to smile. It was not, Adela noticed, a very pleasant smile.

“I would no more serve tea to my mistress in the music room than I would serve tea to my blacksmith in the drawing room, Miss Trowle. Mistresses do not belong in music rooms; they belong in beds.”

“To be sure, sir, but one cannot remain abed
all
the time.”

“Clearly you do not understand Miss Oliver.”

“On the contrary, sir, I believe that I understand Miss Oliver somewhat better than you do.”

“In a scant hour of conversation?”

“Well you see, sir, it was
conversation.
One learns a great deal in conversation.”

“My dear Miss Muffet, one learns a great deal in bed as well.” Then with icy smoothness he continued, “What, Miss Trowle, did you learn in that scant hour?”

Adela knew that she should find some way of strategically withdrawing from a potentially explosive situation, but at the same time, she felt impelled to speak her mind. It did not occur to her that she was, herself, becoming quite angry.

“I learned that Miss Oliver, actress or not, mistress or not, was a human being not unlike other human beings. A woman not unlike other women. With similar hopes and aspirations and with a similar heart and mind. A heart, I might add, which seemed on the verge of breaking. I can readily believe that
you
do not understand what it is for a heart to break or even to crack, having been blessed with no such organ. But I do know. And I would have no more denied Miss Oliver succor, under the circumstances, than I would have kicked a stray kitten.”

“Miss Oliver is not a kitten—she is a cat. Her heart is not broken, she is simply in heat and I have arranged to have her serviced by my very good friend Lord Scott. Who, I might add, has been dangling after her these six months or more. There, have I shocked you, little Miss Muffet, and will you turn and run.”

“I am
not
little Miss Muffet. I’m sick of that name and I am not so innocent that you could shock me. I may be a spinster, and I may be plain, but there are many things I know about life that you will never know and there are depths of feelings that I have experienced that you will never experience.”

“No doubt true. But you know absolutely nothing about men and women.”

A retort on her lips, Adela hesitated, and in that moment the retort was forgotten. The hostility melted from her face and with some honesty and a little humility she said, “You know, you are quite right, sir. I do not know about such things. I had better learn, hadn’t I?”

His lordship was speechless. He took a sip of brandy and added, “You will not, I hope, take Miss Oliver as an instructor.”

“No, no, of course not. She has not been very successful, has she? Poor dear. But I can see that I have been a smug little hypocrite. Have I not? I dare say you have laughed at me many times. But if I am to go back to living, I think I should direct some of my attention toward marriage. After all,” she continued, thinking to herself aloud, “I cannot expect to stay here indefinitely.”

He interposed, “You do not think Lady Diana and Miss Trowle will suit?”

“Rather less well than Miss Trowle and Miss Oliver. We have less in common. Miss Oliver is an artist.”

“Quite right, you and the Lady Diana have less in common—only breeding and, in the end, what is breeding.”

He smiled, quite openly, and excused Miss Trowle.

Eleven

Adela, having set her mind to learning about “men,” proceeded with the same sort of academic commitment she was used to expend on learning and evaluating the works of a previously unknown composer. It was merely to scan the score, practice the fingering and expression, and then, after bringing some mastery to the composition, deciding whether or not the work and its composer were worthy of inclusion in her repertoire. Clearly one must not reject an unknown mode of music out of hand. It would be beyond anything dreadful to pass over a Bach or Haydn simply because they were published in a foreign press.

Adela, dressing for dinner in the serviceable gray silk with the paisley shawl, hesitated before the pier glass and examined the image there critically. Was that truly Miss Adela Elizabeth Trowle—ape leader? No indeed, she said to the figure in the glass. You may be plain but you are not
that
plain. I see that your eyes are sparkling and your cheeks have color. You are almost attractive. The young lady in the glass smiled and Adela continued, If you set your mind to it, you will find a pleasant safe man—a man who might marry you for your not inconsiderable dowry—Just under five feet of reasonably pleasant person, one fairly good piano, and the skill to play it well. Buck up there girl, we shall have you married off yet. But the girl in the mirror, with dangerous hidden dreams and desires of her own, was decidedly cast down as Adela adjusted her cap and smiled smugly. Tomorrow when M. De La Courte arrives, you shall dispense with this cap and then, with or without his lordship’s approval, you shall increase the frequency of your sessions with Richard Brewer.

His lordship was to dine with friends, and so Becka and Adela had the table to themselves which was fortunate. Confronting Waterston, in her present state of mind, would have been somewhat awkward; Adela felt reasonably certain that he would simply have laughed at the thought of little Miss Muffet primly plotting her own love life.

Even Rebecka was irritated by Adela’s obvious distraction. The child seemed bent on mischief and was demanding her cousin’s attention. “Adela, are you quite well, I have been speaking to you and you do not appear to have heard?”

“I suppose my mind had begun to wander, Becka. I will attempt to bring it back to the dinner table.”

“I have it from Molly who heard it from Mrs. Soames, who, I might add, is positively livid, that you had a wonderful adventure this morning. A visit from the
ravishing
Miss Oliver.”

“Miss Oliver came to visit your uncle, Rebecka, but as he was not at home, I was fortunate enough to entertain her for tea.” Adela delivered to the child a highly laundered account of the visit and ended by imploring Becka never to mention ought of any of it in the presence of her uncle.

“Oh, was
that
what put him into such a passion at luncheon?”

“Yes, in a manner of speaking, and if you do not want me to be cast out of here without a character, you will ask me no further questions and never mention the matter again.”

“That bad is it?”

“Worse.”

“Very well then, dearest Adela, but only because I adore you.”

“Thank you, child, and now to bed.”

The next morning Adela dressed, as usual, in one of her dull brown walking dresses, but after luncheon, she changed into the new blue muslin and, setting her cap on the bureau, she brushed her hair until it glistened and tied a velvet ribbon through the rioting curls. She, herself, believed that the total effect was quite
elegant
but his lordship, glancing at her as she entered the music room, thought she looked like nothing so much as a schoolroom miss about to take tea with the grown ladies.

Some moments later, as he was speaking to Mrs. Soames about his plans to have Lady Spencer to dinner that evening, it occurred to his lordship that he had never seen Little Miss Muffet with a ribbon in her hair. For the moment, at least, Waterston left the obvious question unanswered.

The dancing lesson that afternoon was, as far as Adela could judge, a grand success. Miss Trowle, with the wholehearted cooperation of M. De La Courte, began, in earnest, to learn the art of dalliance—the elegant steps of the courtship ritual that, more often than not, accompanied the formalized ritual of the dance. Monsieur admired her—he clearly did—and Adela was thrilled. She, sober Miss Trowle, had acquired an admirer.

Tentatively, almost bashfully, Adela began to enter into a mild flirtation and allowed M. De La Courte to hold her a fraction more closely while they worked on the intricacies of the still difficult waltz. Monsieur’s first impressions were confirmed. Miss Trowle was a woman of refinement, and although she was not beautiful she was surely both modest and biddable.

Monsieur, in lovely French cadences admired her dovelike eyes, her graceful sense of rhythm, and her musical ability, while Adela, her smile demure, her eyes cast down, colored beautifully and responded appropriately. She expressed her sympathy for him as an émigré and her admiration for the fortitude with which he and so many of his noble countrymen had born the exile from their beloved France.

“If only you could know, mademoiselle, how I yearn for my native land and for that world of refinement, delicacy, grace. But of course it is no more. In France, all the nobility have been replaced by bloodthirsty peasants smelling of the garlic.” “Surely refinement and delicacy will survive here, monsieur.”

“In England? Bah! Pardon ma petite, but with the exception of yourself, mademoiselle, England is a nation of Philistines. The English have no wit, no rationality, no philosophy, and no grace. They dance indifferently and ride well. Their women are more at home on a horse than in a man’s arms. And, above all, they have no rational conversation and no music to their souls. It pains me,” he said, shrugging delicately in his pink-stripped waistcoat, “but I must say these things.”

“Monsieur, surely you are
too
harsh.”

“Most certainly not, you who are like a blossom among the fields of weeds cannot judge the others by yourself.”

Adela managed with downcast eyes gracefully to parry Monsieur’s contrived adoration.

It was during the course of one of these flirtatious exchanges, as Monsieur was complimenting her on her lovely hands and she was smiling up at him that Soames announced Lady Spencer.

Within moments, Sophia Spencer had made a fairly accurate analysis of the situation and saying, “Please do not allow me to distract you—continue your instruction,” she sat on the settee and watched.

Adela, a trifle embarrassed, insisted that she replace Becka at the piano and allow Rebecka and Monsieur to practice the quadrille. Sophia with her eyes alternating between the dancing couple and the excellent pianist found herself only moderately surprised. Adela Trowle had certainly blossomed out in the last few months. She was now a very pleasant eyeful and really should have discarded the cap earlier—so pleasant and dainty in curls and a ribbon. Monsieur, it was clear, was definitely admiring. Discreet inquiries were in order.

After the quadrille, Monsieur thanked the ladies for a pleasant afternoon, kissed Sophia’s, Becka’s, and Adela’s hand, and bowed himself out of the room. He had lingered a moment over Adela’s hand, and the soulful look that accompanied the kiss had brought added color to Miss Trowle’s cheeks.

Lady Spencer was the first to break the silence when the door closed behind the dancing master. “I see the two of you have been well occupied. You are becoming quite proficient at the dance.”

“Thank you, Aunt Sophia,” Becka said dutifully—after Adela had prodded her, and then, without prodding, she added, “I do not find that I
like
dancing near so well as I thought I would. I do not
think
I like Monsieur at all.”

Adela would have reprimanded Rebecka but Aunt Sophia swiftly turned the conversation in other directions. “Well, undoubtedly we are all late for tea. Come along the two of you. Charles, you know, is out of reason cross when he is kept waiting.”

Adela hesitated. “Becka, would you please escort Aunt Sophia to the blue saloon, I must return to my room—I shall just be a minute.”

Adela raced back to her room and, realizing that she had no time to change back into her brown stuff walking dress, shrugged at herself in the glass as she tore the ribbon from her hair and retrieved the cap. Then she dashed down the stairs, collected herself when she heard a little humph of disapproval emanating from the back of the hall, and catching her breath, a demure and somewhat chastised Miss Trowle entered the blue saloon and excused herself for being late.

His lordship frowned—a trifle perplexed. The excuse was unnecessary. Little Miss Muffet was not
that
late.

Lady Spencer, after subjecting Adela to a long considered appraisal, resumed her careful selection of macaroons.

Becka was as usual the person who, without preamble or apology, noted the change in Adela’s attire.

“Drat Adela,” she asked, “why ever did you put on that dreadful cap?”

“Becka, I am
accustomed
to the cap. I do not feel quite decent without it, child.”

“Gammon, Adela, you look far more decent with a ribbon in your hair.”

Sophia nodded. “Rebecka is right, my dear. You are not precisely
stricken
in years and the cap is not really appropriate. You did not find it necessary this last hour.”

Adela was, for the moment, silenced. Was learning the art of courtship always fraught with such difficulties? “Quite true, but while I might understand dispensing with the cap for dancing I cannot think that it would be appropriate during tea.”

Waterston raised his eyebrow skeptically and Sophia changed the subject. “Charles had invited me to join him at the opera next Thursday and he suggested that both of you might come as well.”

Becka had jumped up from her seat and run to Adela. “Nuts for us. Imagine it, Adela. We are going to the opera!”

His lordship smiled. “Continue to screech like
that, Becka, and we will have
you
in the chorus.”

“Splendid, ever more splendid, may I have a new gown if I am to sing in the chorus, Uncle Charles?” Waterston was chuckling, “Becka, you may have a new gown and you will not be singing in the chorus.”

“You spoil the child,” Sophia noted dispassionately as she herself surveyed Adela. “Adela, my dear, you do look
exceedingly
well in blue. I think that I should buy you several more gowns. Nothing flashy mind you. Modest as befits a little pianist but elegant. Something in green, a brighter blue, a peach, and a primrose.”

Adela, while clearly reluctant to interrupt this monologue, felt that a polite refusal was in order and had herself braced to refuse, when Rebecka interrupted with all the tactlessness of a nine-year-old, “Oh, Adela,
not
again, surely it must grow
tedious
always refusing us. You can be such a grump about things.”

Aunt Sophia spoke more softly, “Adela, you
know
that clothing you gives me great pleasure. You can not be so proud as to deny such pleasures to those who love you.”

“I do not mean to be a beast, Aunt Sophia, only you must understand that it is extraordinarily difficult for me as well. I truly do not wish to be beholden. My independence, such as it is, has come to mean a great deal to me.”

“My dear Adela,” Sophia countered, “independence is not a matter of pounds and shillings.”

“Only those blessed already with an abundance of pounds and shillings can think as you do, aunt.”

“Humor me then. I am old and I deserve to be humored.”

Adela smiled in acquiescence. Surely, she was making a great cake out of nothing, but that, after all, is precisely the nature of pride.

“Very well, we shall shop tomorrow and you will have a new dress for your dancing class on Wednesday and a gown for the opera. Now the two of you are excused. Run along, children.”

Adela thanked Sophia and, taking Becka by the hand, ran her up to the music room for a belated lesson.

“Well, Charles,” Sophia began as the door closed, “and why have you summoned me.”

“
Summoned?
Aunt Sophia, come now, surely you exaggerate.”

“Cut no wheedles for my edification, young man. You have been returned to town these two weeks without so much as calling on your old invalided aunt. What, I repeat, do you want?”

“I want nothing but your company at the opera and a little conversation.”

“Gammon, and, incidentally, while we are conversing I meant to ask about that young fellow—the dancing master. What do you know of him, Charles?”

“He is safe enough, Sophia. Comes highly recommended by the Walgreens. A French Émigré of the aristocracy—quite proud but reduced to teaching dancing. Why do you ask?”

“Is he married?”

“Not that I know of. Are you thinking of marriage, darling aunt?”

“Muttonhead.”

He hesitated a moment before responding. “Perhaps, I am a muttonhead... Tell me what do you make of the Cavendish ball tomorrow. Do you attend?”

“Only if you will escort me, Charles.”

“I had planned to escort Diana, but I should be honored if you would join us.”

“Tongue valiant! Your fair Diana can barely tolerate me. Strange is it not, so meek and biddable as I am.”

“Just so, but the Lady Diana will, of necessity, have to grow accustomed. I am beginning to take a very real interest in some of your projects, Aunt Sophia, and I am hoping you may be able to convince Diana of the merits of your work.”

Sophia studied her nephew quietly for a few moments before turning the conversation to a discussion of the weather.