The LadyShip (7 page)

“Miss Dudley...Clarissa...my dear,” he began, mov
ing closer to her on the sofa. “I must tell you that I did not
come to Oakwood today for merely a social purpose—that
is, I did, for it is always a pleasure to see you and your
family—but it is a more serious matter which most immedi
ately concerns me—us.”

Allingham knew at once that he had started off badly.
Clarissa’s chatter was abruptly silenced, and she stared at
him, temporarily speechless. He reached out to clasp her
hands in his, hoping to convey his meaning in that manner. He succeeded, but not with the result he had intended. Cla
rissa abruptly snatched her hands away, burying them in her velvet skirts, and recovered her voice.

“Mr Allingham, I cannot think what you mean by that!
What serious matter can there be between us?”

He tried again. “Clarissa, I have just seen your father, in
order to obtain his permission to pay my addresses to
you.”

“To me? But...how can this be? I do not understand you, sir!”

Allingham noted irrelevantly that under duress, Clarissa
was regrettably prone to striking attitudes, much after her
mother’s fashion. That she was not truly distressed by his unexpected declaration was advertised to him by her having raised one hand to her breast and fixed her green eyes intently on his face. He plunged ahead.

“In plain language, Clarissa—I wish to ask you to marry
me.”

For the space of a full minute, there was no reply to this,
nor did Clarissa alter her pose. To be sure, the colour had
drained rapidly from her cheeks—although not, Allingham
thought, because she was overwhelmed by his flattering of
fer. It was, rather, as if his declaration had come at an incon
venient time; he almost expected her to say she could not
marry him that week because she had been invited to a
party. Uneasy at her silence, Allingham finally felt obliged
to say something more in furtherance of his untimely suit.

“I regret that this should have come as a surprise to you,
Clarissa, but I cannot think that my—my regard for you is
not well known to you.”

“No! No, it is not!”

Abandoning her pose, Clarissa jumped up from the sofa.
“How can you think, sir, that I should have known of it,
much less returned it? I have never given you any cause to
believe such a thing!”

Overcoming his scruples about making love to an unwill
ing female, Allingham stood up and took Clarissa’s hands
again, raising them to his lips. He could feel her tremble
at his touch, and it occurred to him for the first time that
she was a living thing, quite as occupied with her own feel
ings and hopes as he was with his. He felt suddenly awk
ward, as if he had intruded where he should not have, but
he did not know how to back out gracefully.

Gently, he asked her, “But have you so quickly forgotten
that afternoon last spring, under the old oak? I assure you,
my dear, that I have not. I gave you a flower, and you said I
was the kindest man you knew. You said you would press
that flower as a keepsake. Your eyes, I think, said more
than that.”

“Oh, no—they didn’t! I never meant anything like that! I
was only—”

Clarissa shook her head and then suddenly, with a sob,
broke away from him and ran out of the room, leaving the
salon door open behind her.

Allingham stood for
some minutes fastened by sheer as
tonishment to the carpet. It was not until Lady Alfred entered, gushing, that he was able to recover his wits and to force some semblance of life into his limbs.

“My
dear
Marcus!” Helena exclaimed, insinuating her arm into his rather rigid elbow. “I fear Clarissa is so over
come by emotion that I was unable to get anything out of
her when I stopped—ah, encountered her in the passage
just now. Nonetheless, I am convinced that when she has
had a moment to reflect, she will realise that this good for
tune has indeed befallen her.”

“My dear ma’am,” Allingham interrupted in a voice that Lord Vernon would have regarded as ominous, “I fear Miss
Dudley does not consider marriage to me to be such a honeyfall—not in the personal sense, at any rate.”

Lady Alfred moved a step backwards and, placing her
other hand on Allingham’s wrist, stared up at him, her eyes
round with disbelief. “But...surely you are not saying
...she has not
refused
you!”

“Not in so many words,” Allingham said, ever precise. “She did not, however, give any indication of being eager
to consider my offer.”

“Nonsense!” Helena declared, abruptly releasing her
hold on his sleeve. “The chit is merely being coy. She is
so accustomed to foolish flirtations with her silly young
beaux that she does not know how to receive an offer in
form.”

“Just so.”

There was a world of meaning in those words. Lady Alfred was brought with a start to the realisation of her indis
cretion and made haste to propitiate Mr Allingham, who
was beginning to look grim. She may well have succeeded;
not for nothing had her own mother instilled into her
daughter her precepts on the care and nourishment of delicate male sensibilities and the most subtle methods of han
dling a sensitive social situation.

Moreover, Allingham was
at the moment not at all certain that he was not himself
somewhat at fault. He was aware that his talent for charm
ing the fair sex was minimal at best, and he was soon per
suaded that he ought to try again. While Lady Alfred went upstairs to have “a little talk” with her daughter, therefore,
Allingham took a turn about the garden and rehearsed a few
somewhat warmer and more lover-like phrases to present
to Clarissa in lieu of what he now perceived to have been
his initial regrettably unpractised approach. That these
were likely to emerge sounding nonetheless like the stiffly
legal terms of a marriage settlement did not occur to him. He had, after all, as little experience as skill in this sort of
thing—indeed, he devoutly hoped that Clarissa would ac
cept him only so that he would not be obliged to acquire
any further such worldly wisdom.

In the interval, Miss Dudley was, in her own manner, also
searching her soul. Her manner being entirely opposite to
Mr Allingham’s methodical ways, she approached a pre
dicament by inventing first one scheme, then another, for
resolving it, examining each in her mind as if it were a par
ticular shade of hair-ribbon she searched for. In her man
ner, nonetheless, she also reached a conclusion.

“You foolish girl, do you realise what you have done—or
rather
undone?”

Lady Alfred stormed unannounced into her daughter’s room—being careful, however, not to slam the door be
hind her, lest Allingham should hear it—and resumed,
ral
lentando,
her tirade.

“All the work your father and I—I, in particular—have
put into arranging this meeting today, in luring Alling
ham here expressly to make you an offer—which re
quired a good deal of contriving, let me inform you—and
you insult him, you turn your back on him—you
refuse
him!”

Clarissa, having reached her conclusion, was quite calm now. “I have not refused him, Mama,” she said, staring into
her mirror as she concentrated on curling a wayward
tendril of golden hair around her finger to make it hang art
fully over her temple. “If only you had seen fit to inform
me earlier of the gentleman’s expected arrival and his inten
tions, I assure you I should have been better prepared to
hear him. Am I not the person most concerned in the mat
ter?”

Lady Alfred sank onto a chaise longue, pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve, and held it to her forehead for a mo
ment. She was conscious of having erred in not informing
Clarissa of Allingham’s visit, but it had seemed the wisest
course at the time—for really, there was never any knowing how the girl would react to the most well-meant plans
made on her behalf by her doting parents! She glared bale-
fully at Clarissa, who had assumed a serene pose at her dressing-table and met her mother’s stare with an angelic
smile.

“Do you mean to tell me,” Helena resumed at a much
lower pitch, “that you
have
accepted him? But he said—”

“No, I have not as yet replied to Mr Allingham’s flatter
ing offer,” Clarissa said, lowering her eyes modestly. Her
dark lashes fanned out prettily on her pink cheeks, and
her voice dropped to a demure murmur. Lady Alfred’s
suspicions rose again, only to be soothed by Clarissa’s
next words.

“As I believe I indicated to him,” she said, “I was unprepared for—for the honour which has been vouchsafed me,
and I fear my first reaction was incredulity. If I have in
sulted Mr Allingham—Marcus, I mean—I am sure I did not
intend to do so. I will make my apology to him now, Mama,
if you wish.”

Mama, perceiving that all was not lost, graciously con
ceded to her daughter that it was what
she
wished that was
important, although naturally, she would not wish to keep the gentleman in suspense much longer. Clarissa agreed
(with the Thane of Cawdor, although she was not remotely
acquainted with him) that if it were done, then ‘twere well
it were done quickly. She requested Lady Alfred to tell Mr
Allingham that she would be down in a moment. She then
rang for her maid, searched her bodice for any lingering
traces of tears, and congratulated herself for managing that
hurdle pretty well.

By the time Clarissa descended once again to the blue
salon, the entire household was aware of what had oc
curred. Clarissa’s maid, Peggy, hurried down the back
stairs the instant her mistress set off in the opposite direc
tion (tears dried and coiffure restored) in order to be the first to inform the staff assembled anxiously in the pan
try that Miss Clarissa was going to “take ‘im after all.”
Mervin, the butler, opined solemnly that there could be
no doubt of it, for what young lady could refuse such a
fine, upright gentleman? Elsie, the parlourmaid, said that
she for one would have no difficulty in doing so. “Too
fine by ‘arf, ‘e is, and no fun in ‘im at all,” was that dam
sel’s firm opinion.

Abovestairs, Mr Felix Dudley was attempting to convince
Mr Marcus Allingham that Mervin’s opinion—although it
had not, of course, been expressed to him in so many
words—was the general one. Felix had made himself comfortable in a winged chair and, crossing one olive-drab-clad
leg over the other, regarded Allingham with what he hoped
was an insouciant air. Felix was a good-looking young man
of one-and-twenty, but his fashionable gold coat had been cut to his notion of himself as taller and slimmer than he
was, and he was beginning to have second thoughts (in
spired by Allingham’s simple but tasteful blue superfine)
about the velvet collar he had cajoled his tailor into putting
on the coat. His fair hair was somewhat darker and curlier
than his sister’s gold locks, and the arched blond brows
over pale eyes gave him a perpetual look of mild astonish
ment. Finding himself alone with Mr Allingham for longer
than he had expected, he was rapidly coming to the end of his arguments in his sister’s behalf.

“I expect Clarissa’s just feeling out of sorts,” he said,
thereby adding doubts about Miss Dudley’s health to those
about her disposition already planted by Clarissa’s fond
mama.

“When she snaps out of it, she’ll have you all right,” Fe
lix bumbled on. Allingham made no reply, finding a certain detached fascination in Felix’s efforts to toady him and still maintain his practised loftiness of manner. Allingham felt a
sudden sympathy for this slightly pompous young man,
who he guessed was also a lonely and somewhat uncertain
one. He smiled understandingly, which caused Felix to
brighten and to offer his guest a brandy to soothe his
nerves.