CHAPTER ONE #2
Denzell grinned. He was aware that it could come as no surprise to his closest intimate since the days of their early youth that he should be eulogising over some woman.
But that would not prevent Osmond from indulging in a good deal of carping and criticism, a form of good-natured banter that was customary between them.
“I thought you told me you were finished with women,” Osmond accused.
“Finished? No, by George!” Osmond cast up his eyes, and Denzell grinned again, amending, “Well, only temporarily.”
“Extremely temporarily.”
“But this is no ordinary woman, dear boy. This is a clap of thunder.” Denzell turned back to his hostess, and noted that she was pursing dubious lips. “Aha! So you do know her. What is it, Unice?” he asked in a coaxing tone. “Is she married, or do you fear my honourable intentions?”
“Your what intentions?”
“Osmond,” interrupted Unice, casting a glance at her husband that seemed to Denzell somewhat flurried, “I fancy he is thinking of Verena.”
Denzell lost interest for the moment in the possible significance of her manner. “Verena,” he murmured reverently. “Verena, Verena, Verena.” He sighed deeply. “My God, I’m in love!”
“Oh, Lord, here we go,” groaned Osmond. He watched his guest lift the cover off the silver dish and serve himself with a generous helping of ham and eggs, and observed, “No loss of appetite accompanies this sudden flush of ardour, I see.”
Denzell twinkled, taking up his knife and fork as Unice bustled to supply him with bread and butter, and to fill his cup from the steaming coffee pot. “I shall force it down, dear boy, for the sake of politeness, you know.”
A rude noise was Osmond’s only answer. Then a thought struck him and he brightened, his gaze seeking out his wife again. “Verena? Lord, Unice, you don’t mean the Chaceley chit?”
Mrs Ruishton laid down the coffee pot. “Of course I do, my love. She is forever playing with the traders’ children. I dare swear it is Mr Burrow’s and Mr Stapley’s boys, and the children from the Friends Brewhouse.”
She sighed. Situated as their house was, just off the main London Road about halfway up the town, away from its main hub by the chalybeate spring, it was inevitable that her son should make friends of this somewhat undesirable sort.
“I do not altogether care that Felix should enjoy such company, though I dare say no real harm will come of it.”
“Never mind that,” said her husband. “The boy must play with someone, after all. But only think, Unice,” he added on a gleeful note, “Hawk must needs set his sights on the one woman who will prove impervious.”
“What do you mean, impervious?” demanded Denzell, starting out of an agreeable reverie where he fitted the name to the vision of that enchanting face.
“It is quite immaterial,” cut in Unice before her spouse could respond. “Osmond, you are not to let him trouble the poor girl. You must forbid him to do so.”
“Forbid Hawk? Are you out of your senses, Unice? You don’t suppose I have any influence over the fellow, do you?”
“None whatsoever,” Denzell averred, and turned, his fork poised in the air, to address Mrs Ruishton. “But why do you speak of her as a poor girl?”
“In any event,” went on Osmond, without giving his wife an opportunity to answer, “I’m dashed if I take responsibility for Hawk’s actions. Bad enough having the fellow battening on us, never mind holding him when he’s got the bit between his teeth like this.”
“You would invite me,” Denzell pointed out, digging into a thick portion of ham. “On your own head be it. But do be quiet, dear boy. I am trying to have an intelligent conversation with your wife.”
“Trying to turn her up sweet is what you mean.”
“Unice, I know you care for this fellow, God knows why, but do, for pity’s sake, ignore him and attend to me. Who — is — she? Is she married? Why ‘poor’?”
“Why ask?” countered Osmond irrepressibly. “You’ll catch cold at it, if you choose to try your tricks on that one, I can tell you now.”
“It is only jealousy that makes you say so. How you ever succeeded in attaching this charmer has always been beyond me.”
Osmond took this in good part. He was not as well endowed by nature as Denzell, who had a little the advantage in both height and looks, but good features and an amused eye rendered him not unattractive, despite the girlish brown mop of shorn hair that his friends were inclined to deprecate.
What he lacked, which Denzell had in abundance, was that elusive quality, charm.
It was not the smoky glow of Denzell’s blue eyes, nor yet the shapely lips ever hovering on the beginnings of a smile.
It had nothing to do with the manner of his dress, modish but inconspicuous, nor with his obstinate adherence to the custom of tying his own long hair loosely in a ribbon at the back, a fashion going as rapidly out of style as was the natural female waistline, which had recently risen to sit just below the bosom.
Not one of Denzell’s numerous female admirers could have said just what it was that caused the heart to race faster in her breast, or her knees to weaken whenever he chanced to smile at her in a particular way.
But every one of them would have agreed that, whatever it might be, it was irresistible.
That he was also an accomplished flirt apparently only added — in the sapient opinion of his observant friend — to his attractions.
“Tell me, Unice,” he was continuing, turning to his hostess again, “were you inebriated when this fellow offered for you?”
A crack of laughter from Osmond acknowledged a hit. But although Unice smiled, she dealt her visitor a smart slap on the arm. “For shame, Denzell. You know perfectly well that it was love at first sight with us both.”
“Exactly. And now that I, in my turn, have fallen victim to the tender passion —”
“Ha!”
“— it would be cruel in you,” continued Denzell, ignoring his host, “to withhold any little item concerning the lady who has dashed the heart from my chest in an instant. Tell me all!”
“But, indeed, Denzell, I believe Osmond is in the right of it on this occasion.”
“What do you mean, on this occasion? I’m always in the right of it.”
“Do be quiet for a moment, dearest.”
“Yes, for pity’s sake, ‘dearest’, hold your tongue!”
Osmond rolled some crumbled bread and flicked it at his friend. Denzell, naturally enough, returned the compliment, and battle was fairly joined until both combatants were called to order by the lady of the house. “I declare, you are worse than Felix and Miles, the pair of you,” she complained.
“Well, Hawk shouldn’t be so dashed insulting,” said her husband impenitently.
“I like that. You began it.”
“Enough, both of you!”
“Send him away, Unice,” begged Denzell, “and then you and I may enjoy a comfortable cose about the beautiful Verena.”
But Osmond refused to go anywhere, repeating his conviction that Hawk would come to grief if he meant to attempt to storm the citadel that was Miss Verena Chaceley.
“Verena Chaceley,” repeated Denzell, mock passionate. “Even her name is music. And you give me hope, Ossie. She is still a ‘miss’. Speak, Unice. I wish to know all about her.”
“Well, you won’t,” said Osmond on a note of satisfaction. “For no one does. It’s a dashed mystery, if you wish to know.”
“I do wish to know,” Denzell retorted. “What mystery? Come, Unice.”
Mrs Ruishton capitulated, lifting the coffee pot and refilling his cup. “It is not a mystery, although she is very close and will not chatter about herself. She lives in lodgings not two doors from here —”
“Then you are neighbours. Better and better.” He frowned then. “Lodgings? What, alone?”
“No, she resides with her mother. I believe that is why they came here. Mrs Peverill is in the poorest of health.”
Denzell lowered the coffee cup from his lips. “Peverill? I thought you said Chaceley.”
“Yes, Verena is Chaceley, but her mother is Mrs Peverill.”
“All part of the mystery,” put in Osmond. “The mother must have remarried, but no one has been able to discover the details.”
“Not even Mrs Felpham,” agreed Unice. “She is the most inveterate gossip, you must know, and always has the news before anyone else. These two came here in September, just after the close of the season. No one saw them arrive. They just appeared among us one day. Even Mr Tyson — our Master of Ceremonies, you know — was taken aback. He usually presents newcomers to the town, and this time he could not.”
“You’ve never seen anyone so put out,” added Osmond on a laugh. “Or he would have been, only that he succumbed in minutes.”
“As did every other male in the community, including Osmond, whatever he may say. She is so serenely beautiful that it is hardly surprising.”
“I admire her looks, yes,” conceded her husband. “Any man would. Too cold and placid, though. I prefer a cosier armful, by Jupiter.”
His eyes rested with a great degree of warmth on his wife’s face as he spoke. But Denzell did not notice. The image of Verena Chaceley’s animated countenance was playing in his vision. He frowned, nursing his cup between his hands.
“Cold and placid? Surely not. I give you my word, I have rarely seen a glow of such warmth, such freshness and sparkling enjoyment.”
Both the Ruishtons stared at him. Then they looked at each other.
“He cannot mean Verena,” Unice said with conviction. “It must be some other woman he saw.”
“It can’t have been, dash it. Who else could have bowled him out?”
Unice shook her head, her, gaze returning to Denzell’s face. “Verena is very beautiful, very calm, and exquisitely polite. But I have never seen her display any sort of animation such as you describe.”
An odd look crossed her features, of disquiet, Denzell thought. He remembered then that earlier moment, when she had seemed flurried. This was indeed mysterious. Putting down his cup, he leaned towards her. “What is it, Unice? What are you thinking?”