CHAPTER FIVE #3
“No, I ain’t. Only on the second bottle. Can’t be foxed yet.”
“Never mind that,” put in Congleton, once again rapping the table as he addressed himself this time to Lord Rowner. “Lookee, Freddy. When have ye ever known Hawk to absent himself from a ball, eh?”
“What ball?”
“He means Lady Breachwood’s party,” Denzell explained, adding as he turned back again, “And why the devil shouldn’t I absent myself, Cong? Can you seriously suggest Lady Breachwood’s daughter to be an attraction?”
“Lady Breachwood’s party?” Freddy repeated before the other gentleman could reply. “Is that tonight?” He glanced down in consternation at his own person, clad like the others in raiment quite unsuitable for a ball. “Lord, I think I accepted that one!”
Lord Rowner was known for his vagueness, and Congleton said so.
“No one could be in the least surprised that you don’t turn up, Freddy — too late now, in any event — and everyone knows Cyril don’t dance.
But Hawk? Now I ask ye, is it like him not to present himself where he is bound to meet every debutante on the town?
Not to mention the Breachwood girl, though I grant ye, Hawk, she ain’t your style. ”
“How do you know what is my style, Cong?”
“Ought to, damme. Been watching you at your tricks for years.”
Mr Congleton leaned across the table again, a smile of sly triumph under the pointing nose. “Ah, but there’s more to it than that. Got the whole tale from Ruishton in a letter.”
“The devil you did,” Denzell swore. What had Ossie told him?
With Unice so close to her time, Osmond had put in no appearance in town this season.
But deuce take him for a confoundedly literary fellow!
Why he must needs engage so avidly in the epistolary arts with Cong was a matter passing Denzell’s comprehension.
What the devil did he mean by this base betrayal?
Honesty compelled him to toss away this thought.
Ossie had thought the whole affair to be a matter upon which he might exercise his wit at Denzell’s expense.
Could he reasonably blame his friend for that?
It was in such terms that he had begun it — to his shame and regret.
Only he had not known then with what he was dealing.
Still, willingly could he have strangled Ossie. The last thing he had wanted was for his cronies to get hold of the story. Bad enough that he had thought they were seeking a reason to explain his unutterable tedium. Disastrous that they should have already found it.
How could he turn it off? As he must. Make light of it. Could he bear to be the cause of her name being bandied about the gentlemen’s clubs? He would not have that on his conscience — not in addition.
“I have no doubt at all,” he said, “that Ossie has exaggerated the matter out of all recognition.”
“Stuff,” scoffed Bedale. “If I know Ossie, I’d wager he understated the case.”
Lord Rowner was looking confused. “Hey! What is all this? What case are you talking of?”
“Pay no attention, Freddy. They’re both foxed.”
“No, we ain’t,” grinned Congleton. “And there’s no need thinking ye can turn it off. Ye see, Freddy, Ossie says our boy here tried a fall with a woman he calls the ice maiden. Tried — and failed. Had to retire defeated after the first two rounds.”
“What, Hawk? I don’t believe it!”
But Denzell was smiling in sudden relief — exaggerated relief, out of all proportion to the event.
What had he been concerned about, after all?
The matter was of no real interest to him.
Not any more. But if that was all Osmond had said, there was no harm done.
He could admit it, pretend it meant nothing.
Pretend? What was he thinking of? It did mean nothing.
Brushing aside the thoughts, he drained his glass and laid it down. “You may believe it, dear boy,” he said on a wry grin, “because it is quite true. She wouldn’t look at me.”
“Told you,” said Congleton smugly. “Most beautiful girl in the world, too. Or so Hawk would have it. Ain’t that so, Hawk?”
“Stunning,” uttered Denzell, as the image of Verena Chaceley leaped into his mind. Unbidden — and irremovable. Verena laughing and golden, warm and vital against the winter world of white.
He was hardly aware of speaking as he added, “But not ice. A fairy princess … a snow maiden.”
And she had thawed towards him. Yes, she had.
An inward groan shook him. She had — until that last horrible encounter.
A moment that he had tried to rend from his memory, but that still pierced him with remorse.
He had argued himself silly, declaring that he could not have known that a simple joke would upset her so.
But it would not do. Had he not been witness to that earlier unwitting display of intense emotion?
Had not Sir John Frinton warned him? He should have guessed.
That he had not must be to his everlasting reproach.
Not that there was anything to be done about it.
Not since he had been idiotic enough to have left the place so precipitately.
Why he had done so, no amount of churning the matter in his mind could discover.
He had made a stupid blunder, but it might have been mended.
Another day, a simple apology and the thing would have been done.
It was no good wishing now that he had stayed to do it.
The simple truth was that at the time all he had been able to think about was escape.
What sense did that make? None at all. From what he was escaping he was at a loss to imagine.
He knew that nothing Unice or Osmond could say had moved him from his determination.
The very next morning he had left, having chafed even at the delay occasioned by the necessary partaking of breakfast. A quick farewell, and he had driven away from Tunbridge Wells as if the devil himself were after him.
The only conclusion he had been able to come to since was that he had taken leave of his senses.
He became aware that his friends were eyeing him, in a mixture of wonder and suspicion. The memories faded and he frowned.
“What the devil are you all staring at?”
“You said she is not ice,” accused Bedale, “and then you went off into a dream.”
“I did nothing of the kind.”
“He said ‘fairy princess’,” added Congleton. “And then he said ‘snow maiden’.”
Lord Rowner jerked up in his seat. “Snow? You’re talking of Christmas. You don’t mean that woman you was chasing down at Tunbridge Wells?”
“So ye do know about it,” commented Congleton.
“Only what Teresa says.”
“Oh, the deuce!” Were all those closest to him determined to undo him? “What the devil has my sister been saying?”
“Says you’re obsessed,” reported Freddy with devastating candour, provoking instant glee in the other two.
“Aha, I knew it!”
“Caught at last, Hawk!”
“Says you talked of nothing else all through Christmas,” pursued Freddy. “Says she thinks you’re in love with the girl.”
“Chaste stars,” Denzell exclaimed, outraged, “has Teresa run mad?” In love? What an utterly stupid idea. And his sister was setting it about. “When I next see Teresa —”
Dropping his foot to the floor, he leaned forward to snatch up the bottle from the table and refill his glass yet again, his thoughts tumbling in confusion and fury.
That was a woman all over. Merely because he had mentioned the matter once or twice, Teresa must needs take it into her head that he was in love with the wench.
Oh, he knew he had said so to Ossie and Unice, but that was in jest. Just because Verena Chaceley chose to thrust her image into his head time and again did not mean that his heart was touched.
Deuce take it, even he could understand why that happened. It was that last look of her — that spangled gown, the honey locks: a fairy princess, broken. His heart contracted, but he flung the thought away. That could not be helped. It was done and he could not change it now.
It was hardly worth oversetting himself.
Verena Chaceley was — had been, he reminded himself wistfully — lovely to look at, and quite uninterested in Denzell Hawkeridge.
So what had he to do with Verena Chaceley?
Because no woman happened to have caught his interest this season was no reason to imagine that his interest was already too caught up to be available to another.
The whole idea was ludicrous in the extreme, and he would have something to say to Teresa.
Glancing around the circle of his friends, he discovered them to be quite of Teresa’s mind. “You need not look at me so,” he snapped. “It’s nothing of the sort. In love, indeed!”
“Well, ye can’t deny it explains a great deal,” said Aldous Congleton.
“That’s right.” Cyril Bedale was moved to unravel his hands from his stomach and lean across to pat his friend’s arm. “No need to be ashamed of it, old fellow. Bound to happen sooner or later.”
“Yes, but it has not happened,” said Denzell in a harassed sort of way. “Merely because my sister chooses to take some romantical notion into her head —”
“Then how do ye explain your conduct these many weeks?” demanded Congleton. “Ye’ve not set up a single flirt since the season began.”
“I’m trying to avoid the matchmakers. With the new crop of debutantes just out, every bachelor who wants to remain so has to be careful. Besides, it isn’t true. I’ve been courting several chits.”
“Ah, but with what sort of enthusiasm, old fellow?” put in Cyril. “Abstracted, that’s what you’ve been. All noticed it. Haven’t we?”
Congleton nodded. “Noticed it from the first. Except Freddy, but he never notices anything.”
Desperation lent Denzell wit. Here was an opening. Let him, for pity’s sake, deflect attention from this appalling nonsense. At the same time, he decided, he would have a little of revenge on Freddy for putting the cat among the pigeons in that boneheaded fashion.
“You’re in the right of it there, Cong,” he agreed. “Freddy hasn’t even noticed that he’s about to enter parson’s mousetrap himself.”