CHAPTER SIX #3
Denzell glanced around them, saw with satisfaction that his friends were all deep in discussion, and pulled Kenrick apart, obliging him to walk as he said in an urgent under-voice, “I have something I particularly wish to ask you.”
“What?” demanded Kenrick, intrigued.
“Have you any relatives down Sussex way?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“Are you sure?” urged Denzell, ignoring the question.
“Sure? No! How in thunder should I know all the ins and outs of the family? My grandfather was one of five, and I can’t account for the half of them.”
“Oh,” said Denzell, dashed. “Damnation. Then it might go years back, and you would not know of it.”
“Talking in riddles, old fellow. I wish you’d tell me what’s in your mind.”
Denzell suddenly wondered why he was doing this. If Verena Chaceley had wanted him to investigate the ramifications of her family, no doubt she would have asked him to do so. Yes, when the moon turned to green cheese. What the devil was he doing?
He shook his head. “It does not matter. I met someone — but it is not important.”
Kenrick’s interest was not so readily depressed, however. “What, you mean you have met a Chaceley? In Sussex?”
“No, in Tunbridge Wells, but —”
“Tunbridge Wells? Lord, Hawk, what in thunder took you to a tumbledown rack of a place like that?”
Denzell grinned. “I know. Though it is quite a thriving community these days, you must realise — if aged on the whole. My friend Osmond Ruishton lives there.”
“He must be mad.”
“Probably.”
Kenrick slapped his shoulder. “Tell you what, Hawk. We’ll ask my father. Knows the family tree inside out, does my father. Ten to one, though, there ain’t no Chaceley in Tunbridge Wells.”
But Bevis Chaceley, when accosted by his son, could not enlighten them. Could not, or would not? Denzell wondered, the urgency returning despite himself. Had there not been even a slight reaction from the fellow?
Kenrick’s father was a handsome man of middle years, running a little to the portly, but still able to cut a fine figure in a suit of green-toned ditto.
He was a calm personage, with a pleasant manner and an easy temperament.
Although Denzell knew Bevis Chaceley for a stern parent, he was not as rigid in his views as old man Chaceley.
“Sussex!” he exclaimed, as if there was meaning in it.
Something leapt in Denzell’s chest. He knew something.
But then the gentleman frowned a little, pursing up his lips. “What part of Sussex?”
“A place called Fittleworth,” Denzell answered, an odd sensation inside him, as of a hunger — for information.
Bevis shook his head. “I think not. It may be some other family.” He smiled. “We are not the only Chaceleys to bear the name, my boy.”
Denzell scarcely had time to register the disappointment that attacked him before a new voice interrupted them.
“Ha, young Hawkeridge!”
It was a gruff voice, proceeding from an elderly gentleman, poker stiff, with the figure of a much younger man, but a defiant show of his own grizzled head and well-cut clothing in keeping with the times.
Armed with a cane, which he leaned on but slightly, he walked slowly towards them, at his heels two matronly ladies in whom Denzell recognised Mrs Esther Chaceley, wife to Bevis, the heir, and Mrs Camilla Chaceley, the Reverend Hartley’s helpmeet.
Recovering his company face, Denzell greeted them all with a mixture of deference and bonhomie, which sat well with the ladies, at least. It did not appear to do him any harm in old Mr Chaceley’s eyes, either. The patriarch seemed well pleased, and the reason was soon established.
“Mean to congratulate your mother, boy. She’s done excellent well by her girl, excellent well. Rowner, eh? It’s a good match. Very good match, indeed. Well done.”
Denzell took the hand held out to him, and found himself the recipient of a hearty, and surprisingly strong, handshake.
“I thank you, sir, and have no hesitation in accepting your words of praise to myself. Lord Rowner is a close friend of mine, and if there has been any matchmaking, I must take all credit, for Teresa met him through me.”
A bark of laughter from the old man rewarded him, and the ladies tittered.
“For shame, Denzell,” scolded Mrs Esther Chaceley, closing her fan and rapping his hand. “You will not pretend that it is not your mama who has brought him up to scratch.”
“No, I will not, ma’am,” agreed Denzell. “The truth is that it is Teresa herself who brought poor Freddy up to scratch, without any assistance from anyone else.”
The gentlemen hugely enjoyed what they took to be a joke, while the ladies shrieked and scolded, Mrs Camilla Chaceley going on to tease Denzell that his turn must be next. An idea that, for some reason, clouded Denzell’s amusement. He maintained a cool front, however.
“Quite right,” approved old man Chaceley. “How old are you, boy? More than twenty, I take it.”
“Five and twenty, sir.”
“High time, high time.” He raised a stiff finger. “But make a good match, boy. Good match. Most important thing in the world. Now, I must kiss the bride, eh?”
With another of his mirthful barks, he went off, accompanied by his acolytes.
“Good match,” muttered Kenrick in Denzell’s ear. “That’s all he cares about.”
“Don’t most men of property?” Denzell asked, still struggling against the unwelcome resurgence of his earlier sombre mood.
“Just so,” agreed Bevis, who had not followed his father. He nodded at Denzell. “I’m glad you spoke up for yourself, my boy. My father likes that in a fellow. He never could stand a show of weakness.”
“Never could stand anything that went against his inclinations,” murmured Kenrick as his father moved away.
“Prideful old… Well, I shall not say what I wish to call him. But I give you my word, old fellow, you would not believe the mean-spirited actions that he has taken on account of this obsession he has with a good match.”
“Oh?” queried Denzell, sudden interest driving away his abstraction. “What sort of thing do you mean?”
But there was to be no answer to this question. Bevis Chaceley had apparently overheard his son, and he stepped back, frowning. “That will do, Kenrick. It does not become you to speak of your grandfather in such terms.”
Kenrick had the grace to blush, murmuring, “I beg your pardon, sir.” But he grimaced at Denzell behind his father’s back as that worthy turned to him.
“My boy, you spoke of someone you met of the name of Chaceley. I was just wondering, was it a gentleman, or…?”
He ended on a note of interrogation, one eyebrow raised. Denzell’s senses came fully alert. Was there something to be discovered here after all?
“No, sir,” he answered. “A lady. A Miss Verena Chaceley. She was residing with her mother in lodgings in Tunbridge Wells.” He added on a deliberately casual note, “It is a curious situation.”
“Indeed?”
It was given its usual courteous inflexion, but the question was implicit. He wanted to know more. Like a hound to the scent, Denzell took the plunge. He had nothing to lose, and perhaps — with a lurch of the stomach that he did not even pretend to try to understand — everything to gain.
“Very curious, sir. The mother has remarried, it seems, for she is now called Peverill.”
“Peverill,” repeated Bevis, his tone flat.
Recognition? Denzell did not think so. But there was still interest.
“Yes, sir,” he continued. “There is a brother on the Peverill side, and the husband is still alive. The conclusion one is forced to is that Mrs Peverill is at the spa for her health, for she is not by any means in plump currant, but —” He stopped, wondering all at once why he had begun this at all.
Bevis Chaceley’s expression was blank. There was nothing here to shed any light on Verena’s mystery. Oh, deuce take it, Verena! Still in his thoughts?
He would have abandoned the matter then. Turned it off, and rushed away to busy himself so hard that the image playing about his inner vision must fade. But Bevis did not seem to be in a mind to let the matter drop. He raised his brows in a compelling question.
“But?”
Denzell gave an inward sigh, and shrugged.
“Sir, I hardly know how to answer you. Except to say that from my experience of Miss Chaceley — which was not, I grant you, very much — it seems clear that there is some point of contention. I don’t know what.
But there is in Miss Chaceley…” There was a tightening in his chest as it all came back to him.
With a roughening of his tone, he resumed, “There is both fear and distress. That is all I can tell you, sir.” He paused, and then, as if compelled, he asked again, “Are you sure she is no relation?”
To his sudden, intense disappointment, Bevis Chaceley laughed in a way that left no room for doubt. He knew nothing. Or at least, that was how he wished it to appear.
“My dear boy,” he said, “how could I tell? There are innumerable Chaceleys in the world, as I mentioned before.”
Kenrick nodded. “Hordes of them. I should think even my grandfather does not know them all.”
Denzell eyed them both, wondering if he should pursue it. But to what end? The matter was resolved for him. A servant arrived with precisely the sort of distraction he needed. Teresa had gone to change her dress and his mother wished to speak to him.
By the time he had run the particular errand requested of him by Lady Hawkeridge, the encounter with the Chaceleys had temporarily faded from his mind.
It was recalled at a moment when he was gathered with his cronies as they were taking their leave of the bridegroom, with much ribald comment amid their good wishes for his future.
“Mark my words, Freddy,” warned Osmond, “your troubles are just beginning. Only wait until the children arrive.”
“This from a man who, by all accounts, dotes on his offspring,” scoffed Aldous Congleton.
“Dotes? He is besotted,” said Cyril Bedale.
“Exactly,” Denzell put in. “Pay no attention, Freddy. You should have heard him eulogising over his new daughter.”