CHAPTER XX
ARTHUR left for Belcourt the very next day.
It was a visit he had been wishing to make for weeks, only to be repeatedly thwarted by Lady Allerton’s demands on his diary, and though the following days were every bit as full as those that had preceded them, Arthur had awoken that morning with a sudden, unshakable conviction: he could not spend another moment in the city.
‘The Guildhall banquet is only two days from now,’ Lady Allerton objected over breakfast. ‘What about the procession? Recollect the honour that has been bestowed upon you!’
‘I am fully aware of it,’ Arthur said briefly.
Lady Allerton did not look reassured. Even Trixie noted with some disappointment that Arthur would miss the opera.
Only Hetty, further down the table, did not speak.
In an ideal world, after having one’s heart – however unknowingly – crushed, one would not have to face the crusher for weeks.
The fact of her having to lay eyes upon him mere hours after he had, once and for all, dashed all her hopes felt particularly cruel.
She rose as soon as she was able, excusing herself to her ladyship on the basis of going for a ride.
‘With whom?’ Arthur queried sharply.
They had not exchanged a word since their argument the night before. If one could call it an argument, when the fault had been – to Arthur’s mind – so entirely one-sided. The fact that Hetty had not yet even attempted an apology only deepened his sense of grievance with her.
‘I fail to see why that is your business,’ Hetty said haughtily.
‘Hetty,’ Lady Allerton reproached.
‘Do you mean to meet the Marquis?’ Arthur demanded.
Trixie looked from one to the other, delighted. ‘Have you been forbidden, also, Hetty?’
‘Given it is not in Arthur’s power to do so,’ Hetty said deliberately, ‘no.’
Arthur placed his knife down with a clink. ‘This is my household, is it not?’
‘If you would prefer that I leave it—’
‘No, of course he does not,’ Lady Allerton cut in. ‘Indeed, there is no need for any of this, for you are meeting Mrs Morgan, are you not, Hetty?’
For a moment, Hetty considered lying just to prove a point. ‘Yes,’ she admitted begrudgingly.
Some of Arthur’s ire subsided. ‘Very well.’
Hetty swept from the room.
‘I own, I do not understand what poor Nicolet has done to earn your ire,’ Lady Allerton noted behind her.
Hetty paused for a moment outside the door, curious – despite herself – to hear Arthur’s answer. But Arthur’s response was brief: ‘He is unworthy of her. I do not wish them to ride out together any more, Mama.’
There was a pause. ‘Does he have natural-born children too?’ Trixie enquired.
Hetty whisked herself away before she could hear more than Lady Allerton’s shriek of horror, changing into a severely cut riding dress that suited her mood perfectly, and making for Hyde Park at once.
That day, Hetty had never been more grateful for Mrs Morgan’s skill at chatter.
One merely had to hum at the right moment, and Mrs Morgan would continue for another five minutes, and Hetty let it wash over her, hoping it would soothe the flames of agitation licking up her throat.
By the time the other lady consulted her pocket watch and announced it was time to return home, Hetty was still not ready to go back to Berkeley Square.
Hoping, therefore, that – given Arthur’s famous impatience for dawdling – she might be able to remain out until his departure for Belcourt, she directed her horse to take another turn of the park, at which point she found herself hailed from quite an unexpected direction.
‘Good morning,’ Mrs Ridley said when she and Hetty drew up alongside each other. ‘May I join you? I wish to enquire after the health of Miss Allerton. She has not, I hope, been unduly distressed by her adventure last night.’
‘Not in the least,’ Hetty said dryly. She thanked Mrs Ridley again for her intervention and then, after a little hesitation, conveyed her hope that they would be able to keep the secret of Trixie’s presence between themselves.
Mrs Ridley assured Hetty she knew how to keep her tongue in her head and, moreover, that she would ensure the Captain did the same.
Hetty did not enquire as to the means by which Mrs Ridley would do so – of course, she thought bitterly, she was another woman who could have all gentlemen jumping to attention with the lift of a finger.
‘Are you well, Miss Clithero?’ Mrs Ridley suddenly enquired. ‘You look a little blue-devilled.’
Hetty was surprised by the apparent concern. ‘The perils of the Season,’ she said. ‘No one seems to admit how taxing it can be.’
‘I do not find it so,’ Mrs Ridley disagreed, adding more reflectively, ‘But then, I am not participating in the marriage mart.’
As they rode alongside one another, Hetty cast Mrs Ridley a sidelong, curious glance.
It was a bizarre thing to be riding so companionably beside someone she had long considered her rival – and who Hetty had not thought even knew her name – and perhaps it was this strangeness that had Hetty asking impulsively: ‘Have you never been tempted to marry again?’
Mrs Ridley did not seem overly bothered by the impertinence. ‘Not in the least.’ She cast Hetty an arch look. ‘It is not the only purpose of a woman, you know.’
‘It is sometimes difficult to know what else there is,’ Hetty admitted.
Mrs Ridley shot her a reproving sort of look. ‘How can you say so? Being wealthy makes things frightfully easy, you know. One can do anything, go anywhere.’
‘As a widow, perhaps,’ Hetty said sceptically. ‘It is not the same for unmarried ladies.’
Understanding, quickly, that they were not talking in general terms, Mrs Ridley suggested: ‘With a respectable female to chaperone you, more is possible than you would think. You might travel, or – in a few years more – set yourself up with an establishment of your own.’
To Hetty, in that moment, this prospect seemed terribly lonely. ‘And do what?’
Mrs Ridley’s patience was wearing thin. ‘Whatever you like, my girl! What do you like?’
Hetty could not, at that moment, answer the question – a fact that both ladies found equally depressing.
‘Think on it,’ Mrs Ridley recommended. ‘That’s as a good a start as any!
’ Then, more kindly: ‘I do not pretend to know what sort of conniption you are involved in, my dear – don’t tell me!
– but love is not the only thing for which you are fit, I promise. ’
They parted ways soon after, and by the time Hetty reached home, Arthur was – thankfully – gone.
He had not departed alone, however. Timothy had appeared at the eleventh hour, hastening down Berkeley Square and hailing Arthur just as he was preparing to climb into his curricle, accompanied only by his groom and a small valise.
‘Oh good, you have not yet left.’ Timothy was half breathless. ‘May I accompany you?’
‘I do not intend to return until Saturday,’ Arthur warned him, but Timothy – unbothered by this – climbed directly up next to him.
Arthur drove at a spanking pace through the city, and they were soon reaching the tollgate at Farningham, at which point he felt – as if his soul recognised this crossing point as well as his eyes – the usual lift of having left London behind.
‘What time do you intend to return on Saturday?’ Timothy wondered. ‘Ideally, for me, we would leave at around nine o’clock.’
Had this question occurred before the turnstile, Arthur might have acidly responded that he was not a hackney cab.
As it occurred afterwards, he was inclined to be amused.
‘While I should prefer to place myself at your convenience,’ he said politely.
‘I’m afraid I shall need to leave at dawn for the procession. ’
‘I suppose that works just as well,’ Timothy decided. ‘I shall pick the dashed flowers before breakfast.’
‘What are you talking about?’
The question required only a short answer, but Timothy did not think that reason to spare a comprehensive amount of detail: Mademoiselle de Nicolet’s complaint about the insipidity of English flowers had, naturally, caused every gentleman who admired her to dash around London in search of some unusual bud to catch her eye.
‘No use!’ Timothy cast up his arms. ‘Nothing but carnations everywhere!’
Arthur expressed his sympathies for this sorry state of affairs.
‘Then of course,’ Timothy continued over a spot of nuncheon at a posting inn, ‘while the rest of us are getting up at the crack of dawn to go down to Covent Garden, Corky, the snake, doesn’t even bother.
He has Hargan – sapskull that he is – agreeing to fetch one of his special flowers from Norfolk. ’
‘Clever,’ Arthur noted.
Timothy pointed his fork at Arthur, outraged. ‘Cheating,’ he corrected. ‘Hargan was my friend, first, you know!
‘In short,’ he concluded sometime later, in the curricle once more, ‘I’m hoping to find something in Belcourt’s greenhouses that might compete. If I pick them directly before our departure, they ought to last, oughtn’t they? She will wear the winner’s offering to Lady Cavendish’s assembly.’
By that point, they had almost arrived. Had Arthur not known it from the landscapes they passed through – perhaps indistinguishable to an untrained eye, but not to one who had driven this route more times than he would care to think – he would have known it from the smell.
He was not sure of the composite parts of the scent, or why they were so particular – one would not think that wet earth, shot through with brambles, a unique smell – and yet he felt the recognition deep within his bones.
Sure enough, in almost the next moment, they were turning in at the gates of Belcourt.