CHAPTER V
JUDGING by the persons all about them, the Theatre Royal was set to be entirely full that evening.
The entrance hall was teeming with ladies and gentlemen Hetty could instantly recognise – those glittering characters so infamous in their set – as well as those she could not.
For cutting through the usual evening wear was the blue of a Dutch uniform, and the smart rifle-green of a Belgian dragoon, and – most striking still – a veritable river of the scarlet coats which had been growing in number each day.
‘Is he here?’ Trixie’s eyes were following Hetty’s through the crowds about them. Eyes landing upon a corpulent octogenarian, she asked, rather warily: ‘It’s not him, is it?’
‘Of whom do you speak?’
‘Your paramour,’ was Trixie’s prompt reply. ‘The Belgian noble you met in you youth, tragically torn from you by the cruelty of circumstance.’
The results of an active imagination – and a relatively dull day – had caused Trixie to not only settle on the nationality of Hetty’s fictional lover but to also add significant embellishment to his story.
‘Oh, do hush,’ Hetty begged her. The journey to the theatre had not been long, but it was certainly long enough for Hetty’s nerves to awaken.
Whatever magic had overcome her in the calm of the modiste had by now entirely vanished, such that when the cloakroom attendant made to help her out of her cloak, she had to force herself not to hold fast. The room was warm, but she felt goose-pimpled, exposed and somehow a little unnatural.
She smoothed down an imaginary wrinkle, looking about herself and trying to breathe deeply.
Unheeding of Hetty’s plea, Trixie peered about them once more. ‘Is it him?’
Hetty shushed her again, casting a worried glance over her shoulder at Arthur, only to find his attention – blessedly – taken up with shaking hands.
As his tailor had yet to complete his new evening dress, Arthur had arrayed himself, for one last occasion, in the dress uniform of one of General Graham’s aides-de-camp, and though Lady Allerton had voiced her opinion that his regimental colours had held far more panache, Hetty herself could find no fault in his appearance.
Nothing could have been better than the set of his coat across his shoulders, disturbed only by its fringed sash, and as they made their way to their seats, he was hailed by more than a dozen persons, all of whom wished to wring his hand, enquire after his health and press him for details of his experience.
‘Struck down at Vitoria, is that right?’ Baron Rochdale demanded. ‘Was it as bloody as they say?’
‘I did not hear any complaints on that count,’ Arthur said lightly.
‘Oh, I am jealous,’ Trixie declared impetuously. ‘What an adventure you have had! I wish ladies could join up, I really do.’
Baron Rochdale let out a roar of laughter. A slight flush came to Trixie’s cheeks, and she raised her chin defiantly. ‘I think the Duke of Wellington would be very interested to hear my views!’
‘He certainly would,’ Arthur assured her gravely.
Trixie lowered her chin, mollified, and Arthur turned a little to catch the eye of Hetty, who was hovering just behind.
Hetty tried to muster the courage to join in, to make some sort of pithy comment that would cause everyone to think her very witty …
Instead, she dropped her eyes to her hands, pretending to adjust her gloves and lamenting her own cowardice.
It took them a further ten minutes to reach their box, but while the task of navigating through such a crush of persons had very much frayed Hetty’s mettle, Arthur’s mood had been greatly restored.
Certainly, the barrage of questions about the war might become trying, but he did not begrudge anyone their interest – indeed, before he himself had left for the Continent, he had been guilty of just the same sort of curiosity – and it was the work of a moment to redirect conversation.
Besides, it was strangely enlivening to do so.
The past two days might have been humbling, discovering just exactly how lacking he was in any of the knowledge required for a role he had considered his birthright – but this at least, he could do.
It was pleasing, also, to be assured by their various acquaintances that he was in for a rare treat that evening.
London, at the time of his departure, had been undergoing something of a theatrical slump, but this had been summarily concluded by the debut of Edmund Kean, whose turns as Shylock, Richard III and Hamlet had enraptured the entire city – and caused Trixie, briefly but fiercely, to consider a life on the stage.
That night marked another outing of Kean’s Iago, but although Hetty would have assumed this play to entrance Trixie more than Hamlet, her attention – as the curtain rose – was caught more by the boxes opposite than the events upon the stage.
Arthur was intrigued. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Not what – who,’ Trixie corrected. ‘I don’t recognise that gentleman.’
Arthur followed the direction of her gaze. ‘That is Captain Edgewood.’
He did not say his name with any particular pleasure. He had had no personal dealings with the fellow, who served in a different regiment, but he was well known to take pleasure from the darker pleasures Society had to offer a prepossessing gentleman: drinking, gambling and the breaking of hearts.
‘Do you know him? Will you introduce me, Arthur?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Not the sort of person one introduces to his sister,’ Timothy added, sparking Trixie’s curiosity only further.
‘Why not?’
Timothy cast about for an appropriate means of explaining this. Arthur, perceiving his struggle, said only: ‘He’s an adventurer.’
Trixie’s eyes went wide. ‘But how marvellous! I have always wanted to be an adventurer myself, you know.’
Lady Allerton hushed them.
‘It isn’t marvellous,’ Timothy contradicted in a lower voice. ‘It’s a – it’s a bad thing, Trix.’
Hetty looked from Arthur to Timothy enquiringly. ‘Do you mean he is a libertine?’
Arthur let out a choke of laughter, while Lady Allerton turned shocked eyes to Hetty. ‘Hetty!’
Hetty was at once conscience-stricken. ‘Forgive me.’
It had been a while since she had made such an error.
Having been raised almost exclusively in the company of men Hetty had had to learn the rules of what was considered ladylike to know or not know.
Her father, and the scholarly gentlemen who constituted his social circle, used to discuss such things in a very matter-of-fact manner.
‘Is it very vulgar?’ she asked Timothy in undertone.
‘Very,’ Timothy told her darkly.
‘At least she explains things,’ Trixie defended Hetty. Then after a pause, added: ‘What exactly is a libertine?’
Lady Allerton groaned.
‘He does not have a good reputation,’ Arthur interpolated, smile still catching the corners of his mouth. ‘Let us leave it at that.’
Lady Allerton shushed them, more insistently this time, and Hetty and Arthur obediently swung their gazes back forward – only to be distracted, this time, by Timothy, who had also begun peering over into the boxes opposite.
‘The devil has copied my trousers,’ he murmured.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Corky!’ Timothy hissed. ‘Look at his pantaloons – they’re distinctly the same shade of biscuit.’
‘Will you please hush!’ Lady Allerton hissed. Timothy subsided back into his seat with a scowl.
At the interval, Lady Allerton chivvied Trixie to standing, expressing her intention to pay Lady Rosely and her daughters a visit, adding kindly to Hetty: ‘You can stay here if you like, my dear.’
Hetty accepted this offer gratefully – and was still more pleased by Arthur’s promise to keep her company.
‘I shall fetch refreshment for us,’ Timothy offered gallantly. Then, with brows darkening, he added ominously: ‘I should like to speak with Corky, too.’
Arthur frowned at Timothy’s departing back. ‘Is Corky not a friend of Timothy’s?’
‘They are mortal enemies now,’ Hetty explained. ‘Ever since Corky told Timothy that his neckcloths are wildly unoriginal.’
Arthur let out a mock-gasp.
‘I know,’ Hetty agreed. ‘It was all I could do to stop Timothy calling him out over the matter.’
Arthur’s laugh turned into a sigh. When last he had been in the country, Timothy had still been at Oxford, and all he could talk about was cricket and prize fights, while Trixie had been sporting plaits and reserving her mischief for schoolyard pranks.
He had been kept well apprised of all the family’s comings and goings, but Hetty’s letters had not quite captured how much his brother and sister had grown up.
They had not captured many things, plainly – and it was this thought that had Arthur, though he had not planned to do so, turning to Hetty and asking quite directly: ‘Why did you not tell me about the diamonds, Hetty?’
Hetty looked at him in some surprise. ‘Is that what has been preoccupying you? I beg you will not think of it a moment more. It does not signify in the least.’
‘It does to me,’ Arthur disagreed quietly. ‘You have been dreadfully imposed upon.’
Hetty, who had a lively fear of overstepping where the Allertons were concerned, blanched.
‘Lady Allerton was in such high fidgets,’ she defended herself.
‘I gather there was some debt she could not rightly burden the estate with – and it was so easy, truly. I had it sorted all in a trice, and with the copies no one suspected a thing.’
Arthur cast her a sidelong glance. ‘Yes, the copies are admirable. Where did you have it done?’
Hetty stilled. ‘Oh – some establishment in Cheapside. There is a, ah, fellow there who is – is a dab hand at such things.’
‘Perhaps you might give me his direction. A useful person to know, certainly.’
‘I think he has moved on, now. The premises have changed to a – to a haberdashery, in fact.’
‘Oh, then they will surely know where to find him,’ Arthur pressed. ‘Perhaps you might take me? Tomorrow?’
‘Oh no, I would but I think he – Actually, I think he is dead!’