CHAPTER XXII
LEAVING Belcourt before dawn had properly broken, Arthur and Timothy still arrived back in Berkeley Square with only an hour for Arthur to change into his regimentals and make his way across town for the procession.
‘Quick, quick, quick,’ his mother greeted him, urging him towards the stairs which Arthur ascended two at a time, before coming to an abrupt halt on the first-floor landing – for there was Hetty.
She halted, too. There was a pause. Then: ‘Good morning.’ Finding it still rather difficult to look him in the eye, she fixed her gaze upon his left eyebrow. ‘I trust you had a pleasant journey?’
Arthur had a hundred things he wished to say to her – half of them, following Timothy’s confession, recriminations – but could not utter a single one of them. The expression upon her face was too unsettling: she had retreated behind a wall in a way he had never known before.
‘I did,’ he confirmed at last.
‘You will be late if you do not hurry.’
‘I have a moment,’ Arthur said.
Hetty shook her head. ‘I do not. We are expected at a breakfast party ahead of the procession. Mrs Corcott has hired a window on the Strand so that we may be sure of a good view.’
With that, she dipped a curtsey – a curtsey! – and edged past him, trying not to look as if she were running away. Arthur turned to watch her rapid departure for a moment, before shaking himself and making his way upstairs.
The breakfast party at the Corcotts’ had been arranged so as to prevent their guests getting caught up in the traffic which was already filling London’s streets.
No one in the whole city wished to miss the procession, and now that Arthur was to join it, Lady Allerton could be pleased rather than envious that Mrs Corcott had had the foresight to organise such a scheme.
After a delightful breakfast, they made their way to the Strand, where they disembarked and were ushered up to the second floor of the building.
‘Oh, yes, we shall be able to see everything from up here!’ Trixie said, tripping over to the window. ‘Prince Wilhelm has promised to wave to me – do you think they will be able to see us?’
‘The Marquis de Nicolet,’ the butler announced. ‘And Mademoiselle de Nicolet.’
Timothy looked up from his conversation with Mr Hargan to hiss: ‘Mama, you did not tell me they were coming!’
Lady Allerton was baffled. ‘I thought you would be pleased!’
Timothy was not pleased. He had spent a great deal of time mulling over Arthur’s warning the other night and, not expecting to encounter Mademoiselle de Nicolet until the evening, had not yet decided how to proceed.
‘What a wonderful scheme, Mrs Corcott!’ Lady Davenport was effusing to her hostess. ‘I own, I had wondered if Nicolet and Mademoiselle de Nicolet would find it odd to spectate on so many of their cousins – but they declared it all good sport!’
‘You would watch your cousin in a procession, would you not?’ Mademoiselle de Nicolet asked Timothy.
‘Revolting Hubert?’ Timothy grimaced comically. ‘Certainly not.’
Mademoiselle de Nicolet laughed. Timothy blanched. Arthur had been quite correct to warn him of danger on that front: the poor creature was on the verge of toppling head over heels in love with him. When she drifted towards the window, he did not follow her.
‘Corky,’ he hissed with a jerk of his head. ‘I must speak with you.’
The procession would not begin for a while yet, but a vast display of refreshments had been arranged to keep them busy and the windows looking out on the Strand below provided more than enough entertainment: in the minutes it had taken them to make their way inside, the streets looked visibly fuller, and as more guests began to arrive, they speculated as to how long it would take them to clear, observed a few scuffles between ladies, and for a while conversation was light and happy.
There was a great deal to discuss after all, such as the breaking off of Princess Charlotte’s engagement to the Prince of Orange.
‘I understand entirely,’ Trixie declared. ‘I should not wish to marry him.’
‘Trixie …’ Lady Allerton said, though fortunately the assembled party was willing to look upon her vivacity with indulgence.
‘It just seems so very tiresome,’ Trixie went on. ‘Indeed, I have decided not to marry at all this Season.’
‘Not even slightly?’ Mademoiselle de Nicolet asked, smiling.
Trixie shook her head firmly. ‘Nothing could be more fatal than marrying young. Unless, of course, one could marry a very, very old man – but then the worst luck would be that they go on living forever and ever!’
‘Old men can be so very disagreeable in that way,’ the Marquis agreed.
‘Shouldn’t say such things, Trixie,’ Timothy put in.
Trixie fired up at once. ‘Surely I am allowed to plan my life!’
‘One’s life, perhaps,’ Lady Allerton conceded, ‘but not someone’s death.’
‘Shockingly bad ton,’ Timothy agreed.
‘Is the Prince very knocked up by it all?’ Mrs Corcott asked the Marquis, who was known to be close to the fellow.
‘Not so badly,’ he said. ‘I think the embarrassment hurts far more.’
‘How did you come to meet one another?’ Trixie enquired. ‘I thought he made his schooling here in England.’
‘We met as boys,’ Nicolet said. ‘In Vienna, when I was—’
‘Oh, then did Hetty met the Prince, too? Hetty, you sly thing, you never said.’
Mademoiselle de Nicolet, looking from Hetty to her brother, felt her own curiosity stir. ‘How did you two come to be acquainted? I own, I have not been able to get a straight answer from Henri.’
‘Oh well, you know …’ Hetty tried to cudgel her mind for a change of subject, but the collective interest of the room had been piqued.
‘Oh, do tell us,’ Trixie begged. ‘My lord?’
To Hetty’s relief, Nicolet shook his head firmly. ‘Well, I would but … Miss Clithero does so love to tell it herself.’
Hetty turned, very slowly, to look at him. Had she had the power to fell a person with her gaze she would have used it at that moment.
‘Do I?’
‘You are being too humble,’ Nicolet chastised her. ‘You spin it into such a merry tale!’
‘Oh, then we must hear it,’ Lady Allerton said, looking inquiringly towards Hetty.
‘Do tell it, Miss Clithero,’ Mademoiselle de Nicolet added her entreaties.
All the faces in the room turned expectantly towards her.
‘Well,’ Hetty began. ‘Well.’ She cast about frantically. ‘It was – ah – through my father, of course.’
‘Oh yes, the famous professor!’ Lady Davenport declared.
The Marquis – now feeling a trifle guilty he had succumbed to such a mischievous impulse – perceived a moment to be helpful.
‘I was one of his students,’ he claimed proudly.
Hetty closed her eyes briefly to summon patience.
‘Were you?’ Lady Allerton was much surprised, and Hetty did not blame her. Only two days before, Nicolet had amusingly announced his distaste for all book-reading. ‘Did you study Ancient Greek or archaeology?’
‘Ah – archaeology,’ Nicolet said slowly, the smile fading a little from his face. Plainly he had not thought his interjection through.
‘I did not know of this!’ Lady Davenport was rather outraged at the oversight.
‘A childhood interest, no more,’ Nicolet assured her.
Lady Allerton advised him not to hide his light under a bushel. ‘For such a great mind to take an interest in you as a child, I should think you must be rather gifted.’
‘My father does occasionally indulge the curiosity of those with a particular love of ancient history, however young,’ Hetty put in hastily.
‘This does not sound much like you, Henri,’ Mademoiselle de Nicolet said quizzically.
‘I am full of surprises,’ the Marquis said with a sage nod, adding with a philosophical air: ‘Much like the past, in a way.’
‘You ought to discuss this with the Grandduchess,’ Lady Davenport said thoughtfully.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Nicolet said weakly. ‘I shouldn’t wish to bore her.’
Hetty sent Nicolet a malicious smile as Lady Davenport assured him: ‘She adores the Classics! I was speaking to her just last week upon the topic, and was sadly unable to keep up – you will have no such difficultly, of course!’
Nicolet pulled a little at his cravat. ‘Oh, I don’t think …’
Trixie was becoming impatient. ‘But when did you meet Hetty?’
Somewhat contrarily, Nicolet’s nerves had calmed Hetty’s own. ‘My father often taught his students at the house,’ she put in quickly. ‘His lordship and I met on one such occasion.’ She gave a bracing and, she hoped, concluding sort of smile. ‘Our acquaintance grew from there.’
There were murmurs of vague interest from the room. Hetty breathed a sigh of relief to have made their way through unscathed.
‘Which is of course where the story takes a twist,’ Nicolet interposed – Hetty turned her head slowly to glare at him. He winked.
‘You exaggerate,’ she said, with a decided edge to her voice.
‘A turn, then.’
‘Whose story is this?’
‘Oh, you mustn’t squabble,’ Lady Allerton said, amused. ‘Recollect you are not children any more!’
‘I think I hear cheers beginning!’ Miss Corcott said excitedly.
The party rose as one to move towards the window, the story of the Marquis and Hetty’s meeting entirely forgotten – by all but one.
Several parts of that story, Trixie mused, had not made in the least sense.
As the rest of the party were craning their necks to try and spot the first of the carriages, she sidled up to the Marquis.
‘How wonderful that you should know Professor Clithero so well,’ she said to him.
‘Hmm? Oh yes! A splendid gentleman.’
‘Quite the character, though.’ Trixie’s eyes were close upon his face. ‘That beard!’
‘That beard,’ Nicolet echoed. ‘Aha, yes, that beard.’
He paused a moment as if lost in fond, bearded memories, and excused himself – citing a refill of his glass – before she could probe any further.
This served to confirm Trixie’s building suspicion.
The Professor did not, of course, have a beard.
Trixie had once heard him and her father agree that any gentleman with pretensions to facial hair ought immediately to be clapped in irons.