Althea (30 page)

Tracy regarded Georgiana with respect. “Ma’am, I do not
propose to be hard on her at all.” He bowed over her hand, nodded to the
gentlemen, and left the room.

Merrit stared after him in amazement. “But I understand!” he
insisted. “I understand it now. Calendar’s soft on Ally! Ain’t that the
damnedest thing you ever — beg pardon, Miss Laverham, I forgot you were here.”
Still shaking his head in wonder, Merrit followed Pendarly and Georgiana out to
where the chaise was waiting.

o0o

If Calendar did not precisely ride
ventre à terre
to
London, he was at least very speedy in his return. He outdistanced the chaise
at once, and arrived in Grosvenor Square perhaps an hour and a half in advance
of the party. He surprised the footman at the Bevans’s household, who had
certainly no expectations of admitting a gentleman calling at the unlikely hour
of five in the morning, but before he could be turned away by an insistent man
who reiterated that the master and mistress were not receiving at this peculiar
hour, Lord Bevan and Miss Ervine emerged from the library to greet him.

Tracy was shocked by Althea’s appearance. She was not only
bleary-eyed from lack of sleep; worry and the course of a few tears had left
their mark on her face. Her gown was badly crumpled, and her hands, pressed
tightly into fists beyond her power to unclench, testified to the origin of
some of those wrinkles.

Bevan led them back to the library and closed the door. He
and Althea faced Calendar as one might face an enemy charge.

“Well?” Bevan asked.

“Safe,” Tracy said briefly.

All the strength that had heretofore supported Althea
disappeared in a minute. She swayed where she stood, but when Tracy and Francis
moved to help her to a chair, she waved them aside and managed to seat herself
without aid.

“She’ll be coming here, I hope,” she whispered.

“They should be here within the hour or so. I congratulate
you on the story you gave out — Merrit explained it to me as we rode out. Very
neat.”

“Yes,” Althea said bitterly, “I have a perfect genius for
neat plots and convenient tales.” She looked up at her companions. “I’ll see
that her room is made ready before she arrives. And, Tracy: how is she?”

“Blooming: she is united with Pendarly, who seems to have
discovered a novel diversion in the fact that he is genuinely attached to her.”

“With such a chance to play the hero I should wonder he’d
have time for such a novel discovery. He may never have the chance to be so
gallant again. I beg your pardon — I am being uncivil, and with no excuse — I
cannot claim fatigue when you have been up as late as I, and with more to
fatigue you in a ride like the one I am sure you must have had. . . .” Her
voice was shaking, and she hardly knew what she said anymore. “I’ll go up now,”
she murmured, and rose from her seat, managing with effort to appear collected.

“Bevan, will you give us a few minutes?” Calendar asked. “I
have a message for your sister’s ears only, which Miss Laverham charged me to
carry before I left her.” Francis rose obligingly and left the room. Althea
wanted of all things to avoid being alone with Calendar, but could not for her
life think of leaving until she knew if Georgiana blamed her for the abduction.
For a moment he said nothing at all.

“The message, sir?” she asked pointedly.

“There was none,” he admitted. “But you might let a man
catch his breath after a ride such as I have had, Ally.”

“At least you were doing something! I was here, left to my
own thoughts, indeed, quite unable to avoid them! All I have been able to do is
run through my mind images of the perils that faced poor Georgiana — my God,
what images! I had rather have been riding all night than sitting here spoiling
embroidery patterns and trying not to think.”

“I sincerely wish you would not take quite so much blame
upon yourself,” Tracy said mildly. “You were hardly to know what straits
Wallingham was in, or what he had in his head. Miss Laverham, who was certainly
more in his company than you, had no idea at all.”

“You
are
magnanimous, sir,” Althea said hotly. “When
I consider that only last night you were happy to lay the blame at my door for
my lack of sense in even introducing Wallingham to Georgiana — and now you are
proven right and I admit it. I wish you the joy of your forgiveness. I shall
not find it so easy to forgive myself.”

“Althea, stop playing at tragedy and behave like the
rational woman I know you to be,” he scolded.

“Perhaps I cease to be a rational woman between the hours of
two and eight in the morning. I can see very little but my own folly at this
hour. And that is not a sight it pleasures me to indulge in.” Her voice filled
with tears as she turned her back to him and addressed the wall. “I wish I had
never come to this horrible city! I wish — lord, how I wish that none of my
friends had ever heard my name here, let alone that I ever had the power to
hurt them.” Her voice broke, her shoulders shook. “I should have known better
than to leave the home I was used to. From the day I entered London — from the
morning when that lunatic in a phaeton ran my chaise off the road — I should
have realized that I was out of my mind!”

“What was that?” Calendar’s eyebrows rose. “When exactly did
you arrive in town?”

Althea gave him the date abstractedly. “What can that
matter? The only thing that concerns me now is when I leave.” Calendar, bemused
by his own calculations, missed the bitterness in her tone.

“My God,” he cried, with a mixture of horror and delight
“that could not have been you in the chaise that day? Aunt Margaret will be
delighted to know it! It will utterly confirm her opinion of me as a racketing
nabster with more hair than wit.” He began to chuckle to himself. Althea turned
to him hotly, forgetting the tears on her face, and demanded to know what was
so overwhelmingly funny. He advanced to take her hand; she drew it from him
sharply.

“Only this, sweetheart: we
must
have been destined
for each other — I am very much afraid that it was
my
phaeton that ran
your
carriage off the road. I was driving for a bet, you see, and couldn’t stop to
see what damage I had done.”

“And that is funny? It confirms only what I had thought: we
should never suit. Fate had us clashing from the outset — even before we knew
of each other’s existence!”

“Althea, please spare me your melodrama! Can’t you see the
humor in all this?” Tracy was taken in his fatigue by laughter; Althea was
taken in hers by morbid melancholy. His chuckles became laughter he could
barely control. When he saw Althea turn and make for the door in a determined
fashion, though, he did control it, and went to grasp her arm and turn her
toward him.

“We really haven’t anything to say, Tracy. I am sorry if I
ever made you think that you could like — could stand to be — could marry me —
I won’t hold you to your promise. Goodbye.” She was not crying anymore. Her
eyes were stony dry and her face set in lines of miserable determination.

“Once and for all, will you stop this fustian nonsense? I
see it is no use to talk to you now, but I will be back later, my dear.” He
released her and made to open the door for her. “Georgiana did say something to
me — perhaps that was her message to you. She begged that I would not be too
hard on you, and I told her I had no intention of being hard on you at all. But
don’t you be too hard on yourself, love. I shall call later today. Get some
sleep and the world may begin to look more the thing.”

He was still close enough so that he could bend and brush his
lips across her cheek before he left.

Althea stood stock still for some time after he had gone —
it might have been five minutes or half an hour: she knew not. Her first
coherent thought when she had regained the use of her limbs was: I must pack. I
must be ready when Merrit arrives home. In a flurry of mindless organization
Althea went up to one of the second bedrooms and made sure it would be ready to
receive Georgiana when she arrived. Then she went to her own room and began,
pell mell, to pack her clothes. Only the morning and round gowns, her habit, a
few traveling suits did she pack (somewhat inexpertly) in the first bandboxes
that came to hand (they happened to belong to Miss Banders). The evening and
opera gowns and similar frivolous articles she left for Maria, with a note that
made it clear
she
would not need them again. A few tears were dropped
upon that note, which sent her best love to both her sister and brother-in-law,
begged them to make any excuse they liked for her sudden departure, and to ask
Georgiana’s forgiveness when they thought best. For Banders she left a note
explaining that she was returning to Lancashire, and that Banders could follow
when and if she wanted — with no fear of trouble from Sir George. “At least I
am sure that I can still manage Papa without ruining anyone else’s life!”

At a quarter past seven a carriage arrived at the back and
deposited what looked like two gentlemen and a very large bundle composed of
sprigged muslin and plaid woolen blanket. Althea had warned one of the maids, a
good girl who could be trusted not to share the morning’s adventures with her
friends, that Mr. Ervine and Mr. Pendarly would be bringing one of her friends
in early in the morning, so the gentlemen and their parcel were admitted with
no trouble, despite the oddness of the hour. Althea was there to greet them in
a moment, and to direct Pendarly, who bore Georgiana in his arms as if she were
a Ming vase, to the bedchamber prepared for her. If she expected some change in
his manner of greeting, she was disappointed. His concern for Georgiana, and
her avid desire to avoid conversing with any of the principals in the night’s
drama, coupled with her intention to leave the house as soon as possible, made
their communication rather a brief one. She thought that she might have missed
the wrath she expected.

Georgiana was settled — still asleep — with as little fuss
as possible, and Miss Banders given charge over her. Pendarly made a grave
adieu
to Althea and took Merrit’s hand in a gesture of fellowship that Merrit felt at
least a small recompense for the lackluster quality of the evening’s amusement.
When the door had closed behind Pendarly, Althea turned to her brother and
announced that they were leaving.

“What? But I only just got back, and even at that, I only
just arrived in town anyhow. I told you there was no rush to get back to Hook
Well — not for a day or so, a fortnight even. I’ve just begun to see some
adventure: last night was something out of the common run of things in
Lancashire, I can tell you.”

“Merrit,” Althea said dangerously, “we leave within the
hour.”

Merrit regarded his sister with the respect born of many
years’ close association with that same tone.

“Yes, Ally,” he said.

“Well, boy, where are you off to?” Lady Boskingram surprised
her nephew as he made for the door. It was late in the afternoon, and he had
been sleeping since his return that morning. Having cornered him, his aunt had
no intention of releasing him until she knew the full story of the previous night’s
adventures. As quickly as he could Tracy sketched the story for her. At the end
of the narrative the Countess applauded. “Delightful outing. And what time did
you return here this morning?”

Tracy yawned extensively. “I arrived at Bevan’s in advance
of the party, soon after five, to inform Althea and Bevan that all was well —
Pendarly and young Ervine followed behind with Miss Laverham in a chaise. That
gave me ample time for a set-to with Althea — I swear, ma’am, I have never met
any woman so determined not to be happy!”

“Are you sure she knows that you are where her happiness
lies?” his Aunt Peg asked shrewdly.

Tracy sobered. “I’m not sure of anything, ma’am. I know that
I love her and would endeavor to make her happy. What more can I say to her?
But also, you have not seen her as she was last night. I fear I raked her down
pretty harshly at Lady Liverpool’s, and this morning I was too tired to think,
let alone deal with her self-recriminations. I never thought she would take
what I said so to heart. She’s been tearing at herself, Aunt Peg, and that is
what I must put a stop to. Good God, the nonsense she spoke this morning! About
her foolishness and my patience — if you will! — and releasing me from my
promises and God only knows what other fustian.”

“I should never have taken her for such a peagoose,” Lady
Boskingram regretted.

“Nor should I, but you will admit that the circumstances
were extreme — she was very tired, and stretched tight as a drum with worry.
I’m afraid that I was hardly at my most conciliatory this morning either: the
journey had made me a trifle lightheaded, and I think I began to laugh
somewhere in the middle of the interview.”

“Now that is unforgivable,” the dowager reproved. “I shall
be much impressed with Althea’s charity if she speaks to you again before a
fortnight. Laughing at her tears! I begin to think all my earlier estimates of
your worthless character were correct.”

“No doubt,” Tracy said dryly. “But, Aunt Margaret, I have
just recalled it — I thought of you when I learned — do you remember the day
you arrived on my doorstep?”

“What? Well, of course I do, but what is that to the purpose
of anything? You do occasionally bewilder me, Tracy.”

“Only occasionally’?” He raised an eyebrow at his aunt.
“Stop interrupting me for a moment. You recall that I made my race to Quinlan’s
seat and back that day. And it was the day that Althea arrived in London.”

“‘Tis a marvel to me that the city of London could withstand
so much excitement all in one day,” Lady Boskingram volunteered.

“Quiet. You recall the chaise that I was so ill mannered as
to push into a ditch as I went along?” The dowager nodded. “It was Althea in
the chaise, ma’am.”