Fragile Mask (19 page)

‘
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. ‘Hoards 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.’

But Freddy was blushing. ‘It is early days to be
thinking of children. I just want to enjoy—I mean,
we
only wish—’

‘
Softly, dear boy, softly,’ Denzell said over the sniggers
of the other two. ‘We perfectly understand you. Only, as your
brother-in-law, I feel compelled to warn you to begin as you mean
to go on, and insist on having the mastery in your own home.
Otherwise, dear boy, you will assuredly live under the cat’s
foot.’

‘
Yes, don’t show her you’re besotted,’ advised
Cyril.

‘
No, no,’ protested Freddy loyally. ‘What I mean is, Teresa
is devoted to me.’

‘
She may be as devoted as you please,’ said Denzell, ‘but
that will not prevent her from wishing to rule the
roost.’

‘
Lookee, Freddy,’ broke in Congleton. ‘Take a lesson from
Ossie here. Everyone knows he is under his wife’s
thumb.’

This was so nonsensical an idea that everyone roared, and
Freddy himself took heart. Denzell, assuring him that he was
jesting, slapped his brother-in-law on the back and wished him
well, and young Lord Rowner was sent on his way with the goodwill
of his friends ringing in his ears.

‘
Now then,’ said Cyril Bedale, as soon as the bridegroom was
gone. ‘I had forgot with all this attention on Freddy, but now is
the moment to seize opportunity. You must satisfy our curiosity,
Ossie. Tell us all about Hawk’s snow maiden.’

Denzell’s heart lurched.

‘
Snow maiden?’ repeated Osmond blankly.

‘
This girl you wrote of,’ explained Congleton.

‘
They mean Verena,’ Denzell put in, conscious of a frenzy in
his own pulse. For it had come to him belatedly that Ossie had come
up from the very place where Verena Chaceley was living. Or was
she? Chaste stars, let her not have removed from there!

But Osmond had turned on the name, seizing his friend’s
shoulder. ‘If I had not forgot. Hawk, I had meant to give you an
account of it. You would not believe what a warm heart beats under
that icy front. Oh, she is on the highest pedestal in our
establishment, I promise you.’

Denzell became aware of a drumming within his chest and his
mind blanked. With difficulty, he asked, ‘What do you mean,
Ossie?’

‘
I am talking of Verena. She came to us that night, when
Unice was brought to bed. At least, I went to fetch her, for she
and Unice had become friends. I swear to you, if she had not been
there—she and that maid of hers—I don’t know what we would have
done. She was kindness itself—and her gentleness with Unice, with
the boys...’ He shook his head in wonder.

‘
Snow maiden, eh?’ said Congleton, in a teasing tone. ‘Sits
well on her, it seems—eh, Hawk?’

But Denzell hardly heard him. The oddest sensations were
taking place inside him. Warmth burgeoned so strongly that he felt
it as expanding heat racing through his veins. The vision that had
haunted him—that golden, glowing image of vivacity—was playing in
his head. And then, throwing it all out of gear, the picture of her
lovely face, the mask shimmering into fragments.

He had known it. All the time he had known it.
She was as soft as he believed. It was all a
sham,
a
shield erected against the world. To protect herself—poor,
sweet,
aching
princess. What a cursed fool he had
been!

Briefly, he thought again of the Chaceleys. A surge of
something unnameable set his chest almost to bursting. It
was—ludicrously, for he had no real reason to think it, he knew—as
if Bevis had disowned her.

The turmoil inside him had coalesced into a single, driving
need. The same intolerable urgency that had made him leave
Tunbridge Wells. Only this time, it was having an opposite
effect.

He seized his friend’s arm. ‘Ossie, is she still
there?’

‘
Of course she is. She visits Unice every day.’

A long sigh escaped Denzell, and he rocked back on his
heels, smiling at his friend. ‘In that case, dear boy, you may
expect me for the Season.’

There were shouts of triumph from his cronies, but he did
not care. It was as if a mist had lifted, and he knew now what he
must do.

Osmond cocked an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I may, may I? I suppose I
need not ask why.’

Denzell grinned, light of heart all at once. ‘That, dear
boy, is obvious. I must pay my respects to the new Miss
Ruishton.’

***

Tunbridge Wells in August, at the height of its Season, was
a very different matter, Denzell discovered, from the dreary place
he had visited at Christmas last.

For one thing, here he was, having barely swallowed his
breakfast, already abroad among the brightest of chattering
company, having been dragged down to the Pantiles by a determined
Unice, eager to thrust her prize into notice. Whose particular
notice he did not enquire too closely, but he was conscious of a
thrill of anticipation that threatened to swamp him before ever he
caught sight of the face that had been haunting him so diligently
all this while.

The main venue for most of the Season’s events had, in
addition, shifted to the Upper Assembly Room, where the heat of
summer was the better accommodated in the more spacious edifice,
and the brave colours of past fashions—many elderly matrons
despising the white muslin now so prevalent among the London belles
with their extraordinary high waists—were set off by the superior
ornamentation.

Denzell’s own town apparel—a dark blue cloth coat over the
latest pantaloons of dull yellow with his feet encased in Hussar
buskins—felt somewhat odd in this outmoded assembly. But Unice had
assured him it would be acceptable; indeed, there were one or two
middle-aged smarts attired in this daring new fashion.

Not so the exquisite Sir John Frinton, one of the first
people to hail Denzell, suave as always in blue and cream. He came
up, grinning broadly, and winked.

‘
Now here is a sight I hardly thought to see. How do, my
young friend? What brings you to our dull delights? Or dare I
ask?’

‘
What but the pleasure of seeing you again, Sir John,’
responded Denzell, shaking hands. ‘Can you doubt it?’

‘
With ease, my dear boy, with ease,’ returned the aged
exquisite, laughing. He looked about him. ‘I am desolated to
disappoint you in your undoubted quest.’

‘
How do you know what is my quest, sir?’ demanded Denzell,
grinning.

Sir John twinkled. ‘Intuition, Hawkeridge.’ He leaned
close. ‘I will give you a cautionary hint, however.’

Denzell’s chest dropped. What?
A rival, perhaps? There had been,
after all, a previous amour and the man was back? Or—deuce take it,
don’t say she had gone! He managed a light tone.

‘
A hint?’

‘
Look about you,’ said Sir John, wafting a well-manicured
hand. ‘What do you see?’

‘
A swelling of your numbers, that is all.’

‘
Ah, yes, but whom? I will tell you. A predominance of aged
devotees—as aged as I, alas—returning with sentimental loyalty to
the once fashionable haunt of their own youths.’

He was right, Denzell realised. The place was full of
elderly folk, mostly raddled females. He became aware, as his eye
passed about them, that a number of them were eyeing him
surreptitiously, with that speculative gleam with which he was all
too familiar.