My Dear Jenny (4 page)

Under the pressure of his returned look, lphegenia realized
that she had been staring at Mr. Teverley. She felt the blush rise to her face,
but went on with the conversation. “I think I shall at least try to learn who
her people are, and where they are, to let them know that she is safe and
respectably attended—”

“Good God, ma’am, you make yourself sound like the most
appalling antidote!” Teverley objected, plainly revolted.

“Perhaps not yet an ape-leader, Mr. Teverley, but hardly a
green girl.” The memory of Ratherscombe’s mutterings still stung. “And I
am
respectable, I assure you.”

There was something disquieting in his look, but she had too
little experience of men and the world to more than wonder at her dis-ease, and
continued rather quickly onward. “And beside, there is Mrs. Hatcher, and her
daughter, and the Reverend Dunham—why, even in her home the child could
not have been more respectably companioned.”

“Obviously she was not always so,” Teverley agreed drily.

“Mr. Teverley, I am at least endeavoring to be serious.”

“I can see that, ma’am,” he agreed soberly, but it seemed to
her that his dark eyes were warm with amusement for a moment, and she
discovered, despite his dictatorial manners, that she liked him.

“Excuse me, Miss Prydd, but isn’t there something that
I
—we—that
is, I would like to help too.” Domenic Teverley looked eagerly at lphegenia,
reminding her forcibly of her cousin William in one of his round-table fits.

“You must keep Emily company from time to time, and, if you
will, endeavor to be her friend, as we all must—but I beg you will not
express your dislike of Mr. Ratherscombe to her, for that would undo all the
good your cousin and I mean to do. And I suppose you had ought to call me
Genia.”

“I don’t see why any of us should,” Teverley interrupted.

“I
beg
your pardon?” lphegenia turned toward him with
all the dignity she could muster.

“I only meant,” he continued reasonably, “that the name don’t
suit you. Too Frenchified, too exotic. Nor yet does lphegenia—can’t think
what your dam was about, to saddle you with such a name.”

“Nor can I, but it was the same for all of us—my
brother William just barely escaped being named Achilles because Papa put his
foot down.
Finally
.” Genia suddenly remembered that she was quite out of
charity with Teverley. “Just what do you suggest I call myself, sir? I cannot
be Miss Prydd to my family or my closest friends.”

“Has no one ever called you Jenny? It suits you much better.”

“Capital,” Domenic agreed, oblivious of lphegenia’s glare.
In fact, she liked it better herself, but did not like to admit as much to the
irritatingly assured Mr. Teverley.

“
You
may call me what you like,” she announced to
Domenic with hauteur.

“And
I
may consign myself to purgatory?” Teverley
inquired politely.

“If you wish,” Miss Prydd said agreeably. Again, she turned
to Domenic. “You needn’t fear for Emily. We shall all watch after her and
confound Mr. Ratherscombe. And now, do you think you can scratch me up some
paper and pen and ink? I would like to frame my letter to Emily’s family now,
so that I may send it off as soon as I know their whereabouts.” Domenic,
needing no further persuasion, left in search of Mrs. Hatcher.

“You’ve given Dom a sense of purpose. Thank you for your
kindness to him,” Teverley said seriously.

“Nonsense. He reminds me of one of my cousins, only ten
years older.”

“I can see you have experience with boys. Cousins and
brothers?”

“Only one brother, and he died long ago. He’d have been much
your cousin’s age.”

Teverley looked abashed. “If I have said—”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, I do assure you, sir. William
died almost twelve years ago. Only a widgeon or a lover mourns forever, and
most of them don’t do so either.”

“Very sensible, ma’am. And here, unless I mistake that
clodpole’s tread, comes Dom with your writing kit. But do you not wish to ask
the chit her direction first?” Teverley accepted the writing materials from his
cousin, who instantly disappeared again. “I wonder what bee he has in his
bonnet now?”

“One of the things I early learnt from my cousins, sir, is
that it is unwise to try to understand the workings of a young man’s mind.”
Iphegenia settled herself at a table near the fire, spread paper before her,
and stared at it helplessly. “Oh, dear, how am I ever to begin this?”

“I was wondering precisely that myself,” Teverley admitted,
seating himself in the chair he had occupied earlier.

“But I had best to do it now, while my nerve is up. So—”
She bleakly surveyed the blank paper. “I suppose I had best throw my heart over
the fence.” She wrote a few words, studied the paper again. “Oh, Lord.”

“Would you prefer that I write it?” The voice rose up from
the vicinity of Mr. Teverley’s neckcloth.

“Don’t you think that it would come easier from me?” she
asked seriously. “That is, as I said before, I am a respectable
female-companion sort, which should ease her situation somewhat. If they have
come from London, they could only have left this morning. Oh, drat this! What
do I say to perfect strangers? ‘Dear Sir and Madam: Please do not, worry about
your’ —what? Daughter? Niece? Grandchild? Ward? I don’t even know who her
family are. ‘Emily is perfectly well, but trapped for a while in an inn with a
measly child, the rake that she ran off with, and a respectable female?’ Good
heavens, what sort of madcap will they think me?”

Mr. Teverley vouchsafed no answer, and lphegenia suspected
that the sound she heard from that corner of the room might be an unobtrusive
snore. She shook her head in amusement and bent again to her work. She had made
a rough but satisfactory draft, and had begun to copy it out afresh, when that
dry voice interrupted the still of the coffee room.

“Just how have you become such a respectable female
companion? I would have thought you were the sort that would have married long
since, with a slew of rowdy brats hanging at your skirts.”

“And what sort is that?” Genia asked without conspicuous
rancor—or interest either, it seemed, as her head stayed bent over her
work.

“Damme, now you have caught me properly, haven’t you? No
matter what I say I’m damned for it, and serve me right for making such a
fatuous statement. All right, then, Miss-Prydd-whom-I-may-not-call-Jenny,
will
you tell me what brings you
traveling, and all alone? You obviously are of a good family, if a little
purse-sprung, but what they can be thinking of to let you travel the London
road unattended I do not know.”

“If they think of it at all, I am sure they are confident
that I can take care of myself.”

“Your parents—” he began.

“Have been deceased these many years,” she answered calmly.

“Stuck my foot in it again. Damn, you do have a knack for
putting a man at a disadvantage.”

“On the contrary, I should rather say that it was your own
genius.” Before he could protest, she continued. “As for myself, I was, until
this afternoon, going to London to see a school friend through her sister’s
wedding and to help set up her nursery. I collect that she is the sort of woman
you meant before, only the differences between us are quite enormous. At any
rate, I
did
have a maid, but the stupid girl would not come into the
inn. Insisted that everyone would be staring at her.”

“Considering our present case, I wonder that you would call
her stupid. Prescient, I should think, is more the word. One more prying
question, then. What are these enormous differences between you and your school
friend?”

“Just the ordinary and very important differences of money
and beauty. Mary has both, while I—I am simply a
respectable
female. My mother used to say that I was a born companion, and it was no use to
groom me to anything else, meaning to marry, I suppose.”

“Your mother,” Teverley said, “sounds like a Gothic fool.
Why on earth did she decide to put such a fustian notion in your head?”

“More practical than fustian.” lphegenia had given up on her
copywork, put aside her pen, and capped her inkpot. “I was rather a
disappointment to my mother. We always knew there would be no money for any of
us, of course, only Cassie and Sephie are quite delightfully pretty. Cassie is
the absolute beauty of the family. Remains only me, and I’m afraid I take after
Mamma, on a smaller scale. As you can see, she was no beauty, and without
that
,
I suppose she felt it not worth the effort. Poor Mamma. She never really
forgave me for looking like her, or my father for being as handsome as he was,
and giving Cassie and Sephie his looks. But how,” she asked, after a moment’s
reflection, “did I come to be speaking on this topic? I shall have to think of
some questions to put to you.”

“I note that the word prying is conspicuous by its absence.”

“Not prying, Mr. Teverley. Merely odious.” Miss Prydd smiled
a smile of much sweetness and uncapped her inkwell again.

“Piqued, repiqued, and cappoted. Lord, Miss Prydd, if I said
before that you bear any of the attributes of a lady’s companion, I beg your
pardon. You have far too quick a tongue for that drab sisterhood.” Mr. Teverley
swung himself out of the chair and made for the door. “My own fault, of course,
for allowing myself the luxury of straight talking with a stranger. Your
pardon, ma’am.” He opened the door and stepped out.

“Mr. Teverley, I didn’t mean—” she started, but he was
already gone. A little nonplussed at herself, lphegenia regarded the
half-copied letter before her with scant attention. Most of her mind was taken
up in trying to understand what, after a mere two hours’ acquaintance, could
have possessed her to speak to a complete stranger in such a fashion. But that
sort of question only produced more questions, raising more questions than she
could hope to answer before dinner. She returned to the letter.

o0o

More than two hours later, lphegenia was discovered by Mrs.
Hatcher, dozing over the final draft of her letter. Informed by the landlady
that henceforth meals would be served family style in the dining room, she
gathered up her papers and answered Mrs. Hatcher’s preoccupied fretting as to
the simplicity of the evening meal with the statement that for herself, a bowl
of bread and milk would have been sufficient, and the promised French-dressed
veal would be elegant beyond imaginings. The older woman made several curtsies
in Miss Prydd’s direction, then went off to apologize to the Reverend Dunham
for dinner. Iphegenia took advantage of her landlady’s distraction to escape to
her room.

She found Emily Pellering lying in bed, her dark hair
charmingly askew on the pillows, her mouth half open and her arms outflung. The
pose would have been exceedingly unbecoming on anyone else, but somehow, Emily
appeared distractingly pretty. After considering the relative merits of waking
the girl or letting her sleep, Miss Prydd decided to wake her and persuade her
to take supper with them all.

“Oh, heavens, what a cake I made of myself. I do hope you
can be brought to forgive me, ma’am.”

“When you contrive to recall that I am Genia—or
rather, since I have been new-baptised by Mr. Teverley—Jenny.” Her manner
was as brisk as a governess’s. “I intend you shall come dine with us; you must
be entirely famished, what with no food since—ah, but you were taking a
collation when I entered the coffee room this noon.”

“Yes, but that was only wine and biscuits. I’ve had no real
food since last night, before I left London.” She seemed to recall that she was
engaged in a proceeding wherein names and places were to be guarded; she
blushed a deep red and, as lphegenia intently ignored the blush, stammeringly
begged her to tell which gentleman Mr. Teverley was.

“Of the three who are strangers to you, he is the very tall
man with brown hair and a soldier’s carriage, very swarthy and dark-eyed. And
his cousin Domenic is the young fair-haired fellow, and rather a nice one at
that. And Mr. Dunham, the cleric. Then there is myself, of course, and finally,
there is—” Here lphegenia took a chance. “—Mr. R-Ratherscombe, your—er—stepbrother.”

This sally produced (if it was possible) an even deeper
blush from Emily, which lphegenia blithely ignored. Inwardly she found in it
confirmation of all the theories she had formulated with Peter Teverley, and
wondered if she had been wise to provide Emily with so easy an excuse without
consulting him first. “You will come dine with us, will you not?” she
persisted. “And, as we will eventually be allowed to leave this place and go
our separate ways, will you tell me something of London? I’ve never been to the
city, and I know I shall have no notion at all of what is what there.”

This bland self-indictment of hopeless bumpkinism conquered
Miss Pellering’s last reserves of distance: She began to explain to her some of
the people she might expect to meet, and what to wear to the opening of the
opera (a great event, some weeks in the future). Feeling very much as if she
had somehow stumbled back into the nursery at her Aunt Winchell’s, lphegenia
played lady’s maid, assured the younger woman that she looked charming, and
managed to get a moment with mirror, hairbrush, and face cloth for herself. So
open was Emily with her newfound friend that, by the time the two descended to
dinner, Miss Prydd had learned not only the names, ages, and respective tempers
of Emily’s parents, and their address in Hanover Square, but the names of Emily’s
two dogs, her best friend, the sort of hair pomade favored by her dancing
master, and the fact that Emily had a considerable fortune.

In the next three weeks (for Mrs. Hatcher’s son was nearly
well within the first week when the ostler disobligingly fell ill and the
quarantine was begun anew), it seemed to Miss Prydd that most of her time was
spent in contriving to keep Miss Pellering and Mr. Ratherscombe as far away
from each other as possible, and to show that gentleman in as bad a light as
possible. In this effort Domenic Teverley was her faithful servant, Peter
Teverley her amused conspirator, and the Reverend Mr. Dunham no earthly use at
all. The cleric swayed between poles: One day he was so scandalized that he
could not bear but that the runaways be married immediately; the next—after
a short talk with Mr. Teverley—he was entirely against any sort of
liaison between Mr. Ratherscombe and Emily, whom he persisted in referring to
as “that poor ruined saint.”