Talk of the Town (14 page)

“It runs in the family, I see. How pleasant.”

“All families have their little vices. With some it is insanity, with others lechery, and others blackmail. There is a little bad in the best of us.”

“Yours appears to be tainted with a touch of the viper’s tongue, as well as blackmail. I understand your meaning very well.”

“And here I thought you were dull-witted. There—he is leaving!” she said, upon hearing the noise of closing doors; and together she and St. Felix went to the Blue Saloon, to catch Aunt Effie already on her way to slip past them to her chamber.

“The Duke of St. Felix would like a few words with you, Auntie,” Daphne said, and received from her aunt a glare that said “traitoress.” She received another when she abandoned her relative with the Duke and went to her own room. St. Felix, too, was put out at this treatment but was interested enough in Mrs. Pealing to find himself well occupied. He still could find no justification for his father’s affair with her.

“I have been trying to see you these several weeks,” St. Felix began, and stopped before saying another word. The little woman was smiling bemusedly on him, her blue eyes actually glazing over with an unshed tear. He felt suddenly foolish, and very ill at ease.

“How very like St. Felix you are,” she said, and shook away the tears.

“You
were well acquainted with him, I am given to understand.”

“We were friends, but so many years ago—a lifetime ago."

“That is what I wish to speak to you about.”

She shook her head. “I suppose my niece put you up to this. I have told her and I tell
you:
what is past is past, and I have no intention of dredging all that up again. Some things are best left buried.”

“And best left unpublished as well, Mrs. Pealing.”

She looked at him in shock. “There was never any question of publishing any reference to that, Your Grace.”

“You didn’t intend to include it in your memoirs then? I was given to understand otherwise.”

“May I ask by whom?”

“By your niece.

“The minx! She has been making a May game of you; depend on it. Very likely she has taken you in aversion, for she never can tolerate you overbearing gentlemen. She knew perfectly well I would not mention my husband and I would not mention St. Felix. Indeed, I don’t know what kind of book it is everyone thinks I mean to write. I have told them all a dozen times it is a book of reminiscences, mostly relating to unusual happenings abroad—a sort of travel book of conditions in Europe a quarter of a century ago. How anyone should think I meant to write ill of them for the whole world to read is beyond me. And especially when it would involve myself as well,” she finished up a little less philanthropically.

“That is not the understanding of the world at large."

“It is the understanding of anyone who bothered to ask me; and while you are here, you might reassure your brother-in-law, Sir Lawrence, that his name will nowhere appear in the book, either.”

Having gained his major point, St. Felix was about to raise this minor one himself. “I understood from your niece..." he began, then stopped to consider his words. The niece, though she had occasionally contradicted herself, had certainly indicated more than once that she was not blackmailing anyone.

“You must have riled her,” was Effie’s reply. “Well, you did, for she mentioned it to me. I’ll tell you what it is. It’s guilt and fear that brought the world to my door. That and a misreading of my character. Yes, you may stare—the image of your father—the fact is I wouldn’t consider for a minute doing what
they
would apparently do if they were in my shoes. It would never have occurred to me to wash anyone’s dirty linen in public. I was shocked when I tumbled to it what everyone thought. I never would have if Daphne hadn’t dropped me the hint. The evil is all in their own minds, and a very poor idea it gives me of them.”

“When it was announced that Colburn was to be your publisher..."

“He would like a more scandalous book than he’ll get, I grant you; but I told him what I mean to do, and I’ll stick to my guns. Or maybe I won’t bother to write him a book at all. It was to fill the time, but the time seems to be filling itself more agreeably than scribbling would do. In any case, if you’re here to ask me not to write anything about your papa, your trip was unnecessary. It’s an insult, and if St. Felix were alive, he wouldn’t have let you make such a cake of yourself,” she finished.

St. Felix was, of course, delighted to have his fears squashed. Once he became accustomed to the idea that there was nothing to fear from the lady, he began, like others, to be curious about her, even to like her plain speaking. She rattled him off, just like his mama. “I imagine you could tell some interesting stories if you wanted to.”

“I could tell you stories—especially you—that would stand your hair on end, but I shan’t.”

“You know, I suppose, of my father’s affair with Perdita?”

“Ho, that baggage! I don’t know what the gentlemen saw in her. A lantern jaw, a face a mile long, and little pig eyes. But it was the Prince’s affair with her that set her up in her own conceit. St. Felix didn’t care for her in the least and was happy enough to be rid of her once... But I said I shan’t tell, and I shan’t.”

“I can be a perfect pattern card of discretion, Ma’am, and I own I am curious.”

“The whole world is curious. Colburn is right in thinking there would be a market for my stories. No one wants to be written of themselves, but how eager they are to read of others!”

“He was my father,” St. Felix explained his rampant curiosity and thought he might discover the whole if he kept her talking long enough.

“All the more reason for me to be mum. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of in him. No worse than you are yourself, I daresay.”

St. Felix shot her a quizzing smile, looking very like his late papa, though he didn’t know it. “Your niece has been painting you a picture of me? A pity she hasn’t your discretion.”

“She didn’t say a word. What are you up to, eh? An actress or an opera dancer, I’ll warrant. At least you ain’t a married man to be making advances to girls. Lord, how St. Felix could have wanted me to run... But never mind that. You’ll not get anything out of me.”

"Two can play at this game of silence. You tell me why you wouldn’t run away with Papa, and I’ll tell you all about my harem.”

“How could I run away with him, and your poor mama about to bring you into the world? Wouldn’t it have looked fine, a married man fighting duels..." St. Felix came to rigid attention and said not a word. “Not that anyone knew about it.”

“It was kind of you to hush up that business about the duel,” he said calmly.

“Who told you about that? It must have been my niece, for she is the only one in the world who knows—I daresay a few suspected.”

“Oh, my Uncle Algernon knows the whole thing,” St. Felix said.

“He don’t know about the suicide, for I had an oath of St. Felix not to tell.”

St. Felix felt his insides shrink and searched his memory for a relative who had died mysteriously.

"That put a good scare into him,” she laughed.

“It must have given him a turn all right,” he said, wondering how to discover the identity of “him.”

“Of course I would never have been such a gudgeon as actually to do it.”

“You’d think he’d have known better than to believe it,” St. Felix agreed, surmising that he at least knew now the victim manqué.

“Well, the fact of the matter is, your papa wasn’t thinking very straight; but, there, we won’t mention a word of that. How’s your mama?”

“Well,” he replied, and wondered if he had the whole story yet. “But Papa behaved pretty well once you put a scare into him by pretending you were going to commit suicide,” he said leadingly.

“I don’t take all the credit. Having a son helped. Yes, your papa grew up at last, which is more than can be said for the Prince, poor fellow. As foolish as ever.”

“Still dangling after all the pretty ones,” he roasted.

“If he thinks to make
me
his next love o’ life he has another thought coming, and so I told him to his face. That is just what I don’t need—to be set up in style for two or three months till he tires of me and then held up to ridicule and scorn.”

“You turned him down, then?”

“Indeed, I did; and there’s no need for you to be mentioning it either.”

“You forget we are two deaf mutes, you and I.” He doubted the lady’s discretion, however. With the best intentions in the world, her secrets were there for the taking. She might not plan to publish her stories in printed form, but if she were to continue going into Society, there wasn’t a chance in hell of them remaining secret. His aim achieved, he arose. “I owe you an apology, Ma’am, and am happy to make it. May I have the pleasure of calling on you again?”

Effie’s blue eyes narrowed. She didn’t think it was to see herself that St. Felix wished to return to her apartment. “We’d be happy to see you. Any time,” she added grandly.

“I’m not so sure ‘we’ will be happy, but having
your
permission, I shall come.”

“Now the ice is broken, I won’t mind seeing you again. But you must not pester me to tell tales on your papa, for I shan’t do it. And you might as well set that ninny of a Larry’s mind at rest, too. Is it true he’s to be made a minister?”

“It is spoken of.”

“What is this world coming to? Larry Thyrwite sitting in the Cabinet—and Archie Middleton in the Archbishop’s Palace!”

“It’s in a bad way, all right,” he agreed, and left wearing a smile.

There was no sun shining in the sky, but St. Felix felt bathed in a golden glow all the same. It eased his mind that the family was safe from shame and did not trouble him unduly to know what an ass his papa had made of himself over a dumpy little lady with no looks and no sense. Certainly the filling of the thrones of power in the country with idiots did not even occur to him. He thought with satisfaction that the ladies of Upper Grosvenor Square were respectable after all. It pleased him that the younger had been accepted wholeheartedly into Society, and it would have pleased him even more had it been himself who had put the voucher to Almack’s into her pocket.

But having failed to do that for her, he would see that she did not stray again into any erring ways. What she needed was a wise mentor to point out the pitfalls awaiting the unwary; and of his own wisdom he had not a doubt. His next stop was at Charles Street, to remind his sister to send two tickets to her ball to Mrs. Pealing and her niece. She needed no reminding, but was surprised all the same at his change of sentiment.

“Do they accept this instead of money?” she asked hopefully.

“They don’t want anything, Bess. Those two women have been greatly traduced.”

“Turn about is fair play.”

“They haven’t said a word against anyone and don’t intend to.”

“Is that the story they are putting about now, that it was all some misunderstanding?”

“It was a misunderstanding. They never actually contacted us or made any demands or threats. We were too previous in our dealing with them.”

“Prinney has made the Pealing call off her book. That’s what it is. He must be intending to make her his next flirt. It is just as everyone says.”

“The lady might have something to say about that,” he laughed, but stuck to his vow of silence.

“The one who would have something to say about it is the niece.
She
is the mischief-maker in that nest.”

“Beautiful ladies always make mischief, whether they mean to or not,” he answered with a soft smile that set his sister’s mind to work.

Chapter 10

With such great goings-on in London, it was necessary to write and inform the Inglesides. Letters passed in the mail. Sir James warned his daughter to be good and be careful, with Mama adding a postscript to be sure to see if she could find a French
modiste
and not to get her hair cut too short as she read
La Grecque
was to be all the style in the Fall. The Inglesides had each secretly foreseen an unparallelled success for their daughter, but each new letter from her set them reeling, for they had not foreseen such dizzying heights as she was reaching. The Prince of Wales actually taking tea with her and Aunt Effie, and Beau Brummell taking her to parties. “She will, be a countess before the Season is out, James, just like Effie,” Lady Mary crowed.

“A duchess more like,” Sir James replied, his eyes lighting on the title of the Duke of St. Felix that cropped up in each letter. The precise nature of his visits was, of course, not remarked upon.

“Duchess? Your fancy is flying too high, my dear,” Mary chided. Her own had actually soared a little higher, to the extent of checking the Peerage to see whether any of the royal dukes were available.

“And Almack’s—that is a good sign. No harm can come to her at Almack’s.”

“No, she will have no fun there, but it is well she was invited,” the mother agreed contentedly.

Mrs. Pealing felt that things could hardly have turned out better had she had a personal communication with God in the heavens. Daphne’s visit was a greater success than she had ever imagined, or even felt. She herself had money in the bank—a little, which seemed a lot to her these days. The Prince of Wales wanted to take her under his protection, Beau Brummell ran tame at the house, and now the Duke of St. Felix had as well as said he was interested in her niece. Her
soiree,
to be held very soon, would be a wonderful success, for Lady Melbourne and a dozen of her equals had accepted most graciously. The triumphs of the present day were Daphne’s driving out with Brummell, to return home and don a white gown to go to Almack’s with the Wintlocks. It would have been slightly better had Effie been able to accompany them, but to know of the triumph was enough for her. She didn't really like Almack’s.

The bright balloon received its first puncture when Daphne announced blithely that she had no intention of going to Almack’s. “I have given Mrs. Wintlock the voucher, and she may take Stephanie if she likes, but I shan’t go.”