Chapter Five

 

Jake took the girl’s arm and shook it. ‘Clementina! What is it? Who is that man?’

She stood as if rooted to the spot, and did not seem to hear him. Jake glanced back at the man, but he had disappeared into the throng of people. He looked at the two puzzled faces of his friends.

‘Did you see him? Do either of you know him?’

‘I beg your pardon, old fellow, but I didn’t notice,’ Theo told him apologetically.

‘Harry?’

‘Saw the fellow, all right,’ Sir Harry said, ‘but can’t say I recognised him. Dare say he’s one of these devilish Oxford fellows young Waldemar has in tow. Rank outsiders, most of ’em. Shouldn’t be allowed.’

Sothern turned back to Clementina, whose arm he had been holding all the while. Anxious to avoid attracting unnecessary attention, he tweaked her fingers sharply. She shivered, blinked and looked up at him, her eyes blank for a moment.

‘Come and sit down,’ Jake ordered curtly.

Clementina came to, and the hubbub of the party was suddenly loud in her ears. She felt sick and dizzy. But there was Jake, trying to drag her off. She pulled herself together.

‘I am all right,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘If I might just have a glass of water.’

‘I’ll get it,’ Theo offered, and disappeared into the crowd.

Jake led her to a caned chair, and obliged her to sit down. ‘I don’t want you falling down in a faint.’ He took her fan from her, and began to wave it to and fro before her face.

Clementina took a few steadying breaths. Becoming aware of her surroundings again, she became conscious of someone’s eyes upon her. She was looking straight into the face of Sothern’s mistress. What she saw there made her speak without thinking.

‘Jake, pray stop that. Or give my fan to Sir Harry. Lady Matilda is looking quite daggers at me.’

The fan shut with a snap, and she saw Lord Sothern stiffen alarmingly. On her other side Sir Harry gave a gasp. Realising what she had said, she flushed scarlet.

‘Oh, dear. I—I did not mean—’ she stammered. ‘That is—it—it slipped out. I beg your pardon, my lord.’

‘It is of no consequence,’ Sothern said abruptly. He passed the fan to his friend. ‘Harry, perhaps you will assist Miss Hythe.’

As he walked away Clementina gazed after him in some dismay. She turned to Sir Harry.

‘I have seriously offended him, have I not?’

Sir Harry coughed. ‘Very sensitive, do you see, where Maud’s concerned.’

‘Maud?’

‘Lady Matilda, I should say. Doesn’t mind it when he shocks the world, do you see? But can’t bear to be laughed at.’

‘Do they laugh at him?’ Clementina asked, feeling irrationally annoyed with the fashionable world.

Sir Harry coughed again. ‘Not his conquest, do you see? But her triumph. Stings his pride.’

Clementina nodded. ‘Yes, I see.’

‘And—er—what with all the hoo-ha over——’ He broke off, reddening, and coughed. ‘Forget what I was going to say.’

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Over me. That is what you meant, is it not?’

He was spared having to answer this by the arrival of Mr Farleigh at this moment with her glass of water. She sipped it thoughtfully, her eyes following Lady Matilda’s progress around the room. Of Lord Sothern there was no sign.

But neither of that pair occupied her thoughts for long. These rapidly became fully taken up with the immediate problem confronting her. Where had he disappeared to now, that evil creature? What he was doing in London she could not imagine. She had not thought he had the entrée to such affairs as these. From somewhere in a nebulous cloud of memory Sir Harry’s words about young Lord Waldemar floated back to her. His Oxford friends! And had not Lady Waldemar herself spoken of them yesterday? No doubt that was how that devil had gained entrance here. She could not imagine that he had befriended the young viscount for any other purpose; typical of him to use people thus.

Clementina sighed a little. She was undone for certain. What was she to do now? She must think quickly, and take action. She looked at Theo.

‘Did you see Lady Staplegrove when you were absent, Mr Farleigh?’

‘Why yes, ma’am. She is in the card-room.’

‘Is she playing?’

‘I believe not. Would you wish me to fetch her?’

‘Not for the world. If—if you would not mind keeping me company, I shall just wait for her to come. I would not wish to destroy her enjoyment of the party.’

It was not very many minutes later, however, that Lady Staplegrove came looking for her. She was displeased to find that Lord Sothern had abandoned her, but glad that Clementina was ready to return home. She talked at length in the carriage of the various entertainments in store, anticipating with some enjoyment the reaction of her circle to the comedy she felt she had set up for them. She did not notice that Clementina was strangely silent.

Nor did she think it odd when her protégée did not appear at the breakfast table next morning. But at eleven o’clock she popped up to let Clementina know that she was going out to visit the gross Lady Seagrave again, and was surprised to find the bed made up and no sign of her charge.

As Lady Staplegrove walked into the room a sense of foreboding gripped her. She glanced about and at once saw the folded sheet of notepaper propped up against the dressing-table mirror. It was addressed to herself. She snatched it up, and swiftly mastered the contents. They told her nothing more than that Clementina thanked her from the heart for all her kindness, and was sorry to be obliged to leave without bidding her a proper farewell and thanking her in person. No word of explanation for her flight was offered.

For a few moments the dowager could not think at all beyond the fact that Clementina had gone. To her own surprise she felt tears pricking her eyes.

‘Have I become so fond of the child in so short a time?’ she asked herself aloud. ‘What in the world should I do now?’

She walked slowly from the room and down the stairs to the pink parlour where she usually sat when she had no company.

It was her favourite retreat, for besides being of a comfortable size its plain white walls and the pleasant pink of its furnishings gave it a cosy air. Moreover, as it was situated beside the front door, it offered a convenient position for her ladyship to spy upon her callers. She could peep through the lace under-curtain without being seen, and decide whether or not she wished to be at home to the visitors. Then she might dart to the door and inform her understanding butler by a series of grimaces and jerky motions of her hands whether or not to admit the caller. Dorridge would then conduct the favoured to the green saloon, where the dowager would presently join them.

Sothern, of course, being well versed in his grandmother’s habits, was apt to barge straight into her sanctum. But the butler knew that her grandson was one of the few persons ever admitted to the pink parlour. He had added the privileged Miss Clementina Hythe to the list, although, in the light of recent events, he might be forgiven for beginning to wonder whether her ladyship’s hitherto undisputed title to the comforts of the pink parlour was to be challenged.

Lady Staplegrove, however, in her natural agitation, merely gravitated to the place out of a need for concentrated thought.

On impulse, she rang the bell and then sat down at her writing desk to compose a note for her grandson.

‘Ah, Dorridge,’ she said as soon as the butler entered. ‘Do you have any idea when Miss Clementina left the house this morning?’

The butler shook his head. ‘None, your ladyship. Shall I enquire among the servants?’

‘Yes, do so. And send me a footman to take a note to Lord Sothern at once. And another to go to Mount Street. I cannot after all visit Lady Seagrave this morning.’

Jake arrived in record time, having driven himself from Brooks’s, where the dowager had had the forethought to send the footman. She jumped up from her chair and went quickly towards him, her hands held out.

’Thank heaven you are come, Sothern! I am quite distracted with worry.’

The earl took her hands and held them tightly. ‘I have sent for Cullen to join me here. Together we must be able to locate her.’

‘Do you think so, indeed? I cannot for the life of me understand what should make her run away like this.’ Lady Staplegrove looked searchingly into her grandson’s face. ‘You know something.’

Jake released her hands and turned away. ‘I blame myself. Something occurred to distress her, and instead of pursuing it I—well, I took offence at some remark she made and left her.’

‘Lady Maud,’ said the dowager instantly. ‘I might have known.’

Sothern’s head snapped round. He was frowning. ‘So it was you who let the cat out of the bag. May I ask, ma’am, what my affairs have to do with a chit of Clementina’s age? Or why you should be so lost to all sense of decorum as to discuss them with her?’

Lady Staplegrove drew herself up. ‘If you, sir, had enough sense of decency to refrain from making a spectacle of your affairs in public it would not fall to me to gloss over what must be obvious to the meanest intelligence.’

Flushing darkly, her grandson glared at her. ‘Accept my apologies for causing you any embarrassment, ma’am.’

‘Oh, for the Lord’s sake, come down off your high ropes,’ the dowager begged tartly, ‘and tell me at once what occurred to distress the child.’

Some of the anger left Jake’s brow. ‘It had nothing whatsoever to do with Maud.’

‘Yes, yes, very well. Get on, do.’

‘She saw someone she knew,’ Sothern said curtly. ‘A young man. He recognised her, too, that was clear enough. She was almost ready to swoon, the shock was so severe. I made her sit down, and Theo went to get her some water. But she would not tell me who he was. Then—’

He broke off and went to stand by the window so that he might watch his groom walking his horses instead of having to encounter his grandmother’s keen glance.

‘Then?’ Lady Staplegrove prompted.

‘She noticed Maud watching us, and referred to it. That is all. I took offence, even though she apologised instantly.’ He paused, drew a breath, and resumed. ‘I really don’t know why I reacted that way. I could not more sufficiently regret it, for this is the outcome.’

‘Fiddle,’ scoffed the dowager. ‘You do not mean to imply that she left us for such a petty cause as that? Clementina has more sense.’

He looked round. ‘Not that, no. But if I had probed more I might have learned something. Or at least have led her to feel that she could rely on my protection rather than have gone out into the world alone again.’

His grandmother was silent. Seeing him writhing under unaccustomed remorse twisted her heartstrings. For all his faults, and the times his conduct exasperated her, she loved him dearly. She might have wished such feelings on him, but to see it was another matter. She turned the subject.

‘Can you think of any way you may discover where she has gone?’

Jake sighed. ‘No. But I am hoping our man of business may assist me. He can make enquiries about this Major Henlow, for instance, and perhaps discover in what way Clementina is concerned with him. Did none of the servants see her leave?’

Lady Staplegrove shook her head. ‘No, but one of the maids is missing. I am hopeful she may have accompanied the child.’

Jake’s brow lightened. ‘That would be a relief, certainly.’

At this moment Dorridge entered the room. Both the dowager and Lord Sothern turned eagerly.

‘Mr Cullen has arrived, my lady. I have put him in the book room.’

A practice which was the butler’s invariable habit with callers other than those of the highest ton. It did not find favour with his mistress on this occasion, however.

‘The book room? What in the world for? Send him in here, man, send him in here,’ said Lady Staplegrove impatiently.

Dorridge coughed. ‘There is one other matter, my lady.’

‘Well, go on.’

‘The maid, Lucy, has returned. She denies having seen Miss Clementina, my lady, but it is my belief she is lying. Would you wish to question her yourself?’

‘I had better see her,’ said her ladyship decidedly. ‘And you may tell her that she may well find herself turned off without a character if I find she is lying to me.’

Jake intervened. ‘Wait, Dorridge. Grandmama, you will not get the truth out of the girl by such means. Say nothing, Dorridge. Just send the girl in.’

As the door closed behind the butler Lady Staplegrove raised her brows at her grandson. ‘I suppose you mean to worm the truth out of the girl with that famous charm of yours.’

Jake grinned. ‘I’ll wager I get more by it than you would with the threat of dismissal.’

Lady Staplegrove snorted, but before she could pursue the matter there was a knock at the door, and Mr Cullen was announced.

He was a spare man in his mid-fifties, clad in sober garments and the old-fashioned wig typical of his calling, and he was invariably seen with a pair of pince-nez perched on his nose. He greeted his clients punctiliously, and apologised for being late.

‘I was obliged to conclude a matter of business before leaving the office, my lord. I hope I have not inconvenienced you.’

Lord Sothern disclaimed, and invited him to sit down. He politely waited until the dowager had seated herself on the pink brocade sofa, and took a chair opposite.

‘What may I have the honour of doing for your ladyship?’

‘I doubt if you can do anything,’ frankly responded the dowager. ‘But Sothern seems to feel you can help us. We’ve lost a girl.’

Mr Cullen gazed at her blankly. ‘Lost a girl, my lady?’

Jake smiled, and came forward to sit beside his grandmother. ‘Allow me, ma’am. This is a matter of some delicacy, Cullen.’

The lawyer extracted his spectacles from an inner pocket, and through them surveyed the earl. ‘I am all attention, my lord.’

‘Three nights ago, Cullen, I accidentally came upon a young lady in need of help and protection. She was masquerading as a boy and had obviously run away, but would tell me nothing of her circumstances. I brought her to stay with Lady Staplegrove, and she attended a party with us last night. This morning, however, she has run away again. I want your help to find her. The matter is to be treated, I need scarcely say, with the greatest confidentiality.’

‘You may rely on me, my lord, as I hope you know,’ Cullen said, apparently unmoved by the oddity of the story. He cleared his throat. ‘Did you glean any information at all about the young lady, my lord? Her name, perhaps? Or did she use an alias?’

‘She was going to, but the truth slipped out. She is a Miss Clementina Hythe.’

The lawyer’s spectacles shifted comically as his jaw dropped. ‘Miss Hythe? But I have just seen her. She came to my office this very morning.’

The lawyer’s startling announcement was productive of a sudden silence. It was broken by a discreet knock at the door.

‘Come,’ called Lady Staplegrove automatically, and turned to see the frightened face of a housemaid peeping round the parlour door.

The earl was on his feet. ‘Are you certain of this, Cullen? You have the name right?’

‘Quite certain, my lord,’ affirmed the lawyer, rising also. Noticing the girl who was entering in response to Lady Staplegrove’s imperiously beckoning finger, he almost started. ‘Why, this is the very maid who accompanied Miss Hythe, if I am not very much mistaken.’

‘So!’ pronounced her ladyship awfully. ‘You saw fit to lie to Dorridge, Lucy. You have not seen Miss Clementina this morning, indeed.’

Lucy, gulping with fright, and staring at Mr Cullen with popping eyes, dropped a curtsy and twisted her apron in her fingers.

‘I—I beg your pardon, ma’am. Miss said—Miss made me promise not to tell.’

‘That is neither here nor there, my girl,’ began her ladyship. ‘You are—’

‘If you please, Grandmama. I can well imagine how Clementina worked upon the girl. You are yourself not immune to her charms, remember.’

Lady Staplegrove was momentarily silenced, and his lordship crossed to the maid and patted her shoulder reassuringly.

‘Come, Lucy, there is no need to be afraid. You have only to tell the truth, and I will engage for it that her ladyship will not punish you. Just tell us what happened, if you please.’

No less susceptible than any other young female, the maid blushed at his lordship’s touch, and dropped another curtsy.

‘Well, sir, I had no notion of Miss leaving the house at first. I mean, when I went to make up the fire in her room early, like I do all the rooms, my lord. And there Miss was, all dressed up and wrapping her things up in a shawl, like.’

‘In a shawl?’

‘Y-yes, ma’am,’ Lucy faltered, her eyes flicking a scared glance in her mistress’s direction. ‘It—it didn’t look seemly to me neither, ma’am.’

Sothern suppressed a smile. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged her.

‘Well, sir, Miss looked at me, a bit surprised, like, I thought. She said she didn’t think as how the servants were up yet. “Lordy, miss!” says I, “the likes of us don’t lie abed till all hours.”’

‘Yes, yes. Get on with it, girl,’ interpolated Lady Staplegrove impatiently.

‘Yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am,’ said Lucy, subsiding. ‘Then—then Miss asked me could I keep a secret, and—and she said she had to go away quiet like because—because...’ The girl glanced up at the earl with a look mingled of respect and censure. Then out it came in a rush. ‘Because your lordship meant to give her up to them as is a-persecuting of her.’

Lord Sothern’s eyes flicked heavenwards. ‘I might have known I would be cast as the villain of the piece.’

His grandmother snorted. ‘Your just deserts, Sothern, even if not strictly accurate.’

Jake ignored her. ‘Please continue, Lucy.’

‘There’s not much to tell, sir,’ said the maid. ‘I got Miss a cloak-bag for her things, and went with her to this gentleman’s place in the City for to fetch her some money. Miss said as how she would hire a coach. And we goes to the Registry Office to get an abigail to travel with her. That’s where I left her, sir. She puts me in a cab and give me the fare, and warns me as how to say nothing to nobody. And—and that’s all I know, sir.’

‘Thank you, Lucy, you have been very helpful,’ Jake told her, turning on his most charming smile. ‘And don’t worry your head over betraying a secret. You have done Miss Clementina a far greater service by doing so than you would have done by keeping it.’

Gratified, the maid curtsied and thanked him, and, at a sign from Lady Staplegrove, left the room. Her mistress then looked at the lawyer.

‘Well, Cullen? How much of this story can you verify?’

The lawyer settled his spectacles. ‘I cannot vouch for the accuracy of all the girl’s story, my lady,’ he began scrupulously, ‘but Miss Hythe did indeed come to me for money, explaining that she had an urgent need to go to her old home in Dunhythe. I offered to send one of my lads to hire the coach for her, but she informed me—mendaciously it now appears,’ he added, with a frown of disapproval, ‘that this was already being arranged by Major Henlow’s footman, who accompanied her. She also gave me to understand that the young female was her own abigail, and that she had but that moment arrived in town from Rye. Which, if I understand you correctly, my lord, was a complete fabrication.’

‘Entirely,’ drawled the earl. ‘An enterprising young lady, Miss Clementina Hythe. Too enterprising for her own good.’

‘Fiddle, Sothern, she has been remarkably clever,’ remarked Lady Staplegrove. ‘At least we now know where she has gone. And it is a relief to find that she had the sense not to travel by coach alone.’

‘If she indeed hired a maid,’ Jake pointed out.

‘You don’t feel that she fibbed about that, too?’

‘I should think it extremely probable. Lucy did not, after all, see her enter the Registry Office. We have only Clementina’s doubtful word for it that she was actually going to hire a coach. Or even that Dunhythe is her intended destination. In fact, Grandmama, we cannot be sure of anything at all.’

‘Do you mean you will not go after her, then?’ demanded the dowager in some severity.

‘Of course I shall go after her. But not before I have heard everything Cullen can tell us about her.’ He looked at the lawyer. ‘Who is she, Cullen? And just exactly how does she stand in relationship to this Major Henlow?’

‘Dear me,’ exclaimed the dowager, ‘how did I come to forget that? Tell us everything, Cullen, at once.’

The lawyer inclined his head and coughed delicately. ‘You will, I am assured, treat all I say with the utmost confidence. Miss Hythe is in some sort my client.’

‘Yes, yes, to be sure,’ impatiently agreed Lady Staplegrove. ‘Do get on, man.’

‘Very well, my lady.’ He reseated himself, and addressed his opening remarks to the dowager. ‘I was man of business to Miss Hythe’s late father, Sir Clement Hythe. Dunhythe is the family property, situated in Norfolk.’

A frown creased Jake’s brow. ‘Yes, that much I had ascertained. But surely the property has passed on? What would it avail Clementina to go there? Unless she has other relatives in possession, perhaps?’

‘Not at all, my lord. The estate is most foolishly left.’ He coughed. ‘Sir Clement had something of a bee in his bonnet on certain matters, and this is the outcome.’

‘You speak in riddles, Cullen,’ interrupted Lady Staplegrove. ‘Do make sense, man, for the Lord’s sake.’

‘Give him a chance, Grandmama,’ Jake admonished. He ignored her glare, and bent a smile upon his man of business. ‘Do go on, Cullen. But strive to be brief. I must go after Clementina as soon as may be.’

‘I will endeavour, my lord. The house and grounds, being under entail, have passed to the heir, along with the title. But unfortunately they are of little use to the lad, my lord, for the rest of the estate, and all the money, is left in trust to Miss Hythe.’

‘He cut up the estate?’ uttered Lady Staplegrove in disbelieving tones. ‘He must have been mad.’

‘Not mad, my lady, merely prudent.’ Again the lawyer gave a delicate cough. ‘And perhaps, shall we say, a trifle vengeful. You see, Sir Jeremy Hythe, as he is now known, is most unfortunately a simpleton.’

‘A half-wit? Or crazy?’ asked the earl.

‘Backward, my lord.’

‘Oh, poor boy,’ said the dowager, her ready sympathy stirred. ‘But he is cared for? What of his parents?’

‘His father died many years ago. He was Sir Clement’s younger brother. His mother remarried.’

‘Major Henlow?’ guessed the earl.

‘Correct, my lord.’

‘But, gracious heaven, what a monster,’ exclaimed Lady Staplegrove. ‘Is this all Sir Clement’s reason for cutting the poor boy out? Because he is a simpleton?’

‘I think it is rather Major Henlow whom Sir Clement desired to keep out, my lady. He—er— traded on the relationship in such a manner that I believe Sir Clement became suspicious of his motives. Major Henlow has, or had in the past, a tendency to live rather expensively, probably well beyond his means. Sir Clement had it fixed in his head that the gentleman was bent upon enriching himself at young Mr Jeremy’s expense.’

‘Then what in Hades possessed him to leave Clementina to the guardianship of such a man?’ exploded Lord Sothern wrathfully.

‘He did not do so, my lord. In fact, he did not name a guardian at all. Nothing could have been further from his mind than an early demise,’ Cullen explained. ‘It is young Sir Jeremy who has become her guardian, by virtue of the fact that he is her nearest male relative living.’

‘Absurd!’ scoffed Lady Staplegrove.

‘Why, so I think, my lady. But such is indeed the case. Mrs Henlow naturally invited her niece to live with them in Rye, at least until such time as the tangle might be sorted out.’

Silence fell. The dowager, too shocked to speak, was staring at Cullen as if she could not believe her ears. Her grandson, looking thoughtful, paced a step or two about the room. Then he looked at the lawyer.

‘Well, one thing is evident. Whatever means they had hit upon to untangle this coil, it was not to Clementina’s taste. Tell me, has this Henlow any children of his own?’

‘A son, my lord.’

‘Aha! Of what age?’

‘He must be nineteen or twenty by now, my lord.’

‘Must he indeed?’ said Jake softly. ‘And not a half-wit, I trust? Not congenitally deformed?’

‘By no means. I believe Mr Ellis Henlow to be an extremely personable young man.’