Gwendolen Read online

  Gwendolen, wearing a fawn-coloured gown and a broad-brimmed Villager hat tied under her chin with brown velvet ribbons, both sent from London by Lady Priscilla, was in her best looks, which gave her the courage, as she stepped into the carriage, to face the private interview she was determined to have that afternoon with Captain Belville with more equanimity than she could otherwise have done. As for Jane, she looked more beautiful than ever in an azure-blue gown and bonnet that matched her eyes, while Campaspe had done her best to offset the very youthful appearance conferred upon her by her sprig muslin frock by running downstairs at the last minute in one of Lady Otilia's turbans and a pair of long pebble earrings, well aware that there would not be time for the exhausting battle her mother and sisters knew they would be obliged to go through before she could be induced to return to her bedchamber and put on some more suitable headgear.

  As a result, she rode off in triumph in the barouche, still wearing the turban, which elicited a considerable number of stares and some tittering behind fans from the ducal guests when she arrived at Beauworth—all of which she accepted with great aplomb, considering the attention she was receiving a tribute to her fashionable appearance. To Gwendolen's intense displeasure, she at once attached herself to Lyndale, which she had received the strictest of instructions not to do, and hung perseveringly upon his arm as the party strolled out of the house into the gardens.

  "Don't encourage her!" Gwendolen, escaping from Belville, who had come up to offer her his arm with the air of a man-eating green fruit but determined to look as if he was enjoying it, hissed emphatically into the Marquis's ear.

  Lyndale looked round at her. "Oh, she doesn't need encouragement," he assured her. "No more than a limpet does. You might ask her, though, not to lean quite so heavily. Otherwise I am afraid I may be pretty well exhausted before the day has more than begun."

  Gwendolen, her cheeks scarlet with embarrassment, said fiercely to Campaspe, "If you have no consideration for your own reputation, you might have some for your family! Don't you see Lord Lyndale doesn't wish for your company? Go and walk with Neil!"

  Campaspe made a face at her. "I can't," she said. "Neil is angry with me. Besides, Lyndale and I were going on splendidly together before you came to interfere. Weren't we, my lord?" she asked, looking up at him with what she obviously considered a dashingly flirtatious expression upon her face.

  "Well, at least we were keeping each other out of mischief," Lyndale conceded. "But why don't you join us yourself. Miss Quarters? With one of you on each arm, I don't think even Miss Campaspe will expect me to go beyond the line."

  "Two ladies all to yourself, Lyndale! Unfair—palpably unfair!" said Lord Wilfrid, coming up at the same moment with his usual expression of rather disagreeably condescending good humour upon his face. "Miss Quarters, I claim your company as indisputably my due. Will you allow me to show you the gardens before the heat becomes quite too insupportable for strolling about? My papa has spared no expense on them, so naturally they must be admired."

  Gwendolen, unable to think of a proper way of suggesting Campaspe as a substitute to Lord Wilfrid, or, indeed, of any way at all of inducing Campaspe to leave Lyndale, said in despair that she would be delighted. Of course she knew that in leaving Belville, first to talk to Lyndale and then to walk off with Lord Wilfrid, she was presenting him with reason to turn quite as sulky as he had been on the previous evening; but at any rate, she thought, she was determined to give him his conge that day as soon as she was able to lure him away to a sufficiently secluded spot, and instinct told her that it might be easier to dismiss a lover who was already quite cross with one than one who was in an excellent temper.

  What really concerned her was leaving Campaspe with Lyndale, to go as far in her hoydenish misbehaviour as his lordship, who seemed to have no sense of propriety whatever, would allow; and here she felt she must place all her dependence upon Miss Courtney, who had obviously not abandoned the pursuit and could probably be counted upon to appear upon the scene before long and turn that particular tête-a-tête into a conversation à trois.

  So she went off with Lord Wilfrid with no more than a parting glance at Campaspe, meant to convey to her the awful consequences that would befall her if she did not conduct herself property, but unfortunately quite ignored by her young sister and intercepted with appreciative amusement by Lyndale.

  But both Campaspe and his lordship were soon to fly right out of Gwendolen's mind; for she and Lord Wilfrid had scarcely progressed from the "English" garden, laid out in eighteenth-century fashion with rose beds, flower borders, and statues of shepherds and shepherdesses, to the more elaborate Italian garden, when she discovered that Lord Wilfrid, like Campaspe, had no intention of allowing the grass to grow under his feet that day. As he invited her to pause on the stone-balustraded terrace overlooking the water-lily pool that was the centrepiece of this formal garden, and to admire its bronze fountain and the lavishly planted parterres that surrounded it, she found an arm slipped insinuatingly about her waist. When she moved carelessly away, pretending to ignore the arm and feigning an interest in a wild garden just visible to one side in the valley below, she was led into a yew walk which too late she saw secluded them entirely from the possibility of being observed by anyone who had not, like themselves, entered that long, green, narrow alley.

  "Ravishing creature!" said Lord Wilfrid, who, had she known it, preferred to carry on his amours in a rather eighteenth-century style, and lost his r's almost entirely when involved in them, so that "ravishing creature!" came out more like "wavishing cweature!" "When am I to be rewarded, my charming angel," he went on, passing that insinuating arm once more about her waist, "for the devotion I have lavished on you for four-and-twenty hours together now, or as near it as makes no difference?"

  And before she could recover from her surprise at his audacity, he had placed his free hand under her chin, tilting it up slightly, and was just about to imprint a kiss upon her upturned face when an outraged voice behind them suddenly put an end to this romantic intention.

  "Madam! "said the voice—Captain Belville's, as Gwendolen knew beyond the shadow of a doubt before she had even whirled round to face its owner, though it was shaking with such fury that it was almost unrecognisable. "Is this your—your fidelity?" he went on, in the tones of an admiral who has just witnessed flagrant insubordination in the ranks. "Have you quite forgot, madam, that you are promised to me?"

  "Tut-tut, man," said Lord Wilfrid languidly, stepping in to make matters worse before Gwendolen could speak, "don't, I beg you, have the bad ton to make a scene. What is a picnic, after all, without a flirtation?—and Miss Quarters is a devilish pretty girl, you know. Not a bit of harm in the whole affair—"

  Gwendolen could see trembling upon the Captain's lips the retort of an honest man goaded beyond endurance by the condescending airs of a dandified libertine; but not even under the stress of seeing his betrothed in the embrace of such a one, she now realised, was he willing to extend to a duke's son the expression of the righteous wrath that he was only too willing to visit upon her.

  "Sir—sir—!" he stammered stiffly. "I will leave to one side your part in this distressing affair! The matter lies between Miss Quarters and myself, and if you will be good enough to retire and leave us alone."

  "With the best will in the world, my dear fellow!" Lord Wilfrid said obligingly. "I do so detest scenes, particularly before meals—highly upsetting to the digestion, don't you agree? But don't, I implore you both, be late to our little picnic luncheon. Victor—my papa's really excellent chef—assures me that he has quite outdone himself with the biscuit à la creme today. You will find us foregathering in no more than a quarter hour under that pretty pink muslin marquee you can just glimpse at the end of the alley. Miss Quarters"—with a polite bow—"your very obedient servant."

  And he was gone, leaving Gwendolen to face unassisted the wrath of the indignant Belville.

  But not so indignant, she saw in a moment, that
he had not begun by this time to realise, with a great uplifting of spirits, that the most unwelcome scene he had so abruptly come upon meant Deliverance to him. Surely, his whole manner suggested as he began to speak, no man who had just witnessed his betrothed in the embrace of Another Man, and actually about to be kissed by him, need consider himself bound in honour any longer to marry her, regardless of what vows had been exchanged between them. It occurred to Gwendolen suddenly, and with considerable force, that if she did not wish to give the Captain the satisfaction of breaking off their engagement in all the glory of his own self-righteousness, she had best get down without delay to the business of dismissing him herself, so she raised one hand and said peremptorily, "Stop!"

  Captain Belville, having been trained to take orders, did so without thinking, but then, recollecting from whom the order came, frowned and went on again.

  "As I was saying—"

  "You are not going to say anything, Henry," Gwendolen said politely but firmly, "until you have heard what I have to say." She hurried on, seeing the mutinous look upon the Captain's face, "In the first place, I must tell you how shocked and disappointed I am over your behaviour—"

  "My behaviour!"

  "Certainly, your behaviour. I had considered you a man of chivalrous impulses, a man upon whose noble nature I might rely to rescue me from the sort of disagreeable attentions forced upon me by Lord Wilfrid—"

  "Forced upon you!" The Captain's face grew red with disbelief. "But you came here with him yourself—!"

  "Relying," said Gwendolen swiftly, with great aplomb, “upon his honour as a gentleman. How was I to imagine that he would take advantage of his own intimate knowledge of the secluded nature of these gardens and my own entire lack of acquaintance with the place to which I was being led to press his attentions upon me? Or," she went on ruthlessly, as she saw the Captain again open his mouth to speak, "that the gentleman whom, of all others in the world, I had most reason to believe I could rely upon to protect me from him would, far from coming to my aid, instead place the most unmanly, low-minded interpretation upon the situation?"

  "But, deuce take it, m-madam!" stuttered the Captain, struggling valiantly to get out of the corner he found himself fast being pushed into, "what else, I ask you, was I to think? You cannot deny that Lord Wilfrid has been pursuing you with his attentions ever since he first clapped eyes upon you last evening, and that you have given him no reason to believe that those attentions were displeasing to you—"

  Gwendolen perceived that it was time to make her move, before the Captain had succeeded in pushing her into a comer.

  "Captain Belville," she said, with an air of dignified regret which she felt that even Lady Otilia, a connoisseur of dramatic scenes, would have approved of, “you need say no more! I perceive, sir, that your long absence at sea has made you unfamiliar with the present usages of Polite Society, and that you are the sort of man who intends to behave disagreeably whenever the slightest occasion arises that may give him reason-however unjustified—to believe he has cause for jealousy. Under such circumstances, and with the greatest regret in the world, I must tell you that I think it best for us to part!"

  "To part?" The Captain blinked at her, obviously tom between relief and indignation—relief at seeing freedom before him, indignation at having his role as the injured party reft from him. "Do you mean—?"

  "Exactly," interjected Gwendolen, determined not to have the initiative snatched from her. "Our engagement. Captain Belville, is at an end. I believe a notice to that effect, placed in the Morning Post, may be called for, though, having no previous experience in this sort of situation, I cannot say with certainty. Perhaps you will be able to guide me?"

  Captain Belville, almost choking now with his indignation over the insinuation that he might be the veteran of half a dozen broken engagements, managed to say with great acerbity that in this sort of thing he was quite as inexperienced as was she, after which they stood regarding each other inimically for several seconds and then, as if on a simultaneous impulse, began moving towards the pink muslin marquee at the end of the alley that Lord Wilfrid had mentioned. After a few paces, however, Gwendolen halted and turned to Captain Belville.

  "I think," she said to him kindly, "I had best go first and you can follow in a few minutes, so that Miss Courtney will not think we have been quarrelling and say something witty and disagreeable about it And it might help if you tried for a happier expression. Faces are so very revealing, you know.”

  Having said this, she went off down the long green alley, leaving Belville, almost stupefied by his emotions, behind her. To be freed of his obligation to marry a young lady who had no fortune and who he had had the direst premonition would make his life a burden to him with her blithe disregard for the proprieties on which he set much store was, it was true, a consummation devoutly to be wished. But to be calmly given his congé by her, to be patronised by her as if he had been a sulky schoolboy deprived of a treat—all this was extremely wounding to his dignity.

  He walked slowly down the leafy alley, debating with himself how he ought to behave towards the infuriating Miss Quarters while they were obliged this afternoon to appear in public in each other's company. Should he act towards her in such a way as to make it clear to her that she had deeply offended him?—a pattern of behaviour which, he felt, might stand him in good stead when, as it was bound to, the awkward tale of the broken engagement would have to be told. Or should he strive to appear quite his usual self, a man whose conscience was clear and who was perfectly willing to behave with magnanimity towards the female who had used him so ill?

  He could see that exasperating female's modish fawn-coloured gown fluttering on before him at the end of the long alley now, looking quite as carefree as if its wearer had not just been surprised in flagrante delicto—or at least in what passed in his mind as flagrante delicto—and then, abruptly, it halted and two other figures, one that of a tall, thin young man with a decided limp, the other that of a small young lady in a sprig muslin gown and a turban, came into view, just entering the alley at a rapid pace. The young man, it was true, had to labour to keep up with the young lady, handicapped as he was by his limp; but determination was in every line of his body, and he had no qualms, it appeared, against making use of an outraged, stentorian voice when he found the young lady outdistancing him.

  “Cammie! Come back here!" he shouted furiously.

  "I shan't! You're a beast!" the young lady called back, halting for a moment to turn round in order to bestow this epithet upon him more vehemently.

  Both young people, it was clear, were too occupied with themselves and each other to have yet taken in the presence of Gwendolen almost at the entrance of the alley or that of Captain Belville well behind her; and it was not until Campaspe, turning about again and resuming her flight from Lieutenant Fairhall, actually ran against her sister that she became aware that the scene in which she was so hotly involved was not being played out in private.

  "Oh! Gwen!" she gasped, startled, but then went on at once, "How very glad I am to see you!" She turned about, clasping Gwendolen's arm tightly, her small figure very stiff and erect "Will you kindly tell this—this gentleman," she said, indicating young Lieutenant Fairhall with a gesture of superb hauteur, "that it makes me very happy indeed that he doesn't wish to be engaged to me any longer, because I do not wish to be engaged to him, either! And now—will you take me back to the others, please, for I most certainly do not intend to remain with him!"

  CHAPTER TEN

  TO SAY THAT this announcement brought unalloyed dismay to the breasts of the several persons who heard it would be a quite inaccurate statement. Gwendolen, it was true, found it somewhat disturbing, though knowing her young sister, she thought the whole affair might well be a tempest in a teapot. But Lieutenant Fairhall was obviously far too angry to be dismayed by anything, and Captain Belville, it must be confessed, felt a sensation of unholy joy as he realised that the breaking off of his engagement to Gwendol
en would be able to share the disagreeable light of public notoriety with the even more sensational rupture between young Fairhall and Campaspe.

  He managed, however, to maintain his usual air of gravity, in spite of his elation, so that Campaspe, perceiving him standing rooted to the spot farther down the alley, and realising at the same time that Gwendolen had no intention of carrying her off until she had made enquiries into the state of warfare existing between what she had up to that moment considered a happily engaged couple, had no hesitation in walking up to him and saying, "Captain Belville, will you take me back to the others? I certainly do not wish to remain here!"

  Captain Belville, who did not wish to remain there, either, but on the other hand had deep reservations about becoming involved in someone else's lovers' quarrel after just passing rather ingloriously, he felt, through one of his own, looked at her dubiously; but Gwendolen, who had walked on after Campaspe with Lieutenant Fairhall, resolved his dilemma by telling him to take her sister on to the marquee, as she wished to have a word with Lieutenant Fairhall.

  "There is not the least use in your talking to him," Campaspe said loftily. "He is in an excessively bad temper and is quite unreasonable."

  And she took the Captain's arm and walked off with him, leaving Neil fuming behind her.

  "Look at her!" he gritted out. "Wouldn't you think, to see her, that she was the injured party? Actually, you know, she has been acting such an infernal flirt with Lyndale that there was no bearing it!"

  "Yes, I know," said Gwendolen soothingly. "She has been behaving very badly—but it doesn't mean anything, you must realise. She is only young and thoughtless—"

  "Too dashed thoughtless for me!" Neil said bitterly. "But that's neither here nor there now, for our engagement is off, and it's nothing to me any longer what sort of May-games she takes it into her head to play!"