The Autumn Rose Read online

  Caro was delighted when they at last encountered Lady Beatrice and her faithful cavalier servente. “Have you seen Lady Halsworthy?” were almost the first words Walfish spoke, in a very excited undertone. “She dares to appear here with no one more respectable than Mrs. Fallerton, and absolutely without other escort! Is it credible?”

  Caroline looked pained, however, and answered, “My dear sir, if you were not my friend, would you not refer to me as well in just that tone of scandal?”

  Walfish understood the reproach but chose to ignore it. “Oh phoo,” he said, “that dull little poem in the newspaper is nothing compared to Lady Halsworthy’s behaviour. Who can even recall it? This Halsworthy affair is something else, however! It is a perfect assault on every gentlewoman in society, that is what it is! Can you imagine?” And he went on to recount, in breathless detail, all that was known or supposed to be known of Lady Halsworthy’s recent escapades.

  Walfish was often a silly young man, but he was kind too, and much as he enjoyed rumour-mongering, his real object in this outburst was to set Caroline at ease. He succeeded pretty well, for by the time the two parties took leave of one another, Caro was able to relinquish the protective arm of her chaperone and walk beside Lord Seabury instead. They fell into conversation naturally, arguing in a pleasant and passionless manner the advantages, if any, to be gained from a foreign education. Their discourse was punctuated ever and anon by exclamations of wonder and delight as the eye of one or the other fell upon a particularly brilliant bloom, or caught sight of an attractive vista. They went some distance in this wise, turning their steps from one path to the next as seemed agreeable, and assuming that the others of their party followed in their wake.

  They were correct for a while. Miss Windle had claimed Edgar’s attention, and interrogated him closely on the health and happiness of all their common acquaintances in Berkshire; Amy Meredith, refusing the proffered arm of her chaperone, dawdled along silently behind the rest. But when they had proceeded in this manner for some fifteen minutes, their advance was broken by a sudden cry from Mrs. Henry: “She is gone!”

  Chapter X

  “Dear, dear Amy,” murmured Lord Mockabee, as he swept her thick curls from her forehead and pressed his lips to each temple. “My lovely girl!”

  Amy settled herself happily in his embrace and said nothing.

  “We have but a moment; any longer and the peril is too great,” Mockabee took up. “We must think of your good name.”

  “I do not care about my name,” said Amy, pretending to pout.

  “But I do,” said the gentleman gallantly. He leaned his back against the wide tree trunk behind him and drew Miss Meredith closer to his breast. They stood in shadow to avoid observation, at the centre of a small clump of trees near a narrow path in Kensington Gardens. The darkness that hid them from the eyes of the crowd also obscured them from one another’s view, and they mostly felt and heard each other, seeing only vague shapes. Amy Meredith thought it very daring to steal kisses in the dark and hold the baron’s warm hands when she could hardly even make out his features.

  “You are so careful of my virtue,” said Amy innocently, “you begin to sound like Seabury.”

  “Seabury!” spat out the other abruptly. “Do not say that name to me, if you please.”

  “But why?”

  Mockabee pushed her away a little and brought out, in a voice full of emotion, “Your fine cousin has put a bullet through my shoulder, my dear. Touch this!” he instructed, placing her hand on the spot where the bandages under his coat caused a bulge over his right shoulder.

  “Oh, my dearest!” cried she, withdrawing her hand in horror. “How did it happen? Does it ache dreadfully?”

  “The pain is not much,” he said, wincing dramatically as he readjusted the sleeve of his coat, “but the frustration is difficult to bear. I might at least have repaid him in kind, except that my imbecile of a second put too little powder in my pistol.”

  “But why did he do that?”

  It was fortunate for him that the shadows prevented her from seeing the extravagant glare he gave her. “I imagine, my sweet,” he said after a pause, “that he was trying not to put too much in, and cause it to blow up in my hand.”

  “But when did this take place? It was a duel, was it not? Over what?”

  Amy’s questions continued, and Mockabee answered them all patiently, though with an audible straining in his voice—audible, that is, if there had been disinterested ears to hear it. There were not however; Amy Meredith drank in every word, and commiserated volubly with each new outrage or disappointment.

  “I could scream when I think how they concealed this from me,” was Amy’s major concern at the close of the narrative. “I shall throttle Caroline when I see her.”

  Lord Mockabee merely nodded. “But we must settle some details,” he told her after a moment, kissing the top of her head as if to signal the beginning of a new topic. On that new topic they spoke a few minutes longer; then, with many protestations of love on both sides, and distress at being obliged to part, they quitted one another’s company. Miss Meredith proceeded, without escort, to the gates through which her party had entered the Gardens, and waited until they should find her.

  “This was very naughty of you indeed, Miss,” was what Mrs. Henry said when, discovered at length at her chosen post, Amy had been roundly frowned upon and bundled summarily into the crested barouche. “It was all very well for Miss Windle and me, who were sent to the gate to wait for you, but his lordship and Lady Caroline and Mr. Gilchrist have fairly exhausted themselves looking for you. What made you wander off that way, you bad creature?”

  “I am sure Caro enjoyed herself thoroughly,” Amy muttered, ignoring the question. With a jolt, the barouche began to move.

  The viscount, who shared the carriage with them, himself ignored Amy’s dark comment and said sternly, “I am not much distressed, Mrs. Henry, at having been obliged to search for your charge. What disturbs me is that Amy has been so foolhardy as to walk about alone at night in an open garden. I hope you will give me a full account, Amy, of what drew you away from our party, without my having to press you for it unduly.”

  “I lost my way,” said she sullenly. “I lost sight of you.”

  “I beg you will not ask me to believe that,” Seabury replied. Mrs. Henry put a protective arm round Miss Meredith’s shoulder, as if warning his lordship to proceed carefully.

  “I lost my way,” Miss Meredith insisted peevishly. “Where else should I have been?”

  “Perhaps you had a rendezvous,” he suggested, though he was unwilling to consider this possibility himself.

  “With whom?” asked she, sarcastically.

  “I should not like to guess.”

  “Well then.” She folded her arms stubbornly across her chest, and stared at him through the dimness of the coach.

  “Well then, do not oblige me to guess,” said he gently.

  “Oh my, you are gallant and graceful, are you not?” she suddenly lashed out, her voice heavy with scorn. “You are a fine and righteous gentleman! How dare you bully me this way? How dare you demand accounts from me? How dare you shoot my only friend in the world?” she ended, descending abruptly from high displeasure into a torrent of tears.

  “Shoot—what?” inquired Mrs. Henry, bewildered.

  “My dear Amy, you have had a tryst with Mockabee,” cried the viscount, very much dismayed to be forced to this conclusion.

  “Baron Mockabee?” asked the horrified Mrs. Henry.

  “My only friend, my only friend!” repeated Amy miserably, while Mrs. Henry, impeded by the slight lurching of the carriage, attempted to put her other arm round the weeping girl.

  “Mockabee is hardly your friend!” objected Seabury, but in consternation, not in anger. “Look at what he has exposed you to this very evening! It is not at all prudent for a young girl like yourself to wander without an escort. Remember what Ansel Walfish said of Lady Halsworthy, my dear, and thi
nk who may now say the same of you!”

  “I do not care, I do not,” she sobbed. “What is the use of a good name if the person called by it is unhappy?”

  “This is a question we might argue for hours, my dear cousin, probably to no advantage. I am grieved, however, to learn that you do not think of me as your friend. How is that, Amy?”

  “You send me away,” she accused, “the moment I become an impediment to you. How is that, cousin?”

  “An impediment?” he repeated inquiringly.

  “I prevent your being alone with Caroline!” she brought out. “Do you suppose I am deaf and dumb?”

  “But my dear, why should I wish to be alone with Lady Caroline?”

  “You need not play the innocent with me,” she flung at him, her rage returning. “I know of your little affaire d’honneur, cousin, do not forget. And I know for whose sake you arranged it.”

  “For yours, my dear. And mine. For all our family.”

  “For Caroline.”

  Mrs. Henry, who had been listening to this dialogue with increasing confusion and distress, now besought her young charge to be calm, lest she work herself into full-fledged hysteria. “Tomorrow night this will all be behind you, my dear,” she said soothingly, glancing at Seabury with eyes that seemed to convict him of being solely responsible for her darling’s upset. “We shall be home again, with dear Miss Meredith, who loves you very much and will cosset and pet you just as much as you like.”

  Amy sniffed as if she found some comfort in this image, but Seabury could not help murmuring, “Heaven forbid!”

  “Yes, just so,” exclaimed Amy, shrinking back further into Mrs. Henry’s arms. “Just so, no one must be kind to me, Seabury! No one must love and cosset me! No, we must all bow and scrape to Caroline. She is the ideal woman.”

  “Amy, I am at a loss to understand this fixation you have regarding Caroline. I assure you my attitude towards you would be exactly the same if she had never come to London,” he continued, wondering even as he said the words if they were true, “and I must beg you, at all events, to cease intimating that my relation to her is anything else than what it purports to be.” This last phrase having been spoke quite severely, Amy Meredith did not chuse to challenge it, but rather settled down to whimper comfortably in her chaperone’s arms. She excused herself from Seabury’s company very quietly when they at last arrived at Rucke House, and submitted to be tucked into bed by Mrs. Henry; but the moment that lady had left she jumped from her couch, threw a light pelisse over her night-dress, and stole softly down the corridor to Caroline’s room.

  “Who is it?” came the inquiring voice.

  Amy hissed her reply.

  Caroline, who had stopped downstairs a while to say good-night to Edgar, had not yet extinguished her candle. She came to the door holding it and admitted Amy to her chamber. “But let us go into the sitting-room,” she suggested, referring to the small apartment that divided her bed-chamber from Windle’s. “It is pleasanter to talk there.”

  “No, no,” said Amy, whispering to ensure that Miss Windle would not hear them. “I have some news for you, perhaps; or maybe a difference to settle before I leave.”

  Caroline, surprised but not at all delighted with the honour of this visit, invited Amy to sit in an armchair and stationed herself at the end of the enormous bed.

  “You know that poem in The Times,” Amy began, as Caro said nothing.

  “Certainly.”

  “Well Seabury has challenged Mockabee to a duel over it, and they have met, and Mockabee is wounded!”

  “Never!” she cried, even as she realized that it would, unlikely though it was, explain where Seabury had been before breakfast Thursday morning.

  “But it is true, indeed,” the other persisted, quite hugging herself with the joy of being the bearer of such exciting tidings, and moreover at being able, finally, to astonish Caroline. “I saw Mockabee tonight, and he showed me the injury.”

  “Is that where you were?” she asked, feeling the intelligence as a second shock.

  “Oh, yes,” Amy returned impatiently, “but was it not worthwhile to learn the truth?”

  “The truth,” Caroline repeated thoughtfully. “Amy, does it not occur to you that this particular truth is one you have no business knowing?”

  “Why not? Mockabee told me perfectly freely.”

  “Well then, does it not strike you that Mockabee himself had no business telling you? This was an affair between himself and Lord Seabury. A duel is a serious matter.”

  “Oh, la, why should he not tell me, if he cares to? After all, Mockabee is my—” She stopped dead.

  “Is your what?” Caro asked carefully.

  “Nothing.” Amy stared at the floor and pulled her pelisse more tightly around her.

  “Thank Heaven you will be in Bessford tomorrow,” cried Caroline, after a pause.

  “Yes, everybody is very thankful for that, except me,” observed Miss Meredith darkly.

  “Everybody must be thankful, who has your welfare at heart.”

  “If you mean to preach I shall be leaving you, dear ma’am,” said Amy, picking herself up with an extravagant gesture and tripping towards the door.

  “No, wait a moment. I do not mean to preach. Tell me if you know for certain why this duel was fought?”

  “Ah, now mademoiselle shows some curiosity! This is very interesting.”

  “Do not tease me, I warn you,” said Caro, so threateningly that Amy dropped her sneering tone at once.

  “Yes, since you ask,” she said sulkily. “Lord Mockabee told me.”

  “Alas that we have only Lord Mockabee’s word to go on!”

  “Do you doubt it?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Dear me, since you are so monstrous difficult to convince, perhaps you will like to know that I have since discussed the matter with our fine Lord Seabury, and he does not deny it.”

  Caroline, divided between her fury at Seabury for ignoring her stated desires and her pleasure at knowing he acted according to his scruples—and championed, and vindicated her—had scarcely sensations enough to spare in order to deal with Amy. She was horrified that the younger woman could have been so brazen as to grant the baron a clandestine interview, still more so that she had done so in such a way as to raise an alarm among her friends for her safety. In fact, every step she had taken in order to procure, and then to impart, this knowledge of the duel was steeped in an element so unsavoury that Caroline recoiled from it instinctively. She herself had been mischievous at best, and ought perhaps not to judge; but she could not prevent herself from judging, and she could not but feel that Amy was conducting herself in a manner vastly more reprehensible than ever she had done.

  On the other hand, the information itself—no matter how outrageously acquired—interested her so acutely that the thought of trying to sleep, while it was yet new to her, was almost painful. She was immediately obsessed with the idea of confronting the viscount with Amy’s story; but before she could contemplate how, when, and whether to do so, she felt compelled to enjoin Amy to be silent on this head in the future.

  “Oh, Seabury babbled something about that, too, just before he left me tonight,” said Miss Meredith, without embarrassment. She shrugged as she added, “What does it signify anyhow? Mockabee told me; so he does not feel any great compulsion to keep quiet on the subject.”

  With much effort, Caro was able to suppress the quick retort this philosophy naturally provoked in her, and merely repeated her request to Amy.

  The younger lady shrugged. “If you insist,” she said carelessly. “To whom could I say anything, after all? I shall be stuck away in Kent tomorrow.”

  “You will not be there forever.”

  “Ha! I shall if you have anything to say to it, I know.”

  “Amy, how can you make such an accusation?”

  “I see how you smile at my cousin, and how he smiles at you. You want me out of the way,” Amy said hotly, “and though yo
u say I am to stop away but a fortnight, I am not idiot enough to believe you.”

  “And when your cousin says so, do you not believe him?”

  “Certainly not,” said she, her hand upon the knob of the door. “Shall I take the word of the man I love, or the man who attempts to kill him?”

  “Amy, you do not refer to Lord Mockabee?”

  “I do.”

  “But he has not led you to believe—has he?—that Seabury is not a man of honour!”

  “Lady Caroline, I pity you. You are so full of my precious cousin Seabury that you do not know A from B, nor one from two. You make me sick with your prosing about honour and secrets and my welfare at heart! If there is one thing I shall not regret leaving in London, it is you!” With this she pulled the door open and darted through it. She reached her room still in a fury, and flung herself about the chamber for half an hour, now striking her little fist against her palm, now stamping her foot. Her rage did not subside until, sitting down at her desk, she penned a short note and folded it up. When this had been done, and the direction had been inscribed upon it, she was able to be calm at last, and shortly afterwards climbed into bed to fall asleep.

  Miss Windle shed tears when Amy departed next morning, chiefly, she explained in a whisper to Caro, because she pitied “that poor, silly girl, with not a soul to guide her but that nasty, haughty, indulgent Woman.” The remainder of the party bade farewell happily enough, however; Lord Romby, in fact, was positively gleeful. Nor did Amy look very sorry to be going, a circumstance that rather added to Caroline’s misgivings about the child than otherwise. She wished Seabury had given her a better account of the aunt, Miss Meredith; Amy needed a firm hand, and Windle was quite right (though not altogether coherent) in her assessment of Mrs. Henry. The woman was too cold and too fond by turns; she had no idea how to lead her charge, and instead followed her about, despairing and rejoicing as the occasion arose, like a Greek chorus.