The Dollar Prince's Wife (7 page)

It was true that he was a rather unlikely friend for Mr Grant. He was middle-aged with the hard face which Dinah had come to recognise as belonging to those visiting Americans who had, in society's words, ‘made their pile'. Although Mr Grant, reputed to be immensely rich by his own efforts, was not like any of them.

Mr Grant was smiling at her now, and saying, ‘Lady Dinah, I should be delighted to introduce you to an old friend of mine, Mr Hendrick Van Deusen. His nickname is the Professor because he is immensely learned. I first met him nearly ten years ago when I took a long painting holiday in the American Southwest, and he was kind enough to look after me—I was such a tenderfoot as they say over there. It was rather dangerous territory, you see.

‘We lost touch with one another once my holiday was over, and I am delighted to meet him again in an English country house, and introduce him to my hostess's sister.'

His smile was even more saintly than usual when he came out with this preposterous and lying description of his violent Western odyssey.

Mr Van Deusen bowed to Dinah, registering that she was totally unlike most of the other society women whom he had met in England. He wondered why Apollo was interested in her, something which Cobie explained when all introductions were over.

‘Lady Dinah,' Cobie told him, ‘is by way of being an amateur historian who hopes to be a professional one. She has been showing me the old letters and papers collected by her ancestors, many of whom, if she will forgive me for saying so, resemble our own wilder politicians more than they might like to think. I should perhaps inform you, Lady Dinah, that Mr Van Deusen is hoping to run for the Senate as a Republican candidate.'

As usual when she was with him Dinah forgot her usual shyness and found herself discussing politics with Mr Van Deusen as though she had been doing such an unlikely thing all her life. Cobie also noticed that when she was away from Violet and her friends she came to glowing life: not only did her face and manner change, but she displayed
a light and elegant wit—with which she was now charming Van Deusen.

‘But I must not keep you,' she said at last. ‘Violet has been looking for you, Mr Grant. She has been trying to make up a whist table for Rainey now that the reception is over, and she gathers that you like to play an occasional hand at cards. She also mentioned the possibility of poker—do you play poker, Mr Grant?'

‘A little,' he told her gravely, which had Mr Van Deusen giving him an odd look when Mr Grant said that, but she did not allow it to worry her, particularly since Mr Grant immediately added, ‘If Lady Kenilworth summons me, then I must instantly obey. You will forgive me if I leave you.'

They both did, and Dinah spent a further happy ten minutes with Mr Grant's unlikely friend—who proved to be as learned as he had told her.

It was all much more fun than being a wallflower in the drawing room.

 

A week later Cobie was trying not to win at poker. He was part of a group of men playing in one corner of the green drawing room at Moorings. A few women, Violet among them, occasionally wandered over to watch them. It was already half-past three in the morning, and most of the house party had gone to bed hours ago.

‘Thought you Yankees were masters of this game,' grunted Sir Ratcliffe at him, as he raked in his winnings. Cobie had not lost very heavily, but he hadn't won either, not on that night nor any preceding.

The sixth sense which often told him things that he sometimes didn't want to know—but more often did—informed him that to appear a bit of an ass at the game might be no bad thing.

Some of those who knew that he had accumulated a fortune in dealings on Wall Street had already begun to believe that his fortune had been made for him by other men, and that what he was most possessed of was idle, easy charm rather than the usual Yankee know-how. He had no objection at all to appearing far less shrewd and dangerous than he actually was.

On the contrary he had frequently found that it was an advantage to be underrated. People became unwary, and now everyone in society was unwary about Jacobus Grant who had made such a hit with the ladies, was a pleasant fellow to spend an hour with, a bit of a fool, quite unlike most of the hard-headed Yankees who invaded London society and whose one idea was to chase after the almighty dollar.

Not winning, Cobie had often found, was harder work than winning. He had to restrain himself, and when the ass opposite to him, for that was where Sir Ratcliffe sat, made a particularly bad play, it took Cobie all his considerable strength of will not to fleece a black sheep who was so determined to be shorn. Worse than that, though, was his suspicion that every now and then Sir Ratcliffe indulged in some clumsy and obvious cheating—which no one but Cobie appeared to notice.

‘Thought Tum Tum was coming to stay, Lady K.,' Sir Ratcliffe drawled at Violet in a pause during the game when the men rose, stretched, refreshed their drinks, and lit new cigars. Violet's brother, Rainey, was leaning against the wall. He was a handsome enough fellow but Cobie had yet to see him sober after seven at night. He was a poor poker player, too. Another piece of knowledge Cobie filed away for possible future use.

‘Met Tum Tum, have you?' Sir Ratcliffe asked Cobie in
his most condescending manner, offering him a cigar, which he refused.

Yes, Cobie had met the Prince of Wales, but left Violet to tell the Rat—as Cobie privately thought of him since saving Lizzie Steele from him—that the Prince had had to remain in London on official business.

‘Don't have much luck, do you, Grant?' Now he was more condescending than ever. ‘Cards not runnin' your way?'

Cobie was all ineffable boyish charm, saying, ‘No, never do, you know. Can't think why I play the game. Passes the time, though.'

He offered the Rat his most winning smile. ‘You seem to be doing well. Perhaps I ought to take lessons from you.'

He looked up to see Violet's eyes hard on him. No one else, apart from Mr Van Deusen, had taken his words at other than face value, but Violet, he was discovering, was also no fool—it wouldn't do to underrate her. Particularly since he was beginning to annoy her by avoiding her bed ever since Dinah had arrived at Moorings. He thought that she was beginning to see a little of what lay below the mask of innocence which he had worn since he had arrived in England.

He decided to cut the whole pointless business short. He rose, and said, ‘Leave my money in the pot, I think I'm ready for bed.'

Sir Ratcliffe said disagreeably, ‘Don't like losing, Grant? You Yankees never do.'

‘Strictly speaking,' and this came out so languidly that no one could be offended by it, ‘I'm not a Yankee. Born in the South, you see. Live in New York, I do admit. Sometimes wonder why.'

He thought he heard a snort from Mr Van Deusen but
ignored it, and took his leave. He had hardly gone a yard down the corridor before the door opened again and Violet was with him.

‘Cobie!' she shrilled.

‘Violet,' he said, and bowed, like the old-world Southern gentleman he had pretended to be, and then, monstrously, he couldn't resist it. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘You know very well what you can do for me,' she told him, the light of battle on her lovely face. ‘What you haven't been doing since Dinah walked into Moorings.'

So, his worst forebodings had come true. Since Dinah had arrived, a fortnight ago, he had watched Violet humiliate her daily, along the lines of that first afternoon in the library. In the last few days he had taken to avoiding the girl to save her from Violet's tongue, where in the beginning he had sought to amuse her.

She touches my hard heart, he thought, wryly. She didn't touch Violet's. Neither did he wish to touch Violet, and again, he regretted ever having become involved with her.

Desolately he knew that Violet's public ill treatment of the child was to punish him, as well as her. Violet brooked no rivals, and ridiculously, improbably, she saw poor Dinah as a rival.

As usual he thought quickly, then offered her, ‘I could hardly be your
cavaliere servente
while Kenilworth was hovering, Violet. Not seemly.'

‘Kenilworth is not hovering, Cobie. He knows perfectly well why I asked you, as he asked Daisy Masham.' She put out a hand to him. ‘You may escort me upstairs. Our rooms are quite near.'

There was nothing for it. He had meant to try to leave Moorings early without offending her—but she was now determined to be offended unless he did what she asked.

Every fibre of his body revolted at the notion. And when, having taken her arm, and he had begun to walk her up to her room for her poor sister's sake, if for nothing else, she said, in a poisonously sweet voice, ‘Oh, and by the way, Cobie, there is one more favour you can do me—do the both of us.'

He took her hand and put it to his lying lips. ‘Of course, Violet, my darling, and what is that?'

She shook her head, ‘Oh, it's Dinah again. Too ridiculous, the poor child obviously thinks that you have a
tendre
for her. All that attention you've given her—playing to her on the guitar…chess games…talking to her in the library…walking with her in the gardens…encouraging her to think of going to Oxford—has quite turned her head. I think that you ought to disabuse her of the notion that you are interested in her—very firmly. I warn you, if you don't, I will. She really ought to have nothing to do with such as you,' and her eyes were on him, hard and cruel.

He knew immediately what she meant, and the kind of blackmail she was subjecting him to. Somehow, she had read him, seen the pity he felt for her unloved sister, and was threatening that, if he failed to do as she asked, Dinah's public humiliations would continue—might even grow worse. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave, and Violet, astonishingly, was jealous.

For a moment the world reeled about him. Violet had touched some memory in him which she could not know existed. Long ago he had been kind to a waif even more abused than poor Dinah, more even than Lizzie Steele—and his heedless kindness had led directly to her death. Dinah was in no danger of physical death, but she could not, he thought, stand very much more of the treatment
which Violet was meting out to her without her inner self being in serious danger.

He had gone quite still again. He stood motionless. He was fighting the red berserker rage which Violet, by her cruelty, had roused in him. He was helpless before her, and she knew it. Sleep with me, humiliate Dinah—and I will leave her alone. All he could do was control himself and offer her what she wanted. At the same time his busy brain was working—after a fashion which would have astonished Violet.

‘You ask a lot of me,' he said at last.

‘Really, Cobie, really? You surprise me. I had not thought that you favoured children. I thought that you left that to others,' and she laughed.

Like Sir Ratcliffe, Cobie thought, and Arthur Winthrop—and who else?

‘She is lonely,' he told Violet gently, ‘and not very happy.'

‘And you make her so? You take a lot upon yourself. After all, it is
my
sister of whom we speak, not yours. It is I who am concerned about her welfare. It demands that you disillusion her. And be sure that you do it in such a way that I will know that you have done so.

‘Otherwise, my dear, otherwise, I shall immediately send her to my deaf, strict and bad-tempered old aunt in the country to be her permanent companion.'

‘Pax,' he said, with the sweetest smile he could summon, throwing up his hands like a schoolboy. ‘I think that this is all a great pother about nothing, but have it your way, Violet.'

‘Oh, I intend to do so,' she told him, mockingly, ‘and now we are here, Cobie. Here is the door to my room. Choose, like the man in the story—the lady—or the tiger?'

‘Oh, no choice,' he told her carelessly. ‘The lady every time.' He pushed her through the door, rather ungently, and told himself, that if one must sacrifice one's principles—not that I possess any—this is as pleasant a way to do it as any. The unpleasant part will come tomorrow, with Dinah.

He was particularly good value that night, Violet thought, unaware that in his mind Cobie was treating her like the whore she was.

M
r Grant had been dodging her for the last few days, Dinah thought desolately, which was not surprising. After all, he came here to be with Violet. She was sitting in the Elizabethan Knot Garden looking blindly at the flowers and remembering what she had seen that morning.

She had risen early in order to go riding before anyone else was about, and when she had turned into the corridor where Violet had her suite of rooms, she saw Mr Grant quietly closing Violet's door: it was obvious that they had been spending the night together.

Shock kept her quiet, so that he had no idea that she had seen him. She had known, of course she had known, that he had been invited for Violet's pleasure. She had known it since she had first seen him in the library. She had tried to put the knowledge out of her mind in those few, early days when she had walked and talked with him. I like him, she told herself firmly, not because he's beautiful, but because I like talking to him. He's so clever, it's like talking to Faa.

Listening, always listening, because no one ever included her in their conversations, she discovered that he was
thought to be something of a charming fool. How could anyone think any such thing? It wasn't simply that he knew a lot, could play the guitar and the piano divinely, but she had grasped at once that even his most innocent remarks frequently carried a double meaning.

Listening, always listening, she noticed that he was particularly good with Sir Ratcliffe Heneage, whom Dinah disliked intensely. He wasn't bad with poor Rainey, either. Dinah knew that her half-brother was dissolute and not very clever. It was not that Mr Grant made fun of his hearers, but that he tailored what he said to what they were. Of course, he did it with everyone—except Mr Van Deusen.

Dinah wasn't sure that she liked Mr Van Deusen. He had an eye which frightened her. An eye which saw into people. She had watched him play at chess with Mr Grant one afternoon before Mr Grant had begun to avoid her, and she had expected him to win.

He had said something odd when he swung the board round to give Mr Grant the Black pieces without even tossing up, or asking him which he wanted, ‘Play me properly, Nemo, that's the only condition on which I will give you a game.'

Nemo. Nobody. She wondered why he called Mr Grant that. Mr Grant had laughed his charming laugh, and said, ‘If you are sure that is what you want?' Mr Van Deusen had nodded, and said, irascibly, as though he were cross, ‘You know dam' well it is.'

After that they played, and Mr Grant had won easily. Once or twice he offered to let Mr Van Deusen replace his piece and make another move because the one he had made was disastrous, and each time, Mr Van Deusen said irritably, ‘Oh, be dam'd to that, Nemo. Play properly for once.'

Dinah thought that neither of them had seen her. She
was scrunched up small behind a curtain on the window seat near the table where the chessboard was set out.

After Mr Van Deusen, neatly mated, had stared in disgust, first at the board and then at Mr Grant, and snarled, ‘Always the same, dammit. You've got better, not worse,' he strode off to commit suicide, or so he said.

Mr Grant had laughed and leaned back, remarking to her around the curtain, ‘He doesn't mean that, you know, but chess brings out the worst in people.'

‘Only if they lose,' Dinah offered.

‘Not invariably,' he replied gravely.

‘Is that why you let them win?' she asked him, because that was the only thing which made sense of Mr Van Deusen's remarks. He was telling Mr Grant to play up to his paper, a phrase which Faa had once used.

‘It's bad for me to win or lose,' he told her.

‘Did you know that I was there all the time?' she asked him.

‘That would be telling,' he said, just like a nurse whom she had once had.

‘Why did he call you Nemo?'

‘That would be telling, too.'

Dinah considered him. It was, she later remembered sadly, the last conversation which she had had with him. After that he had avoided her, and she wondered what she had said or done to make him do so.

‘Nemo means nobody.'

‘Yes.'

‘And you're not nobody.'

‘True.'

Dinah gave up. He was laughing at her, kindly and gently. It was at that moment that she knew that she loved
him. Not simply because he was kind to her, although that was part of it, and, of course, she must never let him know.

‘Would you play chess with me again? I'm not such a good player as Mr Van Deusen.'

She thought for a moment. ‘You could teach me. It's more than just knowing the moves, isn't it?'

He taught her that afternoon. Carefully and patiently. She had thought at the time that she might use what he told her against him the next time that they played, but it was to be the last game he played with her at Moorings.

He had just finished explaining to her the importance of protecting her centre when she saw, over his shoulder, Violet looking at them. Dinah didn't like the expression on Violet's face. It was one which meant that she was doing something wrong, and for the life of her she couldn't think what it was about playing a game of chess against Mr Grant which could be wrong.

‘Dinah!' Violet called, irritation in her voice. ‘I thought I told you not to trouble the guests. Kenilworth particularly wanted Mr Grant to ride out with him this afternoon, but he couldn't find him.'

Cobie swung round. ‘My fault, Lady K.,' he said cheerfully, ‘not Dinah's. I felt lazy this afternoon.'

Violet had shown him her sweetest smile. ‘Oh, you weren't to know. Besides, Dinah ought to go to her room and do her piano practice. I particularly promised Mama that she would do at least an hour every day. I don't think you've done any at all for the last two days. Off with you now.'

There was nothing for it but to leave him, and since then Mr Grant, to please Violet, because she plainly didn't want Dinah to call him Cobie, had hardly spoken to her. He hadn't looked at her, either. All because he was so besotted
with Violet that once she had taken him over so completely he had had no time to look at anyone else.

Worse, Violet was being particularly nasty to her these days. And if it went on she would ask either to go back to Mama's, or to Faa. And if Violet said no, she had a good mind to take Pearson, herself and their bags, go to the station and buy tickets to take them to Oxford—and Faa.

She had just reached this point in her musings when she saw Mr Grant walking along the path which skirted the top lawn and led to the garden in which she was sitting. He was wearing a black-and-gold striped blazer with a white shirt and cream flannel trousers, a turn-out which made him look more handsome than ever, and made Dinah in her child's dress of blue-and-white striped cotton feel more of a frump than ever.

He had seen her and was walking towards her.

But he wasn't giving her his white smile. His face was stern and shuttered, as though she and the rest of the world didn't exist.

She remembered that she had seen him looking like that the other day. Violet had just left him and he was standing alone. He had been laughing with Violet, looking particularly handsome, and then, suddenly, he had turned away. Before he had done so, however, she had seen his face change for a brief moment into that stern impassive mask, and she had wondered what had caused such a transformation.

He saw her, and hesitated. She thought that he was about to change the path he was taking in order to avoid her. In the distance, through a gap in the hedge, she could see Violet walking along yet another path, exquisitely turned out, a parasol in her hand, even though the sun was watery today.

Perhaps it was her he wished to join, and Dinah Freville was only an unconsidered nuisance in his way. He must have changed his mind again, for after that infinitesimal pause he was continuing his walk towards her. Dinah smiled at him, a strained smile, not sure of its welcome.

‘Lady Dinah,' he said, bowing. ‘It is not quite so warm today, I think. The weather is hardly suitable for sitting outdoors.' And then, after this cold beginning, so unlike the warmth of their earlier conversations, he asked her, still in the same distant tones, ‘Were you waiting for me?'

Why, she didn't know, Dinah began to tremble. Had she been waiting for him? Of course she had. Not consciously perhaps, but she must have known that he walked this way each morning, through the Knot Garden, through the wicket gate at the end, and out into the park, going as far as the lake whose waters sparkled in the distance, before he turned back.

Some of the guests had expressed a lofty amusement at this uncharacteristic energy in a man who usually appeared to be languid. ‘Perhaps he's a true Yankee after all,' had been Sir Ratcliffe's sneer, ‘in that if in nothing else!'

‘You shouldn't, you know,' he told her, still in that same bored voice. ‘You are still a very young lady, Dinah, and forgive me, but you ought not to appear to be chasing after an older man—that way reputations are ruined. I hope you won't mind my giving you this advice. It is what I would offer you if you were my sister.'

It was not the words themselves which hurt her, suggesting as they did that she had been immodest, but the manner in which he uttered them, so unlike the charming friendliness he had previously shown to her.

Dinah flushed an unbecoming scarlet, which was rapidly succeeded by an ashen grey. She rose, twisting her hands
together, and stammered, ‘I thought that we were friends…Mr Grant.'

‘There,' he said, and the frost in his voice was as plain as though icicles were coming out of his mouth. ‘That is exactly it. You are not yet out, your sister tells me, so one must forgive you a certain gaucherie.'

He watched her face change again, both felt and saw, the pain on it—and cursed the necessity to do what Violet had cruelly ordered. He had to remember that by doing so he was saving the child before him from even greater humiliation—and permanent exile.

Dinah was shaking now and, to make matters worse, she saw Violet bearing down on them, an expression on her face which she had seen before, and which boded no good.

‘So, there you are, Cobie,' she exclaimed to his back before Dinah could answer him. ‘Is this wretched child
still
pursuing you? She is becoming the talk of the house party. I really must have a word with you, Dinah, about the correct way for a girl who is not yet fully out to behave.'

Dinah, still mute, looked at them standing side by side, impregnable in their beauty. She had never before been so conscious of her plainness and her lack of the
savoir faire
which her sister and her lover possessed in such abundance.

They were both so…handsome.

She found herself saying, rather like her old nurse, ‘Handsome is as handsome does,' and was surprised how level her voice was, although she was white to the lips. ‘And, Mr Grant, I think that I hate you more than I hate her.'

She waved a shaking hand at Violet. ‘She, at least, never pretended to like me. What a whited sepulchre you are…Mr Jacobus Grant!'

‘Such melodrama, darling,' drawled Violet mockingly,
‘and all because a silly little girl mistook common courtesy for something…more…shall we say…?'

Cobie, hardly able to endure this, agonisingly aware that to defend Dinah would result in an even crueller punishment for her, put a hand on Violet's arm to try to silence her. He would have preferred to put both his hands around her neck and strangle her.

Violet flung the hand off, and stared hard at him to try to compel him to say something more.

‘I wasn't having you leave all the dirty work for me to do, darling,' she told him later. Cobie saw the anguish on Dinah's face but there was nothing he could do to staunch it without causing her future pain.

He bowed to the white-faced child, whose very courage in the face of the insults being put upon her were a reproach to him.

‘I can only say that I am sorry that you might have mistaken what your sister calls common courtesy for something more. Put my thoughtless behaviour down to my Yankee ignorance…'

He paused, added, his eyes on her, ‘It might be useful for you to remember in future that appearances often deceive.'

This last cryptic statement reminded Dinah of some of his other utterances which possessed a double meaning, although what he was trying to say to her—if anything—she couldn't think. He had made his own revulsion at her importunate behaviour sufficiently plain, and the pain he was causing her was making it difficult for her to think clearly.

What was also plain was Violet's scarcely disguised glee at what was happening.

‘I think that it would be a good idea for you to go to
your room, my dear,' she said peremptorily, as though to a servant.

She had put her hand on Cobie's arm, and was leading him away. Dinah watched them go. Violet's reproaches, crueller than ever, had stunned her. But not so much as his had done. She had fallen in love with him and what a dreadful mistake that had been. She had never known him. That hard face she had glimpsed once or twice was the true Cobie Grant—and when she had become troublesome to him he had not hesitated to rid himself of her, however much he hurt her in the doing.

All the way back to her room Dinah was crying inside.

If he had meant at the end to be so cruel, why had he been so kind to her in the beginning? Far better if he had ignored her as the other guests had done. But she would not let anything show, she would not. She would take what had happened as a valuable lesson, and would never trust anyone again. Nor would she fall in love again, since her first encounter with that emotion had been so disastrous.

She thought of his last words, ‘Appearances often deceive.' Well, his appearance and his behaviour had deceived her—but never again.

 

Cobie excused himself after his brief walk with Violet—much shorter than his usual morning constitutional—was over. He smiled his charming smile, told her that he had received a large budget of business letters that morning and must see to them.