The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (8 page)

Recalling these artless words now, Alethea found herself wishing that the new arrivals had been anyone but these two. For, on closer scrutiny, she realised that she recognised the nobleman who was escorting Mrs. Vineham. If she were not much mistaken, this was the man who had edged up to her in the crowded street in Paris, and had pursued her through the streets. She did not think he recognised her, there was no look of recognition in his eyes, but there was a greedy spark there that boded no good to the lissom young man he took her for.

What a scrape to be in. She could hardly wait for dinner to be finished, good though it was, so that she might escape to her room. Upon the morrow she and Figgins would be on their way once more, and with luck need not have another encounter with this pair.

In the event, Alethea couldn't escape so easily. The women withdrew to a small parlour, leaving the men to their wine, and she was reluctant to make herself conspicuous by not staying for at least a little longer.

Figgins hovered, hoping that her mistress wouldn't make the mistake of matching the men glass for glass; might they find it strange if she didn't? She should have excused herself and retired; it was running into too much danger, sitting carousing with the gentlemen in there.

Her attention was caught by voices coming from the parlour, polite female voices, but with an edge to them. One of the voices belonged to the woman with that Italian husband, such a pleasant-looking woman to go marrying a foreigner, only recently married, according to what her maid said, going to visit her new family. Fancy having a lot of Italians for your brothers and sisters; it didn't bear thinking of.

Not but what Mr. Lessini didn't look an agreeable man, if not English in his ways. His manservant wouldn't hear a word against him, said he was as good a master as ever lived and he wouldn't change his place for a position with any of your fine English gentlemen, who'd like as not damn your eyes as soon as look at you and throw a boot at your head.

Come to that, the Italian's manservant was a civil enough fellow himself, quite the gentleman's gentleman. Which was more than could be said for Lord Lucius's valet, a sneaky, sneery fellow if ever she saw one. He probably had to paint my lord's face for him every morning; a fine thing for a duke's son to have red lips and cheeks like he was on the stage.

The other woman, that Mrs. Vineham, well, she might hold her nose high, but if she was a respectable widow, what was she doing jauntering about Europe in the company of a loose screw like Lord Lucius? Anyone with eyes in her head could see he wouldn't be a-creeping into any woman's bed of a night, yet that fact still didn't make him the kind of company a lady should be keeping.

Her keen ears caught the name of Hawkins. She looked swiftly about her. No, not the door; some officious servant would be bound to come past and find her with her ear pressed to the keyhole. What about the adjoining door, where did that lead? She lifted the latch and opened the door a mere inch. It was a closet, with some linen and glasses. And every word from the parlour could be heard as clear as if you were in the very room.

Figgins slipped in and pushed the door to behind her.

Mrs. Vineham was talking about her journey. How exhausting foreign travel was, how tiresome foreigners were, how even more tiresome it was to be constantly meeting with the very kind of English people that one had fled London to avoid.

“Do you find it so indeed?” Signora Lessini said. “For my part, I enjoy travel, whether in my own country or abroad.”

An affected laugh from Mrs. Vineham. “Ah, but my dearest Emily, you have to decide which is your own country now that you are married to an Italian. I vow, I was never more shocked than when I heard of your marriage. To be marrying a Signore Nobody when you had Titus Manningtree at your feet. Or so the town said, although I know well enough that an attachment of one sort, be it never so tender, does not always lead to the altar. When that becomes a possibility, one's
innamorato
is suddenly elsewhere, do you not agree?”

“Lavinia, I shall not talk to you nor anyone else about my private life.”

“Private!” cried Mrs. Vineham. “Pray, how can it be private when all the world and his wife knew that your late husband wore the cuckold's horns on account of Titus Manningtree.”

A silence. It was wise of Mrs. Lessini to keep her trap shut, Figgins felt. There'd be no getting the better of a woman with a tongue like that Mrs. Vineham had on her.

“Of course,” Mrs. Vineham was saying, “we all understood your situation, married to a man you can never have cared for. It is always a mistake to marry outside one's circle, is it not?”

“Jonathan was beloved by me and by his numerous friends,” Mrs. Lessini said with cold dignity. “I count myself fortunate to have had such a happy marriage.”

That laugh again from Mrs. Vineham. “Oh, as to that, we all know what happy marriages are, they do not exist, they are a pretence we women weave about our lives, is that not so? I appeared to the world a happy wife, but my late husband and I loathed one another most cordially, almost from the day we were wed, and counted it a fortunate day when we had cause neither to speak nor to see one another. And so it is with most women, nay, I would say with all women.”

“You speak as you find, I dare say,” said Mrs. Lessini. “I count myself fortunate not to share your jaundiced view of married life.”

“Come, come now, we are women together. Confess if it is not better, infinitely better, to be a widow than to be a married woman.”

“You forget, I am a married woman.”

“Yes, and that amazes me. For your late husband must have left you a pretty fortune, and to enjoy it for so short a while before you place your life and happiness and wealth once more in a husband's hands seems folly indeed.”

“Does it so?”

“Perhaps Signore Lessini has virtues beyond the ordinary, although such as a man has to offer may surely be enjoyed outside the bonds of matrimony as well as within those shackles.”

“I don't think, Lavinia, that if you lived a hundred years you would understand what a man such as Lessini has to offer.”

And little chance of Mrs. Vineham living that long, Figgins said to herself as she shifted her awkward pose for a moment. A glass slid along the shelf and tipped to the floor, breaking in a tinkle of glass.

“What is that?” cried Mrs. Vineham.

“A clumsy servant has dropped something,” Mrs. Lessini said. “Let me advise you to take a cordial for your nerves. I confess, to be travelling in the company of Lord Lucius would be enough to upset the nerves of a woman of even the least sensibility. You are on edge; I beg you to take care, or who knows in what condition you may find yourself? Widowhood is not any easy state, you know, no one is ever very concerned as to the well-being of a widow. Her children merely count the days until they may inherit or be free of the burden of her support, and such gentlemen as she may be acquainted with fall off very quickly at the least sign of illness.”

Figgins approved thoroughly of this vigorous assault by Mrs. Lessini. She had just decided that although it was entertaining to listen, she had best be about her business. But as she began to back out of the cupboard, she heard a reference to young Mr. Hawkins, and all thoughts of duty upstairs fled.

“A pretty young man with manners to match,” Mrs. Vineham said.

“I believe Lord Lucius finds him so.”

“Oh, as to that, we cannot let these men have it all their own way. I own, I find a fresh young man with a smooth cheek and blushing manners a delight. He is so very young, barely out of the university if he has yet gone. And a gentleman's son, one can see that at a glance. However, I don't know any Hawkins, it is not a noble name. I am not sure it is even a gentleman's name, although with families from the north and so on, it is so hard to say. Perhaps you are acquainted with him, since you move in a wider social sphere than most of us.”

“He has a look about him that reminds me of someone. I should not be surprised to find that I had met his father, even if I don't recall the name. Or his mother, he may favour his mother. It is of no consequence. He says that he continues with his journey into Italy tomorrow, and I believe we shall not be long after him. My dear husband is eager to be among his family again.”

“And where may that be?”

“He comes from Rome, we are heading for Rome, although we go first to Venice, where he has some commissions to execute.”

“Commissions?” There was a world of scorn in Mrs. Vineham's rich voice.

“He is a musician, as I dare say you are aware. He is highly regarded as a scholar, his judgement is required as to the authenticity of a manuscript.”

Mrs. Vineham laughed. “A manuscript, well, men must attend to their affairs. For some it is the running of an estate, or the management of a large fortune, or the collecting of works of art. For others, it is a manuscript.”

Mrs. Lessini ignored the acidity of her companion's voice. “We shall not linger in Venice. It is not a city my husband cares for. Romans do not, generally, I understand.”

“As for that, I am passionately attached to Venice. There is some excellent company to be had there just at present. We plan a stay of some weeks.”

Figgins was sorry to hear it. She felt that Alethea could do without the company of that pair, but then, it was unlikely that they would meet once in the city.

Mrs. Vineham gave a prodigious yawn. “Lord, how tired I am. I'm for my bed. Ring the bell, Emily, and I shall summon my maid. She will be down in the kitchens, no doubt, hobnobbing with the Swiss peasantry.”

Figgins heard a door open, and Mrs. Vineham told the inn servant to call her maid to her. It was too late for Figgins to slip out of the cupboard unnoticed, so she held the door to and waited, holding her breath until the click of the ladies' heels and the sound of Mrs. Vineham's voice told her that they were on their way upstairs.

Time to see what was what with Miss Alethea. She hoped to goodness she wasn't still closeted with the gentlemen, that was no place for her, a foreigner and that mincing man who looked to be no more than a mollymop, just what Miss Alethea could do without.

 

The inn lay quiet beneath the shadow of the great mountains. The moon shone fitfully through a film of cloud. Shutters closed, lights extinguished, the villagers slept the sleep of those who work hard from daybreak to sundown, while the travellers enjoyed less solid slumbers.

Mrs. Vineham's active mind brought her strange dreams and her eyes twitched under the dark shade she wore across them to keep out the least glint of too-early morning light. The Lessinis' bed was not a restful one, but its inhabitants enjoyed the other pleasures of the bedchamber with an ardour that did credit to a pair hardly in the first flush of youth; they might, so Lessini fondly told his wife in caressing Italian, be young lovers on their honeymoon, enraptured by the novel delights of wedded bliss. In the adjacent chamber, heedless of the sounds of love and laughter coming through the wooden walls, Lord Lucius tossed and turned, his mind fuddled still with the fumes of too much brandy.

Figgins slept the sound but wary sleep of the experienced servant, envied by Alethea, who could not sleep at all. She felt a heaviness in the air about her, an inexplicable sense of unease that kept her wide awake. She rose from her bed and went to the window. However cold the air, its freshness would clear her head. She opened the casement window and pushed back a shutter. The road lay gleaming in the dim moonlight, and it seemed to Alethea that the way they had come was darker than the way that wound up the valley to the gap in the soaring mountains, the way they were to go.

Out of the darkness came the sound of hooves. A horse. No, two horses. She craned out of the window to see who was arriving at the inn at this ungodly hour. The first horseman was a tall man, cloaked and hatted and muffled so that his face was hidden. With him came a shorter man, a servant, judging by his actions as he jumped from his horse and ran to hold the other man's bridle.

Knocking at the door below. A long wait, then the sound of bolts being drawn back, the light from a candle spilling out over the threshold, voices, and then the door closing as the servant led the two horses round to the side of the inn where the stables were.