The Hermit's Daughter (11 page)

“Pshaw. Sir Darrow won’t tell anyone. He is close as a clock. It is required in his profession, for those lawyers hear all manner of disgraceful things about their clients. A little bankruptcy is not worth mentioning to them.”

“Caution him not to tell his wife. Ladies are not so close.”

“I don’t know that he has a wife, Sal. She was ill at the time he joined your father. He might be a widower by now. I think I heard he is, in fact. I’ll ask him to come around here. I could not face going to your father’s office. The memories would overcome me, and it is so unflattering to be seen with red eyes.”

* * * *

Lord and Lady Derwent absented themselves to call on various relatives of the groom after luncheon, but Sally elected to remain home with her mother to speak to Sir Darrow Willowby, whom she remembered fondly from her youth. She did not remember him being quite so old, nor so diminutive, as he turned out to be. He was not a day under sixty, with already a slight stooping forward around the shoulders. He wore his snow-white hair parted in the center, to lengthen even further his pencil-thin face. But the eyes were still a bright and mischievous blue, with the brows sprouting in thicker strands than before.

“Ho, Mrs. Hermitage—Mabel, you haven’t changed one iota since I saw you last,”
he shouted from the doorway of the saloon. Soon he was shuffling in, smiling at them both. “You never mean to tell me you still have this minx on your hands?”
he asked in surprise as he looked at Sally. “I made sure she’d be married from the schoolroom. The prettiest face in London—present company, of course, excepted,”
he added with a bow to the beaming mother.

“Darrow! How nice it is to see you again. Just like old times,”
the hostess declared. Tears sprung to her eyes at the memories inevitably evoked by this vision from the past.

“You would have seen me long since, had you let me know where you were living, shatterbrain,”
he scolded, shaking a finger at her. “I told you to keep in touch, and how many years have passed? Never mind. I don’t want to know. It is too many.”

He sat down, placed his cane between his knees, and rubbed his hands together. Then he assumed a more serious aspect and said, “Now, dry those tears and let us hear what hobble you have fallen into, Mabel. You know I am never savage with you.”

Mrs. Hermitage outlined, with many polite circumlocutions, her situation, bringing him up to date with the marriage of her younger daughter.

Sir Darrow listened sharply. “Why, you are well off
and don’t know it. Half the lords in London couldn’t pay their bills if everything they owned were sold off at auction. And you have nabbed an earl for one of the girls into the bargain. You’ll have no trouble disposing of this saucy piece,”
he added with an admiring study of Sally. “Should have brought her out two or three years ago. I have been waiting that long to make her an offer. Ha-ha.”
He finished with a waggish shake of his white head to show his jest.

“What we really want to know, Darrow, is whether Monstuart can keep Derwent’s money from him for the two years, as he threatens to do,”
Mrs. Hermitage explained.

Sir Darrow raised his brows and pursed his lips in a well-remembered fashion that gave him a comical air. “In a word, yes. Legally, he can. Speaking more practically, he will look a flaming jackass if he does. There is no point in it. The cent percenters will be happy to get their hooks into young Derwent. They will lend him any amount, with an income of fifteen thousand behind him. I cannot imagine for a moment Monstuart would be so woolly-headed. What has got him into this pucker, eh? This minx is giving him a hard time, I warrant,”
he ventured, looking at Sally. “She is very much in his style, if I am not mistaken.”

“Well, you are mistaken, Darrow, for they never meet but they come to cuffs,”
Mrs. Hermitage informed him.

“He is a trifle high-handed. I never had much to do with him myself; your husband, of course, handled the Monstuart case. He don’t like being crossed, if I remember the story aright.”

Sally’s interest perked up immediately. “What case did Papa handle for him?”
she asked.

“One of those delicate affairs never spoken of in front of young ladies,”
he replied. “A paternity suit, was it? No, not quite that simple. Crim con., perhaps. Something in the petticoat line. I can look it up and let you know if you have a mind to tease him, but don’t breathe a word of how you found out.”

“I would appreciate learning all the details,”
Sally answered with a quiet, anticipatory smile lurking in the depths of her eyes. “And the sooner, the better.”

“Must not bruit it about town, but I don’t have to tell the Hermit’s daughter that. Use it to trim him into line, if you like. No harm in that. So, Mabel,”
he continued, “you have outrun the grocer again. If you need funds, I can advance you something till next quarter or till Derwent comes into his own. There is no hurry about repaying. Your husband’s business has done me proud. I learned a few sly tricks from the Hermit, and it keeps folks coming to me. I ain’t as sharp as your husband, but I am sharper than any other shyster in town, if I do say so myself.”

“We could not take money from you, Darrow,”
she answered, but without that conviction that a determined negative would have carried.

It was for Sally to refuse with equal politeness and a good deal more firmness.

“This one rules the roost, I see,”
he said to her mother. “Does she lead you a merry chase, Mabel? Her papa often forecast it. He warned you times out of mind to get her shackled to the first decent fellow who offered. I am amazed she is still on the shelf. Ha, the London beaux will soon take care of that. That is why you are here, I daresay?”
he asked, turning to Sally.

“You read me like an open book, Sir Darrow. Have you any eligible partis to put forward?”

“My set would all be too old for you, my girl. I run with Prinny’s pack these days. A ripe bunch for plucking, you must know. I’ll keep my eyes open. I’ll have Prinny invite you to one of his larger dos at Carlton House and let you look over the Season’s offerings. Stay away from Walworth and Kidder. Libertines and wastrels, with not a sou to their names.”

Sally made a mental note of the names, and soon Sir Darrow picked up his cane in preparation of leaving. “I am working up a brief for Lord Handworth. He wants to dump his wife, but you must not say I told you so. I shall toddle along now and be in touch soon. Good day, Mabel. You are as pretty as ever. Perhaps we shall get shackled, eh? Ha-ha.”

“Is Lady Willowby--”

“She passed on a few years ago.”
He shook his head as he hobbled from the room.

“Don’t forget to let me know what matter it was Papa handled for Lord Monstuart,”
Sally called after him.

“Ho, you are determined to get the upper hand with him, I see. I’ll do what I can to help you. Least I can do for the Hermit. Good day, ladies.”

“Well, that is that,”
Mrs. Hermitage said when they were alone once more. “Monstuart need not give us any money if he chooses. I might as well be in touch with our man of business and see about selling those Consols. I hate to do it.”

“Sell a thousand pounds’
worth,”
Sally suggested. “The opera box must be paid for, and we’ll need some operating money.”

It was hard to dip into their little fund, but when Melanie and Derwent came home with invitations to not less than two rout parties and one ball, when there was the box at the theater waiting to be occupied that same evening, it was impossible not to be more excited than worried.

And it was, indeed, an evening to remember. It seemed that all of the ten thousand had come to Drury Lane, wearing their finest diamonds and their gayest smiles. Lord Derwent had many friends who wished to meet his new bride and bid her happy. A new pair of beauties in town, one blond, the other a striking brunette, were bound to garner their fair share of attention. Sally noticed with satisfaction that they had the fullest box in the house during the first intermission.

But the highlight of the evening occurred during the second intermission. Sir Barrow’s white head peeped into the box, eyes dancing merrily. “Mabel, ladies, put on your best smiles. There is someone who wants you to come to his box for wine.”

For no sane reason, Sally found herself thinking the “someone”
was Monstuart. How like his arrogance, to command that they go to his box. “Pray request ‘someone’
to come to our box if he wishes to meet us.”
She smiled.

“We’ll never get him squeezed through the portal before the intermission is over. It took a brace of us to get him in,”
Sir Darrow replied.

Such a portly gentleman was obviously not Monstuart. It was Mrs. Hermitage who uttered a squeal of delight. “Not Prinny, Darrow!”

“No less. Come along, or he’ll have drunk up all the wine.”

The ladies were not tardy to nip along to the most famous box in the house. Physically, the visit was an extremely uncomfortable squeeze, but it set the cap on their evening. His Royal Hugeness, as the Prince of Wales was being called that week, found the daughters comely. Their older and more fully figured mother, a dame in Prinny’s preferred style, was pronounced an Incomparable.

It was generally agreed among the ladies later that Monstuart’s threat of ostracization might very well be overcome. He did not attend the play, but Sally found her mind veering often in his direction. She wondered what “delicate matter”
it was her father had handled for him and how soon she might have the opportunity of throwing it in his face.

A Season of six weeks is not very long when it has to include a presentation at Court, an introduction to polite society, the setting up of a court of admirers, the singling out of one of them as the one to be attached, and the final landing of him in her net. Without ever wasting a minute, Sally didn’t see how she was to pull the thing off. The gentlemen she wished to draw to her saloon were elusive. Derwent’s friends, all callow youths, were arriving in abundance. They were amusing rattles to have dance attendance on her at parties, but there was not one in the lot she could envisage spending an evening alone with in anything but absolute boredom. The other alternative was the aging cronies of Sir Darrow Willowby and her late papa, who were always attentive. Sir Darrow was the Hermitages’
usual escort to all the ton functions.

Shortly after the ladies were anointed with respectability at Queen Charlotte’s Drawing Room, Sir Darrow arranged for the family to attend one of Prinny’s fabulous parties at Carlton House. This do required three new gowns of an elegance nearly matching the presentation gowns. “For we do not want to show the world we’ve been rusticating all these years,”
Mrs. Hermitage pointed out. “Do you think the ecru crepe does anything for me, Sal? I fear it is a poor choice. It is the same faded shade as my face. I must use more rouge. We antiques are all resorting to it to lend us a touch of color.”

Now a happy matron, Melanie could put off the white of maidenhood and had concocted an ice-blue peau de soie gown that made her look even younger than her eighteen years. It rankled a little with Sally that she must still wear white, when she was three years older, but the color was not downright unbecoming. As Sir Darrow had the wits to supply a corsage of red flowers, she did not look quite as though she were masquerading as a youngster.

“I do hope Monstuart will not be there,”
Mrs. Hermitage fretted. “Do you suppose it is
his
doing that none of the fellows the proper age are calling on you, Sal? He has a wide circle of friends, the very gentlemen who ought to be courting you.”

“I wouldn’t put it a bit past him,”
Sally replied with an angry jerk at her gloves.

“Do be careful, dear. The kidskin splits if you look too hard at it. I have gone through three pairs of gloves this Season, and it is early times yet. They cost a fortune, too.”

“How is the thousand pounds you converted from Consols holding out?”
Sally asked.

Her mother blinked in surprise. “Why, it is gone long ago. I have had to draw out two thousand more since then.”

“We must cut back,”
Sally scolded, but in her
heart she knew it could not be done. She had no more desire than her family to appear in anything but the highest kick of fashion. Another thousand would have to be taken out for their ball, but she meant to draw the line absolutely at five thousand. That would leave them ten thousand for the next two years, if Monstuart could not be brought to heel. And really, he was so remarkably stubborn it was a genuine possibility. He had never called in three weeks since his first visit and scarcely acknowledged that he knew them when they met in society.

They were interrupted by the sound of the door knocker. “That will be Darrow.”
Mrs. Hermitage smiled.

He was soon shown in. “How are my two girlfriends?”
he asked. His blue eyes turned first to the mother for a close scrutiny, then to Sally. “Six of one and half a dozen of the other,”
he concluded. “I cannot decide which is the more lovely. But I know which one Prince George will favor. He has no use for young fillies. Are the Derwents not coming with us?”

“They went on ahead in Ronald’s carriage,”
Mrs. Hermitage replied. “Five in yours would be crowded, Darrow. We do not want to arrive crushed.”

“Ho, you’ll be squeezed to death once you get there. Prinny has five hundred coming for an intimate little evening. Let us all cross our fingers and pray he don’t decide to play his flute for us. Poor boy, he has no idea how ridiculous he looks and how badly he plays. His squawking reminds me of the sounds coming from an abattoir.”

“You didn’t hear whether Monstuart is attending?”
Mrs. Hermitage asked.

“He is one of the ten thousand, but whether he is one of the five hundred awaits to be seen. I did not forget your commission to me regarding him,”
he added, turning to Sally.

“The case Papa handled for him?”

“Exactly. I must report total failure. The file was removed from the office. Your papa sometimes did so at a client’s special request. The bill is on the books—five hundred guineas. That indicates a substantial case, but the exact nature of it remains a mystery, except that I recall it involved a lightskirt. Well, are we off?”