The Hermit's Daughter (17 page)

His black brow rose quizzically. “Monstuart? We leaped that hurdle when last I spoke to you. I was hoping to be calling you Sally before the evening is over.”

He frowned at her lack of attention. She didn’t invite him to use her name, or forbid it, or utter any of the light sort of banter he had been expecting. “Is something the matter, Miss Hermitage?”
he asked.

“Derwent and Mellie have gone home,”
she said.

“That is hardly a tragedy. They are newlyweds, after all.”

“Yes, it seems to be contagious.”

His black brow rose imperceptibly. He had not said anything definite enough to warrant that assumption. “Like the plague,”
he agreed blandly.

“I must join Sir Darrow now. Good evening, Monstu—Monty.”

“Must I say good evening, Miss Hermitage?”

“No, you may say ‘
au
revoir.’
I trust we shall be meeting again soon.”

“Very soon.
Au revoir,
Mam’selle.”

Sally darted to Sir Darrow to congratulate him. Her face was wreathed in smiles. “Are congratulations premature, Papa?”
she asked pertly.

“Ho, sly minx. You have weaseled it out of Mabel, I see. Well, it is true. She has been foolish enough to have me. I can manage her, but what I am to do with you I have no idea. I’m too old to be turning the bucks off the premises. You must hop to it and find yourself a husband.”

She wagged his chin playfully. “All the best ones are taken.”
She smiled.

He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “On the other hand, I shouldn’t mind having such a bright pair of eyes in the house for a few months.”

Monstuart watched the meeting with rising consternation. He hadn’t observed this playfulness between Sally and Willowby before. And the mother looking on as placid as may be. Was it possible she was promoting a match between that old slice and Sal? She had certainly encouraged the walking pharmacopeia in Ashford. He felt a shudder of revulsion but no fear that Willowby provided him any real competition. All the same, he would make his offer very soon. His friends were finding Sally too attractive for his peace of mind.

At Cavendish Square, Lord Derwent quickly drank up half a bottle of wine and confessed his sins to Lady Derwent. Her reaction couldn’t have been more understanding if he’d written the script himself.

“I never liked Peacock above half,”
she told him. “What a wretched person he is, just the kind of man Sally
would
introduce to you.”

“By Jove, I never would have met him on my own, for he isn’t let into any decent club. How was a gentleman supposed to know how the likes of him carried on?”

“You’re too good to even think of anyone cheating at cards,”
she assured him. “I fear London is a wicked place, Ronald. We were happier in Ashford, were we not? With those nice drives and walks in the countryside and family dinner parties. We never get to sit together in London, and at the balls, we have to dance with other people. I even had to stand up with Monstuart.”

Derwent was completely sympathetic to this fate. “We could be together more at Gravenhurst,”
he pointed out, “and it wouldn’t cost us a sou.”

“But we’d have Sally with us,”
she reminded him. This certainly took the bloom off the idyll. “Unless Monstuart agreed to repay Mama’s money, and they could go back to Ashford,”
she added diffidently. She knew Ronald disliked speaking to Monty about money. “We can hardly ask Sally to speak to Monstuart,”
she pointed out. “Not when she will have her jaw set against the plan.”

“It would almost be worth risking speaking to him myself,”
he said uncertainly. “Sal will be in a rare pelter at Gravenhurst with the ball cancelled and having to cut short the Season before she nabs a husband.”

“Why don’t you write to Monty?”
Melanie suggested. “That way he won’t be able to say anything nasty.”

“Clever minx, that’s the ticket. And you must help me butter him up. It ain’t as if we’re asking for the moon, after all. It’s my money.”

“I shall tell Mama,”
Mellie said bravely. “She never cuts up stiff. She knows how easy it is to spend money, so she’ll understand.”

“You’re the best, bravest wife in the world, Mellie. I don’t deserve you.”

Lady Derwent smiled contentedly. “Yes, you do,”
she said generously. They debated the point for as long as possible to stave off writing to Monstuart, but at last Derwent had his way. He was unworthy of her, and to achieve worthiness he bravely took up pen and wrote to his guardian, explaining in confusing detail that he needed some of his own money for a pressing matter, if it would not be too inconvenient.

“You write beautifully,”
Melanie said. “Let us not send the letter till tomorrow, or Monstuart will come charging in at breakfast and spoil the whole day. If you send it around eleven, he won’t come till three or four.”

“And that will give you time to speak to your mama in the morning.”

They exchanged a loving look of complete understanding and went upstairs to take advantage of their solitude.

Lady Derwent found it easier to confess Ronald’s sins to her mother than to Sally. Mrs. Hermitage, with her own profitable union to buttress her against poverty, proved not at all condemning when Melanie cornered her in the privacy of her bedroom the next morning for the revelation.

“It is shocking the way money evaporates in London. There was never anything like it,”
she said, shaking her head in mystery. “So that is why you are going to Gravenhurst. I found it excessively odd when Sally mentioned it last evening. When are you planning to leave?”

“Right away, Mama.”

“Immediately? Oh, dear, will you not be here for the wedding, then?”

“Wedding! You never mean Sally has had an offer! Who was it from?”

“Sally? No such a thing. Who would ever offer for—not to say she is unattractive, but such a tongue! She turns all the fellows off with it. Darrow is marrying me.”

Melanie was delighted with the news. “When?”
she asked after a few repetitions of all the customary compliments.

“As soon as possible. I have been trying to put him off till the Season is over, for I was afraid Sal would cut up stiff if she had to leave Cavendish Square. But if you and Ronald are leaving in any case, it begins to look as if we must speed up the marriage. We can do it by special license. Then Darrow can sublet this place from Ronald, and we shall all go on living here—Sally and Darrow and I, I mean. The rent from this place will give Ronald a little money to get you two to Gravenhurst.”

After going over the logistics a few times, the advantages of the scheme were finally clear to Melanie, and she sent off for Ronald to join them. He entered the room diffidently, casting a frightened face at his wife. Mellie was smiling so sweetly that he knew she had smoothed his path.

“That’s something like,”
he said, beaming, when he was let in on the secret. “I’m sorry I bothered to dash that note off to Monstuart. We might have kept the whole thing from him, for your mother won’t need her blunt right away, now that she is marrying Willowby.”

“There is still Sally to consider,”
Mrs. Hermitage pointed out. “She would have something to say about your nipping off and leaving her without a sou. For that matter, I would be happy to have the money back myself. Weddings are very dear, and I dislike to dun Darrow for money before we are shackled.”

“Sally will be in the boughs,”
Melanie agreed. “Especially when she learns we are canceling our ball. She quite looked forward to it.”

“Canceling the ball?”
Mrs. Hermitage asked in alarm. “Oh, my dear, who will tell her that?”

The two pairs of pleading eyes directed at her gave her a hint as to who was to do the deed. She began fanning herself vigorously. “One thing at a time,”
she decided. “She was chirping merry at my engagement to Darrow last night. After she has got over her fit when she learns you two are leaving, I shall talk up the advantages of my match, and when she is in a good mood sometime, I’ll tell her.”

“But it must be soon, Mama,”
Mellie urged, “or she will go ahead and mail the invitations.”

Fate cast a few rubs in the path of the conspirators. The first was that Lord Monstuart was not at home when Derwent’s note was delivered. He had made a dashing visit to his own country estate in Berkshire and was not expected back for two days. That same morning a letter arrived from the estate agent in Ashford who had been trying to sublet the Hermitages’
house there. He had found a taker who wanted immediate occupancy, which meant someone had to go to Ashford to tie up the details and attend to the packing.

It struck all three conspirators that getting Sally out of the house on Cavendish Square for a few days would be an advantage. As they fully expected, however, she scotched their plan.

“I cannot sign the lease over, Mama. It is in your name. In any case, I shall be fully occupied here, arranging the ball.”
Sally had taken control of plans for this grand occasion, and no one had yet found the courage to tell her she worked in vain.

“I have some planning to do myself,”
Mrs. Hermitage said with an air of importance. Sally looked at her expectantly. “I told you—I am marrying Darrow.”

“You don’t have to begin plans so soon, surely.”

“We have decided not to wait, Sal. We are going to get a special license and get married right away.”

“What is the rush?”

“You know Ronald and Mellie want to leave London. Unless we wish to go to Gravenhurst with them, I must marry now, or you and I will have nowhere to lay our heads.”

“There’s no reason
we
must go. This house is hired for the Season.”

“They plan to sublet,”
Mrs. Hermitage said, not without a quiver of apprehension.

Sally’s eyes darkened. “The cheek of that Derwent! He spends our money, then plans to hire the house out from under us. Well, we’ll take the sublet money and hire something smaller.”

“Oh, my dear, would it not be nicer to stay on here?”

Sally blinked in confusion. “Indeed it would, but you said he means to sublet.”

“To Barrow! That is, I have not told him yet, but he will be needing a larger place for the three of us.”

The advantages of this scheme were not long in occurring to Sally. “Yes, I see. If you and Sir Darrow think it will do, I have nothing to say against it. But you still must go and tend to business in Ashford, Mama. It will only take a few days. Sir Darrow can get the license while you are away, and I shall arrange a small wedding party here. Will that not accomplish all the necessities with the minimum of time and bother?”

Driving all the way to Ashford seemed like a very large minimum to Mrs. Hermitage, but she knew her wayward daughter would have her way in the end, and gave up arguing. Sir Darrow was consulted and agreed with this plan. Derwent and Melanie, who awaited Monstuart’s return, were consigned to remaining in London. As the wedding was to occur in four days’
time, they would stay for that as well, whether Monstuart gave them their money or not. And through it all, it was kept from Sally that Derwent had lost all their money and the much anticipated ball would not take place.

Before Mrs. Hermitage left for Ashford the next morning, she ordered Sir Darrow to keep Sally fully occupied with wedding plans, to prevent her from ordering anything else for the ball. He took his duty seriously and spent every possible moment in her company.

She did not accompany him to the Bishop for the license, but she was deeply involved in everything else. “We shall have the little dinner party at Clarendon’s Hotel,”
he decided. “It will save you the fuss of arranging one at home.”

She accompanied him to Clarendon’s to order dinner and wine. “A
potage de poissons à la Russe
to begin,”
Sir Darrow said. Despite his small size, he was an excellent trencherman. “Followed by
l’oie braisée aux champignons,
or would some
filets de volaille
sit better? A side dish of
épinards à l’essence
—we must have our greens. A saddle of mutton—we want some good English bulk in our diet.”

“We also want to be able to get into our gowns!”

“You could all put on another stone and still be sylphs. We’ll fill you up on entremets. Let me see, now—
les genoises glacées au caramel,
with perhaps a plate of
petites soufflés d’abricots,
to eke out the chantilly and cream buns. That will do for starters. Let us see the wine list, lad. Champagne, mind! I won’t get married to the tune of claret.”

After the menu was settled, Sir Darrow went to the theater and arranged a private performance at the house on Cavendish Square for after the wedding dinner. Some actors and musicians who were “at leisure”
were happy to oblige him. He wished to invite a few dozen of his best friends for this concert and urged Sally to do likewise. “Is there anyone in particular you would like to ask?”

Sally was curious that Monstuart had not called and said, “Perhaps we should invite Lord Monstuart.”

“He is out of town.”

“I hadn’t heard!”

Nor would Sir Darrow have heard if Mrs. Hermitage had not told him. “That is what they are saying in the clubs. Anyone else?”

She mentioned a few friends. That afternoon she wrote invitations and delivered them with Sir Darrow.

That evening she accompanied him to the opera, along with Derwent and Melanie. The next morning he called again, determined to keep her busy.

“We shall take a run downtown and pick out your mama’s wedding ring this morning,”
he told her.

“Delightful!”

“And a little wedding gift of some sort. Diamonds, I expect. I notice she never wears the set the Hermit gave her. Pawned them, I suppose?”

“Eons ago, Sir Darrow. I believe they paid for our remove from Bath to Ashford.”

He shook his head fondly. “Shatter-brained girl.”

The gaudy set of diamonds he chose for the wedding gift told Sally that money was no object to Sir Darrow. He wanted to pick up a trifling diamond bracelet for her as well, but she firmly forbade it.