An Unconventional Duenna

At this, Emma blushed again and agreed to stand up with him. Satisfied, Adrian said, still gallant, “You will forgive me, I trust, if I leave you now. I must find my partner for the next dance. I shall be sure to visit you in good time for ours.”

Nick said to him when they strolled away to find their partners, “I thought that she was going to faint when you asked her to dance. Are you sure that you wish to pursue such a shy creep-mouse? I will allow that she is pretty enough for you, but she would not be my choice for a wife.”

“Oh, I like ’em shy,” said his cousin, “while you, you dog, like them talkative and striking—or in need of assistance in some way. I half-thought that you might have offered the companion a turn on the floor—it must be a great bore to stand up all night watching out for her charge.”

“You mean grey-eyed Pallas,” said Nick. “One can only just detect the colour of Miss Filmer’s eyes under that horrendous cap. She has a good figure, though, and by the cut of it she is not much older than her charge. Odd, that.”

“Pallas?” queried Adrian, puzzled. “I thought that Emma’s father said that her name was Athene.”

Nick laughed. It was patent that if Adrian had learned anything about the mythology of the ancient Greeks while he was at Oxford he had promptly forgotten it. “Athene was the goddess of wisdom in the ancient world,” he said, “and one of her names was grey-eyed Pallas. She had an owl as an attendant, too. I wonder if Miss Filmer sports one.”

“Should think not,” complained Adrian, “not much use at a ball, owls. Nor at the theatre, either,” he added as an afterthought. “You do come out with some weird things, Nick.”

Behind them Mrs Tenison was busily reproaching Emma for being so backward in welcoming Lord Kinloch’s advances.

“I wonder at you, child, I really do. A handsome young man of great fortune makes a fuss of you and all that you can do is blush and stutter. Here is your great chance. Be sure to talk to him if he chooses to talk to you, and if he wishes to meet you again then by all means accept any invitation he cares to make.”

“But I really do feel sick, Mama,” faltered Emma. “It is very hot in here—and he is so…so…”

She wanted to say that Adrian frightened her because he was like a prince in a fairy tale and surely he could not be interested in a country girl like herself.

Athene, listening to this, wondered why Mr Tenison did not defend his daughter a little. She thought wryly that if Lord Kinloch had asked her to dance with him she would have accepted his offer with alacrity—charming alacrity of course. While she felt sorry for Emma, she could not help feeling impatient with her. Now had the dark man, Nicholas Cameron, offered to stand up with her she could have understood her charge’s reluctance.

She had not liked the assessing way in which he had looked at them. He had even examined her carefully—not that he could tell what she really looked like beneath her appalling turn-out. Was it possible that this whole business was a great mistake? How in the world was she ever going to be able to charm anyone while standing like an ill-dressed scarecrow, mute behind her unkind patroness?

Emma said again, “I really do not feel very well, Mama,” to which her mother replied angrily, “Stuff, Miss Tenison, stuff!”

Mr Tenison put in a gentle oar. “Do you not think that you ought to take note of what our daughter is telling you, my dear?”

His wife turned on him angrily. “No, indeed, Mr Tenison. You ought to be aware of her whim-whams by now. It is time that she grew up. I do not hear Athene whining and wailing about her situation. If we give way to Emma every time she whimpers we might as well not have visited London at all.”

Mr Tenison subsided, and no wonder, thought Athene. He said not another word until Lord Kinloch returned with Nick in tow. He had cajoled him into offering the companion a turn on the floor. “I need to get to know the family better,” being the bait he had offered his cousin. “It would be as well to have the young dragon on my side.”

Nick had refrained from pointing out that judging by the dominant mother’s behaviour the whole family would be on his side if he began to court Emma so that there was no need to humour the companion. But for all his good looks and self-assurance Adrian was basically modest.

In any case the poet Burns had once written that “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley”. Those of Adrian and Mrs Tenison certainly did. Adrian had scarcely had time to bow a welcome to Emma before she sprang to her feet, and face grey, fled from the ballroom, her hands over her mouth, wailing gently.

Mrs Tenison sprang to her feet also and charged after her. Athene was about to follow, but Mr Tenison now also standing exclaimed, “No!” with unusual firmness and held her back. “Her mother must care for her since it was she who has ignored her pleas for help.”

Adrian was completely nonplussed by this sudden turn of events which left him stranded on the edge of the ballroom floor, the centre of curious eyes. Nick had not yet had the opportunity to ask Miss Filmer to join him in the dance, nor was he to be allowed to do so.

With great address Mr Tenison sought to smooth over the unhappy situation created by Lord Kinloch’s sudden loss of his partner, by saying, “I am sure, Lord Kinloch, that you would wish to make up your set in the dance by taking Miss Filmer for your partner instead of Miss Emma. I am sure that my wife—and Emma—would prefer you not to be discommoded.”

To his great credit Adrian said, “But, sir, what of your daughter? I should not like to entertain myself while she is ailing.”

“She rarely suffers these turns, but when she does they soon pass,” he said dryly. “Athene, you would consent to partner Lord Kinloch, would you not?”

Would she not! Much though she regretted Emma’s sudden collapse, Athene could not help but be delighted by this opportunity to get to know a rich and handsome young peer, a true Lord of All. Adrian hesitated a moment before offering her his hand, and saying, “I would be grateful if you would oblige me, Miss Filmer.”

Her answer was to curtsey to him, bowing her head a little when she did so—at which juncture her over-large cap fell forward on to the floor at Adrian’s feet.

Deeply embarrassed, she had retrieved it and was about to resume it when Mr Tenison took it gently from her hand.

“Come, come, my dear, you do not need to take that disfiguring object with you into the dance for it to trouble Lord Kinloch with its misbehaviour. Is not that so, sir?”

Adrian did not hear him. He was too busy staring at the vision of beauty which was Athene Filmer now that she had lost her cap. She had, after entering the ballroom, visited one of the cloakrooms on a pretext and had loosened her hair from its painful and disfiguring bonds—which was why the cap had fitted so badly that it had come adrift. Even the horrid grey dress could not dim her loveliness. She reminded Adrian of the beautiful female statues he had seen on the Grand Tour which he had taken with Nick.

Nick was also staring at her. Grey-eyed Pallas, indeed, the very goddess herself. No owl, of course, but a pair of stern and dominant eyes which she was turning on the moonstruck Adrian above a subtle smile.

Now, what did that smile mean? Nick was a connoisseur of the human face. When he was in Italy he had come across an old folio containing drawings which purported to show that facial expressions almost invariably revealed the true thoughts and motives of those who assumed them. Experience had taught him that these very often slight indicators usually told him something important about those who displayed them.

He didn’t gamble very often—he considered it a fool’s pastime—but his ability to read the faces of those against whom he played gave him a marked advantage over them whenever he chose to. In the case of the one beautiful young woman whom he had hoped to make his wife he had ignored some revealing signs, only to discover later that they had told him correctly of her lack of virtue—thus adding to his suspicion of women’s motives.

So, what was the true meaning of Miss Athene Filmer’s smile? It was not at all the smile of a woman dumb-struck by Adrian’s physical beauty. Miss Emma Tenison—and many other women—had worn that smile, but not this particular woman. Unless he were mistaken, it resembled nothing less than that of someone who has achieved something important: it was the smile of a man who was winning a game of tennis, or that of an angler who was about to land a large fish.

Oh, she was a dangerous creature, was she not? A true beauty with her dark hair, her grey eyes and her glorious figure…And what the devil was he doing, standing there, drooling over such a fair deceiver, even if she were named after the goddess of wisdom herself?

He shook himself to restore his usual cold self-possession and began to pay attention to Mr Tenison, who was asking him to sit by him for a while since both of them were now abandoned while Adrian cavorted with Pallas Athene on the dance floor. Nick was only too ready to oblige him. He wanted to know more about this unlikely beauty. At first he and Mr Tenison spoke of general matters: the Season, the news from Spain, the wretched business of Luddism in the Midland counties.

It seemed that his family, and their companion, lived not far from Steepwood Abbey, where, if Nick were not mistaken, there had recently been yet another major scandal concerning its owner, the debauched Marquis of Sywell. He had taken some nobody for a wife—presumably no one else would have him—and the nobody had suddenly, and mysteriously, disappeared. It had even been suggested that Sywell had done away with her, which, considering his reputation, was a not unreasonable assumption.

Since nothing further had occurred, either in the lady’s reappearing, or Sywell or someone else being accused of disposing of her, the scandal had finally died down, and would only be revived if there were any further, exciting revelations.

“Are you acquainted with Sywell, sir?” Nick asked. “Is he such a monster as rumour says he is?”

“Worse,” said Mr Tenison briefly. “No, I am not acquainted with him—who is? I am at present, however, disputing some boundary lines with him. He has seen fit to enclose a large portion of my lands, not that he intends to do anything useful with it, of course, just to be a thorough nuisance to yet another of his neighbours.”

Nick nodded; so Sywell was the miserable scoundrel which the on dit said he was, and a bad neighbour into the bargain. He thought that now was the time for him to find out a little about Pallas Athene. So, while he was apparently idly watching her busily charming his cousin whenever they were joined in the dance, he said, “Your daughter’s companion seems strangely young for her post. They are usually middle-aged, or elderly, dragons. This one seems scarcely older than her charge.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mr Tenison, responding to this apparently reasonable statement. “As you have seen, my dear little Emma is of a nervous disposition. My wife thought that the usual stern creature we might hire would overwhelm her. Fortunately she was able to find someone sensible who would guard her and whom Emma would not be afraid of but would obey. Miss Filmer was a few years ahead of Emma at her school and protected her from those who sought to bully her because of her timidity. It also meant that she was doing Miss Filmer a kindness by giving her the opportunity to come to London for the Season, something her widowed mother could not otherwise afford.”

If Mr Tenison was crediting his wife with a benevolence which she did not possess, Nick was not to know that. He had, however, learned something useful. The poor girl from the provinces had been handed an unlooked-for opportunity to make the acquaintance of one of the United Kingdom’s richest young men. Hence, of course, the smile.

He might be doing her a wrong but he thought not. His instincts, finely honed over the years, told him that he was correct, particularly when Mr Tenison added innocently, “Miss Filmer is a most unusual girl, since she is not only beautiful, but remarkably clever, something which my dear Emma is not. We have had some interesting conversations in which she has shown an intellectual maturity far beyond her years. I consider that we are fortunate to have her as Emma’s companion—something of that must surely rub off on her.”

Nick, from the little he had seen of Miss Emma Tenison, sincerely doubted that! Mr Tenison’s revelations told him that Athene was well-named, but only time would reveal whether or not he was judging her too harshly in believing her to be husband-hunting for herself.

On the dance floor Athene was busy doing exactly what he thought that she was about.

At first she was pleasantly demure, but when Adrian said in his cheerful way, “I do hope that you are allowed to enjoy yourself a little, Miss Filmer. Standing around keeping an eye on that timid little thing must be dull work.”

“Oh, Mr Tenison has been extremely kind to me,” she ventured prettily. “Did he not ensure that I have not lacked for a partner tonight by recommending me to you? I trust that by doing so when Emma had her crise de nerfs just now he has not discommoded you.”

Adrian, who was not at all sure that he knew what a crise de nerfs was, and hoped that it was not catching, said artlessly, “Dear Miss Filmer, I was absolutely charmed by my first sight of you when you lost your ugly cap, and was delighted to have you for a partner instead of the mouse.”

Suddenly aware that in being so gallant to Athene he had impolitely slighted her charge, he added hastily, “Not that I meant anything wrong about Miss Emma, not at all…” He rapidly ran down, aware that anything he said might make matters worse.

“Oh, quite,” said Athene. “Poor little thing, it is quite an affliction with her. Crowds always seem to depress her.”