A Strange Likeness

He had taken care to tell Staines of the likeness and to warn him not to inform anyone else of it before Alan arrived.

‘For,’ he had said ingenuously, ‘I wish to tease the family a little and you must not spoil the fun.’

Staines had agreed to be discreet. All the servants liked Ned: he was so easy, jolly and kind, although some worried what would happen to the Hatton fortune when Sir Hart had gone to his last rest.

Eleanor said over her shoulder to Staines, in a sudden access of her old impetuous spirit, ‘Australian, is he? D’you think he’ll be wearing his chains?’

Staines, bowing his head again, opened the double doors for her, and she entered the drawing room to find not the Australian guest but Ned, standing in front of the fireplace studying Lawrence’s portrait of Great-Aunt Almeria in her youth, which hung above it.

Eleanor resembled her father’s aunt a little, but Almeria Stanton was sterner-looking, and even her airy draperies and the posy of flowers which she was holding did not soften her austere expression. Ned had his sandy head tipped back, the better to inspect it, which struck Eleanor as amusing—as did the outlandish clothes he was wearing.

She gaily continued teasing him when he turned towards her, his back to the light so that his features were a little obscured. ‘Wearing fancy dress so as not to discommode your new friend, are you, Ned? Why didn’t you put chains on, too? Then he would have felt really at home.’

Ned looked at her. His eyes seemed bluer than ever, and they roved over her in a manner which, had he not been Ned, would have made her blush.

Alan found her enchanting. She did not resemble Ned in the least, either in manner or appearance. She was a tall girl, beautifully proportioned, elegantly dressed, from the crown of her glossy head to the toes of her well-shod feet. Ned had spoken of a sister and this must be her. Her colouring was deeper and richer than Ned’s and her hair was a raven-black in colour.

It was very plain that naughty Ned had told her of a visitor from Australia but had not seen fit to mention the likeness. His mouth twitched in involuntary amusement, but before he could identify himself Eleanor spoke again.

‘I understand that you’re taking him to Cremorne Gardens. Tell me, don’t you think that your colonial friend will be overset by such worldly sophistication?’

Before she could commit herself further, and add to her ultimate embarrassment, Alan spoke at once, privately deciding to reproach Ned for putting his pretty sister in such a false position. He had already learned enough about him to know that what had been done was deliberate.

‘You mistake, Miss Hatton,’ he told her, ‘I am not Ned.’ And he deepened the accent which he had not known he possessed until he reached England.

Eleanor’s hand flew to her mouth in an embarrassed reversion to childhood.

‘Not Ned? Then you must be the Australian visitor of whom he spoke. Oh, dear, I have been so mannerless, so gauche. How can I apologise? On the other hand you are so like Ned I can be forgiven for being tactless. Only your voice is different, and, yes, I do believe that you are even bigger than he is.’

Alan decided not to favour her with his wickedly accurate imitation of Ned’s light drawl.

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s too deep. The voice, I mean. It’s the chains. They weigh it down, you know. They took them off…’

He paused tantalisingly, still smiling. He had two sisters whom he liked to tease gently, and he wanted to see how this poised and pretty girl would react to similar treatment.

Eleanor took the bait.

‘The chains? Took them off?’

‘Yes, when we boarded the ship for England. They said that if we wore them during the journey they’d slow us down too much. The weight again.’

‘They did?’ said Eleanor, fascinated by this young man who looked so like Ned but who was yet utterly unlike him when he teased her. On closer inspection he looked very much more severe than Ned, but there was a gentleness in his manner to her which her wild brother had never possessed.

‘Yes. Sorry to disappoint you by not having ’em on.’

‘I’m not disappointed,’ said Eleanor truthfully.

‘I can see that. The Patriarch says—’

‘The Patriarch?’ Eleanor was fascinated all over again.

‘M’father. We call him the Patriarch occasionally—he does come on rather patriarchal at times. He also says that they slow you down when you’re working. So they took them off him soon after he arrived in New South Wales. More trouble than they were worth, he said.’

‘Do stop,’ said Eleanor faintly, trying not to laugh. Great-Aunt Almeria insisted that young ladies never laughed. Lord Chesterfield wouldn’t have liked it, she said. ‘You’re not a bit like Ned now that I’ve got to know you.’

‘No, I’m not,’ agreed Alan cheerfully.

‘But you do look very like him.’

‘Yes—but it was a naughty trick to play on you—and so I shall tell Ned.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have said all that to you about chains if I hadn’t thought you were Ned.’

He agreed with her, head on one side judiciously, adding, ‘Not to my face, perhaps, but afterwards.’

‘Yes, no. Oh, dear.’ She laughed out loud this time, but was saved further embarrassment by the arrival of a grinning Ned.

‘I see you’ve found one another,’ he offered carelessly.

‘Too bad of you, Ned,’ Eleanor began.

‘Miss Hatton found me,’ said Alan. ‘I didn’t do any finding. Our resemblance confused her somewhat.’

Ned’s grin was wider than ever. ‘Thought it might. Bit of a shock was it, Nell?’

‘My name is Eleanor,’ she said repressively. ‘You are quite disgraceful, Ned. I behaved very badly as a consequence of your silly trick and Mr—?’ She looked at Alan.

‘Dilhorne, Alan Dilhorne,’ he told her. ‘But then I behaved badly, too. I was a dreadful tease, I fear.’

‘Indeed you were,’ she agreed, captivated by his charm. No, he was not really very like Ned, despite the resemblance.

‘So, we are quits,’ he said to Eleanor, ignoring the grinning Ned, who was beginning to annoy him.

‘Quits,’ she agreed, and put out her hand to take his and shake it, which pleased Alan mightily.

There was no false affectation about her, despite her overwhelming air of fashion and consequence. He looked at Ned and said, only half-jokingly, ‘Beg both our pardons, Ned, and introduce me properly to your sister, there’s a good fellow.’

The note of command in his voice was such that Ned had begun to obey him when the doors opened again, and Almeria Stanton entered. Her eyebrows rose alarmingly when she saw Ned and Alan standing side by side, their two faces and figures so alike. Yet she thought that there was no doubt which was Ned. The face on the right possessed a power and a strength missing in her great-nephew’s.

Almeria sighed. Inconvenient likeness were the bane of the aristocracy’s life, but if this were the Australian visitor of whom Ned had spoken then the likeness had to be put down to chance.

But she would still like to know more of the origins of Ned’s new friend…

‘I understand that you are taking Mr Dilhorne to Cremorne Gardens tonight, Ned. I must remind you that you were out late this morning. I’m not sure that your grandfather would approve of your way of life.’

‘I’m well of age,’ said Ned sulkily.

Watching him, Alan thought that Ned Hatton was strangely juvenile, for all that he had reached his mid-twenties.