His One Woman

Despite Marietta’s kind intervention, she shot her a look which was poisonous—but which Avory did not see. He inclined his head towards her and said, ‘You may, indeed. I thank you.’

He addressed his next remark to Marietta. ‘I should wish to pay you a more formal visit before I leave Washington. I take it that you are still at your old address.’

‘Yes, we shall be pleased to see you.’

Sophie announced in a distracted voice, ‘Oh, look—Charles Stanton has just come in, but Jack isn’t with him. Wherever can he be?’

Her brief moment of remorse for her thoughtlessness was over, and she was ready to resume her exciting social life. As on the night of the reception at the White House, she waved her hand above her head to attract attention, only this time it was holding her fan, not a bouquet.

She had already forgiven Charles for having caused her to insult him by not using his proper name, and when he arrived at the stall her pleasure at seeing him was unfeigned because it allowed her to forget her recent gaffe and repair a previous one.

‘Oh, m’lord,’ she exclaimed, startling Avory who was about to leave them. ‘How delightful to see you again. But where are your companions? I trust that they have not deserted us.’

‘Not at all,’ said Charles gravely, including Avory in his bow to her and Marietta. ‘Alan was summoned at short notice to a committee on the Hill and took Jack with him. Since my specialist knowledge was not wanted today, Jack suggested that I come along and assure you that he and his brother would join us before the afternoon is over.’

‘We are being remiss,’ said Marietta, trying not to sound as though she were reproaching Sophie, even though she would have liked to. ‘I ought to introduce our new guest to our old one. Mr Stanton, may I present Mr Avory Grant of Grantsville to you? He is one of our most prominent landowners and a strong supporter of the Union cause.’

‘Oh, pooh, Marietta,’ said Sophie when the courtesies were over. ‘You might as well explain to Avory that Charles is really Viscount Stanton, or else he will think that my calling him m’lord was a silly mistake.’

Marietta thought furiously that the only silly mistake was to insist on calling Charles Stanton m’lord when he expressly did not wish to use his title in either his public or private life! Her eyes met Charles’s and she signalled him a rueful apology for Sophie’s bêtise. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

What Avory made of this by-play was unknown, especially since in order to impress Charles with her image as a universal charmer, Sophie had re-engaged Avory in animated conversation about his home and was assuring him how much she was looking forward to seeing it again.

Aunt Percival’s arrival back from her errand, and a sudden influx of would-be buyers, ended this ploy. She took one brisk look at the situation, said hail and farewell to Avory, and sent Marietta and Charles to the tea-room, all while bidding an annoyed Sophie to stay behind and do some work for a change.

Charles’s perfect manners prevented him from making any comment on Sophie’s less-than-perfect ones to Marietta, other than by saying, ‘One has to hope that Jack will have Alan with him if they arrive at the Bazaar while you are busy taking tea with me.’

This cryptic remark amused Marietta more than a little. She said, as casually as she could, ‘I gather from Jack that you are something of a protégé of his brother.’

Charles picked up a large muffin and said before attacking it, ‘Yes, indeed. He rescued me from being a backwoods country nobleman, or a soldier, when I wanted to be that odd creature a working engineer. I had a passion for all things mechanical and Alan’s charm and power, working together, were such that he persuaded my father to allow me to indulge that passion.

‘Alan Dilhorne is a most remarkable man. How remarkable I did not completely understand until I began to work for him a few years ago. His brother Jack is very like him, but not, I suspect, so severe. Alan can be ruthless—should he so wish—which is not very often. I suspect Jack does not share that with him.’

Marietta could well believe that Alan was ruthless as well as severe. He had chosen to deceive Mr Lincoln and the officials he had met by presenting them with a picture of an idle and somewhat stupid English gentleman and she was sure that that had been done with a purpose.

It was pleasant to forget her duty for once and delay returning to the stall in order to talk to a clever and attractive man who seemed to like her company. He was not Jack, but she had to admit that if she had met Charles first… But that was to flatter herself.

‘How long do you propose to stay in Washington? I take it that you will be returning to London with Alan.’

Charles shook his head. ‘No, indeed. I shall send my report on our talks back with him when he leaves, and then I shall travel South to see what new inventions in the shipping line the Confederates are developing. I trust you will not take offence at my visiting your enemy. Great Britain is, I believe, unlikely to become an ally of either side in the coming war, so I shall have carte blanche to travel where I please.’

Marietta shivered. ‘I have always hoped that civil war would never come, particularly since our family has relatives in the Deep South. It is dreadful to face the fact that friends, brothers and cousins might find themselves on opposite sides—perhaps to meet in battle.’

‘Civil wars are the worst of wars,’ said Charles. He pulled out his watch. ‘My patron should be arriving any time now. Do you wish to remain here, or return to the stall?’

‘If we all had our druthers—which is Deep South dialect for what we would rather do than what we ought to do—then I would prefer to stay here. But duty says that I ought to be helping Aunt Percival and Sophie to raise as much money as possible for poor children by selling baubles to rich women—an odd thought, that.’

‘Ah, yes, duty,’ murmured Charles. ‘I can see why Alan likes you. He’s great on duty.’

‘So, I suspect, is Jack. Is it an Australian trait, I wonder?’

‘Perhaps. Many Yankees seem to share it, too. I must do mine and return you to your worthy Aunt Percival.’

Marietta noticed that he did not mention Sophie although, once they were with her again, Charles’s manners to her were those of the perfect gentleman—which he obviously was, even though Sophie greeted Marietta with, ‘Whatever have you been doing to be away for so long? I have had a wretched time of it. Aunt Percival has left me to sell things and make change while she gossiped with all her old friends—and Jack still hasn’t turned up. If he doesn’t come, it will have been a totally wasted afternoon—I shouldn’t have allowed you and Aunt to persuade me to attend.’

‘Now, Sophie, that’s no way to speak to Marietta—even if you are disappointed,’ said Aunt Percival. ‘Console yourself by knowing you have been doing your duty.’

‘Oh, that!’ exclaimed Sophie, shrugging her shoulders and rolling her eyes at Charles. ‘Who cares about that? That’s for servants.’

‘And English viscounts apparently, by what he said to me in the tea-room,’ Marietta was to tell Aunt Percival later that evening. ‘It’s a good thing that Sophie hasn’t set her sights on Charles—he thoroughly approves of people who do their duty.’

Now she said nothing, other than, ‘Well, we can all console ourselves with the thought of duty well done, and have our immediate reward for, if I do not mistake matters, Jack and Alan have just arrived.’

Sophie responded by jumping up and down again and beginning to semaphore in their direction—this time laughing and waving Aunt Percival’s tolled-up sunshade to be sure of attracting them to her side immediately.

Both men responded by smiling at them before making their careful way through the crowd of women—few men were present—to Marietta’s now three-quarters-empty stall.

‘I warned Alan,’ remarked Jack when the formalities were over, ‘that by the time we arrived we should find all the best bargains will have gone—and so they have. But that stern goddess Duty called us. Even if I might have frivolously declined to obey her on the grounds that I had a previous engagement, Alan, who is made of sterner stuff, would never have allowed such a consideration to move him.’

Duty again—and from Jack this time! Sophie pouted at him, and it was left to Marietta to say to him, ‘I see that you think of duty as a woman, Jack. Do you have any authority for assuming any such thing?’

Jack put on a puzzled face, and it was left to Aunt Percival to inform them, ‘Mr Jack, even if he does not know it, has the best authority for what he said—was it not Wordsworth who called duty, “stern daughter of the voice of God”?’

‘Bravo!’ said the three men together, while Sophie stared at Aunt Percival. One might have guessed that she would remember such a useless piece of knowledge—and by boring old Wordsworth, too. She had unhappy memories of being asked to learn his Lucy poems by heart.

She was about to say something when Alan leaned forward, looked into her eyes, and half-whispered to her, ‘I’m sure that Miss Sophie likes poetry which has a softer touch. For example…’ And he began to quote Byron to her in a voice which was so soulfully melodious that even Jack stared at him.

She walks in beauty like the night;

Of cloudless climes and starry skies

And all that’s best of dark and light

Meets in her aspect and her eyes…

The admiring look which he sent her on ending gave Sophie the notion—totally unfounded—that, smitten by her charms, he had been left with no alternative but to celebrate them.

‘Oh, Mr Dilhorne,’ she simpered at him. ‘You flatter me.’

‘Oh, no,’ he returned. ‘Most apt, wouldn’t you agree, Charles?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said that gentleman, trying to keep his face straight.

Jack said nothing, but smiled a lot. Aunt Percival looked bemused. She detected a false note somewhere but, since no one said anything, she thought that she must be mistaken. Unlike Charles Stanton, she was not aware of how ruthless the handsome Mr Dilhorne could be.

‘When we have all finished showing off our learning,’ Jack said, ‘I should like to enjoy some bodily, rather than mental, sustenance—it must be hours since I last ate or drank. Miss Percival spoke a moment ago of a tea-room. I wonder if you would like to accompany me there, Marietta?’

‘Oh, no,’ wailed Sophie. ‘Why can’t I take you? Marietta has only just returned from it.’