It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 7

Wenna, coming in saw him and, excusing herself, was about to hurry out, but he waved her excuses aside and declared he was about to depart.

A week later he left by post-chaise for London. The journey proved less eventful than usual. There was only one uneasy moment when, crossing Bagshot Heath, the postilions decided that a gallop was advisable; but they had come safely to the inn where Bruce Holland was waiting to greet him, and there he had enjoyed a meal of freshwater fish, roast fowl, cheese and salad such as could be enjoyed only at the posting inn and was not for humbler coach travellers.

He had stayed with Bruce, but his friend had not been such good company as usual; he was absorbed in Fermor Danby his new son. It might have been that Bruce's absorption had contributed towards that fatal visit to Vauxhall.

He had called on Fenella at the earliest possible moment. Fenella was as magnificent as ever. It was hard to believe there could be such a person until one saw her, heard her, and was part of that community of strange and brilliant people whom she gathered about her. Nothing could have been in greater contrast with the drawing-room at Trevenning than Fenella's salon in the London square. Her husband had squandered her large fortune before he died, and in her early twenties Fenella had found herself with neither husband nor fortune. She had thereupon set about retrieving the fortune; and she made it clear that no husband was going to take it from her. Lovers, declared Fenella, characteristically, were more satisfactory; a woman must look after herself and she needed lovers to protect her from would-be husbands. She was outrageously amusing and her friends and admirers said that she was in advance of her times. Tall, Junoesque, she had a taste for bizarre clothes. Clothes delighted her; she had defied all conventions by establishing her own dress salon for the service of ladies in high society. Fenella's dress salon was as no other; for everything Fenella did was as it had never been done before.

She had her delightful house in the London square; she had her girls to show her gowns. They mingled with the guests—noblemen and statesmen and their wives and friends, both Whigs and Tories. The politics of her guests mattered little to Fenella; she was a woman, she said, who liked to hear both sides of a question. The beautiful Caroline Norton was her friend, and among the guests who came to her drawing-room were Wellington, Melbourne and Peel.

It was said that many of her young ladies found wealthy protectors. There were some people who hinted that Fenella's was a rendezvous for the disposal of feminine wares other than tippets, gowns and pelisses, and that she derived great benefits from gentlemen of wealth and power by the services her young ladies helped her to render. There was bound to be idle gossip about a woman like Fenella.

She accepted the gossip concerning herself as though she enjoyed it equally with the scandalmongers. She grew richer in her elaborately feathered nest. Her morals were elastic. She was warmly generous and good natured, but a shrewd and hard driver of bargains. All those who worked for her were fond of her. She had a surfeit of friends and lovers. She was Queen in her half-world. Many could not understand how a woman—little more than a tradeswoman—could wield such influence and be accepted as the friend of so many men and women of standing. It was true that she was not received in the houses of the great; but Fenella did not wish to be received; she wished to receive.

Bruce Holland, hard-living man about town, typical of his generation, untouched by the new customs, was as much at home at Almacks as he was at a low cock-fight in the East End of London. He introduced Charles to London night life, to bear-baiting and dog-fights, to boxing matches between men of their own class or those frequenters of the water-front sluceries.

He it was who had taken Charles to Fenella's salon.

Once Charles had stayed behind to advise her about some investment of which he had particular knowledge, and he had spent the night in Fenella's company in that magnificent bedroom of soft carpets and thick curtains, of beautiful furniture and ornaments which Fenella had collected from her many admirers.

It had been an exciting experience, repeated on another occasion.

He would have been delighted if it had happened more frequently, but Fenella had many lovers and would not allow herself to become deeply involved with one. A comforting thought, he had believed; and the best possible sort of mistress with an outlook on life which could be called masculine. There would never be unpleasant complications with Fenella; no tears on parting; no regrets. Love for her was a passing joy, as delightful as champagne, to be sipped and

enjoyed, not stored and wept over. And in love she was never calculating, never mercenary. What pleasure it was to love and be loved by Fenella especially after experiencing those dubiously enjoyable practices indulged in with an indifferent and absentminded though legal partner!

But Fenella had failed him on that last occasion. She had assured him that she was delighted to see him, that he was her very good friend; her sparkling eyes recalled with pleasure their last encounter in her perfumed bedroom; but there was a certain vagueness in her smile, for Fenella's interest was absorbed by a young man, a protege of Melbourne's. Consequently Charles, deeply disappointed, had left the house in the square and wandered aimlessly towards the river.

He had not realized how far he had walked when he heard the pipe of a cockney voice. "A boat, sir? Cross the river, sir? VauxhalPll be pretty to-night, sir."

And so to Vauxhall.

As he had strolled through the avenues he had not seen the vulgarity of the place; he had not heard the shouts of the people. It was twilight and the crowds were impatiently awaiting the fireworks display. Somewhere in the distance a band was playing Handel's "Water Music."

Millie was sitting on a seat under a tree, her hands folded in her lap, and he would have passed her by but for the ruffian. This lout had sat down on the seat beside her. Charles stood still, arrested in his walk, because the girl was shrinking to one end of the seat, was trying to rise, but the man had her by the arm. Millie looked desperately about her, and her eyes fell upon Charles, who could do nothing but stride towards her and her unwanted companion.

"What are you doing to this young lady?" he demanded. It was the unmistakable voice of authority, and it startled the ruffian, who released his hold on the girl and shuffled uneasily to his feet as he took in the elegance, the fine cut of that magnificent coat, the cold arrogance of the man who is accustomed to being obeyed.

"I never done nothing . . ." he began.

Charles raised his eyebrows and looked at the young woman whose eyes appealed to him not to leave her.

"Be off with you," said Charles, raising his cane. "And if I catch you molesting young ladies again, it will be the worse for you."

The ruffian first backed away, then he ran. Charles stood looking after him. That should have been the end. But Millie had risen. She was small—not much more than five feet in height; he was immediately impressed by her gentle timidity and a litde moved by it-.

"I . . . thank you . . . sir," she stammered.

He was about to acknowledge her thanks and move on but, noticing afresh the helplessness and the melancholy in her pretty face, he said somewhat brusquely: "What are you doing here . . . alone?"

"I shouldn't be here by rights, sir," she said. "I came . . . because ... I had to come." Her eyes filled with tears. They looked bigger and greener thus. He saw that it was the contrast of dark lashes that made them so noticeable. "It was the last place we came to together, sir."