Introducing The Contessa dalla Rovere

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Introducing The Contessa dalla Rovere

    At first things were peaceful enough that Derbyshire summer at the Peter Quarmby-Vines’ charming residence, Sommerton Grange. Though, true, Lilian Quarmby-Vine was rather more outspoken about the matter of Eudora’s possible matrimonial prospects than had been the sweet-natured Mary Mortimer; but she did not feel she could say nothing, for she could see that her sister, behind the mask, was very unhappy.

    “Er—for a gentleman to be attracted, you know, my dear, he must be offered some encouragement.”

    “You mean they find me old-cattish,” she said grimly. “I have heard it from Mamma often enough, Lilian, you need not hesitate to say it.”

    “I do not think it is that, though. I think that it is merely that you have never met the man who will be right for you. And I have myself seen many of them very much attracted to you. But it is a pity that you have never felt able to encourage any of them, Eudora. Now, Major Blythe was a pleasant man.”

    There was a short silence.

    “That is just it,” said Eudora in a remarkably grim voice. “I am never particularly attracted to the pleasant ones, and I always feel that it would be highly unfair to indicate encouragement, where there is no feeling.”

    Oh, dear! thought Lilian Quarmby-Vine. “Well, yes, I suppose it would be unfair: but not if you could make the man happy, Eudora.”

    “I know myself too well,” she said tightly. “If I married a soft creature like Major Blythe without caring for him, I would walk all over him.”

    Lilian sighed, and rang for the tea-tray.

    It would have been true to say that Eudora Bon-Dutton was a disappointed woman—that is, if those who have never hoped for very much can be said truly to be disappointed. She had always been a beauty of the cool, Classical sort, though in her younger days it had been, perhaps, a slightly warmer beauty than it was now, when she was turned thirty-four, and, in her mother’s acid words, “firmly on the shelf and likely to remain so.” The looks had been enough to attract not a few young men, but the coolness of demeanour which had always characterised her had been enough to repel them again. It was not that she had no fortune: even in what now seemed those far-off days she had not been a pauper, though not the rich woman she was now, having inherited the whole of an old uncle’s extensive property. The uncle had been Lady Harold Bon-Dutton’s brother and it might have been supposed that her Ladyship would have been pleased to see her daughter inherit: but in fact her reaction had been one of extreme annoyance that Eudora alone had been singled out—from amongst, was the implication, more worthy recipients.

    An engagement promoted by Lady Harold some fourteen years back to a highly suitable young man, of good family, had come to nothing: Eudora’s betrothed had been an army officer, and he had been killed in the Peninsula campaign. Eudora had gone into her blacks for a year, but it could not have been said she truly mourned him. For one thing, she had hardly known him. And although she liked him well enough and had been willing enough to be married to him, she had certainly not been in love with him. As time went by and various younger sisters and cousins all made good matches, an exasperated Lady Harold declared that she washed her hands of Eudora and that in her opinion, she was incapable of the tender passion!

    Eudora had not argued with her, though she had once been in love. He had been a sweet-faced curate with not a penny to bless himself with, and she had been just eighteen. Very obviously it could not have come to anything. He had gone off as a missionary to India and never been heard of again—certainly not by the Bon-Duttons. Since that time, Eudora had not hoped for very much: at the most, to contract a suitable engagement with a gentleman of whom her family would approve, and settle down to the sort of fashionable marriage that was the norm in their set: where one saw as much or as little of one’s spouse as suited, each of the partners in the arrangement having his or her own circle of friends, the which might or might not include a succession of lovers, according to taste. With her connections it would not have been difficult to become a fashionable political hostess, and the thought did quite appeal. When none of this happened, she would not have cared very much, apart from her mother’s ceaseless nagging on the topic. She was not permitted to live in the house left her by her uncle, and of course her fortune was in the hands of trustees. Life with Lady Harold was more or less intolerable, but rather in the manner of a nagging tooth to which one had become accustomed.

    However, her Ladyship, now widowed for some years, had lately declared her intention of giving up the town house and retiring to Bath. Eudora could have supported the nagging and the dwindling away into a spinster aunt if it had taken place in London—but not in Bath. So she had decided to marry. It was quite true, as over at Bluff Yewby Lady Partington-Gore had already intimated, with a lift of the eyebrow, to Lady Lavinia Dewesbury, that she had come down to Derbyshire this summer in search of a husband. It was also true that she did not care whether she took Captain Charles Quarmby-Vine, Commander Sir Arthur Jerningham, or another.

    Having duly poured and drunk some tea, Mrs Quarmby-Vine felt strong enough to return to the painful subject. “Um… Well, I suppose that Charles will not do for you, my dear, after a year spent in the train of the Portuguese Widow. But had you thought of Arthur Jerningham?”

    Of course Eudora had, but she pointed out: “I am not his type: he made just such a fool of himself over that Portuguese woman as Charles did. I do not see how I could become eight inches shorter and broader in proportion in order to suit his requirements. Added to which, I terrify him.”

    “Well, at least you do not terrify Lochailsh,” said Lilian unguardedly. “He is to be at Bluff Yewby this summer, you know.”

    Eudora’s colour rose. She looked, indeed, quite astoundingly handsome, and Mrs Quarmby-Vine could not help the reflection that if His Grace of Lochailsh could see her like that he might change his stiff-necked mind about her suitability for the post of his duchess.

    “The man is insufferable! You would think I had been some little chambermaid who had thrown myself at him!”

    “Dearest, that is an exaggeration,” said Mrs Quarmby-Vine with a disturbed look.

    “It is not. You saw how he behaved at your rout party this last Season. He looked down that damned nose of his at me and—and was barely polite,” she said in a shaking voice.

    Her sister sighed. “I think the silly man had some idea that we were plotting against him.”

    “Plotting! He might count himself fortunate to contract an alliance with a Bon-Dutton!”

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine took a deep breath. “Actually, Eudora, my dear, that is not so. I think you have been living under Mamma’s wing too long. It may be an ancient name but there is very little in it on which to pride ourselves. And these days few people set anything like the store by it that Mamma does.”

    “Lilian!”

    “Do not fly up into the boughs. It is quite true. The present head of our house is a nullity, and so is our cousin Bobby Bon-Dutton. Bobby’s sister Eloise is—well, if she were not a Bon-Dutton no-one would recognise her, and they are saying that Everard Stanhope is considering a divorce bill. It is not only the way she and that Weaver-Grange woman flaunt themselves publicly, but the continual dragging of ‘Boy’ Wemyss at her skirts has become quite intolerable.”

    “I certainly hold no brief for Eloise. –So, are you saying it is our undesirable relatives that would prevent Lochailsh’s offering?”

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine barely suppressed a groan. That relentlessly logical mind of Eudora’s! “Not if he cared, my dear, but they are certainly a factor.”

    “I see.” Eudora thought it over. “I cannot see that any of that excuses his rude conduct towards myself, however.”

    “No, nor can I, my dear,” said Lilian with a sigh.

    Eudora said no more on the subject and shortly declared her intention of taking a walk. Mrs Quarmby-Vine agreed placidly to this suggestion, silently thinking it would do her good to shake the fidgets out.

    Eudora, however, though she walked rapidly and vigorously for several miles over the rolling countryside, did not walk herself into a better mood. In fact, her attitude towards His Grace of Lochailsh hardened considerably. There was no excuse for him. If her cousins were not particularly well behaved, yet her name was one of the oldest in England, they were close enough in age for it to be entirely suitable and proper, she had a fortune and a position in society to match his, she knew all the duties that would be required of her and knew herself to be capable of performing them most adequately— If he could not care, that hardly signified, between persons of their stations in life. Yet he had looked at her as if she had been the cheapest little fortune-hunter, come upon the town intent on snaring a title!

    On her return to the house she appeared her usual quiet self and Lilian Quarmby-Vine, busy with her house-party, did not wonder whether it might be wise to get her by herself again and make sure her feelings had settled down.

    Eudora continued to simmer. Charles Quarmby-Vine appeared fixed at Sommerton Grange, but spent all his time with Peter or young Bobby, out and about in the grounds, very evidently avoiding herself. Commander Sir Arthur Jerningham did not show his face, but she knew that the menfolk fairly often went over to visit him at Hortleberry Grene. Avoiding her—clearly. Lochailsh was rumoured to have arrived at Bluff Yewby but they heard nothing of him, and there had not even been an invitation to dine with the Partington-Gores.

    Then an invitation did come. Eudora decided she would give Lochailsh one last chance to indicate that he could behave like a gentleman, and put on her very best dress: pale blue silk, the hair in a Grecian knot bound with the same silk, and her pearls. His Grace was coolly polite. After dinner there was a little dancing, mostly for the young people of the house-party. Lochailsh vanished into the card room. Commander Sir Arthur and Captain Quarmby-Vine, neither of whom had so much as addressed a word to her all evening, also vanished into the card room and stayed there. Every other unattached man there was under thirty.

    Eudora continued to simmer.

    Things might have gone from bad to worse that summer, and poor Lilian Quarmby-Vine was already beginning to feel they were doing so, but for the arrival of an unexpected visitor.

    Young Mrs Bobby Quarmby-Vine had driven out in the barouche to call on friends in Yewby town and was not expected back until the evening; Mr Bobby, his father and his Uncle Charles were as usual out and about on the estate; and the sisters were engaged, in Lilian’s case, in placid tatting, and in Eudora’s, in silent simmering over an open but unread volume, when the visitor was announced.

    “The Countess dalla Rovere, madam,” said Mrs Quarmby-Vine’s butler in considerably less than his customary measured tones.

    Lilian and Eudora had but time to look at one another with dropping jaws, when in she came. A short, curvaceous, black-haired, dark-eyed person clad in a rumpled print gown, dowdy shawl and somewhat bent puce silk bonnet, complete with a bent puce ostrich plume and several knots of crushed green ribbon.

    “Hullo, Lilian; hullo: it’s Eudora, isn’t it? How are you?” she said cheerfully. “How lovely to see Sommerton Grange again! What a pretty place it is!”

    The Bon-Dutton sisters gaped.

    “You don’t remember me,” she stated cheerfully. “Raffaella dalla Rovere. Raffaella Andrews that was. I’m sort of a relation. Well, we used to call you cousins!”

    Lilian tottered to her feet. In spite of the tawdry bonnet, which in its heyday, long since past, would scarcely have been fitting afternoon wear on a sophisticated woman of forty-odd, Raffaella dalla Rovere was very young. “Of course we remember you, my dear,” she croaked. “Little Raffaella! You have scarce changed a bit.”

    Eudora also tottered to her feet. This last statement was not true: Cousin Raffaella, when last seen, had been a skinny little ragamuffin of about thirteen. The sort of child that one’s less desirable connections tended to dump on one for undefined periods of time, unless one was as firm-minded as Lady Harold Bon-Dutton had always been. Raffaella and her brother and sister had never been dumped with her Ladyship, but they had certainly spent more than one period with the amiable Lilian. This girl might well have been defined as a ragamuffin but she was most certainly no longer skinny.

    “Well, I hope I have not!” she said, laughing. “Though they tried to change me in Italy, you know!”

    The sisters refrained from exchanging glances. Mrs Quarmby-Vine cleared her throat. “Indeed?”

    Raffaella dalla Rovere favoured them with a naughty smile. “At one stage, I thought I would never see England again. But you never know how things will turn out, do you? Because here I am, back again! –Like a bad penny!” she added with a gurgle.

    Quite. Again the sisters refrained from exchanging glances. And Lilian, endeavouring not to glance askance at the large wicker hamper which the Contessa dalla Rovere was carrying, urged her politely to be seated and rang for tea. Trying without much success not to wonder just how long the unexpected visitor intended staying.

    Over the tea Lilian would have tried tactfully to draw Raffaella out: but there was no need. The unaffected Contessa, in between eating and drinking copiously and lavishing praise on Lilian’s cakes and sandwiches, poured out the whole story to them.

    Raffaella dalla Rovere was, at this point in time, just turned two and twenty years of age. She had, as the Bon-Duttons were well aware, been most eligibly affianced at the age of sixteen. “Gianni. Of course the dalla Roveres are a very old and respected family, and though his was not the main branch, nevertheless Mamma was thrilled when he offered. He was a very pretty boy, but solid wood between the ears. One would have had to be as brainless as he to fall truly in love with him. But I thought that being married to him would be infinitely preferable to being shut up on bread and water in Mamma’s house for the foreseeable future!” she said with that naughty gurgle. “We were engaged for six months, and married, alas, for only another six. Of course I cried my eyes out when he died. Everyone had told him that brute was much too wild to take into the hunting field, and that he was mad to do so. –Si, si, era pazzo, non è vero?” she said carelessly to the wicker hamper.

    The sisters jumped, and the Contessa explained airily: “Giampaolo dalla Rovere. Ignore him; he had an enormous mince pie at the staging inn at Yewby, which I, poor soft-hearted fool, had fondly imagined was going to form my midday meal. Added to which, his favourite occupation, after eating, is sleeping, so he may as well do it in there as anywhere.”

    “I would say, open it, and let the creature have some air, but it is not my house,” said Eudora drily. “Is it wild?”

    “No, no: completely placid; but the greatest ratter in all the Romagna!” she said gaily.

    “A terrier?” ventured Lilian feebly.

    “Of course not!” replied the Contessa dalla Rovere with terrible scorn. “He is a cat.”

    “Open it, my dear,” said Lilian feebly.

    The wicker hamper was duly opened, to reveal a vast striped, furry heap who merely deigned to half-open one eye and flick an ear at his mistress.

    “The size of a well-grown pig,” noted Miss Bon-Dutton. She took a cucumber sandwich. “Frankly, I prefer dogs.”

    “Well, he will not attempt to scramble on your knee, in that case, I assure you. Where was I? Oh, yes: poor Gianni. I was heartbroken, naturalmente. But one gets over these things. And I must admit his relatives hated me. So as I had not produced the heir, and was not about to produce the heir, and as there was very little money and none of it due to come to me, I was not too disappointed to have to go back to Mamma’s house. And it was all right during the year of my mourning. And then I began to go about in Society again, and had a couple of pleasant Seasons. But—”  She pulled a lugubrious face.

    “What?” demanded Eudora on a grim note. It would certainly be interesting to hear the creature’s own version of the story that was known in diplomatic circles. And, she supposed, it would not do to disbelieve every syllable she was about to utter. Though she would not go so far as to concede that she must be given the benefit of the doubt.

    “This may not be the story that you will hear from the Italian Embassy,” said the Contessa in a careless voice, taking a little cake. “Mm!” she approved through it, nodding. “The truth is, that my step-papa attempted to force himself upon me,” she said, swallowing cake.

    “Raffaella! How dreadful!” gasped the kind-hearted Lilian.

    Raffaella made a face. “Yes. It was a horrid shock. I did not know what to do, for Mamma refused utterly to believe a word. She said it was like that time that Sally and I tried to persuade the household that there were ghosts in the orchard: we hung some sheets in the trees, you see.”

    Eudora coughed. “Mm.”

    “If Sally had not gone away to horrid Firenze to stay with her fiancé’s relatives, she might have helped persuade Mamma that I was not making it up. But as it was, I did not know to whom to turn. Old Gianna took my part, but Mamma had always believed she hated her, and so thought she was supporting me to spite her.”

    The sisters nodded feebly.

    “And then Paolo dell’Aversano offered. He was a widower, in fact a contemporary of my step-papa’s. But I accepted, not merely because I knew that Mamma would have locked me up on bread and water for the rest of my life had I refused, but to get away from my stepfather.”

    “Of course,” agreed Lilian with terrific sympathy.

    Raffaella pulled a hideous face. “Though it did not solve the immediate problem.”

    “But Raffaella, now that you had a fiancé, could you not have sought his help?”

    “I did,” said Raffaella grimly. “He gave me to understand that no complaints against my stepfather would be listened to. I could not credit it, but old Gianna would have it that although he did believe me, he would not do anything against his friend.”

    “That is truly monstrous!” gasped Lilian.

    “Indeed,” agreed Eudora neutrally.

    “Si.” Raffaella bit her lip. “And according to Gianna, he—he would not necessarily take my part, even if I was his wife.”

    Lilian threw up her hands. “My dear Raffaella, how truly terrible!”

    The young Contessa dalla Rovere, much to Eudora’s interest, merely shrugged a little. “Yes, well, as you can understand, I decided that I would rather not be married to him! But it was useless to complain to Mamma. I finally decided to go to the head of the dell’Aversano family, my fiancé’s oldest uncle, the Conte.”

    “And he believed you? He took your part?” asked Lilian anxiously.

    “Yes, for he had known my horrid step-papa all his life, and knew many other tales to his discredit,” said Raffaella, sighing. “He spoke to Mamma, and there was the most dreadful scene: she refused to believe him, you see, and was very rude.”

    Eudora was sure she had been: she had a very clear recollection of the lady who was now the Baronessa Giulio Neroni. “And then she shut you up on bread and water, one collects?” she said coolly.

    “Exactly. After a week, old Gianna managed to let me out, and we both went to the Conte dell’Aversano’s house. He would have taken me in, but he is a widower, you see, and his daughters had all married and left home long since, and he has no sons, so there was no daughter-in-law to be his hostess. So we were in quite a quandary. And finally old Gianna, in the practical way of the Italian peasant woman, you know, said that the Conte had best marry me instead of his nephew. I had always liked him very much, so we agreed to it,” said Raffaella blithely.

    Lilian’s jaw dropped. Eudora, having heard rather a different version from the Italian Ambassador’s lady, remained unmoved.

    “He is not young, of course, but very sweet and kind,” said Raffaella, sighing. “Marriage with him would not have been distasteful, you know.”

    Very faintly, Lilian produced: “But how old is he, my dear?”

    Raffaella wrinkled up her little short, straight nose. “Actually, he is sixty-six. Do not tell me how unsuitable it would have been. But it would have been better than the other. Anyway, we decided that the simplest thing would be to elope. So we did.”

    “Ah. They caught you, I think?” said Eudora.

    “Yes. We were scarce a day’s journey out of Rome,” said Raffaella with a scowl. “My stepfather wanted to fight the Conte, but he said he would not soil his hands with him. But at least one good thing came out of it, for the story was soon all over Rome and my horrid fiancé was a laughingstock, and the engagement was broken off.”

    “And a good thing, too!” said Mrs Quarmby-Vine fiercely, blowing her nose.

    Eudora swallowed a sigh. It was not that she had any absolute faith in the Embassy’s version, but ten to one most of this was a lie. Lilian always had allowed her kind heart to rule her head.

    Raffaella looked gloomy. “If only we had managed to marry, I could be living in the Palazzo dell’Aversano as we speak, lording it over the ghastly daughters and frightful nephews! Oh, well, it could not have lasted for long. And I had already discovered that the life of an Italian widow did not in the least suit me.”

    “Er—no, indeed, my dear,” agreed Lilian, somewhat limply. Cousin Raffaella seemed hardly affected by it all.

    “Then they bundled me off to a convent, but as the poor dear Conte had utterly refused,” said Raffaella, rolling her eyes hugely, “to ravish my virtue before we were wed, there was very little reason to do so but spite. So I ran away from it. I did not think that I would succeed in remaining hidden for long, but dear old Gianna helped me to get to her relatives’ little cottage. And by that time Sally knew it all, and had written to England, to Great-Uncle Ambrose Andrews. And he sent the money for my passage!” she finished, smiling. “And as the nuns had washed their hands of me, Mamma said I might as well go!”

    “Yes,” said Lilian, sniffing a little, and trying to smile. “It is all very sad.”

    “Well, not as sad as all that, you know, for here I am, and Giampaolo dalla Rovere, too!” she said with a laugh.

    Lilian gave her a watery smile, and Eudora said grimly: “So you are. May one enquire why, in fact, you are not with your Great-Uncle Ambrose at Lindenhall? Linden Marsh is, or at the least was when I learnt geography, a deal nearer the south coast ports than Derbyshire.”

    “I went there first, of course. But Great-Uncle Ambrose is very frail, now, and Aunt Miriam Beauchamp is looking after him, and she threw me out of the house,” replied the Contessa, apparently unmoved.

    “Really? I confess, I can see her doing so,” responded Eudora coolly. “Possibly your story did not strike her ear as—er—possessed of verisimilitude.”

    “Eudora!” protested her sister. “How can you say so? You have only to look at her!”

    Eudora was looking. Specifically, at the mass of dark ringlets, the huge, lustrous dark eyes, and the pouting red mouth. There was no doubt at all that left to himself old Mr Ambrose Andrews would have given her not only bed and board but every penny he possessed, and probably Lindenhall to boot. The which was due to come in what could not in the nature of things be the far distant future to his worthy but dull great-nephew, Mr Peter Beauchamp. Small wonder that his mother had thrown her out.

    “I see,” said the Contessa, nodding. “You have heard the version preferred in Rome, Cousin Eudora. Or perhaps I should call you Miss Bon-Dutton. Well, it isn’t true, but as I don’t see how I can prove otherwise, I had better be on my way again.” She got up, looking quite composed, and smiled at Lilian. “Thank you for the delightful refreshments.”

    Predictably, Lilian bounced up, declared she must not think of going, and before the cat could lick its ear—or certainly before the brute in question could be bothered to so much as raise its head to do so—had her and the giant and, in spite of declarations to the contrary, quite probably useless Giampaolo dalla Rovere installed in the second-best bedchamber. So to speak.

    “Do not dare to tell me that I have put my head in the noose,” she warned, coming downstairs again looking defiant.

    Eudora sighed. “No, well, there is no proof, you know. Well, I am sure it was all true up to the part where the husband died. No, well, up to the part about his relatives having hated her. But if I were you I would take every syllable of the rest of it with some very large grains of salt.”

    “Eudora, don’t you remember the Principessa Claudia?” she demanded in hollow tones.

    “I never knew her very well: I am younger than you, remember, and I was in the schoolroom when she married poor Cousin Jeremy Andrews. And I am glad to say I did not see so very much of her after that. But no-one could possibly forget her, Lilian.”

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine shuddered. “No, indeed!”

    “Handsome, was she not? Raffaella has quite a look of her, full face; though the profile is quite different: the Principessa had a Roman nose.”

    “Yes. –I suppose one must try to call her the Baronessa Giulio, these days.”

    “Well, no-one ever called her anything but the Principessa Claudia in the days when she was married to poor old Cousin Jeremy, but if you insist,” said Eudora with a shrug.

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine endeavoured to smile, but failed. Their late Cousin Jeremy’s wife had been one of those unfortunate connections who crop up in the best of families. She had claimed to be a friend of Lady Hamilton, though how close they had been, the Bon-Duttons at least had no idea; and had, as was generally recognised, foisted herself upon Society by the sheer force of her personality. Somewhat assisted by the looks. The title was, to put it no more strongly, honorary only: it dated from the period of her connection with a certain Principe. You could have called it a morganatic arrangement, if you were being polite; certainly the Principe had set himself that high. Possibly, since he was dead by the time she came to England, Society would have been enabled to overlook the matter; but, embarrassingly, the Principessa Claudia had always insisted on the title.

    “Exactly what is your point?” added Eudora, as her sister did not utter. “In asking me if I remember the girl’s frightful mother,” she explained, as Lilian looked blank.

    “Oh! Poor little thing,” she said. “Who can blame her if her life has been a little odd, with a mother like that, is my point, Eudora!”

    “Oh. I had wondered if it had been, rather, who can believe a word she utters, with a mother like that.”

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine went very red. After a moment she managed to say: “I dare say there is no positive harm in her. And at least we do not need to worry about Bobby.”

    Eudora’s elegant brows rose. “You mean, now that he is safely married to his simple Susannah? I would not wager a groat on that’s stopping her: that sort of thing did not, if you recall, ever manage to stop the Principessa.”

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine winced. But protested: “Bobby is not like that.”

    In Eudora’s opinion all men were like that, when encouraged by creatures such as the Principessa Claudia—and, she was in very little doubt, her daughter. But she refrained from making the point to Lilian. “I doubt the girl was blameless in the affair with the Conte dell’Aversano. And whether he did promise marriage I suppose we shall never know. But if he did, why did the girl’s family not accept, after her reputation was ruined?”

    This had not, really, been much more than a rhetorical question, but Lilian replied with feeling: “I am sure it was as she described it, that the stepfather was so furious when he caught up with them that he did not pause to consider. And you obviously cannot recall the Principessa Claudia very well at all, Eudora: she is just the sort of woman to lose her temper definitively with the poor little thing—the more so as her orders had been deliberately flouted—and wilfully ignore the entire possibility of making the situation any better for her!”

    “Actually,” said Eudora slowly, “you are perfectly right. How percipient of you. But I still find her version of the Conte’s gallant offer highly suspect.” She rose. “I shall go for a walk. And I shall not ask, at this juncture, how long you intend letting the creature stay. But I shall beg you to consider seriously, Lilian, whether you wish to have a dependant for life. –Two, if you count that grossly fat monster she has with her.” With this she went out, leaving her sister to her reflections.

    Eudora was not altogether correct in her suspicions of the Contessa dalla Rovere. But if Raffaella had been blameless in the case, nevertheless she had not gone to seek old Pietro dell’Aversano’s aid in a spirit of complete innocence. She had, in fact, thought out her plan of campaign very, very carefully before approaching the Conte dell’Aversano. There were three brothers, any of whom might have rescued her from her plight. She was fairly sure that the worldly dell’Aversano brothers would have no trouble in believing the worst of her stepfather. The Neroni family was most respectable and respected, but the Barone Giulio was known to most of Rome as the black sheep of it. Which pretty well explained why, after his wife had died, no other respectable Roman family had put forward one of their daughters as the next candidate, and he had been free for Mamma to gobble up, thought Raffaella, wrinkling up that straight little nose. We-ell… Not Giuliano, he was a pleasant enough man but he did not care for females. Carlo dell’Aversano, on the other hand, liked ladies only too well. He had had three wives already, although he was the youngest of the brothers. And it was known he had several mistresses. He was, however, an amiable man, who would probably be willing to offer her shelter. The fly in the ointment was his present wife: she had seven stepdaughters and three of her own still to marry off. She disliked both Raffaella’s fiancé and her stepfather, true, but while she might possibly accept Raffaella into her family it would be as unpaid drudge cum governess to the younger ones. Not an enticing prospect.

    Which left Pietro, the Conte. He was old, but at least he was not fat. And he had tremendous charm. But there was a drawback: not only was he fairly unprincipled and as strong-minded as she, he was also… the type of man who meets one’s eye and lets it be seen that he knows perfectly well what one is like, underneath! She did not think that Pietro dell’Aversano would have very much hesitation in offering her a post as his mistress. And unfortunately, what with his charm and his knowledge of the fair sex, Raffaella was not at all sure that she would be able to stand out against him. Which would mean ruin, of course. It would be the most tremendous fun, but… No. If he then dropped her, she would have no hope of a future. No. Well, only as a very last resort. She would have to be very firm, that was all! If she went to him there were, Raffaella calculated, three possibilities. Given that she was not considering the fourth. That was, if he believed her. One, it was just possible that he might offer to take her in as his daughter, more or less, and get one of the innumerable spinster cousins or aunts of the family to chaperone her. She would have to put up with the jealousy and loathing of all his descendants, who would see her as a threat to their inheritance, but she thought she could do that. Well, that would not be too bad. Boring, but not bad. Or two, she might persuade him to set her up in a little house of her own, with again, one of the old relatives to chaperone her. This was not the Italian way, but… It would not be bad, but she would have no protection against her stepfather, living without a man in the house. No. Too risky. That left marriage. He was, really, a very attractive man, even if he was elderly… But how was she going to persuade him?

    Raffaella thought it over very, very carefully.

    On the first visit to the Conte dell’Aversano she was very demure, and only allowed herself to give him one look of artless admiration. And did not have to feign her very genuine relief when he believed her story and agreed to speak to her mother.

    On the second visit, once old Gianna had helped her to escape from the house, she was at first equally demure. But when the old woman—as Raffaella had known she would—suggested that the Signor Conte might care to marry the little Signora Raffaella, Raffaella allowed herself to give a startled and flustered laugh and to meet the elegant old gentleman’s eye.

    “That would not be wholly eligible,” said the Conte dell’Aversano formally.

    “No, but it would be sensible, signore!” urged the old peasant woman.

    “Hush, Gianna!” said Raffaella, laughing just a little. “Of course it would not be eligible, I am a nobody and the Signor Conte is a great gentleman. Though I own, I am very tempted by the idea!”

    Pietro dell’Aversano met her eye. “Why?” he said baldly.

    At this point Raffaella went very red and began to feel that perhaps she would not be able to manipulate the Conte at all. “You—you are a most attractive gentleman, sir!”

    “And more than old enough to be your grandfather. –Go and sit over there, woman,” he said sternly to old Gianna, “and hold your tongue.”

    Beaming, old Gianna retired to a corner of the salon.

    “Did the suggestion of marriage come first from her?” asked the Conte.

    Raffaella met his eye and went very red again. “She did suggest it to me of her own accord, sir, but I had already thought of it.”

    “Mm. Then I shall ask you again: why?”

    “I—I can’t think of anyone else!” she stuttered.

    “There is another option,” he said drily. “Given your mother’s—er—history, perhaps it had occurred to you? Or do you not find me as attractive as that?”

    Raffaella went very red and glared at him.

    “Well?”

    “I think you know, sir,” she said, taking a deep breath, “that I find you too attractive.”

    There was a short silence.

    “You’re either the cleverest bitch that ever walked, or a damned sight too honest for your own good,” he said calmly.

    Raffaella, now very angry and off-balance, cried: “Well, if any man alive can tell which, I am sure it should be you!”

    “You forgot to call me sir,” he said drily. “I shall not suggest a liaison; at my age, it would be unseemly in the extreme. –The suggestion, you understand, not a liaison per se.”

    “Oh,” said Raffaella numbly.

    “There is a little house in the country which you might have,” said the old gentleman slowly. “You could take old Gianna, and I would put in a staff for you. Enough sturdy menservants so that you would have no need to fear a visit from Giulio Neroni,” he added grimly.

    “I see. Thank you,” said Raffaella, trying to smile.

    “Does it not appeal?” he said neutrally.

    “Not as much as being married to you, no,” replied Raffaella on a doleful note.

    “I am, of course a very rich man,” he said detachedly.

    “Yes, but I don’t think Rome society would look very favourably on a match between us: I wouldn’t anticipate being able to cut a dash. And I’m very sure the family would be furious.”

    “Si…” After a moment he said: “Come here. I think we had best try it out, do not you?”

    “What?” gasped Raffaella.

    “Come here,” he repeated unemotionally.

    Raffaella went up to him uncertainly. Pietro dell’Aversano thereupon kissed her very thoroughly indeed.

    “Oh!” she gasped, very shaken.

    “So that side of it was not feigned, at least,” said the experienced old gentleman thoughtfully.

    “No,” agreed Raffaella numbly.

    “I may not have many years left, you know. And do not expect to inherit my fortune.”

    “I don’t!” she cried angrily.

    “I can certainly protect you during my lifetime. And I shall see that you are provided for adequately. But that will be all.”

    Raffaella nodded mutely.

    He eyed her drily. “There’s no hope of your parents consenting, you know. Your engagement’s been published. We’d best elope. It will create a damned scandal, of course.”

    “I don’t care!”

    “No, on the whole I don’t give a damn, either,” said Pietro dell’Aversano with a little shrug.

    “You mean you will?” she gasped.

    “Well, yes,” he said thoughtfully. “I have never been averse to thumbing my nose at Rome’s sensibilities.”

    “Oh, thank you, signore!” gasped Raffaella.

    Pietro dell’Aversano merely replied calmly: “I think you had best call me Pietro. Don’t you?”

    When the enraged Paolo dell’Aversano and Raffaella’s stepfather caught up with the fugitive pair, the Conte, as Raffaella had reported to the Bon-Dutton sisters, had refused—with a disdainful shrug—to fight: in fact, to fight either of them. The gentlemen had not insisted: possibly the Conte’s reputation as one of the most dangerous swordsmen in Rome had had something to do with this. What Raffaella did not know was that after she had been sent to her room to pack her meagre belongings, the Conte had coolly informed her stepfather that the true story would very speedily be all over Rome if Raffaella were forced either to take up residence under the parental roof or to marry Paolo. The Barone had spluttered out words to the effect that he had parental rights over Raffaella: to which Pietro had replied coolly that he recognised that he could not force him to resign those rights, but he could see to it that he had not a shred of reputation left to him. There was no doubt that he could have done. The Barone had agreed that Raffaella had best go to the nuns.

    Pietro dell’Aversano was not much given to thinking of anyone but himself: he had experienced a certain regret; the girl was a little peach; but then what more could he do? He could not carry her off from under her stepfather’s nose: the Barone would have had the law down upon him instantly. Well, it was a pity, but with the nuns at least she would be safe enough. And quite possibly once the scandal had blown over a respectable enough man might be found who would wish to marry her. Running off with her had been a gamble, but a gamble that had failed. Well—too bad.

    Very possibly, had the Conte dell’Aversano insisted, Raffaella’s mother and stepfather might have let him have her. Probably the offer of a substantial marriage settlement would have done the trick. But Pietro dell’Aversano was not a man who had been much accustomed, in the course of a long and largely self-indulgent lifetime, seriously to put himself out for anyone. And—well, did he really want matrimony, at his time of life? The idea had seemed attractive at the time…

    Raffaella was too intelligent not to have guessed a very large part of this. She hadn’t blamed him: she had not, really, expected more of him. In fact, the initial offer of marriage was more than she had expected. Well—would any man have done more? Raffaella, young though she was, had shrugged a little. She did not think so. Gentlemen were not expected to play the part of either hero or saint, in our modern society. It was foolish to expect too much of them.

    Young Mrs Quarmby-Vine smiled valiantly. “I am sure I would have done the same, in dear Mamma-in-law’s place.”

    Eudora eyed her drily. No doubt. Susannah Quarmby-Vine was as amiable as Bobby’s mother, and less than half as bright. But apparently she was what Bobby wanted. And Lilian appeared quite content with a daughter-in-law whose idea of a thrilling afternoon was a visit to view the famous Elizabethan knot-garden at Bluff Yewby, in the absence of its owners. Still, she at least appeared to have the merit of not wishing to drag Bobby away from his loving family and lead him into a life of expensive dissipation in London. If merit it were. Lilian clearly considered it to be so, and Eudora had not argued.

    As Miss Bon-Dutton did not speak, Susannah then ventured: “Er—how long is she to stay, Aunt Eudora?”

    “I have no idea. And I very much doubt if Lilian has.”

    Susannah tittered valiantly.

    Eudora sighed. “I suppose there is no use pointing out that the creature has not a penny to her name and that once she has dug herself in securely, will be a charge on Lilian and Peter, and you and Bobby after them, for the rest of her life?”

    “She—um—she did mention she might have expectations from old Mr Andrews!” she gasped.

    “Not if Peter Beauchamp’s ma has anything to say to it,” replied Eudora at her driest.

    “Um, wuh-well, perhaps we may achieve a respectable match for her,” she fumbled.

    “I cannot imagine to whom, in this neighbourhood. Arthur Jerningham, perchance?” said Eudora coldly.

    Wishing very much that dear Aunt Eudora would not raise those eyebrows of hers at one—it was just a habit, of course: she did not mean anything by it, but it was somewhat disconcerting—Susannah returned: “No! He is quite old! And, um, well, a Jerningham, of course. I thought—well, some nice, quiet gentleman.”

    “Susannah, if you wish to cast your nets for a nice, quiet gentleman,” said Eudora heavily, “you had best give the chit a Season in London. For this neighbourhood has none. Not even noisy ones. Unless you were thinking of Roddy Phelps-Patterson? He is generally adjudged even more than ‘nice’. Rather more than ‘pleasant’, even.”

    “No, of course not, silly one!” replied Susannah with a valiant titter. “He is Lady Partington-Gore’s brother!”

    “Quite.”

    “Well, um, Mamma-in-law and I had not thought of London, for next year… I suppose we might consider it,” said Susannah lamely.

    Very possibly the pair of them might just be silly enough to do so, yes. Fortunately Peter Quarmby-Vine had enough sense to put his foot down when it was needful to do so. Eudora shrugged a little, but did not bother to discuss the point further. Poor damned Raffaella. Still, reputation was a fragile thing—and if the story about the stepfather were true, surely to God there must have been some amiable female relative, in the whole of Rome, to whom the chit might have gone! She found, however, that she was again thinking: Poor damned girl.

    Raffaella’s sunny nature would not have allowed her to be less than pleasant to any fellow guest in the house, even one whom she had mentally dubbed “the Classical Medusa”, and she chattered away cheerfully to her distant cousin Eudora, apparently immune to the coolness with which the chatter was received.

    Eudora had to revise her first opinion of the Contessa dalla Rovere as just another empty-head: there was clearly a great deal of intelligence under that manner. This did not, of course, mean that the stories going round about her in diplomatic circles were untrue. But after a little, she found herself wondering… Well, the girl was clearly a minx and doubtless a flirt; but could anyone with that innocent manner be as black as she was painted by such as the Fürstin von Maltzahn-Dressen, or Senhora Carvalho dos Santos, or Lady Jersey, or the Contessa Albinoni, to name only a minimum? Lady Harold’s proper daughter would not have dreamed of asking the young Contessa for further details, but it was not very long before Raffaella, in her customary artless manner, had poured them out.

    “He was horridly proper during the actual fugue: dreadfully disappointing, for though he is so much older, he is quite devastatingly attractive, and as you can imagine, I had prepared myself,” she concluded, rolling her eyes.

    Eudora nodded numbly. It seemed so circumstantial, that it was probably—well, possibly—true. Unless the chit were clever enough to have guessed what she hoped to hear?

    It was apparent to the Contessa dalla Rovere what Miss Bon-Dutton was thinking. She smiled her sunny smile at her, but inwardly, she shrugged a little. Oh, well. It was all true—but it was no use repining over spilt milk, and if the London fashionables already had Rome’s preferred version, so be it.

    Relations between Miss Bon-Dutton and the Contessa would probably have remained at little more than armed neutrality for the entire summer, but for the episode of the donkey.

    It was a very warm day, the bees humming in the hedgerows, the birds retired early to drowse in the trees. Raffaella, chafed by the nullity of the blameless Susannah’s conversation, had escaped soon after breakfast for a walk in the pleasant Derbyshire countryside.

    Raffaella Andrews dalla Rovere customarily had two imaginary companions on such walks: when she was not positively pondering some abstract and the wind was brisk and she was striding along rapidly, it was usually the Black Warrior. His face and figure had changed some, over the years, but he was still basically of the same disposition as he had been when he had first appeared, when Raffaella was aged about ten: fully of derring-do, ready to hazard anything for an honourable cause, and more than willing to let Raffaella accompany him in the guise of squire, page or companion-in-arms. There had been a considerable period when Raffaella herself had been the Black Warrior, but she had got over that, and now she would fight at his side, like a helmeted girl-warrior from some Renaissance epic. The Black Warrior was currently about twenty-four years of age, Raffaella at the moment being convinced that twenty-four was a highly desirable age—though he had packed more then two dozen years of derring-do into his brief existence. He was quite tall, but not grotesquely so, with a thin face, rather wide across the cheekbones, soft black curls, and remarkable eyes. Raffaella could not have described these eyes very precisely other than that they were grey, widely set, and interestingly shadowed: but she knew they were remarkable eyes. His mouth was narrow, and had a melancholic hint to its curves. The armour was black, of course.

    On the balmy, bee-laden, drowsy days the companion was usually the Scholar. His age had fluctuated wildly over the years but at the moment he was not very old, though not very young. Perhaps under thirty. Though his wisdom was that of an ancient of ninety-odd. His hair was of a thick, soft, light brown which showed gold lights in the sun, and waved only a very little. It reached his collar, though. The collar was generally open, and frequently edged with lace, and he had certainly never heard of the word “neckcloth” in his life. In fact his usual garb was the rest of the shirt, a waistcoat, and an indeterminate pair of breeches which were sometimes rather Mediaeval (when he was interestingly wicked behind the scholarship). Sometimes Raffaella indulged in intense but very logical argument with him, but more lately there was a tendency just to sit at his feet and drink in his wisdom. Which was never expressed in terms of the particular. He accompanied her rather often after a surfeit of such persons as old Gianna, her Roman aunts, or, alas, more recently, Susannah Quarmby-Vine.

    Neither of these two imaginary companions bore any resemblance whatsoever to the young man whom Raffaella had actually married, but that perhaps indicated merely that Gianni dalla Rovere, in spite of his looks, had been as much of a blockhead as Raffaella had described him to her connections at Sommerton Grange. And had certainly made no dent upon her still youthful heart.

    The day, though not hot by the Italian standards to which she had become accustomed, was warm and still, and so her thoughts tended musingly around the Scholar. She wandered on through the dusty lanes, not noticing very much where she was going. After quite some time there came a thunder of hooves and Raffaella looked up, smiling, to see a lady rider on a large black horse come sailing over a tumbledown wall and into the large field in which she had earlier noticed a little old donkey, grazing under a large, shady tree. The horse galloped across the field: Raffaella, whose riding was rather of the sitting-on-without-actually-falling-off variety, watched admiringly.

    Then suddenly there came a loud bray, the horse shied violently, and the rider flew off, to land with a loud thump! on the grass. Her horse rushed off, snorting furiously.

    It had happened so fast that for a moment Raffaella was stunned into immobility. Then she gathered her wits, clambered over the wall, and rushed across to the fallen figure.

    For a moment she thought she was dead. Then she opened her eyes, and Raffaella’s heart did a sort of hop, skip and jump, and she sank down limply onto her knees beside her, saying: “Are you all right? Can you move, Cousin Eudora?”

    Miss Bon-Dutton blinked groggily. “Winded. Knocked out for moment, I think.”

    “Yes. A donkey startled your horse.”

    “They warned me the damned creature can’t abide donkeys. Where was the damned thing?”

    “Under that tree. I think it’s, um—it’s retired in this field. I’m sorry, I forget the English word.”

    “Out to grass,” said Eudora faintly, feeling her head. “Ouch.”

    “Can you sit up?” Rather gingerly Raffaella put an arm round her.

    Miss Bon-Dutton grimaced and put a hand to her head.

    “Do you feel dizzy or anything?”

    “Yes, I do, rather. And I think I’ve twisted my knee.”

    “Oh, dear. Would you like to try standing up?”

    Miss Bon-Dutton let Raffaella help her up, but it was clear she was in considerable pain. “Not broken. Had worse,” she said grimly.

    “Have you? Do you hunt?”

    “When my mother lets me, yes,” said Eudora with a sigh, rather forgetting herself.

    “Help; surely you are not under your mother’s thumb?” gasped Raffaella.

    “Yes. Were not you?”

    “Of course! Until I blotted my copybook!” she said with a laugh.

    “So it takes that to escape the maternal thumb, does it?”

    “Well, yes. That or marriage.”

    “So I had heard,” said Eudora, leaning heavily on her short person. “Sorry: can you manage?”

    “I could run back and get help.”

    “I’m not a cot-case, girl! We are not so far from the lodge gates: come on. –I once hobbled five miles over muddy fields with a broken foot: took a bad toss, hunting with my brother and his friends at Melton Mowbray. They all rode on, of course.”

    “That is so typical of brothers!” Eagerly Raffaella recounted several horror stories of her own brother’s and half-brothers’ typical behaviour, not noticing that as they neared the lodge her companion had become very pale.

    The lodge-keeper’s wife shot out of the lodge clucking, just in time to help catch Miss Bon-Dutton as she fainted.

    … “Aye, well, dare say she was knocked out,” conceded Dr Wainwright from Heddleford, quite some time later.

    “It was nothing. Just a bit dizzy,” said Eudora.

    “I dare say. Hunt, do you, ma’am?”

    She nodded, and winced.

    “Hah!” said the doctor. “Knew the head was troubling you. Yes, well, keep her in bed for the rest of today and tomorrow, Mrs Quarmby-Vine,” he instructed, “and she should be as right as rain.”

    Downstairs Dr Wainwright assured Lilian Quarmby-Vine there was no need to worry, but Miss Bon-Dutton needed to be kept absolutely quiet and still for at least twenty-four hours. And if she was still feeling dizzy this time tomorrow, he should be sent for, but he did not anticipate that. And not to force her if she was disinclined to eat. He thought she would sleep, this afternoon, and they had best watch her just to see that her breathing was normal. And thank you kindly, ma’am, he would just take a bite, yes, for it was not a short drive, and he was expecting twins over towards Heddle Splash this afternoon.

    After the burly doctor had departed Raffaella noted: “I liked Dr Wainwright.”

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine nodded. “A most amiable man. If just a little hearty for some of his more genteel patients. But he is the only doctor for the whole of the district.” She explained how bereft the district was of medical men.

    Raffaella didn’t listen much. She said thoughtfully: “He is not precisely young, I suppose.”

    “I think he is a man of forty, perhaps, my dear.”

    “Yes. Um, has he a family, Cousin Lilian?”

    “No; it is rather a sad story. He has a wife but she is an invalid, poor little thing. I think her father was an apothecary in Yewby.”

    “Yes,” said Susannah eagerly; “we knew his shop. The mother,” she said, shaking her neat brown curls, “was a very sad case.”

    Susannah’s definition of a very sad case could mean absolutely anything, ranging from having to be shut up in Bedlam to having a predilection for bedecking her person with ribbons in shades that clashed. Or in one cited instance, given to the wearing of a cap, sans bonnet, in church. “Oh?”

    The mother, it appeared, through young Mrs Quarmby-Vine’s polite circumlocutions, drank. Or had done so: she had drunk herself into an early grave. The father had followed soon after, from natural causes, apparently, and that had left the one poor, pale, crippled little daughter. According to Susannah’s mother, as reported by Susannah, Dr Wainwright had married her out of the kindness of his heart: there had been no relatives to whom she might have gone.

    Raffaella was aware that a somewhat dry expression had appeared on Susannah’s mother-in-law’s face at this point. “And is she bedridden, Susannah?” she asked politely.

    Mrs Wainwright was not precisely bedridden, but she had her bad days. And she was rather twisted, the poor little thing.

    “She presents,” said Lilian Quarmby-Vine at this point, “a very pretty, dainty little appearance.”

    Raffaella concluded she could stop feeling sorry for the hearty doctor, then. Though it was a pity he was married: he might have done for Cousin Eudora!

    The next day Eudora declared herself to be very much better and sat up and ate a reasonable midday meal. But if her head was evidently much improved, the knee was not: very red, swollen and painful indeed. Mrs Quarmby-Vine decided that if there was no improvement the doctor must be sent for on the morrow. Susannah Quarmby-Vine, breathing the dread phrase “water on the knee,” helpfully cited the instance of a second cousin who had had just such a knee… Eudora was aware that at this point the Contessa dalla Rovere rolled her eyes madly behind their relatives’ backs. In spite of the throbbing knee, she had to swallow a smile.

    “Do not tell me,” she said, when Lilian and Susannah, who were expecting callers, had retreated downstairs and Raffaella was kindly sitting with her, “that it was not just the same, when you lived with your family in Italy.”

    “Just the same, in essence, but in expression, louder!” she said, laughing.

    Eudora smiled, and winced a little, and gave an exasperated sigh. “This is too ridiculous! When I might be out and about in this glorious weather.”

    “Si, si,” said Raffaella sympathetically. “And that reminds me—” She arose, removed the coverlet from Eudora’s bed, and threw open the window.

    “Thank you. That is more comfortable. It is certainly a warm day.”

    Raffaella smiled a little. “When it was very, very hot in Italy, Sally and I were used to lie on our beds in the afternoon, when most of the country would take a rest, you know, with the sashes up but the shutters closed, so as to take advantage of what breeze there was, in dampened shifts. Sometimes old Gianna would fan us, before she nodded off. But I don’t think England ever gets that hot!”

    “No, indeed,” said Eudora in some awe.

    Raffaella picked up a fan and began to fan her gently. “If I nod off, scream at me very loudly!”

    Eudora smiled a little, and leaned back against her pillows.

    Dr Wainwright was duly fetched again, since there was no improvement, and shook his head a little. He thought the knee-cap might be cracked; there must be no tight binding until the swelling was reduced, and she must keep absolutely off it.

    A couple of days went by, not without pain for Miss Bon-Dutton, and the doctor, expressing some relief that the swelling was much reduced, and incidentally squashing flat Susannah’s fearful supposition that it might turn to a dropsy, decided, after a painful examination, that the patella must be a little cracked, and it had best be immobilised. He did not advise moving her; he would splint the leg.

    “I’ll prescribe a mixture: perhaps Mrs Bobby might like to drive over to the apothecary’s in Heddleford for it, it’ll take her mind off the dropsical results of water on the knee, and such truck.”

    “Will it?” said Eudora, very drily.

    “Well, no!” he said with a laugh, his nice brown eyes crinkling up very much. “But at least it will mean you won’t need to listen to her for half a day. Don’t take the muck unless the pain is bad, but if you think you need it to help you sleep, take it. Don’t make a martyr of yourself,” he said with a dry look.

    “Er—no,” said Eudora, somewhat startled. “Very well.”

    Two weeks passed, and Miss Bon-Dutton had stopped saying every other day that she must come downstairs, and had devoured most of what was readable in the Sommerton Grange library. And Susannah was quite hopeful that dear Aunt Eudora would be downstairs in time for her little party!

    The Contessa dalla Rovere seemed to be spending a considerable amount of time with her, reading aloud, or just chatting. To her husband Lilian Quarmby-Vine owned: “I am not sorry to see it. Eudora is such a solitary, friendless creature.”

    “Aye, and you were at your wits’ end to know what to with the gal,” he replied drily.

    “Not quite that. But living a very fashionable life in Rome… And then, the country-house life in Italy sounds very different from ours, Peter!”

    “Harum-scarum, you mean. Well, dare say she has been used to keep fairly busy, aye. And if she wants to keep Eudora company, good for her. But I’m at a loss to know what in God’s name they find to talk about.”

    “Eudora says she is quite well read,” said Lilian dubiously.

    “In what?”

    “Well, I think the Principessa Claudia would actually have supervised her girls’ reading strictly enough, my dear.”

    He sniffed. “In the odd moments when she put her mind to it: yes. The rest of the time the whole tribe of them’d be running wild. Like that time she dumped the three Andrews brats on us for the summer and Arthur Jerningham caught two of them poaching his trout.”

    Lilian sighed: this story had been trotted out approximately seventeen times since the Contessa’s absorption into the household. But she merely said mildly: “I think she is doing Eudora good.”

    Even Mr Bobby Quarmby-Vine could see that she was. He reported in a dazed way to his Papa: “Don’t know what she’s done to Aunt Eudora, but by Jove! She looks almost human! Had the fat old cat on her bed, too.”

    “Frankly, don’t know how the gal stands it,” replied Miss Bon-Button’s brother-in-law.

    Mr Bobby gave a smothered snigger, but repeated that his aunt looked almost human.

    Mr Quarmby-Vine found himself thinking it over. And, although he was not entirely immune to the Contessa dalla Rovere’s charm and big dark eyes, and not particularly fond of his sister-in-law, found that he did not like his conclusions.

    “Look here, Lilian,” he said grimly; “you realise it is quite on the cards that the girl is a scheming minx, out to worm herself into Eudora’s favour? Don’t forget she’s a wealthy woman; and don’t say they couldn’t know of her legacy out in Italy, for it is the exact sort of thing that women like the damned Principessa Claudia always do know!”

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine replied calmly: “My dear, the thought did occur, but I dismissed it. I don’t think that a scheming minx would have gone to all the trouble of bringing that blessed cat with her all the way from Italy. It weighs a ton, you know.”

    “Uh—it don’t follow,” he said feebly.

    “Think about it, my dear. Think about what it says of the girl’s character.”

    He scratched his head dubiously.

    “And don’t you remember her at all, from those times she stayed with us? She was the most dreadful little tomboy, of course,” she said, smiling. “But very sunny-natured, as clearly she still is, and not at all sly. Now, slyness is unmistakable, my love, and something that a child, at least, cannot hide.”

    “Maybe. But considering what her life has been since… I don’t like it. And no-one could possibly enjoy spending hours in Eudora’s company!” he said unguardedly.

    “You do not give her credit for it, Peter, but she can be a very pleasant and intelligent companion, if—if she is allowed to blossom.”

    “Blossom!”

    “Yes,” said his wife, giving him a grim look.

    “Now look, I’ve said, she is welcome to come to us for several months of the year, but more than that, blossoming or not, I can’t put up with.”

    “You have made that very plain, thank you.”

    Mr Quarmby-Vine sniffed slightly. After a moment he ventured: “Well, if she’s blossoming, maybe I should encourage old Charles to pay her a sick-visit. ”

    “That is not amusing, Peter.”

    “Uh—sorry, my dear. No, well, of course he has sent messages up, but he was saying he thought he ought to look in on her. Wondered if she’d find it acceptable, y’know.”

    “I cannot say,” said Mrs Quarmby-Vine with manifest untruth, “that I care if he looks in on her or not.”

    “I’ll tell him to.”

    His wife’s grim expression relaxed very, very slightly.

    Peter Quarmby-Vine did tell his brother that Lilian thought there could be no objection to his looking in on Eudora, but on thinking it over, did not mention blossoming. If good old Charles discovered she was blossoming, well— Well, it would be up to him. But for himself, he didn’t see it. Not Eudora.

    Raffaella having driven out in the barouche with Lilian and Susannah, Miss Bon-Dutton, who had finished her book, was at rather a loose end. She sat up, somewhat flustered, and attempting to adjust a shawl modestly round her shoulders, as her maid asked if Captain Quarmby-Vine might look in for a moment. “Of course.”

    “Thought it would be all right!” said the bluff sailor with his pleasant laugh. “Well, practically a brother-in-law, am I not? How are you, Eudora?”

    They had, of course, known each other for very many years and had often enough been house-guests of Lilian and Peter Quarmby-Vine: so they were on first-name terms. Though Charles Quarmby-Vine did not very often address her by hers. Nor did he customarily goggle at her with his eyes on stalks, as he was doing at this moment.

    “I must say, you look quite in the pink!” he added, the eyes still on the aforesaid stalks.

    “I am really a lot better, but the doctor has decreed the stupid knee must be immobilised,” said Eudora limply. Attempting to pull herself together. And repressing a strong urge to tell the man to stop staring.

    Charles did not quite realise he was staring; but he certainly felt rather glad he had decided to pop in; and duly presented her with the bunch of flowers he was carrying. He was not a man of an analytical turn of mind, so it did not occur to him that hitherto he had seen the proper Miss Bon-Dutton only with her hair severely back and up in the Grecian styles which she normally affected: and it was this, as much as the soft shawl and the exiguous garment it was not quite covering, which made her look so different. The dark curls were tumbling about her shoulders, and her cheeks were flushed with pink. He did, however, realise that he hadn’t before seen her without a corset and that this made a considerable difference to the picture she presented.

    He pulled up the little bedside chair and sat down, uninvited, beaming. “So! The dashed black made a fool of himself over a donkey, did he? That the story?”

    “Yes. The creature was—er—lurking under a tree.”

    Captain Quarmby-Vine shook his head. “Told Peter months back the brute was damned dangerous. Well—never know when you might meet a donkey, in the country, hey? I said to him when I heard the news, he ought to shoot the brute, damned lucky you wasn’t killed.”

    Eudora smiled politely, and agreed, and wished she could tell him to stop staring.

    Raffaella and the Quarmby-Vine ladies returned about the time that the Captain, who had spent a much longer time with Eudora than he had intended, was sipping his third glass of the wine which he had decided ought to be brought up for her: strengthening. Eudora in desperation had drunk two glasses of the wine and her cheeks were more flushed than ever and her shawl had slipped, unnoticed. She was conscious of very mixed feelings indeed: on the one hand, the wish that he would stop staring and go away was still there, but on the other hand there was the most unaccustomed feeling that Charles, in his somewhat hearty, earthy way, was not an unattractive male creature—not a brain in his head, of course.

    For his part, Charles Quarmby-Vine was conscious of a distinctly familiar warmish feeling—though it was not a feeling he had ever before experienced in Eudora Bon-Dutton’s company. By Jove, those were not half two luscious handfuls she had, there! If not quite as splendid as the Portuguese Widow’s, of course. –He had previously had only the sight of the two ladies in evening dress or summer muslins to afford him any basis for comparison. And it must be admitted that while Eudora’s evening gowns were extremely elegant they were also always quite modest: the same not being true of the lady who was now the Viscountess Stamforth. And Eudora’s summer muslins were always worn over a corset and a solid petticoat. Whereas that other lady had been sighted wearing hers over a dampened silk petticoat and very little else.

    Raffaella, having kindly escorted the Captain downstairs—not out of any wish for his company but in order to get his report first-hand, for she had determined on assisting Miss Bon-Dutton to a suitable match, it was a subject close to her heart—came back choking. “Cousin Eudora, he is yours for the taking! You will never believe to whom he compared you just now!”

    Eudora looked dry. “No, I don’t think I shall.”

    Raffaella’s eyes danced. “Lady Stamforth! I think I am correct in saying she is the lady whom London Society calls the Portuguese Widow?”

    Eudora’s jaw sagged. “I am nothing like her. Nothing.”

    “It will be the effect of the hair!” she said gaily.

    “My dear Raffaella, this is ridiculous! He has never so much as glanced at me in his life before!”

    Raffaella sat down on the chair lately vacated by the gallant naval posterior. “Well, your cheeks are very pink, your hair is tumbling about in its natural curls, and, if you will forgive my saying so, dear ma’am, your quite splendid bosom is well displayed without a corset; if I have interpreted Susannah’s description of the creature aright, you could not have got closer to a picture of the lady whom the Captain so admires if you had thought it out with both hands for a fortnight!”

    “Possibly you are right: he certainly stared enough,” she said grimly.

    “They are all like that, you know!” said Raffaella with her merry laugh.

    “What, men? So it would appear, yes.”

    “I promise you,” said Raffaella, giving her a sly look from under her lashes, “that if you continue to encourage him with the hair and the bosom, he will offer ere the summer is out!”

    “I do not wish him to offer, he is a blockhead,” she said tightly.

    There was a short silence. “I should not have said that. I believe he was a splendid sea-captain, and very gallant in combat.”

    “Yes, well, that does not mean that he is not a blockhead! –But could you not settle for that? I think he is a decent enough man, non è vero?”

    “I see: you are of the Charlotte Lucas school of thought,” said Eudora grimly. And most unfairly, really, considering she had come down to the country with the thought that possibly Charles might do.

    They had discovered that the author of Pride and Prejudice was one of the writers they both enjoyed. So Raffaella immediately collapsed in giggles, gasping: “Very nearly, yes! Though I could not have stomached him! But would it be so very bad? The Captain is not unattractive: I think being married to him would not be unpleasant?”

    Eudora hesitated. Then she admitted: “I did think it could be Charles. But on seeing him again I realised that that was a foolish idea. And I have no wish to marry a man who would be silly enough to offer on the strength of tumbled hair and a bosom.”

    “I strongly doubt that any will offer on the strength of your fine mind, you know.”

    “That has dawned on me, over the years. And really, the more I think how Charles has steadily ignored the—the real me, if one may put it so infelicitously—all these years, and how easily the bosom and so forth appear to have conquered him this afternoon, the more seriously annoyed I become with him—in fact, with the lot of them!”

    Raffaella did not point out that the two glasses of wine might have something to do with the violence of this reaction. “Yes, well, they certainly deserve that one should combine against them and—and achieve a signal victory!” She picked up the decanter. “Let us drink to it!”

    “No, I think I have had too much already.”

    “Oh, pooh! I shall give you the toast,” said Raffaella, pouring some wine for herself in Eudora’s water glass and determinedly re-filling Eudora’s wineglass: “To the definitive conquest of the male sex in general and the conquest of a most eligible parti, in particular!”

    Eudora picked up her glass. “Perdition to ’em,” she said drily, and drank.

Next chapter:

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