‘Perry was with you! Where, then, was Bab?’
‘She was with us too, of course. But Harriet and I drove in a barouche, the others rode. I only meant that Perry rode beside us, while Lady Barbara and the Count were not unnaturally tempted to leave the road for the Forest. I am sure they were not to be blamed for that: I should have liked to have done so myself.’
‘I see,’ he replied.
An uncomfortable silence fell; the Colonel was looking abstractedly out of the window, one hand fiddling with the blind-cord. Judith felt herself impelled to say presently: ‘There was nothing more, I assure you. Do not be imagining anything foolish!’
He turned and smiled at her. ‘My dear Judith, you are looking quite anxious! There is really not the least cause, I promise you. As for this affair of Perry’s, I’ll speak to Bab.’
‘Don’t if you had rather not!’ she said. ‘I daresay it is all nonsense.’
‘The scandal, if there is one, had better be scotched, however.’
But Barbara, when she heard of Harriet’s suspicions, exclaimed indignantly: ‘Oh, that’s a great deal too bad! Of all the injustices in this wicked world! I treated him as I treat Harry—I did really, Charles!’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said. ‘The truth is, I suspect, that you were much more enchanting than you knew. Is Perry in danger of losing his heart to you, do you think?’
‘I think he might be made to lose it,’ she replied candidly. ‘But what a fool his wife must be!’
‘I believe she is in a delicate situation just at present.’
‘Oh, poor creature! Very well, I will make everything right with her. Then she may be comfortable again.’
The occasion offered itself that same day. Walking in the Park with a party of friends, Barbara saw Lady Taverner approaching with her sister-in-law. She left her friends, and went forward to meet Harriet, holding up a frilled parasol in one hand and extending the other in a friendly fashion. ‘I have been wanting to meet you, Lady Taverner,’ she said, with one of her swift smiles. ‘I believe there is a nonsensical story current, and though I have no doubt of your laughing at it, I daresay it may have vexed you a little.’
The hand was ignored. Lady Taverner turned scarlet and, with a glance of contempt, whisked round on her heel and walked away.
Judith, sensible of the generosity that had prompted Barbara to approach Harriet, stood rooted to the ground in dismay. What could possess Harriet to behave with such rudeness? The folly of it passed her comprehension; she could only gaze after her in amazement. The path was full of people; twenty or thirty pairs of eyes must have witnessed the snub. She said in a deeply mortified voice: ‘I beg your pardon! My sister-in-law is not quite herself. I do not know what she could be thinking of!’
She glanced at Barbara, and was not surprised to see her green eyes as hard as two bits of glass. A little colour had stolen into her cheeks; her lips were just parted over her clenched teeth. If ever anyone was in a rage she was in one now, thought Judith. She looked ripe for murder, and really one could not blame her.
‘That,’ said Barbara, ‘was neither wise nor wellbred of Lady Taverner. Convey my compliments to her, if you please, and inform her that I shall endeavour not to disappoint her very evident expectations.’
‘She is extremely foolish, and I beg you will not notice her rudeness!’ said Judith. ‘No one regards what you so rightly call the nonsensical story which is current.’
‘How simple of you to think so! The story must now be implicitly believed. By tomorrow I shall be credited with a sin I haven’t committed, which touches my pride, you know. I always give the scandalmongers food for their gossip.’
‘To give them food in this case would be to behave as foolishly as my sister-in-law,’ said Judith, trying to speak pleasantly.
‘Oh, I have my reputation to consider!’ Barbara retorted. ‘I make trouble wherever I go: haven’t you been told so?’
‘I have tried not to believe it.’
‘A mistake! I am quite as black as I am painted, I assure you. But I am keeping you from Lady Taverner. Go after her—and don’t forget my message!’
Fourteen
Judith did not go after her sister-in-law. She had very little hope of inducing Harriet to apologise, nor, upon reflection, did she feel inclined to make the attempt. She could not think Barbara blameless in the affair. However well she might have behaved in extending an olive branch, the original fault was one for which Judith could find little excuse. If Barbara wanted to dine in the suburbs (which, in itself, was a foolish whim) she might as well have chosen an evening when Charles would have been free to have escorted her.
Judith acquitted her of wanting to make mischief. It had all been the result of thoughtlessness, and had Harriet behaved like a sensible woman nothing more need have come of it. But Harriet had chosen to do the one thing that would lend colour to whatever gossip was afoot, and had besides made an enemy of a dangerous young woman. It still made Judith blush to think of the scene. In Barbara’s place she would, she acknowledged, have been angry enough to have boxed Harriet’s ears. But such sudden anger was usually short-lived. She hoped that a period of calm reflection would give Barbara’s thoughts a more proper direction, and determined to say nothing of the occurrence to Charles.
She heard her name spoken, and came out of her reverie to find herself confronting Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who, with his elder brother, Lord Edward, and their nephew, Henry Somerset, was strolling along the path down which her unconscious footsteps had taken her.
Greetings and handshakes followed. Judith was acquainted with Lord Edward, but Lieutenant Somerset, who was acting as his uncle’s aide-de-camp, had to be presented to her. Lord Edward had only lately arrived from England, to command the brigade of Household Cavalry. He was twelve years Lord Fitzroy’s senior, and did not much resemble him. Fitzroy was fair, with an open brow, and very regular features. Lord Edward was harsh-featured and dark, with deep lines running down from the corners of his jutting nose and his close-lipped mouth, and two clefts between his brows. His eyes were rather hard, and he did not look to have that sweetness of disposition which made his brother universally beloved; but he was quite unaffected, laughed and talked a great deal, and seemed perfectly ready to be agreeable. Judith enquired after his wife; he had not brought her to the Netherlands; he thought—saving Lady Worth’s presence!—that the seat of an approaching war was not the place for females.
‘Your husband is not engaged in the operations, and so the case is different,’ he said. ‘But I assure you, the women who would persist in following the Army in Spain were at times a real hindrance to us. Nothing would stop them! Very courageous, you will say, and I won’t deny it, but they were the devil to deal with on the march, choking the roads with their gear!’
She smiled, and agreed that it must have been so. She had turned to retrace her steps with the Somersets, and as the path was not broad enough to allow of their walking abreast, Lord Fitzroy and his nephew had gone ahead. She indicated Fitzroy with a nod, and remarked that his brother must not speak so in his hearing.