If any of the society papers might, perhaps, have run a little "piece" about her pink tea party and...supposing that the chaperones had attended along with Lady Cecily...if I could find an account that listed the names of the guests...

But as my eyes turned towards the pile of rubbish I would have to read, I groaned aloud. Even if I found what I was looking for, then it would be necessary for me somehow to sort through the guests in order to find Lady Cecily's ogresses-in-waiting. Or even worse, what if I scanned the confounded papers for hours and hours and, after all, the viscountess's blasted tea party were not even there? A viscountess was not, after all, the social equal of a duke's wife or even an earl's; what if no society reporter had bothered to- An idea caught hold with such force that my breath snagged in my throat. I let it stay there for a moment as I considered. Then, breathing out, I smiled.

While I had no actual knowledge of what a society reporter might be like, I could imagine: a female with more education than means, a genteel miss rather like a governess, obliged to make a living until she found a man to take care of her. Her clothing might be plain, even threadworn, but never lacking in taste. An object of kindness and condescension.

In great haste I began to hunt up my very proper, all-purpose brown tweed suit. Because I had skipped luncheon, there would still be time today.

An hour or so later, in the aforementioned well-worn suit, neatly gloved and hiding beneath a brown hat's veil, with a stenographer's notebook and a bundle of pencils in hand, I presented myself at the door of the Viscount of Inglethorpe's city residence.

To the oversized tin soldier of a butler who eventually answered my knock, I said, "I am from the Women's Gazette." I had checked many back issues of this much-admired publication, found no mention of anything Inglethorpe, and felt myself to be treading on fairly safe ground as I went on. "They have sent me to see whether I might do a feature on the viscountess's pink tea."

"A bit late, aren't you?" rumbled the butler. "That was over a week ago."

When in doubt, say nothing. I replied only with a meek smile.

His brows drew together. "Don't you have a card?"

"I'm new," I improvised. "They haven't printed me one yet."

"Oh, so that's the way it is. They send out a novice a week late." I did not mind the resentment in his tone, for it showed that I had guessed rightly: the Viscountess of Inglethorpe quite wanted to be included in the society papers with the same frequency and scope as, for instance, a d.u.c.h.ess; the viscountess felt herself much neglected in the ladies' press, and her household, naturally, shared this sentiment.

I repressed a smile, feeling sure now that I would be admitted; such vanity could not turn me away.

Indeed, even as the butler betook himself upstairs to consult with Lady Inglethorpe, already the housekeeper, an unexpectedly pleasant woman named Dawson, was showing me into the morning-room where the tea had taken place.

"We've left it just so," she was saying, "except for the flowers, of course, until the room is needed for something else, for my lady took great pains over the effect and likes to admire it."

Admire was perhaps not the word I would have used, for I felt as if I had stepped into a cow's udder. Never before had I entertained any prejudice against the colour pink, but I began to loathe it in that moment as I stood beneath pink-draped windows with pink lambrequins, tables swaddled in pink, walls- Recollecting my guise, and also in order to hide my face in case it showed a touch of nausea, I flipped open a notebook and began feverishly to take notes: pink grosgrain ribbon swags on dado and pictures, pink net billowing down from the ceiling, pink j.a.panese lanterns dangling from pink crocheted strings.

"We served coconut cakes iced pink and white, and we put pink ices shaped like cupids and swans on the tables. Her ladyship wore a pink tea-frock that come all the way from France, and us servants had pink caps and pink ap.r.o.ns made special for the occasion. Oh, with the pink candles and all, it was like a pink fairy-land in here!"

Clenching my teeth against any heartfelt retort, scribbling, I muttered, "Flowers?"

"Oh! The most lovely ma.s.ses of pink cabbage roses, and for the gentlemen's b.u.t.tonholes, pinks, only they were white-the flowers might be any colour but they are called 'pinks,' you know."

"Yes, I see." I forced a smile. "How witty."

"Her ladyship's idea. And for favours, there were pink paper fans for the ladies, and pink paper top-hats for the gentlemen."

Hollowly I responded, "How very amusing."

"Yes, great fun they had with them."

Finally, a chance at the information I wanted. "And the guests were?"

"Jacobs has gone to ask the viscountess whether he might give a copy of the guest list to you. Shall we go see whether he has come down?"

"Please." I am sure my tone sounded a bit too fervid; being in that room made me feel as if I had gorged upon sugar-plums. I drew a deep and thankful breath as we walked back into the more normally embellished hallway of the mansion.

But as we pa.s.sed the drawing-room door, which stood open, I jolted to an abrupt halt, staring.

"Splendid, isn't it?" the housekeeper remarked when she realised what had distracted my attention.

At the far end of the formal room, in the place of honour over the mantel of the hearth, hung a large gold-framed oil portrait of a lady elegantly bestowed upon a fainting-sofa, a head-to-toe and nearly life-sized rendition of her carelessly holding a white Persian cat upon the most elaborate crimson figured-silk gown I had ever imagined or seen. Let me remark, as an aside, that the idea of keeping a house-cat in a mansion full of expensive china has always struck me as absurd, but it seems that the richer one is, the more one must show off such idiotic behaviour as endangering one's Waterford crystal, or clutching to one's bosom a creature guaranteed to rub white fur all over one's sable ruche. However, it was not any of these considerations, nor yet the remarkably in-full-fig costume of the woman in the portrait, that stopped my steps.

Rather, it was the dainty features of her fleshy face.

"That's my mistress, of course," the housekeeper was saying.

The viscountess: one of the matrons whom I had seen in the Ladies' Lavatory.

I had scarcely time to realise the peril in which I had placed myself before the butler's voice sounded behind me: "Lady Otelia Thoroughfinch, Viscountess of Inglethorpe, wishes to see you in her private sitting-room."

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

OH.

The viscountess herself.

Oh, my. I felt an almost insurmountable urge to flee, as if somehow she knew-which of course she couldn't possibly-but what if she recognised me? And what if she then realised that I was not from the Women's Gazette at all, but was poking my rather p.r.o.nounced nose into her affairs? What if she suspected I was in receipt of a peculiar pink fan- All these frightened thoughts cried out in my mind even before I turned to follow the butler upstairs. At times such as these it is a very good thing that my father had been a logician, and I had educated myself with his books, as follows: Premise: Viscountess Inglethorpe and I occupied the parlour of the Ladies' Lavatory at the same time.

Premise: She will recognise me.

Conclusion: Inconclusive.

Weak premise: She noticed me and recognises me.

Premise: She will realise I am NOT a reporter from the Women's Gazette.

Conclusion: Not valid, as such a reporter might very well use the Ladies' Lavatory.

However, just as these calming, rational thoughts began to take hold-also, just as I achieved the top of the stairway-there was a bang as the heavy front door whammed open, and a man's voice roared, "Ha-ha!"

I jumped and squeaked like a snared rabbit, for it was the voice of the exceedingly inhospitable man with the mastiff and the sunk fence!

But it couldn't be! my logical mind attempted once more to intercede. What possible reason- "Ha-ha! Here we are!"

The butler, who in the expressionless way of butlers seemed as startled as I, said, "Excuse me just a moment, miss," and went downstairs again to see what was what, leaving me peering over the railing.

"File on in! Ha-ha! Gawk all you please, ragam.u.f.fins."

Oh, my evil stars, I could see now-it was the same burly man who had threatened to leave me rotting in his midnight ditch. Progressing into the entry hall resplendent in ascot, paddock-jacket, charcoal breeches, and cream-coloured gaiters, with his pugnacious face straining to maintain a smirk that was probably intended to be a smile, he was followed by a most unlikely company: orphans filing in two by two, little girls in the traditionally hideous brown gingham pinafores, with their hair cropped so short (for the prevention of lice) that they scarcely looked female despite their ruffled caps.

The butler approached the ha-ha man and bowed gravely, murmuring something.

"Just giving the little beggars a treat, ha-ha!" the man roared. From my refuge behind the stair railings I watched in fascination as his balding forehead turned tomato red. "Anything wrong with that?" The butler's deferential manner had apparently concealed some question of the man's presence under the circ.u.mstances.

"Look but don't touch," admonished a starchy middle-aged female at the end of the brown gingham line-a matron of the orphanage, I knew the instant I saw her, not merely because of her plain brown dress and her even more severe demeanour, but because she wore, like all such matrons, the most outlandish and unmistakable hat, white cotton starched into the shape of an inverted tulip with ruffles around its edge. The minute I had a chance, I must draw a picture of an orphanage matron like a plain brown tower with a bulbous white beacon on top.

"Shall I notify the viscountess?" the butler was asking. Or not asking, really. Warning.

"No need! Just showing the darlings what they have to look forward to, ha-ha! If they go into service in my house, you know, ha-ha!" With which outrageous statement-for quite plainly, from the butler's manner, this was not his house-the smirking and glowering mastiff-like man bellowed, "This way, urchins!" and strode onward. Huddled shoulder to shoulder, clutching each other's hands, with their faces displaying the terror I felt, the orphans followed more slowly. From behind, the matron herded them as they all disappeared from my view beneath the stairway from which I watched. Even though I knew that the ha-ha man had not seen me, and would not have recognised me in any event-even so, my heart thumped, and while ladies never sweat, or even perspire, certainly I felt my personage pa.s.s into the condition known as "all in a glow."

The butler returned upstairs, his white face so eloquently blank that I dared not ask him who the ha-ha man was. Indeed, I dared not speak.

With difficulty I made myself let go of the stair railing to which I had been clinging. In icy silence the butler showed me to a door. "Miss, um, the journalistic personage of whom I informed you, my lady," he announced me as he opened it. He intended, it seemed, to allow his mistress to remain ignorant of the invasion downstairs, at least for the moment and in my dubious presence.

"Yes. Quite." As the viscountess brusquely gestured for me to enter, she scarcely looked at me, thank goodness; after a moment I was able to take a deep breath and regain some measure of calm. Her ladyship did not, of course, invite me to be seated; a common news-reporter would not be staying long. Nor did she give me a chance to ask her any questions; she quite took charge. "I want you to see what I wore for the pink tea." On cue, a maid-in-waiting emerged from a walk-in closet, carrying a fabric confection of pink. "That is a Worth gown," the viscountess declared, and she began to read aloud from a salon program. "'This exquisite tea-gown is fashioned from pink chine pompadour taffeta with graceful G.o.det pleating, trimmed around the-' Write it down! I want you to get it all just as I say."

Obediently I scribbled, meanwhile aware that the jade damask at-home day-dress the viscountess wore might be described every bit as elaborately; indeed, it seemed to me one might almost be presented to the queen in it. It could not have been more apparent to me that this woman had aspirations above her station.

"'-trimmed around the neckline with puffed white tulle over scallops of pearl-studded sateen, while a double strand of rare pink pearls begins at the bust and drapes to the right side of the skirt, fastened there with a clasp of pink gold inspired by Michelangelo's sibyls of the Sistine Chapel'-have you got all that?"

"Yes, my lady," I lied. "And might I inquire the names of those who attended, my lady?" Now that I knew who the viscountess was, I wanted to find out who had been the other dragonish dowager accompanying her, with Lady Cecily, on the occasion when I had first encountered them. I hoped the other ogress's ident.i.ty might be disclosed by the pink tea guest list.

"Oh! Yes, I have the list here. There was the Countess of Woodcrock, of course." (She said this in such a by-the-bye manner that I knew the countess was her prize catch for the event.) "Lady Dinah Woodcrock; Count Thaddeus was unfortunately unable to attend. And then there were the three daughters of the Earl of Throstlebine, the Honourable Misses Ermengarde, Ermentrude, and Ermenine Crowe, escorted by-"

This went on and on, until I began to despair of ever sorting it out.

"...and the Baroness Merganser. Lady Aquilla Merganser. She is my sister, you know."

"Oh, really?" My interest was not feigned; did this sister by any chance look almost exactly like her? Was Lady Aquilla Merganser the one- "Indeed. Aquilla married rather beneath her station, I fear." (Pompous nonsense, for, practically speaking, a baron is no better or worse a creature than a viscount.) "Her husband did not attend, but she brought along her son, Bramwell, and his fiancee, the Honourable Cecily Alistair."

Yes! Oh, yes! As one ogress was the viscountess, almost certainly the other ogress had to be her sister Aquilla, who had a son named Bramwell, who intended to marry the unfortunate Lady Cecily. Finding it very difficult to hide my excitement as I scrawled the names, I babbled, "A very attractive young lady, I am sure."

"She could be, if she would trouble herself. Quite spoilt, and rather a child, I fear." But then, abruptly, as if my interest in Lady Cecily caused her to close a door on further discourse, Lady Otelia turned her back-her derriere, I noticed, showed the effect of too much horseback riding on a sidesaddle, being visibly a.s.symetrical, the right part higher than the left. With difficulty I suppressed a smile.

The viscountess gestured dismissal. "That is all."

"Yes, my lady." One must play one's part; I actually bobbed a sort of curtsey. "Thank you, my lady."

The butler waited to show me out, his demeanour now so upright as to be nearly martial. I wondered whether the apparently uninvited parade of orphans had yet left the premises. But I did not dare mention them, for I had a request to make. Once safely down the stairs, I asked whether I might speak with the housekeeper, Dawson, again.

"Just for a moment, to thank her for her helpfulness," I toadied.

With lofty indifference the butler a.s.sented. A few moments later, the friendly Dawson sat down in the servants' lounge with me. She was pleased to go over the pink tea's guest list with me in much greater detail than her mistress had done.

I will spare the gentle reader any account of the gossip that necessarily preceded what I wanted to know. I encouraged several minutes of "confidences" before I felt it safe to display curiosity regarding Viscountess Otelia and her sister Lady Aquilla.

"Oh, yes," declared the good Dawson, "as like as two peas in a pod, they are."

Eureka! I thought. Just as I had surmised, it must have been Baroness Aquilla I had seen with Viscountess Otelia and Lady Cecily in the Ladies' Lavatory.

My poor left-handed lady! I suppressed an urge to shudder for her: As Bramwell Merganser, the groom-to-be, was Aquilla's son, then unless I could thwart her scheme, that "charming" woman would become poor Cecily's mother-in-law.

Although yearning to know more of the proposed wedding, I needed to proceed carefully with Dawson, so as not to arouse suspicion; even the most garrulous servant retains loyalty to her mistress. I made myself sit back in my chair across the tea-table from her. "Have they many children?" I asked, as this was the question that would most naturally arise next concerning the sisters Otelia and Aquilla. The propagation of numerous children, although a nuisance among the lower cla.s.ses, was considered quite a virtue among the gentry, exemplified by Queen Victoria herself, who had produced nine.

"Sadly, my lady the viscountess has no living progeny," said Dawson with sympathy, yet at the same time a certain relish that the tragedy of child mortality, due to spotted fever and the like, was not confined to the lower cla.s.ses. "And of Baroness Aquilla's five, only Bramwell has survived to adulthood. She has made rather a mama's boy of him, I fear," added Dawson pensively as she refilled our teacups.

Outwardly, I hope, I remained bland, but inwardly I bayed and panted, a hound hot on the scent. "Indeed? How old is he?"

"Nearly thirty, and still living at home, doing nothing on his own. And he appears to be likely to spend the rest of his life that way, for all that he's soon to be married."

"Yes, so I see!" Very natural, my curiosity, very innocent. "This Lady Cecily Alistair, who is she?"

"A cousin. Her father, Eustace Alistair, is Lady Aquilla's brother, and Lady Otelia's, of course."

Oh, dear. How odious. Yet there was nothing scandalous in the arrangement, for cousins marrying cousins is a common practice among blue-bloods, to keep property in the family. With the unintentional effect, according to Malthus, that each generation grows uglier than the last.

And marrying his daughter to his sister's son was exactly the sort of thing Sir Eustace would do. I remembered how his concern had been all for hushing up scandal, rather than for his daughter's safety, when Cecily had been kidnapped. After her return, I felt sure, he had regarded her not as a victim but as a disgrace. He had no concern for her sensibilities. In order to avoid any further embarra.s.sment to himself, therefore, he had arranged to marry her off privately rather than have her presented at court. I wondered how much dowry he had paid to the Mergansers.

Dawson awaited my response. "Um, a good match," I ventured.

"Yes, indeed, a very good match it is."

All this time I had put off a fascinating but indelicate question: I quite wanted to know who the ha-ha man was-a gentleman, by his dress, perhaps even t.i.tled, with some connection to this household? Therefore, even though I knew otherwise, I asked, "Was it Sir Eustace, by any chance, who so kindly escorted the orphans-"

But I had reached the limits of Dawson's willingness to divulge. She responded only with gentle distress: "No, indeed, that was not Sir Eustace, and as for his bringing those-those dreadfully common children into this house unannounced...But it's not my place to say more. You'll excuse me, I'm sure."

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

I RETURNED TO " DR. RAGOSTIN'S" OFFICE IN AN uncertain frame of mind. Poor Cecily, poor high-minded, artistic, free-spirited girl! I knew how she felt as the whole world, seemingly, attempted to break that spirit. I knew what it was like to be a young female utterly at the mercy of relatives and legal guardians, forced into obedience. Only my mother's cleverness had saved me.

How was I to save Lady Cecily?

After lighting the gas-lamps, I made immediately for the bookshelves and seized upon Boyles, one's indispensable guide to the aristocracy. Having had no luncheon made me cross and stubborn, so much so that I refused to go home for dinner; instead I sat down at once to look up "Inglethorpe" and "Merganser," then proceed onward to other references until eventually I pieced together a sequence of events.

The father of Eustace, Aquilla, and Otelia, I discovered, had been the merest baronet-Sir Dorian Alistair, Bt.-not a lord, not even a member of the peerage. Moreover, his means had been in no way equal to his aspirations. However, he and his wife had put on a good show when it came time to launch their two daughters into society, and both Otelia and Aquilla apparently had possessed sufficient beauty and charm (although I found this hard to imagine) to marry "up." Eustace, also, had done very well by marrying Lady Theodora.

Boyles took me no farther, but from my personal knowledge, having met Lady Theodora, apparently the heavens were to be blessed that Sir Eustace's children took after their mother, not their father.

I knew that Lady Cecily vehemently disagreed with her father's views of charity (he gave none), society (heights to be climbed), and a woman's place (obey).