Читать книгу A Strange Likeness - Paula Marshall - Страница 9

T hat afternoon Eleanor left the schoolroom, where she had been working with Charles and young Mr Dudley, and decided that, four-thirty being almost upon her, she would not trouble to change her clothes in order to meet Ned’s Australian friend. She was still wearing her deep blue walking dress and that would have to do.

She had reached the last step of the graceful staircase which spiralled to the top of the house when she met Staines, the butler. He bowed and said ‘Mr Ned is in the drawing room, Miss Eleanor, awaiting his friend, and asks you to join him there.’

Somehow Eleanor gained the impression that he was enjoying a small private joke. She immediately dismissed this notion as fanciful and walked across the stone-flagged hall to the drawing room door.

She should have trusted to her instincts. Ned had spent the afternoon avoiding her. He had also given orders to Staines for Mr Alan Dilhorne to be taken straight to the small drawing room with the message that Mr Ned Hatton would shortly join him there.

He had taken care to tell Staines of the likeness and to warn him not to inform anyone else of it before Alan arrived.

‘For,’ he had said ingenuously, ‘I wish to tease the family a little and you must not spoil the fun.’

Staines had agreed to be discreet. All the servants liked Ned: he was so easy, jolly and kind, although some worried what would happen to the Hatton fortune when Sir Hart had gone to his last rest.

Eleanor said over her shoulder to Staines, in a sudden access of her old impetuous spirit, ‘Australian, is he? D’you think he’ll be wearing his chains?’

Staines, bowing his head again, opened the double doors for her, and she entered the drawing room to find not the Australian guest but Ned, standing in front of the fireplace studying Lawrence’s portrait of Great-Aunt Almeria in her youth, which hung above it.

Eleanor resembled her father’s aunt a little, but Almeria Stanton was sterner-looking, and even her airy draperies and the posy of flowers which she was holding did not soften her austere expression. Ned had his sandy head tipped back, the better to inspect it, which struck Eleanor as amusing—as did the outlandish clothes he was wearing.

She gaily continued teasing him when he turned towards her, his back to the light so that his features were a little obscured. ‘Wearing fancy dress so as not to discommode your new friend, are you, Ned? Why didn’t you put chains on, too? Then he would have felt really at home.’

Ned looked at her. His eyes seemed bluer than ever, and they roved over her in a manner which, had he not been Ned, would have made her blush.

Alan found her enchanting. She did not resemble Ned in the least, either in manner or appearance. She was a tall girl, beautifully proportioned, elegantly dressed, from the crown of her glossy head to the toes of her well-shod feet. Ned had spoken of a sister and this must be her. Her colouring was deeper and richer than Ned’s and her hair was a raven-black in colour.

It was very plain that naughty Ned had told her of a visitor from Australia but had not seen fit to mention the likeness. His mouth twitched in involuntary amusement, but before he could identify himself Eleanor spoke again.

‘I understand that you’re taking him to Cremorne Gardens. Tell me, don’t you think that your colonial friend will be overset by such worldly sophistication?’

Before she could commit herself further, and add to her ultimate embarrassment, Alan spoke at once, privately deciding to reproach Ned for putting his pretty sister in such a false position. He had already learned enough about him to know that what had been done was deliberate.

‘You mistake, Miss Hatton,’ he told her, ‘I am not Ned.’ And he deepened the accent which he had not known he possessed until he reached England.

Eleanor’s hand flew to her mouth in an embarrassed reversion to childhood.

‘Not Ned? Then you must be the Australian visitor of whom he spoke. Oh, dear, I have been so mannerless, so gauche. How can I apologise? On the other hand you are so like Ned I can be forgiven for being tactless. Only your voice is different, and, yes, I do believe that you are even bigger than he is.’

Alan decided not to favour her with his wickedly accurate imitation of Ned’s light drawl.

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s too deep. The voice, I mean. It’s the chains. They weigh it down, you know. They took them off…’

He paused tantalisingly, still smiling. He had two sisters whom he liked to tease gently, and he wanted to see how this poised and pretty girl would react to similar treatment.

Eleanor took the bait.

‘The chains? Took them off?’

‘Yes, when we boarded the ship for England. They said that if we wore them during the journey they’d slow us down too much. The weight again.’

‘They did?’ said Eleanor, fascinated by this young man who looked so like Ned but who was yet utterly unlike him when he teased her. On closer inspection he looked very much more severe than Ned, but there was a gentleness in his manner to her which her wild brother had never possessed.

‘Yes. Sorry to disappoint you by not having ’em on.’

‘I’m not disappointed,’ said Eleanor truthfully.

‘I can see that. The Patriarch says—’

‘The Patriarch?’ Eleanor was fascinated all over again.

‘M’father. We call him the Patriarch occasionally—he does come on rather patriarchal at times. He also says that they slow you down when you’re working. So they took them off him soon after he arrived in New South Wales. More trouble than they were worth, he said.’

‘Do stop,’ said Eleanor faintly, trying not to laugh. Great-Aunt Almeria insisted that young ladies never laughed. Lord Chesterfield wouldn’t have liked it, she said. ‘You’re not a bit like Ned now that I’ve got to know you.’

‘No, I’m not,’ agreed Alan cheerfully.

‘But you do look very like him.’

‘Yes—but it was a naughty trick to play on you—and so I shall tell Ned.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have said all that to you about chains if I hadn’t thought you were Ned.’

He agreed with her, head on one side judiciously, adding, ‘Not to my face, perhaps, but afterwards.’

‘Yes, no. Oh, dear.’ She laughed out loud this time, but was saved further embarrassment by the arrival of a grinning Ned.

‘I see you’ve found one another,’ he offered carelessly.

‘Too bad of you, Ned,’ Eleanor began.

‘Miss Hatton found me,’ said Alan. ‘I didn’t do any finding. Our resemblance confused her somewhat.’

Ned’s grin was wider than ever. ‘Thought it might. Bit of a shock was it, Nell?’

‘My name is Eleanor,’ she said repressively. ‘You are quite disgraceful, Ned. I behaved very badly as a consequence of your silly trick and Mr—?’ She looked at Alan.

‘Dilhorne, Alan Dilhorne,’ he told her. ‘But then I behaved badly, too. I was a dreadful tease, I fear.’

‘Indeed you were,’ she agreed, captivated by his charm. No, he was not really very like Ned, despite the resemblance.

‘So, we are quits,’ he said to Eleanor, ignoring the grinning Ned, who was beginning to annoy him.

‘Quits,’ she agreed, and put out her hand to take his and shake it, which pleased Alan mightily.

There was no false affectation about her, despite her overwhelming air of fashion and consequence. He looked at Ned and said, only half-jokingly, ‘Beg both our pardons, Ned, and introduce me properly to your sister, there’s a good fellow.’

The note of command in his voice was such that Ned had begun to obey him when the doors opened again, and Almeria Stanton entered. Her eyebrows rose alarmingly when she saw Ned and Alan standing side by side, their two faces and figures so alike. Yet she thought that there was no doubt which was Ned. The face on the right possessed a power and a strength missing in her great-nephew’s.

Almeria sighed. Inconvenient likeness were the bane of the aristocracy’s life, but if this were the Australian visitor of whom Ned had spoken then the likeness had to be put down to chance.

But she would still like to know more of the origins of Ned’s new friend…

‘I understand that you are taking Mr Dilhorne to Cremorne Gardens tonight, Ned. I must remind you that you were out late this morning. I’m not sure that your grandfather would approve of your way of life.’

‘I’m well of age,’ said Ned sulkily.

Watching him, Alan thought that Ned Hatton was strangely juvenile, for all that he had reached his mid-twenties.

So, apparently, did his formidable great-aunt.

‘You must remember, Ned, that you are dependent upon Sir Hartley for your income—and that you do little in return for it. You make no attempt to begin to learn the management of the estate which you will one day inherit. Besides, if you are living in my home you must respect my wishes. No, I propose that you ask Mr Dilhorne to dine with us instead. Should you like that, Mr Dilhorne?’

Alan looked from Ned’s scarlet and embarrassed face to Almeria Stanton, so serene and sure of herself.

‘If Ned does not mind forgoing our entertainment this evening—and I’m sure that Cremorne Gardens will be there for another time—I should be honoured to dine with you. Although, as you see, I am not properly dressed for it.’

‘No matter. I will ring for Staines and tell him to see that another place is laid at table.’

Having done so, she sat down and began to draw out this young man who so improbably possessed her nephew’s face.

‘Since Ned has been as mannerless as usual and has failed to introduce us, I must introduce myself. I am Almeria, Lady Stanton, Ned and Eleanor’s great-aunt, and you, I believe, are Mr Alan Dilhorne. I seem to remember, from my childhood in Yorkshire, that it is a surname commonly found there, but I have not come across it in the south.’

‘It is not common where I come from, either,’ Alan told her. ‘I have no knowledge of any relatives of that name in England.’

‘I presume that you are in England on pleasure, then?’

‘Not at all,’ said Alan. He was beginning to admire this forthright old lady. He thought that Eleanor Hatton might grow to be like her in time. ‘I am here on two pieces of business. My first relates to the London branch of the family firm.’

Ned was struck by this. ‘Of course, Dilhorne and Sons! What a forgetful ass I am. My friend, George Johnstone, is manager there.’

‘Yes,’ said Alan with a small smile. ‘I know.’ He thought that the friendship revealed a great deal about Johnstone.

Almeria Stanton knew that one should not ask someone from New South Wales about his family’s origins, but she cared little for society’s rules and regulations. Besides, the resemblance was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable, and the more she could discover about this self-controlled young man—so unlike Ned in that—the better.

‘You must be a member of the Dilhorne family which, I understand from my brother-in-law, who is at the Board of Trade, runs something of an empire in Sydney and district. Pray where did your father originate from, Mr Dilhorne?’

Alan was amused, although he could see that Miss Eleanor was shocked by her great-aunt’s bluntness. The people whom he had met so far had danced around the tricky subject of his origins. He decided to give the straightforward old woman a straightforward answer, however much it might shock her or his hearers.

After all, the Patriarch had never repudiated his origins, nor sought to hide the fact that he had arrived in chains. He was always frank about his past, being neither proud nor ashamed of it.

‘I believe my father lived in London before he was transported to New South Wales.’

It was as much of the truth as he was prepared to give. Later, he was to be grateful for this early reticence.

Eleanor’s face was shocked when her unfortunate gaffe about chains came back to haunt her. Ned would have guffawed had Alan made his answer in male company, but being in his great-aunt’s presence always made his behaviour a trifle more reticent than was habitual with him.

For her part, Almeria Stanton was cool. ‘I collect that he was the architect of your family’s fortunes, Mr Dilhorne. I find that most praiseworthy, given his unfortunate start in life. But you spoke of two reasons for your visit?’

Alan was pleased to hear her ask this question. Now for the second and somewhat different bombshell.

‘My second reason is perhaps why I am here at all. I have come to clear up the business of my mother’s inheritance.’

He paused, watching for—and finding—the twitch of surprise on their faces.

Eleanor, throwing on one side all good manners which prescribed that you did not bombard new acquaintances with personal questions, but fascinated by Ned’s new friend who looked so like him but was really not like him at all, took up the inquisition.

‘Your mother’s inheritance? May we know of it, Mr Dilhorne? It must be substantial to bring you all the way from the Southern hemisphere.’

‘Indeed. My mother happens to be one of the Warings of Essendene Place in Surrey. By chance she has fallen heiress to the entire estate since Sir John Waring, who never married, left it to her. She is the daughter of Sir John’s younger brother, my grandfather, Frederick Waring, who died in Sydney before I was born. I understand that there are some distant cousins of mine in the female line who were unaware of my mother’s existence until her name appeared in Sir John’s will and who had consequently hoped to inherit Essendene. They are rightly demanding proof of her existence and I have come to furnish it.

‘I also understand that Sir John had only lately decided to leave everything to my mother, and that this, too, is causing friction. My mother hopes that if her claim is substantiated I can bring about a reconciliation of sorts, once I have settled the legal situation to the satisfaction of us all.’

Ned was looking fuddled at the end of this precise and exact recital. The two women thought all over again how little the two men really resembled one another.

Almeria’s expression was one of astonishment for another reason. ‘You are saying that your mother is one of the Warings of Essendene? I had understood that it was the Lorings who stood to inherit—through their grandmother.’

‘You mean my friend, Victor Loring?’ Ned offered. ‘I had heard that he’d had a great disappointment recently over a will. They’re as poor as church mice.’

He looked respectfully at Alan, who, despite his apparently dubious origins, had turned out to be related to one of the oldest families in England.

Alan was amused to notice by their changed expressions that his worthless grandfather, Fred, a remittance man who had died of drink, having gambled away what little he had left, leaving Alan’s mother penniless, had given him an introduction into high society which his own father’s sterling qualities could not have achieved for him.

‘Fancy that. Related to Caroline and Victor Loring,’ laughed Ned. ‘You have a whole pack of relatives over here whom you do not know. And plenty more cousins to discover, I’ll be bound. The Warings married into all the best families.’

Unspoken was the question, How did your mama come to marry an ex-felon? Politeness rendered them all silent, but left them bursting with curiosity.

Alan decided to be downright. ‘They can scarcely be expected to wish to know an Australian cousin who has come to dispossess them—for that is how they will see it.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Almeria sharply. ‘If your mother’s claim is a true one, then the laws of succession must hold.’

‘With respect, Lady Stanton, my father would not agree with you. The women in our family have been given the same rights as men. They, and my elder twin brother, Thomas and myself, all have the same legal standing. He does not hold with primogeniture or the subjection of women.’

‘Your twin,’ said Eleanor, sparkling at him. ‘Is he Ned’s double, too?’

‘Fortunately not. Begging your pardon, Ned. He is very much like my mother—and her long dead brother Rowland, she says. Except that Thomas is tall and dark while she is little and dark. Had he gone to the theatre no one would have taken him for Ned.’

Eleanor pursued a point. ‘You said that your sisters were equal in law with you and your brothers. Can that really be true? We women have so many constraints and Mr Dudley, Charles’s tutor, tells me that we have no legal existence at all.’

‘My father had contracts and settlements drawn up for them. One of his sayings is, “In matters of judgement sooner a clever woman than a dull man.”’

‘Is this commonplace in the colony, Mr Dilhorne?’

‘By no means, Lady Stanton. I fear that our women are under even more constraints than they are in England, and are even less regarded. The Patriarch—I mean my father—is, however, very much his own man.’

‘Well, he would be my man,’ said Eleanor decidedly, ‘if he treats women so well.’

‘Eleanor, you forget yourself,’ said Almeria, ever ready to rebuke her great-niece when she showed her old outlaw spirit.

Alan regarded Ned’s radiant sister with approval. There was obviously much more to her than there was to her charmingly lightweight brother.

‘With respect, Lady Stanton, I think that the Patriarch would admire Miss Hatton greatly.’

The look Eleanor gave him was glowing. His smile made her tingle all over in the oddest manner. No man had ever affected her in such a strange way before.

Throughout the dinner which followed, where Alan knew how to use all the right knives and forks—doubtless his mother’s influence being Almeria’s inward comment—the good impression which he had made on the two women grew with each passing moment.

By unspoken agreement Alan was quizzed no further until, sitting over their port, the women having retired into the little drawing room, Ned remarked, a trifle roughly for him, ‘Do you always make such a good impression on the ladies, Dilhorne?’

Alan’s answer was an oblique question. ‘Lady Stanton and Miss Hatton approved of me, then?’

‘You know dam’d well they did.’

‘Excellent. It’s nice to know.’

The contrast between the two men could not have been more marked. Ned drank heavily of the port, Alan drank little, and by the time they rejoined Almeria and Eleanor in the drawing room Ned’s drawl was already blurred. He was not entirely sure that he liked his women approving so much of his new friend—it took a little of his pleasure in him away.

Alan, meantime, contented himself with admiring both Miss Hatton and her great-aunt, for entirely different reasons!

Eleanor Hatton had to admit that she was fascinated by Ned’s new friend. It was not the likeness which intrigued her, but the differences between them. Not only was Alan so much cleverer than Ned, but she also liked Alan’s easy athletic carriage, which was such a strong contrast to Ned’s slouch.

For the first time in her short life she found sleep slow in coming. She relived her first meeting with Alan: something which she had never done before. Her great-aunt had said to her after he had left, ‘Mr Dilhorne seems to be a worthy young man, my dear, despite his doubtful origins. We must not condemn a man because of his father’s mistakes.’

‘The Essendene connection must count for something, too,’ Eleanor had said, trying not to sound too eager.

‘If it’s proved,’ Almeria had replied dryly—although she had no real doubts. ‘It’s hard on the Lorings, though.’

Eleanor agreed. Caroline Loring, a shy, pretty girl, was one of her London friends—although she had told Eleanor nothing about the problem of the Essendene inheritance. Consequently, the next afternoon Eleanor took the Stantons’ carriage and was driven to Russell Square, where the Lorings, Alan’s cousins, lived.

They were all at home: tea was just being served. Victor, who had been about to go out, put down his gloves, hat and cane when she was announced, and returned to the drawing room.

‘I’ve decided to stay for tea after all,’ he said.

He was already half in love with Eleanor, and the fact that she was Sir Hartley Hatton’s granddaughter, and would have a good dowry when she married and stood to inherit even more when the old man died, was an attraction to a man whose family was perennially short of money.

Eleanor was not sure how much she liked Victor. At first she had been drawn to him, because he was not only tall and dark, but handsome as well. Unfortunately he did not improve on further acquaintance, and if she was not sure whether or not she wished to marry Stacy she had no doubt that Victor would not do as a husband. His manner to his mother and his sister was frequently unpleasant and dismissive.

That his manner to Eleanor was always charming and courteous somehow made matters worse, not better. Only pity for Caroline kept her friendly with the Lorings at all. Victor, armoured in conceit, was quite unaware of her aversion to him.

Today the conversation turned immediately to the question of Hester Dilhorne’s claim to the Waring fortune and estates. It was like a sore tooth to Victor, and to a lesser extent to his mother and sister. Their father had already succumbed—at a relatively early age—to his dissolute life. He had been a boon companion of Ned Hatton’s father and uncle.

Before Eleanor had time to tell them that she had met Hester Dilhorne’s son, Victor exclaimed viciously, in the middle of a long tirade, ‘How do we know that the dam’d woman, her felon husband, and the whole Dilhorne family aren’t gross impostors anyway?’

‘Oh, Victor, we’ve been over all this before,’ said his mother wearily. ‘You know that the lawyers have affidavits from Sir Patrick Ramsay and Colonel Frank Wright testifying that they knew your great-uncle Fred, and Hester. Colonel Wright was even a guest at her wedding to Tom Dilhorne. There’s no real cause for doubt, I’m sorry to say.’

‘Then why did your cousin Hester forget herself and marry a dam’d ex-felon is what I want to know?’ said Victor ferociously, forgetting his manners and his speech before ladies. ‘And why did Sir John lose his mind and settle everything on her?’

‘I expect that there were few others she could marry,’ said Caroline quietly.

‘Well, she should have had nothing to do with the brute, remained a spinster and not done us out of what we had come to expect.’

Eleanor decided that this was one of the days when she disliked Victor. She was remembering the pride and affection with which Alan Dilhorne had spoken of his father, the man Victor was calling a brute.

‘I met Hester Dilhorne’s son last night,’ she said at last, when Victor had run down.

Victor was incredulous. ‘Met him? Here? In London?’

‘Well, I could hardly have met him in Sydney, Australia, could I?’ asked Eleanor reasonably, unable to resist teasing Victor a little, even at this serious juncture. ‘Ned met him by accident at the theatre the other evening and brought him home to dinner last night. Only fancy. He is Ned’s double, but bigger, I think. His name is Alan Dilhorne.’

‘Looks like Ned, only bigger, named Dilhorne, and here in England. The whole thing grows more unlikely every minute—which I have already told you, Mama.’

Really, thought Eleanor, Victor can be very wearisome at times.

‘He can scarcely be a gentleman if he comes from Botany Bay and is an ex-felon’s son,’ ranted Victor. ‘How in the world did Lady Stanton allow such a creature to sit down to dinner with her at all?’

‘His manners are perfectly good, although I admit that his clothes are odd,’ said Eleanor, suddenly indignant on Alan’s behalf. ‘He struck me as remarkably clever, although Ned laughed when I said so. “No one with his face could be clever,” he said. Great-Aunt agreed with me, not him.’

She did not add that her great-aunt had said that the young man was inconveniently clever, and was apparently not aware of it. Almeria had noticed, even on this short acquaintance, that young Dilhorne appeared to be able to control Ned, a feat which no one else had ever performed.

He had reconciled Ned to his loss of the Cremorne expedition, and had quietly checked him at dinner when Ned had begun to speak of unsuitable topics before Eleanor. Later, when Charles had come down into the drawing room after dinner, he had entranced him by telling him of his intention to inspect railway lines and engines while he was in England, Charles being of a mechanical bent.

His charm was enormous, and it had certainly impressed Eleanor and Almeria, as well as Ned and Charles. Eleanor found herself spiritedly defending him.

After Victor had indulged in some further rant, for his anger at being dispossessed had been fuelled by the arrival in England of one of his dispossessors, Eleanor said quietly, ‘You know, Cousin Clara—’ she was distantly related to Victor’s mother ‘—I think that Victor wrongs him. Mr Dilhorne said that his mother was all for a reconciliation with you, and with his other relatives in England whom she does not know, and that he hopes to achieve one before he leaves.’

‘A likely tale,’ sneered Victor, ‘and easy for him to say when he has taken all.’

Eleanor decided all over again that this was one of the days when she definitely disliked Victor. ‘Seeing that he is the younger twin, and that his father apparently does not believe in primogeniture, he will only take his share. Furthermore, since the lawyers took some time to trace his mama, she could scarcely have connived at influencing Sir John.’

Clara Loring took a hand when Victor, red in the face, began to answer Eleanor.

‘You have to admit that it is quite beyond us to affect matters now, Victor,’ she said wearily. ‘The young man must have brought proof of Cousin Hester’s existence and her marriage, so we must reconcile ourselves to accepting that Sir John’s will must stand. It is both unmannerly and fruitless to continue to rail at fate. It is certainly not poor Eleanor’s fault that Ned has become acquainted with him. If it proves that the lawyers are satisfied by the young man’s evidence, it will be our duty to receive him, once at least, for my cousin Hester’s sake. Let that be all for now.’

‘But, Mama,’ began Victor.

‘No, that is quite enough. There are other topics to occupy us. Eleanor will think us all savages to go on so. Tell me, my dear, when do you hope to return to Yorkshire? I know how much you miss the country.’

‘I don’t know exactly when I shall go home,’ murmured Eleanor, relieved that the question of the Waring inheritance had been dropped. ‘I suppose when Great-Aunt thinks that I am sufficiently polished.’

‘You look remarkably well polished to me,’ said Victor, who was suddenly worried that his recent churlishness might have put Eleanor off him. He was not wrong. Eleanor did not like this new face which Victor had shown her, so different from that of his usually easy self. His anger over the whole business seemed excessive.

Victor could have told her that it was not. The Lorings had been financially desperate even before his own folly had made matters worse. The prospect of inheriting Essendene, and his possible marriage to Eleanor, were the only things which had kept them going.

They had borrowed heavily on their expectations.

Their creditors would allow them no more rope once Hester Dilhorne’s claim had been proved. What would happen to them after that Victor dared not imagine. Only a rich marriage could save them, otherwise they were ruined.

He devoted his efforts to trying to charm Eleanor again, but she left earlier than she had intended. Her manner to him was as pleasant as usual, but he was unhappily aware that that meant nothing: Almeria Stanton had turned her into the very model of a complete young lady of fashion, who never gave any of her true feelings away.

By the way that Eleanor had carried on about that colonial swine, Dilhorne, he had obviously made it his business to win her over—which was another nail in the coffin of Victor’s hopes.