Lady Polly Part 19

"It was a bad day when he escaped. How close are you to retaking him?"

Lord Henry was looking just as implacable.

"Close enough," he said.

"Maybe it would have been last night if I hadn't been diverted on to other matters!"

"And at Hamp stead?"

Henry shrugged.

"A rumour... a suggestion that he had been seen. You know how it is, Sea grave--the rum ours have him everywhere from Clerkenwell to Chelsea! But yesterday I was closing in. I had found out where he had been hiding."

"At the Royal Humane Society?" Sea grave asked, with a smile.

"Polly mentioned that she and Lucille had seen you there! They were most impressed by your interest in charitable work, old chap!"

Lord Henry laughed reluctantly.

"The only act of benevolence I would like to commit at present is ridding the earth of sc.u.m like Chapman! It was a masterstroke on his part to use the Society as cover. They are so tied up with their own generosity that they do not even press a fellow for his name. And what is one unkempt and ragged fugitive amongst so many dispossessed, looking for a few nights' shelter?"

"And the tale of a rich protector?" Sea graves asked, putting down his empty coffee cup.

Lord Henry hesitated.

"I have my suspicions..."

Sea grave nodded.

"Well, I had better be going. But I do thank you. Harry.

If you had not intervened. I hope it has not damaged your chances of taking your man. " Lord Henry gave him a rueful smile and shook Sea- grave's proffered hand.

At the door the Earl paused.

"If you ever need any help, just let me know. Oh, and Harry--' The younger man looked at him enquiringly, "Be careful," Sea grave said.

"I realise why you intervened last night and I would not wish anything to prevent you from eventually making your declaration!"

And he raised his cane in mocking salute and left a startled Lord Henry staring at the door.

Chapter Seven.

Q<$zs$> ).

London wilted in the heat of a blazing July.

Polly, made lethargic with the combination of heat and the shock of the riot, kept largely to her room, whiling the time away reading or playing patience until Jessie told her sharply that she was turning into a recluse. She hardly cared. Each night her sleep was broken by s.n.a.t.c.hes of nightmare in which grasping hands captured her and dragged her away to unspeakable places.

She would wake in tears, gasping for breath, comforted only when she realised that she was safe in her bed. During the day she had no energy or inclination to go out and gradually the invitations decreased, although plenty of callers still came to see the Dowager Countess and sympathise with her over her ordeal. Polly had not seen Lord Henry since the night that he had rescued them and rumour had it that he had left London on some of the mysterious, unspecified business that seemed to take him away sometimes.

Polly's heart ached. She had needed to see Henry again, wanted to thank him, and now she felt dissatisfied that matters had somehow ended in an unsatisfactory way.

Whilst Polly played patience and the Dowager Countess languished artistically, Lucille had persuaded Nicholas to make good his promise of a belated wedding trip to Scotland and the Lake District. Meanwhile, Peter Sea grave announced with bravado that he would be spending the summer at a very racy houseparty in Buckingham s.h.i.+re at the seat of Lord Weller den.

The Weller den carousals were almost legendary for their deep play and libidinous entertainments The Dowager Countess's mouth turned down in a line of decided disapproval when she heard his plans, but she said nothing and Nicholas just commented that since Peter had evidently chosen to go to h.e.l.l, he might as well do it in fine style. Remembering Nicholas's own h.e.l.l raising some years before his marriage, Polly thought that he had probably been wise in leaving Peter to follow his own course.

The Dowager Countess's intention to spend the summer in Bright on had been quite overset by the shock of being caught up in the riot and she had decided to go instead to the Sea grave estates in Suffolk, where the country peace might help calm her shattered nerves.

"Are you sure that you wish to accompany me to Dilling ham, Polly?"

Lady Sea grave asked, a little dubiously, when Polly had said that she preferred to visit Suffolk rather than go to the south coast.

"The country is very slow and we could easily arrange for you to go to Bright on. The Bells are taking a house on the Steyne and I am sure they would be pleased to have your company, or perhaps the Da cres, but it must be your choice..."

She looked at her daughter with concern. Polly had been pale and listless since that horrible night, and her unwillingness to go out and shyness in company worried her mother.

Surely the girl needed entertainment and companions.h.i.+p rather than to hide herself away? She would never get over her experiences if she became a hermit!

Polly looked out at the dusty street and thought of the jostling, raffish Bright on crowds. The world and his wife would be at the seaside and there would be company and b.a.l.l.s and soirees. And at Dilling ham there would be the sun on the corn fields and the river tumbling to the cold sea and the call of the plovers. And, of course, there was the chance that Lord Henry March night might be in Wood bridge if his plans had not changed since that momentous day at Richmond.

"Most singular," Sir G.o.dfrey Or bison observed with disapproval, when acquainted with the Dowager Countess's plan and the fact that his G.o.ddaughter proposed to immure herself in the middle of nowhere for the summer.

"Tell you what, Cecil ia, you'll never get that girl married off if she persists in this eccentric behaviour! Why, I wash my hands of her!

She'll die an old maid! " He warmed to his theme, sticking out his ample stomach in its embroidered waistcoat.

"And as for that foolish young puppy, Peter, I've heard he's going to Weller den's place at Wy combe," he growled.

"d.a.m.ned fool of a boy, wasting his substance on women and gambling.

Don't know what this family is coming to, Cecil ia! Dashed bad form!"

In the event, Suffolk proved nowhere near as dull as Sir G.o.dfrey might have imagined. The arrival of the Sea graves and the Dit tons from London amplified the existing gentry families such as the Fan-ants and Fitzgeralds, and there were plenty of parties, outings and entertainments.

Indeed, it sometimes seemed that the whole of the Town had made its way to Suffolk that summer, and four weeks later, when Nicholas and Lucille returned early from their wedding trip, Dilling ham Court really came to life.

"Lucille is in a Delicate Condition," the Dowager Countess said coyly to Polly, the evening after her son and daughter-in-law had arrived back.

"She needs to rest, and what better place than here in the good country air?

And though I am desolated to be so soon a grandmother, I am delighted that she is enceinte. It is wonderful news!"

Polly had been visiting the Fitzgeralds when Lord and Lady Sea grave had returned and so was not able to see her sister-in-law until the next morning.

Lucille did indeed look a wan sight, propped up on her lacy pillows, her face a creamish white and her huge blue eyes shadowed with purple.

"I feel wretched," Lucille admitted in response to Polly's anxious enquiry.

"We were having such a nice time as well--the scenery was so beautiful--then suddenly I began to feel hideously unwell and could hardly bear to be cooped up in the carriage all those hours!" She shrugged.