Page 23 of The Book of Lost Stories

Bearding Lions

Cicely retreated to her remote turret, feeling at one with the menagerie of wild beasts that were kept in the east tower, wretched in their captivity.

Ravish’d by Cruel Fate by ORLANDO brOWNE

Alys continued to take Pug for a brief airing every morning, before setting out to view those sights of interest recommended by her guidebook. Nell’s page, Sammy, now accompanied her as a sop to propriety, and if people still stared at her rudely, perhaps that was just the way of Londoners?

Through trial and error she had come to realize that her guidebook was a little out of date, for several of the amusements had vanished while others, like some of the pleasure gardens, had fallen out of fashion and grown sadly shabby.

Also, having dutifully viewed the exterior of several imposing buildings including the Bank of England at Cornhill, and the Royal Exchange, she felt no desire to go inside them.

On the morning of her interview with her grandfather she visited the Tower, thinking it would put her in the right mood for bearding old lions in their dens.

It proved to be both gloomy and melancholy, for so many terrible things had happened within those grim walls.

She also found the imprisoned menagerie of wild beasts quite sad, although Sammy declared it to have been a rare treat.

She returned in time to breakfast with Nell, then sat with her in the narrow but elegant drawing room to receive the increasing numbers of visitors who were returning to Town.

So far Nell’s friends and acquaintances had not deigned to show much interest in her country friend, once they had ascertained that she was not a great heiress and claimed no illustrious relations, but she did like the Misses Berry, sisters no longer in their youth.

The liking appeared to be mutual, for the elder, Miss Mary Berry, warmly seconded by Miss Agnes, invited her to come with Nell to their next salon.

When they had departed, Nell said this was a signal honour, ‘For although they are not rich, they provide no entertainment and the refreshments are meagre in the extreme, all the great, the good, the interesting, the political, the literary – oh, anyone of any interest – wishes to be seen at their salons. They are always enjoyable.’

‘Indeed? Then I should very much like to go.’

‘You will. It shall be your first public engagement and, who knows, perhaps you will then get a taste for parties.’

‘I do not think so. I believe I am starting to long for the bleak moorland already, and even the gentle bleating of sheep. But I thought the Misses Berry delightful and look forward to furthering my acquaintance with them.’

‘Of what were you talking so earnestly?’

‘Oh, they were describing how they used to visit Sir Horace Walpole’s house at Strawberry Hill, which sounds wonderfully Gothic, and that led on, of course, to a discussion of the Castle of Otranto and the rest of the genre.

Although we share a preference for secret passages and chambers in the novels we read, I seem to be alone in liking underground ones best.’

‘There is something very tomb-like about underground chambers,’ Nell said with a shudder, ‘and then, too, they always seem to be full of rats and spiders.’

‘Well, I have no great fondness for rats myself,’ admitted Alys, ‘although spiders I do not mind in the least.’

‘I hope you were careful not to let slip anything that might lead them to think you are an author?’

‘No, and I most virtuously resisted the impulse to press them for an opinion on the works of Orlando Browne.’

‘So I should hope!’

‘I did not have to,’ Alys said with an impish smile.

‘Miss Berry confessed that she thought them quite shocking but could not forbear reading them, and her sister agreed. They said they had not the least idea who Orlando Browne might be, but apparently there has been a rumour spreading that it is a young man called Daniel Coalport.’

‘Daniel Coalport? Why, he is the youngest son of one of my Aunt Becky’s friends and the idlest, most foppish young man you ever saw in your life! He fancies himself a poet, and his mama paid to have a volume of his verse printed,’ Nell said, ‘only it did not take.’

‘Miss Agnes said that he did not deny being the author when asked, just shook his head and smiled. But she was sure he was not, and just putting on airs to be interesting. It was all I could do not to tell her that he was not the author, but myself!’

‘Oh, do say you did not!’

‘No, but I think perhaps I will go with Mr Grimshaw to deliver the next manuscript to the Minerva Press, so that they at least will know who the real author is.’

‘If you think it best,’ Nell said doubtfully. ‘How very surprised they will be, to be sure.’

*

Although outwardly self-possessed, Alys felt nervous, wondering what her reception would be, as the carriage drew up at the door of her grandfather’s imposing mansion.

Then the servant knocked for admittance, the steps were let down and she was ushered into the marble-flagged hallway and conducted to Mr Titus Hartwood’s own apartments.

‘Miss Weston,’ announced the manservant, opening a pair of doors on to a gloomy, lofty-ceilinged chamber, and she advanced into the room with more assurance than she felt.

Crimson brocade curtains shut out half the light and the room was hot, for a fire roared in the grate. Seated before it in a large, carved chair was the hunched figure of an elderly man, regarding her intently from under bushy eyebrows drawn into a ferocious frown.

‘Come here, girl!’ he rapped out. ‘I cannot get up. This damned rheumatism has me twisted into knots.’

Alys walked forward, dropped a slight curtsy and said, ‘Good day, sir.’ Then she stood, regarding him with undisguised curiosity.

‘You resemble your mother,’ he said, after a moment or two, and she thought she detected some flicker of emotion in his voice, although his stern face remained inflexible.

‘Do I? I have never seen a portrait of her, so I have no means of knowing, although both my father and my uncle said that she was small and delicately made, which I am not, as you see.’

‘No, but your face – your eyes especially – are similar … although Rayven tells me you are not such a fool as your mother.’

‘Rayven? Do you mean Lord Rayven?’

‘Of course. His family and the Hartwoods have been long associated with each other. I saw him the other day and he said he had made your acquaintance.’

Alys said nothing. However, she would dearly have liked to have known what else Lord Rayven had said about her.

‘You may sit down.’

Alys did so, calmly folding her hands in her lap. Her grandfather was a little alarming, it was true, but unlike her papa appeared to be unlikely to throw his snuffbox or any other missile at her head.

‘So, miss, you say you have the golden Poseidon jewel in your possession?’

‘Is that what you call it? I have been thinking of the figure as Neptune, but I suppose it is much the same. But, indeed, I do have it and will be happy to return it to you.’

‘I should certainly be interested in hearing your terms for parting with it.’

‘Terms? I am afraid I do not understand your meaning, sir. There are no terms. You may have it back directly.’ Taking it from her reticule, still wrapped in the old bit of silk in which she had originally found it, she handed it to him.

His gnarled hands closed around it. Then, with fumbling, dry fingers that rasped against the material, he unwrapped it so that the gold and jewels gleamed dully in the firelight.

‘I thought your father might have disposed of it,’ he said slowly, ‘for he was a fool of a gambler as well as a fortune-hunter, and this was all the fortune he gained by running off with my daughter. But I suppose he knew that if he tried to sell something so distinctive, I would hear of it.’

‘You do my father an injustice in thinking so, for it was concealed in a secret compartment in my mother’s jewel box, and it is clear he did not know she had it. I discovered it only when he gave me the box many years later.’

‘He did not know? But the letters I sent him, demanding its return …’

‘Yes, I saw them when I was sorting out his belongings after his death. There was a misunderstanding. You were both talking at cross-purposes for, when you demanded back the “treasure of your house”, he thought you meant Mama .’

‘Your mother was lost to me from the moment she fled for the Border, with her head stuffed full of foolish notions. And look where they brought her: to Beggar’s Cross and an early death!’

Alys bit back an unwise comment on fathers who could cast aside their only child in such an unforgiving manner, and instead remarked, ‘I have often wondered how Mama came to have the jewel in her possession, for a young girl cannot have worn such a thing.’

‘She loved it from first catching sight of it as a child,’ he said gruffly. ‘I indulged her; let her play with it. She said it was lucky. I knew when I looked for it and found it gone, that she must have it.’

‘Perhaps she did wrong to take it, but you have it back now, sir, and there’s an end to it.’

‘Yes, but what I want to know is, what do you think to gain by meekly handing over such a valuable bargaining tool, without coming to terms first? Do you think to cozen me into acknowledging you? To worm your way into my good graces? Well?’ He scowled formidably at her.

A less intrepid woman – or one unused to the irascible nature of the invalid male – might have quailed in her little kid half-boots.

Instead, Alys stood up and replied scornfully, ‘My sole purpose in coming here today was at your request, in order to return something that belonged to you and over which I had no right of disposal. I did not desire this meeting and I require nothing from you. I wish you good day.’

She was almost at the door when his voice arrested her. ‘Hoity-toity! Come back here, miss!’