Page 35 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)
When it took place a few days later, the journey to Clapham was one of consummate embarrassment.
A hansom cab had room for just two passengers.
It was not that McGregor took up a lot of room – he was a very thin man – but to have him sit so close, arms rigidly folded and face grim, as the cab jolted and rumbled over London streets first familiar and then unfamiliar, made Stuffy feel horribly self-conscious.
He was sure people were staring at him: a wealthy man in silk hat and an overcoat with a fur collar (it was May, and a fine day, but he was always afraid of feeling the cold) crammed into a common cab with his manservant sitting beside him!
It was not long before he wished he had asked Caroline for her carriage after all.
After they crossed the river – on a bridge he had not known existed – they passed some very mean streets and he began to wish fervently that he had not come at all.
But then things got better: the streets got wider, though they still had an alien, south-of-the-river look, and the houses larger, and then they came to an open space with green grass and fine mature plane trees, and eventually pulled up in front of a handsome white-stuccoed house, with a mansard roof and an in-and-out sweep round a clump of shrubs and small trees.
Obviously the dwelling of a man of taste and means.
The jarvey opened the hatch. ‘This is it, guv’nor,’ he said.
Stuffy was glad to discover the Arthurs were so prosperous.
It was a house he would not be ashamed to see any of his friends living in.
The door was opened by a footman, who took his card and invited him into a large, grand entrance hall.
He relieved him of his hat and coat, which were received seamlessly by a trim maid who was standing by, then showed him into a spacious and well-furnished drawing-room.
There were some unusual objects displayed here and there about the room, which he supposed were relics dug up from archaeological sites.
They did not seem particularly decorative to him, but then neither were many of the family heirlooms he saw scattered around the drawing-rooms of his friends and relatives.
He himself had some hideous famille noire vases that had belonged to his grandmother and which had stood on the same console for so long he barely registered their presence.
The door opened and Mary Arthur came in, crossed the room with a welcoming smile, shook his hand, and said, ‘Lord Leake, what a pleasant surprise. What brings you to this part of the world?’
He realised that this was a difficult question to answer.
He had been carried away by the determination to see the glorious creature again, but could hardly offer that as a reason for calling.
‘Oh, er – passing, dear lady, passing, you know,’ he said vaguely.
And then, suddenly afraid she might not know who he was, he added, ‘Lady Rachel’s uncle, you know – we met at the ball the other night. ’
‘Of course I remember,’ Mary Arthur said. ‘Won’t you please sit down? May I offer you a glass of wine?’
While he was arranging himself on a sofa, she rang the bell, and the footman came in so immediately he must have been waiting outside in the hall. ‘Sherry, please, Thomas. And would you ask Miss Lombardi to come down.’
Stuffy’s heart jumped at the last words. He had been wondering how to introduce her to the conversation. ‘I hope Miss Lombardi was not tired after the exertions of the ball?’ he said.
‘Not at all,’ said Mary, smiling. ‘The young, I think, can never be tired out by dancing. My husband is not at home at present. He will be sorry to have missed you. He is spending the day, as he so often does, at the British Museum. The Egyptian rooms. Are you interested in antiquities, sir?’
Stuffy felt he probably ought to be. ‘You have some – er – interesting objects in this room, I couldn’t help noticing.
That – er – manikin, for instance.’ He gestured at random at a figurine, which appeared to be missing an arm and most of its face, and was wearing a very peculiar sort of nightcap, which was standing upright instead of flopping over.
‘Oh, the god Horus,’ she said. ‘Yes, we were very pleased to find that. Quite rare in that condition.’
‘What a pity it got broken,’ he said kindly.
‘It is over two thousand years old,’ Mary said gently. ‘Some damage is inevitable, especially when something has been buried all that time.’
‘Ah. Quite,’ said Stuffy. He cast around in vain for another topic.
Mary said, ‘Do you make much stay in London? Giles – Lord Stainton – has mentioned you to us on occasion. I believe you live in Northumberland?’
‘Oh, that’s the family seat. I have a place in Perthshire, too, and another in Norfolk, but I don’t spend much time at any of ’em. You travel a lot, I believe? Abroad, and so on? Spend much time here?’
‘This is our home,’ she said, faintly amused, ‘but we go on digs whenever we can.’
Stuffy thought for a moment she’d said ‘in digs’ and was puzzled why they would live in digs when they had a perfectly decent house, but then he made the connection with archaeology and said, ‘Ah!’
At that moment, the door opened to admit Giulia, closely followed by the footman with the sherry tray. Stuffy rose to his feet, his eyes flying to her face and the blood to his own.
Giulia exchanged an enigmatic glance with Mary Arthur, then extended a cool hand to the visitor. ‘Lord Leake,’ she said, without inflection. ‘How nice to see you again.’
At the touch of her fingers, Stuffy went to pieces. Only a lifetime of urbanity allowed him to speak at all. ‘Just passing, you know – felt I had to check – no ill effects from the ball – late night – overheated rooms – your magnificent exertions—’
She released him and sat down, and said calmly, ‘I am perfectly well, thank you. It was a very fine occasion, was it not? It was agreeable to me to see Giles’s family in pieno splendore .
It has been hard sometimes to remember that he is an English lord, when I see him mostly in shirtsleeves and streaked with mud. ’
‘You have known Giles a long time,’ Stuffy said.
‘More years than I can remember. He is like a big brother to me.’
An apprehension he had not even realised he had left Stuffy’s mind. He felt suddenly cheerful. ‘Very good fellow, Giles. One of the best. You have no brothers of your own?’
‘No, I am the only child – cherished and spoiled. Do you have brothers?’
‘Sisters. Three of ’em.’ He thought a moment.
‘I suppose I was spoiled too. The youngest, doted on. Ah, thank you, ma’am, most kind.
’ He received a glass of sherry from Mary, sipped, and pronounced it excellent.
He wanted, out of politeness, to address some conversation to her, but his eyes and mind were dragged inexorably back to Giulia, who seemed to glow as she sat on another sofa at a little distance in a simple dark green day dress.
The colour, he thought, would be his favourite from now on.
‘You are from Italy, I believe?’ he asked, longing to hear her voice again.
‘From Firenze,’ she said
‘Ah, Florence! Le atene del rinascimento ,’ he said. The Athens of the Renaissance. He seemed to remember someone had once called it that. Or was that Edinburgh? No, that was the Athens of the North.
Giulia’s eyebrows had risen. ‘You speak Italian?’ she said in surprise.
‘Oh, a few words,’ he said modestly. ‘I learned it as a boy, as one does, but one forgets, you know, one forgets. But,’ he remembered gladly, ‘I have a little place in Italy. In Venice. The Ca’ Scozzesi, on the San Benito canal.
Bought by my grandfather, and he left it to me.
I’ve visited a few times. Do you know Venice? ’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have been there with my parents.’
‘Beautiful city,’ Mary said. ‘Talbot and I had our honeymoon there.’
‘Ah! Perfect. Perfect city for a honeymoon,’ Stuffy said, unaccountably looking at Giulia as he spoke.
‘I should like to go back. Always liked Venice. Shame to leave the house empty. But these old palazzi need a mistress to bring them alive.’ He made himself address Mary. ‘Where did you stay in Venice?’
A conversation grew up, encompassing Venice and Florence – happily for Stuffy, a three-way conversation.
And, happily too, he had done the grand tour with a tutor in his youth and had therefore visited the important sights, the galleries and the museums, so he was able to appear in a good light – not just an idle rich man but a man of education, too.
He had not finished one dance with Giulia before realising that intellectual attainments were important to her.
As the conversation waxed, she seemed to warm.
At last he asked, ‘And what have you been doing, since you came to London – apart from dancing the soles out of your slippers at a grand ball?’
Mary answered for her. ‘Giulia has been seeing the sights. It is her first visit to London. We have taken the day off today, but we shall resume tomorrow.’
‘Indeed? And what do you see tomorrow?’
‘Westminster Abbey,’ Mary said, ‘and the Houses of Parliament, if we have time.’
Excitement rushed up inside Stuffy as he saw the opportunity. ‘Oh, but, my dear ladies, you must allow me to show you around the House. It is rather my milieu . And perhaps entertain you to tea on the terrace afterwards.’
Mary consulted Giulia with a glance, but she answered at once, ‘That is very kind of you, sir. We shall be very happy.’