“Dear me, Miss Hillingdon. Is it any wonder that I am remiss about our appointments? You are not at one of your lectures now, and I should rather like to finish my dinner without being subjected to an improving course of instruction. I will certainly not have you hectoring the ladies of Mayfair from a soapbox. There is no shortage of advertisers, you know. That page of yours might easily be put to other uses.”
Octavia rose and smoothed down her gown, at which the porter who loomed near her chair withdrew by a fraction. She raised her chin as she addressed Mr. Healy. “I need hardly remind you, sir, that my grandfather is still your employer.”
“Your grandfather—for so we must refer to him—was always a man of great decorum. If he were still in his senses, he would rein you in himself. And he would take a dim view of this little spectacle.”
Felix Hillingdon had thought of children late in life, and on adopting Octavia and her brother, he had chosen not to style himself their father. To do so, he later explained, would have been to claim a youth and vigour he no longer possessed, even if he had affection still in abundance. It was a question that never troubled the family in the slightest, and one that was alluded to by no one else but Mr. Healy.
“My grandfather knew a story when he saw one, Mr. Healy, until his affliction. He would have paid no attention to ridiculous tales about stealing souls in Whitechapel, but he would have found it curious, as I did, that Lord Strythe seemed so thoroughly satisfied with a bill that hardly imposed a single obligation or penalty on any employer that did not exist before, and that his only stated concern, in sending it back down, was with the funding of institutions such as his own. My grandfather would have found all that peculiar, and would have wondered at any newspaperman who did not.”
And her grandfather, she might have added, would have found Lord Strythe himself peculiar. Octavia had observed him carefully from the gallery, and he had seemed to her a vain and aloof figure. She had passed him in the lobby as he was helped into his cloak, and though his gaze had settled on her for only a moment, she had never felt so closely examined. A cold fish, her grandfather would have said, though Healy would no doubt dismiss the notion. A devilish cold fish.
“A moment, Miss Hillingdon.” Mr. Healy detached his napkin and settled back in his chair, raising a hand to keep the porter at bay. “Do not trouble yourself, Flett. The lady will be leaving presently, and I will see her to the door myself.”
Octavia seated herself again, and for a moment she and Mr. Healy confronted one another in silence.
“Very well, then,” he said at length. “Here is my offer, Miss Hillingdon, since you will give me no peace until I make one. I draw the line at suffragist claptrap, as you very well know, but I am not so benighted as you suppose. I will consider the thing if it is done in the right way. If Lord Strythe is to be honoured for his good works, as you say, then the moment may be right to give the reader an impression of the man.”
“But that is just what I propose, Mr. Healy.”
He held up a plump palm. “An impression of him, I say, but one that takes account of his standing. He is not much in view for a man of his station, and the reader may therefore be interested to learn how he diverts himself. Has he a fondness for the opera, let us say, or does he keep a lodge in the Highlands for shooting at grouse? That is what is wanted.”
“Well, perhaps, but I do think—”
“What is not wanted, Miss Hillingdon, is sniping and insinuation about the fellow’s politics, or any pot-banging about the inequities of our social order or the plight of the working poor. If you can bring yourself to keep within that gauge, then perhaps I will begin to see your true promise. If not, it will be the last time you stray from your little paddock. Is that plain?”
An answer came to Octavia that she chose to suppress. She gave a brief nod.
“Furthermore, you may nurse whatever private opinions you see fit, but I will not have us continually outdone in this Spiriters business. You have a marvellous knack for finding things out, when you are moved to it, and it will not cause you any mortal agony to put it to more general use. Take yourself down to Whitechapel or Spitalfields, or to a seance, to hear what talk there may be among the spiritualists. Fellows who would go out stealing souls may well be known in such circles. Begin your appreciation of Lord Strythe, by all means, but do not think of bringing it to me unless you have something on the Spiriters in your other hand. Have we a bargain, Miss Hillingdon?”
Octavia looked down for a moment at her lap. It was hardly a resounding victory, yet it was a good deal more ground than Mr. Healy had ever yielded before.
“We have,” she said at last.
“Splendid,” said Mr. Healy, rising. “Now, if you don’t mind, I should like to take my coffee in peace. And as for you, Miss Hillingdon, it seems to me that you have work to do.”
III
AT ASHENDEN HOUSE, Octavia was more discreet in disposing of her bicycle. The possession of a bicycle, to Lady Ashenden’s guests, might be considered tolerable or even charming in the abstract, but they would not expect to confront the physical article as they descended from their town coaches. Whatever her private sympathies, Octavia was obliged for now to ingratiate herself in such circles, and doing so required that she maintain certain appearances.
It required, too, that she keep up cordial relations with people of influence, even those who shared none of her convictions. She counted some of these as friends, after a fashion, and seldom wanted for company on occasions of this kind. Indeed, she had hardly been announced when Charles Elphinstone, the Marquess of Hartington, broke off a conversation to greet her, relieving the other party of two bumpers of champagne. “You toddle back for more, Findlay,” he said. “You will profit from the exercise, goodness knows, and poor Miss Hillingdon looks quite parched.”
He kissed her lightly on each cheek. “Wavy, my darling,” he said, “how captivating you look, though you are quite blue from the cold. Surely you haven’t been careening about on that preposterous bicycle of yours on a night like this? One might as well be in Nova Scotia, or some such accursed place. Christ, how I loathe the cold.”
“Hello, Elf,” she said, accepting a glass. In her articles, he was Lord Hartington or, on great occasions, the Most Honourable Marquess of Hartington. Among friends, at his own insistence, he was simply Elf. “Are you suffering terribly? You don’t look it, you know. You’re positively tanned.”
“Hmm?” Elf raised his glass to a passing acquaintance, mouthing something of mischievous significance. “Oh, yes. I spent most of last October in Paris, where I was supposed to be learning about their innovations in policing. I’m on a select committee, you see. Only they were having the most glorious Indian summer, and the Bois de Boulogne was simply Arcadian. You can’t imagine the picnics. I’ve been back for months, though, and all that joie de vivre is steadily leaching away. I’m positively ravenous, too, which doesn’t help. I do resent balls that start late. One never has time to dine acceptably, and one is offered nothing but trifles. Legs of honeyed pullet, if you can credit that. What good is a leg of honeyed pullet to anyone but a sickly child?”
“Goodness, how you have suffered,” said Octavia. “Still, it’s a relief to learn that you do have some public function. Speaking of which, I hope you did the right thing in the vote this evening. I couldn’t pick you out from where I was sitting.”