Free Althea by Madeleine E. Robins Page B

anything.”
    “I am sorry that he should have had the opportunity to speak
to you in such terms, Miss Ervine, and that I did not task him with it. But it
is always so with Calendar, I believe. He has a reputation as a cynic, which he
preens upon all occasions — I think it very ill bred of him. There is no
accounting for the taste of others: some people find him most amiable.” Althea
wondered if there was not a touch of priggishness to Pendarly’s speech, but at
the moment a trace of priggishness seemed infinitely preferable to Calendar’s
odious plain speaking. Pendarly still seemed overset by Calendar’s manner. She
let him brood for a few minutes as they turned their horses back in the
direction of the Bevan house.
    “I cannot thank you enough for this morning’s ride, sir. It
has altogether cleared the cobwebs for me — I have not ridden in above two
months, for my own hack at home broke its leg and was destroyed, and Papa has
not been able to bear the thought of the price of a new mount for me.
    “Why does your father deny such a request? Especially when
you are such a good horsewoman?”
    “My father has a particular dislike for spending money —
except on himself and occasionally on my brother. He does not intend to be mean
— he simply forgets that I have my little needs too. And there may be another
reason in that a year or two ago I made rather a spectacle of myself riding across
the hunting field after a dog of mine. Papa thought it so disgraceful that he
—” she broke off suddenly, knowing that being disowned, even so casually as she
had been twice been, could not increase her credit with Pendarly — “he scolded
me quite dreadfully.”
    Pendarly smiled but said nothing. His mind seemed to have
drifted away, and Althea, cursing Sir Tracy roundly in her mind, kept silent
for the remainder of the ride. When they arrived in front of the Bevan house he
bid her good day and told her he would call again soon. Althea did not like to
be the one to mention their sightseeing plans, so they parted with vague
civilities.
    It was barely eleven, and as she was informed that my lady
had not yet arisen and that my lord had departed the house some half an hour
earlier, Althea retired to the library where she discovered, after some
browsing, a life of Richard III, which she began with relish. How long she sat
reading Althea did not know, but when Debbens entered to tell her that Lady
Bevan had awakened and was inquiring for her sister, she whisked the book under
a sofa cushion, knowing what Maria’s consternation would be if she found that
her sister had been reading a history .
    Althea, on entering Lady Bevan’s chamber, discovered curtains
drawn and her sister in high dudgeon, nursing a cup of cold chocolate and
shuttling through her cards of invitation in the half-light.
    “You’ll never learn what is on them that way, stupid,”
Althea clucked at her as she lit the lamp at bedside. “You look completely done
up. Has that pretend headache of yours become real?”
    Lady Bevan sat bolt upright and tried to form her face into
a semblance of aggrieved self-righteousness, but gave up at last when she saw
no reaction from her sister. “Very well, then, I should know better than to try
to fool you. But I should have had the headache last night, from the
heat and the press and that awful champagne of Lady Fforyding’s and from
Francis’s shocking treatment of me.”
    “And now you have made yourself ill in earnest from
fretting. How silly you are, Mary. I must confess that I have no headache, for
all I drank as much punch as you and was as long in the ballroom as you. Poor
honey, had a turn-up with Francis, did you not?”
    Lady Bevan considered denying the charge summarily, but
another glance at her sister assured her that Althea knew almost the whole of
it, and might as well be told now as later — before Francis had had the chance,
in fact. When she spoke, there spilled on a torrent of