Paula Marshall - An Unconventional Duenna

“Not at all,” he swiftly, and gallantly, replied. “It is you who are doing me the honour, Miss Tenison.”

At this, Emma blushed again and agreed to stand up with him. Satisfied, Adrian said, still gallant, “You will forgive me, I trust, if I leave you now. I must find my partner for the next dance. I shall be sure to visit you in good time for ours.”

Nick said to him when they strolled away to find their partners, “I thought that she was going to faint when you asked her to dance. Are you sure that you wish to pursue such a shy creep-mouse? I will allow that she is pretty enough for you, but she would not be my choice for a wife.”

“Oh, I like ’em shy,” said his cousin, “while you, you dog, like them talkative and striking—or in need of assistance in some way. I half-thought that you might have offered the companion a turn on the floor—it must be a great bore to stand up all night watching out for her charge.”

“You mean grey-eyed Pallas,” said Nick. “One can only just detect the colour of Miss Filmer’s eyes under that horrendous cap. She has a good figure, though, and by the cut of it she is not much older than her charge. Odd, that.”

“Pallas?” queried Adrian, puzzled. “I thought that Emma’s father said that her name was Athene.”

Nick laughed. It was patent that if Adrian had learned anything about the mythology of the ancient Greeks while he was at Oxford he had promptly forgotten it. “Athene was the goddess of wisdom in the ancient world,” he said, “and one of her names was grey-eyed Pallas. She had an owl as an attendant, too. I wonder if Miss Filmer sports one.”

“Should think not,” complained Adrian, “not much use at a ball, owls. Nor at the theatre, either,” he added as an afterthought. “You do come out with some weird things, Nick.”

Behind them Mrs Tenison was busily reproaching Emma for being so backward in welcoming Lord Kinloch’s advances.

“I wonder at you, child, I really do. A handsome young man of great fortune makes a fuss of you and all that you can do is blush and stutter. Here is your great chance. Be sure to talk to him if he chooses to talk to you, and if he wishes to meet you again then by all means accept any invitation he cares to make.”

“But I really do feel sick, Mama,” faltered Emma. “It is very hot in here—and he is so…so…”

She wanted to say that Adrian frightened her because he was like a prince in a fairy tale and surely he could not be interested in a country girl like herself.

Athene, listening to this, wondered why Mr Tenison did not defend his daughter a little. She thought wryly that if Lord Kinloch had asked her to dance with him she would have accepted his offer with alacrity—charming alacrity of course. While she felt sorry for Emma, she could not help feeling impatient with her. Now had the dark man, Nicholas Cameron, offered to stand up with her she could have understood her charge’s reluctance.

She had not liked the assessing way in which he had looked at them. He had even examined her carefully—not that he could tell what she really looked like beneath her appalling turn-out. Was it possible that this whole business was a great mistake? How in the world was she ever going to be able to charm anyone while standing like an ill-dressed scarecrow, mute behind her unkind patroness?

Emma said again, “I really do not feel very well, Mama,” to which her mother replied angrily, “Stuff, Miss Tenison, stuff!”

Mr Tenison put in a gentle oar. “Do you not think that you ought to take note of what our daughter is telling you, my dear?”

His wife turned on him angrily. “No, indeed, Mr Tenison. You ought to be aware of her whim-whams by now. It is time that she grew up. I do not hear Athene whining and wailing about her situation. If we give way to Emma every time she whimpers we might as well not have visited London at all.”

Mr Tenison subsided, and no wonder, thought Athene. He said not another word until Lord Kinloch returned with Nick in tow. He had cajoled him into offering the companion a turn on the floor. “I need to get to know the family better,” being the bait he had offered his cousin. “It would be as well to have the young dragon on my side.”

Nick had refrained from pointing out that judging by the dominant mother’s behaviour the whole family would be on his side if he began to court Emma so that there was no need to humour the companion. But for all his good looks and self-assurance Adrian was basically modest.

In any case the poet Burns had once written that “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley”. Those of Adrian and Mrs Tenison certainly did. Adrian had scarcely had time to bow a welcome to Emma before she sprang to her feet, and face grey, fled from the ballroom, her hands over her mouth, wailing gently.

Mrs Tenison sprang to her feet also and charged after her. Athene was about to follow, but Mr Tenison now also standing exclaimed, “No!” with unusual firmness and held her back. “Her mother must care for her since it was she who has ignored her pleas for help.”

Adrian was completely nonplussed by this sudden turn of events which left him stranded on the edge of the ballroom floor, the centre of curious eyes. Nick had not yet had the opportunity to ask Miss Filmer to join him in the dance, nor was he to be allowed to do so.

With great address Mr Tenison sought to smooth over the unhappy situation created by Lord Kinloch’s sudden loss of his partner, by saying, “I am sure, Lord Kinloch, that you would wish to make up your set in the dance by taking Miss Filmer for your partner instead of Miss Emma. I am sure that my wife—and Emma—would prefer you not to be discommoded.”

To his great credit Adrian said, “But, sir, what of your daughter? I should not like to entertain myself while she is ailing.”

“She rarely suffers these turns, but when she does they soon pass,” he said dryly. “Athene, you would consent to partner Lord Kinloch, would you not?”

Would she not! Much though she regretted Emma’s sudden collapse, Athene could not help but be delighted by this opportunity to get to know a rich and handsome young peer, a true Lord of All. Adrian hesitated a moment before offering her his hand, and saying, “I would be grateful if you would oblige me, Miss Filmer.”

Her answer was to curtsey to him, bowing her head a little when she did so—at which juncture her over-large cap fell forward on to the floor at Adrian’s feet.

Deeply embarrassed, she had retrieved it and was about to resume it when Mr Tenison took it gently from her hand.

“Come, come, my dear, you do not need to take that disfiguring object with you into the dance for it to trouble Lord Kinloch with its misbehaviour. Is not that so, sir?”

Adrian did not hear him. He was too busy staring at the vision of beauty which was Athene Filmer now that she had lost her cap. She had, after entering the ballroom, visited one of the cloakrooms on a pretext and had loosened her hair from its painful and disfiguring bonds—which was why the cap had fitted so badly that it had come adrift. Even the horrid grey dress could not dim her loveliness. She reminded Adrian of the beautiful female statues he had seen on the Grand Tour which he had taken with Nick.

Nick was also staring at her. Grey-eyed Pallas, indeed, the very goddess herself. No owl, of course, but a pair of stern and dominant eyes which she was turning on the moonstruck Adrian above a subtle smile.

Now, what did that smile mean? Nick was a connoisseur of the human face. When he was in Italy he had come across an old folio containing drawings which purported to show that facial expressions almost invariably revealed the true thoughts and motives of those who assumed them. Experience had taught him that these very often slight indicators usually told him something important about those who displayed them.