Carola Dunn (12 page)

 No sign of Alan, nor of the Jinnee. No raised voices. Bea clasped Mrs. Dinsmuir’s hands, held out to her as she entered.

 “What has he done, ma’am? What have they done?” Bea asked anxiously.

 “What happened? What has Alan in such a miff?” his mother asked at the same moment. “He dashed in here, raging, and commanded Mr. Jinnee to take him into town at once.”

 “Oh dear, was the Jinnee offended? I do hope Alan will remember how powerful he is and be tactful. He did not harm him, or threaten him?”

 “Certainly not!” said Mrs. Dinsmuir, quite sharply. “Mr. Jinnee is a charming and most obliging gentleman. I do not know what he did to make Alan angry, but I am perfectly certain his aim was to help.”

 “He does seem to wish to be helpful,” Bea admitted.

 “He told me he knew exactly the thing to make your papa look kindly upon...Oh!” She suddenly noticed Miss Dirdle, dithering on the threshold, and moved forward to greet her. “My dear ma’am, I am so sorry. Pray pay no heed to our nonsense. Do come in.”

 Bea hastily introduced them. Mrs. Dinsmuir seated her bewildered guest on one of her new divans. “You will feel the better for a cup of tea,” she said soothingly. “The kettle is on the hob, it will not take a moment.”

 “The very thing,” said Bea. “We came out straight after church, without any refreshment.”

 “Then you will like something to eat as well. I have some pastries, rather unusual but quite delicious.”

 “I shall come and help you carry everything.”

 “My dear Lady Beatrice!” Miss Dirdle exclaimed, shocked.

 Sitting down beside the old lady, Bea took her hands. “Miss Dirdle, Mrs. Dinsmuir is going to be my mama-in-law.”

 “Oh, my dear!”

 “I am quite determined to marry Mr. Alan Dinsmuir, with or without Papa’s permission.”

 “My dear child!”

 “But naturally I should prefer to have his blessing, and Mama’s, so we must strive to come up with a plan to win it, with or without the Jinnee’s help.”

 “The Jinnee?” said Miss Dirdle in a faint voice.

 “Large as life, and twice as natural—or rather, natural as life and twice as large. You will help, too, will you not?” Bea pleaded.

 “Of course,” Miss Dirdle vowed staunchly.

 “I knew I could count on you.” Bea kissed her, and followed Mrs. Dinsmuir to the kitchen to fetch the tea-tray.

 The pastries were indeed delicious, flaky and filled with nuts and honey. Munching and sipping, the ladies discussed the situation.

 First Bea described the parade. Mrs. Dinsmuir had to agree that forty black slaves and forty beautiful girls, even with gold bowls of priceless jewels on their heads, were unlikely to win the marquis’s favour.

 “Oh dear, I fear Lord Hinksey—like your coachman—would imagine someone had sent the circus to call.”

 “And were his lordship to be persuaded to believe the gems were genuine,” put in Miss Dirdle, “he would consider it mere vulgar display. I do hope Mr. Dinsmuir has succeeded in diverting the procession.”

 “Mr. Jinnee will see to it,” Mrs. Dinsmuir said with confidence, “once he understands the impropriety of such an offering to an English nobleman.”

 In spite of the widow’s assurances, Bea was by no means convinced that the Jinnee would not turn on Alan for scorning his enterprise. On tenterhooks, she wondered why they had not yet returned. After all, the Jinnee could make the entire procession disappear with a wave of his hand.

 “Am I to understand, ma’am,” Miss Dirdle was saying tentatively, “that the...the Jinnee is not a figment from Lady Beatrice’s dreams? He truly exists?”

 Mrs. Dinsmuir and Bea united to satisfy her doubts.

 Thrilled, eyes sparkling, the ex-governess clasped her hands. “I cannot wait to meet him!”

 She had quite a wait. The ladies had finished their second cups of tea and were all growing worried when at last Alan and the Jinnee materialized before them.

 “Oh!” squeaked Miss Dirdle.

 The Jinnee looked disgruntled. Alan dropped onto the nearest divan and mopped his brow.

 “Whew,” he sighed, “what a business!”

 “Alan, you did catch them before they reached Papa, did you not?” Bea moved over to sit beside him.

 “We caught up with them just as they crossed Magdalen Bridge, but there were far too many people watching to make them vanish.”

 “I had not thought. What a commotion that would have caused!”

 Alan grinned. “It might have been funny, but there was quite a commotion already, and I did not dare risk a riot. All down the High they marched, with the crowds growing, until by the time we came to Carfax the proctors and beadles had to be sent for to clear a way. Actually, a magistrate turned up and wanted them arrested for parading without a licence and causing disorderly conduct, but he could not make them understand so he gave up.”

 “Good gracious,” said Mrs. Dinsmuir, “how very fortunate they were not locked up in the city gaol. If they had disappeared from there, I hate to think of the consequences. But whatever did you do, Alan?”

 Miss Dirdle leaned forward. “Waited until they were out in the country, I expect,” she suggested.

 “Precisely, ma’am.” Alan bowed to her and she gave him a look of approval. “No one followed very far beyond the city streets, and if the odd yokel saw them dematerialize, he would hardly believe his own eyes, far less be believed.”

 “Oh darling, how clever,” Bea cried, gazing up at him admiringly. He looked down, and they lost themselves in each other’s eyes. His mother’s voice seemed to come from far away.

 “Neatly done, dearest.”

 “Am I to understand, madam,” said the Jinnee gloomily, “that you, too, disdain my efforts?”

 “Disdain? Never! Your desire to assist is altogether praiseworthy, Mr. Jinnee, and I respect you for it.”

 “However, my dear sir,” said Miss Dirdle, “undeniably, the method chosen was sadly inappropriate.”

 “It worked for Aladdin,” he pointed out.

 The two ladies did their best to soothe him, attempting to explain why a vast fortune in jewels was an unsuitable gift for a marquis. “Especially if it arrives on the heads of a column of maidens, however lovely, escorted by eunuch slaves,” Mrs. Dinsmuir added.

 “It makes no sense to me,” the Jinnee said frankly, “but I must take your word for it. Which leaves me with the question, what do we do next to bring a happy conclusion to their love?”

 The united scrutiny of the Jinnee, Mrs. Dinsmuir, and Miss Dirdle brought Bea and Alan out of their rosy haze.

 “Er, what?” said Alan, with less than his usual intelligence.

 “I await your commands, O master,” announced the Jinnee indulgently.

 “What shall we do next, dearest?” asked Mrs. Dinsmuir.

 “Good Lord, I haven’t the faintest idea. Bea, darling?”

 “Oh Alan, I simply do not know!”

 “Then listen to me,” said Miss Dirdle. “I have a splendid notion!”

Chapter IV

 “Dash it, Bea, a gentleman don’t come up to Oxford to study,” Tom protested. “Just to knock up a few larks, and get to know the right sort of people before going on the Town.”

 Lord Wendover nodded.

 “Then you refuse to help, because Alan is cleverer than you?” Bea asked scornfully, slashing with her riding whip at an inoffensive hedgerow. May-petals flew. Her mare and Lord Wendover started.

 “Nothing of the sort!” her cousin denied. “Dash it, Bea, the fellow’s nobody, and you’re the daughter of the Marquis of Hinksey.”

 Lord Wendover nodded.

 “That is why we need you,” Bea pointed out. “Colonel McMahon is bound at least to give you the courtesy of a hearing, as you are Papa’s heir. And even more so if Lord Wendover goes with you, as he already has a title.”

 Lord Wendover nodded.

 “Dash it, Bea, you can’t expect Windy to help when he’s in love with you himself.”

 Lord Wendover nodded.

 Bea said seriously, “Lord Wendover, if I were to tell you I will marry you in three weeks’ time, as soon as the banns can be read, what would you do?”

 “Oh, I say, Lady Beatrice,” his lordship bleated in alarm. “Not quite ready for marriage, don’t you know. Desperately in love with you and all that, but I was thinking of waiting a few years.”

 “Well I cannot wait, even if I wanted to marry you. I should be an old maid by then. Anyway, it is Alan Dinsmuir I want to marry. If you truly love me, you must want me to be happy, and I cannot be happy without Alan. I love him desperately.”

 “Can’t see what you see in the fellow,” Tom grumbled.

 “He saved Miss Dirdle from drowning.”

 “I’d have pulled you out first, Lady Beatrice,” Lord Wendover assured her.

 “It was your fault she fell in,” Tom reminded his friend, “but all the same, Windy’s right, Bea. No gallant beau in his senses would rescue an old crow—an elderly, ill-favoured lady,” he amended hastily, catching Bea’s kindling eye, “—before he saved the pretty young lady.”

 “Precisely,” said Bea.

 Tom and Lord Wendover looked at each other blankly, and shrugged. “There’s no understanding females,” said Tom. “Maggots in their heads, the lot of them. The fact remains, Dinsmuir’s nobody.”

 “But if Miss Dirdle’s plan works, with your help, he will not be nobody,” Bea said persuasively. “She says it is well known that the Prince Regent hands out titles right and left to people who ‘lend’ him money, without expecting repayment.”

 Lord Wendover nodded.

 “But Dinsmuir’s poor as a church mouse,” Tom objected.

 “Not any more. He has come into a vast fortune, quite unexpectedly, only you know Papa will not be swayed by mere wealth.”

 Tom was suspicious. “Where did all this rhino come from all of a sudden?”

 “From the Orient,” Bea said warily. The conspirators had decided to stick to the truth as far as was humanly possible.

 Lord Wendover nodded, knowledgeably this time. “Long lost uncle turned out to be an India nabob, I daresay.”

 “Something like that. But Alan cannot simply send Prinny a bank draught with a note asking for a title in exchange.”

 “Lord no!” Tom exclaimed, horrified. “They’d send him to the Tower for
lèse majesté
. You have to do the thing up a bit more subtly than that, Bea, get an audience with Prinny and drop a few subtle hints, that sort of thing.”

 “McMahon’s the chap,” observed Lord Wendover. “Prinny’s Private Secretary, don’t you know. I say, Tom, it’d be a bit of a lark to see if we could persuade Colonel McMahon to let in a nobody like Dinsmuir to see the Prince Regent.”

 “Lord yes, what a caper! I wonder if he’s in London now, or down in Brighton?”

 Bea smiled a secret smile and listened to their plotting, putting in a word here and there to turn them from their more extravagant flights of fancy. When it came to the fantastic, the Jinnee was the best in the business.

* * * *

 With all the magical resources at his command, the Jinnee was disgusted by Alan’s refusal to permit him to counterfeit coin of the realm. Instead, while his master conned his books and took his final examinations, the Jinnee went through a great deal of tedious—and in his view unnecessary—fuss and bother in London.

 Mrs. Dinsmuir, in her widow’s weeds, would arrive at a goldsmith’s or dealer’s premises, her turbaned servant following a pace behind. None were so distrustful or discourteous as to enquire as to the provenance of the articles of gold and silver this dark-skinned but obviously trusted menial produced for sale. It was perfectly obvious that the lady’s late husband must have been in the India service, in a most remunerative position. The right-hand man of some nawab, no doubt, struck down by one of those virulent tropical fevers.

 Goldsmiths and dealers were gently sympathetic, and perhaps a touch more generous than usual. The goods, after all, were of unusually pure precious metals. Mrs. Henrietta Dinsmuir opened substantial accounts at Child’s Bank, Coutts’ Bank, and Rothschild’s Bank.

 “Thus we shall avoid arousing suspicion,” she explained to the Jinnee as they left the last, “besides not risking all our eggs in one basket.”

 “All money-changers and usurers are alike,” he grumbled, handing her into the carriage. He had conjured up this modest but comfortable vehicle earlier, along with horses and driver, in a secluded spot on the outskirts of the metropolis. “Far better to keep your gold in iron chests in a vault under your own control, madam.”

 “I wish you will not call me ‘madam,’ Mr. Jinnee,” she said earnestly as he took the opposite seat. “Miss Dirdle, who understands the ways of the world, advises that you should hold the position of my son’s secretary, not his valet. A secretary is a gentleman, not a mere servant. As such you may properly address me by name, or at least as ‘ma’am.’“

 “I did not wish to presume, Henrietta.”

 Mrs. Dinsmuir blushed, as she had not in decades. “Not my christian name,” she said hurriedly, then added, for she had no wish to hurt him, “or only when we are quite private.”

 The Jinnee positively flickered with delight. Mrs. Dinsmuir accepted this somewhat unnerving spectacle with equanimity— sometimes she was amazed at how quickly she had grown accustomed to the manifestations of magic.

 They drove south, into Surrey, to ensure that no one could connect the flood of gold and silver with the poor Oxford student. As soon as they were in the country, the carriage turned into a deserted lane and disappeared, horses, coachman, occupants and all. A few seconds later, Mrs. Dinsmuir was home in her cottage again.

* * * *

  Meanwhile, Tom and Lord Wendover had returned from London with Colonel McMahon’s consent to Mr. Dinsmuir’s proposal. They were both promptly sent down for the rest of the term, for unauthorized absence from their college. Undismayed, they went straight back to Town to enjoy the amusements of the end of the Season.

 As soon as Alan finished his legal studies, Bea and her governess tutored him in the proper etiquette for approaching the Prince Regent. Now they came to the cottage to wish him good luck.

 “Luck!” muttered the Jinnee. “There’s no need of luck with me to guide him.”

 Alan was not listening, since Bea’s notion of speeding him on his way involved considerable bodily contact. Miss Dirdle’s scandalized cluckings had no effect. In the end, urged by Mrs. Dinsmuir, the Jinnee plucked him bodily—or rather, magically— from his beloved’s embrace. He found himself in a carriage entering London, seated next to his mother and opposite his ‘secretary.’