Elizabeth Mansfield (4 page)

“You could say that,” the linendraper sighed. “Unfinished business. I’ve come to return her money, you see. And her reticule. And to give her this fabric. Gratis, of course. As a gesture of apology, you see.”

The man’s words were incomprehensible to Cassandra Chivers’ father, but he found them troubling nevertheless. “You keep sayin’ that I see, but I don’t see,” he said testily. “What are ye doin’ with ’er reticule? Why should ye be givin’ fabric to ’er gratis? And what do ye need to apologize
for
?”

Mr. Chast shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He was unhappy enough to have to face the girl again, but to have to face the father was even worse. And what made matters even more awkward was the fact that the father was obviously wealthy. The situation was becoming more mortifying every moment. This was turning out to be almost as bad as dealing with a nob. “It seems, Mr. Chivers,” the linendraper said carefully, “that you haven’t been told about the … er … occurrence this morning.”

“Occurrence? What occurrence?” The worry in Mr. Chivers’ chest expanded alarmingly.

“Perhaps it would be best,” Mr. Chast suggested, trying valiantly to maintain his usual air of authority, “if I spoke directly to Miss Chivers.”

“I’ll decide what’s best when I know what this is all about,” Cassie’s father snapped. “Let’s ’ear it, man.”

The linendraper’s air of authority wilted before the other man’s glare. “It was all a misunderstanding,” he explained nervously. “One of my clerks—a very foolish fellow, I assure you, whom I would certainly dismiss out of hand if it weren’t for the fact that he’s been in my employ for twenty years or more—well, you see, he made the inexcusable blunder of accusing her—your daughter, sir, who, of course, in all fairness I must say we had no idea that she came from so, how shall I say, so substantial a family—”

“Will ye stop yer ditherin’, Mr. Chast? This fool clerk of yours accused my daughter of
what
?”

Mr. Chast dropped his eyes in shame. “Of … er … trying to steal the goods.”

“Tryin’ to
steal
—? My
Cassie
?” Mr. Chivers felt his neck grow hot. “What blasted kind of idiocy is
that
? My Cassie wouldn’t steal a blade of grass from an ’aystack! Yer clerk must be touched in his upper works!”

“Yes, sir. You’re quite right. We were able to exonerate her completely. That’s why I’m delivering these parcels myself. She ran out of the shop, you see, before we could apologize properly, so it seemed only right, after all that happened, that I should come myself—”

“She ran out of yer shop? Are you sayin’, man, that you embarrassed ’er in yer place of business? That this … this
accusation
was made in
public
?”

Mr. Chast lowered his head miserably. “It happened in the shop, yes,” he admitted, taking a step backward as if trying to escape from the ferocity of the smaller man’s glare.

“Good God!” Oliver Chivers was beginning to feel quite sick. “Are you tellin’ me that my little Cassie, who’s so shy she can barely open ’er mouth in front of a stranger, was accused of thievery in a shop full of people?”

“Well, yes, sir, I’m afraid so. It was a dreadful misunderstanding. I myself had a suspicion—from the lining of her spencer, which was an excellent grade of satin—that she was well to pass, but my clerk is not very perceptive. And even the gentleman who aided her—a man of nobility, I assure you, although I don’t believe I should take the liberty of revealing his identity—did not seem to have guessed that she
was a young lady of quality. So, in a way, one can’t fully blame my clerk. The girl was unescorted, after all. And all she had with her was the one guinea, you see, so—”

“Stop sayin’
you see
in that idiotic way!” Chivers shouted. “I
do not
see! I do not see ’ow anyone can accuse my Cassie of stealing! I do not see what she was doin’ in your shop without ’er companion! I do not see why she ’ad only one guinea! I do not see
anythin
’!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Chivers, sir, but I’ve tried to explain—”

“Then try
again
, confound it!” Mr. Chivers ordered, poking his index finger repeatedly into Mr. Chast’s chest until the linendraper had backed up against his carriage and could escape no further. “An’ tell it proper, do ye ’ear me? Step by step, from the beginning.”

Chapter Four

Oliver Chivers found his daughter in the sitting room. She was curled up in a chair near the fire, engrossed in a novel. He stormed up to her chair (ignoring the approach of Miss Penicuick, his housekeeper and his daughter’s companion, who was ready, as usual, with his preprandial sherry) and dropped a parcel in her lap. “Yer cambric, ma’am. It seems ye left it in the shop this morning.”

Cassie started, her eyes flying from the package on her lap to her father’s face. “Papa! How—?”

Miss Penicuick gasped. “Oh, heavens! He
knows
!”

“What do I know, Miss Penicuick?” Chivers asked in a tone heavy with sarcasm, glaring at his housekeeper over the spectacles that had slipped halfway down his nose. “That ye permitted my daughter to go into town in a rented ’ack without escort? Is that what ye think I know?”

Cassie put the package aside and rose from her chair. “Hush, Papa,” she said quietly. “There’s no need to make accusations. Drink your sherry, and let’s go in to dinner. We’ll talk over the soup.

Mr. Chivers had never been one to resist his daughter’s gentle handling, so he permitted himself to be led into the dining room. But even when his hunger had been assuaged, his body warmed by good wine and his temper cooled by his daughter’s calm manner, he was nevertheless very annoyed with her. When he had finished his second course, he pushed away his dinner plate and swore aloud that he would never, as long as he lived, understand the girl. “I ’ope ye see, Cassie Chivers, that the entire ‘umiliatin’ incident was somethin’ ye brought on yerself.”

He was distressed to his core. The incident at the linendraper’s was simply another example of the way in which the girl’s shyness, coupled with her lack of interest in financial matters, had brought her needless difficulty and pain.

Mr. Chivers had spent his entire life studying the intricacies of finance, with the result that he’d amassed a considerable fortune from the most modest of beginnings and that his financial advice was sought even by those who were financial experts in their own right. And yet his only offspring seemed to have no interest in the subject. Money was of no concern to her. Her complete indifference to the one subject that occupied his mind above all others hurt him deeply. But what was worse, it rendered her vulnerable to just such incidents as had occurred today.

He looked across the table to where his daughter sat picking away at her beef and glazed onions that their French cook had prepared and that he’d found delicious. But Cassie was evidently not interested in the food. The poor child had quite lost her appetite, but, considering the day’s event, it was not surprising. He watched her as she absently moved a tiny onion back and forth across her plate. She seemed to him to be everything that was lovely in a young woman. Her oddly shaped face, with its full cheeks that narrowed down delicately to a charmingly pointed chin, had a unique beauty; her warm brown eyes were enormous and expressive; her hair was thick and seemed more abundant because of its profusely curled texture; her neck and shoulders were graceful and revealed the most perfect skin; and her figure was both slim and womanly. In addition, she had a quiet but delightful sense of humor and a quick mind. Why, under the circumstances, was she so shy and inept in public? “It’s really beyond
belief,” he grumbled, unable to let the matter drop, “that a girl of sense would take ’erself into town with only one guinea on ’er person.”

“I’m sorry, Papa,” the girl said softly. “I didn’t think I would require more than that.”

“Ye didn’t think at all!” Her father pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose with a feeling of utter helplessness. “And that’s only
part
of yer thoughtlessness. Ye went
alone
!” He turned his glare on Miss Penicuick, the middle-aged, angular woman who’d been Cassie’s governess in her childhood and who now functioned not only as housekeeper but as Cassie’s companion, chaperone, dresser, confidante and friend. “Where were
you
, Miss Penicuick, when all this was goin’ on, may I ask?”

Miss Penicuick glanced guiltily at her employer from her place at the far end of the table and then lowered her eyes, sighed unhappily and stared miserably down at her own untouched dinner. “Well, sir, you see, I … I …”

“Don’t blame Miss Penny, Papa,” Cassie said, reaching across the table and patting her governess’s hand gently. “I ran off behind her back.”

“You did
what
?”

“Well, she
did
leave me a note,” Miss Penicuick murmured in defense of her charge.

Cassie’s father shook his head, deeply disturbed. He was about to utter a few nasty words about what he thought of the girl’s running off, but he was stopped by the entrance of the butler with a tray of blancmange. Oliver Chivers glared at the bland white pudding the butler set down in front of him. “Not bla’mange again,” he muttered angrily. “I don’t pay a French chef an enormous salary to cook a deuced tasteless pudding! I thought I told ye to tell M’sieur Maurice I never want to see such ’orrid stuff on this table again!”

“Come, come, Papa, you never said any such thing,” Cassie pointed out gently. “I know you’re very angry at me, but you mustn’t take it out on the rest of the household.”

Her father grunted and relapsed into silence. The girl was right. It wasn’t the chef’s fault that he didn’t know how to handle his daughter now that she was a grown woman. How he wished she were still a child! She’d been nothing but a joy to him in the early years, after her mother had passed away. Life would have been grim indeed if he had not had Cassie on whom to lavish his affection. And Cassie had responded to that affection as a flower does to sunshine. She’d been a charming, loving child. When he came home from the office every night, she’d brighten his arrival with her glad welcome. She always followed him about the house when he was home, sat on his lap while they read nursery rhymes together, told him wonderful, imaginary stories of her day’s adventures, laughed at his jokes and filled his life with gaiety. Sometimes he let her visit him at his office, where she would sit for hours and watch him with quiet adoration as he worked. How happy she had made him then.

But now that she was grown she was greatly changed. Was it her schooling that had done it? He’d wanted to give her all the advantages that the most high-born of females were given, and he’d chosen a school for her that was much favored by the
haute ton
. But perhaps he’d been wrong. Her classmates at the Marchmont Academy for Young Ladies had been, for the most part, girls of noble birth. They soon discovered she was the daughter of a “cit,” and they were quick to slight her. He’d hoped that his wealth would make up for his lack of a title—after all, he was richer than most of their fathers—but he should have known that Cassie was not the sort to flaunt her wealth. Shy to begin with, she grew positively invisible among the bright flowers of the
ton
. Even the few cits among the students did not make friends with her, they were too busy toadying up to the titles. Thus it was that her experiences at the Academy increased her tendency to withdraw into herself. Her schooling had given her polish, yes, but what good was that polish, and all her other excellent qualities, if they were obscured by her overwhelming shyness?

He had to admit that her shyness, so charming in the child, was a flaw in the woman. It became a screen that separated her from other people. She could be polite and mannerly in public, but she could not open herself enough to permit the slightest intimacy to develop. She had too much reserve to reveal her deepest self. Thus, she had no young ladies whom she could call friends; no young men whom she could call suitors. The veil of shyness even separated her from her own father. She did not share her thoughts with him as she used to do. Even the dreadful scene at Hollings and Chast’s might have been kept from him if he hadn’t come upon Mr. Chast in the driveway. Cassie seemed to live in her own world. And he, without a wife to advise him, did not know what to do to bring her out.

Yet, shy as she was, she had dared, today, to go shopping in the heart of London all by herself. And with only one guinea in her reticule. One guinea! He would have insisted on giving her
ten
, if she’d only told him she wished to shop for fabric for a gown. What was the matter with the girl? She was shy, yes, but she had a good share of common sense. How was he ever to learn to understand her?

He pushed his dessert away and looked at her sternly. “That ye went into town unescorted is bad enough,” he scolded, “but that ye ventured forth without adequate funds was completely irresponsible. What is it, Cassie, that makes ye be’ave like a wet-goose? You know that ye ’ave only to ask, and ye can ’ave all the funds yer ’eart desires. Yet ye take yerself off on a shoppin’ expedition with only a guinea. One would think ye were the daughter of a pauper! No wonder the blasted clerk took ye for a thief.”

Cassie, too, lowered her eyes to her plate. “Yes, Papa. I’m sorry, Papa.”

“There ain’t no need to apologize to
me
, Cassie. I wasn’t the one who ’ad to suffer ’umiliation in a crowded shop. You should apologize to
yerself
for subjecting yerself to such shame. If you’d ’ad Miss Penicuick with you, it would have been obvious that y’re a young woman of substance. And if you’d ’ad sufficient funds in yer possession, ye could’ve thrown a guinea into that clerk’s face an’ left the premises with yer ’ead ’eld ’igh.”

“No, Papa, I could not. Throwing out a second guinea would not have proved I’d given him the first.”

“It would’ve at least proved that y’re plump enough in the pocket to pay for the fabric easily enough and that therefore ye’d be unlikely to try to steal it.”