‘Good, and now come with me. It is almost tea-time, and the Prince is asking for you. I see that you are dressed for it.’ He directed an approving look at her cream and pale violet silk tea-gown.
‘Dressed for everything,’ remarked Dinah irrepressibly, ‘Do you know, I calculate that I change my clothing on an average of nearly six times a day?’
‘At that rate,’ Cobie returned, ‘I believe that you surpass me, which I would have thought difficult.’
Dinah had to prevent herself from asking him if one of his many changes when they were in London was into his curious brown suit, and if so, where he went in it. Her silence he took for agreement, and companionably—for they were nothing if not that, she thought ruefully—they passed into the Great Hall, which was now used as a drawing room. It was the middle bar of an H, the two newer wings being the outside ones.
There was a huge hearth with a great fire roaring in it. Assembled there was the entire house party, including those members of it who had arrived only a few hours earlier: Sir Ratcliffe and Lady Heneage, Arthur and Susanna Winthrop and Mr Hendrick Van Deusen, who was the only member of the party to attend without a large retinue of his own.
Afterwards Dinah thought that there was something symbolic about the company, who were never all to meet under the same roof again. As though her and Cobie’s arrival was some sort of signal, Violet rang for tea to be served, while Cobie steered Dinah towards the Prince who was seated in a huge armchair, near to the fire. His Princess was a few yards away in another, her complexion shielded by a large tapestry screen mounted on a pole.
‘As you commanded, sir,’ said Cobie. Dinah, bowing gracefully, had her hand taken by the Prince.
‘None of that formal nonsense here, Lady Dinah,’ he boomed. ‘We are all friends together, no more and no less. Where do you hide yourself, these days, hey?’
‘In the library, sir.’ Dinah thought that he deserved no more and no less than the truth. She could see Violet rolling her eyes and frowning at her, could feel the eyes of half a dozen jealous women boring into her back.
‘In the library, hey! I thought as much, and what do you find to amuse yourself there? And what does your husband think about having a blue-stocking for a wife?’
Dinah was demure, ‘I think that he rather likes the idea, sir.’
‘But you’re not sure,’ he offered her shrewdly. ‘A man of action, your husband. Violet tells me that you wished to go to Oxford, to be a lady scholar. Is that true? You are too charming, I will not say pretty, to be wasted in the cloisters.’
He sat back and smiled at her scarlet face, ‘D’you mind me not calling you pretty, hey?’
‘No, sir, if that is what you think.’ But she did, a little.
‘Sensible girl, aren’t you? Not many women would have given me that answer. No, you’re not pretty, but you are becoming beautiful—which is better than pretty and will last longer. Clever man, your husband.’
This was a trifle oblique, but Dinah thought she took the Prince’s meaning—that it was Cobie who had transformed, and was still transforming, her.
‘I think so, sir.’
‘He is proud of his young wife, I am sure.’
Dinah wasn’t sure, but she said, politely, ‘Oh, yes, and I am proud of him. I wouldn’t like to do anything to distress him. He has been very kind to me, you know, sir.’
Tea had arrived while they were talking and he waved Dinah to a chair beside the Princess who made something of a fuss of her. She complimented her on not over-eating, asked her if she intended to join them at Doncaster on the morrow, and created among those assembled there more jealousy of the raw chit who had been the sensation of the season, and now looked like outdoing her own sister.
Conversation became general. The Prince rose, which had everyone else on their feet, and Dinah found herself talking to Mr Van Deusen who had been sitting quietly by the fire, diagonally from her, enjoying the delights of the most enormous spread which she had ever seen a man eat.
‘Enjoying yourself, Lady Dinah?’
‘I think that I should like notice of that question, Mr Van Deusen.’
He gave a gusty laugh. ‘You look as though you are.’
‘Appearances often deceive, Mr Van Deusen.’
He now gave her the sharpest look. He had doubtless, in the dubious past—she was sure that it was dubious—which he shared with Cobie, heard him say that. Perhaps more than once.
Before he could answer her, she added, ‘It depends, I think, on what one means by enjoy.’
A slow smile crossed his broad face, ‘Oh, yes, Lady Dinah. Do let us logic-chop. Such a change from the usual conversation at these places. You have been learning from…Jacobus.’
He had nearly said Jumping Jake, because watching her he could see how much a pupil of his she was, and how much she had learned from him.
‘Yes, from Jacobus. He has never told me where his name came from. Do you know, Mr Van Deusen?’
He shook his head sadly. ‘Alas, no.’
He did not tell her that it was not the name he had originally known Cobie by, and which it was difficult for him not to use. ‘A family name, I believe.’
‘Ah, but what family?’ retorted Dinah naughtily, and then relented. ‘I mustn’t tease you, must I. Besides, Sir Ratcliffe is coming, and I must put on my best face for him, and do nothing to encourage him in any way.’
Which was difficult, for he had taken to pursuing Dinah Grant, and she could see his wife, old before her time, standing before the tall windows, the late afternoon light cruel on her face. She had not worn as well as her husband and the twenty years of her unhappy married life were written harshly on her features.
Pity for her made Dinah a little abrupt with her husband. Mr Van Deusen had melted away on his arrival, leaving her to cope with him alone. He was sure that she could.
‘And who the devil’s he that he should be here?’ uttered Sir Ratcliffe peremptorily, staring after him. ‘Any idea, Lady Di?’
She disliked her name being shortened, and said a little frostily, ‘He’s a friend of my husband, and beside that he is known to the American Envoy and, I believe, to Lord Kenilworth. Something to do with a trade mission to the United States a few years ago. Lord Kenilworth met him then.’
‘Pity we have to deal with such upstarts,’ sighed Sir Ratcliffe, forgetting that Dinah was married to one of them.
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ agreed Dinah smartly. ‘And what a pity that they’re so rich that we’re happy to marry them—for their dollars, of course.’
Sir Ratcliffe, remembering that Dinah was reputed to have done just that, said kindly, ‘Much better if we could have their dollars without their presence, haw, haw!’
‘One must pay something for benefits received,’ Dinah sighed back at him. ‘After all, I doubt whether I should be here at all if I hadn’t married my husband. Think what I should have missed.’
Now this was all as two-faced as any of her husband’s conversations, seeing that she wasn’t at all sure that taking part in the social round was any kind of benefit at all. The real benefits of her marriage could hardly be discussed with Sir Ratcliffe.
‘Oh, indeed,’ he drawled back at her, thinking that she was wittier than Violet, and much less of a shrew into the bargain. Susanna was beginning to pall: she was too clinging, and an affaire with Grant’s wife would be one in the eye for Grant and no mistake. He was reputed to make free with other men’s wives rather than provide his own for their use.
‘I see that you take after your