Seven Dials - Anne Perry [86]
Vespasia turned to Garrick. “I hope you are well, Ferdinand?” It was merely a politeness, something one would say as a matter of form. The reply was expected in the affirmative; no information was required, or wished for.
“In excellent health,” he replied. “And you appear to be also, but then I have never seen you look less.” He would not allow himself to be maneuvered into ill manners, especially in front of his guests.
She smiled at him as if she had heard what he had said and accepted the compliment, although she knew it was made for effect, not because he meant it.
“Thank you. You speak with such warmth one does not discard your generosity as merely the instinctive answer of courtesy.” There was a dark, angry part of her enjoying this. She had forgotten how much she disliked Garrick. He reminded her of other aggressively virtuous people she had known, closer to home, obsessed with rule-keeping, self-control, and slowness to forgive, a suspicion of laughter, and an icy pleasure in being right. Perhaps her opinion was more supposed than real. She was indulging in exactly the same sin for which she blamed him. Later, when she was alone, she must try to recall what she actually knew about him.
She kept her face deliberately mild and interested. “How is Stephen? I believe I saw him in the park the other day, but he was moving at some speed, and I might have been mistaken. Would he have been riding with the Marsh girl, I cannot remember her name, the one with so much hair?”
Garrick was absolutely motionless. There was no evidence of it, but she was certain that his mind was racing for an answer.
“No,” he said at last. “It must have been someone else.”
She remained looking at him expectantly, as though the merest courtesy demanded some further explanation. To have stopped there would be a snub.
A flicker of annoyance crossed his face, for an instant quite unmistakable.
Vespasia considered whether to notice it or not. She was afraid he would change the subject.
“I apologize,” she said quickly, just before his brother-in-law could rescue him. “I did not mean to embarrass you.”
Anger washed up his cheeks, dull red, and the muscles of his body locked rigid. “Don’t be absurd!” he said tartly, his eyes stabbing at her. “I was merely trying to think who it was you could have seen. Stephen has not been well. The coming winter will exacerbate his difficulty.” He breathed in. “He has gone to stay in the south of France for a spell. Milder climate. Drier.”
“Very wise,” Vespasia acknowledged, uncertain whether she believed him or not. It was an extremely reasonable explanation in every way, and yet it did not sit well with what Gracie had heard from the kitchen staff at Torrington Square. “I hope he has someone trustworthy to care for him,” she said with enough solicitude to be courteous.
“Of course,” he replied. He took a breath. “He has taken his own manservant.”
There was nothing she could add that would not betray an unseemly curiosity, and curiosity was a social sin of which she had never been guilty. It was vulgar, and implied that one’s own life was of insufficient interest to fill one’s mind. No one would care to admit to that; it was the ultimate failure.
“I daresay he will feel the benefit,” she observed. “I admit I do not care for January and February very much myself. I preferred it when I spent more time in the country. A walk in the woods is a pleasure at any time of the year. London streets in the snow offer a great deal less—mostly wet skirts up to the knees, unless one is fortunate. The south of France sounds more and more appealing all the time.”
He fixed her with a flintlike stare. It was not entirely her imagination that there was also enmity in it, a knowledge that she would not have come wholly as a gesture of courtesy to a woman she did not know.
“I am most pleased to have made your acquaintance, Mrs. Arbuthnott,” she said graciously. “I am sure you will enjoy your