Putting on Airs (14 page)

     
Imogene's calm manner brought him better to calm.  His voice more steady, he said,  "I had meant to speak to you when I came to visit your father.  You were then, as yet, in Penzance, and I thought perhaps that was for the better; that you would not see me, anyway.  But as I so highly regard your good opinion, I felt I could not feel quite myself until I have made amends with you."

     
Imogene could not help but smile—though faintly—at his declaration. 
Amends
.  It was a more beautiful word than she had ever before thought.  "Amends, sir?"

     
"My behavior to you in recent months was abhorred.  I have no excuse to offer, except that I was very self-conscious with my new state of wealth, and believed it would honor my uncle to see that I wore it as I should.  In doing so, I treated you very ill, for which you had every right to regard me as you have.  I never truly felt that your behavior had to change.  I like you very much as you are.  And...And I appeal to you for your forgiveness, in great hopes that we could become friends."

     
Imogene's smile grew into better view.  "We have never tried being friends before, sir; not even cousins.  I think it a most excellent idea."

     
"Then you do forgive me?"

     
"I do, yes."

     
She extended her hand in friendship, and he took it with a smile of relief and joy.  "I thank you, Ms. Cartwright," he said.  "I had quite honestly perceived you would react in a different way."

     
"With so honest and open a manner as you came to me, cousin, I know what you have said is genuine."

     
He exhaled heavily with relief, rising to his feet.  "I must take my leave now.  This was rather a sudden plan, and I have appointments yet to keep.  May I...visit again tomorrow?"

     
"Yes, sir.  If the weather continues fine, we could take the horses out across the field."

     
He nodded, his smile beaming.  "Thank you.  I will see you tomorrow, then."  With that, he bowed and quit the room.

     
Imogene laid back into the chair with a long, relieving stretch of her arms.  She felt as though a heavy cloud lifted from her shoulders, and she breathed in fresher air than she had tasted in some months.  Although she had never actively worried over Mr. Campbell continuing advances toward her, it was always hanging in the back of her mind as something that would resurface at their next family meeting.  But now, she knew there would be no more worries, and for the first time since knowing her cousin, she seemed genuinely interested in coming to know him, as she felt with any new acquaintance.

     
One day, Mr. Campbell visited her while she was reading
Julius Caesar
.  Upon his inquiring, she began to relate what she had read of the play so far, when the servant announced more visitors:

     
"Mr. and Ms. Archer, ma'am."

     
Imogene had rather expected they would visit soon, as Clarice wrote her often, and her declarations of missing her friend had been more frequent in recent letters.  As they entered, she approached with a smile and curtsey of greeting.

     
"I am very happy to see you again!" she said.  "How was the rest of your trip?"

     
"Mr. Ashcroft and I had little fortune in hunting," Mr. Archer said, "and even worse in fishing."

     
"I bagged two partridges," Clarice said.                           

     
"You shot with them?" Imogene asked with a light laugh.  "It is well that you did not stay in Penzance too long.  With your skill, you might have deprived the country of all their best birds."  It was then that Imogene remembered her cousin was present, and so said, "You remember my cousin, Mr. Rupert Campbell.  We planned to go into town for a walk and some luncheon.  You are most welcome to join us."

     
Mr. Archer took a moment to notice Mr. Campbell, then replied, "We cannot stay long."  He put his hand on Clarice's shoulder, as though to emphasize the point to her.  "We have yet to return to the house and return things to their normal order."

     
"Ah, of course.  Perhaps you can join us in a fortnight, then?"

     
"Perhaps."  Somehow, his reply sounded doubtful. 

     
Nothing more was exchanged except for farewells.  Imogene was somewhat disappointed by the lack of ease in Mr. Archer's manner, and wondered if it was only his habit to be open in Penzance.  However, considering Mr. Campbell was present, she perceived it was simply the formality of mixed company.

     
Imogene and Mr. Campbell went along to town, and after spending some time walking along the streets, stopped into a fine restaurant.  Though it was not their first time taking in an expensive restaurant together, Imogene still felt somewhat awkward being in such high-end places.  Though the exquisite food and the ease of Mr. Campbell's manner would bring her into calm enough to enjoy it with free conversation.

     
"It is really quite terrible," he remarked as they ate, "how I have come into the habit of dining out at least once each week."

     
"It is difficult to think so," Imogene said, "when they serve such food as this."

     
"I worry that my chef at the house would feel neglected, that I should pay extra for someone else to cook the meal."

     
"Or rather the reverse.  Perhaps the chef feels relieved to have some free time."

     
"Free time?  What should a chef do in his free time?"

     
"Bake himself a cake, perhaps.  Or write a novel.  It could be that Monsieur DuBois could be the next Mr. Fielding."             

     
Mr. Campbell could not restrain a bout of laughter.

     
"What?" Imogene inquired, his laughter contaminating her into laughing as well.

     
"Monsieur DuBois speaks very little English.  I doubt he would be the next great English author."

     
"I have it, then: His free time is spent learning better English."

     
"I ought to give him more free time, in that case."  Again, laughter struck him.  "Between my poor French, and his poor English, we hardly have a comprehensible person between us.  I very specifically ordered roast lamb for supper last night, and he made poached ham."

     
Imogene added to his laughter, stifling it with her napkin.  "Perhaps Emmeline should have a talk with him.  She has mastered French better than any other Cartwright has managed."

     
"Your French is poor also?"

     
"I would loathe to ever use it in an emergency.  I would likely request a bucket of cabbage to put out a fire."

     
Mr. Cartwright nodded, trying to subdue his laughter.  "I am the very same way.

     
Having tested the waters for some time now, Imogene felt time to disclose something to her cousin, which she had wanted another opinion on for some time.  "Mr. Campbell, have you ever been in a circumstance...in which something has caught fire?"

     
"Once, when I was near twenty.  I had stolen my father's pipe and attempted to light it, but dropped the match onto the parlor rug.  Fortunately, there was a vase of flowers nearby; I merely doused the flame with the water."

     
"You stole your father's pipe?"

     
"I was a rather wayward youth, I confess.  You can relate to that."

     
"No doubt for some of the same reasons."  She lowered her voice.  "I was somewhat recently in a situation where I acted...well, what may be perceived as waywardly.  I was interested in another man's opinion of it."

     
"Certainly."

     
"I do not know if you read about it in the papers.  There was a fire during the Golowan Festival in Penzance."

     
"I did read about that, in fact, yes.  I have for some time gotten myself in the habit of reading the periodicals.  What of it?"

     
"That woman, who rescued the woman who was trapped—that was me."

     
He immediately became alarmed.  "You were trapped in that fire?"

     
"No, Rupert...I was the other woman...the one who went into the building to help the victim out."

     
His eyes grew even wider, though he tried to remain hushed as she was.  "
You
went into a burning building to rescue a woman?"

     
She argued, "We thought it was Clarice who was trapped up there, and I feared the awning would break if a man climbed up to it, and it was the only way to safely traverse inside.  It had to be done."  Mr. Campbell said nothing.  "...You may think me an improper lady now, I suppose..."

     
"Well...I confess, I am astonished.  And Mr. Archer did not offer to go up himself?  Or was he not with you?"

     
"I convinced him it were better for me to accomplish, that he might bring down the awning in the effort."

     
"Still, as the gentleman present, and as it was his ward supposed to be in danger, he should have attempted it."

     
"And if the awning did break beneath him?  There would have been no other way in."

     
"It was his responsibility as the gentleman..."

     
She interrupted him, becoming angry.  "It was his responsibility as Clarice's guardian to do what was in her best interest.  Would it really have been better for him to have tried and failed, for the sake of preserving my dignity, and therefore put a human life at risk?"

     
"By standing down, he put yours at risk."

     
"There were two lives at risk—the victim, and the rescuer.  Whether it were Mr. Archer or myself, it would have been two lives."

     
"But it is social courtesy for the man to take the labor on himself, and to preserve the woman."

     
"Was I not capable?  Did not both of us come back out alive and well?  What if it were me trapped in a burning building...and Emmeline was present.  Would you not let her up, if it would provide a better chance that I would be saved?"             

     
Mr. Campbell seemed honestly to consider it, if even for a moment.  "No, I would certainly not.  Granted, I would feel devastated, had I broken the awning and failed, but would feel some security in the knowledge that I did not allow your sister in to possibly be killed as well."

     
Imogene fell silent, staring into her plate.  She was torn between treating Mr. Campbell's response as gallantry, and looking on it as poor judgment clouded by discrimination.

     
"I do commend you..." Mr. Campbell confessed after some silence, "...and rather admire you for the courageousness of what you did...I only think that Mr. Archer could have better done his duty as a caretaker and a gentleman, and that it was not so wise for you to put yourself in such danger."

     
At that point, Imogene lost interest in arguing it further, and so they finished their meal in silence.  The silence turned out to be an asset, as she could hear the conversation coming from the table nearest them, conducted by Mr. Ashcroft senior, whom she did not even notice until that moment when she was avoiding eye contact with her cousin.

     
"So you have not seen him for some time," said Mr. Ashcroft's luncheon companion, a woman near his age, whom she supposed to be his wife.

     
"No, but I have yet seen him in town too often," Mr. Ashcroft said. 

     
"It is only right, as his brother lives here.  You do not think he should not visit his own brother?"

     
"In his own country home, it would be acceptable.  I have told him to stay out of the city, that I will not tolerate his presence."

     
"Whatever injustice he had done to you, my dear, I do not see why you should keep turning your mind to it.  Why can you not move past it?  Or if it was really so grave, perhaps you should call the police into it."

     
"Because, my dear," he said, lowering his voice to a more severe tone, "it could compromise our family reputation.  That is precisely why I cannot allow him to be in town; I cannot endure the possibility of his crime to our family being revealed."

     
"Perhaps if you told me what it is he had done, I could better advise you."

     
"I advise myself to my own satisfaction.  I will write him again.  If one more time I should see him in town, I will see that I ruin him before he has the chance to ruin us again."

     
Mr. Campbell's voice suddenly interrupted her eavesdropping, in a whisper: "Whom are they talking of?"