“Send him away, Unice,” begged Denzell, “and then you and I may enjoy a comfortable cose about the beautiful Verena.”
But Osmond refused to go anywhere, repeating his conviction that Hawk would come to grief if he meant to attempt to storm the citadel that was Miss Verena Chaceley.
“Verena Chaceley,” repeated Denzell, mock passionate. “Even her name is music. And you give me hope, Ossie. She is still a ‘miss’. Speak, Unice. I wish to know all about her.”
“Well, you won’t,” said Osmond on a note of satisfaction. “For no one does. It’s a dashed mystery, if you wish to know.”
“I do wish to know,” Denzell retorted. “Whatmystery? Come, Unice.”
Mrs Ruishton capitulated, lifting the coffee pot and refilling his cup. “It is not a mystery, although she is very close and will not chatter about herself. She lives in lodgings not two doors from here —”
“Then you are neighbours. Better and better.” He frowned then. “Lodgings? What, alone?”
“No, she resides with her mother. I believe that is why they came here. Mrs Peverill is in the poorest of health.”
Denzell lowered the coffee cup from his lips. “Peverill? I thought you said Chaceley.”
“Yes, Verena is Chaceley, but her mother is Mrs Peverill.”
“All part of the mystery,” put in Osmond. “The mother must have remarried, but no one has been able to discover the details.”
“Not even Mrs Felpham,” agreed Unice. “She is the most inveterate gossip, you must know, and always has the news before anyone else. These two came here in September, just after the close of the season. No one saw them arrive. They just appeared among us one day. Even Mr Tyson — our Master of Ceremonies, you know — was taken aback. He usually presents newcomers to the town, and this time he could not.”
“You’ve never seen anyone so put out,” added Osmond on a laugh. “Or he would have been, only that he succumbed in minutes.”
“As did every other male in the community, including Osmond, whatever he may say. She is so serenely beautiful that it is hardly surprising.”
“I admire her looks, yes,” conceded her husband. “Any man would. Too cold and placid, though. I prefer a cosier armful, by Jupiter.”
His eyes rested with a great degree of warmth on his wife’s face as he spoke. But Denzell did not notice. The image of Verena Chaceley’s animated countenance was playing in his vision. He frowned, nursing his cup between his hands.
“Cold and placid? Surely not. I give you my word, I have rarely seen a glow of such warmth, such freshness and sparkling enjoyment.”
Both the Ruishtons stared at him. Then they looked at each other.
“He cannot mean Verena,” Unice said with conviction. “It must be some other woman he saw.”
“It can’t have been, dash it. Who else could have bowled him out?”
Unice shook her head, her, gaze returning to Denzell’s face. “Verena is very beautiful, very calm, and exquisitely polite. But I have never seen her display any sort of animation such as you describe.”
An odd look crossed her features, of disquiet, Denzell thought. He remembered then that earlier moment, when she had seemed flurried. This was indeed mysterious. Putting down his cup, he leaned towards her. “What is it, Unice? What are you thinking?”
“I have sometimes wondered…” she began, and stopped, shaking her head. “Osmond thinks me fanciful, but she is so very serene that I have sometimes thought there is strangeness about it — as if it is not quite right.”
Denzell’s interest intensified. “What is not right?”
“I don’t quite know. It is only something I feel, without knowing quite what it is or why I should feel it. It is as if I sense something underneath. A feeling, or a touch of — yes, melancholy.”
“So that is why you used the term ‘poor girl’?”
But Osmond was laughing. “Pay no heed to her, Hawk. My darling, you always imagine melancholia in others when you are in your present condition.”
“I know, my love, but in this case —”
Denzell withdrew his attention from the burgeoning squabble and addressed himself to his breakfast. To say that he was intrigued would be putting it mildly — this woman became more and more alluring. To be sure, he had indulged in a good deal of raillery in discussing the matter with his hosts, for, of course, hewas not really in love. He had enough experience to know that these littletendreswere transient in nature.
He had not yet met the woman with whom he might fall truly in love, but he knew that when he did so there would be far more to her than a beautiful face — animated or otherwise.
