How he managed it even Unice was unable to tell, but in a very short space of time Denzell had whisked them away from the company with only a word here and a word there, and nobody in the least put out. Apart, that was, from Osmond.
“It is too bad,” he complained as, wrapped in greatcoats against the winter night, they walked home beside the chair that carried Unice. “First you tell me you have come here on a repairing lease. Then, merely because you catch sight of a pretty face —”
“Not merely pretty, dear boy, a face of stunning beauty.”
“— you insist on hauling us out in the cold from our comfortable home just so that you may parade about in the vain hope of attracting her interest —”
“We shall see about vain!”
“— and as if this was not enough, when you don’t find her, you dash out of the place as if all the devils of hell were after you.”
“They are,” retorted Denzell, as if his friend’s ridiculous exaggeration had some truth in it, “and will be until I meet Verena Chaceley. I will not give up. I have conceived the most cunning plan.”
Osmond scoffed when he learned that Denzell meant to enlist the aid of his godson Felix.
The very next morning found Denzell Hawkeridge up and about at a most unseasonable hour for a Saturday, and, having consumed a hearty breakfast, ascending the stairs to the nursery.
Young Felix was only too delighted to oblige his godfather, and set off happily through the back garden with Nurse Dinah and Miles in tow, to show him the famous snowman. Sadly, there having been no further fall, it was somewhat the worse for wear. The flakes that had lain most of Thursday and Friday had now turned to ice underfoot, and the thaw showed patchy areas of rough ground through the white film.
Disappointed, Felix nevertheless embarked on a description of the snowman as it had been at the zenith of its short life, while Denzell contemplated the remains. He was listening with only half an ear, while his eye searched this way and that about the square whenever his godson’s gaze was engaged with the melting snowman. But no glimpse of a brown pelisse rewarded his covert diligence, and no sign of Felix’s friends appeared to relieve him of his self-imposed charge.
He was obliged to hear his godson out, to make what he might of the additional information fed to him in baby prattle by Miles in concert with his elder brother, to admire what was left of the unfortunate man of snow, and to endure a barrage of hardened icy balls thrown by both boys in the fit of exuberance induced in them by his presence.
It was left to Dinah to call a halt to the proceedings, decreeing that the boys had been out in the cold air long enough and must return to the nursery forthwith. Denzell, with one last forlorn look around the area, desolate now with the lack of his fairy princess, allowed himself to be dragged back to the house with one shrieking child clinging to either hand.
His hosts, he learned from Mayberry, the manservant who combined the duties of butler and footman with innumerableother functions, had already left the breakfast parlour, and might be found in the green saloon next door.
This large term described, as Denzell knew, the small chamber where the family were wont to gather informally through the day, being comfortable enough for sitting in, with a good fire in the wide grate, and yet sufficiently well appointed, with its green brocade wallpaper and toning upholstery to the Sheraton sofa and chairs, for receiving any visitors who might chance to arrive.
“Thank you, Mayberry,” Denzell said, with a smile, as he handed the man his greatcoat and brushed down the dark blue coat beneath.
Osmond, who was warming his plum coat-tails before the fire as Denzell entered, moved forward to greet him. “Ah, Hawk. You are up betimes, old fellow. I wonder why?”
“You know very well why,” Denzell retorted, provoked. “I told you I meant to use Felix to effect an introduction to that glorious creature. Didn’t you believe me?”
Osmond’s grin was wicked. “Oh, I believed you. Your mission did not prosper, I take it?”
“No, and I’ll thank you to refrain from cheap gibes.”
“Gibes? Me?” said Osmond, all innocence. “I was only going to say that the gods favour you after all, Hawk.”
He stepped aside on the words, and Denzell looked past him and stopped dead, staring at a vision seated in the round armchair to one side of the fireplace. A vision in a furred brown pelisse, with a bronze velvet bonnet set at a charming angle above the most beautiful face in the world.
“Chaste stars!” gasped Denzell, shocked out of his customary sangfroid. “Verena Chaceley, as I live and breathe!”
“None other,” murmured Osmond beside him. “I found her visiting Unice.”
The vision’s features did not stir, although her eyes were turned in Denzell’s direction. Without conscious thought, hefound the word that Unice had used playing in his mind: serene. Beautiful, calm and serene. She might have been carved in marble.
Then Mrs Ruishton spoke from the sofa opposite Verena, pulling Denzell back to reality. “Miss Chaceley, allow me to present to you our guest, Mr Hawkeridge.”
She moved then. The slightest nod of the head, the faintest of polite smiles. “How do you do?” A musical tone, but flat with disinterest.
Denzell could not respond. He was utterly disconcerted. He must seem the completest fool. An odd laugh shook him. He shrugged helplessly, his eyes riveted on her face.
“I am — confounded,” he managed.
It was Osmond’s low laughter, redolent with glee, that snapped him back to himself again. He took a breath, smiled and moved forward, holding out his hand.
