Handley went still. Even Beckford looked down from the ceiling, blinking between Sebastian and the major. But Sebastian merely said, “No. That isn’t the reason. As you know, my father’s health isn’t common knowledge.”
His uncle sneered at that then drummed thick fingers on the table. “So it’s this heart business, is it? Are you going to prove you have one? If you evendo, Cote, my boy. In twenty years of knowing you, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it. Though it’s not milk in your veins, I’ll give you that. You’re a man all right, I know that much. I made you one myself.”
“Silver,” said Beckford. Everyone looked at him. “Quicksilver. The stuff in his veins. You know?”
Handley lifted his eyes to the heavens. Sebastian’s uncle stared at Beckford like he was a funfair pig in a bonnet. Sebastian smiled faintly, sorry for the boy, as he often was. It was a mayfly thing, that softness. It wouldn’t last.
A peal of laughter came from across the room, drawing their attention, and not just because it was loud. It was mocking too.
The Pretty Pariah was in the middle of it, on the opposite side of the room to where she’d been before. It surprised him that she’d moved, as though he ought to have known of it. Her aunt was with her, and they were with a group of three men and one woman, standing by the tall, windowed doors that led to the garden. It was those three who had laughed, the Pretty Pariah and her aunt the recipients.
The aunt’s rosy, round cheeks were very red now, her embarrassment clear as she turned, flustered. The Pretty Pariah supported her elbow as they walked away from the group and back to their seats. There was pink tinging her cheeks, but sheshowed no other sign of embarrassment, her chin held high, her face composed.
“Why that Pemberthy woman gets invited anywhere, I don’t know,” said the major.
“Husband was popular,” said Handley, in his practical way. “Still a lot of good feeling toward the old man.”
“He’s been dead fifteen years.”
“She’s not so bad, Lady Pemberthy,” said Beckford. “My mother said so. Said her heart’s in the right place. It’s just a pity she’s so…so…”
“Wretchedly nagging?” said the major. Like almost everyone in the room, he was watching the spurned pair’s progress back to their seats by the tea table. “Doesn’t know when to quit and stay quiet. Terrible thing in a woman. And look at that unnatural creature with her. They make my skin crawl, these preaching, managing, mannish women. See her stomping along, with no care to dress pretty, or look pretty, or act pretty, or do anything at all a man might care for.”
“She isquitepretty,” said Beckford. “I mean…it’s in the nickname, isn’t it?”
“Pretty Pariah,” supplied Handley, seeing the major’s lack of comprehension.
He gave a contemptuous laugh. “That one of yours, Cote? What’d you call those Parling girls? The Gretna Getaways? I’d say it was apt, but I doubt they’d even get as far as Gretna. Roll over for a wink, those girls would.”
“No,” said Sebastian, who didn’t dislike Tom Parling and vaguely regretted the witticism made at his sisters’ expense, “this wasn’t one of mine. Lady Pemberthy’s niece had earnt the epithet before I ever knew of her.”
“It’s something to do with children.” Beckford’s thoughts, as usual, were flitting around like butterflies. “That’s what I meant about the swallows.”
The major stared. Sebastian and Handley waited with varying degrees of patience.
“She visited my mother,” the young man explained. “Lady Pemberthy’s trying to get some sort of society together for protecting children.”
“That chimney sweep business,” Handley stated. “And what nonsense. I suppose they’d rather London burnt to the ground again. Because that’s what’ll happen if no chimneys get swept.”
The major nodded, but Beckford continued, eyes narrowed in thought. The attempt looked somewhat painful. “No…I don’t know if that was it…but it was children, all the same. And like I said, it’s exactly like the swallows, isn’t it?”
He met three looks: one contemptuous, one annoyed, and one mildly amused. The latter was Sebastian’s, and seizing upon it as friendly ground, Beckford fastened his wide blue eyes upon him.
“Because it makes you think of all that stuff you’d rather not, doesn’t it? All these people trying to be all…all charitable, and everything like that, and telling you about horrible things you’d rather not know. I don’twantto be thinking about chimney sweeps when I’m in my room, getting ready to go out, one eye on the fire and thinking about…about skeletons and things. All those little boys who get trapped up there.” He gave a shudder.
“Oh yes,” agreed Sebastian. “Terribly inconvenient, having a conscience.”
“Well, exactly!” said Beckford. “I don’t like it at all!”
Sebastian nodded in heavy sympathy, only the smallest betraying smile at the corner of his mouth. “And there we have the problem with Lady Pemberthy and her niece. They’re the splinter in society’s heel—and therefore continually trod upon.”
Handley smiled at the joke but said, “You’re both right, though. No one wants to be nagged to death about all these depressing things when they’re trying to enjoy themselves.” He nodded to the room, which had returned to its former lowmurmur of polite conversation. “Here we are, at a party. Of sorts. Who wants to have dead and dying children poured into their ear?”
“It’s impolite, to be sure,” said Sebastian.
The major snorted, never much impressed by this sort of wit. Like Sebastian, he’d been watching the old lady and her niece. They’d sat down in their former seats momentarily, having some low, fast, murmur of conversation, and were now standing, getting ready to leave.
Well. Perhaps next year he’d see the Pretty Pariah here again. And in the meantime, he’d forget she ever existed, just as he had last time.
