Page 11 (1/2)

MATTERS OF NO IMPORTANCE

&039;Why so quiet, Penny?&039;

&039;What?&039; she blurted, shocked out of her angry reverie The noise of the reception was e buzz of background chatter

With shae, Art rebuked her &039;Penelope, I believe you were dreare wit upon you for minutes, yet you&039;ve not taken in a word When I try to be ah, and when I endeavour to add a sombre note in an atteh behind your fan&039;

The outing asted It was to have been her first public appearance with Charles, her first showing as an engaged woht dress, the correct corsage, the proper event, the suitable company Thanks to Charles&039;s mysterious , trying not to revert to her old habit of wrinkling her forehead Her governess, Madaed her face would set that way; now, if she exalass for even the trace of a line, she knew the old biddy had not been wrong

&039;You are right, Art,&039; she ad the interior fury that always caone&039;

&039;That hardly says much for my powers of vampire fascination&039;

When he tried to look corains of rice stuck to his lower lip

Across the hotel restaurant, Florence was engaged in conversation with a tiddly gentleraph Florence was supposed to be the leader of this tiny expedition into hostile territory - their sympathies were naturally with the Lyceum, and this was the Criterion - but she had abandoned her supporters to each other&039;s cohty, and, even at the advanced age of thirty, a flirt No wonder her husband disappeared As Charles had disappeared this evening

&039;You were thinking of Charles?&039;

She nodded, wondering if there were anything in the stories about va abilities Her e print She would concentrate on keeping her forehead smooth or she would end up like poor silly Kate, only twenty-two and her face already pulled out of shape by laughing and crying

&039;Even when I have you all to , Charles is between us Curse the fellow&039;

Charles, due to accoe, pleading off and entrusting Penelope to Florence&039;s care for the evening He was off on soovernment business she could not be expected to bother with It was , unless she underestimated her oers of persuasion, the situation in the Beauregard household would be ht she could hardly breathe, and her decolletage so low the whole stretch of skin between her chin and boso to do with her fan but wave it about, for she could not risk setting it down on a chair and having soinal scheme had been for Art to chaperone Florence but he was as abandoned by her as Penelope had been by her fiance and evidently felt obliged to loiter about like an ardent swain They had been twice accosted by acquaintances who congratulated her, then indicated Art with an eentleood humour

&039;I did not ise&039;

Since the announceed hi horrid had come of it Art was easy to understand, especially set beside Charles Her fiance always paused before addressing her by na in dread for that awful, inevitablein her cousin&039;s brilliant wake, chilling inside whenever anyone silently coed the lesser of the Misses Churchward But she was alive and Pam was not She was older now than Pamela had been when she was taken from them

&039;You can be sure that any matters which detain Charles are of the utmost importance His name may never appear in the lists, but he is well known in Whitehall, if only to the best of the best, and rated highly&039;

&039;Surely, Art, you are i &039;I&039;ood manners&039;

&039;But the Prime Minister&039;

&039;I&039;m Ruthven&039;s pet this month, but thatan official verdict on the piece It had been so-Out, by the fa and Saints and Sinners, Henry A Jones

&039;Mr Sala says "there is a rift in the clouds, a break of blue in the dramatic heavens, and seems as if we are fairly at the end of the unlovely"&039;

The play had been a speci farce&039; for which the Criterion was known The new-born leading lady had a past and her supposed father but actual husband, a cynical Queen&039;s Counsel, was given to addressing sarcaser Charles Wyndham opportunities to dees of costume and backdrop took the characters from London to the country to Italy to a haunted castle and back again By the final curtain, lovers were reconciled, cads were ruined, fortunes inherited justly and secrets exposed without harm Barely an hour after the last act, Penelope could accurately describe to the sowns but could not recall the na,&039; ca Hail and well-met&039;

It was Kate Reed, in a drab little dress, trailing a jowly new-born Penelope knew to be her Uncle Diarency, he was sponsor to the poor girl&039;s so-called career in cheap journalisrubbiest of the Grub Street grubs Everyone except Penelope found hi, and so he wasKate&039;s knuckly hand and she turned red as a beetroot Diarreeted Florence with a beery burp and enquired after her health, never a sound tactic in the case of Mrs Stoker, as quite capable of describing extensive infirmities Mercifully, she took another tack and asked why Mr Reed had lately not been attending the after-darks

&039;We quite miss you in Cheyne Walk, Mr Reed You always have such stories of the highs and lows of life&039;

&039;I regret that I&039;ve been trawling the lows of late, Mrs Stoker These Silver Knife murders in Whitechapel&039;

&039;Dreadful business,&039; spluttered Art

&039;Indeed But deuced good for the circulation The Star and the Gazette and all the other dogs are in it to the death The Agency can&039;t keep the&039;

Penelope did not care for talk of murder and vileness She did not take the newspapers, and indeed read nothing but i books

&039;Miss Churchward,&039; Mr Reed addressed hiratulations are the order of the day&039;

She smiled at him in such a way as not to line her face