‘Grateful? Certainly I am grateful,’ Melusine snapped, knowing full well she sounded anything but gratified. ‘Still more would I be so if he had come himself to tell me this.’
‘How could he when he didn’t even handle it himself? Went off, I told you, and left it all to me. I’d to go to Remenham House as well, and show Pottiswick your letter of authorisation. And, incidentally, check on that unfortunate young fellow Kimble.’
‘But where? Where has he gone? Always he goes off, and he says no word to anyone. I shall know what to say to him when he comes.’
The door opened and Saling entered again.
‘Major Alderley, ma’am, and General Lord Charvill.’
Melusine’s heart leapt, and as swiftly clattered into dead stillness as the implication of the second name hit home. She flew up from her stool and faced the door. The figure she had longed to see came into her line of vision, but at this crucial moment of hideous realisation, Melusine barely took it in, her eyes fixing blankly on the man behind. An old man with a bent back who limped in, slow and stiff, leaning heavily on a cane.
A slow heavy thumping started up in Melusine’s chest, and she scarcely took in the astonished silence in those present in the room.
***
Gerald vaguely noted that his junior leapt to his feet at sight of his former commander, and that Lucilla sat with her mouth at half-cock, dread in her face. His attention was focused on Melusine’s transfixed stare and he forgot to say any of the things he had planned to say. He had known she would be shocked, but he was equally certain Melusine would have refused to see her grandfather had she been forewarned. To his relief, Mrs Sindlesham stepped into the breach, grasping her cane and rising painfully from her chair.
‘Good God! Everett Charvill, as I live. I suppose you have come to see your granddaughter.’ She moved to Melusine’s side as she spoke. ‘Here she is.’
‘Don’t need you to tell me that, Prudence Sindlesham,’ barked the old man, his glance snapping at her briefly, before resuming his study of Melusine, who, to Gerald’s intense admiration, was standing before him, glaring and stiff with defiance. ‘I’ve eyes in my head, haven’t I?’ He grunted. ‘No mistaking you this time. Spit of your mother.’
‘Parbleu,’ burst from Melusine indignantly. ‘I do not need for you to tell me this. I also have eyes, and I have seen the picture.’
Gerald drew his breath in sharply as Lord Charvill took a step towards his granddaughter, thrusting out his head.
‘What’s this? Impertinence! French manners, is it?’
‘Grace à vous,’ Melusine threw at him fiercely.
‘She means thanks to you, General,’ Gerald translated automatically, forgetful of his old commander’s fiery temper.
Predictably, Charvill turned on him. ‘I know what it means, numbskull! Didn’t spend years in the confounded country without picking up some of their infernal tongue.’ His head came thrusting out at Melusine like a belligerent tortoise from its shell. ‘What in Hades d’ye mean, thanks to me? Want to blame anyone, blame that rapscallion who calls himself your father.’
‘He does not call himself my father, for he calls himself nothing at all,’ Melusine told him, her tone violent with fury.
‘Dead then, is he?’
‘If I could say that he is dead, it would give me very much satisfaction. But this I cannot do. I do not know anything of him since I have fourteen years, and that he sent me to Blaye to be a nun.’
‘Ha! You’re Catholic, too, damn his eyes,’ growled the general.
‘Certainly I am catholique. I say again, grace à vous.’
‘How dare you?’ roared the general.
‘And you!’ shrieked Melusine. ‘You dare to come to me? What do you wish of me? Why have you come? I do not want you!’ She swept round on Gerald abruptly and he braced for the onslaught. ‘Now I see that you are mad indeed. You bring me this grandfather, whom you know well I do not in the least wish to see, for I have told you so.’
‘I didn’t bring him,’ Gerald returned swiftly. ‘He just came.’ He gestured towards the fulminating general. ‘Can’t you see he is not a gentleman with whom one can argue?’
‘You think so?’ Melusine said dangerously, and her eyes flashed as she swept about again and confronted her grandfather once more. ‘I can argue with him very well indeed.’
‘Pray don’t,’ begged Mrs Sindlesham, one eye on the general’s embattled features. ‘I don’t want him having an apoplexy in this house.’
‘Don’t be a fool, woman,’ snapped Charvill, thrusting himself further into the room.
At this point Lucy, in an effort perhaps—foolhardy, in Gerald’s opinion—to pour oil on troubled waters, rose swiftly to her feet and came towards the old man, her hand held out.
‘How do you do, my lord? I am Lucilla Froxfield.’
‘Tchah!’ He glared at her. ‘What has that to say to anything?’
‘Nothing at all,’ smiled Lucy nervously. She indicated the captain who had retired behind the sofa. ‘I think you know my affianced husband.’
‘Captain Roding, sir,’ put in Gerald, adding on a jocular note, ‘Another of the green whippersnappers you had to contend with some years back.’
‘None of your sauce, Alderley,’ rejoined the general, shaking hands with Hilary who came forward to greet him. Then he looked towards his granddaughter once more, who had flounced away to the window at her great-aunt’s interruption. ‘Now then, girl.’
She turned her head, eyes blazing. ‘Me, I have a name.’
‘Melusine, sir,’ Gerald reminded the general, exchanging a frustrated glance with Mrs Sindlesham. Her efforts were vain. There was going to be no quarter between these two.
Lord Charvill champed upon an invisible bit for a moment or two, closing the gap between himself and the girl, and muttering the name to himself in an overwrought sort of way. ‘Melusine…Melusine. Pah! Damned Frenchified—’
‘If you say again,’ threatened Melusine, moving to meet him like a jungle cat poised for the kill, ‘this scorn of a thing French, monsieur le baron, I shall be compelled to give you this apoplexy of which she speaks, madame. I am entirely English, as you know well. If it is that I am in the least French, and that you do not like it—’
‘I don’t like it,’ snapped the old man. ‘And I’ll say it as often as I choose, you confounded impertinent wench! Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m your grandfather, girl.’
‘Pah!’ rejoined Melusine, apparently unconscious of echoing him. ‘You and Jarvis Remenham both, yes. Parbleu, but what grandfathers I have!’
