Changeling

“I meant it. There is something …” I paused and he asked:

“Yes? What were you going to say?”

“There is something astute about you.”

“Astute? Perceptive. Shrewd. Having insight. It sounds very commendable. But are astute people sometimes a little sly … self-seeking … having an eye open for the main chance?”

“Perhaps that covers it, too. But everyone would like to be astute surely. Who would wish to be otherwise?”

“Then I thank you.”

The music had stopped.

“Alas,” he said. “I must return you to your guardians. But the night is just beginning. There will be other opportunities.”

“I daresay there will.”

“Your dancing program is almost full, is that so?”

“There are quite a number … it is after all given by my stepfather and people feel in duty bound to dance with me … as I am to dance with some of his friends.”

He grimaced. “I shall watch for my opportunity and, being perceptive, shrewd and having insight, trust me to leap in and seize my chance.”

I laughed. It had been a stimulating encounter.

Morwenna said to me: “Did you enjoy that? You looked as though you did.”

“He is very amusing.”

“And exceptionally good looking,” commented Helena. “Oh, there is Sir Toby Dorien coming over. You’re to dance with him, I believe. He’s an important colleague of Benedict. Martin knows him well.”

How different it was dancing with Sir Toby! He was far from being an expert dancer and there was a certain amount of stumbling and one or two painful jabs at my toes. Madame Perrotte had given me a few hints on how to react on such occasions and I did not emerge from the ordeal as battered as I might have been. His conversation was almost completely political with references to all the well-known politicians of the day. I was very glad when that duty was over.

I had only just returned to my seat when a young man came towards us. He was vaguely familiar—very dark and of medium stature, good looking in a certain way.

I was momentarily puzzled until Helena said: “Oh, good evening, Monsieur Bourdon. I expected to see you here tonight.”

He bowed to us all.

“It is an occasion which I was determined not to miss.”

“Do you know Miss Mandeville? You must …”

“Oh yes. We met long ago. In Cornwall. I remember it well.”

“I remember, too,” I said.

He took my hand and kissed it.

“This gives me great pleasure,” he said. “Then you were a little girl. I knew you would grow into a beautiful young woman.”

“I daresay you are longing to dance,” said Helena. “I advised Rebecca that she must leave certain gaps in the program. That was absolutely essential.”

“And this is one of those gaps? What luck for me. Miss Mandeville, will you allow me the pleasure?”

“But, of course,” I said.

He was a polished dancer—by far the most practiced I had had that evening. To dance with him meant an absence of tension. He led the way, guiding me so that all I had to do was follow. I could give myself up to the joy of the dance. Madame Perrotte had said: “With some partners you can forget all the do’s and don’ts. You merely dance. Your feet are free from violation. Let yourself rejoice and enjoy. It rarely happens.”

Well, it was happening now, for here was the perfect dancer.

“I heard you were home—from Celeste,” he said.

“Are you often at the house?”

“It depends. If I am in London, I call. We have a house in London … a pied à terre. But mostly I am in Chislehurst or France.”

“So never in the same place long?”

“I have been at Chislehurst with my family. It is a very sad time. You have heard of the son of the Emperor and Empress … the Prince Imperial …”

I was puzzled.

He went on: “He was killed in the war. You know of the trouble between the British and the Zulus?”

“There has been a good deal of talk about it but it is over now, is it not?”

“Yes. The Zulus were defeated and now they are asking for the protection of the British. They want to be taken over. They need the protection of a great power … but so far that has not come about. The rulers are reluctant to take on new responsibility. There is indecision at the moment and still strife in Zululand. During the trouble the Prince Imperial was killed while in the service of the British army. You can imagine the mourning there has been at Chislehurst.”

I nodded.

“The Empress … turned from her throne … losing her husband … and then her son. She has had a hard life. Those of us who were in exile with her have done our best to comfort her. It has kept us in Chislehurst. There. That is the long explanation of why I have not seen you before. But now … I hope to see you much.”

“I suppose you will be visiting your sister often?”

“I shall with double pleasure now … because you and she are under the same roof.”

“So you do have your residence in London?”

“Yes, as I said … a small place … a pied à terre merely.”

“What of High Tor?”

“It belongs to my parents. They bought it when they thought they would stay there. But later they decided to go to Chislehurst and have bought a house there. High Tor has been kept ever since.”