Keeping the Castle - By Patrice Kindl Page 0,41

in an audible tone, “What the devil is the woman playing at? Is that sarcasm?”

“Hush, Fredericks. The lady is being courteous. Answer her politely.”

“I assure you, madam, the financial gentlemen in the City were not the gainers for being in my company in these past weeks. Quite the contrary,” was Mr. Fredericks’s rejoinder.

Mr. Vincy had apparently only overheard this exchange in part, for approaching us, he chuckled and said, “No, indeed, Miss Crawley! Anybody who tries to fleece Hugh Fredericks will find himself much the loser for it. I shouldn’t like to try to bamboozle the brass out of his pockets, I can tell you! It would have been a joy to watch you put that pack of jackanapes in the basket, Fredericks,” he continued. “Nay, miss, our Mr. Fredericks is bang up to the mark in these matters, have no fear.”

From this speech I gathered that I had misjudged the nature of Mr. Fredericks’s meetings with his colleagues in the City. Apparently the object of the assemblage of these merchants and men of business was to see which could best cheat the other, rather than to converse and exchange pleasantries in the civilized fashion of the landowning class.

“My apologies for underestimating him,” I replied, with another curtsey.

This appeared to appease Mr. Vincy, but the look I received from Mr. Fredericks was unexpectedly discerning.

“You think us all a vulgar lot, I perceive,” he said, smiling a little. “Well, I don’t say some of those fellows are not on the sharpish side.” He shifted his gaze to Mr. Vincy. “How about Gentleman Jim, Vincy? Would you introduce him to your wife and daughter?”

From the horrified look Mr. Vincy gave him, I gathered that the answer was No.

“But a good many are decent folk. No less honest than the gentry, at any rate, and a great deal more so than the nobility.” Here both men laughed heartily at the thought of all the deceit and double-dealing they had encountered amongst the titled classes. I was relieved that the Marquis had strolled away and was no longer a part of our little group.

Mr. Vincy was by now so at ease in the conversation that he pulled up a delicate gilt chair and sat astride it backwards, ignoring the frowns of his lady wife.

“Take Boring’s mother, f’rinstance,” he said in a lowered voice. “D’you know what I heard of her? She may be my hostess, but by gad, I—”

To my astonishment, Mr. Fredericks was frowning and shaking his head, either out of loyalty to his friend or—could it be?—delicacy of feeling.

Vincy flushed a dull, brick red and stood up. He bowed uneasily in my direction. “My apologies, miss. I spoke out of turn. I came up in a hard school and never have learnt to hold my tongue in polite society. I beg you’ll forget I spoke.” And he moved quickly away to sit at his wife’s side. Evidently he assumed her proximity would have the effect of rendering him incapable of speech.

I assumed Mr. Vincy referred to Mrs. Westing’s playing at cards, a practice frowned upon in some circles of the lower middle class from which he had sprung. A complete change of subject seemed to be in order.

“Miss Vincy tells me you have a keen appreciation for drawing and painting,” I said to Mr. Fredericks.

He nodded, relieved to have been diverted into another theme. “I have. I started out by looking at them from a commercial aspect, you know, and after studying the subject so as to be able to put a money value on a piece, I found that they had a value for me above pounds and pence. I liked looking at them,” he clarified, as though I might find this an eccentric reaction to a piece of art. “So I studied them a bit more—got to talking to artists and dealers and so on—and now I feel I understand something of the field. Not that there’s not a good deal more to learn,” he said, in a humbler tone than I would have expected.

He had been standing and I sitting. Now he took the little golden chair abandoned by Mr. Vincy and prepared to sit astride it as the latter had done.

“In fact, Vincy’s daughter is a damned fine artist. She—”

“Mr. Fredericks!” Pleased though I was at his introducing Miss Vincy into the conversation, I could ignore neither his language nor his treatment of a fine piece of furniture. “Pray speak civilly and sit in the chair properly or