The Advocate's Wife by Norman Russell

my forebears, decent old squires from the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries. That’s what I brought your father when I married him. Breeding and background. He brought the money – or rather, his father provided it. If you care to venture into that study of his you’ll see the only painting he has: it’s a little crude daub of his father. I don’t know who painted it, and neither does he. But then, your father doesn’t believe in history. He believes only in now.’
    Diana said nothing. She examined one of two or three slender bracelets that she was wearing. There was the suspicion of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
    ‘You, my dear,’ Lady Porteous continued, ‘possess the three Bs: breeding, brains and beauty. Use them! You speak of romance, and so forth. Perhaps there are such things, but affection is easily summoned up for a man without debasing it with foolish sentimentality.’
    There was a period of quiet, during which the dark woman and the dark young girl communed further on their mysterious deep level. Then the girl smiled very sweetly, and said, ‘Shall I tell you about the new fashions in Paris this season, Mama?’
    ‘Do, by all means, my love. Perhaps we can persuade your papa to give us some money. We neither of us have anything fitting to wear.’
    For half an hour they talked about fashion, and then one of the footmen came in to remove the remains of their afternoon tea. When he had gone, Diana rose to her feet, and made towards the door.
    ‘Mama,’ she said, with a winning smile, ‘when you talk like that, all hard and cynical, it’s because you’re vexed with Papa. You pretend that you want me to enter into a mariage de conve nance ,which is what you did – or say you did, but if you keep on saying these things, Mama, you’ll actually end up believing them!’

    *
    ‘Lardner,’ said Sir William to his secretary, ‘I fear I’m unpopular today on the other side of the passage. If you’re agreeable, we’ll stay here for a couple of hours, until the heat’s died down. Have you seen Diana, yet? She’s just in from Paris.’
    Lardner smiled. He had indeed encountered Diana, just as she was coming down the stairs for tea. How elegant and confident she had grown! She had engagingly entwined her arm through his, and said, ‘Do come in to tea with us, Mr Lardner. Papa won’t mind, I’m sure.’ He had gently disengaged himself, and replied, ‘A charming invitation, Diana, but somehow I don’t think that Lady Porteous would approve.’ She had laughed then, and left him peering over his pince-nez at her as she closed the drawing room door.
    ‘Yes, Sir William, I’ve seen her. It’s difficult to realize that she’s the same person as the little thing who used to crawl along the hall passage.’
    Lardner had been Porteous’s secretary for twenty-five years, coming to him just after the birth of Mary Jane. He had watched the children grow up, and had allowed himself to be teased unmercifully by them. In return, the girls had benefited from his cheerful, amused tolerance.
    Ten years earlier, Sir William and Lady Porteous had asked Lardner, who, as Porteous knew, had no surviving kin, to take up residence with the family in Queen Adelaide Gate. Lady Porteous had explained to each of the girls, as they grew old enough to understand such nice distinctions, that Lardner was to be addressed as ‘Mr’. ‘Mr Lardner,’ she had told them, ‘is your papa’s secretary. He is not a servant.’
    ‘Yes, indeed, Lardner, time flies – and flies rather more quickly than one would like! When Baby was crawling down the passage, Lydia, too, was only a little girl. Mary Jane was eight or nine. A houseful of little girls! Ah, well. To work. The Hungerford case is behind us. Now, we must concentrate our efforts on the Mounteagle Substitution Scandal – a cunning and subtle scheme, Lardner, devised by the greatest scoundrel of our time – he had better remain nameless for the moment –