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Updated: May 24, 2025
"My dear Cyril, because you meet her at a ball at Lady Ascott's, and because she has lived with that Lady Duckle an old thing who used to present the daughters of ironmongers at Court for a consideration above all, because you want her yourself, you are ready to believe anything. I never did meet anyone who could deceive himself with the same ease. Besides, I know all about her.
And while he was thinking these things, Evelyn was telling him that Lady Duckle had met Lady Mersey at Homburg, and had gone on with her to Lucerne, where they hoped to meet Lady Ascott. "You are going to shoot with Lord Ascott next month?" she said, and looking at him she wondered if their relations were after all no more than a chance meeting and parting.
She would have liked to stand up in her carriage and sing aloud, nothing seemed to matter, until she remembered that she must not make a fool of herself before Lady Duckle.
The nuns had thought her a good Catholic, and she had had to pretend she was. Monsignor, it is true, had turned the conversation and saved her from exposure. But what then? She knew, and he knew, everyone knew; Lady Ascott, Lady Mersey, Lady Duckle very probably didn't care, but appearances had to be preserved, and she had to tell lies to them all. Her life had become a network of lies.
"We've written to each other from time to time, but not lately not since we went to Greece.... I've neglected my correspondence." Tears rose to Evelyn's eyes, and Lady Duckle was sorely tempted to lead her into confidences. But Owen's counsels prevailed; she dissembled, saying that she knew how Evelyn loved her father, and how nice it would be for her to see him again after such a long absence.
"Hope so," said Mr. Martin. "I'm a duckle, Little-sing; ain't I, Victoria?" Here he chuckled the good lady under the chin. "Ah, and so this is Maggie? How do, my dear? How do, Popsy-wopsy?" "How do you do?" said Maggie. "Come, come," said Mr. Martin. "No flights and vapors, no fine airs, no affected, mincing ways. A little girl should love her new parent. A little girl should kiss her new parent."
If she liked him well enough to be his mistress, she should like him well enough to be his wife. But knowing that she would not marry him, she took up her other letters and began reading them. Lady Duckle liked Homburg; everyone was there, and she hoped Evelyn would not be detained in London much longer.
"I was just telling Miss Innes that in three years she'll probably be singing at the Opera House. In a year or a year and a half she'll have learnt all that Savelli can teach her. Isn't that so?" The question was discussed for a while, and then Lady Duckle mentioned that it was getting late. It was an embarrassing moment when Owen stopped the lift and they bade her good-night.
Talking of her, Lady Duckle said that it was only necessary to know what road we wanted to walk in to succeed, and instantly Lady Duckle appeared to her as one who had never selected a road. She seemed to have walked a little way on all roads, and her face expressed a life of many wanderings, straying from place to place.
We want you, not your family. Chaperons nowadays are a make-believe. Lady Duckle will suit you very well; she'll feel ill when you don't want her, when you do she'll be all there. She's an honest old thing, and will do all that's required of her for the money you pay her. Thirty pounds a month, that's it, isn't it, dear? The servant announced Lady Castlerich.
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