Page 24 of Henrietta

Hetty could not quite put it into words. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She preoccupied herself instead by navigating around an irate goose, but when this business was concluded and Arthur was still looking at her, expectant, she sighed. ‘I am so much less shy than I was – I promise! – but with strangers, or, well, gentlemen, I still sometimes feel the same oddity I was in my first Season, so terrified of making a misstep that it is a task even to utter commonplaces.’ She sighed again. ‘I should so love to be one of those ladies who is always ready with an amusing comment or an elegant retort, but …’

Arthur shook his head. ‘You are such a person, Hetty – with us, anyhow.’

‘It is different with persons one knows,’ Hetty said dismissively.

Arthur hummed thoughtfully. ‘I am surprised Mama has not taken you more to task.’

Hetty pulled a face. ‘She had me learn lines. “A person need only know three phrases to conduct themselves elegantly in any situation,”’ she said in a passable imitation of Lady Allerton’s careless declarations. ‘“Such a fine day!”’ she quoted. ‘“Do you think so?” and “How marvellous!”’

Arthur grinned appreciatively. ‘I received that lesson myself. You did not, I take it, find it helpful?’

‘My recollection is not at its best when I am agitated.’ Wishing to be fair, she admitted: ‘Perhaps I did not try very hard. Practising such a thing on persons whose opinion can flatten one’s reputation is not such an appealing proposition.’

Arthur paused to consider for a moment: for Hetty to feel calmer around all persons, they ought really to practise her encountering strangers at such a frequency that her nerves would eventually decrease. It was, in some ways, not dissimilar to preparing a military exercise, and that same briskness was in his voice when he next spoke: ‘I shall introduce you to a succession of new persons, with whom you may only use Mama’s three phrases.’

‘Only those phrases?’ Hetty laughed. ‘In practice, Arthur, I do not think—’

‘Let us see.’ Arthur swept a magnificent bow. ‘I am Captain Asquith: a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

‘Arthur …’

‘Captain Asquith,’ he corrected. ‘How do you do?’

He looked at her, so full of hopeful expectance that she found herself, reluctantly, returning the greeting; then he looked pointedly up to the sun.

‘Such a fine day,’ she said obediently.

‘All the finer for seeing you!’

Though she knew this gallantry was just part of the game, a faint blush still came to her cheeks and she had to mutter her next line to her feet: ‘Do you think so?’

‘But, Miss Clithero, of course, how could you doubt me?’

‘How marvellous,’ Hetty concluded.

Arthur clapped his hands. ‘Bravo! It works!’

‘Only just. I am not at all certain it would with anyone else.’

‘Let us see,’ Arthur said again, eyes landing upon a gentleman in a distance. ‘Mr Chapman!’

He raised a hand, hailing him. Mr Chapman, an unfamiliar gentleman garbed in military uniform, paused, peering over at them. Then, recognising Arthur, he began to stride in their direction.

‘Arthur,’ Hetty said in a low, urgent voice. ‘Arthur, what are you—’

‘No time like the present!’

‘I can’t!’

‘I shall be right there beside you.’ This was not reassuring in the least: witnesses, in Hetty’s experience, rarely reduced one’s humiliation. ‘Mr Chapman does not move in the first circles of elegance. Nor is he to remain in London for long. However you conduct yourself in this conversation matters not one jot.’

Hetty tried to remember how to breathe.

‘Just remember your lines!’ Arthur urged as Mr Chapman neared.

Hetty felt the oncoming blankness begin to intrude in her periphery and tried to recite them under her breath. How do you do? Do you think so? Such a fine day. Or was it What a fine day, she could not recollect …

In your head!’ Arthur added hastily, as Chapman came into earshot. ‘Good to see you, it’s been too long! May I present you to Miss Clithero – you have not, I think, met before.’