But still Stapleton and his intimate friends, Archie La Planta and Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, were to be met everywhere. Still their movements were chronicled almost daily in the social columns of the London press, while their portraits appeared frequently in the weekly periodicals.
But perhaps nowhere was Jessica so much noticed as at Ascot. The daily and the weekly papers had apparently laid themselves out to give her as much publicity there as possible. She was seen in her car arriving on the course, accompanied by half a dozen friends, among them of course Stapleton and La Planta. She was seen walking on the course; she was seen in the paddock congratulating the owner of the winner of the Gold Cup; she was seen smiling at a duchess and shaking hands with a peer; she was seen conversing with a foreign premier.
Then the fashion papers “featured” her costumes—the gown she wore on the first day of the meeting, on the second day, and so on; the gowns she wore on different nights at the opera; the gowns she wore at Hurlingham, at Ranelagh, at the Military Tournament at Olympia, at the Richmond Show, on her houseboat above Henley until at last even her friends began seriously to ask one another who this woman was who, coming from nowhere, and unknown, had thus conquered London Society by her charm, her personality, and her beauty, but most of all, perhaps, by her lavish display and her extravagance.
And naturally people who were not her friends, women more especially, whispered. Others, when her name was mentioned, would smile significantly; smiles which did more harm than the whispers. For though nothing could be openly said against her, yet her would-be detractors were glad to insinuate evil.
That friend of hers, for instance, Aloysius Stapleton, why was he always at her heels? There might, of course, be no harm in the relationship; but on the other hand there might be harm, and as there might be there probably was. That was the attitude many adopted towards her who nevertheless accepted her hospitality and were glad to be invited to her receptions—receptions which certainly were the talk of all the town. Yet, curiously enough, she had refused to act as hostess at the great ball to take place at the Albert Hall; more, she had declined to be included among the society hostesses who would receive the three thousand or more guests that night.
Why was that?
It was Hopford who asked the question, and he put it to Captain Preston. In short, while the social world of London for the most part worshiped at the shrine of the mysterious Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, Captain Preston, Hopford, Cora Hartsilver, Yootha Hagerston and George Blenkiron were banding themselves together—a little group of skeptics determined to find out who Jessica actually was, and who her friends were.
Perhaps had they known the sensation the approaching great ball at the Albert Hall held in store for them they would have hesitated before meddling with the affairs of Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, the idol of London Society.