‘Be hanged to you, Fan, for a chatterbox!’ exclaimed Rupert. ‘How came you to Avon?’
‘Avon, Rupert? I protest I’ve not seen the place for nigh on a twelve-month, though indeed I took some notion to visit my dearest Jennifer the other day. But it came to naught, for there was my Lady Fountain’s rout, and I could scare leave –’
‘Devil take Lady Fountain’s rout! Where’s my cousin?’
‘At home, Rupert. Where else?’
‘What, not with Edward?’
Fanny nodded vigorously.
‘She should suit his humour,’ murmured the Duke.
‘I doubt she will not,’ said Fanny pensively. ‘What a rage he will be in, to be sure! Where was I?’
‘You were not, my dear. We are breathlessly awaiting your arrival.’
‘How disagreeable of you, Justin! Harriet! Of course! Up she came to town in Gaston’s charge, and was like to expire in my arms. Some rigmarole she wept down my best taffeta, and at last held out your letter, Justin. She vowed she’d not come to France, do what you would. Then I had more wailings of her sickness did she so much as set eyes on the sea. Oh, I had a pretty time with her, I do assure you! She could but moan of an abduction, and Rupert’s hat found in Long Meadow, hard by the wood, and of some man come to find a horse, and you setting off for Southampton, Justin. ’Twas like the threads of a sampler with naught to stitch ’em to. Gaston could tell me little more – la, Justin, why will you have a fool to valet? – and the end of it was that I was determined to come and see for myself and find what ’twas all about. Then, if you please, what says Edward but that I am not to go! ’Pon rep, things have come to a pretty pass between us, thought I! So when he went away to White’s – no, it was the Cocoa Tree, I remember, for he was to meet Sir John Cotton there – I set Rachel to pack my trunks, and started off with Gaston to come to you. Me voici, as Léonie would say.’
‘Voyons! ’ Léonie’s eyes sparkled. ‘I think it was very well done of you, madame! Will you come to Paris too? I am to make my curtsy to the World, Monseigneur says, and go to balls. Please come, madame!’
‘Depend upon it, I shall come, my love. ’Tis the very thing for which I have been pining. My sweetest life, there is a milliner in the Rue Royale who has the most ravishing styles! Oh, I will teach Edward a lesson!’
‘Edward,’ remarked his Grace, ‘is like to follow you demanding my blood. We must await his coming.’
‘Dear Edward!’ sighed my lady. ‘I do hope that he will not come, but I dare swear he will. And now for the love of heaven let me have your story! I shall die of curiosity else.’
So Léonie and Rupert poured forth the tale of their adventures once more into a most sympathetic ear. Fanny interspersed the recital with suitable exclamations, flew up and embraced Rupert before he could save himself when she heard of his narrow escape, and at the end of it all stared in amazement at his Grace, and burst out laughing.
The Duke smiled down at her.
‘It makes you feel middle-aged, my dear? Alas!’
‘No indeed!’ My lady fanned herself. ‘I felt an hundred in my boredom, but this adventure – faith, ’tis the maddest ever I heard – throws me back into my teens, ’pon rep it does! Justin, you should have cut him to pieces with your small-sword, the villain!’
‘That is what I think,’ Léonie struck in. ‘I wanted to make him sorry, madame. It was a great impertinence.’
‘A very proper spirit, my love, but if you in sooth flung a cup of hot coffee over him I’ll wager you made him sorry enough. La, what a hoyden you are, child! But I vow I envy you your courage. Saint-Vire? Ay, I know him well. A head of hair that could set six hayricks ablaze, and the most unpleasant eyes of any I know. What did he want with you, sweet?’
‘I do not know,’ Léonie answered. ‘And Monseigneur will not tell.’
‘Oh, so you know, Justin? I might have guessed it! Some fiendish game you will be playing.’ My lady shut her fan with a click. ‘It’s time I took a hand indeed! I’ll not have this child endangered by your mad tricks, Justin. Poor angel, I shudder to think of what might have befallen you!’
‘Your solicitude for my ward’s safety is charming, Fanny, but I believe I am able to protect her.’
‘Of course he is!’ said Léonie. ‘Do I not belong to him?’ She put her hand on his Grace’s arm, and smiled up at him.
My lady looked, and her eyes narrowed. On Rupert’s face she surprised a knowing grin, and of a sudden jumped up, saying that she must see to the bestowal of her boxes.
‘Faith, the inn won’t hold them!’ chuckled Rupert. ‘Where are you to sleep, Fan?’
‘I do not care an I sleep in an attic!’ said my lady. ‘’Deed, I almost expect to sleep in the stables! It would be fitting in such a venture.’
‘I believe we need not put that upon you,’ said his Grace. ‘Gaston shall remove my trunks into Rupert’s chamber. Thus you may have my room.’
‘My dear, ’twill do excellently well! You shall show me the way, Léonie. ’Pon rep, child, you grow more lovely each day!’ She put her arm about Léonie’s waist, and went out with her.
‘Egad, here’s a fine muddle!’ said Rupert, when the door was shut behind the ladies. ‘Fan’s in a mighty good humour, but lord! is she to come with us?’
‘I imagine that the worthy Edward will have a word to say to that,’ Avon replied.
‘How Fan could have chosen such a dull dog, and you abetted her, I don’t know!’ said Rupert.
‘My dear boy, I abetted her because he was dull enough to sober her. And he has money.’
‘There’s that, of course, but faith, he’d turn the milk sour if he smiled at it! Will you take Fan alone?’
‘I almost think that I shall,’ said Avon. ‘I could find no better hostess.’
Rupert stared.
‘Are you going to entertain, Justin?’
‘Lavishly, Rupert. It will be most fatiguing, but I have a duty as Léonie’s guardian which I must endeavour to perform.’
Rupert sat up in his chair, and spoke briskly.
‘You may count on my presence for the season, Justin.’
‘I am honoured, of course,’ bowed his Grace.
‘Ay, but – but will you let me join your party?’ Rupert asked.
‘You will add quite a cachet to my poor house,’ Avon drawled. ‘Yes, child, you may join us, provided you behave with proper circumspection, and refrain from paying my very dear friend back in his own coin.’
‘What, am I not to call him out?’ demanded Rupert.
‘It is so clumsy,’ sighed his Grace. ‘You may leave him to my – er – tender mercies – with a clear conscience. The hole in your shoulder is added to the debt he owes me. He shall pay – in full.’
‘Poor devil!’ said Rupert feelingly. He saw into his brother’s eyes, and ceased to smile. ‘My God, Justin, do you hate him so?’
‘Bah!’ said his Grace. ‘– I borrow the word from my infant’s vocabulary – does one hate an adder? Because it is venomous and loathsome one crushes it underfoot, as I shall crush this Comte.’
‘Because of what happened twenty years ago – to you?’ Rupert asked, greatly daring.
‘No, boy. Not that, though it weighs also in the scale.’
‘Because of what he did to Léonie, then?’
‘Because of what he did to my infant,’ softly echoed his Grace. ‘Yes, child.’
‘There’s more to this than meets the eye,’ said Rupert with conviction.
‘Much more,’ agreed his Grace. The unaccustomed harshness went from his face, and left it inscrutable as ever. ‘Remind me, boy, that I owe you a diamond pin. It was a single stone, I think, of a peculiar beauty?’
‘Ay, you gave it me, years ago.’
‘I wonder what can have possessed me?’ said his Grace. ‘No doubt you were – er – “basking in the sunshine of my approval”.’
Twenty-three
Mr Marling Allows Himself to be Persuaded
br /> Lady Fanny partook of breakfast in bed next morning, and was sipping her hot chocolate when Léonie scratched on the door. My lady put up her hands to her pretty nightcap and patted her golden curls before she called ‘Come in!’
‘Oh, ’tis you, child! Mercy, are you riding out so early?’
Léonie was in riding dress, with polished boots, and leathern gauntlets, tasselled, and a big black beaver on her head with a long feather that swept her shoulder.
‘Yes, madame, but only if you do not need me. Monseigneur said that I must ask you.’
Lady Fanny nibbled at a sweet biscuit and regarded the bed-post with rapt interest.
‘No, child, no. Why should I need you? Lud, what roses you have; I’d give my best necklet for your complexion. To be sure, I had it once. Go, my love. Don’t keep Justin waiting. Is Rupert up?’
‘His valet dresses him, madame.’
‘I’ll bear him company in the parlour,’ said her ladyship, and pushed her cup and saucer away. ‘Away with you, child! Stay! Send Rachel to me, my love, if you will be so good.’
Léonie went with alacrity. Half an hour later my lady, having bustled exceedingly, came tripping into the parlour dressed in a flowered muslin, and her fair hair unpowdered beneath a becoming cap. Rupert looked up as she entered, and put down the book over which he had been yawning.
‘Lord, you’re up early, Fan!’
‘I came to bear you company,’ she cooed, and went to sit by him, at the window.
‘Wonders’ll never cease,’ Rupert said. He felt that this amiability on Fanny’s part ought not to go unrewarded. ‘You look twenty this morning, Fan, ’pon my soul you do!’ he said handsomely.
‘Dear Rupert! Do you really think so?’
‘Ay – that’ll do, though! Léonie has gone riding with his Grace.’
‘Rupert,’ said my lady.
‘Ay, what?’
Fanny looked up.
‘I have made up my mind to it Justin shall marry that child.’
Rupert was unperturbed.
‘Will he, do you think?’
‘My dear boy, he’s head over ears in love with her!’
‘I know that – I’m not blind, Fan. But he’s been in love before.’
‘You are most provoking, Rupert! Pray what has that to do with it?’
‘He’s not married any of ’em,’ said my lord.
Fanny affected to be shocked.
‘Rupert!’
‘Don’t be prudish, Fanny! That’s Edward’s doing, I know.’
‘Rupert, if you are minded to be unkind about dear Edward –’
‘Devil take Edward!’ said Rupert cheerfully.
Fanny eyed him for a moment in silence, and suddenly smiled.
‘I am not come to quarrel with you, horrid boy. Justin would not take Léonie as his mistress.’
‘No, damme, I believe you’re right. He’s turned so strict you’d scarce know him. But marriage – ! He’d not be so easily trapped.’
‘Trapped?’ cried my lady. ‘It’s no such thing! The child has no notion of wedding him. And that is why he will want her to wife, mark my words!’
‘He might,’ Rupert said dubiously. ‘But – Lord, Fanny, he’s turned forty, and she’s a babe!’
‘She is twenty, my dear, or near it. ’Twould be charming! She will always think him wonderful, and she’ll not mind his morals, for she’s none herself; and he – oh, he will be the strictest husband in town, and the most delightful! She will always be his infant, I dare swear, and he “Monseigneur”. I am determined he shall wed her. Now what do you say?’
‘I? I’d be pleased enough, but – egad, Fanny, we don’t know who she is! Bonnard? I’ve never met the name, and it hath a plaguey bourgeois ring to it, damme, so it has! And Justin – well, y’know, he’s Alastair of Avon, and it won’t do for him to marry a nobody.’
‘Pooh!’ said my lady. ‘I’ll wager my reputation she does not come of common stock. There’s some mystery, Rupert.’
‘Any fool could tell that,’ Rupert said frankly. ‘And if you asked me, Fan, I’d say she was related to Saint-Vire.’ He leaned back in his chair and looked for surprise in his sister. It did not come.
‘Where would be my wits if I’d not seen that?’ demanded Fanny. ‘As soon as I heard that ’twas Saint-Vire who carried her off I felt positive she was a base-born child of his.’
Rupert spluttered.
‘Gad, would you have Justin marry any such?’
‘I should not mind at all,’ said my lady.
‘He won’t do it,’ Rupert said with conviction. ‘He’s a rake, but he knows what’s due to the family, I’ll say that for him.’
‘Pho!’ My lady snapped her fingers. ‘If he loves her he’ll not trouble his head over the family. Why, what did I care for the family when I married Edward?’
‘Steady, steady! Marling has his faults, I’m not saying he hasn’t, but there’s no bad blood in his family, and you can trace him back to –’
‘Stupid creature, could I not have had Fonteroy for the lifting of a finger? Ay, or my Lord Blackwater, or his Grace of Cumming? Yet I chose Edward, who beside them was a nobody.’
‘Damn it, he’s not base-born!’
‘I would not have cared, I give you my word!’
Rupert shook his head.
‘It’s lax, Fanny, ’fore Gad, it’s lax. I don’t like it.’
My lady pulled a face at him.
‘Oh, tell Justin you do not like it, my dear! Tell him –’
‘I’m not meddling in Justin’s affairs, I thank you. He’ll do as he likes, but I’ll lay you a monkey he weds no bastard.’
‘Done!’ said my lady. ‘Oh, Rupert! I lost my big emerald at play last week! I could have cried my eyes out, and Edward could only say that it must be a lesson to me!’
‘That’s Edward all over,’ nodded Rupert. ‘Don’t I know it!’
‘No, you do not, tiresome boy! He will give me another emerald.’ She blinked rapidly. ‘Indeed, he is very good to me. I wonder if he will come here? I vow I shall be miserable if he does not!’
Rupert’s eyes were on the street.
‘Well, he has come, and mighty à propos, too.’
‘What! Is it really he, Rupert? You’re not teasing me?’
‘No, it is he, right enough, and in a thundering rage, by the look of him.’
Lady Fanny sighed ecstatically.
‘Darling Edward! He will be very angry with me, I am sure.’
Marling came quickly in. He was travel-stained, and heavy-eyed from lack of sleep, and his mouth was set in an uncompromising fashion. He looked his pretty wife over in silence.
‘That’s the last of us,’ said Rupert jovially. ‘We’ve all the family now, glory be! Give you good morrow, Edward!’
Lady Fanny rose, and held out her hand.
‘Edward, I protest this is foolish of you.’
He ignored the outstretched hand.
‘You’ll return with me to-day, Fanny. I don’t brook your defiance.’
‘Whew!’ spoke Rupert under his breath. ‘Sa-sa – Have at you!’
Lady Fanny tittered.
‘Oh, sir, you are ungallant! Pray have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You come to me muddied and in disorder! And I who so love a man to be point de vice !’
‘We’ll leave my appearance out of it, if you please. I’ve borne enough of your whims, Fanny. You’ll return with me to England.’
‘Indeed, sir, do you think I shall?’ The light of battle was in my lady’s eyes.
‘You are my wife, madam.’
‘But not your chattel, sir. Pray take that frown from your face! It likes me not.’
‘Ay, do!’ Rupert put in. ‘How did you leave my cousin, Marling?’
‘Yes, sir, and why did you leave poor dear Harriet? It was not well done of you, Edward.’
‘Fanny, have you done? I warn you, I am in no mood for these tricks!’
‘Now, careful, Fan, ca
reful!’ said Rupert, enjoying himself hugely. ‘He’ll disown you, so he will!’
Marling swung round to face him.
‘Your pleasantries are ill-timed, Alastair. I believe we shall do better if you leave us.’
‘How dare you, Edward? And the poor boy just out of his bed, with a wound in his shoulder that only escaped the lung by a bare inch!’
‘I am not concerned with Rupert’s hurts,’ said Marling cuttingly. ‘He will survive without my sympathy.’
‘Ay, but damme, I shall suffer a relapse if I have to look on your gloomy countenance much longer!’ retorted Rupert. ‘For God’s sake, smile, man!’
‘Oh yes, Edward, do smile!’ begged her ladyship. ‘It gives me a headache to see you frowning so.’
‘Fanny, you will give me five minutes in private.’
‘No, sir, I shall not. You are prodigious ill-natured to talk to me in this vein, and I protest I want no more of it.’
‘There’s for you, Marling!’ Rupert said. ‘Go and bespeak some breakfast. You’ll be better for it, I swear! ’Tis the emptiness of you makes you feel jaundiced: I know the feeling well. A ham, now, and some pasties, with coffee to wash it down will make a new man of you, stap me if it won’t!’
Lady Fanny giggled. Marling’s brow grew blacker, his eyes harder.
‘You’ll regret this, madam. You’ve trifled with me once too often.’
‘Oh, sir, I’m in no mood for your heroics! Pray keep them for Harriet! She has the taste for them, no doubt!’
‘Try ’em on Justin,’ suggested Rupert. ‘Here he is, with Léonie. Lord, what a happy gathering!’
‘For the last time, Fanny, – I shall not ask again – will you accord me a few minutes alone?’
‘Alone?’ echoed Rupert. ‘Ay, of course she will, as many as you like! Solitude’s the thing, so it is! Solitude, and a fat ham –’
‘My dear Marling, I hope I see you well?’ His Grace had come quietly in.
Marling picked up his hat.
‘I am in excellent health, I thank you, Avon.’
‘But his spirits!’ said Rupert. ‘Oh, lud!’