‘Yes, excessively droll, no doubt!’ said Gideon, thrusting a hand into his pocket, and bringing out the ring. He tossed it into the Duke’s hand. ‘Take your ill-omened bauble! And now, little cousin, I will break to you a trifle of knowledge you do not appear to have been informed of before! No action for breach of promise can lie against a minor.’
For a moment the Duke stared at him. Then he said blankly: ‘Do you mean that I did it all for nothing?’
‘That is what I mean, Adolphus,’ replied Gideon, grinning at him. This struck the Duke as being so exquisitely humorous that the gentleman in bed in the next room was obliged to thump on the wall again.
‘Oh, but I am glad I didn’t know it!’ gasped the Duke, wiping his eyes. ‘Yes, I know you think it ought to be a lesson to me in future to ask my big cousin’s advice, but I would not have missed my adventures for a fortune!’
‘No,’ said Gideon, regarding him under his drooping eyelids. ‘I have a notion you are not going to ask anyone’s advice in the future, Adolphus. Shall you be sorry to return to all your dignities?’
‘Yes – no! I had a most diverting time, but some of it was most uncomfortable, and I own that I do not care to be without a valet, or a change of raiment! I do trust that Scriven will not delay to send someone here with my baggage!’
‘I fancy you need not be anxious on that head,’ said Gideon dryly. ‘What is more, I have my own guess as to who will appear in Bath before we are much older!’
‘Good God! Not my uncle? What the devil shall I do with him, if you are right? I must find this fellow Mudgley, and I am sure my uncle will be the greatest hindrance to me!’
Gideon’s eyes gleamed appreciatively at the unconscious change in his cousin which made it possible for him to contemplate the possibility of his being able to do anything at all with Lord Lionel, but he replied gravely: ‘You had best send him to join your new friend at Cheyney.’
‘Yes, I think I had,’ said the Duke, quite seriously. ‘He dislikes hotels, so perhaps he will choose to go there. I wonder, will he think Mamble preferable to the damp sheets he is convinced all landlords put upon their beds? And then there is Liversedge! Gideon, I charge you most straitly not to say one word to your father about Liversedge! He would raise such a breeze! And for heaven’s sake, try to think of some plausible tale for me to fob him off with! It would never do for him to know the truth.’
‘Turning him up sweet? You won’t do it!’
‘I must do it. There is Matt to be thought of, remember! But first I do think I should get rid of Mamble. If he stays in Bath I shall never be able to shake him off. Gideon, you shall drive him and Tom out to Cheyney for me tomorrow!’
Gideon groaned. ‘And tell Tom how I got my wound? I thank you!’
‘Nonsense! It will not hurt you to tell him about a battle, and you are just the sort of fellow to give him other ambitions than highroad robbery.’
‘Rid your mind of the hope that you are going to fob your hell-born babe off on to me!’ recommended Gideon.
But the Duke only smiled at him with deep, if rather sleepy, affection, and murmured: ‘Kind Gideon! Not really a hell-born babe, you know: just a trifle wild! I daresay he will mind you tolerably well. I am glad you are come to Bath!’
He said the same thing when he took himself off to bed, and found Nettlebed waiting to attend on him. Nettlebed had contrived, in some inexplicable way, to make his bed-chamber much more comfortable, and there could be no denying that it was extremely pleasant to find candles already burning there, the fire made up, his nightshirt laid out in readiness, and a devoted servitor to pull off his boots, pour out hot water for him, and tenderly divest him of his raiment. He said: ‘It has done me a great deal of good to be without you, Nettlebed, for it has made me appreciate you as I never did before! Can anything be done, do you think, to make me respectable enough to be seen abroad?’
‘Now, don’t you worry your head over that, your Grace!’ Nettlebed admonished him. ‘I will soon have your coat fit to wear, never fear!’
‘Thank you. I bought some new neckcloths to-day, so –’
‘Your Grace won’t have to wear them,’ said Nettlebed repressively.
‘I was afraid you would not quite like them,’ said the Duke, in a meek voice.
Nettlebed was not deceived; he was still too much chastened to treat this demure mischief as it deserved, but he shook his head at the Duke, and said severely, as he drew the curtains round the bed: ‘Ay, right well your Grace knew I wouldn’t like them, and a good thing his lordship isn’t here to see the case you’re in! Now, you go to sleep, your Grace, and no more of your tricks!’
Twenty-three
In the morning it was discovered that not only had Nettlebed removed the stains and the creases from the Duke’s coat, but he had also furbished up Tom’s apparel. Nettlebed by no means approved of Master Mamble, but if his master chose to take under his wing a youth of vulgar parentage there was nothing for it but to do what lay in his power to make him respectable. From having attended the Duke and his various cousins in their boyhood, he was perfectly well able to deal with even so recalcitrant a subject as Tom, even succeeding in sending him in to breakfast with his neck clean and his hair brushed.
Tom, no sufferer from matutinal moroseness, enlivened the board with a ceaseless flow of conversation. As much of this took the form of pertinacious questions addressed to Captain Ware, his victim revised his overnight decision, and grimly informed the Duke that he would obey his behests with the utmost willingness. ‘And how you have borne it for close on a week, I know not, Adolphus!’ he said.
The Duke laughed, but bade Tom postpone his questions. ‘For my cousin is always very cross at breakfast,’ he explained, ‘and you will have, besides, plenty of opportunity to ask him what you like presently. I have been thinking that you might like to go out to Cheyney, and stay there for a day or two. Captain Ware will tell my headkeeper to look after you, and you may take a gun out, and very likely see Shillingford’s ferrets, and go ratting as well.’
The magnificence of this proposal served not only to render Tom speechless for quite ten minutes, but to make him assail his parent, upon his arrival at the Pelican, with such eager entreaties to him to permit him to accept the most splendid invitation of his life that Mr Mamble was almost dazed by them. When he understood more clearly what the invitation was, he protested that he did not wish to be any longer separated from his heir. This made it easy for the Duke to extend the invitation to him, and so adroitly did he do it that Mr Mamble had no suspicion that he was being got rid of, and Gideon had to hide an appreciative grin. Fortunately for the success of the Duke’s scheme, Mr Mamble had fallen foul of the landlord, the boots, and one of the waiters at the White Horse, and had already declared his intention of shaking the dust of this hostelry from his feet. If he thought an invitation to stay at Cheyney while its owner remained in Bath irregular, this consideration was outweighed in his mind by the prospect of being able to floor his oldest crony and chief rival in Kettering with the careless announcement that he had been visiting the Duke of Sale at his house near Bath. He accepted with a low bow, and in a speech in which the words Condescension, Your Grace, Distinguishing Attention, and All Obligation occurred so frequently that the Duke could only be grateful to Tom, who interrupted it without ceremony, demanding to know when they might set forward on the journey.
‘You may come with me there at once,’ said Gideon. ‘We will go ahead of your father in my curricle, and see all in readiness.’
‘Oh, sir! and may I drive it? May I? Do, pray, say I may!’
His parent bade him mind his manners, and recommended Captain Ware to give him a clout if he should be troublesome. Gideon, however, nodded, and bade him make haste and pack up his valise. Tom dashed off at once, and in a very short time the Duke was alone, and able to set forth on his quest of Mr Mudgley.
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He found it disagreeably reminiscent of his earlier quest for the Bird in Hand. None of the more obvious places of enquiry seemed ever to have heard of Mr Mudgley, and visits to two gentlemen who bore names slightly resembling Mudgley proved abortive. The Duke drove back to the Pelican in the gig he had hired for these visits in a mood of considerable misgiving. He found that his cousin had returned from Cheyney, and that Nettlebed had had the forethought to bespeak suitable accommodation for them both at the Christopher. He nodded absently, and said: ‘Yes, very well, when my baggage has arrived. I must go round to Laura Place.’
‘What’s amiss, Adolphus?’ enquired his cousin.
‘The devil’s in it that no one has heard of Mudgley. If I can’t discover him, I shall be in a worse scrape than any! That unfortunate child has nowhere to go, and no relatives who will own her, and what in thunder am I to do with her?’
Gideon raised his brows. ‘From what you have told me, I should suppose that she will pretty speedily find a nest to settle in,’ he said caustically.
‘That is the very thing I am seeking to prevent!’ said the Duke, irritated.
‘Is it worth the pains?’
‘Good God, can you not understand that I made myself responsible for her? She is only a child! A pretty fellow I should be if I were to abandon her at this stage! I must try if I cannot induce her to recall more particularly where Mudgley lives. Did you leave all well at Cheyney?’
‘I left your servants a trifle stunned by your guests, but it seems probable that Liversedge will assume control of the household. He informed me that I might have the most complete confidence in him. By the by, that bailiff of yours – Moffat, is it? – is overjoyed to learn that you are in Bath, and trusts that you will go to Cheyney. He has all manner of matters to lay before you.’
‘If Moffat wants to see me, he must come to Bath. I have no time to go out to Cheyney now.’
‘I told him so, and he said that he would come to you,’ said Gideon. ‘There is no escape for you!’
‘You might have fobbed him off!’ complained the Duke.
‘Your retainers are not so easily fobbed off. If you are going to Laura Place, I shall come with you. I can no longer exist without a sight of the fair Belinda. Besides, I dote on the Dowager! I wonder if she has bought a new wig? When last I saw her she had a red one – devilish dashing!’
But when they arrived in Laura Place, and were taken up to the drawing-room on the first floor, they found that wiser counsels had prevailed with the Dowager Lady Ampleforth, and she had exchanged the red wig for one of iron-grey. But as she chose to set a turban of rich violet silk, shot with orange, on top of these new ringlets the effect was still extremely colourful. She was a handsome old lady, with a beak of a nose, and a wicked eye. In her day she had been, as she had not the slightest hesitation in informing her acquaintance, a great rake, but gout, and increasing years, now largely chained her to her chair. She tolerated her son, despised her three daughters, and cherished towards her daughter-in-law a violent animosity. Since she belonged to a more robust and by far less prim a generation than theirs she had no difficulty at all in shocking her descendants, a pastime to which she was greatly addicted.
She received the Duke indulgently, and his cousin with acclaim. Gideon corresponded exactly with her notions of what a young man should be like, and she received his outrageous advances in high delight, encouraging him in every extravagant flattery, and adjuring him to murmur into her ear all the more scandalous stories current in military circles. She was able to regale him with quite a number of warm anecdotes herself, and it was not long before she had signed to him with one twisted hand to draw his chair closer to hers. This left the Duke free to confide his errand to Harriet. She was concerned to learn that he had been unable to discover Mr Mudgley. ‘It is not that I do not wish to keep her with me, Gilly,’ she explained, ‘but I know Mama will never permit me to, and there is another circumstance which makes me feel a little uneasy. I am afraid Charlie admires her excessively!’
‘Good God!’ said the Duke. ‘I had not thought of that! What is to be done?’
‘Well, Gilly, I do think we should find a suitable establishment for her, but pray do not be worried! Charlie is not staying here, you know: he has a lodging in Green Street, and I have explained to him that he must be good. But nothing would do but he must squire us to the theatre last night, and I fear he did flirt rather dreadfully with Belinda! I was a goose to go with him, but Belinda wanted so very much to see the play that I did not know how to refuse. But I won’t let him be alone with her, I promise. I must go with Grandmama to Lady Ombersley’s party to-night, but Charlie told us himself that he was promised to some friends of his own, which is why he cannot go with us. I hope you will not think I did wrong to go to the play!’
‘No, no, how could you do wrong? I am only distressed that you should be put to so much anxiety, my poor Harry! Is Belinda in? Would it be of the least use for me to ask her if she cannot cudgel her brains a little?’
‘Oh, yes, she is trimming a hat for herself! I will fetch her down directly. But, Gilly, I don’t know how it will answer! She is the strangest creature! It does seem as though this Mr Mudgley and his mother are the only people who have ever been kind to her, and I own that she speaks of the young man with a wistful look that quite touches one’s heart, but she has not the least notion of constancy! It is quite dreadful! And, oh, Gilly, by the unluckiest chance we saw a purple gown in one of the shops on Milsom Street, and I do believe it has put everything else out of her head!’
He laughed. ‘Harriet, do pray buy it for her, and set it to my account! Perhaps if she had her purple gown –’
‘Gilly, I could not!’ said Harriet earnestly. ‘You have no idea how unsuitable it would be! It is of the brightest purple satin, with Spanish sleeves slashed with rows of gold beads, and a demi-train, and the bosom cut by far too low! Dear Gilly, I would do anything for you, but only conceive of a young girl’s wearing such a gown! Even Grandmama would be shocked!’
He was awed by this description of the gown’s magnificence, and could not but acknowledge the justice of Harriet’s objection to it. To insist on her lending her countenance to a young female clad in such startling raiment would, he realised, be unreasonable. He acquiesced therefore in her decision, and held the door open for her to pass from the room.
The Dowager watched him critically, and said, as he came back into the room: ‘Well, Sale, I’m sure I don’t know what your uncle will have to say to your raking, but it has done you a great deal of good, and my granddaughter too! I’ve no doubt you’ve been deceiving her monstrously, but the dullest dog alive is ever your virtuous young man! Which I thought you were, I own. However, I see there’s more of your grandfather in you than I knew. Lord, what a dashing blade he was, to be sure! He can’t have been a day older than you when he ran off with Lyndhurst’s wife. They hushed it up, of course, but I remember what a scandal it was at the time! They say it cost his father – your great-grandfather, you know – a pretty penny to get him out of such an entanglement, and I daresay it did. Then he married one of the Ingatestone gals: a sickly creature, she was, always in the megrims! Lord Guiseley was her bel ami for years. They used to say that the second daughter – your aunt Sarah, I mean – was none of Sale’s, but I never set any store by it myself: she hadn’t the spirit of a hen! But your grandfather used to be the biggest rake in town. All the Mamas used to forbid us to dance with him at the assemblies, for he never kept the line, and there was no sense in encouraging his advances once he was tied up in marriage, you know.’
The Duke received these engaging reminiscences of his progenitors without protest, merely smiling at the old lady, and murmuring that he hoped no careful parent would feel compelled to warn her daughter against him; but Gideon instantly demanded to be told more about Aunt Sarah, whom he cordially disliked. The Dowager was nothing lot
h, and was in the middle of a highly libellous story when Harriet came back into the room with Belinda.
Belinda, becomingly attired in one of Harriet’s cambric gowns, bestowed a ravishing smile upon Gideon, favouring him with one of her wide, speculative stares. She seemed genuinely pleased to see the Duke, but she was looking a little wistful, and her lovely mouth drooped at the corners. Whether she was pining for Mr Mudgley, or for the purple gown, he was unable to discover, since her thoughts seemed to be equally divided between them. She was plainly in awe of Lady Ampleforth, and was minding her manners so painstakingly that she spoke only in a subdued voice, and sat on the extreme edge of a chair, with her feet together, and her hands folded in her lap. He guessed that in spite of Harriet’s kindness her surroundings were oppressive to her. She was terrified of doing something wrong. He felt more sorry for her than ever, and redoubled his determination to find her swain for her.
But she was of very little assistance to him. She had only once visited Mr Mudgley’s farm, on a day when Mrs Pilling had gone to Wells to see her sister; and although she was able to describe in great detail the big kitchen there, the dear little chicks in the yard, and a calf which had licked her fingers, she had no idea how far the farm lay from Bath, or in which direction. But there had been a stream, with primroses growing beside it, and Mr Mudgley had very obligingly stopped to let her get down from the gig to pick a great bunch of them.
The Duke felt defeated, and for a moment said nothing. Belinda sighed. ‘Perhaps he went away, like Maggie, and I shall never see him any more,’ she said.
He did not think this was likely, and shook his head. Belinda sighed again. ‘I daresay he is married now, because he was very handsome, and it was such a nice house, with a garden, and beautiful red curtains in the parlour. I am very unhappy.’
Both he and Harriet said what they could to console her, but she seemed to have sunk into a mood of gentle resignation. She said simply: ‘I wish I was not a foundling! It is very hard, you know, because no one cares what becomes of one, and one has nowhere to go, and when I thought that Uncle Swithin would make me comfortable I was quite taken-in. And so it is always!’