He started forward to meet her, saying: ‘Do you go with me? Will Lady Ampleforth trust you to me? How pretty you look!’
If she had not been in her best looks before, this impulsive exclamation naturally made her glow into something approaching beauty. She smiled tremulously, blushing, and murmuring: ‘Oh, Gilly, do I? I do not know how you can say so, when you have been with Belinda!’
He acknowledged the force of this, but said seriously: ‘I do not know how it is, Harriet, but I would rather look at you than at Belinda. You have more countenance!’
She now knew that whatever happiness might be in store for her this must rank as the most memorable day in her life. To conceal her swelling pride, she said in a rallying tone: ‘You are trying to flatter me, Gilly!’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I know you too well to suppose that flattery would be acceptable to you.’
Without making the slightest attempt to disabuse his mind of its curious misapprehension, Harriet said simply: ‘I am glad you think I have countenance, dear Gilly. I want only to be worthy of you.’
‘To be worthy of me!’ he said, quite thunderstruck. ‘But I am the most commonplace creature! Indeed, I do not know how you can look twice in my direction when you have known my handsome cousin!’
‘Gideon?’ she said, in surprised accents. ‘Of course I have a great regard for him, for I am sure he has always been very kind, and you love him, which must recommend him to me, you know. But surely no one in their senses could think of him when you were by, Gilly!’
Preys to their blissful delusions, they walked slowly out of the house to the waiting chaise.
‘I was half afraid your grandmama would not let you come with me!’ the Duke said foolishly.
‘Oh, Gilly, was it very wrong of me? I was obliged to use a little stratagem, for she was so cross, and I could see she meant to say it would be improper for me to go! I – I said I knew Mama would not permit it! Not quite like that, you know, but letting it be seen that that was what I thought. It is very dreadful! She doesn’t like Mama, and I knew very well that I had only to put that into her head, and she would say I might go with you!’
She sounded conscience-stricken, but the Duke laughed delightedly, so that any filial qualms that were troubling her gentle soul were instantly laid to rest. He handed her into the chaise, where Belinda greeted her without the smallest sign of guilt.
‘Oh, my lady!’ said Belinda. ‘Mr Rufford – I mean, the Duke! – has found Mr Mudgley!’
‘Dear Belinda, you must be very happy!’ Harriet said, laying a gloved hand on her knee.
‘Oh, yes, ma’am!’ agreed Belinda blithely. She paused, and added on a more wistful note: ‘But I wish I might have had that beautiful dress!’
‘I am sure you would not wish for it rather than to be established so comfortably,’ Harriet suggested gently.
‘No, indeed! Only that I might perhaps have stayed until Lord Gaywood came back, you know. For he went to buy it for me, and it does seem very hard that I must not have it after all!’
Harriet, quite dismayed, strove to the best of her ability to give Belinda’s thoughts a more proper direction. The Duke, a good deal amused, intervened, saying: ‘Useless, my love! If you would but do what you may to convince her that this last adventure must be kept a secret between the three of us, it would be very desirable!’
‘It seems very dreadful to be teaching the poor child to deceive the young man!’ Harriet replied, in an under-voice. ‘I own, it might be wiser – But to have a secret from the man to whom one is betrothed is very wrong, and surely quite against female nature!’
‘Dear Harriet!’ he said, finding her hand, and raising it to his lips. ‘You would not do so, I know! But if she blurts out the whole to these people – ? For they are simple, honest folk, and could not understand, perhaps.’
‘I will do what you think right,’ she said submissively, and thereafter tried her utmost to impress upon Belinda the wisdom of banishing Lord Gaywood alike from her thoughts and her conversation. Belinda was so much occupied in ecstatically recognising and pointing out to her companions remembered landmarks that it seemed doubtful whether she attended with more than half an ear to the kindly advice bestowed upon her, but she was a very persuadable girl, and by dint of Harriet’s dwelling strongly on her unfortunate contretemps with the Dowager she was soon brought to the conviction that her sudden descent upon Furze Farm was due not to any traffic with Lord Gaywood, but to her having broken a cherished Sèvres bowl.
But when the chaise drew up by the farm, Harriet could almost have believed that these precautions had been needless. For Mr Mudgley was just shutting the big white yard-gate, and he turned, and stood still to watch the chaise, with the setting sun behind him, striking on his uncovered head, and catching the auburn lights in his thick thatch of curly hair. He was still wearing his working-clothes, with his sleeves rolled up, and his shirt open to reveal the tanned, sturdy column of his throat, and he presented such a fine figure of a man that not even Harriet, with twenty years of strict training behind her, could wonder that Belinda no sooner saw him than she gave a little scream of joy, and, without waiting for the steps of the chaise to be let down, tumbled headlong into his arms. It did not seem probable, after that, that any explanations would be asked or proffered.
The Duke and his betrothed did not linger for many minutes at the farm. Mrs Mudgley was sufficiently mistress of herself to do the honours of the house, but her son could scarcely be brought to take his eyes from his long-lost love, and Belinda, her eyes like stars, and happy laughter bubbling on her lips, darted about, recognising and exclaiming at first this object, and then that, and paid very little more heed to her late protectors than if they had been a part of the furnishings of the big kitchen.
‘And I was conceited enough to fear that she liked me a little too well!’ confided the Duke, once more bowling along in the chaise. ‘I am quite set-down!’
‘Do you know, Gilly,’ said Harriet thoughtfully, ‘I am much inclined to think that Belinda is perhaps one of those people who are very pretty, and amiable, but do not care profoundly for anyone. It is very sad! Will Mudgley discover it, and be unhappy, do you think?’
‘Why, no! She is good-natured, and affectionate, and although he may be an excellent fellow I do not imagine his sensibilities to be over-nice. They will deal very well together, I daresay. She will always be silly, but he appears to have considerable constancy, and we must hope that he will always be fond!’
Harriet, accepting what he said, was content to forget Belinda. She sat cosily beside the Duke, her hand in his, while the chaise covered the little distance between Furze Farm and Cheyney. He was tired, and she was happy; they exchanged few remarks, and those, for his part, in lazy murmurs. Once the Duke said: ‘Let us be married very soon, Harriet.’
‘If you wish it, Gilly!’ she said shyly.
He turned his head against the squabs that lined the chaise, and looked at her mischievously. ‘Of course I do. I see that you mean to be a very good wife, you are so conformable! Do you wish it?’
She nodded, blushing, and he laughed, beginning to tease her about the hats she must buy in Paris when it was discovered that those she had already ordered from Mrs Pilling made her look like a dowd. She was still protesting when the chaise drew up before the doors of his house.
‘I have no extraordinary liking for this house of mine,’ the Duke said gaily, handing her down from the chaise, ‘but still I shall say Welcome to your home, dear Harriet! How strange it seems to be rid of all my embarrassments! I shall not know how to go on, I daresay!’
He led her up the few shallow steps to the doors. These were flung open to them by an embarrassment he had forgotten. The Duke paused, a rueful look in his eye, and exclaimed: ‘The devil! I must do something about you, I suppose!’
Mr Liversedge had, naturally, no livery with which
his office might be dignified, but the lack of it was scarcely noticeable. His carriage was majestic, and his manner to perfection that of a trusted steward of long standing. He bowed very low, and ushered the young couple into the house, saying: ‘I trust your Grace will permit me to say how very happy we are to receive you, and her ladyship! I venture to think that you will find everything in readiness, though, to be sure, as your Grace well knows, the staff at present residing here is of a scanty, not to say inadequate nature. I should add that Master Mamble – a good lad, but addle-pated! – forgot to inform us that her ladyship would be accompanying your Grace. But I will instantly apprise the housekeeper of this circumstance. If your Grace should care to take her ladyship into the library while I perform this office, you will, I fancy, find the Captain there, and such refreshment as I ventured to think might be acceptable to you after the drive. Lord Lionel, I regret to say, stepped out a little while since with Mr Mamble, not being in the expectation of receiving her ladyship. He will be excessively sorry, I assure your ladyship.’
He led the way, as he spoke, across the wide hall to the library door, and set this open, smiling benignly upon the Duke and informing him in a confidential undervoice that he need entertain no fear that the dinner being prepared would disgrace him in the eyes of his future Duchess. ‘For,’ he said, ‘I deemed it proper at the outset to give the matter my personal supervision.’
The Duke found himself saying thank-you in what he knew to be a weak way.
His cousin was lounging in a chair beside the fire. He looked up lazily, and, when he saw Harriet, got to his feet, his brows lifting. ‘Your very obedient servant, ma’am!’ he said, laughing, and shaking hands with her. ‘How very like Adolphus not to tell us that he meant to bring you with him! You may blame him for it that you find me very unsuitably dressed to receive you. How do you go on, Harry? You look very becomingly!’ He drew forward a chair for her. ‘I have been laughing this hour past, Adolphus, at your protégé’s crowning devilry! Oh, yes, I was dragged out into the shrubbery to be regaled with it! I will own that he is a youth of parts. What have you done with the fair Belinda?’
‘We dropped her – quite literally, you know! – into the arms of her precious Mr Mudgley, and there left her. Gideon, when I said that that fellow might make himself useful, I never meant that he should take upon himself the entire conduct of my house! What is to be done with him? Borrowdale himself never bade me welcome in a more fatherly spirit!’
‘You had better turn him off, then. I have no objection, since I am not residing here, but I think it only right to warn you that he has won my father’s approval – as much by his firm handling of Mamble as by his undoubted excellence as a steward and butler.’
The Duke could not help laughing. ‘He is incorrigible! Only conceive of my uncle’s feelings if he knew the truth! I bear him no malice – indeed, I am grateful to him for so much enlarging my experience! – but I will not permit him to rule my household!’ He saw that Harriet was looking from him to Gideon in a little perplexity and added: ‘My love, it is the most ridiculous situation! That is the fellow who cast me into a cellar, and offered to sell me to my wicked cousin!’
She was very much shocked, and exclaimed in a faint voice. It was incomprehensible to her that anyone should be amused by such a circumstance, but both Gilly and Gideon plainly thought it excessively funny, so she smiled dutifully, realising the truth of her mama’s dictum, that there was never any knowing what stupidities men would find diverting. But she could not forbear to implore the Duke not to keep such a dreadful person near him. ‘Indeed, he ought to be put in prison!’ she said earnestly.
‘Undoubtedly he ought, my dear, but you must hold me excused from denouncing him, if you please! He is by far too amusing! Besides, he did me no harm, but, on the contrary, a great deal of good.’
It was not to be supposed that Harriet could regard with anything but horror one who had cast her Gilly into a cellar, but she perceived that the Duke’s mind was made up, and said no more. Liversedge himself came back into the room a minute or two later, with an offer to escort her to the housekeeper, and so bland and respectful was his manner that she could almost have supposed the whole affair to have been a mistake. She rose from her chair, and said meekly that she would like to take off her hat.
‘I warn you, Harriet, you will not escape from Mrs Kempsey for an hour at least!’ Gideon told her, mocking his cousin. ‘She will tell you how weak a chest Adolphus always had, and what remedies were tried, and how she nursed him once when he had the measles. She nursed me too, but she won’t waste a moment on my sufferings, though I swear I was much more full of measles than Adolphus!’
The Duke smiled. ‘But you brought them home from Eton, and I took them from you!’ he reminded his cousin. ‘How could you expect to be forgiven such shocking conduct? Don’t let her bore on for ever, Harry!’
‘Indeed, I shall not think it a bore!’ she said. ‘I hope she will tell me what she likes, for I mean to get upon terms with all your people, Gilly.’
He walked beside her to the door, handing her cloak to Liversedge, and saying, as he did so: ‘When you have taken her ladyship upstairs, come back to me: I must settle with you.’
‘I will certainly do so, your Grace,’ Liversedge responded, with a bow. ‘But possibly you will excuse me for a few minutes while I cast my eye over the kitchen. I fancy you will be pleased with my way of serving woodcocks à la Tartar, but the menial at present presiding in the kitchen is not to be trusted with rare dishes. There is, moreover, the question of a sweet, which the presence of a lady at the board makes indispensable. I doubt whether the individual aforementioned has a mind fit to rise above damson tart and jelly, but I hope to contrive a Chantilly Basket which will not disgust her ladyship.’
He bowed again at the conclusion of this speech, and sailed away without giving the Duke time to answer him.
‘If I must consort with rogues,’ remarked Gideon, pouring out some sherry, ‘I own I like them to be in the grand manner. It’s my belief you’ll never be rid of this one, Adolphus.’
He was mistaken. When Liversedge presently returned to the library, it soon became evident that he had no desire to remain at Cheyney. He found the life there too circumscribed.
‘Had it been your Grace’s principal residence, I might have been tempted to consider the propriety of establishing myself in some useful capacity,’ he explained, with one of his airy gestures. ‘Although, I must add, servitude, however genteel in its nature, has little charm for me. It does not, if I may say so, offer sufficient scope for a man of my vision. Not that I would have your Grace think that it was with reluctance that I assumed the control of this establishment. On the contrary! I have the greatest regard for your Grace – indeed, I may say that I was much taken with you at the first moment of setting eyes on you! – and I have been happy to feel that I was being of service to you.’
‘Before you succumb to this eloquence, Adolphus,’ drawled Gideon, ‘I would remind you that this admirer of yours would have murdered you for a paltry sum.’
‘There, sir,’ instantly replied Liversedge, ‘I must join issue with you! For fifty thousand pounds I might have been able to overcome my natural repugnance to putting a period to his Grace’s life, but for a lesser sum I could not have brought myself to contemplate it. Those nobler instincts which even the basest of us have must have revolted.’
The Duke regarded him curiously, his chin in his hand. ‘Would you really have murdered me?’ he asked.
‘If,’ said Mr Liversedge, ‘I were to seek refuge in a lie, you, your Grace, would not believe me, and I should have debased myself to no purpose. I shall not seek to deceive you: for fifty thousand pounds I must have steeled myself, if not to perform the deed, at least to order its execution. I do not deny that it would have been a struggle, for I am not a man of violence, but I am inclined to think that the temptation wo
uld have been overmastering. A man of your wealth, sir, has no business to offer himself to be the prey of those less fortunately circumstanced, and that, you will allow, is precisely what you did. It was neither politic nor right, but I shall say no more on that head. Your Grace is young, and, when you came, incognito, into my orbit, you were – if I may say so without offence – shockingly green! I flatter myself that through my exertions you have gained in experience, and will not err again after that fashion.’
‘You had better reward the fellow!’ interpolated Gideon.
Mr Liversedge was quite unabashed. ‘Captain Ware, though scarcely in sympathy with me, touches the very nub of the matter,’ he said. ‘Consider, your Grace! If we are to balance our accounts, which of us is the gainer?’
‘I perceive that you are of the opinion that I stand in your debt,’ replied the Duke, faintly smiling.
‘Certainly,’ said Liversedge, inclining his head. ‘Can it be in doubt? You were, I fancy, in search of adventure: I gave it to you. You were green: I compelled you to put off the boy and to assume the man. Let us glance for a moment at the other side of the ledger! You snatched from me the letters which I had acquired from your young cousin; you stole from me the means whereby I might have hoped to have acquired other such letters – I refer to my adopted niece; you burned down the wretched hovel which was my sole shelter; you drove into miserable seclusion the individual who owned it, and is nearly related to me; and by these several acts – unthinking, I daresay, but none the less painful in their consequences – reduced me to a state of penury which makes it impossible for me to depart from this house.’
‘If I made it possible for you to leave this house, what would you do?’ asked the Duke.
‘God grant me patience!’ groaned Gideon.
The Duke ignored him. ‘Well, Liversedge?’
‘It would depend,’ replied Liversedge, ‘on the extent of your Grace’s generosity. My ambition has ever been to preside over a genteel establishment where those with a taste for gaming may be sure of select company, elegant surroundings, and fair play – for my experience has taught me that nothing could be more fatal to the ultimate success of such a venture than to make sure of such shifts as the concave-suit, fuzzing, cogging, or, in a word, any of the Greeking transactions by which novices in this form of livelihood too often think to make their fortunes. That kind of thing may answer for a space, but can never lay the foundations of a permanent establishment of the refinement I have in mind. I attempted something of the sort in this country, but the difficulties are great, and the sordid precautions one is obliged to take against unwarrantable interference set too heavy a drain upon one’s resources. If the means lay within my grasp, I should repair to Strasbourg, a town where my talents could flourish, and one, moreover, where I own acquaintances who would count themselves fortunate to acquire my assistance in the management of their houses. A small beginning, you may think, but I do not doubt rising swiftly from it.’