`You think of everything, Miss Grantham. I will go out back area-door, and come in again by the front-door, picking up my hat and cane on the way, which we were so thoughtless as to leave in my dungeon.'
She made no objection to this, but led the way down the back stairs again. As she was about to let him out of the house, an idea occurred to her, and she asked abruptly: `How came you to know that Ormskirk held the mortgage, and those bills?
'He told me so,' replied Mr Ravenscar coolly.
She stared at him. `He told you so? Of all the infamous. Well! I have always disliked him excessively, but I did no dream he would behave as shabbily as that, I must say!’
'You have always disliked him?' he repeated, looking rather strangely at her.
She met his look with a kindling eye. `Yes!' she said. `But not, believe me, Mr Ravenscar, as much as I dislike you!'
CHAPTER 13
Five minutes later, Mr Ravenscar knocked on the front door. It was opened to him by Silas Wantage, and he walked into the house with his usual air of calm assurance.
Mr Wantage made a sound as of one choking, and stood stock-still, staring at him with bulging eyes. Mr Ravenscar me this bemused stare with a look of irony, but gave no sign of recognition. He merely held out his hat, and his cane, an waited for Silas to take them.
Mr Wantage found his voice. `Well, I'll be damned!' he muttered.
`Probably,' said Mr Ravenscar. `Have the goodness to take my hat and cane!'
Mr Wantage relieved him of these, and said helplessly: `I dunno how you done it, but I won't say as I'm sorry. It goes against the grain with me to tie up a cove as can plant me as wisty a facer as you did, sir!'
Mr Ravenscar paid no heed to this confession, but glanced at his reflection in the mirror, adjusted the pin in his cravat, smoothed the ruffles over his bandaged hands, and strolled across the hall to the supper-room.
His entrance created quite a stir. His hostess, who was sipping claret in the hope of steadying her nerves, choked, and turned purple in the face; Mr Lucius Kennet, standing by the buffet with a plate of salmon in his hand, said `Good God!' in a startled voice, and dropped his fork; the Honourable Berkeley Crewe exclaimed, and demanded to be told what had kept Mr Ravenscar from his dinner engagement; Sir James Filey was thought by those standing nearest to him to have sworn under his breath; and several persons called out to know what had befallen Ravenscar. Only Miss Grantham showed no sign of perturbation, but bade the late-comer a cool good evening.
He bowed over her hand, looked with a little amusement at Lady Bellingham, who was still choking, and said: `I'm sorry, Crewe. I was unavoidably detained.'
`But what in the world kept you?' asked Crewe. `I thought you had forgotten you were to dine with me, and sent round to your house to remind you. They said you had set out just after dusk!'
`The truth is, I met with a slight accident,' replied Ravenscar, taking a glass of Burgundy from the tray which a waiter was handing him. As he raised it to his lips, the ruffle fell back from his hand, and his bandages were seen.
`Good God, what have you done to your hand, Max?' asked Lord Mablethorpe, in swift alarm.
`Oh, nothing very much!' Ravenscar replied. `I told you I had met with a slight accident.'
`Have you been set upon?' demanded Crewe. `Is that it?' `Yes, that is it,' said Ravenscar.
`I hope it may not impair your skill with the ribbons!' said Filey.
`I hope not, indeed,' answered Ravenscar, with one of his derisive looks.
`Gad, Ravenscar, do you suppose it was an attempt to stop you driving tomorrow?' exclaimed a gentleman in an old fashioned bag-wig.
`Something of that nature, I fancy,' said Ravenscar, unable to resist an impulse to glance at Miss Grantham.
`What the devil do you mean by that, Horley?' demanded Sir James belligerently.
The gentleman in the bag-wig looked surprised. `Why, only that there has been a great deal of money laid on the race, and such things do happen! What should I mean?'
Filey's high colour faded; he muttered something about having misunderstood, and swung out of the room, saying that he would try his luck at the hazard-table.
`What's the matter with Filey?' inquired Crewe. `He's become devilish bad-tempered all at once!’
`Oh, haven't you heard?' said a man in an orange-and-white striped waistcoat. `You know he was mad to marry one of the Laxton girls? Pretty child, only just out. Well, the Laxtons are trying to hush it up, but I had it from young Arnold himself that the filly's bolted!'
`Bolted?' repeated Crewe.
`Vanished, my dear fellow. Can't be found! No wonder our friend's sore!'
`Well, I don't blame her,' said Crewe. 'Filey and a chit out of the schoolroom! Damme, it's little better than a rape! But where did she bolt to?'
`No one knows. I told you she'd vanished. And the best of it is the Laxton's daren't set the Runners on to her track for fear of the story's leaking out! Wouldn't look well at all forcing a child of that age into marriage with a man of Filey's reputation!’
`It wouldn't come to that!' objected Mr Horley.
`Oh, wouldn't it, by God? You don't know Lady Laxton, when there's a fortune at stake,' chuckled the man in the orange-striped waistcoat.
Lady Bellingham, feeling that her cup was now full to overflowing, cast a despairing look towards her niece, and wondered why a mouthful of cold partridge should taste of ashes.
`It is not to be supposed,' said Lord Mablethorpe carefully, `that Filey will wish to marry any female who shows herself so averse from his suit.'
`If you think that, you don't know Filey!’ said Crewe. `He would think it added a spice to matrimony.'
Under cover of this general conversation, Lucius Kennet had moved across the room to Miss Grantham's side, and now said in her ear: `Do you tell me you persuaded him to give up the bills, me dear? Sure, you could have knocked me down with a feather when he walked in as cool as you please!’
'I have not got the bills,' she replied.
`You have not got them? Then what the devil ails you to be letting him go, Deb?'
`I didn't. He escaped.'
He looked at her with suspicion. `He did not, then! I tied his hands meself. It's lying you are, Deb: you set him free!’
'No, I did not. Only he asked me for a candle, and I let him have one, never dreaming what he meant to do! He burned the cord round his wrists, and when I went down to the cellar he was free: There was nothing I could do.'
He gave a low whistle. `It's the broth of a boy he is, and no mistake! So that's why his hands are bandaged! Will he be able to drive?'
`He says so. I am sure I do not care!’
She was disinclined to converse further on the subject, and moved away, only to fall a victim to Lord Mablethorpe, who drew her into a corner of the room to ask her if she had heard what had been said about Phoebe Laxton's disappearance. She answered rather curtly that she did not know what it should signify, but Mablethorpe was not satisfied, and said the question of Phoebe's future was troubling him very much.
Miss Grantham was pleased to hear this, but she had borne much that evening, and felt disinclined to embark on a discussion of Phoebe's affairs in a crowded supper-room. She answered rather briefly, therefore, and incurred Lord Mablethorpe's censure for the first time in her life.
`It's very well, Deb, but she cannot stay here for ever, and I don't think you are bothering your head much about her,' his lordship said gravely.
`I have other things to think of,' said Deborah.
`I am sure you must, but she has no one but you to think for her, or to take care of her, remember!'
This was said with a gentle dignity which Miss Grantham had not met before in her youthful swain. She reflected that close association with Miss Laxton was investing his lordship with a sense of responsibility, and liked him the better for it. `It is very hard to know what to do for the best,' she said. `I quite thought that her parents would have relented. They may still do so.'
A little crease appeared between his brows. `Even so-!' He paused, and went on again after a moment's hesitation: `She has confided in me to some extent, Deb. I dare say she may have told you more. But I have heard enough to realize that she can never be happy at home. Those parents-! If it were not Filey it would very likely be someone as bad. Lady Laxton cares for nothing but money. I should feel we had betrayed Phoebe if we let her go back. She is not like you, she needs someone to protect her.'
This naive pronouncement made Miss Grantham feel much inclined to inform him that to have someone to protect her was every woman's dream, but she refrained, and said instead that she did not know what was to be done. She added that she must go upstairs to the card-rooms, and left him feeling more dissatisfied with her than he would have believed, a week before, that he could be.
If the truth were told, his lordship had been finding his inamorata a little trying ever since the evening they had spent at Vauxhall. Her behaviour then had certainly shocked him and although he had never again seen her assume such peculiar manners, he could not help wondering sometimes if then might be a recurrence the next time she found herself it elevated circles.
Then there was her manner towards himself, which occasionally chafed him. She was often rather impatient with him, as though she found his youth and inexperience exasperating; and she had developed a habit of ordering him about more than he liked. There had even been moments when the memory of a governess he had had in early childhood most forcibly recurred in his mind. He was by no means a fool, and he had begun to perceive that Miss Grantham's seniority gave her an advantage over him which might well preclude hi assuming the mastery over his own establishment. Lord Mablethorpe had a sweetness of temper which made him universally liked; he was very young still, and diffident; but he was no weakling, and he was growing up fast.
Miss Grantham, well aware of these facts, was riding him hard as she thought proper, allowing the decision and forcefulness of her own character to throw Miss Laxton's gentle: and more yielding nature into strong relief. Mablethorpe, she knew, could not fail to make comparison between them; and it would be an odd thing if a young man who was bullied, in a kind way, by one woman, did not find the admiration and dependence of another a refreshing change.
He did find it refreshing. Miss Laxton's fragility, her helplessness, her implicit trust in him, had made an instant appeal to his chivalry. From the first moment of meeting her, when she had clung to his hand, he had felt protective towards her. She had said that she knew herself to be safe with him, and later she had said that she would be guided by his judgement, and had asked for his advice. No one had ever expressed a desire to benefit by Lord Mablethorpe's advice before; and since his mother, his uncle Julius, and his cousin Max were all persons of decided opinions, he had never received any very noticeable encouragement to put forward his own views on subjects of major importance. His life had, naturally enough, been ordered for him, and although he was fast approaching his majority it would be some time before these relatives, who were all so much older and wiser than himself, would be brought to regard him in the light of a responsible adult. Even Deborah, in her most mellow moments, treated him rather as she might be expected to treat a younger brother. She laughed at him, and teased him, and could rarely be brought to take him very seriously.
But Miss Laxton was two years younger than he, and she did not see him as a delightful boy who had not yet found his feet. To her, running away from the advances of one who seemed to her an ogre, he was a tall young knight who had stepped out from the pages of a fairy story. His knowledge of the world seemed vast to one who had none at all. He was handsome, and strong, and gentle. He instructed her ignorance, and bade her entrust her safety to him. It was not surprising that Miss Laxton should have fallen head over ears in love with him.
She was in no doubt about her feelings; it was some time before he realized the state of his own heart, and longer still before he would admit to himself that he had, incredibly, fallen out of love with one woman headlong into love with another. It seemed appalling to him that he could have done such a thing, and he was inclined to think himself the most fickle and despicable of created beings. But he knew that his love for Phoebe was quite a different emotion from his half awed adoration of Deborah. He had been swept off his feet by Deborah. She was a goddess to be worshipped, beautiful, wise, and dazzling; always immeasurably superior to himself. He did not think of Phoebe like that at all. He knew quite well that she was not as beautiful as Deborah, not wise, and appealing rather than dazzling. When Deborah had smiled at him, he had felt quite dizzy, and had had wild, romantic notions of kissing the hem of her garment, or performing impossible feats in her honour. When Phoebe smiled, no such thoughts occurred to him, but he was conscious of a strong impulse to catch her up in his arms, and hold her safe there.
He had had just such an impulse when he had said good night to her before coming down to the supper-room that evening. She had looked forlorn and defenceless, and was frightened, because she knew that Filey was in the house. He felt concerned about her, so Miss Grantham's lack of sympathy struck him forcibly, and he came as near losing his temper with her as he had ever been in his life.
When she left the room, he joined the group round his cousin. Crewe was trying to discover what was the nature of the injury to Ravenscar's hands, and several other persons were discussing the relative points of the two pairs of horses, and the character of the course to be covered. This had been changed from the original stretch past Epsom to a straightforward run from the village of Islington to Hatfield, on the Great North Road
. Listening to the talk, Lord Mablethorpe forgot his heart's preoccupations for a time. `I wish I were going with you!' he said wistfully. `I mean to drive out to see the finish, but that's not the same thing.'
Ravenscar set down his empty glass on the table. `Well, you may come with me if you like,' he answered. `Only you must carry the yard of tin if you do!'
An eager flush rose to Mablethorpe's cheeks. 'Max! Do you mean it? You'll take me in place of a groom? Oh, by Jupiter, that's beyond anything great!'
Crewe laughed at his enthusiasm, and began to tease him.
`Why, Max, you can't take him in place of Welling! You will be held up at every toll-bar!'
`He will not!' said Mablethorpe indignantly. `I can handle the yard of tin as well as anyone!'
`You will be so excited you will forget to blow up for the gates until it is too late.'
`I won't! Why, I have often been with Max! I know just what to do!'
`Well,' said Crewe, shaking his head, `if you really mean to set up that great, lanky creature in Welling's place, Max, I shall have to lay off you, and that is all there is to it.'
This shaft went home. Lord Mablethorpe's face fell ludicrously, and he turned anxious eyes towards his cousin. `Oh Max, had I better not go with you? Am I too heavy?'
As his lordship, though tall, was boyishly slim, this apprehensive question produced a shout of laughter, which made him blush more hotly than ever. However, as he was quite accustomed to being roasted by his cousin's friends, he took it in very good part, merely prophesying darkly the hideous fate that would one day overtake Berkeley Crewe, and announcing his intention of going home immediately, to be sure of a good night's sleep before the race.
Mr Ravenscar thought this a wise decision, and further suggested that his lordship should refrain from informing his parent that he was to take part in the race. Lord Mablethorpe said: `Oh, by God, no! I won't say a word to her about it!' and went off, forgetting, for the first time since he had met her, to take his leave of Miss Grantham.
Mr Ravenscar went upstairs to play faro, but if Lady Bellingham was gratified to see him at the table she managed to conceal it, looking at him with the dilating eyes of a trapped rabbit whenever he glanced in her direction, and finding it exceedingly difficult to keep her attention on the game. She had never been so glad to see a table break up and when the last of her guests had le
ft the house she found herself without strength to climb the stairs to her bedroom, but collapsed upon a yellow satin sofa, and moaned for hartshorn.
`Be easy, ma'am!' said Lucius Kennet, who had stayed to exchange a word with Deborah. `Now, me darlin', perhaps you'll be telling me what game it is you're after playing!'
Miss Grantham swung her wide skirts defiantly. `I told you what happened. It was not my fault.'
`What maggot got into your brain to give Ravenscar a candle?’
'I didn't know what he meant to do. How should I guess?'
`What the devil should he be wanting with a candle at all, if not to be up to some mischief? Sure, it's not like you to be gulled, Deb!’
'Well, I should not like to be left in the dark myself,' she said. `Besides, he said there were rats.'
`He was quite right,' said Lady Bellingham faintly, opening her eyes. `The servants are for ever complaining about them but what can one do?'
'Whisht, Deb! Is it the likes of Ravenscar that would afraid of a rat or two?'
'Mortimer is afraid of them,' said Lady Bellingham. 'He gives me no peace about it! I am sure Ravenscar may well have been afraid of them. Oh, I shall go distract He will tell everyone what you did to him, my love, and end of it will be that no one will dare come to the house again!’
'Who bound up Ravenscar's hands?' demanded Kennet, eyes fixed on Miss Grantham's face. `And if he burned cord, how came his ruffles to escape? Tell me that!’
'They didn't escape,' said Deborah crossly. `I lent him Kit's ruffles. Where is Kit?'
Kennet grinned. `Faith, I'm thinking he didn't care for style of things here, me darlin', for he took himself off to supper. Don't be trying to dodge the issue, now! It was yourself tied Ravenscar's hands up, was it not?'
`Well, what else could I do?' she asked. `When I discovered that he was free, I was powerless to resist him. Besides, he more than half a mind to shut me up in the cellar in his place and that I could not have borne!’