Hero obeyed her. She paused in the middle of her task to look up, and say:‘After all, if Sherry may amuse himself, I do not know why I should not too!’
‘Excellent!’ said her ladyship, laughing. ‘Do you mean to break Mr Tarleton’s heart? I wish you may do it!’
Hero gave a chuckle.‘Why, he is quite old, ma’am!’
‘Quite old! If he is a day more than thirty-five I will never wear my new wig again!’
‘Well, too old to break his heart,’ amended Hero. ‘I like him extremely, for he is always so very kind and civil, and he makes me laugh.’
Lady Saltash, who was deriving considerable entertainment from watching her old friend, Jasper Tarleton, succumb to her protégée’s innocent charm, cast her a thoughtful look, but refrained from saying anything more. She had a certain fondness for Mr Tarleton, but having attempted a great many times to interest him in some eligible damsel and having seen her efforts on his behalf quite wasted, she acknowledged that it would afford her a certain degree of satisfaction to know that he had lost his heart to a lady as unattainable as she was uninterested. Mr Tarleton, thought her ladyship, was a great deal too sure of himself, and a little tumble would do him no harm at all.
Mr Jasper Tarleton was a bachelor, the owner of a comfortable little property situated a few miles outside Bath. He was known to be bookish, a circumstance which possibly accounted for his not having felt the lure of London; and it was generally supposed that he had suffered a disappointment in youth, which had given him a distaste for matrimony. However that might have been, without betraying any of the signs of the confirmed misogynist, he had certainly contrived to remain single, and was held to be a hard chase indeed. Numerous females had set their caps at him, for besides being possessed of a handsome competence, he was good-looking, his air distinguished, and his manners very pleasing. But while he was happy to oblige any lady by flirting with her in an elegant and quite unexceptionable fashion, he never left the favoured fair in any doubt of his total lack of serious intention.
He first met Hero at a whist-party at Lady Saltash’s house. Something in her which made her different from the carefully drilled young ladies of his acquaintance instantly caught his attention, but he remained largely impervious to her charm until one evening at the theatre, when he walked with her between the acts in the foyer, and she delighted him by asking in the most innocent way if this was where the bits of muslin promenaded, just as they did at Covent Garden? He was enchanted, answered her without betraying the smallest sign of surprise, and only permitted himself to laugh when she exclaimed in dismay:‘Oh, dear, I should not have said that! I am in a scrape again!’
He assured her she might say what she chose to him, and they had a very interesting conversation, which would certainly have horrified even Lady Saltash, who was known to be broadminded to a fault. Mr Tarleton supposed that Hero must have culled her knowledge from a brother, but when he tried tactfully to discover what her antecedents were, she flushed and returned such evasive answers that good-breeding forbade him to press his enquiries. But from that day onward it was noticeable that Mr Tarleton was spending more of his time in Bath than ever before; and when he actually appeared at the Lower Assembly Rooms, and stood up with Hero for the minuet as well as for one of the country dances, his numerous friends and acquaintances could scarcely believe their eyes, and told one another that poor dear Jasper was in a fair way to being caught at last.
As might have been expected, no such idea crossed Hero’s mind. She thought her new acquaintance past the age of falling in love, and treated him very much as she had been in the habit of treating Sherry’s bachelor friends. From having associated largely with them during the past months, she found herself at home in male company; and from having, since the first moment of her appearance in society, enjoyed all the license of a married woman, she was not at all missish, and neither put on airs to be interesting, nor affected the maidenly shrinking in vogue amongst certain of her contemporaries.
Mr Tarleton found this delightful, and when Hero caught herself up guiltily on a cant expression culled from Sherry’s vocabulary, or committed some other small solecism of a like nature, he begged her not to correct herself, but to continue as she was, without attempting to school either her speech or her actions.
‘For you must permit me to tell you, Miss Wantage,’ he said, his gravity belied by the twinkle in his eye, ‘that you are the most refreshing young female who has yet come in my path! Tell me more about the Brixham Pet!’
She said seriously: ‘I am sure I ought not, for now I come to think of it, the – the person who told me about him said it was not at all the sort of thing I should talk about. He is a Black, you know, and a great many people fancy that he will perhaps become Champion. Have you been to a prize-fight, Mr Tarleton?’
‘Do you know, I fear I have not? Have you, Miss Wantage?’
She laughed.‘Now you are smoking me! – Oh, I don’t mean that! Making jest of me! Of course I have not! Females do not!’
‘But you are so unlike any other female I have met that that is no guide!’
‘No, indeed I am not! At least, if I am, I do not wish to be, I assure you! It is very uncomfortable to behave as other people do not: you can have no notion!’
‘I should not care a button for that. If I had any say in the matter, I should insist on your behaving just as you chose.’
She shook her head. ‘No, not when you saw what scrapes I fell into. You would be quite shocked, I dare say. I am myself.’
‘You wrong me: I have never been shocked in my life.’
‘Not even by a lady’s going to the Peerless Pool?’ asked Hero, regarding him as though he had been a rare specimen.
‘Certainly not! What is the Peerless Pool?’
‘Well, I never went there, for it – it was not liked. But I did go to Bartholomew’s Fair, and the Royal Saloon, and to tell you the truth, I was excessively amused. But it was very bad ton, you know, and I should not have done it.’
He threw back his head and laughed.‘I perceive, Miss Wantage, that you are what is commonly known as a handful! Let me be very impertinent, and beseech you earnestly, when you come to marry, to choose a man, like myself, who cannot be shocked!’
She coloured and looked down at her fan.‘Yes, well – well, I shall not come to marry.’
‘Why, how is this?’ he rallied her. ‘I prophesy that the day is not far distant when you will be surrounded by your bridesmaids, and going to Church in a cloud of lace veil and orange-blossom, with all your rejected admirers gnashing their teeth in the background, and every female relative you possess weeping in the way female relatives have, and –’
‘Oh no, indeed, you are wrong!’ she interrupted. ‘Good gracious, how extremely I should dislike it, to be sure!’
He raised his brows in mock astonishment. ‘Dislike a wedding? No, no, you cannot be as different from the rest of your sex as that!’
‘I am not different from the rest of my sex! I only meant that I should not at all care for such a wedding as you describe. I went to one once, in London, and oh, dear! it was so shockingly unromantic!’
He smiled.‘I collect that you would prefer a runaway match, with a fast team of post-horses, and Scottish border for your goal, and an angry Papa in hot pursuit?’
She replied seriously:‘Well, I scarcely remember my Papa, for he died when I was a child, but I think runaway weddings are the best, for to elope suddenly with someone you – you have a decided partiality for, and to become his wife without the least contrivance, or ceremony, or preparation, is – would be – the most beautiful adventure imaginable! Like finding yourself all at once in heaven, or fairyland, at least, when you had never thought but that you would continue in the same humdrum fashion all your life.’
His eyes wrinkled a little at the corners, but he said solemnly: ‘Miss Wantage, do you read novels?’
‘Why, yes!’ she answered, looking enquiringly at him.
‘From
the Minerva Press, perhaps?’
Her enquiring look turned to one of suspicion.‘Mr Tarleton, you are bam-laughing at me again!’
‘No, no!’ he said. ‘I am merely taking a great delight in the refreshment of your company! Plainly, only the most dashing of bridegrooms will do for you!’
The tenderest little smile hovered on her lips. ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged.
‘A Blood, a Tulip of Fashion, a Nonpareil –’
‘Oh no, he need not be that! I know a nonpareil – quite a nonesuch, I assure you! Drives to an inch! – but I should not care to elope with him. Of course, I think a man should know how to stick to his leaders, do not you?’
‘Unquestionably,’ he said gravely.
‘And as for the tulips, I know several, and they would not do for me at all. Besides, they are not romantic, because they have to think so much about their cravats and their coats and the size of their buttons that they have no time for anything besides. The most truly romantic man I know does not give a fig for what he may look like. It would not do for everyone to be so careless, of course, but he is so extremely handsome that it don’t signify a scrap.’
‘Ah, I begin to fear that this dangerous blade is the man destined to carry you off !’
She laughed.‘No, indeed you are quite mistaken! He is madly in love with someone else! And in any event, I think he would make a very uncomfortable husband, for whenever he is out of humour he wants to fight a duel.’
‘That would certainly be a drawback,’ he agreed. ‘It is to be hoped he is not frequently out of humour!’
‘Oh yes! He takes a pet for the least little thing!’ said Hero cheerfully.‘And the mischief is that he is such a fine shot that no one will oblige him by going out with him. It puts him out of all patience sometimes, and indeed one cannot wonder at it. But only conceive how tiresome it would be to be married to such a man!’
‘You can have no notion how glad I am to discover that you favour a milder-tempered bridegroom, Miss Wantage,’ said Mr Tarleton, keeping his face prim.‘Er – must your future husband be a very young gentleman?’
She had forgotten herself in talking of Sherry’s friends; Mr Tarleton’s last words recalled her to a sense of her surroundings. She started, almost afraid that she might have betrayed herself, and blushed vividly, saying in a hurried way: ‘It is all nonsense! I do not know how we come to be talking of such absurdities. Tell me about the chestnuts General Crawley says you are meaning to buy from him! Do you mean to drive them in your curricle? Are they sweet-goers? I was used to drive a high-stepping grey, in a phaeton, you know – very free and fast, and with the lightest of mouths! I won a race once – a private race, I mean,’ she added, a stricken expression entering her eyes for an instant at the memory this conjured up.
‘So you are a whip!’ Mr Tarleton exclaimed. ‘I might have guessed it indeed! But, come, this is famous! The chestnuts you speak of are a match pair – beautiful steppers! If I purchase them from the General, may I hope that you will honour them, and me, by driving them?’
The stricken look vanished. Hero turned impulsively towards him.‘Oh,would you teach me to handle a pair? Gil – the particular friend who taught me to drive my phaeton – would not let me drive his curricle, but I have a great desire to! That is, if Lady Saltash will permit me to.’
Mr Tarleton assured her that her ladyship would have no objection to such a harmless pastime, and so indeed it proved. Lady Saltash chuckled and gave permission; and very soon it became quite an accepted thing for Mr Tarleton to drive up to the house in Camden Place any fine morning and to take up his eager pupil. They drove about the country in the immediate vicinity of the town, and Hero had such a real aptitude that it was not long before she was acquitting herself creditably enough for her to wish that Mr Ringwood could see her progress. While she held the reins in her hands she could almost forget the trouble that lay in her heart. She was often merry, always entirely natural, never dreamed that anyone so elderly as her companion could be falling in love with her, thought him one of the kindest men she had encountered, and so treated him in a confiding way that completed his downfall. Mr Tarleton felt himself to be growing daily younger in her presence, began to think seriously of matrimony, and racked his brains to think how best to make his suit attractive to so youthful, so unconventional, and so romantic a lady. A still, small voice within him, whispering that he would regret his madness, he resolutely ignored. It occurred to him that he had hitherto led the most humdrum of lives, and that to indulge in a little madness would be a welcome relief.
Twenty-one
UPON LEAVING GRILLON’S HOTEL, SHERRY BETOOK HIMSELF home to Half Moon Street, meeting on the way Lord Wrotham who was driving his sulky down Piccadilly towards St James’s Street. The Viscount hailed him, and he drew up. His restless, handsome countenance betrayed no pleasure in the encounter, however; and he greeted his friend with a scowl and a curt:‘Well, what?’
‘Oh, the devil! are you in the sullens again?’ retorted Sherry. ‘What a fellow you are, George! I’ve a deuced good mind not to tell you something you’d give a deal to hear!’
George shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do as you please! I don’t know what should have happened to put you in spirits. When last I saw you –’
‘Never mind that!’ interrupted Sherry.‘If you wanted to pick a quarrel with me, you should have done it then, for by God, I was in the humour to quarrel with anyone who offered! Change my mind now. Thought you’d like to know the Beauty is back in town.’
George made as if to give his horse the office to start.‘If you have come smash up to me merely to tell me that, you have wasted your time! She might be in Jericho for aught I care!’
‘Point is she ain’t in Jericho. She’s on her way to Bath with my mother. I am escorting the pair of them there to-morrow.’
The rigid look was wiped suddenly from Lord Wrotham’s face.‘What?’ he ejaculated.
‘True as I stand here! But that ain’t what I wanted to tell you. Severn did come up to scratch.’
George’s brilliant eyes were now fixed on his face, in an expression of painful eagerness.‘Do you tell me she refused him?’
‘That’s it. Said she had liked the notion of being a duchess, but when she thought of having to live with Severn all her life, she couldn’t stomach it. Can’t say I blame her.’
‘I don’t believe it!’
‘Well, you may do so. I’ve known Bella Milborne all my life. Very truthful girl – a dashed sight too truthful, I used to think, when we were youngsters! Besides, she told me not to repeat it. Thinks Severn wouldn’t wish to have it known he’d been rejected. Deuce take it, I never thought I should live to feel sorry for the Incomparable, but there’s no getting away from it: she’s looking downright peaky! Told me she was in disgrace with Mrs Milborne, and her father and my mother were the only people to have been kind to her. Told me something else, too, and I’ll swear she meant it!’
‘What else did she tell you?’ demanded George.
Sherry grinned up at him. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?
Think I’m going to betray a lady’s confidence? I’m not!’
George drew a deep breath and sat staring straight between his horse’s ears. After a moment he recollected the first of Sherry’s disclosures, and transferred his intent gaze to his face again. ‘You said she was on her way to Bath with your mother!’
‘Well, why the devil shouldn’t she be?’
‘But you said you was going there too!’
‘So I am. My mother’s afraid of highwaymen, or some such flummery.’
George frowned at him.‘She can hire outriders!’
‘That’s what I told her, but nothing will do for her but to have me to go with her.’
George’s eyes were beginning to kindle. ‘Oh, indeed? It’s something new, by God it is! for you to be dancing attendance on your mother, Sherry! And let me tell you now that if you are meaning to have a touch at Isabella again –’
&nb
sp; ‘Go and take a damper, you fool!’ retorted Sherry. ‘I’m a married man! What’s more, if I did mean to have a touch at her, I wouldn’t tell you she was on her way to Bath!’
Mollified, George begged pardon, explaining that he was so worn down that he hardly knew what he was saying. Sherry accepted this, and would have taken his leave had not George detained him to say:‘I wouldn’t go to Bath, if I was you, Sherry. You don’t like the place. If Lady Sheringham would allow me to take your –’
‘Well, she wouldn’t,’ interrupted Sherry. ‘Besides, I’ve got a fancy to go there.’
‘Why?’ demanded George suspiciously.
‘What the deuce has it to do with you? Tired of London. Not been feeling quite the thing. Need a change.’
‘Yes! You will drink the waters, no doubt!’ said George sardonically.
‘I might,’ agreed Sherry. ‘No saying what I may not do – except one thing! Make yourself easy: I don’t mean to make love to the Incomparable!’
And with this, he strode on down Piccadilly, leaving George in a good deal of consternation.
George drove slowly on, turned down into St James’s Street, and had almost reached Ryder Street, where he lodged, when he bethought himself of Mr Ringwood. After all, it was Gil who had taken Kitten down to Bath, and it must be for Gil to decide what was now to be done. He turned his sulky and drove back in the direction of Stratton Street. Sherry had rounded the corner of Half Moon Street by this time, and was out of sight. George drove up to Mr Ringwood’s lodging, called a loafer to hold his horse, and sprang down from the sulky.