The door of Mr Ringwood’s lodging was opened to him by the retired gentleman’s gentleman who owned the house, who conveyed to him the intelligence that Mr Ringwood was out of town.
‘Out of town!’ exclaimed George indignantly.‘What the devil ails him to be out of town, I should like to know?’
The owner of the house, being accustomed to the vagaries of the Quality, and knowing this particular member of the Quality of old, showed no surprise at this unreasonable explosion, but said civilly that Mr Ringwood had gone into Leicestershire for a day’s hunting, and was not expected to return until the morrow.
‘Confound him!’muttered George.‘Taken his man with him, I suppose?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘He would!’ said George savagely.‘Now what am I to do?’
Mr Ford, not deeming that any answer was expected of him, discreetly held his peace. George stood glowering for a few minutes, and then said, with all the air of a man who has taken a momentous decision:‘I’ll leave a note for him!’
Mr Ford bowed, and at once ushered him into Mr Ringwood’s parlour. George sat down at the desk in the window, cast Cocker, the Racing Chronicle, and several copies of the Weekly Dispatch on to the floor, drew forward the ink-well, found, after considerable search amongst a litter of bills and invitations, a sheet of notepaper, and dashed off a hurried letter.
‘Dear Gil,’ he wrote. ‘The devil’s in it now, and no mistake, for Sherry’s off to Bath to-morrow with his mother and Miss Milborne. I see nothing for it but to post down there ahead of him, to warn Lady Sherry, in case she does not desire to see him. I shall leave town tonight. Yours, etc.,Wrotham.’
His lordship then folded this missive, affixed a wafer to it, wrote Mr Ringwood’s name on it in arresting characters, propped it up against the clock on the mantelpiece, and departed. He felt that in going to apprise Hero of her husband’s approaching visit to Bath, he would be acting with extreme propriety; and the circumstance of this particular deed of friendship’s happening to coincide with his own paramount desire to repair to Bath was nothing more (he told himself ) than a happy chance.
While George was making these arrangements, Sherry had astonished his man, Bootle, by commanding him to have everything in readiness for a journey to Bath by an early hour on the following morning. He was rather vague about the probable length of his stay in this watering-place, and from never having been obliged to pack for himself, he could not conceive why Bootle should think this a matter of even trifling interest. He decided to drive himself down in his curricle, since this would frustrate at the outset any attempt on his parent’s part to force him into sitting with her in the family travelling coach. So Jason and his groom had immediately to be warned, and by the time this had been done, and the groom given his orders to arrange for suitable changes of horses at the various stages, it was going on for eight o’clock, and the Viscount began to think of his dinner. Since Hero’s disappearance it had become increasingly rare for him to dine at home. On this evening, so firmly persuaded was he that he at last had the clue to Hero’s whereabouts, he felt cheerful enough to have eaten his dinner in Half Moon Street, had Mrs Bradgate made any preparation to meet so unexpected an eventuality. As she had not, he was obliged to go out again. He walked down to White’s and ordered the most sustaining meal he had been able to fancy for many weeks. He was finishing it when his cousin Ferdy strolled into the coffee-room. Ferdy was engaged with a party of friends, but as they had not yet put in an appearance, he sat down beside Sherry and joined him in a glass of burgundy.
‘Care to see a little cocking to-morrow night, Sherry, dear old boy?’ he asked, sipping his wine.
‘Can’t,’ responded Sherry briefly. ‘I’m off to Bath.’
Ferdy choked. It took a great deal of back-slapping to restore him, and when he was at last able to catch his breath again, his eyes were watering, and his countenance was alarmingly flushed.
‘Well, what the deuce!’ exclaimed Sherry, eyeing him in surprise.
‘Crumb!’ gasped Ferdy.
‘Crumb? You weren’t eating anything!’
‘Must have been,’ said Ferdy feebly.‘What takes you to Bath, Sherry?’
‘My mother. She’s putting up at Grillon’s with the Incomparable. Both going to Bath to drink the waters. I’m to escort ’em.’
Ferdy gazed at him in dismay. ‘I wouldn’t do it, Sherry,’ he said.‘You won’t like it there!’
‘Well, if I don’t like it, I can come back, can’t I?’
‘Much better not go at all,’ said Ferdy.‘Very dull sort of a place these days. Don’t even waltz there. Won’t like the waters either.’
‘Good God, I ain’t going to drink ’em!’
‘Pity to miss the cocking! Very good match!’ Ferdy said, faint but pursuing.
‘I tell you I’m going to escort my mother to Bath!’ Sherry said impatiently.‘What the deuce ails you, Ferdy? Why shouldn’t I got to Bath?’
‘Just thought you might not care for it, dear boy! No offence! Did you say the Incomparable was going too?’
‘Going to bear my mother company.’
‘Oh!’ said Ferdy, thinking this over painstakingly. ‘Well, that settles it:much better not go, Sherry! If the Incomparable goes, Revesby will, and you won’t like that.’
‘I suppose Bath is big enough to hold us both. In fact, if he means to hang about Bella’s apron-strings, it’s as well I should go!’
Ferdy gave it up. He withdrew a few minutes later to join his friends, and Sherry went home. But Ferdy’s friends found him preoccupied that evening. He sat in a brown study over dinner, followed the party in a trance-like fashion to the card-room, and there paid so little attention to the game that his brother accused him of being cast-away. Their host, considering the question dispassionately, shook his head.‘Not cast-away,Duke. Very affectionate as soon as he’s a trifle disguised. Not affectionate tonight. You quite well, Ferdy, old fellow?’
‘Had a shock,’ Ferdy said. ‘Saw Sherry to-night.’
‘Sherry?’ said the Honourable Marmaduke.
‘My cousin Sherry,’ explained Ferdy.
‘Dash it, he’s my cousin too, ain’t he?’ said Marmaduke. ‘You’re as dead as a house, Ferdy!’
‘He may be your cousin, too,’ said Ferdy, not prepared to dispute this,‘but it wouldn’t have given you a shock. No reason why it should. Sherry’s going to Bath.’
Marmaduke stared at him.‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Just what I’ve been wondering all the evening, Duke. You know what I think? Fate! That’s what it is: fate! There’s a thing that comes after a fellow: got a name, but I forget what it is. Creeps up behind him, and puts him in the basket when he ain’t expecting it.’
‘What sort of thing?’ enquired his host uneasily.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Ferdy. ‘It ain’t a thing you can see.’
‘If it’s a ghost, I don’t believe in ’em!’ said his host, recovering his composure.
Ferdy shook his head. ‘Worse than that, Jack, dear boy! I’ll think of its name in a minute. Met it at Eton.’
‘Dash it, Ferdy, I was at Eton the same time as you were, and you never said a word about anything creeping up behind you!’
‘I may not have said anything, but it did. Crept up behind me when I broke that window in chapel.’
‘Old Horley?’ Mr Westgate said.‘You don’t mean to tell me he’s come up to London? What’s he creeping up behind you for?’
‘No, no!’ replied Ferdy, irritated by his friend’s poverty of intellect. ‘Not old Horley! Thing that made him suspect me when I thought my tracks were covered. Not sure it ain’t a Greek thing. Might have been Latin, though, now I come to think of it.’
‘I know what he means!’ said Marmaduke. ‘What’s more, it proves he’s cast-away, or he wouldn’t be thinking of such things. Nemesis! That’s it, ain’t it, Ferdy?’
‘Nemesis!’ repeated Ferdy, pleased to find himself understood at last. ??
?That’s it! Dash it, it all goes to show, don’t it? Never thought the stuff they used to teach us at school would come in useful, but if I hadn’t had to learn a lot of Greek and Latin I shouldn’t have known about that thingummy. Forgotten its name again, but it don’t signify now.’
He seemed inclined to brood over the advantages of a classical education, but his brother brought him back to the point. ‘What the deuce has Nemesis to do with Sherry’s going to Bath?’ he demanded.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Ferdy. ‘Think I’ll go and see Gil.’
‘Dash it, Ferdy, you can’t go off like that!’ expostulated Mr Westgate.
‘Yes, I can,’ replied Ferdy. ‘Got a fancy to see Gil. Very knowing fellow. Come back again later.’
‘You know what, Duke?’ said Mr Westgate, watching Ferdy wend his way to the door. ‘I’ve never seen poor Ferdy so bosky in all my life! He’ll be taken up by the Watch, that’s what’ll happen to him!’
This ignominious fate did not, however, overtake Ferdy. He reached Stratton Street unmolested, to be met by the same intelligence which had greeted Lord Wrotham earlier in the day. He was even more dashed than his lordship had been, but he reached the same decision. For the second time that day Mr Ford ushered one of Mr Ringwood’s cronies into his parlour for the purpose of writing a note to him.
It cost Ferdy time and profound thought to achieve a letter that should explain the whole situation to Mr Ringwood; but when he presently read the elegantly phrased document over to himself he was not ill-pleased with it. To his mind it contrived both to impress Mr Ringwood with a sense of the urgency of the situation and to reassure him on the question of the writer’s selfless loyalty to the cause at stake. It stated clearly that Ferdy would accompany his cousin to Bath, but it became a trifle involved after that, a dark reference to the possible need of a second leaving Mr Ringwood to infer that Ferdy felt there was a strong likelihood of Sherry’s calling him out: a contingency which he explained as being due to the machinations of a mysterious agency whose name might be discovered on application to the Honourable Marmaduke Fakenham. It struck Ferdy, when he came to this portion of the missive, that it would be highly undesirable for Mr Ringwood to make any such application, so he appended a terse postscript: ‘Better not.
’ The composition of such a literary effort naturally made it necessary for the Honourable Ferdy to seek a little stimulant. Fortunately, there was some brandy in one of the decanters on the sideboard. Ferdy poured it into a rummer, drank it off, and then, for he was very meticulous in all matters of good ton, added a second postscript: ‘Took a glass of brandy.’
He departed from Mr Ringwood’s lodging, feeling that no action befitting a man of honour had been left undone; and, the brandy having made him pot-valiant, betook himself to Half Moon Street. The house was in darkness, and it was some time before he could obtain a response to his insistent knocking. It seemed to him a very peculiar circumstance that no one should answer the door in Sherry’s house, and he was just wondering whether he could have made a mistake in the number when a window was flung up on the second floor, and Sherry’s voice, rather sleepy and extremely irate, asked who the devil was there.
Ferdy gazed up at the vague outline of his cousin’s head and said: ‘Hallo, Sherry, dear boy! What the deuce are you doing up there?’
‘Is that you, Ferdy?’ demanded Sherry wrathfully.‘What the deuce are you doing down there, waking me up at this hour of night?’
‘What, you ain’t asleep, Sherry, surely?’ said Ferdy incredulously. ‘Night’s young! Come to have a chat with you. Very important.’
‘Oh, the devil! Dead-beat again! What a curst nuisance you are, Ferdy!’ said Sherry, exasperated.
He withdrew his head from the window, and in a few minutes had opened the front door to admit his cousin. Ferdy walked in, smiling affably, but declined an offer of the spare bedchamber.‘Going back to White’s when I’ve had a word with you, Sherry,’ he said. ‘Engaged with some friends. What made you go to bed?’
‘Dash it, it’s past one o’clock!’ replied Sherry. ‘Besides, I’m going to Bath to-morrow.’
‘Nothing in that,’ said Ferdy. ‘I’m going to Bath too, but I don’t go to bed at one o’clock. Why should I?’
‘You’re foxed. You ain’t going to Bath.’
‘Yes, I am. Came to tell you. Taken a fancy to go with you.’
Sherry stared at him narrowly, holding up the candle he was carrying.‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Fond of you, Sherry. Don’t know why, but there it is. Always was. If you go to Bath, I’ll go to Bath.’
‘Now I know you’re foxed!’ said Sherry, quite disgusted.
‘No, I ain’t. Fond of Gil too. Not the kind of fellow to leave my friends in the lurch. You driving down?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Take me up in Cavendish Square. Ready for you any time.’
‘I don’t mind taking you up if you really mean it,’ said Sherry. ‘In fact, I’d as soon have company on the way as not, but it’s my belief you’ll take the best part of to-morrow to sleep this off ! If you won’t go to bed, I wish you’d go home!’
‘Not going home: going back to White’s,’ said Ferdy.‘Care to join us, dear old fellow?’
‘No, I would not!’ replied Sherry, opening the door for him.
‘Quite right! Not dressed for it!’ Ferdy agreed.‘See you tomorrow!’
Contrary to Sherry’s expectations, when he drew up in Cavendish Square at noon that day he found his cousin not only perfectly wide-awake, but prepared for a journey. Ferdy had had time to think of several reasons to account for his desiring to go to Bath, and although his cousin believed none of them, he was far from guessing what the true reason was. He had a suspicion that Ferdy’s activities in London might have made it expedient for him to withdraw from the metropolis for a time, but as he took only the most cursory interest in Ferdy’s affairs, he forbore to question him very strictly.
The winter being unusually mild, no particular discomfort was suffered during the journey, which, as Sherry had prophesied, took them two days to accomplish. The cavalcade, consisting as it did of one large travelling coach, two chaises, bearing servants and baggage, and one sporting curricle, was imposing enough to procure for the dowager the most flattering degree of attention at every halt made on the road. Landlords bowed till their noses almost touched their knees; waiters ran out with offers of cordials; chambermaids dropped curtsies; and ostlers fell over one another in their anxiety to be the first to serve a cortège the style of which promised unusually handsome gratuities.
They entered Bath towards evening on the second day, the dowager’s coach bowling along considerably ahead of the curricle, which had stopped for an unseasonable length of time at a certain hostelry a few miles outside the town. Lady Sheringham had hired a palatial suite of apartments on the Royal Crescent, so Sherry, sweeping into Belmont from Guinea Lane, bore sharp right into Bennet Street, which led into the Circus, past the New Assembly Rooms. It was in the middle of this crowded thoroughfare, just as the nicest precision of eye was required to negotiate the passage between a hackney carriage, drawn up on the left of the road, and a perch phaeton being driven towards him by a down-the-road-looking man in a many-caped greatcoat, that Sherry caught sight of his wife, walking along with her hand on Lord Wrotham’s arm.
A violent expletive broke from him, and an equally violent start. He jerked his head round, heedless of the phaeton, and the next instant the wheels of both vehicles were locked, and much more violent expletives were issuing from the lips of the down-the- road man.
Since all the horses were plunging in sudden fright, and there was an ominous sound of splintering wood, Sherry was obliged to give his attention where it was most urgently required. By the time the carriages had been disengaged, thanks largely to the efforts of Jason, who had lost not a moment in leaping down from his perch, and running to the heads of his master’s pair, Hero and George had disappeared into Ru
ssel Street. Sherry, paying no heed at all to the justifiably incensed remarks being addressed to him by the phaeton’s owner, thrust the reins into his cousin’s hands, and, with a brief admonition to him to ‘settle with this fellow’, sprang down from the curricle, narrowly avoided being knocked down by a tilbury, fell foul of a couple of chairmen, whose load was impeding his passage, reached the other side of the street, and set off with great strides towards Russel Street. He was too late. When he reached the turning there was no sign of his quarry, and after taking a few paces up the street he paused, realising the futility of hunting through all the roads in the vicinity. He turned and went back, becoming aware on the way that his singular behaviour had attracted no little attention to himself. He found, too, that he was still carrying his driving-whip, and had the sight of Lord Wrotham, bending solicitously over Hero, not filled him with murderous rage he must have grinned to think of the comic spectacle he presented.
He found Ferdy making his apologies with winning grace, and offering, on his behalf, to pay for the necessary repairs to the phaeton. The phaeton’s owner was already a little mollified, and everything might have been settled comfortably over a third of daffy, as Ferdy was on the point of suggesting, had not the Viscount nipped such friendly overtures in the bud by scowling upon his victim, offering him the curtest of apologies, handing him his card, climbing into his curricle, and driving off without another word.
‘Really, Sherry, dear old boy!’ expostulated Ferdy.‘No need to go off like this! Very pleasant fellow!’
‘Did you see who that was?’ Sherry demanded.
The late accident had temporarily put everything else out of Ferdy’s head, but these words recalled him to a sense of his own surprise. ‘Yes, by Jove!’ he exclaimed. ‘Dashed if I could believe my eyes! George! You see him too, Sherry?’
Sherry audibly ground his teeth. ‘Do you think I’m blind? I saw him, and what’s more I saw who was walking on his arm! My wife!’
‘Lady Sheringham?’ said Ferdy cautiously.
‘Yes, you fool.’