‘Now you come to mention it, Sherry, dear boy, I saw her too,’ said Ferdy.‘Didn’t care to draw your attention to it.’
They had by this time traversed the Circus and were half-way down Brock Street. ‘So that was why – !’ Sherry muttered. ‘It is George I have to thank for – ! By God, let me but get my hands on George!’
Ferdy, perceiving that it could only be a matter of minutes before a most unwelcome question would be hurled at him, said in a desperate attempt to avert suspicion: ‘No wish to pry into your affairs, Sherry! Take it you wasn’t expecting to see Lady Sherry? Very extraordinary business!’
Fortunately for him, the Viscount’s mind was so taken up with the thought of George’s duplicity that he paid no heed to this. The curricle swept into the Royal Crescent and drew up outside one of the houses, behind the chaises, which were being unloaded by a bevy of hirelings. Jason jumped down and went to the horses’ heads. As his master descended into the road, he said in a stupefied tone: ‘So help me bob, guv’nor! That were the Missus!’
‘Jason, hold your tongue!’ the Viscount said angrily.
‘Chaffer and daylights close as a oyster, me lord!’ promptly replied the Tiger, his sharp countenance alive with curiosity.
The Viscount strode into the house, leaving his cousin to follow at his leisure. The entrance hall was a litter of trunks and bandboxes; his lordship picked his way none too carefully through them and ran up the stairs to the parlour on the first floor. Here he found Miss Milborne directing a couple of abigails where to take various packages that strewed the room. She smiled at Sherry, and said: ‘Your Mama has the headache, and has gone to lie down on her bed before it is time to dress for dinner. I am sorry we are still in such a pickle, but I will have all in order in – Why, what is the matter, Sherry?’
The Viscount waited until the two abigails had loaded themselves with impedimenta, and then firmly shut them out of the room. With his hand still on the door-knob, he said grimly:‘Do you know whom I saw in Bennet Street?’
She looked a startled enquiry.
‘George!’ said the Viscount, flinging the name at her.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, blushing a little.‘Oh, indeed!’
‘Yes!’ returned his lordship. ‘But you need not look so smug, Bella, for he has not come to Bath on your account! He was strolling along, as bold as brass, with my wife hanging on his arm!’
‘Oh!’ gasped Miss Milborne, in quite another voice. ‘Oh, Sherry, no!’
‘He was, I tell you!’ said the Viscount, taking a few hasty paces about the room and kicking an offending bandbox out of his path.
Miss Milborne clasped her hands together and said in a strictly controlled tone: ‘I told you – I told you, Sherry, that he had a marked partiality for Hero! It was the first thing that sprang to my mind when I learned of her having left you. But that he could have – all this time – Oh, it is too base!’
‘Only wait until I come upon him face to face!’ Sherry said through his locked teeth.
She covered her eyes with one hand.‘I was never more shocked in my life! I do not know what to say! You do not think – might it not be possible that he met Hero in Bath by chance?’
‘No doubt that is what he will try to make us believe!’ Sherry said, with a savage little laugh. ‘But it is doing it a trifle too brown! Now I know why he was so urgent with me not to come to Bath! Now I see it all! Why, he must have posted here ahead of me the instant he was apprised of my having taken the resolve of coming with my mother!’
‘And she!’ Miss Milborne said throbbingly. ‘Oh, I had not thought it of her!’
‘Yes, you had!’ retorted the Viscount, rounding on her. ‘It is precisely what you did think, Bella! And there’s not a word of truth in it, and if you dare to say it again I’ll choke you!’
‘Pray do not be thinking you can talk to me like that!’ said Miss Milborne, bristling. ‘I am not your unfortunate wife, thank heaven!’
‘If you are thanking heaven for that, then at last we are of one mind!’ the Viscount threw at her. ‘This is your fault! If you had not played fast and loose with Wrotham, this would never have happened! By God, whenever I think of the way he did his possible to dissuade me from coming here, and –’ He stopped short.‘Yes, by Jupiter!’ he said.‘And Ferdy too! Ferdy! He knew! Well, that’s one of them at least I can get my hands on! Cousin Ferdy has a trifle of explaining to do!’
He left the room precipitately as he spoke, and went down the stairs in several perilous bounds. But although his cousin Ferdy was not generally held to be quick-witted, he had a lively sense of self-preservation, and he had not waited for this inevitable moment. There was no sign of him in the house, or even outside it, and a furious enquiry of Bootle elicited the information that Mr Fakenham had bethought himself of some urgent shopping that must be done without the least loss of time, and had gone off some ten minutes earlier. Sherry knew that he had formed the intention of putting up at the York Hotel, and instantly took himself to this hostelry. He drew blank. Mr Fakenham’s man and Mr Fakenham’s baggage had certainly arrived there, but Mr Fakenham had as yet put in no appearance. The Viscount, growing steadily more wrathful, waited for some time in the coffee-room, but when it became apparent that his cousin had no immediate intention of emerging from whatever place of hiding he had found, he went back to the Royal Crescent, leaving a message with Ferdy’s valet, which was calculated to terrify Ferdy into an instant flight for London.
The first thing which met the Viscount’s eyes upon his return to his parent’s lodging was a neat oblong of pasteboard lying on the table in the hall. He glanced cursorily at this, and his temper was by no means improved by the discovery that it bore Sir Montagu Revesby’s name, in flowing copperplate characters.He passed on upstairs to change his travelling dress for raiment more suited to his mother’s dinner-table. His sense of filial duty fell short, however, of the stockings and knee-breeches which she was old-fashioned enough to consider de rigueur; he compromised with a pair of exquisitely fitting pantaloons, strapped tightly under his feet; and one of Stultz’s best coats of superfine cloth. His parent, who seemed to be in excellent spirits, welcomed him into the dining-room with a fond smile, and, when he offered a curt apology for his tardiness, said that it did not signify. He took his place at the end of the table, saying disagreeably, as he did so: ‘I saw that that fellow has wasted no time in calling upon you, Bella!’
‘If you mean Sir Montagu,’ returned Miss Milborne composedly, ‘he was so obliging as to wait on us to discover if there were any service he could render us. We are already indebted to him for the flowers we found awaiting us.’
‘Yes, indeed!’ agreed Lady Sheringham. ‘Such a delightful man! His air so distinguished: everything about him proclaiming the gentleman! I am sure he said everything that was kind and civil, and only fancy, Anthony, he was able to give me some excellent advice about the treatment I should seek! It seems that there is a Dr Wilkinson, who has lately acquired the Abbey Baths, who Sir Montagu thinks would do me a great deal of good. The Baths are private, you know, and it seems that this Dr Wilkinson has a most interesting scheme in mind for the erection of a Pump Room in Abbey Street, where one may be able to drink four different waters! Conceive of it! Then, too, the doctor is a great advocate for the Russian method of Vapour Baths, which I had not before heard of, but which I am sure would benefit me excessively. I do not know when I have been so pleased with anyone! Sir Montagu spoke, too, of you, with the most flattering degree of affection, dear Anthony.’
‘I’ll thank him to keep his affection for those who may value it!’ replied his lordship unequivocally. It was apparent to him that Sir Montagu had not been slow to sum Lady Sheringham up, and had spared no pains to ingratiate himself with her. The idea of Revesby’s having the effrontery to come to a house where he was known to be lodging gave him a passing twinge of annoyance,but as he had a far greater cause for annoyance weighing upon him, he did not waste more than a moment or tw
o’s thought upon it. He noticed that Miss Milborne had quite recovered her composure, and was able to eat her dinner with a tolerably good appetite. He himself tasted and rejected various dishes, and bore little part in the discussion between the two ladies of plans for the immediate future. He did indeed wonder that Miss Milborne could so calmly talk of the several acquaintances she had at present sojourning in Bath, of taking out subscriptions to the Balls at the Assembly Rooms, of visiting the best circulating libraries, and of a dozen other such irrelevant trifles.
As soon as dinner was over, he excused himself from joining the ladies in the parlour, and demanded of the butler if his Tiger had returned from the errand on which he had despatched him.
Jason was waiting downstairs, and was at once sent for. He grinned cheerfully at his master and announced that Lord Wrotham, whom he described as a peevy cull, was putting up at the White Hart, in Stall Street. The Viscount then changed his footwear for a pair of gleaming Hessians, called for his hat, and his drab Benjamin, and left the house.
Twenty-two
LORD WROTHAM HAD ARRIVED IN BATH A DAY AHEAD OF Sherry, and had stayed only to remove the travel stains from his person at the White Hart before repairing to Upper Camden Place. He was out of luck, the day being Wednesday, and Lady Saltash and her young friend having gone to attend the weekly concert at the New Assembly Rooms. George was obliged to wait until the following morning before delivering his warning to Hero. He found her at home then, winding wool for her hostess, and as soon as he was announced, she flew up out of her chair, and ran forward to greet him, with both her hands held out, and such an expression of joy in her face that Lady Saltash raised her brows a trifle. But Lady Saltash was shrewd enough to perceive that the welcome bestowed on this handsome young blood was sisterly in its nature, and she condescended to allow George to kiss her gnarled hand, and lost no time in putting him in his place, by recalling under what circumstances she had last met his Mama, how she had been an intimate friend of one of his more formidable aunts, and what she had said to his father when that deceased gentleman had scandalised his well-wishers by mortgaging his estates. She ended by drawing a vivid word-picture of George himself at his christening, and in this masterly fashion contrived to make that dangerous and dashing blade feel much younger and less important than he had done in years.
‘But, George, what brings you here?’ asked Hero, smiling mischievously up at him.‘It is not at all the sort of place for you! They do not allow hazard in the Rooms, you know, and nobody waltzes, so how will you go on?’
‘I know: deuced slow place!’ George agreed. ‘But I did not come for that! Kitten – Lady Sheringham, I mean’ – he corrected himself, a guilty eye on Lady Saltash.
‘No, no, don’t call me that! I am known as Miss Wantage here, but please call me Kitten! It seems so long since anyone did!’ Hero said, a catch in her voice.
He pressed her hand in a very feeling manner. ‘But you are well? You are tolerably comfortable?’
‘Yes, indeed! Dear Lady Saltash has been so kind! But you have not told me why you are here?’
‘Kitten, it’s the deuce of a coil, and I did not know what you would wish me to do! Gil must needs go off to Melton, just when he was most wanted, and there was no sense in consulting Ferdy.’
‘George, nothing has happened to Sherry?’ Hero cried.
‘No nothing. But he is even now upon his way here!’
Such a light sprang to her eyes, such a vivid colour into her cheeks that if he could have brought Sherry into her presence there and then he would have done it.‘To – find – me, George?’ she faltered, looking beseechingly at him.
He was obliged to shake his head. There was a long silence. Hero broke it.‘No. I quite see. But – but it seems very odd of Sherry to be coming here, if it is not for that, because he cannot bear Bath.’
‘The thing is,’ said George, roughly, to conceal his overflowing sympathy, ‘that the dowager has taken a fancy to drink the waters, and nothing would do for her but that Sherry must escort her. She brings Miss Milborne with her.’
‘She brings – Oh!’ Hero said numbly. ‘That is why Sherry – Yes, I see. It – it was very kind of you to come to warn me, dear George.’
He stretched out his hand, and possessed himself of one of hers.‘Kitten, there was no use in my trying to keep it from you! God knows I – But I do not believe he cares a button for the Incomparable! He has not shown a sign of it in all these weeks! I own, when I heard that he had consented to come here I was instantly suspicious, and I taxed him with meaning to have a touch at her again. He denied it immediately: bade me remember he was a married man; assured me he had no notion of making love to her. For as soon as I knew Miss Milborne was to bear Lady Sheringham company I offered to take Sherry’s place as their escort. He would not consent to it, but –’
‘Was he so very set on going with them?’ Hero asked wistfully.
He hesitated. ‘I hardly know – Dash it, yes! There was no moving him. But it may well have been as he said: his mother would not have consented to the alteration.’
‘I don’t think Sherry would have listened to Lady Sheringham if he had not himself wished to go in her party,’ Hero said.‘You see, George, I know Sherry very well. And I know, of course, that if only he could divorce me Lady Sheringham would do all that lay in her power to marry him to Isabella.’
‘It is very true, but I do not believe it of Sherry. Dash it, Kitten, had he had any such notion he would not have stopped me on Piccadilly, which he did, only to tell me that Miss Milborne was coming to Bath. Yes, by Jove, and he as good as told me also that it was I who had engaged her affections – for you must know that Mrs Milborne’s story was true: Severn did offer, and was rejected!’
‘Oh, George, I am so happy to hear that!’ Hero said impulsively. ‘If only the rest may be true! But why should Sherry come here, if you are right? You see, it is as I told you, the night I ran away: it was Isabella he really wished to make his wife, and he took me only because she would not accept him, and his mother had put him in a passion. I do not think he loves Isabella very much, but perhaps he is tired of – of everything, and willing to oblige Lady Sheringham.’
‘I do not know: I am not in his confidence. When you first left him, there was no coming near him. He was never at home: spent his time looking for you all over the country. But lately he has been kicking up every kind of lark, as though – Not that that signifies! Plenty of people would tell you I have been doing the same thing myself, and the lord knows I had no pleasure in it! But what am I to do, Kitten? Do you wish him to know that you are here? I own I should be glad to be able to make a clean breast of the business to him, for I have not liked my part in it above half !’
‘Oh, no, George, I beg you will not! If he is beginning to forget me – if he should not be pleased to know that I was here – I could not bear it! For he would feel himself bound to take me back, and I am not going to go back, unless – But why do we talk like this? He does not come to Bath for my sake, but for Isabella’s, and you know it as well as I do, George!’
‘If I thought that – !’ he said broodingly, his hand clenching his knee.
‘It does not appear to me,’ interposed Lady Saltash dryly,‘that either of you knows anything! Let me beg of you, my love, not to put yourself in a taking before ever that husband of yours has reached Bath! As for you,Wrotham – for I do not mean to stand upon ceremony with you! – you may escort us to the Pump Room, if you will be so obliging. I fancy the barouche is at the door already.’
George expressed his willingness to be of service, took the front seat in the carriage, facing the ladies, and behaved in a very docile way until the arrival on the scene of Mr Tarleton, who came up to them in the Pump Room, and greeted Hero with so much the air of a friend of long-standing that George’s hackles rose instinctively. Hero made both gentlemen known to each other, and took the opportunity to whisper to Mr Tarleton, when George went to procure her second glass of the fam
ous water for Lady Saltash, that this was none other than the fire-eater she had told him about. Mr Tarleton, who had a lively sense of humour, was immensely entertained, and he thanked Hero for her warning, and said that he would take good care not to incense so dangerous a young man. George, who had been keeping such a vicariously jealous eye upon Hero that he made himself very unpopular by forgetting to tip the pumper, soon rejoined them. Closer scrutiny of Mr Tarleton informed him that this pleasant person was no longer in his first youth, and he unbent a little towards him. For his part, Mr Tarleton, quite as suspicious as George, but better able to hide it, could not detect in his manner towards Hero any trace of the lover. Lady Saltash, seated at a little distance, observed the trio with cynical enjoyment. Just such a situation as her mischievous nature delighted in appeared to be brewing.
When she and Hero were once more seated in the barouche, taking a turn about the town before going back to Camden Place, she said with the forthrightness which made her rather disconcerting:‘Now,my love, I should be glad if you will inform me what you mean to do next?’
Hero shook her head hopelessly.
‘You don’t know. Nothing could be more disastrous! But perhaps you know whether or not you are willing tamely to relinquish your husband to this Beauty I hear so much about?’
Hero turned her face away, and stared blindly out of the window. ‘Oh, ma’am, pray do not ask me! I have – I have such wicked thoughts of poor Isabella!’
‘Excellent! I am happy to perceive that there is some spirit in you! Well, let me tell you,my child, that if you mean to make a push to keep Anthony you should show yourself very well able to do without him. Do not be making sheep’s eyes at him, and begging his pardon for having taken exception to his overbearing ways! You are the injured one, remember! and –’
‘No, ma’am, indeed I am not!’ Hero said earnestly. ‘It was all my fault for being so –’
‘Do not interrupt me! I repeat, it is you who are injured, and if ever you hope to have the mastery over Anthony –’