‘I do not desire to speak with any disrespect of your father, sir, but from the little I have heard of him I take it that though he might not concern himself with your more clandestine affairs, he would do all in his power to prevent your marriage with one so unsuitable as myself.’
‘I devoutly hope you are wrong, my dear,’ replied his lordship humorously. ‘For when my father uses every means to achieve an end, he invariably does achieve it.’
Miss Challoner got up, smiling a little ironically. ‘Vastly pretty, my lord. I could almost suppose that you wanted to marry me.’
She moved towards the door which his lordship held open for her. ‘I assure you, ma’am, I am becoming hourly more reconciled to the prospect,’ he said, and surprised her by taking her hand and kissing it, very much in the grand manner.
She reflected on her way upstairs that the sooner she left his lordship’s protection the better it would be for her peace of mind.
Upon the following day they resumed their journey, travelling by easy stages, and, at Miss Challoner’s request, at a moderately decorous pace.
She was somewhat amused by the Marquis’s entourage. Besides the chaise that carried her, there was a light coach bearing a quantity of luggage, and Mr Timms. His lordship rode, and seemed to be accompanied by half his household. Miss Challoner remarked on the size of the cortège and learned that the Marquis had thought himself to be travelling light. He described his mother’s frequent progresses, and made her feel sad to think that she would never meet the Duchess of Avon. Her grace, it appeared, had only two ways of travelling. Either she set forth carrying all her wardrobe, and most of her furnishings, with a small army of servants preceding her to make ready at every inn she stopped at, or she started out in an immense hurry, forgetting to provide herself with so much as a change of dress.
Miss Challoner soon discovered that the Marquis adored his mother, and by the end of the journey she had learned much concerning the engaging Duchess. She learned something, too, of the Duke, enough to make her feel thankful that the sea separated her from him. He seemed to be a somewhat sinister person, with uncanny powers of penetration.
They spent four days upon the road to Paris, and the Marquis only twice lost his temper. The first occasion was at Rouen, when Miss Challoner slipped off to see the cathedral, narrowly escaped being seen by a party of English persons, and was treated on her return to a furious tirade; and the second was induced by her refusal to wear the clothes of his lordship’s providing. This quarrel began to assume alarming proportions, and when the Marquis announced his intention of dressing Miss Challoner with his own hands, she thought it prudent to capitulate. His eyes were still smouldering when she reappeared in a gown of blue dimity, and it took her some time to coax him out of his wrath.
Upon their arrival in Paris his lordship conducted Miss Challoner immediately to the Hôtel Avon and left her there while he went in search of his cousin. It was already late in the evening, and neither Miss Marling nor Mme. de Charbonne was to be found at home. The Marquis learned that they had gone to a ball at the house of one Mme. de Château-Morny, and promptly followed them there. He had taken the precaution of changing his travelling clothes for a coat of yellow velvet rather heavily laced with gold, and satin breeches. Mr Timms, on his mettle in this land of exquisites, managed to powder his raven locks with fair thoroughness, and further to fix a diamond buckle over the black riband that tied them back. There were diamond buckles on the Marquis’s shoes, and a diamond pin in the foaming lace at his throat. Mr Timms would dearly have liked to slip a few rings on to his lord’s long white fingers, but the Marquis pushed them all aside, and would wear nothing but his gold signet. He was impatient of the hares-foot, and the patch-box, but when Timms besought him almost in tears not to go to a ball in Paris with his face entirely free from rouge, he laughed, and submitted. Consequently when he took his leave of Miss Challoner, cosily ensconced beside the fire in the big library, she thought for a moment that a stranger had entered the room. The sight of his lordship in full ball dress with diamonds glinting, ruffles of the finest lace falling over his hands, his hair adequately powdered and arranged in neat curls, and a patch at the corner of his mouth, almost took her breath away. She laughed at him, but thought privately that he looked magnificent. He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. ‘I look like a damned Macaroni, don’t I?’ he said. ‘If I know anything of Juliana, I shall find her at some ball or rout. Don’t go to bed till I get back.’
He had no difficulty in entering Mme. de Château-Morny’s hôtel, and when he reached the head of the stairway Madame herself greeted him with a cry of mingled surprise and delight, and laughed to scorn his apology for coming uninvited to her party. He escaped from her presently, and, entering the ballroom, stood looking round through his eye-glass. His very height at once attracted attention; several persons hailed him, demanding to know whence he had sprung, and more than half the young ladies in the room determined to dance with him before the night was done.
Miss Marling, at the moment of the Marquis’s entry, was going down the dance with a slim young gentleman dressed in the very latest mode. She caught sight of her cousin, gave an unmaidenly shriek, and seizing her partner by the hand, left the dance without ceremony, and rushed to greet him.
‘Vidal!’ she exclaimed, and gave him both her hands.
Half the young ladies in the room regarded her enviously.
‘Don’t be a hoyden, Ju,’ said his lordship, raising first one hand and then the other to his lips. ‘God defend me, is it you, Bertrand?’
‘It is her cousin, the wicked Marquis,’ whispered a brunette to a languishing blonde.
‘How she is fortunate!’ sighed the blonde, gazing soulfully at Vidal.
The modish young gentleman swept a deep bow, flourishing a handkerchief strongly scented with amber. He had a mobile and somewhat mischievous countenance, and was known to every anxious parent as a desperate flirt. ‘Cher Dominique, it is even I, thy so unworthy cousin. What villainy has brought you here?’
‘Damn your impudence,’ said his lordship cheerfully. ‘And what’s the meaning of all this, Bertrand?’ He let fall his glass, and took the lively Vicomte’s ear between finger and thumb.
‘English, you understand,’ murmured a dowager to her vis-à-vis. ‘They are all quite sans gêne, I have heard.’
‘My earrings? But it is de règle, my dear! Oh, but the very, very latest mode!’ the Vicomte answered. ‘Let go, barbarian!’
Juliana tugged at his lordship’s sleeve. ‘Vidal, it is amazingly pleasant to see you again, but what in the world are you doing here? Never will you tell me my uncle has sent you to – to be a dragon because of my dearest Frederick!’
‘Lord, no!’ replied Vidal. ‘Where is your dearest Frederick? Not here tonight!’
‘No, but he is in Paris. Oh, Vidal, where can we talk? I have so much to tell you!’
The Vicomte broke in on this and said in English: ‘Vidal, I am with pistols quite incompetent, but you who are so much in the habit of it, will you not shoot me this abominable Frederick?’
Juliana gave a little crow of laughter, but told the Vicomte she would not permit him to talk in such a fashion.
‘But he must be slain, my adored one! It is well seen that he must be slain. Anyone who aspires to steal you from me must be slain. Behold Vidal, the very man to do it!’
‘Do it yourself, puppy,’ said his lordship. ‘Pink him with that pretty sword of yours. Juliana would love to have a duel fought in her honour.’
‘It is an idea,’ agreed the Vicomte. ‘Decidedly it is an idea. But I must ask myself, can I do it? Is he perhaps a master of sword-play? That gives to think! I cannot fight for the hand of the peerless Juliana unless I am sure I win. You perceive how ridiculous that would make me appear.’
‘It won’t make you more ridiculou
s than those earrings,’ said his lordship. ‘I wish you would go away; I want to talk to Juliana.’
‘You inspire me with jealousy the most profound. Do I find you at the Hôtel Avon? I shall see you perhaps to-morrow, then.’
‘Come and dine with me,’ Vidal said, ‘but no earrings, mind!’
The Vicomte laughed, waved an airy good-bye, and went off in search of further amusement.
‘Ju, I want your help,’ the Marquis said quickly. ‘Where can we be undisturbed?’
Her eyes sparkled. ‘My dearest Vidal, what can you have done now? Tell me at once, dreadful creature. Of course, I’ll help you! I know of a little room where we shall be quite alone.’
The Marquis followed her to where a curtain hung over an archway, and held it back for her to pass through.
‘Juliana, you minx, were you ever at a ball without finding a little room where you could be quite alone?’
‘No, never,’ answered Miss Marling with simple pride. She seated herself on a couch, and patted the place beside her invitingly. ‘Now tell me!’
He sat down, and began to play with her fan. ‘Do you recall the blonde piece you once saw me with at Vauxhall Gardens?’
She thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yes, she had blue eyes and looked stupid.’
‘She was stupid. I’ve run off with her sister instead of her, and the devil’s in it, I must marry the girl.’
‘What?’ shrieked Miss Marling.
‘If you screech again, Ju, I’ll strangle you,’ said his lordship. ‘This is serious. The girl’s not like the one you saw. She’s a lady. You know her.’
‘I don’t,’ contradicted Miss Marling positively. ‘Mamma would never let me know the sort of female who would run off with you, Dominic.’
‘Don’t keep interrupting!’ commanded Vidal. ‘I meant to bring the other sister to Paris, since I had to leave England –’
‘Merciful heavens, what have you done that you had to leave England?’ cried Miss Marling.
‘Shot a man in a duel. But that’s not important. The fair sister was to have come with me, but this one got wind of it and took her place to save her.’
‘I expect she wanted you herself,’ said the sceptical Miss Marling.
‘She don’t want me; she’s too strait-laced. I didn’t discover the cheat till Newhaven was reached. The girl thought to make me believe Sophia had planned the trick. I did believe it.’ He frowned down at the fan he still held. ‘You know what I’m like when I lose my cursed temper, Ju?’ Miss Marling shuddered dramatically. ‘Well, I did lose it. I forced the girl to come aboard the Albatross, and brought her over to France. At Dieppe, I discovered the mistake I’d made. She was no Sophia, but a lady, and virtuous to boot.’
‘I’ll be bound she enjoyed it prodigiously for all that,’ sighed Miss Marling. ‘I should.’
‘I dare say,’ said his lordship crushingly, ‘but this girl is not a minx. There’s nothing for it but to marry her. I want to do that as quickly as may be, and until I can arrange it I want you to befriend her.’
‘Vidal, I never, never thought that you would turn romantic!’ said Miss Marling. ‘Tell me her name at once!’
‘Challoner – Mary Challoner,’ replied the Marquis.
She fairly leaped up from the couch. ‘Mary! What, my own dear Mary, who left school and was never more heard of ? Dominic, you wicked, abominable creature! Where is she? If you’ve frightened her, I vow I’ll never speak to you again!’
‘Frightened her?’ he said. ‘Frightened Miss Challoner? Don’t you know her better than that? She’s the coolest woman that ever I met.’
‘Oh, do take me to her at once!’ begged his cousin. ‘I should like of all things to see her again. Where is she?’
‘At the Hôtel Avon. Listen to what I want you to do.’
He told her his plan; she nodded her approval, and straightway dragged him off to the card-room where Mme. de Charbonne was playing at euchre. ‘Tante, here is Vidal!’ she announced.
Madame gave him her hand and a preoccupied smile. ‘Cher Dominique! ’ she murmured. ‘One told me that you were here. Come and visit me tomorrow.’
‘Tante, only fancy! – Vidal tells me one of my dearest friends is in Paris. Tante, pray listen to me! I am going to see her at this very moment, for Vidal says she leaves tomorrow for England with her aunt.’
‘But how can you go this moment?’ objected madame.
‘Vidal says he will escort me. You know mamma will let me go anywhere with Vidal. And he will bring me safe home when I’ve seen Mary. So do not wait for me, will you, Tante Elisabeth? Not here, I mean.’
‘It’s all very irregular,’ complained madame, ‘and you interrupt the game, my dear. Take her away, Dominique, and do not be late.’
Half an hour later Miss Challoner, dozing before the fire, was roused by an opening door, and looked up to see her friend Juliana come quickly into the room. ‘Juliana!’ she cried joyfully.
‘Mary!’ squeaked Juliana, and flung herself into Miss Challoner’s arms.
Ten
Mrs Challoner’s emotions upon reading her elder daughter’s letter found expression in a series of loud shrieks that brought Sophia running to her room. ‘Read that!’ gasped the afflicted parent, and thrust the note into Sophia’s hands.
When Sophia had mastered its contents she wasted no time, but went off into strong hysterics, drumming her feet on the carpet, and becoming alarmingly rigid. Mrs Challoner, a practical woman, dashed the contents of a jug of water over her, and upon Sophia recovering sufficiently to break into a flood of tears mixed with sobbing complaints of her sister’s wickedness, she sat down by her dressing-table, and thought very deeply. After some time, during which Sophia had worked herself into a white heat of fury, Mrs Challoner said abruptly: ‘Hold your tongue, Sophy. It may do very well, after all.’
Sophia stared at her. Mrs Challoner threw her a look of unusual impatience, and said: ‘If Vidal has run off with Mary, I’ll make him marry her.’
Sophia gave a choked scream of rage. ‘She shan’t have him! She shan’t, she shan’t! Oh, I shall die of mortification!’
‘I never thought to marry Mary well,’ went on her mother, unheeding, ‘but I begin to see that nothing in the world could be better than this. Lord, the Gunnings will be nothing to it! To think I was intending Joshua for Mary, and all the time the sly minx was meaning to steal Vidal from under your nose, Sophy! I declare I could positively laugh at myself for being so simple.’
Sophia sprang up, clenching her fists. ‘Mary to be a Marchioness? I tell you I’ll kill myself if she gets him!’
‘Oh, don’t fret, Sophy,’ Mrs Challoner reassured her. ‘With your looks you will never want for a husband. But Mary, whom I never dreamed would be wed, unless it were to Joshua – ! La, it is the most amazingly fortunate thing that could ever be.’
‘She isn’t going to marry Vidal!’ Sophia said in a voice that shook with passion. ‘She’s gone to save my honour, the interfering, hateful wretch! And now it’s her honour will be ruined, and I’m glad of it! I’m glad of it!’
Mrs Challoner folded up Mary’s letter. ‘It’s for me to see she’s not ruined, and I promise you I shall see to it. My Lady Vidal – oh, it is famous! I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.’
Sophia’s fingers curled like a kitten’s claws. ‘It’s me Vidal wants, not Mary!’
‘Lord, what has that to say to anything?’ said Mrs Challoner. ‘It’s Mary he has run off with. Now don’t pout at me, miss! You will do very well, I don’t doubt. There’s O’Halloran, mad for you, or Fraser.’
Sophia gave a little scream. ‘O’Halloran! Fraser! I won’t marry a plain mister! I won’t! I’d sooner drown myself !’
‘Oh well, I’m not saying you might not do better for y
ourself,’ replied Mrs Challoner. ‘And if only I can get Mary safe wedded to Vidal there’s no saying who she may not find you. For she has a good heart; I always said Mary had a good heart; and she’ll not forget her mamma and sister, however grand she’s to become.’
The prospect of having a husband found for her by Mary proved too much for Sophia’s self-control. She fell into renewed hysterics, but was startled into silence by a smart box on the ear from a mother who had suddenly discovered that her elder daughter was of more account than her pampered self.
She was bundled off to bed; Mrs Challoner had no time to waste on tantrums. Her chief fear at that moment was that Mary might return uncompromised, and her night’s repose was quite spoiled by her dread of hearing a knock on the front door. When morning came bringing no news of Mary, her maternal anxieties were allayed, and telling Sophia sharply to stop crying, she set about making herself smart for a visit to his grace of Avon. She chose a gown of stiff damson-hued armazine, with one of the new German collars, and a caravan bonnet with a blind of white sarsenet to be let down at will, and thus attired set forth shortly before noon for Avon House. The door was opened by a liveried porter, and she inquired haughtily for his grace of Avon.
The porter informed her that his grace was from home, and having formed his own opinion of Mrs Challoner’s estate, prepared to shut the door.
That redoubtable lady promptly put her foot in the way. ‘Then be so good as to take me to the Duchess,’ she said.
‘Her grace is h’also h’out of town,’ replied the porter.
Mrs Challoner’s face fell. ‘When do you expect her back?’ she demanded.
The porter looked down his nose. ‘H’it is not my place to h’expect her grace,’ he said loftily.
Feeling much inclined to hit him, Mrs Challoner next inquired where the Duke and Duchess might be found. The porter said that he had no idea. ‘And h’if,’ he continued blandly, ‘you will have the goodness to remove your foot h’out of the way, I shall be h’able to close the door.’