‘Forgive me,’ said Mr Comyn, ‘but I think you cherish a warmer feeling for Lord Vidal than I was aware of.’
She looked gravely at him. ‘I thought, from something you said to me, that you had guessed I was not – indifferent to him.’
‘I did not know, ma’am, that it had gone so deep. If it is so indeed, I do not immediately perceive why you were so urgent to be quit of him.’
‘He does not care for me, sir,’ said Miss Challoner simply. ‘Nor am I of his world. Conceive the very natural dismay that must visit his parents were he to ally himself with me. Fathers have been known to disinherit their sons for such offences.’
Mr Comyn was greatly moved. ‘Madam, the nobility of your nature is such that I can only say, I honour you.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Miss Challoner sharply.
Fourteen
Miss Marling partook of chocolate very late on the morning after the ball at the Hôtel Saint-Vire. It was after eleven when she awoke, and she did not look as though the long sleep had at all refreshed her. Her abigail noticed how woebegone was the little face under the night-cap of point-lace, and drew her own conclusions. Miss Marling was pettish over the choice of a morning wrapper, and complained that her chocolate was too sweet. She demanded to know whether any note had been left for her, or if anyone had called to see her, and on being told that she had neither a note nor a visitor, she pushed her chocolate away, and said she could not drink the stuff, it was so vile.
She was still in bed trying to make up her mind whether or no to write to Mr Comyn, when a message was brought to her that the Marquis of Vidal was below, and wanted to see her immediately.
She was so disappointed that the visitor was not Mr Comyn, as she had at first been sure it must be, that tears rose to her eyes, and she said in a tight, hard voice: ‘I can’t see him. I’m in bed, and I have the headache.’
The lackey’s footsteps retreated down the stairs, and in two minutes a far quicker step sounded, and a peremptory rap fell on the door. ‘Let me in, Ju; I must see you,’ said Vidal’s voice.
‘Oh, very well!’ answered Juliana crossly.
The Marquis came in, much to the abigail’s disapproval, and signed to that damsel to leave the room. She went, sniffing loudly, and Vidal strode over to the big bed, and stood looking grimly down at Juliana. ‘The servants tell me Mary Challoner left the house early this morning, and is not yet returned,’ he said, without preamble. ‘Where is she?’
‘Good gracious, how should I know?’ said Juliana indignantly. She hitched one of her lace-edged pillows up higher. ‘I daresay she has run away sooner than marry you, and I vow I don’t blame her, if you are in the habit of bursting in on ladies abed in this horrid way.’
‘Oh, don’t be missish, Ju!’ said his lordship, with an impatient frown. ‘I left her in your care.’
‘Well, and what if you did? I can’t be for ever with her. She wouldn’t have me, I’ll be bound.’
Vidal looked at her rather sharply. ‘Oh? Have you quarrelled?’
‘Pray do not imagine everyone to be like yourself and for ever being in a quarrel!’ besought Miss Marling. ‘If people are only kind to me I’m sure I am the last person to quarrel with anyone.’
His lordship sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Now come along, my girl: out with it!’ he said. ‘What has happened between you?’
‘Nothing at all!’ snapped Juliana. ‘Though I’ve little doubt Mary thinks me as odious as she thinks you – not that I care a fig for what she or anyone else thinks.’
‘I’ll shake you in a minute,’ threatened the Marquis. ‘What’s between you two?’
Miss Marling raised herself on her elbow. ‘I won’t be bullied by you, Vidal, so pray don’t think it! I think men are the most hateful, cruel wretches imaginable, and I wish you would go away and find your provoking Mary yourself.’
There was a distinct break in her voice, and Vidal, who had a soft corner for her, put his arms round her, and said with unwonted cajolery: ‘Don’t cry, child. What’s to do?’
Miss Marling’s rigidity left her. She buried her face in Vidal’s blue coat, and said in muffled accents: ‘I want to go home! Everything is horrid in Paris, and I hope to heaven I never come here again!’
Vidal carefully removed his lace ruffle from her clutching fingers. ‘Quarrelled with Comyn, have you? You’re a fool, Ju. Stop crying! Has he gone off ? Shall I bring him back to you?’
Miss Marling declined this offer with every evidence of loathing, and releasing his lordship, hunted under her pillow for a handkerchief, and fiercely blew her small nose.
‘I wonder…’ Vidal stopped, and sat staring at the bedpost somewhat ominously.
Observing the darkling look in his eyes, Juliana said quickly: ‘What do you wonder? Please do not put on that murderous face, Dominic! It frightens me.’
He glanced down at her. ‘I wonder whether Mr Frederick Comyn has anything to do with Mary’s disappearance?’ he said.
‘What a stupid notion!’ commented Juliana. ‘Why in the world should he help Mary to escape?’
‘From damned officiousness, belike,’ said Vidal, scowling. ‘I found the fellow here last night – mighty friendly with Mary.’
‘What!’ Miss Marling stiffened. ‘Here? With Mary? What was he doing?’
‘Holding her hands, curse his impudence.’
‘Oh! ’ Miss Marling turned quite pale with indignation. ‘The wicked, deceitful creature! She never breathed a word of it to me! And then to dare to scold me for quarrelling with Frederick! Oh, I could kill them both! Holding her hands at that hour of night! And then to turn jealous because I like to dance with Bertrand! Oh, it beats anything I have ever heard! I’ll never forgive either of them.’
Vidal got up. ‘I’m going round to Comyn’s lodging,’ he said, and walked to the door.
‘Don’t kill him, Dominic, I implore you!’ shrieked his cousin.
‘For God’s sake, don’t be such a damned little fool, Juliana!’ said the Marquis irritably, and departed.
The owner of Mr Comyn’s lodgings, a retired valet, opened the door to the Marquis, and admitted him into a narrow hall. On being asked for the English gentleman he said that M. Comyn had paid his shot, and left by coach a bare hour since.
‘Left, has he? Alone?’ demanded the Marquis.
The valet cast down his eyes. ‘The Englishwoman who came to see him – oh, but at a very strange hour, m’sieur! – was with him.’
He stole a sly look upwards at the Marquis, and was startled by the expression on that dark face. ‘She was, eh?’ said Vidal through his teeth. He smiled, and the valet retreated a pace, quite involuntarily. ‘Where have they gone? Do you know?’
‘But no, m’sieur, how should I tell? The lady had no baggage, but M. Comyn took all of his. He said to me that he will not return, and he gave me a letter to deliver in the Rue St Honoré.’
Light flashed in the Marquis’s sombre eyes. ‘Where in the Rue St Honoré, my man?’
‘It was a letter to an English Marquis, m’sieur, at the Hôtel Avon.’
‘Was it, by God!’ said Vidal, and promptly went off home.
The letter, addressed in Mr Comyn’s neat handwriting, was lying on the table in the wide hall. Vidal broke the seal, and ran his eye down the single sheet.
‘My lord,’ wrote Mr Comyn, ‘I have to inform your lordship that my betrothal to Miss Juliana Marling being at an end, I have made bold to offer my hand in marriage to the lady lately travelling under your lordship’s protection. I think it only proper to apprise your lordship of this step, since your lordship was good enough to take me into your confidence. Miss Challoner having been so obliging as to accept of my offer, we are leaving Paris immediately. Miss Challoner, while sensible of the honour your lordship does her in proposing for her
hand, is highly averse from a marriage which she deems unsuitable, and from the outset doomed to unhappiness. Since I apprehend that this aversion is known to your lordship, it will be unnecessary (I am assured) to request your lordship to relinquish the pretensions which have become a menace to Miss Challoner’s peace of mind.
‘I beg to remain, my lord, in all else,
‘Your lordship’s obedient servant to command,
‘Frederick Comyn.’
His lordship swore softly and long, to the admiration of a lackey, who stood reverently listening to his fluency. Then he proceeded to set his household by the ears, and the word flew round inside of ten minutes that the Devil’s Cub was in a rare taking, and there would be bloodshed before nightfall. From the orders that followed one another like lightning off his lordship’s tongue, it was apparent that he was going on a sudden swift journey, and when Fletcher was bidden to send to the gates of Paris to find whether an Englishman accompanied by a lady had passed out of any one of them that morning, none of the household had any doubt at all of the nature of his lordship’s journey.
‘Damn my blood if I’ve ever seen the Cub so wild!’ remarked his lordship’s particular groom. ‘Ay, and I’ve known him a year or two.’
‘I’ve seen him wilder nor this,’ mused a footman, ‘but not for a female. And meself I’d say the Mantoni had more to her than this one, or that piece we had with us a couple of years back – what was her name, Horace? The beauty that threw a coffee-pot at the Cub in one of her tantrums.’
‘I’m not Horace to you, my lad,’ said Mr Timms loftily. ‘And me knowing what I do, which is natural in his lordship’s own gentleman, I’d advise you not to draw odious comparisons between Miss Challoner and those other trollops.’
He went off to pack Vidal’s cloak-bag, and was much scandalised to discover that he was not to accompany his master. When he ventured on an expostulation he was asked roundly whether he imagined my lord was unable to dress himself. Being a polite person he disclaimed, but this was precisely what he did think. He had a vision, horrible to a gentleman’s gentleman, of my lord’s cravat ill-tied, his hair uncurled, his dress carelessly arranged; and when Vidal flung the pounce-box, the haresfoot, and the rouge-pot out of the cloak-bag, he was moved to beg his lordship to consider his feelings.
Vidal gave a short bark of laughter. ‘What the devil have your feelings to do with it?’ he demanded. ‘Put up a change of clothing, and my razors, and my night-gear.’
Mr Timms was ordinarily a timid creature, but where his profession was concerned he became possessed of great daring. He said firmly: ‘My lord, it’s well known that it’s me who has the dressing of your lordship. I have my pride, my lord, and to have you travelling amongst all these Frenchies, a disgrace to me, as you will, my lord, begging your pardon – oh, it’s enough to make a man cut his throat, sir!’
Vidal, in his shirt sleeves, was pulling on his top-boots. He glanced up, not unamused, and said bluntly: ‘If you want a master you can dress like a painted puppet, you’d best leave my service, Timms. I’ll never be a credit to you.’
‘My lord,’ said Mr Timms, ‘if I may take leave to say so, there’s not a gentleman in London, no, nor in Paris either, that can be a greater credit to his valet than what your lordship can be.’
‘You flatter me,’ said Vidal, picking up his waistcoat.
‘No, my lord. I was three years with Sir Jasper Trelawney, who was thought to be a fine beau in his day. The clothes we had! Ah, that was a gentleman as was an artist. But the shoulders to his coats had to be padded so that it fair broke one’s heart, and when it came to him wearing three patches on his face I had to leave him, because I’d my reputation to think of, like any other man.’
‘Good God!’ said Vidal. ‘I trust my shoulders don’t offend your sensibilities, Timms?’
‘If I may take the liberty of saying so, my lord, I have seldom seen a finer pair. Whatever else may sometimes be amiss, our coats set so that it is a pleasure to see them done justice to.’ He assisted his lordship to struggle into one as he spoke, and smoothed the cloth with a loving hand. ‘When I was with Lord Devenish, sir,’ he said reminiscently, ‘we had to assist his lordship’s legs a little with sawdust in the stocking. But even so they were never what one likes to see in a gentleman of fashion. Everything else about his lordship was as it should be; I believe I never saw a neater waist, and at that time, my lord, coats were worn very tight at the waist with whaleboned skirts. But below the knee his lordship fell off sadly. It took away from one’s pride in dressing him, and sawdust, though helpful, is not like good muscle.’
‘I can imagine nothing more unlike,’ said Vidal, who was eyeing him in open astonishment. ‘You seem to have been hard put to it with your previous masters.’
‘That, my lord, was the trouble,’ replied Timms. ‘If your lordship will permit me, I will adjust this buckle. When I left Lord Devenish I was with young Mr Harry Cheston for a space. Shoulders, legs, waist – all very passable. He wore his clothes very well, my lord; never a crease, nor a pin out of place, though he favoured vellum-hole waistcoats more than I could like. It was Mr Cheston’s hands that were his undoing. Do what one would, my lord, they were such as to render the perfection of his attire quite negligible. He slept every night in chicken-skin gloves, but it was of no use, they remained a vulgar red.’
Vidal cast himself down in the chair by the dressing-table, and leaned back in it, surveying his valet with a half-smile curling his lips. ‘You alarm me, Timms, positively you alarm me.’
Mr Timms smiled indulgently. ‘Your lordship has no need to feel alarm. I could wish that we wore a ring – not a profusion, sir, but one ring, possibly an emerald, which is a stone designed to set off the whiteness of a gentleman’s hand – but since your lordship has a strong aversion from jewels we must forgo the adornment. The hands themselves, if your lordship will not think it impertinent, are all that I could wish.’
His lordship, quite unnerved by this encomium, thrust them both into his breeches pockets. ‘Come, let me have it, Timms!’ he said. ‘Where do I fall short of your devilish high standards? Let me know the worst.’
Mr Timms bent to dust one of his lordship’s shining boots. ‘Your lordship can hardly fail to be aware of the elegance of your lordship’s whole figure. In the twenty-five years during which I have been a gentleman’s valet I have always had to fight against odds, as it were. Your lordship would be surprised to know how one inferior feature can ruin the most modish toilet. There was the Honourable Peter Hailing, sir, whose coats were so exactly cut to his figure that it needed myself and two lackeys to coax him into them. He had a leg such as is seldom seen, and his countenance was by no means contemptible. But it all went for nothing, my lord. Mr Hailing’s neck was so short that no neckcloth could be made to disguise it. I could tell your lordship of a dozen such cases. Sometimes it’s the shoulders, at others the legs; once I served a gentleman with a fatal tendency to corpulence. We did what we could with tight-lacing, but it was not successful. Yet he was as handsome as your lordship, if I may say so.’
‘Spare my blushes, Timms,’ said the Marquis sardonically. ‘I don’t aspire to be an Adonis. Out with it! What’s my fault?’
Mr Timms said simply: ‘Your lordship has none.’
The Marquis was startled. ‘Eh?’
‘None whatsoever, my lord. One could wish for greater care in the arrangement of the cravat, and a more frequent use of the curling-irons and pounce-box; but we have nothing to conceal. Your lordship will understand that a constant struggle against nature disheartens one. When your lordship found yourself in need of a valet, I applied for the post, being confident – with all respect, my lord – that though your lordship might affect a carelessness that one is bound to deplore, the figure, face, hands – your lordship’s whole person, in short – were so exactly proportioned as to render the apparelling of
your lordship a work of pleasure unmarred by any feeling of dissatisfaction.’
‘Good God!’ said the Marquis.
Mr Timms said insinuatingly: ‘If your lordship would permit me to place one patch – one only –’
The Marquis got up. ‘Content yourself with my perfect proportions, Timms,’ he said. ‘Where’s that fellow Fletcher?’ He strode out, calling to his major-domo, who came sedately up the stairs to meet him. ‘Well, man, are those damned lackeys to be all day about their business?’ he demanded.
‘John, my lord, is come in. At the Porte Saint-Denis, no one. At the Porte Saint-Martin, no one. I await the return of Robert and Mitchell, my lord, and will apprise your lordship instantly.’
‘No luck at the northern gates,’ the Marquis said, musing. ‘So he’s not taking her back to England. Now what the devil’s his game?’
Ten minutes later Fletcher came to find him again, and said impassively: ‘Robert reports, my lord, that shortly before noon a travelling chaise passed out of Paris by the Port Royal. It contained an Englishman who spoke French very indifferently, and one lady.’
The Marquis’s hand clutched on his riding-whip. ‘Dijon!’ he said, with something of a snarl. ‘Damn his infernal impudence! Have the bay saddled, Fletcher, and send me a man to take a note to Miss Marling.’ He sat down at the writing-desk, and jabbed a quill in the standish. He scrawled one line only to his cousin. ‘They’re off to Dijon. I leave Paris in half an hour.’ Having given this to a lackey, he picked up his hat and went off to Foley, his grace of Avon’s banker.
When he returned, twenty minutes later, his light chaise was already awaiting him in the courtyard, and his groom was walking the bay up and down. A lackey was in the act of placing two band boxes in the chaise, but was checked by a thunderous demand to know what the devil he was about.
‘They belong to the lady, my lord,’ explained the lackey nervously.
‘Lady? What lady?’ said Vidal, astonished.