‘So I thought, madame, but she is not.’
‘Sir,’ said Mr Hammond very furiously, ‘I shall perform no marriage service!’
Lord Rupert looked at him through his quizzing glass. ‘Who is this fellow?’ he inquired haughtily. ‘I don’t like him, stap me if I do!’
‘Dominique,’ Léonie said urgently. ‘I cannot talk to you here, with all these people. You say you will marry this girl, but it seems to me that it is not all necessary, for first she runs away with you, and then with M. Comyn, so that I see very well she is like that mother and sister whom I have met.’
He took her hands. ‘Maman, when you have seen her you will know that she is not like them. I am going to marry her.’ He drew her over to the window, and said gently: ‘Ma chère, you told me to fall in love, did you not?’
‘Not with a girl like this one,’ she replied, with a small sob.
‘You will like her,’ he persisted. ‘Egad, she’s after your own heart, maman! She shot me in the arm.’
‘Voyons, do you think that is what I like?’ Léonie said indignantly.
‘You’d have done it yourself, my dear.’ He paused, staring out of the window. She watched him anxiously, and after a moment he turned his head and looked down at her. ‘Madame, I love her,’ he said curtly. ‘If I can induce her to take me –’
‘What’s this? Induce her! I find you absurd, mon enfant.’
He smiled faintly. ‘She ran off with Comyn sooner than wed me, nevertheless.’
‘Where is she?’ Léonie asked abruptly.
‘In her bed-chamber. There was an accident. When Comyn and I had our little affair, she threw herself between us, and my sword scratched her.’
‘Oh, mon Dieu !’ Léonie exclaimed, throwing up her hands. ‘It is not enough to abduct her! No, you must wound her also! You are incorrigible!’
‘Will you see her, maman?’
‘I will see her, yes, but I promise nothing. Dominique, have you thought of Monseigneur? He will never, never permit it! You know he will not.’
‘He cannot stop it, madame. If it leads to an estrangement between us I am sorry for it, but my mind is made up.’ He pressed her hand. ‘Come to her now, ma chère.’ He led her back into the room. ‘Comyn, since you know Miss Challoner’s room and I do not, will you have the goodness to escort my mother to her?’
Mr Comyn, who was talking earnestly to Mr Hammond, turned at once, and bowed. ‘I shall be happy to do so, sir.’
Rupert called out: ‘Hey, where are you off to, Léonie? Tell me, do we spend the night in this place?’
‘I don’t know,’ Léonie answered. ‘I am going to make the acquaintance of this Mademoiselle Challoner.’
She went out, followed by Mr Comyn, and his lordship shook his head gloomily. ‘It won’t do, Vidal. You can talk your mother over, but if you think your father will stand this you don’t know him. Lord, I wish I were well out of it!’ He became aware of his nephew’s coatless and bootless state. ‘For God’s sake, boy, put your clothes on!’ he begged.
Vidal laughed, and sat down to pull on his boots. His uncle observed them through his glass with considerable interest. ‘Did Haspener make those for you, Vidal?’
‘Lord, no!’ said the Marquis scornfully. ‘What, does he make yours still? These are a pair of Martin’s.’
‘Martin, eh? I’ve a mind to let him make me a pair. I don’t like your coats, I don’t like your stock-buckle, your hats are too rakish a cock for a man of my years, your waistcoats are damned unimaginative, but one thing I’ll allow: your boots are the best made in the town, ay, and the highest polished. What does your fellow use on ’em? I’ve tried a blacking made with champagne, but it ain’t as good as you’d expect.’
Mr Hammond broke in on this with unconcealed impatience. ‘Sir, is this a moment in which to discuss the rival merits of your bootmakers? Lord Vidal! Finding me adamant, Mr Comyn has favoured me with an explanation of this extraordinary situation.’
‘He has, has he?’ said the Marquis, looking round for his coat.
‘Devilish fluent, he was,’ nodded Lord Rupert. ‘Y’know, Vidal, it’s a bad business, but you can’t marry the girl. There’s the name to be thought on, and what’s more, Justin.’
Mr Hammond cast him a fulminating glance, but addressed himself to the Marquis. ‘My lord, his explanation leaves me horrified, I may say aghast, at the impropriety of your lordship’s behaviour. My instinct, sir, is to wash my hands of the whole affair. If I relent, it is out of no desire to oblige one whose mode of life is abhorrent to me, but out of compassion for the unfortunate young female whose fair name you have sullied, and in the interests of morality.’
Lord Rupert stopped swinging his eyeglass, and said indignantly: ‘Damme, I’d not be married by this fellow if I were you, Vidal. Not that I’m saying you should be married at all, for the thing’s preposterous.’
Vidal shrugged. ‘What do you suppose I care for his opinion of me so long as he does what I want?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said his lordship. ‘Things are come to a pretty pass, so they are, when any plaguey parson takes it on himself to preach a damned sermon to your face. Why, in my father’s time – you never knew him: devilish bad-tempered man he was – in his time, I say, if the chaplain said aught he didn’t like – and from the pulpit, mind you! – he’d throw his snuff-box at him, or anything else he had to hand… Now what’s to do?’
The Duchess had come back into the room in a hurry. ‘She is not there, mon fils,’ she announced, not entirely without relief.
‘What?’ Vidal said quickly. ‘Not there?’
‘She is not in the inn. I do not know where she is. No one knows.’
The Marquis almost brushed past her, and went out. Léonie sighed, and looked at Rupert. ‘I cannot help being a little glad that she has gone,’ she confessed. ‘But why does she run away so much? I find it not at all easy to understand.’
Juliana, who had been sitting for a long time by the fire, staring into it, now raised her voice. ‘You don’t want Vidal to marry her, Aunt Léonie, but indeed she is the very one for him. She loves him, too.’
‘Eh bien, if she loves him I understand less than ever why she runs away.’
‘She thinks she is not good enough for him,’ said Juliana.
Mr Hammond picked up his hat. ‘Since I apprehend that the unfortunate female I came here to serve has departed, I shall beg to take my leave. To perform this marriage service would have been vastly repugnant to me, and I can only be thankful that the need for it no longer exists.’
The Duchess’s large eyes surveyed him critically. ‘If you are going, m’sieur, it is a very good thing, for I find you infinitely de trop, and in a little while I shall be out of all patience with you.’
Mr Hammond’s jaw dropped perceptibly at this unexpected severity, and he became extremely red about the gills. Lord Rupert pressed his hat and came upon him with great promptitude, and lounged over to open the door. ‘Outside, Sir Parson!’ he said cheerfully.
‘I shall relieve your grace of my unwelcome presence at once,’ announced Mr Hammond awfully, and bowed.
‘Never mind your civilities,’ recommended his lordship. ‘They come a trifle late. But one word in your ear, my buck! If you bandy my nephew’s name about in connection with this affair, my friend Lord Manton will look for another bear-leader for his cub. Do you take me?’
‘Your threats, sir, leave me unmoved,’ replied Mr Hammond. ‘But I can assure your lordship that my one desire is to forget the prodigiously disagreeable events of this day.’ He grasped his cane tighter in his hand, tucked his hat under his arm, and went out, very erect and stiff.
Lord Rupert kicked the door to. ‘Let’s hope that’s the last we’ll see of that fellow,’ he said. ‘Now what’s all this about Vidal’s wench? Gon
e off, has she? Well, that’s one problem off our hands.’
‘That is just what I thought,’ sighed the Duchess. ‘But Dominique is in love with her, and I fear very much he will try to find her, and if he does he says he will marry her, which is a thing I find very worrying.’
‘Marry her? What does the boy want to marry her for?’ asked his lordship, puzzled. ‘It don’t seem sense to me. First the girl’s off with him, then she has a fancy for young Comyn – oh, are you there, my boy? Well, it makes no odds – and now I’ll be pinked if she hasn’t gone off again, though whom she’s gone with this time is beyond me.’
Mr Comyn said gravely: ‘Your lordship is mistaken in Miss Challoner. I can explain –’
‘No, no, don’t do that, my boy!’ said Rupert hastily. ‘We’ve had enough explanations. What we want is dinner. Where’s that rascally landlord?’ He went to the door, but as he opened it he bethought himself of something, and looked back. ‘Burn it, if we do get rid of Vidal’s wench there’s still that silly chit Juliana. What’s to be done with her?’
Juliana said in a small, dignified voice: ‘I am here, Uncle Rupert.’
‘Of course you’re there. I’ve eyes in my head, haven’t I?’ said his lordship testily. ‘Though why you’re here the Lord only knows. Well, there’s naught for it: you’ll have to marry young Comyn here, unless Vidal will have you, which I don’t think he will. Lord, was there ever such a family?’
Mr Comyn was regarding Juliana fixedly. She did not look at him, but blushed, and stammered: ‘I do not want to – to marry Mr Comyn, and he does not want to marry m-me.’
‘Now don’t start to make a lot more difficulties!’ begged his lordship. ‘You can’t go chasing all over France with a man, and leaving silly letters for a born fool like Elisabeth, and stay single. Why, it’s unheard of !’
‘I did not go with a – a man!’ said Juliana, blushing more deeply still. ‘I went with my cousin.’
‘I know you did,’ said Rupert frankly. ‘That’s what’s bothering me.’
The Duchess was pondering over her own worries, but this caught her attention, and she fired up. ‘It is perfectly respectable for Juliana to go with my son, Rupert!’
‘It ain’t,’ said Rupert. ‘She couldn’t have chosen a worse companion. Now don’t be in a heat, Léonie, for God’s sake! I don’t say the chit wasn’t as safe with Vidal as with that devilish dull brother of hers, but there ain’t a soul will believe that. No, we’ll have to set it about that she went off with Comyn, and you can tell Fanny, for I’ll be damned if I do.’
Léonie glanced from her niece’s hot face to Mr Comyn’s intent one, and drew her own conclusions. ‘Juliana shall not marry anyone at all if she doesn’t want to, and no one will make a scandal because I am here, and so it is quite convenable,’ she said. ‘Go and order dinner, Rupert. Me, I must at once find Dominique before he does anything dreadful.’
She pushed his lordship, protesting, out of the room, and looked back to say with her roguish smile: ‘M. Comyn, I think it would be a very good thing if you gave this foolish Juliana a big shake, and then perhaps she will not be foolish any more. Au revoir, mes enfants.’ She whisked herself out of the room, but before she had time to shut the door she heard Mr Comyn say in a low voice: ‘Miss Marling – Juliana – I implore you, listen to me!’
Léonie took Rupert’s arm confidingly. ‘That goes very well, I think. We are doing a great deal, you and I, n’est-ce pas ?’ She gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘We have made Juliana a mésalliance, which will enrage poor Fanny, and perhaps Monseigneur too, and now perhaps we shall keep Dominique away from that girl, and that will please Monseigneur, and he will forgive us. Let us find Dominique.’
Lord Rupert professed himself to be utterly without desire to find his nephew, and went off to the kitchens to order and inspect his dinner. Léonie heard her son’s voice raised in the courtyard at the back of the house, and looked through a window to see him giving instructions to his groom. She promptly hurried out to him, and demanded to know what he was doing.
He looked at her with a trace of impatience in his face. He was rather pale, she thought, and there was a frown in his eyes. ‘Madame, Mary has run from me to hide herself in France with naught but an odd guinea or two in her pocket. I must find her. It touches my honour, not my heart alone.’
‘Do you know where she has gone?’ Léonie asked. ‘I do not want any girl to be ruined by you, but –’ She stopped, and sighed.
‘I don’t know. She was not seen to leave the inn, unless by one of the abigails, who, curse the wench, is gone off to visit her mother. She can’t be far.’
‘It seems to me,’ Léonie said slowly, ‘that this Mary Challoner does not at all wish to marry you, mon enfant. What I do not know is why she does not wish it. If it is because she loves you, then I understand very well, and I am infinitely sorry for her, and I think I will help you – unless I do not like her. But perhaps she does not love you, Dominique, which is not incomprehensible if you have been unkind. And if that is so, then I say you shall not marry her, but I will arrange something. You see?’
‘Good God, madame, what arrangement is possible now? In the eyes of the world I’ve ruined her, though I swear to you I did not seduce her. What can I do but give her my name?’
‘It is very difficult,’ admitted the Duchess. ‘But you cannot force her to marry you, Dominique.’
‘I can, and I will,’ he replied grimly. ‘After – it shall be as she wishes. I am a fiend and a brute, no doubt, but not such a fiend that I would force more than my name on her, be sure.’ His groom came out of the stables, leading a riding-horse. He caught his mother’s hands in a tight clasp. ‘Forgive me, maman!’ he said. ‘I must marry her.’
Her fingers clung to his. ‘Oh, my dearest dear, you shall do anything you like, but when you have found her bring her to me, and I will arrange it, and then perhaps Monseigneur will not be so very angry with you.’
He hesitated. ‘I’d do it, but I don’t desire his wrath should fall on you, maman.’
She smiled, and shook her head. ‘He will be angry with me a little, perhaps, but he will forgive me because he knows that I am not at all respectable, au cœur, and I cannot help doing outrageous things sometimes.’
‘I wish you had not come,’ he said. He released her hands, and turned away from her to order the groom to lead his horse round to the front of the inn. He glanced back at Léonie to say briefly: ‘I must get my riding-whip,’ and disappeared into the house.
She followed him down the passage to the private parlour. He went in quickly – too quickly for Juliana and her Frederick, who were seated hand in hand on the settle by the fire.
The Marquis cast them a cursory glance, and picked up his whip and greatcoat. Juliana said radiantly: ‘It was all a mistake, Vidal! We do love each other, and we have been monstrous unhappy, both of us, but we shall never, never quarrel again.’
‘You affect me deeply,’ said Vidal. He nodded to Comyn, and there was a glint of humour in his eyes. ‘Do you expect me to felicitate you? My God, I had her on my hands for three days. I should beat her if I were you.’
He turned to go out again, but the way was blocked by his uncle, who came in with a dusty bottle in one hand, and a glass in the other.
‘Is that you, Vidal?’ he said jovially. ‘’Pon my soul, I’m devilish glad we came to this place, though I’ll admit I was against it. That fat rogue there has six dozen bottles of this in his cellar. I’ve bought the lot, and as good a port as ever I tasted, too. Here, wait till you roll this round your tongue, my boy.’ He poured out a glass of the burgundy, and gave it to his nephew.
The Marquis tossed it off, and set down the glass. ‘Quite tolerable,’ he said.
‘God bless the boy, that’s no way to treat a wine like this!’ said Rupert shocked. ‘We’ll broach the port after dinner
, and if you throw that down your throat as though it was nothing in particular, I’ll wash my hands of you, and so I warn you.’
‘I’m not dining,’ the Marquis replied. ‘Out of the way, Rupert, I’m in a hurry.’
‘Not dining?’ echoed his lordship. ‘But Vidal, there’s a capon and a trifle of veal, and as sweet a game-pie in the oven as you could wish for.’ His nephew put him firmly aside, and strode out, leaving him to shake his head in great disapproval. ‘Mad!’ he said. ‘Stark staring crazy!’
‘It is you who are mad,’ said Léonie with conviction. ‘You have bought all those bottles of wine, which is a great madness, for how in the world can you take them to England? I will not sit in a chaise with six dozen bottles of burgundy. It is not at all comme il faut.’
‘I can hire a coach for ’em, can’t I?’ retorted Rupert. ‘Now don’t start arguing, Léonie: I’ve been dragged all over France on as silly an errand as ever I heard of, and never a word of complaint out of me. I’ll admit you were in the right about Dijon. If you hadn’t insisted on coming here I’d not have found this burgundy. And now I’ve found it, damme, I’m going to carry it back to London with me!’
‘But Rupert, it is not so important –’
‘It’s a deal more important than Vidal’s silly affairs,’ said his lordship severely. ‘There’s some sense in coming to Dijon to pick up wine like this.’
Mr Comyn, who had been gazing at him in wonderment, ventured to say: ‘Hire a coach to carry wine?’
‘Why not?’ said his lordship.
‘But –’ Mr Comyn could not go on.
‘Eh bien, if you hire a coach for it I do not mind at all,’ Léonie said, satisfied. ‘It seems to me a very good notion.’
Mr Comyn suddenly bowed his head in his hands and gave way to mirth.
Eighteen
Miss Challoner had much time for reflection during the stage-coach’s slow progress to Pont-de-Moine, and not many miles had been covered when, her first impetuous impulse to fly having abated, she became extremely fearful of the consequences of her action. Her purse was now woefully slim, and she supposed that the cost of a night’s lodging would make an end of the few remaining coins lent her by Miss Marling.