She could not be rid of the conviction that she had met him before, and the effort to remember where brought a crease between her brows. Observing it, her host said: ‘Something troubles you, Miss Challoner?’
She smiled. ‘No, sir, hardly that. Perhaps it is ridiculous of me to suppose it, but I have an odd feeling that I have met you before. I have not?’
He set his glass down, and stretched out his hand for the decanter. ‘No, Miss Challoner, you have not.’
She was tempted to ask his name, but since he was so very much older than herself she did not care to appear in the least familiar. If he wished her to know it no doubt he would tell her.
She laid down her napkin, and rose. ‘I have been talking a great deal, I fear,’ she said. ‘May I thank you, sir, for a pleasant evening, and for your exceeding kindness, and so bid you good-night?’
‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Your reputation is quite safe, and the night is still young. Without wishing to seem idly curious, I should like to hear why you are journeying unprotected, through France. Do you think I am entitled to an explanation?’
She remained standing beside her chair. ‘Yes, sir, I do think it,’ she answered quietly. ‘For my situation must seem indeed strange. But unhappily I am not able to give you the true explanation, and since I do not wish to repay your kindness with lies it is better that I should offer none. May I wish you good-night, sir?’
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Sit down, my child.’
She looked at him for a moment, and after some slight hesitation, obeyed, lightly clasping her hands in the lap of her grey gown.
The stranger regarded her over the brim of his wine-glass. ‘May I ask why you find yourself unable to proffer the true explanation?’
She seemed to ponder her reply for a while. ‘There are several reasons, sir. The truth is so very nearly as strange as Mr Walpole’s famous romance that perhaps I fear to be disbelieved.’
He tilted his glass, observing the reflection of the candle-light in the deep red wine. ‘But did you not say, Miss Challoner, that you would not lie to me?’ he inquired softly.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You are very acute, sir.’
‘I have that reputation,’ he agreed.
His words touched a chord of memory in her brain, but she was unable to catch the fleeting remembrance. She said: ‘You are quite right, sir: that is not my reason. The truth is there is someone else involved in my story.’
‘I had supposed that there might be,’ he replied. ‘Am I to understand that your lips are sealed out of consideration for this other person?’
‘Not entirely, sir, but in part, yes.’
‘Your sentiments are most elevating, Miss Challoner. But this punctiliousness is quite needless, believe me. Lord Vidal’s exploits have never been attended by any secrecy.’
She jumped, and her eyes flew to his face in a look of startled interrogation. He smiled. ‘I had the felicity of meeting your esteemed grandparent at Newmarket not many days since,’ he said. ‘Upon hearing that I was bound for France he requested me to inquire for you on my way through Paris.’
‘He knew?’ she said blankly.
‘Without doubt he knew.’
She covered her face with her hands. ‘My mother must have told him,’ she said almost inaudibly. ‘It is worse, then, than I thought.’
He put his wine-glass down, and pushed his chair a little way back from the table. ‘I beg you will not distress yourself, Miss Challoner. The rôle of confidant is certainly new to me, but I trust I know the rules.’
She got up and went over to the fire, trying to collect her thoughts, and to compose her natural agitation. The gentleman at the table took snuff, and waited for her to return. She did so in a minute or two, with a certain brisk determination that characterised her. She was rather pale, but completely mistress of herself. ‘If you know that I – left England with Lord Vidal, sir, I am more than ever grateful for your hospitality to-night, and an explanation is beyond doubt due to you,’ she said. ‘I do not know how much you have learned of me, but since no one in England knows the whole truth, I fear you may have been quite misinformed on several points.’
‘It is more than likely,’ agreed her host. ‘May I suggest that you tell me the whole story? I have every intention of helping you out of your somewhat difficult situation, but I desire to know exactly why you left England with Lord Vidal, and why I find you to-day, apparently alone and friendless.’
She leaned towards him, her face eager. ‘Will you help me, sir? Will you help me to obtain a post as governess in some French family, so that I need not go back to England, but can maintain myself abroad?’
‘Is that what you want?’ he inquired incredulously.
‘Yes, sir, indeed it is.’
‘Dear me!’ he remarked. ‘You seem to be a female of great resource. Pray begin your story.’
‘In doing so, sir, I am forced to betray the – folly – of my sister. I dare say I need not ask you to – to forget that part of the tale.’
‘My memory is most adaptable, Miss Challoner.’
‘Thank you, sir. You must know then that I have a sister who is very young, foolish as girls are sometimes, and very, very lovely. Her path was crossed, not so long ago, by the Marquis of Vidal.’
‘Naturally,’ murmured her host.
‘Naturally, sir?’
‘Oh, I think so,’ he said, with a faintly satirical smile. ‘If she is – very, very lovely – I feel sure that the Marquis of Vidal would cross her path. But continue, I beg of you!’
She inclined her head. ‘Very well, sir. This part of the story is very hard to tell, for I do not wish to give you to understand that the Marquis – forced his attentions upon an unwilling female. My sister encouraged him, and led him to suppose that she was – that she –’
‘I comprehend perfectly, Miss Challoner.’
She threw him a grateful look. ‘Yes, sir. Well, the end of it was that the Marquis induced my sister to consent to fly with him. I discovered their assignation, which was for eleven o’clock one evening. I should explain that the billet his lordship sent my sister, appointing the hour, fell into my hands, and not hers. There were reasons, sir, into which I shall not drag you, which prevented me from informing my mother of this dreadful elopement. I need not tell you, sir, that his lordship did not contemplate marriage. It seemed to me that I must contrive not only to stop the actual flight, but to put an end to an affair that would only mean Sophia’s ruin. When I look back I marvel at my own simplicity. I conceived the notion of taking Sophia’s place in the coach, and when he discovered the imposture it was my intention to make him believe that Sophia and I had planned it between us, for a jest. I thought that nothing would more surely disgust him.’ She paused, and added drily: ‘I was quite right.’
The gentleman twisted the emerald ring on his finger. ‘Do I understand that you carried out this remarkable plan?’ he inquired.
‘Oh, yes, sir. But it went sadly awry.’
‘That was to have been expected,’ he said gently.
‘I suppose so,’ she sighed. ‘It was a silly plan. Lord Vidal did not discover the cheat until next morning, when we reached Newhaven. To find myself by the sea was a shock to me. I had not guessed that his lordship intended to leave England. I entered the inn on the quay in his company, and in the private room he had engaged I discovered myself to him.’ She stopped.
‘I can well imagine that Lord Vidal’s emotions baffle description,’ said the gentleman.
She was looking straight in front of her. She nodded, and said slowly: ‘In what followed, sir, I do not wish to lay any blame on Lord Vidal. I played my part too well, not dreaming of the revenge he would take. I must have appeared to him – I did appear to him – a vulgar, loose female.’ She turned her head towards him. ‘Are you acquainted w
ith Lord Vidal, sir?’
‘I am, Miss Challoner.’
‘Then you will know, sir, that his lordship’s temper is extremely fiery and uncontrolled. I had provoked it, and it – it was disastrous. Lord Vidal forced me to go on board his yacht, and carried me to Dieppe.’
The gentleman felt for his quizzing-glass, and raised it. Through it he surveyed Miss Challoner. ‘May I ask what were his lordship’s tactics?’ he inquired. ‘I feel an almost overwhelming interest in the methods of daylight abduction employed by the modern youth.’
‘Well, it was not very romantic,’ confessed Miss Challoner. ‘He threatened to pour the contents of his flask down my throat, thereby rendering me too drunk to resist.’ She saw a frown in his eyes, and said: ‘I fear I shock you, sir, but remember that his lordship was enraged.’
‘I am not shocked, Miss Challoner, but I infinitely deplore such a lack of finesse. Did his lordship carry out this ingenious plan?’
‘No, for I submitted. To be made drunk seemed to me a horrid fate. I said I would go with him. It was very early, and there was no one on the quay, so that I could not call for help, even had I dared. And since his lordship threatened to strangle me if I made the least outcry, I am sure I should not have dared. I went on board the yacht, and as our passage was rough, I was most vilely unwell.’
A smile flickered across her hearer’s countenance. ‘My sympathies are with Lord Vidal. He no doubt found you most disconcerting.’
She gave a little laugh. ‘I think you don’t know him very well, sir, for it is one of the nice things about him that he was not disconcerted, but on the contrary, extremely prompt in dealing with the situation.’
He was looking at her rather curiously. ‘I thought that I knew him very well,’ he said. ‘Apparently I was wrong. Pray continue: you begin to interest me vastly.’
‘He has a dreadful reputation,’ she said earnestly, ‘but he is not wicked at heart. He is nothing but a wild, passionate, spoiled boy.’
‘I am all admiration for your shrewdness, Miss Challoner,’ said the gentleman politely.
‘It is true, sir,’ she insisted, suspecting him of irony. ‘When I was sick on that yacht –’
He raised one thin hand. ‘I accept your reading of his lordship’s true nature, Miss Challoner. Spare me a recital of your sufferings at sea, I beg of you.’
She smiled. ‘They were excessively painful, sir, I assure you. But we arrived at length at Dieppe, where his lordship had planned to spend the night. We dined. His lordship had, I think, been drinking aboard the yacht. He was in an ugly mood, and I was compelled, in the end, to protect my virtue in a somewhat drastic manner.’
The gentleman opened his snuff-box, and took a pinch delicately. ‘If you succeeded in protecting your virtue, my dear Miss Challoner, I can readily believe – knowing his lordship – that your methods must have been exceedingly drastic. You perceive me positively agog with curiosity.’
‘I shot him,’ she said bluntly.
The hand that was raising the pinch of snuff to one nostril was checked for a brief moment. ‘Accept my compliments,’ said the gentleman calmly, and inhaled the snuff.
‘It was not a very bad wound,’ she told him. ‘But it sobered him, you see.’
‘I imagine that it might do so,’ he conceded.
‘Yes, sir. He began to realise that I was not – not vulgarly coy, but in deadly earnest.’
‘Did he indeed? A gentleman of intuition, I perceive.’
Miss Challoner said with dignity: ‘You laugh, sir, but it was not very amusing at the time.’
The gentleman bowed. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said solemnly. ‘What happened next?’
‘His lordship insisted that I should tell him all that I have told you. When he had heard me out he said that there was only one thing to be done. I must marry him at once.’
The keen eyes lifted from the contemplation of the enamelled snuff-box, and were suddenly intent. ‘We have reached the point where you interest me extraordinarily,’ said that smooth voice. ‘Proceed, Miss Challoner.’
She looked down at her clasped hands. ‘I could not consent to so wild a scheme, sir, of course. I was forced to decline his lordship’s offer.’
‘I do not think I am a fool,’ said the gentleman pensively. ‘But although I can sympathise with your reluctance to marry so dissolute a gentleman as Lord Vidal, your predicament was such that I do not immediately perceive what forced you to decline.’
‘The knowledge, sir, that Lord Vidal did not care for me,’ answered Miss Challoner in a low voice. ‘The knowledge also that in marrying me he would be making a – a deplorable mésalliance. I do not desire to discuss that, if you please. I requested his lordship – since I could hardly return to England – to escort me to Paris, where I hoped to find some genteel employment, such as I described to you.’
The quizzing-glass was raised again. ‘You appear to have confronted your somewhat unnerving situation with remarkable equanimity, Miss Challoner.’
She shrugged. ‘What else could I do, sir? Vapours would not have helped me. Besides, I had his lordship sick on my hands with some slight inflammation of the wound I had given him, and as he was bent on doing a number of imprudent things I had too much to do in preventing him to think very much of my own troubles.’
‘From my brief acquaintance with you, Miss Challoner, I feel moderately convinced that you did prevent Lord Vidal’s imprudence.’
‘Oh yes,’ she answered. ‘He is quite easy to manage, if – if one only knows the way.’
The quizzing-glass fell. ‘His lordship’s parents should be anxious to meet you,’ said the gentleman.
Her smile was twisted. ‘I am afraid not, sir. I do not know whether you are acquainted with his grace of Avon?’
‘Intimately,’ he said, with the ghost of a laugh.
‘Oh, then –’ She broke off. ‘In short, sir, I refused Lord Vidal’s offer, and we –’
‘But were you not about to make some observation concerning his grace of Avon?’ he interposed urbanely.
‘I was, sir, but if you are intimate with him I will refrain.’
‘Pray do not. In what monstrous light has this gentleman appeared to you?’
‘I have never set eyes on him, sir. I only judge him by what I have heard, and by things that Lord Vidal has from time to time let fall. I suppose him to be a man of few morals and no heart. He seems to me a sinister person, and is, I believe, quite unscrupulous in attaining his ends.’
The gentleman appeared to be amused. ‘I am far from contradicting you, Miss Challoner, but may I inquire whether you culled this masterly description from Lord Vidal’s lips?’
‘If you mean, did Lord Vidal tell me so, no, sir, he did not. Lord Vidal is, I think, attached to his grace. I go by common report, a little, and by the very lively fear of her uncle evinced by my friend Miss Marling. His lordship merely gave me to understand that his father was uncannily omniscient, and had a habit of succeeding in all his objects.’
‘I am relieved to hear that Lord Vidal has so much respect for his grace,’ remarked the gentleman.
‘Are you, sir? Well, having formed this opinion, I could not but feel that so far from desiring to meet me, his grace would very likely disinherit Lord Vidal if his lordship married me.’
‘You draw an amiable portrait, Miss Challoner, but I can assure you that whatever his grace’s feelings might be he would never follow so distressingly crude a course.’
‘Would he not, sir? I did not know, but I am very sure he would not countenance his son’s marriage to a nobody. To continue: Lord Vidal, discovering that I was once at school with his cousin, Miss Marling, brought me to Paris, and consigned me to her care until such time as he could find an English divine to marry me. Miss Marling was secretly betrothed to a certain Mr Comyn
, but their betrothal was broken off – irrevocably, as I thought – and Mr Comyn, being a gentleman of great chivalry, offered his hand to me, to enable me to escape from Lord Vidal. Though I blush to confess it, sir, such was my desperate need, that I consented to elope with Mr Comyn to Dijon where Lord Vidal had found an English divine. Unfortunately, Mr Comyn thought it incumbent on him to leave a note for his lordship, apprising him of our intention to wed. The result was, sir, that Lord Vidal, accompanied by Miss Marling, overtook us at Dijon before the knot was tied. There was a painful scene. Mr Comyn, desiring to protect me from his lordship’s – coercion – announced that we were man and wife. Lord Vidal, with the object of making me a widow, tried to choke the life out of Mr Comyn. In which I think he would probably have succeeded,’ she added, ‘had there not been a jug of water at hand. I threw it over them both, and my lord let Mr Comyn go.’
‘A jug of water!’ he repeated. His shoulders shook slightly. ‘But continue, Miss Challoner!’
‘After that,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘they fought with their swords.’
‘How very enlivening! Where did they fight with – er – their swords?’
‘In the private parlour. Juliana had hysterics.’
‘It is quite unnecessary to tell me that,’ he assured her. ‘What I should like to know is what was done with Mr Comyn’s body?’
‘He wasn’t killed, sir. No one was hurt at all.’
‘You amaze me,’ said the gentleman.
‘Mr Comyn would have been killed,’ Miss Challoner admitted, ‘but I stopped it. I thought it was time.’
The gentleman surveyed her with distinct admiration, not untouched by amusement. ‘Of course I should have known that you stopped it,’ he said. ‘What means did you employ this time?’