But when Selina presently came into the room it was evident even to her fond parent that she knew very well why she had been sent for. She was in fine feather, and perfectly ready to be martyred in her cousin’s cause. Hers had not been the chief rôle in the delightful drama, but she had been able easily to convince herself that without her self-abnegating offices the interested parties would by this time have been obliged to resign themselves to their equally disagreeable fates. Letty (if she did not go into a decline, and expire within the year) would have been ruthlessly forced into marriage with a titled Midas of evil disposition, at whose hands she would have suffered brutal ill-usage; and Mr Allandale, unaccountably forgotten by his superiors, would have worn out his life in a foreign land, always carrying his lost love’s likeness next to his heart, and dying (in circumstances of distressing neglect and anguish) with her name on his writhen lips.
Until she found herself confronting Nell, of whom she stood in a good deal of awe, this affecting story had seemed to her so probable as to border on the inevitable. She had several times rehearsed the elevating utterances she would make, if called upon to account for her actions; and in these scenes every effort made by Letty’s persecutors to drag from her the secret of her whereabouts failed. Sometimes she remained mute while the storm raged over her devoted head; but in general she was extremely eloquent, expressing herself with such moving sincerity that even such worldly persons as her father and Lord Cardross were often brought to see how false and mercenary were their ideas, and emerged from the encounter with changed hearts, and the highest opinion of her fearlessness, nobility, and good sense.
But in these scenes the other members of the caste spoke the lines laid down for them; in real life they said things so very different as to throw everything quite out of joint. In the event, Selina pronounced only one of her rehearsed speeches. Asked by her mother if she knew what had become of Letty, she clasped her hands at her breast, and declined to answer the question. She then invited the two ladies to threaten her as much as they chose, to do with her what they would; but warned them that they would find it impossible to force her to betray her cousin.
Mrs Thorne should then have conjured her daughter on her obedience to divulge the truth; instead, and with a lamentable lack of histrionic ability, she begged her irritably not, for goodness sake, to start any of her play-acting; and before Selina could recover from this set-back Nell completed her discomfiture by saying in a tone of grave reproof: ‘Indeed, Selina, you must not make-believe over this, for I am afraid it is much more serious than you have any idea of.’
After that, there could be no recapturing the dramatic flavour of the piece. Selina did say that she wouldn’t tell anything, but even in her own ears this sounded very much more sulky than noble; and when Mrs Thorne, heaving herself out of her chair, declared her intention of hailing her immediately before her papa, who would know how to deal with such impertinence, instead of behaving like a heroine, she collapsed into frightened tears.
It took a little time to drag the whole story out of her and the effect of her revelations on Mrs Thorne was severe enough to make Nell feel profoundly sorry for the poor lady. She was so much stunned by the discovery that when she had believed Selina to have gone under the escort of her maid to a dancing-class, or a music-lesson, that abandoned damsel had been setting forth by stealth for the most fashionable quarter of the town, alone, and for the purpose of aiding and abetting her cousin in conduct that, if it were to become known, would disgrace them both for ever in the eyes of all persons of ton, that she could do nothing but reproach Selina, and wonder how she came to have a daughter so lost to all sense of propriety. It was left to Nell to question Selina, which she did with a gentle coldness that overawed her far more than did her mother’s scoldings.
Letty had sold the necklace to Catworth on the day that she had gone with her cousin to choose a wedding-gift for Fanny. They had dismissed the carriage outside the Pantheon, telling the coachman to call for them at Gunter’s, in Berkeley Square, considerably later in the day. After purchasing a couple of thick veils, they had set out in a hack for Cranbourn Alley, having discovered the existence of the firm of Catworth and Son through the simple expedient of asking the jarvey on the box to recommend them a jeweller not patronized by persons of quality. While Letty had transacted her business with the younger Catworth, Selina had remained in the hack, because the jarvey, when instructed to wait outside the shop, apparently suspecting them of trying to give him the slip, had expressed a strong wish of being paid off then and there.
After the sale of the necklace, only one thing was needed for an elopement, and that was the bridegroom, who was then still out of town.
At this point, Mrs Thorne exclaimed: ‘Never tell me Allandale was ready to take her with no more than two thousand pounds!’
‘My dear ma’am, you cannot suppose that Mr Allandale was a party to such a thing!’ Nell said.
‘No, he wasn’t,’ corroborated Selina. ‘Letty said she would tell him she had it from her godfather, in case he should think she ought not to have taken the necklace.’
The two girls had met that afternoon by prearrangement, and as soon as Martha had been got rid of, which was done because Letty wished, with rare consideration, to protect her from blame, they had purchased such necessities as Letty had been unable to pack in her bundle, and brought them to Bryanston Square, to be bestowed in an old cloak-bag belonging to Papa. Finally, Letty had departed in a hackney for Mr Allandale’s lodging in Ryder Street. ‘But you won’t catch them,’ Selina said, with a last flicker of defiance, ‘because that was hours ago, and you may depend upon it they are many miles away by now!’
This seemed all too probable to Mrs Thorne, sinking back in her chair with a groan of dismay, but Nell was more hopeful. When Selina had been dismissed to bed, with the promise of bread and water for her supper, an interview with Papa on the morrow, and incarceration for an unspecified length of time in a Bath seminary for young ladies, she rose to her feet, saying that she would go at once to Ryder Street.
‘But what is the use, my dear?’ wailed Mrs Thorne. ‘You heard what that wicked child of mine said! They’re off to Gretna Green, depend upon it!’
‘I cannot credit it! No doubt that was Letty’s plan, but I shall own myself astonished if it was Mr Allandale’s. Oh, he would not do such a thing! I am quite confident he would not!’
‘Good gracious, Lady Cardross, where else could they go? They couldn’t be married in England, what with Letty’s being under age, and special licences, and I don’t know what beside! Surely to goodness he wouldn’t have let her run away to him if he didn’t mean to marry her immediately?’
‘I don’t believe he knew anything about it,’ declared Nell. ‘Only consider, ma’am! He is a respectable man of superior sense, and with extremely nice notions of propriety. I am persuaded he would not entertain for an instant the thought of eloping with a child of Letty’s age. Her expectations, too! Oh, no, he couldn’t do it! If his own good feeling did not prevent him, the knowledge that he would be thought to have behaved like a most unprincipled fortune-hunter surely would!’
‘Ay, there is that,’ agreed Mrs Thorne, a little doubtfully. ‘He would lose his employment, too, I daresay. But, you know, my dear, when a man falls head over ears in love there’s no saying what he may do. And you aren’t going to tell me Letty ran off to elope with him without him knowing she meant to do it!’
‘Yes, I am,’ Nell said, on a tiny choke of laughter. ‘It would be exactly like her to do so!’
‘Well!’ gasped Mrs Thorne. ‘Of all the brazen little hussies! A nice surprise it will be for Allandale when he goes home from the Foreign Office, thinking of nothing but his dinner, as I don’t doubt he will be, and finds that naughty girl in his lodging, as bold as brass, and expecting him to set out with her for Scotland! Well, I hope it will be a lesson to him, that’s all! Only, if th
at’s the way it was, why didn’t he bring her back to you long since?’
‘I’ve thought of that,’ Nell said. ‘It does seem strange, but if he were kept late at his work – ? Then, too, it would take him a little time, you know, to persuade Letty to give up the scheme. In fact, the likeliest chance is that she fell into one of her hysterical fits of crying, and the poor man could not have the least notion how to stop her! Oh, I must go to Ryder Street at once!’
The conviction that she would arrive at Mr Allandale’s lodging to find him endeavouring to soothe his would-be bride grew steadily upon Nell as she was bounced and jolted there in yet another hack, and she began to be quite buoyant again, feeling that if she could only restore his sister to Cardross with her reputation unblemished she would have done much to atone for the follies and extravagances of the past weeks. But when the hackney turned out of St James’s Street into Ryder Street, she suffered a check. The coachman pulled up his aged horse, and clambered down from the box to discover what was the number of the house she wished to visit; and it suddenly occurred to Nell that she did not know it. Nor did the coachman. Asked if he was perhaps familiar with Mr Allandale, he said he wasn’t one to bother his head over the names of the gentlemen who patronized him, and surveyed his fair passenger with unwelcome interest. She was put a little out of countenance by this, and had, indeed, been feeling a trifle uneasy from the moment the hack turned into St James’s Street, and she had seen all the clubs’ windows lighted up, and several gentlemen of her acquaintance strolling along the flagway. This quarter of fashionable London, which lay between Pall Mall and Piccadilly, belonged almost exclusively to the Gentlemen, and it was not considered good ton for a lady to be seen within its bounds. Nearly all the clubs were to be found in St James’s Street; and the streets which led from it abounded in bachelor lodgings and gaming-halls. The coachman was plainly wondering whether he had been mistaken in the social status of his fare, and Nell was beginning to feel rather helpless and extremely uncomfortable when she providentially remembered that Mr Hethersett also lived in Ryder Street, and would no doubt be able to direct her to Mr Allandale’s abode, if she were fortunate enough to find him at home. So she told the coachman to drive her to Number 5. It did not seem probable that Mr Hethersett would be at home, for it was now past eight o’clock, but fortune favoured her. Just as she was searching in her reticule for her purse the door of No 5 was opened, and Mr Hethersett himself came out of the house, very natty in knee-breeches and silk stockings, a waistcoat of watered silk, a swallow-tailed coat, and a snowy cravat arranged by his expert hands in the intricate style known as the Mathematical Tie. Set at a slight angle on his oiled locks was an elegant chapeau bras, and hanging from his shoulders was a silk-lined cloak. He carried a pair of gloves in one hand, and an ebony cane in the other, but perceiving the unusual spectacle of a lady engaged in paying off a hackney-coachman at his very door, he transferred the gloves to his right hand so that he could raise to one eye the quizzing-glass that was slung about his neck. At just this moment, Nell turned to mount the few steps to his door, and uttered a joyful exclamation. ‘Felix! Oh, how glad I am to have caught you!’
The jarvey, observing that the expression on Mr Hethersett’s face was of profound dismay, clicked his tongue disapprovingly. In his view, Nell – as dimber a mort as he had clapped eyes on in a twelvemonth – was worthy of a warmer greeting than the startled: ‘Good God!’ which broke from Mr Hethersett.
‘What the deuce brings you here?’ demanded Mr Hethersett, alarmed out of his usual address. ‘Cardross hasn’t met with an accident, has he? Or –’
‘Oh, no, no! nothing like that!’ she assured him. ‘I shan’t keep you above a moment – are you on your way to a party? – but I have most stupidly forgotten the number of the house Mr Allandale lodges in!’
Disappointed in this conversation, the jarvey adjured his lethargic steed to get up, and drove slowly off.
‘Thank the lord he’s gone!’ said Mr Hethersett. ‘You know, cousin, you shouldn’t be driving about in a hack, and coming here to ask for Allandale’s direction! I mean – not my business, but it ain’t at all the thing! Cardross wouldn’t like it. Besides, what do you want with Allandale?’
‘Well, that isn’t your business either!’ Nell pointed out. ‘And if Cardross knew I was here he would have not the least objection, I assure you, for I am here for a very sufficient purpose. So will you, if you please, tell me the number of Mr Allandale’s lodging, and then you may go to your party, and not trouble your head over me any more?’
‘No,’ said Mr Hethersett, with unexpected firmness. ‘I won’t! Well, I should be bound to trouble my head over you: stands to reason! Because it seems to me you’re up to something dashed smoky, cousin. And as for saying Cardross wouldn’t object to your paying calls in a hack at this time of day – well, if that’s what you think, you can’t know him! What I’m going to do is take you home.’
‘No, you are not!’ said Nell indignantly. ‘Now, Felix, just because you met me in Clarges Street that day does not give you the right to try to bully and hector me over this!’
‘Never mind that! – By the by, I hope all’s right about that business?’
‘Yes, yes, Dysart settled it for me.’
‘He did, did he?’
‘Yes, for he has won a great deal of money on a horse called Cockroach. It was not very handsome of you to have betrayed me to him, however!’
‘No, I know it wasn’t. Best thing I could think of, though. What we want now is another hack.’
‘No – though I hope it is what I may want in a very little time. I suppose I shall be obliged to tell you what has happened,’ she sighed.
‘Good God, cousin, do you take me for a flat?’ demanded Mr Hethersett. ‘If you’re searching all over for Allandale, it means that Letty is up to her tricks. What’s she done? Eloped with the fellow?’
‘I very much fear it.’
‘Eh?’ he said incredulously. ‘No, no, not the sort of fellow to do a scaly thing like that! I was only funning!’
But when he had heard all that Nell saw fit to tell him of the day’s events he looked a good deal taken aback, and acknowledged that the affair bore all the appearance of an uncommonly rum set-out. ‘What’s more, if Allandale’s made off with her – yes, but dash it, cousin, that won’t fadge! I mean, it wouldn’t be up to the rig, and though I can’t say I like him above half there’s nothing of the queer nab about him!’
‘No, indeed! and that is what makes me very hopeful of finding them still here,’ she explained. ‘So pray will you direct me to the house?’
‘Yes, but where’s Cardross?’ he demanded. ‘He can’t have gone out of town again, because I saw him at White’s this afternoon! It’s his business to find Letty, not yours.’
‘He – he is dining out tonight, and then, too, he had Sir John Somerby with him, you see.’
‘What you mean,’ said Mr Hethersett severely, ‘is that you haven’t told him.’
‘No,’ she confessed. ‘I – I haven’t.’
‘Well, you ought to have done so. Very unwilling to offend you, cousin, but you’ve got no right to play the concave suit with Cardross over that chit. Dash it, she’s his ward! Daresay you’re fond of her, but it won’t do to be hoaxing Giles about today’s business.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Indeed, I don’t mean to, Felix! Only the thing is that – he – he is very much vexed today. Something occurred that put him sadly out of temper, and I particularly don’t wish to be obliged to break this news to him when – when perhaps he would be quite dreadfully angry with Letty!’
‘Good thing if he was!’ said Mr Hethersett unfeelingly. ‘If you want to know what I think, it’s my belief that the sooner you’re rid of that resty girl the better it will be. Unsteady, that’s what she is. Maggotty, too: never know where to take her, or what she’ll be up to next
!’ He glanced fleetingly at Nell, but it had grown rather too dark for him to be able to see her face very clearly. However, he had drawn certain conclusions which he was pretty sure were accurate, so he added, in a careless way: ‘Shouldn’t be surprised if it was her starts that had put him out of temper.’
Nell said nothing in reply to this. The lamplighter was coming down the street, with his ladder carried between him and the boy who followed at his heels. Nell, who was tired of standing outside Mr Hethersett’s house, pointed this circumstance out to him, saying: ‘Won’t he think it excessively odd that we should be standing here?’
‘Yes, but we ain’t going to stand here,’ replied Mr Hethersett. ‘It don’t look to me as though Allandale’s at home, but we may as well enquire for him.’
‘Do you mean to say that he lives next door to you?’ demanded Nell.
‘Yes. Well, no reason why he shouldn’t!’ said Mr Hethersett, surprised at the indignant note in her voice. ‘What I mean is, he don’t trouble me: hardly ever see him!’
‘And you have kept me standing outside all this time! It is a great deal too bad of you!’ said Nell, treading up the steps to the door, and grasping the heavy brass knocker.
‘I was trying to think what I should do with you while I did the trick here. Trouble is there ain’t anywhere for you to go, but you oughtn’t to be asking for Allandale, you know! Leave it to me, cousin!’
She was quite ready to do this, but when the door was opened, and Mr Hethersett asked the proprietor of the establishment if Mr Allandale was at home, and was told that he was not, he seemed so much inclined to withdraw without pursuing his enquiries any farther that she felt obliged to intervene. Disregarding a horrified murmur of protest from Mr Hethersett she boldly asked if Mr Allandale had gone out alone, or accompanied by a lady.