She shook her head, flushing.
‘You know, it queers me to know what you’ve been doing,’ said Dysart severely. ‘It sounds to me as though you’ve had a quarrel with him, and set up his back. It ain’t my business, but I call it a cork-brained thing to do!’
‘I haven’t – it isn’t that!’ she stammered.
‘You must have done something!’ he insisted. ‘I thought he doted on you!’
Her eyes lifted quickly to his face. ‘Did you, Dy? Did you indeed think so?’
‘Of course I did! Well, good God, what would anyone think, when he no sooner clapped eyes on you than nothing would do for him but to pop the question? Lord, it was one of the on-dits of town! Old Cooling told me no one had ever seen him sent to grass before, no matter who set her cap at him. I thought myself he must be touched in his upper works,’ said the Viscount candidly. ‘I don’t say you ain’t a pretty girl, but what there is in you to make a fellow like Cardross marry into our family I’m dashed if I can see!’
‘Oh, Dysart!’ breathed Nell, trembling. ‘You’re not – you’re not roasting me?’
He stared at her. ‘Have you got windmills in the head too?’ he demanded. ‘Why the devil should he have offered for you, if he hadn’t been head over ears in love with you? You aren’t going to tell me you didn’t know you’d given him a leveller!’
‘Oh – ! Don’t say such things! I did think, at first – but Mama told me – explained to me – how it was!’
‘Well, how was it?’ said the Viscount impatiently.
‘A – a marriage of convenience,’ faltered Nell. ‘He was obliged to marry someone, and – and he liked me better than the other ladies he was acquainted with, and thought I should suit!’
‘If that isn’t Mama all over!’ exclaimed Dysart. ‘It was a dashed convenient marriage for us, but if he thought it was convenient to be obliged to pay through the nose for you (which I don’t mind telling you my father made him do!), let alone saddling himself with a set of dirty dishes who have been under the hatches for years, he must be a regular cod’s head!’
‘Dysart!’ she cried, quite horrified.
‘Dirty dishes!’ he repeated firmly. ‘I can’t remember when my father last had a feather to fly with, and the lord knows I’ve never had one myself! In fact, it’s my belief we should have been turned-up by now if you hadn’t happened to hit Cardross’s fancy. It’s the only stroke of good fortune that ever came in our way!’
‘I knew – I knew he had made a handsome settlement!’
Dysart gave a crack of laughter. ‘Ay, and towed my father out of the River Tick into the bargain!’
She sprang up, pressing her hands to her hot cheeks. ‘Oh, and I have been so wickedly extravagant!’
‘No need to fret and fume over that!’ replied Dysart cheerfully. ‘They say his fortune knocks Golden Ball’s into flinders, and I shouldn’t be surprised if it was true.’
‘As though that should excuse my running into debt! Oh, Dy, this quite overpowers me! No wonder he said that!’
He looked uneasily at her. ‘Said what? If you mean to have a fit of the vapours, Nell, I’m off, and so I warn you!’
‘Oh, no! Indeed, I don’t! Only it is such an agitating reflection – I didn’t tell you, Dy, but he said something to me which made me think he believes I married him for the sake of his fortune!’
‘Well, you did, didn’t you?’
‘No!’ she cried hotly. ‘Never, never!’
‘What, you don’t mean to tell me you fell in love with him?’ said the Viscount incredulously.
‘Of course I did! How could I help but do so?’
‘Of all the silly starts!’ said his lordship disgustedly. ‘What the devil should cast you into this distempered freak if that’s the way of it? What have you been doing to make Cardross think you don’t love him, if you do?’
She turned away her face. ‘I – I was trying to be a conformable wife, Dy! You see, Mama warned me about not making demands, or – or hanging upon him, or appearing to notice it, if he should have Another Interest, and –’
‘Oh, so the blame lies at Mama’s door, does it? I might have known it! Never knew such a henwitted creature in my life!’
‘Oh, Dysart, hush! Indeed, she meant it for the best! You will not repeat it, but she was so anxious I shouldn’t suffer a mortifying disillusionment, as, I am afraid, she did!’
‘Did she though?’ said the Viscount, interested. ‘I didn’t know my father was pitching it rum in those days. I must say I should have thought even Mama could have seen that Cardross ain’t a bird of that feather. Never been a man of the town from anything I ever heard. How came you to swallow all that humdudgeon, Nell? Dash it, you must have known he was in love with you!’
‘I thought – I thought it was all consideration, because he is so very kind and gentlemanlike!’ she confessed.
‘Kind and gentlemanlike?’ repeated Dysart, in accents of withering scorn. ‘Well, upon my soul, Nell, seems to me you’re as big a ninnyhammer as Mama! To be taken in by one of her Banbury tales, when there was Cardross making a regular cake of himself over you! If that don’t beat the Dutch!’
She hung her head, but said in a faint voice: ‘It was stupid of me, but there was more than that, Dy. You see, I knew about Lady Orsett. Letty told me.’
‘That girl,’ said the Viscount severely, ‘wants conduct! Not but what I shouldn’t have thought you needed telling, because everyone knew she was his chère amie for years. And don’t you put on any die-away airs to me, my girl, because, for one thing, it’s no use bamming me you didn’t know anything about my father’s light frigates; and, for another, Cardross’s way of life before you married him ain’t your concern! Lady Orsett’s got Lydney in tow now, so that’s enough flim-flam about her!’
‘Has she, Dy?’ Nell said eagerly.
‘So they say, I don’t know!’
‘Oh, if it were not for this dreadful debt how happy I should be!’ she sighed.
‘Nonsense! Make a clean breast of the whole to Cardross, and be done with it!’
‘I’d rather die! Don’t you understand, Dy? How could he believe me sincere, if I told him now, when I am in debt again, that I didn’t care a button for his fortune?’
The Viscount checked the scoffing retort that sprang to his tongue. He did understand. After a thoughtful moment, he said: ‘He’d think it was cream-pot love, would he? Ay, very true: bound to! Particularly,’ he added, in a voice of censure, ‘if you’ve been treating him with a stupid sort of indifference, which I’ve a strong notion you have! Oh, well! we shall have to think of some way of raising the blunt, and that’s all there is to it!’
Too grateful for his willingness to come to her aid to cavil at his freely-worded criticisms, Nell waited hopefully, confident that he would be able to tell her how to extricate herself from her difficulty. Nor was she mistaken. After a turn or two about the room, he said suddenly: ‘Nothing easier! I can’t think why I didn’t hit upon it at once. You must sell some of your jewellery, of course!’
Her hand went instinctively to her throat. ‘The pearls Mama gave me? Her very own pearls? I could not, Dysart!’
‘No need to sell them, if you don’t care to. Something else!’
‘But I haven’t anything else!’ she objected. ‘Nothing of value, I mean.’
‘Haven’t anything else? Why, I never see you but what you’re wearing something worth a king’s ransom! What about all those sapphires?’
‘Dysart! Giles’s wedding-gift!’ she uttered.
‘Oh, very well! But he’s always giving you some new trinket: you must be able to spare one or two of ’em. He’ll never notice. Or if you think he might, you can have ’em copied. I’ll attend to that for you.’
‘No, thank you, Dy!’ she said, with despera
te firmness. ‘I won’t do anything so odiously shabby! To sell the jewels Giles has given me – to have them copied in paste so that he shouldn’t know of it – Oh, how detestable I should be to deceive him in such a way!’
‘Well, what a high flight!’ said Dysart. ‘It’s no worse than going to a cent-per-cent – in fact, it ain’t as bad!’
‘It seems worse!’ she assured him.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, Nell!’ he said, exasperated. ‘If you let this excessive sensibility of yours rule you, there will be no way of helping you out of this fix! If you don’t care to have your trinkets copied, tell Cardross you lost them! I daresay you would not like to lose the sapphires, but you aren’t going to tell me your heart would break for every one of the trinkets he’s given you!’
‘No, indeed it would not, if I really did lose them, but every feeling revolts from the thought of selling them for such a reason!’
She spoke with so much resolution that it seemed useless to persist in argument. The Viscount, never one to waste his time over lost causes, abandoned his promising scheme, merely remarking that of all the troublesome goosecaps he had encountered his sister bore away the palm. She apologized for being so provoking, adding, with an attempt at a smile, that he must not tease himself any more over the business.
But every now and then the Viscount’s conscience, in a manner as disconcerting to himself as to his critics, cast a barrier in the way of his careless hedonism. It intervened now, just as he was congratulating himself on being well out of a tiresome imbroglio.
‘Very pretty talking, when you know dashed well I can’t help but tease myself over it!’ he said bitterly. ‘If there’s one thing more certain than another, it’s that if I hadn’t borrowed that three hundred from you, you wouldn’t be in this fix now! Well, there’s nothing for it: I shall have to get you out of it. I daresay I shall hit on a way when I’ve had time to think it over, but I shan’t do it with you sitting there staring at me as though I was your whole dependence! Puts me out. There’s no saying, of course, but what I may have a run of luck, in which case the matter’s as good as settled. I’ve got a notion I ought to give up hazard, and try how it will answer if I stick to faro.’
He then took his leave, bestowing an encouraging pat on his sister, and recommending her to put the whole business out of her mind. There were those who would have taken the cynical view that he would speedily put it out of his, but Nell was not of their number: it did not so much as cross her mind that her dear Dy, either from indolence or forgetfulness, might leave her to her fate. And she was quite right. There was an odd streak of obstinacy in Dysart, which led him, at unexpected moments, to pursue with dogged tenacity the end he had in view; and although his intimates considered that this streak was roused only by the most cork-brained notions, they were agreed that once such a notion had taken firm possession of his mind he could be depended on to stick to it buckle and thong.
Emerging from the house after a genial discussion with his brother-in-law’s porter on the chances of several horses in a forthcoming race, he paused at the foot of the steps, considering whether he should summon a hackney, and take a look-in at Tattersall’s, or stroll to Conduit Street, where, at Limmer’s, he would be sure to encounter a few choice spirits. While he hesitated, a tilbury, drawn by a high-stepping bay, swept round the angle of the square, and he saw that the down-the-road-looking man in the tall hat, and the box-coat of white drab, who was handling the ribbons with such admirable skill, was Cardross. He had no particular desire to meet the Earl, with whom he knew himself to be no favourite, but he waited civilly for the tilbury to draw up beside him.
‘Hallo, Dysart!’ said the Earl, handing the reins over to his groom, and jumping down from the carriage. ‘Are you just going in, or just coming out?’
‘Just coming out,’ replied Dysart, watching the tilbury being driven away. ‘That’s a nice tit you have there: looks to be a sweet goer. Welsh?’
‘Yes, I’m pretty well pleased with him,’ agreed Cardross. ‘Very free and fast, and has a good knee action. Oh, yes! pure bred Welsh: I bought him from Chesterford last week. Do you care to come in again?’
‘No, I’m bound for Limmer’s,’ said the Viscount. He eyed his brother-in-law speculatively. The Earl appeared to be in an amiable frame of mind; it was common knowledge that he was rich enough to be able to buy an abbey; and if there was the least chance of getting three hundred pounds out of him merely for the asking, the Viscount was not the man to let this slip. ‘You wouldn’t care to lend me three hundred, would you?’ he suggested hopefully.
‘Three hundred?’
‘Call it five!’ offered the Viscount, recollecting certain of his own more pressing obligations.
Cardross laughed. ‘I’ll call it anything you choose, but I shouldn’t at all care to lend you money. And I’ll thank you, Dysart, not to apply to Nell!’
‘Nothing of the sort!’ said the Viscount, repressing a strong inclination to tell him that the boot was on quite the other leg.
‘Dipped again?’ enquired Cardross. ‘You ought to be tied, you know!’
‘I see no sense in that,’ returned Dysart. ‘Wouldn’t do me a bit of good! The only way to come about is to make a big coup. I don’t doubt I’ll do it, for it stands to reason the luck must change one day! However, I’ve been thinking seriously of devoting myself to faro, and I believe I’ll do it. The devil’s in the bones, and has been, this year past.’
The news that he was about to reform his way of life met with a disappointing lack of enthusiasm. ‘What other entertainments have you in store for us?’ asked Cardross. ‘I didn’t see you driving a wheelbarrow blindfold down Piccadilly last week, but I’m told you contrived to dislocate all the traffic for a considerable space of time. I must congratulate you. Also on your latest feat, of cutting your initials on all the trees in St James’s Park.’
‘An hour and fifteen minutes!’ said Dysart, with simple pride.
‘Very creditable.’
‘Oh, lord!’ Dysart said petulantly, ‘what else is there to do but kick up a lark now and then?’
‘You might see what can be done to put your estates in order.’
‘They ain’t my estates,’ retorted Dysart. ‘I fancy I see my father letting me meddle! What’s more, if there’s anything to be done old Moulton will do it far better than I could. He’s been our agent for years, and he don’t mean to let me meddle either. Not that I want to, for I don’t.’
‘I’ll make you an offer,’ said Cardross, scanning him not unkindly. ‘I won’t lend you three hundred pence to fling away at faro, but I’m prepared to settle your debts, and to buy you a commission in any serving regiment you choose to name.’
‘By Jove, I wish you would!’ Dysart said impulsively.
‘I will.’
The Viscount’s blue eyes had kindled, but that eager glow faded, and he laughed, giving his head a rueful shake. ‘No use! The old gentleman wouldn’t hear of it. God knows why he’s so set on keeping me in England, for putting aside the fact that I’m not his only son it don’t seem to be any pleasure to him to have me at home. Fidgets him to death! I did go down to Devonshire after he had that stroke, you know. Went to oblige my mother, but the end of it was she was obliged to own it didn’t answer. But he wouldn’t let me join for all that.’
‘If you wanted it, I might be able to persuade him.’
‘Grease him in the fist, eh? Take my advice, and fund your money! Or wait till I do something so outrageous he’ll be glad to see me off to Spain on any terms!’ said Dysart, pulling on his gloves.
‘Don’t be a fool! Come into the house: we can’t discuss it in the road!’
‘If you’re so anxious to waste the ready, lend me a monkey!’ mocked Dysart. ‘As for the rest – oh, lord, I don’t know what I want, and it wouldn’t be a particle of use if I did!’
/> He waited for a moment, and then, as Cardross made no reply, laughed rather jeeringly, and strode off down the flagway.
Four
It was almost with relief that Nell, a few days later, bade her husband a polite farewell. When he had asked her to accompany him to Merion, she had wanted very much to do so (though not with an indignant Letty in her train); but from the moment that Madame Lavalle’s bill had arrived to blacken her life she had dreaded that he might renew his persuasions. There was now nothing she wanted less than to be in his company, for the sense of guilt, which already weighed heavily on her spirits, almost crushed her when he was with her. If he smiled at her she felt herself to be a deceiving wretch; if there was a coolness in his manner she fancied he had found her out, and was ready to sink. It did not occur to her, in this disordered state of mind, that the scruples which forbade her to let him see her heart were prompting her to pursue a course that might have been expressly designed to confirm him in his suspicion that she cared for nothing but wealth, fashion, and frivolity. There was no lack of parties, at the height of the season, to fill her days; and no lack of eager escorts for the beautiful young Countess, if the Earl had engagements of his own. It seemed to him that he never saw her except on her way to a review, or a ball; and he could scarcely doubt that she preferred the company of even the most callow of her admirers to his. ‘You know, my love,’ he said to her once, mocking himself, ‘I think fate must have thrown me in your way to depress my pretensions! Would you believe it? – I was used to think myself the devil of a fellow! I now perceive that I’m no such thing – almost a dead bore, in fact!’
She had not answered him, but the colour had flooded her cheeks, and as her eyes flew to his for a brief instant he thought that he caught a glimpse of the loving, vital creature he had once believed her to be. And a moment later she was gone, saying, with a nervous laugh, that he was absurd, that Letty was waiting for her, that she must not stay, because she had promised faithfully to attend Lady Brixworth’s alfresco party out at Richmond.