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  But when Lord Wrotham presented himself, towards the end of dinner, he was seen to be in knee-breeches, a circumstance which made Sherry exclaim: ‘Good God, we’re not going to a ball, old fellow! What the deuce are you about? Knee-breeches for Cribb’s Parlour!’

  ‘Cribb’s Parlour?’ repeated George, shaking hands with Hero. ‘But I thought we were to go to Almack’s!’

  ‘Oh!’ Hero cried, in a little confusion.‘I had quite forgot that you said you would go with us! Indeed, I am very sorry, George, and I cannot think how I came to be so stupid!’

  ‘Well, it’s of no account,’ said Sherry, pouring a glass of wine for his friend.‘Hero don’t care to go to the Assembly, and I have made up a snug little party to meet at Cribb’s Parlour.’

  Lord Wrotham looked enquiringly at Hero. The significance of her ball-dress was not lost on him; he said: ‘Is this so indeed? Are you sure you do not care to go?’

  ‘No, truly I had as lief stay at home,’ she assured him. ‘I have the headache, you know, and Sherry thinks I should very likely find it quite flat.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Wrotham, frowning over it. He glanced from one to the other, and said that he supposed he had best return home to change into raiment more suited to Cribb’s Parlour. This, however, Sherry would not permit him to do, saying that they were late already, and must be on their way. He gave Hero a careless pat on the shoulder, recommended her to go early to bed, and swept his friend off with him to Mr Ringwood’s lodging. Here they took up Mr Ringwood into their hackney, and all drove off to the tavern owned by the ex-champion of the Ring. Lord Wrotham’s doubts were still troubling him, and when Mr Ringwood expressed surprise at Sherry’s having selected one of the Assembly nights for this meeting, he said abruptly: ‘She did not look to me as though she had the headache.’

  ‘Lord, how do you know?’ responded Sherry. ‘She did not wish to go to Almack’s, I tell you! She said so herself. I told her I would go if she had set her heart on it, and she replied at once that she would be glad not to be obliged to go.’ He added naïvely:‘I must say I was deuced happy to hear it, for it is not in my line at all.’

  The hackney stopping in Jermyn Street at this moment, to take up Sir Montagu Revesby, the subject was allowed to drop, and the rest of the journey was beguiled in discussing the rival merits of two promising young heavyweights, now in training for an early encounter. Lord Wrotham bore little part in this, but sat lost in a fit of brooding which outlasted his first glass of daffy at the Parlour. He was just about to embark on a second glass when he came to a sudden decision, and startled his friends by saying in accents of strong conviction: ‘She did want to go!’

  Mr Ringwood eyed him with some misgiving. ‘Go where?’ he asked.

  ‘Almack’s, of course!’Wrotham said impatiently.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Kitten – Lady Sherry!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Sherry. ‘What a fellow you are, George! Once put a notion into your head, and, damme, there’s no getting it out again! Fill up his glass, Monty!’

  ‘No!’ said George. ‘I tell you she was dressed for it. I’d lay a monkey it was all your doing, Sherry! I shall return to Half Moon Street and offer to be her escort!’

  ‘But I keep on telling you she did not wish to go!’ Sherry said, quite tired of the subject.

  ‘Well, I think she did. And, damme, I never wanted to come here, now I think of it! I’m going back.’

  The Viscount shrugged, casting an expressive glance at Mr Ringwood, and Lord Wrotham took his impetuous departure. He had not appeared to be in a convivial mood, but his going threw an unaccountable damper over the party. The Viscount’s countenance wore something very like a scowl, and he drank off his second glass of daffy rather defiantly. Upon some acquaintances coming up to exchange salutations and bets, he roused himself from his abstraction and entered pretty readily into the transactions. But when these friends moved away, he sat down again at his table, looking moody, and drinking his third glass in unbroken silence. An attempt by Mr Ringwood to rouse him failed; and a rallying jest from Revesby only drew a perfunctory smile from him. The third glass seemed to help him to come to a decision. He set it down empty upon the bare table and suddenly demanded: ‘What right has George Wrotham to take my wife to Almack’s?’

  Mr Ringwood considered this carefully.‘Don’t see any harm in it,’ he pronounced at last. ‘Quite the thing.’

  ‘Well, I won’t have it!’ said his lordship belligerently.

  ‘My dear Sherry, let me call for another glass!’ smiled Revesby.

  His lordship ignored this. ‘He comes here, don’t say a word, hardly blows a cloud, and then what does he do? Without so much as a by your leave, too!’

  ‘Don’t see that,’ objected Mr Ringwood, shaking his head. ‘Told you what he was going to do, didn’t he? If you didn’t like it, ought to have told him so. Too late now. Call for another glass!’

  ‘I don’t want another glass, and I won’t have George taking my wife off under my very nose!’

  ‘Sherry, Sherry!’ Sir Montagu remonstrated, laying a hand on the Viscount’s arm.

  It was shaken off. ‘Don’t keep saying Sherry at me!’ said his lordship irritably. ‘If she wanted to go to the damned Assembly, why the devil did she say she didn’t? Tell me that!’

  ‘I am sure she did not wish to go, and she will send Wrotham about his business,’ Revesby said soothingly.

  Mr Ringwood, rendered percipient by a judicious quantity of gin, said wisely: ‘Wouldn’t say she wished to go if you didn’t, Sherry. Noticed it often. Always does what you wish. Mistake, if you ask me.’ He recruited himself with another pull at his glass. ‘Selfish!’ he produced.

  ‘Who is?’ demanded his lordship.

  ‘You are,’ said Mr Ringwood simply.

  ‘I am no such thing!’ Sherry retorted, stung. ‘How the devil was I to know she wanted to go when she said she didn’t?’

  ‘My dear Sherry, poor Ringwood is a trifle disguised! Why put yourself in a pucker?’ Revesby said.

  ‘No, I ain’t!’ Mr Ringwood contradicted, eyeing the elegant Sir Montagu with dislike. ‘Sherry’s a fool. Always was. George knew she wanted to go. George ain’t a fool.’ He thought this over. ‘At least, not as big a fool as Sherry,’ he amended.

  ‘You’re as full as you can hold!’ said Sherry furiously. ‘And George had no right to walk off like that! What’s more, he shan’t take my wife to Almack’s, because I’ll take her myself !’

  Revesby caught his sleeve as he sprang up. ‘No, no, my dear fellow, you’re too late now! Consider! George has been gone these twenty minutes, and more!’

  ‘I shall go straight to Almack’s and give him a set-down!’ promised Sherry, a martial light in his eye.

  Mr Ringwood sat up. ‘You’re not going to call George out, Sherry! Mind, now!’

  ‘Who said anything about calling him out? Merely, if my wife goes to Almack’s, I’m going to Almack’s too!’

  ‘Really, Sherry, you are making a great to-do about nothing,’ said Revesby gently. ‘There is no impropriety in Wrotham’s escorting Lady Sheringham, I assure you!’

  ‘Are you accusing my wife of impropriety?’ said Sherry, whose pugnacity was fast reaching alarming proportions.

  ‘Certainly not!’ replied Revesby. ‘Such a notion never entered my head, my dear boy! I wish you will sit down and forget these crotchets.’

  ‘Well, I won’t!’ Sherry returned.‘I’m going to Almack’s.’

  Mr Ringwood groped for his quizzing-glass, and through it scrutinised his friend’s person. He let it fall again and lay back in his chair.‘Not in pantaloons,’ he said.‘Can’t be done, Sherry.’

  The Viscount looked very much put out for a moment, but having taken a resolve he was not one easily to relinquish it. He said, with immense dignity, that he was going off home to change his dress, and stalked out of the Parlour before either Revesby or Ringwood could think of an answer.

  When he reached
Half Moon Street it was to hear from his butler that her ladyship had gone out with Lord Wrotham. Sherry said grandly that he knew all about that, and demanded his valet. This gentleman was not immediately to be found, and by the time he had been fetched by a breathless page from the select tavern which he patronised in his leisure moments, the Viscount was in a worse temper than ever, and had ruined no fewer than five neckcloths in some fumbling attempts to achieve a Waterfall style. It was more than half an hour later when he was at last correctly attired for the Assembly, and five minutes after eleven when he arrived at Almack’s. Nothing could have been more unfortunate, for the rules laid down by Almack’s despotic patronesses were not even relaxed for the Duke of Wellington himself; and although the civility of Willis, who presided over the club, could scarcely have been exceeded, not all the Viscount’s stormings or blandishments availed to get him beyond the portals. He was obliged to return home, since he had no longer any desire to spend the night at Cribb’s Parlour, and to while away the time in flicking over the pages of a library book, casting the dice, right hand against left, and brooding over his injuries. Whatever he might do when amongst his cronies, he was not one who took pleasure in drinking alone, so that when Lord Wrotham brought his fair charge back to the house, shortly before two o’clock, the door was opened to them by a sober but awe-inspiringly stiff young man, who bowed to his friend, thanked him in frigid terms for his kind offices, and expressed the hope – bleakly – that he and my lady had been tolerably well amused.

  George, somewhat astonished by his reception, said that he had passed a charming evening. Hero, on whom the Viscount’s punctilious manner was thrown away, said vivaciously:‘Was it not kind of George to take me after all, Sherry? It was so pleasant, too! I wish you had been with us. Everyone was there to-night! Your uncle Prosper came with the Cowpers, and only fancy, Sherry! he complimented me on my gown, and he said I had an air of decided fashion! Oh, and Cousin Jane was there, with Cassy and Eudora, and Cousin Jane was most civil, because I had that instant been dancing the waltz – dear Lady Sefton said I might do so now that I have been approved, so do not be thinking that I am in a scrape! – dancing the waltz with Duke Fakenham, and she most particularly desired to have him presented to her. Oh, Sherry, only to think of my being able to oblige Cousin Jane! And I wish it might have answered, but it did not, I am afraid, for Duke only bowed and talked the merest commonplace for a few minutes and never asked Cassy to dance at all.’ She turned and held out her hand to Lord Wrotham.‘Thank you, George! It was so comfortable, and very pretty in you to have gallanted me to the party.’

  He took her hand and pressed it, assuring her warmly that the obligation was on his side, that he had done delightfully, never wished to spend a more pleasant evening. Then, as the Viscount offered him no encouragement to linger, he said good-night and departed.

  ‘I did not expect to find you at home so soon, Sherry,’ Hero said innocently.‘Was it flat, after all, your party?’

  ‘If I had known – though to be sure I do not know how I could have done so! – that you had a desire to go to the Assembly, I would have taken you myself,’ said his lordship stiffly. ‘I do not know why you should tell me that you had the headache, and then, when you had fobbed me off, have gone to it with Wrotham!’

  ‘Fobbed you off ?’ exclaimed Hero, quite dismayed. ‘Oh, Sherry, no! I thought you did not wish to go! Oh, don’t say you did wish to go! I would so much, much rather have had you with me than George!’

  ‘I am flattered!’ said his lordship. ‘I had thought you dealt delightfully with George!’

  ‘Yes, indeed I did, but I had rather be with you than with anyone. Sherry, why did you not join us? It would have been beyond anything!’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I did think I might do so,’ said Sherry, thawing.‘Only it was after eleven when I reached the curst place, and nothing would prevail upon Willis to let me enter.’

  ‘Oh, Sherry!’ Hero cried, flushing in distress. ‘Had I known that, all my pleasure would have been destroyed! Oh, how vexatious! how sorry I am! It is all my fault for having been so stupid as to fancy you did not wish to go!’

  ‘I must own that considering I was perfectly ready to escort you,’ began his lordship in an injured tone, ‘I do not know why –’ He stopped, meeting her anxious, uncritical gaze.‘No, it wasn’t your fault, and you know it wasn’t!’ he said.‘I didn’t wish to go, but you are not to be giving up your amusements for any such cause as that. Dash it, Gil was right!’

  ‘Gil? Why, what has he to do with it, pray?’

  ‘Oh, nothing! Only he would have it I was a fool, and curst selfish, and I dare say I may be, but I tell you this, Kitten –’

  ‘How dared Gil say such a thing?’ interrupted Hero hotly. ‘It is the wickedest untruth! You are no such thing! I should think he must have been quite foxed to have said it!’

  ‘No, no, only slightly disguised!’ the Viscount assured her. ‘Anyway, it don’t signify, only I wish I had taken you, and I’m sorry, Kitten. There!’

  She took his outstretched hand and carried it to her cheek. ‘Oh, Sherry, how silly! I think you must be slightly disguised, to be offering me an apology for such an absurdity!’

  ‘Sober as a judge!’ the Viscount asserted. ‘I don’t say I wasn’t a trifle bosky when I left Cribb’s, but that’s long since. Damme, I’ve been waiting for you to come home these three hours, with nothing to do but read some dashed book or other!’

  Hero found the thought of his spending an evening at home with a book so droll that she broke into a peal of laughter, which was so infectious that his lordship was obliged to join in. They went upstairs together in excellent accord, and when they parted outside Hero’s door, Sherry did her the honour of informing her that she was a good little puss, and that he had always had a fondness for her.

  Twelve

  HERO MIGHT HAVE ENJOYED THE EVENING SPENT AT Almack’s Assembly Rooms, but it had not been one of unmixed pleasure for her escort, while for one other person it had been an evening of almost unleavened annoyance. Miss Milborne, seeing the most ardent of her admirers enter the rooms with Hero on his arm, had suffered something in the nature of a shock. Never before had she seen George in attendance on any other lady than herself ! When he came to Almack’s it was to form one of her court; and when she did not dance with him he had a gratifying habit of leaning against the wall and watching her, instead of soliciting some other damsel to dance with him. Now, on the heels of the most obdurate quarrel they had had, here he was, looking perfectly cheerful, actually laughing at something Hero had said to him, his handsome head bent a little to catch her words. Hero, too, was in very good looks: in fact, Miss Milborne had not known that her little friend could appear to such advantage. She could never, of course, aspire to such beauty as belonged to the Incomparable, but Miss Milborne was no fool, and she was obliged to own that there was something particularly taking in the bride’s smile and mischievous twinkle. Watching George, she came to the reluctant conclusion that he was fully sensible of his partner’s charm. He had given his adored Isabella nothing more than a common bow upon catching sight of her, and it was plain that he meant to devote his evening to Hero. Miss Milborne could think of a dozen reasons to account for his gallanting Hero to the ball, but none of them satisfied her; nor could the distinguishing attention paid to her by her ducal admirer quite restore her spirits. She was even a trifle pettish with Severn, a circumstance which later drew down upon her the slightly tart reproaches of her Mama, who had no notion of her daughter’s playing fast and loose with such a dazzling suitor.

  The truth was that Miss Milborne was in the uncomfortable situation of a young lady who had had her head turned as much by the ambition of her parent as by the admiration which had been hers ever since she had first appeared in Polite circles. She had been educated with a view to making a brilliant match, and until Lord Wrotham had swept stormily into her orbit no other idea than that of obliging her Mama had so much as cros
sed her head. But Lord Wrotham was a disturbing presence, and it was not long before the Beauty’s docile and well-ordered ambition was in direct conflict with the scarcely recognised promptings of her heart. For no one could seriously consider that Wrotham would provide any girl with a brilliant match. His birth was certainly unexceptionable, but it was common knowledge that his estates were grossly encumbered; and instead of being, like his ducal rival, a dignified young man of notable steadiness of character, he was wild to a fault. He had quite as many libertine tendencies as Miss Milborne had complained of in Sherry; he was a gamester; he mixed with low persons, such as prizefighters and jockeys; and his hot temper led his anxious friends to prophesy that one day he would kill his man, and be obliged to fly the country. Miss Milborne knew that the very thought of allying herself to him was an absurdity, and she made many praiseworthy attempts to put him out of her mind. After all, he was not the only one of her suitors to attract her. She had been by no means impervious to Sherry’s careless charm, for instance; and she found one Sir Barnabas Crawley very much to her taste, not to mention the elusive Sir Montagu Revesby. In her more honest moments, she was bound to own to herself that nothing but his high degree appealed to her in the Duke of Severn; but when George had been more than usually tiresome she could convince herself that she would be very comfortable if wedded to a nobleman who would certainly never give her a moment’s anxiety, and who would treat her with unfailing, if slightly tedious, civility and consideration. He was, in addition, extremely wealthy, but since she was herself a considerable heiress she was able to banish such a mercenary consideration as this from her mind. Nothing, in fact, was farther from Miss Milborne’s admirably trained mind than to marry to disoblige her family, as the saying was, yet when she saw Wrotham enter the ballroom at Almack’s with Hero on his arm, a pang of something so like jealousy shot through her that she was shocked at her own meanness of spirit, and felt all her pleasure in the evening to have been destroyed. Nor was she able to think well of Hero for purloining George in this shameless way, and – as though that were not injury enough! – contriving to keep him in apparently sunny spirits all the evening.