Arabella Page 18

  ‘Bertram, you must be mad!’ cried Arabella, pale with dismay. ‘When Papa knows you are in town, and without leave –’

  ‘The thing is he won’t know it,’ interrupted Bertram. ‘I wrote a letter to Mama, telling her I had met my friend Felix, and he had invited me to stay with him. So they won’t be in a fret when I don’t go back immediately, and they won’t know where I am, because I didn’t give my direction. And that brings me to what I particularly want to warn you about, Bella! I’m going by the name of Anstey while I’m in town, and while I don’t mind if you tell this godmother of yours that I’m a friend of yours, you are not to say I’m your brother! She’d be bound to write and tell my mother, and then the fat would be in the fire!’

  ‘But, Bertram, how can you dare?’ asked Arabella, in an awed voice. ‘Papa will be so angry!’

  ‘Yes, I know. I shall get a rare trimming, but I shall have had a bang-up time first, and I can stand a lick or two after,’ said Bertram cheerfully. ‘I made up my mind I’d do it, before you came to town. Do you remember my telling you that you might get a surprise? I’ll swear you never thought this would be it!’

  ‘No, indeed I did not!’ Arabella said, sinking into a chair. ‘Oh, Bertram, I am quite in a quake! I cannot understand any of it! How can you afford to be staying in London? Are you Mr Scunthorpe’s guest?’

  ‘No, no, poor old Felix ain’t standing the huff! I won a ticket in a lottery! Only think of it, Bella! A hundred pounds!’

  ‘A lottery! Good God, what would Papa say if he knew that?’

  ‘Oh, he would kick up no end of a bobbery, of course, but I shan’t tell him. And, you know, once I had won it the only thing to be done was to spend it, because you must see I had to get rid of it before Papa found I had it!’ He saw that his sister was looking horrified, and said indignantly: ‘I must say, I don’t see why you would grudge it to me! I daresay you are having a capital time yourself!’

  ‘No, no, how could you think I would grudge you anything, Bertram? But to have you in town, and to be obliged to pretend I am not your sister, and to deceive Papa and Mama –’ She stopped, remembering her own situation. ‘Oh, Bertram, how wicked we are!’

  Mr Scunthorpe looked very much alarmed at this, but Bertram said: ‘Fudge! It’s not telling lies precisely just not to mention that you have seen me when you write to Mama!’

  ‘You do not know! It is worse than that!’ whispered Arabella. ‘Bertram, I am in such a scrape!’

  He stared at her. ‘You are? How is this?’ He saw her glance towards his friend, and said: ‘You needn’t mind Felix: he’s no gabster!’

  Arabella was easily able to believe this, but she not unnaturally felt reluctant to disclose her story to one who was a stranger to her, even though she had already realised that if he was not to betray her unwittingly he must be taken some way at least into her confidence. Mr Scunthorpe tweaked his friend’s sleeve. ‘Must help your sister out of the scrape, dear boy. Happy to be of service!’

  ‘I am very much obliged to you, sir, but no one can help me out of it!’ said Arabella tragically. ‘If only you will be so kind as not to betray me!’

  ‘Of course he won’t betray you!’ declared Bertram. ‘What in thunder have you been about, Bella?’

  ‘Bertram, everyone believes me to be a great heiress!’ disclosed Arabella, in a stricken tone.

  He stared at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing. ‘You goosecap! I’ll wager they don’t! Why, Lady Bridlington knows you are not! You don’t mean that she put such a tale about?’

  She shook her head. ‘I said it!’ she confessed.

  ‘You said it? What the devil made you do such a thing? However, I don’t suppose anyone believed you!’

  ‘They do believe it. Lord Bridlington says that every gazetted fortune-hunter in town is dangling after me – and, oh, Bertram, it is true! I have refused five offers already!’

  The idea that there could be found five gentlemen ready to marry his sister struck Bertram as being exquisitely humorous, and he went off into another burst of laughter. Arabella was obliged to confess the whole, since he seemed so incredulous. Her narrative was rather disjointed, since he interpolated so many questions; and at one point a considerable digression was caused by Mr Scunthorpe, who, having regarded her fixedly for some moments, suddenly became loquacious, and said: ‘Beg pardon, ma’am, but did you say Mr Beaumaris?’

  ‘Yes. He and Lord Fleetwood.’

  ‘The Nonpareil?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mr Scunthorpe drew a breath, and turned to address his friend. ‘You hear that, Bertram?’

  ‘Well, of course I heard it!’

  ‘Didn’t think you could have. You see this coat of mine?’

  Both Tallants stared at his coat in some bewilderment.

  ‘Got my man to copy the lapels of one Weston made for the Nonpareil,’ said Mr Scunthorpe, with simple pride.

  ‘Good God, what has that to say to anything?’ demanded Bertram.

  ‘Thought you might be interested,’ explained Mr Scunthorpe apologetically.

  ‘Never mind him!’ Bertram told his sister. ‘If it wasn’t just like you, Bella, to fly into a miff, and go off into one of your crazy starts! Mind, I don’t say I blame you! Did he spread the story over London?’

  ‘I think it was Lord Fleetwood who did that. Mr Beaumaris told me once that he had not discussed the matter with anyone but Lord Fleetwood. Sometimes I have wondered whether – whether he had guessed the truth, but I cannot believe that he has, for he would despise me dreadfully, I am sure, if he knew how odiously I behaved, and certainly not stand up with me at all the balls – for he very seldom dances! – or take me out driving in his curricle.’

  Mr Scunthorpe looked very much impressed. ‘He does that?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  Mr Scunthorpe nodded portentously at Bertram. ‘You know what, dear boy? All the crack, your sister! Not a doubt of it. Knows all the best people. Drives out with the Nonpareil. Good thing she said she was an heiress.’

  ‘Oh, no, no, I wish I had never done so, for it has made everything so uncomfortable!’

  ‘Now, Bella, that’s gammon! I know you! Don’t you try to tell me you don’t like being all the go, because I wouldn’t believe you if you did!’ said Bertram, with brotherly candour.

  Arabella thought it over. Then she gave a reluctant smile. ‘Well, yes, perhaps I do like it, but when I remember the cause of it I do indeed wish I had never said such a thing! Only consider what a fix I am in! If the truth were known now I should be utterly discredited! No one would even bow to me, I daresay, and I have the greatest dread that Lady Bridlington would send me home in disgrace! And then Papa would know, and – Bertram, I had almost rather throw myself into the river than have him know such a thing of me!’

  ‘Lord, yes!’ he agreed, with a shudder. ‘But it won’t come to that! If anyone asks me any prying questions, I shall say you are well known to me, and so will Felix!’

  ‘Yes, but that is not all!’ Arabella pointed out. ‘I can never, never accept any offer made to me, and what Mama will think of such selfishness I dare not consider! For she so much hoped that I should form an eligible connection, and Lady Bridlington is bound to tell her that – that quite a number of very eligible gentlemen have paid me the most marked attentions!’

  Bertram knit his brows over this. ‘Unless – No, you’re right, Bella; devilish awkward fix! You would have to tell the truth, if you accepted an offer, and ten to one he’d cry off. What a tiresome girl you are, to be sure! Dashed if I see what’s to be done! Do you, Felix?’

  ‘Very difficult situation,’ responded Mr Scunthorpe, shaking his head. ‘Only one thing to be done.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Mr Scunthorpe gave a diffident cough. ‘Just a little thing that occurred to me. Daresay you won’t care about i
t: can’t say I care about it myself, but can’t hang back when a lady’s in a fix.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘Mind, only a notion I had!’ Mr Scunthorpe warned him. ‘You don’t like it: you say so! I don’t like it, but ought to offer.’ He perceived that the Tallants were quite mystified, blushed darkly, and uttered in a strangled voice: ‘Marriage!’

  Arabella stared at him for a moment, and then went into a peal of mirth. Bertram said scornfully: ‘Of all the cork-brained notions – ! You don’t want to marry Bella!’

  ‘No,’ conceded Mr Scunthorpe. ‘Promised I would help her out of the scrape, though!’

  ‘What’s more,’ Bertram said severely, ‘those trustees of yours would never let you! You’re not of age.’

  ‘Talk them over,’ said Mr Scunthorpe hopefully.

  However, Arabella, thanking him for his kind offer, said that she did not think they would suit. He seemed grateful, and relapsed into the silence which appeared to be natural to him.

  ‘I daresay I shall hit upon something,’ said Bertram. ‘I’ll think about it, at all events. Should I stay to do the pretty to this godmother of yours, do you think?’

  Arabella urged him strongly to do so. She was inclined to grieve over his necessary incognito, but he told her frankly that it would not at all suit him to be for ever gallanting her to the ton parties. ‘Very dull work!’ he said. ‘I know you are gone civility-mad since you came to town, but it’s not in my line.’ He then enumerated the sights he meant to see in London, and since these seemed to consist mostly of such innocuous entertainments as Astley’s Amphitheatre, the Royal Menagerie at the Tower, Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, Napoleon’s carriage, on view at Bullock’s Museum, a look-in at Tattersall’s, the departure of the Brighton coaches from the White Horse Cellar, and the forthcoming Military Review in Hyde Park, his anxious sister’s worst qualms were allayed. At first sight he had seemed to her to have grown a great deal older, for he was wearing a sophisticated waistcoat, and had brushed his hair in a new style; but when he told her about the peep-show which had diverted him so much in Coventry Street, and expressed a purely youthful desire to witness that grand spectacle, The Burning Of Moscow (supported by Tight-rope Walking, and an Equestrian Display), she could feel that he was still boy enough not to hanker after the more sophisticated and by far more dangerous amusements to be found in London. But, then, as he confidentially informed Mr Scunthorpe, when they presently left Park Street together, females took such foolish notions into their heads that it would have been ridiculous to have disclosed to her that he had an equally ardent desire to see a bout of fisticuffs at the Fives-court, to blow a cloud with all the Corinthians at the Daffy Club, to penetrate the mysteries of the Royal Saloon, and the Peerless Pool, and certainly to put in an appearance at the Opera – not, he hastened to assure his friend, because he wanted to listen to music, but because he was credibly informed that to stroll in the Fops’ Alley was famous sport, and all the go. Since he had decided, very prudently, to put up at one of the City inns, where, if he chose, he could be sure of a tolerable dinner at the Ordinary, which was very moderately priced, he entertained reasonable hopes of being able to afford all these diversions. But first, he perceived, it was necessary to buy a much higher-crowned and more curly-brimmed beaver to set on his head; a pair of Hessians with tassels; a fob, and perhaps a seal; and certainly a pair of natty yellow gloves. Without these adjuncts to a gentleman’s costume he would look like a Johnny Raw. Mr Scunthorpe agreed, and ventured to point out that a driving-coat with only two shoulder-capes was thought, in well-dressed circles, to be a paltry affair. He said he would take Bertram along to his own man, a devilish clever tailor, even though he had not acquired the fame of a Weston or a Stultz. However, as the great advantage of patronising this rising man lay in the assurance that he would be willing to rig out any friend of Mr Scunthorpe’s on tick, Bertram raised no objection to jumping into a hackney at once, and telling the jarvey to drive with all speed to Clifford Street. Mr Scunthorpe vouched for it that Swindon’s art would give his friend quite a new touch, and as this seemed extremely desirable to Bertram, he thought he could hardly lay out a substantial sum of money to better advantage. Mr Scunthorpe then imparted to him a few useful hints, particularly warning him against such extravagances of style as must give rise to the suspicion that he belonged to the extreme dandy-set frowned upon by the real Pinks of the Ton. Beyond question, the finest model for any aspiring gentleman to copy was the Nonpareil, that Go amongst the Goers. This put Bertram in mind of something which had been slightly troubling his mind, and he said: ‘I say, Felix, do you think my sister should be driving about the town with him? I don’t mind telling you I don’t like it above half!’

  Here Mr Scunthorpe was able at once to allay his qualms: for a lady to drive in a curricle or a phaeton, with a groom riding behind, was unexceptionable. ‘Mind, it would not do for a female to go in a tilbury!’ he said.

  His brotherly concern relieved, Bertram abandoned the question, merely remarking that he would give a monkey to see his father’s face if he knew how rackety Bella had become.

  Arrived in Clifford Street, they obtained instant audience of Mr Swindon, who was so obliging as to bring out his pattern-card immediately, and to advise his new client on the respective merits of Superfine and Bath Suiting. He thought six capes would be sufficient for a light drab driving-coat, an opinion in which Mr Scunthorpe gravely concurred, explaining to Bertram that it would never do for him to ape the Goldfinches, with their row upon row of capes. Unless one was an acknowledged Nonesuch, capable of driving to an inch, or one of the Melton men, it was wiser, he said, to aim at neatness and propriety rather than the very height of fashion. He then bent his mind to the selection of a cloth for a coat, and although Bertram had not intended to order a new coat, he was persuaded to do so, as much by the assertion of Mr Swindon that a single-breasted garment of corbeau-coloured cloth, with wide lapels, and silver buttons, would set his person off to advantage, as by the whispered assurance of his friend that the snyder always gave his clients long credit. Indeed, Mr Scunthorpe was rarely troubled with his tailor’s account, since that astute man of business was well aware that being a fatherless minor Mr Scunthorpe’s considerable fortune was held in trust by tight-fisted guardians, who doled him out a beggarly allowance. Nothing so ungenteel as cost or payment was mentioned during the session in Clifford Street, so that Bertram left the premises torn between relief and a fear that he might have pledged his credit for a larger sum than he could afford to pay. But the novelty and excitement of a first visit to the Metropolis soon put such untimely thoughts to rout, while a lucky bet at the Fives-court clearly showed the novice the easiest way of raising the wind.

  A close inspection of such sprigs of fashion as were to be seen at the Fives-court made Bertram very glad to think he had bespoken a new coat, and he confided to Mr Scunthorpe that he would not visit the haunts of fashion until his clothes had been sent home. Mr Scunthorpe thought this a wise decision, and, as it was of course absurd to suppose that Bertram should kick his heels at the City inn which enjoyed his patronage, he volunteered to show him how an evening full of fun and gig could be spent in less exalted circles. This entertainment, beginning as it did in the Westminster Pit, where it seemed to the staring Bertram that representatives of every class of society, from the Corinthian to the dustman, had assembled to watch a contest between two dogs; and proceeding by way of the shops of Tothill Fields, where adventurous bucks tossed off noggins of Blue Ruin, or bumpers of heavy wet, in company with bruisers, prigs, coal-heavers, Nuns, Abbesses, and apple-women, to a coffee-shop, ended in the watch-house, Mr Scunthorpe having become bellicose under the influence of his potations. Bertram, quite unused to such quantities of liquor as he had imbibed, was too much fuddled to have any very clear notion of what circumstance it was that had excited his friend’s wrath, though he had a vague idea that it was in some way connected with th
e advances being made by a gentleman in Petersham trousers towards a lady who had terrified him earlier in the proceedings by laying a palpable lure for him. But when a mill was in progress it was not his part to enquire into the cause of it, but to enter into the fray in support of his cicerone. Since he was by no means unlearned in the noble art of self-defence, he was able to render yeoman service to Mr Scunthorpe, no proficient, and was in a fair way to milling his way out of the shop when the watch, in the shape of several Charleys, all springing their rattles, burst in upon them and, after a spirited set-to, overpowered the two peacebreakers, and hailed them off to the watch-house. Here, after considerable parley, conducted for the defence by the experienced Mr Scunthorpe, they were admitted to bail, and warned to present themselves next day in Bow Street, not a moment later than twelve o’clock. The night-constable then packed them both into a hackney, and they drove to Mr Scunthorpe’s lodging in Clarges Street, where Bertram passed what little was left of the night on the sofa in his friend’s sitting-room. He awoke later with a splitting headache, no very clear recollection of the late happenings, but a lively dread of the possible consequences of what he feared had been a very bosky evening. However, when Mr Scunthorpe’s man had revived his master, and he emerged from his bedchamber, he was soon able to allay any such misgivings. ‘Nothing to be in a fret for, dear boy!’ he said. ‘Been piloted to the lighthouse scores of times! Watchman will produce broken lantern in evidence – they always do it! – you give false name, pay fine, and all’s right!’

  So, indeed, it proved, but the experience a little shocked the Vicar’s son. This, coupled with the extremely unpleasant after-effects of drinking innumerable flashes of lightning, made him determine to be more circumspect in future. He spent several days in pursuing such harmless amusements as witnessing a badger drawn in a menagerie in Holborn, losing his heart to Miss O’Neill from a safe position in the pit, and being introduced by Mr Scunthorpe into Gentleman Jackson’s exclusive Boxing School in Bond Street. Here he was much impressed by the manners and dignity of the proprietor (whose decision in all matters of sport, Mr Scunthorpe informed him, was accepted as final by patrician and plebeian alike), and was gratified by a glimpse of such notable amateurs as Mr Beaumaris, Lord Fleetwood, young Mr Terrington, and Lord Withernsea. He had a little practise with the single-stick with one of Jackson’s assistants, felt himself honoured by receiving a smiling word of encouragement from the great Jackson himself, and envied the assurance of the Goes who strolled in, exchanged jests with Jackson, who treated them with the same degree of civility as he showed to his less exalted pupils, and actually enjoyed bouts with the ex-champion himself. He was quick to see that no consideration of rank or consequence was enough to induce Jackson to allow a client to plant a hit upon his person, unless his prowess deserved such a reward; and from having entered the saloon with a feeling of superiority he swiftly reached the realisation that in the Corinthian world excellence counted for more than lineage. He heard Jackson say chidingly to the great Nonpareil himself (who stripped to remarkable advantage, he noticed) that he was out of training; and from that moment his highest ambition was to put on the gloves with this peerless master of the art.