Arabella Read online

  At the end of a week, Mr Swindon, urged thereto by Mr Scunthorpe, delivered the new clothes, and, after purchasing such embellishments to his costume as a tall cane, a fob, and a Marseilles waistcoat, Bertram ventured to show himself in the Park, at the fashionable hour of five o’clock. Here he had the felicity of seeing Lord Coleraine, Georgy à Cockhorse, prancing down Rotten Row on his mettlesome steed; Lord Morton, on his long-tailed gray; and, amongst the carriages, Tommy Onslow’s curricle; a number of dashing gigs and tilburies; the elegant barouches of the ladies; and Mr Beaumaris’s yellow-winged phaeton-and-four, which he appeared to be able to turn within a space so small as to seem impossible to any mere whipster. Nothing would do for Bertram after that but to repair to the nearest jobmaster’s stables, and to arrange for the hire of a showy chestnut hack. Whatever imperfections might attach to the bearing and style of a young gentleman from the country, Bertram knew himself to be a bruising rider, and in this guise determined to show himself to the society which his sister already adorned.

  As luck would have it, he encountered her on the day when he first sallied forth, mounted upon his hired hack. She was sitting up beside Mr Beaumaris in his famous phaeton, animatedly describing to him the scene of the Drawing-room in which she had taken so humble a part. This event had necessarily occupied her thoughts so much during the past week that she had been able to spare very few for the activities of her adventurous brother. But when she caught sight of him, trotting along on his chestnut hack, she exclaimed, and said impulsively: ‘Oh, it is – Mr Anstey! Do pray stop, Mr Beaumaris!’

  He drew up his team obediently, while she waved to Bertram. He brought his hack up to the phaeton, and bowed politely, only slightly quizzing her with his eyes. Mr Beaumaris, glancing indifferently at him, caught this arch look, became aware of a slight tension in the trim figure beside him, and looked under his lazy eyelids from one to the other.

  ‘How do you do? How do you go on?’ said Arabella, stretching out her hand in its glove of white kid.

  Bertram bowed over it very creditably, and replied: ‘Famously! I mean to come – I mean to visit you some morning, Miss Tallant!’

  ‘Oh, yes, please do!’ Arabella looked up at her escort, blushed, and stammered: ‘May I p-present Mr Anstey to you, Mr Beaumaris? He – he is a friend of mine!’

  ‘How do you do?’ responded Mr Beaumaris politely. ‘From Yorkshire, Mr Anstey?’

  ‘Oh, yes! I have known Miss Tallant since I was in short coats!’ grinned Bertram.

  ‘You will certainly be much envied by Miss Tallant’s numerous admirers,’ responded Mr Beaumaris. ‘Are you staying in town?’

  ‘Just a short visit, you know!’ Bertram’s gaze reverted to the team harnessed to the phaeton, all four of them on the fret. ‘I say, sir, that’s a bang-up team you have in hand!’ he said, with all his sister’s impulsiveness. ‘Oh, don’t look at this hack of mine – showy, but I never crossed a greater slug in my life!’

  ‘You hunt, Mr Anstey?’

  ‘Yes, with my uncle’s pack, in Yorkshire. Of course, it is not like the Quorn country, or the Pytchley, but we get some pretty good runs, I can tell you!’ Bertram confided.

  ‘Mr Anstey,’ interrupted Arabella, fixing him with a very compelling look, ‘I think Lady Bridlington has sent you a card for her ball: I hope you mean to come!’

  ‘Well, you know, Bel – Miss Tallant!’ said Bertram, with disastrous lack of gallantry, ‘that sort of mummery is not much in my line!’ He perceived an anguished expression in her eyes, and added hastily: ‘That is, delighted, I am sure! Yes, yes, I shall be there! And I shall hope to have the honour of standing up with you!’ he ended punctiliously.

  Mr Beaumaris was obliged to pay attention to his team, but he did not miss the minatory note in Arabella’s voice as she said: ‘I collect we are to have the pleasure of receiving a visit from you tomorrow, sir!’

  ‘Oh!’ said Bertram. ‘Yes, of course! As a matter of fact, I shall be taking a look-in at Tattersall’s, but – Yes, to be sure! I’ll come to visit you all right and tight!’

  He then doffed his new hat, and bowed, and rode off at an easy canter. Arabella appeared to be conscious that some explanation was called for. She said airily: ‘You must know, sir, that we have been brought up almost as – as brother and sister!’

  ‘I thought perhaps you had,’ responded Mr Beaumaris gravely.

  She glanced sharply up at his profile. He seemed to be wholly absorbed in the task of manoeuvring the phaeton through a gap between a dowager’s landaulet and a smart barouche with a crest on the panel. She reassured herself with the reflection that whereas she favoured her Mama, Bertram was said to be the image of what the Vicar had been at the same age, and said: ‘But I was telling you about the Drawing-room, and how graciously the Princess Mary smiled at me! She was wearing the most magnificent toilet I ever saw in my life! Lady Bridlington tells me that when she was young she was thought to be the most handsome of all the princesses. I thought she looked to be very good-natured.’

  Mr Beaumaris agreed to it, reserving to himself his enjoyment in hearing this innocent description of the Regent’s most admired sister. Miss Tallant, entrancing him with one of her unguarded moments of naïvety, then told him of the elegant, gilt-edged card of invitation which had arrived that very day in Park Street from no less a personage than the Lord Chamberlain, who informed Lady Bridlington that he was commanded by his Royal Highness the Prince Regent to invite her, and Miss Tallant, to a Dress-party at Carlton House on Thursday next, to have the honour of meeting (in large capitals) Her Majesty The Queen. He said that he should be on the look-out for her at Carlton House, and refrained from observing that the Regent’s parties, planned as they were on a magnificent scale which offended the taste of such arbiters of true elegance as himself, were amongst the worst squeezes in town, and had even been known to include such vulgarities as a fountain playing in the middle of the dinner-table to which he had himself been bidden.

  He entered into her feelings upon this event with far more sympathy than did Bertram, when he presented himself in Park Street on the following afternoon. Lady Bridlington having retired, as she always did, to her couch, to recruit her energies for an evening to be spent at no fewer than four different parties, Arabella was able to enjoy the luxury of a tête-à-tête with her favourite brother. While acknowledging handsomely that he was glad to think of her being invited to Carlton House, he said that he supposed there would be a vast rout of fashionables present, and that for himself he preferred to spend his evenings in a simpler style. He further begged her not to favour him with a description of the gown she meant to wear. She perceived that he was not much interested in her social triumphs, and turned willingly enough to his own chosen amusements. He was slightly evasive on this subject, replying to her questions in general terms. His experience of the female sex had not led him to indulge his imagination with the belief that even an adoring sister would regard with favour such delights as a visit to Cribb’s Parlour, where he had actually handled the Champion’s famous silver cup, presented to him after his last fight, some years previously, against Molyneux, the Black; the blowing of a cloud at the Daffy Club, surrounded by young Bloods of the Fancy, veterans of the Ring, promising novices, and an array of portraits hanging round the walls of past champions whose very names filled him with awe; or a lounge through the famous Saloon at Covent Garden, where the bold, ogling glances of the Cyprians who made this haunt their hunting-ground both shocked and terrified him. Nor did he tell her of an assignation he had made with a new acquaintance, encountered at Tattersall’s that very morning. He had seen at a glance that Mr Jack Carnaby was quite the thing – almost a Tulip of Fashion, in fact, if dress and air were anything to judge by – but something warned him that Arabella would regard with horror his approaching introduction into a snug little gaming-house under the auspices of this gentleman. It would be of very little use to assure her that
he was going merely for the experience, and had not the least intention of gaming away his precious blunt; even his knowledgeable cicerone had shaken his head over this new scheme, and had uttered cryptic warnings against ivory-turners and Greek banditti, adding that his uncle and principal trustee held that it was a good flat that was never down. He said that he had himself proved the truth of this excellent maxim, but since he owned, upon enquiry, that nothing was known to Mr Carnaby’s discredit, Bertram paid scant heed to his advice. Mr Carnaby led him to a discreet house in Pall Mall, where, upon knocking in a certain fashion on the door, they were inspected through a grille, and finally admitted. Nothing could have been further removed from Bertram’s expectations of what a gaming-hell would be like than the decorous house in which he found himself. The various servants were all very respectable men, with quiet manners, and it would have been hard to have found a more civil or obliging host than the proprietor. Never having indulged in any game more dashing than whist, Bertram spent some time in looking-on, but when he thought he had mastered the rules governing hazard, he ventured to join that table, armed with a modest rouleau. He soon perceived that Mr Scunthorpe had been quite at fault in his talk of Fulhams, and up-hills, for he enjoyed a run of astonishing luck, and came away at last with his pocket so full of guineas that he had no longer any need to worry over his growing expenses. A lucky bet at Tattersall’s on the following day put him in a fair way to thinking himself at home on the Turf and at the Table, and it was not to be expected that he would lend any but an impatient ear to Mr Scunthorpe’s dark prophecy that having got into Tow Street he would end up in the clutch of a Bum-trap.

  ‘Know what my uncle says?’ Mr Scunthorpe demanded. ‘They always let a flat win the first time he goes to a hell. Hedge off, dear boy! they’ll queer you on that suit!’

  ‘Oh, fudge!’ retorted Bertram. ‘I hope I’m not such a gudgeon as to dip too deeply! I’ll tell you what, Felix, I would like to play just once at Watier’s, if you could contrive it for me!’

  ‘What?’ gasped Mr Scunthorpe. ‘Dear old boy, they would never let you set foot inside the Great-Go, upon my honour they would not! Why, I’ve never played there myself! Much better go to Vauxhall! Might meet your sister there! See the Grand Cascade! Listen to the Pandean band! All the crack, you know!’

  ‘Oh, dull work, when I might be trying my luck at faro!’ said Bertram.

  Eleven

  From the Daffy Club to Limmer’s Hotel in Conduit Street was an inevitable step for any young gentleman interested in the Fancy to take. Here were to be found all the Pets of the Ring, and the Corinthians who patronised them. Bertram went there under the auspices of Mr Scunthorpe, who was anxious to turn his friend’s thoughts away from more dangerous haunts. He had begun to acquire acquaintances in London, and was thus in the proud position of exchanging greetings with several of the men present. He and Mr Scunthorpe sat down in one of the boxes, and Mr Scunthorpe painstakingly pointed out to him all the notabilities he could see, including a very down-the-road looking man who, he whispered, could be trusted to tip a man the office what to back in any race. He then excused himself, and bore down upon this knowledgeable person, and became absorbed in conversation with him. While he was thus engaged, Bertram saw Mr Beaumaris stroll in with a party of friends, but as he had by this time fully grasped the exalted position occupied by the Nonpareil he was flattered beyond measure when, after raising his glass and regarding him through it for a moment, Mr Beaumaris walked across the sanded floor, and sat down at his table, saying with a slight smile: ‘Did I not meet you in the Park the other day? Mr – er – Anstey, I believe?’

  Bertram acknowledged it, flushing shyly; but when Mr Beaumaris added casually: ‘You are related to Miss Tallant, I collect?’ he made haste to deny any relationship, adding that Miss Tallant was quite above his touch. Mr Beaumaris accepted this without comment, and asked him where he was putting up in town. Bertram saw no harm in disclosing his direction, or even in telling Mr Beaumaris that this was his first visit to the Metropolis.

  It was the expressed opinion of Mr Jack Carnaby that the Nonpareil was a haughty, disagreeable kind of man, but Bertram was unable to trace the least sign of haughtiness, or of reserve, in his manners. Mr Beaumaris’s intimates could have informed Mr Tallant that while no one could be more snubbing, no one, on the other hand, could be – when he chose – more sympathetic. In less than no time, Bertram, forgetting his bashfulness, was confiding far more to his grand new acquaintance than he had the least idea of. Mr Beaumaris, himself a Melton man, complimented him on his seat on a horse, and any barrier Bertram might have raised between himself and the author of his sister’s predicament crumbled at this touch. He was led on to describe the country over which he hunted, the exact locality of Heythram, and his own impossible ambitions, without having the smallest suspicion that all this information was being skilfully extracted from him. He told Mr Beaumaris about Smalls, and his hopes of adorning the Home Office, and when Mr Beaumaris said, with a humorous lift to one eyebrow, that he should not have supposed him to have had parliamentary ambitions, he blurted out his real ambition, ending by saying wistfully: ‘But it can’t be, of course. Only I would have liked of all things to have been able to have joined a cavalry regiment!’

  ‘I think you would do very well in a cavalry regiment,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris, rising, as Mr Scunthorpe came back to the table. ‘Meanwhile, do not draw the bustle with too much of a vengeance during this visit of yours to London!’ He nodded to Mr Scunthorpe, and walked away, leaving that gentleman to explain to Bertram with the utmost earnestness just how greatly he had been honoured.

  But Mr Beaumaris, quelling the ecstatic advances of his canine admirer, an hour or two later, said: ‘If you had any real regard for me, Ulysses, you would be greeting me with condolences rather than with these uncalled-for raptures.’

  Ulysses, considerably plumper, and with his flying ear more rebellious than ever, and his tail even more tightly curled over his back, stretched worshipfully before the god of his idolatry, and uttered an encouraging bark. After that he bustled to the door of the library, and plainly invited Mr Beaumaris to enter, and partake of refreshment there. Brough, tenderly relieving his master of his long cloak, and his hat and gloves, remarked that it was wonderful how knowing the little dog was.

  ‘It is wonderful what encouragement he has received from my staff to continue to burden me with his unwanted presence in my house!’ retorted Mr Beaumaris acidly.

  Brough, who had dealt with Mr Beaumaris for many years, permitted himself to give what in a lesser personage would have been a grin, and to say; ‘Well, sir, if I had known you wanted him chased off, I’m sure I’d have done my best! Not but what he’s so devoted to you that I doubt if he’d have gone, setting aside that it would go to my heart to chase off a dog that handles Alphonse like this one does.’

  ‘If that misbegotten animal has been upsetting Alphonse, I’ll wring his neck!’ promised Mr Beaumaris.

  ‘Oh, no, sir, nothing of that sort! When you’re out, and Ulysses comes downstairs (as come he does), he behaves to Alphonse as though he hadn’t had a bite to eat in a month, nor wouldn’t think of touching so much as a scrap of meat he found on the kitchen floor. Well, as I said to Mrs Preston, if ever a dog could speak, that one does, telling Alphonse as plain as a Christian that he’s the only friend he’s got in the world. Quite won Alphonse over, he has. In fact, when two nice loin chops was found to be missing, Alphonse would have it the undercook was accusing the dog of having stolen them only to cover up his own carelessness, and Ulysses sitting there looking as if he didn’t know what a chop tasted like. He buried the bones under the rug in your study, sir, but I have removed them.’

  ‘You are not only an ill-favoured specimen,’ Mr Beaumaris informed Ulysses severely, ‘but you have all the faults of the under-bred: toadeating, duplicity, and impudence!’

  Ulysses sat down to relieve the irritation of a
healing wound by a hearty scratch. He was rebuked, and since he had heard that note in Mr Beaumaris’s voice before – as when he had expressed a vociferous desire to share his bedchamber with him – he stopped scratching, and flattened his ears placatingly.

  Mr Beaumaris poured himself out a glass of wine, and sat down with it in his favourite chair. Ulysses sat before him, and sighed deeply. ‘Yes, I daresay,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘but I have something better to do than to spend my time spreading ointment on your sores. You should remember, moreover, that you cannot be permitted to meet your benefactress again until you are entirely healed.’ Ulysses yawned at him, and lay down with his head on his paws, as one who found the conversation tedious. Mr Beaumaris stirred him with one foot. ‘I wonder if you are right?’ he mused. ‘A month ago I should have been sure of it. Yet I let her saddle me with a foundling-brat, and a mongrel-cur – you will forgive my plain speaking, Ulysses! – and I am now reasonably certain that neither of you is destined to be the most tiresome of my responsibilities. Do you suppose that that wretched youth is masquerading under a false name for reasons of his own, or in support of her pretensions? Do not look at me like that! You may consider that experience should have taught me wisdom, but I do not believe that it was all a clever plot to inveigle me into declaring myself. I am not even sure that she regards me with more than tolerance. In fact, Ulysses, I am not very sure of anything – and I think I will pay my grandmother a long overdue visit.’