The Corinthian Read online

  ‘Have some more Madeira,’ said Sir Richard soothingly.

  ‘Well, thank you, yes, I will. But don’t think I’m here to badger you about something which don’t concern me, because I’m not!’

  ‘Richard!’ said Lady Wyndham deeply, ‘I dare no longer meet Saar face to face!’

  ‘As bad as that, is he?’ said Sir Richard. ‘I haven’t seen him myself these past few weeks, but I’m not at all surprised. I fancy I heard something about it, from someone – I forget whom. Taken to brandy, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Lady Wyndham, ‘I think you are utterly devoid of sensibility!’

  ‘He is merely trying to provoke you, Mama. You know perfectly well what Mama means, Richard. When do you mean to offer for Melissa?’

  There was a slight pause. Sir Richard set down his empty wine-glass, and flicked with one long finger the petals of a flower in a bowl on the table. ‘This year, next year, sometime–or never, my dear Louisa.’

  ‘I am very sure she considers herself as good as plighted to you,’ Louisa said.

  Sir Richard was looking down at the flower under his hand, but at this he raised his eyes to his sister’s face, in an oddly keen, swift look. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘How should it be otherwise? You know very well that Papa and Lord Saar designed it so years ago.’

  The lids veiled his eyes again. ‘How medieval of you!’ sighed Sir Richard.

  ‘Now, don’t, pray, take me up wrongly, Richard! If you don’t like Melissa, there is no more to be said. But you do like her – or if you don’t, at least I never heard you say so! What Mama and I feel – and George, too – is that it is time and more that you were settled in life.’

  A pained glance reproached Lord Trevor. ‘Et tu, Brute?’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘I swear I never said so!’ declared George, choking over his Madeira. ‘It was all Louisa. I dare say I may have agreed with her. You know how it is, Richard!’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Sir Richard, sighing. ‘You too, Mama?’

  ‘Oh Richard, I live only to see you happily married, with your children about you!’ said Lady Wyndham, in trembling tones.

  A slight, unmistakable shudder ran through the Corinthian. ‘My children about me…Yes. Precisely, ma’am. Pray continue!’

  ‘You owe it to the name,’ pursued his mother. ‘You are the last of the Wyndhams, for it’s not to be supposed that your Uncle Lucius will marry at this late date. There is Melissa, dear girl, the very wife for you! So handsome, so distinguished – birth, breeding: everything of the most desirable!’

  ‘Ah – your pardon, ma’am, but do you include Saar, and Cedric, not to mention Beverley, under that heading?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I say!’ broke in George. ‘“It’s all very well,” I said, “and if a man likes to marry an iceberg it’s all one to me, but you can’t call Saar a desirable father-in-law, damme if you can! While as for the girl’s precious brothers,” I said, “they’ll ruin Richard inside a year!”’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Louisa. ‘It is understood, of course, that Richard would make handsome settlements. But as for his being responsible for Cedric’s and Beverley’s debts, I’m sure I know of no reason why he should!’

  ‘You comfort me, Louisa,’ said Sir Richard.

  She looked up at him not unaffectionately. ‘Well, I think it is time to be frank, Richard. People will be saying next that you are playing fast and loose with Melissa, for you must know the understanding between you is an open secret. If you had chosen to marry someone else, five, ten years ago, it would have been a different thing. But so far as I am aware your affections have never even been engaged, and here you are, close on thirty, as good as pledged to Melissa Brandon, and nothing settled!’

  Lady Wyndham, though in the fullest agreement with her daughter, was moved at this point to defend her son, which she did by reminding Louisa that Richard was only twenty-nine after all.

  ‘Mama, Richard will be thirty in less than six months. For I,’ said Louisa with resolution, ‘am turned thirty-one.’

  ‘Louisa, I am touched!’ said Sir Richard. ‘Only the deepest sisterly devotion, I am persuaded, could have wrung from you such an admission.’

  She could not repress a smile, but said with as much severity as she could muster: ‘It is no laughing matter. You are no longer in your first youth, and you know as well as I do that it is your duty to think seriously of marriage.’

  ‘Strange,’ mused Sir Richard, ‘that one’s duty should be invariably so disagreeable.’

  ‘I know,’ said George, heaving a sigh. ‘Very true! very true indeed!’

  ‘Pooh! nonsense! What a coil you make of a simple matter!’ Louisa said. ‘Now, if I were to press you to marry some romantical miss, always wanting you to make love to her, and crying her eyes out every time you chose to seek your amusements out of her company, you might have reason to complain. But Melissa – yes, an iceberg, George, if you like, and what else, pray, is Richard? – Melissa, I say, will never plague you in that way.’

  Sir Richard’s eyes dwelled inscrutably upon her face for a moment. Then he moved to the table and poured himself out another glass of Madeira.

  Louisa said defensively: ‘Well, you don’t wish her to cling about your neck, I suppose?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘And you are not in love with any other woman, are you?’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘Very well, then! To be sure, if you were in the habit of falling in and out of love, it would be a different matter. But, to be plain with you, you are the coldest, most indifferent, selfish creature alive, Richard, and you will find in Melissa an admirable partner.’

  Inarticulate clucking sounds from George, indicative of protest, caused Sir Richard to wave a hand towards the Madeira. ‘Help yourself, George, help yourself !’

  ‘I must say, I think it most unkind in you to speak to your brother like that,’ said Lady Wyndham. ‘Not but what you are selfish, dear Richard. I’m sure I have said so over and over again. But so it is with the greater part of the world! Everywhere one turns one meets with nothing but ingratitude!’

  ‘If I have done Richard an injustice, I will willingly ask his pardon,’ said Louisa.

  ‘Very handsomely said, my dear sister. You have done me no injustice. I wish you will not look so distressed, George: your pity is quite wasted on me, I assure you. Tell me, Louisa: have you reason to suppose that Melissa expects me to – er – pay my addresses to her?’

  ‘Certainly I have. She has been expecting it any time these five years!’

  Sir Richard looked a little startled. ‘Poor girl!’ he said. ‘I must have been remarkably obtuse.’

  His mother and sister exchanged glances. ‘Does that mean that you will think seriously of marriage?’ asked Louisa.

  He looked thoughtfully down at her. ‘I suppose it must come to that.’

  ‘Well, for my part,’ said George, defying his wife, ‘I would look around me for some other eligible female! Lord, there are dozens of ’em littering town! Why, I’ve seen I don’t know how many setting their caps at you! Pretty ones, too, but you never notice them, you ungrateful dog!’

  ‘Oh yes, I do,’ said Sir Richard, with a curl of the lips.

  ‘Must George be vulgar?’ asked Lady Wyndham tragically.

  ‘Be quiet, George! And as for you, Richard, I consider it in the highest degree nonsensical for you to take up that attitude. There is no denying that you’re the biggest catch on the Marriage Mart – Yes, Mama, that is vulgar too, and I beg your pardon – but you have a lower opinion of yourself than I credit you with if you can suppose that your fortune is the only thing about you which makes you a desirable parti. You are generally accounted handsome – indeed, no one, I believe, could deny that your person is such as must please; a
nd when you will take the trouble to be conciliating there is nothing in your manners to disgust the nicest taste.’

  ‘This encomium, Louisa, almost unmans me,’ said Sir Richard, much moved.

  ‘I am perfectly serious. I was about to add that you often spoil everything by your odd humours. I do not know how you should expect to engage a female’s affection when you never bestow the least distinguishing notice upon any woman! I do not say that you are uncivil, but there is a languor, a reserve in your manner, which must repel a woman of sensibility.’

  ‘I am a hopeless case indeed,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘If you want to know what I think, which I do not suppose you do, so you need not tell me so, it is that you are spoilt, Richard. You have too much money, you have done everything you wished to do before you are out of your twenties; you have been courted by match-making Mamas, fawned on by toadies, and indulged by all the world. The end of it is that you are bored to death. There! I have said it, and though you may not thank me for it, you will admit that I am right.’

  ‘Quite right,’ agreed Sir Richard. ‘Hideously right, Louisa!’

  She got up. ‘Well, I advise you to get married and settle down. Come, Mama! We have said all we meant to say, and you know we are to call in Brook Street on our way home. George, do you mean to come with us?’

  ‘No,’ said George. ‘Not to call in Brook Street. I daresay I shall stroll up to White’s presently.’

  ‘Just as you please, my love,’ said Louisa, drawing on her gloves again.

  When the ladies had been escorted to the waiting barouche, George did not at once set out for his club, but accompanied his brother-in-law back into the house. He preserved a sympathetic silence until they were out of earshot of the servants, but caught Sir Richard’s eye then, in a very pregnant look, and uttered the one word: ‘Women!’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘Do you know what I’d do if I were you, my boy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sir Richard.

  George was disconcerted. ‘Damn it, you can’t know!’

  ‘You would do precisely what I shall do.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh – offer for Melissa Brandon, of course,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ said George positively. ‘I wouldn’t marry Melissa Brandon for fifty sisters! I’d find a cosier armful, ’pon my soul I would!’

  ‘The cosiest armful of my acquaintance was never so cosy as when she wanted to see my purse-strings untied,’ said Sir Richard cynically.

  George shook his head. ‘Bad, very bad! I must say, it’s enough to sour any man. But Louisa’s right, you know: you ought to get married. Won’t do to let the name die out.’ An idea occurred to him. ‘You wouldn’t care to put it about that you’d lost all your money, I suppose?’

  ‘No,’ said Sir Richard, ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I read somewhere of a fellow who went off to some place where he wasn’t known. Devil of a fellow he was: some kind of a foreign Count, I think. I don’t remember precisely, but there was a girl in it, who fell in love with him for his own sake.’

  ‘There would be,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘You don’t like it?’ George rubbed his nose, a little crestfallen. ‘Well, damme if I know what to suggest!’

  He was still pondering the matter when the butler announced Mr Wyndham, and a large, portly, and convivial-looking gentleman rolled into the room, ejaculating cheerfully: ‘Hallo, George! You here? Ricky, my boy, your mother’s been at me again, confound her! Made me promise I’d come round to see you, though what the devil she thinks I can do is beyond me!’

  ‘Spare me!’ said Sir Richard wearily. ‘I have already sustained a visit from my mother, not to mention Louisa.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for you, my boy, and if you take my advice you’ll marry that Brandon-wench, and be done with it. What’s that you have there? Madeira? I’ll take a glass.’

  Sir Richard gave him one. He lowered his bulk into a large armchair, stretched his legs out before him, and raised the glass. ‘Here’s a health to the bridegroom!’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘Don’t look so glum, nevvy! Think of the joy you’ll be bringing into Saar’s life!’

  ‘Damn you,’ said Sir Richard. ‘If you had ever had a shred of proper feeling, Lucius, you would have got married fifty years ago, and reared a pack of brats in your image. A horrible thought, I admit, but at least I should not now be cast for the rôle of Family Sacrifice.’

  ‘Fifty years ago,’ retorted his uncle, quite unmoved by these insults, ‘I was only just breeched. This is a very tolerable wine, Ricky. By the way, they tell me young Beverley Brandon’s badly dipped. You’ll be a damned public benefactor if you marry that girl. Better let your lawyer attend to the settlements, though. I’d be willing to lay you a monkey Saar tries to bleed you white. What’s the matter with you, George? Got the toothache?’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said George. ‘I told Louisa so at the outset, but you know what women are! Myself, I wouldn’t have Melissa Brandon if she were the last woman left single.’

  ‘What, she ain’t the spotty one, surely?’ demanded Lucius, concerned.

  ‘No, that’s Sophia.’

  ‘Oh, well, nothing to worry about then! You marry the girl, Ricky: you’ll never have any peace if you don’t. Fill up your glass, George, and we’ll have another toast!’

  ‘What is it this time?’ enquired Sir Richard, replenishing the glasses. ‘Don’t spare me!’

  ‘To a pack of brats in your image, nevvy: here’s to ’em!’ grinned his uncle.

  Two

  Lord Saar lived in Brook Street with his wife, and his family of two sons and four daughters. Sir Richard Wyndham, driving to his prospective father-in-law’s house twenty-four hours after his interview with his own parent, was fortunate enough to find Saar away from home, and Lady Saar, the butler informed him, on her way to Bath with the Honourable Sophia. He fell instead into the arms of the Honourable Cedric Brandon, a rakish young gentleman of lamentable habits, and a disastrous charm of manner.

  ‘Ricky, my only friend!’ cried the Honourable Cedric, dragging Sir Richard into a small saloon at the back of the house. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve come to offer for Melissa! They say good news don’t kill a man, but I never listen to gossip! M’father says ruin stares us in the face. Lend me the money, dear boy, and I’ll buy myself a pair of colours, and be off to the Peninsula, damme if I won’t! But listen to me, Ricky! Are you listening?’ He looked anxiously at Sir Richard, appeared satisfied, and said, wagging a solemn finger: ‘Don’t do it! There isn’t a fortune big enough to settle our little affairs: take my word for it! Have nothing to do with Beverley! They say Fox gamed away a fortune before he was twenty-one. Give you my word, he was nothing to Bev, nothing at all. Between ourselves, Ricky, the old man has taken to brandy. H’sh! Not a word! Mustn’t tell tales about m’father! But run, Ricky! That’s my advice to you: run!’

  ‘Would you buy yourself a pair of colours, if I gave you the money?’ asked Sir Richard.

  ‘Sober, yes; drunk, no!’ replied Cedric, with his wholly disarming smile. ‘I’m very sober now, but I shan’t be so for long. Don’t give me a groat, dear old boy! Don’t give Bev a groat! He’s a bad man. Now, when I’m sober I’m a good man – but I ain’t sober above six hours out of the twenty-four, so you be warned! Now I’m off. I’ve done my best for you, for I like you, Ricky, but if you go to perdition in spite of me, I’ll wash my hands of you. No, damme, I’ll sponge on you for the rest of my days! Think, dear boy, think! Bev and your very obedient on your doorstep six days out of seven – duns – threats – wife’s brothers done-up – pockets to let – wife in tears – nothing to do but pay! Don’t do it! Fact is, we ain’t worth it!’

  ‘Wait!’ Sir Richard said, barring his passage. ‘If I settle your de
bts, will you go to the Peninsula?’

  ‘Ricky, it’s you who aren’t sober. Go home!’

  ‘Consider, Cedric, how well you would look in Hussar uniform!’

  An impish smile danced in Cedric’s eyes. ‘Wouldn’t I just! But at this present I’d look better in Hyde Park. Out of the way, dear boy! I’ve a very important engagement. Backed a goose to win a hundred-yard race against a turkey-cock. Can’t lose! Greatest sporting event of the season!’

  He was gone on the words, leaving Sir Richard, not, indeed, to run, as advised, but to await the pleasure of the Honourable Melissa Brandon.

  She did not keep him waiting for long. A servant came to request him to step upstairs, and he followed the man up the wide staircase to the withdrawing-room on the first floor.

  Melissa Brandon was a handsome, dark-haired young woman, a little more than twenty-five years old. Her profile was held to be faultless, but in full face her eyes were discovered to be rather too hard for beauty. She had not, in her first seasons, lacked suitors, but none of the gentlemen attracted by her undeniable good looks, had ever, in the cock-fighting phrase of her graceless elder brother, come up to scratch. As he bowed over her hand, Sir Richard remembered George’s iceberg simile, and at once banished it from his obedient mind.

  ‘Well, Richard?’

  Melissa’s voice was cool, rather matter-of-fact, just as her smile seemed more a mechanical civility than a spontaneous expression of pleasure.

  ‘I hope I see you well, Melissa?’ Sir Richard said formally.

  ‘Perfectly, I thank you. Pray sit down! I apprehend that you have come to discuss the question of our marriage.’

  He regarded her from under slightly raised brows. ‘Dear me!’ he said mildly. ‘Someone would appear to have been busy.’

  She was engaged upon some stitchery, and went on plying her needle with unruffled composure. ‘Do not let us beat about the bush!’ she said. ‘I am certainly past the age of being missish, and you, I believe, may rank as a sensible man.’