Friday's Child Page 23

  Ferdy, who had been listening intently, said at this point: ‘Now, that’s a thing I wouldn’t do, Gil! One thing to seduce a girl – though, mind you, I think it’s a mistake myself ! Only leads to trouble, and the lord knows there are plenty of ladybirds on the town! – quite another to tell her you mean to marry her. Dash it, too smoky by half !’

  Disregarding this interruption, Hero hurried on: ‘Sherry, she is in such distress! I do not know how she has survived, and if it had not been for a good-natured woman who took pity on her, she must have died of starvation! But it seems that this woman is one of the fruit-women at the Opera House, and perhaps Ruth ought not to stay with her, for I recall that you told me, Sherry, that those women –’

  ‘Yes, well, never mind that!’ said Sherry hastily.

  ‘Oh no! I remember you said I must not mention it! But the thing is that she took Ruth in, for Ruth came to London to find Sir Montagu, never dreaming that he would refuse even to see her! But he is the most heartless – Sherry, indeed I am sorry to speak so of a friend of yours, but it is beyond anything! To seduce this poor, ignorant girl – for that is what he did – !’

  ‘Yes, but wait a moment, Kitten!’ protested Sherry.‘Where? I mean, if she is a simple country maid, as you say she is, I don’t see –’

  ‘It was when he was staying in Hertfordshire last winter. I did not know of it, but I dare say you will, Sherry: Ruth says he has an uncle who lives near Hitchin. And it seems he had gone down to stay with him for Christmas, and that is how he met Ruth.’

  Mr Ringwood nodded. ‘That’s true enough, Sherry. Old Fortescue Revesby. Expectations,’ he added darkly.

  ‘I know all that!’ Sherry said impatiently. ‘But what on earth should take him to seduce this wretched girl –’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Sherry!’ interposed Ferdy fair-mindedly. ‘Pass the time away – devilish dull, I dare say!’

  ‘Yes, that is what I think,’ Hero agreed. ‘But how wicked, Ferdy! How heartless! How could he do so? He has ruined her for mere sport, for I don’t believe he ever cared for her in the least degree!’

  ‘You know what?’ suddenly said Ferdy, addressing himself to Mr Ringwood.‘Couldn’t make out why it all sounds so dashed familiar! Got it now! Saw a piece at the Lyceum Theatre just like it. Father threw the girl out into the snow. Ruth’s father throw her into the snow, Kitten?’

  ‘No, no – at least, I don’t know! But this is true, Ferdy!’

  ‘Never heed Ferdy!’ commanded the Viscount.‘The thing is, Kitten, it ain’t our affair, and we can’t –’

  Under the wide, shocked gaze from Hero’s eyes he faltered, and cast a wild look towards Mr Ringwood for support.

  Mr Ringwood did his best. ‘Sherry don’t care to have Revesby’s baby in his spare bedroom, Kitten. Can’t blame him: might keep him awake.’

  ‘Oh no, but just for to-night – ! Sherry, you would not be so unkind as to turn the poor soul away at this hour of night! You could not!’

  ‘No, I don’t say I’ll do that, but the thing is, Kitten – Dash it, what the devil does Monty mean by saddling me with his by-blow?’ exclaimed Sherry, in accents of strong indignation.

  ‘Now I come to think of it,’ abruptly remarked Mr Fakenham, ‘it wasn’t the Lyceum. It was the Non-Pareil. I’ll think of the name of the piece in a minute.’

  ‘I thought such things only happened in the theatre,’ Hero said sorrowfully. ‘I did not know men could be so wicked!’

  ‘Well, but, Kitten, you don’t quite understand!’ Sherry said desperately. ‘It sounds bad, but ten to one there’s another side to the story. These little affairs, you know? it don’t do to be talking of them, but – dash it, it’s the sort of thing that might happen to anyone!’

  ‘Oh no!’ Hero cried in a breaking voice, her eyes swimming in tears.‘Not you, Sherry! Not you!’

  ‘No, no – My God, I hope not!’ said his lordship, with a sudden hair-raising vision of the scene which had taken place in King Street. He discovered that his cousin and Mr Ringwood, both much moved by Hero’s cry and look of anguish, were gazing at him reproachfully, and demanded in a voice of wrath: ‘What the devil are you looking like that for, the pair of you? I never seduced anyone in my life, I’ll have you know! What’s more, I’m not the sort of fellow to leave his bastards to starve in the gutter. I mean, I wouldn’t if I had any, but I haven’t – at least, if I have I never heard of them! Oh, the devil!’

  His friends, greatly discomposed, at once begged pardon, Ferdy explaining that he had been momentarily carried away. The Viscount was seriously ruffled, but Mr Ringwood had the presence of mind to refill his glass, and Hero, holding one of his hands between both of hers, said: ‘Oh no, Sherry, I know you would not! And you will let me help this poor girl, will you not?’

  ‘I suppose something will have to be done about her,’ said his lordship. ‘Though I’m damned if I know what! I shall have to speak to Monty, but I can tell you I don’t like to do it, for it’s as plain as a pikestaff he don’t mean to own the child.’

  ‘No, no, do not speak to him!’ Hero said. ‘He has done harm enough, and he shall not come near poor Ruth again! I have thought of a scheme that will answer delightfully! She shall go to Melton, and you will let her live in the little empty cottage by the west gate, Sherry,won’t you? And she will help Mrs Goring at the hunting-box, because you know how Mrs Goring told me when we were there that she could not come by a respectable girl to assist her – oh no, perhaps you do not, but it was so indeed!’

  ‘Hang it, Kitten, she isn’t a respectable girl!’ expostulated Sherry. ‘And if I know Mrs Goring –’

  ‘No, but only consider!’ begged Hero. ‘You may buy her a wedding-ring, and we will say that her husband is dead, and no one need know the truth, and she can be comfortable! He was killed at Waterloo! No one could wonder at that!’

  ‘Killed at Waterloo?’ interpolated Mr Ringwood.

  ‘Very good notion,’ approved Ferdy. A doubt shook him. ‘At least, I’m not very sure, now I come to think of it.’

  It was apparent that both he and Mr Ringwood were bending their minds to mathematical calculation. Mr Ringwood was the first to reach a conclusion.‘No,’ he said.‘June of last year, wasn’t it? That’s eighteen months ago.’

  ‘I make it that, too,’ said Ferdy, pleased to find himself in agreement with his friend. ‘Have to think of something else. Very happy to assist you. Dare say I shall hit upon a good notion.’

  ‘Oh, we will say he died of some illness!’ Hero decided. ‘There can be no difficulty! And Ruth was used to be a chambermaid in an inn, so she will know how to go on, Sherry. And if you should not object, I think we should give her what we give to Maria. I know it is a little expensive, but we must consider the baby, you know.’

  Sherry was so much relieved to find that Hero had no wish to keep her unfortunate protégée permanently in the spare bedroom that he agreed to this plan, even going so far as to hand over, upon demand, a bill to defray the cost of suitable baby-clothes for the destitute infant. Hero thanked him warmly and went away to set Ruth’s mind at rest, leaving Sherry to congratulate himself on having brushed through the business better than had at one time seemed possible, Mr Ringwood to wrap himself in apparently profound thought, and Ferdy to devise an artistic death for the hypothetical husband.

  Sixteen

  SINCE HE WAS NOT A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO WAS MUCH given to reflection, it did not occur to the Viscount that his next meeting with his friend Revesby need necessarily be attended by constraint. He had been a good deal shaken by the disagreeable light cast on Revesby’s character, and by the time he had had a slightly difficult interview with Ruth Wimborne (which was thrust upon him by his wife on the following morning) he had no doubt that her story was true in all its essential features. But he was ready to believe that there might be another side to the story, and had Sir Montagu offered him an alternative version he might have accepted it. But he did not see Sir Montagu for several days,
and when they did encounter one another again, Sir Montagu made no reference to the affair. He was at his most urbane; the fracas might never have taken place. Sherry was nettled. He was a generous young man, and he had raised no demur at being called upon to provide for another man’s mistress and child, but when he found Revesby apparently forgetful of the whole episode the notion, first put into his head by his cousin Ferdy, that it was not right of the fellow to leave the baby on his hands began to take strong possession of him.

  It began to dawn upon him, too – not quite at once, but very soon – that whatever Revesby’s attitude had been, there must be considerable awkwardness in continued intimacy with a man whom one could not, under the circumstances, permit to approach one’s wife. Hero had asked him shyly not to invite Sir Montagu to Half Moon Street when she was expected to be present at the party; he had replied that she need have no fears on that score.

  ‘And if he should ask me to stand up with him at Almack’s, Sherry, you won’t be offended with me if I excuse myself ? For, indeed –’

  ‘Make yourself easy: he will not do so! You need do no more than bow to him, should you meet him at any time. It will be better you should do so, you know, for it would cause a deal of talk if you were to cut him. And mind this, Kitten! Not a word of this business to a soul!’

  ‘No, I will not mention it,’ she promised.‘That is – he is paying particular attentions to Isabella, Sherry. Do you not think I ought to warn her that he is not a proper person for her to know?’

  ‘On no account in the world!’ he said emphatically. ‘Isabella has her mother to keep an eye on her, and you may depend upon it Mrs Milborne has a very good notion of what Monty is! I wish to God you had a mother too!’

  ‘Oh, but you keep an eye on me, Sherry, so it is of no consequence!’ she assured him.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ he said.‘I’m not a female, so how the deuce should I guess what you will be up to next? It is a thousand pities my own mother don’t take a fancy to you!’

  So far from taking a fancy to her daughter-in-law, the dowager had been solacing herself for the past two months with the task of collecting and brooding over all the indiscretions committed by Hero which were known to the world at large. By some mysterious means she had contrived to discover her son’s predilection for deep play at unsavoury gaming-hells, and had actually put herself to the trouble of visiting Hero for the purpose of impressing upon her that such excesses had been unknown to poor Anthony before his marriage had wrecked his life. Hero was quite overpowered, but the dowager arose from the session much refreshed and went away to tell her sympathetic brother that if the worst came to the worst, at least she had told Hero what she thought of her behaviour. After that, and finding that her friends were disinclined to listen to a repetition of her troubles, she withdrew again to Sheringham Place, and the house in Grosvenor Square was once more swathed in holland covers.

  Hero, meanwhile, having spent an enjoyable morning buying clothes for Ruth’s baby, greatly exasperated her husband by electing to escort this unfortunate young female down to Melton for the purpose of installing her in her new home, and making her known to the Gorings. So the Viscount, returning to his house in good time to accompany his wife to a dinner-party, was met by the pleasing intelligence that her ladyship had gone into the country with Mrs Wimborne, and would not be back until the following evening. It was apparent, from the hurried note Hero had left for him, that she had forgotten all about the dinner-party; so the Viscount was obliged to create on the spot an aged relative on the distaff side of Hero’s family, to endow this mythical person with the feeblest of health, to lay her low upon her death-bed, and thus to account for his wife’s precipitate departure from town.

  It was more than a week later before he met Sir Montagu under circumstances which permitted of private conversation, and Sir Montagu did not avail himself of the opportunity to take his young friend into his confidence. He had, instead, an amusing history to recount, and a successful day at the races to describe. Sherry, for once impervious to his charm, heard him with rising impatience, and presently broke in on his talk to say bluntly: ‘Yes, I dare say, but about that affair the other night, Monty – !’

  Sir Montagu’s brows rose. ‘What affair, my dear boy?’

  ‘Outside Almack’s, of course! You know –’

  ‘Good heavens, Sherry, I had forgotten all about it!’ said Sir Montagu, amused. ‘If the poor young female was not mad, which I am persuaded she must be, it is one of the oldest tricks in the world, my dear fellow! Only she made a bad choice in her victim: I am a little too experienced to be caught by such an imposture, believe me!’

  ‘Doing it rather too brown, Monty!’ said Sherry, with quite unaccustomed dryness.

  Sir Montagu’s smile seemed to harden on his lips. After a moment’s pause, he said lightly: ‘My poor boy, you are very innocent, are you not? Come! let us banish such unsavoury matters! Do you care to join me this evening at a little party in my lodging? I have Brock coming, and one or two others whom you are acquainted with.’

  ‘Mighty good of you, but I’m engaged with a party of my own!’ returned Sherry, and swung round on his heel, leaving Sir Montagu to some disagreeable reflections on the unwisdom of mishandling young gentlemen of such uncomfortable mettle.

  Unfortunately for his own schemes, it was not given to Sir Montagu to appreciate the fundamental honesty in Sherry which made him shy off in disgust from a disingenuity blatant enough to amount to actual falsity. Sir Montagu, whose pecuniary embarrassments made him all the more disinclined to acknowledge even so trifling an obligation as a bastard child, had decided on the spur of a most unnerving moment to deny all knowledge of a wench whose existence he had indeed almost forgotten, and it would have been quite impossible for one of his character to have recanted, even to Sherry. He consoled himself with the reflection that Sherry’s miffs were never long-lived; but when, some days later, he ran into Sherry in St James’s Street, and detected a good deal of reserve in his manner, he felt a considerable degree of chagrin, and had little hesitation in ascribing this coldness to Lady Sheringham, who had bestowed the smallest of unsmiling bows upon him at the theatre a couple of evenings previously.

  It was not to be expected, of course, that his estrangement from Sir Montagu would have the immediate effect of weaning Sherry from his gaming habits. But it did keep him away from certain establishments in Pall Mall and Pickering Place, where he would be bound to meet Revesby, and send him back to Watier’s and White’s. And this, as Mr Ringwood confided to Ferdy Fakenham, was an advantage, for although the play was deeper at Watier’s than anywhere else in town, at least that holy of holies was not patronised by sharps or ivory-turners.

  It was not long, in the nature of things, before the knowledge of Ruth Wimborne’s present whereabouts came to Sir Montagu’s ears, for Ferdy told the story to his brother, and Mr Ringwood let it out to Lord Wrotham over the second bottle of port at a snug little dinner at his lodgings. It was rather too good a joke to be kept from such gentlemen as could be counted on to appreciate it, and the whisper began to circulate in strictly male circles. Sir Matthew Brockenhurst slyly twitted Sir Montagu upon it, and while Sir Montagu laughed at the notion that he could be implicated in the affair, under his mirth he seethed with rage. Correctly assuming that left to his own devices Sherry would never have thought of befriending Ruth Wimborne, Sir Montagu chalked up a fresh score on his tally with Sherry’s wife, promising himself the satisfaction of paying it off in full measure. He had a good deal of effrontery, but the situation evoked by the knowledge that his discarded mistress had found an asylum for herself and her infant on one of Sherry’s estates was not one he felt himself able to carry off with any degree of grace. He was obliged to face the fact that one of the most richly feathered pigeons to come in his way had flown out of his reach, and showed no disposition to flutter back to him.

  It was while Sherry was away at Newmarket that Hero made a new acquaintance. She was one of a party
invited by her cousin, Mrs Hoby, to visit the Pantheon Assembly Rooms on the night of a Grand Masquerade, and it was during the course of the evening that a fashionably dressed woman, with quiet manners, and a great air of elegance, came to Mrs Hoby’s box, and begged to know if she was not right in believing that she was addressing Lady Sheringham.

  Hero acknowledged it, and the lady sat down beside her, introducing herself as Mrs Gillingham, and adding that Lord Sheringham had perhaps mentioned her name to his bride? Upon Hero’s replying that he had not, she laughed, and said that it was so very like Sherry to have forgotten all about her.

  ‘I have not been in good health these past few months, or I should have done myself the honour of calling upon you, Lady Sheringham, be sure! I have known Sherry any time these past five years, and I have had the greatest desire to meet his wife. I feel we must be friends; I pride myself on knowing at first glance when I wish for a better acquaintance with anyone!’

  Hero blushed, and thanked her, and begged leave to present her cousin. Mrs Gillingham, who was a good many years senior to any of Mrs Hoby’s party,was extremely gracious and amiable, remained for a short while, chatting easily, and departed only when she had obtained Hero’s promise to waive the formality of the morning call, and to make one of a little card-party she was giving on the following evening.

  ‘Do you think I should go,Theresa?’ Hero asked doubtfully, when Mrs Gillingham had withdrawn.

  ‘Oh, unquestionably, my dear cousin! Such a distinguished air, and her gown in the first style of elegance! The address too; Curzon Street: it is unexceptionable! She is acquainted with your husband, moreover, and that must make her acceptable to you, I have no doubt!’

  ‘Y-es,’ said Hero. ‘But Sherry told me once that he knows many people he does not wish to present to me.’