Friday's Child Page 26

  When George heard of the projected visit to Severn Towers, he lost no time in presenting himself in Green Street. He was fortunate enough to choose a moment when Mrs Milborne was out, and thus gained access to the Beauty. Without preamble, he demanded to be told if the news were true, and, upon Miss Milborne’s admitting that her grace had indeed issued the invitation, conducted himself with so little restraint that Isabella, who had been wavering between a natural desire to make one of a ducal house-party and a maidenly disinclination to give Severn the encouragement which an acceptance of the invitation must imply, quite lost her temper, and not only declared her intention of doing precisely as she pleased, but added the rider that her actions were no concern of Lord Wrotham. His lordship then so far forgot himself as to seize her in his arms, enfolding her in a crushing embrace and covering her face with kisses. How Miss Milborne might have reacted to this treatment had her Mama’s butler not chanced at that moment to open the door and to announce the Misses Bagshot no one, least of all herself, could have guessed. In the event, she was furious, and had she not been a very well-brought-up girl she would have slapped George’s face. The violence of his ardour had disarranged her hair, she knew herself to be blushing hotly, realised from the butler’s expression that he had been a witness of George’s passion, and saw that Cassy and Eudora, though they might not have been in time to surprise her in George’s arms, had a tolerably exact notion of what had been going forward. She could have screamed with vexation; and when Mrs Milborne came home she was pleasantly surprised to find that the daughter whom she had left recalcitrant had suddenly become as malleable as the most exacting parent could wish. In fact, Miss Milborne was ready to oblige her Mama by spending Christmas at Severn Towers after all.

  Lord Wrotham, dissuaded by his friends from putting a pistol to his head, sought a modicum of relief by quarrelling with the utmost violence with any gentleman obliging or foolhardy enough to join issue with him. He found three. One was Sherry, who succeeded in drawing the distracted lover’s cork during the course of several spirited rounds; another was the Honourable Marmaduke Fakenham, who capped every insult flung at him with zest and aplomb, and then very meanly refused to give poor George the satisfaction he craved; and the third was a total stranger who had the ill-fortune to jostle George in a doorway, and who showed himself so ready to take umbrage at George’s subsequent behaviour that it was manifest he had no notion with whom he had to deal. However, Ferdy and the inarticulate Mr Gumley, who happened to be present, hastily drew him aside, and divulged George’s identity before he had had the time actually to commit himself.

  Baulked of his prey, George retired to his ancestral acres, the general decay of which was exactly suited to his mood. Here he divided his time between being very disagreeable to his Mama and his young sisters, and riding to hounds in a reckless fashion, which led his friends to prophesy that he would end by breaking his neck.

  The Sheringhams spent Christmas in Buckinghamshire, at the country seat of the Fakenhams, where they made two of a large and cheerful party of young persons, chaperoned not too strictly by Lady Fakenham, who was of an easy-going disposition that made her immensely popular with the younger set. The visit, which lasted for over a week,was only slightly marred by the ravages committed by Jason upon the moveable properties of his master’s fellow-guests. These depredations took place immediately upon receipt of the timepiece bestowed on the Tiger by Hero, and were tearfully explained by him to be due to the strain placed on him by the past few months of abstinence. His wrathful master refused to accept this explanation, and a painful session in the stableyard seemed inevitable when Ferdy, whose watch no longer held any lure for Jason, intervened on his behalf, pointing out (to the indignation of several gentlemen whose fobs, seals, and purses had been stolen from them) that the circumstances of his being still in possession of his watch showed that the Tiger was morally much improved. An earnest entreaty from Hero settled the matter. The Viscount consented to pardon his shivering henchman, on condition that all the stolen property was restored. This was done, and upon his lordship’s having had the happy idea of threatening to send the Tiger back to London if he again allowed his instincts to get the better of him, Jason hurriedly and voluntarily restored to the Honourable Marmaduke a snuff-box which its owner had until that moment believed himself to have mislaid in town.

  This affair having been settled to the satisfaction of everyone, nothing else of a like nature occurred to disturb the harmony of the visit. The Festive Season was whiled away in the pursuit of various sports and pastimes, including some pheasant-shooting, a ball, and a grand phaeton-race between Hero and Ferdy’s sister, Lady Fairford, who was accounted a notable whip, and who gaily challenged the bride to a trial of skill. The gentlemen threw themselves into this with great zest, arguing over the conditions of the race, deciding upon a suitable course, and freely exchanging bets. Lady Fairford was naturally the favourite, but Mr Ringwood, feeling his honour to be at stake, backed his own pupil heavily, and gave her some very sage advice. Lady Fakenham said they were a party of sad romps, but raised no real objection to the encounter. It took place within the extensive grounds of Fakenham Manor, and Hero, obeying Mr Ringwood’s instructions to the letter, won it by several lengths. The Viscount was delighted. He said his Kitten was a regular nonpareil, and could drive to an inch; and when she was toasted in extravagant terms at dinner that evening he looked so proud of her that her heart swelled in her bosom, and she could only blush, and shake her head, and look entreatingly at him. Lady Fairford, who affected a very mannish diction, said that the shine had been taken out of her indeed; Lord Fakenham gave it as his opinion that Letty Lade in her hey-day could not have beaten his young friend’s performance; and Mr Ringwood said simply that his pupil had shown herself at home to a peg.

  But the race, so innocent and pleasurable in itself,was to lead to disastrous results. It was naturally talked of, and the news that a new and dangerous female whip had arrived in town reached the ears of Lady Royston, the wife of a sporting baronet, and herself no mean handler of the ribbons. She had not until then paid much heed to Sherry’s bride, for she was some years her senior, and had, in any event, little time to waste on her own sex. But, meeting Hero at the house of a mutual acquaintance, she did her the honour of singling her out, making much of her, teasing her a little, and wondering what would be the outcome if Hero were to race against her. The notion took extremely amongst the gallants gathered about the two ladies. Lady Royston’s admirers swore that no one could beat her ladyship, but a gentleman who had been present at Fakenham Manor at Christmas loyally stated his willingness to sport his blunt on Lady Sherry. In a very short space of time what had begun as the merest pleasantry became sober earnest. Lady Royston challenged Hero to race her over a given course, Hero accepted the challenge, judges and time-keepers were elected, rules agreed upon, a date fixed, and bets recorded.

  Epsom was to be the rendezvous; and the projected encounter soon became the most talked-of event in society. Hero, dreaming of a victory that would bring that warm look of pride into Sherry’s eyes, and place her amongst the most dashing of the Upper Ten Thousand, was blind to the signs that should have warned her that this exploit was a great deal too dashing to recommend her to the more austere leaders of society. Lady Sefton was out of town; Sherry was hunting in Leicestershire with Mr Ringwood and Lord Wrotham; even Miss Milborne was still at Severn Towers. The only person of experience to draw on the curb-rein was Mrs Bagshot, and since Sherry had freely stigmatised this lady and all her daughters as a parcel of dowds it was not surprising that Hero should not have attended to the severe lecture Cousin Jane read her. Mr Ringwood, returning to London a day later, with a heavy cold in his head, took to his bed, and therefore heard nothing of the Ladies’ Race; but Lord Wrotham, who had accompanied him to town, did hear of it, and although he was not one to set much store by convention, he felt uneasily that it was perhaps not quite the thing for Sherry’s wife to compete publicly in a
chariot race. He consulted the Honourable Ferdy on the propriety of it, and Ferdy, who had backed Hero to win without the least misgiving, was immediately struck by the obvious impropriety of the whole affair, and said By Jove, he wondered he should not have thought of it before, and what the deuce was to be done, now that bets had been laid, a date fixed, and every arrangement made? Lord Wrotham agreed that it was very hard to know what ought to be done, but after he had slept on the problem he conceived the notion of consulting Mr Ringwood, in whose solid judgment he had great faith. Mr Ringwood, discovered with his feet in hot mustard-and-water and a bowl of steaming rum-punch at his elbow, had no doubt at all of what ought to be done. Lady Sherry must, he said, be instantly warned that such a start would never do.

  ‘Yes, but who’s to tell her?’ demanded George suspiciously.

  ‘You,’ replied Mr Ringwood, with great firmness.

  ‘No, damme, I won’t! Dash it, Gil, I can’t tell Sherry’s wife how she should conduct herself !’

  ‘Must tell her,’ said Mr Ringwood. ‘I’d tell her myself, if I hadn’t this damned cold. Mustn’t let this come to Sherry’s ears. Wouldn’t like it at all.’

  Lord Wrotham, eyeing him grimly, favoured him with a pithy and unsolicited opinion of his cold, his morals, and his entire lack of bottom. Mr Ringwood recruited his strength with a liberal allowance of punch, and said briefly: ‘Tell you what, George: Ferdy must do it.’

  ‘Yes, by God!’ exclaimed George. ‘He’s Sherry’s cousin, and he shall do it!’

  But Ferdy, hectored into calling on Hero the very next day, did not prove to be a successful envoy. He employed so much tact that he quite failed to impress Hero with a sense of her wrong-headedness. She laughed at him, assured him that he was as stuffy as Cousin Jane, and went off to change her library book at Richardson’s before he had said a quarter of the things he had rehearsed on his way to Half Moon Street.

  Mr Ringwood, learning what had befallen, animadverted bitterly on the folly of one friend and the moral cowardice of the other, and announced his intention of calling on Lady Sherry himself upon the following morning.

  It was too late.Mrs Bagshot, coming away from her interview with Hero in high dudgeon, had lost no time in sending off an express to Sherry at Melton, informing him in good round terms of his wife’s latest escapade, drawing a horrid picture of its inevitable results, graphically describing the evils of a lady’s name being bandied about the clubs in connection with Horse-racing and Betting, and comprehensively washing her hands of the whole business.

  This missive reached Sherry on the eve of what promised to be one of the best runs of the season, and it drew from him such an explosion of wrath that Mrs Goring, who happened to be passing through the hall with a pile of clean linen, dropped six shirts and eight handkerchiefs on to a floor made muddy by his lordship’s boots, and promptly succumbed to a fit of hysterics.

  Sherry arrived in London at dusk on the day of Ferdy’s ill-starred visit to Half Moon Street, having driven himself in his curricle all the way. He was tired, chilled, and he had missed a capital day’s sport. Informed by his startled butler that my lady was dressing for a party, he mounted the stairs two at a time, entered his wife’s room without ceremony, and, ignoring the presence of her abigail, demanded furiously: ‘What the devil is this I’m hearing about you?’

  The abigail shrank back in alarm; Hero, seated before her mirror, gazed at him in blank dismay, and faltered: ‘Sherry! Sherry! I didn’t expect – I don’t –’

  ‘No, by God, I’ll wager you didn’t expect me!’ he said. He pulled Mrs Bagshot’s letter from his pocket and thrust it into Hero’s hand. ‘Read that!’ He became aware of the abigail, and rounded on her promptly. ‘What the deuce are you doing here? Outside!’

  The abigail then momentarily surprised her young mistress by asserting in a very noble way her fixed resolve to support and protect her ladyship, even though she should be assailed by wild horses. Hero was much affected by this wholly unexpected championship, but begged her to leave the room. Maria cast the Viscount a look of loathing which embraced the entire race of men, and retired to regale Mrs Bradgate and the kitchen-maid with a recital of all the circumstances in her own career which had led her to look upon the male sex as being in all essentials lower than Beasts in the Field.

  Hero, meanwhile,was perusing in a dazed manner her cousin Jane’s letter. She gave a little exclamation and looked up, stam-mering: ‘But, Sherry, why? Why? I made sure you would not have the least objection!’

  ‘No objection?’ he thundered.‘No objection to your making such a show of yourself ? Bets laid on you in all the clubs! Every goggling fool in town sniggering at you, and believing you to be as bad as Letty Lade!’

  ‘But L-Lady Royston –’

  ‘Sally Royston!’ he interrupted.‘Sally Royston! It needed only that, by God! The vulgarest hoyden – the most shameless baggage –’

  ‘Sherry, no! Oh, no, no, how can this be so? I have met her at the most exclusive houses, indeed, I have!’

  ‘So have you met Lady Maria Berwick at the most exclusive houses, and a score of others! Do you desire to model your conduct upon theirs? Good God, will nothing teach you?’

  She was trembling. ‘Sherry, if I have done wrong I am very sorry, but how could I guess? Lady Fakenham saw no harm –’

  ‘What? She knows of this and did nothing to put a stop to it?’

  ‘No, oh no! She is in the country still. But at Fakenham Manor, when I beat Lady Fairford – Sherry, you were pleased! You said you were proud of me!’

  He stared at her. ‘That! A private sport, amongst friends, under my aunt’s eye! What has that to say to anything? How could you suppose it comparable to a public race at Epsom, of all places, with the whole world free to bet on it, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry to watch it? I think you must be mad indeed!’

  She pressed her hands to her cheeks.‘I didn’t think – I didn’t know – Oh, Sherry, don’t be angry with me!’

  ‘Not angry with you! When you fall from one scrape into another, disgracing yourself, and me, and – You say you did not know! Did not your cousin tell you? Did she not come here expressly to warn you that you must on no account do such a thing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hero gasped. ‘But I did not heed her, for she said such stupid things, and you told me she was nothing but a dowd! I thought she was just –’

  He broke in on this, his expression so alarming that she almost cowered in her chair. ‘So I told you not to heed her, did I? I might have supposed it would come to that, might I not? I said it! I encouraged you to race! Of course! It was I who told you to throw good money after bad at faro, was it not, my girl? To borrow from usurers, too, and –’

  ‘Oh, Sherry, don’t, don’t! Oh, if only I had listened to Cousin Jane and Ferdy!’

  ‘Ferdy?’ he exclaimed.‘Did he warn you, then?’

  She nodded miserably.‘Yes, but I didn’t heed him because he is just as silly as Cousin Jane, and I thought – I thought you would be pleased if I beat Lady Royston!’

  An unearthly cry broke from the Viscount, and he clutched his locks with all the appearance of a man driven to the verge of distraction. Hero covered her face with her hands and wept.

  The Viscount, regaining control over himself, took a hasty turn about the room, a heavy frown on his brow. He cast a brooding glance at his wife, and said shortly: ‘It’s of no use to cry. That won’t mend matters. The odds are you have ruined yourself already with the only people who signify.’

  Hero could find nothing in this pronouncement to encourage her to stop crying, but she tried hard to do so, blowing her little nose and resolutely swallowing her sobs while his lordship continued to pace about the room. After watching him timidly for a few moments, she got up and ventured to approach him, saying in an imploring tone: ‘Oh, Sherry, pray forgive me! I will not race – indeed, indeed, I would never have engaged myself to do so had I known you would dislike it so excessively! Sherry, I did not mean to do wron
g! Oh, if I were not so ignorant!’

  He paused, looking at her.‘No, you did not mean any harm. I know that well enough. Are you trying to tell me it is my fault? Well, I know that too, but it don’t make matters any easier.’

  She caught one of his hands and held it in a warm clasp.‘No, no, it is not your fault!’ she said.‘It is I who am so stupid and so tiresome, and I am so sorry!’

  ‘Well, it is my fault,’ he replied. ‘I should never have married you as I did. If I had not been such a rattlepated fool I should have known – Well, there’s no sense in going over that now, for the mischief ’s done. The thing is you were never fit to be cast upon the town with no one but me to tell you how to go on.’

  She dropped his hand, her cheeks whitening, her eyes fixed on his face. ‘Sherry!’ she whispered.

  He resumed his pacing. He was no longer scowling so heavily, but he looked suddenly much older and a little careworn. Suddenly he stopped and said crisply:‘There’s only one thing for it. You have no mother to advise you, so it must be for mine to teach you what you should know. I should have put you in her hands at the outset! However, it is not too late: I shall take you down to Sheringham Place to-morrow. Tell your maid to pack your trunks in good time. I’ll give it out that you’re indisposed, and are gone into the country to recover your strength.’

  ‘Sherry, no! ’ she panted. ‘You cannot be so cruel! I will not go! Your mother hates me –’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ he interrupted.‘I tell you there’s nothing else to be done! I don’t say my mother ain’t a deuced silly woman, but she knows the way of the world, and she can –’

  She clutched at the lapels of his coat. ‘No, no, Sherry, don’t send me to her! To go home in disgrace –’

  ‘No one need know why you go. Why the devil should anyone wonder at your visiting your mother-in-law?’

  ‘Cousin Jane will know, and all my friends there, and Lady Sheringham would tell everyone how wicked I have been!’