Friday's Child (18 page)

With this, he abruptly left Hero’s side to pursue the alluring siren through the press of persons on the floor of the vast house. Hero thought this a very good joke, and sat watching his audacious advances to the suddenly coy damsel, her eyes dancing through the slits of her mask.

All at once she found that she was no longer alone in the box, a masked stranger having entered by the simple expedient of climbing over the low partition that railed it off from the floor. She turned in surprise as an arch male voice said in her ear: “All by yourself, my dear?”

“Yes. Who are you?” asked Hero innocently.

“Another lonely soul!” responded the visitor, seating himself unasked in Sherry’s vacant chair and laying an arm along the back of hers. “Take pity on me, pretty stranger!”

Hero had at first imagined that the intruder must be someone with whom she was acquainted, but his voice was quite unknown to her, and she did not at all relish the familiarity of his manners. She said reasonably: “You cannot know whether I am pretty or not, sir, and I am perfectly certain that you have not been introduced to me. Please go away!”

He laughed at this. “Why, what a prudish little puss! Shall I make myself known to you in form? And if I do, will you tell me what name I may call you by?”

“No, I won’t,” said Hero bluntly. “And I don’t in the least desire to know yours! Go away!”

“Naughty puss to show her claws!” chided her tormentor. “Now, why can’t I please you, I wonder? I am sure I shall be pleased with you—when I see you!”

“You will not see me, and if you don’t immediately leave my box I shall!” said Hero, sitting very straight in her chair and flushing under her mask.

He slid an arm round her shoulders. “No, no, I am persuaded you won’t deny me a sight of your charms!” he said, fumbling with his free hand at the strings of her mask.

Hero gave an outraged little cry, and struggled to thrust him off. The Viscount, who was attempting much the same thing as the intrusive stranger, chanced at that moment to glance in the direction of his box. An oath escaped him; the astonished lady who had been trying very half heartedly to repulse him found herself suddenly free, and watched in some dudgeon his hasty and impetuous descent on his box. He vaulted lightly over the partition, plucked the enterprising city buck from his chair, and floored him with what he himself would have called a facer.

“Oh, thank you, Sherry!” gasped Hero. “I can’t think who he is, but he is a most odious person, and he seems to fancy that
I
am a bit of muslin! I am so glad you came back!”

This slight fracas had naturally attracted a good deal of attention from the nearby loungers. “Damn!” said Sherry, perceiving this. “I’m sorry, Kitten: it was all my fault! Get out of my box, if you don’t wish to be thrown out on your—on your ear!”

The city buck, having picked himself up, and had time to measure the size and style of his assailant, muttered something that might have been an apology, and slid out by way of the door, leaving a front tooth on the floor of the box. Sherry sat down in his chair again, rubbing his knuckles. “Broken my hand on his bone-box,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t pay any heed to those gaping gudgeons, Kitten! I oughtn’t to have left you. Keep on forgetting I’m a married man! He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Oh no!” responded Hero. “I think he was a trifle foxed. He only wanted to see my face, but I didn’t at all see why he should. Is that a trifle? Please, I would like some. And perhaps a little more of this nice cold drink. Was it Flyaway Nancy?”

“Kitten,” said the Viscount warmly, “you’re the best wife I ever thought to have, ’pon my soul you are! Here’s to you, brat!”

“Well, I am sure you are quite the best husband, Sherry,” said Hero, turning pink with pleasure.

“I’m not,” said his lordship, with unwonted humility. “And nine women out of ten would be swooning all over the box after what happened, and reproaching me all the way home! I’ll tell you what: I’m glad I married you. It wasn’t what I set out to do, but it answers famously. I thought it would.”

“Oh, Sherry!” sighed Hero, deeply moved.

He refilled her glass. “I couldn’t have brought the Incomparable to a Covent Garden Masquerade, that’s certain,” he observed. “Come to think of it, I suppose I ought not to have brought you either.”

“What, just because that stupid creature tried to take my mask off? What stuff, Sherry! I am enjoying myself excessively!”

“You’re a good girl,” he informed her. “Dashed if I don’t rent a box at the opera for you after all!”

This generous concession cast Hero into gratified transports, but, as ill fortune would have it, was the cause of a speedy fall from favour in her husband’s eyes. The box acquired through the kind offices of Lady Sefton, Hero lost no time in putting in an appearance at the Italian Opera. She bought a new dress for the occasion, and, the dowager having reluctantly disgorged the family jewels, wore the pearl set, which included a very pretty tiara. Having persuaded Sherry to make one of the opera party, she invited Mr Ringwood and Mrs Hoby to join them.

Nothing could have been more auspicious than the start of the evening. The Viscount was pleased to see his bride in such looks; and Hero was always happy to have him at her side. In addition to this felicity, she had all the comfort of being able to bow and wave to acquaintances in other parts of the house, for thanks to several parties, assemblies, and morning calls, she was now in a fair way towards knowing a great many of the people who made up the world of fashion. This was certainly an advantage, and she could not help contrasting her appearance tonight with the one she had made on the first night of her marriage, when she had not been able to recognize one face in the whole of the audience. She was pleased to have Mr Ringwood seated beside her, for she felt him to be quite one of her best friends; and judging from his frequent bursts of laughter, and a certain bright look in his angelic blue eyes, her cousin was contriving to keep Sherry well amused.

It was during the ballet that the unfortunate incident occurred. Absorbed in the first display of dancing she had seen, Hero sat leaning a little forward in the box, her eyes taking in every detail of what was going on behind the footlights. They did not fail to mark the pronounced attention being paid to her box by a neat little dancer with a roguish twinkle in her eyes, and a dimple that peeped beside her inviting mouth. Forgetting her surroundings, and Sherry’s stern reminders to her to guard her unwary tongue, she turned impulsively towards him, and said in the most innocent way across Mr Ringwood: “Oh, Sherry, is
that
your opera dancer?”

The instant the words had left her lips she could have bitten her tongue out, for Sherry not only flushed scarlet, but shot her such a kindling look as made her quake in her little satin sandals. A stifled giggle from Mrs Hoby, who put her fan to hide her face, made matters worse.

It was left to Mr Ringwood to come to the rescue. He saw his friend’s discomfiture, the bride’s dismayed expression, and he rose nobly to the occasion. “No,” he said, with beautiful simplicity. “Sherry don’t admire her dancing as much as the dark one’s, on the right.”

The Viscount was visibly lost in wonder at such ready address in one whom he had not been used to think quick-witted. Hero, still covered in confusion, slid a grateful hand into one of Mr Ringwood’s and clutched it eloquently, saying in a subdued tone: “Yes, that is what I meant, Gil!”

During the interval, when they repaired to the saloon for refreshments, the Viscount bore Mrs Hoby off without so much as glancing at his wife. Mr Ringwood procured her a glass of lemonade, and would have struggled to make a polite conversation had she not interrupted him, saying with the devastating candour which characterized her: “Gil, I don’t know how I came to say it! He is very angry with me, isn’t he?”

“No need to refine too much upon it,” said Mr Ringwood kindly. “Dare say he’ll have forgotten about it by the end of the evening. Never one to take a miff, Sherry!”

“I forgot that we were not alone,” said Hero unhappily. “My wretched tongue! If only my cousin had not been present!”

“Yes, but, Kitten!” expostulated Mr Ringwood, “you ought not to know anything about Sherry’s—well, what I mean is—”

“I know,” said Hero. “Bit of muslin.”

Mr Ringwood choked over his lemonade. “No, I don’t! No, really, Kitten, you must not say such things!”

“Love bird,” Hero corrected herself docilely.

Mr Ringwood regarded her in considerable perturbation. “You know what it is, Kitten: if you use expressions like that in company you’ll set up the backs of people, and find yourself all to pieces. You will indeed! Sherry has no business to talk as he must in front of you!”

“It isn’t Sherry’s fault!” Hero said, firing up in defence of her free-spoken husband. “He is for ever telling me what I must not say! The thing is that I don’t perfectly remember what I may say, and what I may not. I dare say I ought not to call that dancer a fancy-piece either?”

“Upon no account in the world!” Mr Ringwood said emphatically.

“Well, I must say I think it is very hard. What may I call her, Gil?”

“Nothing at all! Ladies know nothing of such things.”

“Yes, they do. Why, it was my cousin Cassy who first told me about Sherry’s opera dancer, so that just shows how mistaken you are!”

“Well, they pretend they do not, at all events!” said Mr Ringwood desperately.

“Oh, do they? But Sherry told me himself that everyone has an opera dancer, or something of the sort, and there is nothing in it. Gil, have you—”

“No!” said Mr Ringwood, with more haste than civility.

“Oh!” said Hero, digesting this. She raised her eyes to his face and heaved a tiny sigh. “I am
not
a prude, Gil.”

“No,” agreed Mr Ringwood feelingly.

“And I am not going to be missish, for my cousin says there is nothing gentlemen dislike more. But I cannot help wishing—a
very
little—that Sherry had not an opera dancer either.”

Mr Ringwood made an inarticulate sound in his throat and took his embarrassingly outspoken charge back to her box. Here they were joined in a few moments by the Viscount and Mrs Hoby, and as the curtain went up almost immediately, there was no opportunity for any further confidences.

The whole party left the Opera House in the Sheringhams’ barouche, Mrs Hoby maintaining a sprightly flow of small talk until she was set down at her own door. Mr Ringwood went on to Half Moon Street with the Sheringhams, and cravenly refusing an invitation to enter the house with them, parted from them on the doorstep and walked the remainder of the way to his lodging. It went to his heart to ignore the pleading tug Hero gave his sleeve, but he was of the decided opinion that he would make a very uncomfortable third in the quarrel that was obviously brewing.

The door being opened to the returning couple by the butler, Hero, after one surreptitious glance at his lordship’s ominous face, said: “I am so tired! I think I will go straight up to my room.”

“Send your abigail to bed!” returned his lordship. “I want a word with you in private.”

The agitating prospect of a word alone with a husband who was looking like a thundercloud made Hero feel quite sick with apprehension. She would have liked to have kept the abigail at her side, but as it seemed more than probable that Sherry would order the woman out of the room if he found her there when he came up, she dared not do it.

He entered without ceremony not five minutes after the door had closed behind the abigail. Hero had just locked the pearl set away in her jewel case, and without these gauds she looked much younger, in fact, so like the tiresome little girl the Viscount had bullied in his schooldays, that he straightaway forgot the dignified speech he had been preparing all the way home from the Opera House, and strode across the room to her, seized her by the shoulders, and shook her unmercifully. “You abominable little wretch, how dared you?” he demanded wrathfully. “Didn’t I tell you—didn’t I warn you to guard that damned, indiscreet tongue of yours? ‘
Oh, Sherry, is that your opera dancer
?’ No, it was
not
my opera dancer, and you may take
that
with my compliments!”

Tears started to Hero’s eyes. Released, she pressed a hand to one tingling cheek, and quavered: “Oh, Sherry, don’t! I didn’t mean to say it! I forgot we were not alone!”

“If you had the smallest elegance of mind,” said his lordship furiously, “it would not have entered your head to have said it!”

“Well, but, Sherry, she did so look at you, and smile, that I could not but wonder … But I quite see that I should not have said a word about it, and I am very sorry, and I will never do so again.”

“It will be better for you if you do not!” retorted her implacable spouse. “If I know anything of females, that cousin of yours will spread it all over town in a week—or she would if she moved in the first circles, which she don’t! And that’s another thing! I do not know how you come to have a cousin of such bad
ton,
but I can tell you that if you mean to be seen for ever in her company it will not do!”

Stung by the injustice of this, Hero retorted: “It was you who said that I was fortunate in having a relative in town! You said that there could not be the least objection to my visiting her!”

“I had not spent an evening in her company when I said that—
if
I said that!” replied Sherry grimly.

“It seemed to me that you were very well amused by her!” Hero flung at him. “I am sure you laughed enough at the things she was saying to you!”

“Well, I won’t have you jauntering about with her any more!” said Sherry, in a very imperious style. “Mind that!”

“I shan’t!” promptly replied Hero, losing her temper. “I shall make a friend of anyone I choose, and I shall go where I choose, and I shall do what I choose, and I shall—”

“Will you, by God!” interrupted his lordship, descending purposefully upon her.

Hero retired strategically behind a small table. “Yes, I shall, and it is of no use to say Will I, by God! because it was you who said we would not interfere with one another, you know it was!”