Friday's Child (47 page)

The Viscount gave it up, laughed, and consented to join his cousin in a cup of coffee.

He was in Camden Place again by half past ten, again to be refused admittance. The ladies, said the butler, were not at home. This time the Viscount produced his card, but although the butler bowed in a polite way he did not relent towards his lordship.

The Viscount then had the happy thought of repairing to the Grand Pump Room, where he ran straight into his mother and Miss Milborne, who were the centre of a chattering group of persons. Lady Sheringham immediately claimed his attention, and made him known to her new acquaintances. One of the Misses Chalfont said that she felt herself to know his lordship already, and received a frosty look for her pains. The Viscount then perceived that Sir Montagu Revesby made one of the group, and favoured him with the coldest of bows, deliberately turning his shoulder when Sir Montagu said smilingly: “I am delighted to see you again, my dear Sherry!” The elder Miss Chalfont then attached his lordship firmly to her side, and asked him if he did not consider the weather clement enough for an expedition to Wells. He replied briefly: “No.”

“Cruel!” said Miss Chalfont, making play with a pair of fine eyes. “I have made up my mind I will go there, for I quite dote on cathedrals, do not you, my lord?”

“Cathedrals?” said the Viscount, varying his response. “Good God, no!”

“I am sure I do not know how it will answer, this notion the girls have taken to go to Wells,” interposed Lady Sheringham. “But if dearest Isabella should like the drive, I know you will be pleased to take her in your curricle, Anthony.”

“Nothing, ma’am, would afford me greater pleasure,” replied the Viscount, casting a darkling glance at Miss Milborne, “were it not that I shall be otherwise engaged.”

“Oh! naughty!” cried Miss Chalfont. “You do not know which day we mean to go!”

“I shall be engaged for the whole of my stay in this cur—in this place,” responded the Viscount.

The dowager, much scandalized by this disobliging speech, showed a tendency to argue the point, but Miss Milborne intervened, saying that she had no notion of going for such a long drive at this season of the year. Through the ensuing babel of protests, Sir Montagu’s voice made itself heard, gallantly offering to drive Miss Milborne in his curricle, wherever she should like to go. She thanked him civilly, but returned no positive answer. Miss Chalfont’s questing eye alighted at this moment on a newcomer to the Pump Room, and since he was quite the most handsome young man who had yet come in her way, she withdrew her attention from Sherry, who lost no time in making his escape. Lord Wrotham, coming up to the party, fell alive into Miss Chalfont’s clutches, and was granted nothing more than an excellent view of the Incomparable’s profile for the following quarter of an hour. When he at last found an opportunity to approach Miss Milborne, she behaved to him with chill civility, and affected not to hear his urgent request for some private speech with her. He was about to press the matter when he caught sight of Hero, leading Lady Saltash to a chair, and attended by Mr Tarleton, and the Honourable Ferdy Fakenham and a third gentleman who was a stranger to George. He got up quickly, said: “Pray excuse me!” to Miss Milborne, and made his way across the room to warn Hero that Sherry was present. Miss Milborne gazed after him with a wooden countenance, and a bosom swelling with indignation.

George had hardly reached Hero’s side when Sherry bore down upon them. His eyes were fixed on his wife’s face, and he would no doubt have ignored everyone else had he not been brought sharply to earth by Lady Saltash, who said compellingly: “Well, Anthony? How do you do?”

He was obliged to pause by her chair, to take her hand, and to answer her questions. After asking him how his mother did, she said in a significant tone: “You are acquainted, I believe, with Miss Wantage?”

Sherry stammered that he rather thought he was, and as one in a trance shook hands with Hero. She did not meet his eyes, murmured a conventional greeting, and swiftly disengaged herself. Turning to Lady Saltash, she said: “Are you quite comfortable there, dear ma’am? You will not mind my leaving you?”

“No, no, child, be off with you!” Lady Saltash replied. “I know very well you are agog to go! I only wish you may not come to grief one of these days! Mind you have a care to her, Mr Tarleton, and do not be letting her spring your horses in the middle of Bath, which I dare say she is quite capable of doing! Sit down beside me, Sheringham, and tell me all the London gossip!”

“I beg you will hold me excused, ma’am!” Sherry said. “If Miss—Miss Wantage wishes to drive, I should be happy to take her in my curricle, for I have the greatest desire to renew my acquaintance with her!”

“But Miss Wantage is promised to me,” said Mr Tarleton gently.

He encountered a look that startled him. The Viscount, controlling himself with a visible effort, said: “I shall be much obliged to you, ma’am, if you will afford me the favour of a few minutes’ conversation with you, alone!”

Hero, terrified of a scene in public, conscious that her mother-in-law had perceived her, and was staring at her as though she could not credit her eyesight, said hurriedly: “Some other time, if you please! Indeed, I am engaged with Mr Tarleton this morning!”

She put her hand on Mr Tarleton’s arm as she spoke, nipping it compellingly. He instantly sketched a bow to the Viscount, and led her out of the Pump Room. He felt that she was trembling, and laid his hand over hers, saying: “Do not be alarmed! Who was that ferocious young man? I did not properly catch his name.”

“Lord Sheringham,” she replied in a shaking voice. “You will think it very odd of me, and I cannot explain it to you, but I have a particular desire not to be alone in his company!”

Mr Tarleton assured her she need have no fear of this. Sherry’s slightly rakish air, coupled with Hero’s words, conjured up an abominable vision of attempted seduction, rapine, and violence. He felt a burning desire to protect Hero, and, had Sherry attempted to pursue her, would undoubtedly have done his best to have knocked him down.

But Sherry was fully alive to the consequences of forcing an issue in public, and he did not pursue her. Instead, he turned to Lady Saltash, and asked her to inform him when he might have the honour of calling upon her. Lady Saltash, hugely tickled by the whole situation, said affably that he might call at any hour which suited him, only they were such gadabouts, she and Miss Wantage, that she could not promise that they would be at home. The Viscount, no fool, bowed formally, and registered a grim resolve to be even with her ladyship one day before he was much older. He then retired to his mother’s side, and asked her if she was ready to go. It had occurred to him that it might be as well to put her in possession of the facts of the case.

She received them much as might have been expected, exclaiming against Hero’s effrontery, and taking care to point out to her son that the designing hussy had lost no time in attaching another unfortunate victim to her apron strings. She professed herself to be more than willing to speak of her as Miss Wantage, adding that she had never thought of her as anything else.

Shortly after they had reached the Royal Crescent, Miss Milborne joined them, having been escorted to the door by Sir Montagu. Lady Sheringham greeted her with a sort of moan, begging her to say at once if she had seen ‘that shameless creature’ flaunting herself before their eyes in the Pump Room.

Miss Milborne replied: “Dear Ma’am, she was hardly flaunting herself! I did indeed see her, and I own I was excessively shocked to think of you and Sherry being put into so awkward a situation! I wonder Hero should do such a thing! What everyone must think—!”

“It’s no such thing!” snapped Sherry. “She is known here as Miss Wantage, and in any event I care nothing for what a parcel of Bath nobodies may think! What makes me as mad as bedlam is that George, and Gil, and Ferdy all knew she was here! Have known it from the outset!”

“We guessed as much, did we not?” said Miss Milborne coldly. “Lord Wrotham appears to be so assiduous in his attentions that I am sure I should not wonder at anything I heard. Dear Lady Sheringham, if you do not dislike it, I own I have a great fancy to see Wells. The scheme is that we should go in three carriages—a party of six, you know—to see the cathedral tomorrow, while this mild weather continues. Miss Chalfont assures me that we may do it easily in the daylight, and be back again in Bath in excellent time for dinner. Sir Montagu Revesby has been so obliging as to offer me a seat in his curricle; Mr Chalfont will be of the party, with a friend of his; and both his sisters, of course.”

“If you take my advice, Bella,” struck in the Viscount, “you will not go jauntering about the country with Revesby!”

“Thank you, Sherry, you are very good, but since my Mama sees no objection to Sir Montagu, I do not know why you should.”

“I am sure Sir Montagu is everything that is most unexceptionable,” said the dowager. “Only if you are set on going, my love, I wish I might prevail upon Anthony to escort you, for I am sure you would be more comfortable with him.”

“On the contrary, ma’am, I should not be at all comfortable with him, for all things I most abominate a man in a fit of the sullens!” said Miss Milborne acidly.

“Take care!” retorted the Viscount. “If you set up my back I’m dashed if I’ll gallant you to the Lower Rooms tonight!”

“Good gracious! Do you mean to do so?” said Miss Milborne. “I assure you I had not the smallest expectation of your being willing to go to the ball!”

“Well, I am willing, and what’s more I’ve paid for a subscription which gives me a couple of ladies’ tickets as well, so if you and my mother choose to go this evening, you may do so,” said his lordship gracefully.

“I must say that was very prettily done of you, Anthony!” approved his parent.

“I want to see my wife,” responded his lordship. “And I can tell how it will be if I call in Camden Place again!”

“She will surely not be present!” exclaimed Lady Sheringham. “She would not have the effrontery!”

“I know of no reason why she should not go anywhere she chooses!” retorted Sherry, firing up. “And as she has her name down to dance the minuet with some fellow of the name of Tarleton, and is engaged to George for the first cotillion, I assume that she certainly has the intention of being present!”

So indeed it proved. The jealous look in Sherry’s eye at the Pump room seemed to indicate that Lady Saltash’s advice had been sound. It had set Hero’s heart fluttering, until she remembered that she had seen that look in his eye once before, when she had kissed George, and it had not then appeared to betoken anything more than a dog-in-the-mangerish spirit. Between joy at seeing him again, hurt that he should have come to Bath in Isabella’s train, hope that he might be desirous of having his wife again, and fear lest he should not, she knew not what to think. To go to the ball, and perhaps to see Sherry gallanting Isabella there, must give her pain; to stay away, and so miss the dear sight of him, was unthinkable; and mixed up with all this was a wish, born of pride, to conceal her unhappiness from him, even to make him think that she did very well without him. So she had permitted Mr Tarleton to put her name down for the minuet, and had engaged herself to dance the first cotillion with George, and the second with Ferdy. To Mr Tarleton was to fall the privilege of taking her in to tea. She had not made up her mind about the country dances. Sherry never stood up for them, voting them a great bore, but if he should break his rule and solicit her hand, she did not think that she would be able to refuse him.

Those meaning to take their places in the minuet were obliged to present themselves in the ballroom not later than eight o’clock, so Lady Saltash’s party arrived at the Lower Assembly Rooms considerably in advance of Lady Sheringham’s. The minuet had started when Sherry escorted his ladies into the room, and installed his mother on one of the upper benches. Hero, gracefully performing her part in the dance, could not help reflecting that it was something new for the Incomparable to be obliged to sit at the side of the room while other, and much less dazzling, females took the floor. Then she scolded herself for such an ill-natured thought, acknowledging that the Incomparable was only sitting out because there had been no time for her to set her name down for the minuet. She was looking quite superb tonight, too, dressed in a cloud of primrose gauze, her tawny locks exquisitely cut and curled, her skin almost unbelievably white. As Hero watched her, she looked up at Sherry, standing beside her chair, smiling rather mischievously. Some quality of intimacy in that smile, something in the way Sherry bent to hear what was being said to him, stabbed Hero. He too smiled, and nodded, and uttered some remark which made Miss Milborne laugh, and lift an admonitory finger. Then the movement of the dance made it necessary for Hero to turn her back on them, and she took care not to glance in their direction again. Instead, she embarked on a playful flirtation with Mr Tarleton. This was not missed by Sherry, who no sooner saw who her partner was than he said, quite unreasonably, that he might have known that that fellow would turn out to be Tarleton.

As soon as the minuet ended, and while the couples were still moving slowly off the floor, a young gentleman came up to Hero to beg her to dance the first country dance with him. She accepted, people began to take their places for it, and by the time the Viscount, threading his way across the room, reached his wife’s side, her new partner was leading her into the set. He was so nettled that he went straight back to Isabella, reaching her a bare instant before Sir Montagu Revesby, and saying savagely: “Come and stand up with me, Bella! I’m dashed if I will give my little wretch the pleasure of seeing me propping the wall, as George does!”

“But you never stand up for the country dances!” Isabella reminded him.

“I’ll stand up for this if it kills me!” swore his lordship.

Hero’s set was already made up, and he was obliged to join the second set. This was not what he wanted, but Miss Milborne could only be thankful, since the prospect of standing up with a gentleman who was bent on catching the eye and ear of another lady in the same set was not one which she could view with anything but misgiving.