April Lady (22 page)

She had just given the sealed billet to her footman when Letty came in, and at once it occurred to her that she too must be warned to say, if Cardross should question her, that Dysart had held them up for a wager. She could feel herself blushing as she told Letty what she had said to Cardross, but Letty was not at all shocked. "Oh, certainly!" she said, taking it as a matter of course. Nell hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry.

"So Giles is come home!" Letty remarked, slowly pulling off her gloves. "Well! I am positively
glad
of it!"

"Oh, yes!" Nell murmured. "Of course! I mean—"

"Because," pursued Letty, a martial light in her eye, "my affairs have now reached a Crisis!"

"Good God!" exclaimed Nell, quite alarmed. "What in the world, love—?"

"In six weeks—in
less
than six weeks!—Jeremy sails for South America!" announced Letty, in a voice of doom.

"Oh, dear!" said Nell. "As soon as that! I am so very sorry!"

"Well, you need not be," said Letty. "Though I own I had rather not be married in such a scrambling way. However, I don't mean to repine, for that is a small thing, after all."

Nell regarded her uneasily. "But, dearest, there is no question— You cannot suppose that Cardross will permit it!"

"And neither he nor you," flashed Letty, "can suppose that I will permit my adored Jeremy to leave England without me! Unless he has a heart of stone, Giles cannot now refuse his consent."

Nell was unable to perceive why the imminent departure of Mr. Allandale should be supposed to melt Cardross's heart, and ventured to say as much. It was ill-received. Letty broke into an impassioned diatribe. This was not very coherent, but one plain fact emerged from it: Cardross was to be given a last chance to rehabilitate his character.

As far as Nell was concerned, this supplied all that was needed to set the crown on a singularly disastrous day. She begged Letty with great earnestness not to attempt to argue her case that evening; and when Letty with a toss of her head, declared that
she
was not afraid of Cardross, warned her that his back had already been set up by Lady Chudleigh's letter.

A thoughtful silence descended upon Letty. After a few moments she said, with a nonchalance that would have deceived no one: "It is not of the least consequence. I shan't regard it if he does give me one of his scolds. Is he very angry, Nell?"

"No, but—oh, a good deal displeased, I fear! I believe he won't speak of it to you, if only you won't vex him!"

"Well, I won't say anything to him tonight," Letty decided. "What a fortunate thing it is that we are going to the play! I had meant to ask you if we need, because I haven't any inclination for it. Still, it won't do to fall into a lethargy, even though Cardross is determined to break my heart. He will be very well served if I go into a decline, for although I daresay he doesn't care a button what becomes of me I shall leave a letter to be opened after my death, saying that it was all his doing, and he won't like
that!"

Slightly heartened by this reflection, she then went off to change her dress. With rare tact she selected from her wardrobe a very demure half-dress of French muslin, and further heightened its modesty by arranging round her shoulders a lace fichu. This led her adoring Abigail to look upon her with anxious concern, but upon the matter's being explained to her Martha entered at once into the spirit of the thing, and contributed her mite by substituting a pair of silk mittens for the elegant kid gloves she had previously laid out. Letty eyed them with disfavour, but consented to wear them; and presently burst upon her half-brother's sight as the embodiment of virtuous maidenhood. The effect of this modest ensemble, though not what she had expected, was good. When she entered the drawing-room Cardross was looking stern, but after one glance at his pious little sister his countenance relaxed. He put up his glass, the better to study her appearance, and said dryly, but with a quivering lip: "Doing it rather too brown, Letty!"

Her saintly expression melted into one of engaging mischief. She twinkled roguishly, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
"Dear
Giles! What an agreeable surprise, to be sure!"

"Turning me up sweet, my pet?"

She giggled. "No, no, it is the luckiest chance that you have come home, because the case is that we mean to go to the play tonight, and have no one to escort us!"

"What an abominable girl you are!" he remarked.

"Yes, but don't be cross!" she begged.

"It would be a waste of time. I entertain serious thoughts, however, of sending you to stay with Aunt Honoria. She
may
take you to the Assemblies at the Upper Rooms now and then—by the by, they end punctually at eleven!—but only if you are excessively well-behaved."

"Oh, what a horrid notion!" cried Letty, shuddering.
"Aunt Honoria!
Bath, too, of all places! But of course I should run away—to become an actress, I daresay, just to serve you out!"

"Nonsense! She will have you in subjection within a week! She frightens
me
to death!" he retorted.

"Very likely! There is more steel to
my
nerves, I promise you!"

He laughed, and upon dinner's being just then announced bowed both ladies out of the door, and followed them downstairs to the dining-room. Bent on charming him into an acquiescent mood, Letty kept him amused by a good deal of nonsensical raillery, in which Nell took little part, merely smiling mechanically at Letty's more outrageous absurdities. Her spirits were oppressed; and she was on tenterhooks lest Letty, encouraged by her brother's indulgent mood, should think the time opportune to broach the subject of her marriage. Dinner seemed interminable, though it was, in fact, shorter than usual, his lordship not having been expected. The artist belowstairs had had time only to fling together the merest travesty of a second course, supplementing the soup, the pigeons, the poulard a l
à
Duchesse, and the morels of the first course with a grilled breast of lamb with cucumber, prawns in a wax basket, and some cheese-cakes. This very commonplace repast had not escaped censure from the steward; and Farley, who maintained a guerrilla warfare with the Gallic ruler of the kitchens, prophesied that his lordship would send a pretty sharp message downstairs. His lordship, however, made no comment; and as for her ladyship, although she rejected most of the dishes, and ate very sparingly of the others, this abstinence seemed to arise from loss of appetite rather than from any particular distaste of what was offered her.

When they rose from the table the Earl, who had glanced rather narrowly at his wife several times during the course of the meal, asked her quietly if she was feeling quite the thing.

She said hurriedly: "Yes—oh, yes! A little tired, but nothing to signify!"

Letty, interposing in a helpful spirit, said that they were both of them quite fagged with balls and routs; and when Cardross suggested that they should remain at home, instead of going to Drury Lane, she at once lent her support to the scheme, reminding Nell that there had been no play put on for months that had been worth seeing. For her part, she said, she would as lief stay at home, and enjoy a comfortable coze. But as Nell was well aware that her comfortable coze would speedily develop into an extremely uncomfortable altercation with her brother, she said that she wanted very much to see the play. Cardross at once bowed his acquiescence, but gone was the gentler note in his voice when he replied, with civil indifference: "As you wish, my love."

The play was neither better nor worse than any other that had been performed at Drury Lane that year, and even Letty, who was young enough to think herself hardly used if brought away from a theatre before the final curtain, greeted with approval Cardross's suggestion that they should not stay to see the farce. London was passing through a dramatic doldrums, and with the exception of an occasional appearance of Mrs. Siddons, in charity performances, and the promise of a new melodrama by Charles Kemble, to be produced at the end of the month, under the intriguing title of
The Brazen Bust,
there was really nothing in prospect to lure the most inveterate playgoer into any of the theatres. The Haymarket Theatre being closed, owing to the preoccupation of the management in the Court of Chancery, the Surrey, on the south bank of the river devoting itself to
burlettas
that were not at all the thing for ladies, the Regency fast sinking into decay, and both the Lyceum and the Olympic staging displays that resembled Astley's circuses, lovers of the drama were obliged either to stay at home, or to attend a succession of indifferent plays put on at Drury Lane, or at the Sans Pareil.

"I can't think what made you wish so particularly to see such a stupid piece!" said Letty, frankly, when Cardross, having conveyed his ladies back to Grosvenor Square, had gone off to spend an hour or two at White's Club. "I did my best to save you from it, too, for I could see you were not in spirits."

"I didn't wish to see it," replied Nell, rather wearily. "I said so only because I was in such dread that you would begin to tease Giles about your marriage, and I thought that anything would be better than that!"

"How can you be so nonsensical?" demanded Letty, quite astonished. "Why should you care if I did tease him? He would not blame
you
for that!"

"No, very likely he would not—until you had dragged me into the quarrel, which you would have, if I know you! And in any event I can't bear to be obliged to listen to you driving Cardross into losing his temper, which no one can wonder at his doing, for you must own, Letty, that as soon as you are cross you express yourself in the most improper way to him!"

"Pooh! why shouldn't I say what I choose to him?" said Letty scornfully. "He is not my father, after all! I don't wish to distress you, Nell, but I warn you I mean to speak to him tomorrow morning, before he goes out. And, what's more, I shall continue to press the matter every time I see him, until he yields, which I don't doubt he will, because I have frequently observed that gentlemen dislike excessively to be continually teased, and will do almost anything only to win peace again!"

Upon hearing this pleasing programme, Nell expressed the fervent hope that providence might see fit to strike her down with influenza during the night, so that she would be obliged to keep her room for several days, and went off to bed, a prey to what her sister-in-law was uncivil enough to call the blue devils.

There was no intervention by providence, but Nell very prudently put in no appearance at the breakfast-table. Since it was Sunday, and she liked to breakfast before attending Morning Service, this was served earlier than on weekdays: early enough to afford Letty ample time to launch her preliminary skirmish.

That she availed herself of the opportunity Nell soon knew. She was seated before her dressing table while Sutton arranged her shining ringlets in a fashionable mode known as the Sappho, when Letty erupted into the room, out of breath from having rushed upstairs in pelting haste, and with her eyes and cheeks blazing.
"Nell!"
she uttered explosively.

Well aware that she would not be deterred from pouring forth the tale of her wrongs by Sutton's presence, Nell at once dismissed her stately dresser. She would probably learn the whole from Martha presently, since that devoted and uncritical abigail was deeply in her mistress's confidence, but that couldn't be helped, and at least Nell would be spared the embarrassment of her presence while Letty gave rein to her first fury of indignation.

Hardly had the door closed behind Miss Sutton than the storm broke. Pacing about the room in a fine rage Letty favoured her sister-in-law with a graphic and embittered account of what had taken place in the breakfast-parlour. The preliminary skirmish had clearly developed rapidly into a full-scale attack. Equally clearly Letty had been beaten at all points. Her recital was freely interspersed with animadversions on Cardross's character, cruel, callous, tyrannical, and odious being the mildest epithets she used to describe it. After one quite unavailing attempt to check her, Nell resigned herself, listening with half an ear to the various measures (most of them, happily, impossible) Letty was prepared to resort to if Cardross should persist in his uncompromising attitude; and wondering whether either of them would be in time for Morning Service. Not surprisingly, considering the overwrought state of her nerves, Letty's diatribe ended in a flood of tears, violent enough to make Nell entertain serious fears that she was about to fly into a hysterical fit. This danger was averted by a mixture of hartshorn and common sense, and the sufferer from fraternal persecution presently subsided into milder weeping. Nell had just succeeded in soothing her, and was bathing her temples with Hungary water, when Cardross, after the curtest of knocks on the door, walked into the room. At sight of Letty, languishing upon the sofa, he stopped short on the threshold, and said cuttingly: "An affecting spectacle!"

"Oh, Giles, pray hush!" begged Nell.

The stricken maiden on the sofa bounced up, and in a husky voice of loathing promised to go into strong convulsions if Cardross did not instantly leave the room.

"By all means do so if you have a fancy to be well slapped!" retorted Cardross, looking as though it would give him considerable satisfaction to carry out his threat. "If you have not, stop enacting Cheltenham tragedies, and go to your own room!"

"Do you imagine," gasped Letty, "that you can order me to my room, as though I were a child?"