Charity Girl (31 page)

   'How the deuce should I know? And if you mean to give me any more jobations, I'm off ! All that grand fussation just because I snatched a kiss! Anyone would think I'd tried to rape the girl!'

   'Charles! If you have no respect for
my sensibility, have yo
u none for your sister's?'

   'Well, I'm sorry,' he said sulkily. 'But it's enough to make a man go off on the ear when such a riot is kicked up over a mere trifle!'

   'I know well that you were not to blame,' said Lady Silverdale, dabbing at her eyes. 'You shouldn't have done it, for you are old enough to know better, but I've no doubt you never would have done it had she not invited you to! So we shall say no more about it!'

   He flushed darkly. 'Oh, yes, we shall say more about it!' he said furiously. 'She did not invite me to kiss her! As a matter of fact, she threatened to box my ears if I didn't let her go, silly little wet-goose! So don't you ring a peal over her, ma'am, because I won't have her blamed for what she couldn't help!'

   'Charlie,' interposed Henrietta quietly, 'between them, Cardle and Grimshaw put it into my mother's head that you had eloped with Cherry, so you cannot be surprised to find her in a great deal of agitation! So do try to moderate your language!'

   'Eloped with her?' he gasped. 'Next you'll say you thought I was on my way to the Border! In a hired hack, and with a girl I don't even like above half ! If you mean to tell me yo
u
thought anything so addle-brained, you must have rats in the garret, Hetta, and that's all there is to it!'

   'Oh, no, I didn't!' she assured him. 'But if you don't know where she may be I must send the grooms and the gardeners out to search for her immediately.'

   'If she was not in that carriage, who was?' suddenly demanded Lady Silverdale. 'Do not ask me to believe that it was one of your friends, for I should hope none of them would visit you in that sly fashion! There is some mystery about this, and I am feeling very uneasy. I can feel my palpitations coming on already. Charlie, do not be afraid to confide in me! Have you got into a scrape?'

   He drew an audible breath, and said, as one goaded beyond endurance: 'Much chance I've had of getting into a scrape since I've been tied by the heels here! If you must know, it was Py worthy in the hack, and I went off with him to watch a mill! And if you want me to tell you why I sent him to hire a hack, and bring it round to the farm-gate, it was because I knew dashed well what kind of a bobbery there would be if you got wind of it, ma'am!'

   Henrietta gave a low chuckle. 'I guessed as much!' she said, picking up her hat, and going to the door. 'I'll leave you to make your peace with Mama.'

   'Yes, but if you mean to set the men scouring the countryside, I wish you won't!' he said uneasily. 'Dash it, she can't have come to any harm, and we don't want to set people talking!'

   'Unfortunately, finding Cherry is a matter of considerable urgency,' she replied sweetly. 'I have good reason to believe that her father is coming here to claim her, and is likely to arrive at any moment. Perhaps you would like to relieve me of the task of telling him that she can't be found?'

   'No, I dashed well shouldn't!' he said fervently. 'Hetta, are you bamming me? How do you know he's coming here? Good God, I thought he was dead!'

   'Well, he isn't. And I know he is coming here, because Simon Carrington rode out from London to warn me of it!'

   Lady Silverdale, recovering from the stupefaction which had caused her jaw to drop and her eyes to start alarmingly, shrieked after her daughter's retreating form: 'Don't dare to bring him in here, Hetta! I can't and I won't meet him. Cherry is your responsibility, not mine!'

   'Don't fall into a twitter, Mama!' Henrietta said. 'I haven't the smallest intention of bringing him in here!'

Henrietta found that Grimshaw was hovering in the wide corridor which led from the hall to the drawing-room, and at once gave him the necessary directions for an organized search for Miss Steane. He received these in a manner which showed her that the cumulative effects of having received a rating from herself and of being rattled off, probably in a most intemperate language, by his raging young master, had been so salutary as to render him, temporarily at least, all eagerness to oblige. He tried to detain her by excusing his own share in the day's evil happenings, but as he very meanly cast all the blame on to Cardle she had little compunction in cutting short his protestations. She then went quickly to the Green saloon, where she found Simon pacing round the room in a fret of impatience.

   'Good God, Hetta, I thought you was never coming!' he exclaimed. 'I've been feeling like a cat on a hot bakestone!'

   'You look like one!' she told him. 'I came as soon as I could, but my mother was in such a taking – '

   'What, has Charlie indeed eloped with Miss Steane?' he demanded incredulously. 'What a hare-brained thing to do!'

   'No, of course he hasn't! He came in a few minutes ago. He went off to watch a prize-fight, and stole out of the house so that my mother should know nothing about it. That's no matter! But what is more serious is that Cherry has been missing for several hours, and since my mother, egged on by her woman, and by Grimshaw, had it firmly fixed in her head that she had run off with Charlie no one has made the least push to find her. I've told Grimshaw to send the men out immediately to search for her, and can only trust that they do find her before her father arrives.'

   He blinked at her. 'Yes, but – Did she steal out of the house too? What I mean is, queer sort of thing to do, isn't it? Not telling anyone she was going out. Come to think of it, it ain't the thing for a girl of her age to jaunter off without leave! I know Griselda never did so – in fact, I'm pretty sure my mother never allowed her to go out walking beyond the grounds without someone to bear her company, even if it was only her abigail.'

   'Oh, no, nor did mine! But the case is a little different Simon! You won't repeat this, but it seems that there was a – a slight rumpus this morning, owing to my mother's having found Charlie trying to flirt with Cherry, and – and refining a great deal too much upon it! And I am afraid that what she said to Cherry upset the child so much that she ran out of the house, to – to walk off her agitation, and may have lost her way, or – or met with some accident!'

   'Dash it, Hetta, this ain't the wilds of Yorkshire!' objected Simon. 'If she lost her way, anyone could have set her right! And I can't for the life of me see what sort of an accident she could have met with! Sounds to me as though she's run away. Seems to make a habit of it!'

   'Oh, Simon, surely she could not be so idiotish?' Henrietta said.

   'Well, I don't know,' he said dubiously. 'Of course, I wasn't talking to her above twenty minutes, but she didn't seem to me a needle-witted girl by any means.'

   'No,' she sighed. 'She is a dear little creature, but sadly gooseish.'

   'Good thing if you were rid of her,' he said. 'Good thing for Des too! If it weren't for this curst father of hers, I'd say let her go! But we shall find ourselves in the briars if he sails in expecting to clasp her to his fat bosom – yes, that's the way he talks! At least, he didn't say "fat": that's a what-do-you-call it by me! – and you are obliged to tell him she's run away, and can't be found!'

   'I shall certainly be in the briars, but why you should be I can't conceive!' she replied, with some asperity. 'And it would not be a good thing if she ran away from us under any circumstances whatever! Des entrusted her to my care, and if you think it would be a good thing if I betrayed his confidence so dismally you must be all about in your head!'

   'No, no!' he said hastily. 'What I meant to say was, not quite such a
bad thing!
The fact of the matter is, Hetta, that this ramshackle fellow is a pretty ugly customer, and it's as plain as a pack-saddle that what he means to do is to force Des to marry the girl – or, if that fails, to bleed him for the damage done to her reputation!'

   'Des didn't damage her reputation!' she cried.

   'No, I know he didn't, and so I told the old shagbag! But the thing is I can't prove he didn't, because all I know is what Des told me. And that ain't evidence, as Mr Lickpenny Steane took care to inform me! Confound Des, going off the lord only knows where, and leaving me to cope with this case of pickles! Ten to one I shall make a rare mess of it! The devil of it is, Hetta, that no one knows where he is, so I can't – '

   'He is in Bath,' she interrupted. 'He came here on his way back from Harrowgate, and had formed the intention of visiting the lady who owns a school in Bath, where Cherry was educated, you know, to beg her help in finding a genteel situation for Cherry – Nettlecombe not having come up to scratch.'

   'In Bath? But that's where Steane went to! And then came up to London – no, I rather think he said he went first to the Bugles' place! He must have missed running into Des, for he certainly hadn't seen him when he came to call on me. In fact, he came to discover from me where Des was. Yes, and that puts me in mind of something that went clean out of my head in the hurry I was in! Dashed if I didn't forget to ask Aldham what the dickens he meant by sending Steane round to me! Because it must have been Aldham, when Steane was badgering him to say where Des was! Fobbing the fellow off on to me! Jupiter, if I don't give him a tongue-banger when I get back to London!' He paused, and then said, in a milder tone: 'Oh, well! I daresay it was all for the best! At least I was able to head him! Now, you listen to me, Hetta! I wouldn't have sent him here if I could have avoided it!'

   'But, Simon, surely you must have done so?' she protested. 'He may be a disreputable person, but he is Cherry's father, and none of us has any right to hide her from him!'

   'Well, I wouldn't do it,' he said frankly. 'But, then, she don't hit my fancy. But I've a strong notion Des will do everything in his power to keep her out of Steane's hands – once he's taken the fellow's measure, which he will do, in a pig's whisper! Trouble with Des is that he's too chivalrous by half ! Not but what I daresay if I'd been such a sapskull as to have picked the girl up and promised to take care of her I might feel a trifle queasy at handing her over to Steane.'

   'You know, Simon,' she said, 'for some reason or other, the suspicion that you don't like Mr Steane has taken strong pos session of my mind! But apart from his ambitious scheme to win a rich and titled husband for her – which, I own, gives one no very good idea of his character, but which might, after all, spring from a wish to do his utmost to ensure for her the sort of life any father must wish for his daughter, and which, from anything I have heard of him, he is not himself in the position to provide for her – apart from this, is there any reason why he shouldn't be allowed to take her into his own care? I can't but feel that in coming to find her he does show that he holds her in considerable affection.' She stopped, wrinkling her brow. 'Though it does seem odd of him to have left her for such a long time without a word, or a sign. However, there may be some reason for that!'

   'He was probably in gaol,' said Simon. 'For anything I know, he may practise all kinds of roguery, but I fancy his chief business is fuzzing, cogging, and sleeving. And I should think,' he added, 'that he'd be pretty good at drinking young 'uns into a proper state for plucking! A Captain Sharp, Hetta!' he said seeing that she was looking bewildered. 'Sort of fellow who carries a bale of flat-size aces in his pocket, and knows how to fuzz the cards!'

   'Good God! Do you mean he is a cheating gamester?' she gasped. 'You cannot possibly know that, Simon!'

   'Oh, can't I just?' he retorted. 'You
must
think I'm a slowtop! What else could I think of a fellow that carries halfa-dozen visiting-cards in his pocket-book, all of 'em with different names, and says that places like Bath and Harrowgate offer no scope for a man of his genius? Of course they don't! There's no deep play in the watering-places where people go for their health! And if you think Des will be ready to give her up to a rascal that will drag her all over Europe with him, rubbing shoulders with all the rags and tags of society, you can't know Des as well as I thought you did!'

   'No, no, indeed he wouldn't be!' she said, very much shocked. 'But, surely, if that is the kind of life Mr Steane leads, he cannot wish to be saddled with Cherry? Why should he?'

   'I don't know, and I don't mean to waste my time trying to hit upon the reason. What I want you to understand, Hetta, is that he means mischief, and dangerous mischief, what's more! When I saw what his game was, and realized what a deuced unpleasant scandal he could start, if he accused Des of seducing that tiresome girl, promising to marry her, and then tipping her the double, I told him that so far from doing any of those things Des had placed her in the care of some old friends of ours, and had himself posted off to find her grandfather. He pretended that he didn't believe it. He even had the curst insolence to say – Well, never mind that! So I was forced to tell him that the girl was residing with Lady Silverdale, who was a widow, moving in the first circles, and as starched-up as my father! I meant it for the best, Hetta, but it gave him the chance to land me a heavy facer. He asked me how it came about that such a lady had consented to receive into her house a girl brought to her by a man of Desford's reputation – oh, yes! I was forgetting that piece of lying insolence! Des, you'll be interested to learn, is a rake and a libertine! – without her maid, or any other attendant!' He broke off suddenly, and jerked up his head, listening to the sound of an approaching carriage. 'Oh, my God, here he is!' he said. Two strides took him to the window, and while Henrietta waited in some anxiety, he stood watching the chaise-and-pair until it drew up below the terrace. He then uttered a groan, and said: 'Ay, it's Steane all right and tight!'