The Black Moth (11 page)

Miss Betty was horrified.

"You cannot mean it! Dear, dear, dear! Here was I thinking what a pleasant gentleman he was, and all the time he was persecuting my poor Di, the wretch!
I
know the type, my love, and I feel inclined to give him a good piece of my mind!"

"Oh, no–no!" implored Diana. "Indeed, you must do no such thing, Auntie! He has said nought that I could possibly be offended at–'tis but his
manner
, and the–and the way he looked at me. Indeed, indeed, you must not!"

"Tut, child! Of course I shall say nought. But it makes me so monstrous angry to think of my poor lamb being tormented by such as he that I declare I could tear his eyes out! Yes, my dear, I could! Thank goodness we are leaving Bath next week!"

"Yes," sighed Diana. "I cannot help being glad, though Madam Thompson is very amiable! 'Tis so very different when there is no man with one!"

"You are quite right, my love. We should have insisted on your father's staying with us instead of allowing him to fly back to his fusty, musty old volumes. I shall not be so foolish another time, I can assure you. But we need not go to the Assembly Rooms again."

"I need not go," corrected Diana gently. "Of course you and Madam Thompson will continue to."

"To tell the truth, my love," confessed Miss Betty, "I shall not be sorry for an excuse to stay away. 'Tis doubtless most ill-natured of me, but I cannot but think that Hester has altered sadly since last I saw her. She is always talking of sermons and good works!"

Diana twisted her luxuriant hair into a long plait, and gave a gurgling little laugh.

"Oh, Auntie, is it not depressing? I wondered how you could tolerate it! She is so vastly solemn, poor dear thing!"

"Well," said Miss Betty charitably, "she has seen trouble, has Hester Thompson, and I have my doubts about this George of hers. A worthless young man, I fear, from all accounts. But, unkind though it may be, I shall be glad to find myself at home again, and that's the truth!" She rose and picked up her candle. "In fact, I find Bath not half so amusing as I was told 'twould be."

Diana walked with her to the door.

"'Tis not amusing at all when one has no friends; but last year, when my cousins were with us and papa took a house for the season on the North Parade, 'twas most enjoyable. I wish you had been there, instead of with that disagreeable Aunt Jennifer!"

She kissed her relative most affectionately and lighted her across the landing to her room. Then she returned to her room and shut the door, giving a tired little yawn.

It was at about that moment that his Grace of Andover was ushered into the already crowded card-room of my Lord Avon's house in Catharine Place, and was greeted with ribald cries of "Oho, Belmanoir!", and "Where's the lady, Devil?"

He walked coolly forward into the full light of a great pendant chandelier, standing directly beneath it, the diamond order on his breast burning and winking like a living thing. The diamonds in his cravat and on his fingers glittered every time he moved, until he seemed to be carelessly powdered with iridescent gems. As usual, he was clad in black, but it would have been difficult to find any other dress in the room more sumptuous or more magnificent than his sable satin with its heavy silver lacing, and shimmering waistcoat. Silver lace adorned his throat and fell in deep ruffles over his hands, and in defiance of Fashion, which decreed that black alone should be worn to tie the hair, he displayed long silver ribands, very striking against his unpowdered head.

He raised his quizzing glass and looked round the room with an air of surprised hauteur. Lord Avon, leaning back in his chair at one of the tables, shook a reproving finger at him.

"Belmanoir, Belmanoir, we have seen her and we protest she is too charming for you!"

"In truth, we think we should be allowed a share in the lady'th thmileth," lisped one from behind him, and his Grace turned to face dainty, effeminate little Viscount Fotheringham, who stood at his elbow, resplendent in salmon-pink satin and primrose velvet, with skirts so full and stiffly whaleboned that they stood out from his person, and heels so high that instead of walking he could only mince.

Tracy made a low leg.

"Surely shall you have a share in her smiles an she wills it so," he purred, and a general laugh went up which caused the fop to flush to the ears, as he speedily effaced himself.

He had been one of those who had tried to accost Diana, and gossip-loving Will Stapely, with him at the time, had related the story of his discomfiture to at least half-a-dozen men, who immediately told it to others, vastly amused at the pertinacious Viscount's rebuff.

"What was it Selwyn said?" drawled Sir Gregory Markham, shuffling cards at Lord Avon's table.

Davenant looked across at him inquiringly.

"George? Of Belmanoir? When?"

"Oh, at White's one night–I forget–Jack Cholmondely was there–he would know; and Horry Walpole. 'Twas of Devil and his light o' loves–quite apt, on the whole."

Cholmondely looked up.

"Did I hear my name?"

"Ay. What was it George said of Belmanoir at White's the night Gilly made that absurd bet with Ffolliott?"

"When Gilly–oh, yes, I remember. 'Twas but an old hexameter tag, playing on his name: '
Est bellum bellis bellum bellare puellis.
' He seemed to think it a fitting motto for a ducal house."

There was another general laugh at this. Markham broke in on it:

"Who is she, Tracy?"

His Grace turned.

"Who is who?" he asked languidly.

Lord Avon burst out laughing.

"Oh, come now, Belmanoir, that won't do! It really will not! Who is she, indeed!"

"Ay, Belmanoir, who is the black-haired beauty, and where did you find her?" cried Tom Wilding pressing forward with a glass in one hand and a bottle of port in the other. "I thought you were captivated by Cynthia Evans?"

Tracy looked bewildered for the moment, and then a light dawned on him.

"Evans! Ah, yes! The saucy widow who lived in Kensington, was it not? I remember."

"He had forgotten!" cried Avon, and went off into another of the noisy laughs that had more than once caused Mr. Nash to shudder and to close his august eyes. "You'll be the death of me, Devil! Gad! but you will!"

"Oh, I trust not. Thank you, Wilding." He accepted the glass that Tom offered, and sipped delicately.

"But you've not answered!" reminded Fortescue from another table. He dealt the cards round expertly. "Is it hands off, perhaps?"

"Certainly," replied his Grace. "It generally is, Frank, as you know."

"To my cost!" was the laughing rejoinder, and Fortescue rubbed his sword arm as if in memory of some hurt. "You pinked me finely, Tracy!"

"Clumsily, Frank, clumsily. It might have been quicker done."

The Viscount, who had been a second at the meeting, tittered amiably.

"Neatetht thing I ever thaw, 'pon my honour. All over in leth than a minute, Avon! Give you my word!"

"Never knew you had fought Devil, Frank? What possessed you?"

"I was more mad than usual, I suppose," replied Fortescue in his low, rather dreamy voice, "and I interfered between Tracy and his French singer. He objected most politely, and we fought it out in Hyde Park."

"Gad, yes!" exclaimed his partner, Lord Falmouth. "Why, I was Devil's second! But it was ages ago!"

"Two years," nodded Fortescue, "but I have not forgotten, you see!"

"Lord, I had! And 'twas the funniest fight I ever saw, with you as furious as could be and Devil cool as a cucumber. You were never much of a swordsman, Frank, but that morning you thrust so wildly that stap me if I didn't think Devil would run you through. 'Stead of that he pinks you neatly through the sword-arm, and damme if you didn't burst out laughing fit to split! And then we all walked off to breakfast with you, Frank, as jolly as sandboys. Heavens, yes That was a fight!"

"It was amusing," admitted Tracy at Fortescue's elbow. "Don't play, Frank."

Fortescue flung his cards face downwards on the table. "Curse you, Tracy, you've brought bad luck!" he said entirely without rancour. "I had quite tolerable hands before you came."

"Belmanoir, I will thtake my chestnut mare 'gaintht your new grey," lisped the Viscount, coming up to the table, dice-box in hand.

"Stap me, but that is too bad!" cried Wilding. "Don't take him, Devil! Have you seen the brute?"

The four players had finished their card-playing and were quite ready for the dice.

"Trust in your luck, Belmanoir, and take him!" advised Pritchard, who loved hazarding other men's possessions, but kept a tight hold on his own.

"Ay, take him!" echoed Falmouth.

"Don't," said Fortescue.

"Of course I shall take him," answered his Grace tranquilly. "My grey against your chestnut and the best of three. Will you throw?"

The Viscount rattled his box with a flourish. Two threes and a one turned up.

With a hand on Fortescue's shoulder, and one foot on the rung of his chair, Tracy leaned forward and cast his own dice on to the table. He had beaten the Viscount's throw by five. The next toss Fotheringham won, but the last fell to his Grace.

"Damnathion!" said the Viscount cheerfully. "Will you thtake your grey againtht my Terror?"

"Thunder and turf, Fotheringham! You'll lose him!" cried Nettlefold warningly. "Don't stake the Terror!"

"Nonthenth! Do you take me, Belmanoir?"

"Certainly," said the Duke, and threw.

"Oh, an you are in a gaming mood, I will play you for the right to try my hand with the dark beauty!" called Markham across the room.

"Against what?" asked Fortescue.

"Oh, what he wills!"

The Viscount had cast and lost, and his Grace won the second throw.

"It appears my luck is in," he remarked. "I will stake my beauty against your estates, Markham."

Sir Gregory shook his head, laughing.

"No, no! Keep the lady!"

"I intend to, my dear fellow. She is not your style. I begin to wonder whether she altogether suits my palate." He drew out his snuff-box and offered it to his host, and the other men finding that he was proof against their railing, allowed the subject to drop.

In the course of the evening his Grace won three thousand guineas–two at ombre and one at dice–lost his coveted grey hunter and won him back again from Wilding, to whom he had fallen. He came away at three o'clock in company with Fortescue, both perfectly cool-headed, although his Grace, for his part, had imbibed a considerable quantity of burgundy, and more punch than any ordinary man could take without afterwards feeling very much the worse for wear.

As my Lord Avon's door closed behind them, Tracy turned to his friend:

"Shall we walk, Frank?"

"Since our ways lie together, yes," replied Fortescue, linking his arm in the Duke's. "Down Brock Street and across the Circus is our quickest way."

They strolled down the road for a few moments in silence, passing a 1inkman on the way. Fortescue bade him a cheery goodnight, which was answered in a very beery voice, but the Duke said nothing. Frank looked into his dark-browed face thoughtfully.

"You've had the luck, to-night, Tracy."

"Moderately. I hoped entirely to repair last week's losses."

"You are in debt, I suppose?"

"I believe so."

"To what extent, Tracy?"

"My dear fellow, I neither have, nor wish to have, the vaguest notion. Pray do not treat me to a sermon!"

"I shall not. I've said all I have to say on the subject."

"Many times."

"Yes–many times. And it has had no more effect upon you than if I had not spoken."

"Less."

"I daresay. I wish it were not so, for there's good in you somewhere, Tracy."

"By what strange process of reasoning do you arrive at that?"

"Well," said Fortescue laughing, "there's nearly always some good in the very worst of men. I count on that–and your kindness to me."

"I should be interested to know when I have been kind to you–beyond the time when I was compelled to teach you to leave me and my affairs alone."

"I was not referring to that occasion," was the dry answer. "I had not seen your act in that light. I meant well over the episode."

"You could not damn yourself more effectually than by saying that," said his Grace calmly. "But we wander from the point. When have I done you an act of kindness?"

"You know very well. When you extricated me from that cursed sponging-house."

"I remember now. Yes, that
was
good of me. I wonder why I did it?"

"'Tis what I want to know."

"I suppose I must have had some sort of an affection for you. I would certainly never have done such a thing for anyone else."

"Not even for your own brother!" said Frank sharply.

They had crossed the Circus and were walking down Gay Street now.

"Least of all for them," came the placid response. "You are thinking of Andrew's tragic act? Most entertaining, was it not?"