The Convenient Marriage (19 page)

Her first view of Ranelagh made her delighted to have come, quite apart from the original object of the exploit. Thousands of golden lamps arranged in tasteful designs lit the gardens. Strains of music floated on the air; and crowds of gay dominoes thronged the gravel walks. In the various rotundas and lodges that were scattered about the ground refreshments could be had, while in the pavilion itself dancing was going forward.

Horatia, observing the scene through the slits of her mask, turned impulsively to Lethbridge, standing beside her with a scarlet domino hanging open from his shoulders, and cried: 'I am so g-glad we came! Only see how pretty! Are you not charmed with it, R-Robert?'

'In your company, yes,' he replied. 'Do you care to dance, my dear?'

'Yes, of course!' said Horatia enthusiastically.

There was nothing to shock the primmest-minded person in the demeanours of those in the ballroom, but Horatia opened her eyes a little at the sight of a scuffle for the possession of a lady's mask taking place later beside the lily-pond under the terrace. The lady fled with most ungenteel shrieks of laughter, hotly pursued by her cavalier. Horatia said nothing, but thought privately that Rule might have reason for not wishing his wife to attend public ridottos.

However, to do him justice, Lord Lethbridge steered his fair charge carefully clear of any low-bred romping, and she continued to be very well pleased with the night's entertainment. In fact, as she said over supper in one of the boxes, it was the most delightful adventure imaginable, and only wanted one thing to make it perfect.

'Good God, Horry, what have I left undone?' asked Lethbridge in mock dismay.

She dimpled. 'Well, R-Robert, I do think it would be quite the n-nicest party I have ever been to if only we c-could play cards together!'

'Oh, rogue!' Lethbridge said softly. 'You will shock the solitary gentleman in the next box, my dear.'

Horatia paid no heed to this, beyond remarking that it was ten to one the gentleman was a stranger.

'You don't like d-dancing, Robert, you know you d-don't! And I do want to try my skill against you.'

'Too ambitious, Horry,' he teased. 'I was playing cards when you were sewing samplers. And I'll wager I was playing better than you sewed.'

'L-Lizzie used to finish all my samplers for me,' admitted Horatia. 'But I p-play cards much better than I sew, I assure you. R-Robert, why won't you?'

'Do you think I would fleece so little a lamb?' he asked. 'I haven't the heart!'

She tilted her chin. 'P-perhaps I should f-fleece you, sir!' she said.

'Yes - if I let you,' he smiled. 'And of course I undoubtedly should.'

'L-let me win?' said Horatia indignantly. 'I am n-not a baby, sir! If I play, I play in earnest.'

'Very well,' said Lethbridge. 'I will play you - in earnest.'

She clapped her hands together, causing the man in the next box to glance round at her. 'You w-will?'

'At piquet - for a certain stake,' Lethbridge said.

'W-well, of course. I d-don't mind playing high, you know.'

'We are not going to play for guineas, my dear,' Lethbridge told her, finishing the champagne in his glass.

She frowned. 'R-Rule does not like me to stake my jewels,' she said.

'Heaven forbid! We will play higher than that.'

'G-good gracious!' exclaimed Horatia. 'For what then?'

'For a lock - one precious lock - of your hair, Horry,' said Lethbridge.

She drew back instinctively. 'That is silly,' she said. 'Besides - I c-couldn't.'

'I thought not,' he said. 'Forgive me, my dear, but you see you are not really a gamester.'

She reddened. 'I am!' she declared. 'I am! Only I c-can't play you for a lock of hair! It's stupid, and I ought not. B-besides what would you stake against it?'

He put his hand to the Mechlin cravat about his throat and drew out the curious pin he nearly always wore. It was an intaglio of the goddess Athene with her shield and owl, and looked to be very old. He held it in the palm of his hand for Horatia to see. 'That has come down in my family through very many years,' he said. 'I will stake it against a lock of your hair.'

'Is it an heirloom?' she inquired, touching it with the tip of her finger.

'Almost,' he said. 'It has a charming legend attached to it, and no Lethbridge would ever let it out of his possession.'

'And w-would you really stake it?' Horatia asked wonder-ingly.

He put it back in his cravat. 'For a lock of your hair, yes,' he answered. '
I am a
gamester.'

'You shall n-never say that I was n-not!' Horatia said. 'I will play you for my hair! And to show I really d-do play in earnest—' She thrust her hand into her reticule, searching for something - 'There!' She held up a small pair of scissors.

He laughed. 'But how fortunate, Horry!'

She put the scissors back in the reticule.'You haven't w-won it yet, sir.'

'True,' he agreed. 'Shall we say the best of three games?'

'D-done!' said Horatia. 'P-play or pay! I have finished my supper, and I should l-like to play now.'

'With all my heart,' bowed Lethbridge, and rose, offering his arm.

She laid her hand on it, and they left the box together, wending their way across the space that lay between it and the main pavilion. Skirting a gaily chattering group, Horatia said with her pronounced stammer: 'Where shall we p-play, R-Robert? Not in that c-crowded card-room. It wouldn't be discreet.'

A tall woman in an apple-green domino turned her head quickly, and stared after Horatia, her lips just parted in surprise.

'Certainly not,' said Lethbridge. 'We shall play in the little room you liked, leading off the terrace.'

The green domino stood quite still, apparently lost either in surprise or meditation, and was only recalled to her surroundings by an apologetic voice murmuring: 'Your pardon, ma'am.'

She turned to find she was blocking the way of a large

Black Domino, and stepped aside with a light word of apology.

Though there was plenty of music to be heard coming from various corners of the gardens, the fiddlers who scraped in the ballroom were temporarily silent. The pavilion was pretty well deserted, for the supper interval was not yet over. Horatia passed through the empty ballroom on Lethbridge's arm, and was just stepping out on to the moonlit terrace when someone in the act of entering almost collided with her. It was the man in the Black Domino, who must have come in from the gardens by the terrace steps. Both fell back at once, but in some inexplicable fashion the edge of Horatia's lace under-dress had got under the stranger's foot. There was a rending sound, followed by an exclamation from Horatia, and conscience-stricken apologies from the offender.

'Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, ma'am! Pray forgive me! I would not for the world - Can't think how I can have been so clumsy I'

'It does not signify, sir,' Horatia said coldly, gathering up her skirt in her hand, and walking through the long window on to the terrace.

The Black Domino stood aside for Lethbridge to follow her, and once more begging pardon, retreated into the ballroom.

'How horribly p-provoking!' Horatia said, looking at her hopelessly torn frill. 'Now I shall have to go and p-pin it up. Of course it is quite ruined.'

'Shall I call him out?' Lethbridge said. 'Faith, he deserves it! How came he to tread on your skirt at all?'

'G-goodness knows!' said Horatia. She gave a little chuckle. 'He was d-dreadfully overcome, wasn't he? Where shall I find you, R-Robert?'

'I'll await you here,' he answered.

'And then we p-play cards?'

'And then we play cards,' he concurred.

'I w-wont be above a m-moment,' Horatia promised optimistically, and vanished into the ballroom again.

Lord Lethbridge strolled towards the low parapet that ran along the edge of the terrace, and stood leaning his hands on it, and looking idly down at the lily-pond a few feet below. Little coloured lights ringed it round, and some originally-minded person had designed a cluster of improbable flowers to hold tiny lamps. These floated on the still water, and had provoked a great deal of laughter and admiration earlier in the evening. Lord Lethbridge was observing them with a rather contemptuous smile twisting his lips when two hands came round his neck from behind, and jerked apart the strings that held his domino loosely together.

Startled, he tried to turn round, but the hands that in one lightning movement had ripped off his domino, closed like a flash about his throat, and tightened suffocatingly. He clawed at them, struggling violently. A drawling voice said in his ear: 'I shan't strangle you this time, Lethbridge. But I am afraid - yes, I am really afraid it will have to be that pond. I feel sure you will appreciate the necessity.'

The grip left Lord Lethbridge's throat, but before he could turn a thrust between his shoulder-blades made him lose his balance. The parapet was too low to save him; he fell over it and into the lily-pond with a splash that extinguished the lights in that cluster of artificial flowers which he had looked at so scornfully a minute before.

A quarter of an hour later the ballroom had begun to fill again, and the fiddlers had resumed their task. Horatia came out on to the terrace and found several people standing there in little groups. She hesitated, looking for the Scarlet Domino, and saw him in a moment, sitting sideways on the parapet and meditatively surveying the pond below. She went up to him. 'I w-wasn't so very long, was I?'

He turned his head, and at once stood up. 'Not at all,' he said politely. 'And now - that little room!'

She had half advanced her hand to lay it on his arm, but at that she drew back. He stretched out his own, and took hers in it. 'Is anything the matter?' he asked softly.

She seemed uncertain. 'Your v-voice sounds queer. It - it is you, isn't it?'

'But of course it is!' he said. 'I think I must have swallowed a morsel of bone at supper, and scraped my throat. Will you walk, ma'am?'

She let him draw her hand through his arm. 'Yes, b-but are you sure no one will come into the room? It would look very particular if anybody were to see me l-lose a lock of hair to you - if I d-do lose.'

'Who is to know you?' he said, holding the heavy curtain back from a window at the end of the terrace. 'But
you need not be alarmed. Once we have drawn the curtains - like that - no one will come in.'

Horatia stood by the table in the middle of the small saloon and watched the Scarlet Domino pull the curtains together. Suddenly, in spite of all her desire to do something outrageous, she wished that she had not pledged herself to this game. It had seemed innocent enough to dance with Lethbridge, to sup with him in the full eye of the public, but to be alone with him in a private room was another matter. All at once he seemed to her to have changed. She stole a look at his masked face, but the candles on the table left him in a shadow. She glanced towards the door, which very imperfectly shut off the noise of the violins. 'The d-door, R-Rob-ert?'

'Locked,' he said. 'It leads into the ballroom. Still nervous, Horry? Did I not say you were not a real gamester?'

'N-nervous? G-gracious no!' she said, on her mettle. 'You'll find I'm not such a poor g-gamester as that, sir!' She sat down at the table, and picked up one of the piquet packs that lay on it. 'D-did you arrange everything, then?'

'Certainly,' he said, moving towards another table set against the wall. 'A glass of wine, Horry?'

'N-no, thank you,' she replied, sitting rather straight in her chair, and casting yet another glance towards the curtained window.

He came back to the card-table, slightly moved the cluster of candles on it, and sat down. He began to shuffle one of the packs. 'Tell me, Horry,' he said, 'did you come with me tonight for this, or to annoy Rule?'

She gave a jump, and then laughed. 'Oh, R-Robert, that is so very like you! You always g-guess right.'

He went on shuffling the pack. 'May I know why he is to be baited?'

'No,' she replied. 'I d-don't discuss my husband, even with you, R-Robert.'

He bowed, ironically she thought. 'A thousand pardons, my dear. He stands high in your esteem, I perceive.'

'Very high,' said Horatia. 'Shall we c-cut?'

She won the cut, and electing to deal, picked up the pack, and gave a little expert shake of her arm to throw back the heavy fall of lace at her elbow. She was far too keen a gambler to talk while she played. As soon as she touched the cards she had never a thought for anything else, but sat with a look of serious, unwavering concentration on her face, and scarcely raised her eyes from her hand.

Her opponent gathered up his cards, glanced at them, and seemed to make up his mind what to discard without the smallest hesitation. Horatia, knowing herself to be pitted against a very fine player, refused to let herself be hurried, and took time over her own discard. The retention of a knave in her hand turned out well, and enabled her to spoil the major hand's repique.

She lost the first game, but not by enough points to alarm her. Once she knew she had thrown a guard she should have kept, but for the most part she thought she had played well.