On the following morning Mrs. Challoner, chancing to look out of the window, was edified to perceive a very elegant equipage drawn up at her door. She said instantly: “The Duchess!” and hurried over to the mirror to arrange her cap. She told Sophia that if she dared to speak a word outside her part she would lock her in her bedchamber for a week: Sophia was about to retort in kind when Betty opened the door and announced in a voice pregnant with awe: “The Duchess of Avon, mam!”
The Duchess came in, and Mrs. Challoner was so surprised she forgot to curtsy. She had expected a lady quite twenty years older than the youthful-looking creature who stood before her, and had prepared herself to meet something very formidable indeed. Great violet-blue eyes, a dimple, and copper curls under a chip-hat did not belong to the Duchess of her imagination, and she stood staring in a disconcerted way instead of greeting her grace with the proper mixture of pride and civility.
“You are Mrs. Challoner?” the Duchess said directly.
She spoke with a decided French accent, which further surprised her hostess. Sophia was also surprised, and exclaimed without ceremony: “Lord, are you Vidal’s mamma, then?”
Léonie looked at her from her head to her heels till Sophia blushed and began to fidget. Then she once more surveyed Mrs. Challoner, who remembered her manners, told her daughter to hold her tongue, and pulled forward a chair. “Pray, will not your grace be seated?”
“Thank you,” Léonie said, and sat down. “Madame, I am informed that your daughter has eloped with my son, which is a thing I find not very easy to understand. So I come to you that you may explain to me how this is at all possible.”
Mrs. Challoner dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, and protested that she was nigh distracted with grief and shame. “For Mary is a good girl, your grace, and elope with his lordship she would never do. Ma’am, your son has abducted my poor innocent child by force!”
“ Tiens!” said the Duchess with polite interest. “My son is then a house-breaker. He perhaps stole her from beneath your roof, madame?”
Mrs. Challoner let the handkerchief fall. “From under my roof? How could he do that? No, indeed!”
“It is what I ask myself,” said the Duchess. “He laid a trap for her, perhaps, and seized her in the street, and carried her off with a gag and a rope.”
Mrs. Challoner eyed her with hostility. The Duchess met her look limpidly, and waited. “You don’t understand, ma’am,” said Mrs. Challoner.
“Assuredly I do not understand. You say my son abducted your daughter with force. Eh bien, I demand of you how this could be done in the middle of London. I find M. le Marquis has been extremely clever if he could arrange so difficult a rape.”
Mrs. Challoner flushed scarlet. “Ma’am! I must beg of you!”
“It is not then a rape?”
“Oh, I — yes, indeed and it is, and I will have justice done, ma’am, and so I tell you!”
“I too desire to have justice done,” said the Duchess softly. “But I am not a fool, madame, and when you talk to me of rapes you talk of what I do not at all believe. If your daughter was not willing she could make a great outcry, and it seems to me that in London there is someone who will hear and come to her rescue.”
“I see, ma’am, you have not heard the whole. Let me explain to you that it was not Mary his lordship wanted, but my little Sophia here. He has been for ever upon my doorstep, and I fear, ma’am, he has quite turned the child’s head. I blush to confess it to your grace, but he attempted to seduce Sophia, of course unbeknownst to me. I do not know what lies he told her, but he had it all arranged to fly with her. I have reared her very strict, ma’am, and how should she dream he did not mean marriage? She thought he would take her to Gretna Green. Oh, I’ll not deny it was mighty foolish and wrong of her, but girls will have these romantic fancies, your grace, and heaven knows what persuasions his lordship may have used. No, Sophy, be quiet!”
Léonie looked at the indignant Sophia, and smiled. “You present to me my son in a new rôle,” she said. “I have never known him to take so much trouble. It seems he was in love with you quite en désespéré.”
“He did love me!” Sophia said chokingly. “He never looked at Mary! Never!”
“Hold your tongue, Sophy! Not but what it is true, ma’am. His lordship was mad for the child. But Mary took it into her head ’twas not marriage he intended, and what she did was to save her sister from ruin.”
“It is of a nobility almost incredible, madame. What did this Mary do?”
Mrs. Challoner threw out her hands dramatically. “She took Sophia’s place, ma’am. It was night, and she was masked, for Sophia has found an old loo-mask gone from her drawer. What she had in mind to do I know not, but she meant to return, your grace. And all this was five days ago, and there is no sign of my poor girl. His lordship has run off with her to France.”
“Indeed?” Léonie said. “You have good information, madame. Who told you that M. le Marquis has gone to France? It is not known to many.”
Mrs. Challoner cast a startled glance at Sophia. “I told mamma,” Sophia said sullenly.
“You interest me — oh, but very much, mademoiselle! You thought, en effet, that he would go to Scotland, and he told you that he would go to France.”
“I see that your grace has guessed it!” Mrs. Challoner said desperately. “Sophia, leave the room. I have something of a private nature to say to her grace.”
“I won’t leave the room,” Sophia answered rebelliously. “You mean to make Vidal wed Mary, and it is not fair! He loves me, me, me! Mary stole him, the mean cat, but she shan’t have him!”
“Ah, I perceive the truth!” said Léonie. “It is Miss Mary Challoner who has abducted my son. I make her my compliments.”
“It is no such thing!” broke in Mrs. Challoner. “Alas, it is true that Sophia here would have gone with my lord to France, and dreadful it is to me to have to own to it. But girls will be for ever reading romances, ma’am, as I make no doubt your grace knows. Yes, Sophia was swept off her feet by his lordship’s wiles, but Mary stepped in with some scheme of her own to send my lord packing. She has saved her poor sister at the price of her own honour, ma’am!”
Léonie said thoughtfully: “It is strange, I find, that this so noble sister did not rather inform you, madame, of what mademoiselle here meant to do. You, who have reared your daughters with such strictness, could have arranged matters more easily, is it not so?”
“Indeed, and I do not know why Mary did not tell me, ma’am, but she is an odd secret girl, and will for ever be thinking she knows better than her mamma.”
Léonie rose. She was smiling, but her dark eyes were bright with anger. “You do not know? Then me, I will tell you. It is plain to me that mademoiselle Mary has thought that she will become Madame la Marquise, and not her sister. As to that, we shall see. You have said to my sister that you will make one big scandal. Vous pouvez vous éviter de la peine, madame;it is I who will make the scandal. I do not desire that my son should have a liaison with your daughter, for she appears to me to be a young woman not at all comme il faut. I shall go to Paris at once, and I shall bring this clever Mary back to you in good time. And if you are so stupid that you cry aloud that the Marquis my son has carried off your daughter you will look even more foolish than you do now, for it will be seen that I am with M. le Marquis, and I think if I say I was with him all the time people will perhaps believe my word before that of Madame Challoner. Que pensez-vous, madame?”
Mrs. Challoner came to her feet in a hurry, and said loudly: “Ho, ma’am, and is that how it is to be? And do you think my poor deceived girl will have nothing to say to that fine tale? She shall declare her wrongs to the world, for I’ll make her, and I’ll see she is heard!”
Léonie gave a light, scornful laugh. “ Vraiment? It is a story so silly, madame, that I think people will say ‘ quel tas de bêtises!’ and not at all believe you. And me, I shall say only that this Mary forced herself upon my son, and I shall be believed, madame, do not doubt.” She swept a curtsy, ignored Sophia, who was gaping at her in astonishment, and walked out of the room before Mrs. Challoner could collect her scattered wits.
Sophia bounced out of her chair, crying: “There, mamma! That’s all your scheming has led to! Lord, I vow I could die of laughing at you!”
Mrs. Challoner promptly boxed her ears. Sophia began at once to cry, but her mother had gone to the window, and was watching a liveried footman hand her grace into the carriage. She said through her teeth: “I’m not finished yet, Sophy, don’t think it. We’ll see who has the laugh, your grace!” She turned quickly. “I’m going to make a journey,” she said. “You’ll be off to your Uncle Henry’s house, Sophy, till I come back, and see you behave yourself circumspectly!”
In the white house in Curzon Street Lady Fanny was eagerly awaiting Léonie’s return. When her grace came into the boudoir she fairly pounced upon her, a dozen questions tripping off her tongue. Léonie untied the strings of her becoming hat, and threw it on the table. “Bah, quelle viellle guenon!” she said. “I have frightened her a little, and I tell you this, Fanny, I will not have Dominique ally himself with the daughter of such a one. I go at once to France to arrange the matter.”
Lady Fanny regarded her shrewdly. “La, my dear, you’re in such a heat you’d best wait till you’ve cooled a little.”
“I am not in a heat at all,” Léonie said with great precision. “I am of a coolness quite remarkable, and I would like to kill that woman.”
“You’re in a rage, my love, don’t tell me! You’ve forgotten your English, which is a very sure sign, though I can’t conceive why you should become so vastly French as soon as you lose your temper.”
Léonie stalked to the mantelpiece, picked up a vase from it, and quite deliberately smashed it. Lady Fanny shrieked, and cried out: “My precious Sèvres vase!”
Léonie looked down, conscience-stricken, at the pieces of porcelain lying on the floor. “I do not behave like a lady,” she said. “I did not know it was Sèvres. It was very ugly.”
Fanny giggled. “Hideous, love! I’ve always hated it. But, ’pon rep, I thought you had learned to curb that dreadful temper of yours! I vow you’re as great a hoyden as ever you were twenty years ago. What did that odious creature say to make you so angry?”
Léonie said fiercely: “It is a trick, all of it, to make Dominique many that girl. She thought she could make me afraid, but it is I who will make her afraid! Dominique shall not marry that — that — salope!”
“Léonie!” gasped Fanny, clapping her hands over her ears. “How dare you?”
“She is!” raged her grace. “And that mother, she is nothing but an entremetteuse! Me, I know very well her type! And she will be my Dominique’s belle-mère, hein? No, and no, and no!”
Lady Fanny uncovered her ears. “Lord, my dear, don’t put yourself about! Vidal won’t want to marry the wench. But what of the scandal?”
“ Je m’en fiche!” said Léonie crudely.
“And pray will Justin agree with you? My dearest love, there’s been too much scandal attached to Vidal already, and you know it. I’ll wager my diamond necklet that woman meant her vulgar threats. She’ll create a stir, I know she will, and ’twill be monstrous disagreeable for all of us. I declare, it’s too bad of Vidal! Why, if there’s a word of truth in what that creature says — which, to be sure, I doubt, for I never heard such a rigmarole in my life — he did not even want the girl! And if you can think of anything in the world he did it for save to plague us I beg you will tell me!”
“John says, for revenge,” Léonie answered, looking troubled. “I have a very big fear he may be right.”
Lady Fanny’s china-blue eyes widened. “Good God, my dear, surely even Vidal would not be such a fiend?”
Léonie had gone over to the window, but she turned quickly. “What do you mean — even Vidal?” she snapped.
“Oh, nothing, my dear!” said her ladyship hastily. “Not but what it would be the most dastardly thing, and I must say I am thankful my son is not of Dominic’s disposition. I vow my heart positively bleeds for you, my love.”
“And mine for you,” said Léonie with awful politeness.
“Pray why?” demanded her ladyship, preparing for battle.
Léonie shrugged. “For a whole day I have been shut up in a coach with the so estimable John. It is enough, mordieu!”
Lady Fanny arose in her wrath. “I vow and declare I never met with such ingratitude!” she said. “I wish I had sent John to Avon, as I promise you I’d half a mind to.”
Léonie softened instantly. “Well, I am sorry, Fanny, but you said worse of my son than I said of yours, and you said it first.”
For a moment it seemed as though her ladyship would stalk from the room, but in the end she relented, and said pacifically that she would not add to the disasters befalling the family by quarrelling with Léonie. She then demanded to be told how Léonie proposed to avert the gathering scandal. Léonie said: “I do not know, but if it is necessary I will get that girl a husband.”
“Get her a husband?” repeated Fanny, bewildered. “Who is he to be?”
“Oh, anyone!” Léonie said impatiently. “I shall think of something, because I must think of something. Perhaps Rupert will be able to help.”
“Rupert!” almost snorted her ladyship. “As well ask help of my parrot! There’s nothing for it, my dear; you will have to tell Avon the whole.”
Léonie shook her head. “No. Monseigneur is to know nothing. I cannot bear it if there is to be more trouble between him and Dominique.”
Fanny sat down limply. “I could shake you, Léonie; I vow I could! Avon will be in town again by the end of the week, and when he finds you and Rupert gone off together he’ll come to me, and what, pray, am I to tell him?”
“Why, that I have indeed gone to Cousin Harriet.”
“And Rupert? A likely tale!”
“I do not think that he will know whether Rupert is in London or not — or care.”
“Take my word for it, child, he will know. And I’m to embroil myself in this affair, if you please! I won’t do it!”
“Fanny, you will! — Dear Fanny?”
“I’m too old for these wild coils. If I do, I shall tell Avon I know nothing about you or Rupert or anyone. And you may inform Vidal from me that the next time he abducts a young female he need not come to me for aid.” She got up, and began to look for the hartshorn. “If you dare to bring Rupert here I shall have an attack of the vapours.” She went out, but a moment later put her head in at the door to say:
“I’ve a mind to come with you. What do you think, my love?”
“No,” said Léonie positively. “If Monseigneur finds us all gone he would think it very odd.”
“Oh well!” said Fanny. “At least I should not have to face him with a mouthful of lies, which of course he will see through. However, if you are set on going with Rupert I’d as soon stay at home.” She disappeared again, and Léonie picked up her hat, and once more tied it over her curls.
She took a chair to Half Moon Street, and was fortunate enough to find his lordship at home. Lord Rupert greeted her jovially. “I thought you were in Bedford, m’dear. Couldn’t stand it, eh? I told you so. Devilish dull is old Vane.”
“Rupert, the most dreadful thing has happened, and I want you to help me,” Léonie interrupted. “It’s Dominique.”
Lord Rupert said testily: “Oh, plague take that boy! I thought we’d got him safe out of the country.”
“We have,” Léonie assured him. “But he has taken a girl with him!”
“What sort of a girl?” demanded his lordship.
“A — a hussy! A — I do not know any word bad enough!”
“Oh, that sort, eh? Well, what of it? You ain’t turning pious, are you, Léonie?”
“Rupert, it is most serious. He meant to elope with the bourgeoise, and oh, Rupert, he has taken the wrong sister!”
Rupert stared at her blankly. “Taken the wrong sister? Well, I’ll be damned!” He shook his head. “Y’know, Léonie, that boy drinks too much. If this don’t beat all!”
“He wasn’t drunk, imbécile! At least,” added Léonie conscientiously, “I do not think he was.”
“Must have been,” said his lordship.
“I shall have to explain it all to you.” Léonie sighed.
At the end of her explanation his lordship gave it as his opinion that his nephew had gone stark, staring mad. “Does Avon know?” he asked.
“No, no, not a word! He must not, you understand, and that is why we are going to France at once.”
His lordship regarded her with profound suspicion. “Who’s going to France?”
“But you and I, of course!” Léonie replied.
“No, I’m not,” stated Rupert flatly. “Not to meddle in Vidal’s affairs. I’ll see him damned first, saving your presence.”
“You must,” Léonie said, shocked. “Monseigneur would not at all like me to go alone.”
“I won’t,” said Rupert. “Now, don’t start to argue, Léonie, for God’s sake! The last time I went to France with you I got a bullet in my shoulder.”
“I find you ridiculous,” Léonie said severely. “Who is to shoot bullets at you now?”
“If it comes to that, I wouldn’t put it above Vidal, if I go meddling in his concerns. I tell you I won’t have a hand in it.”
“Very well,” Léonie said, and walked to the door.
Rupert watched her uneasily. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I am going to France,” said Léonie.
His lordship requested her to have sense; she looked woodenly at him. He pointed out to her the extreme folly of her behaviour; she yawned, and opened the door. His lordship swore roundly and capitulated. He was rewarded by a beaming smile.
“You are very kind to me, Rupert,” her grace said enthusiastically. “We will go at once, do you not think? For I am late already, five days.”
“If you’re five days behind that young devil you’re too late altogether, m’dear,” said his lordship sensibly. “Lord, Avon will murder me for this!”
“Of course he will not murder you!” said Léonie. “He will not know anything about it. When shall we start?”
“When I’ve seen my bankers. I’ll do that in the morning, and I only hope the fellows don’t take it into their heads I’m flying the country. We can catch the night packet from Dover, but don’t bring a mountain of baggage, Léonie, if you want to travel fast.”
The Duchess took him at his word, and when his coach arrived in Curzon Street next morning she had only one bandbox to be put into it. “You can’t travel like that!” he protested. “And ain’t you taking your abigail along too?”
She rejected the suggestion with scorn, and pointed an accusing finger at the baggage already piled on the roof of the coach. After a lively dispute, in which Lady Fanny and her son joined, two of Lord Rupert’s trunks were left behind in his sister’s charge. An errand-boy, two loiterers, and a cook-girl were interested spectators of the start, and Mr. Marling delivered a lecture, which no one paid any attention to, on the amount of baggage he himself considered necessary for a gentleman to take to Paris.
When the coach at last moved forward Lady Fanny announced that she had the migraine, and went off upstairs, leaving Mr. Marling to order the disposal of the two trunks left on the pavement.
She expected to see his grace of Avon within three days. She saw him within two, greatly to her dismay. When his name was announced she was reclining on a couch in her withdrawing-room, her hands encased in chicken-skin gloves (for an east wind had slightly chapped their soft whiteness), yawning over the pages of The Inflexible Captive. She gave a perceptible start, but recovered herself in an instant, and greeted his grace with apparent delight.
“La, Justin, is it you indeed? I’m vastly glad to see you. Only look at this book that John has given me! It is writ by that Bluestocking, Mrs. More. I find it amazingly dull, do not you?”
His grace came over to the fire, and stood looking enigmatically down at her. “Amazingly, my dear Fanny. Do I see you in your customary good health?”
Lady Fanny promptly launched into a recital of the many ailments that afflicted her. It was a fruitful topic, and his grace evinced enough polite interest to encourage her to enlarge on it. She enlarged for twenty minutes and discoursed on Dr. Cocchi’s book, The Pythagorean Diet, or Vegetables only conducive to the Preservation of Health and the Cure of Diseases. His grace was urbanity itself. Lady Fanny quaked inwardly, and began to falter in her account of her indisposition. A short pause ensued. His grace took snuff, and as he shut his elegant gold box said languidly: “I understand, my dear Fanny, that there is to be a marriage in our family.”
Lady Fanny started upright on the couch. “A — a marriage?” she stammered. “Why — why — what do you mean, Justin?”
His grace’s brows rose a little; she thought there was a gleam of malice in his eyes. “Doubtless I have been misinformed. I was under the impression that my niece is about to espouse a gentleman of the name of Comyn.”
“Oh!” gasped her ladyship, quite faint with relief. She sank back upon her cushions. “Of course she’ll do no such thing, Justin. Why, have you forgot that I’ve sent her to Paris to be out of the unfortunate young man’s way?”
“On the contrary, I understood that you sent her there to prevent a mésalliance.”
“Well, but — but so it is!” said Fanny, taken aback.
His grace flicked a speck of snuff from his sleeve. “I should inform you, my dear sister, that the marriage has my support.”
Lady Fanny felt for her vinaigrette. “But I won’t have it! He’s a nobody, Justin! I intend her to make a far better match. I made sure you would dislike it excessively. Pray, what in the world has come over you? You’ve never set eyes on young Comyn.”
“I hesitate to contradict you, Fanny,” said his grace politely, “but you will perhaps allow me to be not yet in my dotage. I have met and approved Mr. Comyn. He seemed to be a young gentleman of considerable presence of mind. I am only surprised that he should wish to ally himself with my niece.”
Lady Fanny took a sniff at her salts, and regained strength enough to say: “I suppose you have gone mad, Justin. Let me tell you that I have every hope that Juliana will wed Bertrand de Saint-Vire.”
His grace smiled. “I fear, my dear Fanny, that you are doomed to disappointment.”
“I don’t know what you mean, and I’m sure I don’t desire to!” said her ladyship pettishly. “I might have guessed you would be monstrous disagreeable! And if you are come home early from Newmarket only to encourage Juliana in her waywardness I think it quite abominable of you,”
“Pray calm yourself, Fanny; I am about to relieve you of my presence. You will no doubt be glad to learn that I am leaving London to-night.”
Lady Fanny eyed him in considerable trepidation. “Oh indeed, Justin? May I ask where you propose going?”
“Certainly,” replied his grace blandly. “But surely you have guessed?”
Lady Fanny stammered: “No — yes — pray, how should I guess? Where are you going?”
His grace moved towards the door. His eyes mocked her. “But to Cousin Harriet, my dear. Where else should I go?” He bowed, while she stared at him in mingled horror and suspicion, and before she had time to collect her wits, the door had closed behind him.