Miss Laxton’s letter having been delivered to her parents through the medium of the post, she had nothing to do but to await events, not omitting, of course, to scan the advertisement columns of the Morning Post. No intimation of surrender on her father’s part made its appearance there immediately, but this, Miss Grantham pointed out, was not surprising, as no doubt the Laxtons would first prosecute inquiries amongst their acquaintances. She was able to report, on the evening following Miss Laxton’s escape, that Sir James Filey was playing faro in the Yellow Saloon, and seemed to be in the devil’s own temper. Miss Laxton, curled up with an exciting novel from the lending library in Lady Bellingham’s boudoir, giggled, and said she did not care a button, and only wished that she could remain in St James’s Square for the rest of her life. Possibly out of regard for her aunt’s quite different wishes, Miss Grantham took what steps she could to prevent this from coming to pass by descending again to the saloons, and suggesting softly to Lord Mablethorpe that he might go upstairs to sit with the poor child for a while, to save her from dying of boredom. His lordship was perfectly ready to obey this, or any other behest, and slipped away presently, to spend a comfortable hour playing at cribbage with Phoebe. In between games he extolled Deborah’s virtues to Miss Laxton and Miss Laxton agreed with him that she was wonderful woman, and said that she was not at all surprised at his being determined to make her his wife. She was quite shocked to hear from him of his mother’s opposition, and in general showed herself to be so sympathetic that his lordship found himself confiding far more to her than he had meant to. Where the conversation veered towards Miss Laxton’s future, he found his part in it more difficult to sustain, for he could not think what was to be done if her parents remained obdurate He was firm, however, on three points: on no account must Phoebe marry Sir James, apply for a post as governess, to tread the boards. Phoebe said that if he thought it wrong of her to become an actress or a governess, she would not do it; because she knew well that he was more worldly-wise than she and she meant to be guided by his judgement. His lordship was conscious of a strong conviction that some well-disposed person ought to take Miss Laxton under his wing, and protect her from the buffets of the world, but try as he would he was unable to thing of anyone who would be at all suitable to fill the post. He made up his mind to consult Deborah on this point. Meanwhile, he assured Phoebe that while he remained in some part responsible for her well-being she had nothing to fear from Filey, or, indeed, from anyone else. Miss Laxton, looking up into his face with dewy eyes, said simply that she knew she was safe with him, had known it from the first moment of seeing him.
It was not to be expected that Lord and Lady Laxton would advertise their loss to the world, and as Deborah did not move in their circle she had no means of learning what their emotions might be upon receipt of their daughter’s politely worded ultimatum. Lady Mablethorpe was acquainted with the family, but a few casual questions put to her by her son merely elicited the information that she had always considered Augusta Laxton to be an odious woman, with an overbearing nature, and grasping ways, and that how she hoped to marry a pack of girls respectably was a mystery to everyone. Asked if she were in the habit of visiting the Laxton establishment, she replied that she never went there unless she was obliged to.
Lady Bellingham, although resigned, she said, to any conceivable folly on the part of her niece, wished to know what was to be done with her guest if her parents failed to insert the desired notice in the Morning Post. “For the girl cannot spend the rest of her days in hiding,” she pointed out, without the least hope of being attended to. “I am sure it must be very bad for her to walk out only at dusk, and then heavily veiled; and unless Augusta Laxton has changed since I knew her, which I cannot credit, she will very likely be glad to be rid of at least one of her brood of daughters, and not make the least push to discover her whereabouts.”
“Well, I hope you may be right,” said Miss Grantham. “My only fear is that she may have hired the Bow Street Runners to find Phoebe.”
This suggestion was so appalling that Lady Bellingham sank plump into a chair. “My love, don’t say such a thing! Oh dear, what have you done? Only think of the scandal if the law officers were to come to this house! We shall all be prosecuted!”
“My dear ma’am, there is not the least likelihood of such a thing happening. No one knows of any circumstance connecting me with Phoebe, and Adrian must be quite above suspicion.”
But the idea, once instilled into Lady Bellingham’s brain, took such strong possession of it that it might well have brought on her dreaded spasms had it riot been ousted by a far more pressing threat.
The following morning’s post brought Miss Grantham a curt communication from Mr Ravenscar.
It was handed to her as she sat at breakfast with her aunt and her protégée. She did not recognize the handwriting, which was very black and firm, and the crest on the seal was equally strange to her. She turned it over idly, broke open the seal, and spread out the single, crackling sheet of paper.
She was eating a slice of bread-and-butter as she ran her eye down the missive, and startled her aunt by choking suddenly. She let a hasty exclamation escape her, swallowed a stray crumb, which found its way into her windpipe, and fell into helpless coughing. By the time she had been restored by having her back briskly slapped by her aunt, all the impropriety of disclosing the contents of her letter in Miss Laxton’s presence had been recollected, and she sat with it in her lap throughout the rest of the meal. Lady Bellingham noticed that she was unusually silent, and saw that her eyes were smouldering and her cheeks unduly flushed. Her heart sank, for she knew these signs. “My love, I do trust you have not received some bad news?” she said nervously.
“Bad news, ma’am?” said Miss Grantham, sitting ver5 straight in her chair. “Oh, dear me, no! Nothing of that nature!”
Lady Bellingham’s alarms were not in the least allayed by this assurance, and she sat fidgeting until Phoebe presently left the table. When the door had shut behind her, her ladyship fixed her eyes on Deborah’s martial countenance, and demanded: “What is it? If I am not to be laid upon my bed with the vapours, tell me the worst at once! The Laxtons have discovered that child’s whereabouts?”
“This obliging letter,” said Deborah, looking at it with loathing, “does not come from the Laxtons. It comes from Mr Ravenscar.”
“Never say so, my love!” cried her ladyship, reviving fast. “Well, now, this time, don’t you think, dearest Deb that you should compound with him? What does he offer you?”
“You are mistaken, ma’am; he does not offer me anything He threatens me instead!”
“Threatens you?” exclaimed her aunt. “For heaven’s sake, child, what with?”
“Mr Ravenscar,” said Deborah, through her teeth, “beg: leave to inform me that he has acquired—acquired!—certain bills of exchange drawn by you, and a mortgage on this house.”
“What?” almost screamed Lady Bellingham. “He can’t have acquired them! Ormskirk holds them! You know he does! Ii must be a trick to frighten you!”
“No, it isn’t, and I am not in the least frightened!” said Miss Grantham indignantly. “He has got them from Ormskirk, that much is plain.”
“I can’t believe such a thing! Ormskirk would never give them up, I am persuaded!”
“You said he was badly dipped, Aunt Lizzie,” Deborah reminded her. “If Ravenscar offered to buy them from him, I daresay he may have been glad to agree to sell them.”
“I never heard of such treachery in my life!” declared her ladyship. “It passes everything! Besides, if he does not hold the bills any longer, what hope can Ormskirk have of persuading you, my love?”
Miss Grantham thought this over, wrinkling her brow over the problem. “I daresay he might think he had no hope of me,” she said at last. “If he believes I am about to marry Adrian, that would be it, no doubt.”
“I shall go distracted!” said Lady Bellingham, clasping her head in her hands, and sadly disarranging her cap. “Nothing could be worse! You have now lost them both through your tricks! I do not know how you can be so improvident, Deb, indeed I don’t! You must marry Adrian at once!”
“Nonsense! He is not of age, ma’am. Besides, I do not mean to marry him at all.”
“No! You mean to fob him off with this Laxton child, which is so downright wasteful of you I cannot bear to think of it! But if Ravenscar holds those dreadful bills, there is nothing to be done (unless you choose to give Adrian up altogether) but to marry him secretly at once! I know you will say these Gretna marriages are not at all the thing, but it can’t be helped now! Matters are desperate!”
“I must get them into my hands,” said Deborah, who had not been paying much heed to this speech.
“Get what into your hands?” demanded her ladyship.
“The bills, and the mortgage, ma’am; what else?”
“Do you mean you will agree to give Adrian up?” asked Lady Bellingham. “I own, it may come to that, but I do think it would be better if you married him.”
“Ravenscar and Lady Mablethorpe would have the marriage annulled if I did anything so foolish. Oh, he thinks he has me in a pretty corner, but I shall show him!”
“No, no, don’t show him anything more, Deb, I implore you!” begged her aunt, agitated. “You see what has come of showing him things! If only you would be a little conciliating!”
“Conciliating! I mean to fight him to the last ditch!” said Miss Grantham. “The first thing is to get those bills away from him!”
“You can’t get them away from him,” said Lady Bellingham despairingly. “What does he say in his letter?”
“Why, that he will be happy to restore them to me in return for his cousin’s freedom! How dare he insult me so? Oh, I will never forgive him!”
“Says he will restore them? Well, I must say, my dear, that is very handsome of him! To be sure, it is not as good as twenty thousand pounds, but it would be a great relief to be rid of some of our debts!”
“And if I don’t send Adrian about his business, he will foreclose on you,” added Miss Grantham.
Lady Bellingham gave a moan. “The brute! I cannot possibly pay him! I suppose he wants me to go upon my knees to him, but I won’t do it! I won’t!”
“Go on your knees to him?” cried Miss Grantham. “No indeed! I would never speak to you again if you did.”
“Very likely no one will ever speak to me again—no one I care to speak to, at all events—for I shall be in a debtors’ prison, and shall end my days there. Oh, Deb, how can you be so heartless?”
Miss Grantham put her arms round the afflicted matron. “I’m not heartless, dearest, indeed I’m not, and you shan’t be put into any prison! It is not you that hateful man wishes to punish, but me! He thinks to frighten me, but I have still a trick or two up my sleeve, and so he shall find! I’ll get those bills back, and won’t give Adrian up—at least, I will really, but Ravenscar shall not know of it until he owns himself beaten—and—”
“Don’t!” begged her aunt. “I cannot bear it! Nothing will do for you but to ruin us all, and that is the matter in a nutshell! And I do think Ravenscar must be the most disagreeable man in the world, besides the oddest-behaved! If he means to foreclose, why doesn’t he tell me so? I am sure it is not your business!”
“Oh, he wrote to me because I made him so angry that he wants to punish me! I am sure he has no quarrel at all with you, aunt, so pray do not put yourself in a taking! This is all wicked spite! But I will teach him a lesson!”
Since no arguments of hers seemed likely to prevail against this determination, Lady Bellingham gave up any attempt to induce her niece to see reason, and tottered away to spend a melancholy morning trying to discover an error in her dressmaker’s bill, and to convince Mortimer that the stubs of the candles used in the saloons could quite well be lit again for kitchen purposes. As she succeeded in neither of these objects, her spirits underwent no change for the better, and might indeed have borne her down utterly had she been privileged to know what her niece was planning to do. This knowledge, however, was prudently kept from her, so that she was able to go out for her usual drive in the Park in ignorance of the events which were brewing above her unfortunate head.
For quite some time, Miss Grantham was, unable to think of an adequate counter to Mr Ravenscar’s last move. It really seemed to be unanswerable, but she was by this time so determined to fight him that the idea of surrender never entered her head. The time for signifying to him that she had not the least intention of marrying his cousin would come only when he was beaten out of every position. Miss Grantham would then be able to derive great satisfaction from her magnanimity. To give way to bribes or threats would be so spiritless a course that she naturally could not entertain it for a moment.
After dwelling wistfully on all the exceedingly unpleasant things she would like to do to Mr Ravenscar, but which circumstances unhappily prevented her from doing, her brain presently turned resolutely from these impractical daydreams, and grappled the problem in a more serious spirit. It was not long before a scheme, so dazzlingly diabolical as almost to take her breath away, was born in her mind. She sank her chin in her hands, pondering the plan with a rapt look on her face, and was discovered in this absorption by Lucius Kennet, who strolled in towards noon to see how she did.
“Faith, what devilment will you be up to, me darlin’?” asked Mr Kennet, regarding her with a sapient twinkle.
Deborah jumped up. “Lucius, you are the very man I need! You must help me!”
“Sure and I will!” responded Kennet promptly.
“And Silas too,” decided Miss Grantham. “You will not mind a little risk, will you, Lucius?”
“Me sword’s at your service, Deb!”
“Oh no! It has nothing to do with swords—at least I do hope it has not! I just want you to kidnap Ravenscar for me.”
He burst out laughing. “Is that all? Whisht, it’s a mere nothing! And what will I be doing with him when I’ve kidnapped him?”
“I want you to put him in the cellar,” said Miss Grantham remorselessly.
“What cellar?” inquired Kennet.
“This one, of course. It has a very stout lock on the door, and it is not at all damp—not that that signifies, and in any event he will be tied up.”
“It’s a grand plan you have there, me dear, but what will you be doing with him when you have him in the cellar, and what the devil ails you to want him there at all?”
“Oh, to be sure, you do not know what he has done! Read that!” said Deborah, thrusting Mr Ravenscar’s letter into his hand.
He read it with lifting brows of astonishment. “The old dog!” he ejaculated.
“Old? He isn’t old!” said Deborah, unaccountably annoyed.
“Not Ravenscar. Ormskirk.”
“Oh, him! Well yes, I must say I think it very shabby of him to serve poor Aunt Lizzie such a trick, but he is of no account, after all.”
“How did Ravenscar know he had the bills?” demanded Kennet.
Miss Grantham looked at him, suddenly frowning a little. “Yes, how did he know? I had not thought of that! He must have made it his business to find out, I suppose. It is the vilest piece of work! But he will be sorry, I promise you!”
“I dare swear he will. Does it mean you are going to marry the young sprig at the latter end, me dear?”
“No, indeed!”
He shook his head ruefully. “You go beyond me, Deb, upon me soul you do! If you don’t mean to have Mablethorpe, why, for any sakes, will you not say so, and be done with it?”
“Lucius, I made sure you would understand!” said Deborah reproachfully. “Do you think I will give in as tamely as that? You do know what language he used towards me! He insulted me, and now he dares to threaten me, and nothing—nothing!—would induce me to yield to him! What! Am I to have a pistol held to my head, and submit to such conduct? I won’t! I will get the better of him if I die for it!”
“When you put it like that, me darlin’, it’s not meself that has the heart to gainsay you. Sure, he’s a black villain, and deserves to be put in the cellar! But I’d say, from the little I’ve seen of him, that he’s devilish obstinate. Do you mean to keep him in the cellar until he hands over the bills to you? I’m thinking he may be a charge on you for a weary while!”
“I have thought of all that,” said Miss Grantham triumphantly. “I fancy he will not stay in the cellar above an hour or two. Lucius, he is delivered into my hands by his own act! I want you to kidnap him on Wednesday evening!”
“On Wednesday—” His jaw dropped suddenly. “No, by the powers, you can’t do that, Deb! His race is to be run on Thursday!”
“Exactly so!” nodded Deborah. “You may depend upon it, he will agree to do anything rather than lose the race by default.”
“Faith, me dear, if he didn’t murder you, and me too, he’d have the pair of us clapped up in gaol!” Kennet said, awed. “What’s more, I couldn’t find it in me heart to blame him.”
This gave Miss Grantham a moment’s pause, but after thinking it over she said: “I do not think he would murder us, Lucius, and I am quite sure he would not have us clapped up, because he is too proud to admit to the world that one of faro’s daughters got the better of him, and in such a fashion! No, he will do nothing, and then, when he is smarting, I will tell him that he might have spared himself his trouble, for I would not marry his cousin if he were the last to offer for me!”
“I’m thinking,” said Kennet slowly, “that while you have him tied up in the cellar, Deb, you might get that twenty thousand out of him.”
Miss Grantham flushed. “I will do nothing of the sort! How dare you think I would touch his horrid money, much less force him to give it to me?”
“After all, me dear,” said Kennet reasonably, “you’ve no objection to forcing him to hand over the mortgage, and that’s worth a cool five thousand, let alone the bills.”
“That,” said Miss Grantham, with dignity, “is a very different matter. The other—Why, what a wretch I should be! You cannot have considered!”
Kennet smiled wryly. “It’s you who are too quixotic for me, Deb. However, it’s your own affair. Now, how are we to kidnap my fine gentleman?”
“I thought very likely you would be able to arrange for that,” said Miss Grantham hopefully. “Silas will help you, and between you should be able to overpower him, I imagine.”
“Ah, there’s no difficulty about that! But do you suppose I am to walk into his house, or club him in the open street, me darlin’?”
Miss Grantham looked rather anxious. “I don’t want him to be hurt, you know. At least, not much. Couldn’t you catch him after dark, when he is coming away from his club, or some such thing?”
Mr Kennet pursed up his lips disparagingly. “Too chancy, Deb. It won’t do to bungle it. I’m thinking you should write to him, appointing a meeting-place in some quiet spot, and I’ll keep the tryst for you.”
Once more Miss Grantham’s tiresome conscience intervened. “No!” she said, revolted. “I won’t win by such a horrid trick! Besides, he thinks I am an odious woman who would do any vile thing, and I am not! We must think of something else.”
Mr Kennet cast her a sidelong, appraising glance. “Ah, well,” he said diplomatically, “you’d best leave the manner of it to me. I shall contrive somehow, I daresay.”
“And what am I to do about this wicked letter?” asked Miss Grantham, her eyes kindling as they alighted on it. “I should like to write to him, and tell him that he may go to the devil, but I suppose that would spoil everything. I must fob him off until Wednesday. Only I don’t know what to say!”
“Give me a pen!” said Kennet. “It will be better if I reply to it for you. You must play for time, me dear.”
“Why should you reply to it?” asked Deborah suspiciously. “If you mean any mischief, Lucius—”
“Devil a bit!” he said, cheerfully lying. “You shall look over me shoulder while I write it, and seal it yourself. “Twill be better for the gentleman to see that you think too little of him to answer with your own hand. Besides, you must plead with him a trifle, me dear, and that you’ll never bring yourself to do. I’ll write it for you in the third person.”
“What do you mean to say?” asked Miss Grantham, a little doubtful still, but bringing him some notepaper, and a pen.
He drew the paper towards him, and dipped the pen in the standish. “How will this answer?” he said, and began to write in flowing characters, slowly reading the words aloud as he did so. “Miss Grantham is obliged to Mr Ravenscar for his letter, and begs to inform him that she is astonished that any gentleman— We’ll underline that word, Deb!— could address a defenceless female in such terms.”
“I am not defenceless!” objected Miss Grantham.
“Whisht, now! She is persuaded that Mr Ravenscar cannot mean to put his barbarous threat into execution, since Lady Bellingham has done nothing to incur his enmity. Miss Grantham cannot but believe that a Compromise might yet be reached, and begs the favour of a reply to this suggestion at Mr Ravenscar’s earliest convenience. And we’ll underline that too, to make him think it’s frightened you are.
“Deb. How’s that?”
“I suppose it will answer,” said Deborah, in a discontented voice. “But I hate to sue for mercy!”
Mr Kennet shook some sand over the letter, read it through, and folded it, and reached for a wafer. “You’ll have your revenge on him presently, me darlin’, but till Wednesday we must keep him quiet, or it’s ruined all our fine plans will be.”
“Very well: send it!” said Deborah.