the Duke drove Belinda to the Christopher, and installed her in his parlour there while he dashed off one of his scrawls to his betrothed. It had occurred to him that he had told Mr. Mudgley that Lady Harriet would bring Belinda to him. To drive her to Furze Farm a day earlier than could have been expected, and without Lady Harriet, might, he felt, reawaken the mistrust he had been at such pains to allay in Mr. Mudgley’s breast. So he begged his Harriet to prevail upon the Dowager to allow her to go with him, and to dine afterwards at Cheyney, offering as sops to that erratic old lady’s possible scruples the presence of Lord Lionel at Cheyney, a promise to escort Harriet back to Laura Place at a seemly hour and a reminder that there would be moonlight. He sent this missive off by the hand of his footman, and having assured himself that his elusive charge had no immediate thought of wandering away again, went into his bedchamber to change his dress.
Nettlebed, upon learning of the projected dinner-party, did his best to persuade him into knee-breeches, but he was not really surprised when the Duke said that he should wear pantaloons and Hessians, and, for the first time in his long association with the Duke, bowed to this decree without either grumbling, or reminding his master that Lord Lionel always wore knee-breeches in the evening.
Much heartened by this evidence of the beneficial effects to be obtained by treating his servants with brutal severity, the Duke hurried into his clothes, and had packed Belinda and her bandboxes into the chaise again before Francis had had time to return with the answer to his letter. So emboldened by his victory over Nettlebed was he feeling that he drove round to Laura Place with the intention of being extremely high-handed with the Dowager, if she should dare to thwart him. Happily (since the Dowager was more than capable of holding her own against far more formidable males than he would ever be), this trial of strength proved to be unnecessary. When he was admitted into Lady Ampleforth’s house, he found his Harriet already descending the stairs, with her hat on, and a cloak hiding her muslin gown.
He started forward to meet her saying: “Do you go with me? Will Lady Ampleforth trust you to me? How pretty you look!”
If she had not been in her best looks before, this impulsive exclamation naturally made her glow into something approaching beauty. She smiled tremulously, blushing, and murmuring: “Oh, Gilly, do I? I do not know how you can say so, when you have been with Belinda!”
He acknowledged the force of this, but said seriously: “I do not know how it is, Harriet, but I would rather look at you than at Belinda. You have more countenance! ”
She now knew that whatever happiness might be in store for her this must rank as the most memorable day in her life. To conceal her swelling pride, she said in a rallying tone: “You are trying to flatter me, Gilly!”
“No,” he said. “I know you too well to suppose that flattery would be acceptable to you.”
Without making the slightest attempt to disabuse his mind of its curious misapprehension, Harriet said simply: “I am glad you think I have countenance, dear Gilly. I want only to be worthy of you.”
“To be worthy of me!” he said, quite thunderstruck. “But I am the most commonplace creature! Indeed, I do not know how you can look twice in my direction when you have known my handsome cousin!”
“Gideon?” she said in surprised accents. “Of course I have a great regard for him, for I am sure he has always been very kind, and you love him, which must recommend him to me, you know. But surely no one in their senses could think of him when you were by, Gilly!”
Preys to their blissful delusions, they walked slowly out of the house to the waiting chaise.
“I was half afraid your grandmama would not let you come with me!” the Duke said foolishly.
“Oh, Gilly, was it very wrong of me? I was obliged to use a little stratagem, for she was so cross, and I could see she meant to say it would be improper for me to go! I—I said I knew Mama would not permit it! Not quite like that, you know, but letting it be seen that that was what I thought. It is very dreadful! She doesn’t like Mama, and I knew very well that I had only to put that into her head, and she would say I might go with you!”
She sounded conscience-stricken, but the Duke laughed delightedly, so that any filial qualms that were troubling her gentle soul were instantly laid to rest. He handed her into the chaise, where Belinda greeted her without the smallest sign of guilt.
“Oh, my lady!” said Belinda. “Mr. Rufford—I mean, the Duke!—has found Mr. Mudgley!”
“Dear Belinda, you must be very happy!” Harriet said, laying a gloved hand on her knee.
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” agreed Belinda blithely. She paused, and added on a more wistful note: “But I wish I might have had that beautiful dress!”
“I am sure you would not wish for it rather than to be established so comfortably,” Harriet suggested gently.
“No, indeed! Only that I might perhaps have stayed until Lord Gaywood came back, you know. For he went to buy it for me, and it does seem very hard that I must not have it after all!”
Harriet, quite dismayed, strove to the best of her ability to give Belinda’s thoughts a more proper direction. The Duke, a good deal amused, intervened, saying: “Useless, my love! If you would but do what you may to convince her that this last adventure must be kept a secret between the three of us, it would be very desirable!”
“It seems very dreadful to be teaching the poor child to deceive the young man!” Harriet replied, in an under-voice. “I own, it might be wiser—But to have a secret from the man to whom one is betrothed is very wrong, and surely quite against female nature!”
“Dear Harriet!” he said, finding her hand, and raising it to his lips. “You would not do so, I know! But if she blurts out the whole to these people—? For they are simple, honest folk, and could not understand, perhaps.”
“I will do what you think right,” she said submissively, and thereafter tried her utmost to impress upon Belinda the wisdom of banishing Lord Gaywood alike from her thoughts and her conversation. Belinda was so much occupied in ecstatically recognizing and pointing out to her companions remembered landmarks that it seemed doubtful whether she attended with more than half an ear to the kindly advice bestowed upon her, but she was a very persuadable girl, and by dint of Harriet’s dwelling strongly on her unfortunate contretemps with the Dowager she was soon brought to the conviction that her sudden descent upon Furze Farm was due not to any traffic with Lord Gaywood, but to her having broken a cherished Sevres bowl.
But when the chaise drew up by the farm, Harriet could almost have believed that these precautions had been needless. For Mr. Mudgley was just shutting the big white yard-gate, and he turned, and stood still to watch the chaise, with the setting sun behind him, striking on his uncovered head, and catching the auburn lights in his thick thatch of curly hair. He was still wearing his working-clothes, with his sleeves rolled up, and his shirt open to reveal the tanned, sturdy column of his throat, and he presented such a fine figure of a man that not even Harriet, with twenty years of strict training behind her, could wonder that Belinda no sooner saw him than she gave a little scream of joy, and, without waiting for the steps of the chaise to be let down tumbled headlong into his arms. It did not seem probable, after that, that any explanations would be asked for or proffered.
The Duke and his betrothed did not linger for many minutes at the farm. Mrs. Mudgley was sufficiently mistress of herself to do the honours of the house, but her son could scarcely be brought to take his eyes from his long-lost love, and Belinda, her eyes like stars and happy laughter bubbling on her lips, darted about, recognizing and exclaiming at first this object, and then that, and paid very little more heed to her late protectors than if they had been a part of the furnishings of the big kitchen.
“And I was conceited enough to fear that she liked me a little too well!” confided the Duke, once more bowling along in the chaise. “I am quite set down!”
“Do you know, Gilly,” said Harriet thoughtfully, “I am much inclined to think that Belinda is perhaps one of those people who are very pretty, and amiable, but do not care profoundly for anyone. It is very sad! Will Mudgley discover it, and be unhappy, do you think?”
“Why, no! She is good-natured, and affectionate, and although he may be an excellent fellow I do not imagine his sensibilities to be over-nice. They will deal very well together, I daresay. She will always be silly, but he appears to have considerable constancy, and we must hope that he will always be fond!”
Harriet, accepting what he said, was content to forget Belinda. She sat cosily beside the Duke, her hand in his, while the chaise covered the little distance between Furze Farm and Cheyney. He was tired, and she was happy; they exchanged few remarks, and those, for his part, in lazy murmurs. Once the Duke said: “Let us be married very soon, Harriet.”
“If you wish it, Gilly!” she said shyly.
He turned his head against the squabs that lined the chaise, and looked at her mischievously. “Of course I do. I see that you mean to be a very good wife, you are so conformable! Do you wish it?”
She nodded, blushing, and he laughed, beginning to tease her about the hats she must buy in Paris when it was discovered that those she had already ordered from Mrs. Pilling made her look like a dowd. She was still protesting when the chaise drew up before the doors of his house.
“I have no extraordinary liking for this house of mine,” the Duke said gaily, handing her down from the chaise, “but still I shall say Welcome to your home, dear Harriet! How strange it seems to be rid of all my embarrassments! I shall not know how to go on, I daresay!”
He led her up the few shallow steps to the doors. These were flung open to them by an embarrassment he had forgotten. The Duke paused, a rueful look in his eye, and exclaimed: “The devil! I must do something about you, I suppose!”
Mr. Liversedge had, naturally, no livery with which his office might be dignified, but the lack of it was scarcely noticeable. His carriage was majestic, and his manner to perfection that of a trusted steward of long standing. He bowed very low, and ushered the young couple into the house, saying: “I trust your Grace will permit me to say how very happy we are to receive you, and her ladyship! I venture to think that you will find everything in readiness, though, to be sure, as your Grace well knows, the staff at present residing here is of a scanty, not to say inadequate nature. I should add that Master Mamble—a good lad, but addlepated!—forgot to inform us that her ladyship would be accompanying your Grace. But I will instantly apprise the housekeeper of this circumstance. If your Grace should care to take her ladyship into the library while I perform this office, you will, I fancy, find the Captain there, and such refreshments as I ventured to think might be acceptable to you after the drive. Lord Lionel, I regret to say, stepped out a little while since with Mr. Mamble, not being in the expectation of receiving her ladyship. He will be excessively sorry, I assure your ladyship.”
He led the way, as he spoke, across the wide hall to the library door, and set this open, smiling benignly upon the Duke and informing him in a confidential undervoice that he need entertain no fear that the dinner being prepared would disgrace him in the eyes of his future Duchess. “For,” he said, “I deemed it proper at the outset to give the matter my personal supervision.”
The Duke found himself saying thank-you in what he knew to be a weak way.
His cousin was lounging in a chair beside the fire. He looked up lazily, and, when he saw Harriet, got to his feet, his brows lifting. “Your very obedient servant, ma’am!” he said, laughing, and shaking hands with her. “How very like Adolphus not to tell us that he meant to bring you with him! You may blame him for it that you find me very unsuitably dressed to receive you. How do you go on, Harry? You look very becomingly!” He drew forward a chair for her. “I have been laughing this hour past, Adolphus, at your protégé’s crowning devilry! Oh, yes, I was dragged out into the shrubbery to be regaled with it! I will own that he is a youth of parts. What have you done with the fair Belinda?”
“We dropped her—quite literally, you know!—into the arms of her precious Mr. Mudgley, and there left her. Gideon, when I said that that fellow might make himself useful, I never meant that he should take upon himself the entire conduct of my house! What is to be done with him? Borrowdale himself never bade me welcome in a more fatherly spirit!”
“You had better turn him off then. I have no objection, since I am not residing here, but I think it only right to warn you that he has won my father’s approval—as much by his firm handling of Mamble as by his undoubted excellence as a steward and butler.”
The Duke could not help laughing. “He is incorrigible! Only conceive of my uncle’s feelings if he knew the truth! I bear him no malice—indeed, I am grateful to him for so much enlarging my experience—but I will not permit him to rule my household!” He saw that Harriet was looking from him to Gideon in a little perplexity, and added: “My love, it is the most ridiculous situation! That is the fellow who cast me into acellar, and offered to sell me to my wicked cousin!”
She was verymuch shocked, and exclaimed in a faint voice. It was incomprehensible to her that anyone should be amused by such a circumstance, but both Gilly and Gideon plainly thought it excessively funny, so she smiled dutifully, realizing the truth of her mama’s dictum, that there was never any knowing what stupidities men would find diverting. But she could not forbear to implore the Duke not to keep such a dreadful person near him. “Indeed, he ought to be put in prison!” she said earnestly.
“Undoubtedly he ought, my dear, but you must hold me excused from denouncing him, if you please! He is by far too amusing! Besides, he did me no harm, but, on the contrary, a great deal of good.”
It was not to be supposed that Harriet could regard with anything but horror one who had cast her Gilly into a cellar, but she perceived that the Duke’s mind was made up, and said no more. Liversedge himself came back into the room a minute or two later, with an offer to escort her to the housekeeper, and so bland and respectful was his manner that she could almost have supposed the whole affair to have been a mistake. She rose from her chair, and said meekly that she would like to take off her hat.
“I warn you, Harriet, you will not escape from Mrs. Kempsey for an hour at least!” Gideon told her, mocking his cousin. “She will tell you how weak a chest Adolphus always had, and what remedies were tried, and how she nursed him once when he had the measles. She nursed me too, but she won’t waste a moment on my sufferings, though I swear I was much more full of measles than Adolphus!”
The Duke smiled. “But you brought them home from Eton and I took them from you!” he reminded his cousin. “How could you expect to be forgiven such shocking conduct? Don’t let her bore on for ever, Harry!”
“Indeed, I shall not think it a bore!” she said. “I hope she will tell me what she likes, for I mean to get upon terms with all your people, Gilly.”
He walked beside her to the door, handing her cloak to Liversedge, and saying, as he did so: “When you have taken her ladyship upstairs, come back to me: I must settle with you.”
“I will certainly do so, your Grace,” Liversedge responded with a bow. “But possibly you will excuse me for a few minutes while I cast my eye over the kitchen. I fancy you will be pleased with my way of serving woodcocks a la Tartar, but the menial at present presiding in the kitchen is not to be trusted with rare dishes. There is, moreover, the question of a sweet, which the presence of a lady at the board makes indispensable. I doubt whether the individual aforementioned has a mind fit to rise above damson tart and jelly, but I hope to contrive a Chantilly Basket which will not disgust her ladyship.”
He bowed again at the conclusion of this speech and sailed away without giving the Duke time to answer him. “If I must consort with rogues,” remarked Gideon, pouring out some sherry, “I own I like them to be in the grand manner. It’s my belief you’ll never be rid of this one, Adolphus.”
He was mistaken. When Liversedge presently returned to the library, it soon became evident that he had no desire to remain at Cheyney. He found the life there too circumscribed.
“Had it been your Grace’s principal residence, I might have been tempted to consider the propriety of establishing myself in some useful capacity,” he explained, with one of his airy gestures. “Although, I must add, servitude, however genteel in its nature, has little charm for me. It does not, if I may say so, offer sufficient scope for a man of my vision. Not that I would have your Grace think that it was with reluctance that I assumed the control of this establishment. On the contrary! I have the greatest regard for your Grace—indeed, I may say that I was much taken with you at the first moment of setting eyes on you!—and I have been happy to feel that I was being of service to you.”
“Before you succumb to this eloquence, Adolphus,” drawled Gideon, “I would remind you that this admirer of yours would have murdered you for a paltry sum.”
“There, sir,” instantly replied Liversedge, “I must join issue with you! For fifty thousand pounds I might have been able to overcome my natural repugnance to putting a period to his Grace’s life, but for a lesser sum I could not have brought myself to contemplate it. Those nobler instincts which even the basest of us have must have revolted.”
The Duke regarded him curiously, his chin in his hand. “Would you really have murdered me?” he asked.
“If,” said Mr. Liversedge, “I were to seek refuge in a lie, you, your Grace, would not believe me, and I should have debased myself to no purpose. I shall not seek to deceive you: for fifty thousand pounds I must have steeled myself, if not to perform the deed, at least to order its execution. I do not deny that it would have been a struggle, for I am not a man of violence, but I am inclined to think that the temptation would have been overmastering. A man of your wealth, sir, has no business to offer himself to be the prey of those less fortunately circumstanced, and that, you will allow, is precisely what you did. It was neither politic nor right, but I shall say no more on that head. Your Grace is young, and, when you came, incognito, into my orbit, you were—if I may say so without offence—shockingly green! I flatter myself that through my exertions you have gained in experience, and will not err again after that fashion.”
“You had better reward the fellow!” interpolated Gideon.
Mr. Liversedge was quite unabashed. “Captain Ware, though scarcely in sympathy with me, touches the very nub of the matter,” he said. “Consider, your Grace! If we are to balance our accounts, which of us is the gainer?”
“I perceive that you are of the opinion that I stand in your debt,” replied the Duke, faintly smiling.
“Certainly,” said Liversedge, inclining his head. “Can it be in doubt? You were, I fancy, in search of adventure: I gave it to you. You were green: I compelled you to put off the boy and to assume the man. Let us glance for a moment at the other side of the ledger! You snatched from me the letters which I had acquired from your young cousin; you stole from me the means whereby I might have hoped to have acquired other such letters—I refer to my adopted niece; you burned down the wretched hovel which was my sole shelter; you drove into miserable seclusion the individual who owned it, and is nearly related to me; and by these several acts—unthinkingly, I daresay, but none the less painful in their consequences—reduced me to a state of penury which makes it impossible for me to depart from this house.”
“If I made it possible for you to leave this house, what would you do?” asked the Duke.
“God grant me patience!” groaned Gideon.
The Duke ignored him. “Well, Liversedge?”
“It would depend,” replied Liversedge, “on the extent of your Grace’s generosity. My ambition has ever been to preside over a genteel establishment where those with a taste for gaming may be sure of select company, elegant surroundings, and fair play—for my experience has taught me that nothing could be more fatal to the ultimate success of such a venture than to make use of such shifts as the concave-suit, fuzzing, cogging, or in a word any of the Greeking transactions by which novices in this form of livelihood too often think to make their fortunes. That kind of thing may answer for a space, but can never lay the foundations of a permanent establishment of the refinement I have in mind. I attempted something of the sort in this country, but the difficulties are great, and the sordid precautions one is obliged to take against unwarrantable interference set too heavy a drain upon one’s resources. If the means lay within my grasp, I should repair to Strasbourg, a town where my talents could flourish, and one, moreover, where I own acquaintances who would count themselves fortunate to acquire my assistance in the management of their houses. A small beginning, you may think, but I do not doubt of rising swiftly from it.”
“Strasbourg,” said the Duke meditatively. “I remember I disliked the place excessively. I was never more bored! I will revenge myself on Strasbourg, Liversedge, by sending you there to batten upon its citizens. But if any other peer should chance to come into your orbit again, do not kidnap him, for that might come to my ears, you know, and I should feel that it was time to make an end of you.”
He rose to his feet as he spoke, and walked towards the desk that stood in the window.
“Sir,” said Liversedge, “I am not of those who do not profit by their mistakes. In departing from an occupation at which I excel I erred. Kidnapping is too crude a trade for any man of taste and sensibility.”
“You are wise,” said the Duke. “If such a greenhorn as I could—”
“Careful, Gilly!” Gideon said under his breath, his eyes on the doorway. “The fat, I fear, is now in the fire!”
The Duke turned his head. Mr. Liversedge had neglected to shut the door securely upon his entrance into the library, and it now stood wide. Lord Lionel stood on the threshold, as though transfixed, an expression of such wrathful amazement in his face that any hope his nephew might have cherished that he had not overheard enough to make plain to him the whole died on the spot.
“So!” uttered his lordship terribly. “I am now in possession of the truth, am I? I might have doubted the fidelity of my ears had I not already had reason to suppose that you have taken leave of your senses, Sale! I came to find you, to request that you will give me an explanation—But that can wait! Give me a plain answer, yes or no! Is this the rascal who tried to hold you to ransom?”
“You know it is, sir,” said the Duke.
His lordship drew an audible breath. “If you have not actually lied to me, sir, you have practised the grossest form of deceit! I would not have believed you capable of it, for with all your faults—”
“Shall we leave my faults for discussion at some more convenient time, sir?” interrupted the Duke.
Lord Lionel was a just man. Even as he opened his mouth to blister his nephew he realized that the rebuke had been deserved, and shut it again. He said with strong restraint: “You are very right! You will not, however, expect me tamely to acquiesce in your extraordinary schemes! Don’t try to put me off, Sale! I came in time to hear more than enough! As well that I did so, since you have apparently succeeded in cajoling Gideon into permitting you to indulge your whimsicality in a manner—”
“What, in the name of all that is wonderful, have my affairs to do with Gideon?” demanded the Duke. “Indeed, what have they to do with anyone save myself? I am not a child, sir!”
“You are—” His lordship recollected himself, and stopped. He shut the door ungently, and strode into the middle of the room. “There has been enough of this nonsense!” he said. “If you cannot see what is the proper course to pursue, I can! This villain is to be handed over to those who will know how to deal with him! Either you will give orders for a constable to be fetched from Bath to take him in charge, or I will!”
The Duke moved to the desk, and sat down at it, and drew a sheet of paper towards him. “I have no power, sir, to prevent you from sending for whom you wish,” he said, his soft voice even, and rather chilly. “I think it only right to warn you, however, that I am making no charge against Liversedge, and shall deny whatever allegation you might feel yourself compelled to utter.
Gideon’s black brows went up, and one corner of his mouth too. He glanced at his thunderstruck parent, and said warningly: “’Ware riot, sir, ’ware riot, I do beseech you!”
“Be silent!” Lord Lionel rapped out. “Gilly, why! ”
“I have already told you, sir,” the Duke replied, dipping a pen in the inkstand, and beginning to write. “I do not choose to advertise my own folly.”
Mr. Liversedge, who had been listening with an expression of great interest to this animated dialogue, coughed in a deprecating way, and said: “If I may say so, sir, such a decision is a wise one, and does you credit. It would indeed be undesirable to apprise the vulgar world of this affair. Setting aside all consideration of your dignity—not that I would for an instant advocate anyone’s doing so!—one cannot but reflect that the knowledge of my failure might inspire some more fortunate conspirator to lay a plot against your Grace that would achieve success. And that,” he added earnestly, “is a thing I should deprecate as much as the most devoted of your relatives.”
Lord Lionel brought his staring gaze to bear upon him. “Upon my soul!” he ejaculated. “This passes all bounds!”
It was at this inopportune moment that Mr. Mamble came into the library, rubbing his hands together, and saying with a satisfaction unshared by his hosts: “I thought I should find you here! Well, your Grace! Eh, but you look different than when I saw you in that shabby old coat you was wearing when I had you arrested for a dangerous rogue!” He chuckled at the memory, and advanced into the room. “Well, his lordship and I have become a pair of downright cronies, as I daresay he has been telling you. He has his notions, and I have mine, and maybe we’ve both learned summat we didn’t know before. But I’m fairly put out by that young rascal of mine! It’s mercy it was no more than a sheep, and your Grace kind enough to pardon it, else I would have dusted his jacket rarely for him!”
“How do you do?” murmured the Duke, half-rising, and extending one hand. “I beg you will forget the sheep! I stand so much in Tom’s debt that one sheep’s life seems a small price to be called upon to pay.”
“Well, I don’t know how that may be,” responded Mr. Mamble, shaking the hand, “but it wasn’t as bad as that! What’s o’clock? I’m beginning to feel sharp-set, I can tell you, and ready for my dinner. Ay, there’s the Captain pouring out the sherry, I see, and right he is! A glass of sherry is the very thing I was needing, for I’ve been riding out with your good uncle, your Grace, looking over your estate. It’s not so large as mine, by Kettering, but he tells me it ain’t more than a tithe of what you’re possessed of.”
Mr. Liversedge rose nobly to this as to every other occasion. He bowed politely to Mr. Mamble, sweeping him in some irresistible fashion known only to himself towards the door, and saying in a voice in which authority and civility were nicely blended: “I shall have a bottle of sherry sent up to your room, sir, on the instant. You will be desirous of changing your raiment before sitting down to dine with his Grace. The hour is already far advanced, but have no fear! Dinner will be held until you are ready to partake of it.”
Mr. Mamble might fancy himself to have achieved habits of easy intercourse with Lord Lionel, but he was not of the stature to compete with Mr. Liversedge, and he knew it. He allowed himself to be bowed out of the room, saying that he had not known it was so late, and must certainly change his dress.
Lord Lionel’s exacerbated feelings found relief as soon as the door was fairly shut behind him. “Intolerable upstart!”
Mr. Liversedge said soothingly: “I beg your lordship will not trouble your head over him! A good man in his way, but vulgar! One cannot but feel that his Grace was misguided in extending the hospitality of Cheyney towards him, but old heads, as your lordship well knows, are not found upon young shoulders.”
Lord Lionel found himself so much in sympathy with this observation that he was almost betrayed into applauding it. He stopped himself in time, and was just about to scarify Liversedge for daring to open his mouth, when the Duke spoke.
“Liversedge!” he said, shaking the sand from the few lines he had written.
“Your Grace?” responded Liversedge, turning deferentially towards him.
“You will accompany me to Bath this evening. I will furnish you with the means to buy yourself a seat upon the mail-coach to London. When you reach London, go to Sale House, and give this note to Scriven, my agent, whom you will find there. He will comply exactly with its instructions. I have requested him to advance you the sum stated in whatever coinage may be most convenient to you. Don’t delay to quit this country! I assure you it might yet become unfriendly to you.”
“Sir,” said Mr. Liversedge, taking the letter from the Duke’s outstretched hand, “no poor words of mine could convey to your Grace the sense of the deep obligation I feel towards you! I venture to prophesy that you will live to become an Ornament to the Peerage, and if—with my hand on my heart I say it!—I should not again have the felicity of setting eyes upon your face, I shall cherish the memory of my all too brief association with you to the day of my demise! And now,” he continued, tucking the Duke’s letter into his pocket, “I will, with your Grace’s permission, repair to the kitchens, where I dare not hope that my surveillance is not long overdue.”
With these words, the magnificence of which apparently made Lord Lionel feel that any attempt at expostulation must come as an anticlimax, he bowed again, and left the room with an unhurried and a stately gait.
“I am far from approving of your conduct, Adolphus, but I will own that I should be sorry to see your enterprising acquaintance in Newgate,” said Gideon. “He comes off with the honours!”
His father rounded on him. “How many more times am I to tell you not to call him by that name?” he demanded, venting an irritation of spirit that had no relation at all to anything Gideon had said.
“I must leave that to yourself to decide, sir,” replied Gideon, willing to draw his parent’s fire.
But the Duke intervened. “Oh, no, sir, don’t forbid him to call me Adolphus! He is the only person who does so, and how much I should miss it if he ceased!”
He rose from the desk, and came to the fire. Lord Lionel said angrily: “How could you be such a fool as to reward that fellow? If you wished to let him to free—well, I have nothing to say to that! Certainly we can none of us desire this lamentable episode to be made public! An episode, I would remind you, that sprang solely from your own thoughtless and ill-judged behaviour! But to reward the villain, as though he had rendered you some signal service, makes me fear for your reason!”
“He has,” said the Duke, stirring the smouldering log in the hearth with one foot. He looked up with his mischievous smile. “No, do not ask me how, sir, for I could not explain it to you. Only do not be so vexed with me! I must sometimes be allowed to make my own decisions, you know.”
“No one has ever been more urgent with you to do so than myself!” replied his lordship, in perfect sincerity. “I have boon foolish enough to have indulged the hope that you had come to years of discretion! I don’t scruple to tell you that I find myself sadly mistaken! When this abominable affair came to my knowledge, I was in search of you, to demand from your own lips an explanation of the extraordinary intelligence conveyed to me not an hour since by Moffat!”
The Duke regarded his fingernails meditatively, “Ah, yes! The Five-acre field,” he said. “So Moffat has already told you, sir? Well, he would have done better to have left it to me, perhaps, but it makes little odds. I have the intention of bestowing it upon Jasper Mudgley, for a bride-gift—”
“You need not put yourself to the trouble of telling me that, Sale! I have had the whole story from Moffat. I wonder I should have found the patience to have heard him out! Understand me, boy! while I hold the reins you will not sell or give away one foot of your lands!”
The Duke raised his head, and met his uncle’s fierce look with one so icily aloof that Lord Lionel was startled. “I have borne enough!” he said, his voice still level, and low-pitched, yet with anger throbbing in it. “I will not endure any longer this ceaseless thwarting of my every wish! I am fully sensible, sir, of the great debt I owe you for your unremitting care of me, of my interests, but my gratitude would be increased tenfold if you would bring yourself to believe that I am neither a child nor a fool!” He paused, his chest rising and falling rather quickly, but Lord Lionel did not speak. He was still staring at his nephew, his expression hard to read. After a moment, the Duke continued: “You are aware of my reason for thus disposing of a part of my land. I would have explained this to you, had not Moffat forestalled me. I am persuaded that I have no need to remind you that this paltry patch of ground is not part of the Cheyney estate, and I trust that I have even less need to assure you that I have not the most distant intention of cutting up my inheritance. It is not I who stand in danger of forgetting that I am Ware of Sale! You have said that while you hold the reins—my reins!—I shall not give away one foot of my land. I shall not attempt to persuade you to alter that decision, sir: you will do as you please. But in a short space of time now I shall have reached my twenty-fifth birthday, and on that day, believe me (for I was never more in earnest!), Mudgley will receive from me the deed of gift that will put him in possession of the Five-acre field!” He stopped, and for a moment or two there was complete silence in the room. The Duke continued to meet his uncle’s stare, his eyes as stern as those older ones. Gideon, standing still by the fire, glanced from one to the other of the combatants with a wry twist to his mouth.
“By God!” Lord Lionel said at last, slowly, “I never saw you look so like your father before, boy! So you mean to unseat me? Well, well, you are an impudent dog, but I am glad to see you have so much spirit in you! If you are so set on this business, I suppose you must have your way, but don’t imagine that it has my approval, for it has not! Ware of Sale, indeed!” He laughed suddenly. “There, stop glaring at me, Gilly! I have a very good mind to box your ears!”
The rigid look vanished from the Duke’s face. He put out a hand that was not quite steady, and said quickly: “No, no, how could I say such things to you? Forgive me! You are the best, the kindest of uncles!”
Lord Lionel was amused. “Very pretty talking, upon my word! Don’t think to cajole me with your caressing ways, you young rascal, when I know well you are determined to have your own way in spite of me!”
The Duke gave a shaken laugh. “Yes. Yes, I am. But I need not have spoken to you so!”
“Oh, I never liked a man the less for being ready to sport his canvas!” Lord Lionel said coolly. “But this fellow Liversedge, Gilly! Do you expect me to submit to being waited on at table by a villain?”
The Duke smiled sweetly at him. “Well, he may as well make himself useful while he is still under my roof, sir. I am sure he will wait onus excellently. Besides, Harriet is here, and I really cannot have an indifferent dinner set before her!”
“Harriet here!” exclaimed his lordship. “Good God, Gilly, why could you not have told me that before? Here am I in all my dirt, for I had not meant to change my dress since we are alone, and one must keep that fellow Mamble in countenance! Where is Harriet?”
“I dare swear in Mrs. Kempsey’s room, sir. She will not regard your riding-dress, I assure you.”
“I would not be guilty of such discourtesy as to sit down to the table with her in it!” declared Lord Lionel, hurrying towards the door. “Really, you are a great deal too thoughtless! You will make my excuses to Harriet, and say that I shall be down directly!” He opened the door, but checked on the threshold, perceiving that Liversedge was in the act of opening the double entrance doors. “Now, who the devil can be visiting us at this hour?” he said testily. “I hope that fellow has the sense to deny us!”
Liversedge was given no opportunity of doing so. As soon as the doors were fairly open, Lord Gaywood thrust unceremoniously past him into the hall, saying through his teeth: “Inform the Duke that Lord Gaywood desires speech with him! And don’t tell me he is not at home, for I know very well he is!”
“Well, Gaywood, what’s all this?” demanded Lord Lionel. “If you want Sale, he is here, and will no doubt be glad to see you. I see no occasion for these stable-manners you young men delight in assuming. Put down your hat and coat, and do not give me any of your black looks!”
Lord Gaywood was in a towering rage, but this reception from one of whom he stood in the liveliest awe acted as a check upon him. He stammered: “I didn’t know you were here, sir!”
“I daresay you might not, though what that has to say to anything I know not! Come in, Sale is in here. Gilly, here is Gaywood in some nonsensical pucker!”
The Duke took the door-handle in his own hand. “Yes, sir, so I see.”
The Viscount rolled a fiery eye at him, and said with painstaking civility: “I must beg the favour of a word in private with yon, my lord Duke!”
“Certainly,” replied the Duke. “Come in!”
Lord Lionel’s brows shot up. “Now, what’s the matter between you two?” he asked. “I’ll have no quarrelling here, understand! Don’t put on airs to be interesting, Gaywood, for they don’t impress me!”
Lord Gaywood ignored him contemptuously. “I said, in private, my lord Duke!”
Lord Lionel began to look rather grim. He turned, as though to come back into the room, but found that the Duke’s hand had been laid detainingly on his arm.”
“If you please, sir!” the Duke said.
“Now, Gilly, I don’t know what may be amiss, but I am not going to permit you—” He stopped, meeting the Duke’s eyes. “Oh, very well!” he shrugged. “Settle it between you! You will not do anything foolish, my boy!”
He went off, and the Duke, still holding the door, looked across the room at his cousin. “Gideon!”
Captain Ware grinned at him. “Content yourself with your signal victory over my parent, Adolphus! Nothing short of physical violence will remove me, and you would be very unwise to attempt anything of that nature, you know!”
The Viscount achieved a sneer. “Hide behind Gideon if you choose!” he said. “You will not thus escape me!”
“You know, Charlie, when you have gamed away all your fortune, you may take to the boards and be sure of success!” said Gideon admiringly.
“Oh, be quiet, Gideon!” said the Duke wearily. “I wish you will go away! What is it, Gaywood? Have you come to offer me an apology? I promise you, you owe me one! If I were not about to be married to your sister I should be sorely tempted to call you to book! You are a curst nuisance!”
“ You call me to book!” gasped Gaywood. “By God, if that don’t beat all! You foist your bit of muslin onto my sister—and I can tell you I was within an ace of calling you out for that alone! and you—”
“Belinda is not, and never was, my bit of muslin, and if you were not a rattle-pated fool you would know it!”
“Doing it a trifle too brown, my lord Duke! Do you take me for a gudgeon?”
“Good God, yes!” replied the Duke. “I have taken you for agudgeon any time these past ten years!”
“Now, byJupiter, that’s too much!” exploded the Viscount, starting forward.
He found his passage barred by Gideon’s broad shoulder. “Oh, no, my boy!” said Gideon. “Nothing of that sort. You’d best take a damper!”
“Gideon, will you have the goodness to allow me to manage my own affairs?” said his cousin.
Gideon looked at him for a moment, and then stepped back. “As you wish, Adolphus!”
“I am obliged to you. Now, Gaywood, we’ll make an end to this nonsense, if you please, for I have quite come to the end of my patience!”
“You served me the shabbiest trick, Sale, and by God, you shall answer for it! You’re a damned dog in the manager, sir! You did not want the girl yourself, but you could not bear that anyone else should have her! So you—”
“On the contrary, I have given her into the care of the one man alive who does truly want her!” retorted the Duke.
“Don’t try to bamboozle me with that tale! I make no doubt you have her hidden away somewhere!” said the Viscount furiously. “Where is she?”
“Oh, in the arms of that Somerset bumpkin, of course!”
The Viscount stared at him suspiciously. “She is, is she? I should like to know who the devil gave you the right to meddle in my affairs!”
“I do not care a button for your affairs,” replied the Duke. “It was Belinda’s affairs that were my concern. You knew the truth, for Harriet told you it! How dared you, Gaywood, try to seduce a girl under my protection?”
“Seduce her! That’s a loud one!” ejaculated his lordship with a short bark of laughter. “Much you know of it! Why, she fell into my hand as readily as any ripe plum!”
A gleam of amusement shone in the Duke’s eyes. “Did she so?” he said dryly. “But not so readily, I fancy, that she could be persuaded to go with you until she had sent you running up Milsom Street in search of a purple gown!”
The wanton provocation of this remark made Gideon open his eyes a little, and caused the smouldering flames of the Viscount’s wrath to leap up again. He flushed hotly, and almost audibly ground his teeth.
“You’ll answer to me for what you have done this day, my lord Duke!” he said. “Name your friends! They shall hear from mine!”
Gideon moved suddenly, as though again he would have stepped between them. The Duke flung out a hand. “Be quiet! Do you imagine I stand in need of abodyguard? So you would like to call me out, Gaywood! Famous!”
“You dare not refuse to give me satisfaction!” Gaywood declared.
“Satisfaction! You fool, if I went out with you, much satisfaction you would get from the encounter! I own, there was a moment today when I would willingly have met you, yes, and have put a bullet through you! Had you not been Harriet’s brother—But you are her brother, and though you may forget it I shall not!”
“I’m not afraid of your damned marksmanship,” said Gaywood, white with anger. “You’ll accept my challenge, Sale!”
“He will not meet you,” Gideon interposed. “No one but a madman like yourself would expect it of him!”
“Who made you my spokesman?” demanded the Duke. “I’ll meet you, Gaywood, and I will tell you just what will happen at that meeting! We shall fire at twenty-five paces, I in the air, you where you please!”
The Viscount appeared to fight for breath. “Delope? You would not! Why, I might kill you!”
“You are welcome to try!” retorted the Duke.
“I hardly dare to open my mouth,” drawled Gideon, “but there is much in what he says, Gaywood. I don’t reckon myself a mean shot, but I would think twice before I engaged in pistol-play with Sale. And you won’t hit him, you know. He is such a little fellow, and you are such a damnably bad shot!”
What the infuriated Viscount might have been goaded into replying to this was never known, for at that moment Tom bounced into the room, in an extremely muddied condition, and announced that he had been helping to dig out a badger. He then caught sight of Gaywood, and exclaimed: “Oh, Mr. Rufford, that’s the beau that ran off with Belinda! Did you know?”
“I thought as much!” said the Viscount, grasping Tom by the collar, and shaking him viciously. “Not content with the rest, you must needs set this whelp of yours to bubble me, Sale! By God, you might at least—”
“He did not!” interrupted Tom, struggling to free himself. “I thought of it myself, and I’m glad I hoaxed you, and I’ll do it again if ever I have the chance!”
“Gaywood, let that boy go!” the Duke said, grasping the Viscount’s wrist. “Your quarrel is with me, not with a schoolboy!”
“No, it ain’t!” declared Tom, twisting himself out of the Viscount’s slackened grip, and squaring up to him purposefully. “You’ll have to settle with me before you touch my Mr. Rufford!”
“That’s the spirit, bantam!” approved Gideon, much entertained. “No flourishing, now! Let’s see some of the homebrewed!”
“For God’s sake, Gideon, will you be quiet?” said the Duke, half laughing, half exasperated. “Tom, go and make yourself tidy! You cannot start a mill in my library!”
“I’m not afraid, if he is!” said Tom, observing with disgust the Viscount’s strategic retreat behind a chair.
“Hey, what’s all this?” suddenly demanded Mr. Mamble’s voice from the doorway. “What’s he been doing, your Grace? I’ll teach him!”
“Nothing!” replied the Duke, struggling not to break into the mirth that was consuming him. “A—a slight misunderstanding with Lord Gaywood!”
Mr. Mamble executed one of his low bows in the Viscount’s direction, and begged him to state what devilry the pesky boy had been engaged on. He then cuffed Tom, and told him he should think shame to come into his Grace’s presence looking like a pauper brat.
“Well, I couldn’t help getting my clothes muddied, Pa!” said Tom sulkily. “It was a badger!”
“You say Papa, like you hear his Grace! How dare you go plaguing this gentleman with badgers? Now, you tell me this instant where you’ve put it, and no more tricks! I know you!”
The Viscount’s face of astonishment proved too much for the Duke. He sank into a chair, covering his eyes with one hand, and making a helpless gesture with the other.
“What the devil—?” exploded the Viscount, quite bewildered. “Who said anything about badgers! If that damned boy is your son—” He stopped, suddenly perceiving into what disclosures a complaint against his youthful tormentor would lead him. “Oh, never mind, never mind!” he said irritably.
“You tell his lordship you’re sorry for what you’ve done!” Mr. Mamble adjured his offspring.
“I ain’t sorry!” said Tom recalcitrantly. “I did it because I knew Mr. Rufford would be pleased, and he was! And I won’t let him bully Mr. Rufford, not if you tell me for ever! He shan’t touch him!”
Mr. Mamble looked suspiciously at the Viscount. “Oh, so that’s the way it is, is it?” he said. “Seems to me it’s his lordship as is wanted here! I don’t hold with duelling, and I’ll be bound he don’t either, for he’s a sensible man! I’ll wager he’ll know how to handle it!”
“Here, I say, no!” exclaimed the startled Viscount, seeing him about to go in search of Lord Lionel. “You can’t do that! Gilly! ”
“Lord or no lord,” said Mr. Mamble firmly, “I know where my duty lies!”
The Duke pulled himself together, raising his head from his hand, and saying faintly: “You are quite mistaken, Mr. Mamble! Lord Gaywood and I have no intention of fighting a duel. Infact, Lord Gaywood and I are shortly to become brothers!”
Mr. Mamble still looked unconvinced, so Gideon said kindly: “Have no fear, sir! I will not let the children harm each other! They will have their little differences, you know. Pray forgive me, but should you not take Tom upstairs to brush the mud from his clothes?”
“Ay, that I will do!” said Mr. Mamble, seizing Tom by the lobe of one ear, and leading him forth.
“For God’s sake, Gilly!” said the Viscount, momentarily forgetful of the point at issue, “where did you pick up that fellow?” He recollected himself, and tried to whip up his dying wrath. “Not that I care for that!” he said hastily. “When we were interrupted, my lord Duke—”
“Oh, Charlie, don’t start calling me my lord Duke again!” begged the Duke. “You will set me off laughing once more, and my ribs are aching! Do stop making such a cake of yourself! You know very well that by tomorrow you will be thanking God you are so well out of a scrape! You have no notion what a tiresome girl Belinda is!”
“Oh, haven’t I?” retorted the Viscount. “Let me tell you that she made me go all the way to Milsom Street for a gown all over gold beads, and of the most shocking colour you ever laid eyes on! But I don’t mind that! Damme, I never saw a lovelier creature in my life! But that was a dog’s trick you served me, Gilly! To send me off after a damned chaise with an old harridan in it, and her pug-dog—”
The Duke gave a little crow of joy. “Oh, no, Charlie, was it indeed an old harridan? If only I might have seen you! But it was none of my doing, I swear! My peerless Thomas planned and executed the whole!”
“I wish I’d choked the brat!” said his lordship. “Oh, yes, it’s very well for you to laugh, but it is a great deal too bad, and here am I with this damned purple gown on my hands, besides all else!” He glanced round as the door opened to admit his sister, and blinked. “Good God, how came you here, Harry?”
“Gilly brought me,” she replied. “Charlie, I do not like to be cross and scolding, but I am quite vexed with you! How could you behave so? It was too bad of you!”
The Duke led her towards the fire. “No, no, don’t be vexed with him, Harry! The poor fellow is left with a purple gown upon his hands, and has no one upon whom to bestow it!”
“I have been thinking about that,” she replied seriously. “It quite serves Charlie right, but, you know, Gilly, I think I will buy it from him, and give it to poor Belinda for a bride-gift. It would make her so very happy, and perhaps if only she had it she would be content!”
“You are an angel, Harriet,” said the Duke, pressing her hand. “She will look quite shockingly in it, you know, but I daresay Mudgley will not think so. Should I give her a ring to put on her finger, do you think?”
“No, for Mr. Mudgley will do that,” she pointed out. “I expect, however, that it would be proper for you to offer to stand sponsor to their first child,” she added thoughtfully.
“I make you my compliments, Harriet!” said Gideon. “I perceive that you will be an excellent Duchess, and become universally looked up to!”
“Oh, no!” she said, blushing. “How can you say so? Only I mean to try to do my best, and I shall have Gilly to tell me how I should go on, you know.”
“What, will you do as he bids?” exclaimed Gideon.
“Of course!” she said simply.
“Adolphus,” said Captain Ware, picking up his sherry-glass, “from my heart I felicitate you! The days of your bondage are clearly at an end! I drink to your future career, wherein you will doubtless assert yourself, tyrannizing over your family, bullying your servants, and filling your house with foundlings, Newgate-scoundrels, hobbledehoy schoolboys, and whatever scaff and raff of society your fancy prompts you to befriend! Adolphus, my little one, I salute you!”