MISS WANTAGE, IN SPITE OF HER NATURAL TERROR at being left without support in such a formidable place as Grillon’s Hotel, had passed a peaceful night, the unaccustomed excitement of the previous day having made her tired enough to sink into a sleep from which not all the strange noises of a London street had the power to rouse her. The Viscount had very kindly stayed to partake of dinner in her company before leaving the hotel for his own lodging; and since he had promised to visit her betimes next morning she was able to part from him with tolerable composure. But the high-bred stares of several dowagers sojourning in the hotel, coupled with the overt curiosity of the chambermaid who waited on her, made her feel very ill-at-ease, and it took all the comfort afforded by the knowledge of being dressed in a modish new gown to sustain her spirits until the arrival, at eleven o’clock, of the Viscount, with the shrinking Mr Ringwood in tow.
Being blessed with the friendliest of natures, Miss Wantage accepted Mr Ringwood with perfect complaisance. Upon being told that Gil would take care of her while his lordship was otherwise engaged, she smiled confidingly at him, and said: “Oh yes! Thank you! How kind it is in you! Will you take me to buy a hat for the wedding, please? Sherry made me buy this one I have on, because he told everyone I was going to school in Bath, but I will not wear it for my wedding!”
“Well, you need not,” replied Sherry. “But mind, Kitten, you are not to choose what Gil don’t like!”
“Oh no, indeed I won’t.”
The horrified Mr Ringwood made an inarticulate noise in his throat. It was not attended to. Sherry instructed him to be firm with Miss Wantage, and — in an under-voice — for God’s sake not to let her buy a hat more suited to a chere-amie than to a lady of Quality! Mr Ringwood, no lady’s man, was understood to say that really — no, really! — he knew nothing about such matters, but the Viscount summarily disposed of this objection and returned to the vexed question of abigails. Miss Wantage seemed surprised, but gratified, to learn that she was to have an abigail, but since she had no notion how to set about acquiring one, she was unable to help his lordship. Mr Ringwood then had the brilliant idea of laying the matter before Chilham. This found instant favour with Sherry, who said that he would drive straight back to Stratton Street as soon as he had paid Miss Wantage’s reckoning.
“And that reminds me!” he said suddenly. “Where the deuce are we going to stay?”
“Stay?” repeated Mr Ringwood. “Dash it, Gil, we shall have to put up somewhere until I decide where we are to live!”
“But — Are you meaning to stay in town, Sherry?” asked Mr Ringwood, with ideas of honeymoons chasing one another through his head.
“Of course we’re going to stay in town! Where the devil else should we stay? But I won’t stay at this place, and so I tell you! Of all the stuffy — Besides, we couldn’t stay here. They think Kitten’s on her way to school.”
“Well, you’ve got a house, dear old boy — very fine house! Best part of the town — excellent address — Why not go there?”
“I suppose it will come to that in the end,” agreed Sherry, with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “But I can’t take possession of it before I’ve told my mother I want it. We shall have to put up at an hotel in the meantime. Only thing is, which hotel?”
“There’s Limmer’s,” suggested Mr Ringwood doubtfully.
“Limmer’s!” ejaculated the Viscount. “With all the Pets of the Fancy for the chit to hobnob with! As well take her to the Castle Tavern!”
Mr Ringwood, much confused, begged pardon, and once more searched his brain. He bethought him of Ellis’s; and after the Viscount had spurned this hostelry with a loathing engendered by his having once dined there with his mother, rejected a suggestion that Graham’s was said to be comfortable, and, on the somewhat obscure grounds of having an aunt who used to stay here, refused to enter the portals of Symon’s, it was decided that the young couple should take up their temporary abode at Fenton’s in St James’s Street.
“Well, now that we’ve settled that, I’d best be off to go with George to visit this curst Bishop of his,” said his lordship. He added, not without a touch of disapproval: “Queer start, that: George being acquainted with a Bishop. Shouldn’t have thought it of him.”
“No, I shouldn’t either,” agreed Mr Ringwood. “Of course you do get ’em in the family sometimes. Thing that might happen to anyone.”
“Yes, but you don’t know ’em,” Sherry pointed out. “Besides, he didn’t say this one was a relation of his. Very odd fellow, George.”
“You know what I think about George, Sherry?” Mr Ringwood said, as one who had given much consideration to the subject. “It’s a pity he’s such a devil of a fellow with the pistols. Makes it deuced awkward, sometimes, being a friend of his, because there’s no knowing when he’ll take one of his pets, and then nothing will do for him but to call one out. At least, I don’t mean that, precisely, because it stands to reason no one’s going to go out with George, unless they can’t help themselves, but the thing is he ain’t happy. Pity!”
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Sherry. “He was never as bad until the Incomparable came to town. Don’t pay much heed to him, myself. How long will it take me to fork this Bishop of his for that licence, do you suppose? I mean, where are we to meet?”
Mr Ringwood having no ideas to advance on the probable length of time this delicate operation would need, it was decided, after a good deal of argument, that as soon as Miss Wantage had accomplished her shopping, she should be escorted to the Viscount’s lodging, where he engaged himself to meet her. The party then broke up, Sherry going off to pick up Lord Wrotham, who had returned home to change his Belcher handkerchief for a neckcloth more in keeping with the exalted company he was to seek; and Mr Ringwood sallying forth with Miss Wantage in the direction of Bond Street.
Any idea he might have cherished of being able within an hour or two to relinquish his charge into her betrothed’s keeping was put an end to by the discovery, when they repaired to the Viscount’s lodging shortly after noon, that his lordship proposed to meet his Hero only at the Church door. He had left a hastily scribbled note for Mr Ringwood, informing that everything was in a way to being fixed right and tight; and that he relied upon his friend to bring the bride to St George’s, Hanover Square, not a moment later than half past two o’clock.
Mr Ringwood, who was by this time on very friendly terms with the most unexacting young lady he had so far encountered, communicated the contents of the note to her, and said: “Well, what would you care to do now, I wonder?”
“I could wait here,” offered Miss Wantage, in a tone which indicated that she would consider such a course pretty flat.
“No, that won’t do,” Mr Ringwood said, frowning. “I think I had best take you to eat a little luncheon. After that — ” He paused, eyeing her speculatively.
Miss Wantage returned his gaze with one of pleasurable expectation. “I know what you’d like!” he said. “You’d like to see the wild beasts at the Royal Exchange!”
Nothing could have appealed more strongly to Miss Wantage’s youthful taste, so as soon as she had changed the chipstraw hat for an Angouleme bonnet of white threadnet trimmed with lace, she sallied forth once more with Mr Ringwood, tripping beside him with all the assurance of one who knew herself to be dressed in the pink of fashion. The Angouleme bonnet most becomingly framed her face; she had taken great pains to comb her curls into modish ringlets; and if the figured muslin gown was less dashing than a certain pomona green silk which Mr Ringwood had assured her, in some agitation, Sherry wouldn’t like at all, no fault could be found with her little blue kid shoes, or her expensive gloves and reticule, or with the sophisticated sunshade which she carried to the imminent danger of the passers by.
They were a trifle late in arriving at the Church, owing to Mr Ringwood’s having made an unfortunate reference during the course of the afternoon to the Pantheon Bazaar. Miss Wantage had immediately demanded to be taken to this mart, and had enjoyed herself hugely there, dragging Mr Ringwood from shop to shop, and alarming him very much by developing a sudden desire to become the possessor of a canary in a gilded cage, which happened to catch her eye. Mr Ringwood was as wax in her hands, but he had a very fair notion of what his friend’s feelings would be on being met at the Church door by a bride carrying a bird in a cage, and he said desperately that Sherry wouldn’t like it. He had very little hope of being attended to, but to his surprise he found that these simple words acted like a talisman on his volatile companion. So although the hackney which conveyed them from the Bazaar to Hanover Square might be rather full of packages and bandboxes, at least it contained no livestock, a circumstance upon which Mr Ringwood considered he had reason to congratulate himself.
Not only Sherry was awaiting them in the Church porch, but the Honourable Ferdy Fakenham as well, whom he had brought along to support him on this momentous occasion. Both gentlemen were very nattily attired in blue coats, pale pantaloons, gleaming Hessians, uncomfortably high shirt collars, and exquisitely arranged cravats, the Honourable Ferdy sporting, besides (for he was a very Tulip of Fashion), a long ebony cane, lavender gloves, and a most elegant buttonhole of clove pinks. It was Ferdy who had procured a nosegay for the bride to carry, and the bow with which he presented it to her had made him famous in Polite Circles.
“Hallo, Kitten, that’s a devilish fetching bonnet!” said the Viscount, by way of greeting. “But what the deuce made you late? You had best pay off the hack, Gil: no saying how long we shall be here.”
“No, Sherry. Keep the hack!” said Mr Ringwood firmly.
“Why? If we want a hack, we can call up another, can’t we?”
“The thing is, Sherry, there are one or two packages in it,” explained Mr Ringwood, a little guiltily.
The Viscount stared at him, and then took a look inside the vehicle. “One or two packages!” he exclaimed. “Good God! What the deuce possessed you to bring a lot of bandboxes to a wedding?”
“Oh, Sherry, they are things I bought at the Pantheon Bazaar!” said Miss Wantage. “And we had not time to take them to your lodging, and I am very sorry if you do not like it, but I didn’t buy the canary which I wanted!”
“My God!” said the Viscount, realizing his narrow escape.
“Told her you wouldn’t like a canary,” explained Mr Ringwood, with a deprecatory cough.
“I should think you might well!” replied his lordship. “Oh, well, it can’t be helped: the hack had best wait for us! Lord, if I hadn’t forgotten to present you, Ferdy! It’s Ferdy Fakenham, Kitten. He’s some sort of a cousin of mine, so you may as well call him Ferdy, like the rest of us. You’re bound to see a lot of him. George Wrotham would have come along too, but we couldn’t bring him up to scratch. Sent you his compliments, and wished us both happy, or some such flummery.”
“Couldn’t face a wedding,” Ferdy said, shaking his head. “Comes too near the bone. Shook him badly, poor old boy, the mere sight of the licence! Gone off in the dumps again.”
Mr Ringwood fetched a sigh, but the Viscount was disinclined to dwell upon Lord Wrotham’s troubles, and proposed that they should stop dawdling about for all the fools of London to gape at, step into the Church, and settle the business. They all went in, therefore, and the business was, in fact, soon settled, without any other hitch than the discovery by the bridegroom, midway through the ceremony, that he had forgotten to purchase a ring. He rolled a frantically inquiring eye upon his cousin Ferdy, who merely gazed at him with dropped jaw, and the eyes of a startled fawn; and then, rendered resourceful through alarm, tugged off the signet ring on his own finger, and handed it over to the waiting cleric. It was much too large for Hero’s finger, but the glowing look she cast up at him seemed to indicate that she did not in the least resent his lack of foresight. It fell to Mr Ringwood’s lot to give the bride away, which he did with a somewhat self-conscious blush. Everyone signed the register; the Honourable Ferdy saluted the bride’s cheek with rare grace; Mr Ringwood kissed her hand; and the bridegroom confided in a relieved aside to his supporters that he thought they had brushed through it pretty well.
Once outside the Church again, the Viscount handed his wife into the hackney, and turned to consult his friends on the best way in which to spend the evening. Mr Ringwood stared at him very hard, and even Ferdy, who was not much given to the processes of reasoned thought, goggled a little at a suggestion that they should all foregather at Fenton’s for an early dinner, pay a visit to the theatre, and wind up an eventful day by partaking of a snug little supper at the Piazza.
“But, Sherry, dear boy! Lady Sheringham — wedding night — won’t want a party!” stammered Ferdy.
“Fudge! What the devil should we do, pray? Can’t spend the whole evening looking at one another!” said the Viscount. “Kitten, you’d like to go to the play with us, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, yes, do let us!” cried Hero at once. “I would like it of all things!”
“I knew you would. And you would like Gil and Ferdy to go along with us too, I dare say?”
“Yes,” agreed Hero, smiling warmly upon these gentlemen.
“Then that’s settled,” said the Viscount, getting into the hackney. “Fenton’s Hotel, coachman! Don’t be late, Gil!”
The vehicle drove off, leaving the Honourable Ferdy and Mr Ringwood to look fixedly at each other.
“Know what I think, Gil?” Ferdy asked portentously.
“No,” replied Mr Ringwood. “Damned if I know what I think!”
“Just what I was going to say!” said Ferdy. “Damned if I know what I think!”
Pleased to find themselves in such harmonious agreement, they linked arms in a friendly fashion, and proceeded down the road in the direction of Conduit Street.
“Dear little soul, you know,” presently remarked Mr Ringwood. “Seems to think the devil of a lot of Sherry.”
The slight uneasiness in his voice penetrated to Ferdy’s intelligence. He stopped suddenly and said: “I’ll tell you what, Gil!”
“Well, what?” asked Mr Ringwood.
Ferdy considered the matter. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Better look in at Limmer’s, since we’re so close, and have a third of daffy!”
The bridal couple, meanwhile, were rattling over the cobbles in the direction of St James’s Street. The groom put his arm round the bride’s waist and said: “Devilish sorry I forgot the ring, Kitten! Buy you one tomorrow.”
“I like this one,” Hero said, looking down at it. “I like to have it because it is your very own.”
He laughed. “You wouldn’t keep it long! In fact, you’ll very likely lose it before the night’s out.”
“Oh no! I shall hold my finger crooked, so that it can’t drop off. Sherry, when your cousin said ‘Lady Sheringham’ — did he mean me?”
“Of course he did. Though to tell you the truth, it sounded very odd to me too,” admitted his lordship.
Hero turned wide eyes upon him. “Sherry, I know I am Lady Sheringham, but it doesn’t seem possible! I have the horridest feeling that I shall suddenly wake up and find that it has been all a dream!”
“I know what you mean,” nodded his lordship, “though when I think of all the things I’ve had to do today it seems to me more like a nightmare.” He encountered a dismayed look, and said hastily: “No, no, not being married! I didn’t mean that! I dare say I shall like that very tolerably once I’ve grown used to it. But that Bishop of George’s! Do you know I had to swear an oath, or whatever they call it, that you had the consent of your guardians, Kitten?”
“But, Sherry, I haven’t!”
“No, I know that, but you wouldn’t have had me let a trifling circumstance like that stop me, would you? Besides, there’s no harm done: your precious Cousin Jane ain’t going to kick up a dust, you mark my words! She’ll be thankful to be so well rid of you, I dare say.”
Hero agreed to it, but a little doubtfully. The Viscount said in a bracing tone that what they both needed was a bottle of something to set them up.
They arrived presently at Fenton’s Hotel, to find that Bootle was already installed there, and had not only unpacked his master’s trunks, but had loftily instructed a chambermaid to perform the same office for my lady. As much to preserve his own dignity as Hero’s, he let drop, in the most casual way possible, the information that her ladyship’s maid had been smitten with the jaundice, leaving her mistress temporarily unattended. His grand manners, the slightly contemptuous glance he cast round the best suite of apartments in the hotel, and the nicety of taste which led him to rearrange the ornaments on the mantelpiece of the sitting-room which separated my lord’s from my lady’s bedchamber, quite overawed the chambermaid and the boots, and inspired them with a belief in the propriety of Lord and Lady Sheringham which only the appearance upon the scene of this erratic couple would dispel.
His lordship’s first act, on his arrival, was to ring for a waiter to bring up a bottle of burgundy, and another of ratafia; his second was to produce from one pocket a small package, which he handed over to his bride, saying as he did so: “Almost slipped my mind! There’s a wedding gift for you, brat: frippery things, but I’ll buy you better ones, once the blunt’s my own.”
“ Oh!” gasped Hero, gazing in incredulous delight at her first pair of diamond earrings. “Anthony, Anthony!”
“Good God, Kitten, they’re only trifles,” he expostulated, as she cast herself on his chest. “My dear girl, do have a care to my neckcloth! You’ve no notion how long it took me to get it to set just so!”
“Oh, I am so sorry, but how could I help it? Sherry, will you pierce my ears for me at once, so that I may wear them tonight?”
This, however, the Viscount did not feel himself competent to do. Hero’s face fell so ludicrously that he suggested that the ear-rings might very well be tied on with a piece of silk for the time being. She cheered up immediately, and by the time the waiter came back with the required refreshment, had achieved a result which her husband assured her would defy any but the narrowest scrutiny. They then toasted one another, and the Viscount was moved to declare that he was dashed if he didn’t believe that he had done a very good day’s work.
Later, when she appeared before him in the sea-green gauze, he stared at her in great surprise, and said: By Jove, he had never thought she could look so well! Encouraged by this tribute, Hero showed him a cloak of green sarsnet trimmed with swansdown, which she had purchased that morning, and upon his expressing his unqualified approval of this garment, confided, a little nervously, that she feared he might, when he came to see the bill, think it a trifle dear. The Viscount waved aside such mundane considerations; and they then went downstairs in perfect amity to receive their dinner guests.
It was evident from the expressions on their countenances that Mr Ringwood and the Honourable Ferdy thought that their friend’s bride did him credit. Each of these gentlemen had brought with him a wedding gift, the result of an earnest discussion which had taken place between them over two glasses of daffy at Limmer’s Hotel. The Honourable Ferdy had selected a charming bracelet for the bride; Mr Ringwood had chosen an ormolu clock, which he thought might come in useful. Hero accepted both offerings with unaffected delight, clasping the bracelet round her arm immediately, and promising the clock an honourable position on her drawing-room mantelpiece. This put the Viscount in mind of the chief problem at present besetting him, and as they all took their seats round the table in the dining-room, he again raised the question of his future establishment.
Mr Ringwood was firm in holding to it that the family mansion in Grosvenor Square was a good address, a circumstance by which he seemed to set great store; but Ferdy, while concurring in this pronouncement, gave it as his opinion that Sherry would have to throw all the existing furniture out into the road before embarking on the task of making the house fit to live in.
“Yes, by God, so I should!” exclaimed Sherry. “Most of the stuff has been there ever since Queen Anne, and I dare say longer, if we only knew. Oh, well! Hero will like choosing some new furnishings, so it don’t really signify.”
The Honourable Ferdy, who had been pondering at intervals all day how his cousin’s wife came by such a peculiar name, now introduced a new note into the conversation by saying suddenly: “Can’t make it out at all! You’re sure you’ve got that right, Sherry?”
“Got what right?”
“Hero,” said Ferdy frowning. “Look at it which way you like, it don’t make sense. For one thing, a hero ain’t a female, and for another it ain’t a name. At least,” he added cautiously, “it ain’t one I’ve ever heard of. Ten to one you’ve made one of your muffs, Sherry.”
“Oh no, I truly am called Hero!” the lady assured him. “It’s out of Shakespeare.”
“Oh, out of Shakespeare, is it?” said Ferdy. “That accounts for my not having heard it before!”
“You’re out of Shakespeare too,” said Hero, helping herself liberally from a dish of green peas.
“I am?” Ferdy exclaimed, much struck.
“Yes, in the Tempest, I think.”
“Well, if that don’t beat all!” Ferdy said, looking round at his friends. “She says I’m out of Shakespeare! Must tell my father that. Shouldn’t think he knows.”
“Yes, and now I come to think of it, Sherry’s out of Shakespeare too,” said Hero, smiling warmly upon her spouse.
“No, I’m not,” replied the Viscount, refusing to be dragged into these deep waters. “Named after my grandfather.”
“Well, perhaps he was out of Shakespeare, and that would account for it.”
“He might have been,” said Ferdy fair-mindedly, “but I shouldn’t think he was. Mind you, I never knew the old gentleman myself, but from what I’ve heard about him I don’t think he ever had anything to do with Shakespeare.”
“Very bad ton, my grandfather,” remarked the Viscount dispassionately. “Regular loose screw. None of the Verelsts ever had anything to do with Shakespeare.”
“Well, dare say you must know best, Sherry, but only think of Anthony and Cleopatra!” argued Hero.
“Anthony and who?” asked Ferdy anxiously.
“Cleopatra. You must know Cleopatra! She was a Queen of Egypt. At least, I think it was Egypt.”
“Never been to Egypt,” said Ferdy. “Accounts for it. But I know a fellow who was in Egypt once. Said it was a sad, rubbishing sort of a place. Wouldn’t suit me at all.”
Hero giggled. “Silly! Cleopatra is hundreds and hundreds of years old!”
“Hundreds of years old?” said Ferdy, astonished.
“Good God, you know what she means!” interpolated the Viscount.
Mr Ringwood nodded. “She’s a mummy,” he said. “They have ’em in Egypt.” He felt that this piece of erudition called for some explanation, and added: “Read about ’em somewhere.”
“Yes, but the one I mean is in Shakespeare,” said Hero. “I expect it’s the same one, because he was for ever writing plays about real people.”
A horrible suspicion crossed Ferdy’s mind. He stared fixedly at her, and said: “You ain’t a bluestocking, are you?”
“Of course she’s not a bluestocking!” cried the Viscount, bristling in defence of his bride. “The thing is she’s only just out of the schoolroom. She can’t help but have her head crammed with all that stuff!”
“Anyone can see she’s not a bluestocking,” said Mr Ringwood severely. “Besides, you oughtn’t to say things like that, Ferdy. Very bad ton!”
Mr Fakenham begged pardon in some confusion, and said that he was devilish glad. A fresh bogey at once raised its head, and he demanded, in accents of extreme foreboding, whether the evening’s entertainment was to consist of Shakespeare. Upon being reassured, he was able to relax again and to continue eating his dinner in tolerable composure.
The play to which the Viscount carried his guests was not of a nature to tax even the Honourable Ferdy’s understanding. It was a merry, and not always very polite, comedy which all three young gentlemen pronounced to be very tolerable, and which cast Hero into a trance of ecstasy which would not allow her to withdraw her rapt gaze from the stage for an instant. She did not quite comprehend some of the witticisms which appeared heartily to amuse her companions, and at one point she threw Mr Ringwood into acute discomfort by asking enlightenment of him. Fortunately, the Viscount overheard her, and rescued his friend from his dilemma by saying briefly that she wouldn’t understand even if she were told.
During the interval it was soon made evident that the Viscount’s box was attracting a good deal of attention from other parts of the house. His lordship, detecting various acquaintances amongst the audience, waved and bowed; and after a few minutes a knock fell on the door of the box and a fashionable-looking gentleman entered, glancing curiously at Hero from under rather drooping eyelids, and saying in a languid tone: “So you are come back again, my dear Sherry! And without a word! I begin to think I must have offended you.”
“Hallo, Monty!” responded Sherry, getting up from his chair. “What a fellow you are for funning! No offence at all! I’m devilish glad to see you here tonight — want to present you to my wife! Hero, this is Sir Montagu Revesby — particular friend of mine!”
Hero felt a little shy of this elegant stranger, who looked to be some years older than Sherry. The slightly supercilious air that hung about him, and the irony of his smile, made her uncomfortable, but she was naturally prepared to like any friend of Sherry’s, and she held out her hand at once.
Sir Montagu took it in his, but his brows had flown up in quick surprise, and he directed a half laughing, half startled glance at Sherry. “Is it so indeed!” he said. “You are quite sure it is not you who are funning, my dear boy?”
Sherry laughed. “No, no, we were married today! Ask Gil if we were not!”
“But this is most unexpected!” Sir Montagu said. “You must allow me to offer you my felicitations, Sherry.” His cold eyes ran over Hero; his smile broadened. “Ah — my deepest felicitations, Sherry! And so you were married today? Dear me, yes! How very interesting! But why did you not send me a card for the wedding?”
Mr Ringwood unexpectedly decided to bear his part in this interchange. He said rather shortly: “Private ceremony. St George’s Hanover Square. Lady Sheringham desired it so. Don’t care for a fuss.”
“In deep mourning,” corroborated Ferdy, feeling that a little embroidery was needed.
“No, not in mourning,” said Mr Ringwood, annoyed. “Wouldn’t be here if she was. Family reasons.”
“Nonsense!” said Sherry, rejecting this kindly intervention. “To tell you the truth, Monty, we made a runaway match of it.”
“Save trouble,” murmured Ferdy, faint but pursuing.
“I understand perfectly,” bowed Sir Montagu. “I must think myself fortunate to have been amongst the first to make Lady Sheringham’s acquaintance. For I do not think — ?”
“No, she’s never been to town before,” replied Sherry. “She’s a cousin of the Bagshots: known her all my life.”
“Indeed?” Sir Montagu’s eyebrows seemed to indicate that he found this surprising. “Well, that is very delightful, to be sure. But I fancy the curtain is about to go up on the second act. I must not be lingering here.”
“Join us at the Piazza for supper, Monty!” Sherry suggested.
Sir Montagu thanked him, but was obliged to excuse himself, since he was engaged with some friends. He bowed once more over Hero’s hand, promised himself the pleasure of waiting upon her formally at no very distant date, and took his leave.
He had no sooner left the box than Ferdy was moved to express himself unequivocally. “Shouldn’t have invited him,” he said. “He’s a Bad Man.”
Hero turned a wide, questioning gaze upon him. Sherry said: “Oh, fiddle! Nothing amiss with Monty! You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ferdy!”
“Bit of a commoner,” said Mr Ringwood dispassionately. “Always thought so.”
“Nonsense!”
“Thinks he’s at home to a peg,” said Mr Fakenham. “Well, he ain’t. What’s more, I don’t like him. Gil don’t like him either.”
“Well, he can be devilish good company,” retorted the Viscount.
“He don’t keep devilish good company,” Mr Ringwood said stolidly.
“Good God, you may meet him everywhere!” exclaimed Sherry.
“Point is, we don’t want to meet him everywhere,” said Ferdy. “You know what Duke says?”
“Your brother Marmaduke is a bigger fool than you are,” responded the Viscount.
“No, dash it, Sherry!” expostulated Mr Ringwood. “That’s coming it a trifle too strong! Nothing the matter with Duke! Very knowing fellow!”
“He says,” pursued Ferdy inexorably, “that Monty’s an ivory-turner. I don’t say he’s right, but that’s what he says.”
As this pronouncement could only be understood to mean that the Honourable Marmaduke Fakenham considered Sir Montagu to be employed in decoying hapless innocents into gaming hells, it was not surprising that the Viscount should flush hotly, and refute such a slander with more vehemence than civility. Mr Ringwood, seeing how anxiously Hero’s puzzled eyes travelled from Ferdy’s face to Sherry’s, trod heavily upon Ferdy’s foot, and refrained, with considerable self-restraint, from reminding Sherry that his own initiation into the disastrously deep play obtaining at such discreet establishments as Warkworth’s, and Wooler’s, had been made under the auspices of Sir Montagu. Luckily, the curtain rose just then on the second act, and although Ferdy and Sherry were both perfectly prepared to continue their acrimonious discussion, they were obliged, on account of the representations made to them by persons in the neighbouring boxes, to postpone it until the play had run its course. By that time they had naturally forgotten all about it; and as no further rift had occurred to mar the harmony of the evening the whole party went off happily to eat supper at the Piazza, Hero being conveyed there in a sedan chair and the three gentlemen walking along beside it.
This circumstance put Mr Ringwood in mind of something which he had been meaning to say to Sherry all day; and as soon as the supper had been chosen, and the wine broached, he fixed him with a serious gaze, and said: “Been thinking, Sherry. Carriage for Lady Sherry. Can’t keep driving her about in hacks. Not the thing.”
“No, not the thing at all,” Sherry agreed. “I’m glad you put me in mind of that. Come to think of it, we ought to decide just what she’ll need.”
“Must have a carriage,” Mr Ringwood said. “Landaulet.”
Mr Fakenham, who had been narrowly inspecting a dish of curried crab through his quizzing-glass, looked up at this, and said positively: “Barouche. All the crack nowadays! Can’t have Sherry’s wife driving about town in a landaulet like a dowd.”
“Oh, no!” agreed Hero. “I am going to be all the crack. I have quite made up my mind about that. Sherry said I might cut a dash, and I think I should like to very much.”
“Spoken like a right one!” grinned Sherry. “Of course she can’t have a landaulet! Dash it, that’s what my mother uses! A barouche, with a pair of match-bays: slap up to the echo!”
“Best look in at Tatt’s tomorrow,” nodded Ferdy. “Nothing in your stables fit for a lady, dear old boy.”
Mr Ringwood, who had produced a visiting card from his pocket, made a note on it. “Tatt’s,” he said. “Coachman and footman. Page boy. Abigail.”
“Chilham is attending to that,” said the Viscount. “Says he knows just such a one as will suit.”
“Riding horse,” said Ferdy.
“She don’t ride.”
“Yes, I do!” Hero interrupted. “At least, I have often ridden the old pony, and you know you put me up on your hunter when I was only twelve, Sherry!”
“Well, you aren’t going to sit there saying you rode him, are you?” demanded Sherry. “Never saw a horse get rid of anyone faster in my life!”
“You shouldn’t have put her up on one of your wild horses, Sherry,” said Mr Ringwood disapprovingly. He made another note on his card. “She’d best have a nice little mare. Mare. Lady’s saddle.”
“Yes, and a riding-habit,” said Hero. “And also I should like to have a carriage like that one we saw this morning, Gil, and drive it myself.”
“Phaeton,” said Mr Ringwood, writing it down.
“And Sherry will teach me how to drive it,” said Hero happily.
Sherry’s friends spoke as one man. “No!”
“Why not?”
“Because he can’t drive,” replied Mr Ringwood, not mincing matters.
“Sherry can drive! He drives better than anyone!”
Ferdy shook his head. “You’re thinking of someone else. Not Sherry. Wouldn’t have him in the FHC. Wouldn’t look at him. No precision. Gil’s your man. Drives to an inch: regular nonpareil!”
Mr Ringwood blushed at this tribute, and was understood to murmur that he would be happy to teach Lady Sherry anything that lay within his power. Hero thanked him, but it was evident that her faith in Sherry’s skill was unshaken. Sherry, who had merely grinned at his friends’ strictures, said with unwonted modesty that she had best let Gil take her in hand. His style of driving, although he would back himself to take the shine out of most of the men on the road, was not, he owned, quite suited to a lady. He engaged himself, however, to find her a really sweet-going horse, unless — with a challenging look at Mr Ringwood — he was not thought to be judge of horseflesh?
Mr Ringwood hastened to assure him that he had perfect confidence in his ability to choose proper highbred ’uns; and since every provision for Hero’s future well-being seemed now to have been made, put away his visiting card and began to address himself to his supper.