UPON THE FOLLOWING MORNING, NOT VERY much after ten o’clock, two young gentlemen sat at breakfast together in the front parlour of a house in Stratton Street. The apartment, which was the lodging of Mr Gilbert Ringwood, bore all the signs of being a bachelor abode, the furniture being old-fashioned, and designed rather for comfort than for elegance. A mahogany sideboard supported an array of bottles, rummers, tankards, and punchbowls; a pair of foils was propped up in one corner of the room; several riding-whips hung on the wall, amongst a collection of sporting prints and engravings; three snuff jars, a box of cigars, and a marble clock adorned the mantelpiece; and the imposing mirror hung above it had tucked into its rather loose frame various cards of invitation, and two advertisements: one of a forthcoming event at the Royal Cockpit, and the other of a sparring contest to be held under the auspices of Mr John Jackson at the Fives-Court, Westminster. Further testimony to the sporting proclivities of the owner of this apartment was provided by a pile of Weekly Dispatches, and a copy of the Racing Calendar, which reposed on the writing-desk by the window.
In the centre of the room stood an oblong table, spread with a white cloth, and laid with such dishes as might be supposed likely to tempt the appetites of Mr Ringwood and his boon-companion, the Honourable Ferdinand Fakenham. These, however, were poor. Neither gentleman had been able to fancy the soused herrings, or the buttered eggs, and had done no more than toy with a few slices from the sirloin, and swallow the merest mouthful of a fine York ham. Rejecting the chocolate which had been made for them in a silver pot, they washed down such morsels as they selected for consumption with ale poured from a large brown jug into sizeable tankards.
Mr Ringwood, who, as was proper, sat at the head of the board, was nattily attired in a coat of superfine cloth with pearl buttons; a pair of exquisite Unmentionables; and Hessian boots of startling cut and gloss; but Mr Fakenham, from the circumstance of having slept in his coat, was at present arrayed in one of Mr Ringwood’s dressing-gowns. This was a resplendent garment of brocaded silk, whose rich purple sheen accorded extremely ill with the pallor of Mr Fakenham’s amiable, if slightly vacuous, countenance.
It had not been from any fixed design that the Honourable Ferdinand had spent the night on the sofa in his friend’s lodging. An evening whiled away at the Castle Tavern, Holborn, had engendered in him an affection for Mr Ringwood that led him to accompany this gentleman back to Stratton Street, in preference to directing his erratic footsteps in the direction of the parental home in Cavendish Square. Whether from a natural disinclination to proceed farther on his way, or from a hazy belief that he had reached his proper destination, he had entered the house, arm in arm with his friend, ambled towards the sofa, and stretched himself out upon it, wishing Mr Ringwood — for he was the soul of politeness — a very good night. Mr Ringwood, always a thoughtful host, had spread a carriage rug over his willowy form, and had sent in his man to remove his boots. As an afterthought, he had himself taken a nightcap in to his guest, and had fitted it tenderly on to his head.
Since neither gentleman was of a loquacious disposition, and both were suffering in some slight degree from the aftermath of a convivial evening, few words were exchanged over the breakfast table. Mr Ringwood brooded gloomily over the racing news in the morning’s paper, and Mr Fakenham sat with his clouded gaze fixed on nothing in particular. The sound of a vehicle approaching at a smart pace up the street awoke no interest in either mind, but when it drew up outside the house, and a brisk knocking almost immediately fell upon the door, Mr Fakenham palpably winced, and Mr Ringwood closed his eyes with the air of one suffering exquisite discomfort. He opened them again a moment later, for an impatient footstep sounded in the passage, and the door burst open to admit Lord Sheringham, who came briskly in with all the objectionable appearance of one who had not only gone sober to bed, but had also risen betimes.
“Gil, I want a word with you!” he announced, tossing his hat and gloves on to a chair. “Hallo, Ferdy!”
“It’s Sherry,” Mr Fakenham somewhat unnecessarily informed his host.
“Yes, it’s Sherry,” agreed Mr Ringwood, staring fixedly at the Viscount. “Thought you was in the country.”
“So did I,” confessed Ferdy. He looked at his cousin, and, apparently feeling that something more was required of him, asked with friendly interest: “You back, Sherry?”
“Well, good God, you can see I am, can’t you?” retorted his lordship. “What the deuce are you doing here at this hour, and in that devilish dressing-gown?”
“Spent the evening at the Daffy Club,” explained Ferdy simply.
“Oh, castaway again, were you? Damme if ever I saw such a fellow!” said Sherry, hunting on the sideboard for a clean tankard, and pouring himself out a liberal libation of ale. He drew up a chair, pushing various trifles which reposed on it on to the floor, and sat down. “Gil, you’re a knowing one: I want your help!”
Mr Ringwood was so much moved by this unexpected tribute that he blushed, and dropped the Morning Chronicle. “Anything in my power, Sherry! Know you’ve only to give it a name!” he said. A disturbing thought occurred to him; he added mistrustfully: “As long as it isn’t to carry a message to George!”
“Carry a message to George?” repeated Sherry. “Why the deuce should I want a message carried to George?”
“Well, if it isn’t, it don’t matter. For I won’t do it, Sherry, and it’s no use asking me to.”
Mr Fakenham shook his head portentously. “Taken one of his pets,” he said. “Came smash up to me in Boodles yesterday, asking where you was. If I’d had my wits about me I’d have said you’d gone off to Leicestershire. Deuced sorry, Sherry! Never at my best before noon!”
“Oh hang George!” said Sherry. “He needn’t think he’s going to blow a hole through me, because he ain’t.”
“Seemed very set on it,” said Mr Fakenham doubtfully.
“Tell him to take a damper! That’s not what I came about. Gil, where does a fellow get hold of a special licence?”
The effect of this question was to cast his lordship’s two cronies into stunned silence. Mr Fakenham’s rather prominent eyes goggled alarmingly at his cousin; Mr Ringwood’s jaw visibly dropped.
“ Now what’s the matter?” demanded Sherry. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a special licence! Of course you have!”
Mr Ringwood swallowed once or twice. “You don’t mean a marriage licence, do you, Sherry?”
“Yes, I do. What else should I mean? Thing you have to have if you want to get married in a hurry.”
“Sherry, she’s never accepted you?” gasped Mr Ringwood, his brain tottering.
“She?” said the Viscount, frowning at him. “Oh, the Incomparable! Oh, lord, no! Wouldn’t look at me! It’s not she.”
“Good God!” said Mr Ringwood, relaxing. “I wish you will not burst in on a fellow with a shock like that, Sherry, dear old boy! Gave me such a turn — ! Who wants this special licence?”
“I do. Don’t I keep on telling you so? Seems to me you must have shot the cat about as badly as Ferdy last night!”
Mr Ringwood stared at him, and then, as though mutely seeking guidance, at Mr Fakenham.
“But you said she wouldn’t look at you!” said Mr Fakenham. “Heard you distinctly. If she won’t look at you, no sense in a special licence. No sense in it either way. Banns: that’s what you want.”
“No, I don’t,” replied Sherry. “Banns won’t do for me at all. I must have a licence.”
“Much cheaper to have banns,” argued Mr Fakenham. “Where’s the use in laying out your blunt on a licence? Stupid things: much better stick to banns!”
“You’re a fool, Ferdy,” said his lordship, not mincing matters. “I’m getting married today, and I can’t do that without a licence.”
“Sherry, it’s you who must have shot the cat!” exclaimed Mr Ringwood, with a touch of severity. “How can you be married today, when you say she wouldn’t look at you?”
“Lord, can’t you think of any other female than Isabella Milborne?” demanded Sherry. “I’m going to marry someone else, of course!”
Mr Ringwood blinked at him. “Someone else?” he said incredulously.
Mr Fakenham, having thought it over, pronounced: “Oh! Someone else. No reason why he shouldn’t do that, Gil.”
“I don’t say he can’t do it,” replied Mr Ringwood. “What I say is that it sounds to me like a hum. He went off to Kent to offer for Isabella, didn’t he? Very well, then! Now he walks in here and says he’s going to marry someone else. Well, what I mean is, it’s absurd! No other word for it: absurd!”
“You’re right!” said Ferdy, forcibly struck by this presentation of the case. “He’s bamming again. You shouldn’t do it, Sherry. Not at this hour of the morning!”
“Confound you both, I’m in earnest!” Sherry said, setting his tankard down with a crash which made Ferdy jump like a startled deer. “I’m going to marry a girl I’ve known all my life! Damme, I must marry someone! I shan’t have a feather to fly with if I don’t.”
“Who is she?” asked Mr Ringwood. “You’ve never offered for the Stowe girl, Sherry, dear old boy? Not the rabbity-faced one?”
“No, of course I haven’t. You don’t know her: never been to London in her life! I ran off with her yesterday.”
“But, Sherry!” expostulated Mr Ringwood, a good deal shaken. “No, really, dear boy! You can’t do that sort of thing!” —
“Well, I’ve done it,” replied the Viscount, a shade sulkily.
Mr Fakenham made a helpful suggestion. “You want Gretna Green, Sherry. Post-chaise-and-four.”
“Good God, no! It’s bad enough without that!”
“You can get married in the Fleet,” offered Mr Fakenham.
The Viscount arose in his wrath. “I tell you it isn’t that kind of an affair at all! I’m going to be married in a church, all right and tight, and I want a special licence!”
Mr Fakenham begged pardon. Mr Ringwood gave a slight cough. “Sherry, old boy — don’t want to pry into your affairs — wouldn’t offend you for the world! — You ain’t thinking of marrying the lodge-keeper’s daughter, or anything of that kind?”
“No, no! She’s a Wantage — some sort of a cousin, but they don’t own her. Father went through all his blunt, and kicked up a dust of some kind. Before my time. The point is, she’s as well born as you are. Mrs Bagshot brought her up: she’s another of her cousins. You must know the Bagshots!”
Mr Fakenham was suddenly roused to animation. “If she’s a Bagshot, Sherry, I wouldn’t marry her! Now there’s a horrible thing! Do you know that woman has brought out a third one? For anything we know she’s got a string of ’em — and each one worse than the last! Cassandra was bad enough, but have you seen the new one? Tallow-faced girl called Sophy?”
“Lord, yes, I’ve known the Bagshots all my life! Hero’s not like them, I give you my word!”
“Who?” asked Ferdy, his attention arrested.
“Hero. Girl I’m going to marry.”
Ferdy was puzzled. “What do you call her Hero for?”
“It’s her name,” replied Sherry impatiently. “I know it’s a silly name, but damme, it ain’t as silly as Eudora! Besides, I call her Kitten, so what’s the odds?”
“Sherry, where is this girl?” asked Mr Ringwood.
“She’s at Grillon’s. Couldn’t think of anywhere else to take her. Told ’em she was on her way to school, and her abigail broke her leg getting down from the chaise. Best I could think of.”
“Did she, though?” said Ferdy, interested. “Dare say she didn’t wait for the steps to be let down. I had an aunt — well, you remember her, Sherry! Old Aunt Charlotte, the one who — ”
“For God’s sake, Ferdy, will you go and put your head under the pump?” cried the exasperated Viscount. “There wasn’t any abigail!”
“But you said — ”
“He made it up out of his head,” explained Mr Ringwood kindly. “Ought to have been an abigail.”
“Yes, by Jove, and that’s another thing I shall have to arrange!” exclaimed Sherry. “’Pon my soul, there’s no end to it! Where the deuce does one find abigails, Gil?”
“She’ll find one,” Mr Ringwood said. “Bridegroom don’t have to engage the abigails. Butler and footmen, yes. Not abigails.”
His lordship shook his head. “Won’t do at all. She wouldn’t know how to go about it. I tell you, she’s the veriest chit out of the schoolroom. Not up to snuff at all.”
Mr Ringwood eyed him uneasily. “Dear old boy, you haven’t run off with a schoolgirl, have you?”
A rueful grin stole into the Viscount’s eyes. “Well, she ain’t quite seventeen yet,” he admitted.
“Sherry, there’ll be the devil of a dust kicked up!”
“No, there won’t. That old cat of a Bagshot woman don’t care a rap for the poor little soul. If it hadn’t been for me, she’d have packed her off to be a governess at some rubbishing school in Bath. Hero! Chit who used to go bird’s-nesting with me! I couldn’t have that, damme if I could! Besides, if I must marry someone, I’d as lief marry Hero as anyone.”
This heresy was too much for his cousin, who uttered in shocked accents: “Isabella!”
“Oh, well, yes, of course!” said Sherry hastily. “But I can’t marry her, so it might as well be Hero. But that’s neither here nor there. Where do I get a special licence, Gil?”
Mr Ringwood shook his head. “Damned if I know, Sherry!” he confessed.
The Viscount appeared much dashed by this reply. Fortunately, the door opened at that moment, and Mr Ringwood’s man came in with the Honourable Ferdinand’s coat, which he laid reverently across a chair back.
“Chilham will know!” said Mr Ringwood triumphantly. “Extraordinary fellow, Chilham! Knows everything! Chilham, where may his lordship get a special licence?”
The valet betrayed not the smallest sign of surprise at this question, but bowed, and replied in refined accents: “I believe, sir, that the correct procedure will be for his lordship to apply to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“But I don’t know the fellow!” protested his lordship, looking very much alarmed.
The valet executed another of his prim bows. “I apprehend, my lord, that acquaintanceship with his grace need not be a requisite preliminary to the procuring of a licence from him.”
“I’ll tell you what, Sherry,” said his cousin, with a good deal of decision, “I wouldn’t go near him, if I were you.”
“Should his lordship prefer it, I fancy, sir, that any bishop will answer his purpose as well,” said Chilham. “Will there be anything further, sir?”
Mr Ringwood waved him away, just as a violent knocking sounded on the street-door. “No, nothing! If that’s anyone wanting to see me, I’m not at home!”
“Very good, sir. I will endeavour to intercept the gentleman,” said Chilham, and withdrew.
His efforts at interception were not crowned with success. Sounds of an altercation penetrated to the parlour, to be followed an instant later by the eruption into the room of a startlingly handsome young man, dressed in riding-breeches and top-boots, and a long-tailed blue coat, with a Belcher handkerchief carelessly knotted round his throat, and his luxuriant black locks in a state of disorder which allowed one ringlet to tumble across his brow. His fiery dark eyes swept the room, and singled out the Viscount. “I knew it!” he said, in a throbbing voice. “I saw your phaeton!”
“Did you?” said Sherry indifferently. “If Jason’s forked your purse again, there’s no need to get in such a taking. I’ll tell him to hand it over.”
“Don’t try to trifle with me, Sherry!” the newcomer said warningly. “Don’t try it, I say! I know where you have been! You have taken a damned advantage of me, by God!”
“No, he hasn’t,” said Mr Ringwood. “Now, sit down, George, for God’s sake, and don’t put yourself in a pucker over nothing! I never saw such a fellow!”
“Nothing to be in a pucker about,” said Mr Fakenham, adding his helpful mite. “Sherry’s going to be married.”
“ What?” gasped Lord Wrotham, turning a ghastly colour, and rolling his eyes towards the Viscount.
“No, no, not to Isabella!” Mr Ringwood assured him, touched by the sight of such agony. “Really, Ferdy, how can you? Sherry’s going to marry another female.”
Lord Wrotham staggered to a chair, and sank into it. Anxious to make amends, Mr Fakenham poured out some ale, and pushed the tankard towards him. He took a pull, and sighed deeply. “My God, I thought — Sherry, I have wronged you!”
“Well, I don’t mind,” said the Viscount handsomely. “Got too much else to think about. Besides, you’re always doing it.”
“Sherry,” said Wrotham, fixing him with a hungry gaze, “I insulted you! If you want satisfaction, I will give it to you.”
“If you think it would afford me satisfaction to stand up for you to blow a hole through my chest, you’re mightily mistaken, George!” said Sherry frankly. “I’ll tell you what: if you don’t stop trying to pick quarrels with your best friends, you won’t have any left to you!”
“I think I am going mad!” said Wrotham, with a groan, and dropping his head in his hands. “I thought you was gone into Kent to steal a march on me with the Incomparable!” He raised his head again, and directed one of his fiery stares at Mr Fakenham. “It was you who told me so!” he cried accusingly. “Now, upon my soul, Ferdy — ”
“All a mistake!” said Ferdy feebly. “Never at my best before noon!”
“Well, as a matter of fact, that’s what I did do,” said Sherry, with a candour bordering, in the opinion of his friends, on the foolhardy. “Only she wouldn’t have me.”
“She refused you!” Wrotham cried, his haggard countenance suddenly radiant.
“That’s what I’m telling you. It’s my belief she’s got better game in view than either of us, George. If she can bring him up to scratch, she’ll have Severn, you mark my words!”
“Sherry!” thundered the distraught lover, springing to his feet and clenching his fists, “one word of disparagement of the loveliest, the most divine, the most perfect woman, and I call you out to answer for it!”
“Well, you won’t get me out,” responded the Viscount.
“Am I to call you a coward?” demanded Wrotham.
“No, no, George, don’t do that!” begged Ferdy, much alarmed. “Can’t call poor Sherry a coward because he don’t want to go out with you! Be reasonable, old fellow!”
“Oh, lord, let him call me what he likes!” said the Viscount, quite disgusted. “If I weren’t going to be married today, damned if I wouldn’t draw your claret, George! It’s time someone let a little of that hot blood of yours!”
“What’s more,” said Mr Ringwood severely. “Sherry never said a word you could take amiss. Suppose she does mean to marry Severn? What of it? No harm in that, is there? Dare say she’s taken a fancy to be a duchess. Anyone might!”
“I will not believe that she could be so worldly!” Wrotham said, striding over to the window, and staring out into the street.
His long-suffering friends, relieved to see that his rage had, for the moment, abated, returned to the consideration of the problem confronting Sherry. Their discussion presently attracted Lord Wrotham’s attention, and he came away from the window, and quite mildly asked the Viscount to explain how he came to be marrying a totally unknown damsel. Sherry very obligingly favoured him with a brief resume of his elopement; and Lord Wrotham, convinced at last that he had relinquished all pretensions to the hand of the Incomparable Isabella, warmly shook him by the hand, and offered him his felicitations.
“Yes, that’s all very well,” said Mr Ringwood, “but it don’t help us to find a likely bishop for this special licence.”
“It’ll have to be a Fleet marriage, Sherry,” said Mr Fakenham mournfully.
“No,” said Mr Ringwood. “Won’t do at all. Not legal.”
At this point, Lord Wrotham shocked the company into silence by saying that he was acquainted with a bishop. He explained this extraordinary lapse by adding apologetically that his mother had been as thick as thieves with the fellow any time these past ten years; and, being still under the revulsion of feeling brought about by the realization that the Viscount was no longer one of his rivals, offered to introduce him to this cleric.
The Viscount at once closed with the offer, and proceeded to enlist the services of Mr Ringwood. Mr Ringwood, learning that his task was to escort his friend’s bride on a tour of the milliners’ and mantua-makers’ shops which graced the town, and to dissuade her from purchasing garments unsuited to her station, goggled at the Viscount in dismay. His expostulations went quite unheeded. The Viscount assured him that he would deal famously with Miss Wantage; and, after appointing a rendezvous with Lord Wrotham, bore him off in his phaeton to Grillon’s Hotel.