AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED, THE VISCOUNT’S Parthian shot immediately prostrated his parent. She evinced every sign of falling into a fit of the vapours, and was only revived by the reflection that the Viscount was no longer present to be chastened by the sight of his mother suffering from strong hysterics. A little hartshorn-and-water, tenderly administered by Mr Paulett, a few lavender drops sprinkled upon a handkerchief, and some gentle hand-slapping presently made it possible for the afflicted lady to open her eyes, and to straighten her turban. She at once confided to Mr Paulett her conviction that Anthony would bring home some dreadful, vulgar creature from the opera-ballet on his arm, if only to spite her, and expressed a fervent longing for the quiet of the family tomb.
Mr Paulett did not feel that there was much danger of his nephew’s marrying anyone in the immediate future. He said that he would find Anthony, and represent to him that his unfilial behaviour was leading his mother’s tottering steps to the very brink of the grave, but by the time he had restored the lady to such health as remained to her, and had pointed out to her that a young gentleman desperately enamoured of a Beauty was not very likely to fall into matrimony with some other female, the Viscount was already upon the road to London.
He was driving his curricle. A pair of spirited bays were harnessed to it; a sharp-faced Tiger was perched up behind him; his portmanteau was strapped in its place; and the Viscount, with all the air of one shaking the dust of a loathed spot from his shoes, drove along at a spanking pace, and with very little regard for whatever other vehicles he might chance to meet on the road.
The Viscount had had many grooms, and several Tigers, but it required an iron nerve to drive out with him in one of his wild fits, and since these attacked him with alarming frequency, and very few grooms possessed the requisite amount of disregard for their lives and limbs, none of them had remained long in his service. By the greatest piece of good fortune he had chanced upon the individual at present hanging on to the curricle behind him. The acquaintanceship had begun with the picking of the Viscount’s pocket, as he emerged from a jeweller’s shop on Ludgate Hill. Jason, who had started life in a Foundling Hospital, passed by way of the streets of London to a racing stable, and thence, through a series of disreputable circumstances, back to the streets of London, was an inexpert thief, but an inspired handler of horses. At the very moment when the Viscount, grappling his captive by the collar, was preparing to drag him off to the nearest Roundhouse, the prime bit of blood between the shafts of his lordship’s phaeton took exception to a wagon which was advancing up the street, and reared suddenly, knocking the groom, who should have been holding his head but was gaping at the Viscount instead, off his feet. A commotion was at once set up during which Jason wriggled out of the Viscount’s slackened hold, and, instead of taking to his heels, leaped for the chestnut’s head. In a very few moments order had been restored, the chestnut apparently recognizing a master-mind in the dirty and ragged creature who had prevented him from bolting, and was now addressing uncouth blandishments to him. Since he was, with good reason, quite the most unpopular horse in the Viscount’s stables, even having the reputation of being willing to savage anyone for the very moderate sum of a meg, or half-penny, the circumstance of his dropping his head into the unsavoury bosom before him most forcibly struck his owner. The Viscount at once forgot the contretemps which had brought this wizard to his notice, and there and then engaged him to be his new Tiger. Jason — he had no other name, and no one, least of all himself, knew how he came by that one — never having encountered even such careless good nature as the Viscount’s in the unnumbered years of his life, emerged from the trance into which his unexpected luck had pitchforked him to find himself in the employment of a nobleman considered by his relations to be volatile past reclaim, but in whom he recognized, in that moment of blinding enlightenment, a god come down to earth.
The Viscount, who had never made the least attempt to reform himself, did much to reform his new Tiger, not, indeed, from any particular zeal, but because he felt the force of his friends’ representations that continued intimacy with a man whose Tiger could be counted on to relieve one of one’s purse, fobs, and seal, had certain grave drawbacks. The Viscount promised to mend matters, which he did by thrashing his Tiger soundly, and laying orders on him never to rob any of his master’s friends again. Jason, who cared less for the thrashing than for the frown upon his deity’s face, promised to tread a path of rectitude, and made such efforts to keep to this that in a very short time nothing more than a warning word to him, or, at the worst, a command to restore whatever he might have filched from some chance-met acquaintance, was necessary to preserve the utmost harmony between the Viscount and his cronies.
For the rest, although he might lack polish, he proved to be the most devoted servant the Viscount had ever hired. No slave could have been less critical of his owner’s vagaries, or more tireless in his attentions. He had been overturned in his lordship’s curricle five times; had had his leg fractured by a kick from a half-broken horse; had accompanied the Viscount on some of his more hazardous expeditions; and was generally supposed to be willing to engage on his behalf on any enterprise, inclusive of murder.
As he hung on to the straps of the curricle behind the Viscount, he observed dispassionately that he knew all along that they wouldn’t stay above two days in that ken. Receiving no answer to this remark, he relapsed into silence breaking it only at the end of a mile to recommend his master to pull in for the corner, unless he was wishful to throw them both out on to their bowsprits. His tone indicated that if the Viscount had any such wish he was prepared cheerfully to endure this fate.
However, the Viscount, having had time to work off the first heat of his rage, steadied his pair, and took the corner at no more than a canter. The main road to London lay a couple of miles farther on, the lane that led to it from Sheringham Place winding alongside the Viscount’s acres for some way, and then curling abruptly away to serve a small hamlet, one or two scattered cottages, and the modest estate owned by Mr Humphrey Bagshot. Mr Bagshot’s house was set back from the lane and screened by trees and a shrubbery, the whole being enclosed by a low stone wall. The Viscount, whose attention was pretty equally divided between his horses and his late disappointment, kept his moody gaze fixed on the road ahead, and would not have spared a glance for this wall had not his Tiger suddenly recommended him to cast his daylights to the left.
“There’s a female a-wavin’ at you, guv’nor,” he informed his master.
The Viscount turned his head, and found that he was sweeping past a lady who was perched on top of the wall, somewhat wistfully regarding him. Recognizing this damsel, he reined in, backed his pair, and called out: “Hallo, brat!”
Miss Hero Wantage seemed to find nothing amiss in this form of salutation. A little flush mounted to her cheeks; she smiled shyly, and responded: “Hallo, Sherry!”
The Viscount looked her over. She was a very young lady, and she did not at this moment appear to advantage. The round gown she wore was of an unbecoming shade of pink, and had palpably come to her at secondhand, since it seemed to have been made originally for a larger lady, and had been inexpertly adapted to her diminutive size. A drab cloak was tied round her neck, its hood hanging down over her shoulders; and in her hand she held a crumpled and damp handkerchief. There were tear-stains on her cheeks, and her wide grey eyes were reddened and a little blurred. Her dusky ringlets, escaping from a frayed ribbon, were tumbled and very untidy.
“Hallo, what’s the matter?” asked the Viscount suddenly, noticing the tear-stains.
Miss Wantage gave a convulsive sob. “Everything!” she said comprehensively.
The Viscount was a good-natured young man, and whenever he thought of Miss Wantage, which was not often, it was with mild affection. In his graceless teens he had made use of her willing services, had taught her to play cricket, and to toil after him with the game-bag when he went out for a little hedgerow shooting. He had bullied her, and tyrannized over her, lost his temper with her, boxed her ears, and forced her to engage in various sports and pastimes which terrified her; but he had permitted her to trot at his heels, and he had allowed no one else to tease or ill-treat her. Her situation was not a happy one. She was an orphan, taken out of charity when only eight years old to live in her cousin’s house, and to be brought up with her three daughters, Cassandra, Eudora, and Sophronia. She had shared their lessons, and had worn their outgrown dresses, and had run their numerous errands — such services being, her Cousin Jane informed her, a very small return for all the generosity shown her. The Viscount, who disliked Cassandra, Eudora, and Sophronia only one degree less than he disliked their Mama, gave it as his considered opinion, when he was fifteen years old, that they were brutes, and treated their poor little cousin like a dog. He had therefore no difficulty now, as he looked at Miss Wantage, in interpreting correctly her somewhat sweeping statement. “Those cats been bullying you?” he said.
Miss Wantage blew her nose. “I’m going to be a governess, Sherry,” she informed him dolefully.
“Going to be a what?” demanded his lordship.
“A governess. Cousin Jane says so.”
“Never heard such nonsense in my life!” said the Viscount, slightly irritated. “You aren’t old enough!”
“Cousin Jane says I am. I shall be seventeen in a fortnight’s time, you know.”
“Well, you don’t look it,” said Sherry, disposing of the matter. “You always were a silly little chit, Hero. Shouldn’t believe everything people say. Ten to one she didn’t mean it.”
“Oh yes!” said Miss Wantage sadly. “You see, I always knew I should have to be one day, because that’s why I learned to play that horrid pianoforte, and to paint in water-colours, so that I could be a governess when I was grown-up. Only I don’t want to be, Sherry! Not yet! Not before I have enjoyed myself just for a little while!”
The Viscount cast off the rug which covered his shapely legs. “Jason, get down and walk the horses!” he ordered, and sprang down from the curricle and advanced to the low wall. “Is that mossy?” he asked suspiciously. “I’m damned if I’ll spoil these breeches for you or anyone else, Hero!”
“No, no, truly it’s not!” Miss Wantage assured him. “You can sit on my cloak, Sherry, can’t you?”
“Well, I can’t stay for long,” the Viscount warned her. He hoisted himself up beside her and put a brotherly arm round her shoulders. “Now, don’t go on crying, brat: it makes you look devilish ugly!” he said. “Besides, I don’t like it. Why has that old cat suddenly taken it into her head to send you off? I suppose you’ve been doing something that you shouldn’t.”
“No, it isn’t that, though I did break one of the best teacups,” said Hero, leaning gratefully against him. “It’s partly because Edwin kissed me, I think.”
“You’re bamming me!” said his lordship incredulously. “Your wretched little cousin Edwin hasn’t got enough bottom to kiss a chambermaid!”
“Well, I don’t know about that, Sherry, but he did kiss me, and it was the horridest thing imaginable. And Cousin Jane found out about it, and she said it was my fault, and I was a designing hussy, and that she had nourished a snake in her bosom. But I am not a snake, Sherry!”
“Never mind about that!” said Sherry. “I can’t get over Edwin! If it don’t beat all! He must have been foxed, and that’s all there is to it.”
“No, indeed he wasn’t,” said Hero earnestly.
“Then it just shows how you can be mistaken in a man. All the same, Hero, you shouldn’t let a miserable, snivelling fellow like that kiss you. It’s not the thing at all.”
“But how could I prevent him, Sherry, when he caught me, and squeezed me so tightly that I could scarcely breathe?”
The Viscount gave a crow of laughter. “Lord, only to think of Edwin turning into such an out-and-outer! It seems to me I had best teach you a trick or two to counter that kind of thing. Wonder I didn’t do it before.”
“Thank you, Sherry,” said Hero, with real gratitude. “Only now that I am being sent to be a governess in a horrid school in Bath, I don’t suppose I shall need any tricks.”
“It’s my belief that it’s all a hum,” declared Sherry. “You don’t look like any governess I’ve ever seen, and I’ll lay you odds no school would hire you. Do you know anything, Hero?”
“Well, I didn’t think I did,” replied Hero. “Only Miss Mundesley says I shall do very well, and it is her sister who has the school, so I dare say it has all been arranged between them. She is our governess, you know. At least, she used to be.”
“I know,” nodded Sherry. “Sour-faced old maid she was, too! I’ll tell you what, brat: if you go to this precious school they’ll make you a damned drudge, and so I warn you! Come to think of it, what the devil are they about, turning a chit like you upon the world?”
“Miss Mundesley says I shall be very strictly taken care of,” said Hero. “They are not turning me upon the world, exactly.”
“That’s not the point. Damme, the more I come to think of it the worse it is! You’re not a pauper brat!”
Miss Wantage raised her innocent eyes to his face. “But that is what I am, Sherry. I haven’t any money at all.”
“That don’t signify,” said the Viscount impatiently. “What I mean is, females of your breeding aren’t governesses! Never knew your father myself, but I know all about him. Very good family — a curst sight better than the Bagshots! What’s more, you’ve got a lot of damned starchy relations. Norfolk, or some such place. Heard my mother speak of them. Sounded to me like a very dull set of gudgeons, but that’s neither here nor there. You’d better write to them.”
“It wouldn’t be of any use,” sighed Hero. “I think my father quarrelled with them, because they wouldn’t do anything for me when he died. So I dare say they wouldn’t object to my becoming a governess at all.”
“Well, I do,” said the Viscount. “In fact, I won’t have it. You’ll have to think of something else.”
Miss Wantage saw nothing either arbitrary or unreasonable in this speech. She agreed to it, but a little doubtfully. “Marry the curate, do you mean, Sherry?” she asked, slightly wrinkling her short nose.
The Viscount stared at her in the liveliest astonishment. “Why the devil should I mean anything of the sort? Of course I don’t! Of all the nonsensical girls, you’re the worst, Hero!”
Miss Wantage accepted this rebuke meekly enough, but said: “Well, I think it’s a nonsensical notion too, but Cousin Jane says it must be the curate, or that horrid school.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that the curate wants to marry you?” demanded Sherry.
Miss Wantage nodded. “He has offered for me,” she said, not without pride.
“It seems to me,” said his lordship severely, “that you have been getting devilish flighty since I saw you last! Marry the curate, indeed! I dare say he kissed you behind the door too?”
“Oh no,Sherry!” Miss Wantage assured him. “He has behaved with the greatest propriety, Cousin Jane says!”
“So I should hope!” said his lordship, rather spoiling the austerity of this remark, however, by adding reflectively, a moment later: “Sounds to me like another dull dog.”
“Yes, he is,” agreed Hero. “I quite think he may be very kind, but oh, Sherry, if you won’t be offended with me, indeed I would rather be a governess, for I don’t at all want to marry him!”
“What beats me,” said his lordship, “is why he should want to marry you! He must be a curst rum touch, Hero. You’d never do for a parson’s wife! You can’t have told him how you glued the Bassenthwaites’ pew that time everyone was in such a pucker.”
“Well, no, I didn’t,” admitted Hero. “But it was you who did the glueing really, Sherry.”
“If that isn’t a female all over!” exclaimed Sherry. “Next you’ll say you had nothing to do with it!”
Miss Wantage tucked a small, confiding hand into his arm. “I did help, didn’t I, Anthony?”
“Yes, and spilled the glue over my new smalls because you thought you heard someone coming, silly chit!” said the Viscount, recalling this incident with a darkling look in his eye.
Miss Wantage gave a little chuckle. “Oh, how you did slap my cheek! It was red for hours and hours, and I had to make up such a tale to account for it!”
“No, did I really?” said the Viscount, rather conscience-stricken, and giving the cheek a friendly rub. “What a deuced young brute I was! Not but what you’d have tried the patience of a saint, brat, often and often!”
“Yes, that is what my cousins say, and I can’t but feel that I should try the curate’s patience even more, Sherry, because I do seem always to be getting into a scrape, though indeed I don’t mean to. At least, not every time.”
“Don’t keep on harping on the curate!” ordered the Viscount. “The whole idea of your marrying him is the greatest piece of nonsense I ever heard! In fact, it’s a very good thing I chanced to come down here, for the lord knows what silly trick you’d have tried to play off if I hadn’t caught you in time!”
“No, and I am so glad to see you again, Anthony,” she replied. “I thought perhaps you would come.”
“Good God, did you? Why?”
“To wait on Isabella,” she replied innocently.
“Ha!” uttered his lordship, with a harsh and bitter laugh.
Miss Wantage looked wonderingly up at him. “You don’t sound very pleased, Sherry. Would she not see you?”
“Pleased!” ejaculated his lordship. “Much I have to be pleased about!”
“I know she wouldn’t receive any of the other gentlemen, though they came all the way from London for the purpose, but I did think she would see you.”
“Well, she did,” said the Viscount shortly. “And for all the good I got by it, I might as well have stayed — Here, who told you I wanted to marry Bella?”
“You did,” answered Miss Wantage simply. “It was when you came down last year. Don’t you remember?”
“No, I can’t say that I do, but it don’t signify. She won’t have me.”
“Sherry!” cried Miss Wantage, quite shocked. “You don’t mean that you have offered, and she has refused you?”
“Yes, I do. And that’s not all!” said the Viscount, his wrongs rising forcibly to his mind. “She said my character was unsteady, and I’d no delicacy of principle! That, from a girl I’ve known all my life!”
“It isn’t true!” Hero said, warmly clasping his hand.
“I’m a gamester, and a libertine, and she don’t like the company I keep. I’m — ”
“Sherry,” interrupted Hero anxiously, “can she have heard about your opera dancer, do you think?”
“Well, upon my word!” gasped the Viscount. “What the devil do you know about my opera dancer? And don’t say I told you, because that I never did!”
“No, no, Edwin told me! That is, he told Cassy, because they had a quarrel, and it was really she who told me.”
“You’ve no business to be talking of such things!” said his lordship sternly. He thought it over, his brow creasing. “Besides, it don’t make sense! Edwin told Cassy, because they had a quarrel? Where’s the sense in that?”
“Why, Sherry, because he said that before she set her cap at you, she might as well know — ” Miss Wantage broke off,flushing deeply. “Oh, I wish I didn’t say things I ought not to!” she said, much mortified. “Truly, I didn’t mean to be such a cat!”
“Oh!” said his lordship. “So that’s what’s in the wind, is it? As a matter of fact, I knew it,” he added, momentarily abandoning the grand manner. “And you may tell your cousin Cassy, with my compliments, that she may as well spare herself the trouble, for I haven’t come to that yet! Now, don’t go blurting that out at her the first time you see her again! And stop chattering about my opera dancer! I’ve a very good mind to go up to the house and have a word with Edwin! Prating about my affairs all round the countryside! Now I know where my damned meddling uncle had it from! Pack of lies!”
“Haven’t you got an opera dancer after all?” asked Miss Wantage. “Because if you haven’t, I will tell Isabella so myself, and then perhaps you can be comfortable.”
“You won’t say anything about it at all!” said the harassed Viscount.
“Yes, but Sherry — ”
“ No, I tell you! For one thing, a pretty behaved female don’t mention such subjects; and for another — Well, you wouldn’t understand!” He encountered an inquiring look from the eyes which met his so frankly, and cast about in his brain for a suitable explanation. “Confound you, Hero, there’s nothing in it! Everyone has a fancy piece or two, but it don’t signify a jot, take my word for it!”
Miss Wantage was perfectly ready to take his word, but she felt that the question had not been thoroughly thrashed out. “Well, but, Sherry, perhaps you did not explain it to Isabella quite well? Don’t you think — ”
“No, I don’t,” said his lordship hastily. “The long and the short of it is that Bella don’t care a rap for me.”
Miss Wantage, finding this hard to believe, suggested that poor Isabella must have had the headache.
“No, it wasn’t that. Not but what she did look a trifle pale, now you put me in mind of it. But Incomparable as ever!” he added loyally.
“She is very pretty,” said Miss Wantage. “She even looked pretty when she had spots.”
“ Spots?” repeated the Viscount, in a stunned voice. “She never had a spot in her life!”
“Well, not ordinary spots, like Sophy, but the ones you have with the measles, I mean.”
“Isabella didn’t have the measles!”
“Yes, she did,” replied Hero. “That’s why her Mama brought her home. She felt dreadfully poorly, and Mrs Milborne told Cousin Jane that the spots came all over her.”
“ No!” said the Viscount, revolted.
“They do, you know,” explained Hero.
“Of course I know that! But Isabella can’t have had the measles! They said she was worn down by the gaieties of London!”
Hero looked surprised at this. “Well, I don’t know why they should have said that, because they must have known it was the measles. Two of the abigails had it as well, besides Mrs Milborne’s page.”
“Good God!” said the Viscount. A grin dispelled the look of shocked dismay on his face. “So that’s why she wouldn’t receive anyone! Poor girl! By Jove, I’d give a monkey to see Severn’s face, if he knew! Deuced romantic fellow, Severn! Wouldn’t like it at all!”
“Is he the Duke?” inquired Hero interestedly.
Gloom descended once more upon her companion. He nodded.
“Is — is she going to marry him, Sherry?”
“It’s my belief he won’t come up to scratch,” replied the Viscount frankly. “Not that I care. My hopes are quite cut-up!”
“Oh, Sherry, do you mind very much?” asked Hero, her heart wrung.
“Of course I mind!” said his lordship testily. “My whole life is blighted! Might as well go to the devil without more ado. Which is what I very likely shall do, because if I don’t get my hands on my fortune I shall be punting on tick before you know where you are, and we all know what that means!”
Hero nodded wisely. The Viscount laughed, and pinched her nose. “You haven’t a notion what it means! Never heard of a cent-per-cent in your life, have you, brat? Or of a poor devil finding himself in the basket?”
“Yes, I have! That’s on all the stagecoaches, and you ride in it if you are very poor!”
“Well, it may come to that yet,” grimaced Sherry. “The thing is that my principal’s tied up in the stupidest Trust anyone ever thought of. Would you believe it, I’m kept on a beggarly allowance until I reach the age of twenty-five, unless I’m married before then? A couple of my damned uncles manage everything — or they should, but Prosper’s too curst lazy to keep an eye on the other old scoundrel! He can’t stand the fellow any more than I can — none of my father’s relatives can bear the sight of my mother’s family, and God knows I don’t blame them, for a bigger set of spongers I’ll swear you never clapped eyes on! — but will he bestir himself to get rid of the fellow? Not he! There he sits, in my house, living at my expense, and ten to one feathering his nest with my money, not to mention putting a lot of nonsensical notions into my mother’s head, and pretending he’s disappointed Bella wouldn’t have me! Disappointed! He was so glad he couldn’t keep the smile off his greasy face! Damme if I know why I haven’t napped him a rum’un any time these past six years!” He broke off, the look of bewilderment on Hero’s face recalling him to a sense of his company. “Here, don’t you let me hear you using cant like that!” he admonished her. “If they hadn’t made me as mad as Bedlam between the lot of them, I shouldn’t have said it. At least, I should, but not to a female.”
“No, I won’t,” said Miss Wantage obediently.
“That’s what you say now,” retorted the Viscount, “but I know you, Hero! I never could let my tongue go when you were within hearing but what, as sure as check, out you’d come with it, with never less than half a dozen tabbies in the room, too! ‘But Anthony says it, Cousin Jane!’ You can’t be surprised I used to box your ears now and then!”
“Well, I truly won’t this time,” Hero assured him. “I couldn’t very well, because I don’t know what it means.”
“No, and you are not going to know, so it’s no use plaguing the life out of me to tell you! All that signifies is that there was no bearing it any longer. When it comes to being told — by my own mother, mark you! — that no woman of sensibility would accept of me, it’s the outside of enough! All because I had the curst bad luck to upset old General Ware’s phaeton! Anyone would have thought I’d murdered the fellow, but no such thing! He shot into the hedge, all right and tight, not a penny the worse for it! What’s more, I pulled him out, and considering it was his devilish bad handling of the ribbons which lost me my wager there are plenty of fellows in my place who would have left him there! But was he grateful? No! Tottered straight off to write and complain of me to my mother!”
“Never mind, Sherry!” Miss Wantage said, squeezing his arm. “They are all horrid, and unkind! They always were. Only I did think that Isabella — ”
“I’ll not hear a word against her!” said the Viscount nobly. “She is, and will always be, the Incomparable! But if she thinks I’m going to wear the willow for her sake, she’s mightily mistaken! And it wouldn’t surprise me above half if that’s just what she’d like me to do, for of all the heartless baggages I ever encountered — But that’s neither here nor there.”
“What are you meaning to do, Sherry?” asked Miss Wantage solicitously.
“Just what I told my mother, and my platter-faced uncle! Marry the first female I see!”
Miss Wantage gave a giggle. “Silly! That’s me!”
“Well, good God, there’s no need to be so curst literal!” said his lordship. “I know it’s you, as it turns out, but — ” He stopped suddenly, and stared down into Miss Wantage’s heartshaped countenance. “Well, why not?” he said slowly. “Damme, that’s exactly what I will do!”