Charity Girl

by Джорджетт Хейер

“That settles it, then!” said Simon. “Des would have returned to London immediately! And when he reached Arlington Street Aldham gave him the letter I scribbled—there can be no doubt about that!—and as soon as he had read it it’s Carlton House to a Charley’s shelter that he set out instantly to join me here. I shouldn’t wonder at it if he were to arrive at any minute!”

  He was interrupted by Grimshaw, who came in to announce Mr Steane’s arrival, but when Grimshaw had withdrawn, he said: “There’s just one more thing I must warn you about, Hetta! Well, as a matter of fact, it’s why I rode out here as fast as I could! Steane thinks you’re betrothed to Des.”

  Henrietta had been tidying her ruffled hair in front of the mirror, but at this she turned, showing Simon a startled face. “Thinks I’m betrothed to Des? Why should he think anything of the sort?”

  “Well,” said Simon, a trifle conscience-stricken, “I told him you were!”

  “Simon!” she uttered “wrathfully. “How could you have told him so when you must know there isn’t a word of truth in it?”

  “It was the only thing I could hit upon to account for Lady Silverdale’s having received Cherry, under such dashed havey-cavey circumstances,” he explained. “And also it seemed to me the surest way of sending him to grass, if it came to an action for breach of promise. Well, it stands to reason that if Des was betrothed to you he wouldn’t have offered another female marriage, or brought her to visit you!”

  “I think it was an infamous thing to have done!” she said, those expressive eyes of hers flaming with anger.

  “No, no!” he assured her. “Only thing I could do! I promise you Desford won’t care a straw!”

  “Desford!” she said chokingly. “And what about me, pray?”

  “Hang it all!” he protested. “Why should you care either? Ten to one it won’t leak out, because unless I’m much mistaken Steane don’t mean to stay in England a day longer than he need. Besides, I told him the engagement hadn’t been announced yet—I said that was on account of my father’s health, by the by: not stout enough yet for dress-parties—so if he does blab it abroad you have only to deny it, or cry off, if you prefer.”

  “Oh, how abominable you are! I’ll never forgive you for this!” she told him, an indignant flush reddening her cheeks.

  “Well, never mind that!” he said, in a consolatory tone. “If I’d guessed you might object to it, I wouldn’t have done it, but I did do it, and there’s nothing for it but to stick to it. You must see that, Hetta!”

  “I don’t!” she snapped.

  “Do you mean to say that you’re going to tell Steane you ain’t engaged to Des?” he gasped. “Of all the shabby things to do! I wouldn’t have believed it of you! I thought you was too much of a right one to run away just when poor old Des most needs your help! Turning missish at such a moment! Dashed well stabbing him in the back!”

  “Oh, be quiet!” she said crossly. “If this horrible creature is rag-mannered enough to ask me, I shan’t deny it. But what I shall do, Mr Simon Carrington, is to give you your own again!”

  “That’s the hammer!” he said encouragingly. “I knew I could depend on you! Always said you were as sound as a trout! Now, you go and hold up your nose at that oily old rascal—and take care you don’t let him guess I’m here, for it won’t do if he realizes I came to warn you!”

  With these kindly words, he patted her on the shoulder, and held open the door for her, meeting the scathing glance she threw at him with eyes brimming with laughter.

  He then shut the door again, and retired to the broad window-seat to await the arrival of his brother. He had no doubt that Desford would arrive; the only doubt it was possible for one of his sanguine temperament to entertain was whether Desford would reach Inglehurst in time to deal with Mr Wilfred Steane before poor Hetta had been driven into the last ditch. But the longer he pondered over the question the more convinced did he become that Desford would arrive in time to take the management of what (damn it all!) were his affairs, not his brother’s, or Hetta’s, into his own hands. It wouldn’t be like Des not to make all haste to their rescue, he decided.

  And his confidence was justified. Twenty minutes after Henrietta had joined Mr Steane in the library a postchaise-and-four swept round the bend in the avenue, and brought young Mr Carrington to his feet. So sure was he that its passenger was Desford that he did not wait to watch the steps being let down, but went hastily out into the hall, and intercepted Grimshaw, who was treading majestically across it towards the door. “No need for you to trouble yourself!” he said. “It’s only my brother! I’ll let him in!”

  Grimshaw looked at once surprised and disapproving, but he bowed, and went back to his own quarters, reflecting that Mr Simon always was a regrettably harum-scarum young man, much too prone to brush aside the ordinary conventions of Polite Society.

  Simon went bounding down the steps just as Desford alighted from the chaise, and called out: “Lord, am I glad to see you, Des! You old slip-gibbet!”

  “I’ll be bound you are,” said the Viscount, receiving this unflattering appellation, and the playful punch to his ribs which accompanied it, as marks of affection, which, indeed, they were. “I’m much obliged to you, bantling: no reason why you should be called upon to enter into this imbroglio!”

  “Oh, gammon!” said Simon. “A pretty fellow I should be to have given you the bag! And a rare hank you’d be in if I had, let me tell you!” He lowered his voice, and said seriously: “It’s worse than you know, Des.”

  “Good God, is it?” He nodded to his head postilion, saying briefly: “I don’t know how long I shall be: probably an hour or two. We shall spend the night at Wolversham.” He turned back to Simon, as the chaise moved on towards the stables, and asked: “Has Steane arrived yet?”

  “Yes, about half-an-hour ago. He’s with Hetta, in the library.”

  “Then I had best lose no time in joining them.”

  “Oh, yes, you had, dear boy!” said Simon, acquiring a firm grip on his arm. “What you had best do is to listen to what I have to tell you, if you don’t wish to make mice feet of the business! We’ll take a little stroll along the terrace, as far as that damned uncomfortable stone seat, where we shan’t be overheard.”

  “If you’re going to tell me that Steane is a fat rascal, I know it already. I visited Miss Fletching the day after Steane had been there, bullocking her until the poor lady succumbed to an attack of the vapours. I don’t know what upset her most: the thundering scolds she got from him, or the discovery that he had grown very fat. From what she said to me, I’d no difficulty in gathering that he hasn’t altered since the days when he was obliged to fly the country. What’s his lay? Card-sharping?”

  “Undoubtedly, I should think, though I daresay he ain’t particular. Any form of flat-catching, from the looks of him! His present lay, my boy, is to compel you to marry his precious daughter!”

  The Viscount burst out laughing. “Well, he’ll be queered on that suit!”

  “If I were you, Des, I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Simon.

  “My dear lad, I am quite certain of it! I met her for the first time at a ball the Bugles gave, and had a conversation with her; on the following day I encountered her on my way to London, took her up into my curricle, and conveyed her first to London, and then brought her here, since when I haven’t laid eyes on her. So if Steane has any notion of accusing me of having seduced her the sooner he rids himself of it the better it will be for him.” He saw that Simon was looking unusually grave, and said, in a little amusement: “I’m not shamming it, you know!”

  “Well, of course I know it! But this fellow could make nasty mischief. What if he set it about that you stole Cherry away from her aunt’s house, under a promise to marry her?”

  “Good God, is he as bad as that?”

  Simon nodded. “I daresay you could disprove a charge of having made off with her, and kept her until you was tired of her—”

  “What, in one day? Doi
ng it too brown, Simon!”

  “The point is can you prove it was only one day? I shouldn’t think that Bugle woman would support you: she’s already told Steane you ravished Cherry out of the house. Seems one of her daughters overheard what you and Cherry were saying, on the night of that ball.”

  “Well, she didn’t overhear me trying to persuade Cherry to run off with me. And considering upwards of half-a-dozen people saw me leave Hazelfield some time after breakfast on the following morning, and the Silverdales took charge of Cherry that same evening, I don’t think that cock will fight!”

  “No, very likely not, but you wouldn’t want such an on-dit to be running round the town, would you? You know what all the tattlemongers would say: No smoke without fire! and the lord knows there are enough of them on the town!” He grinned, watching the kindling of the Viscount’s eyes, and the hardening of the lines about his mouth. “Never mind looking like bull-beef, Des! Would you want that?”

  The Viscount did not answer for a moment, but sat frowning down at his own finger-nails. He had turned his closed hand over, and seemed to find the row of well-kept nails interesting. But presently he straightened his fingers, and looked up, meeting Simon’s eyes. “No, I wouldn’t,” he replied. He smiled faintly. “But I hardly think he will attempt anything of that sort. For one thing, it would be to lay himself open to reprisal; and for another, he must surely know that he is in extremely ill-odour here. No one for whose opinion I care a button would believe a word he said.”

  “What about your enemies?”

  “I haven’t any!”

  “Why, you old windy-wallets!” exclaimed Simon indignantly. “Talk of ringing one’s own bell—!”

  The Viscount laughed. “No, no, how can you say so?”

  “Let me tell you, Des, that this is no laughing matter!” said Simon severely. “I don’t say you couldn’t beat him all to sticks if he accuses you of having seduced Cherry, for very likely you could—though I don’t think you’d enjoy it. But you wouldn’t find it as easy to fight an action for breach of promise!”

  “Why not? For that to succeed Cherry’s testimony would be needed, and he won’t get that.”

  “Anyone would take you for a mooncalf!” said Simon, quite exasperated. “Next you’ll say he’s welcome to try it! Well, if you’ve no objection to setting yourself up as a subject for steward’s room gossip, what do you imagine the parents would feel about it?”

  “But, Simon, how could he possibly bring such an action without support from Cherry?”

  “He could start one, couldn’t he? What do they call it? File a suit? Because he knows you’d pay through the nose to stop him!”

  “I’m damned if I would!”

  “And what about my father? Ay, that’s another pair of sleeves, ain’t it? He would! I sent that old hedgebird here because he threatened to go to Wolversham, and hoax my father with his lying story! And the next thing was that he had the infernal brass to ask me how it came about that Lady Silverdale had been persuaded to receive Cherry at the hands of such a libertine as you are, brother! So I said that you were betrothed to Hetta!”

  “You said what?”Desford demanded, taken aback.

  “Well, I thought there was nothing for it but to go the whole pile,” explained Simon. “It seemed to me to be the best thing I could say, because if he believed it he was bound to see that it turned his scheme to accuse you of having promised to marry Cherry into a case of crabs. Which he did see! Never saw a man look so blue in my life! But if you don’t like it I’m sorry, but considering you and Hetta have been as thick as inkle-weavers for the lord knows how many years, I didn’t think you’d care a straw for it!”

  “I don’t,” said Desford, a queer little smile hovering round his mouth. “But my father already knows the true story! I told it him myself, on my way back from Harrowgate.”

  “Told him—Des, you didn’t!” uttered Simon, turning pale with dismay. “How could you have done anything so blubber-headed?”

  There was a good deal of amusement in the Viscount’s eyes, but he answered meekly: “Well, as he had already got wind of the business, and had driven over here with Mama to discover what sort of a girl I had apparently become entangled with, it seemed to be the only thing I could do.”

  “Lord!” said Simon, with an eloquent shiver. “You’ve got more bottom than I have, Des! Did he come the ugly?”

  “Not at all! You should know him better than to think he would, when any of us three were in the suds! Oh, he read me one of his scolds, but he told me to come to him if I found myself at the end of my rope! Mind you, he’d met Cherry by that time, and knew at a glance that she wasn’t a designing harpy!”

  “So I might have spared myself the trouble of heading him away from Wolversham!” said Simon wrathfully. “Upon my word, Des—”

  “Oh, no! I’m grateful to you for having done so! He wouldn’t have believed Steane’s story, but it’s more than likely that he would have paid him handsomely to keep his mouth shut, and I’m damned if I’ll allow Steane to put the screw on him! He told me himself that when he came here it was with the intention of buying Cherry off, if he found that she was a designing harpy. Never mind that! Did you come here to warn Hetta that she is engaged to me?”

  “Yes, of course! I had to!”

  “And how did she take it?”

  “I’m bound to own that she flew up into the boughs, which surprised me. What I mean is, not like her to turn missish all at once! However, I pointed out to her that if the story were to leak out she could either deny it, or cry off, so she mended her temper, and promised she’d stand buff. No need to fear she may run shy! I’ll say this for Hetta: she may be a trifle freakish now and then, but she’s a right one at heart!”

  “Yes, the pick of the basket!” Desford said, getting up. “And the sooner I go to her rescue—”

  “Stay a moment, Des! They are all in an uproar, because that troublesome girl seems to have loped off!”

  “Cherry? Good God, why?”

  “Oh, Hetta thinks it was because Lady Silverdale found Charlie kissing her, and gave her a scold! She also thinks Cherry may have met with an accident, and she’s sent off most of the men to search for her. The devil of it is, of course, that if they don’t find her Steane will be sure to cut up rough. Very likely he’ll accuse the Silverdales of having ill-used her!”

  “Oh, my God, as though we weren’t in bad enough loaf already!” groaned the Viscount, striding away towards the door into the house.

  “Hi, wait!” Simon called, suddenly bethinking himself of something, and jumping up from the seat. He thrust a hand into his pocket, pulled out a package, and hurried after his brother. “Here you are, old chap!” he said, holding it out, with a shy smile. “Very much obliged to you!”

  “But what is it?”

  “A roll of soft, you gudgeon! The monkey you lent me!”

  “Chuff it!” recommended the Viscount. “I told you at the time that I wasn’t going to let you break my shins! Did Mopsqueezer win?”

  “I should rather think he did! What’s more, there was a horse entered for the last race, called Brother Benefactor, so I put all my winnings on him, and he came home at ten-to-one! Bound to, of course!”

  The Viscount gave a shout of laughter. “Lord, what a cockle-headed thing to do! No, stop pushing that roll at me! I don’t want it! You may be said to have earned it, what’s more!” He laid a hand on Simon’s shoulder, and gave him a little shake. “You must have been having the devil of a time in the bumble-broth I brewed! Thank you, bantling!”

  “Oh, fudge!” Simon said, deeply flushing. “I wish you would take it! I’m fairly swimming in lard, you know!”

  “You won’t be, by the time you return from Brighton!” retorted the Viscount.

  Chapter 15

  When Henrietta entered the library, nothing in her face or in her bearing betrayed her inward misgivings. She came in with her graceful, unhurried step, and looked across the room at her visitor
, her brows faintly raised; and said, not uncivilly, but with a suggestion of highbred reserve in her manner: “Mr Steane?” She watched him execute a flourishing bow, and moved forward to a straight chair by the table in the middle of the room, saying, as she sat down on it: “Pray, will you not be seated? Am I right in supposing you to be poor Cherry’s father?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you are indeed right!” he answered. “Her sole surviving parent, separated from her by a cruel fate for too long, alas, and tortured by anxiety!”

  She raised her brows rather higher, and said, in a polite, discouraging voice: “Indeed?” She had the satisfaction of seeing that she had slightly discomfited him, and continued, with strengthened assurance: “I regret, sir, that my mother—er—finds herself unable to receive you. She is a trifle indisposed today.”

  “I shall not dream of intruding upon her,” he said graciously. “My sole desire—I may say, my burning desire!—is to clasp my beloved child to my heart again. For this did I steel myself to revisit the land of my birth, with its poignant memories of my late, adored helpmate: inexpressibly painful to a man of sensibility, I assure you, Miss Silverdale! I presume I do have the honour of addressing Miss Silverdale?”

  “Yes, I am Miss Silverdale,” she replied. “It is unfortunate that you did not warn us of your intention to visit us today, for it so happens that Cherry is not, at the moment, here. She went out walking some time ago, and is not yet returned. However, I daresay you will not have long to wait before being—reunited with her.”

  “Every moment that withholds her from me is an hour! You must pardon the natural impatience of a father, ma’am! I can scarcely bear to wait five minutes to see with my own eyes that she is safe and well.”

  “She was perfectly safe and well when I last saw her,” said Henrietta calmly, “but as she went out some hours ago I own I am a little uneasy, and have sent some of our servants to search for her, in case she may have met with an accident, or lost her way.”

  He instantly assumed an expression of horror, and demanded in a shocked tone: “Do you tell me, ma’am, that she was actually permitted to go out unattended? I had not thought such a thing to have been possible!”