Arabella

by Джорджетт Хейер

  The luck veered. Three times did Bertram bet heavily on the bank’s card. He was left with only two rouleaus, and staked them both, sure that the bank could not win his money four times in succession. It could. To his own annoyance, Mr. Beaumaris turned up the identical card.

  From then on, he accepted, with an unmoved countenance, vowel upon vowel from Bertram. It was quite impossible to tell the boy either that he would not take his vouchers, or that he would be well-advised to go home. It was even doubtful whether Bertram would have listened to him. He was in the grip of a gamester’s madness, betting recklessly, persuaded by one lucky chance that the luck smiled upon him again, convinced when he lost that ill-fortune could not last. That he had the least idea of the sum he already owed the bank, Mr. Beaumaris cynically doubted.

  The evening broke up rather earlier than usual, Mr. Beaumaris having warned the company that he did not sit after two o’clock, and Lord Petersham sighing that he did not think he should take the bank over tonight. Wivenhoe, undaunted by his losses, said cheerfully: “In the basket again! What do I owe, Beaumaris?”

  Mr. Beaumaris silently handed his vowels to him. While his lordship did rapid sums in mental addition, Bertram, the flush dying out of his cheeks, sat staring at the paper still lying in front of Mr. Beaumaris. He said jerkily: “And I?” and stretched out his hand.

  “Dipped, badly dipped!” said Wivenhoe, shaking his head. “I’ll send you a draught on my bank, Beaumaris. The devil was in it tonight!”

  Other men were totting up their losses; there was a noise of lighthearted conversation dinning in Bertram’s ears; he found that his vowels totalled six hundred pounds, a sum that seemed vast to him, almost incredible. He pulled himself together, pride coming to his rescue, and rose. He looked very white now, and ridiculously boyish, but he held his head well up, and spoke to Mr. Beaumaris perfectly calmly. “I may have to keep you waiting for a few days, sir,” he said. “I—I have no banking accommodation in London, and must send to Yorkshire for funds!”

  What do I do now? wondered Mr. Beaumaris. Tell the boy the only use I have for his vowels is as shaving-papers? No: he would enact me a Cheltenham tragedy. Besides, the fright may do him a world of good. He said: “There is no hurry, Mr. Anstey. I am going out of town tomorrow for a week, or five days. Come and see me at my house—let us say, next Thursday. Anyone will tell you my direction. Where are you putting up?”

  Bertram replied mechanically: “At the Red Lion, in the City, sir.”

  “Robert!” called Fleetwood, from the other side of the room, where he was engaged in a lively argument with Mr. Warkworth. “Robert, come and bear me out! Robert!”

  “Yes, in a moment!” Mr. Beaumaris returned. He detained Bertram a moment longer. “Don’t fail!” he said. “I shall expect to see you on Thursday.”

  He judged it to be impossible to say more, for there were people all round them, and it was plain that the boy’s pride would not brook a suggestion that his gaming-debts should be consigned to the flames.

  But he was still frowning when he reached his house, some time later. Ulysses, gambolling and squirming before him, found that his welcome was not receiving acknowledgement, and barked at him. Mr. Beaumaris bent, and patted him absentmindedly. “Hush! I am not in the mood for these transports!” he said. “I was right when I told you that you were not destined to be the worst of my responsibilities, was I not? I think I ought to have set the boy’s mind at ease: one never knows, with boys of that age—and I didn’t like the look in his face. All to pieces, I have little doubt. At the same time, I’ll be damned if I’ll go out again at this hour of the night. A night’s reflection won’t hurt him.”

  He picked up the branch of candles that stood upon the hall-table, and carried it into his study, and to his desk by the window. Seeing him sit down, and open the ink-standish, Ulysses indicated his sentiments by yawning loudly. “Don’t let me keep you up!” said Mr. Beaumaris, dipping a pen in the standish, and drawing a sheet of paper towards himself.

  Ulysses cast himself on the floor with a flop, gave one or two whines, bethought him of a task left undone, and began zealously to clean his forepaws.

  Mr. Beaumaris wrote a few rapid lines, dusted his sheet, shook off the sand, and was just about to fold the missive, when he paused. Ulysses looked up hopefully. “Yes, in a minute,” said Mr. Beaumaris. “If he has quite outrun the constable—” He laid clown the paper, drew out a fat pocket-book from his inner pocket, and extracted from it a bill for a hundred pounds. This he folded up in his letter, sealed the whole with a wafer, and directed it. Then he rose, and to Ulysses’ relief indicated that he was now ready to go to bed. Ulysses, who slept every night on the mat outside his door, and regularly, as a matter of form, challenged Painswick’s right to enter that sacred apartment each morning, scampered ahead of him up the stairs. Mr. Beaumaris found his valet awaiting him, his expression a nice mixture of wounded sensibility, devotion to duty, and long-suffering. He gave the sealed letter into his hand. “See that that is delivered to a Mr. Anstey, at the Red Lion, somewhere in the City, tomorrow morning,” he said curtly. “In person!” he added.

  XIV

  Not for three days did any news of the disaster which had overtaken Bertram reach his sister. She had written to beg him to meet her by the Bath Gate in the Green Park, and had sent the letter by the Penny Post. When he neither appeared at the rendezvous, nor replied to her letter, she began to be seriously alarmed, and was trying to think of a way of visiting the Red Lion without her godmother’s knowledge when Mr. Scunthorpe sent up his card, at three o’clock one afternoon. She desired the butler to show him into the drawing-room, and went down immediately from her bedchamber to receive him.

  It did not at once strike her that he was looking preternaturally solemn; she was too eager to learn tidings of Bertram, and went impetuously towards him with her hand held out, exclaiming: “I am so very glad you have called to see me, sir! I have been so much worried about my brother! Have you news of him? Oh, do not tell me he is ill?”

  Mr. Scunthorpe bowed, cleared his throat, and grasped her hand spasmodically. In a somewhat throaty voice he replied: “No, ma’am. Oh, no! Not ill, precisely!”

  Her eyes eagerly scanned his face. She now perceived that his countenance wore an expression of deep melancholy, and felt immediately sick with apprehension. She managed to say: “Not—not—dead?”

  “Well, no, he ain’t dead,” replied Mr. Scunthorpe, but hardly in reassuring tones. “I suppose you might say it ain’t as bad as that. Though, mind you, I wouldn’t say he won’t be dead, if we don’t take care, because when a fellow takes to—But never mind that!”

  “Never mind it?” cried Arabella, pale with alarm. “Oh, what can be the matter? Pray, pray tell me instantly!”

  Mr. Scunthorpe looked at her uneasily. “Better have some smelling-salts,” he suggested. “No wish to upset a lady. Nasty shock. Daresay you’d like a glass of hartshorn and water. Ring for a servant!”

  “No, no, I need nothing! Pray do not! Only put me out of this agony of suspense!” Arabella implored him, clinging with both hands to the back of a chair.

  Mr. Scunthorpe cleared his throat again. “Thought it best to come to you,” he said. “Sister. Happy to be of service myself, but at a standstill. Temporary, of course, but there it is. Must tow poor Bertram out of the River Tick!”

  “River?” gasped Arabella.

  Mr. Scunthorpe perceived that he had been misunderstood. He made haste to rectify this. “No, no, not drowned!” he assured her. “Swallowed a spider!”

  “Bertram has swallowed a spider?” Arabella repeated, in a dazed voice.

  Mr. Scunthorpe nodded. “That’s it,” he said. “Blown up at Point Non Plus. Poor fellow knocked into horse-nails!”

  Arabella’s head was by this time in such a whirl that she was uncertain whether her unfortunate brother had fallen into the river, or had been injured in some explosion, or was, more mildly, suffering from an internal disord
er. Her pulse was tumultuous; the most agitating reflections made it impossible for her to speak above a whisper. She managed to utter: “Is he dreadfully hurt? Have they taken him to a hospital?”

  “Not a case for a hospital, ma’am,” said Mr. Scunthorpe. “More likely to be screwed up.”

  This pronouncement, conjuring up the most horrid vision of a coffin, almost deprived Arabella of her senses. Her eyes started at Mr. Scunthorpe in a look of painful enquiry. “Screwed up?” she repeated faintly.

  “The Fleet,” corroborated Mr. Scunthorpe, sadly shaking his head. “Told him how it would be. Wouldn’t listen. Mind, if the thing had come off right, he could have paid down his dust, and no harm done. Trouble was, it didn’t. Very rarely does, if you ask me.”

  The gist of this speech, gradually penetrating to Arabella’s understanding, brought some of the colour back to her face. She sank into a chair, her legs trembling violently, and said. “Do you mean he is in debt?”

  Mr. Scunthorpe looked at her in mild surprise. “Told you so, ma’am!” he pointed out.

  “Good God, how could I possibly guess—? Oh, I have been so afraid that something of the sort must happen! Thank you for coming to me, sir! You did very right!”

  Mr. Scunthorpe blushed. “Always happy to be of service!”

  “I must go to him!” Arabella said. “Will you be so kind as to escort me? I do not care to take my maid on such an errand, and I think perhaps I should not go alone.”

  “No, wouldn’t do at all,” Mr. Scunthorpe agreed. “But better not go, ma’am! Not the thing for you. Delicate female—shabby neighbourhood! Take a message.”

  “Nonsense! Do you think I have never been to the City? Only wait until I have fetched a bonnet, and a shawl! We may take a hackney, and be there before Lady Bridlington comes downstairs.”

  “Yes, but—Fact is, ma’am, he ain’t at the Red Lion!” said Mr. Scunthorpe, much disturbed.

  She had sprung up from her chair, but at this she paused. “Not? But how is this? Why has he left the inn?”

  “Couldn’t pay his shot,” explained Mr. Scunthorpe apologetically. “Left his watch. Silly thing to do. Might have come in useful.”

  “Oh!” she cried out, horror in her voice. “Is it as bad as that?”

  “Worse!” said Mr. Scunthorpe gloomily. “Got queered sporting his blunt on the table. Only hadn’t enough blunt. Took to signing vowels, and ran aground.”

  “Gaming!” Arabella breathed, in a shocked voice.

  “Faro,” said Mr. Scunthorpe. “Mind, no question of any Greeking transactions! No fuzzing, or handling the concave-suit! Not but what it makes it worse, because a fellow has to be dashed particular in all matters of play and pay, if he goes to the Nonesuch. All the go, I assure you: Corinthian club—best of good ton! They play devilish high there—above my touch!”

  “Then it was not you who took him to such a place!”

  “Couldn’t have been,” said Mr. Scunthorpe simply. “Not a member. Chuffy Wivenhoe.”

  “Lord Wivenhoe! Oh, what a fool I have been!” cried Arabella. “It was I who made him known to Lord Wivenhoe!”

  “Pity,” said Mr. Scunthorpe, shaking his head.

  “But how wicked of him to have led Bertram to such a place! Oh, how could he have done so? I had no suspicion—I thought him so agreeable, and gentlemanlike—!”

  “Polite to a point,” agreed Mr. Scunthorpe. “Very good sort of a man: very well-liked. Daresay he did it for the best.”

  “How could he think so?” Arabella said hotly.

  “Very exclusive club,” he pointed out.

  She said impatiently. “It is of no use for us to argue on that head. Where is Bertram?”

  “Don’t think you’d know the place, ma’am. It’s—it’s near Westminster!”

  “Very well, let us go there at once!”

  In considerable agitation, Mr. Scunthorpe said: “No, dash it! Can’t take a lady to Willow Walk! You don’t quite understand, ma’am! Poor Bertram—couldn’t pay his shot—not a meg on him—duns in his pocket—tipstaffs after him—had to give ’em all the bag! Can’t quite make out exactly how it was, but think he must have gone back to the Red Lion when he left the Nonesuch, because he has his portmanteau with him. Seems to have bolted for it to Tothill Fields. Very low back-slum, ma’am. Silly fellow ought to have come and knocked me up—happy to have given him my sofa!”

  “Good God, why did he not?”

  He coughed in an embarrassed way. “Might have been a little bit on the go,” he said diffidently. “Scared of being pounded by the tipstaffs, too. Come to think of it, might easily be if he stayed with me. Dashed tradesmen know he’s a friend of mine! At all events, he ain’t with me—didn’t send me word where he was till this morning—feeling too blue-devilled, I daresay. Don’t blame him: would myself!”

  “Oh, poor Bertram, poor Bertram!” she cried, wringing her hands. “I do not care where he is, see him I must, if I have to go to this Willow Walk alone!”

  “Good God, ma’am, mustn’t do that!” he exclaimed, appalled. “Very rough set of coves in Willow Walk! Besides—” He paused, looking acutely uncomfortable. “Not quite himself!”

  “Oh, he must be ill with worry, and despair! Nothing would keep me from him at such a time! I will fetch my bonnet, and we may be off directly!”

  “Ma’am, he won’t like it!” Mr. Scunthorpe said desperately. “Very likely be ready to murder me only for telling you! You can’t see him!”

  “Why can I not?”

  “He’s been in the sun a trifle! You see—very understandable thing to do!—shot the cat!”

  “Shot the cat?”

  “Can’t blame him!” Mr. Scunthorpe pleaded. “Wouldn’t have told you, if you hadn’t been so set on seeing him! Felt balls of fire—result, looking as queer as Dick’s hatband, when I saw him!”

  “Do you mean that he has been drinking?” demanded Arabella. “What, in heaven’s name, is a ball of fire?”

  “Brandy,” said Mr. Scunthorpe. “Devilish bad brandy too. Told him to make Blue Ruin the preferred suit. Safer.”

  “Every word you say makes me the more determined to go to him!” declared Arabella.

  “Assure you much better to send him some blunt, ma’am!”

  “I will take him all I have, but oh, it is so little! I cannot think yet what is to be done!”

  Mr. Scunthorpe looked a little thoughtful. “In that case, ma’am, better take you to him. Talking very wildly this morning. No saying what he might do.”

  Mr. Scunthorpe pointed significantly to the ceiling. “You don’t think the old lady—?” he suggested delicately.

  She shook her head. “Oh, no, no! Impossible!”

  She almost ran to the door. “We have not a moment to waste, then!”

  “No, no!” he assured her. “No need to be on the fret! Won’t cut his throat today! Told the girl to hide his razor.”

  “What girl?”

  He became very much confused, blushed, and uttered: “Girl he sent to my lodging with a message. Been looking after him.”

  “Oh, God bless her!” Arabella cried fervently. “What is her name? How much I must owe her!”

  As the lady in question had introduced herself to Mr. Scunthorpe as LeakyPeg, he was obliged to take refuge in prevarication, and to hope devoutly that they would not encounter her in Willow Walk. He said that he had not caught her name. Arabella seemed a little disappointed, but since this was no time for wasting over trifles she said no more, but ran out of the room to fetch her bonnet and shawl. It was impossible for her to leave the house without the butler’s being aware of it, but although he looked surprised, he made no comment, and in a few minutes’ time she and Mr. Scunthorpe were seated in a ramshackle hackney coach, which seemed as though, many years before, it had formed part of a nobleman’s equipage, but which had fallen into sad decay. The coverings to the seats and the squabs were tattered and dirty, and the vehicle smelled strongly of beer and old leather. These
evils Arabella scarcely noticed, in such a turmoil was her mind. It was a struggle to support her spirits at all; she felt ready to sink; and was unable, while in such a state of agitation, to form any plan for Bertram’s relief. The only solution which had so far presented itself to her mind was an instinctive impulse, no sooner thought of than recoiled from, to send off an express to Heythram. Mr. Scunthorpe’s suggestion of applying to Lady Bridlington she well knew to be useless, nor would her pride tolerate the putting of herself under such added obligation to her godmother. Wild notions of selling Mama’s diamonds, and the pearl necklet that had belonged to Grandma Tallant, could not, she knew, be entertained, for these trinkets were not hers to dispose of at will.

  Beside her, Mr. Scunthorpe, feeling vaguely that her spirits required support, tried to entertain her by pointing out, conscientiously, the various places of interest the hackney drove past. She scarcely heeded him, but when they reached Westminster, began to look about her a little, insensibly cheered by the respectability of the neighbourhood. But the hackney lumbered on, and in a surprisingly short space of time it was hard to realize that she must be within a stone’s throw of the Abbey, so squalid were her surroundings. An unlucky attempt made by Mr. Scunthorpe to divert her, by pointing out an ugly brick structure which he said was the Tothill Fields Bridewell, made her shudder so alarmingly that he hastily informed her that it was so crammed to overflowing with felons that there was no room for another soul behind its walls. A row of squat alms-houses was the next object of interest to be seen. This was followed by a charity school, but the district seemed to Arabella to be largely composed of wretched hovels, ancient mansions, fallen into depressing decay, and a superfluity of taverns. Frowsy looking women stood in the doorways of some of the hovels; half-naked urchins turned cartwheels on the dirty cobbles, in the hope of gaining largesse from persons well-breeched enough to travel in hackney coaches; at one corner, a fat woman seated behind an iron cauldron appeared to be dispensing tea to a curiously ill-assorted crowd of persons, ranging from bricklayers to bedizened young women; various street-cries echoed in the narrow streets, from offers of coal to entreaties for old iron; and the male population seemed to consist entirely of scavengers, sweeps, and unidentifiable persons with blue jowls, and mufflers round their necks in place of collars.