The Viscount dropped the fob he had selected. ‘What?’ he said quickly.‘What has happened?’
The Tiger shook his head sadly.‘Piked on the bean, guv’nor!’ he said simply.
‘What!
’ ‘So help me bob, guv’nor, it’s Gawd’s truth! Loped off with that well-breeched swell I seed her with t’other day!’
The Viscount had the oddest impression that the floor was heaving under his feet. He put out a hand to grasp the edge of his dressing-table, saying hoarsely: ‘It’s a lie!’
‘I’ll wish myself backt if ever I told you a lie, guv’nor!’ Jason said earnestly. ‘Nor I wouldn’t tell no lies about the missus! Fit to nap my bib, I be!’
In proof of this statement he drew the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes and sniffed dolorously. The Viscount, white as his shirt, said:‘How do you know this, rascal?’
‘Seed her with my werry own daylights, guv’nor.’ He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. ‘I was waiting in Camden Place, that Maria – that saucy mort what is maid to the missus – whiddling the scrap to me that the missus takes the dog what belongs to the old gentry-mort for a walk every evening. Seemed to me if I was to go and tell the missus as how we miss her mortal bad – but I never had no chance to open me bone-box! There was a rattler a-standing in the road, and this cove as you knows of, guv’nor. So I lays low, and keeps my daylights skinned. And along comes the missus with a dawg on a string. Then I seed that well-breeched swell put a mask over his phyz, and I’m bubbled if he didn’t catch hold of the missus and start a’kissing of her! And afore I could get my breath he threw her into the rattler and jumped on to a niceish piece of blood, and the whole lot starts off !’
The Viscount started forward. ‘You damned little fool, did you do nothing to aid her ladyship? You watched her being forcibly carried off, and you –’
‘Guv’nor, it ain’t no use bamming you: she weren’t carried off, not agin her will she weren’t! For I seed her put her arm round the cove’s neck, hugging him like you never saw, and she didn’t struggle, nor let a squeak, not once!’
‘I knew it!’ declared the dowager.
‘No, dash it, ma’am, can’t have known it!’ Ferdy expostulated, much moved by the stricken look on his cousin’s face. ‘Sherry, dear old boy! Depend upon it, all a hum! Kitten wouldn’t go hugging fellows in masks! Might kiss George, but not a fellow in a mask! Wretched Tiger of yours has shot the cat!’
Sherry shook his head dumbly. Jason said:‘I ain’t shot the cat! What’s more, I loped after that rattler – ah, right through the town, I did, and I know the road that leery cove took, and it ain’t the road what leads to his own ken, neither! Gone off with the missus on the Radstock road what leads to Wells, he has, but he won’t get far, not if I know it, he won’t!’
Sherry raised his head.‘Why won’t he?’
‘Acos I forked the cove while he was a-waiting for the missus,’ said Jason sulkily. He added in a defensive tone: ‘You never telled me not to fork that cull, guv’nor, and if he’s a friend of yourn it’s the first I heard of it!’
Sherry was regarding him intently. ‘What did you steal from him? Come, I’m not angry with you! Answer me!’
Jason sniffed, and reluctantly produced from the breast of his jacket a bulging wallet, and a purse with a ring about its neck, both of which he handed over to his master. The wallet was found to contain, besides a handsome number of bank-notes, a special marriage-licence, and several visiting-cards, inscribed with Mr Tarleton’s name and direction; and the purse held some guinea and half-guinea pieces.
Sherry restored the notes to the wallet with a shaking hand. ‘He may have some loose coins in his pockets, but you are right!’ he said.‘He won’t get beyond the first stage, if he’s travelling with hired horses. He doesn’t know the truth: he thinks she is free to marry him, of course. You are positive he took the Radstock road, Jason?’
‘Take my dying oath he did!’ responded the Tiger.
‘Wedding at Wells – yes, very likely! Get my curricle round to the door as quick as you can now! Off with you!’
‘Anthony!’ intoned the dowager, rising from her chair as Jason sped on his errand.‘Will you not listen to your Mother?
Do you need further proof of that wicked girl’s –’
‘I beg you will say no more, ma’am!’ he interrupted, with a look so stern that she quailed. ‘Mine is the blame – all of it! I have come by my deserts, and I know it, if you do not! My folly – my neglect of her, my damnable brutality have led her into this flight! Lady Saltash must have compelled her to consent to my visiting her to-night, and rather than meet me –’ He broke off, his lip quivering. ‘But she must not – I cannot let her run off with this man before I’ve – before I’ve arranged to set her free! I must find them – explain the circumstances to Tarleton – bring her back to the protection of Lady Saltash!’
Ferdy, who had been lost in profound meditation, looked at him earnestly.‘Sherry, dear old boy, you know what I think? All a mistake! Ten to one that fellow of yours don’t know what he’s talking about! Might have taken Kitten to a masquerade. Mask, you know.’
‘Ferdy, I was to have dined with her!’ Sherry said in a voice which cracked.
‘Must have forgotten that. Dash it, deuced easy to forget a dinner engagement! Done it myself. Mind you, quite right to go after her! Not the thing to be driving about with a fellow in a mask: ought to have warned her! But no getting into a miff, Sherry, and frightening the poor little soul half out of her wits!’
‘No, no! Though how I am to keep from choking the life out of that Tarleton fellow – But I shall do it, never fear!’
Ferdy took a noble resolve.‘Tell you what, Sherry: I’ll come with you,’ he said. ‘Dash it all! not one to leave my friends in the lurch!’
Twenty-five
HERO, FLUNG UP INTO THE POST-CHAISE WITH SO LITTLE ceremony and jolted and bounced over the streets of Bath, had not the smallest notion whither she was bound, or why Sherry had not entered the chaise with her. She pulled a rug, which she found on the seat, over her knees; settled herself in a corner of the vehicle, holding on to one of the straps which served as armrests; and awaited eventualities in a state of pleasurable expectation. Had she but know it, her abductor, not so far gone in romance that he had lost quite all his common sense, had had a very fair picture of what would be the result of trying to make love in a form of vehicle nicknamed, not without good reason, a bounder. The road from Bath to Wells, particularly at this season of the year,was pitted with holes: Mr Tarleton thought that romance would have a better chance of surviving if he postponed his love-making until Wells was reached.
This cathedral town lay rather more than eighteen miles from Bath, across the Mendip Hills. Mr Tarleton had booked a room for his prospective bride at the Christopher, and another for himself at the Swan, for although his anxiety to bring adventure into Hero’s drab life might have led him to an act which he did not like to think about very closely, his naturally staid disposition made him paradoxically careful not to incur any more scandal than might be necessary. Indeed, he had prudently hired his chaise and pair from a hostelry where he was unknown, and was sometimes conscious of a craven hope that the truth about his marriage might never be made public property.
This consideration made him decide to change horses at the little village of Emborrow, lying at the foot of the Mendips, rather than at Old Down Inn, which, lying twelve miles beyond Bath, was the usual stage. By the time they had reached this place, the moon was coming up brightly, and the going was consequently easier.
The chaise pulled up in the small yard belonging to the one hostelry of any size, and an ostler shouted for the first turnout. At the same moment, one of the windows of the chaise was let down, and Hero looked out, her eyes dancing in the mingled lantern and moonlight, her lips parted in a roguish smile.‘Of all the absurd, delightful starts!’ she began, her voice quivering with amusement. Then she broke off short as her ga
ze encountered, not Sherry’s beloved features, but Mr Tarleton’s wholly unexciting countenance. A look of startled dismay entered her face; the colour receded from her cheeks; she uttered in repulsive accents, one word only: ‘You!
’ Mr Tarleton had been prepared for maidenly indignation, but not for this, and he was slightly staggered. He stepped up to the chaise and said, looking up at the blanched face at the window: ‘But, my sweet love, whom else should it be?’
‘Oh!’ wailed Hero, her face puckering like a baby’s. ‘Oh! I thought you w-were Sh-Sherry!’
Mr Tarleton’s brain reeled. ‘Thought I was whom?’ he said numbly.
‘M-my husband!’wept Hero, tears rolling one after the other down her cheek. ‘Oh, how could you play such a c-cruel trick on me?’
If the floor had heaved under Sherry’s feet, the universe fairly rocked about the unfortunate Mr Tarleton. For a moment he could only gaze up at Hero in uncomprehending amazement. He repeated in bemused accents:‘Your husband?’
Only heart-broken sobs answered him. He became aware of a post-boy at his elbow, and pulled himself together with an effort.‘I beg of you, ma’am – ! Pray, do not – ! Here, you, what’s the figure?’
The post-boy who had driven the chaise from Bath told him eighteen shillings, reckoning the hire of the chaise-and-pair at the rate of one-and-sixpence a mile, and Mr Tarleton, anxious to be rid of him, dived a hand into his pocket. It was then that he discovered that not only his purse, but his wallet also, was missing, and that all the loose cash he carried in the pockets of his breeches amounted only to six shillings and ninepence. Never was an eloping gentleman in a worse predicament! Never had he expected to regret with such bitterness having hired his coach from an inn where his name was unknown! One glance at the post-boy’s face was sufficient to inform him that he would not be permitted, without a most unseemly brawl, to travel upon tick. He was not even known at the inn. There was nothing for it but to turn to his weeping victim, and as he did it the sense of the ridiculous threatened to overcome more poignant emotions.
‘My dear, pray do not cry so! I promise you I will set all to rights! The only thing is – Miss Wantage, it is the most absurd of predicaments to find oneself in, but I have been robbed of my purse, and here is this fellow expecting to be paid for his services. Are you able to lend me a guinea?’
Hero raised her head from the window-sill to reply: ‘Of c-course I am not! I have not my p-purse with me!’
‘Oh, my God!’ muttered Mr Tarleton. ‘Now we are in the basket!’
‘I wish I were dead!’ responded Hero.
‘No, no, don’t do that! Heavens, what a coil! But how could I have guessed – My dear child, you cannot stay there! Do, pray, come down, and into the inn! Really, I don’t know whether I am on my head or my heels!’ He mounted the steps, which the ostler had helpfully let down, and opened the door of the chaise, only to have his entrance to the vehicle hotly disputed by Pug. He recoiled, exclaiming: ‘Good God, what possessed you to bring that creature?’
‘It was your fault!’ Hero said, from the folds of her handkerchief. She blew her nose defiantly.‘I did not want to bring him, and oh, I thought it was j-just l-like Sherry to throw him in on t-top of me!’
‘Don’t, pray don’t begin to cry again!’ implored the harassed Mr Tarleton.‘We shall have the whole stable-yard about us in a trice! Only come inside the house, and I will set all to rights!’
‘No one can set all to rights, for I am utterly ruined!’ declared Hero. ‘My husband was c-coming to dine with me, and I shall not be there, and he will never, never speak to m-me again! And if he finds out this dreadful scrape you have put me into it will be worse than all the rest!’
Mr Tarleton took her hand and helped her to alight from the chaise.‘He shall not discover it. We will make up some tale that will satisfy him. But who – why – No, come into the inn, where we can be private! As for you, fellow, you must wait! Go into the tap-room and order yourself a glass of flesh-and-blood at my expense! And here’s a crown for you to keep your mouth shut!’
The post-boy pocketed this douceur, but warned his client not to try to lope off without paying him for the hire of his horses. Mr Tarleton somewhat testily demanded to be told how he could do any such thing in his present pecuniary circumstances, and led Hero into the inn. Here he peremptorily ordered the landlord to show the lady into a private parlour. When this had been done, and the landlord had rejoined him in the deserted coffee-room, he explained, with what assurance he could muster, that he had been robbed of his wallet and purse. The landlord was civil, but palpably incredulous, so Mr Tarleton haughtily said: ‘Here is my card, fellow!’ Almost immediately after this he was obliged to correct himself. ‘No, curse it, that’s gone with the rest! But my name is Tarleton – of Frensham Hall, near Swainswick! You will have heard of it! I am escorting a – a friend to Wells – at least, I was doing so, but it so chances that she has discovered that she has left behind her in Bath a most important – er – package, and we are obliged to return there with what speed we can muster. Do me the favour of paying off that post-boy – or no! Better still, let one of your own boys or their cads lead the horses back leer, and let my post-boy drive us back to Bath with a fresh pair. You and he may thus be assured of receiving your money. Meanwhile –’
The landlord, who had been thinking, interrupted at this point. ‘Begging your honour’s pardon, if you live at Frensham Hall, how do you come to be travelling to Wells in a hired chaise?’
‘What has that to do with you, fellow?’ said Mr Tarleton, colouring in spite of himself.
‘I don’t know as how it has aught to do with me, sir, but what I was thinking was that it seems a queer set-out to me that a gentleman wishful to travel only to Wells wouldn’t drive in his own carriage – ah, and at a more seasonable time o’ day, what’s more! Not being wishful to give offence, sir, you understand.’
‘I am well known in Bath,’ Mr Tarleton said stiffly. ‘Yes, and they know me at the Old Down Inn, so you may satisfy yourself only by sending to enquire there if a Mr Tarleton has ever changed horses with them.’
‘Yes, and when I’ve sent one of my boys a mile and a half up the road to make them enquiries, who’s to say you are this Mr Tarleton?’ retorted the landlord.‘And if you’re so well known in Bath, how comes it that post-boy don’t seem to reckernise your honour? That’s what I’d like to know!’
Mr Tarleton had the greatest difficulty in maintaining his control over his temper. After a moment’s struggle, he succeeded in choking back the angry words which rose to his lips, and managed, after a most wearing argument, to persuade the landlord to have a fresh pair harnessed to the chaise, and to prevail upon the post-boy who had brought him from Bath to take him back there as soon as he should have had time to refresh himself, which the landlord assured him he would certainly insist upon. Mr Tarleton then gave up his gold timepiece and his signet-ring as pledges, ordered coffee to be sent immediately to the parlour, and made haste to rejoin Hero.
He found her seated by the fire, clasping Pug in her arms, and looking the picture of tragedy. Such a look of reproach did she cast upon him as he entered the room that he exclaimed:‘How could I tell? I thought you would like it! And when you kissed me – Good God, was there ever such a hideous coil?’
‘Never, never!’ Hero said, with whole-hearted fervour. ‘I cannot imagine why you should suppose that I should want you to run off with me! And to bring this horrid little dog, too!’
‘But, my dear, surely you were aware that I have been head over heels in love with you these weeks past!’
Her face showed him plainly that she had been aware of no such circumstance. ‘In love with me? But you might be my – I mean – I mean –’
‘No, I might not!’ he said, nettled. ‘Not your father, if that is what you were about to say! But how came you to be living with Lady Saltash, under the name of Miss Wantage? Who is your husband? Do I know him? Is he in Bath now?’
‘Yes, oh yes! He came there in search of me, because we had had a dreadful quarrel, and I ran away from him, only I never knew it, and I thought he came on Miss Milborne’s account, and that is why – Oh, he must not find out what has happened tonight! It is much,much worse than all the other scrapes I was in!’
‘Good God!’ said Mr Tarleton blankly. ‘But who is he?’ An appalling thought dawned on him; he looked across at Hero with the grimmest foreboding, and asked: ‘Not – I do devoutly trust! – not the ferocious young gentleman of the Pump Room?’
‘He is not ferocious!’ replied Hero, flushing indignantly. ‘He is the dearest and best person in the world! It was just that he was in a very bad temper, because I went off with you! And when I think that he called Lord Wrotham out, only for kissing me once, I am afraid he will be in a much worse one if this should come to his ears! Oh, I do hope there may be some way of preventing his discovering it!’
‘Indeed, so do I!’ said Mr Tarleton frankly. ‘In fact, to be honest with you, my dear, my knees are already knocking together so that I wonder you do not hear them!’
She was obliged to smile at this, but relapsed almost immediately into gloom. ‘It doesn’t signify. What must he think when he finds no one in Camden Place at seven o’clock! Oh, do you not see that he will suppose I did not wish to meet him, and he will be so hurt, and so angry, and how can I ever explain that it was not my fault? I am utterly undone!’
‘Let me think!’ begged Mr Tarleton, sitting down by the table and clasping his head between his hands.‘You have set my brain in such a whirl – ! You could not tell him that you had gone to dine with some friends, I suppose?’
‘No, I couldn’t!’ said Hero, quite crossly. ‘He was coming particularly to see me, and oh, we were to have had buttered crab, and a n-neat’s tongue with c-cauliflowers!’
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