The consciousness of having already deceived him, as much as his treat, coupled as it was by a certain look of inflexibility in his face, almost overpowered her. In suppressed agitation, which rendered calm reflection impossible, she said hurriedly: ‘Yes – oh, yes!’
‘Very well. We shan’t speak of this again, then.’
The flurry of her heart subsided; she said in a subdued voice: ‘Thank you! Indeed, I am very much obliged to you! I did not mean to be such an extravagant wife.’
‘Nor I such a tyrannical husband. We could deal better than this, Nell.’
‘No, no! I mean, I never thought you so! You are most kind – I beg your pardon for being so troublesome: pray forgive me!’
‘Nell!’
His hand was outstretched to her, but she did not take it, only smiling nervously, and saying again: ‘Thank you! You are very good! Oh, how late it is! M-may I go now?’
His hand fell; he said in quite a different voice: ‘I am not a schoolmaster! Certainly go, if that is your wish!’
She murmured something, in disjointed phrases, about his sister, and Almack’s and fled out of the room. That gesture, coming as it did at the end of a scene during which he had indeed seemed to be more schoolmaster than husband, seemed to her rather the expression of kindness than of any warmer emotion, and, with her nerves already overset, she had not been able to respond to it as, in general, she had forced herself to respond to any advance made by him. That her retreat might offend him she knew; that it could wound him she had no suspicion, having, from the start of her married life, seen in his love-making only a chivalrous determination not to betray to her that although he had bestowed his name on her his heart belonged to another.
As for Cardross, he was left with some rather bitter reflections to bear him company, and the growing suspicion that all the well-wishers who had begged him not to marry Nell had been right after all: no good could come of an alliance with an Irvine. One of his cousins, that Pink of the Ton, Mr Felix Hethersett, had put the matter to him with brutal frankness. ‘Nothing to say against the girl, dear old boy, but I don’t like the stable,’ had said Mr Hethersett.
Well, he had not liked the stable either. Nothing had been further from his intention than marriage with an Irvine; and nothing had seemed more improbable than a love-match. It was his duty to marry, but for some years he had enjoyed an agreeable connection with a fashionable lady of easy morals and skilful discretion, and that he should succumb to a pair of blue eyes and a mischievous dimple had been an event quite outside his calculations. But so it had been. He had first seen his Nell in a ballroom, and he had instantly been struck, not so much by her undeniable beauty as by the sweetness in her face, and the innocence of her enquiring gaze. Before he well knew what had happened, his heart was lost, and every prudent consideration thrown to the winds. She sprang from a line of expensive profligates, but he had been ready to swear, looking into her eyes, that she had miraculously escaped the Irvine taint.
She had been less than eighteen when he had married her, fourteen years younger than he, and when he found himself with a shy, elusive bride he handled her very gently, believing that tenderness and forbearance would win for him the loving, vital creature he was so sure lived behind the nervous child.
He had caught glimpses of that creature – or so he thought – but he had never won her; and the fear that he had deceived himself was beginning to grow on him. She was dutiful, even submissive; sometimes an entrancing companion, always a well-mannered one; but although she never repulsed his advances she never courted them, or gave any sign that she could not be perfectly happy out of his company. Once installed in Grosvenor Square she entered with apparent zest into every fashionable amusement, took her young sister-in-law into society, rapidly acquired a court of her own, and was by no means the sort of wife who constantly demanded her husband’s escort. She was extravagant; he had today discovered that, like the rest of her family, she was a gamester; and what affection she had she appeared to lavish on her little sisters, and on her scapegrace of a brother. There had been plenty of people to tell Cardross that Nell had accepted him for the sake of his wealth. He had not believed them, but he was beginning to wonder. In her precipitate retreat from his book-room he saw only a spoilt child’s desire to escape from a disagreeable schoolmaster, and never dreamed that she had fled because her feelings threatened to overcome her.
She made for the shelter of her own apartments, hoping, since she needed a little time in which to compose herself, that she would not find her dresser already there. She did not. She found her sister-in-law instead, blithely engaged in trying on one of those eight – no, nine! – modish hats.
The young Countess’s apartments consisted of a spacious bedchamber, and an adjoining room, known to the household as her dressing-room but partaking more of the nature of a boudoir. My lord had had both rooms redecorated on the occasion of his marriage, nesting his bride in a tent-bed with rose-silk curtains upheld by Cupids and garlands, and hanging her dressing-room with blue and silver brocade. In this frivolous bower, of which she was frankly envious, the Lady Letitia Merion was parading between various mirrors, very well-pleased with her appearance, but unable to decide on the precise tilt at which the hat should be worn. She hailed her sister-in-law light-heartedly, saying: ‘Oh, I am glad you are come! I have been waiting for ever! Nell, I do think this is a ravishing hat, only how should one wear it? Like this, or like this?’
‘Oh, don’t!’ begged Nell involuntarily, unable to bear the sight of what had contributed to her late discomfiture.
‘Good gracious, what’s the matter?’ demanded Letty.
‘Nothing, nothing! I have the headache a little, that is all!’ She saw that Letty was staring at her, and tried to smile. ‘Pray don’t be concerned! It is only – I only –’ She could not go on, her voice being totally suspended by the tears she was unable to control.
‘Nell!’ Letty flung off the ravishing hat, and ran across the room to put her arms round her sister-in-law. ‘Oh, pray don’t cry! Has something dreadful happened?’
‘No, no! That is – I have been so wickedly extravagant!’
‘Is that all? I collect Giles has been giving you a scold. Don’t regard it; he will come about! Was he very angry?’
‘Oh, no, but very much displeased, and indeed it was unpardonable of me!’ Nell said, drying her eyes. ‘But that was not the worst! I was obliged –’ She broke off, flushing, and added in a hurried tone: ‘I can’t tell you! I shouldn’t have said that – pray don’t regard it! I have been sadly heedless, but I shall hope to go on better now. Did you wish to speak to me particularly?’
‘Oh, no! Only to ask you if I may wear your zephyr scarf this evening, if you shouldn’t be needing it yourself – but if you are in a fit of the dismals I won’t tease you,’ said Letty handsomely.
‘Oh, yes, do wear it! In fact, you may have it for your own, for I am sure I can never bear to wear it again!’ said Nell tragically.
‘Never bear – Nell, don’t be such a goose! Why, you went into transports when they showed it to you, and it cost you thirty guineas!’
‘I know it did, and he saw the bill for it, and never spoke one word of censure, which makes me feel ready to sink!’
‘For my part,’ said Letty candidly, ‘I should be excessively thankful for it! May I have it, indeed? Thank you! It will be just the thing to wear with my French muslin. I had meant to try if I could persuade Giles to purchase one like it for me.’
‘Oh, no, do not!’ exclaimed Nell, aghast.
‘No, I shouldn’t think of doing so now that he has taken one of his pets,’ agreed Letty. ‘I’m sure I never knew anyone so odious about being in debt! What shall you wear tonight? You haven’t forgotten that Felix Hethersett is to escort us to Almack’s, have you?’
Nell sighed: ‘I wish we need not go!’
‘Well, there’s not the least occasion for you to go if you don’t choose,’ said Letty obligingly. ‘You may send a note round to Felix’s lodging, and as for me, I daresay my aunt Thorne will be very willing to take me with her and my cousin.’
This airy speech had the effect of diverting Nell’s mind from her own iniquities. Upon his marriage, the Earl had removed his young ward from the care of her maternal aunt, and had taken her to live in his own house. Mrs Thorne was a goodnatured woman, but he could not like the tone of her mind, or feel that she had either the desire or the power to control his flighty half-sister. He had been startled to discover how casual was the surveillance under which Letty had grown up, how improper many of the ideas she had imbibed; and he was still more startled when she disclosed to him that young as she was she had already formed what she assured him was an undying attachment. Jeremy Allandale was a perfectly respectable young man, but although well-connected he could not be thought an eligible husband for the Lady Letty Merion. He was employed at the Foreign Office, and although his prospects were thought to be good his present circumstances were straitened. His widowed mother was far from affluent, and he had several young brothers and sisters for whose education he considered himself to be largely responsible. The Earl thought this fortunate, for although the young man conducted himself with the strictest propriety he was plainly infatuated with Letty, and no dependence whatsoever (in her brother’s opinion) could be placed on her discretion. Could she but gain control of her fortune she was quite capable of persuading her lover to elope with her. In the event, he was wholly unable to support her, so that that contingency seemed unlikely. Mr Allandale received little encouragement to visit in Grosvenor Square, but, whether from wisdom or from a dislike of enacting the tyrant, the Earl had never forbidden his sister to hold ordinary social intercourse with him. She could incur no censure by standing up for two dances with Mr Allandale; but Nell was well aware that under the careless chaperonage of her aunt she would not stop at that. She guessed from Letty’s ready acquiescence in her own desire to remain at home that evening that Mr Allandale would be at Almack’s, and she at once shook off her megrims, and said that of course she would take Letty there.
Mr Allandale was indeed at Almack’s, and for the fiftieth time Nell found herself wondering why it was that Letty had fallen in love with him. He was a well-made man, he was even good-looking; but his manners were too formal for ease, and his conversation was painstaking rather than amusing. He was certainly solid: Nell found him a little dull. Mr Felix Hethersett, not mincing matters, said: ‘Fellow’s a dead bore. Shouldn’t think the affair would last.’
‘No,’ agreed Nell, ‘but I must own that she has shown the greatest constancy, in spite of having been very much made up to, ever since she came out. I did venture once to suggest to Cardross that perhaps it would not be such a very bad match after all, but – but he cannot like it, and will only say that if she is still of the same mind when she is a few years older he will not then receive Mr Allandale in an unfriendly spirit.’
‘Throwing herself away,’ said Mr Hethersett disapprovingly. ‘Dash it, cousin, very taking little thing! Besides being an heiress. Not but what,’ he added, as a thought occurred to him, ‘very understandable you should wish to see her safely tied up to someone! I daresay she’s the deuce of a charge.’
‘Oh, no, indeed she is not!’ Nell said, quite distressed. ‘How could you think I wished to be rid of her? I am only too happy to have her companionship!’
Much abashed, he begged pardon. His earlier strictures on her family notwithstanding he was one of her more faithful admirers, and was generally recognized to be her cicisbeo-in-chief. She had other and more dazzling followers, but he was certainly her favourite: a circumstance which presented an enigma to the worldlings who never dreamed that the beautiful young Countess had no taste for dalliance, but smiled on Mr Hethersett because he was her lord’s cousin. She treated him much as she treated her brother, an arrangement which suited him very well, since he was not, in fact, much of a lady’s man, but attached himself to the court of some lady of rank and beauty as a matter of ton. A high stickler, Mr Hethersett, precise to a pin, blessed with propriety of taste, an impeccable lineage, and a comfortable fortune. He was neither handsome nor articulate, but his dress was always in the first style of elegance; he could handle a team to perfection; was generally thought to be up to every rig and row in town; and had such obliging manners as made him quite the best liked of the Bond Street beaux. The gentlemen thought him a very good fellow; the ladies valued him for two very excellent reasons: to be admired by him added to any female’s consequence, and to possess his friendship was to enjoy not only the distinguishing notice of a man of the first stare of fashion, but the willing services of one whose good-nature was proverbial. For the more adventurous ladies, the dashing chippers who damped their muslins to make them cling revealingly to their exquisite forms, painted their toe-nails with gilt, and lived perpetually on the brink of social disaster, there were many more attractive blades; but young Lady Cardross was not a member of this sisterhood, and, while she naturally did not wish to be so unfashionable as to own no devoted admirer, she took care not to encourage the pretensions of any of the notorious rakes who courted her. Mr Hethersett could be depended on to gallant one uncomplainingly to quite the dullest party of the season; and there was no need to fear that the abandonment of formality would lead him to encroach on his position. He was neither witty nor talkative, but a certain shrewdness characterized him, his bow was perfection, and his grace in a ballroom unequalled. Even Letty, who said that his notions of propriety were quite gothic, did not despise his escort when she went to Almack’s. Almack’s was abominably slow, of course, and its haughty patronesses by far too high in the instep; but any lady refused a voucher of admission to its sacred precincts must consider herself to be socially damned. To attend the Assemblies gallanted by Mr Hethersett ensured for one the approval even of censorious Mrs Drummond Burrell, and had been known to win for a perfectly insipid damsel a condescending smile from that odious Countess Lieven.
Nell was as much astonished as she was delighted to perceive, on arrival in King Street, that her graceless but beloved brother was rather inexpertly dancing the boulanger, with a quiet-looking girl for his partner. He explained to her presently that he had never been so taken-in before. ‘Ay, you may well stare!’ he said, his angelic blue eyes kindling with indignation.
She could not help laughing, but she said: ‘Oh, Dy, what a wretch you are, when you wouldn’t come with me, and said wild horses couldn’t drag you here!’
‘It wasn’t wild horses,’ he replied darkly. ‘They couldn’t have done it! It was old Mother Wenlock! Beckoned to me to come up to that antiquated landaulet of hers in Bond Street this morning, and said I must dine in Brook Street to meet her niece. Of course I said I was engaged with a party of friends, but I might as well have spared my breath. Of all the devilish things, Nell, these shocking old hags who are hand-in-glove with Mama are the worst! Mind, if I’d known she meant to drag me to Almack’s she could have said what she chose, I wouldn’t have budged! I ain’t a dancing man, you can’t get a thing to drink but lemonade and orgeat – and of the two, damned if I’d not as lief drink lemonade! – and this precious niece, whom she swore was a ravishing girl, is nothing but a dowdy!’
‘Ought to have known she would be,’ said Mr Hethersett, from the depths of his worldly wisdom.
‘Why?’ demanded the Viscount.
In other company Mr Hethersett would have answered him with brutal frankness, but under Nell’s innocently enquiring gaze his courage failed, and he said he didn’t know. After all, one couldn’t tell an adoring sister that no chaperon in her senses would invite Dysart to gallant a ravishing girl to a party. If the damsel in question seemed likely to attract his roving fancy she would be much more likely to forbid him the house. He might be the heir to an Earldom but it was c
ommon knowledge that his noble father (until he had the good fortune to catch Cardross for his daughter) was all to pieces, having, in vulgar parlance, brought an abbey to a grange; and no one who had observed his own volatile career could place the slightest dependence on his setting the family affairs to rights by more prudent conduct. So far from being regarded as an eligible bachelor, he was considered to be extremely dangerous, for he combined with decidedly libertine propensities a degree of charm which might easily prove the undoing of the most delicately nurtured female. He was also very good-looking, and although his critics unequivocally condemned the carelessness of his attire, it could not be denied that his tall person, with its fine shoulders, and its crown of waving golden hair, inevitably drew all eyes. He had an endearing smile, too, at once rueful and mischievous. It dawned now, for he was no fool, and he knew very well what Mr Hethersett had meant.
‘Craven!’ he said challengingly.
But Mr Hethersett refused to be drawn; and since Letty came up at that moment, under the escort of Mr Allandale, Dysart allowed the matter to drop. He greeted Letty with the easy camaraderie of one who was in some sort related to her, and at once begged permission to lead her into the set which was just then forming. However unalterably devoted to Mr Allandale Letty might be, she was by no means impervious to the Viscount’s charm, and she went blithely off with him, leaving her swain to exchange civilities with Nell.
Her cousin Felix watched these proceedings with a jaundiced eye. It would have been hard to have found a greater contrast than that which existed between Lord Dysart and Mr Jeremy Allandale. The one was a rather thick-set young man, whose grave eyes and regular features were allied to a serious mind, and solid worth of character; the other was a tall, handsome buck, bearing himself with careless arrogance, laughter never far from his lips, and in his gleaming blue eyes a reckless light which sprang from a disposition which was as volatile as Mr Allandale’s was dependable. But in one respect they were blood-brothers: as prospective bridegrooms each in his way was wholly ineligible. Mr Hethersett, watching the start of a promising flirtation between Letty and his lordship, was much inclined to think that he had grossly failed in his duty towards Cardross. A quicker-witted man, he gloomily reflected, would have intervened before Letty had had time to accept Dysart’s invitation.