Nell, too, was watching the couple on the dance-floor, not with misgiving (for although she knew that Cardross had no great liking for Dysart she also knew that Letty had no great liking for anyone but her Jeremy), but a little wistfully. When she had seen Dysart she had known an impulse to confide her troubles to him. She had no expectation of his being able to give back to her the money she had so blithely bestowed on him, but at least she might have warned him not, in future, to depend on her.
There was no further opportunity offered her for speech with Dysart. Her own hand was claimed; her place in the set was far removed from Dysart’s; and by the time she left the floor he had restored Letty to Mr Hethersett’s protection, and had returned to his own party.
He left it, on the flimsiest of excuses, ten minutes later: a circumstance of which she was soon made fully aware by his hostess, who sailed across the room for the express purpose of favouring her with her opinion of his manners and upbringing. Mr Hethersett could do nothing to spare her this ordeal, but when one of his and Cardross’s more formidable aunts conceived it to be her duty to censure Nell for her thoughtlessness in permitting Letty to dance with Mr Allandale he came out strongly in her support, even recommending Lady Chudleigh to address her criticisms to Cardross himself.
‘Let me assure you, Felix,’ said the lady in quelling accents, ‘that nothing is further from my intentions! Far be it from me to seek to make mischief!’
‘Just as well,’ responded the intrepid Mr Hethersett. ‘Very likely to give you one of his set-downs!’
Nell was quite overcome by such a display of heroism on her behalf, but Mr Hethersett disclaimed heroism. Having watched through a quizzing-glass which hideously magnified his eye the retreat of the dowager, he assured Nell that he had spoken nothing more than the truth. ‘No need to fear Cardross would listen to her tales,’ he said. ‘What’s more, he must know you couldn’t stop Letty dancing with anyone. Doubt whether he could do it himself.’
It seemed as though the Earl shared this doubt. He had not returned from a dinner given by the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks when the ladies were set down in Grosvenor Square sometime after midnight, but he visited his bride later in the morning. He found her with a breakfast-tray across her knees, the curtains of her bed drawn back in billowing folds of rosy silk. She was engaged, between sips of coffee and nibbles at a slice of bread-and-butter, in reading her correspondence. This seemed, from the litter on the counterpane, to consist largely of gilt-edged invitations, but there was a letter, crossed and recrossed, from her mama, which she was trying to decipher when Cardross came into the room. She put it down at once, and tried to tuck back the ringlets which had strayed from under her becoming night-cap of muslin and lace. ‘My lord! Oh, dear, I did not think you would be coming to see me so early, and I am dreadfully untidy!’
‘Don’t!’ he said, capturing her hand, and kissing it. ‘You look charmingly, I assure you. Was it amusing, your party?’
‘Yes, thank you. That is – it was just one of the Assemblies, at Almack’s, you know.’
‘Not very amusing, then,’ he remarked, seating himself on the edge of her bed, and picking up one of the invitation cards. ‘Nor will this be, but we shall be obliged to accept it, I suppose. She is Letty’s godmother. Did Letty behave with propriety last night, or did she hang on that fellow Allandale the whole evening?’
‘No, indeed she did not! She stood up only twice with him.’
‘I am astonished to learn that she had as much moderation – and I make you my compliments: it must surely be your doing!’
‘Well, of course, I should try to dissuade her from doing what you don’t like,’ said Nell doubtfully, ‘but it wasn’t at all necessary. Mr Allandale’s scruples are so very strict that I am persuaded he would never ask her to do anything that might set up people’s backs.’
‘Good God!’ said his lordship. ‘What a slow-top! My dear, what does she see in him to hit her fancy?’
‘I can’t think!’ said Nell candidly. ‘Though I am sure he has many excellent qualities, and a most superior understanding.’
‘Superior fiddlesticks! I never found him to be anything but a dreadful bore. I wish to God she would recover from this green-sickness! It’s quite impossible, you know: he has neither fortune nor expectation, and I’ll swear I never saw a couple less suited to one another. I should be a villain to countenance such an attachment. If his scruples are as strict as you tell me I collect I’ve no need to fear he may run off with her to Gretna Green?’
‘Good gracious, no!’ Nell exclaimed, startled.
‘So much, then, for my aunt Chudleigh’s croakings!’
‘Your aunt Chudleigh! Oh, Giles, she was at Almack’s last night, and she gave me a terrible scold for permitting Letty to dance with Mr Allandale!’
‘What impertinence!’
‘Oh, no! Though that is what Felix said. And also he told her to make her complaints to you, which was not very civil of him, but excessively brave, I thought!’
‘I wonder what she imagines I can do to stop Letty? Short of incarcerating her at Merion – By the by, I must go to Merion next week. Useless, I suppose to ask you to go with me?’
She showed him a face of sudden dismay. ‘Next week! But the Beadings’ masquerade – !’
He raised his brows. ‘Is it so important? For my part, masquerades at Chiswick –’
‘No, indeed, but you did promise Letty she should attend it! It is the first she has ever been to, and she has had the prettiest domino made, and – and I must own I think it would be dreadfully shabby to tell her now that she cannot go!’
‘Hang Letty! Can’t she – No, I suppose not. Very well: I won’t tease you to go with me.’
‘I wish I might,’ she said wistfully.
He smiled at her, but rather quizzically, and picked up another of the invitation cards. ‘A quadrille ball at the Cowpers’! How dashing! It will be a horrible squeeze: must we go?’
The post had brought her ladyship a polite reminder from Mr Warren, Perfumier, that a trifling account for scent, white nail-wax and Olympian Dew, was outstanding. It had lain hidden by Lady Cowper’s invitation, and was revealed when the Earl picked this up. Only a few guineas were involved, but Nell instinctively put out her hand to cover it. The movement caught his eye; he glanced down, and she at once removed her hand, flushing, vexed with herself.
‘What other delights are in store for us?’ he asked, picking up another card. ‘Assemblies and balls seem to be in full feather: you will be knocked up by all this raking! Don’t drag me to this affair, I beg of you!’
‘That? Oh, no! It is to be a petticoat-party. You – you will be present at our own dress-party, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’
There was a short silence. After that one glance the Earl had not again looked at Mr Warren’s account, but it seemed to his guilty wife imperative to divert his attention from it. She said a trifle breathlessly: ‘Cardross, what a very elegant dressing-gown that is! I think I never saw you wear it before.’
‘Ah, I hoped you would be pleased with it!’ he replied blandly. ‘And with me for letting you see it.’
‘How absurd you are! It is certainly most handsome.’
‘Yes, and wickedly dear – as dear as your feathered bonnet, though not, I fear, as becoming. You see how I lay myself open to strong counter-attack!’
‘Oh, Giles!’
He laughed, and tickled her cheek. ‘Foolish little Nell! Is it very shocking?’
She heaved a sigh of relief, smiling shyly at him. ‘No, indeed it isn’t! Only it – it does chance to be a bill I had forgotten, and I was afraid you would be angry with me.’
‘What a disagreeable husband I must be!’ he murmured ruefully. ‘Shall I pay that bill with the rest?’
‘No, please! It is a very small o
ne – look!’
She held it out to him, but he did not look at it, only taking her hand in his, the bill crushed between his fingers, and saying: ‘You mustn’t be afraid of me. I never meant to make you so! I’ll pay this bill, or any other – only don’t conceal any from me!’
‘Afraid of you? Oh, no, no!’ she exclaimed.
His clasp on her hand tightened; he leaned forward, as though he would have kissed her; but her dresser came into the room just then, and although she quickly withdrew, the moment had passed. Nell had snatched her hand away, vividly blushing, and the Earl did not try to recapture it. He got up, his own complexion rather heightened, feeling all the embarrassment natural to a man discovered, at ten o’clock in the morning, making love to his own wife, and went away to his dressing-room.
Two
Shortly before four o’clock that afternoon young Lady Cardross’s barouche was driven into Hyde Park by the Stanhope Gate. It was a very stylish vehicle, quite the latest thing in town carriages, and it had been bestowed on her ladyship, together with the pair of perfectly matched grays that drew it, by her husband, upon her installation as mistress of his house in Grosvenor Square. ‘Slap up to the echo,’ was what Dysart called it: certainly no other lady owned a more elegant turn-out. To be seen in Hyde Park between the hours of five and six on any fine afternoon during the London season, driving, riding, or even walking, was de rigueur for anyone of high fashion; and before her marriage, when she had sat beside her mama in an old-fashioned landaulet, Nell had frequently envied the possessors of more dashing equipages, and had thought how agreeable it would be to sit behind a pair of high-steppers in a smart barouche, with its wheels picked out in yellow. She had been delighted with the Earl’s gift, exclaiming naïvely: ‘Now I shall be all the crack!’
‘Do you wish to be?’ he had asked her, amused.
‘Yes,’ she replied honestly. ‘And I think I ought to be, because although Miss Wilby – our governess, you know – says that it is wrong to set one’s mind on worldly things, you are all the crack, which makes it perfectly proper, I think, for me to be fashionable too.’
‘I am persuaded,’ he said, his countenance admirably composed, ‘that Miss Wilby must perceive it to be your duty, even.’
She was a little dubious about this, but happily recollecting that she was no longer answerable to her governess she was able to put that excellent educationist out of her mind. ‘You know how people talk of Lord Dorset on his white horse, and Mrs Toddington with her chestnuts?’ she said confidentially. ‘Now they will talk of Lady Cardross, behind her match-grays! I should not be astonished if my barouche were to draw as many eyes as hers!’
‘Nor should I,’ agreed his lordship, grave as a judge. ‘In fact, I should be much astonished if it did not.’
Whether it was the smart turn-out which drew all eyes, or its charming occupant, Nell had soon experienced the felicity of attracting a great deal of attention when she drove in the Park. She became a noted figure, and never doubted that she owed this triumph to her splendid horses until her more knowledgeable sister-in-law remarked chattily, as she stepped into the carriage that day: ‘Isn’t it a fortunate circumstance, Nell, that you are fair and I am dark? I don’t wonder at it that everyone stares to see us: we take the shine out of all the other females! Mr Bottisham told Hardwick so, and Hardwick says it is a compliment well worth having, because Mr Bottisham is in general quite odiously censorious. I think,’ she added, dispassionately considering the matter, ‘that you are prettier than I am, but, on the other hand, I have a great deal of countenance, besides being dark, which is more in the mode, so I don’t excessively mind your being beautiful.’
Nell could not help laughing, but, with Miss Wilby’s precepts in mind, she ventured to suggest to Letty that such candour was a trifle improper.
‘That is the sort of thing Aunt Chudleigh says,’ observed Letty, unabashed. ‘For my part, I see nothing improper in speaking the truth. And you can’t deny that it is the truth!’ She made herself comfortable beside Nell, and unfurled a pink sunshade. ‘We make a perfect picture,’ she said complacently.
‘I collect Lord Hardwick told you so!’
‘Everyone tells me so!’
‘Well, take care they don’t next tell you that you are abominably conceited,’ recommended Nell.
‘They won’t,’ asserted Letty, with confidence. ‘No one I care a fig for, at all events. I daresay Felix might, for I never knew anyone so stuffy!’
However, when they presently saw Mr Hethersett strolling in the Park there was nothing to be read in that stickler’s countenance but critical appreciation. Nell directed her coachman to pull up his horses, and when Mr Hethersett came up to the carriage leaned forward to give him her hand. ‘How do you do? I hoped we might see you. Do you mean to go to the Beadings’ masquerade next week? Cardross has been obliged to cry off: isn’t it infamous of him? Will you dine with us, and give us your escort in his stead?’
He looked regretful, and shook his head. ‘Can’t,’ he said mournfully. ‘Excused myself to Mrs Beading. Told her I had another engagement. Not the thing to go there after that. Pity!’
She smiled. ‘You cannot hoax me into believing that you think so! Confess! You dislike masquerades!’
‘Not trying to hoax you: happy to escort you anywhere! Not but what it ain’t the sort of party I like. If I were you I’d cry off, because you won’t enjoy it. Not just in your style.’
‘I declare, you are the stupidest creature, Felix!’ Letty broke in. ‘Why shouldn’t we enjoy it? It will be rare mummery, for we are all to wear masks, and –’
‘Yes, a vast rout of people, and rompings!’ interrupted Mr Hethersett, in a tone of deep disapproval. ‘You may enjoy it: I never said you wouldn’t. All I said was, Lady Cardross won’t. Do you want a piece of advice, cousin?’
‘No,’ said Letty crossly.
‘Mistake,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not saying that ain’t an elegant gown: it is. Not saying that hat don’t become you: it does.’ He left an ominous pause, during which Letty eyed him uneasily. She might despise him for what she considered his antiquated notions of propriety, but no aspirant to high fashion could afford to ignore his pronouncements on all matters of sartorial taste. He delivered his verdict. ‘I don’t like those pink ribbons. Or the feather. Insipid.’
‘Insipid?’ she exclaimed indignantly. She cast a glance down at the double row of pink knots which ornamented her dress of delicate fawn-coloured muslin. They exactly matched the feather that hung down on one side of a little straw hat which was turned up on the other side, and worn at a dashing angle on her glossy black ringlets. French kid gloves of the same pink completed a toilette which she had thought to be, until this painful moment, in the first crack of the mode. Doubt now entered her soul; she turned her anxious gaze upon her cousin. ‘It isn’t! You are saying it to vex me!’
‘No wish to vex you. Just thought you wanted to be up to the knocker.’
‘I do – I am up to the knocker!’
‘Not with those pink bows,’ said Mr Hethersett firmly. ‘Quite pretty, but dashed commonplace! Ought to be cherry. Give you a new touch!’
With these words he made his bow to both ladies, and proceeded on his way, leaving his cousin torn between wrath and a growing conviction that he was right, and Nell a good deal amused.
‘If Felix were not related to me I should cut his acquaintance!’ said Letty, glaring vengefully after him. ‘He is prosy, and uncivil, beside placing himself on far too high a form! And now I come to think of it I didn’t above half like his waistcoat!’ She transferred her gaze to Nell, as Mr Hethersett’s exquisitely tailored person receded in the distance. ‘If he thinks my ribbons insipid I am astonished that he hadn’t the effrontery to say that your dress was commonplace! Depend upon it, he thinks you would look more becomingly in purple, or puce, or scarlet! Odi
ous creature!’
‘Oh, he couldn’t say that to me, when he told me weeks ago never to wear those strong colours!’ said Nell, whose gown of Berlin silk was just the colour of her eyes. ‘That was when I was wearing that maroon pelisse. I promise you, he was quite as odious to me. Don’t regard it!’
‘I never pay the least heed to a word he says,’ replied Letty, in a lofty voice. She relapsed into thoughtful silence while the barouche proceeded on its way, but said after several minutes: ‘Do you think I should tell my woman to dye this feather, or purchase a new one?’
‘Dye that one,’ responded Nell. ‘And also the ribbons. I wish he might have gone with us to the masquerade: it would have been much more comfortable! I suppose…’ She hesitated looking doubtfully at Letty. ‘I suppose you would not like to go to Merion with Cardross instead?’
‘Nell!’ almost shrieked Letty, an expression of scandalized dismay on her countenance. ‘Go to Merion in the middle of the season? You must be out of your senses! And if that is what Giles wishes us to do I think it is the shabbiest thing I ever heard of, when he promised I should go to the masquerade! Yes, and after fobbing me off with this, when I particularly wanted to go to the Covent Garden masquerade!’ she added indignantly. ‘Saying it was not the thing, and we should go to the Beadings’ private masquerade instead! Just like him! I daresay, if I only knew –’
‘It is not just like him, and I wish you will not fly into a pet for nothing!’ said Nell, firing up. ‘If you only knew, he said not another word to persuade me to go with him to Merion when I reminded him that you particularly wished to go to the masquerade! And if Felix hadn’t failed –’