‘A pleasure, ma’am,’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘I trust Miss Tallant reached town without further mishaps?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed! So obliging of you to have called to enquire after her! We were sorry to have been out. You will find Miss Tallant in one of the rooms. Your cousin, Lady Wainfleet, too, is here.’
He bowed, and followed her into the front drawing-room. A minute later, Arabella, enjoying the attentions of Lord Fleetwood, Mr Warkworth, and Mr Epworth, saw him coming towards her across the room, pausing once or twice on his way to exchange salutations with his friends. Until that moment she had thought Mr Epworth quite the best-dressed man present: indeed, she had been quite dazzled by the exquisite nature of his raiment, and the profusion of rings, pins, fobs, chains, and seals which he wore; but no sooner had she clapped eyes on Mr Beaumaris’s tall, manly figure than she realised that Mr Epworth’s wadded shoulders, wasp-waist, and startling waistcoat were perfectly ridiculous. Nothing could have been in greater contrast to the extravagance of his attire than Mr Beaumaris’s black coat and pantaloons, his plain white waistcoat, the single fob that hung to one side of it, the single pearl set chastely in the intricate folds of his necktie. Nothing he wore was designed to attract attention, but he made every other man in the room look either a trifle overdressed or a trifle shabby.
He reached her side, and smiled, and when she put out her hand raised it fleetingly to his lips. ‘How do you do, Miss Tallant?’ he said. ‘I am happy indeed to have been granted this opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with you.’
‘Oh, it is too bad – a great deal too bad!’ fluted Mr Epworth, rolling an arch eye at Arabella. ‘You and Fleetwood have stolen a march on the rest of us, you know – a shameful thing, ’pon my soul!’
Mr Beaumaris glanced down at him from his superior height, seemed to debate within himself whether this sally was worth the trouble of a reply, to decide that it was not, and turned back to Arabella. ‘You must tell me how you like London,’ he said. ‘It is abundantly plain that London likes you! May I procure you a glass of lemonade?’
This offer brought Arabella’s chin up, and made her look at him with a distinct challenge in her eyes. She had had plenty of time to discover that it was not the common practice of hosts to sweep the wine from their tables at the end of the first course, and she strongly suspected Mr Beaumaris of quizzing her. He was looking perfectly grave, however, and met her eyes without a shadow of mockery in his own. Before she could answer him, Lord Fleetwood committed a strategical error, and exclaimed: ‘Of course! I’ll swear you are parched with thirst, ma’am! I will get you a glass immediately!’
‘Splendid, Charles!’ said Mr Beaumaris cordially. ‘Do let me take you a little out of this crush, Miss Tallant!’
He seemed to take her acquiescence for granted, for he did not await a reply, but led her to where a sofa standing against one wall was momentarily unoccupied. How he contrived to find a way through the crowd of chattering guests was a mystery to Arabella, for he certainly did not force a passage. A touch on a man’s shoulder, a bow and a smile to a lady, and the thing was done. He sat down beside her on the sofa, seated a little sideways, so that he could watch her face, one hand on the back of the sofa, the other playing idly with his quizzing-glass. ‘Does it come up to your expectations, ma’am?’ he asked smilingly.
‘London? Yes, indeed!’ she responded. ‘I am sure I was never so happy in my life!’
‘I am glad,’ he said.
Arabella remembered that Lady Bridlington had warned her against betraying too much enthusiasm: it was unfashionable to appear pleased. She remembered also that she had promised not to make a bad impression on Mr Beaumaris, so she added in a languid tone: ‘It is a shocking squeeze, of course, but it is always diverting to meet new people.’
He looked amused, and said with a laugh in his voice: ‘No, don’t spoil it! Your first answer was charming.’
She eyed him doubtfully for a moment; then her irrepressible dimples peeped out. ‘But it is only rustics who own to enjoyment, sir!’
‘Is it?’ he returned.
‘You, I am persuaded, do not enjoy such an Assembly as this!’
‘You are mistaken: my enjoyment depends on the company in which I find myself.’
‘That,’ said Arabella naïvely, having thought it over, ‘is quite the prettiest thing that has been said to me tonight!’
‘Then I can only suppose, Miss Tallant, that Fleetwood and Warkworth were unable to find words to express their appreciation of the exquisite picture you present. Strange! I formed the opinion that they were paying you all manner of compliments.’
She laughed out at that. ‘Yes, but it was nonsense! I did not believe a word they said!’
‘I hope you believe what I say, however, for I am very much in earnest.’
The light tone he used seemed to belie his words. Arabella found him baffling, and directed another of her speculative glances at him. She decided that he must be answered in kind, and said daringly: ‘Are you being so obliging as to bring me into fashion, Mr Beaumaris?’
He let his eyes travel round the crowded room, his brows a little raised. ‘You do not appear to me to stand in any need of my assistance, ma’am.’ He perceived that Lord Fleetwood was edging his way past a knot of people, a glass in his hand, and waited for him to reach the sofa. ‘Thank you, Charles,’ he said coolly, taking the glass from his lordship, and presenting it to Arabella.
‘You,’ said Lord Fleetwood, with deep feeling, ‘will receive a message from me in the morning, Robert! This is the most barefaced piracy I ever beheld in my life! Miss Tallant, I wish you will send this fellow about his business: his effrontery goes beyond what is allowable!’
‘You must learn not to act on impulse,’ said Mr Beaumaris kindly. ‘A moment’s reflection, the least touch of adroitness, and it would have been I who fetched the lemonade and you who had the privilege of sitting beside Miss Tallant on this sofa!’
‘But it is Lord Fleetwood who earns my gratitude, for he was the more chivalrous!’ said Arabella.
‘Miss Tallant, I thank you!’
‘You have certainly been amply rewarded, and have now nothing to do but to take yourself off,’ said Mr Beaumaris.
‘Not for the world!’ declared his lordship.
Mr Beaumaris sighed. ‘How often I have had to deplore your lack of tact!’ he said.
Arabella, sparkling under the influence of all this exciting banter, raised her posy to her nose, and said, with a grateful look cast up at Fleetwood: ‘I stand doubly in Lord Fleetwood’s debt!’
‘No, no, it is I who stand in yours, ma’am, since you deigned to accept my poor tribute!’
Mr Beaumaris glanced at the posy, and smiled slightly, but said nothing. Arabella, catching sight of Mr Epworth, who was hovering hopefully in the vicinity, suddenly said: ‘Mr Beaumaris, who is that oddly dressed man?’
He looked round, but said: ‘There are so many oddly dressed men present, Miss Tallant, that I fear I am at a loss. You do not mean poor Fleetwood here?’
‘Of course I do not!’ exclaimed Arabella indignantly.
‘Well, I am sure it would be difficult to find anything odder than that waistcoat he wears. It is very disheartening, for I have really expended a great deal of time in trying to reform his taste. Ah, I think I see whom you must mean! That, Miss Tallant, is Horace Epworth. In his own estimation, he undoubtedly personifies a set of creatures whom I have reason to believe you despise.’
Blushing hotly, Arabella asked: ‘Is he a – a dandy?’
‘He would certainly like you to think so.’
‘Well, if he is,’ said Arabella frankly, ‘I am sure you are no such thing, and I beg your pardon for saying it that evening!’
‘Don’t apologise to him, ma’am!’ said Lord Fleetwood gaily. ‘It is time someone gave him a set-down, and that, I assure you, sm
ote him with stunning effect! You must know that he thinks himself a notable Corinthian!’
‘What is that, pray?’ enquired Arabella.
‘A Corinthian, ma’am, besides being a very Tulip of Fashion, is an amateur of sport, a master of sword-play, a deadly fellow with a pistol, a Nonpareil amongst whips, a –’
Mr Beaumaris interrupted this mock-solemn catalogue. ‘If you will be such a dead bore, Charles, you will provoke me to explain to Miss Tallant what the world means when it calls you a sad rattle.’
‘Well?’ demanded Arabella mischievously.
‘A fribble, ma’am, not worth your attention!’ he replied, rising to his feet. ‘I see my cousin over there, and must pay my respects to her.’ He smiled, bowed, and moved away; stayed for a minute or two, talking to Lady Wainfleet; drank a glass of wine with Mr Warkworth; complimented his hostess on the success of her party; and departed, having done precisely what he had set out to do, which was to place Miss Tallant’s feet securely on the ladder of fashion. The news would be all over town within twenty-four hours that the rich Miss Tallant was the Nonpareil’s latest flirt.
‘Did you see Beaumaris paying court to that dashed pretty girl?’ asked Lord Wainfleet of his wife, as they drove away from Lady Bridlington’s house.
‘Of course I did!’ replied his wife.
‘Seemed very taken with her, didn’t he? Not in his usual style, was she? I wonder if he means anything?’
‘Robert?’ said his wife, with something very like a snort. ‘If you knew him as well as I do, Wainfleet, you would have seen at one glance that he was amusing himself! I know how he looks in just that humour! Someone ought to warn the child to have nothing to do with him! It is too bad for him, for she is nothing but a baby, I’ll swear!’
‘They’re saying in the clubs that she’s as rich as a Nabob.’
‘So I have heard, but what that has to say to anything I don’t know! Robert is quite odiously wealthy, and if ever he marries, which I begin to doubt, it will not be for a fortune, I can assure you!’
‘No, I don’t suppose it will,’ agreed his lordship. ‘Why did we go there tonight, Louisa? Devilish flat, that kind of an affair.’
‘Oh, shocking! Robert asked me to go. I own I was curious to see his heiress. He said he was going to make her the most sought-after female in London.’
‘Sounds like a hum to me,’ said his lordship. ‘Why should he do so?’
‘Exactly what I asked him! He said it might be amusing. There are times, Wainfleet, when I would like to box Robert’s ears!’
Seven
Not only in his cousin’s bosom were vengeful thoughts nourished against Mr Beaumaris. Lady Somercote, not so doting a mother that she supposed any of her sons would be likely to prove more attractive to the heiress than the Nonpareil, could with pleasure have driven the long diamond pin she wore in her hair between his ribs; Mrs Kirkmichael thought bitterly that he might, considering the number of times she had gone out of her way to be agreeable to him, have bestowed a little of his attention upon her lanky daughter, a gesture which would have cost him nothing, and might have given poor Maria a start in the world; Mr Epworth, uneasily aware that for some inscrutable reason he was consistently cast in the shade by the Nonpareil, went the round of the clubs, saying that he had a very good mind to give Beaumaris a set-down at no very distant date; his aunt recalled that she had once quarrelled violently with Lady Mary Beaumaris, and said that it was from his mother Beaumaris had inherited his flirtatious disposition, adding that she was sorry for the woman he eventually married. Even Mr Warkworth and Lord Fleetwood said that it was rather too bad of the Nonpareil to trifle with the season’s biggest catch; while several gentlemen who slavishly copied every detail of Mr Beaumaris’s attire wished him safely underground.
There was one voice which was not raised to swell this chorus of disapprobation: Lady Bridlington was in raptures over Mr Beaumaris. She could talk of nothing else throughout the following day. While he sat beside Arabella, not a smile, not a gesture had escaped the good lady’s anxious eye. He had paid no heed to any other girl in the room; he had plainly advertised to his world that he found Miss Tallant charming: there was no one in London more amiable, more truly polite, more condescending, or more in her ladyship’s good graces! Over and over again she told Arabella that her success was now assured; it was not until her first transports had somewhat abated that she could be rational enough to drop a word of warning in Arabella’s ear. But the more she thought of Mr Beaumaris’s pronounced attentions to the girl, the more she remembered how many innocent maidens had fallen victims to his spear, the more she became convinced that it was necessary to put Arabella on her guard. So she said in an earnest voice, and with a slightly anxious look in her eye: ‘I am persuaded, my love, that you are too sensible a girl to be taken-in! But, you know, I stand to you in place of your Mama, and I think I should tell you that Mr Beaumaris is a most accomplished flirt! No one could be more delighted than I am that he should have singled you out, but it will never do, my dear, if you were to develop a tendre in that direction! I know I have only to drop a word in your ear, and you will not be offended by it! He is a confirmed bachelor. I could not tell you the number of hearts he has broken! Poor Theresa Howden – she married Lord Congleton some years later – went into a decline, and was the despair of her afflicted parents! They did think – and I am sure that nothing could have been more pronounced for all one season than – But no! Nothing came of it!’
Arabella had not been the reigning belle for twenty miles round Heythram without learning to distinguish between the flirt and the man who was in earnest, and she replied instantly: ‘I know very well that Mr Beaumaris means nothing by his compliments. Indeed, I am in no danger of being taken-in like a goose!’
‘Well, my love, I hope you are not!’
‘You may be sure I am not. If you do not see any objection, ma’am, I mean to encourage Mr Beaumaris’s attentions, and make the best use I may of them! He believes himself to be amusing himself at my expense; I mean to turn him to very good account! But as for losing my heart – No, indeed!’
‘Mind, we cannot depend upon his continuing to single you out!’ said Lady Bridlington, with unwonted caution. ‘If he did, it would be beyond anything great, but there is no saying, after all! However, last night’s work was enough to launch you, my dear, and I am deeply thankful!’ She heaved an ecstatic sigh. ‘You will be invited everywhere, I daresay!’
She was quite right. Within one fortnight, she was in the happy position of finding herself with five engagements for the same evening, and Arabella had had to break into Sir John’s fifty-pound bill to replenish her wardrobe. She had been seen at the fashionable hour of the Promenade in the Park, sitting beside the Nonpareil, in his high-perch phaeton; she had been almost mobbed at the theatre; she was on nodding terms with all manner of exalted persons; she had received two proposals of marriage; Lord Fleetwood, Mr Warkworth, Mr Epworth, Sir Geoffrey Morecambe, and Mr Alfred Somercote (to mention only the most notable of her suitors) had all entered the lists against Mr Beaumaris; and Lord Bridlington, travelling by fast post all the way, had returned from the Continent to discover what his mother meant by filling his house with unknown females in his absence.
He expressed himself, in measured terms, as being most dissatisfied with Lady Bridlington’s explanation. He was a stocky, somewhat ponderous young man, with more sobriety than properly belonged to his twenty-six years. His understanding was not powerful, but he was bookish, and had early formed the habit of acquiring information by the perusal of authoritative tomes, so that by the time he had attained his present age his retentive memory was stocked with a quantity of facts which he was perhaps a little too ready to impart to his less well-read contemporaries. His father’s death, while he was still at Eton, coupled with a conviction that his mother stood in constant need of superior male guidance, had added disastrously to his se
lf-consequence. He prided himself on his judgement; was a careful steward of his fortune; had the greatest dislike of anything bordering on the unusual; and deplored the frivolity of those who might have been expected to have been his cronies. His mother’s elation at not having spent one evening at home in ten days found no echo in his heart. He could neither understand why she should want to waste her time at social functions, nor why she should have been foolish enough to have invited a giddy girl to stay with her. He was afraid that the cost of all this mummery would be shocking; had Lady Bridlington asked for his counsel, which she might easily have done, he would have advised most strongly against Arabella’s visit.
Lady Bridlington was a trifle cast-down by this severity, but since her late husband had left her to the enjoyment of a handsome jointure, out of which she always shared the expenses of the house in Park Street with Frederick, she was able to point out to him that the charge of entertaining Arabella fell upon her, and not upon him. He said that the wish to dictate to his Mama was far from him, but that he must persist in thinking the affair most ill-advised. Lady Bridlington was fond of her only son, but Arabella’s success had quite gone to her head, and she was in no mood to listen to sober counsels. She retorted that he was talking a great deal of nonsense; upon which he bowed, compressed his lips, and bade her afterwards remember his words. He added that he washed his hands of the whole business. Lady Bridlington, who had no desire to see him fall a victim to Arabella’s charms, was torn between exasperation, and relief that he showed no sign of succumbing to them.