‘My dear Miss Tallant, pray do not think of such a thing!’ shuddered her companion. ‘I only hope we may be spared any sort of accident!’
Neither lady’s wish was destined to be granted her. No such excitement as a hold-up awaited them, but a little way short of the Marston turnpike the perch of the carriage broke, and the body fell forward upon the box. The Squire’s travelling carriage had stood too long in his coach-house.
After the coachman had delivered himself of a long, self-exculpatory monologue, the groom was sent off to take counsel of the pike-keeper, half a mile down the road. When he returned, it was with the pleasing intelligence that no adequate assistance was to be hoped for in the next village: it must be sought in Grantham, five or six miles farther on, where a conveyance could no doubt be hired to fetch the ladies in while the perch was mended, or replaced. The coachman then suggested that his passengers, both of whom were standing by the roadside, should climb up into the carriage again to await deliverance, while the groom took one of the horses and rode on to Grantham. Miss Blackburn was meekly ready to follow this advice, but her charge thought poorly of it.
‘What! Sit in that horrid, draughty carriage all that time? I won’t do it!’ she declared.
‘But we cannot continue to stand in the rain, dear Miss Tallant!’ said Miss Blackburn.
‘Of course we cannot! Either way I am persuaded you would catch your death! There must be a house hereabouts which would lend us shelter! What are those lights over there?’
They plainly shone from the windows of a residence set a little back from the road. The groom volunteered the information that he had noticed some lodge gates a few steps back.
‘Good!’ said Arabella briskly. ‘We will walk up to it, ma’am, and beg them to give us shelter for a little while.’
Miss Blackburn, a timorous soul, protested feebly. ‘They would think it so strange of us!’
‘No, why should they?’ returned Arabella. ‘Why, when a carriage had an accident outside our gates last year, Papa sent Harry out at once to offer shelter to the travellers! We cannot shiver for an hour or more in that horrid carriage, ma’am, with nothing to do! Besides, I am shockingly hungry, and I should think they would be bound to offer us refreshment, would not you? I am sure it is dinner-time, and past!’
‘Oh, I do not think we should!’ was all Miss Blackburn had to say, and it seemed so stupid to Arabella that she paid no heed to it, but desired the groom to escort them to the lodge gates before riding off to Grantham. This he did, and the ladies, dismissing him there, trod up the short drive to the house, one of them murmuring disjointed protests, the other perceiving no reason in the world why she should not claim a hospitality anyone in Yorkshire would have been eager to offer.
Four
It was at about this moment that that erratic young sprig of fashion, Lord Fleetwood, fixed his friend, and host, Mr Beaumaris, with a laughing eye, and demanded in a rallying tone: ‘Well! You promise me a rare day with the hounds tomorrow – by the by, where do we meet? – but what – what, Robert, do you offer me for my entertainment this evening?’
‘My cook,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘is generally thought to be an artist in his own line. A Frenchman: I think you will like his way of dressing a Davenport chicken, while some trick he has of flavouring a Benton sauce –’
‘What, did you send Alphonse down, then, from London?’ interrupted Lord Fleetwood, momentarily diverted.
‘Alphonse?’ repeated Mr Beaumaris, his finely chiselled brows lifting a little. ‘Oh, no! this is another. I don’t think I know his name. But I like his way with fish.’
Lord Fleetwood burst out laughing. ‘I expect if you discovered a cook with a way of serving game which you liked, you would send him off to that shooting-box of yours, and pay him a king’s ransom, only to kick his heels for three parts of the year!’
‘I expect I should,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris imperturbably.
‘But,’ said his lordship severely, ‘I am not to be put off with a cook! I came here in the expectation of finding fair Paphians, let me tell you, and all manner of shocking orgies – wine out of skulls, y’know, and –’
‘The lamentable influence of Lord Byron upon society!’ interpolated Mr Beaumaris, with a faint, contemptuous smile.
‘What? Oh, that poet-fellow that set up such a dust! Myself, I thought him devilish underbred, but of course it don’t do to say so. But that’s it! Where, Robert, are the fair Paphians?’
‘If I had any Paphians in keeping here, you don’t imagine, do you, Charles, that I would run the risk of being cut-out by a man of your address?’ retorted Mr Beaumaris.
Lord Fleetwood grinned at him, but replied: ‘None of your gammon to me! It would take ten times my address to cut-out a – a – dash it, a Midas like you!’
‘If my memory does not err, all that Midas touched turned to gold,’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘I think you mean Croesus.’
‘No, I don’t! Never heard of the fellow!’
‘Well, most of the things I touch have a disheartening way of turning to dross,’ said Mr Beaumaris, lightly, but with a note of bitter self-mockery in his languid voice.
This was going a little too deep for his friend. ‘Humdudgeon, Robert! You can’t bamboozle me! If there are to be no Paphians –’
‘I can’t conceive why you should have supposed there would be,’ interrupted his host.
‘Well, I didn’t, but I can tell you this, my boy! – that’s the latest on-dit!’
‘Good God! Why?’
‘Lord, how should I know? Daresay it’s because you won’t throw your glove at any of the beauties who have been setting their caps at you any time these five years. What’s more, your chères-amies are always such devilish high-flyers, dear boy, it puts notions into the heads of all the old tabbies! Think of the Faraglini!’
‘I had rather not. The most rapacious female of my acquaintance.’
‘But what a face! What a figure!’
‘And what a temper!’
‘What became of her?’ asked his lordship. ‘I haven’t laid eyes on her since she left your protection.’
‘I think she went to Paris. Why? Had you a fancy to succeed me?’
‘No, by Jove, I couldn’t have stood the nonsense!’ said his lordship frankly. ‘She’d have had me rolled-up within a month! What did you have to give for those match-grays she used to drive all over town?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘To tell you the truth,’ confided Lord Fleetwood, ‘I shouldn’t have thought it worth it myself – though I’m not denying she was a curst fine woman!’
‘It wasn’t.’
Lord Fleetwood regarded him, half-curious, half-amused. ‘Is anything worth while to you, Robert?’ he asked quizzically.
‘Yes, my horses!’ retorted Mr Beaumaris. ‘And, talking of horses, Charles, what the devil possessed you to buy one of Lichfield’s breakdowns?’
‘That bay? Now, there’s a horse that fairly took my fancy!’ said his lordship, his simple countenance lighting up with enthusiasm. ‘What a piece of blood and bone! No, really, Robert – !’
‘If ever I find myself with a thoroughly unsound animal in my stables,’ said Mr Beaumaris ruthlessly, ‘I shall offer him to you in the happy certainty that he will take your fancy!’
Lord Fleetwood was still protesting with indignation and vehemence when the butler entered the room to inform his master, rather apologetically, that a carriage had broken down outside his gates, and the two ladies it bore were desirous of sheltering for a short time under his roof.
Mr Beaumaris’s cool gray eyes betrayed no emotion, but his mouth seemed for an instant to harden. He said calmly: ‘Certainly. There should be a fire in the saloon. Tell Mrs Mersey to wait upon the ladies there.’ The butler bowed, and would have withdrawn, but Lord Fleetwood checked him, exclaiming: ‘No, no, too shabby by half, Robe
rt! I won’t be fobbed off so! What do they look like, Brough? Old? Young? Pretty?’
The butler, inured to his lordship’s free and easy ways, replied with unimpaired solemnity that one of the ladies was both young, and – he ventured to think – very pretty.
‘I insist on your receiving these females with a proper degree of civility, Robert!’ said his lordship firmly. ‘Saloon, indeed! Show ’em in, Brough!’
The butler glanced for guidance towards his master, as though he doubted whether the command would be endorsed, but Mr Beaumaris merely said with his usual indifference: ‘As you please, Charles.’
‘What an ungrateful dog you are!’ said Lord Fleetwood, when Brough had left the room. ‘You don’t deserve your fortune! This is the hand of Providence!’
‘I should doubt of their being Paphians,’ was all Mr Beaumaris found to say. ‘I thought that was what you wanted?’
‘Any diversion is better than none!’ replied Lord Fleetwood.
‘What a singularly infelicitous remark! I wonder why I invited you.’
Lord Fleetwood grinned at him. ‘Now, Robert, did you think – did you think – to come Tip Street over me? There may be plenty of toadies ready to jump out of their skins at the very thought of being invited to the Nonpareil’s house – and no better entertainment offered than a rubber of piquet, I dare swear –’
‘You are forgetting the cook.’
‘But,’ continued his lordship inexorably, ‘I ain’t amongst ’em!’
Mr Beaumaris’s habitual aspect was one of coldness, and reserve, but sometimes he could smile in a way that not only softened the austerity of his countenance but lit his eyes with a gleam of the purest amusement. It was not the smile he kept for social occasions – a faintly sardonic curl of the lips, that one – but those who were honoured by a glimpse of it generally revised their first impressions of him. Those who had never seen it were inclined to think him a proud, disagreeable sort of a man, though only the most daring would ever have uttered aloud such a criticism of one who, besides possessing all the advantages of birth and fortune, was an acknowledged leader of society. Lord Fleetwood, no stranger to that smile, saw it dawn now, and grinned more broadly than ever.
‘How can you, Charles? When you must know that almost your only claim to fashion is being noticed by me!’
Arabella entered the room to find both its occupants laughing, and thus had the felicity of seeing Mr Beaumaris at his best. That she herself was looking remarkably pretty, with her dusky curls and charming complexion admirably set off by a high-crowned bonnet, with curled ostrich-feather tips, and crimson ribbons tied into a bow under one ear, never entered her head, since Mr Tallant’s daughters had always been discouraged from thinking much about their appearance. She paused on the threshold, while the butler murmured her name and Miss Blackburn’s, quite unselfconscious, but looking about her with a kind of wide-eyed, innocent interest. She was very much impressed by what she saw. The house was not a large one, but she perceived that it was furnished with a good taste which was as quiet as it was expensive. Her quick scrutiny took in Lord Fleetwood, who had put up an instinctive hand to straighten the Belcher necktie he affected, and passed on to Mr Beaumaris.
Arabella had one brother who aspired to dandyism, and she had thought that she had seen in Harrowgate gentlemen of decided fashion. She now perceived that she had much mistaken the matter. No one she had ever seen approached the elegance of Mr Beaumaris.
Lord Fleetwood, or any of his cronies, could have recognised the tailoring of that coat of olive-green superfine at a glance; Arabella, to whom the magic name of Weston was unknown, was merely aware of a garment so exquisitely cut that it presented all the appearance of having been moulded to its wearer’s form. A very good form, too, she noted, with approval. No need of buckram wadding, such as that Knaresborough tailor had inserted into Bertram’s new coat, to fill out those shoulders! And how envious Bertram would have been of Mr Beaumaris’s fine legs, sheathed in tight pantaloons, with gleaming Hessian boots pulled over them! Mr Beaumaris’s shirt-points were not as high as Bertram’s, but his necktie commanded the respect of one who had more than once watched her brother’s struggles with a far less complicated arrangement. Arabella was not perfectly sure that she admired his style of hairdressing – he affected a Stanhope crop – but she did think him a remarkably handsome man, as he stood there, laughter dying on his lips, and out of his gray eyes.
It was only a moment that he stood thus. She had the impression that he was scanning her critically; then he moved forward, and bowed slightly, and begged, in a rather colourless tone, to know in what way he could be of service to her.
‘How do you do?’ said Arabella politely. ‘I beg your pardon, but the thing is that there has been an accident to my carriage, and – and it is raining, and horridly cold! The groom has rid in to Grantham, and I daresay will bring another carriage out directly, but – but Miss Blackburn has taken a chill, and we should be very much obliged if we might wait here in the warm!’
She was stammering and blushing by the time she came to the end of this speech. Outside, it had seemed the simplest thing in the world to solicit shelter; under Mr Beaumaris’s eye, it all at once seemed as though the request were outrageous. To be sure, he was smiling, but it was a very different smile from the one his face had worn when she had entered the room. It was such a very slight curl of the lips, yet there was some quality in it which made her feel ruffled and uncomfortable.
But he said with perfect civility: ‘An unfortunate mishap. You must permit me to send you to Grantham in one of my carriages, ma’am.’
Lord Fleetwood, who had been standing staring in the frankest admiration at Arabella, was jerked into action by this speech. Pulling a chair invitingly close to the fire, he exclaimed: ‘No, no, come and sit down, ma’am! I can see you are chilled to the bone! Shocking weather for travelling! You will have got your feet wet, I daresay, and that will never do, you know! Robert, where have your wits gone a-begging? Why don’t you desire Brough to fetch some refreshment for Miss – er – Miss – for the ladies?’
With a look which Arabella was strongly inclined to construe as one of resignation, Mr Beaumaris replied: ‘I trust he may be doing so. I beg you will be seated, ma’am!’
But it was Lord Fleetwood who handed Arabella to the chair he had placed, saying solicitously: ‘I am sure you are hungry, and will be glad of something to eat!’
‘Well, yes, sir,’ confessed Arabella, who was very hungry indeed. ‘I own, I have been thinking of my dinner for several miles! And no wonder, for I see it is already past five o’clock!’
This naïve speech made his lordship, who never sat down to his dinner before half-past seven at the very earliest, swallow convulsively, but he recovered himself in an instant, and replied without a blink: ‘So it is, by Jupiter! You are famished, then! But never mind! Mr Beaumaris here was just saying that dinner would be served in a trice. Weren’t you, Robert?’
‘Was I?’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘I have the wretchedest of memories, but I am sure you are right. I beg you will do me the honour of dining with me, ma’am.’
Arabella hesitated. She could see from her anguished expression that Miss Blackburn thought she should rather accept Mr Beaumaris’s first offer; and not the most inveterate of optimists could have read into that languid gentleman’s voice anything more than a reluctant civility. But this warm, comfortably furnished room was a most welcome change from the travelling carriage, and the aromas of cooking which had assailed her nostrils as she had crossed the hall had considerably whetted her appetite. She looked a little doubtfully at her host. Again it was Lord Fleetwood who, with his friendly smile and easy manners, clinched the matter. ‘Of course they will dine with us! Now, won’t you, ma’am?’
‘It would be giving too much trouble, sir!’ said Miss Blackburn, in a sort of gasp.
‘No trouble in the world, ma??
?am, I assure you! In fact, we are very much obliged to you, for we had been wishing that we were to have company, eh, Robert?’
‘Certainly,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris. ‘Was I not just saying so?’
Miss Blackburn, having undergone a lifetime of slights and snubs, was quick to catch the satirical inflection. She cast him a scared, deprecating look, and coloured. His eyes met hers; he stood looking down at her for a moment, and then said in a much kinder tone: ‘I am afraid you are not quite comfortable there, ma’am. Will you not draw nearer to the fire?’
She was thrown into a flutter, and assured him rather disjointedly that she was perfectly comfortable, and himself too good, too obliging! Brough had come into the room with a tray of glasses and decanters, which he set down on a table, and Mr Beaumaris moved towards it, saying: ‘You will like to go upstairs with my housekeeper, I daresay, to take off your wet coat, but first you must let me give you a glass of wine.’ He began to pour out some Madeira. ‘Two extra covers for dinner, Brough – which you will serve immediately.’
Brough thought of the Davenport fowls roasting on the spits in the kitchen, and of the artist in charge of them, and was visibly shaken. ‘Immediately, sir?’ he said, in a failing voice.
‘Let us say, within half-an-hour,’ amended Mr Beaumaris, carrying a glass of wine over to Miss Blackburn.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Brough, and tottered from the room, a broken man.
Miss Blackburn accepted the wine gratefully, but when it was offered to Arabella she declined it. Papa did not like his daughters to taste anything stronger than porter, or the very mild claret-cup served at the Harrowgate Assembly Rooms, and she was a little doubtful of its possible effect on her. Mr Beaumaris did not press her in any way, but set the glass down again, poured out some sherry for himself and his friend, and returned to sit beside Miss Blackburn on the sofa.
Lord Fleetwood, meanwhile, had ensconced himself beside Arabella, and was chatting to her in his inconsequent, cheerful way, which set her quite at her ease. He was delighted to hear that she was on her way to London, hoped to have the pleasure of meeting her there – in the Park, possibly, or at Almack’s. He had plenty of anecdotes of ton with which to entertain her, and rattled on in an agreeable fashion until the housekeeper came to escort the ladies upstairs.