Deborah could not help laughing, but she shook her head as well, and said: 'My dear aunt, I am persuaded no such thought has entered Mr Ravenscar's head! I wish you will not think so much about my marriage. I doubt I was born to wear the willow.’
'Never say so, Deb! Why, you are so handsome you have even turned Ormskirk's head - not that I should like you to become his mistress, because I am sure it is not the sort of thing your poor father would have wished for you at all, besides putting you in an awkward situation, and quite ruining all your chances of making a good match. Only if it is not to be Ormskirk, it must be marriage.'
`Nonsense! Put all these bills away, ma'am, and forget them. We have had a run of bad luck, it's true, and have been monstrously extravagant besides, but we shall come about, trust me!’
`Not with Indian muslin at ten shillings the yard, and wheatstraw for bedding a crown the truss, or the bushel, or whatever it is,' said Lady Bellingham gloomily.
'Wheatstraw?' asked Miss Grantham, wrinkling her brow.
`Horses,' explained her aunt, with a heavy sigh.
Miss Grantham seemed to feel the force of this, and once more bent her head over the bills in her hand. After a prolonged study of these, she said in a daunted voice: `Dear ma'am, do we never eat anything but salmon and spring chickens in this house?'
``We had a boiled knuckle of veal and pig's face last week,' replied Lady Bellingham reflectively. `That was for our dinner, but we could not serve it at the suppers, my love.'
`No,' agreed Miss Grantham reluctantly. `Perhaps we ought not to give two suppers every night.'
`Anything of a shabby nature is repugnant to me!' said her aunt firmly. `Sir Edward would not have approved of it.'
`But, ma'am, I daresay he would not have approved of your keeping a gaming-house at all!' Deborah pointed out.
`Very likely not, my love. I'm sure it is not at all the sort of thing I should choose to do, but if Ned didn't wish me to do so he should not have died in that inconsiderate way,' said Lady Bellingham.
Miss Grantham abandoned this line of argument, and returned to her study of the bills. Such items as Naples Soap, Patent Silk Stockings, Indian Tooth-brushes, and Chintz Patches, mounted up to a quite alarming total; while a bill from Warren's, Perfumiers, and another from a mantua maker, enumerating such interesting items as One Morning Sacque of Paris Mud, Two Heads Soupir d'etouffer, and One Satin Cloak trimmed Opera Brirlee Gauze, made her feel quite low. But these were small bills compared with the staggering list of household expenses, which it was evident Lady Bellingham had been trying to calculate. Her ladyship's sprawling handwriting covered several sheets of hot-pressed paper, whereon Servants' Wages, Liveries, Candles, Butcher, Wine, and Taxes jostled one another in hopeless confusion. The house in St James's Square seemed to cost a great deal of money to maintain, and if there were nothing to cavil at in the Wages of Four Women Servants, £60, it did seem that two waiters at twenty pounds apiece, an Upper Man at fifty-five, and the coachman at forty were grossly extortionate.
Miss Grantham folded these depressing papers, and put them at the bottom of the sheaf.
`I am sure I am ready enough to live a great deal more frugally,' said Lady Bellingham, `but you may see for yourself, Deb, how impossible it is! It is not as though one was spending money on things which are not necessary.'
`I suppose,' said Deborah, looking unhappily at a bill from the upholsterers, `I suppose we need not have covered all the chairs in the front saloon with straw-coloured satin.'
`No,' conceded Lady Bellingham. `I believe that was a mistake. It does not wear at all well, and I have been thinking whether we should not have them done again, in mulberry damask. What do you think, my love?'
`I think we had better not spend any more money on them until the luck changes,' said Deborah.
`Well, my dear, that will be an economy at all events,' said her ladyship hopefully. `But have you thought that if the luck don't change-?’
'It must, and shall!’ said Deborah resolutely.
`I am sure I hope it may, but I do not see how we can recover, with peas at such a price, and you playing piquet with Ravenscar for ten shillings a point.'
Miss Grantham hung her head. `Indeed, I am very sorry,' she apologized. `He did say he would come again, to let me have my revenge, but perhaps I had better make an excuse?'
`No, no, that would never do! We must hope that he will presently turn to faro, and make the best of it. Mablethorpe has sent you a basketful of roses this morning, my love.'
`I know,' replied Deborah. 'Ormskirk sent a bouquet of carnations in a jewelled holder. I have quite a drawerful of his gifts to me. I would like to throw them in his painted face!’
'And so you could, if only you would take poor young Mablethorpe,' her aunt pointed out. `I am sure he has the sweetest of tempers, and would make anyone a most amiable husband. As for his not being of age yet, that will soon be a thing of the past, and if you are thinking about his mother - not that there is the least need, for though she can be very disagreeable, she is not a bad-hearted creature, Selina Mablethorpe-'
`No, I was not thinking of her,' said Deborah. `And I will not think of Adrian either, if you please, aunt! I may be one of faro's daughters, but I'll not entrap any unfortunate young man into marrying me, even if my refusal means a debtors' prison!’
`You don't feel that Ormskirk would be better than a debtors' prison P suggested Lady Bellingham, in a desponding voice.
Deborah broke into laughter. `Aunt Lizzie, you are a most shocking creature! How can you talk so?'
`Well, but, my dear, you will be just as surely ruined for ever in prison as under Ormskirk's protection, and far less agreeably,' said her ladyship, with strong common sense. `Not that I wish for such a connexion, for I don't, but what else is to be done?'
`Oh, I have the oddest notion that something will happen to set all to rights, ma'am! Indeed I have!’
'Yes, love,' said Lady Bellingham, without much hope. `We both of us had that notion when we laid five hundred guineas on Jack-Come-Tickle-Me at the Newmarket races, but it turned out otherwise.'
`Well,' said Miss Grantham, thrusting all the bills into one of the drawers of a small writing-table by the window, `I have a very good mind to back Mr Ravenscar to win his curricle race against Sir James Filey. He was offering odds at five to one on himself.'
`What is all this?' demanded Lady Bellingham. 'Lucius did say something about an absurd bet, but I was not attending.'
`Oh, Sir James was being as odious as ever, and it seems he was beaten in a race against Ravenscar six months ago, and is as wild as fire to come about again. The long and the short of it is that Ravenscar offered to run against him when and where he chose for a stake of five thousand pounds. And as though that were not enough, he laid odds at five to one against Sir James! He must be very sure of himself.' `But that is twenty-five thousand pounds!’ exclaimed Lad Bellingham, who had been doing some rapid multiplication
`If he loses!’
'I never heard of anything so provoking!' declared he ladyship. `If he has twenty-five thousand pounds to lose, pray why could he not do so at my faro-bank? But so it is always Men have never the least spark of consideration for anything but their own pleasure. Well, I recall that his father was a very disagreeable, selfish kind of a man, and I dare say the son is no better.'
Miss Grantham returned no answer to this. Her aunt, was satisfied with her appearance, picked up a pot of Serkis rouge and began to apply this aid to beauty with a ruthless hand. `It is the oddest thing,' she remarked, `but all the richest men at the most odious creatures imaginable! Only think of Filey, and now Ravenscar!’
'Good God, ma'am, you cannot mean to couple Mr Ravenscar with that vile man.' cried Miss Grantham, flushing a little.
Lady Bellingham set the rouge-pot down. `Deb, never say you have taken a fancy to Ravenscar?' she exclaimed. `I would be the most wonderful thing if he could be got to offer for you, but I have been thinking it over, my de
ar, and believe it won't answer. He is turned thirty-five, and has new asked any female to marry him that I ever heard of. Besides, h is said to be abominably close, and that would not do for us all.'
`Offer for me indeed! Of course he won't, or I accept him believe me, aunt! And as for fancies - pooh, what nonsense I liked him for taking Sir James up so swiftly, and for something about him that was different from all those other met but he was quite rude to me, you know. I am very sure he despises me for presiding at gaming-tables. I cannot conceive what should have brought him to the house, unless it was to see what kind of a harpy his cousin had fallen in love with.'
`Oh dear!’ sighed Lady Bellingham. `I daresay that would be it! We shall have him whisking poor Adrian off, and then, shall have no one but Ormskirk to fall back upon.'
Miss Grantham laughed. `He may whisk him off with m good-will, I assure you, ma'am, but he seemed to me much lit a sensible man, and will no doubt have seen that the foolish boy will come to no harm in this house. Why, I will not even permit him to put down a rouleau of above ten guineas at a time!’
`No,' said her ladyship regretfully. `And he is not at all a lucky punter. It does seem a pity, my love.'
'Now, you know very well, ma'am, you don't wish to be plucking schoolboys!' Deborah said, laying an arm about her aunt's shoulders.
Lady Bellingham agreed to this, but without much conviction. A small black page scratched on the door for admittance, and announced that Massa Kennet was below-stairs. Deborah kissed her aunt, recommended her not to worry her head over the bills, and went off to join this friend of her childhood in the small back-room behind the dining-room.
If to live by one's wits and a dice-box was to be a soldier-of-fortune, Mr Ravenscar had summed Mr Lucius Kennet up correctly. Although considerably his junior, he had been one of the late Captain Wilfred Grantham's closest friends, wandering about Europe with him, and generally sharing his fluctuating fortunes. Like Silas Wantage, at present engaged in cleaning silver in the pantry, while Mortimer, Lady Bellingham's expensive butler, slept with the current number of the Morning Advertiser spread over his face, Lucius Kennet had always formed a part of Miss Grantham's background. He had never been above mending a broken doll, or tying up a cut finger; and when Deborah reached adolescence he had constituted himself an easy-going protector. Captain Grantham had not been one to put himself out for a parcel of plaguey brats, the greatest effort he had ever made on his son's and daughter's behalf having been to place them in his sister's care upon the death of his long-suffering wife.
Lady Bellingham, childless, and devoted to a brother who recalled her existence only when he found himself in straits from which it was in her power to rescue him, was delighted with the charge, and could not imagine that a boy of twelve and a girl of fifteen could be the least trouble in the world. She had been a widow for some few years, living a somewhat hand-to-mouth existence, and she had very soon discovered that a boy of school age, and a girl requiring a governess, were expensive luxuries. She had a small fortune of her own, besides a much smaller jointure, and generally relied upon her luck at all games of chance to bridge the gap between her income and her expenditure. She gave charming little parties at her house in Clarges Street
, and was so successful at the faro-table, that the idea of turning her propensity for cards to good account gradually took root in her mind. Mr Lucius Kennel appearing suddenly in London with the news of Captain Grantham's death in Munich, was happy to lend her ladyship the benefit of his experience and advice, and even to deal for her, at her first faro-bank. It had really answered amazingly well, and had even provided funds for the purchase of a pair of colours for Mr Christopher Grantham, upon that young gentleman's leaving school.
At the outset, it had been no part of Lady Bellingham's place to admit her niece into her gaming-saloon. She could never be quite certain how it had happened that within a month c being emancipated from the schoolroom Deborah had mad her appearance at one of those cosy evening-parties, but it ha, happened, and the girl had been such an instant success wit her aunt's male guests, and had brought such a rush of new visitors to the house, that it would clearly have been folly t have excluded her.
The card-parties in Clarges Street
had been held during peak period of gaming. Gentlemen had thought nothing c staking rouleaus of fifty guineas on the turn of a card, and the profits of the modest little house had really quite justified the acquiring of a much larger establishment in St James's Square But whether it was because there had been a great deal of absurd stuff written in the daily papers about the wickedness of such gaming-houses as Mrs Sturt's, and Lady Buckingham's, which might have caused the attendances to fall off trifle; or whether because the expenses of the house in St James's Square were much heavier than Lady Bellingham had anticipated, there had not been any profits to enjoy for several months. Of course, quite large sums of money found their way into Lady Bellingham's pockets, but somehow c other these were always swallowed up by the tide of bill which so inexplicably threatened to engulf the house. For the past few weeks, too, the establishment had been suffering from a run of most persistent ill-luck. The faro-bank ha been broken for six thousand pounds on one disastrous evening, and a misfortune such as that was hard to recover from Lady Bellingham had done her best by introducing the game of E.O. into her rooms, but even this had not gone very far t set matters to rights, since serious gamesters were inclined to despise it, and it certainly could not be said to improve tone of the house. In fact, as Deborah said bitterly, it reduced it to the ranks of quite common gaming-hells.
It had been one of Lucius Kennet's ideas, well-meant, of course, but very displeasing to Miss Grantham. He had lately been talking of the new game of roulette, which seemed to be played on much the same principles as E.O., but Miss Grantham was determined that no roulette board should make its appearance in St James's Square.
Mr Kennet, when Miss Grantham joined him, was idly engaged in casting the dice, right hand against left, on a small table in the centre of the room. `Good morning, me darlin',' he said cheerfully, not desisting from his occupation. `Will you look at the fiend's own luck of my left hand, now? Upon my soul, it can't lose!’ He cast a shrewd glance at Miss Grantham's rather pensive expression, and added: `What's the trouble, me dear? Is it Ormskirk again, or will it be the suckling;"
`It isn't either,' replied Deborah, sitting down on the opposite side of the table. `At least, no more than I'm used to. Lucius, what is to become of us?'
`Why, what should become of you at all?'
`My aunt is quite distracted. There are nothing but bills!'
‘Ah, throw them in the fire, me dear.’
'You know well that won't answer! I wish you will stop casting the bones!’
He gathered them up into the palm of one hand, tossing them into the air, and catching them as they fell. There was a smile in his eyes as he answered: `Your heart's not in this, is it?'
`Sometimes I think I hate it,' she admitted, sinking her chin into her cupped hands, and glowering. `Oh, the devil, Lucius I'm no gamester!’
'You chose it, me darlin'. I'd say 'twas in your blood.'
`Well, and so I thought, but it's tedious beyond anything I ever dreamed of! I think I will have a cottage in the country one day, and keep hens.'
He burst out laughing. `God save the hens! And you supping off lobsters every night, and wearing silks, and fallals, and letting the guineas drip through the pretty fingers of you!’
Her eyes twinkled; the corners of her humorous mouth quivered responsively. `That's the devil of it,' she confessed. `What's to be done?'
`There's the suckling,' he drawled. `I doubt he'd be glad to give you your cottage, if it's that you want, so you might play at keeping farm, like the sainted French Queen, God rest he soul!'
'You know me better!' she said, with a flash. `Do you think I would serve a romantic boy such a turn as that? A rare thing for him to find himself tied to a gamester five years the elder!’
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'You know, Deb,' he said, watching the rise and fall of hi dice through half-shut eyes, `there are times I've a mind to run off with you meself.'
She smiled, but shook her head. `When you're foxed, may be.'
His hand shut on the dice; he turned his head to look at her. `Be easy; I'm sober enough. What do you say, me darlin' ? Will you throw in your lot with a worthless fellow that will never come to any good in this world, let alone the next?
'Are you offering for me, Lucius?' she demanded, blinking at him.
`Sure I'm offering for you! It's mad I am entirely, but what of that? Come adventuring with me, me love! I'll swear you've the spirit for it!'
She gave him one of her clear looks. `If I loved you, Lucius; I don't, you see. Not as your wife, but only as your good friend.'
'Ah well!’ he said, tossing up the dice again. `I doubt it's for the best!’
'Indeed, I don't think you would make a very good husband,' she said reflectively. `You would be wishing me at the devil before a year was out.'
`I might,' he agreed.
`Besides,' she said practically, `how should marriage wit you help Aunt Lizzie out of her difficulties?'
'Ah, to hell with the old woman! You're too young to be worrying your head over her troubles, me dear, believe you me!’
'It's when you talk like that I like you least, Lucius,' she said.
He shrugged. `Have it as you will. What's it to be? Will you have a roulette table or the noble Earl of Ormskirk?'
`I will have neither!’
'Tell that to your aunt, Deb, and see how she takes it.'
`What do you mean?' she asked fiercely.
`God bless us all, girl, if she were not playing his lordship game for him, what possessed the silly creature to borrow money from him?'
`You are thinking of the mortgage on this house! She had no notion-'
`That, and the bills his lordship bought up, all out of the goodness of his heart, you'll be asking me to believe.' Her cheeks whitened. 'Lucius, he has not done that?' `Ask the old lady.'