He drove on in silence for some little way, frowning heavily at the road ahead.
`How pretty the trees are, with their leaves just on the turn!’ remarked Miss Grantham, in soulful accents.
He paid no heed to this sally, but once more looked down at her. `If I engage to pay you twenty thousand pounds, will you release my cousin?' he asked abruptly.
Miss Grantham tilted her head on one side. `I own, twenty thousand pounds is a temptation,' she said. `And yet ...!' she added undecidedly. `No, I think I would prefer to marry Adrian.' ,
`You will regret that decision, ma'am,' he said, dropping his hands, and letting the greys shoot.
`Oh, I trust not, sir! After all, Adrian is a most amiable young man, and I shall enjoy being his wife, and having a great deal of pin-money. I hope,' she added graciously, `that you will be one of our first guests at Mablethorpe. You will see then what a fine ladyship I mean to be.'
He vouchsafed no answer to this, so after a thoughtful pause she said airily: `Of course, there will be a good many changes to be made at Mablethorpe before I shall be ready to receive visitors. I collect that everything is shockingly old fashioned there. The London house too! But I have a great turn for furnishing houses, and I do not despair of achieving something very tolerable.'
The contemptuous curl of Mr Ravenscar's mouth was all the sign he gave of having heard this speech.
`I mean to set up a faro-bank of my own,' pursued Miss Grantham. `It will be very select, of course: admission only by card. To make a success of that sort of thing, one must have a certain position in the world, and that Adrian can give me. I will wager that my card-parties become the rage within a twelvemonth!'
`If you think, ma'am, to force up the price by these disclosures, you are wasting your time!’ said Ravenscar. `Your plans for the future come as no surprise to me.' He reined in his horses to a more sober pace, as the gates of the Park came into sight. `You have had the chance to enrich yourself, and you have seen fit to refuse it. My offer is no longer open to your acceptance.'
She was surprised, but took care not to let it appear. 'Why, now you talk like a sensible man, sir!’ she said. `You accept the inevitable, in fact.'
They passed through the gates, and turned eastwards, bowling along with a disregard for the convenience of all other traffic which drew curses from two porters, a hackney-coachman, and a portly old gentleman who was unwise enough to try to cross the street ahead of the curricle. `No,' said Ravenscar. `Once more you are out in your reckoning, Miss Grantham. You have chosen to cross swords with me, and you shall see how you like it. Let me tell you that it was with the greatest reluctance that I made my offer! It goes much against the grain with me to enrich harpies!' He glanced down at her as he spoke, and encountered such a blaze of anger in her eyes that he was momentarily taken aback. But even as his brows snapped together in quick suspicion, the long-lashed lids had veiled her eyes, and she was laughing.
The rest of the drive back to St James's Square
was accomplished in silence. When the curricle drew up outside her door, Miss Grantham put back the rug that covered her knees, and said with deceptive affability: `A most enjoyable drive, Mr Ravenscar. I must thank you for having given me the opportunity to make your better acquaintance. r fancy we have both of us learnt something this morning.'
`Can you get down without my assistance?' he asked brusquely. `I am unable to leave the horses.'
`Certainly,' she replied, nimbly descending from the high carriage. `Goodbye, sir - or should I say au revoir?'
He slightly raised his hat. `Au revoir, ma'am!' he said, and drove on.
The door of the house was opened to Miss Grantham by Silas Wantage, who took one look at her flushed countenance, and said indulgently: `Now, what's happened to put you into one of your tantrums, Miss Deb?'
`I am not in a tantrum!' replied Deborah furiously. `And if Lord Mablethorpe should call, I will see him!'
`Well, that's a good thing,' said Wantage. `For he's been here once already, and means to come again. I never saw anything like it, not in all my puff!'
`I wish you will not talk in that odiously vulgar way!’ said Deborah.
`Not in a tantrum: oh, no!’ said Mr Wantage, shaking his head. `And me that's known you from your cradle! Your aunt says as how Master Kit's a coming home on leave. What do you say to that?'
Miss Grantham, however, had nothing to say to it. She was an extremely fond sister, but for the moment the iniquities of Mr Ravenscar possessed her mind to the exclusion of all other interests. She ran upstairs to the little back-parlour on the half-landing, which was used as a morning-room. Lady Bellingham was writing letters there, at a spindle-legged table in the window. She looked up as her niece entered the room, and cried: `Well, my love, so you are back already! Tell me at once, did-' She broke off, as her eyes met Miss Grantham's stormy ones. `Oh dear!' she said, in a dismayed voice. `What has happened?'
Miss Grantham untied her bonnet-strings with a savage jerk, and cast the bonnet on to a chair. `He is the vilest, rudest, stupidest, horridest man alive! Oh, but I will serve him out for this! I will make him sorry he ever dared - I'll have no mercy on him! He shall grovel to me! Oh, I am in such a rage 'Yes, my love, I can see you are,' said her aunt faintly. `Did he - did he make love to you?'
`Love!' exclaimed Miss Grantham. `No, indeed! My thoughts did not lie in that direction! I am a harpy, if you please, Aunt Lizzie! Women like me should be whipped at t cart's tail!'
'Good heavens, Deb, is the man out of his senses?' demanded Lady Bellingham.
`By no means! He is merely stupid, and rude, and altogether abominable! I hate him! I wish I might never set eyes on him again!’
`But what did he do?' asked Lady Bellingham bewildered.
Miss Grantham ground her white teeth. `He came to rescue his precious cousin from my toils! That was why he invited r to drive out with him. To insult me!’
'Oh dear, you thought it might be that!’ said her aunt sad]
Miss Grantham paid no heed to this interruption. `A Grantham is not a fit bride for Lord Mablethorpe! To marry me would be to ruin himself! Oh, I could scream with vexation!'
Lady Bellingham regarded her doubtfully. `But you said much yourself, my dear. I remember distinctly-'
`It doesn't signify in the least.' said Miss Grantham. `He hi no right to say it’
Lady Bellingham agreed to this wholeheartedly, after watching her niece pace round the room for several minutes, ventured to inquire what had happened during the course of the drive. Miss Grantham stopped dead her tracks, and replied in a shaking voice: `He tried to bribe me!'
'Tried to bribe you not to marry Adrian, Deb?' asked h aunt. `But how very odd of him, when you had never the lea intention of doing so! What can have put such a notion in his head?'
`I am sure I don't know, and certainly I don't care a fig replied Deborah untruthfully. `He had the insolence to off me five thousand pounds if I would relinquish my pretension - my pretensions! - to Adrian's hand and heart!'
Lady Bellingham, over whose plump countenance a hopeful expression had begun to creep, looked disappointed, she said: `Five thousand! I must say, Deb, I think that is shabby!’
`I said that I feared he was trying to trifle with me,' recounted Miss Grantham with relish.
`Well, and I am sure you could not have said anything better, my love! I declare, I did not think so meanly of him P
`Then,' continued Miss Grantham, `he said he would double that figure.'
Lady Bellingham dropped her reticule. `Ten thousand!' she exclaimed faintly. `No, never mind my reticule, Deb, it don't signify! What did you say to that?'
`I said, Paltry!’ answered Miss Grantham.
Her aunt blinked at her. `Paltry ... Would you - would you call it paltry, my love?'
`I did call it paltry. I said I would not let Adrian slip through my fingers for a mere ten thousand. I enjoyed saying that, Aunt Lizzie!’
`Yes, my dear, but - but was it wise,
do you think?'
'Pooh, what can he do, pray?' said Miss Grantham scornfully. `To be sure, he flew into as black a temper as my own, and took no pains to conceal it from me. I was excessively glad to see him so angry! He said - about Ormskirk- Oh, if I were a man, to be able to call him out, and run him through, and through, and through!'
Lady Bellingham, who appeared quite shattered, said feebly that you could not run a man through three times. `At least, I don't think so,' she added. `Of course, I never was present at a duel, but there are always seconds, you know, and they would be bound to stop you.'
`Nobody would stop me!' declared Miss Grantham bloodthirstily. `I would like to carve him into mincemeat!'
`Oh dear, I can't think where you get such unladylike notions!’ sighed her aunt. `I do trust that you did not say it?'
'No, I said that I thought I should make Adrian a famous wife. That made him angrier than ever. I thought he might very likely strangle me. However, he did not. He asked me what figure I set upon myself.'
Lady Bellingham showed a flicker of hope. `And what answer did you make to that, Deb?'
`I said I should be very green to accept less than twenty thousand!’
'Less than- My love, where are my smelling-salts? I do not feel at all the thing! Twenty thousand! It is a fortune! He must have thought you had taken leave of your senses!’
`Very likely, but he said he would pay me twenty thousand if I would release Adrian.'
Lady Bellingham sank back in her chair, holding the vinaigrette to her nose.
`So then,' concluded Miss Grantham, with reminiscent pleasure, `I said that after all I preferred to marry Adrian.'
A moan from her aunt brought her eyes round to that afflicted lady. 'Mablethorpe instead of twenty thousand pounds?' demanded her ladyship, in quavering accents. `But you told me positively you would not have him!'
'Of course I shall not!' said Miss Grantham impatiently. `At least, not unless I marry him in a fit of temper,' she added, with an irrepressible twinkle.
`Deb, either you are mad, or I am!' announced Lady Bellingham, lowering the vinaigrette. `Oh, it does not beat thinking of! We might have been free of all our difficulties I Ring the bell; I must have the hartshorn!'
Deborah looked at her in incredulous astonishment. `Aunt Eliza! You did not suppose - you could not suppose that I would allow that odious man to buy me off?' she gasped.
`Kit might have bought his exchange! Not to mention the mortgage!' mourned her ladyship.
`Kit buy his exchange out of - out of blood-money? He would prefer to sell out!’
'Well, but, my love, there is no need to call it by such an ugly name, I am sure! You do not want young Mablethorpe, after all I'
`Aunt, you would not have had me accept a bribe!'
'Not an ordinary bribe, dear Deb! Certainly not! But twenty thousand- Oh, I can't say it!'
'It was the horridest insult I have ever received!' said Deborah hotly.
`You can't call a sum like that an insult!' protested her ladyship. `If only you would not be so impulsive! Think of poor dear Kit! He is coming home on leave too, and he says he has fallen in love. Was ever anything so unfortunate? It is all very well to talk of insults, but one must be practical, Deb! Seventy pounds for green peas, and here you are throwing twenty thousand to the winds! And the end of it will be that you will fall into Ormskirk's hands! I can see it all! The only comfort I have is that I shall very likely die before it happens, because I can feel my spasms coming on already.'
She closed her eyes as she spoke, apparently resigning herself to her approaching end. Miss Grantham said defiantly: `I am not in the least sorry. I will make him sorry he ever dared to think I was the kind of creature who would entrap a silly boy into marrying me!’
This announcement roused Lady Bellingham to open her eyes again, and to say in a bewildered way: `But you told me you said you would marry him!'
'I said so to Ravenscar. That is nothing!'
'But I don't see how he can help thinking it if you told him
So!’
`Yes, and I told him also, that I meant to set up my own faro-bank when I am Lady Mablethorpe,' nodded Miss Grantham, dwelling fondly on these recollections. `And I said I should change everything at Mablethorpe. He looked as though he would have liked to hit me!'
Lady Bellingham regarded her with a fascinated stare. `Deb, you were not - you were not vulgar?'
`Yes, I was. I was as vulgar as I could be, and I shall be more vulgar presently!'
`But why?' almost shrieked her ladyship.
Miss Grantham swallowed, blushed, and said in a small-girl voice: `To teach him a lesson!’
Lady Bellingham sank back again. `But what is the use of teaching people lessons? Besides, I cannot conceive what he is to learn from such behaviour! I do hope, my dearest love, that you have not got a touch of the sun! I do not know how you can be so odd!’
`Well, it is to punish him,' said Miss Grantham, goaded. `He will not like it at all when he hears that Adrian is going to marry me. I dare say he will try to do something quite desperate.'
`Offer you more money?' asked Lady Bellingham, once more reviving.
`If he offered me a hundred thousand pounds I would fling it in his face!' declared Miss Grantham.
`Deb,' said her aunt earnestly, `it is sacrilege to talk like that! What -what, you unnatural girl, is to become of me? Only remember that odious bill from Priddy's, and the wheatstraw, and the new barouche!’
'I know, Aunt Lizzie,' said Deborah, conscience-stricken. `But indeed I could not!'
'You will have to marry Mablethorpe,' said Lady Bellingham despairingly.
`No, I won't'
`My head goes round and round!' complained her aunt, pressing a hand to her brow. `First you say that Ravenscar will be sorry when he hears you are to marry Mablethorpe, and now you say you won't marry him!'
'I shall pretend that I am about to marry him,' explained Miss Grantham. `Of course I shall not do so in the end!'
`Well!' exclaimed Lady Bellingham. `That is shabby treatment indeed! I declare it would be quite shocking to serve the poor boy such a trick P
Miss Grantham looked guilty, and twisted her ribbons. `Yes, but I don't think that he will mind, Aunt Lizzie. In fact, I dare say he will be glad to be rid of me presently, because ten to one he will fall in love with someone else, and I assure you I don't mean to be kind to him! And in any event,' she added, with a flash of spirit, `it serves him right for having such an abominable cousin’
CHAPTER 6
When Lord Mablethorpe was admitted to the house in St James's Square
, he was quite as much surprised as delighted to find Miss Grantham in a most encouraging mood. He was so accustomed to her laughing at him, and teasing him for his adoration of her, that he could scarcely believe his ears when, in response to his usual protestations of undying love, she allowed him to take her hand, and to press hot kisses on to her veined wrist.
`Oh, Deb, my lovely one, my dearest! If you would only marry me!’ he said, in a thickened voice.
She touched his curly, cropped head caressingly. `Perhaps I will, Adrian.'
He was transported with rapture immediately, and caught her in his arms. `Deb! Deb, you are not funning? You mean it?’
She set her hands against his chest, holding him off a little. He was so young, and so absurdly vulnerable, that she felt compunction stir in her breast, and might have abandoned this way of punishing his cousin had she not recalled Ravenscar's prediction that this youthful ardour would not last. She knew enough of striplings to be reasonably sure that this was true; and indeed wondered if it would even endure for two months. So she let him kiss her, which he did rather inexpertly, and gave him to understand that she was perfectly serious.
He began at once to make plans for the future. These included a scheme for a secret wedding to be performed immediately, and it took Deborah some time to convince him that such hole-in-corner behaviour was not to be contemplated fo
r an instant. He had a great many arguments to put forward in support of his plan, but was presently brought to abandon it, on the score of its being very uncomplimentary to his bride. This notion, once delicately instilled into his brain, bore instant fruit. He was resolved to follow no course that could suggest to his world that he was in any way ashamed of Miss Grantham. At the same time, he continued to be urgent with Deborah to permit him to announce their betrothal in the columns of the London Gazette, and was with difficulty restrained from running off to arrange for the insertion of his advertisement then and there. Miss Grantham would not hear of it. She pointed out that, as a minor, it would lie in the power of his mother to contradict the advertisement in the next issue of the paper. He agreed to it that this would be very bad, and was obliged to admit that Lady Mablethorpe would be quite likely to take such prompt and humiliating action. But he thought it would be proper to advise his relations of the impending marriage, and begged Deborah's permission to do so. She was half-inclined to refuse it, but a suspicion that Lady Mablethorpe had probably been behind Mr Ravenscar's abominable conduct induced her to relent. She said that Adrian might tell his mother, but in strict confidence.
`I dare say there will be a great deal of unpleasantness,' she pointed out, `and you would not wish to lay me open to anything of that nature, would you?'
No, indeed! He wished nothing less. She was right, as always. 'Only, Deb, I should like to tell Max. You will not object to that?'
`Not in the least!' said Deborah, with quite unnecessary emphasis. `I wish you will tell him!’
'Oh, that is famous t' he said, catching her hand to his lips again. `I knew you could not mind Max's knowing! In point of fact, he knows my feelings: he is a good fellow, Max! He always gets me out of scrapes, you know, and he don't preach like my uncle. I always tell him things.'
`Oh!’ said Miss Grantham.
`You will like him excessively,' his lordship assured her. `He is quite my best friend. He is one of my trustees, you know.'
`Oh!’ said Miss Grantham again.