‘But what is this?’ demanded Lady Albinia, greatly bewildered.
‘You may well ask!’ he replied. ‘I hope you mean to enlighten us, Letty: who is the Nobody your fancy has marked down as my bride?’
‘You know very well that I mean the girl who was knocked down in Bond Street, that day you and I were going to Hookham’s Library! You may try to hoax me, but I know why you have been so obliging as to escort me to Almack’s three times this month, and why you have taken to driving your phaeton in the Park every afternoon! You are trying to find her, because you were so much struck by the sweetest face you ever beheld that you lost your wits, and never even discovered what was her name!’
Lady Albinia turned astonished eyes towards her son. He uttered a short laugh. ‘One of Letty’s high flights, ma’am! The truth is merely that some girl had the misfortune to be knocked down by a curricle and pair, and I rendered her such assistance as lay within my power. Had she come by her deserts, she must have suffered serious injury. Happily, she was merely stunned for a minute. I trust that the incident has served to convince her of the folly of stepping into the road before ascertaining that no vehicle is at that moment approaching.’
Letty, who had listened to this speech with growing indignation, exclaimed: ‘How can you, Giles? When you carried her into the Library, and sent me running to a chemist’s shop, and told the man in the curricle, in the rudest way, that he was unfit even to drive a donkey! Yes, and if the girl would have permitted it you would have conveyed her to her home, and abandoned me in the middle of Bond Street!’
‘Had the girl not been accompanied by a servant, I dare say I should have done so,’ he replied coolly. ‘I collect that this rodomontade is designed to divert my attention from your evident purpose. Understand me, Letty, I will not permit you to go to a Pantheon masquerade under any circumstances whatsoever, least of all in the company of an unknown officer of Foot!’ He glanced down at his parent, and added: ‘I must say, ma’am, I am amazed that you could sanction so improper a scheme!’
Lady Albinia had recourse to her vinaigrette. ‘But, indeed, Giles, you do not perfectly understand how it was to be! The thing is that Mr Ledbury’s married sister was to have escorted Letty. She was so civil as to write a letter to me, just as she ought, assuring me that she would take every care of her. There is to be a little party, and Letty is invited to dine at this Mrs Crewe’s house before going to the Pantheon. But, of course, if you do not quite like it, I am persuaded she will give up the project!’
‘No! No!’ said Letty hotly.
‘If you have a grain of common-sense, you will!’ said her brother. ‘Recollect that for two years to come you are in my wardship! Banish this new swain of yours from your thoughts, for if you do not I give you fair warning I shall find the means to compel you!’ He paused, looking rather grimly at the stormy countenance upraised to his. After a moment, his own face softened, and he said: ‘Come, Letty, don’t be a goosecap! Indeed, these masquerades are not at all the thing! Be a good girl, and I will take you instead to the play!’
3
Mr Wrexham, withdrawing, left his sister mutinous, and his mother in a flutter of apprehension. To Letty’s diatribe she could find nothing better to say than: ‘Yes, indeed, my love, but you know how it is with Giles! I told you how it would be! He will never suffer you to marry a Nobody!’
‘I will not be browbeaten by Giles!’ said Letty. ‘I know very well he means me to marry to oblige him – Rothbury, I daresay! – but I won’t do it! I know that I shall never love anyone but Edwin!’
Lady Albinia uttered distressful sounds. ‘My love, do not say so! He will never let you throw yourself away like that! And I must say I think it was most imprudent of you, Letty, to set up his back with that nonsensical story!’
‘Mama, I vow to you that he was so much struck by the girl that I scarce knew him for my own brother! And he did say that she had the sweetest face he ever beheld!’
‘Very likely, my love, but you must know that such fancies are common amongst gentlemen, and they do not lead to marriage! If you imagine that was in his head, you are a great goose! He has more pride even than his sainted papa, and he, you know – Well, never mind that! But the Wrexhams always make good marriages. It has grown to be quite a habit with them!’
Letty said no more, but went away, carrying the domino over her arm.
Mr Wrexham, meanwhile, had left the house. He did not return to it until shortly before seven o’clock, when he was greeted by the staggering tidings that Miss Letty, so far from being in her dressing-room, had driven away in a hackney a few minutes earlier.
‘To what address?’ asked Mr Wrexham, in a voice of dangerous calm.
Never had the butler been more thankful to be able to disclaim all responsibility for his young mistress’s actions. None of the servants had been employed to summon the hackney; and but for the accident of one of the abigails looking out of a window just as Miss Letty was stepping up into the vehicle, no one would have known that she had gone out.
Mr Wrexham went up to Lady Albinia’s dressing-room two steps at a time. He found her resting upon a sofa, and, with a total disregard for her nerves, demanded to be told whether she was aware that her daughter had left the house in a manner which he did not scruple to call clandestine.
Her face of shocked dismay was answer enough. Curbing a strong inclination to animadvert severely upon the negligence that had made it possible for Letty to steal from the house, Mr Wrexham curtly requested his parent to furnish him with Mrs Crewe’s direction.
‘Giles!’ protested her ladyship. ‘You cannot wrest your sister away from a dinner-party!’
‘Oh, yes, I can!’ retorted Mr Wrexham.
Lady Albinia, perceiving that he was in a towering rage, sank back against her cushions, and said in a dying voice: ‘I can feel a spasm coming on!’
‘Furnish me with Mrs Crewe’s direction, ma’am, and I will leave you to enjoy it in private!’
‘But I don’t know it!’ wailed her ladyship, almost beyond human aid. ‘I never kept her letter, for why should I? And I don’t recall the direction, though I am sure it was perfectly respectable, for if it had not been I must have noticed it!’
Controlling himself with a visible effort, Mr Wrexham strode from the room.
He dined alone, the butler informing him that her ladyship had bespoken a bowl of broth in her dressing-room. Since this was his mother’s invariable custom, whenever she was confronted by a disagreeable situation, Mr Wrexham was neither surprised nor alarmed. He ate his dinner in frowning silence, and then went upstairs to his room, and rang for his valet. Less than an hour later, clad in the satin knee-breeches and black coat that betokened a gentleman of fashion on his way to an evening party, he left the house, a half-mask in his pocket, and an old black domino, unearthed from the recesses of his wardrobe, over his arm.
4
The Pantheon, which was on the south side of Oxford Street, was a magnificent structure, decorated in a style which rendered it obnoxious to the eye of the fastidious. It comprised a large suite of saloons, and a ballroom, which was a huge rectangular hall, with a painted ceiling, a raised platform for the musicians, and numerous boxes and alcoves. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and from every Gothic arch which lined the room; all was gilding and glitter. Originally, it had been patronized by members of the haut ton, but when the first building was burnt to the ground, and a new structure erected, the company became so far from select that Mr Wrexham had every excuse for forbidding his sister to be seen there.
Although the hour was early when he arrived there, the ballroom was already full of a motley crowd of persons, some in dominoes, some in historical costume, all masked, and many behaving with the license encouraged by the wearing of disguises. After watching a quadrille for a few minutes, Mr Wrexham decided that his sister had not yet arrived,
for although he could see two ladies in pink dominoes one was by far too tall, and the other had pushed back the hood of her domino to show a head of yellow curls. He began to stroll through the saloons, successfully resisting the efforts of two ladies of Covent Garden notoriety to beguile him into dalliance.
It was nearly an hour later, when the revelry was becoming a trifle indecorous, that he suddenly saw Letty. She had her hood drawn over her head, but he caught a glimpse of dusky curls, and recognized her little trim figure. She was waltzing with a large man in a purple domino, and the only circumstance which afforded her brother some slight degree of satisfaction was her obvious lack of pleasure in the exercise. Leaning his broad shoulders against one of the decorated pillars, and folding his arms across his chest, he watched her circle round the room, and very soon realized that her partner (whom he suspected of being slightly foxed) was subjecting her to a form of gallantry which was extremely unwelcome. He thought it would be a salutory lesson to her, and had almost made up his mind not to intervene for a little while, when she suddenly broke away from her partner, and hurried off the floor, hotly pursued. Mr Wrexham, shouldering his way through the loungers at the side of the hall, reached her just as Purple Domino caught her round the waist, saying with a laugh: ‘You shan’t escape me thus, pretty prude!’
Mr Wrexham, setting a hand on his shoulder, swung him aside. A glance at his sister showed him that she was shaking like a leaf; he was afraid that she might be going to faint, and pushed her into the alcove behind her, saying briefly: ‘Sit down!’
At the sound of his voice she jumped under his hand, and gave a gasp.
‘Yes, my girl, it is I!’ said Mr Wrexham very dryly indeed, and turned to confront Purple Domino.
In a voice which bore out Mr Wrexham’s previous estimate of his condition, Purple Domino demanded to know what the devil he meant by it.
‘I mean,’ said Mr Wrexham, ‘that unless you remove yourself within one minute, my fine buck, I shall have the greatest pleasure in supplying you with a little of the home-brewed!’
Purple Domino recoiled instinctively, but recovered, and said in a blustering tone: ‘Damme, what right have you to spoil sport?’
‘Let me inform you,’ said Mr Wrexham, ‘that I am this lady’s brother!’
‘B-brother?’ echoed Purple Domino, in a dazed voice. ‘But I didn’t – Curse you, how was I to know?’
He stood staring through the slits of his mask for a moment, in an undecided way, and then, muttering something indistinguishable, took himself off.
Mr Wrexham felt a hand touch his sleeve. He drew it through his arm. It was trembling so much that instead of uttering the blistering words hovering on his tongue, he merely said: ‘You see, Letty, I am not quite so gothic as you think me. Come, I am going to take you home now, and we will forget this military suitor of yours!’
She did not answer, but went meekly with him to the entrance-hall. It was deserted, save for the porter. Mr Wrexham said: ‘I sent the carriage home, so I must procure a hack. Go and put on your cloak! There is no need to be in a quake: I am not an ogre!’
5
‘No,’ said the Pink Domino, in a shaken voice. ‘But I – I am not your sister, sir!’
He had turned away, but at this he wheeled about, startled, staring at her. With an impatient movement he ripped off his mask, and it was to be seen that he was suddenly very pale, his eyes fiercely intent upon her face. ‘Take off your mask!’ he commanded imperatively. ‘I know your voice! Surely I know your voice?’
She put up her hands to untie the strings of her mask. ‘I knew yours,’ she said simply. ‘You – you are always rescuing me from the consequences of my folly, sir!’
He found himself gazing into the sweetest face he had ever beheld. It was heart-shaped, possessed of a pair of smiling grey eyes, which met his shyly yet frankly, and of a tender, generous mouth. Oblivious of the porter’s bored presence, he grasped her hands, ejaculating: ‘You! Oh, my little love, where have you been hiding yourself? I have searched everywhere for you! Such a zany as I was never to have discovered even your name!’
She blushed, and her gaze fell. ‘I don’t know yours either, sir,’ she said, trying to speak lightly.
‘I am Giles Wrexham. And you?’
It meant nothing to her; she replied: ‘Ruth Welborne. I have not been in hiding, only, when I met you before I was still in mourning for my father, and so, you see, I have not till now gone into society. Did you indeed look for me?’
‘Everywhere!’ he declared, still grasping her hands. ‘I had abandoned hope! Where do you live? Let me not lose you again!’
She gave a little laugh. ‘How absurd you are! In Harley Street, with my uncle, who was kind enough to take me into his family when my father died.’
He had never encountered a Welborne; from the direction it seemed probable that her uncle might be a banker, or a merchant, or an Indian nabob. His brain fleetingly acknowledged the possibility, and discarded it as a matter of no consequence. ‘But what, in God’s name, are you doing at a Pantheon masquerade?’ he demanded. ‘In such company, too! Do you tell me that your uncle brought you here?’
‘Oh, no, no!’ she said quickly. ‘Indeed, I do not think that he or my aunt knew just how it would be, for they do not go into society much.’
‘Then how comes it about that you are here?’
She did not seem to resent the question, but it was a moment before she answered it. She said then, with a little difficulty: ‘It was a party of Sir Godfrey Claines’s contriving. He is the man in the purple domino. A cousin of his, a Mrs Worksop, invited me, and my aunt wished me not to refuse. You see, sir, I – I have not the advantage of fortune, and my aunt has three daughters of her own, the eldest of whom she will bring out next year. It would not be reasonable to suppose that she would desire to be saddled with me under such circumstances.’
‘I understand you!’ he said, tightly holding her hands.
She had lowered her eyes, but she raised them at that, and said: ‘Ah, you are not to be thinking that I have met with unkindness! It is not so! I was bred in the country, and perhaps I am missish in not liking – But I was never more thankful in my life, sir, than when you came to my rescue just now!’
He released her hands at last. ‘Go and put on your cloak!’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘I will take you back to your uncle’s house.’
‘Mrs Worksop!’ she faltered. ‘Ought I not –’
‘No. She did not take such care of you that you owe her a particle of civility.’
‘Your sister! I collect that she too is present. I must not –’
‘It is of no consequence,’ he interrupted. ‘If she is here, it is not under my protection! Come, do as I bid you! Do you think I mean to let you slip through my fingers again?’
6
‘Surely I must be dreaming!’ Ruth said, as the hack drew to a standstill. ‘I thought I should never see you again, and now – ! But how can it be? You do not know me!’
‘I am very sure that I do. As for my own mind, I knew that the instant you opened your dear eyes, that day in Bond Street, and looked up into my face.’
‘It was so with you too!’ she said wonderingly.
He kissed her hand, and let it go. ‘It was so. Come, we must get out of this musty coach, and brave your uncle and aunt!’
‘Good heavens, you will not tell them – ? They must think you mad! Pray do not – !’
‘No, not tonight,’ he said reassuringly, assisting her to alight.
‘I fear my aunt may be much displeased with me,’ she said. ‘Should you perhaps leave me now?’
‘No. Nor, I fancy, will your aunt be displeased,’ he replied.
The master of the house, they were informed by the servant who admitted them, was still at his club, but Mrs Welborne was at home, and in the dr
awing-room.
They found her deep in the pages of the newest marble-backed novel from the Circulating Library. Taken unawares, she looked up in surprise, and exclaimed: ‘Good God, Ruth, what in the world brings you home so soon? I declare, you are the most vexatious –’ She stopped short, her gaze travelling past Ruth to Mr Wrexham. One instant she sat with her jaw dropping, then she cast aside her novel and sprang up, a look compound of amazement and delight transfiguring her sharp countenance. ‘Oh – ! Surely I cannot be mistaken? Is it not – Mr Wrexham?’
He bowed. ‘Yes, I am Wrexham, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I made the acquaintance of Miss Welborne a month and more ago, in Bond Street, as she may have told you.’
Her face was a study. ‘In Bond Street! You were the gentleman who – ? Good God, Ruth, why did you not inform me? I am sure, sir, that had we but known my husband would have called on you to convey the sense of his obligation!’
Mr Wrexham, inured to flattery, and never famed for his social graces, cut her short, saying in his incisive way: ‘It is of no consequence, ma’am. What is of consequence is that I have brought Miss Welborne home this evening because I found her where no young lady of quality should be, and being subjected to such embarrassment as, I am persuaded, you would not wish her to be obliged to endure.’
‘No, indeed! I am sure, if I had had the least notion –’
‘Just so, ma’am. I am sure that I need not enlarge upon this topic. May I beg that you will give me leave to call tomorrow to see how Miss Welborne does?’
She was wreathed in smiles. ‘We shall be most happy, sir!’
‘Thank you. I shall hope to have the felicity of finding Mr Welborne at home, for there is something I wish to say to him.’
‘He shall be at home!’ declared Mrs Welborne.
He bowed again, and turned from her to Ruth, who had been listening in bewilderment to her aunt’s affability. He held out his hand, and she put hers into it, as though compelled. He raised it to his lips. ‘Have I your permission to visit you tomorrow?’ he asked, smiling into her wondering eyes.