Into the room stepped a vision of loveliness. The Duke caught his breath, and stood staring. His cousin Matthew had certainly spoken of Belinda’s beauty, but he had not prepared him for anything as superb as the creature who now stood on the threshold, regarding him out of eyes so large, so innocent, and of so deep and translucent a blue as to make his senses swim for a dizzy moment. He closed his own eyes involuntarily, and opened them again to make sure that they had not deceived him. They had not. He beheld a veritable beauty. A face of rose-leaf complexion was framed in a cascade of guinea-gold curls, artlessly bound with a ribbon of scarcely a deeper blue than those glorious eyes; the brows were delicately arched; the little nose classically straight; the wistful mouth, with its short upper-lip, as kissable as it was perfect in proportion.
The Duke swallowed once, and waited. That melting gaze widened a little as it rested on him, but the lady said nothing.
‘Did not Mr Ware promise you marriage, my love?’ said Mr Liversedge, closing the door, and bending solicitously over the vision.
‘Yes,’ said the vision, in a soft, west-country voice. ‘Oh, yes!’
If the Duke had been dizzy before, his senses now reeled. He could think of nothing to say. He wondered, for an unreasoning instant, if those tender blue eyes could be sightless, since he resembled his cousin hardly at all. But when he stared into them he saw a sort of speculation in their gaze, and knew that they were not.
‘And did he not write you letters, my love, which you very properly gave to me, promising that he would make you his wife?’ prompted Mr Liversedge.
‘Oh, yes, he did!’ corroborated Belinda, smiling angelically at the Duke, and affording him an entrancing glimpse of even teeth, gleaming like pearls between her parted lips.
Mr Liversedge spoke in a voice of studied patience. ‘Were you not completely taken-in, my dear child? Was it not a crushing blow to you when he declared off, and left you forsaken?’
Under the Duke’s bemused stare, the smile left Belinda’s face, and two large tears welled over, and rolled down her cheeks. ‘Yes, it was,’ she said, in a voice that would have wrung pity from Herod. ‘He said I should have a purple silk dress when we was married.’
Mr Liversedge interposed rather hastily, patting one dimpled hand. ‘To be sure, yes, and other things too! And now you have none of them!’
‘No,’ agreed Belinda dolefully. ‘But I shall be paid a vast sum of money for being so taken-in, and then I may have a –’
‘Yes, my love, yes!’ interrupted Mr Liversedge. ‘You are upset, and no wonder! I would not have brought you face to face with Mr Ware, who has so grossly deceived you, but that he doubted the depth of the wound he had dealt you. I will not compel you to remain another instant in the same room with him, for I know it to be painful to you. Go, my love, and trust your uncle to care for your interests!’
He opened the door for her, and after another of her wide, innocent looks at the Duke, she dropped a curtsy, and withdrew.
Mr Liversedge shut the door upon her, and turned to find the Duke standing still rooted to the spot, and lost in astonishment. He said: ‘Ah, Mr Ware, I perceive that you are confounded!’
‘Yes,’ said Gilly faintly. ‘That is – Good God, sir, what are you about to keep such a lovely creature in this noisome alehouse?’
‘No one,’ said Mr Liversedge, ‘could regret the unhappy necessity more than I do! Alas, sir, when the pockets are to let, one has little choice of domicile! But I feel it! I assure you that I feel it profoundly! Your solicitude does you honour, Mr Ware, and I trust it will be unnecessary for me to say more in prosecution of –’
‘Mr Liversedge,’ interrupted the Duke, ‘you ask me to believe that you hold some two or three letters I was mad enough to write to your niece, and for these you are demanding the preposterous sum of five thousand pounds! I may deplore your choice of domicile, but this cannot affect the point of issue between us!’
‘Five letters, Mr Ware,’ sighed Mr Liversedge deprecatingly. ‘And each of them worth the very moderate price I have set upon them! I daresay your memory may not be quite perfect. And so prettily expressed as your billets are! I will refresh your memory, if you will permit me! Pray be seated, sir! I should not wish you to feel that there was the least deception: five letters, and you recalled but three! Now, if I were not a man of honour, Mr Ware, I might have allowed that to pass! You would have bought them from me, and thought yourself rid of the whole business! And I might then have driven a bargain with you for the remaining two! I know of those who would have done so. Yes, indeed, sir, I assure you there are many such shabby tricksters in the world. But Swithin Liversedge is not to be counted amongst them! Do but take your seat, and you shall see the letters with your own eyes! You may have them for a paltry sum. I will engage myself to give them up to you on receipt of bills for five thousand pounds.’
The Duke sat down again at the table, opposite to his host, in a drooping posture that, while it might deceive Liversedge into believing him to be overcome by consternation, enabled him to get his hands under the table-edge undetected. ‘You have the letters!’ he uttered.
‘Yes, Mr Ware, yes!’ beamed Liversedge. ‘You shall count them!’
He put his hand into the breast of his coat as he spoke, and as he glanced down, the Duke gripped the ledge of the table, and drove it violently forward. It caught Mr Liversedge all unawares, and full in the midriff. He uttered a sound between a grunt and a shout, tried to save himself, and failed. His chair tipped backwards, and he fell, snatching fruitlessly at the red table-cloth. In the same instant, the Duke, releasing the table, whipped the pistol from his pocket, and thumbed back the hammer. ‘Now, Mr Liversedge!’ he said, panting a little, for the table was a heavy one, and had taken all his strength to thrust forward. ‘Don’t move! I am held to be a very fair shot!’
But the command was unnecessary. As he looked down at the portly frame at his feet, he saw that Mr Liversedge was incapable of moving. His head had struck against the iron fender, and not only was a sluggish trickle of blood oozing from his scalp, but he was insensible. Mechanically, the Duke’s left hand went to his pistol and grasped the hammer. He pressed the trigger, as Captain Belper had taught him to do, and gently released the hammer, easing it down. Still holding the pistol in his hand, he dropped on his knee beside Liversedge, and slipped his left hand into the breast of his coat. A slim package had been already half drawn from an inner pocket. He pulled it out, and swiftly assured himself that it did indeed contain some half a dozen letters directed in Matthew’s hand. It was characteristic of him that before he rose to his feet he slid a hand over Mr Liversedge’s heart. It was beating rather faintly, but there was no doubt that its owner still lived. The Duke hauled his inanimate body, not without difficulty, clear of the grate, and rose to his feet. As he did so, the door opened, and he turned swiftly, his pistol at the ready, his thumb on the hammer. But he did not pull it back a second time. Belinda stood on the threshold, looking in wide-eyed surprise at her uncle’s prostrate form.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Is he dead?’
‘No,’ the Duke replied. He crossed the floor to her side, and shut the door. ‘He will recover: this is only a swoon! What made you hold your peace just now? You know I am not Matthew Ware!’
‘Oh, yes!’ she replied, smiling at him happily. ‘You are not at all like Mr Ware! He is much bigger than you, and more handsome too. I liked Mr Ware. He said he would give me –’
‘Why did you not inform your uncle of his mistake? What made you accept me as you did?’
‘Uncle Swithin doesn’t like it when I dispute with him,’ she explained. ‘He said I was to say just what he told me, and I should have a purple silk gown.’
‘Oh!’ said the Duke, a good deal taken aback. ‘I am excessively obliged to you, and if a purple silk gown is what you desire I would I could give you one! How old are y
ou?’
‘I think I shall soon be seventeen,’ she answered.
‘You think! But you know when you have a birthday, surely?’
‘No,’ said Belinda regretfully. ‘Uncle Swithin’s head is cut open.’
This remark seemed to be more in the nature of a statement than a reproach, but the Duke, glancing down at Mr Liversedge’s form, saw that his pallid countenance was ghastly in hue, and felt a certain measure of compunction. He did not think that Mr Liversedge was in much danger of bleeding to death, but he did not desire his death, and thought, moreover, that his own position might be awkward if this should happen. He bent over him again, and bound his own handkerchief round his head, saying: ‘When I am gone, you may summon help, but pray do not do so until then!’
‘No,’ said Belinda obediently. ‘I wish you was not going! Where did you come from?’
Her unconcern with her uncle’s plight made the Duke laugh in spite of himself. ‘I did not drop from a balloon, I assure you! I came from Baldock, and I think it is time that I returned there. Your uncle will be recovering in a moment, and since I do not care for the look of his friends belowstairs, I think I had best depart before he can summon them to his aid.’
‘Mr Mimms is very disagreeable,’ she observed. She raised her lovely eyes to his face, and said simply: ‘I wish you would take me with you, sir!’
‘Indeed, I wish I might!’ he said. ‘I am very sorry to leave you in such a place. Were you fond of my – of Mr Ware?’
‘Oh, yes!’ she replied, a soft glow in her eyes. ‘He was a very pretty-behaved gentleman, and when we were married he said I should have jewels, and a purple silk gown.’
The thought that his young cousin had wounded anyone so young and so beautiful had been troubling the Duke, but this artless speech considerably allayed his qualms. He smiled, and, colouring a little, said: ‘Forgive me – I have very little money in my pocket, but if your heart is set upon a silk gown – I do not know about such matters, but will you take this bill and buy yourself what you like?’
He had been half afraid that she might be offended, but she smiled in a dazzling way at him, and accepted the note he was holding out. ‘Thank you!’ she said. ‘I had never any money to spend of my own before! I think you are quite as handsome as Mr Ware!’
He laughed. ‘No, no, that is flattery, I fear! But I must not stay! Good-bye! Pray do not – let your uncle use you again as he has done!’
He caught up his hat from the table, cast a final glance at Mr Liversedge, who was beginning to recover his complexion, and went swiftly out of the room, and down the stairs. Belinda sighed regretfully, and looked in a doubtful way at her guardian. In a few more moments he groaned, and opened his eyes. They were blurred at first, but they cleared gradually. He put a hand first to his cracked skull, and then, instinctively, to his inner pocket. Then he groaned again, and enunciated thickly: ‘Lost!’
Belinda, a kind-hearted girl, perceiving that he was striving to pick himself up, helped him into a chair. ‘Your head is broke,’ she informed him.
‘I know that!’ said Mr Liversedge, tenderly feeling his skull. ‘That I should have been floored by a greenhorn! For God’s sake, girl, don’t stand there with your mouth half-cocked! Fetch me the brandy-bottle from the cupboard! Why did you not call Joe, silly wench? Five thousand pounds gone in the flash of an eye!’
Belinda brought him the brandy, and he recruited his strength by a generous pull at the bottle. His colour was by now much more healthy, but his spirits were sadly overborne.
‘Done by a gudgeon!’ he said gloomily. ‘Done by a miserable, undersized sapskull that has no more wits than to talk of marriage to the first pretty wench he meets! I was never more betwattled in my life! If I could but get my hands on your precious Mr Matthew Ware –’
‘Oh, it wasn’t Mr Ware!’ said Belinda sunnily.
Mr Liversedge raised his aching head from between his hands and stared at her in blear-eyed surprise. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘Did you say it was not Mr Ware?’
‘Oh, no! Mr Ware is a much prettier young gentleman,’ said Belinda. ‘He is tall, and handsome, and –’
‘Then who the devil was he?’ interrupted Mr Liversedge incredulously.
‘I don’t know. He did not say what his name was, and I didn’t think to ask him,’ replied Belinda, rather regretfully.
Mr Liversedge hoisted himself out of his chair with an effort. ‘My God, what have I done to be saddled with such a fool?’ he exclaimed. ‘If he was not Ware, why – why, girl, could you not have told me so?’
‘I didn’t know you would wish me to,’ said Belinda innocently. ‘You said I must say just what you told me, and you don’t like it if I don’t obey you. And I like him quite as well as Mr Ware,’ she added consolingly.
Mr Liversedge boxed her ears.
Eleven
The Duke returned to Baldock in high fettle. For one who had never before fended for himself, he had managed the affair, he thought, pretty well. Matthew’s letters were safely tucked into his pocket; he had not paid Mr Liversedge a farthing for them; and he had not had recourse to Manton’s pistol. Even Gideon could hardly have done better. In fact, Gideon would probably not have done as well, since Mr Liversedge, confronted by his formidable size and extremely purposeful manner, would undoubtedly have conducted himself far more warily. Gilly was too modest not to realise that the success of his stratagem must be largely attributed to his lack of inches, and his quite unalarming appearance. Mr Liversedge had palpably summed him up as a scared boy within one minute of his having entered his parlour, and had not thought it necessary to be upon his guard. That had not been very wise of Mr Liversedge, but Gilly was inclined to suspect that for all the breadth and scope of his visions, Mr Liversedge was not a rogue of any great mental attainment. However, be that as it might, Gilly had scarcely expected to have succeeded so well, and he thought he had a very good right to feel in charity with himself. Nothing now remained to do but to burn Matthew’s letters, set Matthew’s anxious mind at rest, and go back to London with Tom next day. In his present mood he was rather sorry to have no excuse for absenting himself any longer from his household. Certain aspects of his stolen journey had not been altogether comfortable, but on the whole he had enjoyed himself very well, and he had derived a good deal of satisfaction from the discovery that he was not as helpless as he had feared he might be.
This mood of gentle elation suffered a set-back upon his arrival at the White Horse. The inn appeared to have become the focus of interest in the town, for a large and motley crowd was gathered before it, in the centre of which the impressive figure of the town-beadle seemed to be haranguing heated and flustered Mrs Appleby. Then the Duke perceived that one of the beadle’s ham-like hands was grasping young Mr Mamble by the coat-collar, and a sense of foreboding crept over him. He drew up, and prepared to step down from the gig.
Nearly everyone was too much absorbed in the strife raging between the beadle, Mrs Appleby, a weedy man in a black suit, a farmer with a red face, and a stout lady in a mob-cap, whose voice was even shriller than Mrs Appleby’s, to have any attention to spare for the arrival of a gig; but the melancholy waiter, who had been surveying the scene with the gloomy satisfaction of one who has foreseen trouble from the outset, chanced to look up as the Duke rose from the driving-seat, and exclaimed: ‘Ah, here is the gentleman!’
The effect of these simple words was slightly overwhelming. Tom, taking advantage of an involuntary slackening of the grip on his collar, twisted himself free, and thrust his way through the crowd, crying thankfully: ‘Oh, sir! Oh, Mr Rufford!’
He had scarcely reached the Duke’s side, and clutched his arm, when Mrs Appleby had seized the other arm, saying indignantly: ‘Thank goodness you’ve come, sir! Such goings-on as I never saw, and me not knowing which way to turn!’
‘Hif you are the cove as
is responsible for this young varmint,’ said the beadle, reaching the Duke a bare fifteen seconds later than Mrs Appleby, ‘hit is my dooty to inform you –’
The rest of this pronouncement was lost in the instant hubbub that arose. The weedy man, the farmer, and the lady in the mob-cap all broke into impassioned speech. The Duke, stunned by Mrs Appleby’s voice in one ear, and Tom’s in the other, begged them to speak to him one at a time, but was not attended to. Various members of the crowd thought it incumbent upon them to take sides in the dispute, and for a few minutes the fragments of their observations reached the Duke in a confused medley. Such phrases as he caught could not be regarded as other than ominous. The words ‘lock-up house’ – ‘upsetting of the Mail’ – and ‘a-smashing of Mr Badby’s good cart’ were being freely bandied about; and whereas one half of the crowd seemed disposed to take a lenient view of whatever it was that Tom had done, the other and more vociferous half was urgent with the beadle for his immediate transportation.
‘I didn’t! I did not!’ Tom asserted passionately. ‘Oh, sir, pray tell them I did not!’
‘Sir!’ began the beadle portentously.
‘Mr Rufford, sir, do you make him attend, for listen to me he will not!’ besought Mrs Appleby.
A sudden lull fell, and the Duke realised with dismay that everyone, with the exception of the beadle, was looking at him in the evident expectation that he would instantly take command of the situation. He had never regretted the absence of his entourage more. He even wished that his Uncle Lionel could have been suddenly and miraculously wafted to the scene. The very sight of Lord Lionel’s imposing figure and aristocratic visage would be enough to cause the crowd to disperse, while any well-trained footman would have cleaved a way for his Grace in a fashion haughty enough to have quelled even the beadle. But the Duke found himself bereft of all whose business in life it was to shield him from contact with the vulgar herd, and was obliged to fend once more for himself. He contrived to shake off the two frenzied grips on his arms, and to say in his usual gentle way: ‘Pray let us go into the house! And do not, I beg of you, all talk to me at once, for I can distinguish nothing that you say!’