Arabella Read online

  The Honourable Mrs Penkridge, calling on her dear friend for the express purpose of bidding her and her protégée to a select Musical Soirée, and explaining, with apologies, how it was due to the stupidity of a secretary that her card of invitation had not reached her long since, spoke in even warmer terms of Arabella. ‘Charming! quite charming!’ she declared, bestowing her frosted smile upon Lady Bridlington. ‘She will throw all our beauties into the shade! That simplicity is so particularly pleasing! You are to be congratulated!’

  However perplexed Lady Bridlington might be by this speech, issuing, as it did, from the lips of one famed as much for her haughtiness as for her acid tongue, it seemed at least to dispose of the suspicion roused in her mind by Lady Somercote’s visit. The Penkridges were a childless couple. Lady Bridlington, on whom Mrs Penkridge had more than once passed some contemptuous criticism, was not well-enough acquainted with her to know that almost the only sign of human emotion she had ever been seen to betray was her doting fondness for her nephew, Mr Horace Epworth.

  This elegant gentleman, complete to a point as regards side-whiskers, fobs, seals, quizzing-glass, and scented handkerchief, had lately honoured his aunt with one of his infrequent visits. Surprised and delighted, she had begged to know in what way she could be of service to him. Mr Epworth had no hesitation in telling her. ‘You might put me in the way of meeting the new heiress, ma’am,’ he said frankly. ‘Dev’lish fine gal – regular Croesus, too!’

  She had pricked up her ears at that, and exclaimed: ‘Whom can you be thinking of, my dear Horace? If you mean the Flint chit, I have it for a fact that –’

  ‘Pooh! nothing of the sort!’ interrupted Mr Epworth, waving the Flint chit away with one white and languid hand. ‘I daresay she has no more than thirty thousand pounds! This gal is so rich she puts ’em all in the shade. They call her the Lady Dives.’

  ‘Who calls her so?’ demanded his incredulous relative.

  Mr Epworth again waved his hand, this time in the direction which he vaguely judged to be northward. ‘Oh, up there somewhere, ma’am! Yorkshire, or some other of those dev’lish remote counties! Daresay she’s a merchant’s daughter: wool, or cotton, or some such thing. Pity, but I shan’t regard it: they tell me she’s charming!’

  ‘I have heard nothing of this! Who is she? Who told you she was charming?’

  ‘Had it from Fleetwood last night, at the Great-Go,’ explained Mr Epworth negligently.

  ‘That rattle! I wish you will not go so often to Watier’s, Horace! I warn you, it is useless to apply to me! I have not a guinea left in the world, and I dare not ask Mr Penkridge to assist you again, until he has forgotten the last time!’

  ‘Put me in the way of meeting this gal, and I’ll kiss my fingers to Penkridge, ma’am,’ responded Mr Epworth, gracefully suiting the action to the word. ‘Acquainted with Lady Bridlington, ain’t you? The gal’s staying with her.’

  She stared at him. ‘If Arabella Bridlington had an heiress staying with her she would have boasted of it all over town!’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t. Fleetwood particularly told me the gal don’t want it known. Don’t like being courted for her fortune. Pretty gal, too, by what Fleetwood says. Name of Tallant.’

  ‘I never heard of a Tallant in my life!’

  ‘Lord, ma’am, why should you? Keep telling you she comes from some dev’lish outlandish place in the north!’

  ‘I would not set the least store by anything Fleetwood told me!’

  ‘Oh, it ain’t him!’ said Mr Epworth cheerfully. ‘He don’t know the gal’s name either. It’s the Nonpareil. Knows all about the family. Vouches for the gal.’

  Her expression changed; a still sharper look entered her eyes. She said quickly: ‘Beaumaris?’ He nodded. ‘If he vouches for her – Is she presentable?’

  He looked shocked, and answered in protesting accents: ‘’Pon my soul, ma’am, you can’t be in your senses to ask me such a demned silly question! Now, I put it to you, would Beaumaris vouch for a gal that wasn’t slap up to the echo?’

  ‘No. No, he would not,’ she said decidedly. ‘If it’s true, and she has no vulgar connections, it would be the very thing for you, my dear Horace!’

  ‘Just what I was thinking myself, ma’am,’ said her nephew.

  ‘I will pay Lady Bridlington a morning-visit,’ said Mrs Penkridge.

  ‘That’s it: do the pretty!’ Mr Epworth encouraged her.

  ‘It is tiresome, for I have never been upon intimate terms with her! However, this alters the circumstances! Leave it to me!’

  Thus it was that Lady Bridlington found herself the object of Mrs Penkridge’s attentions. Since she had never before been honoured with an invitation to one of that lady’s more exclusive parties, she was considerably elated, and at once seized the opportunity to invite Mrs Penkridge to her own evening-party. Mrs Penkridge accepted with another of her thin smiles, saying that she knew she could answer for her husband’s pleasure in attending the party, and departed, thinking out rapidly some form of engagement for him which would at once spare him an insipid evening, and render it necessary for her to claim her nephew’s escort.

  Six

  Lady Bridlington did not expect Arabella’s first party to be a failure, since she was a good hostess, and never offered her guests any but the best wines and refreshments, but that it should prove to be a wild success had not even entered her head. She had planned it more with the idea of bringing Arabella to the notice of other hostesses than as a brilliant social event; and although she had certainly invited a good many unattached gentlemen she had not held out the lure of dancing, or of cards, and so had little hope of seeing more than half of them in her spacious rooms. Her main preoccupation was lest Arabella should not be looking her best, or should jeopardise her future by some unconventional action, or some unlucky reference to that regrettable Yorkshire Vicarage. In general, the child behaved very prettily, but once or twice she had seriously alarmed her patroness, either by a remark which betrayed all too clearly the modesty of her circumstances – as when she had asked, in front of the butler, whether she should help to prepare the rooms for the party, for all the world as though she expected to be given an apron and a duster! – or by some impulsive action so odd as to be positively outrageous. Not readily would Lady Bridlington forget the scene outside the Soho Bazaar, when she and Arabella, emerging from this mart, found a heavy wagon stationary in the road, with the one scraggy horse between its shafts straining under an unsparing lash to set it in motion. At one instant a demure young lady had been at Lady Bridlington’s side; at the next a flaming fury was confronting the astonished wagoner, commanding him, with a stamp of one little foot, to get down from the wagon at once – at once! – and not to dare to raise his whip again! He got down, quite bemused, and stood in front of the small fury, an ox of a man, towering above her while she berated him. When he had recovered his wits he attempted to justify himself, but failed signally to pacify the lady. He was a cruel wretch, unfit to be in charge of a horse, and a dolt, besides, not to perceive that one of the wheels was jammed, and through his own bad driving, no doubt! He began to be angry, and to shout Arabella down, but by this time a couple of chairmen, abandoning their empty vehicle, came across the square, expressing, in strong Hibernian accents, their willingness to champion the lady, and their desire to know whether the wagoner wanted to have his cork drawn. Lady Bridlington, all this time, had stood frozen with horror in the doorway of the Bazaar, unable to think of anything else to do than to be thankful that none of her acquaintances was present to witness this shocking affair. Arabella told the chairmen briskly that she would have no fighting, bade the wagoner observe the obstruction against which one of his rear wheels was jammed, herself went to the horse’s head, and began to back him. The chairmen promptly lent their aid; Arabella addressed a short, pithy lecture to the wagoner on the folly and injustice of losing one’s temper with anima