Friday's Child Read online

  When Hero learned that she was now the owner of no fewer than three carriages and eight horses, she turned quite pink, and after struggling for a few moments to express herself suitably, stammered out:‘Oh, Sherry, it is just like K-King Cophetua and the beggar-maid!’

  ‘Who the devil was he?’ demanded Sherry.

  ‘Well, I don’t precisely remember, but he married a beggar-maid, and gave her everything she wanted.’

  ‘Sounds to me like a hum,’ said her sceptical husband. ‘Besides, what’s the fellow got to do with us?’

  ‘Only that you made me think of him,’ said Hero, smiling mistily up at him.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Sherry, revolted. ‘Never heard such a silly notion in my life! If you don’t take care, Kitten, you’ll have people saying you’re bookish.’

  Hero promised to guard against earning this stigma and after fortifying himself with some very tolerable burgundy from the hotel’s cellars, Sherry sat down to write a somewhat belated letter to his parent.

  After a second day’s intensive shopping with Ferdy, there really seemed to be nothing left to buy for the house in Half Moon Street, except such dull necessities as kitchen furnishings and linen, and as Hero was getting tired of choosing furniture she greeted with acclaim Sherry’s suggestion that the rest should be entrusted to Mr Stoke to provide. ‘And I’ll tell you what, Kitten,’ he added, ‘I’ve had a devilish good idea. We’ll be off to Leicestershire until the house is ready for us to step into. I’ve got a snug little hunting-box there: just the very thing for us!’

  ‘Leicestershire, dear old boy?’ exclaimed Mr Ringwood, who happened to be present.‘What the deuce should take you there at this time of year?’

  ‘Time I ran an eye over my young stock,’ said Sherry. He met his friend’s eye, and said:‘Well, dash it, why shouldn’t we go to Leicestershire? The house won’t be ready for weeks, from what I can see of it, and I’ll be damned if I’ll kick my heels in this place much longer! What’s more, I’ve got a strong notion we shall have my mother posting up to London. Seems to me a good moment to go into the country.’

  Hero turned pale at the thought of having to confront the Viscount’s enraged parent, and faltered: ‘Anthony! Do you indeed think she will come to town?’

  ‘There isn’t a doubt of it,’ replied Sherry tersely.

  Hero clasped her hands tightly together.‘And do you think – Cousin Jane as well?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be at all surprised. It never rains but it pours. Dare say she’ll bring my uncle Horace along with her too.’

  ‘Would it – would it be very poor-spirited of us to run away?’ asked Hero anxiously.

  ‘I don’t care a fig for that,’ replied Sherry. ‘It’ll be deuced unpleasant if we stay! Thing to do is to give ’em all time to get used to the notion of us being married. By the time we come back to town I dare say they won’t be having the vapours any longer.’

  Mr Ringwood, who had been sitting apparently lost in thought, suddenly said: ‘Brighton.’

  ‘Too late in the season: we should never find a tolerable lodging,’ replied Sherry. ‘Besides, I was down there in May, and it didn’t agree with me.’

  ‘Lady Sherry would like it better than Leicestershire.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t. I’m going to teach her to ride.’

  ‘Oh, are you, Sherry? Then do let us go to Leicestershire!’ cried Hero.

  ‘Lady Sherry,’ said Mr Ringwood obstinately,‘would like the balls at the Castle Inn. Like to be presented to the Regent, too. Believe he’s still down there.’

  ‘Yes, and a pretty time I should have of it, looking after her!’ retorted Sherry scornfully. ‘You know very well she’s no more fitted to keep the line amongst the set of fellows she’d meet there than a half-fledged chicken!’

  ‘Very true,’ said Mr Ringwood, nodding wisely. ‘Better go to Leicestershire. Tell you what: give it out you’ve gone on your honeymoon.’

  ‘That’s a devilish good notion, Gil!’ approved the Viscount. ‘You’d better come along with us!’

  This suggestion took Mr Ringwood aback, but as it was heartily endorsed by Hero, and as settling-day at Tattersall’s had left him without any expectation of being able to meet the more pressing obligations in the immediate future, he gratefully accepted the invitation. The reflection that the Dowager Lady Sheringham, with whom he was only too well acquainted, might conceivably take it into her head to summon him to her presence to account for his having aided and abetted her son in his clandestine marriage, also weighed with him, but this circumstance he prudently kept to himself, trusting that his friend, Mr Fakenham, when the inevitable summons came to him, would not put two and two together, and accuse him of ratting. Experience of Mr Fakenham’s processes of thought seemed to make it reasonably certain that this mathematical exercise lay rather beyond his powers.

  Seven

  THE VISCOUNT HAD NOT BEEN MISTAKEN IN THINKING THAT the letter announcing his marriage to Hero Wantage would have the effect of bringing his Mama hotfoot to London. The news of Hero’s mysterious disappearance had naturally reached her some days before the arrival of Sherry’s missive: she had, in fact, sustained a morning-call from Mrs Bagshot, who had enumerated all the kindesses she had for years shown her ungrateful young relative, and had confided in the bored matron’s ear the intelligence that she had always expected the wretched girl to disgrace her. It occurred to neither lady to connect Hero’s flight with the recent visit of the Viscount to his home. Not unnaturally, it did not occur to Miss Milborne either. Miss Milborne said roundly that she was sure she did not blame poor little Hero, and only trusted that she had sought refuge with some member of her family who might treat her with more consideration than had ever been shown her in the Bagshot household.

  When the Viscount’s letter arrived, its effect was stunning. Unable at first to believe the evidence of her eyes, his mother had sat staring at it as one in a trance. As the dreadful tidings penetrated to her intelligence, she gave vent to a shriek which made her brother, who was in the act of mending a pen, cut his finger with his pocket-knife. ‘Read that!’ uttered the shattered lady, holding out the letter with a trembling hand. ‘Read that!’

  To say that Mr Paulett was put out by the news of his nephew’s marriage would be grossly to understate his reactions. He had not believed that Sherry would tie himself up in the bonds of matrimony to any other than Miss Milborne, and was almost inclined to think the letter a hoax, designed merely to alarm him. A second perusal of the objectionable letter, however, put this hope to flight. There was, he did not pause to consider why, a ring of the authentic about St George’s, Hanover Square, and more than a ring of the authentic in the information that the family lawyer would shortly be communicating with himself. Mr Paulett saw the end in sight, and gave a groan. A gleam of hope shot through his despondency; he said: ‘Hero Wantage? She is a minor – it may yet be put a stop to! She had not the consent of her guardian!’

  The dowager rose tottering from her couch.‘Desire them to send the carriage round to the door immediately!’ she said. ‘Heaven knows I do not expect the least show of good feeling from Jane Bagshot, whom I dare say contrived the whole miserable business, designing woman that she is! but I will leave no stone unturned to rescue my son from so ruinous an entanglement, and I will drive round to call upon her this instant!’

  The same post which had brought the Viscount’s letter to his mother had also brought one, a much briefer one, to Mrs Bagshot. The Viscount had enjoyed writing it, and had read it aloud to Hero before fixing the wafer to it.

  ‘Dear Madam,’ it ran,‘it is my duty to inform you that your cousin, Miss Wantage, has done me the honour to accept my hand in marriage. Should you be wishful of addressing your felicitations to her, a letter to The Viscountess Sheringham, care of Fenton’s Hotel will find her. Believe me, etc., Sheringham.

  ’ Mrs Bagshot, reading with starting eyes this curt note, suffered all the rage and the chagrin the Viscount had desired her