The Foundling Read online

  ‘Alas! Shall you give me a sharp set-down when you come back from your adventure?’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Gilly, putting down his empty glass.

  Wragby came into the room to set the dishes on the table. His master told him that he need not wait, and the Duke said, as he took his seat: ‘How snug this is! Shall I carve this bird? I can, you know! My uncle says a man should know how to carve anything that is set before him. I can shoe a horse, too. Now, why do you suppose he should have thought I must learn such a thing as that? He is the strangest creature! How angry he will be with me when he hears what I have been about! It makes me shake like a blancmanger only to think of it.’

  ‘Amongst the many odd fancies that come into my head, Adolphus,’ said his cousin dryly, ‘is the fancy – I have often been conscious of it! – that in spite of your meekness you do not shake like a blancmanger before my father!’

  ‘No, of course I don’t: he is a great deal too kind to me. But I do not like it when he storms at me, and arguing gives me the headache. I always try to slip away, and being so small and unremarkable I can in general manage to do so,’ said the Duke serenely.

  Gideon smiled. ‘Your elusive ways are well known to me. And, by God, it is just what you are doing, now I come to think of it! Don’t try to gammon me with your hints of adventures to be embarked on! You are merely slipping away to rather more purpose than usual. What lying story have you fobbed your devoted servants off with?’

  The Duke looked up with rather a guilty twinkle in his eyes. ‘Well, to tell you the truth, I haven’t,’ he confessed. ‘You cannot slip away unobserved if you tell people you mean to go!’

  ‘Gilly, for God’s sake – ! Have you left them without a word?’ exclaimed Gideon.

  The Duke nodded. For a moment Gideon sat staring at him with knit brows. Then he burst out laughing. ‘It’s the maddest quirk I ever heard tell of, and who – who would have guessed that you had it in you to do it?’ he said. ‘Adolphus, I no longer despair of you! You will undoubtedly set your whole household by the ears, from my father down to your lowliest footman, and it will do them a great deal of good! Don’t come back too soon! Let them learn their lesson past fear of forgetting it: you may then enjoy some peace hereafter. Fill up your glass! We’ll have a toast to your emancipation. No daylights, no heel-taps!’

  The Duke obeyed, and pushed the bottle across the table. ‘No, we shall drink to the adventures of Mr Dash!’ he said.

  ‘Anything you please!’ grinned his cousin, and tossed off his wine with a flourish.

  The Duke followed suit. As he lowered his glass, the ring on his finger caught his eye. He drew it off. ‘Keep that for me!’ he said, handing it to Gideon. ‘It quite ruins my disguise!’

  Eight

  The Duke did not enjoy a very restful night’s repose in his room at the Saracen’s Head. The feather-bed upon which he twisted and turned seemed to be composed largely of lumps; and no one else in the inn appeared to go to bed at all. The noise in the tap-room went on until far into the night; doors banged; footsteps clumped down the passages; and an occasional clatter suggested that kitchenmaids enjoyed no respite from their labours. He was also very much too hot, the bed being piled high with blankets, and having been warmed for him by a chambermaid who was directed to take up a warming-pan for the Quality in No. 27 as soon as he arrived in his hackney from Albany.

  He had remained with his cousin until an advanced hour, and was consequently tired when he reached the inn. If he had owned the truth to himself, which he resolutely refused to do, he would not have been ill-pleased to have found Nettlebed awaiting him, ready to have unpacked his valise, pulled off his boots, and poured out hot water for him to wash his face and hands in. His bedchamber, which was small, and rather stuffy, seemed oddly friendless when he entered it, and was lit by only one candle, which was set down on the dressing-table by the boots who escorted him upstairs. Had Nettlebed been with him, he would have found his familiar belongings already laid out for him, his own sheets upon the bed, and – but had Nettlebed been with him he would not, of course, have been staying at an inn of this class, but at some posting-house which despised stage-coach travellers, and catered only for the Nobility and Gentry. The Duke firmly banished Nettlebed from his mind, and put himself to bed.

  It naturally did not occur to him that he must ask to be called in the morning, but fortunately the boots took his measure, and suggested to him that he should state the hour at which he would wish to have a jug of shaving-water brought up to him. In the event, he underestimated the time it would take him to shave, dress himself, and pack his valise, and it was consequently in a somewhat flurried and breathless state that he ran down to the coffee-room to partake of a hasty breakfast. As he had forgotten to set his top-boots outside his door, these had not been cleaned, and looked, to his fastidious eye, very dull and dusty. But when he came out of the coffee-room into the yard, he found that amongst the many irrelevant persons assembled there was a shoe-black, of whose services he instantly availed himself.

  While this individual laboured upon his boots, he had leisure to observe the activities going on around him, and was so much entertained that any regrets he might have had that he had embarked on such an impulsive adventure left him.

  The Highflyer, upon which he was to travel, had been dragged into the yard, and was being loaded with all manner of baggage. All the heavy cases were hoisted on to the roof, and the Duke’s eyes widened as corded trunk after corded trunk was piled up, until it seemed as though the coach could scarcely escape an overturn at the first bend in the road, so top-heavy had it become. While this was going forward, several persons were assisting the guard to stow into the boot all manner of smaller packages, including the Duke’s valise. When this was full, all the articles which still littered the yard, such as a basket of fish, several bandboxes, and some parcels done up in paper, were lashed to the hind axle-tree, or to the lamp-irons.

  Meanwhile, the coachman, a burly gentleman in a multiplicity of coats, and with an enormous nosegay in his buttonhole, stood at one of the doors leading into the inn enjoying a flirtation with a housemaid. He paid no heed to the equipage he was about to drive until the ostlers led out from the stables a team of chestnuts, when he ran his eye critically over them, and delivered himself of various scraps of advice and instruction, which included an alarming command to take care not to let the near-wheeler touch the roller-bolt.

  The passengers were most of them engaged in arguments with the guard, and in fretfully waving away half the street-cries of London, who, for reasons which the Duke was unable to fathom, had assembled in the yard for the purpose of offering travellers every imaginable comfort upon their journey, from Holland socks, at only four shillings the pair, to hot spiced gingerbread. He had himself been obliged several times to refuse a rat-trap, a bag of oranges, and a paper of pins. One or two of the travellers, notably a thin man, muffled in a greatcoat, muffler, and a plaid shawl, seemed inclined to be querulous; and two elderly ladies were fast driving the guard to distraction by their repeated and shrill enquiries as to the exact location of a number of bandboxes and string-bags. Two of the gentlemen proposing to travel had not found the time to shave; and another was engaged in an acrimonious altercation with the jarvey who had driven him to the inn in a hackney.

  The horses having been poled-up, the coachman took a regretful leave of the housemaid and rolled into the centre of the yard, casting an indulgent eye over his way-bill. The Duke thrust a silver coin into the shoe-black’s hand, and mounted on to his seat on the roof; the thin man besought the coachman to assure him that the near-wheeler was not an arrant kicker; the two elderly ladies were cast into a flutter of agitation; and the guard warned everyone to make haste, as they were about to be off, and the Highflyer didn’t wait for no one.

  The coachman, having cast an experienced eye over his cattle, and warned an ostler in corduroy br