April Lady Read online

  ‘If he doesn’t fail!’ Letty said. ‘I begged him most particularly to meet me here today, but it might not be possible, perhaps. If there is a press of business, you know, he might be detained all day at the Foreign Office. Only would he not have contrived to send me word?’

  Miss Thorne was strongly of the opinion that the violence of Mr Allandale’s feelings would outweigh all other considerations. She drew Letty to the window, to watch for his arrival, for she had formed the intention of running down to admit him into the house before he could advertize his presence to the servants by knocking on the door. ‘For it would be fatal if Mama were to discover that he had been here! If her suspicions were aroused, depend upon it, she would instantly go to your brother, for she likes the connection as little as he does. She was talking about it only yesterday, calling it a shockingly bad match, and wondering that Mr Allandale should be so encroaching! I kept my eyes lowered, and my thoughts locked in my bosom, but you may guess how I felt, on hearing such words from one whom I have believed to be all sensibility! Oh, my dearest Letty, I vowed to myself that if any exertion on my part could save you from the misery of being sacrificed to pride and consequence it should not be lacking!’

  Letty thanked her, but said in a more practical spirit that since it was very unlikely that Cardross would listen to her advice there was really nothing that she could do to achieve this noble end. Miss Thorne, who had embraced with enthusiasm the rôle of go-between so suddenly thrust upon her, was daunted. Upon reflection, she was obliged to own that the ways in which a young lady in her seventeenth year could aid a pair of star-crossed lovers were few. In the fastness of her bedchamber it was possible to weave agreeable romances in which she played a leading and often heroic rôle. ‘Noblest of girls! We owe it all to you!’ declared Mr Allandale, having been joined in wedlock to Letty upon the eve of her marriage to a nobleman of dissolute habits (chosen for her by her brother), by a clergyman smuggled into the house at dead of night through the agency of her devoted cousin. In these romances, Selina overcame all difficulties by ignoring them, but in the cold light of day she was not so lost in dreams as to be unable to perceive that in a world depressingly humdrum certain insurmountable obstacles stood in the way of her ambition, not the least of which was Mr Allandale himself. Though Letty would perceive in a flash the beauty of that marriage-scene in a dim room lit by a single branch of candles held up by her cousin, it would probably take a great deal of persuasion to induce the ardent lover to lend himself to such an improper proceeding. As for the indispensable cleric, not the wildest optimist could suppose that the Reverend William Tuxted, who happened to be the only clergyman with whom Selina was well acquainted, could be suborned by any means whatsoever into performing his part in this affair.

  Melancholy though they were, these considerations had not the power to depress Selina for long. Letty’s love affair might not attain the heights of drama, but it was still a very romantic story; and there was comfort in the thought that without her cousin’s assistance she would have been hard put to it to have contrived a clandestine meeting with her suitor. Selina’s good offices had not been required to promote her elder sisters’ espousals; and nothing, in her opinion, could have been more insipid than Maria’s marriage to Mr Thistleton unless it were Fanny’s betrothal to Mr Humby: an event which had taken place on the previous evening. Neither lady had encountered the least opposition, each gentleman being possessed of a genteel fortune, and a situation in life which made him a very eligible suitor. Fanny’s betrothal was perhaps more tolerable than Maria’s, Mr Humby having been unknown to the Thornes until he began to dangle after her. This, it must be allowed, was less deplorable than Maria’s marriage to John Thistleton, whom she had known all her life; but Miss Selina Thorne was going to think herself pretty hardly used if Fate did not provide for her a dashing lover of such hopeless ineligibility as must assure for her the most determined parental opposition, accompanied by persecution, which she would bear with the greatest heroism, and culminating in an elopement. Pending the appearance on the horizon of this gentleman, she was prepared to throw herself heart and soul into Letty’s cause. She found no difficulty in crediting Cardross with all the attributes of a tyrant; and if Mr Allandale’s propriety seemed at first to indicate that there was little hope of his engaging on any desperate action she soon decided that this was the expression not of an innate respectability, but of interesting reserve.

  She was giving Letty an account of the degrading congratulations which had greeted the news of Fanny’s betrothal when she caught sight of Mr Allandale approaching the house. She at once put her plan into execution, flying with such swift feet down the stairs that she reached the front door considerably in advance of him, and found herself inviting only the ambient air to come in and fear nothing. However, Mr Allandale soon arrived; and from having rehearsed (though involuntarily) her speech of welcome she was able to improve on it. ‘I knew you would not fail!’ she uttered. ‘I will lead you to her immediately. Do not fear that you will be interrupted! Not a soul knows of your coming! Hush!’

  Mr Allandale, already surprised to find the front door being held open by one of the daughters of the house, blinked at her. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

  ‘Do not speak so loud!’ she admonished him. ‘The servants must not suspect your presence.’

  ‘But how is this?’ he demanded. ‘Is not Mrs Thorne at home?’

  ‘No, no, you have nothing to fear!’ she assured him. ‘She and my sister are gone into the City. If they should return, you may depend on me to warn you of their approach!’

  ‘I should not be here,’ he said, looking vexed. ‘It is quite improper for me to be visiting the house in Mrs Thorne’s absence.’

  She was somewhat daunted by this prosaic attitude, but she made a gallant recover. ‘This is no time to be considering the proprieties!’ she said earnestly. ‘Your case is now desperate, and strive though she may to support her spirits under this crushing blow, my cousin is in the greatest affliction! You must come to her immediately!’

  The thought of his Letty’s agony made Mr Allandale turn pale; but still he hung back. ‘I had not supposed that the assignation was of a clandestine nature,’ he said. ‘I cannot think it right! I assured Lord Cardross that such conduct was repugnant to me, and to be visiting your cousin behind his back, and in such a way, cannot be thought to be the part of a man of honour!’

  None of Selina’s romantic schemes had included a lover who had to be urged into the presence of his inamorata, and could she but have found a substitute to take his place in the drama she would then and there have thrust Mr Allandale out of the house. But since she knew of no substitute, and was rather doubtful of Letty’s willingness to accept one, she was obliged to make the best of the unpromising material to her hand. ‘I am persuaded you will not permit such trifling scruples to keep you from Letty’s side!’ she said. ‘Only consider her agitation! She is quite worn down by despair, and I should not wonder at it if her mind were to become wholly overset!’

  Mr Allandale was but human. The dreadful picture conjured up by these words took from him all power of resistance, and without further argument he followed Selina up the stairs.

  ‘I have brought him to you, dearest!’ announced Selina, throwing open the door into the drawing-room.

  Mr Allandale’s afflicted love, who had been trying the effect of a slightly different tilt to her fetching new hat, turned away from the looking-glass, and showed him a countenance glowing with health and beauty. ‘Thank goodness you are come!’ she said. ‘I have been quite in a worry, thinking that perhaps you might not be able to. To be sure, I should have known that you would contrive it by some means or other. Dear Jeremy!’

  Selina could have improved upon this speech, but she had no fault to find with the way in which Letty cast herself upon Mr Allandale’s broad bosom, and flung both arms about his neck. This was a spectacle which