Friday's Child Read online

  ‘How the deuce was I to guess such a notion would ever enter her head? Wild to a fault! Let me but get my hands on Gussie Yarford, that’s all! Gussie Yarford! The maddest romp in town! Why, not all her connections can get her a voucher for Almack’s, since she started to set the world by the ears! What I have ever done to deserve – However, it ain’t her fault: she’s no more notion of how to go on than – dash it, than a kitten!’

  Mr Ringwood unravelled this painstakingly, and asked if he was to understand that Hero had gone to Bartholomew Fair with the notorious Lady Appleby?

  ‘Yes, I tell you!’ said Sherry impatiently.‘Dare say she thinks it’s all right and tight, for you must know that the Yarfords live down in Kent. She has known Gussie any time these nine years – more’s the pity!’

  Mr Ringwood looked very serious. ‘Very bad ton, Lady Appleby, Sherry. Appleby, too. Hope he hasn’t gone to the Fair with them. Can’t be trusted to keep the line at all.’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Sherry.‘Not Appleby! Kitten knows I can have no objection to this expedition, because, if you please, they are taking Wilfred Yarford and Brockenhurst along with them!’

  Mr Ringwood’s jaw dropped, for he had some acquaintance with Lady Appleby’s enterprising brother Wilfred, and still more with Sir Matthew Brockenhurst. After a stunned moment, he said with great earnestness: ‘Sherry, dear old boy! No wish to put you in a pucker, but that fellow Yarford – no, really, Sherry, he’s a devilish ugly customer!’

  ‘Lord, don’t I know it?’ Sherry retorted. ‘And as for Brockenhurst – Dash it, I suppose I ought never to have had him to dine here! Ten to one Kitten thinks it’s all right because of it! Well, there’s only one thing for it: I must go after them! I’m curst sorry, Gil, but you’ll have to find someone to take my place in our little jaunt. Try Ferdy! You see how it is: can’t help myself !’

  ‘But, Sherry!’ protested Mr Ringwood. ‘Can’t have considered! Won’t find ’em! Not in that vast rout!’

  ‘Well, I can make a devilish good attempt, can’t I?’ retorted Sherry. He added with some shrewdness:‘If I know anything of Kitten, she’ll be sitting in Richardson’s Great Booth, watching some shocking bad play, or staring her eyes out at a Learned Pig, or some such stuff !’

  Upon reflection, Mr Ringwood was forced to own that this was very likely. Perceiving the frown on his friend’s face, he gave a cough, and ventured to say: ‘Y’know, dear old boy – not my business – but she don’t mean an ounce of harm! Only saying to George last night: dear little soul! Not up to snuff at all!’

  ‘No, my God!’ agreed the Viscount feelingly.

  ‘Tell you what, Sherry: if I had a wife, which I’m deuced glad I haven’t, I’d rather have one like your Kitten than all the Incomparables put together.’

  ‘You would?’ said Sherry, staring at him.

  ‘I would,’ said Mr Ringwood firmly.

  ‘Well, I don’t know but what I wouldn’t too,’ said Sherry, cheerfully unconscious of having, by these simple words, bereft his friend of all power of coherent speech.

  They left the house together and parted in Piccadilly, Mr Ringwood wending his steps back to his lodging, and trying all the way to puzzle out what kind of a marriage it was that he had assisted at; and the Viscount going off in a hackney to Smithfield.

  The market, which was extremely large,was so crowded with people and booths that the task of discovering one small lady in the seething mob might have daunted a more dogged man than Sherry. He paid off the hackney, and was just wondering whether to repair immediately to the Great Booth or to make a tour of the tents advertising such attractions as a Living Skeleton, a Fireproof Lady, or Mr Simon Paap, the Celebrated Dutch Dwarf, when, by the most astounding stroke of good fortune, he perceived his wife, making her way through the crowd in his direction, and escorted, not by Mr Yarford, or Sir Matthew Brockenhurst, but by a perfectly unknown citizen, dressed in his Sunday best, and having all the appearance of being a respectable tradesman. The Viscount stood transfixed in amazement, and while he was still staring at the unexpected and quite inexplicable vision of his wife of his bosom tripping along with her hand resting on the arm of an obvious Cit, Hero caught sight of him and gave a squeak of joy. She came hurrying up to him, dragging her cavalier with her, and almost cast herself on his chest, crying: ‘Oh, Sherry, I am so very glad to see you! Don’t scold me! Indeed, I did not know how it would be! As soon as I saw what kind of a place it was, I told Gussie I was sure you would not like me to be here, but she said I was a little goose, and I should be safe with that odiousWilfred; and then she went off with Sir Matthew, and I tried – indeed I did, Sherry! – to make Wilfred take me home, but he was quite abominable, and I ran away from him, and he pursued me, and Mr Tooting – oh, this is Mr Tooting, Sherry, and he has been so very obliging! – Mr Tooting knocked him down, and there was such a dreadful rout, you can’t conceive! – but all passed off in the end, and Mr Tooting said he would convey me home in a hackney, and then suddenly I saw you, so he need not be put to so much trouble after all!’

  Sherry, detaching the grasp on his coat lapels, firmly tucked his wife’s hand in his arm and turned to express the sense of his obligation to the crimson-faced Mr Tooting. This young gentleman, recognising at a glance a regular top-sawyer in his protégée’s husband,was quite overcome, and stuttered out a few disjointed sentences to the effect that he was happy to have been of service. Sherry, who was always very easy with his fellowmen, grasped his reluctant hand, and shook it, said that he was very much obliged to him, and that if he should ever be in a position to serve him in any way, he should be glad to do it. He then enquired after Mr Yarford, and upon learning precisely how he had been floored, approved heartily of a blow which must, he opined, have been a wisty castor. He said that he himself was considered to be handy with his fives, and took lessons from Jackson, in New Bond Street. This naturally led to one or two boxing reminiscences, with a few reflections on the leading prize-fighters of the day, at the end of which both gentlemen were very well pleased with each other. They parted with mutual expressions of esteem, the Viscount bestowing his card on Mr Tooting, and Mr Tooting going off with his head in a whirl at the thought that he had rescued a real live peeress from annoyance, and chatted on the friendliest of terms with her young blood of a husband.

  No sooner had he vanished into the crowd than the Viscount turned his attention to his troublesome wife.‘First it’s one thing, and then it’s another!’ he said austerely. ‘I’m damned if ever I met such a tiresome chit as you, Hero!’

  ‘Don’t scold me, Sherry! Indeed, I am very sorry to be in another scrape!’ Hero said disarmingly. She raised her worshipful eyes to his face, and said, with a small sigh: ‘I quite see that it is not the style of thing you would approve of, and I haven’t been into any of the booths, though I did watch the droll puppet show.’

  ‘I should think not indeed!’ said his lordship severely. He then ruined his whole effect by abandoning his rôle of outraged spouse, and saying boyishly:‘Well, since we are here we may as well take a look at the sights. Damme, if I choose to take my wife to Bartholomew Fair, who the devil’s to stop me? Besides, we shan’t see a soul we know!’

  ‘Sherry!’ gasped Hero, clinging ecstatically to his arm. ‘Do you mean it? May I see the Fireproof Woman washing her hands in boiling oil? And, oh, Sherry, there is a theatre here, and there is to be a piece acted called The Hall of Death, or Who’s the Murderer? Sherry, could we – ?’

  Sherry gave a shout of laughter. ‘Of all the nonsensical brats! The Hall of Death! Come along, then, but I warn you, I won’t have you clutching me every time you take fright at the mummery, as you did as Astley’s!’

  Hero promised to comport herself with the utmost propriety, and they went off together, bought themselves a two-shilling box for the forthcoming performance at the Great Booth, and filled in the time until the curtain should rise on this promising melodrama in wandering about the market, inspecting all the freaks, and buying