April Lady Read online

  ‘And want of upbringing,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘I can blame no one but myself for that. You didn’t, in sober truth, let her wear an improper gown, did you?’

  ‘No – oh, no!’ she replied guiltily. ‘Not – not improper precisely! I own it was not just the thing for a girl of her age, but – well, she won’t wear it again, so pray don’t mention it to her, Cardross!’

  ‘If it made her look like a class of female which my aunt prefers not to particularize, she most assuredly won’t wear it again!’ he returned.

  ‘Nothing of the sort! Lady Chudleigh knows very well that such gowns are worn by women of the first consequence. Do, pray, let the matter rest! To scold Letty will only set up her back – and it was my fault, after all.’

  ‘I don’t mean to scold either of you, but I must own, Nell, that I could wish you had put your foot down,’ he said, looking displeased.

  ‘Perhaps I should have done so,’ she replied, in a mortified tone. ‘I am very sorry!’

  ‘Yes – well, never mind! I don’t doubt that it is very hard for you to check Letty’s starts. And while we are speaking of the masquerade, what, in heaven’s name, is this extraordinary story I have been hearing about Dysart’s holding you up on the road to Chiswick?’

  ‘Oh, good God, Lady Chudleigh knows nothing of that, surely?’ she exclaimed, rather aghast.

  ‘No, I had it from your coachman. According to him, your carriage was stopped by Dysart and two companions, all of them disguised as highwaymen. It seems quite incredible, even in Dysart, but I can hardly suppose that Jeffrey would entertain me with a Canterbury story. Do you mind explaining the matter to me?’

  She had forgotten that her servants would be very likely to tell him of Dysart’s strange exploit, and for an ignoble moment wished that she had had the forethought to have bought their silence. She was instantly ashamed of herself, and said, her colour rising: ‘Oh, it was one of Dy’s mad-brained hoaxes, and a great deal too bad of him! I must own that I hoped it wouldn’t come to your ears.’

  ‘That, Nell, is patent!’ he said.

  ‘Yes – I mean, I knew you would be vexed! There was no harm in it – it all arose out of a – a stupid wager – but of course it was a most improper thing to do, and so I told him.’

  ‘All arose out of a wager?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘With which of his associates did Dysart see fit to make you the subject of a wager?’

  ‘N-not with any of them!’ she stammered, frightened by the look on his face.

  ‘Then what the devil do you mean?’ he demanded.

  ‘It was with me!’ she said, improvising desperately. ‘We – we were talking about masquerades, and I said it was nonsense to suppose that one wouldn’t recognize somebody one knew well just because they wore a mask. Dy – Dy said that he would prove me wrong, and – and that was how it was! Only I did recognize him, so I won the wager.’

  ‘Gratifying! Did you also recognize his companions?’

  ‘No – that is, it was only Mr Fancot!’ she said imploringly. ‘Oh, and Joe, of course – Dy’s groom! But he doesn’t signify, because he has always been with us, ever since I can remember! Pray, Cardross, don’t be vexed with Dy!’

  ‘Vexed with him! I am very much more than vexed with him! To be giving you such a fright for the sake of a prank I should find it hard to pardon in a schoolboy goes beyond anything of which I believed him to be capable!’ he said wrathfully.

  ‘I wasn’t frightened!’ she assured him. ‘Only a very little, at all events!’

  ‘Oh?’ he said grimly. ‘What, then, made you scream?’

  Her eyes sparkled with indignation. ‘I did not scream! I would scorn to do anything so paltry! It was Letty who screamed.’

  ‘How chicken-hearted of her, to be sure!’ he said sardonically.

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought,’ she said candidly.

  ‘Are you quite blinded by your doting fondness for Dysart?’ he demanded. ‘He is fortunate to possess a sister who can find excuses for his every folly, his every extravagance, and for such larks as this latest exploit! I am aware – I have for long been aware! – that he holds a place in your affections that is second to none, but take care what you are about! Encourage him to think he may turn to you in any extremity! smile upon kick-ups unworthy of a freshman! You will not smile when the high spirits you now regard with such indulgence carry him beyond the line of what even his cronies will pardon!’

  She shrank a little from the harshness in his voice, but she was quick to recognize the note of jealousy in it. She heard it with a leap of the heart, and it took from his words all power of wounding. Instead of flying to Dysart’s defence, she said merely: ‘Indeed I didn’t smile upon such a prank! It was very bad – quite unbecoming! But it is unjust in you, Cardross, to say that his wildness will lead him into doing anything wicked! You dislike him very much, but that is going too far!’

  ‘No, I don’t dislike him,’ he replied, in a more moderate tone. ‘On the contrary! I like him well enough to wish to be of real service to him. You think me unjust, but you may believe that I know what I am saying when I tell you that his present way of life is ruinous.’

  She said, in swift alarm: ‘Oh, pray, pray don’t thrust him into the army!’

  ‘I have no power to thrust him into the army. I own I have offered to buy him a commission, and I have not the smallest doubt that there is nothing I might do for him which he would like better, or which would be of more benefit to him. If the only bar in the way of his accepting it is your father’s dislike of the project I will engage to make all right in that quarter.’

  ‘No, it is not that. I should not say such a thing, but I am afraid Dy doesn’t care much for what poor Papa wishes. But Mama made him promise he wouldn’t do it, and however ramshackle you may think him Dy doesn’t break his promises!’

  ‘If that is how the case stands,’ he said, ‘I recommend you, my dear, to use your best endeavours to persuade your mother to release him from a promise which I don’t scruple to tell you should never have been extracted from him!’

  ‘I could not! Oh, she would sink under the very thought of his exposing himself to all the dangers of war!’ She hesitated and then said, with a little difficulty: ‘Mama has had so many trials to bear. Poor Papa, you know…’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he replied. ‘For that very reason I am persuaded that if she was aware of the truth she would think the hazards of war less perilous than those of the metropolis. Living, as she now must, so far from London, I fancy she cannot know how closely Dysart is following an example she must dread.’

  She looked a little frightened, but said: ‘I know he is sadly wild, and – and expensive, but surely – no worse than that?’

  ‘Well, that is bad enough,’ he replied. He saw that she was inclined to question him more closely, but he was already vexed that he had allowed his irritation to betray him into saying so much. Before she could speak again he had turned the subject; and very soon after he left her, saying that he must change his habit. Whatever bitter feelings he might cherish he could not shock her by disclosing the full sum of Dysart’s folly. She probably did not even know of that little narrow pink room behind the stage at the Opera House, where the dancers practised their steps in front of long pier-glasses, and any buck in search of amatory adventures could have his pick of the west-end comets. Dysart was a familiar figure in that saloon, and so was his latest chère amie. Nell had certainly seen him driving with this article of virtue – a dasher of the first water, too! reflected Cardross – but what she had made of her one couldn’t tell. She had asked no questions, so perhaps she had guessed. But she didn’t guess that Dysart frequently sallied forth with the Peep o’ Day boys, starting the evening with a rump and dozen at Long’s, and gravitating thence to a less respectable world of which she was wholly ignorant. It diverted the wilder bl