The Black Moth Read online

  Lavinia, who had by now quite forgotten the morning’s contretemps, greeted him with a smile. She sat before the mirror in her under-gown, with a loose déshabillé thrown over her shoulders. The coiffeur had departed, and her hair, thickly powdered, was dressed high above her head over cushions, twisted into curls over her ears and allowed to fall in more curls over her shoulders. On top of the creation were poised ostrich feathers, scarlet and white, and round her throat gleamed a great necklet of diamonds. The room was redolent of some heavy perfume; discarded ribbons, laces, slippers and gloves strewed the floor; over the back of a chair hung a brilliant scarlet domino, and tenderly laid out on the bed was her gown, a mass of white satin and brocade, with full ruffles over the hips and quantities of foaming lace falling from the corsage and from the short sleeves. Beside it reposed her fan, her soft lace gloves, her mask and her tiny reticule.

  Carstares gingerly sat down on the extreme edge of a chair and watched the maid tint his wife’s already perfect cheeks.

  ‘I shall break hearts to-night, shall I not?’ she asked gaily, over her shoulder.

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ he answered shortly.

  ‘And you, Dicky?’ She turned round to look at him. ‘Puce… ’tis not the colour I should have chosen, but ’tis well enough. A new wig, surely?’

  ‘Ay.’

  Her eyes questioned his coldness, and she suddenly remembered the events of the morning. So he was sulky? Very well! Monsieur should see!

  Someone knocked at the door; the maid went to open it.

  ‘Sir Douglas Faversham, Sir Gregory Markham, Moosso le Chevalier and Captain Lovelace are below, m’lady.’

  A little devil prompted Lavinia.

  ‘Oh, la-la! So many? Well, I cannot see all, ’tis certain. Admit Sir Gregory and Captain Lovelace.’

  Louisa communicated this to the lackey and shut the door.

  Richard bit his lip angrily.

  ‘Are you sure I am not de trop?’ he asked, savagely sarcastic.

  Lady Lavinia cast aside her déshabillé and stood up.

  ‘Oh, ’tis no matter – I am ready for my gown, Louisa.’

  There came more knocking at the door, and this time it was Carstares who rose to open it.

  There entered Markham, heavily handsome in crimson and gold, and Lovelace, his opposite, fair and delicately pretty in palest blue and silver. As usual, he wore his loose wig, and in it sparkled three sapphire pins.

  He made my lady a marvellous leg.

  ‘I am prostrated by your beauty, fairest!’

  Sir Gregory was eyeing Lavinia’s white slippers through his quizzing glass.

  ‘Jewelled heels, ’pon my soul!’ he drawled.

  She pirouetted gracefully, her feet flashing as they caught the light.

  ‘Was it not well thought on?’ she demanded. ‘But I must not waste time – the dress! Now, Markham – now Harry – you will see the creation!’

  Lovelace sat down on a chair, straddle-wise, his arms over the back, and his chin sunk in his hands. Markham leant against the garde-robe and watched through his glass.

  When the dress was at last arranged, the suggested improvements in the matter of lace, ribbons, and the adjustment of a brooch thoroughly discussed, bracelets fixed on her arms and the flaming domino draped about her, it was full three-quarters of an hour later, and Carstares was becoming impatient. It was not in his nature to join with the two men in making fulsome compliments, and their presence at the toilette filled him with annoyance. He hated that Lavinia should admit them, but it was the mode, and he knew he must bow the head under it.

  My lady was at last ready to start; her gilded chair awaited her in the light of the flambeaux at the door, and with great difficulty she managed to enter it, taking absurd pains that her silks should not crush, nor the nodding plumes of her huge head-dress become disordered by unseemly contact with the roof. Then she found that she had left her fan in her room, and Lovelace and Markham must needs vie with one another in the fetching of it. While they wrangled wittily for the honour, Richard went quietly indoors and presently emerged with the painted chicken-skin, just as Lovelace was preparing to ascend the steps. At last Lavinia was shut in and the bearers picked up the poles. Off went the little cavalcade down the long square, the chair in the middle. Lovelace walked close beside it on the right, and Richard and Markham on the left. So they proceeded through the uneven streets, carefully picking their way through the dirtier parts, passing other chairs and pedestrians, all coming from various quarters into South Audley Street. They were remarkably silent: Markham from habitual laziness, Lovelace because he sensed Richard’s antagonism, and Richard himself on account of his extremely worried state of mind. In fact, until they reached Curzon Street no one spoke, and then it was only Markham, who, glancing behind him at the shuttered windows of the great corner house, casually remarked that Chesterfield was still at Wells. An absent assent came from Carstares, and the conversation came to an end.

  In Clarges Streets they were joined by Sir John Fortescue, an austere patrician, and although some years his senior, a close friend of Richard’s. They fell behind the chair, and Fortescue took Richard’s proffered arm.

  ‘I did not see you at White’s to-day, John?’

  ‘No. I had some business with my lawyer. I suppose you did not stumble across my poor brother?’

  ‘Frank? I did not – but why the “poor”?’

  Fortescue shrugged slightly.

  ‘I think the lad is demented,’ he said. ‘He was to have made one of March’s supper-party last night, but at four o’clock received a communication from heaven knows whom which threw him into a state of unrest. What must he do but hurry off without a word of explanation. Since then I have not set eyes on him, but his man tells me he went to meet a friend. Damned unusual of him is all I have to say.’

  ‘Very strange. Do you expect to see him to-night?’

  ‘I should hope so – ! My dear Carstares, who is the man walking by your lady’s chair?’

  ‘Markham?’

  ‘The other.’

  ‘Lovelace.’

  ‘Lovelace? And who the devil is he?’

  ‘I cannot tell you – beyond a captain in the Guards.’

  ‘That even is news to me. I saw him at Goosetree’s the other night, and wondered. Somewhat of a rake-hell, I surmise.’

  ‘I daresay. I do not like him.’

  They were entering the gates of Devonshire House now, and had to part company, for the crush was so great that it was almost impossible to keep together. Carstares stayed by Lavinia’s chair, and the other men melted away into the crowd. Chairs jostled one another in the effort to get to the door, town coaches rolled up, and having let down their fair burdens, passed out again slowly pushing through the throng.

  When the Carstares’ chair at last drew near the house, it was quite a quarter of an hour later. The ball-room was already full and a blaze of riotous colour. Lavinia was almost immediately borne off by an infatuated youth for whom she cherished a motherly affection that would have caused the unfortunate to tear his elegant locks, had he known it.

  Richard distinguished Lord Andrew Belmanoir, one of a group of bucks gathered about the newest beauty, Miss Gunning, who, with her sister Elizabeth, had taken fashionable London by storm. Andrew wore a mask, but he was quite unmistakable by his length of limb and carelessly rakish appearance.

  Wilding, across the room, beckoned to Richard, and on his approach, dragged him to the card-room to play at lansquenet with March, Selwyn and himself.

  Carstares found the Earl in great good-humour, due, so Selwyn remarked, to the finding of an opera singer even more lovely than the last. From lansquenet they very soon passed to dice and betting, with others who strolled up to the table. Then Carstares excused himself and went back to the ball-room. He presently found himself by the side of one Isa