April Lady Read online

  But when Selina presently came into the room it was evident even to her fond parent that she knew very well why she had been sent for. She was in fine feather, and perfectly ready to be martyred in her cousin’s cause. Hers had not been the chief rôle in the delightful drama, but she had been able easily to convince herself that without her self-abnegating offices the interested parties would by this time have been obliged to resign themselves to their equally disagreeable fates. Letty (if she did not go into a decline, and expire within the year) would have been ruthlessly forced into marriage with a titled Midas of evil disposition, at whose hands she would have suffered brutal ill-usage; and Mr Allandale, unaccountably forgotten by his superiors, would have worn out his life in a foreign land, always carrying his lost love’s likeness next to his heart, and dying (in circumstances of distressing neglect and anguish) with her name on his writhen lips.

  Until she found herself confronting Nell, of whom she stood in a good deal of awe, this affecting story had seemed to her so probable as to border on the inevitable. She had several times rehearsed the elevating utterances she would make, if called upon to account for her actions; and in these scenes every effort made by Letty’s persecutors to drag from her the secret of her whereabouts failed. Sometimes she remained mute while the storm raged over her devoted head; but in general she was extremely eloquent, expressing herself with such moving sincerity that even such worldly persons as her father and Lord Cardross were often brought to see how false and mercenary were their ideas, and emerged from the encounter with changed hearts, and the highest opinion of her fearlessness, nobility, and good sense.

  But in these scenes the other members of the caste spoke the lines laid down for them; in real life they said things so very different as to throw everything quite out of joint. In the event, Selina pronounced only one of her rehearsed speeches. Asked by her mother if she knew what had become of Letty, she clasped her hands at her breast, and declined to answer the question. She then invited the two ladies to threaten her as much as they chose, to do with her what they would; but warned them that they would find it impossible to force her to betray her cousin.

  Mrs Thorne should then have conjured her daughter on her obedience to divulge the truth; instead, and with a lamentable lack of histrionic ability, she begged her irritably not, for goodness sake, to start any of her play-acting; and before Selina could recover from this set-back Nell completed her discomfiture by saying in a tone of grave reproof: ‘Indeed, Selina, you must not make-believe over this, for I am afraid it is much more serious than you have any idea of.’

  After that, there could be no recapturing the dramatic flavour of the piece. Selina did say that she wouldn’t tell anything, but even in her own ears this sounded very much more sulky than noble; and when Mrs Thorne, heaving herself out of her chair, declared her intention of hailing her immediately before her papa, who would know how to deal with such impertinence, instead of behaving like a heroine, she collapsed into frightened tears.

  It took a little time to drag the whole story out of her and the effect of her revelations on Mrs Thorne was severe enough to make Nell feel profoundly sorry for the poor lady. She was so much stunned by the discovery that when she had believed Selina to have gone under the escort of her maid to a dancing-class, or a music-lesson, that abandoned damsel had been setting forth by stealth for the most fashionable quarter of the town, alone, and for the purpose of aiding and abetting her cousin in conduct that, if it were to become known, would disgrace them both for ever in the eyes of all persons of ton, that she could do nothing but reproach Selina, and wonder how she came to have a daughter so lost to all sense of propriety. It was left to Nell to question Selina, which she did with a gentle coldness that overawed her far more than did her mother’s scoldings.

  Letty had sold the necklace to Catworth on the day that she had gone with her cousin to choose a wedding-gift for Fanny. They had dismissed the carriage outside the Pantheon, telling the coachman to call for them at Gunter’s, in Berkeley Square, considerably later in the day. After purchasing a couple of thick veils, they had set out in a hack for Cranbourn Alley, having discovered the existence of the firm of Catworth and Son through the simple expedient of asking the jarvey on the box to recommend them a jeweller not patronized by persons of quality. While Letty had transacted her business with the younger Catworth, Selina had remained in the hack, because the jarvey, when instructed to wait outside the shop, apparently suspecting them of trying to give him the slip, had expressed a strong wish of being paid off then and there.

  After the sale of the necklace, only one thing was needed for an elopement, and that was the bridegroom, who was then still out of town.

  At this point, Mrs Thorne exclaimed: ‘Never tell me Allandale was ready to take her with no more than two thousand pounds!’

  ‘My dear ma’am, you cannot suppose that Mr Allandale was a party to such a thing!’ Nell said.

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ corroborated Selina. ‘Letty said she would tell him she had it from her godfather, in case he should think she ought not to have taken the necklace.’

  The two girls had met that afternoon by prearrangement, and as soon as Martha had been got rid of, which was done because Letty wished, with rare consideration, to protect her from blame, they had purchased such necessities as Letty had been unable to pack in her bundle, and brought them to Bryanston Square, to be bestowed in an old cloak-bag belonging to Papa. Finally, Letty had departed in a hackney for Mr Allandale’s lodging in Ryder Street. ‘But you won’t catch them,’ Selina said, with a last flicker of defiance, ‘because that was hours ago, and you may depend upon it they are many miles away by now!’

  This seemed all too probable to Mrs Thorne, sinking back in her chair with a groan of dismay, but Nell was more hopeful. When Selina had been dismissed to bed, with the promise of bread and water for her supper, an interview with Papa on the morrow, and incarceration for an unspecified length of time in a Bath seminary for young ladies, she rose to her feet, saying that she would go at once to Ryder Street.

  ‘But what is the use, my dear?’ wailed Mrs Thorne. ‘You heard what that wicked child of mine said! They’re off to Gretna Green, depend upon it!’

  ‘I cannot credit it! No doubt that was Letty’s plan, but I shall own myself astonished if it was Mr Allandale’s. Oh, he would not do such a thing! I am quite confident he would not!’

  ‘Good gracious, Lady Cardross, where else could they go? They couldn’t be married in England, what with Letty’s being under age, and special licences, and I don’t know what beside! Surely to goodness he wouldn’t have let her run away to him if he didn’t mean to marry her immediately?’

  ‘I don’t believe he knew anything about it,’ declared Nell. ‘Only consider, ma’am! He is a respectable man of superior sense, and with extremely nice notions of propriety. I am persuaded he would not entertain for an instant the thought of eloping with a child of Letty’s age. Her expectations, too! Oh, no, he couldn’t do it! If his own good feeling did not prevent him, the knowledge that he would be thought to have behaved like a most unprincipled fortune-hunter surely would!’

  ‘Ay, there is that,’ agreed Mrs Thorne, a little doubtfully. ‘He would lose his employment, too, I daresay. But, you know, my dear, when a man falls head over ears in love there’s no saying what he may do. And you aren’t going to tell me Letty ran off to elope with him without him knowing she meant to do it!’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Nell said, on a tiny choke of laughter. ‘It would be exactly like her to do so!’

  ‘Well!’ gasped Mrs Thorne. ‘Of all the brazen little hussies! A nice surprise it will be for Allandale when he goes home from the Foreign Office, thinking of nothing but his dinner, as I don’t doubt he will be, and finds that naughty girl in his lodging, as bold as brass, and expecting him to set out with her for Scotland! Well, I hope it will be a lesson to him, that’s all! Only, if th