April Lady Read online

  ‘Never mind that!’ said the Viscount. ‘Here’s this curst fellow, Hethersett, got in with us! Help me to throw him out, will you?’

  ‘No, no, can’t do that!’ said Mr Fancot, who was filled with a large tolerance. ‘Very good sort of a man! Didn’t know I’d invited him, but very glad he came.’

  ‘You didn’t invite him! Nobody invited him!’ said the Viscount.

  ‘Must have,’ said Mr Fancot. ‘Wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t. Polite to a point! Happy to take a glass of wine with him.’

  ‘Well, if ever I saw old Corny so castaway!’ exclaimed Dysart. ‘Dashed if he ain’t as drunk as a wheelbarrow!’

  ‘Yes, but at least he is perfectly amiable!’ said Nell. ‘He doesn’t say outrageous things, or try to throw people into the street!’

  This unfortunate remark reminded the Viscount that his purpose was still unaccomplished, but just at that moment Mr Fancot began to warble an entirely unintelligible ditty. Since he was apparently afflicted with tone-deafness this musical interlude was a severe trial to the rest of the company, and caused the Viscount to forget Mr Hethersett again. ‘Stop it, Corny!’ he said indignantly.

  ‘Chip-chip, cherry-chip, fol-di-diddle-di-dee!’ sang Mr Fancot.

  ‘That’s not right!’ said Dysart scornfully. ‘It don’t even make sense!’ He then upraised his powerful baritone, and favoured the company with the correct version, which, as far as his sister could discover, differed hardly at all from his friend’s. But Mr Hethersett, unmoved by Mr Fancot’s outburst, was powerfully affected by the Viscount’s. No sooner did the refrain of Chip-chow, cherry-chow, fol-lol-di-riddle-low break upon his ears than Nell felt him stiffen, and heard him utter an exclamation under his breath.

  The Viscount beguiled the rest of the way with song, and was still singing when Cardross’s astonished butler admitted the party into the house.

  But it did not appear to be Lord Dysart’s condition that surprised Farley. It was the sight of his mistress that made his eyes widen. He exclaimed involuntarily: ‘My lady!’

  ‘Yes, did you not know that I had been obliged to go out?’ said Nell, with an attempt to carry the situation off unconcernedly. ‘Pray show Lord Dysart and Mr Fancot into the library! They – they have come to take supper with me!’

  ‘My birthday,’ said Mr Fancot affably. ‘Celebrating it! Blackbeetle, too.’

  ‘I see, sir,’ responded Farley, gently removing the hat from his grasp.

  ‘Blackbeetle be damned!’ said the Viscount. ‘Cockroach! Where’s his lordship?’

  ‘His lordship is not at home, but he will be in directly, my lord,’ replied Farley, consigning the visitors into the care of the footman who had followed him into the hall.

  Mr Fancot was easily shepherded into the library, but the Viscount was recalcitrant. ‘It ain’t a bit of use trying to fob me off,’ he told his sister sternly. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight, Nell, so don’t think it! Not with that fellow in the house!’

  ‘Dysart, for heaven’s sake – !’

  ‘You’d better go with him, cousin,’ advised Mr Hethersett. ‘No sense in starting him off again on his high ropes! Much better leave this to me.’

  Since Dysart had acquired a firm grip on her arm, there really seemed to be nothing else she could do, so, with a low-voiced entreaty to Mr Hethersett to lose no time in setting forth in search of Cardross, she retired to the library.

  Here she was made welcome by Mr Fancot, happy in the belief that he was entertaining friends under his own roof. He shook her warmly by the hand, and offered her a glass of wine. She declined this, which distressed him; but Dysart, who had discovered glasses and a decanter set out on a side-table, said: ‘No use pressing her: only two glasses!’

  Mr Fancot was shocked. ‘Only two glasses?’ he repeated. ‘That’s absurd, Dy! No other word for it: absurd! Stupid fellow of mine misunderstood. Ring for more glasses!’

  ‘We don’t need any more glasses,’ replied Dysart, lavishly pouring wine into the two that stood on the table.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ insisted Mr Fancot. ‘Can’t give a party with two glasses: stands to reason!’

  ‘Well, it ain’t a party. It ain’t your house either.’

  ‘It ain’t?’ Mr Fancot said incredulously. He subjected his surroundings to a keen, if somewhat owlish scrutiny. ‘By Jove, Dy, so it ain’t! Dashed if I know whose house it is! You know what, dear boy? Come to the wrong house! Better go.’

  ‘No, we haven’t. Came here to see Cardross,’ said Dysart with a darkling look.

  Mr Fancot thought this over profoundly. ‘No,’ he pronounced at last. ‘Not sure why we came here, but we don’t want to see Cardross. Nothing against him, mind! Not particularly acquainted with him, but capital fellow! Bang up to the mark. Honoured to meet him, but the thing is, not what we set out to do. Tell me this, Dy! Have we dined?’

  ‘To hell with dinner! I’m going to see Cardross!’ said Dysart obstinately.

  ‘Oh, Dysart, I wish you will go away!’ Nell exclaimed. ‘You don’t want to meet Cardross! you know you don’t!’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ nodded Mr Fancot, gratified. ‘Not what we set out to do. Besides, he ain’t here. Go to Watier’s!’

  ‘Not till I’ve seen Cardross. Got something to say to him. No business to let that fellow dangle after my sister! I’m going to tell him so.’

  ‘Which fellow?’ enquired Mr Fancot.

  ‘Hethersett,’ replied the Viscount, tossing off the wine in his glass. ‘You know what he is, Corny? A damned Man of the Town! And there’s Cardross, letting him make up to my sister, while he goes off like a regular Care-for-Nobody! What I say is, he’s got no business to neglect her, and so I shall tell him!’

  ‘He doesn’t neglect me!’ said Nell hotly. ‘And if you were not so odiously foxed, Dy, you wouldn’t say such detestable things!’

  ‘Yes, I should,’ he retorted. ‘In fact, the more I think of it the more I can see he’s too high in the instep by half! Took a pet because I held you up. Very well! if he didn’t want me to hold you up, why didn’t he do it himself? Tell me that! Who brought the dibs in tune for you? I did! Who stopped you getting into Jew King’s clutches? –’

  ‘Felix Hethersett did!’ she intervened crossly, taking off her bonnet, and running her fingers through her flattened curls.

  ‘Yes, by Jove, so he did!’ exclaimed the Viscount, his eyes kindling. ‘Like his damned impudence!’

  Fortunately, since his mood was becoming increasingly belligerent, he was diverted by Mr Fancot, who suddenly offered to set him a main. He turned to find that his amiable friend, losing interest in the conversation, had seated himself by the table in the middle of the room, produced a dice-box from his pocket, and was engaged in throwing right hand against left. Drunk or sober, the Viscount was not the man to refuse a challenge of this nature. He instantly sat down on the other side of the table, and, to Nell’s relief, became absorbed in his ruling passion. From this he was momentarily disturbed by the entrance of the footman, who came in bearing two tankards, which he silently set down at either gentleman’s elbow. Dysart, staring at them, demanded to know what the devil he thought he was doing, and told him to bring in a bottle of brandy. The footman bowed, and withdrew, saying: ‘Very good, my lord,’ but he did not remove the homely tankards. Nor did he return to the library, but as the Viscount immediately struck a run of amazing and most unaccustomed good fortune his failure to bring in the brandy went unnoticed, both gamesters refreshing themselves with draughts of porter, and Dysart, having rapidly relieved Mr Fancot of his ready money, beginning to amass a number of notes of hand which that well-breeched young gentleman scrawled somewhat illegibly but with the greatest goodwill on leaves torn from his pocket-book.

  Meanwhile, Mr Hethersett, to whose thoughtful offices they owed a beverage well-kn