Arabella Read online

‘That’s fudge!’ he said quickly. ‘I had been to gaming-houses before I met him. He was not to know I wasn’t as well-blunted as that set of his! I ought not to have gone with him to the Nonesuch. Only I had lost money on a race, and I thought – I hoped – Oh, talking pays no toll! But to say it was your fault is all gammon!’

  ‘Bertram, who won your money at the Nonesuch?’ she asked.

  ‘The bank. It was faro.’

  ‘Yes, but someone holds the bank!’

  ‘The Nonpareil.’

  She stared at him. ‘Mr Beaumaris?’ she gasped. He nodded. ‘Oh, no, do not say so! How could he have let you – No, no, Bertram!’

  She sounded so much distressed that he was puzzled. ‘Why the devil shouldn’t he?’

  ‘You are only a boy! He must have known! And to accept notes of hand from you! Surely he might have refused to do so much at least!’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ he said impatiently. ‘I went there with Chuffy, so why should he refuse to let me play?’

  Mr Scunthorpe nodded. ‘Very awkward situation, ma’am. Devilish insulting to refuse a man’s vowels.’

  She could not appreciate the niceties of the code evidently shared by both gentlemen, but she could accept that they must obtain in male circles. ‘I must think it wrong of him,’ she said. ‘But never mind! The thing is that he is – that I am particularly acquainted with him! Don’t be in despair, Bertram! I am persuaded that if I were to go to him, explain that you are not of age, and not a rich man’s son, he will forgive the debt!’

  She broke off, for there was no mistaking the expressions of shocked disapprobation in both Bertram’s and Mr Scunthorpe’s faces.

  ‘Good God, Bella, what will you say next!’

  ‘But, Bertram, indeed he is not proud and disagreeable, as so many people think him! I – I have found him particularly kind, and obliging!’

  ‘Bella, this is a debt of honour! If it takes my life long to do it, I must pay it, and so I shall tell him!’

  Mr Scunthorpe nodded judicial approval of this decision.

  ‘Spend your life paying six hundred pounds to a man who is so wealthy that I daresay he regards it no more than you would a shilling?’ cried Arabella. ‘Why, it is absurd!’

  Bertram looked despairingly at his friend. Mr Scunthorpe said painstakingly: ‘Nothing to do with it, ma’am. Debt of honour is a debt of honour. No getting away from that.’

  ‘I cannot agree! I own, I do not like to do it, but I could do it, and I know he would never refuse me!’

  Bertram grasped her wrist. ‘Listen, Bella! I daresay you don’t understand – in fact, I can see that you don’t! – but if you dared to do such a thing I swear you’d never see my face again! Besides, even if he did tear up my vowels I should still think myself under an obligation to redeem them! Next you will be suggesting that you should ask him to pay those damned tradesmen’s bills for me!’

  She coloured guiltily, for some such idea had just crossed her mind. Suddenly, Mr Scunthorpe, whose face a moment before had assumed a cataleptic expression, uttered three pregnant words. ‘Got a notion!’

  The Tallants looked anxiously at him, Bertram with hope, his sister more than a little doubtfully.

  ‘Know what they say?’ Mr Scunthorpe demanded. ‘Bank always wins!’

  ‘I know that,’ said Bertram bitterly. ‘If that’s all you have to say –’

  ‘Wait!’ said Mr Scunthorpe. ‘Start one!’ He saw blank bewilderment in the two faces confronting him, and added, with a touch of impatience: ‘Faro!’

  ‘Start a faro-bank?’ said Bertram incredulously. ‘You must be mad! Why, even if it were not the craziest thing I ever heard of, you can’t run a faro-bank without capital!’

  ‘Thought of that,’ said Mr Scunthorpe, not without pride. ‘Go to my trustees. Go at once. Not a moment to be lost.’

  ‘Good God, you don’t suppose they would let you touch your capital for such a cause as that?’

  ‘Don’t see why not!’ argued Mr Scunthorpe. ‘Always trying to add to it. Preaching at me for ever about improving the estate! Very good way of doing it: wonder they haven’t thought of it for themselves. Better go and see my uncle at once.’

  ‘Felix, you’re a gudgeon!’ said Bertram irritably. ‘No trustee would let you do such a thing! And even if they would, good God, we neither of us want to spend our lives running a faro-bank!’

  ‘Shouldn’t have to,’ said Mr Scunthorpe, sticking obstinately by his guns. ‘Only want to clear you of debt! One good night’s run would do it. Close the bank then.’

  He was so much enamoured of this scheme that it was some time before he could be dissuaded from trying to promote it. Arabella, paying very little heed to the argument, sat wrapped in her own thoughts. That these were by no means pleasant would have been apparent, even to Mr Scunthorpe, had he been less engrossed in the championing of his own plans, for not only did her hands clench and unclench in her lap, but her face, always very expressive, betrayed her. But by the time Bertram had convinced Mr Scunthorpe that a faro-bank would not answer, she was sufficiently mistress of herself again to excite no suspicion in either gentleman’s breast.

  She turned her eyes towards Bertram, who had sunk back, after his animated argument, into a state of hopeless gloom. ‘I shall think of something,’ she said. ‘I know I shall contrive to help you! Only please, please do not enlist, Bertram! Not yet! Only if I should fail!’

  ‘What do you mean to do?’ he demanded. ‘I shan’t enlist until I have seen Mr Beaumaris, and – and explained to him how it is! That I must do. I – I told him I had no funds in London, and should be obliged to send into Yorkshire for them, so he asked me to call at his house on Thursday. It is of no use to look at me like that, Bella! I couldn’t tell him I was done-up, and had no means of paying him, with them all there, listening to what we were saying! I would have died rather! Bella, have you any money? Could you spare me enough to get my shirt back? I can’t go to see the Nonpareil like this!’

  She thrust her purse into his hand. ‘Yes, yes of course! If only I had not bought those gloves, and the shoes, and the new scarf! There are only ten guineas left, but it will be enough to make you more comfortable until I have thought how to help you, won’t it? Do, do remove from this dreadful house! I saw quite a number of inns on our way, and one or two of them looked to be respectable!’

  It was plain that Bertram would be only too ready to change his quarters, and after a brief dispute, in which he was very glad to be worsted, he took the purse, gave her a hug, and said that she was the best sister in the world. He asked wistfully whether she thought Lady Bridlington might be induced to advance him seven hundred pounds, on a promise of repayment over a protracted period, but although she replied cheerfully that she had no doubt that she could arrange something of the sort, he could not deceive himself into thinking it possible, and sighed. Mr Scunthorpe, prefixing his remark with one of his deprecating coughs, suggested that as the hackney had been told to wait for them, he and Miss Tallant ought, perhaps, to be taking their leave. Arabella was much inclined to go at once in search of a suitable hostelry for Bertram, but was earnestly dissuaded, Mr Scunthorpe promising to attend to this matter himself, and also to redeem Bertram’s raiment from the pawnbroker’s shop. The brother and sister then parted, clinging to one another in such a moving way that Mr Scunthorpe was much affected by the sight, and had to blow his nose with great violence.

  Arabella’s first action on reaching Park Street again was to run up to her bedchamber, and without pausing to remove her bonnet to sit down at the little table in the window, and prepare to write a letter. But in spite of the evident urgency of the matter she had no sooner written her opening words than all inspiration appeared to desert her, and she sat staring out of the window, while the ink dried on her pen. At last she drew a breath, dipped the pen in the standish again, and resolutely wrote two