Arabella Read online

  ‘I have lost my entire fortune on ’Change, and must instantly repair it,’ he interrupted promptly.

  Arabella rose jerkily, and confronted him. ‘I have not a penny in the world!’ she announced.

  ‘In that case,’ responded Mr Beaumaris, maintaining his calm, ‘you really have no choice in the matter: you must obviously marry me. Since we are being frank with one another, I will confess that my fortune is still intact.’

  ‘I deceived you! I am not an heiress!’ Arabella said, feeling that he could not have understood her words.

  ‘You never deceived me for a moment,’ said Mr Beaumaris, smiling at her in a way which made her tremble still more violently.

  ‘I lied to you!’ cried Arabella, determined to bring him to a sense of her iniquities.

  ‘Most understandable,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris. ‘But I am really quite uninterested in heiresses.’

  ‘Mr Beaumaris,’ said Arabella earnestly, ‘the whole of London believes me to be a wealthy woman!’

  ‘Yes, and since the whole of London must certainly continue in that belief, you have, as I have already pointed out to you, no choice but to marry me,’ he said. ‘My fortune, happily, is so large that your lack of fortune need never be suspected.’

  ‘Oh, why didn’t you tell me you knew the truth?’ she cried, wringing her hands.

  He possessed himself of them, and held them lightly. ‘My dearest goose, why didn’t you trust me, when I assured you that you might?’ he countered. ‘I have cherished throughout the belief that you would confide in me, and you see I was quite right. So certain was I that you would not, when the time actually came, run off with me in this absurd fashion, that I visited my grandmother yesterday, and told her the whole story. She was very much diverted, and commanded me to bring you to stay for a few days with her. I hope you will not object to this: she frightens half the world, but you will have me to support you through the ordeal.’

  Arabella pulled her hands resolutely away, and turned from him to hide her quivering lips, and suffused eyes. ‘It is worse than you know!’ she said, in a stifled tone. ‘When you know all the truth, you will not wish to marry me! I have been worse than untruthful: I have been shameless! I can never marry you, Mr Beaumaris!’

  ‘This is most disturbing,’ he said. ‘Not only have I sent the notice of our betrothal to the Gazette, and the Morning Post, but I have obtained your father’s consent to our marriage.’

  At this, she spun round to face him again, a look of utter astonishment in her face. ‘My father’s consent?’ she repeated incredulously.

  ‘It is usual, you know,’ explained Mr Beaumaris apologetically.

  ‘But you do not know my father!’

  ‘On the contrary. I made his acquaintance last week, and spent two most agreeable nights at Heythram,’ he said.

  ‘But – Did Lady Bridlington tell you?’

  ‘No, not Lady Bridlington. Your brother let slip the name of his home once, and I have an excellent memory. I am sorry, by the way, that Bertram should have been having such an uncomfortable time during my absence from town. That was quite my fault: I should have sought him out, and settled his difficulties before I left for Yorkshire. I did write to him, but he had unfortunately departed from the Red Lion before the delivery of my letter. However, you won’t find that the experience has harmed him, so I must hope to be forgiven.’

  Her cheeks were now very much flushed. ‘You know it all then! Oh, what must you think of me? I asked you to marry me because – because I wanted you to give me seven hundred pounds to save poor Bertram from a debtor’s prison!’

  ‘I know you did,’ said Mr Beaumaris cordially. ‘I don’t know how I contrived to keep my countenance. When did it occur to you, my ridiculous little love, that to demand a large sum of money from your bridegroom as soon as the ring was on your finger might be a trifle awkward?’

  ‘Just now – in your chaise!’ she confessed, covering her face with her hands. ‘I couldn’t do it! I have behaved very, very badly, but when I realised what I was about – oh, indeed, I knew I could never do it!’

  ‘We have both behaved very badly,’ he agreed. ‘I encouraged Fleetwood to spread the news that you were a great heiress: I even allowed him to suppose that I knew all about your family. I thought it would be amusing to see whether I could make you the rage of London – and I blush to confess it, my darling: it was amusing! Nor do I really regret it in the least, for if I had not set out on this most reprehensible course we might never have come much in one another’s way again, after our first meeting, and I might never have discovered that I had found the very girl I had been looking for for so long.’

  ‘No, no, how can you say so?’ she exclaimed, large tears standing on the ends of her lashes. ‘I came to London in the hope of – of contracting an eligible marriage, and I asked you to marry me because you are so very rich! You could not wish to marry such an odious creature!’

  ‘No, perhaps I couldn’t,’ he replied. ‘But although you may have forgotten that when I first addressed myself to you, you declined my offer, I have not. If wealth was all your object, I can’t conceive what should have induced you to do so! It seemed to me that you were not entirely indifferent to me. All things considered, I decided that my proper course was to present myself to your parents without further loss of time. And I am very glad I did so, for not only did I spend a very pleasant time at the Vicarage, but I also enjoyed a long talk with your mother – By the way, do you know how much you resemble her? More, I think than any of your brothers and sisters, though they are all remarkably handsome. But, as I say, I enjoyed a long talk with her, and was encouraged to hope, from what she told me, that I had not been mistaken in thinking you were not indifferent to me.’

  ‘I never wrote a word to Mama, or even to Sophy, about – about – not being indifferent to you!’ Arabella said involuntarily.

  ‘Well, I do not know how that may be,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘but Mama and Sophy were not at all surprised to receive a visit from me. Perhaps you may have mentioned me rather frequently in your letters, or perhaps Lady Bridlington gave Mama a hint that I was the most determined of your suitors.’

  The mention of her godmother made Arabella start, and exclaim: ‘Lady Bridlington! Good God, I left a letter for her on the table in the hall, telling her of the dreadful thing I had done, and begging her to forgive me!’

  ‘Don’t disturb yourself, my love: Lady Bridlington knows very well where you are. Indeed, I found her most helpful, particularly when it came to packing what you would need for a brief sojourn at my grandmother’s house. She promised that her own maid should attend to the matter while we were listening to that tedious concert. I daresay she has long since told that son of hers that he may look for the notice of our engagement in tomorrow’s Gazette, together with the intelligence that we have both of us gone out of town to stay with the Dowager Duchess of Wigan. By the time we reappear in London, we must hope that our various acquaintances will have grown so accustomed to the news that we shall not be quite overwhelmed by their astonishment, their chagrin, or their felicitations. But I am strongly of the opinion that you should permit me to escort you home to Heythram as soon as possible: you will naturally wish your father to marry us, and I am extremely impatient to carry off my wife without any loss of time. My darling, what in the world have I said to make you cry?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing!’ sobbed Arabella. ‘Only that I don’t deserve to be so happy, and I n-never was indifferent to you, though I t-tried very hard to be, when I thought you were only trifling with m-me!’

  Mr Beaumaris then took her firmly into his arms, and kissed her; after which she derived much comfort from clutching the lapel of his elegant coat, and weeping into his shoulder. None of the very gratifying things which Mr Beaumaris murmured into the curls that were tickling his chin had any other effect on her than to make her sob more bitterly than