Friday's Child Read online

  The Dowager, observing these signs of maturity in her son, then shed tears, and would have held his hand and condoled with him had he permitted it. She said that he must not mind her saying that she had never considered Hero Wantage to have been good enough for him. Unfortunately for the rest of the speech which she had been about to make, the Viscount replied that he minded it very much; that there was no truth in the statement; and that he must request his mother never to repeat it. He then took from her all power of saying anything at all by informing her that he proposed to make certain changes in his way of life, which would necessitate her removal – at her convenience, he added, with this new and quelling politeness – from Sheringham Place to the Dower House. He further announced his intention of taking up his residence in the house in Grosvenor Square as soon as he should be reunited with his wife, and begged her ladyship to remove from it any such articles of furniture as belonged to her, or for which she had a partiality. He had formed the immediate intention of redecorating the house, and he was going to put this in hand without loss of time.

  When the dowager had recovered her breath she attempted, though feebly, to expostulate. The Viscount cut her short. ‘My mind is made up, ma’am. It is time I was thinking of settling down. I should have done all this at the outset. It may be too late: I don’t know that. But if – when – my wife returns to me we will contrive better, I hope.’

  ‘I am sure I am the last person alive to wish to keep you out of your own house,’ quavered Lady Sheringham. ‘But I do not know why you should suppose your wife will return to you, for ten to one she has run off with another man!’

  ‘No,’ said his lordship, turning his back upon her, and staring out of the window at the bleak gardens.‘That is something else I desire you will not repeat, ma’am. It is untrue.’

  ‘You cannot know that, Anthony, my poor boy! She never cared for you! It was all vanity, and the wish of becoming a person of consequence!’

  He shook his head.‘She never thought of that. I didn’t know it – never stopped to think, or – or consider it, but she did care for me. Much more than I cared for her – then. But if I could only find her – I’ve racked my brains, and I can’t think where she can have gone, or to whom! She must have sought shelter with someone! Good God, ma’am, it keeps me awake at night, the fear that she may be alone, without money, or friends, or – No, no, she must be with some friend I know nothing of !’

  ‘Very likely she went to that vulgar cousin of hers,’ said his mother waspishly.

  He wheeled round, rather pale. ‘Mrs Hoby!’ he ejaculated. ‘How did I come to forget her? Good God, what a fool I have been! I am obliged to you, ma’am!’

  He set off for town again that very day, and repaired to the Hobys’ house. A rather slatternly servant opened the door to him, when he had knocked on it for the third time, and informed him that her master and mistress were away from London. A few enquiries elicited the further information that the Hobys had left for a visit to Ireland the day following Hero’s departure from Half Moon Street. With a darkening brow, the Viscount asked if this had been a long-standing engagement. The servant thought not; they had packed up and gone in a hurry; she thought a letter had arrived which made them take this course. But when he asked if they had gone alone, or had taken a friend with them, she shook her head and replied that she couldn’t say, not having witnessed the actual departure, but she believed they had been alone.

  The Viscount went home to think this over. The more he thought, the more convinced he became that Hero had indeed flown to her cousin, and was now being concealed by this lady. He had never liked Theresa Hoby; her husband he barely knew, but had little hesitation in condemning as bad ton; and gradually there grew up in his breast a feeling of indignation that Hero should have fled to the very people above all others whom he most disliked. He remembered that he had forbidden her to hold any close intercourse with Mrs Hoby; remembered also that she had largely ignored this prohibition; and conveniently forgot that it had been uttered in the heat of the moment, and never seriously repeated. He began to be angry, and from picturing Hero in all manner of appalling plights passed to imagining her amusing herself amongst a set of people of whom her husband disapproved. A cynical remark let fall by his Uncle Prosper, that no doubt the minx was bent on giving him the fright of his life, took root in Sherry’s mind, and drove him to throw himself, without the slightest enjoyment, into much the same kind of excesses which were being indulged in by Lord Wrotham. There was a good deal of bravado about this, a suggestion of gritted teeth, and more than a suggestion of obstinacy; but it made Mr Ringwood pull down the corners of his mouth and shake a despondent head.

  Six weeks after Hero’s disappearance, the Hobys came back to London. Sherry heard of their arrival, and grimly waited the return of his wife. She did not come; but her cousin did – to call upon her. The Viscount received her, and ten minutes in her company were enough to convince him that she knew nothing of Hero’s whereabouts, had not the smallest notion of her being away from home, and had journeyed into Ireland for the purpose of attending her mother-in-law’s sick-bed.

  The Viscount’s brain reeled under the shock. Remorse, anxiety, and despair played havoc with him; and he seriously disquieted Bootle by spending the entire night in the back room, called his library, alternately striding up and down the floor and sitting with his head in his hands over the fire. He consumed a considerable quantity of liquor during this session, but he was not drunk when Bootle ventured to enter the room early the following morning; and this, the valet said darkly to Bradgate, was a very bad sign.

  The Viscount looked at him unseeingly for a moment, and then passed a hand through his tumbled locks, and said curtly: ‘Send round to Stoke, and tell them I desire to see him immediately!’

  Mr Stoke, when he arrived,was shocked by his patron’s haggard appearance. He listened in silence to the blunt story the Viscount related, and received, without visible discomposure, a command to set every possible means in motion to discover Lady Sheringham’s whereabouts. He asked the Viscount one or two searching questions, did his best to hide his own absence of hope, and went away promising to strain every nerve to find her ladyship.

  The Viscount was still waiting for his man of business to justify his existence when the dowager arrived in London, and summoned him to visit her at Grillon’s Hotel, where she was putting up. He found her with Miss Milborne in her train, and learned from her that the unusually damp winter had so aggravated her numerous rheumatic disorders that nothing short of a visit to Bath was likely to be of benefit to her. Miss Milborne, too, she said, had been sickly for some weeks. So she had had the idea of inviting the sweet girl to accompany her to Bath, to try what the waters would do for her, and to fill the place of Mr Paulett, who was employed in making the Dower House habitable. She desired the Viscount to perform the filial duty of escorting them on their perilous journey.

  The Viscount refused with wholly unfilial promptness. He said that nothing would prevail upon him to leave London; and that if his Mama thought herself in danger of being held up by highwaymen, she would find a couple of outriders of more practical use than himself. The dowager smiled wanly, rose up from her chair, saying that perhaps Someone Else would have the power to make him change his mind, and drifted out of the room, leaving him alone with Miss Milborne.

  The Viscount stared at the shut door, and then at the Beauty, incredulity struggling with wrath in his countenance.‘What the deuce – ?’ he demanded explosively.

  Miss Milborne got up and took his hand, saying with a good deal of feeling:‘My poor Sherry, you look so wretchedly! Have you had no word from Hero?’

  He shook his head.‘Not one. I’ve set my man of business on to it. Told him to call in the Runners if need be, though God knows I don’t want – But what else can I do? And then my mother comes here teasing me to take her to Bath, of all places! And let me tell you, Bella, that while I have no wish to offend you, if her ladyship meant that you ha