The Foundling Read online

  This sad little speech brought the tears to Harriet’s eyes, and she took one of Belinda’s hands in hers, and clasped it, saying: ‘No, no, do not say so! The Duke and I will always stand your friends, I promise!’

  ‘Yes, but it is not the same,’ said Belinda unanswerably.

  The Duke could only reiterate his determination to find Mr Mudgley. Belinda smiled gratefully at him, but without conviction, and, catching Gideon’s eye, he rose to take his leave.

  ‘Well,’ said Gideon, as they walked towards Bridge Street together, ‘she is certainly a nonpareil, Adolphus, and I think you are wasting your time. She is destined to become a Covent Garden nun.’

  The Duke compressed his lips, returning no answer. Captain Ware glanced quizzically down at him. ‘I have offended you, Adolphus?’

  ‘No. I expected you to say something of the sort. You have never the least sympathy for those born in less easy circumstances than yourself – witness your contempt of Matt!’

  Captain Ware blinked. ‘Phew! What can I do to atone?’

  ‘Find Mudgley for me!’ said the Duke tartly.

  ‘Yes, your Grace!’ said Captain Ware, in servile accents.

  This made the Duke laugh. He slid a hand in his cousin’s arm, pressing it slightly, and saying: ‘I have learnt some few things in this week that I never knew before, you see, Gideon. Did you ever think how it would be to be without a single relative in the world?’

  ‘I did not, I own. I thought you had done so, however, and envied those in that happy state.’

  ‘I have discovered my mistake,’ replied the Duke.

  Gideon could not help smiling at this. He said: ‘I hope you will still think so when my father arrives in Bath!’

  This event took place that evening, just as Nettlebed had brought sherry and Madeira into the private parlour, drawn the blinds and made up the fire. The door was suddenly opened, and Lord Lionel stalked into the room, before the trembling waiter had had time to announce him.

  His lordship, having passed through every stage of anxiety, was suffering from the inevitable reaction, and looked to be in anything but a conciliatory mood. His eagle-glance swept past his son and became fixed upon the Duke. ‘Ha!’ he ejaculated explosively. ‘So you have seen fit to inform us of your whereabouts, Sale! Extremely obliging of you! And now perhaps you will have the goodness to explain the meaning of this caper?’

  The Duke, rising quickly from his seat by the fire, fancied that he could detect fresh lines on his uncle’s face. He went forward, holding out his hands, and saying: ‘Dear sir, I am so very glad to see you! Forgive me!’

  Lord Lionel champed upon an invisible bit. With all the air of a man constrained against his will, he took the outstretched hands, and gripped them. ‘I want none of your cajolery, Sale!’ he announced, his penetrating gaze searching the Duke’s face. ‘I do not know what the devil you mean by behaving in this way. I am very angry with you, very angry, indeed! How dared you, sir?’

  The Duke smiled up at him. ‘Indeed, I don’t know how I dared! But I did not mean the fools to worry you with my capers!’

  ‘Let me tell you that I have better things to do than to worry over your conduct!’ said his lordship inaccurately. ‘Are you quite well, Gilly? Yes, I see that you are. It would have served you right if I had found you laid down on your bed with one of your sickly turns, let me tell you! Where have you been, and what the devil are you doing in this place? Let me have a plain answer, if you please!’

  ‘Oh, I have been in all manner of places, sir, trying to discover if I am a man, or only a duke!’ responded the Duke.

  ‘Balderdash!’ pronounced his lordship comprehensively. He released the Duke’s hands, and discovered Nettlebed’s presence in the room. His exacerbated feelings found a certain measure of relief in the utterance of a severe rebuke to him for having left Sale House without notice or permission. He then turned his attention to his son, and having condemned his manners and morals in a few blistering sentences, felt a good deal better. He eyed the real culprit measuringly. ‘I know very well when you have been in mischief, sir!’ he said grimly. ‘Don’t think to fob me off, or to hide behind Gideon, for I mean to have the truth! If you were but five years younger –’

  ‘No, no!’ protested the Duke, his face alive with laughter. ‘You never flogged me after I was sixteen, sir!’

  ‘I collect,’ said Lord Lionel, with a fulminating glance cast at his son, ‘that you mean to tell me that it was I who drove you into this nonsensical affair?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, sir,’ said the Duke, coaxing him into a chair by the fire, ‘I do not mean to tell you anything at all! Oh, no, don’t frown at me, and pray do not be so angry with me! You see, I have taken no hurt, and I promise I will not cause you such anxiety again. Nettlebed, be so good as to tell them to lay covers for three, and fetch another wine-glass for his lordship!’

  ‘I do not dine here,’ stated his lordship, his brows still alarmingly knit, ‘and nor do you, Gilly! I do not know why, when you have a house very conveniently placed, you must needs install yourself at a common inn: I daresay it is of a piece with all the rest! You will accompany me to Cheyney at once!’

  Gideon leaned his shoulders against the wall, and waited with interest to hear what his cousin would reply to this command.

  ‘Oh, no, do stay to dine with me!’ said the Duke. ‘I must explain to you that I have guests staying at Cheyney – rather odd guests, perhaps you may think!’

  ‘Yes, I do think it!’ said Lord Lionel. ‘I have already been to Cheyney, Sale! I am well aware that it is no longer any concern of mine if you choose to fill your house with a parcel of vulgar tradesmen, and to give an overgrown schoolboy carte blanche to shoot every bird you have on the place, but I should be glad to know where you acquired your taste for low company!’

  ‘The thing is,’ replied the Duke confidentially, ‘that I haven’t a taste for low company, sir. I owed Mamble some degree of extraordinary civility, for I fear I did aid and abet his son to escape from him.’

  ‘I do not know what you are talking about!’ complained his lordship. ‘And if it is your notion of extraordinary civility to invite a man to stay in your house when you are not there to entertain him, I can only suppose that I have failed, in all these years, to teach you common courtesy! I am ashamed of you, Gilly!’

  ‘But I couldn’t endure him, sir! It is very bad, but what was I to do, when he would toadeat me so, and there was no getting away from him? He means only to stay there for a day or two, because I promised Tom he should have some shooting. Should you object very much to entertaining him for me?’

  ‘Yes, I should!’ barked Lord Lionel. ‘You will stop talking flummery to me, and come to Cheyney!’

  The Duke poured out some sherry into the glass Nettlebed had just brought into the room, and handed it to his uncle. ‘No, I cannot spare the time to go to Cheyney now,’ he said. ‘I am removing to the Christopher, however. Did you bring my baggage with you from London, dear sir?’

  ‘Yes, I did, and it is awaiting you at Cheyney. Now, Gilly –’

  ‘Then it must be sent to the Christopher to-morrow,’ said the Duke calmly. ‘It is very tiresome! I am so sadly in need of a change of raiment!’

  ‘Gilly!’ said his lordship awfully.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  Lord Lionel glared at him. ‘Gilly, what is the matter with you?’ he demanded. ‘What made you do it, boy? Be a little plain with me, I beg of you!’

  The Duke sat down beside him, and laid a hand on his knee. ‘It is very ridiculous,’ he said, in his soft voice. ‘I found it a dead bore to be Duke of Sale, and I thought I would try how it would be to be nobody in particular.’

  ‘Upon my word! I should have thought you would have had more sense!’

  ‘But I hadn’t, sir.’