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  The Viscount at once closed with the offer, and proceeded to enlist the services of Mr Ringwood. Mr Ringwood, learning that his task was to escort his friend’s bride on a tour of the milliners’ and mantua-makers’ shops which graced the town, and to dissuade her from purchasing garments unsuited to her station, goggled at the Viscount in dismay. His expostulations went quite unheeded. The Viscount assured him that he would deal famously with Miss Wantage; and, after appointing a rendezvous with Lord Wrotham, bore him off in his phaeton to Grillon’s Hotel.

  Five

  MISS WANTAGE, IN SPITE OF HER NATURAL TERROR AT being left without support in such a formidable place as Grillon’s Hotel had passed a peaceful night, the unaccustomed excitement of the previous day having made her tired enough to sink into a sleep from which not all the strange noises of a London street had the power to rouse her. The Viscount had very kindly stayed to partake of dinner in her company before leaving the hotel for his own lodging; and since he had promised to visit her betimes next morning she was able to part from him with tolerable composure. But the high-bred stares of several dowagers sojourning in the hotel, coupled with the overt curiosity of the chambermaid who waited on her, made her feel very ill-at-ease, and it took all the comfort afforded by the knowledge of being dressed in a modish new gown to sustain her spirits until the arrival, at eleven o’clock, of the Viscount, with the shrinking Mr Ringwood in tow.

  Being blessed with the friendliest of natures, Miss Wantage accepted Mr Ringwood with perfect complaisance. Upon being told that Gil would take care of her while his lordship was otherwise engaged, she smiled confidingly at him, and said:‘Oh yes! Thank you! How kind it is in you! Will you take me to buy a hat for the wedding, please? Sherry made me buy this one I have on, because he told everyone I was going to school in Bath, but I will not wear it for my wedding!’

  ‘Well, you need not,’ replied Sherry. ‘But mind, Kitten, you are not to choose what Gil don’t like!’

  ‘Oh no, indeed I won’t!’

  The horrified Mr Ringwood made an inarticulate noise in his throat. It was not attended to. Sherry instructed him to be firm with Miss Wantage, and – in an under-voice – for God’s sake not to let her buy a hat more suited to a chère-amie than to a lady of Quality!

  Mr Ringwood, no lady’s man, was understood to say that really – no, really! – he knew nothing about such matters, but the Viscount summarily disposed of this objection and returned to the vexed question of abigails. Miss Wantage seemed surprised, but gratified, to learn that she was to have an abigail, but since she had no notion of how to set about acquiring one, she was unable to help his lordship. Mr Ringwood then had the brilliant idea of laying the matter before Chilham. This found instant favour with Sherry, who said that he would drive straight back to Stratton Street as soon as he had paid Miss Wantage’s reckoning.

  ‘And that reminds me!’ he said suddenly. ‘Where the deuce are we going to stay?’

  ‘Stay?’ repeated Mr Ringwood.

  ‘Dash it, Gil, we shall have to put up somewhere until I decide where we are to live!’

  ‘But – Are you meaning to stay in town, Sherry?’ asked Mr Ringwood, with ideas of honeymoons chasing one another through his head.

  ‘Of course we’re going to stay in town! Where the devil else should we stay? But I won’t stay at this place, and so I tell you! Of all the stuffy – Besides, we couldn’t stay here. They think Kitten’s on her way to school.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a house, dear old boy – very fine house! Best part of the town – excellent address – Why not go there?’

  ‘I suppose it will come to that in the end,’ agreed Sherry, with a marked lack of enthusiasm. ‘But I can’t take possession of it before I’ve told my mother I want it. We shall have to put up at an hotel in the meantime. Only thing is, which hotel?’

  ‘There’s Limmer’s,’ suggested Mr Ringwood doubtfully.

  ‘Limmer’s!’ ejaculated the Viscount.‘With all the Pets of the Fancy for the chit to hob-nob with! As well take her to the Castle Tavern!’

  Mr Ringwood, much confused, begged pardon, and once more searched his brain. He bethought him of Ellis’s; and after the Viscount had spurned this hostelry with a loathing engendered by his having once dined there with his mother, rejected a suggestion that Graham’s was said to be comfortable, and, on the somewhat obscure grounds of having an aunt who used to stay there, refused to enter the portals of Symon’s, it was decided that the young couple should take up their temporary abode at Fenton’s, in St James’s Street.

  ‘Well, now that we’ve settled that, I’d best be off to go with George to visit this curst Bishop of his,’ said his lordship. He added, not without a touch of disapproval: ‘Queer start, that: George being acquainted with a Bishop. Shouldn’t have thought it of him.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t either,’ agreed Mr Ringwood.‘Of course you do get ’em in the family sometimes. Thing that might happen to anyone.’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t know ’em,’ Sherry pointed out.‘Besides, he didn’t say this one was a relation of his. Very odd fellow, George.’

  ‘You know what I think about George, Sherry?’ Mr Ringwood said, as one who had given much consideration to the subject. ‘It’s a pity he’s such a devil of a fellow with the pistols. Makes it deuced awkward, sometimes, being a friend of his, because there’s no knowing when he’ll take one of his pets, and then nothing will do for him but to call one out. At least, I don’t mean that, precisely, because it stands to reason no one’s going to go out with George, unless they can’t help themselves, but the thing is he ain’t happy. Pity!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Sherry.‘He was never as bad until the Incomparable came to town. Don’t pay much heed to him, myself. How long will it take me to fork this Bishop of his for that licence, do you suppose? I mean, where are we to meet?’

  Mr Ringwood having no ideas to advance on the probable length of time this delicate operation would need, it was decided, after a good deal of argument, that as soon as Miss Wantage had accomplished her shopping, she should be escorted to the Viscount’s lodging, where he engaged himself to meet her. The party then broke up; Sherry going off to pick up Lord Wrotham, who had returned home to change his Belcher handkerchief for a neckcloth more in keeping with the exalted company he was to seek; and Mr Ringwood sallying forth with Miss Wantage in the direction of Bond Street.

  Any idea he might have cherished of being able within an hour or two to relinquish his charge into her betrothed’s keeping was put an end to by the discovery, when they repaired to the Viscount’s lodging shortly after noon, that his lordship proposed to meet his Hero only at the Church door. He had left a hastily scribbled note for Mr Ringwood, informing that everything was in a way to being fixed right and tight; and that he relied upon his friend to bring the bride to St George’s, Hanover Square, not a moment later than half-past two o’clock.

  Mr Ringwood, who was by this time on very friendly terms with the most unexacting young lady he had so far encountered, communicated the contents of the note to her, and said: ‘Well, what would you care to do now, I wonder?’

  ‘I could wait here,’ offered Miss Wantage, in a tone which indicated that she would consider such a course pretty flat.

  ‘No, that won’t do,’ Mr Ringwood said, frowning. ‘I think I had best take you to eat a little luncheon. After that –’ He paused, eyeing her speculatively. Miss Wantage returned his gaze with one of pleasurable expectation.‘I know what you’d like!’ he said. ‘You’d like to see the wild beasts at the Royal Exchange!’

  Nothing could have appealed more strongly to Miss Wantage’s youthful taste, so as soon as she had changed the chip-straw hat for an Angoulème bonnet of white thread-net trimmed with lace, she sallied forth once more with Mr Ringwood, tripping beside him with all the assurance of one who knew herself to be dressed in the pink of fashion. The Angoulème bonnet most becomingly framed her face; she had taken great pains to comb her curls into modi