The Foundling Read online

  ‘They are very well, but I am going to say a great deal to you about your father. I think I came for that very purpose. Yes, I am sure that I did!’

  ‘You have never given Uncle Lionel the bag?’ exclaimed Matthew.

  ‘Oh, no! He saw me off with his blessing, and an adjuration to visit the dentist. I have never yet succeeded in giving anyone the bag,’ said Gilly.

  Gideon looked at him under his brows. ‘Hipped, Adolphus?’ he said gently.

  ‘Blue-devilled!’ replied the Duke, meeting his look.

  ‘What a complete hand you are, Gilly!’ said Matthew impatiently. ‘I only wish I stood in your shoes! There you are, your pockets never to let, everything made easy for you, all the toad-eaters in town ready to serve you, and you complain –’

  ‘Peace, halfling!’ interrupted Gideon. ‘Sit down, Gilly! Tell me all that is in your mind!’

  ‘Too much!’ said the Duke, sinking into a chair at the table. ‘Oh, that reminds me! Would you like to offer me your felicitations? You won’t be quite the first to do so, but – but you won’t care to be backward! I have this day fulfilled the expectations of my family – not to mention those of every busybody in town – and entered upon a very eligible engagement. You will see the notice in the Gazette, presently, and all the society journals. I do hope Scriven will not forget any of these!’

  ‘Oh!’ said Gideon. He pitched the butt of his cigar into the fire, and cast another of those shrewd, appraising looks at the Duke. ‘Well, that certainly calls for a bowl of punch,’ he said. ‘Harriet, eh?’

  The Duke nodded.

  ‘I don’t wish to enrage you, my little one, but you have my felicitations. She will do very well for you.’

  The Duke looked up quickly. ‘Yes, of course! What a fellow I am to be talking in such a fashion! Don’t regard it! She is everything that is amiable and obliging.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure I wish you very happy,’ said Matthew. ‘Of course we all knew that you were going to offer for her.’

  ‘Of course you did!’ agreed Gilly, with immense cordiality.

  ‘Charlotte has contracted an engagement too,’ observed Matthew. ‘Did you know it? It is to Alfred Thirsk.’

  ‘Certainly I knew it,’ replied Gilly. ‘In fact, I very nearly withheld my consent to the match.’

  ‘Very nearly withheld your consent!’ repeated Matthew, staring at him in the liveliest astonishment.

  ‘Well, I had the intention, but, like so many of my intentions, it came to nothing. Your father wrote me a very proper letter, expressing the hope that the alliance met with my approval. Only it does not: not at all!’

  Matthew burst out laughing. ‘Much my father would care! Stop bamming, Gilly!’

  ‘Bamming? You forget yourself, Matt!’ Gilly retorted. ‘Let me tell you that I am the head of our family, and it is time that I learned to assert myself!’

  Gideon smiled. ‘Have you been asserting yourself, Adolphus?’

  ‘No, no, I am not yet beyond the stage of learning! I am so birdwitted, you know, that I can never tell what is asserting myself, and what is putting myself forward in a very pert fashion that will not do at all.’

  Gideon dropped a hand on his shoulder, and gripped it, but as Wragby came in just then, with a laden tray, he said nothing. The Duke lifted his own hand to clasp that larger one. ‘All gammon!’ he said jerkily. ‘I told you I was blue-devilled!’

  Gideon smiled down at him in his lazy way, and shook him gently to and fro. ‘Wretched little snirp!’ he said.

  ‘Mackerel-backed dragoon!’ retorted the Duke, with an effort at liveliness. ‘Brew your punch!’

  Matthew seized one of the lemons, and sliced it in half, chanting: ‘One sour, Two sweet; Four strong, And eight weak! Shall you add a dash of pink champagne to it, Gideon?’

  ‘I shall not,’ replied Gideon, releasing the Duke’s shoulder, and beginning to measure out the rum. ‘Arrack, my child, nothing but arrack!’

  ‘Only rustics use arrack instead of champagne,’ said Matthew, in a lofty way, which he instantly regretted.

  ‘Listen to our rasher-of-wind!’ Gideon recommended, with a nod at Gilly. ‘Proceed, Matt! Any more airs of the exquisite to play off?’

  Young Mr Ware’s ready colour surged up again. ‘No, but it is so! Gilly, you go to all the ton parties! It should be pink champagne, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course, only Gideon has such nip-cheese ways!’ responded the Duke, lifting a spoonful of well-pounded sugar from the bowl, and letting it shower back again. ‘Does Charlotte really wish to marry Thirsk, Matt?’

  ‘Lord, yes, she’s in high gig!’ replied Matthew cheerfully.

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘Well, she will have a very creditable establishment, you know! Oh, you are thinking that Thirsk is a bit of a loose-screw! She won’t care for that as long as he don’t spy too closely after her, and I dare swear he won’t, for he’s got a mistress in keeping, and has had for years. At least that’s one of the on-dits of town, and I should think it would be true, would not you?’

  ‘But what a charming match!’ said the Duke.

  ‘Oh, well!’ said Matthew charitably, ‘no one could blame my father for nabbling Thirsk, after all! Devilish plump in the pocket, you know, and there’s the title besides, and four more of my sisters to be provided for! As for Charlotte, it’s all very well for you to cavil, Gilly, but you are your own master, and may do as you please. You don’t have to live at Croylake, dangling after my mother, and having to pour tea for a parcel of humbugging Methodies five evenings out of the seven! I can tell you, there’s no bearing it!’

  The kettle had boiled by this time; Gideon lifted it from the hob, and poured the sherbet he had brewed in it on to his spirit. A fragrant aroma rose from the bowl. He stirred the mixture, his attention fixed on it. But the Duke, catching the note of bitterness in Matthew’s voice, looked at him rather searchingly. Matthew averted his eyes with a little laugh, and began to boast of Oxford larks.

  Gideon, who rarely paid the least heed to him, interrupted his chatter without ceremony. ‘How long do you mean to stay in town, Adolphus?’

  ‘I don’t know. As long as I am permitted, I daresay!’

  ‘No time at all, in fact.’ He began to ladle the punch into three glasses. ‘Did you tell me you had Belper toad-eating you? What the devil made you advise him you were in London?’

  ‘Don’t be so bacon-brained, Gideon!’ Gilly implored. ‘Of course I never did so! That was left for my uncle to do. And he did it. I found Belper awaiting me on my doorstep.’

  ‘If you had as much sense as a pullet you would have kicked him off your doorstep!’ commented the Captain.

  ‘I would I had thy inches!’ retorted the Duke ruefully.

  ‘Resolution is all you stand in need of, my child.’

  ‘I know. But I fancy he’s none too well-breeched, and when a man is so damned pleased to see one – well, what can one do?’

  ‘What, indeed?’ said Gideon sardonically. ‘I suppose if all the scaff and raff of London were to show pleasure at the sight of you, you would throw your doors open to them!’

  ‘I daresay I should,’ said Gilly, with a short sigh. ‘How like my uncle you will be one day, when those beautiful whiskers of yours are no longer so black or so glossy! How right he was to warn me against seeking your company! And how little he knew how right he was!’

  ‘What?’ ejaculated Gideon. ‘He never did so!’

  ‘Well, no!’ admitted Gilly. ‘But he did warn me against letting myself be drawn into the sort of company you keep. Very justly, I daresay. You Lifeguards – Hyde Park soldiers, Belper calls you: did you know? – you’re such a fast set of fellows, and one never knows where military society may lead one, does one? He warned me against Gaywood, too. He said he might lead