Friday's Child Read online

  ‘Oh!’ gasped Hero, gazing in incredulous delight at her first pair of diamond earrings.‘Anthony,Anthony!’

  ‘Good God, Kitten, they’re only trifles!’ he expostulated, as she cast herself on his chest.‘My dear girl, do have a care to my neckcloth! You’ve no notion how long it took me to get it to set just so!’

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry, but how could I help it? Sherry, will you pierce my ears for me at once, so that I may wear them tonight?’

  This, however, the Viscount did not feel himself competent to do. Hero’s face fell so ludicrously that he suggested that the earrings might very well be tied on with a piece of silk for the time being. She cheered up immediately, and by the time the waiter came back with the required refreshment, had achieved a result which her husband assured her would defy any but the narrowest scrutiny. They then toasted one another, and the Viscount was moved to declare that he was dashed if he didn’t believe that he had done a very good day’s work.

  Later, when she appeared before him in the sea-green gauze, he stared at her in great surprise, and said: By Jove, he had never thought she could look so well! Encouraged by this tribute, Hero showed him a cloak of green sarsnet trimmed with swans-down, which she had purchased that morning, and upon his expressing his unqualified approval of this garment, confided, a little nervously, that she feared he might, when he came to see the bill, think it a trifle dear. The Viscount waved aside such mundane considerations; and they then went downstairs in perfect amity to receive their dinner guests.

  It was evident from the expressions on their countenances that Mr Ringwood and the Honourable Ferdy thought that their friend’s bride did him credit. Each of these gentlemen had brought with him a wedding gift, the results of an earnest discussion which had taken place between them over two glasses of daffy at Limmer’s Hotel. The Honourable Ferdy had selected a charming bracelet for the bride; Mr Ringwood had chosen an ormolu clock, which he thought might come in useful. Hero accepted both offerings with unaffected delight, clasping the bracelet round her arm immediately, and promising the clock an honourable position on her drawing-room mantelpiece. This put the Viscount in mind of the chief problem at present besetting him, and as they all took their seats round the table in the dining-room, he again raised the question of his future establishment.

  Mr Ringwood was firm in holding to it that the family mansion in Grosvenor Square was a good address, a circumstance by which he seemed to set great store; but Ferdy, while concurring in this pronouncement, gave it as his opinion that Sherry would have to throw all the existing furniture out into the road before embarking on the task of making the house fit to live in.

  ‘Yes, by God, so I should!’ exclaimed Sherry.‘Most of the stuff has been there ever since Queen Anne, and I dare say longer, if we only knew. Oh, well! Hero will like choosing some new furnishings, so it don’t really signify.’

  The Honourable Ferdy, who had been pondering at intervals all day how his cousin’s wife came by such a peculiar name, now introduced a new note into the conversation by saying suddenly: ‘Can’t make it out at all! You’re sure you’ve got that right, Sherry?’

  ‘Got what right?’

  ‘Hero,’ said Ferdy, frowning.‘Look at it which way you like, it don’t make sense. For one thing, a hero ain’t a female, and for another it ain’t a name. At least,’ he added cautiously, ‘it ain’t one I’ve ever heard of. Ten to one you’ve made one of your muffs, Sherry!’

  ‘Oh no, I truly am called Hero!’ the lady assured him.‘It’s out of Shakespeare.’

  ‘Oh, out of Shakespeare, is it?’ said Ferdy. ‘That accounts for my not having heard it before!’

  ‘You’re out of Shakespeare too,’ said Hero, helping herself liberally from a dish of green peas.

  ‘I am?’ Ferdy exclaimed, much struck.

  ‘Yes, in the Tempest, I think.’

  ‘Well, if that don’t beat all!’ Ferdy said, looking around at his friends. ‘She says I’m out of Shakespeare! Must tell my father that. Shouldn’t think he knows.’

  ‘Yes, and now I come to think of it, Sherry’s out of Shakespeare too,’ said Hero, smiling warmly upon her spouse.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ replied the Viscount, refusing to be dragged into these deep waters.‘Named after my grandfather.’

  ‘Well, perhaps he was out of Shakespeare, and that would account for it.’

  ‘He might have been,’ said Ferdy fair-mindedly, ‘but I shouldn’t think he was. Mind you, I never knew the old gentleman myself, but from what I’ve heard about him I don’t think he ever had anything to do with Shakespeare.’

  ‘Very bad ton,my grandfather,’ remarked the Viscount dispassionately. ‘Regular loose-screw. None of the Verelsts ever had anything to do with Shakespeare.’

  ‘Well, I dare say you must know best, Sherry, but only think of Anthony and Cleopatra!’ argued Hero.

  ‘Anthony and who?’ asked Ferdy anxiously.

  ‘Cleopatra. You must know Cleopatra! She was a Queen of Egypt. At least, I think it was Egypt.’

  ‘Never been to Egypt,’ said Ferdy. ‘Accounts for it. But I know a fellow who was in Egypt once. Said it was a sad, rubbishing sort of a place. Wouldn’t suit me at all.’

  Hero giggled. ‘Silly! Cleopatra is hundreds and hundreds of years old!’

  ‘Hundreds of years old?’ said Ferdy, astonished.

  ‘Good God, you know what she means!’ interpolated the Viscount.

  Mr Ringwood nodded.‘She’s a mummy,’ he said.‘They have ’em in Egypt.’ He felt that this piece of erudition called for some explanation, and added:‘Read about ’em somewhere.’

  ‘Yes, but the one I mean is in Shakespeare,’ said Hero. ‘I expect it’s the same one, because he was for ever writing plays about real people.’

  A horrible suspicion crossed Ferdy’s mind. He stared fixedly at her, and said:‘You ain’t a blue-stocking, are you?’

  ‘Of course she’s not a blue-stocking!’ cried the Viscount, bristling in defence of his bride. ‘The thing is she’s only just out of the schoolroom. She can’t help but have her head crammed with all that stuff !’

  ‘Anyone can see she’s not a blue-stocking,’ said Mr Ringwood severely.‘Besides, you oughtn’t to say things like that, Ferdy. Very bad ton!’

  Mr Fakenham begged pardon in some confusion, and said that he was devilish glad. A fresh bogey at once raised its head, and he demanded, in accents of extreme foreboding, whether the evening’s entertainment was to consist of Shakespeare. Upon being reassured, he was able to relax again and to continue eating his dinner in tolerable composure.

  The play to which the Viscount carried his guests was not of a nature to tax even the Honourable Ferdy’s understanding. It was a merry, and not always very polite, comedy which all three young gentlemen pronounced to be very tolerable, and which cast Hero into a trance of ecstasy which would not allow her to withdraw her rapt gaze from the stage for an instant. She did not quite comprehend some of the witticisms which appeared heartily to amuse her companions, and at one point she threw Mr Ringwood into acute discomfort by asking enlightenment of him. Fortunately, the Viscount overheard her, and rescued his friend from his dilemma by saying briefly that she wouldn’t understand even if she were told.

  During the interval it was soon made evident that the Viscount’s box was attracting a good deal of attention from other parts of the house. His lordship, detecting various acquaintances amongst the audience, waved and bowed; and after a few minutes a knock fell on the door of the box and a fashionable-looking gentleman entered, glancing curiously at Hero from under rather drooping eyelids, and saying in a languid tone: ‘So you are come back again,my dear Sherry! And without a word! I began to think I must have offended you.’

  ‘Hallo, Monty!’ responded Sherry, getting up from his chair. ‘What a fellow you are for funning! No offence at all! I’m devilish glad to see you here to-night – want to present you to my wife! Hero, this is Sir Montagu Revesby – particular friend of