The Foundling Read online

  The Duke bore all the solicitude that met him with his usual patience, disclaimed any feeling of chill or of fatigue, and desired Borrowdale to bring wine and biscuits into the library. ‘And you need none of you wait up for me!’ he added. ‘Leave a candle on the table, and I shall do very well.’

  The steward bowed, and said that it should be as his Grace wished, but Borrowdale and Nettlebed were instantly drawn into a temporary alliance, and exchanged speaking glances, expressive of their mutual determination to sit up all night, if need be.

  The Duke led Matthew into the library, and installed him in a chair by the fire; one of the footmen came in with a taper, with the zealous intention of lighting all the candles in the wall-sconces and chandeliers with which the room was generously provided; and Borrowdale soon followed him with a silver tray of refreshments. Having restrained the footman, and assured Borrowdale that he should want nothing more that night, the Duke got rid of them both, and took a seat opposite his cousin’s. ‘Well, now, Matt, tell me the whole!’ he invited.

  ‘You won’t blab to my father if I do, will you?’ said Matthew suspiciously.

  ‘What a fellow you must think me! Of course I will not!’

  His mind relieved on this score, Matthew embarked on a long and somewhat obscure story. It came haltingly at first, and with a good many rambling excuses, but when he found that his cousin had apparently no intention either of exclaiming at his folly, or of blaming him for it, he abandoned his slightly pugnacious and extremely self-exculpatory manner, and became very much more natural, unburdening his troubled soul to the Duke, and feeling considerably the better for it.

  The tale was not always easy to follow, and in spite of its length, and wealth of detail, there were several gaps in it, but the salient points were not difficult to grasp. The Duke gathered that his impulsive cousin had fallen in love at sight with a female of surpassing beauty, who was visiting Oxford with a lady who might, or might not, be her aunt. This lady, so far from discouraging the advances of a strange gentleman, had most obligingly given him her direction, and had assured him that she would be happy to see him if he should chance at any time to be passing her lodging. And of course Matthew had passed her lodging, and had received a flattering welcome there; and, finding that the lovely Belinda was even lovelier than his memory had painted her, lost no time in plunging neck and crop into an affaire which seemed to have run the gamut of stolen meetings, passionate love-letters, and wild plans of a flight to Gretna Green. Yes, he admitted, he rather thought he had mentioned Gretna Green.

  The Duke knit his brows a little at this. ‘But, Matt, I do not perfectly understand!’ he said apologetically. ‘You say she is threatening to sue you for breach of promise, but if you were willing to marry her I do not see how this comes about! Why should she not go with you?’

  ‘Well, I daresay she would have,’ said Matthew. ‘She – she is a very persuadable girl, you know. But the thing is that it costs the devil of a sum to hire a chaise to go all that way, and what with having sustained some losses, and its being pretty near the end of the term, I was not at all beforehand with the world, and I didn’t know how to raise the wind. You know what my father is! He would have kicked up the devil of a dust if I had written to ask him for some more blunt, and ten to one would have asked me what I wanted it for, because he always does, just as though I were a child, and not able to take care of my affairs! And I never thought of writing to you, Gilly – not that I would have done so if I had, for it might have come to my uncle’s ears then, and that would have been worse than anything! So what with one thing and another, it came to nothing, and, to own the truth, I was afterwards very glad of it, because I don’t think Belinda would do for me at all – in fact, I know she would not!’

  ‘Did she seem much distressed at your plan’s coming to nothing?’ asked the Duke curiously.

  ‘Oh, no, she did not care! It is all this Liversedge, who writes that he is her guardian. Stay, I will show you his letters – he has written to me twice, you know. I did not answer the first letter, and now he has written again, threatening to bring an action against me, and – oh, Gilly, what the devil am I to do?’

  He ended on a decided note of panic, and, thrusting a hand into his pocket, produced two rather crumpled letters, written by someone who signed himself, with a flourish, Swithin Liversedge.

  The Duke, perusing these, found Mr Liversedge’s epistolary style slightly turgid, and not always quite grammatical. Some of his periods were much involved, but there could be no mistaking his object: he wanted five thousand pounds for his ward, to compensate her for the slight she had endured, for the loss of an eligible husband, and for a wounded heart. Mr Liversedge ended his first letter by expressing in high-flown terms his belief that neither Mr Ware nor his noble relatives would hesitate to recognise, and meet, the claims of one whose blighted hopes seemed likely to drive into a decline.

  His second letter was not so polite.

  The Duke laid them both down. ‘Matt, who is this Liversedge?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t know. He says he is Belinda’s guardian.’

  ‘But what sort of a fellow is he?’

  ‘I tell you I don’t know! I’ve never clapped eyes on him. I didn’t know Belinda had a guardian until I received that letter.’

  ‘Was he not with her at Oxford?’

  ‘No, and neither Belinda nor Mrs Dovercourt ever mentioned him that I can remember. It came as the greatest surprise to me!’

  ‘Matt, it all sounds to me excessively like a fudge! I don’t believe he is her guardian!’

  ‘I daresay he might not be, but what’s the odds?’

  ‘Well, I am not very sure, but I think he can’t bring an action against you. Unless, of course, it is she who brings it, and he merely writes for her.’

  Matthew considered this. ‘I must say I should not have thought it of Belinda,’ he said. ‘But there is no knowing, after all! I daresay she was hoaxing me all the time, and was no more innocent than a piece of Haymarket-ware.’

  The Duke glanced at the letters again, and got up, and walked over to the table to pour out two glasses of wine. Matthew watched him, saying after a minute: ‘And whatever he is, you can see one thing: he means to make himself curst unpleasant, and there’s no getting away from it that he has those damned letters of mine!’

  ‘No,’ agreed Gilly. ‘It’s the devil of a tangle.’

  ‘Gilly,’ said his cousin, in a hollow voice, ‘even if it did not come to an action, it will reach my father, and my uncle too, and that would be just as bad!’

  He did not address himself to deaf ears. The Duke almost shuddered. ‘Good God, it must not be allowed to reach them!’

  Matthew dropped his chin in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees. ‘If only I could think of what I had best do!’ he groaned.

  Gilly held out one of the glasses to him. ‘Here, take some wine! Does Gideon know anything of this?’

  Matthew accepted the wine, and drank some. ‘No. I did mean – that is to say, I half thought that I might, if all else failed – But you know what Gideon is!’ He saw a surprised look on the Duke’s face, and added: ‘Oh, well, I daresay you don’t, for he likes you! But he has a damned cutting tongue! What’s more, he is for ever roasting me about something or other, and I’d as lief – However, if you think I ought to tell him –’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Gilly, with sudden decision. ‘It has nothing whatsoever to do with Gideon!’ His eyes began to dance. ‘I must learn to manage for myself: my uncle said so.’

  ‘Oh, Gilly, don’t start funning!’ begged Matthew. ‘It ain’t your affair any more than it is Gideon’s!’

  ‘But it is my affair! You said as much yourself!’ Gilly pointed out. ‘Liversedge knows well you could not afford to pay him half of such a sum, or my Uncle Henry either! You may depend upon it he has acqu