Friday's Child Read online

  ‘No such thing! I’ve married Hero Wantage!’ said Sherry indignantly.

  ‘Never heard of her,’ said Prosper, pouring himself out some more coffee. ‘Not but what I’m glad. You can take charge of your own affairs now. They’ve been worrying me excessively.’

  ‘Worrying you excessively!’ ejaculated Sherry. ‘Well, if that don’t beat all! Much you’ve done to take care of ’em! You’ve left it all to that platter-faced sharp, my uncle Horace, and if he hasn’t feathered his nest I know nothing of the matter!’

  Prosper added a lavish amount of cream to his coffee. ‘Yes, I should think you’re right, Sherry,’ he said.‘I always did think so, and very worrying it was, I can tell you.’

  ‘Well, why the devil didn’t you do something to stop it?’ demanded Sherry, pardonably irritated.

  ‘Because I’m too lazy,’ replied his uncle, with the utmost frankness. ‘If you were my size, you’d know better than to ask me a damned stupid question like that. What’s more, I never could abide that fellow Paulett, and if I’m not to go off in an apoplexy there’s only one thing for it, and that’s to keep away from him. Saving your presence, nevvy, I don’t like any of your mother’s relatives, while as for Valeria herself – well, that’s neither here nor there! Why do you have to come pestering me at this hour just because you’ve got yourself tied-up, boy?’

  ‘Because you’ve got to wind up the Trust,’ replied Sherry. He produced a document from his pocket and laid it on the table. ‘There’s my marriage-lines, or whatever you call ’em. I’ll write to my mother myself, but it’s you who must deal with the lawyers.’

  Prosper sighed, but attempted no remonstrance.‘Well, I don’t mind seeing old Ditchling,’ he said.‘What are you going to do, Sherry? Do you want your mother to retire to the Dower House? She won’t like that.’

  ‘No,’ said Sherry, who had already given this matter a little thought. ‘Country life don’t suit me, and I’d as soon she stayed at Sheringham Place to keep her eye on things as not. Mind you, I’d give something to kick Uncle Horace out, but I suppose it can’t be done. Not without my mother having the vapours, and I don’t want that. But I’m going to hold the purse-strings, and although I don’t mind feeding him and housing him, I’m damned if I’ll pay for his little pleasures any longer!’

  ‘Well, it’s not my affair,’ said Prosper, ‘but if I were in your shoes I’d be rid of him.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. You’re too lazy. Besides, I don’t want to put my mother into one of her takings, and that’s what would happen, if I kicked Uncle Horace out, as sure as check! Ten to one she’d come up to town to live, and that wouldn’t suit me at all.’

  ‘No, my God!’ agreed Prosper, impressed by this commonsense point of view.

  ‘As for the town house, I haven’t made up my mind about that,’ continued Sherry. ‘I’m bound to say it ain’t much in my line, but I’m taking Hero to have a look at it to-day, and if she wants to live there she shall.’

  ‘She will,’ said Prosper cynically.‘Trust any woman to jump at the chance of living in a draughty great mansion in the best part of town!’

  He was wrong. When the Viscount took his bride to the shrouded house in Grosvenor Square, some of her vivacity left her. Whether it was the astonished disapproval of the retainer who led them from room to room, or whether it was the depressing effect of the holland covers which draped most of the chairs and sofas, not even she knew; but a damper was certainly cast over her spirits. She clung tightly to Sherry’s arm, and stole wide, scared glances about her at all the sombre oil-paintings in heavily gilded frames, at the huge mirrors, massive chandeliers, draped curtains, and formal furniture. She was conscious of feeling small and defenceless, and she was quite unable to picture herself as mistress of all this outmoded grandeur.

  Sherry, naturally, was in no way oppressed by the house, but he knew from experience that an army of servants was needed to keep it up, and he had all a young man’s horror of finding himself saddled with so much responsibility. Moreover, he thought the furniture outrageously dowdy, and he had a vague premonition that if he obeyed his instinct, and made a clean sweep of everything in the house, he would raise a storm of protest that would be very unpleasant, however unavailing. By the time he and Hero had inspected the saloons, the bedchambers, and were being inexorably led in the direction of the servants’ quarters, he had made up his mind.‘You know, Kitten,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you’ll like to live here.’

  ‘No,’ Hero replied thankfully.‘But – but I will live here if you wish me to, Sherry.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ he said.‘Never could stand the place myself,and Ferdy’s quite right about the furniture. What we need is a much smaller house, if you ask me. Later on, when you’re older – more up to snuff, you know – I dare say we may decide to live here, but we needn’t worry about that now. Damme, the place feels like a tomb! Come, let’s go!’

  Hero accompanied him readily out into the square again, but asked, as he handed her up into the phaeton, whether they were to continue living at Fenton’s Hotel. Sherry, on whom the sobriety of this hostelry was already beginning to tell, said that not only would nothing prevail upon him to take up a permanent abode there, but that if he did not contrive to get clear soon he would not answer for the consequences.

  ‘Well, I must say I am glad you don’t wish to stay,’ said Hero, disposing her skirts elegantly, and unfurling her sun-shade.‘They stare at one so! It puts me quite out of countenance. How shall we set about finding an eligible house?’

  ‘Lord, I don’t know!’ replied Sherry. ‘We’ll tell Stoke to manage the whole for us. He’s the family’s man of business, you know. Come to think of it, I ought to inform him that he has me to deal with now, and not my uncles. Should you care to drive with me into the City? May as well be off to see the old fellow at once, and get the business settled.’

  As Hero was perfectly ready to drive with him to the City, or, in fact, to any other locality he might take a fancy to visit, it was not long before Mr Philip Stoke was startled by the announcement, made to him by his clerk, that Lord and Lady Sheringham were in the outer office, and desired speech with him. Mr Stoke was quite taken aback, for although he was aware that the Viscount was a harum-scarum young man who would be more than likely to come impetuously in search of him, instead of summoning him to his lodging, he could not conceive of any circumstance unusual enough to have induced his lordship’s Mama to have accompanied him on his quest. He hurried out at once to beg his lordship to come into the private office, and was still more startled to find himself confronting a very youthful lady, whom his noble client carelessly announced to be his wife. Suppressing an involuntary gasp, he bowed deeply, and begged his lordship to come into the private office. Here he set a chair for Hero, at the same time assuring the Viscount that he would have been happy to have waited on him at his lodging had he but known that his services were required.

  ‘No, there’s no time to be wasted,’ replied Sherry.

  ‘Besides,’ added Hero,‘I have never been into the City before, and only fancy! I have now seen St Paul’s!’

  Before the bewildered Mr Stoke could think of a reply to this artless confidence, the Viscount had divulged the object of his visit. ‘The thing is, I want you to procure a house for us to live in,’ he said. ‘We’re putting up at Fenton’s, and I don’t like it above half.’

  Mr Stoke glanced from him to Hero. He was well accustomed to his lordship’s starts, but this one seemed uncommonly odd. He could not recall having seen any announcement of the Viscount’s nuptials in the Gazette, and he was perfectly sure that when he had had occasion to wait on the Honourable Prosper Verelst, not ten days previously, nothing whatever had been said of a wedding.

  Sherry, reading the puzzlement in his face, said: ‘We were married yesterday. Matter of fact, we made a runaway match of it, but all quite above board, you know. And that means that that damned Trust comes to an end. You won’t have to deal with my unc