The Foundling

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘Strasbourg,’ said the Duke meditatively. ‘I remember I disliked the place excessively. I was never more bored! I will revenge myself on Strasbourg, Liversedge, by sending you there to batten upon its citizens. But if any other peer should chance to come into your orbit again, do not kidnap him, for that might come to my ears, you know, and I should feel that it was time to make an end of you.’

  He rose to his feet as he spoke, and walked towards the desk that stood in the window.

  ‘Sir,’ said Liversedge, ‘I am not of those who do not profit by their mistakes. In departing from an occupation at which I excel I erred. Kidnapping is too crude a trade for any man of taste and sensibility.’

  ‘You are wise,’ said the Duke. ‘If such a greenhorn as I could –’

  ‘Careful, Gilly!’ Gideon said under his breath, his eyes on the doorway. ‘The fat, I fear, is now in the fire!’

  The Duke turned his head. Mr Liversedge had neglected to shut the door securely upon his entrance into the library, and it now stood wide. Lord Lionel stood on the threshold, as though transfixed, an expression of such wrathful amazement in his face that any hope his nephew might have cherished that he had not overheard enough to make plain to him the whole died on the spot.

  ‘So!’ uttered his lordship terribly. ‘I am now in possession of the truth, am I? I might have doubted the fidelity of my ears had I not already had reason to suppose that you have taken leave of your senses, Sale! I came to find you, to request that you will give me an explanation of – But that can wait! Give me a plain answer, yes or no! Is this the rascal who tried to hold you to ransom?’

  ‘You know it is, sir,’ said the Duke.

  His lordship drew an audible breath. ‘If you have not actually lied to me, sir, you have practised the grossest form of deceit! I would not have believed you capable of it, for with all your faults –’

  ‘Shall we leave my faults for discussion at some more convenient time, sir?’ interrupted the Duke.

  Lord Lionel was a just man. Even as he opened his mouth to blister his nephew he realised that the rebuke had been deserved, and shut it again. He said with strong restraint: ‘You are very right! You will not, however, expect me tamely to acquiesce in your extraordinary schemes! Don’t try to put me off, Sale! I came in time to hear more than enough! As well that I did so, since you have apparently succeeded in cajoling Gideon into permitting you to indulge your whimsicality in a manner –’

  ‘What, in the name of all that is wonderful, have my affairs to do with Gideon?’ demanded the Duke. ‘Indeed, what have they to do with anyone save myself? I am not a child, sir!’

  ‘You are –’ His lordship recollected himself, and stopped. He shut the door ungently, and strode into the middle of the room. ‘There has been enough of this nonsense!’ he said. ‘If you cannot see what is the proper course to pursue, I can! This villain is to be handed over to those who will know how to deal with him! Either you will give orders for a constable to be fetched from Bath to take him in charge, or I will!’

  The Duke moved to the desk, and sat down at it, and drew a sheet of paper towards him. ‘I have no power, sir, to prevent you from sending for whom you wish,’ he said, his soft voice even, and rather chilly. ‘I think it only right to warn you, however, that I am making no charge against Liversedge, and shall deny whatever allegation you might feel yourself compelled to utter.’

  Gideon’s black brows went up, and one corner of his mouth too. He glanced at his thunderstruck parent, and said warningly: ‘’Ware riot, sir, ’ware riot, I do beseech you!’

  ‘Be silent!’ Lord Lionel rapped out. ‘Gilly, why?’

  ‘I have already told you, sir,’ the Duke replied, dipping a pen in the inkstand, and beginning to write. ‘I do not choose to advertise my own folly.’

  Mr Liversedge, who had been listening with an expression of great interest to this animated dialogue, coughed in a deprecating way, and said: ‘If I may say so, sir, such a decision is a wise one, and does you credit. It would indeed be undesirable to apprise the vulgar world of this affair. Setting aside all consideration of your dignity – not that I would for an instant advocate anyone’s doing so! – one cannot but reflect that the knowledge of my failure might inspire some more fortunate conspirator to lay a plot against your Grace that would achieve success. And that,’ he added earnestly, ‘is a thing I should deprecate as much as the most devoted of your relatives.’

  Lord Lionel brought his staring gaze to bear upon him. ‘Upon my soul!’ he ejaculated. ‘This passes all bounds!’

  It was at this inopportune moment that Mr Mamble came into the library, rubbing his hands together, and saying with a satisfaction unshared by his hosts: ‘I thought I should find you here! Well, your Grace! Eh, but you look different than when I saw you in that shabby old coat you was wearing when I had you arrested for a dangerous rogue!’ He chuckled at the memory, and advanced into the room. ‘Well, his lordship and I have become a pair of downright cronies, as I daresay he has been telling you. He has his notions, and I have mine, and maybe we’ve both learned summat we didn’t know before. But I’m fairly put out by that young rascal of mine! It’s a mercy it was no more than a sheep, and your Grace kind enough to pardon it, else I would have dusted his jacket rarely for him!’

  ‘How do you do?’ murmured the Duke, half-rising, and extending one hand. ‘I beg you will forget the sheep! I stand so much in Tom’s debt that one sheep’s life seems a small price to be called upon to pay.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how that may be,’ responded Mr Mamble, shaking the hand, ‘but it wasn’t as bad as that! What’s o’clock? I’m beginning to feel sharp-set, I can tell you, and ready for my dinner. Ay, there’s the Captain pouring out the sherry, I see, and right he is! A glass of sherry is the very thing I was needing, for I’ve been riding out with your good uncle, your Grace, looking over your estate. It’s not so large as mine, by Kettering, but he tells me it ain’t more than a tithe of what you’re possessed of.’

  Mr Liversedge rose nobly to this as to every other occasion. He bowed politely to Mr Mamble, sweeping him in some irresistible fashion known only to himself towards the door, and saying in a voice in which authority and civility were nicely blended: ‘I shall have a bottle of sherry sent up to your room, sir, on the instant. You will be desirous of changing your raiment before sitting down to dine with his Grace. The hour is already far advanced, but have no fear! Dinner will be held until you are ready to partake of it.’

  Mr Mamble might fancy himself to have achieved habits of easy intercourse with Lord Lionel, but he was not of the stature to compete with Mr Liversedge, and he knew it. He allowed himself to be bowed out of the room, saying that he had not known it was so late, and must certainly change his dress.

  Lord Lionel’s exacerbated feelings found relief as soon as the door was fairly shut behind him. ‘Intolerable upstart!’ he said.

  Mr Liversedge said soothingly: ‘I beg your lordship will not trouble your head over him! A good man in his way, but vulgar! One cannot but feel that his Grace was misguided in extending the hospitality of Cheyney towards him, but old heads, as your lordship well knows, are not found upon young shoulders.’

  Lord Lionel found himself so much in sympathy with this observation that he was almost betrayed into applauding it. He stopped himself in time, and was just about to scarify Liversedge for daring to open his mouth, when the Duke spoke.

  ‘Liversedge!’ he said, shaking the sand from the few lines he had written.

  ‘Your Grace?’ responded Liversedge, turning deferentially towards him.

  ‘You will accompany me to Bath this evening. I will furnish you with the means to buy yourself a seat upon the mail-coach to London. When you reach London, go to Sale House, and give this note to Scriven, my agent, whom you will find there. He will comply exactly with its instructions. I have requested him to
advance you the sum stated in whatever coinage may be most convenient to you. Don’t delay to quit this country! I assure you it might yet become unfriendly to you.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Mr Liversedge, taking the letter from the Duke’s outstretched hand, ‘no poor words of mine could convey to your Grace the sense of the deep obligation I feel towards you! I venture to prophesy that you will live to become an Ornament to the Peerage, and if – with my hand on my heart I say it! – I should not again have the felicity of setting eyes upon your face, I shall cherish the memory of my all too brief association with you to the day of my demise! And now,’ he continued, tucking the Duke’s letter into his pocket, ‘I will, with your Grace’s permission, repair to the kitchens, where I dare not hope that my surveillance is not long overdue.’

  With these words, the magnificence of which apparently made Lord Lionel feel that any attempt at expostulation must come as an anticlimax, he bowed again, and left the room with an unhurried and a stately gait.

  ‘I am far from approving of your conduct, Adolphus, but I will own that I should be sorry to see your enterprising acquaintance in Newgate,’ said Gideon. ‘He comes off with the honours!’

  His father rounded on him. ‘How many more times am I to tell you not to call him by that name?’ he demanded, venting an irritation of spirit that had no relation at all to anything Gideon had said.

  ‘I must leave that to yourself to decide, sir,’ replied Gideon, willing to draw his parent’s fire.

  But the Duke intervened. ‘Oh, no, sir, don’t forbid him to call me Adolphus! He is the only person who does so, and how much I should miss it if he ceased!’

  He rose from the desk, and came to the fire. Lord Lionel said angrily: ‘How could you be such a fool as to reward that fellow? If you wished to let him go free – well, I have nothing to say to that! Certainly we can none of us desire this lamentable episode to be made public! An episode, I would remind you, that sprang solely from your own thoughtless and ill-judged behaviour! But to reward the villain, as though he had rendered you some signal service, makes me fear for your reason!’

  ‘He has,’ said the Duke, stirring the smouldering log in the hearth with one foot. He looked up with his mischievous smile. ‘No, do not ask me how, sir, for I could not explain it to you. Only do not be so vexed with me! I must sometimes be allowed to make my own decisions, you know.’

  ‘No one has ever been more urgent with you to do so than myself!’ replied his lordship, in perfect sincerity. ‘I have been foolish enough to have indulged the hope that you had come to years of discretion! I don’t scruple to tell you that I find myself sadly mistaken! When this abominable affair came to my knowledge, I was in search of you, to demand from your own lips an explanation of the extraordinary intelligence conveyed to me not an hour since by Moffat!’

  The Duke regarded his fingernails meditatively. ‘Ah, yes! The Five-acre field,’ he said. ‘So Moffat has already told you, sir? Well, he would have done better to have left it to me, perhaps, but it makes little odds. I have the intention of bestowing it upon Jasper Mudgley for a bride-gift.’

  ‘You need not put yourself to the trouble of telling me that, Sale! I have had the whole story from Moffat. I wonder I should have found the patience to have heard him out! Understand me, boy! while I hold the reins you will not sell or give away one foot of your lands!’

  The Duke raised his head, and met his uncle’s fierce look with one so icily aloof that Lord Lionel was startled. ‘I have borne enough!’ he said, his voice still level, and low-pitched, yet with anger throbbing in it. ‘I will not endure any longer this ceaseless thwarting of my every wish! I am fully sensible, sir, of the great debt I owe you for your unremitting care of me, of my interests, but my gratitude would be increased tenfold if you would bring yourself to believe that I am neither a child nor a fool!’ He paused, his chest rising and falling rather quickly, but Lord Lionel did not speak. He was still staring at his nephew, his expression hard to read. After a moment, the Duke continued: ‘You are aware of my reason for thus disposing of a part of my land. I would have explained this to you, had not Moffat forestalled me. I am persuaded that I have no need to remind you that this paltry patch of ground is no part of the Cheyney estate, and I trust that I have even less need to assure you that I have not the most distant intention of cutting up my inheritance. It is not I who stand in danger of forgetting that I am Ware of Sale! You have said that while you hold the reins – my reins! – I shall not give away one foot of my land. I shall not attempt to persuade you to alter that decision, sir: you will do as you please. But in a very short space of time now I shall have reached my twenty-fifth birthday, and on that day, believe me (for I was never more in earnest!), Mudgley will receive from me the deed of gift that will put him in possession of the Five-acre field!’

  He stopped, and for a moment or two there was complete silence in the room. The Duke continued to meet his uncle’s stare, his eyes as stern as those older ones. Gideon, standing still by the fire, glanced from one to the other of the combatants with a wry twist to his mouth.

  ‘By God!’ Lord Lionel said at last, slowly. ‘I never saw you look so like your father before, boy! So you mean to take the bit between your teeth, do you, and see if you cannot unseat me? Well, well, you are an impudent dog, but I am glad to see you have so much spirit in you! If you are so set on this business, I suppose you must have your way, but don’t imagine that it has my approval, for it has not! Ware of Sale, indeed!’ He laughed suddenly. ‘There, stop glaring at me, Gilly! I have a very good mind to box your ears!’

  The rigid look vanished from the Duke’s face. He put out a hand that was not quite steady, and said quickly: ‘No, no, how could I say such things to you? Forgive me! You are the best, the kindest of uncles!’

  Lord Lionel was amused. ‘Very pretty talking, upon my word! Don’t think to cajole me with your caressing ways, you young rascal, when I know well you are determined to have your own way in spite of me!’

  The Duke gave a shaken laugh. ‘Yes. Yes, I am. But I need not have spoken to you so!’

  ‘Oh, I never liked a man the less for being ready to sport his canvas!’ Lord Lionel said coolly. ‘But this fellow Liversedge, Gilly! Do you expect me to submit to being waited on at table by a villain?’

  The Duke smiled sweetly at him. ‘Well, he may as well make himself useful while he is still under my roof, sir. I am sure he will wait on us excellently. Besides, Harriet is here, and I really cannot have an indifferent dinner set before her!’

  ‘Harriet here!’ exclaimed his lordship. ‘Good God, Gilly, why could you not have told me that before? Here am I in all my dirt, for I had not meant to change my dress since we are alone, and one must keep that fellow Mamble in countenance! Where is Harriet?’

  ‘I dare swear in Mrs Kempsey’s room, sir. She will not regard your riding-dress, I assure you.’

  ‘I would not be guilty of such discourtesy as to sit down to table with her in it!’ declared Lord Lionel, hurrying towards the door. ‘Really, you are a great deal too thoughtless! You will make my excuses to Harriet, and say that I shall be down directly!’ He opened the door, but checked on the threshold, perceiving that Liversedge was in the act of opening the double entrance-doors. ‘Now, who the devil can be visiting us at this hour?’ he said testily. ‘I hope that fellow has the sense to deny us!’

  Liversedge was given no opportunity of doing so. As soon as the doors were fairly open, Lord Gaywood thrust unceremoniously past him into the hall, saying through his teeth: ‘Inform the Duke that Lord Gaywood desires speech with him! And don’t tell me he is not at home, for I know very well he is!’

  ‘Well, Gaywood, what’s all this?’ demanded Lord Lionel. ‘If you want Sale, he is here, and will no doubt be glad to see you. I see no occasion for these stable-manners you young men delight in assuming. Put down your hat and coat, and do not give me any of your
black looks!’

  Lord Gaywood was in a towering rage, but this reception from one of whom he stood in the liveliest awe acted as a check upon him. He stammered: ‘I didn’t know you were here, sir!’

  ‘I daresay you might not, though what that has to say to anything I know not! Come in, Sale is in here. Gilly, here is Gaywood in some nonsensical pucker!’

  The Duke took the door-handle in his own hand. ‘Yes, sir, so I see.’

  The Viscount rolled a fiery eye at him, and said with painstaking civility: ‘I must beg the favour of a word in private with you, my lord Duke!’

  ‘Certainly,’ replied the Duke. ‘Come in!’

  Lord Lionel’s brows shot up. ‘Now, what’s the matter between you two?’ he asked. ‘I’ll have no quarrelling here, understand! Don’t put on airs to be interesting, Gaywood, for they don’t impress me!’

  Lord Gaywood ignored him contemptuously. ‘I said, in private, my lord Duke!’

  Lord Lionel began to look rather grim. He turned, as though to come back into the room, but found that the Duke’s hand had been laid detainingly on his arm.