Charity Girl

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “No,” he agreed reluctantly. “At the same time—Hetta, tell her to write that she has gone to visit her grandfather! Dash it, I must be able to discover where he is in a very few days, and if she mentions Inglehurst she must surely connect me with the business, which will lead her to make enquiries of my Aunt Emborough, and then I shall be in the suds!”

  “Couldn’t you write to Lady Emborough, explaining it all to her?” she suggested.

  “No, Hetta, I could not!” he replied. “She doesn’t like Lady Bugle, but she don’t want to quarrel with her, and she wouldn’t thank me for embroiling her in this mingle-mangle!”

  “Very true! I hadn’t considered that. It shall be as you wish. Do you mean to rack up here for the night, or are you going to Wolversham with Simon?”

  “Neither: I’m going back to London. You can picture me tomorrow, scouring the town to find somebody able to give me Nettlecombe’s direction—and in all probability wasting my time! Ah, well! It will be a lesson to me, won’t it, not to rescue damsels in distress?”

  “Not to venture to cross quagmires without making sure you don’t go in over shoes, over boots, at all events!” she said, laughing at him.

  “Or at least without making sure that Hetta is there to pull me out!” he amended. He took her hand, and kissed it. “Thank you, my best of friends. I am eternally obliged to you!”

  “Oh, fiddle! If you are to drive back to London this evening you had better take leave of your damsel now, because I mean to put her to bed immediately: she’s so tired she can scarcely keep her eyes open! I’ve instructed Grimshaw to set out a supper for you, and you’ll find Simon waiting to bear you company.”

  “Bless you!” he said, and turned from her to bid his protégée farewell.

  She got up quickly when she saw him coming towards the sofa, and he saw that she was indeed looking very tired. It was with an effort that she smiled at him, and tried to thank him for his kindness. He cut her short, patted her hand, and adjured her, in avuncular style, to be a good girl. He then promised Lady Silverdale that he would come to take his leave of her as soon as he had eaten his supper, and went off to the dining-room.

  Here he found his brother seated sideways at the table, with one elbow resting on it, his long legs, in their preposterous Petersham trousers, stretched out before him, and the brandy decanter beside him. Grimshaw, wearing the expression of one whose finer feelings were grossly offended, bowed the Viscount to his chair and regretted that the dishes laid out before him were of a meagre nature, the lobster and the chickens having been consumed at dinner. Also, he added, in an expressionless voice, the almond cheesecakes, which Mr Simon had been pleased to esteem.

  “What he means is that I finished the dish,” said Simon. “Devilish good they were too! I wish you will take that Friday-face away, Grimshaw! You’ve been wearing it the whole evening, and it’s giving me a fit of the dismals!”

  “I daresay your new rig don’t take his fancy,” said the Viscount, helping himself to some pickled salmon. “And who shall blame him? It makes you look like a coxscomb. Wouldn’t you agree with me, Grimshaw?”

  “I should prefer to say, my lord, that it is not a mode which commends itself to me. Nor, if I may be pardoned for putting forward my opinion, one befitting a young gentleman of rank.”

  “Well, you’re out there!” retorted Simon. “It’s the very latest style, and it was Petersham who started it!”

  “My Lord Petersham, sir,” said Grimshaw, unmoved, , “is well known to be an Eccentric Gentleman, and frequently appears in a style that one can only call rather of the ratherest.”

  “And besides which,” said Desford, as Grimshaw withdrew from the room, “Petersham is a good fifteen years older than you are, and he don’t look like a macaroni-merchant whatever he wears.”

  “Take care, brother!” Simon warned him. “A little more to that tune and you will find yourself done to a cow’s thumb!”

  Desford laughed, and surveyed the various dishes before him through his glass. “Shall I? No, really, Simon, those trousers are the outside of enough! However, I didn’t come to discuss your clothes: I’ve something more important to say to you.”

  “Well, now you put me in mind of it I’ve something important to say too! It’s a lucky chance I dined here tonight. Lend me a monkey, Des, will you?”

  “No,” responded Desford bluntly. “Or a groat, if it comes to that.”

  “Quite right!” said Simon approvingly. “One should never encourage young men to break shins! Just make me a present of it, and not a word about this bud of promise you’re jauntering about with shall pass my lips!”

  “What a stretch-halter you are!” remarked Desford, embarking on a raised pie. “Why do you want a monkey? Considering it isn’t a month since the last quarter-day it ought to be high tide with you.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Simon, “the last quarter’s allowance was, so to say, bespoke!”

  “And my father called me a scattergood!”

  “That’s nothing to what he’ll call you, my boy, if he gets wind of your little charmer!”

  Desford paid no heed to this sally, but directed a searching look at his brother, and asked: “I collect you’ve been having some deep doings: not let yourself be hooked into any of the Greeking establishments, have you?”

  Simon smiled ruefully. “Only once, Des. I may be said to have bought my experience dearly.”

  “Physicked you, did they? Well, it happens to us all. Is that what brought you home? Wouldn’t my father frank you?”

  “To own the truth, dear boy, I haven’t dared to broach the matter, though that is what brought me home. It hasn’t yet seemed to me the moment to raise ticklish subjects. His mood is far from benign!”

  “No wonder, if he saw you in that rig! What a fool you are, Simon! You might have known it would set him all on end!”

  “No, no, how can you suppose me to be so wanting in tact? I clothed myself with the utmost propriety of taste. I even sought to gratify him by wearing knee-breeches for dinner, but knee-breeches have no chance of success against gout. I may add that having been obliged to listen to him cutting at me, you, and even Horace for over an hour this afternoon I seized the opportunity to escape, and very handsomely offered to bear Mama’s letter to Lady Silverdale in place of the groom she had meant to send with it. She felt it behoved her to write to enquire after Charlie. Did Hetta tell you that the silly cawker has knocked himself up?”

  Desford nodded. “Oh, yes! How bad is he?”

  “Well, he looks as sick as a horse, but they seem to think he’s going on pretty prosperously. Now, about that monkey, Des!”

  “I’ll give you a cheque on Drummond’s—on one condition!”

  Simon laughed. “I won’t breathe a word, Des!”

  “Oh, I know that, codling! My condition is that you throw those clothes away!”

  “It will be a sacrifice,” said Simon mournfully, “but I’ll do it. What’s more, if there’s any little thing you think I might be able to do for you in your present very odd situation I’ll do that too.”

  “Much obliged to you!” said Desford, rather amused, but touched as well. “There isn’t anything—unless you chance to know where old Nettlecombe has loped off to?”

  “Nettlecombe? What the devil do you want with that old screw?” demanded Simon, in considerable astonishment.

  “My bud of promise, as you call her, is his granddaughter, and I’ve charged myself with the task of delivering her into his care. Only when we reached London we found he had gone out of town, and shut up his house. That’s why I brought her here.”

  “Good God, is she a Steane?”

  “Yes: Wilfred Steane’s only child.”

  “And who the deuce may he be?”

  “Oh, the black sheep of the family! Before your time! Before mine too, if it comes to that, but I remember all the talk that went on about him, and in particular the things Papa said of him, and every other Steane he had ever heard of!
Which is why I don’t want him to get wind of Cherry!”

  “Is that the girl’s name?” asked Simon. “Queer sort of a name to give a girl!”

  “No, her name is Charity, but she prefers to be called Cherry. I met her when I was staying at Hazelfield. I don’t propose to take you into the circumstances which led me to bring her to London in search of her grandfather, but you may believe I was pretty well forced to do so. She was living with her maternal aunt, and being so shabbily treated that she ran away. I met her trying to walk to London, and since nothing would prevail upon her to let me take her back to her aunt what else could I do but take her up?”

  “A regular Galahad, ain’t you?” grinned Simon.

  “No, I am not! If I’d dreamed I should be dipped in the wing over the business I wouldn’t have done it!”

  “You would,” said Simon. “Think I don’t know you? What, by the way, did the black sheep do to cause a scandal?”

  “According to my father, just about everything, short of murder! Nettlecombe cast him off when he eloped with Cherry’s mother, but what forced him to fly abroad was being found out in Greeking transactions. Took to drinking young ‘uns into a proper state for plucking, and then fuzzed the cards.”

  Simon opened his eyes very wide. “Nice fellow!” he commented. “What has become of him?”

  “Nobody seems to know, but since nothing has been heard of him for some years he is generally thought to be dead.”

  “Well, it’s to be hoped he is,” said Simon. “If you don’t mind my saying so, dear boy, the sooner you palm the girl off on to her grandfather the better it will be. You haven’t a tendre for her, have you?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake—!” Desford exclaimed, “Of course I haven’t!”

  “Beg pardon!” murmured Simon. “Only wondered!”

  Chapter 7

  Before the brothers parted that evening Simon had tucked into his pocket the Viscount’s cheque, and had asked him in a soft, mischievous voice if he meant to go to Newmarket, for the July Meeting. The Viscount answered that he had meant to go, but now saw little hope of it. “Ten to one I shall still be hunting for Nettlecombe,” he said. “But if you are going I rather fancy I can put you on to a sure thing: Mopsqueezer. Old Jerry Tawton earwigged me at Tatt’s last week, and he’s in general a safe man at the corner.”

  Simon gripped his hand, smiling warmly at him, and said: “Thank you, Des. Dash it, you are a trump!”

  Slightly surprised, Desford responded: “What, for passing on Jerry’s tip? Don’t be such a gudgeon!”

  “No, not for that, and not even for this,” said Simon, patting his pocket. “For not reading me any elder-brotherly jobations!”

  “Much heed you would pay to them if I did!”

  “Oh, you never know! I might!” Simon said lightly. He picked up his hat, and set it at a rakish angle on his fair locks. He hesitated for a moment, and then said: “I shall go back to London tomorrow, and shall be fixed there until I go to Newmarket. So, if you do find yourself in a hobble, and think I might be able to help, come round to my lodgings, and—and I’ll do my best for you!” He added, returning to his insouciant manner: “You’ve no notion how nacky my best is! Goodbye, dear boy!”

  The Viscount left Inglehurst some twenty minutes later relieved of at least one of his worries. Lady Silverdale, thanks largely to her dislike of Lady Bugle, and in some measure to Cherry’s modest demeanour, seemed inclined to look favourably upon her uninvited guest. It was perhaps fortunate that she did not think Cherry more than passably pretty. “Poor child!” she said. “Such a pity that she should be a little dab of a thing, and dress so dowdily! Hetta, my love, it would be only kind, I think, to make her rather more presentable; and I have been wondering whether, if you gave her that green cambric which we decided was not the colour for you, she might make herself a dress. Just a simple round dress, you know! And she must have her hair cropped, for I cannot endure untidy heads.”

  Henrietta being very willing to encourage her parent in these charitable schemes the Viscount took his leave of both ladies, and went away feeling that, at least for the present, her hostess would treat Cherry kindly.

  When he left the house Cherry was sunk in profound slumber, from which the noise of his chaise-wheel under her window, and the trampling of hooves on the gravel, did not even disturb her dreams. She was so tired after the exertions and the agitations of the day that she hardly stirred until one of the housemaids came in to draw back the curtains round her bed, expressing, as Cherry opened her drowsy eyes and stretched like a kitten, the hope that she had slept well, and informing her that it was a beautiful morning. In proof of this statement she drew back the window-blinds, making Cherry blink at the sudden blaze of sunlight that flooded the room. Cherry sat up with a jerk, remembering all the events of the previous day, and asked to be told what time it was. Upon hearing that it was eight o’clock, she gave a gasp of dismay, and exclaimed: “Oh, goodness I Then I must have slept for twelve hours! However did I come to do such a thing?”

  The housemaid, perceiving that she was about to scramble out of bed, told her that there was no need for her to hurry herself, since my lady never came downstairs to breakfast, and Miss Hetta had given orders that she was not to be disturbed until eight o’clock. She then set a burnished brass can of hot water down beside the little corner washstand, begged Miss to ring the bell if there was anything else she required, and went away, pausing in the doorway to say that breakfast would be served in the parlour at ten o’clock.

  Cherry was left to take stock of her surroundings. She had been too much exhausted when Hetta had put her to bed to pay much heed to them, the only things which had impressed themselves on her having been very soft pillows, and the most comfortable bed in which it had ever been her lot to lie; but now, hugging her knees, she stared about her in awe and wonderment. She thought it the most elegant bedchamber imaginable, and would have been amazed had she known that Lady Silverdale was most dissatisfied with the hangings, which she said had faded so much that they now looked detestably shabby. Her ladyship had also detected a slight stain on the carpet, where some careless guest had spilt some lotion. But Cherry did not notice this, or that the hangings were faded. Miss Fletching’s Seminary for Young Ladies had been furnished neatly but austerely; and at Maplewood Cherry had shared a room with Corinna and Dianeme, who were not considered by their mama to be old enough to justify the expenditure of any more money on them than was strictly necessary. Consequently, their room was furnished with a heterogeneous collection of chairs and cupboards which had either been judged too shabby for the rooms where they had originally stood, or bought dog-cheap in a saleroom. And even Aunt Bugle’s bed was not hung with curtains of silk damask, thought Cherry, almost fearfully stroking them.

  She slid out of bed, and made a discovery: someone had not only unpacked her portmanteau, but had also ironed the creases out of the two dresses she had brought with her. This seemed to her such a dizzy height of luxury that she almost supposed herself to be still asleep and dreaming.

  When she entered the breakfast-parlour, conducted to it by Grimshaw at his most stately, she found Henrietta making the tea, and was greeted by her in so kind and friendly a way that she lost the terror with which Grimshaw had inspired her, and said impulsively: “I think I was so stupid last night that I didn’t tell you how very, very grateful I am to you, and to Lady Silverdale, for being so excessively kind to me! Indeed, I don’t know how to thank you enough!”

  “Nonsense!” said Henrietta, smiling at her. “I lost count of the times you thanked me last night! I think it was the last thing you said, when I blew out the candle, but as you were three parts asleep I might be mistaken!”

  By the time they came from the table Henrietta had succeeded in charming Cherry out of her nervous shyness, and had won enough of her confidence to make her feel sincerely sorry for her. It was plain that she had not been encouraged to confide in her aunt; and although she spoke affectionately of
Miss Fletching Henrietta did not think that their relationship had been closer than that of kind and just mistress, and grateful pupil. Cherry answered her questions with a good deal of reserve, and seemed at first to expect to be snubbed; but when she realized that she stood in no such danger she became very much more natural, and chatted away as easily as she had done on her journey to London. But much persuasion was needed to prevail upon her to accept the length of green cambric, and when she did at last yield, it was on condition that she should be allowed to pay for it—not with money, but with service. “I have been used to being employed,” she assured Henrietta. “So pray, Miss Silverdale, tell me what you would wish me to do!”

  “But I don’t wish you to do anything!” objected Henrietta. “You are our guest, Cherry, not a hired servant!”

  “No,” said Cherry, flushing, and lifting her determined chin. “It is only your kindness which makes you say that, and—and it gives me such a warm feel in my heart that I couldn’t be happy if you didn’t permit me to make myself useful here. I can see, of course, that you have a great many servants, but there must be hundreds of things I could do for you, and for Lady Silverdale, that perhaps you would not ask the servants to do! Running errands—fetching things—searching for things you have mislaid—darning holes in your stockings—oh, all the things which I daresay you do for yourselves, and think a dead bore!”

  Since Henrietta had yet to discover anything her parent would hesitate to ask her servants to do for her she could not help laughing, but she naturally did not tell Cherry why she laughed. All she said was: “Well, I’ll do my best to oblige you, but I think it only right to warn you that if you encourage me to shuffle off every dull task it is my duty to perform you will rapidly turn me into the most indolent, selfish creature imaginable!”