Charity Girl

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Ah, you do know that, Ashley!” Lady Wroxton said, giving his arm an eloquent squeeze.

  “Of course I do, Mama!” he said reassuringly. “But what a funny one he is! At one moment he can say that Wilfred Steane deserved to be disowned, and at the next give the cut direct to Nettlecombe for having done it!”

  “For shame!” said Lady Wroxton, but with a quivering lip. “How dare you speak so improperly? You have quite misunderstood the matter! Naturally Papa said that, because it was perfectly true; but, in his opinion, Lord Nettlecombe behaved in a manner unworthy of a father, and that was true too! So there was nothing inconsistent in his having condemned both of them, and I will not permit you to call him a funny one!”

  “Now that you have explained the matter to me, Mama, I perceive that I was quite beside the bridge to have done so,” he replied.

  She was not deceived by his air of grave remorse, but said, with an involuntary chuckle: “Quite beside it, wicked, odious, impertinent boy that you are!” She paused, and removed her hand from his arm to nip off a withered rose from one of the standards. “By the by, do you remember my telling you about Mr Cary Nethercott? Old Mr Bourne’s nephew, I mean, who lately came into the property?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Oh, merely that I met him, when Papa and I drove over to Inglehurst! I never had, you know, so—”

  “Met him at Inglehurst, did you? I suppose he called there to give Lady Silverdale some journal to read! Or had he another excuse?”

  Startled by the sardonic note in his voice, she shot a quick glance at him, before answering with her usual calm: “My dear, how should I know? He was there when we arrived, sitting on the terrace with Hetta and Miss Steane, so what excuse he may have made for his visit I haven’t a notion—if he made any! I formed the impression that he stands on such friendly terms with the Silverdales that he is free to drop in at Inglehurst whenever he chooses.”

  “Runs tame there, does he? How Hetta can tolerate such a prosy fellow I shall never know!”

  “Oh, you’ve met him then?” she said.

  “I should rather think I have! I trip over him every time I go to Inglehurst!”

  “And you don’t like him? I thought him a pleasant, well-conducted man.”

  “Well, I think him a dead bore!” said Desford.

  She returned an indifferent answer, and almost immediately turned the subject, repressing, with a strong effort, a burning desire to pursue it.

  The Viscount set out for London after partaking of a light luncheon, sped on his way by a recommendation from his father to post off to Bath first thing next day, and not to lie abed till all hours (“as you lazy young scamps like to do!”), because the sooner he finished with “this business” the better it would be for all concerned in it.

  “For once, sir, I am in complete agreement with you!” returned the Viscount, a laugh in his eyes. “So much so that I shall sleep at Speenhamland tonight!”

  “Oh, you will, will you? At the Pelican, no doubt!” said his lordship, with awful sarcasm.

  “But of course, Papa! Where else should one put up on the Bath road?”

  “I might have guessed you would choose the most expensive house in the country to honour with your patronage!” said the Earl. “When I was your age, Desford, I couldn’t have stood the nonsense, let me tell you! But I had no bird-witted great-aunt to leave her fortune to me! Oh, well, it’s no concern of mine how you waste the ready, but don’t come to me when you find yourself in Dun Territory!”

  “No, no, you’d disown me, wouldn’t you, sir? I shouldn’t dare!” said the Viscount, audaciously quizzing him.

  “Be off with you, wastrel!” commanded his austere parent.

  But when the Viscount’s chaise had disappeared from sight he turned to nod at his wife, and to say: “This business has done him a deal of good, my lady! I own that I was a trifle put out when I first got wind of it, but there was never the least need for you to think he’d been caught by some designing hussy!”

  “No, my dear,” meekly agreed his life’s companion.

  “Of course it was no such thing! Not but what it was a lunk-headed thing to have done—However, I shall say no more on that head! The thing is that for the first time in his life he has a wolf by the ears, and he ain’t running shy! He’s ready to stand buff, and, damme, I’m proud of him! Sound as a roast, my lady! Now, if only he would settle down—form an attachment to some eligible female—I’d hand Hartleigh over to him!”

  “An excellent scheme!” said Lady Wroxton. “How delightful it will be, my love, to see Ashley where you and I lived until your father deceased!”

  “Ay, but when?” responded his lordship gloomily. “That is the question, Maria!”

  “Not so very long, I fancy!” said Lady Wroxton, with a smothered laugh.

  Chapter 12

  While the Viscount was impatiently awaiting the fashioning of a tyre to fit the wheel of his chaise, his youngest brother had been half-way back to London from Newmarket, with one of his chief cronies seated beside him in his curricle. Both gentlemen were in excellent spirits, having enjoyed a most profitable sojourn at Newmarket. Mr Carrington, in fact, was appreciably plumper in the pocket than his friend, for when, having boldly wagered his all on the Viscount’s tip, and watched Mopsqueezer gallop home a length ahead of his closest rival, he had seen that a horse named Brother Benefactor was running in the last race he had instantly, ignoring the earnest pleas of his well-wishers not to be such a gudgeon, backed this animal to the tune of a hundred pounds. As it won by a head at the handsome price of ten-to-one, he left the course in high fettle, and with his pockets bulging with rolls of soft, one of which was considerably diminished at the end of the evening which he spent in entertaining several of his intimates to a sumptuous dinner at the White Hart.

  Having a hard head and a resilient constitution, he arose on the following day feeling (as he himself expressed it) only a trifle off the hinges, and in unimpaired good spirits. The same could not have been said of his companion, whose appearance caused Simon to exclaim: “Lord, Philip, you look as blue as a razor!”

  “I’ve got a devilish headache!” replied the sufferer, eyeing him with loathing.

  “That’s all right, old fellow!” said Simon encouragingly. “You’ll be in a capital way as soon as you get out into the fresh air! Nothing like a drive on a fine, windy day to pluck a man up!”

  Mr Harbledon vouchsafed no other response to this than a sound between a groan and a snarl. He climbed into the curricle, winced when it moved forward with a jerk, and for the next hour gave no other signs of life than moans when the curricle bounced over a bad stretch of ground, and one impassioned request to Simon to refrain from singing. Happily, his headache began to go off during the second hour, and by the time Simon pulled in his pair at the Green Man, in Harlow, he was so far restored as to be able to take more than an academic interest in the bill of fare, and even to discuss with the waiter the rival merits of a neck of venison and a dish of ox rumps, served with cabbage and a Spanish sauce.

  Simon reached his lodging in Bury Street midway through the afternoon on the following day. Since neither he nor Mr Harbledon was pressed for time they had tacitly agreed to recruit nature by remaining in bed until an advanced hour. They had then eaten a leisurely and substantial breakfast, so that by the time they left the Green Man it was past noon. Still full of fraternal gratitude, Simon strolled round to Arlington Street, on the chance that he might find Desford at home. He was not much surprised when Aldham, who opened the door to him, said that his lordship was not in at the moment; but when he learned, in answer to a further enquiry, that his lordship had not yet returned from Harrowgate, he opened his eyes in astonishment, and ejaculated: “Harrowgate?”

  “Yes, sir. So I believe,” said Aldham.

  Simon was not wanting in intelligence, and it did not take him more than a very few moments to realize what must have made his brother go off on such a long and tedious journey.
He uttered an involuntary choke of laughter, but after eyeing Aldham speculatively decided that it would be useless to try to coax any further information out of him. Besides, for anything he knew, Aldham might not have been taken into Desford’s confidence. So he contented himself with leaving a message for his brother, saying: “Oh, well, when he comes home tell him I shall be in London until the end of the week!”

  “Certainly I will, Mr Simon!” said Aldham, much relieved to be rescued from the horns of a dilemma. He regarded Simon with indulgent fondness, having known him from the cradle, but he knew that Simon was inclined to be a rattlecap; and since he had learnt from Pedmore that one of the first duties incumbent upon a butler was to be unfailingly discreet, and never, on any account, to blab about his master’s activities, he would have been hard put to it to answer any more searching questions without either betraying the Viscount, or offending Mr Simon.

  Simon was engaged to join a party of friends at Brighton, and might well have gone there in advance of the rest of the party if he had not recollected that rooms at the Ship had been booked from the Saturday of that week. Only a greenhead would suppose that there was the smallest chance of obtaining any but the shabbiest of lodgings in Brighton, at the height of the season, if he had not booked accommodation there; so he was obliged to resign himself to several days spent in kicking his heels in London, which, in July, more nearly resembled a desert, to any member of the ton, than a fashionable metropolis. Not that London had nothing to offer for the entertainment of out of season visitors: it had several things, and Simon was considering, two days after his call in Arlington Street, whether the evening would be more amusingly spent at the Surrey Theatre, or at the Cockpit Royal, when the retired gentleman’s gentleman who owned the house in Bury Street, and ministered to the three gentlemen at present lodging there, entered the room and presented him with a visiting-card, saying succinctly: “Gentleman to see you, sir.”

  The card bore, in florid script, an imposing legend: Baron Monte Toscano. Simon took one look at it, and handed it back. “Never heard of the fellow!” he said. “Tell him I’m not at home!”

  A mellifluous voice spoke from the doorway. “I must beg a thousand pardons!” it said. “Too late did I realize that I had inadvertently presented this good man with the wrong card! Have I the honour of addressing Mr Simon Carrington? But I need not ask! You bear a marked resemblance to your father—who, I do trust, still enjoys good health?”

  Considerably taken aback, Simon said: “Yes, I’m Simon Carrington, sir, but—but I fear you have the advantage of me!”

  “Naturally!” said his visitor, smiling benignly at him. “I daresay you never saw me before in your life—in fact, I am quite sure of it, for until this moment you have been but a name to me.” He paused to wave a dismissive hand at the retired gentleman’s gentleman, saying graciously: “Thank you, my good man! That will be all!”

  “The name, sir, is Diddlebury—if you have no objection!” said his good man, in a voice which clearly showed his contempt for Mr Carrington’s visitor.

  “None at all, my man! A very good name, in its way!” said the visitor graciously.

  Diddlebury, having looked in vain for a sign from Mr Carrington, reluctantly withdrew from the room.

  “And now,” said the visitor, “it behoves me to repair the foolish mistake I made, when I gave the wrong card to that fellow!” He drew out a fat card-case as he spoke, and searched in it, while Simon stared at him in amazement.

  He was a middle-aged man, dressed in clothes as florid as his countenance. When the highest kick of fashion was a severity of style which banished from every Tulip’s wardrobe all the frilled evening shirts which had been the rage only six months before, not to mention such enormities as flowered waistcoats, brightly coloured coats, or any other jewelry than a ring and a tie-pin, he was wearing a tightly fitting coat of rich purple; a shirt whose starched frill made him look like a pouter pigeon; and a richly embroidered waistcoat. A somewhat ornate quizzing-glass hung round his neck; a number of seals and fobs dangled from his waist; a flashing tie-pin was stuck into the folds of his cravat; and several rings embellished his fingers. He had probably been a handsome man in his youth, for his features were good, but the unmistakable signs of dissipation had impaired his complexion, set pouches beneath his eyes, and rendered the eyes themselves a trifle bloodshot.

  “Ah, here we have it!” he said, selecting a card from his case. However, having taken the precaution of inspecting it through his quizzing-glass, he said: “No, that’s not it! Can it be that I forgot—No! Here it is at last!”

  Fascinated, Simon said: “Do you—do you carry different cards, sir?”

  “Certainly! I find it convenient to use one card here, and another there, for you must know that I am domiciled abroad, and spend much of my time in travel. But this card,” he said, handing it to Simon with a flourish, “bears my true name, and will doubtless explain to you why I have sought you out!”

  Simon took the card, and glanced at it with scant interest. But the name inscribed on it made him gasp: “Wilfred Steane? Then you aren’t dead?”

  “No, Mr Carrington, I am not dead,” said Mr Steane, disposing himself in a chair, “I am very much alive. I may say that I am wholly at a loss to understand why anyone should have supposed me to have shuffled off this mortal coil. In the words of the poet. Shakespeare, I fancy.”

  “Yes, I know that,” said Simon. “But I’m dashed if I know why you shouldn’t understand why you was thought to have stuck your spoon in the wall! What else could anyone think when nothing was heard of you for years?”

  “Was it to be supposed, young man, that if I had done any such thing I should have neglected to inform my only child of the circumstance? Not to mention the Creature in whose charge I left her!” demanded Mr Steane, in throbbing accents of reproach.

  “You couldn’t have,” said Simon prosaically.

  “I should have made arrangements,” said Mr Steane vaguely. “In fact, I had made arrangements. But let that pass! I am not here to bandy idle words with you. I am here to discover where your brother is lying concealed, Mr Carrington!”

  Simon’s hackles began to rise. “I have two brothers, sir, and neither of them is lying concealed!”

  “I refer to your brother Desford. My concern is not with your other brother, of whose existence I was unaware. I must own that until this morning I was unaware of your existence too.” He heaved a deep sigh, and sadly shook his head. “One grows out of touch! Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume—! No doubt you can supply the rest of that moving passage.”

  “Well, of course I can! Anyone could!”

  “Labuntur anni,”murmured Mr Steane. “How true! Alas, how true! Although you, standing as you do on the threshold of life, cannot be expected to appreciate it. How well I remember the heedless, carefree days of my own youth, when—”

  “Forgive me, sir!” said Simon, ruthlessly interrupting this rhetorical digression, “but you’re wandering from the point! I collect that you wish me to tell you where my brother Desford is to be found. If I knew, I’d be happy to tell you, because he’d be devilish glad to see you, but I don’t know! What I do know is that he is not lying concealed anywhere! And also,” he added, with rising colour, and stammering a little, “th-that there’s no reason why he should be! And, what’s more, I’ll thank you not to make such—such false accusations against him!”

  “All alike, you Carringtons!” said Mr Steane mournfully. “How vividly the past is recalled to my remembrance by your words! Your esteemed father, now—”

  “We’ll leave my father out of this discussion!” snapped Simon, by this time thoroughly incensed.

  “Willingly, willingly, my dear boy! It is no pleasure to me to recollect how grievously he misjudged me. How little allowance he made for youth’s indiscretions, how little he understood the straits to which a young man could be reduced by the harsh conduct of a parent who was—to put the matter in vulgar terms—a hog-grubber! I w
ill go further: a flea-mint!”

  “Well, you’re out there!” retorted Simon. “I don’t know much about what you did in your youth, sir, but I do know that my father gave yours the cut direct when he heard he’d disowned you!”

  “Did he so?” said Mr Steane, much interested. “Then I have wronged him! I would I might have been present on the occasion! It would have supplied balm to my sorely wounded heart. But how, I ask myself, could I have guessed it? When I disclose to you that to me also he gave the cut direct you will realize that it was impossible for me to have done so.”

  “I daresay, but I shall be obliged to you, sir, if you will cut line, and tell me what your purpose is in coming to visit me! I’ve already told you that I don’t know where Desford is, and I can only advise you to await his return to London! He has a house in Arlington Street, and his servants are—are in hourly expectation of his return to it!”

  “That he resides in Arlington Street I know,” said Mr Steane. “Upon my arrival from Bath, I instantly made it my business to discover his direction—an easy task, his lordship being such a distinguished member of Society.”

  “Of course it was an easy task!” said Simon scornfully. “All you had to do was to consult a Street Directory!”

  Mr Steane dismissed this with a lofty wave of his hand. “Be that as it may,” he said, obscurely but with great dignity, “I did discover it, and instantly repaired to the inhospitable portals of his residence. These were opened to me by an individual whom I assumed to be his lordship’s butler. He, like you, Mr Carrington, disclaimed all knowledge of his master’s whereabouts. He was—not to put too fine a point upon it—strangely reticent. Very strangely reticent! I am neither a noddicock nor a souse-crown, young man—in fact, I am one who is up to every move on the board, ill though it becomes me to puff myself off! And I perceived, in the twinkling of a bedpost, that he was under orders to fob me off!”