“Well? Why do you hesitate? Or don’t you know what I’m worth?”
She looked at him, and saw a stranger. She couldn’t tell him all the truth while this black mood held him, much less disclose to him the shocking suspicion in her own heart. In the end he might have to know that too, but it was not certain yet. But if a worse disaster than he knew threatened him there might still be yet time to avert it. Only she must not waste precious moments in trying to justify herself, or expose Dysart and Letty to the white heat of his anger. Later she would tell him, but not now, when her own part in the affair had suddenly become a matter of very little importance beside what might well prove to be Letty’s.
She tried to speak, and found that she had too little command over her voice. He was still watching her with those hard, angry eyes. That hurt her, and made tears spring to her own. She winked them away, and managed to say, with a pathetic attempt at a smile wavering on her lips: “I can’t answer you, you s-see. Later, I will. Not now!”
She went rather blindly towards the door. His voice checked her, even startled her a little. “No, come back! I didn’t mean it, Nell! I didn’t mean it!”
He took a quick stride toward her, only to be brought up short by the opening of the door, and the entrance of his butler.
“I beg your lordship’s pardon!” Farley said apologetically.
“Well, what is it?” Cardross snapped.
“I thought you would wish to know, my lord, that Sir John Somerby called to see your lordship ten minutes ago. He is waiting in the saloon.”
“Tell him I will be with him presently!”
“No, please go to him now!” Nell said gently, and left the room without again looking at him.
She went swiftly up the stairs, past her own rooms, and up another flight to Letty’s. Martha, running up two minutes later, in answer to the summons of a bell clanging so wildly that it was plain its pull had been tugged with peremptory vigour, found her standing in the middle of the room, and quailed under the sternly accusing look in her eyes. “Oh, my lady! I didn’t know it was your ladyship!”
“Where is your mistress, Martha?”
With the instinct of her kind to admit nothing, Martha said defensively: “I’m sure I couldn’t say, my lady.”
“Indeed! Then will you come down, if you please, to his lordship,” Nell said calmly, gathering up her half-train and moving towards the door.
That was enough to induce Martha, in a panic, to tell all she knew. It was not very much. She had indeed accompanied Letty to Bond Street that afternoon, where they had met Selina Thorne. Letty had sent her home then, saying that she would go with her cousin to Bryanston Square, and her aunt would convey her home later in her carriage.
“Was Mrs. Thorne with Miss Selina?” Nell demanded.
“Oh yes, my lady!” Martha said, a little too glibly.
“Did you see her?”
Martha hesitated, but the unwavering blue gaze disconcerted her, and she muttered that Miss Selina had said she was in Hookham’s.
“I see. At what hour was this?”
“I—I don’t know, my lady! Not to say precisely! It waswhen my Lord Dysart was with your ladyship that we stepped out.”
“Lord Dysart left this house before two o’clock. It is now half-past six, but Lady Letitia hasn’t returned, and you felt no anxiety?”
“I thought—I thought it was her ladyship that rang for me!”
Nell’s eyes swept the room. “But you have not laid out her ball-dress?”
“Her ladyship said—perhaps she should not go to the Assembly, my lady! She said—not to get in a pucker if she was late, or to say anything to anyone, except that she was gone to Mrs. Thorne’s, but she didn’t tell me more! On my truth and honour she didn’t, my lady!”
“You must have known, however, that she didn’t mean to return. No, don’t tell me lies, if you please! Lady Letitia does not take her brushes and combs and her toothpowder when she goes shopping.”
Martha burst into tears, sobbing that she had not known, that her ladyship had given her a parcel to carry, saying it contained some things she meant to give to Miss Selina. Yes, it was quite a large bundle, but she didn’t know what was in it; her ladyship had packed it herself, and never told her; and she would happily lay down her life for her ladyship, particularly when the dear angel was being made so miserable as never was, and not a soul to turn to but one who had served her from the cradle, as it were.
“That will do. I think you have acted this part with the intention of doing your mistress a service, and did not mean to help her to do anything that would bring down the most dreadful consequences on her. But if she has indeed eloped you will have done her the worst turn that lay in your power. I hope she has not—indeed, I believe that Mr. Allandale has a greater regard for her reputation than you have shown. I don’t know what I may be obliged to tell his lordship: that must depend on whether I can find her ladyship, and bring her safely home. And also, a little, on your conduct now.”
The terrified Martha, eyes starting from her head, and teeth chattering, began to gasp out promises of abject obedience, but Nell cut short her protestations, saying: “Stop crying, and listen to me! I am going immediately to Mrs. Thorne’s, and if I find your mistress there, or can discover from Miss Selina where she may have gone, perhaps no one need know what has taken place today. So you will not speak of this to anyone. Do you understand me? If you should be asked where I am, you must say that you don’t know. Now go downstairs again and desire Sutton to come to my bedchamber, if you please!”
Sutton, entering her room five minutes later, in the expectation of helping her to change her dress, found her clad for the street, in her bonnet and a light pelisse. Before she could give expression to her surprise, Nell said coolly: “Sutton, it is very vexatious, but I am obliged to go out. I don’t know how long I may be.” She raised her eyes from the gloves she was drawing over her fingers, and said: “Perhaps you may guess my errand. I am persuaded I can rely on your discretion, if that is so.”
“Your ladyship may always do so. But if, as I fancy is the case, you are going to find Lady Letitia, I beg you will permit me to accompany you.”
“Thank you. It is unnecessary, however. I—have a particular reason for wishing you to remain here. I am very reluctant to let it be known to anyone—if Lady Letitia has done something foolish which—which perhaps I may be able to mend!”
“I understand you perfectly, my lady. My lips shall be sealed, come what may!” announced Sutton, in prim accents, but with the resolute mien of one bound for the torture chamber.
“Well, I don’t think anything very dreadful will come of it,” said Nell, smiling faintly. “His lordship doesn’t dine at home tonight, so perhaps he will not enquire for me. But if he should do so, could you say that you suppose me to have gone out to dinner? He won’t ask then where Lady Letitia is, because he will think she must be with me.”
“Certainly, my lady. He shall learn nothing from me.”
“I am very much obliged to you. One other thing: can you, do you think, contrive to draw George out of the hall so that he doesn’t see me leave the house? He would think it odd, and perhaps talk of it, you know.”
“Very likely, my lady! I will step downstairs immediately, and desire him to fetch up your ladyship’s dressing-case from the boxroom,” said Sutton with aplomb.
“But what in the world should I want it for?” Nell objected.
“That, my lady, is none of George’s business!” replied Sutton coldly.
Whatever George may have thought, the ruse proved successful. There was no one in the hall to see Nell slip out of the house; and no one within earshot when she softly shut the front-door behind her. She heaved a sigh of relief, and set off quickly in the direction of the nearest hackney-coach stand.
Chapter Thirteen
Mrs. Thorne’s butler, opening the door to Nell in time to see the hackney which had brought her to Bryanston Square move slowly away, w
as very much surprised that her ladyship should have deigned to enter such a lowly vehicle, but she had expected that he would be, and told him in the easiest way that her carriage had suffered a slight accident. He seemed satisfied with this explanation, but when she asked for his mistress he was obliged to tell her that Madam had retired to her room to change her dress for dinner.
“Then, if you please, be so good as to ask your mistress if I may go up to her,” said Nell, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for a lady of quality to arrive in a common hackney half-an-hour before dinner-time, wearing a morning-dress, and coolly demanding to be taken up to her hostess’s bedroom. The butler looked doubtful, but he went to deliver this message, returning almost immediately to beg her ladyship to step upstairs.
Mrs. Thorne was seated before her dressing-table, enveloped in a voluminous wrapper, and with her hair only half-pinned up into the elaborate fashion of her choice. She was a stout, goodnatured looking woman, and when she rose to greet Nell she seemed rather to surge out of her chair. “Oh, my dear Lady Cardross, pray come in, and forgive my receiving you in such a way! But I would not keep you waiting while I scrambled on my clothes, and so I told Thomas to bring you to me straightaway.”
“It is very kind of you. I should not be troubling you at such an awkward time,” Nell said, shaking hands. “May I talk privately to you for a few minutes?”
“Oh, my dear! Yes, yes, to be sure you may! Go and see if Miss Fanny is dressed yet, Betty! I will ring for you when I want you back again. Set a chair for her ladyship before you go! Do, pray, be seated, Lady Cardross!” She herself sank back into the chair before the dressing-table, saying, almost before her maid was out of the room: “Tell me at once, my dear! When Thomas came to say that you were below, such a presentiment shot through me! And I can see by your face I was right!”
“I don’t know—I hope not! Mrs. Thorne, has Letty been with you today?”
“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” cried Mrs. Thorne, “if I didn’t know it! No, my dear, I haven’t seen Letty since she visited us last week. Don’t tell me she has gone off with young Allandale! Wait! where are my smelling-salts? Now tell me everything!”
Clutching the vinaigrette, and warding off a series of palpitations by frequently sniffing its aromatic contents, she managed to listen to the story Nell unfolded without succumbing to the various nervous ills which threatened to prostrate her. She was very much shocked, interrupting the tale with groans, and horrified ejaculations, but there was nothing she could do to help Nell, because she knew nothing. She had never encouraged Mr. Allandale: girls liked to flirt, and there was no harm in that; but when she had learnt that Letty considered herself engaged to a young man without a penny to bless himself with, and no prospects worthy to be mentioned, she had never been more upset in her life.
Nell was obliged to break in on her volubility, and to beg that Selina might be sent for. Mrs. Thorne was perfectly agreeable, but she could not think that Selina would be able to throw any light on the mystery of her cousin’s whereabouts. When she was told of the meeting that afternoon in Bond Street, she could scarcely be brought to believe that such a thing could have happened. “Selina going off to Bond Street! Oh, you don’t mean it, Lady Cardross! I never heard of such a thing! To be sure, girls aren’t kept so strict now as they were when I was young—why, not a step outside the house could I take unless my mother, or the governess was with me! And very irksome it was, I can tell you! I made up my mind I wouldn’t use my girls so, and nor I have, but as for letting any of them go jauntering about town without one of her sisters, or Betty, to go with her, that would be quite beyond the line! Good gracious, whatever would people say? It doesn’t bear thinking of, and if I find Martha was telling you the truth, which, however, it’s very likely she wasn’t, I declare Selina shall go to Miss Puttenham’s seminary, say what she will! It was what Mr. Thorne said she should do, when Miss Woodbridge left us, but she pleaded so hard against it—well, there! But that Martha would say anything! Depend upon it, my dear Lady Cardross, Selina knows no more than the man in the moon where her cousin may be!”
But when Selina presently came into the room it was evident even to her fond parent that she knew very well why she had been sent for. She was in fine feather, and perfectly ready to be martyred in her cousin’s cause. Hers had not been the chief role in the delightful drama, but she had been able easily to convince herself that without her self-abnegating offices the interested parties would by this time have been obliged to resign themselves to their equally disagreeable fates. Letty (if she did not go into a decline, and expire within the year) would have been ruthlessly forced into marriage with a titled Midas of evil disposition, at whose hands she would have suffered brutal ill-usage; and Mr. Allandale, unaccountably forgotten by his superiors, would have worn out his life in a foreign land, always carrying his lost love’s likeness next his heart, and dying (in circumstances of distressing neglect and anguish) with her name on his writhen lips.
Until she found herself confronting Nell, of whom she stood in a good deal of awe, this affecting story had seemed to her so probable as to border on the inevitable. She had several times rehearsed the elevating utterances she would make, if called upon to account for her actions; and in these scenes every effort made by Letty’s persecutors to drag from her the secret of her whereabouts failed. Sometimes she remained mute while the storm raged over her devoted head; but in general she was extremely eloquent, expressing herself with such moving sincerity that even such worldly persons as her father and Lord Cardross were often brought to see how false and mercenary were their ideas, and emerged from the encounter with changed hearts, and the highest opinion of her fearlessness, nobility, and good sense.
But in these scenes the other members of the cast spoke the lines laid down for them; in real life they said things so very different as to throw everything quite out of joint. In the event, Selina pronounced only one of her rehearsed speeches. Asked by her mother if she knew what had become of Letty, she clasped her hands at her breast, and declined to answer the question. She then invited the two ladies to threaten her as much as they chose, to do with her what they would; but warned them that they would find it impossible to force her to betray her cousin.
Mrs. Thorne should then have conjured her daughter on her obedience to divulge the truth; instead, and with a lamentable lack of histrionic ability, she begged her irritably not, for goodness sake, to start any of her play-acting; and before Selina could recover from this set-back Nell completed her discomfiture by saying in a tone of grave reproof: “Indeed, Selina, you must not make-believe over this, for I am afraid it is much more serious than you have any idea of.”
After that, there could be no recapturing the dramatic flavour of the piece. Selina did say that she wouldn’t tell anything, but even in her own ears this sounded very much more sulky than noble; and when Mrs. Thorne, heaving herself out of her chair, declared her intention of hailing her immediately before her papa, who would know how to deal with such impertinence, instead of behaving like a heroine, she collapsed into frightened tears.
It took a little time to drag the whole story out of her and the effect of her revelations on Mrs. Thorne was severe enough to make Nell feel profoundly sorry for the poor lady. She was so much stunned by the discovery that when she had believed Selina to have gone under the escort of her maid to a dancing-class, or a music-lesson, that abandoned damsel had been setting forth by stealth for the most fashionable quarter of the town, alone, and for the purpose of aiding and abetting her cousin in conduct that, if it were to become known, would disgrace them both for ever in the eyes of all persons of ton, that she could do nothing but reproach Selina, and wonder how she came to have a daughter so lost to all sense of propriety. It was left to Nell to question Selina, which she did with a gentle coldness that overawed her far more than did her mother’s scoldings.
Letty had sold the necklace to Catworth on the day that she had gone with her cousin
to choose a wedding-gift for Fanny. They had dismissed the carriage outside the Pantheon, telling the coachman to call for them at Gunter’s, in Berkeley Square, considerably later in the day. After purchasing a couple of thick veils, they had set out in a hack for Cranbourn Alley, having discovered the existence of the firm of Catworth and Son through the simple expedient of asking the jarvey on the box to recommend them a jeweller not patronized by persons of quality. While Letty had transacted her business with the younger Catworth, Selina had remained in the hack, because the jarvey, when instructed to wait outside the shop, apparently suspecting them of trying to give him the slip, had expressed a strong wish of being paid off then and there.
After the sale of the necklace, only one thing was needed for an elopement, and that was the bridegroom, who was then still out of town.
At this point, Mrs. Thorne exclaimed: “Never tell me Allandale was ready to take her with no more than two thousand pounds!”
“My dear ma’am, you cannot suppose that Mr. Allandale was a party to such a thing!” Nell said.
“No, he wasn’t,” corroborated Selina. “Letty said she would tell him she had it from her godfather, in case he should think she ought not to have taken the necklace.”
The two girls had met that afternoon by prearrangement, and as soon as Martha had been got rid of, which was done because Letty wished, with rare consideration, to protect her from blame, they had purchased such necessities as Letty had been unable to pack in her bundle, and brought them to Bryanston Square, to be bestowed in an old cloak-bag belonging to Papa. Finally, Letty had departed in a hackney for Mr. Allandale’s lodging in Ryder Street. “But you won’t catch them,” Selina said, with a last flicker of defiance, “because that was hours ago, and you may depend upon it they are many miles away by now!”
This seemed all too probable to Mrs. Thorne, sinking back in her chair with a groan of dismay, but Nell was more hopeful. When Selina had been dismissed to bed, with the promise of bread and water for her supper, an interview with Papa on the morrow, and incarceration for an unspecified length of time in a Bath seminary for young ladies, she rose to her feet, saying that she would go at once to Ryder Street.
April Lady Page 22