April Lady

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “But what is the use, my dear?” wailed Mrs. Thorne. “You heard what that wicked child of mine said! They’re off to Gretna Green, depend upon it!”

  “I cannot credit it! No doubt that was Letty’s plan, but I shall own myself astonished if it was Mr. Allandale’s. Oh, he would not do such a thing! I am quite confident he would not!”

  “Good gracious, Lady Cardross, where else could they go? They couldn’t be married in England, what with Letty’s being under age, and special licenses, and I don’t know what beside! Surely to goodness he wouldn’t have let her run away to him if he didn’t mean to marry her immediately?”

  “I don’t believe he knew anything about it,” declared Nell. “Only consider, ma’am! He is a respectable man of superior sense, and with extremely nice notions of propriety. I am persuaded he would not entertain for an instant the thought of eloping with a child of Letty’s age. Her expectations, too! Oh, no, he couldn’t do it! If his own good feeling did not prevent him, the knowledge that he would be thought to have behaved like a most unprincipled fortune-hunter surely would!”

  “Ay, there is that,” agreed Mrs. Thorne, a little doubtfully. “He would lose his employment, too, I daresay. But, you know my dear, when a man falls head over ears in love there’s no saying what he may do. And you aren’t going to tell me Letty ran off to elope with him without him knowing she meant to do it!”

  “Yes, I am,” Nell said, on a tiny choke of laughter. “It would be exactly like her to do so!”

  “Well!” gasped Mrs. Thorne. “Of all the brazen little hussies! A nice surprise it will be for Allandale when he goes home from the Foreign Office, thinking of nothing but his dinner, as I don’t doubt he will be, and finds that naughty girl in his lodging, as bold as brass, and expecting him to set out with her for Scotland! Well, I hope it will be a lesson to him, that’s all! Only, if that’s the way it was, why didn’t he bring her back to you long since?”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Nell said. “It does seem strange, but if he were kept late at his work—? Then, too, it would take him a little time, you know, to persuade Letty to give up the scheme. In fact, the likeliest chance is that she fell into one of her hysterical fits of crying, and the poor man could not have the least notion how to stop her! Oh, I must go to Ryder Street at once!”

  The conviction that she would arrive at Mr. Allandale’s lodging to find him endeavouring to soothe his would-be bride grew steadily upon Nell as she was bounced and jolted there in yet another hack, and she began to be quite buoyant again, feeling that if she could only restore his sister to Cardross with her reputation unblemished she would have done much to atone for the follies and extravagances of the past weeks. But when the hackney turned out of St. James’s Street into Ryder Street, she suffered a check. The coachman pulled up his aged horse, and clambered down from the box to discover what was the number of the house she wished to visit; and it suddenly occurred to Nell that she did not know it. Nor did the coachman. Asked if he was perhaps familiar with Mr. Allandale, he said he wasn’t one to bother his head over the names of the gentlemen who patronized him, and surveyed his fair passenger with unwelcome interest. She was put a little out of countenance by this, and had, indeed, been feeling a trifle uneasy from the moment the hack turned into St. James’s Street, and she had seen all the clubs’ windows lighted up, and several gentlemen of her acquaintance strolling along the flagway. This quarter of fashionable London, which lay between Pall Mall and Piccadilly, belonged almost exclusively to the Gentlemen, and it was not considered good ton for a lady to be seen within its bounds. Nearly all the clubs were to be found in St. James’s Street; and the streets which led from it abounded in bachelor lodgings and gaming-hells. The coachman was plainly wondering whether he had been mistaken in the social status of his fare, and Nell was beginning to feel rather helpless and extremely uncomfortable when she providentially remembered that Mr. Hethersett also lived in Ryder Street, and would no doubt be able to direct her to Mr. Allandale’s abode, if she were fortunate enough to find him at home. So she told the coachman to drive her to Number 5. It did not seem probable that Mr. Hethersett would be at home, for it was now past eight o’clock, but fortune favoured her. Just as she was searching in her reticule for her purse the door of No. 5 was opened, and Mr. Hethersett himself came out of the house, very natty in knee-breeches and silk stockings, a waistcoat of watered silk, a swallow-tailed coat, and a snowy cravat arranged by his expert hands in the intricate style known as the Mathematical Tie. Set at a slight angle on his oiled locks was an elegant chapeau bras, and hanging from his shoulders was a silk-lined cloak. He carried a pair of gloves in one hand, and an ebony cane in the other, but perceiving the unusual spectacle of a lady engaged in paying off a hackney-coachman at his very door, he transferred the gloves to his right hand so that he could raise one eye the quizzing-glass that was slung about his neck. At just this moment, Nell turned to mount the few steps to his door, and uttered a joyful exclamation. “Felix! Oh, how glad I am to have caught you!”

  The jarvey, observing that the expression on Mr. Hethersett’s face was of profound dismay, clicked his tongue disapprovingly. In his view, Nell—as dimber a mort as he had clapped eyes on in a twelvemonth—was worthy of a warmer greeting than the startled: “Good God!” which broke from Mr. Hethersett.

  “What the deuce brings you here?” demanded Mr. Hethersett, alarmed out of his usual address. “Cardross hasn’t met with an accident, has he? Or—”

  “Oh, no, no! nothing like that!” she assured him. “I shan’t keep you above a moment—are you on your way to a party?—but I have most stupidly forgotten the number of the house Mr. Allandale lodges in!”

  Disappointed in this conversation, the jarvey adjured his lethargic steed to get up, and drove slowly off.

  “Thank the lord he’s gone!” said Mr. Hethersett. “You know, cousin, you shouldn’t be driving about in a hack, and coming here to ask me for Allandale’s direction! I mean—not my business, but it ain’t at all the thing! Cardross wouldn’t like it. Besides, what do you want with Allandale?”

  “Well, that isn’t your business either!” Nell pointed out. “And if Cardross knew I was here he would have not the least objection, I assure you, for I am here for a very sufficient purpose. So will you, if you please, tell me the number of Mr. Allandale’s lodging, and then you may go to your party, and not trouble your head over me any more?”

  “No,” said Mr. Hethersett, with unexpected firmness. “I won’t! Well, I should be bound to trouble my head over you: stands to reason! Because it seems to me you’re up to something dashed smoky, cousin. And as for saying Cardross wouldn’t object to your paying calls in a hack at this time of day—well, if that’s what you think, you can’t know him! What I’m going to do is take you home.”

  “No, you are not!” said Nell indignantly. “Now, Felix, just because you met me in Clarges Street that day does not give you the right to try to bully and hector me over this!”

  “Never mind that!—By the by, I hope all’s right about that business?”

  “Yes, yes, Dysart settled it for me.”

  “He did, did he?”

  “Yes, for he has won a great deal of money on a horse called Cockroach. It was not very handsome of you to have betrayed me to him, however!”

  “No, I know it wasn’t. Best thing I could think of, though. What we want now is another hack.”

  “No—though I hope it is what I may want in a very little time. I suppose I shall be obliged to tell you what has happened,” she sighed.

  “Good God, cousin, do you take me for a flat?” demanded Mr. Hethersett. “If you’re searching all over for Allandale, it means that Letty is up to her tricks. What’s she done? Eloped with the fellow?”

  “I very much fear it.”

  “Eh?” he said incredulously. “No, no, not the sort of fellow to do a scaly thing like that! I was only funning!”

  But when he had heard all that Nell saw fit to tell him of
the day’s events he looked a good deal taken aback, and acknowledged that the affair bore all the appearance of an uncommonly rum set-out. “What’s more, if Allandale’s made off with her—yes, but dash it, cousin, that won’t fadge! I mean, it wouldn’t be up to the rig, and though I can’t say I like him above half there’s nothing of the queer nab about him!”

  “No, indeed! and that is what makes me very hopeful of finding them still here,” she explained. “So pray will you direct me to the house?”

  “Yes, but where’s Cardross?” he demanded. “He can’t have gone out of town again, because I saw him at White’s this afternoon! It’s his business to find Letty, not yours.”

  “He—he is dining out tonight, and then, too, he had Sir John Somerby with him, you see.”

  “What you mean,” said Mr. Hethersett severely, “is that you haven’t told him.”

  “No,” she confessed. “I—I haven’t.”

  “Well, you ought to have done so. Very unwilling to offend you, cousin, but you’ve got no right to play the concave suit with Cardross over that chit. Dash it, she’s his ward! Daresay you’re fond of her, but it won’t do to be hoaxing Giles about today’s business.”

  “No,” she agreed. “Indeed, I don’t mean to, Felix! Only the thing is that—he—he is very much vexed today. Something occurred that put him sadly out of temper, and I particularly don’t wish to be obliged to break this news to him when—when perhaps he would be quite dreadfully angry with Letty!”

  “Good thing if he was!” said Mr. Hethersett unfeelingly. “If you want to know what I think, it’s my belief that the sooner you’re rid of that resty girl the better it will be. Unsteady, that’s what she is. Maggotty, too: never know where to take her, or what she’ll be up to next!” He glanced fleetingly at Nell, but it had grown rather too dark for him to be able to see her face very clearly. However, he had drawn certain conclusions which he was pretty sure were accurate, so he added, in a careless way: “Shouldn’t be surprised if it was her starts that had put him out of temper.”

  Nell said nothing in reply to this. The lamplighter was coming down the street, with his ladder carried between him and the boy who followed at his heels. Nell, who was tired of standing outside Mr. Hethersett’s house, pointed this circumstance out to him, saying: “Won’t he think it excessively odd that we should be standing here?”

  “Yes, but we ain’t going to stand here,” replied Mr. Hethersett. “It don’t look to me as though Allandale’s at home, but we may as well enquire for him.”

  “Do you mean to say that he lives next door to you?” demanded Nell.

  “Yes. Well, no reason why he shouldn’t!” said Mr. Hethersett, surprised at the indignant note in her voice. “What I mean is, he don’t trouble me: hardly ever see him!”

  “And you have kept me standing outside all this time! It is a great deal too bad of you!” said Nell, treading up the steps to the door, and grasping the heavy brass knocker.

  “I was trying to think what I should do with you while I did the trick here. Trouble is there ain’t anywhere for you to go, but you oughtn’t to be asking for Allandale, you know! Leave it to me, cousin!”

  She was quite ready to do this, but when the door was opened, and Mr. Hethersett asked the proprietor of the establishment if Mr. Allandale was at home, and was told that he was not, he seemed so much inclined to withdraw without pursuing his enquiries any farther that she felt obliged to intervene. Disregarding a horrified murmur of protest from Mr. Hethersett she boldly asked if Mr. Allandale had gone out alone, or accompanied by a lady.

  “Would it be Mr. Allandale’s sister you was referring to, ma’am?” asked the man cautiously.

  “Yes,” said Nell, with great promptness.

  “Ah!” said the proprietor, stroking his chin in a ruminative way. “That’s what he said, I don’t deny, but it wasn’t what she said, which puts me in a fix, in a manner of speaking, because if it was his sister you was wishful to see I couldn’t say it was her as was here today, not to take my oath on it, I couldn’t. The young party as came here asking for Mr. Allandale told Mrs. Shotwick, which is my good lady, as how she was engaged to be married to him. Which is different.”

  “Well, that is the lady I wish to find,” said Nell.

  “Ah!” said Mr. Shotwick, still caressing his chin. “I’ve no objection, but the question is, can you, ma’am? Because she ain’t here. Nor hasn’t been, this three hours and more. Which I’m just as glad she hasn’t, on account of all the bobbery there was.”

  “Oh, dear!” Nell said, her heart sinking. “What—what sort of bobbery?”

  “No, dash it, cousin—!” expostulated Mr. Hethersett, by this time in a state of acute discomfort.

  At this point Mr. Shotwick was struck by the happy idea of inviting them to step inside so that they might discuss the delicate matter with the mistress of the establishment. Nell readily agreed to this, Mr. Hethersett not so readily, and they were ushered into Mr. Allandale’s parlour, on the right of the front door, and left there while Mr. Shotwick went off to summon his wife on to the scene.

  “Oh, Felix, what can have happened?” Nell said. “Gone for more than three hours! When the man said they were not here I thought at first that perhaps Mr. Allandale had taken Letty home, and I should find her there when I return. But three hours! Where can she be, if they have not eloped together?”

  “I don’t know where she can be,” said Mr. Hethersett. “I know where we are, however, and it ain’t where I want to be. I’m dashed sure this fellow knows who I am, and the next thing we shall find is that he’s twigged who you are. It’ll be all over town before the cat’s had time to lick her ear.”

  “Well, if you don’t like to be seen in my company, you may go away!” said Nell, with spirit.

  “I don’t,” said Mr. Hethersett frankly. “Particularly in this rig, when you ain’t dressed for the evening. Not at all the thing: looks dashed peculiar! We shall have all the quizzes wondering what the deuce we were doing. Can’t tell ‘em we were looking all over for Letty!”

  Anxious as she was, she could not help laughing at this. She said mischievously: “It is very bad, but your credit is so good that I am persuaded no one would believe for an instant that you had done anything that was not good ton!”

  “Yes, but this is no time for funning, my dear Lady Cardross! Besides, there’s no saying what people will believe. The thing is, we’re going the quickest way to work to get it set about that that wretched girl has gone clean beyond the line. What’s more, Cardross will be as mad as fire with the pair of us for making cakes of ourselves, instead of telling him what had happened.”

  She felt that this indeed might be true, but before she could reply Mr. Shotwick had come back, with a stout dame in a mob-cap, whom he introduced as his good lady.

  From the somewhat involved story that issued from Mrs. Shotwick’s lips it became apparent that the eruption of Letty into her hitherto ordered existence had disarranged her mind quite as much as it had shaken her faith in her favourite lodger. “For, not to deceive you, ma’am, what to think I did not know, nor don’t!”

  Her first impulse, on learning from her spouse that a beautiful young lady, with a cloak-bag, had taken possession of Mr. Allandale’s parlour, with the expressed intention of remaining there until he returned to his lodging, had been to eject so bold a hussy immediately; but when she had sailed into the room to accomplish this desirable object she had suffered a check. She beheld Quality, and one did not turn Quality out of one’s house, however respectable one might be. But she had been on the watch for Mr. Allandale, and she had waylaid him on his entering the house, and had given him to understand that Goings-on under her roof she would not allow. It had struck her forcibly that upon hearing of his betrothed’s presence in his parlour he had looked queer—to put it no higher.

  “Queer as Dick’s hatband,” corroborated Mr. Shotwick.

  “I should think he dashed well would look queer!” said Mr. Hethe
rsett, impatient of this circumstantial history.

  “Ah!” said Mr. Shotwick. “‘Specially if he was trying to tip her the double, which was what we suspicioned, sir.”

  “I’ll thank you not to use that nasty cant, Shotwick!” said the wife of his bosom sharply. “No such thought crossed my mind, not then it didn’t!”

  “Not till the kick-up started,” agreed Mr. Shotwick. “Lor’, how she did take on! I thought we should have the neighbours in on us.” He shook his head mournfully. “You couldn’t help but compassionate her. But what has me fair flummoxed is the way he slumguzzled us! Because a quieter, nicer-behaved gentleman you couldn’t find, not if you was to look from here to Jericho! But he tipped her the rise, no question!”

  “That’ll do!” said his wife. She looked significantly at Nell, and said darkly: “Not a word shall pass my lips with a gentleman present, but I ask you, ma’am, what is anyone to think when a sweet, pretty young thing carries on like she was desperate, and begs and implores a gentleman—if such you can call him!—to marry her?”

  “Crying five loaves a penny, in course,” said Mr. Shotwick helpfully.

  “Yes, never mind that! What I mean is, no such thing!” intervened Mr. Hethersett, devoutly trusting that this expression was unknown to Nell. Not that there was any chance that she hadn’t understood the gist of Mrs. Shotwick’s remarks: she was looking aghast, as well she might! “All I want to know is, did they leave this house together, and did you hear where they were bound for?”

  “That I cannot say,” replied Mrs. Shotwick. “Leave it they did, in a post-chaise and pair.”

  “A post-chaise!” Nell echoed, in a hollow voice.

  “A post-chaise it was, ma’am, as I saw with my own eyes, and which Mr. Allandale stepped out to bespeak his own self,” nodded Mrs. Shotwick. “And this I will say: whatever he’s done, he means to do right by that poor young thing now, for when I asked him what was to be done he answered me straight out there was only one thing he could do. I don’t say he looked like he wanted to, but he was very resolute—oh, very resolute he was! He didn’t say anything more to me, but turned sharp about and came back into this very room, where Miss was laid down on that sofa, looking that wore out as never was. But what he said to her I don’t know, for he shut the door. All I do know is that whatever it was it had her up off of the sofa in a twinkling, and as happy as a grig! Then he went off to hire a chaise, and Miss called to me to help her pack his valise, and not another tear did she shed!”