He grinned ruefully and obeyed her without further protest. Alone with Jennifer, Edmund looked at her with awe. ‘Her grace?’ he asked. ‘You have been flying high, Jenny.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But it is a long story and one that I do not think I will burden you with at present. There is much else, more urgent, to be talked of. I have changed all my plans and do not intend selling my pearls after all. I am sure that you will be relieved to hear it.’
‘Not sell them? But, Jenny, the money? The special licence?’
‘Never trouble yourself about them. You will need neither. You may woo your Elizabeth in the most respectable leisure and wed her in Hanover Square. I am sure you will both infinitely prefer it.’
‘Why, of course we should. My poor Lizzy was in tears only this morning because she would have no bride-clothes, and I confess to you that this hugger-mugger way of proceeding is not at all to my liking. But how is it to be contrived? I cannot believe that my uncle will not find us today, and my poor darling is but wax in his hands.’
‘Never fear for that,’ said Jennifer cheerfully. ‘I am going to talk to Uncle Gurning myself and, if I mistake not, by the time I have finished with him he will be on his knees to you to marry Lizzy.’
‘Shame on you, Jenny,’ he flared up at once. ‘You are not to slander the poor angel. I will not permit it.’
‘Why should I? There is no need. The facts speak for themselves. Married she must be, and forthwith. What, ride to London with you in the common stage-coach? Oh, fie!’
She never could resist teasing Edmund and now he reacted exactly as she had expected. ‘It is not half so bad as climbing out of the window in boy’s clothes, or riding to town on horseback,’ he said angrily.
‘No, nor nearly so entertaining. But I am going to do penance, too. I am going to marry Ferris.’
‘What?’ he exclaimed. ‘After all your heroics and gallivantings about the country to escape him! Jenny, I do not believe it.’
‘You may well be surprised, Edmund, but it is true for all that. To deal plainly with you, I see no alternative. And you must see that it will make things vastly easier for you and Elizabeth. Once I reappear and claim my own name (which I can tell you I shall be glad to do, for I am heartily sick of being Miss Fairbank) my uncle will find himself in a sad quandary.’
Edmund’s eyes sparkled. ‘He will indeed. Jenny, this is famous. Let us hurry home and tell Elizabeth the good news.’ He summoned a hackney carriage and helped her in. Neither of them noticed Miles Mandeville, who had been watching them fixedly for some minutes past from the vantage-point of his high perch phaeton. When Edmund called the hackney carriage, he muttered an oath to himself, turned his phaeton out of the park, and followed them to Holborn. Having seen Jennifer alight and enter a prosperous-looking house in this unfashionable district, he turned homeward, excessively puzzled. He had intended to call at the Duchess’s house as early as he decently could and receive Jennifer’s answer—which he was sure would be favourable—in person. Now, he changed his mind. Something odd was afoot; he would send for her answer instead.
By so doing, he missed a notable scene. The Duchess, a strong-minded woman, had not gone into hysterics when she read Jennifer’s note, but she had lost her temper more completely than the servants could remember her doing since the day the Duke finally proved his madness by breaking every bottle and every looking-glass in the house. She was still scarifying the unfortunate groom, James, who had returned alone just as she was getting her second wind, when she was interrupted by the arrival of Lord Mainwaring in a temper even more savage than her own. They talked, or rather shouted, for a while at furious cross purposes, then, inevitably, the Duchess got the floor.
‘They have let her run away, the dolts,’ she said. ‘The numskulls, the ninnyhammers; a parcel of idiot servants with not an eggsworth of wits between them. Took her farewell note with a “thank you, miss” and a “yes, miss” and did not even have the sense to wake me before my usual hour. And why she should be writing to Mad Mandeville at the same time is more than I can rightly understand. I have half a mind to open her letter and find out; for if this is not some plot of his and your Aunt Beresford’s, I am very wide of the mark.’
Mainwaring, who had been trying in vain to make head or tail of this tirade, now intervened: ‘My aunt? What has she to say to the matter? And who, pray has run away? Not Pamela, I trust.’
‘Pamela indeed! What a slow-wit you are, George! No, it is your precious Miss Fairbank, of course. “Gone back where she belongs,” she tells me, as calm as you please, with a parcel of “deepest gratitude” and “eternally indebted” and other rubbish of the kind. “Eternally indebted”, she says, and goes off and leaves me just when I have taught her to wind my wool as I like and play a game of piquet that’s worth the answering. “Deepest gratitude” and does not even tell me who she is, after all, or where she is going, or who has frighted her into this folly. I tell you, George, I am out of all patience.’ Her angry old hands broke the fan she was holding and tossed the pieces aside. ‘You will laugh at me, George, I have no doubt, but I had grown fond of the girl, and to have her run away like this: why, it has made me quite angry.’
Mainwaring, who had been struck speechless by her revelations, could not restrain an angry laugh of his own at this understatement. ‘I see that it has, ma’am. But it cannot be so serious. She has gone off for the day—perhaps to some friend we do not know of.’
‘Yes, a friend indeed. A red-faced bumpkin fresh up from the country: that fool James saw her meet him yesterday and arrange all this—and had not even the wits to mention the matter, so today off she goes with this “cousin” as cool as you please, sending James about his business when he tries to protest. I had thought at first it was Mandeville she was gone to, for I tell you George I had expected daily to have him propose for her hand, but it seems I was mistaken, for how else would she have left this note for him which I am now determined to open. Here, read you hers to me, while I see what she has to say to him.’
Mainwaring protested in vain against this high-handed behaviour and applied himself to reading Jennifer’s letter to his grandmother, while she exclaimed over that to Mandeville. Then, with a near oath, he exchanged letters with her. ‘So,’ he said at last, ‘Mandeville is a villain, as I always thought, and must be dealt with. Leave me alone for that, ma’am. But as for your Miss Fairbank, she seems well enough able to take care of herself. She is gone back where she belongs, she tells you, and does not think to mention—as she does here (an angry hand crumpled the note to Mandeville) that she has a husband in view. No doubt the country bumpkin James saw her keep assignation with. We have been mightily deceived in her. What does all this fine talk amount to? A few elegant phrases of thanks for those who have turned their lives topsy-turvy on her behalf. Excellent: “her undying gratitude” forsooth! “Nothing she can do to repay.” She has certainly seen to it that there shall be nothing she can do.’ He took a turn about the room, then returned to the sofa from which his grandmother was keeping an anxious eye out for explosions. ‘She leaves you in the lurch, ma’am, in the very midst of the season, to run off God knows where and marry God knows whom. And she leaves,’ (here, thought his grandmother, comes the heart of the matter) ‘she leaves, for all her gratitude, without so much as a “thank you” for me, who brought her here in the first place. I tell you, ma’am, I thought I had had, already, enough to drive me to distraction, but this is the outside of enough. Well, why do you look at me like that? I collect you find me vastly entertaining.’
She smiled up at him, her own poise entirely restored by the collapse of his. ‘Yes, George, I fear I do a little. If I understood your first fury aright, you arrived here in a state of distraction because your Sussex match is off again. Can you really be in such a rage about two young women at once? You are a regular bluebeard, George. I begin to think that Miss Fairbank’s disappearance is not such a bad thing after all.’
‘Not bad! You are
pleased to jest, ma’am.’
‘Not at all. To deal plainly with you, your Aunt Beresford has been pulling long faces at me these several weeks past about Miss Fairbank and her dubious position in this house and in society, and dropping such portentous hints about disgrace and disaster that I cannot but think it vastly considerate of the girl to have taken her own means to end a difficult situation. She is gone back, I have no doubt, like the sensible young woman I always took her for, to say “yes” to the match her family arranged for her. If it is indeed the country bumpkin, I am sorry for it, but trust Miss Fairbank to make something of him if she puts her mind to it. And at least she is taken care of. Mandeville has his answer (though you are right, I think a word from you in addition will do no harm); the voice of slander is stifled and you, George, are saved from a mighty awkward position. Had you considered how your country-mouse bride might feel about your knight-erranting it round London rescuing unknown damsels in Parliament Square? How are we to know some whiff of scandal has not reached them in the country and accounts for their blowing hot and cold on you? No, trust me, George, you should be grateful to Miss Fairbank for showing some sense at the last, and I am sorry I let myself get into such a passion about it. I can see there is nothing for it but to take Jane Beresford’s youngest (what is her deplorable name—Clorinda!) and teach her piquet and my bad habits. Lord knows her mother has been angling for it long enough, and the child is certainly so plain that I should have her for some time on my hands. I have no doubt that that is exactly what Jane intended. She was ever a great schemer, was Jane.’
She spoke with a near approval that infuriated Mainwaring. ‘So, I apprehend you believe my Aunt Beresford and Mandeville between them to have frightened Miss Fairbank with I know not what bug-a-boo of scandal so that she has quitted your protection and returned—at the best of it to a match we know is abhorrent to her. And all this we are to look on as a matter for rejoicing. Ma’am, I have never found myself so out of patience with you. And as for my Aunt Beresford, let me but encounter her...’
He paused expressively, only to be taken up gaily by his grandmother: ‘And so you shall, George, for if that is not the rattle of her ill-hung carriage in the square I am very much out of my reckoning. She will be with us as soon as she has given Tullett her day’s catechism about my affairs. So hurry, George, and tell me what difficulty they are making in Sussex this time. Is the match truly postponed again?’
‘Postponed, ma’am? If it were only that! No, I have never been so insulted in my life. The child is run off, gone, bolted—and all for fear of me, of her brothers’ friend, who only offered for her out of kindness. I—ma’am—words fail me...They tried to keep it from me. That mealy mouthed vulgar aunt of hers waylaid me, on my arrival, with talk of the poor child’s nerves—a bride’s timidity—confined to her room—her uncle away, so sorry to disappoint me and much more rubbish of the kind. I had almost let her gull me, but they are not even good conspirators: in comes a servant all in a pother to say Miss and Master Edmund’s horses have been found at the Swan in Petworth. Then it is all out: she is bolted, ma’am, and with that lubberly cousin I told you of, and her uncle gone after to bring them back. I shall be the laughing-stock of the town.’ He paused, words really failing him at last.
She flashed him a humorous and not unsympathetic glance. ‘Indeed, George, you do not seem over lucky with the ladies. Have you, do you think, been taking them a trifle for granted? And might you not be well advised to consider which of these runaways you really want, and concentrate on pursuing her? But I hear Jane on the stairs. Do not call her out, George, I beg of you.’
He picked up Jennifer’s note to Mandeville. ‘I cannot trust my temper, ma’am, if I meet her now. With your permission I will retire and compose a covering note for this missive that shall send Mad Mandeville on his travels forthwith.’
She nodded approvingly. ‘Do that, George. I will not have a guest in my house insulted. And besides,’ she twinkled up at him mischievously, ‘a little action may improve your temper.’
So Lady Beresford was half disappointed, half relieved, to find her mother alone.
‘All alone, ma’am? I had hoped to find Mainwaring with you.’
‘He has but this minute left me,’ said her mother, and offered no further explanation. ‘How are you, child?’ She held up an unenthusiastic cheek to receive her daughter’s dry kiss.
‘Indifferent, mama. You know my wretched health.’ For once she did not dwell upon it further. ‘But what is this I hear of Miss Fairbank’s being run off? I always thought you would find yourself much mistaken in that girl. Has she truly left you without a word? I never heard of such base ingratitude.’
The Duchess sat up straighter on her sofa. ‘Now that is exactly what she has not done, Jane, and if I hear that you are spreading any of your malicious rumours to that effect, I shall change my mind about taking Clorinda in her place.’
‘Taking Clorinda? Are you serious, ma’am?’
‘Never more so. I have learned to like having a young creature about the place to bully, and Clorinda will do as well as another chit. She has her father’s meek disposition and your long nose, so that I do not expect to be overmuch troubled with wooers. In short, she should suit me admirably. You will send her to me tomorrow, if you please.’
Lady Beresford, who had six daughters to bring out, thought it best to swallow the insults that accompanied this most welcome offer and after expressing effusive gratitude and prophesying Clorinda’s transports at such an invitation, she returned, her sharp nose acquiver with curiosity, to the fascinating subject of Miss Fairbank. She had left a note had she? What did it say? Where was she gone? Might one...trembling at her own daring, she hinted a desire to see the note.
Her mother was short with her. ‘No, Jane, it was addressed to me, and to me only. But I will tell you that Miss Fairbank is very properly gone home to her family and intends (here the old lady thought fit to draw on the letter to Mandeville) to make a very suitable match in the near future, so I would advise you to be excessively careful in what you say about her. I have my suspicions, Jane, as to what has led Miss Fairbank to take this step, and if you will be advised by me, you will not rouse me to look into the matter any more closely. As things have turned out, I am not altogether displeased that she has chosen to go home, but interference in my domestic arrangements is what I never have and never will tolerate. If you know what is good for you, Jane, you will be more careful in future...But what is this, another caller? I would seem to be keeping open house this morning.’
Lady Beresford, who had found her mother’s last remarks come uncomfortably near the bone, was considerably relieved when Lady Laverstoke was announced, and appeared all agush with excitement.
‘Oh, my dear Lady Beresford,’ she exclaimed, ‘have I found you at last. I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ she turned to the Duchess, ‘for this intrusion, but I declare I have been running after dear Lady Beresford all over the town, and with such a piece of news: I know it will delight you as much as it does her.’
The Duchess raised her eyebrows. ‘You amaze me. It must be wonderful indeed so to move us both.’
‘Oh it is, the very best in the world. I vow it quite threw me into one of my spasms when I first heard it: “Charles,” I said, “not another word till you have fetched me my vinaigrette. I have never been so delighted in my life,” I said: “you must fetch me my vinaigrette this instant.” And there was the poor dear boy all in the midst of his passion and his adoration and a great deal more that was most excessively poetic; but he is a good boy, Jane—I am sure I may call you that now. Oh, I am so happy I do not know how to bear it. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, that he fetched me the vinaigrette like the good son he has always been to me and I am glad to be able to tell you the spasm is quite passed away and here I am able to come out and rejoice with you, my dearest Jane.’
‘So we see,’ said the Duchess dryly, ‘but what, pray, is the reason for all this rejoi
cing?’
‘Lord bless me, have I not told you? Really, my wits are all to pieces today; I am in such a seventh heaven, but I made sure I had explained. Why, not to make a Canterbury story of it, my dear Charles is going to propose for your sweet Pamela, Jane. Is it not famous news? I was never more astonished in my life than when he broke it to me over breakfast this morning: “Charles,” I said, “I am so delighted my head is all in a whirl: you must fetch me my vinaigrette at once, or I will not be answerable for the consequences.” And so he stops, right in the midst of “love” and “beloved”, and goes like the good boy he is and fetches it for me—indeed, dear dear Pamela is an excessively lucky girl, though I do say so. Such a dear boy, who would never do anything without consulting his mother: and such an old lady as it makes me feel: only fancy having a son old enough to be married.’ She waited in vain to be flattered and contradicted, realised she had mistaken her audience, and went on: ‘But that is nothing to the question, and perhaps I shall surprise you all yet. Matrimony, they say, is catching...But how I do run on, I tell you I was never more overjoyed in my life. Dear Charles and sweet, sweet Pamela. It has been going on, Charles tells me, ever since we came to London, and I with no more idea than the man in the moon; but such meetings in the park, such waltzings, such languishings...Why, it positively makes me a girl again to hear of it.’
She stopped at last for breath, glancing eagerly from one lady to the other, waiting for their enthusiasm to match hers.
The Duchess spoke first: ‘A very proper match,’ she said. ‘I felicitate you both. They are both young and both silly; they should deal admirably together. Charles’s fortune is not large, I apprehend, but he is a viscount already and at least, thanks to Mainwaring’s guardianship, the estate is unencumbered. And you, I collect, will not be able to do a great deal for Pamela,’ she spoke, with a warning note in her voice, to Lady Beresford, whose face had throughout been a perfect study in chagrin.
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