The Foundling

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Did she seem much distressed at your plan’s coming I to nothing?” asked the Duke curiously.

  “Oh, no, she did not care! It is all this Liversedge, who writes that he is her guardian. Stay, I will show you his letters—he has written to me twice, you know. I did not answer the first letter, and now he has written again, threatening to bring an action against me, and—oh, Gilly, what the devil am I to do?”

  He ended on a decided note of panic, and, thrusting a hand into his pocket, produced two rather crumpled letters, written by someone who signed himself, with a flourish, Swithin Liversedge .....

  The Duke, perusing these, found Mr. Liversedge’s epistolary style slightly turgid, and not always quite grammatical. Some of his periods were much involved, but there could be no mistaking his object: he wanted five thousand pounds for his ward, to compensate her for the slight she had endured, for the loss of an eligible husband, and for a wounded heart. Mr. Liversedge ended his first letter by expressing in high-flown terms his belief that neither Mr. Ware nor his noble relatives would hesitate to recognize, and meet, the claims of one whose blighted hopes seemed likely to drive into a decline.

  His second letter was not so polite.

  The Duke laid them both down. “Matt, who is this Liversedge?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know. He says he is Belinda’s guardian.”

  “But what sort of a fellow is he?”

  “I tell you I don’t know! I’ve never clapped eyes on him. I didn’t know Belinda had a guardian until I received that letter.”

  “Was he not with her at Oxford?”

  “No, and neither Belinda nor Mrs. Dovercourt ever mentioned him that I can remember. It came as the greatest surprise to me!”

  “Matt, it all sounds to me excessively like a fudge! I don’t believe he is her guardian!”

  “I daresay he might not be, but what’s the odds?”

  “Well, I am not very sure, but I think he can’t bring an action against you. Unless, of course, it is she who brings it, and he merely writes for her.”

  Matthew considered this. “I must say I should not have thought it of Belinda,” he said, “But there is no knowing, after all! I daresay she was hoaxing me all the time, and was no more innocent than a piece of Haymarket-ware.”

  The Duke glanced at the letters again, and got up, and walked over to the table, to pour out two glasses of wine.

  Matthew watched him, saying after a minute: “And whatever he is, you can see one thing: he means to make himself curst unpleasant, and there’s no getting away from it that he has those damned letters of mine!”

  “No,” agreed Gilly. “It’s a devil of a tangle.”

  “Gilly,” said his cousin, in a hollow voice, “even if it did not come to an action, it will reach my father, and my uncle too, and that would be just as bad!”

  He did not address himself to deaf ears. The Duke almost shuddered, “Good God, it must not be allowed to reach them!”

  Matthew dropped his chin in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees. “If only I could think of what I had best do!” he groaned.

  Gilly held out one of the glasses to him, “Here, take some wine! Does Gideon know anything of this?”

  Matthew accepted the wine, and drank some. “No. I did mean—that is to say, I half thought that I might, if all else failed—But you know what Gideon is!” He saw a surprised look on the Duke’s face, and added: “Oh, well, I daresay you don’t, for he likes you! But he has a damned cutting tongue! What’s more, he is for ever roasting me about something or other, and I’d as lief—However, if you think I ought to tell him—”

  “No, I don’t,” said Gilly, with sudden decision. “It has nothing whatsoever to do with Gideon!” His eyes began to dance. “I must learn to manage for myself: my uncle said so!”

  “Oh, Gilly, don’t start funning!” begged Matthew. “It ain’t your affair any more than it is Gideon’s!”

  “But it is my affair! You said as much yourself!” Gilly pointed out. “Liversedge knows well you could not afford to pay him half of such a sum, or my Uncle Henry either! You may depend upon it he has acquainted himself very perfectly with the circumstances. It’s my belief the whole thing was a deep-laid plot, down to the girl’s dropping her reticule when you were passing! I am the pigeon he means to pluck! Very well, then! I’ll attend to the matter myself, and I think I must be a great fool if I allow myself to be plucked by a person who cannot write the King’s English!”

  “But, good God, Gilly, what are you meaning to do?” demanded Matthew.

  “I am not very sure yet,” confessed the Duke, “but don’t worry. Matt! Whatever happens I won’t let it come to your father’s ears, or my Uncle Lionel’s either! Where does this fellow write from?” He picked up one of the letters as he spoke. “The Bird in Hand—yes, but I am not a bird in hand, Mr. Liversedge! Address to the receiving-office at Baldock. I suppose he fetches his letters. But why Baldock? I should have thought he would have lurked in London! Perhaps he has his reasons for not coming within reach of Bow Street. Very likely that is so, for if ever I smelled a Greek—!”

  “Did you?” asked Matthew sceptically.

  “Oh, lord, yes, very adroit ones too! A young man with my fortune draws ’em like a magnet. They clustered round me when I was upon my travels—until they had taken Belper’s measure! Poor Belper! he had his uses!”

  Matthew sat up. “Gilly, do you think perhaps Belper would—?”

  “No, certainly not! We shall keep this strictly within the family. Besides, it is the only time I have ever had the chance of doing anything for myself!”

  “I do wish you will tell me what you have in your head!” Matthew said.

  “I am going to pay a call on Mr. Swithin Liversedge—if I can find him!”

  “Gilly, for God’s sake—!” exclaimed Matthew, now seriously disturbed.

  “I must know what sort of a fellow it is we have to deal with.”

  “But you must he mad! If yougo to see him, he will know you mean to buy him off, and he will very likely double his price!”

  “But he won’t know I’m Sale!” replied the Duke, his face alive with mischief. “I shall be the Honourable Matthew Ware! You said you had never clapped eyes on him, so he won’t know it’s a hoax!”

  “Gilly, you are mad! Even if he don’t know, what I look like, he must know I don’t drive about the country in a chaise with crests on the panels, and half a dozen servants, and—Oh, I wish you will be serious!”

  “I am serious. Of course, I don’t mean to travel like that! I shall go by the mail, or the stage, or some such thing. It’s famous! I have never driven in anything but my own carriage in all my life!”

  “Well, you need not think there is anything so vastly agreeable in going by stage-coach!” said Matthew, with some asperity. “If you had done it as many times as I have—”

  “But I have not, and I should like to find out for myself what it is like to rub shoulders with the world!”

  “Nettlebed would send off an express to my uncle on the instant!”

  “I make no doubt he would, and so he may, but he won’t know where I have gone to, so much good may it do him!”

  “You would not go without your valet!”

  “Without anyone! Plain Mr. Dash, of Nowhere in Particular! Gideon told me to try it, and, by God, I will!”

  “No, Gilly, you must not! I wish I had not said a word to you about it!”

  The Duke laughed at him. “Matt, you fool! I am not going into a lion’s den! Besides, it will only be for a day or two. I don’t mean to be lost for ever, you know!”

  “No, but—What if Liversedge recognizes you? He might well!”

  The Duke frowned, over this for a moment or two. “But I don’t think he will,” he said at last. “If he was prowling round Oxford when I was up, he may have seen me, but I have altered considerably since then, you know. And I only came back to England last year, and have been at Sale for the better part of my life
since then.”

  “You were in London in the spring!”

  “To be sure I was, but not in any company that Liversedge keeps, I’ll swear! If you saw me once in the street, would you know me again, beyond question? Now, if I were a big, handsome fellow like Gideon—! But I am not, Matt! You must own I am not! Has not your father said times out of mind that it is a sad pity I am such an insignificant figure of a man?”

  “Yes, but—I mean, no!” Matthew corrected himself hastily. “And in any event—”

  “In any event, I mean to go! When do you go up to Oxford?”

  “I did mean to go tomorrow, but term hasn’t begun, and now that you have taken this crazy notion into your head I think I had best stay in town. Gilly, Uncle Lionel would tear me limb from limb if he knew of this!”

  “Well, he shan’t know, and you had best go to Oxford, so that nobody may suspect you of having anything to do with my having slipped my leash!” recommended the Duke. “I’ll write to you there, to let you know how I’ve fared. But don’t get in a pucker, either on my behalf or your own! If I have to buy Liversedge off, I’ll do it, and as for the rest—what in the name of all that is wonderful do you imagine can befall me?”

  “I don’t know,” said Matthew uneasily, “but I have the horridest feeling something will befall you!”

  Chapter VII

  The Duke awoke on the following morning with a pleasurable feeling that something agreeable lay before him. When he remembered what it was, he was obliged to own to himself that to negotiate with Mr. Swithin Liversedge might not prove to be an altogether delightful experience; but the prospect of escaping from his household, for as much perhaps as three or four days, was attractive enough to make him feel that any possible unpleasantness with Mr. Liversedge would be more than compensated for. He felt adventurous, and while he waited for Nettlebed to bring the hot chocolate with which inmates of any house under Lord Lionel’s direction still regaled themselves before getting out of bed in the morning, he lay revolving in his head various plans for his escape.

  It was plainly impossible to divulge to Nettlebed the least particle of his intentions; for Nettlebed would certainly insist on accompanying him on any journey which he might undertake. And if he refused to allow Nettlebed to go with him, Nettlebed would assuredly inform his uncle of his revolutionary behaviour without a moment’s loss of time. How Nettlebed was to be prevented from telling Lord Lionel of his nephew’s disappearance, he had no very clear idea, but he trusted that one would present itself to his mind during the course of the day. And if none did, and Lord Lionel did discover his truancy—well, he would be back at Sale House again before his lordship could do anything unwelcome, and although he might have to endure one of his tremendous scolds, he would at least have enjoyed a brief spell of freedom.

  Money presented no difficulties. He had scarcely broken into the hundred pounds Scriven had drawn for him on his bank, so that he would not be forced to arouse suspicion by demanding more. The hardest problem, he soon realized, would be the packing of a valise to take with him.

  He had not the smallest notion where his valises and trunks were stored. This was a severe set-back, and he wasted some minutes in trying to think out a way of discovering this vital information before it occurred to him that he could very well afford to buy a new valise. Probably his own bore his cypher upon them: he could not remember, but it seemed likely, since those who ordered such things for him had what amounted to a mania for embossing them either with his crest, or with a large and flourishing letter S.

  He would need shirts, too, and his night-gear, and ties, wrist-bands, brushes, combs, razors, and no doubt a hundred other things which it was his valet’s business to assemble for him. He had a dressing-case, and a toilet-battery, but he could not take either of these. Nor could he take the brushes that lay on his dressing-table, for they naturally bore his cypher. And if he abstracted a few ties and shirts from the pile of linen in his wardrobe, would Nettlebed instantly discover their absence, and run him to earth before he had had time to board the coach? He decided that he must take that risk, for although he knew he could purchase soap, and brushes, and valises, he had no idea that it might be possible to purchase a shirt. One’s shirts were made for one, just as one’s coats and breeches were, and one’s boots. But to convey out of Sale House, unobserved, a bundle of clothing, was a task that presented insuperable obstacles to the Duke’s mind. He was still trying to hit upon a way out of the difficulty when Nettlebed came in, and softly drew back the bed-curtains.

  The Duke sat up, and pulled off his night-cap. He looked absurdly small and boyish in the huge bed, so that it was perhaps not so very surprising that Nettlebed should have greeted him with a few words of reproof for the late hours he had kept on the previous evening.

  “I never thought to see your Grace awake, not for another two hours I did not!” he said, shaking his head. “The idea of Mr. Matthew’s sitting with you for ever, and keeping you from your bed until past three o’clock!”

  The Duke took the cup of chocolate from him, and began to sip it. “Don’t be so foolish, Nettlebed!” he said. “You know very well that during the season I was seldom in bed before then, and sometimes much later!”

  “But this is not the season, my lord!” said Nettlebed unanswerably. “And what is more you was often very fagged, which his lordship observed to me when we left town, and it was his wish you should recruit your strength, and keep early hours, and well I know that if he had been here Mr. Matthew would have been sent off with a flea in his ear! For bear with Mr. Matthew’s tiresome ways his lordship never has, and never will! And I think it my duty to tell you, my lord, that the piece of very gratifying intelligence your Grace was so obliging as to inform me of last night, in what one might call a confidential way, is known to the whole house, including the kitchenmaids, who have not above six pounds a year, and do not associate with the upper servants!”

  “No, is it indeed?” said the Duke, not much impressed, but realizing from long experience that Nettlebed’s sensitive feelings had received a severe wound. “I wonder how it can have got about? I suppose Scriven must have dropped a hint to someone.”

  “Mr. Scriven,” said Nettlebed coldly, “would not so demean himself, your Grace, being as I am myself, in your Grace’s confidence. But what, your Grace, am be expected, when—”

  “Nettlebed,” said the Duke plaintively, “when you call me your Grace with every breath you draw I know I have offended you, but indeed I had no notion of doing so, and I wish you will forgive me, and let me have no more Graces!”

  His henchman paid not the least heed to this request, but continued as though there had been no interruption. “But what, your Grace, can be expected, when your Grace scribbles eight advertisements of your Grace’s approaching nuptials, and leaves them all on the floor to be gathered up by an under-servant who should know his place better than to be prying into your Grace’s business?”

  “Well, it doesn’t signify,” said the Duke. “The news will be in tomorrow’s Gazette, I daresay, so there is no harm done.”

  Nettlebed cast him a look of deep reproach, and began to lay out his raiment.

  “And I told you of it myself,” added the Duke placatingly.

  “I should have thought it a very singular circumstance, your Grace, had I learnt it from any other lips than your Grace’s,” replied Nettlebed crushingly.

  The Duke was just about to apply himself to the task of smoothing his ruffled sensibilities when he suddenly perceived how Nettlebed’s displeasure might be turned to good account. While Nettlebed continued in a state of umbrage, he would hold himself aloof, and without neglecting any part of his duties would certainly not hover solicitously about him. He would become, in fact, a correct and apparently disinterested servant, answering the summons of a bell with promptitude, but waiting for that summons. In general, the Duke took care not to permit such a state of affairs to endure for long, since Nettlebed could, in a very subtle way, make hi
m most uncomfortable. Besides, he did not like to be upon bad terms with his dependants. Lying back against his pillows, he considered the valet under his lashes, knowing very well that Nettlebed was ready to accept an amend. Nettlebed had just laid his blue town coat tenderly over a chair, and was now giving a final dusting to a pair of refulgent Hessian boots. The Duke let him finish this, and even waited until he had selected a suitable waistcoat to match this attire before—apparently—becoming aware of his activities. He yawned, set down his cup, and said: “I shall wear riding-dress today.”

  At any other time, such wayward behaviour in one whom he had attended since his twelfth year would have called from Nettlebed a rebuke. He would, moreover, have entered into his master’s plans for the day, and have sent down a message to the stables for him. But today he merely folded his lips tightly, and without uttering a word restored the town raiment to the wardrobe.

  This awful and unaccustomed silence was maintained throughout the Duke’s toilet. It was only broken when the Duke rejected the corbeau-coloured coat being held up for him to put on. “No, not that one,” said the Duke indifferently. “The olive coat Scott made for me.”