She nodded, and her curls danced. “Of course I did!” she assured him. “And he said that he would like to meet you.”
The Duke shuddered. “I may readily believe it! I trust he may never have his wish granted!”
“Oh, no! he is a dead bore!” agreed Belinda. “Besides, I told him that you had gone away and left me, so he knew he could not meet you.”
The Duke sank his head in his hands. “Belinda, Belinda, if I do not speedily contrive to hand you into safe keeping I foresee that there will be scarce a town in England where I shall dare to show my face again! So you told him I had deserted you! And what then?”
“Then he said he should take me home with him, and give me something better than a silk dress, or a ring to put on my finger. And he said his sister would be very glad to take care of me. So I came back with him here, sir, and fetched my bandboxes, and he took me to his home. But I don’t think Miss Clitheroe was glad at all, for she seemed very cross to me. However, she said I might stay, and she gave me some fruit to eat, and a handkerchief to hem, and she did say that I set neat stitches. But I do not care for hemming, so when Mr. Clitheroe came in I asked him what it was that he would give me, because I would like very much to have it. And I quite thought it would be something splendid, sir, for he said it was better than a silk dress! Only it was nothing but a take-in after all! He just gave me a Bible!”
Her face of chagrin was ludicrous enough to make her harassed protector burst out laughing. “My poor Belinda!”
“Well, I do think it was a great deal too bad of him, sir! The shabbiest trick! So I said I had a Bible already, and then I thought very likely you would have returned, so I would come back here to find you. And would you believe it, they would not let me! Oh, they did prose so!”
“But what did they want you to do instead?” demanded Tom.
“I don’t know, for I didn’t listen above half. I quite saw that I must run away, and I made up my mind to do so when they should have gone to bed, only by the luckiest chance they went off to a dinner-party—or was it a prayer-meeting? It was some such thing, but I wasn’t attending particularly. So I didn’t say anything, but only smiled, and made them think I would stay, and as soon as they were gone from the house, I slipped out when the servants were not by, and came back to the inn. And, if you please, sir, I have not had any dinner.”
“Ring the bell, Tom, and bespeak dinner for her,” said the Duke. “I am going to find a coach time-table!”
“Oh, are we leaving now?” asked Belinda, brightening.
“No, tomorrow, you stupid thing!” said Tom.
“Immediately!” said the Duke, walking towards the door.
“What?” cried Tom. “Oh, famous, sir! Where do we go?”
“Beyond Mr. Clitheroe’s reach!” replied the Duke. “Constables and magistrates I can deal with to admiration, but not—not, I know well, Mr. Clitheroe!”
He returned to his charges half an hour later with the information that they were bound for Aylesbury in a hired chaise. Belinda, who was making an excellent meal, accepted this without question, but Tom thought poorly of it, and demanded to be told why they must go to such a stuffy place.
“Because I find that there is a coach which runs from Aylesbury to Reading,” replied the Duke. “We may board that tomorrow, and from Reading we can take the London stage to Bath.”
“It would be more genteel to go in a post-chaise,” said Belinda wistfully.
“It would not only be more genteel, it would be by far more comfortable,” agreed the Duke. “It would also be more expensive, and I have been drawing the bustle to such purpose this day that my pockets will soon be to let.”
“Well, I would rather go on the stage!” said Tom, his eyes sparkling. “I shall ride on the roof, and make the coachman give me the reins! I have always wanted to tool a coach! I shall gallop along at such a rate! What a jest it would be if we overturned!”
This agreeable prospect made both him and Belinda laugh heartily. The Duke sent him off to pack up his belongings, devoutly trusting that there did not exist a coachman mad enough to entrust the ribbons to him.
Chapter XIX
While these stirring events were taking place in Hitchin, Mr. Liversedge was still knocking abortively on Captain Ware’s door. He gained admittance to the chambers at about the time the Duke and his two charges set out from the Sun Inn in a hired chaise, with Aylesbury for their destination.
The gin with which Wragby had so lavishly supplied him made Mr. Liversedge feel very unwell; and a night spent upon the kitchen floor had given him, he complained, a stiff neck. An assurance from Wragby that a halter would soon cure this was received by him in high dudgeon. He spoke with great dignity for several minutes, but to deaf ears. Wragby recommended him to shut his mummer, and to make haste and shave himself, since the Captain would certainly refuse to take such an oyster-faced rogue up beside him in his curricle. Mr. Liversedge said that he had no desire to be taken up beside the Captain. “In fact,” he added austerely, “the less I see of a young man whom I find unsympathetic in the extreme the better pleased I shall be!”
“You stow your whids, and do what I tell you!” said Wragby.
“It is a marvel to me,” said Mr. Liversedge, picking up the razor, and looking at it contemptuously, “that any gentleman should employ such a vulgar fellow as you.”
“And don’t give me no saucy answers!” said Wragby.
By the time the Captain was ready to set forward on the journey, Mr. Liversedge had not only shaved, but had Imbibed a cup of strong coffee, which revived him sufficiently to enable him to greet his host with creditable urbanity. His optimistic temperament led him to busy himself with the forming of various schemes for turning the present distressing state of affairs to good account rather than to waste time kicking against the pricks. The day was fine, and the cool air refreshing to him. It was not long before he was complimenting Captain Ware upon his horses, and his skill in handling the ribbons.
“Devilish obliging of you to say so!” said Gideon sardonically. “You are no doubt a judge!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Liversedge, tucking the rug more securely round his legs. “I fancy I may be held to be so, sir. You must know that many years ago I was employed in the stables of a notable whip—quite a nonesuch, indeed! A menial position, and one from which I swiftly rose, but it enabled me to judge a horse, and a whip.”
Gideon was amused, “A groom, were you? And what then?”
“In course of time, sir, I attained what was then the sum of my ambition. I became a gentleman’s gentleman.”
Gideon glanced curiously at him. “Why did you abandon that profession?”
Mr. Liversedge described one of his airy gestures. “Various causes, sir, various causes! You may say that it did not afford enough scope for a man of my vision. My ideas have ever been large, and my genius is for the cards and the bones. In fact, had I not suffered certain ill-merited reverses I should not today be in your company, for I assure you that the business in which I have lately been engaged is wholly alien to my tastes—quite repugnant to me, indeed! But necessity, my dear sir, takes no account of sensibility!”
“You are a consummate rogue!” said Gideon forthrightly.
“Sir,” responded Mr. Liversedge, “I must protest against the use of that epithet! A consummate rogue, you will allow, is a rogue from choice, and feels no compunction for his roguery. With me it is far otherwise, I assure you. Particularly have my feelings been wrung by the plight of your noble relative—a most amiable young man, and one whom I was excessively loth to put to inconvenience!”
“You scoundrel, you would have murdered him at a word from me!” Gideon exclaimed.
“That,” said Mr. Liversedge firmly, “would have been your responsibility, Captain Ware.”
At this point, Wragby, who from his seat behind them had been listening to this conversation, interposed to beg his master to pull up so that he might have the pleasure of drawing Mr. Liversed
ge’s cork.
“No,” said Gideon. “I prefer to hand him over in due course to the Law.”
“I am persuaded,” said Mr. Liversedge, “that when I have restored your relative to you, as I am really anxious to do, you will think better of that unhandsome notion, sir. Ingratitude is a vice which I abhor!”
“We shall see what my relative has to say about it,” replied Gideon grimly.
Mr. Liversedge, who could not feel that forty-eight hours spent in a dark cellar would engender in his victim any feelings of mercy, relapsed into a depressed silence.
But his mercurial spirits could not long remain damped, and by the time Gideon stopped to change horses, he had recovered enough to regale him with a very entertaining anecdote to his first employer’s discredit. While Wragby besought the ostlers to fig out two lively ones, and made arrangements for the Captain’s own horses to be led back to London, he considered the chances of escape; but even his hopeful mind was obliged to realize that these were slim. However, he was a great believer in Providence, and he could not but feel that Providence would intervene on his behalf before the end of the journey. He had not yet divulged the locality of the Duke’s prison, and he had not been urged to do so. Captain Ware was taking it for granted that he would lead him to it. Upon reflection, Mr. Liversedge acknowledged gloomily that unless something quite unforeseen occurred this was precisely what he would do.
Baldock was reached all too soon for his taste, and without the slightest sign of an intervention by Providence. Captain Ware reined in his horses in the middle of the broad street, let them drop to a walk, and said: “You may now direct me, Mr. Liversedge. Unless you would prefer me to enquire the way to the nearest magistrate? It is all one to me.”
Mr. Liversedge was irritated by this remark, and answered with some asperity: “Now that, sir, is a manifestly false observation! It is not all one to you—or would not be to a gentleman of the smallest sensibility! Nothing, I am persuaded, could be further from your wishes than to create a stir over this business! In fact, the more I think on it, the more convinced I become that you and your noble relatives will be very much in my debt if I contrive the affair without anyone’s being the wiser. Consider what must be the result if I compel you to call in the Law! Not only will his Grace—”
He stopped, for it was apparent to him that Captain Ware was not attending. The Captain, glancing idly at an approaching tilbury, had stiffened suddenly, and pulled his horses up dead. “Matt!” he thundered. The next instant he had perceived that Nettlebed was sitting beside his cousin in the tilbury, and he ejaculated: “Good God!”
Young Mr. Ware, on being hailed in such startling accents, jumped as though he had been shot, and dragged his horse to a standstill. “Gideon!” he gasped. “You here? Gideon, something has happened to Gilly! Something must have happened, because—oh, we can’t talk here, in the road!”
“Yes, something has indeed happened to Gilly,” replied his cousin. “But what the devil are you doing here, and what do you know about it?”
Mr. Ware looked extremely wretched, and said: “It is all my fault, and I wish I had never consented to let him—But how was I to guess—though I told him I knew something would happen to him if he persisted! And then, when Nettlebed came to Oxford, and told me—”
“I suspicioned Mr. Matthew had a hand in it,” said Nettlebed, with ghoulish satisfaction. “Sitting up till all hours, and keeping his Grace from his bed, the way he was, the very day before he went off! If I hadn’t been so set-about, I should have thought of Mr. Matthew sooner, no question!”
“I never asked him to do it, and I would not have!” Matthew said hotly. “He would go, in spite of all I could say!”
“Come to the George!” commanded Gideon. “I’d better get to the bottom of this before I do anything else. I suppose you’re in a scrape again!”
“Gideon, where is Gilly?” Matthew called after him urgently.
“Kidnapped!” Gideon threw over his shoulder, and drove on towards the posting-inn.
Mr. Liversedge, who had been sitting wrapped in his own thoughts, gave a genteel little cough, and said: “Another relative, I collect, Captain Ware? Possibly—er—Mr. Matthew Ware?”
“You seem to be remarkably well-acquainted with my family!” returned Gideon shortly.
“No,” said Mr. Liversedge sadly. “Had I been better acquainted with them—But it is useless to repine! So that is Mr. Ware! Dear me, yes! Strange how the dice will sometimes fall against one, do what one will! I wish I had had the good fortune to have met Mr. Ware earlier. He is just the kind of young man I had supposed him to be. I am not one of those who are unable to judge a matter dispassionately, and I will own that although I might have a personal preference for Mr. Ware, his Grace is the better man.”
“You are right,” said Gideon, “but what you are talking about I have not the remotest guess!”
“And I wish with all my heart,” said Mr. Liversedge, with feeling, “that you might never have the remotest guess, sir!”
Both carriages had by this, time reached the George. Gideon sprang down from the curricle, and strode into the house, closely followed by his agitated young cousin, but any hope that Mr. Liversedge might fleetingly have cherished of making good his escape was frustrated by Wragby, who conducted him into the inn in a manner strongly reminiscent of his days in the army.
Gideon having demanded a private parlour, the whole party was conducted to a small apartment on the first floor. Matthew was barely able to contain himself until the door was closed. He burst out into speech as soon as the waiter had withdrawn, exclaiming: “You said he had been kidnapped! But I don’t understand; It was all over! He wrote to me that it was!”
“What was all over?” demanded Gideon.
“Oh, Gideon!” said Matthew wretchedly, “it is all my fault! I wish I had never told Gilly about it! Who has kidnapped him? And how did you come to hear of it?”
“Ah, you have not yet been presented to Mr. Liversedge!” said Gideon, with a wave of his hand. “Allow me to make him known to you! He kidnapped Gilly, and has been so very obliging as to offer to sell his life to me.” He paused, perceiving that this speech had had a strange effect upon Matthew, who was staring at Mr. Liversedge in mingled wrath and bewilderment. “Now what is the matter?” he asked.
“So it was you!” said Matthew, his eyes still fixed on Mr. Liversedge’s face. “You—you damned scoundrel! You did it for revenge! By God, I have a mind to kill you, you—”
“Nothing of the sort!” said Mr. Liversedge earnestly. “No such paltry notion has ever crossed my brain, sir! I bore your cousin no ill-will—not the least in the world!”
“Sit down!” commanded Gideon. “Matt, what do you know of this fellow, and what’s your part in thiscoil?”
“Ay,” nodded Nettlebed, grimly surveying Matthew. “That’s what I’d like to know, sir, and tell me he will not!”
“I ought to have told you, Gideon!” Matthew said, sinking into a chair by the table.
“You are going to tell me.”
“Yes, but I mean I should have told you before, and never breathed a word to Gilly! Only I thought very likely you would say something cutting, or—But I should have told you! It was a breach of promise, Gideon!”
His cousin was not unnaturally mystified by this abrupt statement. Mr. Liversedge seized the opportunity to interpolate an expostulation. Such ugly words, he said, had never soiled his pen. Wragby then commanded him to shut his bone-box, and Captain Ware, in the voice of one who has reached the limits of his patience, requested Matthew to be a little more explicit. Matthew then favoured him with a somewhat disjointed account of the affair, to which Captain Ware listened with knit brows, and an air of deepening exasperation. He said at last: “You young fool! You’re not of age!”
Matthew blinked at him. “What has that to say to anything? I tell you—”
“It has this to say to it! No action for breach of promise can lie against you while you are
a minor!”
There was a shocked silence. Mr. Liversedge broke it. “It is perfectly true,” he said. “Sir, I shall not conceal from you that this has been a blow to me. How I came to overlook such a circumstance I know not, but that I did overlook it I shall not attempt to deny. I am chagrined—I never thought to be so chagrined!”
“Oh, Gideon, I wish I had told you!” gasped Matthew. “None of this dreadful business need have been at all!”
“No, it need not,” said Gideon. “But why the devil didn’t Gilly come to me?”
“It was because he was tired of being told always what he should do next,” explained Matthew. “He said here was something he might do for himself, and that it would be an adventure, and that if he could not outwit a fellow like this Liversedge he must be less of a man than he believed!”
Mr. Liversedge bowed his head in approval. “Very true! And outwit me he did, sir. Yes, yes, I am not ashamed to I own it! I was quite rolled-up. Your noble relative obtained possession of your letters, Mr. Ware, and without expending as much as a guinea on the business. You have every reason to feel pride in his achievement, I assure you.”
Both the Wares turned to stare at him. Gideon said: “How did he outwit you?”
Mr. Liversedge sighed, and shook his head. “Had he not appeared to me to he so young, and so innocent, I should not have fallen a victim to such a trick! But my suspicions were lulled. I thought no ill. Taking advantage, I regret to say, of my trust, he drove a heavy table against my legs, as I was in the act of rising, and felled me to the ground, where, striking my head against the fender of the grate, I lost consciousness. By the time I had regained my senses, his Grace had made good his escape, bearing with him, to my chagrin, the fatal letters.”
A slow smile curled Gideon’s uncompromising mouth. “Adolphus!” he said softly. “Well done, my little one! So here was your dragon!”
“Drove the table against your legs?” repeated Matthew. “Gilly? Well, by God!”
The Foundling Page 28