“Splendid, Charles!” said Mr. Beaumaris cordially. “Do let me take you a little out of this crush, Miss Tallant!”
He seemed to take her acquiescence for granted, for he did not await, a reply, but led her to where a sofa standing against one wall was momentarily unoccupied. How he contrived to find a way through the crowd of chattering guests was a mystery to Arabella, for he certainly did not force a passage. A touch on a man’s shoulder, a bow and a smile to a lady, and the thing was done. He sat down beside her on the sofa, seated a little sideways, so that he could watch her face, one hand on the back of the sofa, the other playing idly with his quizzing-glass. “Does it come up to your expectations, ma’am?” he asked smilingly.
“London? Yes, indeed!” she responded. “I am sure I was never so happy in my life!”
“I am glad,” he said.
Arabella remembered that Lady Bridlington had warned her against betraying too much enthusiasm: it was unfashionable to appear pleased. She remembered, also that she had promised not to make a bad impression on Mr. Beaumaris, so she added in a languid tone: “It is a shocking squeeze, of course, but it is always diverting to meet new people.”
He looked amused, and said with a laugh in his voice: “No, don’t spoil it! Your first answer was charming.”
She eyed him doubtfully for a moment; then her irrepressible dimples peeped out “But it is only rustics who own to enjoyment, sir!”
“Is it?” he returned.
“You, I am persuaded, do not enjoy such an Assembly as this!”
“You are mistaken: my enjoyment depends on the company in which I find myself.”
“That,” said Arabella naively, having thought it over, “is quite the prettiest thing that has been said to me tonight!”
“Then I can only suppose, Miss Tallant, that Fleetwood and Warkworth were unable to find words to express their appreciation of the exquisite picture you present. Strange! I formed the opinion that they were paying you all manner of compliments.”
She laughed out at that. “Yes, but it was nonsense! I did not believe a word they said!”
“I hope you believe what I say,however, for I am very much in earnest.”
The light tone he used seemed to belie his words. Arabella found him baffling, and directed another of her speculative glances at him. She decided that he must be answered in kind, and said daringly: “Are you being so obliging as to bring me into fashion, Mr. Beaumaris?”
He let his eyes travel round the crowded room, his brows a little raised. “You do not appear to me to stand in any need of my assistance, ma’am.” He perceived that Lord Fleetwood was edging his way past a knot of people, a glass in his hand, and waited for him to reach the sofa. “Thank you, Charles,” he said coolly, taking the glass from his lordship, and presenting it to Arabella.
“You,” said Lord Fleetwood, with deep feeling, “will receive a message from me in the morning, Robert! This is the most barefaced piracy I ever beheld in my life! Miss Tallant, I wish you will send this fellow about his business: his effrontery goes beyond what is allowable!”
“You must learn not to act on impulse,” said Mr. Beaumaris kindly. “A moment’s reflection, the least touch of adroitness, and it would have been I who fetched the lemonade and you who had the privilege of sitting beside Miss Tallant on this sofa!”
“But it is Lord Fleetwood who earns my gratitude, for he was the more chivalrous!” said Arabella,
“Miss Tallant, I thank you!”
“You have certainly been amply rewarded, and have now nothing to do but to take yourself off,” said Mr. Beaumaris.
“Not for the world!” declared his lordship.
Mr. Beaumaris sighed. “How often I have had to deplore your lack of tact!” he said.
Arabella, sparkling under the influence of all this exciting banter, raised her posy to her nose, and said, with a grateful look cast up at Fleetwood: “I stand doubly in Lord Fleetwood’s debt!”
“No, no, it is I who stand in yours, ma’am, since you deigned to accept my poor tribute!”
Mr. Beaumaris glanced at the posy, and smiled slightly, but said nothing. Arabella, catching sight of Mr. Epworth, who was hovering hopefully in the vicinity, suddenly said: “Mr. Beaumaris, who is that oddly dressed man?”
He looked round, but said: “There are so many oddly dressed men present, Miss Tallant, that I fear I am at a loss. You do not mean poor Fleetwood here?”
“Of course I do not!” exclaimed Arabella indignantly.
“Well, I am sure it would be difficult to find anything odder than that waistcoat he wears. It is very disheartening, for I have really expended a great deal of time in trying to reform his taste. Ah, I think I see whom you must mean! That, Miss Tallant, is Horace Epworth. In his own estimation, he undoubtedly personifies a set of creatures whom I have reason to believe you despise.”
Blushing hotly, Arabella asked: “Is he a—a dandy?”
“He would certainly like you to think so.”
“Well, if he is,” said Arabella frankly, “I am sure you are no such thing, and I beg your pardon for saying it that evening!”
“Don’t apologize to him, ma’am!” said Lord Fleetwood gaily. “It is time someone gave him a set-down, and that, I assure you, smote him with stunning effect! You must know that he thinks himself a notable Corinthian!”
“What is that, pray?” enquired Arabella.
“A Corinthian, ma’am, besides being a very Tulip of Fashion, is an amateur of sport, a master of sword-play, a deadly fellow with a pistol, a Nonpareil amongst whips, a—”
Mr. Beaumaris interrupted this mock-solemn catalogue. “If you will be such a dead bore, Charles, you will provoke me to explain to Miss Tallant what the world means when it calls you a sad rattle.”
“Well?” demanded Arabella mischievously.
“A fribble, ma’am, not worth your attention!” he replied, rising to his feet. “I see my cousin over there, and must pay my respects to her.” He smiled, bowed, and moved away; stayed for a minute or two, talking to Lady Wainfleet; drank a glass of wine with Mr. Warkworth; complimented his hostess on the success of her party; and departed, having done precisely what he had set out to do, which was to place Miss Tallant’s feet securely on the ladder of fashion. The news would be all over town within twenty-four hours that the rich Miss Tallant was the Nonpareil’s latest flirt.
“Did you see Beaumaris paving court to that dashed pretty girl?” asked Lord Wainfleet of his wife, as they drove away from Lady Bridlington’s house.
“Of course I did!” replied his wife.
“Seemed very taken with her, didn’t he? Not in his usual style, was she? I wonder if lie means anything?”
“Robert?” said his wife, with something very like a snort. “If you knew him as well as I do, Wainfleet, you would have seen at one glance that he was amusing himself! I know how he looks in just that humour! Someone ought to warn the child to have nothing to do with him! It is too bad of him, for she is nothing but a baby, I’ll swear!”
“They’re saying in the clubs that she’s as rich as a Nabob.”
“So I have heard, but what that has to say to anything I don’t know! Robert is quite odiously wealthy, and if ever he marries, which I begin to doubt, it will not be for a fortune, I can assure you!”
“No, I don’t suppose it will,” agreed his lordship. “Why did we go there tonight, Louisa? Devilish flat, that kind of an affair.”
“Oh, shocking! Robert asked me to go. I own I was curious to see his heiress. He said he was going to make her the most sought-after female in London.”
“Sounds like a hum to me,” said his lordship. “Why should he do so?”
“Exactly what I asked him! He said it might be amusing. There are times, Wainfleet, when I would like to box Robert’s ears!” ‘
VII
Not only in his cousin’s bosom were vengeful thoughts nourished against Mr. Beaumaris. Lady Somercote, not so doting a mother that she supposed
any of her sons would be likely to prove more attractive to the heiress than the Nonpareil, could with pleasure have driven the long diamond pin she wore in her hair between his ribs; Mrs. Kirkmichael thought bitterly that he might, considering the number of times she had gone out of her way to be agreeable to him, have bestowed a little of his attention upon her lanky daughter, a gesture which would have cost him nothing, and might have given poor Maria a start in the world; Mr. Epworth, uneasily aware that for some inscrutable reason he was consistently cast in the shade by the Nonpareil, went the round of the clubs, saying that he had a very good mind to give Beaumaris a set-down at no very distant date; his aunt recalled that she had once quarrelled violently with Lady Mary Beaumaris, and said that it was from his mother Beaumaris had inherited his flirtatious disposition, adding that she was sorry for the woman he eventually married. Even Mr. Warkworth and Lord Fleetwood said that it was rather too bad of the Nonpareil to trifle with the season’s biggest catch; while several gentlemen who slavishly copied every detail of Mr. Beaumaris’s attire wished him safely underground.
There was one voice which was not raised to swell this chorus of disapprobation: Lady Bridlington was in raptures over Mr. Beaumaris. She could talk of nothing else throughout the following day. While he sat beside Arabella, not a smile, not a gesture had escaped the good lady’s anxious eye. He had paid no heed to any other girl in the room; he had plainly advertised to his world that he found Miss Tallant charming: there was no one in London more amiable, more truly polite, more condescending, or more in her ladyship’s good graces! Over and over again she told Arabella that her success was now assured; it was not until her first transports had somewhat abated that she could be rational enough to drop a word of warning in Arabella’s ear. But the more she thought of Mr. Beaumaris’s pronounced attentions to the girl, the more she remembered how many innocent maidens had fallen victims to his spear, the more she became convinced that it was necessary to put Arabella on her guard. So she said in an earnest voice, and with a slightly anxious look in her eye: “I am persuaded, my love, that you are too sensible a girl to be taken-in! But, you know, I stand to you in place of your Mama, and I think I should tell you that Mr. Beaumaris is a most accomplished flirt! No one could be more delighted than I am that he should have singled you out, but it will never do, my dear, if you were to develop a tendre in that direction! I know I have only to drop a word in your ear, and you will not be offended by it! He is a confirmed bachelor. I could not tell you the number of hearts he has broken! Poor Theresa Howden—she married Lord Congleton some years later—went into a decline, and was the despair of her afflicted parents! They did think—and I am sure that nothing could have been more pronounced for all one season than—But no! Nothing came of it!”
Arabella had not been the reigning belle for twenty miles round Heythram without learning to distinguish between the flirt and the man who was in earnest, and she replied instantly: “I know very well that Mr. Beaumaris means nothing by his compliments. Indeed, I am in no danger of being taken-in like a goose!”
“Well, my love, I hope you are not!”
“You may be sure I am not. If you do not see any objection, ma’am, I mean to encourage Mr. Beaumaris’s attentions, and make the best use I may of them! He believes himself to be amusing himself at my expense; I mean to turn him to very good account! But as for losing my heart—No, indeed!”
“Mind, we cannot depend upon his continuing to single you out!” said Lady Bridlington, with unwonted caution. “If he did, it would be beyond anything great, but there is no saying, after all! However, last night’s work was enough to launch you, my dear, and I am deeply thankful!” She heaved an ecstatic sigh. “You will be invited everywhere, I daresay!”
She was quite right. Within a fortnight, she was in the happy position of finding herself with five engagements for the same evening, and Arabella had had to break into Sir John’s fifty-pound bill to replenish her wardrobe. She had been seen at the fashionable hour of the Promenade in the Park, sitting beside the Nonpareil, in his high-perch phaeton; she had been almost mobbed at the theatre; she was on nodding terms with all manner of exalted persons; she had received two proposals of marriage; Lord Fleetwood, Mr. Warkworth, Mr. Epworth, Sir Geoffrey Morecambe, and Mr. Alfred Somercote (to mention only the most notable of her suitors) had all entered the lists against Mr. Beaumaris; and Lord Bridlington, travelling by fast post all the way, had returned from the Continent to discover what his mother meant by filling his house with unknown females in his absence.
He expressed himself, in measured terms, as being most dissatisfied with Lady Bridlington’s explanation. He was a stocky, somewhat ponderous young man, with more sobriety than properly belonged to his twenty-six years. His understanding was not powerful, but he was bookish, and had early formed the habit of acquiring information by the perusal of authoritative tomes, so that by the time he had attained his present age his retentive memory was stocked with a quantity of facts which he was perhaps a little too ready to impart to his less well-read contemporaries. His father’s death, while he was still at Eton, coupled with a conviction that his mother stood in constant need of superior male guidance, had added disastrously to his self-consequence. He prided himself on his judgment; was a careful steward of his fortune; had the greatest dislike of anything bordering on the unusual; and deplored the frivolity of those who might have been expected to have been his cronies. His mother’s elation at not having spent one evening at home in ten days found no echo in his heart. He could neither understand why she should want to waste her time at social functions, nor why she should have been foolish enough to have invited a giddy girl to stay with her. He was afraid that the cost of all this mummery would be shocking; had Lady Bridlington asked for his counsel, which she might easily have done, he would have advised most strongly against Arabella’s visit.
Lady Bridlington was a trifle cast-down by this severity, but since her late husband had left her to the enjoyment of a handsome jointure, out of which she always shared the expenses of the house in Park Street with Frederick, she was able to point out to him that the charge of entertaining Arabella fell upon her, and not upon him. He said that the wish to dictate to his Mama was far from him, but that he must persist in thinking the affair most ill-advised. Lady Bridlington was fond of her only son, but Arabella’s success had quite gone to her head, and she was in no mood to listen to sober counsels. She retorted that he was talking a great deal of nonsense; upon which he bowed, compressed his lips, and bade her afterwards remember his words. He added that he washed his hands of the whole business. Lady Bridlington, who had no desire to see him fall a victim to Arabella’s charms, was torn between exasperation, and relief that he showed no sign of succumbing to them.
“I will allow her to be a pretty-enough young female,” said Frederick fairmindedly, “but there is a levity in her bearing which I cannot like, and all this gadding-about which she has led you into is not at all to my taste.”
“Well, I can’t conceive why you should have come running home in this foolish way!” retorted his mother.
“I thought it my duty, ma’am,” said Frederick.
“It is a great piece of folly, and people will think it excessively odd in you! No one looked to see you in England again until July at the earliest!”
She was mistaken. No one thought it in the least odd of Lord Bridlington to have curtailed his tour. The opinion of society was pithily summed up by Mrs. Penkridge, who said that she had guessed all along that that scheming Bridlington woman meant to marry the heiress to her own son. “Anyone could have seen how it would be!” she declared, with her mirthless jangle of laughter. “Such odious hypocrisy, too. to hold to it that she did not expect to see Bridlington in England until the summer! Mark my words, Horace, they will be married before the season is over!”
“Good gad, ma’am, I don’t fear Bridlington’s rivalry!” said her nephew, affronted.
“Then you are a goose!” said Mrs. Penkr
idge. “Everything is in his favour! He is the possessor of an honoured name, and a title, which you may depend upon it the girl wants, and—what is a great deal to the point, let me tell you!—he has all the advantage of living in the same house, of being always at hand to minister to her wishes, squire her to parties, and—Oh, it puts me out of all patience!”
But Miss Tallant and Lord Bridlington, from the very moment of exchanging their first polite greetings, had conceived a mutual antipathy which was in no way mitigated by the necessity each was under to behave towards the other with complaisance and civility. Arabella would not for the fortune she was believed to possess have grieved her kind hostess by betraying dislike of her son; Frederick’s sense of propriety, which was extremely nice, forbade him to neglect the performance of any attention due to his mother’s guest. He could appreciate, and, indeed, since he had a provident mind, applaud Mrs. Tallant’s ambition to dispose of her daughters creditably; and since his own mother had undertaken the task of finding a husband for Arabella, he was prepared to lend his countenance to her schemes. What shocked and disturbed him profoundly was the discovery, within a week of his homecoming, that every gazetted fortune-hunter in London was dangling after Arabella.
“I am at a loss, ma’am, to guess what you can possibly have said to lead anyone to suppose that Miss Tallant is an heiress!” he announced.
Lady Bridlington, who had several times wondered much the same thing, replied uneasily: “I never said a word, Frederick! There is not the least reason why anyone should suppose such an absurdity! I own, I was a trifle surprised when—But she is a very pretty girl, you know, and Mr. Beaumaris took one of his fancies to her!”
“I have never been intimate with Beaumaris,” said Frederick. “I do not care for the set he leads, and must deplore his making any modest female the object of his gallantry. The influence he exerts, moreover, over persons whom I should have supposed to have had more—”
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