Arabella

by Джорджетт Хейер

  Only in one quarter did unhappy results arise from the elevation of Ulysses. The Honourable Frederick Byng, who had for years been known by the sobriquet of Poodle Byng from his habit of driving everywhere with a very highly-bred and exquisitely shaved poodle sitting up beside him, encountered Mr. Beaumaris in Piccadilly one afternoon, and no sooner clapped eyes on his disreputable companion than he pulled up his horses all standing, and spluttered out: “What the devil—!

  Mr. Beaumaris reined in his own pair, and looked enquiringly over his shoulder. Mr. Byng, his florid countenance suffused by an angry flush, was engaged in backing his curricle, jabbing at his horses’ mouths in a way that showed how greatly moved he was. Once alongside the other curricle, he glared at Mr. Beaumaris, and demanded an explanation.

  “Explanation of what?” said Mr. Beaumaris. “If you don’t take care, you’ll go off in an apoplexy one of these days, Poodle! What’s the matter?”

  Mr. Byng pointed a trembling finger at Ulysses. “What’s the meaning of that?” he asked belligerently. “If you think I’ll swallow any such damned insult—!”

  He was interrupted. The two dogs, who had been eyeing one another measuringly from their respective vehicles, suddenly succumbed to a mutual hatred, uttered two simultaneous snarls, and leaped for one another’s throats. Since the curricles were too far apart to allow them to come to grips, they were obliged to vent their feelings in a series of hysterical objurgations, threats, and abuse, which drowned the rest of Mr. Byng’s furious speech.

  Mr. Beaumaris, holding Ulysses by the scruff of his neck, laughed so much that he could hardly speak: a circumstance which did nothing to mollify the outraged Mr. Byng. He began to say that he should know how to answer an attempt to make him ridiculous, but was obliged to break off in order to command his dog to be quiet.

  “No, no, Poodle, don’t call me out!” said Mr. Beaumaris, his shoulders still shaking. “Really, I had no such intention! Besides, we should only make fools of ourselves, going out to Paddington in the cold dawn to exchange shots over a pair of dogs!”

  Mr. Byng hesitated. There was much in what Mr. Beaumaris said; moreover, Mr. Beaumaris was acknowledged to be one of the finest shots in England, and to call him out for a mere trifle would be an act of sheer foolhardiness. He said suspiciously: “If you’re not doing it to make a laughingstock of me, why are you doing it?”

  “Hush, poodle, hush! You are treading on delicate ground!” said Mr. Beaumaris. “I cannot bandy a lady’s name about in the open street!”

  “What lady? I don’t believe a word of il! Why can’t you make that damned mongrel be quiet?”

  In lamentable contrast to his well-trained adversary, who was now seated virtuously beside his master again, and affecting a maddening deafness, Ulysses, convinced that he had cowed the contemptible dandy, was hurling extremely ignoble taunts at him. Mr. Beaumaris cuffed him, but although he cowered under the avenging hand he was quite unrepentant, and resumed his threats with unabated fervour.

  “It is all jealousy, Poodle!” Mr. Beaumaris said soothingly. “The hatred of the vulgar for the aristocrat! I think we had better part, don’t you?”

  Mr. Byng gave an angry snort, and drove off. Mr. Beaumaris released Ulysses, who shook himself, sighed his satisfaction, and looked up for approbation. “Yes, you will, I perceive, ruin me yet,” said Mr. Beaumaris severely. “If I am any judge of the matter, you picked your language up in the back-slums, and have probably been the associate of dustmen, coal-heavers, bruisers, and other such low persons! You are quite unfit for polite circles.”

  Ulysses lolled his tongue out, and grinned cheerfully.

  “At the same time,” said Mr. Beaumaris, relenting, “I daresay you would have made mincemeat of the creature, and I must own that I am not entirely out of sympathy with you. But poor Poodle will certainly cut me for a week at least.”

  However, at the end of five days Mr. Byng unbent, adopting a tolerant attitude towards Ulysses. It had been borne in upon him that to drive past the Nonpareil’s curricle, staring rigidly ahead, was provocative of just the amusement amongst his acquaintances which he particularly wished to discourage.

  Mr. Beaumaris and Miss Tallant met again in the dazzling splendour of the Circular Room at Carlton House, on the night of the Regent’s Dress-party. Arabella was so much impressed by the elegance of the sky-blue draperies, and the almost intolerable glare of a huge cut-glass chandelier, reflected, with its myriads of candles, in four large pierglasses, that she momentarily forgot her last meeting with Mr. Beaumaris, and greeted him by saying impulsively: “How do you do? I have never seen anything like it in my life! Each room is more magnificent than the last!”

  He smiled, “Ah, but have you yet penetrated to the Conservatory, Miss Tallant? Our Royal host’s chef d’oeuvre, believe me! Let me take you there!”

  By this time she had recollected under what I circumstances they had parted, so short a time previously, and her colour had risen. Many tears had been shed over the unhappy circumstance which had made it impossible for her to accept Mr. Beaumaris’s suit, and it had required all the excitement of a party at Carlton House to make her forget for one evening that she was the most miserable girl alive. She hesitated now, but Lady Bridlington was nodding and beaming, so she placed her hand on Mr. Beaumaris’s arm, and went with him through a bewildering number of apartments, all full of people, up the grand stairway, and through several saloons and antechambers. In the intervals of bowing to acquaintances, and occasionally exchanging a word of greeting, Mr. Beaumaris entertained her with an account of Ulysses’ quarrel with Mr. Byng’s poodle, and this made her laugh so much that agood deal of her constraint vanished. The Conservatory made her open her eyes very wide indeed, as well it might. Mr. Beaumaris watched her, a look of amusement in his face, while she gazed silently round the extraordinary structure. Finally, she drew a breath, and uttered one of her unexpectedly candid remarks. “Well, I don’t know why he should call it a Conservatory, for it is a great deal more like a cathedral, and a very bad one too!” she said.

  He was delighted. “I thought you would be pleased with it,” he said, with deceptive gravity.

  “I am not at all pleased with it,” replied Arabella severely. “Why is there a veil over that statue?”

  Mr. Beaumaris levelled his glass at Venus Asleep, under a shroud of light gauze. “I can’t imagine,” he confessed. “No doubt one of Prinny’s flashes of taste. Would you like to ask him? Shall I take you to find him?”

  Arabella declined the offer hastily. The Regent, an excellent host, had already managed to spend a minute or two in chat with nearly every one of his guests, and although Arabella was storing up the gracious words he had uttered to her, and meant to send home to the Vicarage an exact account of his amiability, she found conversation with such an exalted personage rather overpowering. So Mr. Beaumaris took her back to Lady Bridlington, and after staying beside her for a few minutes was buttonholed by a gentleman in very tight satin knee-breeches, who lisped that the Duchess of Edgeware commanded his instant attendance. He bowed, therefore, to Arabella, and moved away, and although she several times afterwards caught a glimpse of him, he was always engaged with friends, and did not again approach her. The rooms began to seem hot, and overcrowded; the company the most boring set of people imaginable; and the vivacious, restless, and scintillating Lady Jersey, who flirted with Mr. Beaumaris for quite twenty minutes, an odious creature.

  Lady Bridlington’s ball was the next social event of importance. This promised to be an event of more than ordinary brilliance, and although the late Lord Bridlington, to gratify an ambitious bride, had added a ballroom and a conservatory to the back of the house, it seemed unlikely that all the guests who had accepted her ladyship’s invitation could be accommodated without a degree of overcrowding so uncomfortable as to mark the evening as an outstanding success. An excellent band had been engaged for the dancing, Pandean pipes were to play during supper, extra servants were hired, police-offic
ers and link-boys warned to make Park Street their special objective, and refreshments to supplement the efforts of Lady Bridlington’s distracted cook ordered from Gunter’s. For days before the event, housemaids were busy moving furniture, polishing the crystal chandeliers, washing the hundreds of spare glasses unearthed from a storeroom in the basement, counting and recounting plates and cutlery, and generally creating an atmosphere of bustle and unrest in the house. Lord Bridlington, who combined an inclination for ceremonious hospitality with a naturally frugal mind, was torn between complacency at having drawn to his house all the most fashionable persons who adorned the ton, and a growing conviction that the cost of the party would be enormous. The bill for wax candles alone threatened to rise to astronomical heights, and not his most optimistic calculations of the number of glasses of champagne likely to be drunk reduced the magnums that must be ordered to a total he could contemplate with anything but gloom. But his self-esteem was too great to allow of his contemplating for more than a very few minutes the expedient of ekeing out the precious liquor by making it into an iced cup. Cups there must certainly be, as well as lemonade, orgeat, and such milder beverages as would please the ladies, but unless the party were to fall under the stigma of having been but a shabby affair after all the best champagne must flow throughout the evening in unlimited quantities. His mind not being of an order to question his own consequence, his gratification on the whole outweighed his misgivings, and if a suspicion did enter his head that he had Arabella to thank for the flattering number of acceptances which poured into the house, he was easily able to banish it. His mother, rather shrewder than he, gave honour where it was due, and, in a fit of reckless extravagance, was moved to order a new gown for Arabella from her own expensive dressmaker. But she was not, after all, so sadly out of pocket over the transaction, since a very few words whispered into the ear of Mme. Dumaine were enough to convince that astute woman of business that the reclame of designing a toilette for the great Miss Tallant would fully justify her in making a substantial reduction in the price of a gown of figured lace over a white satin robe, with short, full, plaited sleeves, fastened down the front with pearl buttons to make the edging of pearls to the overdress. Arabella, ruefully surveying the depredations caused by a succession of parties to her glove-drawer, was obliged to purchase a new pair of long white gloves, as well as new satin sandals, and a length of silver net to drape round her shoulders in the style known as a l’Ariane. There was not very much left, by this time, of the Squire’s handsome present to her, and when she considered how impossible her own folly had made it for her to requite her family’s generosity in the only way open to a personable young female, she was overcome by feelings of guilt and remorse, and could not refrain from shedding tears. Nor could she refrain from indulging her fancy with the contemplation of the happiness which might even now have been hers, had she not allowed her temper to lead her so grossly to deceive Mr. Beaumaris. This was a thought more bitter than all the rest, and it was only by the resolute exercise of her commonsense that she was able to regain some degree of calm. It was not to be supposed that the haughty Mr. Beaumaris, related as he was to so many noble houses, so distinguished in his bearing, so much courted, and so much pursued, would ever have looked twice at a girl from a country Vicarage, with neither fortune nor connection to recommend her to his notice.

  It was therefore with mixed feelings that Arabella awaited the arrival of the first guests on the appointed night. Lady Bridlington, thinking that she looked a little haggard (as well she might, after a week of such nerve-racking preparations) had tried to persuade her to allow Miss Crowle to rub a little—a very little—rouge into her cheeks, but after one look at the result of this delicate operation Arabella had washed it away, declaring that never would she employ such aids to beauty as must, could he but see them, destroy for ever Papa’s affection for his eldest daughter. Lady Bridlington pointed out, very reasonably, that there could be no fear of Papa’s seeing them, but as Arabella remained adamant, and showed alarming signs of being about to burst into tears, she pressed her no more, consoling herself with the reflection that even without her usual blooming colour her goddaughter could not fail to appear lovely in the exquisite gown of Mme. Dumaine’s making.

  One cause at least for satisfaction was granted to Arabella: although some guests might arrive early, and leave betimes to attend another function; others walk in past two o’clock, having relegated Lady Bridlington’s ball to the third place on their list of the evening’s engagements, so that the ball was rendered chaotic by the constant comings and goings, and Park Street echoed hideously for hours to the shouts of My lord’s carriage! or My lady’s chair! and heated police-officers quarrelled with vociferous link-boys, and chairmen exchanged insults with coachmen, Bertram arrived punctually at ten o’clock, and nobly remained throughout the proceedings.

  He had recklessly ordered an evening dress from the obliging Mr. Swindon, rightly deeming the simple garments he had brought with him from Heythram quite inadequate to the occasion. Mr. Swindon had done well by him, and when Arabella saw him mount the stairway between the banks of flowers which she had helped all day to revive by frequent sprinkling of water, her heart swelled with pride in his appearance. His dark blue coat set admirably across his shoulders; his satin knee-breeches showed scarcely a crease; and nothing could have been more chaste than his stockings or his waistcoat. With his dark, curly locks rigorously brushed into fashionable Brutus, his handsome, aquiline countenance interestingly pale from the nervousness natural to a young gentleman attending his first ton party, he looked almost as distinguished as the Nonpareil himself. Arabella, fleetingly clasping his hand, bestowed on him so speaking a look of admiration that he was betrayed into a grin so boyish and attractive as to cause another early arrival to demand of her companion, who was that handsome boy?

  Emboldened by the intensive coaching of a noted French dancing-master, whom he had found the time to visit, he claimed his sister’s hand for the first waltz, and, being a graceful youth, taught by the athletic sports at Harrow to move with precision and a complete control over his limbs, acquitted himself so well that Arabella was moved to exclaim: “Oh, Bertram, how elegantly you dance! Do, pray, let us make up a set for the quadrille, and dance together in it!”

  This, however, he did not feel himself capable of doing. It was true that he had acquired the rudiments of the more simple steps, but he doubted his ability to go through the grande ronde or the pas de zephyr without muffing these figures. Gazing up into his face, it occurred to Arabella that he too was looking a trifle haggard. She anxiously asked him if he were quite well, and he assured her that he had never been better in his life, very creditably refraining from confiding to her that his adventurous career had made so deep a hole in his purse that the question of how he was to meet his liabilities had been causing him some sleepless nights. Since she had not seen him since a furtive assignation in the Mall one morning, under the vague chaperonage of the nursemaids who aired their charges there, and bought glasses of milk for them, fresh from the cows that lent so rural an air to the scene, she could not but feel uneasy about him. The faint rakishness that now hung about him did nothing to allay her fears, and she rather unjustly blamed Mr. Scunthorpe for setting his feet upon a path Papa would certainly not have wished him to tread. She had formed no very favourable opinion of Mr. Scunthorpe, and, with the praiseworthy notion of introducing Bertram into better company, made him known to one of the most disinterested of her admirers, young Lord Wivenhoe, heir to an affluent Earldom, and known to the greater part of London as Chuffy Wivenhoe, an affectionate sobriquet earned for him by his round, good-humoured countenance. This lively young nobleman, although he had not so far offered for her hand, formed one of Arabella’s court, and was one of her favourites, being blessed with ingenuous manners, and an overflowing friendliness. She introduced Bertram to him with the best of intentions, but had she known that the engaging Chuffy had been reared by a misguided parent acco
rding to the principles laid down by the late Mr. Fox’s father, she might have refrained from so doing. In spite of every evidence to disprove them, the Earl of Chalgrove held Lord Holland’s maxims in high esteem, and blandly encouraged his heir to indulge in every extravagance that captured his erratic fancy, discharging his gaming-debts as cheerfully as he discharged the bills that poured in from his tailor, his coachbuilder, his hatter, and a host of other tradesmen who enjoyed his patronage.

  The two young gentlemen took an instant liking to one another. Lord Wivenhoe was some years Bertram’s senior, but his mind was as youthful as his countenance, whereas Bertram’s aquiline features, and superiority of intellectual attainment, added several years to his true age. They found themselves with much in common, and before they had enjoyed one another’s society for more than a very few minutes had arranged to go together to a forthcoming race-meeting.