‘But, Nell, it’s of no consequence!’ Letty urged. ‘I am sure quite fifty of our friends are going to it, and even if we found ourselves amongst strangers it still wouldn’t signify, because Mrs Beading is your cousin! I own, it would be more comfortable to take some gentleman along with us, but you may easily invite Westbury, or Sir George Marlow, or –’
‘No!’ said Nell emphatically. ‘Not to a masquerade!’
Letty uttered a tiny spurt of laughter. ‘Are you afraid they wouldn’t keep the line? For my part, I think it would be very good fun if they did flirt outrageously with us! But you are the oddest creature! Not up to snuff at all, in spite of having come out a whole year before I did. Why, at my very first ball –’ She broke off, as Nell nipped her arm, directing her eyes to the servants on the box of the carriage. ‘Oh, stuff! No, don’t be cross: I won’t say a word, I promise! How would it be if we took Jeremy with us? I daresay he would be very glad to go, and you may be sure he would conduct himself with all the propriety in the world, because even Giles owns that he is perfectly the gentleman!’
‘Don’t be so absurd!’ begged Nell. ‘He told you himself that he hadn’t received an invitation, and I can readily believe that he has too much propriety to go to the party without one. Besides, you know very well I wouldn’t invite him when it is what Giles would particularly dislike.’
Letty accepted this rebuff philosophically, saying in a resigned tone: ‘No, I didn’t think you would. Well, what is to be done! Pray don’t say you cannot go if Giles does not, for of all the dowdy notions – !’
Nell flushed. ‘No such thing! I mean, I haven’t the remotest intention of saying such a thing! Only I can’t immediately think of any gentleman whom I –’ She stopped, as her troubled gaze alighted on two horsemen, riding easily towards them. Her eyes brightened; she exclaimed: ‘Dysart!’
‘The very man!’ declared Letty enthusiastically. ‘Now you may be easy!’
This optimism, however, seemed for several minutes to have been ill-founded. The Viscount, who was bestriding a nervous young blood-chestnut few men would have cared to exercise in the Park at an hour when it was thronged with traffic, responded readily enough to his sister’s signal, bringing his reluctant mount up to the barouche, and holding it there with all the apparent ease of an accomplished horseman; but when she asked him if he had received an invitation to the Beadings’ masquerade, he replied: ‘Ay, but I don’t mean to go.’
‘Oh, Dy, you didn’t refuse?’ Nell said anxiously.
‘No, I didn’t refuse precisely,’ admitted Dysart, whose careless practice it was to leave all but a few favoured invitations unanswered. ‘Here, Corny! Don’t have to introduce you to my sister, do I? Or to Lady Letitia?’
His companion, who had been holding coyly aloof, edged his horse forward, raising the low-crowned beaver from his head, and bowing slightly to both ladies. Mr Cornelius Fancot was a chubby-faced young gentleman, slightly junior to the Viscount, whose devoted follower he had been ever since the pair had met at Harrow. There, he had been privileged to lend his aid to his dazzling friend in various hare-brained exploits; later, he had been of invaluable assistance in disposing suitably of the statue of Mercury in the Quad at Christ Church; and if he had never, either when up at Oxford or since both had come down from that seat of learning, contrived to rival Dysart’s more celebrated feats, which included putting a donkey to bed with a complete stranger in an inn, and leaping one of his hunters over a dining-table equipped with a full complement of plate, silver, glasses, and chandeliers, he had won for himself, besides the reputation of being one who never refused a wager, considerable fame for having walked the length of Piccadilly on a pair of stilts; and for having won a bet that he would journey to Dover and back again to London before his too-hopeful challenger had made a million dots on sheet after sheet of paper. Unlike his noble friend, he was possessed of a handsome fortune, and was unencumbered by any kin more nearly related to him than several aunts, to whose admonitions he paid no heed at all; and various cousins whom he had no hesitation in condemning as a parcel of slow-tops. His habit proclaimed the sporting man, but a hankering after dandyism was betrayed by buckram-wadded shoulders to his lavishly corded and tasselled Polish coat, and a Brummell tie round his rather short neck. The life and soul of a convivial party at Long’s Hotel, or Limmer’s, he was apt to be tongue-tied in the presence of ladies, and might be looked for in vain at Almack’s Assembly Rooms. He was sufficiently well-acquainted with Nell to feel no particular alarm when she addressed him; but a quizzing glance from Letty’s mischievous eyes threw him at once into stuttering disorder. Observing this, the Viscount, with his customary lack of ceremony, recommended that enterprising damsel to pay no heed to him. ‘Not in the petticoat-line,’ he explained. ‘Are you going to this precious masquerade, Nell?’
‘Yes, indeed we are, only we find ourselves in a little fix. Cardross has been obliged to cry off, you see, and it is so disagreeable to go to such affairs with no gentleman to escort one! And Felix cannot go with us either, so, if you please, Dy, will you be so obliging as to –’
‘No, dash it, Nell!’ interrupted the Viscount hastily. ‘Not to a masquerade out at Chiswick! Ask Marlow, or Westbury, or another of your flirts! The lord knows you’ve plenty of ’em! Why choose me?’
‘She is afraid they wouldn’t keep the line,’ said Letty demurely.
Before the Viscount could reply Mr Fancot rather unexpectedly entered into the discussion. ‘Shouldn’t wonder at it if she was right,’ he said. ‘Masquerades, you know! Ramshackle! Ought to go with her la’ship!’
‘What the deuce do you know about masquerades, Corny?’ demanded Dysart. ‘You never went to one in your life!’
‘Yes, I did,’ asserted Mr Fancot. ‘I went with you, Dy! Well, I wouldn’t let my sister go to one alone. What I mean is, I wouldn’t if I had one. Had a sister, I mean,’ he added, becoming a little flustered, as Letty giggled.
‘Covent Garden!’ exclaimed Dysart scornfully. ‘I should think not indeed! But this affair will be quite another thing. Pretty insipid, I should think. Why do you go to it?’
‘You see, it is the first masquerade Letty has attended, and so she wishes particularly to go,’ Nell explained.
‘Yes, and, what is more, I am quite determined to go,’ corroborated Letty. ‘I collect you don’t mean to be so obliging as to escort us, which doesn’t surprise me above a very little, because of all imaginable persons I think brothers to be by far the most disagreeable!’
‘Letty, that is not just!’ exclaimed Nell. ‘You have no cause to say so, and I assure you I have none either!’ She smiled lovingly up at the Viscount. ‘Don’t come, if you had rather not! At my cousin’s party I can’t need an escort, after all.’
However, the Viscount, either from perversity, or from a sense of obligation, said, with a darkling look at Letty, that if his sister was set on attending the masquerade he would certainly accompany her. He added, with an austerity which accorded ill with his rakish appearance, that if it suited Cardross’s notions of propriety to allow Nell to go alone to such parties that was where he must join issue with his lordship. He then, most unhandsomely, rode off before either lady could counter this charge. Nell was merely distressed that he should think her husband neglectful, but Letty, who reserved to herself the right to criticize Cardross, was extremely incensed, and charged Mr Fancot, lingering to make his adieux in form, with a rude message to him.
‘Though, to be sure, I don’t know why I should put myself to the trouble of fighting Giles’s battles,’ she observed, as Mr Fancot left them, and Nell told her coachman to drive on. ‘I am persuaded he would never fight mine!’
She encountered a very direct look from Nell’s soft blue eyes. Nell said quietly: ‘You must not say so. It is quite untrue, and you know it!’
Letty sighed. ‘Well, I didn’t mean precisely that, but you m
ust own that no one was ever more unsympathetic than Giles. It is so unkind of him to take poor Jeremy in aversion! I had not believed he could be so proud, or care so much for consequence, or so little for my happiness!’
‘It isn’t that! Indeed, it is not, Letty! He doesn’t dislike Mr Allandale, and as for caring about his consequence you know he has said that if you are still of the same mind in a – in a year or two, he will not then refuse his consent. It is your happiness which he thinks of. I don’t say that he likes the match, for although Mr Allandale’s situation in life is respectable, he is not your equal in station, and there is a disparity between your fortunes which makes the marriage even more ineligible.’
‘That is just what I have no patience with!’ Letty said quickly. ‘If I were poor too it would be another matter! I don’t mean to say that I shouldn’t wish to marry Jeremy, for I should; but there would then be justice in Cardross’s objection! It is a melancholy reflection, Nell, but I fear I shouldn’t be a very good wife for a man in straitened circumstances. Of course I should endeavour to learn how to manage, but it is useless to deceive oneself: I don’t think I have any turn for economy!’
‘No, alas, nor I!’ agreed Nell, with a wry grimace.
‘The thing is, we were not bred to it,’ said Letty profoundly. ‘But what does it signify, after all, when I shall be the mistress of a substantial fortune as soon as I come of full age?’
‘I think the thing is that Cardross feels you are too young to be making up your mind just yet,’ Nell said diffidently.
‘Depend upon it, he would not say so if I wanted to marry a man of rank and fortune!’ Letty said, her eyes kindling. ‘He did not think you too young when he offered for you, and I dare swear your papa did not either!’
‘No,’ admitted Nell.
‘No! But if he had not been Cardross, your papa would have said so, even though he came of a very good family, and was in all respects a most superior man! It is all pride and pretension, and for my part I think it is detestable!’
‘No, no, not that – not quite that!’ Nell said. ‘I suppose he would wish you to make what is called a good match, but he has told me himself that if you are still of the same mind in a year or two –’
‘He knows very well that in a year or two – and probably much sooner! – Jeremy will have been sent abroad. Indeed, Jeremy has the greatest hope, if all goes as he has reason to expect – But I mustn’t tell you! Pray don’t repeat it, Nell! He particularly desired me not to speak of it while nothing is yet settled.’ She hesitated, and then slid an impulsive hand into Nell’s, and whispered: ‘One thing I must tell you! I believe – I hope – that he will shortly be calling in Grosvenor Square, to see Cardross. You may guess for what purpose! I should not be mentioning it to you, but oh, Nell, you will stand our friend, won’t you?’
‘Well, I might,’ said Nell, in whom a year’s intimacy with her sister-in-law had engendered a good deal of caution. ‘But not if you mean to do something outrageous!’
‘Nothing of the sort!’ declared Letty indignantly. ‘Unless, of course, Cardross drives me to it, and that I depend on you to prevent!’
‘Oh, pray don’t!’ begged Nell, alarmed. ‘If he won’t consent to your marriage, it is because he feels it would be wrong in him to do so, and how could I overcome such scruples, or – or even wish to overcome them? If only you will be a little patient! Once Cardross is satisfied that your affections are truly fixed –’
‘When that day dawns, if ever it does, Jeremy may be thousands of miles distant!’ Letty interrupted. ‘I shall have nothing to do then but to continue in patience until he returns to England – if he does return!’
‘But naturally he will return!’
‘Yes, but would you wager a groat on his doing so alone?’ Letty retorted. ‘I would not! I don’t mean to say that he does not love me as much as I love him, but if he does not set eyes on me for years, besides being made up to by I daresay a dozen girls, or more, it would be wonderful indeed if he escaped being snatched up into matrimony with another!’
Nell could find nothing to say. Her imagination boggled at the picture of Mr Allandale being courted by a dozen (or even half-a-dozen) girls, but she prudently kept this reflection to herself, only venturing to ask, after a slight pause: ‘What made you fall in love with him, Letty? I don’t mean to say that he is not very amiable and civil, but – but –’
‘I know precisely what you mean,’ said Letty, with unexpected cordiality. ‘And I haven’t the smallest conjecture! If he had been like – oh, like your brother! – no one would have wondered at in the least: I shouldn’t myself! I assure you, I am quite as much surprised as anyone, for it is not as if I had never met any other gentlemen! When I lived with my aunt I met everyone who came to the house, for she was not at all stuffy, you know, and didn’t even try to keep Selina and me in the schoolroom. We knew all Maria’s and Fanny’s beaux, and some of them were pretty dashing, I can tell you! Only I never had the smallest tendre for any of them, until I met Jeremy. I don’t know how it was: it has me quite in a puzzle!’ She bestowed a dazzling smile upon a natty young gentleman in a sporting curricle who was trying to attract her attention. ‘Now, if I had formed an attachment to him Cardross would have had cause to be cross!’ she observed. ‘In fact, when you consider, Nell, the lures that are for ever being thrown out to me by all the most shocking court-cards on the town, on account of my being an heiress, I think it astonishing that Cardross should not be thankful my interest has been fixed by a man of principle and character! And if he supposes that Jeremy loves me for my fortune he much mistakes the matter!’
Cardross did not suspect Mr Allandale of fortune-hunting, but when the promised visit was paid him, a few days later, he received his sister’s suitor with a cool civility that gave little promise of a yielding disposition.
Mr Allandale was not a nervous man, but it was with considerable reluctance that he presented himself in Grosvenor Square. He prided himself on his level judgement, and although he did not set his own worth low every objection Cardross could raise to his pretensions was felt by him, and acknowledged to be just. His love for Letty bordered, in the opinion of his mother, on infatuation, but it had needed much persuasion from her to induce him to make Cardross a formal offer for her hand. The disparity between them of rank and fortune weighed heavily upon his spirit; he had felt from the outset that his suit was hopeless, and that his wiser course would be too keep out of Letty’s way, and try to put her from his mind. Unfortunately, noble resignation was not a virtue which in any way attracted Letty. When he spoke of parting she first burst into tears, which unmanned him; and then accused him of wanting to be rid of her, which made him utter some very ill-advised vows of eternal fidelity. After that there was no more talk of renunciation. Mr Allandale did indeed speak sometimes of waiting, but with this plan also Letty was out of sympathy; and since he had never desired anything so passionately in the whole of his well-ordered life as to marry her he allowed himself to become infected with her optimism, and even began to think that perhaps Cardross might not prove so inimical to his suit after all, if he were approached in a manly and straightforward way.
This confidence, never very strong, waned as he trod up the steps of Cardross House, and wholly deserted him while he waited for the Earl in the book-room. His appearance was always characterized by a neatness and a propriety of taste which struck the happy mean between the man of fashion and the man of affairs, and he had spent more time than usual that morning on the arrangement of his neckcloth. But as the clock on the high mantelpiece rather aggressively ticked away the minutes he became convinced that the faint stripe in his toilinette waistcoat made him look like a park-saunterer, that his coat of sober blue cloth was too tightly moulded to his form, and that by brushing his mouse-coloured hair into the Brutus style affected by Mr Brummell he had committed a gross error of judgement: Cardross would probably
suspect him of aping the fashions of the dandy-set.
However, when the Earl at last came into the room he did not appear to notice what by this time amounted in Mr Allandale’s mind to the blatant vulgarity of his waistcoat. On the other hand, his handsome, impassive countenance betrayed no sign of pleasure at sight of his visitor, and his greeting was courteous rather than cordial. Overcoming the sudden realization that his errand would certainly be regarded as a piece of presumption, Mr Allandale opened the interview by saying with a stiffness engendered by his determination not to truckle to his siren’s guardian: ‘You may wonder, my lord, why I am here.’
‘No,’ said the Earl.
There was nothing particularly daunting about this calm monosyllable, but it threw Mr Allandale quite out of his stride. His carefully composed speech of explanation had to be abandoned, and he could not immediately decide what to say in its stead.
‘Pray be seated, Mr Allandale!’ invited his host, himself strolling towards a chair.
Mr Allandale hesitated. On the whole, he preferred to remain on his feet, but it was difficult to do so while the Earl sat at his ease, one leg, cased in an elegant Hessian boot, thrown over the other, and one hand even now raising his quizzing-glass to his eye. Mr Allandale sat down, and cleared his throat. ‘I shall be brief,’ he stated. ‘It cannot, I fancy, be unknown to your lordship that I have been so fortunate as to engage the interest of Lady Letitia Merion.’
A flicker of amusement crossed the Earl’s eyes. ‘I understand that the violence of your mutual feelings is such as must melt all but the hardest of hearts. Mine, I am informed, is of marble.’
Colouring, Mr Allandale replied: ‘I am aware, my lord, that the affection I bear Lady Letitia must appear to you in the light of an encroaching fancy.’
‘Oh, no!’ said Cardross. ‘I am really not as high in the instep as you seem to think. I don’t deny that I should prefer her to make what passes in the world for a good match, but, I assure you, if your affections stand the test of time you won’t find me ill-disposed towards you.’