April Lady (28 page)

She got up as she spoke, but the Viscount said dampingly: "Well, you won't do that, because he ain't in. Told Farley he wouldn't be back till five or thereabouts."

"Not till five! Oh, if my courage does not fail!"

"Do you want me to see him with you?" he demanded.

"You? Oh, no! I must see him alone."

"Well, it's my belief the thing will come off a dashed sight better if you do," he said frankly. "It ain't that I mind seeing him, because now the dibs are in tune again there's no reason why I should, but for one thing I'm pledged to Corny, and for another Cardross won't like it if you take me along, like a dashed bodyguard! That's the way to get his back up at the very start. Besides, you don't need a bodyguard. I don't say he isn't going to be devilish angry, because it stands to reason he's bound to be, but you needn't be afraid he won't come round. He will—and all the quicker if I'm not there! He don't love me, but he loves you all right and tight!"

She said nothing; and after a moment he held out the bank-notes to her again. "Take 'em! No need to mention the mantua-maker's bill to him, unless you choose. You may put the whole on to me: I had three centuries from you, and I've now paid 'em back. I daresay that will surprise him more than if you told him I'd prigged his damned heirloom!"

At these biting words, she flung her arms round his neck, vehemently asserting that no one could ever believe such a thing of him, and again begging him to forgive her.

"Yes, very well, but you needn't think I'm pleased with you, for I'm not!" responded Dysart, disengaging himself from her embrace. "It's not a bit of use hanging round my neck, and playing off your cajolery:
I'm
not Cardross! And mind this! the next time you run" into trouble, don't you come to me to drag you out of it!"

"No," Nell said meekly.

"I'll be off now," he announced. "No getting into high fidgets, Nell!"

She shook her head.

"And no turning short about either!" he warned her.

"No, I promise you I mean to tell Cardross as soon as he returns."

"Well, see you do!" he said, relenting sufficiently to bestow a brief hug upon her. "I suppose I ought to stay to bring you up to scratch, but I haven't seen Corny yet, and I must. Besides, it's his birthday, and we mean to make a batch of it."

With that he went off, leaving her to solitude and her melancholy thoughts. She roused herself presently from these to send Sutton to pay Madame Lavalle's bill, and thought, as she gave the bank-notes into her dresser's hand, how happy it would have made her, only four days earlier, to have been able to do this. She could still be thankful that she would not now be obliged to lay the debt before Cardross, but that seemed a very small alleviation of the ills that beset her. The sight of her dresser brought one of these most forcibly to her mind. It would be necessary to tell Sutton that the necklace was not in the hands of Cardross's jeweller, but indeed lost; and how to account for her own prevarication was a problem to which she could discover no answer. Letty might pour out her troubles to her maid; to Nell it was unthinkable that she should admit Sutton into her confidence.

The thought of Letty made her ask Sutton suddenly where she was. The dresser replied that she believed her to have gone with Martha to Owen's in Bond Street, to purchase fresh ribbons for the gown she meant to wear at Almack's that evening. She availed herself of the opportunity to enquire of Nell which gown she herself wished laid out in readiness; but Nell, who had forgotten the engagement, exclaimed: "Almack's! Oh, no! I cannot go there tonight!"

Sutton merely said: "Very well, my lady," and went away. Letty (if she had indeed arranged to meet her lover at the Assembly Rooms) would scarcely be so acquiescent.

As the day drew towards five o'clock Nell began to feel a little sick. Her spirits had been getting steadily lower for some time, and were not improved by the prospect beyond the window. The day had been dull, and the sky had now become so overcast that the drawing-room, which should have been full of sunshine, had put on a mournful twilight air. It even seemed to be a little chilly, but perhaps that was only her fancy.

Cardross came in shortly after five, but when Nell, bracing herself to face the ordeal in store, went downstairs, it was only to learn from the porter that his lordship was engaged with someone who had called to see him on a matter of business. Knowing that Cardross was dining out that evening, and feeling that her courage would be entirely dissipated if she were forced to remain on the rack for many more hours, she said: "It is very vexatious, for I particularly wish to speak with his lordship before he goes out again. Who is it who must come to see him on business at such an hour? Not Mr. Kent, surely?"

"No, my lady. It's a Mr. Catworth. He called this morning, and seeing as he said his business was private, which he wouldn't disclose to Mr. Kent, nor anyone, I told him it was no manner of use for him to wait, because his lordship wasn't expected till five. And back he came, my lady, but I would have put him in the office if I'd known your ladyship was wishful to see my lord. Because my lord give his orders when he come in just now that when Sir John Somerby calls he's to be taken to the library straight, my lady."

"And he may arrive at any moment, I daresay!" Nell exclaimed. "George, if he should do so before this person who is now with his lordship has gone away, show him into the saloon, if you please, and desire him to wait! And—inform his lordship that I wish to see him before he goes to Sir John!"

"Yes, my lady: never fear!" said George, in a reassuring tone that gave her clearly to understand that he had by this time realized that there was something unusual afoot. "Ill tip the—I'll drop a word in Farley's ear, my lady!"

She thanked him, flushing a little, and retreated again to the drawing-room, there to pass another miserable half-hour, wondering how much longer the obtrusive Mr. Catworth meant to linger, and why providence, so falsely called merciful, had not seen fit to remove her from the world when, at the age of five, she had contracted scarlet fever. And yet, when, looking down from the window, she saw a neat individual descending the front steps, and knew that Cardross was at last at liberty, she at once wished that she might be granted just a few more minutes in which to recruit her forces.

But if the dreaded interview were not to be postponed until the morrow there was all too little time left to her; so she went quickly downstairs before a craven panic could wholly master her.

George, his foot on the bottom stair, drew back, saying that he had been on the point of coming to tell her that his lordship was now alone, and ready to receive her. He went before her to hold open the door into the library. He would have liked to have said something encouraging to her, because she looked so young and so scared, and put him in mind of his daughter, but that, of course, was impossible. It was as plain as a pikestaff she was in trouble, poor little thing: it was to be hoped his lordship would let her down easy, but he wasn't looking any too amiable.

He was looking very far from amiable. The instant she had crossed the threshold Nell knew that she had chosen her moment badly. He was standing beside his desk, his countenance very set, and he neither smiled nor moved forward to meet her. She had never before seen so somber an expression in his eyes; her own eyes dilated a little in sudden alarm; she said involuntarily: "Oh, what is it?"

It was a moment or two before he spoke, and then he said in a very level tone: "I understand you particularly wish to speak to me. I am expecting a visit from Somerby, however, so unless the matter is of immediate importance it would be better, perhaps, if this interview were postponed until the morning."

The cold formality of this speech struck her to the heart; she was only just able to say: "It is of—most immediate importance! I must, I must tell you at once!"

"Very well. What is it?"

It was not encouraging, but she could not draw back. She said: "The necklace—the Cardross necklace! It has gone!"

She thought he stiffened, but he did not speak. Frightened and perplexed, she stammered: "You don't—I think you cannot have understood me!"

"Oh, yes! I understood you!" he said grimly.

"Cardross, pray—! You are very angry—shocked—"

"Both! Too much to discuss it with you now! I will see you in the morning. I may be able to speak to you then with more moderation than is yet at my command!"

"Oh, say what you wish to me, but don't look at me so!" she begged. "Indeed, indeed I didn't lose it through any carelessness! It has been
stolen,
Cardross!"

"I didn't suppose that you had mislaid it. Are you suggesting that some thief contrived to enter the house without anyone's being aware of it, or do you mean to accuse one of the servants?"

"I don't know, but I am dreadfully afraid it must have been one of the servants!" she said worriedly. "They could have searched for it, but a stranger would not have known where to look, or—surely?—have thought it necessary to make it seem as though no one had been to my rooms, or stolen anything. I—I had no suspicion, you see! It might have been months before I discovered the loss, for it was hidden amongst the clothes Sutton put away in camphor."

"And how does it come about that you have discovered it?" he asked. "That is puzzling me a trifle, you know."

"I didn't—it wasn't I who discovered it! Sutton found the case empty when she went to look over my winter clothes."

"I see. How very disconcerting, to be sure!"

There was a derisive note in his voice, which made her stare at him in bewilderment. "Disconcerting?" she repeated. "Good God, it was far, far more than that, Cardross!"

"I am sure you were excessively shocked. I collect that Sutton did not make this unwelcome discovery until today?"

She did not answer him immediately. She had known that full confession would be difficult, but not that he would make it as difficult as this. She had to overcome an impulse to acquiesce, for it now seemed beyond her power to tell the whole of her tangled tale to this stranger who watched her with such merciless eyes, and spoke to her in so biting a tone. But the inward struggle lasted only for a minute. She drew a shuddering breath, and said faintly: "No. I—I have known—since Tuesday. I must explain to you—try to explain to you—why I haven't told you—until today."

"For God's sake,
no!
At least let me be spared that!"

She was startled, for the words had burst from him with savage violence. Her eyes leaped to his, and she recoiled instinctively from the blaze of anger she saw there. "Cardross—!"

"Be silent!" He flung round towards his desk, and wrenched open one of its drawers. "You need explain nothing to me—as you perceive!"

She stood staring in utter amazement, almost unable to believe her eyes, for what he had taken from the drawer and tossed contemptuously on to the desk was the Cardross necklace.

From a whirl of conjecture nothing coherent emerged; she was so much at a loss that she could only gasp: "You have it!"

"Yes, Madam Wife,
I
have it!" he replied.

Relief swept over her. "Oh, how thankful I am!" she cried. "But how—why—I don't understand!"

"Don't you? Then I will tell you!" he said harshly. "It was brought to me not an hour ago by an astute little jeweller whose son—neither as astute, nor, I fancy, as honest as himself!—had bought it, yesterday, for the sum of two thousand pounds! I imagine he must have blessed himself for his good fortune: it cannot be every day that such easy clients present themselves! He would be obliged to cut the necklace up, of course, but even so it is worth a trifle more than two thousand, you know. No, you
don't
know, do you?"

She hardly heard the bitter, jeering note in his voice, or grasped the implication of his words. She was staring at him with knit brows, rather pale, and with her breath coming short and light. "Yesterday," she repeated.
"Yesterday?
Who—Did he tell you—
who?"

His lips curled disdainfully. "No, he didn't tell me that. His very fair client—understandably, one feels!—was heavily veiled." He caught the tiny sigh of relief that escaped her. "Nor am I quite such a flat as to have wished for further information on that head!" he said, the savagery again rampant in his voice. "A lady—unquestionably a lady! A
young
lady, dressed in the first stare of fashion, who would not disclose her name—how should she, indeed?—or accept a banker's draft in payment! Do you suppose, when I had been told
that,
that I catechized Catworth?"

"Catworth?" she said quickly. "The man who came to see you—came twice to see you—has just been with you?"

"Exactly so! If only you had known!—Is that what you are thinking, my sweet love? How should you have known? It was not he who bought the Cardross necklace for a song!
You
met the son—quite a knowing one, in his way, I should suppose, but by no means as downy as the father! If my newfound acquaintance is to be believed, he had never seen or heard of the Cardross necklace. Well; it may be so! I am much in debt to the father, and should be reluctant to disbelieve him. After all, I have never dealt with a Cranbourn Alley jeweller. Perhaps young Catworth is not fly, but green! It is otherwise with the elder Catworth.
He
recognized the necklace the instant it was shown him, and saw his duty clear before him! I must always regret that I was not just in the humour to enjoy the scene as it deserved to be enjoyed! So discreet, he was! so virtuous! Not an ungentlemanly word spoken throughout! He did not even permit himself to hope for my future patronage, and he accepted without a blink every whisker that I uttered! An admirable man—I must certainly place a little business in his way! How very shabby it would be if I did not!"