Charity Girl (13 page)

   She plucked uncertainly at the fringe of the silk shawl she wore, eyeing him with resentment. Before she had made up her mind what to say to make him remove Cherry without impairing the vision he had of the saintliness of her own disposition the door opened, and Henrietta came in, leading Miss Steane by the hand.

   'Mama, here is poor little Cherry, who has been having a horridly uncomfortable time, as I collect Desford will have told you. She is quite worn down by her troubles, but she
would
have me bring her to you before I tuck her into bed. Now, my dear, you can see for yourself that my mother is no more a dragon than I am!'

   'So pleased!' said Lady Silverdale, in a faint voice, and favouring Cherry with a very slight inclination of her head. 'Hetta, my love, my cordial!'

   Quite dismayed, Cherry whispered: 'I should not have come! Oh, I
knew
I should not! I beg your pardon, ma'am!'

   Lady Silverdale was a selfish but not an unfeeling woman, and this stricken speech, coupled as it was with a face pale with weariness, considerably mollified her. It was clearly impossible to cast this miserable little girl out of the house, so although she maintained the attitude of one on the brink of sinking into a swoon, and continued to speak in a faint, long-suffering voice, she said: 'Oh, not at all! You must forgive me if I leave it to my daughter to show you to your bedroom: I have been very unwell, and my medical attendant warns me that I must avoid all unnecessary exertion. So unfortunate that you should have come to visit us at just this moment! But my daughter will look after you. Pray tell me if there is anything you would wish for! A glass of hot milk, perhaps, before you retire to bed.'

   'I fancy, ma'am, that she needs something more substantial than a glass of milk,' said the Viscount, perceiving that Cherry was looking quite crushed, and most improperly flickering a wink at her.

   'Well, of course she does!' said Henrietta. 'She is going to have supper as soon as I've tucked her into her bed.'

   'Oh, thank you!' said Cherry gratefully. 'I don't feel I deserve to be given such a treat, but I would very much like it! Aunt Bugle never allowed me to have – '

   She broke off in consternation, for these words had had a startling effect on her hostess. At one moment leaning limply back in her chair, and sniffing at her vinaigrette, she suddenly abandoned this moribund pose, sat bolt upright, and said sharply: '
Who
did you say?'

   'M-my Aunt Bugle, ma'am,' faltered Cherry.

   Lady Silverdale's bosom swelled visibly. '
That woman!' sh
e pronounced awfully. 'Do you mean to tell me she is your aunt, child?'

   'Yes, ma'am,' said Cherry, trembling.

   'Are you acquainted with her, Mama?'

   'We were brought out in the same season!' disclosed Lady Silverdale dramatically. 'I beg you will not speak to me of Amelia Bugle! A bouncing, flouncing young female, setting her cap at every single gentleman that crossed her path, and fancying herself to be a beauty, which she was not, for she had a deplorable figure, and a particularly ugly nose, and as for the pretentious airs she gave herself when she caught Bugle, and took to thinking herself the pink of gentility, I laugh whenever I remember them!'

   Laughter did not appear to be her predominant emotion, though she did utter a Ha! of withering sarcasm. Henrietta, briefly meeting Desford's dancing eyes, said, with a quivering lip: 'We collect, Mama, that she wasn't one of your bosom-bows!'

   'Certainly not! But I remained on common civility terms with her until she had the effrontery to thrust herself before me in a doorway, saying, like the self-important mushroom she was, that she fancied she must take precedence since her husband's baronetcy was an older creation than Silverdale's! After that, of course, I never did more than bow to her, or felt the smallest interest in her. Come and sit down beside me, my dear child, and tell me all about her! I am persuaded she used you shamefully, for I recall that she was never used to waste a particle of polite ness on people she considered to be beneath her. You did very right to leave her!'

   She patted the place beside her on the sofa invitingly, and Cherry, swiftly recovering from her astonishment, smiled shyly, dropped a little curtsy, and accepted the invitation. The curtsy pleased Lady Silverdale; she was moved to press Cherry's hand, and to say: 'Poor child! There! You will not meet with Turkish treatment in
this house! Is it true that Tha
t Woman has
five
daughters?'

   Perceiving that her volatile parent was now wholly engrossed by the dreadful fate that had overcome her old rival, Henrietta seized the opportunity thus afforded her to exchange a few words with the Viscount. 'Nothing could be more fortunate, could it?' she said, in an undervoice. 'I wonder what That Woman really did to make Mama take her in such dislike?'

   'Yes, so do I!' he returned. 'I depend on you to discover the answer! Clearly, her want of delicacy in claiming precedence in that doorway can only have been the culminating impertinence!'

   'I should suppose that they must have been rival beauties,' said Henrietta. 'But never mind that! We will keep Cherry with us until you have found her grandfather, but what would you have me tell her to do? Should she not write a civil letter to Lady Bugle, informing her that she is at present residing at Inglehurst? I cannot think it right that she should leave her without a word! Lady Bugle cannot be so monstrous as to feel no anxiety about her!'

   'No,' he agreed reluctantly. 'At the same time – Hetta, tell her to write that she has gone to visit her grandfather! Dash it, I must be able to discover where he is in a very few days, and if she mentions Inglehurst she must surely connect me with the business, which will lead her to make enquiries of my Aunt Emborough, and then I
shall
be in the suds!'

   'Couldn't you write to Lady Emborough, explaining it all to her?' she suggested.

   'No, Hetta, I could not!' he replied. 'She doesn't like Lady Bugle, but she don't want to quarrel with her, and she wouldn't thank me for embroiling her in this minglemangle!'

   'Very true! I hadn't considered that. It shall be as you wish. Do you mean to rack up here for the night, or are you going to Wolversham with Simon?'

   'Neither: I'm going back to London. You can picture me tomorrow, scouring the town to find somebody able to give me Nettlecombe's direction – and in all probability wasting my time! Ah, well! It will be a lesson to me, won't it, not to rescue damsels in distress?'

   'Not to venture to cross quagmires without making sure you don't go in over shoes, over boots, at all events!' she said, laughing at him.

   'Or at least without making sure that Hetta is there to pull me out!' he amended. He took her hand, and kissed it. 'Thank you, my best of friends. I am eternally obliged to you!'

   'Oh, fiddle! If you are to drive back to London this evening you had better take leave of your damsel now, because I mean to put her to bed immediately: she's so tired she can scarcely keep her eyes open! I've instructed Grimshaw to set out a supper for you, and you'll find Simon waiting to bear you company.'

   'Bless you!' he said, and turned from her to bid his protégée farewell.

   She got up quickly when she saw him coming towards the sofa, and he saw that she was indeed looking very tired. It was with an effort that she smiled at him, and tried to thank him for his kindness. He cut her short, patted her hand, and adjured her, in avuncular style, to be a good girl. He then promised Lady Silverdale that he would come to take his leave of her as soon as he had eaten his supper, and went off to the dining-room.

   Here he found his brother seated sideways at the table, with one elbow resting on it, his long legs, in their preposterous Petersham trousers, stretched out before him, and the brandy decanter beside him. Grimshaw, wearing the expression of one whose finer feelings were grossly offended, bowed the Viscount to his chair and regretted that the dishes laid out before him were of a meagre nature, the lobster and the chickens having been consumed at dinner. Also, he added, in an expressionless voice, the almond cheesecakes, which Mr Simon had been pleased to esteem.

   'What he means is that I finished the dish,' said Simon. 'Devilish good they were too! I wish you will take that Friday-face away, Grimshaw! You've been wearing it the whole even ing, and it's giving me a fit of the dismals!'

   'I daresay your new rig don't take his fancy,' said the Viscount, helping himself to some pickled salmon. 'And who shall blame him? It makes you look like a coxcomb. Wouldn't you agree with me, Grimshaw?'

   'I should prefer to say, my lord, that it is not a mode which commends itself to me. Nor, if I may be pardoned for putting forward my opinion, one befitting a young gentleman of rank.'

   'Well, you're out there!' retorted Simon. 'It's the very latest style, and it was Petersham who started it!'

   'My Lord Petersham, sir,' said Grimshaw, unmoved, 'is well known to be an Eccentric Gentleman, and frequently appears in a style that one can only call rather of the ratherest.'

   'And besides which,' said Desford, as Grimshaw withdrew from the room, 'Petersham is a good fifteen years older than you are, and he don't look like a macaroni-merchant whatever he wears.'

   'Take care, brother!' Simon warned him. 'A little more to that tune and you will find yourself done to a cow's thumb!'

   Desford laughed, and surveyed the various dishes before him through his glass. 'Shall I? No, really, Simon, those trousers are the outside of enough! However, I didn't come to discuss your clothes: I've something more important to say to you.'

   'Well, now you put me in mind of it I've something im portant to say too! It's a lucky chance I dined here tonight. Lend me a monkey, Des, will you?'

   'No,' responded Desford bluntly. 'Or a groat, if it comes to that.'

   'Quite right!' said Simon approvingly. 'One should never encourage young men to break shins! Just make me a present of it, and not a word about this bud of promise you're jauntering about with shall pass my lips!'

   'What a stretch-halter you are!' remarked Desford, embark ing on a raised pie. 'Why do you want a monkey? Considering it isn't a month since the last quarterday it ought to be high tide with you.'

   'Unfortunately,' said Simon, 'the last quarter's allowance was, so to say, bespoke!'

   'And my father called
me
a scattergood!'

   'That's nothing to what he'll call you, my boy, if he gets wind of your little charmer!'

   Desford paid no heed to this sally, but directed a searching look at his brother, and asked: 'I collect you've been having some deep doings: not let yourself be hooked into any of the Greeking establishments, have you?'

   Simon smiled ruefully. 'Only once, Des. I may be said to have bought my experience dearly.'

   'Physicked you, did they? Well, it happens to us all. Is that what brought you home? Wouldn't my father frank you?'

   'To own the truth, dear boy, I haven't dared to broach the matter, though that
is
what brought me home. It hasn't yet seemed to me the moment to raise ticklish subjects. His mood is far from benign!'

   'No wonder, if he saw you in that rig! What a fool you are, Simon! You might have known it would set him all on end!'

   'No, no, how can you suppose me to be so wanting in tact? I clothed myself with the utmost propriety of taste. I even sought to gratify him by wearing knee-breeches for dinner, but knee-breeches have no chance of success against gout. I may add that having been obliged to listen to him cutting at me, you, and even Horace for over an hour this afternoon I seized the oppor tunity to escape, and very handsomely offered to bear Mama's letter to Lady Silverdale in place of the groom she had meant to send with it. She felt it behoved her to write to enquire after Charlie. Did Hetta tell you that the silly cawker has knocked himself up?'

   Desford nodded. 'Oh, yes! How bad is he?'

   'Well, he looks as sick as a horse, but they seem to think he's going on pretty prosperously. Now, about that monkey, Des!'

   'I'll give you a cheque on Drummond's – on one condition!'

   Simon laughed. 'I won't breathe a word, Des!'

   'Oh, I know that, codling! My condition is that you throw those clothes away!'

   'It will be a sacrifice,' said Simon mournfully, 'but I'll do it. What's more, if there's any little thing you think I might be able to do for you in your present very odd situation I'll do that too.'

   'Much obliged to you!' said Desford, rather amused, but touched as well. 'There isn't anything – unless you chance to know where old Nettlecombe has loped off to?'

   'Nettlecombe? What the devil do you want with that old screw?' demanded Simon, in considerable astonishment.

   'My bud of promise, as you call her, is his granddaughter, and I've charged myself with the task of delivering her into his care. Only when we reached London we found he had gone out of town, and shut up his house. That's why I brought her here.'

   'Good God, is she a Steane?'

   'Yes: Wilfred Steane's only child.'

   'And who the deuce may he be?'