The Convenient Marriage (5 page)

My lord, in a dressing-gown of brocaded silk, was seated at the table with a tankard and a sirloin before him. His secretary was also present, apparently attempting to cope with a number of invitations for his lordship, for as Mr Drelincourt strutted in he said despairingly: ‘But, sir, you must surely remember that you are promised to her Grace of Bedford to-night!’

‘I wish,’ said Rule plaintively, ‘that you would rid yourself of that notion, my dear Arnold. I cannot imagine where you had it. I never remember anything disagreeable. Good-morning, Crosby.’ He put up his glass the better to observe the letters in Mr Gisborne’s hand. ‘The one on the pink paper, Arnold. I have a great predilection for the one writ on pink paper. What is it?’

‘A card-party at Mrs Wallchester’s, sir,’ said Mr Gisborne in a voice of disapproval.

‘My instinct is never at fault,’ said his lordship. ‘The pink one it shall be. Crosby, really there is no need for you to stand. Have you come to breakfast? Oh, don’t go, Arnold, don’t go.’

‘If you please, Rule, I wish to be private with you,’ said Mr Drelincourt, who had favoured the secretary with the smallest of bows.

‘Don’t be shy, Crosby,’ said his lordship kindly. ‘If it’s money Arnold is bound to know all about it.’

‘It is not,’ said Mr Drelincourt, much annoyed.

‘Permit me, sir,’ said Mr Gisborne, moving to the door.

Mr Drelincourt put down his hat and his cane, and drew out a chair from the table. ‘Not breakfast, no!’ he said a little peevishly.

The Earl surveyed him patiently. ‘Well, what is it now, Crosby?’ he inquired.

‘I came to,’ said Mr Drelincourt, ‘I came to speak to you about this – this betrothal.’

‘There’s nothing private about that,’ observed Rule, addressing himself to the cold roast beef.

‘No, indeed!’ said Crosby with a hint of indignation in his voice. ‘I suppose it is true?’

‘Oh, quite true,’ said his lordship. ‘You may safely felicitate me, my dear Crosby.’

‘As to that – why, certainly! Certainly, I wish you very happy,’ said Crosby, put out. ‘But you never spoke a word of it to me. It takes me quite by surprise. I must think it extremely odd, cousin, considering the singular nature of our relationship.’

‘The – ?’ My lord seemed puzzled.

‘Come, Rule, come! As your heir I might be supposed to have some claim to be apprised of your intentions.’

‘Accept my apologies,’ said his lordship. ‘Are you sure you won’t have some breakfast, Crosby? You do not look at all the thing, my dear fellow. In fact, I should almost feel inclined to recommend another hairpowder than this blue you affect. A charming tint, Crosby: you must not think I don’t admire it, but its reflected pallor upon your countenance –’

‘If I seem pale, cousin, you should rather blame the extraordinary announcement in to-day’s Gazette. It has given me a shock; I shan’t deny it has given me a shock.’

‘But, Crosby,’ said his lordship plaintively, ‘were you really sure that you would outlive me?’

‘In the course of nature I might expect to,’ replied Mr Drelincourt, too much absorbed in his disappointment to consider his words. ‘I can give you ten years, you must remember.’

Rule shook his head. ‘I don’t think you should build on it,’ he said. ‘I come of distressingly healthy stock, you know.’

‘Very true,’ agreed Mr Drelincourt. ‘It is a happiness to all your relatives.’

‘I see it is,’ said his lordship gravely.

‘Pray don’t mistake me, Marcus!’ besought his cousin. ‘You must not suppose that your demise could occasion in me anything but a sense of the deepest bereavement, but you’ll allow a man must look to the future.’

‘Such a remote future!’ said his lordship. ‘It makes me feel positively melancholy, my dear Crosby.’

‘We must all hope it may be remote,’ said Crosby, ‘but you cannot fail to have observed how uncertain is human life. Only to think of young Frittenham, cut off in the very flower of his youth by the overturning of his curricle! Broke his neck, you know, and all for a wager.’

The Earl laid down his knife and fork, and regarded his relative with some amusement. ‘Only to think of it!’ he repeated. ‘I confess, Crosby, what you say will add – er – piquancy to my next race. I begin to see that your succession to my shoes – by the way, cousin, you are such a judge of these matters, do, I beg of you, tell me how you like them?’ He stretched one leg for Mr Drelincourt to look at.

Mr Drelincourt said unerringly: ‘A la d’Artois, from Joubert’s. I don’t favour them myself, but they are very well – very well indeed.’

‘It’s a pity you don’t,’ said his lordship, ‘for I perceive that you may be called upon to step into them at any time.’

‘Oh, hardly that, Rule! Hardly that!’ protested Mr Drelincourt handsomely.

‘But consider how uncertain is human life, Crosby! You yourself said it a moment back. I might at any moment be thrown from a curricle.’

‘I am sure I did not in the least mean –’

‘Or,’ continued Rule pensively, ‘fall a victim to one of the cut-throat thieves with which I am told the town abounds.’

‘Certainly,’ said Mr Drelincourt a little stiffly. ‘But I don’t anticipate –’

‘Highwaymen too,’ mused his lordship. ‘Think of poor Layton with a bullet in his shoulder on Hounslow Heath not a month ago. It might have been me, Crosby. It may still be me.’

Mr Drelincourt rose in a huff. ‘I see you are determined to make a jest of it. Good God, I don’t desire your death! I should be excessively sorry to hear of it. But this sudden resolve to marry when everyone had quite given up all idea of it, takes me aback, upon my soul it does! And quite a young lady, I apprehend.’

‘My dear Crosby, why not say a very young lady? I feel sure you know her age.’

Mr Drelincourt sniffed. ‘I scarcely credited it, cousin, I confess. A schoolroom miss, and you well above thirty! I wish you may not live to regret it.’

‘Are you sure,’ said his lordship, ‘that you won’t have some of this excellent beef?’

An artistic shudder ran through his cousin. ‘I never – positively never – eat flesh at this hour of the morning!’ said Mr Drelincourt emphatically. ‘It is of all things the most repugnant to me. Of course you must know how people will laugh at this odd marriage. Seventeen and thirty-five! Upon my honour, I should not care to appear so ridiculous!’ He gave an angry titter, and added venomously: ‘To be sure, no one need wonder at the young lady’s part in it! We all know how it is with the Winwoods. She does very well for herself, very well indeed!’

The Earl leaned back in his chair, one hand in his breeches pocket, the other quite idly playing with his quizzing-glass. ‘Crosby,’ he said gently, ‘if ever you repeat that remark I am afraid – I am very much afraid – that you will quite certainly predecease me.’

There was an uncomfortable silence. Mr Drelincourt looked down at his cousin and saw that under the heavy lids those bored eyes had entirely lost their smile. They held a very unpleasant glint. Mr Drelincourt cleared his throat, and said, his voice jumping a little: ‘My dear Marcus – ! I assure I meant nothing in the world! How you do take one up!’

‘You must forgive me,’ said his lordship, still with that alarming grimness about his mouth.

‘Oh, certainly! I don’t give it a thought,’ said Mr Drelincourt. ‘Consider it forgotten, cousin, and as for the cause, you have me wrong, quite wrong, you know.’

The Earl continued to regard him for a moment; then the grimness left his face, and he suddenly laughed.

Mr Drelincourt picked up his hat and cane, and was about to take his leave when the door opened briskly, and a lady came in. She was of middle height, dressed in a gown of apple-green cambric with white stripes, in the style known as vive bergère, and had a very becoming straw hat with ribands perched upon her head. A scarf caught over one arm, and a sunshade with a long handle completed her toilet, and in her hand she carried, as Mr Drelincourt saw at a glance, a copy of the London Gazette.

She was an extremely handsome woman, with most speaking eyes, at once needle-sharp, and warmly smiling, and she bore a striking resemblance to the Earl.

On the threshold she checked, her quick gaze taking in Mr Drelincourt. ‘Oh – Crosby!’ she said, with unveiled dissatisfaction.

Rule got up, and took her hand. ‘My dear Louisa, have you also come to breakfast?’ he inquired.

She kissed him in a sisterly fashion, and replied with energy: ‘I breakfasted two hours ago, but you may give me some coffee. I see you are just going, Crosby. Pray don’t let me keep you. Dear me, why will you wear those very odd clothes, my good creature? And that absurd wig don’t become you, take my word for it!’

Mr Drelincourt, feeling unable to cope adequately with his cousin, merely bowed, and wished her good morning. No sooner had he minced out of the room than Lady Louisa Quain flung down her copy of the Gazette before Rule. ‘No need to ask why that odious little toad came,’ she remarked. ‘But, my dear Marcus, it is too provoking! There is the most nonsensical mistake made! Have you seen it?’

Rule began to pour coffee into his own unused cup. ‘Dear Louisa, do you realise that it is not yet eleven o’clock, and I have already had Crosby with me? What time can I have had to read the Gazette?’

She took the cup from him, observing that she could not conceive how he should care to go on drinking ale with his breakfast. ‘You will have to put in a second advertisement,’ she informed him. ‘I can’t imagine how they came to make such a stupid mistake. My dear, they have confused the names of the sisters! Here it is! You may read for yourself: “The Honourable Horatia Winwood, youngest daughter of –” Really, if it were not so vexing it would be diverting! But how in the world came they to put “Horatia” for “Elizabeth”?’

‘You see,’ said Rule apologetically, ‘Arnold sent the advertisement to the Gazette.’

‘Well, I never would have believed Mr Gisborne to be so big a fool!’ declared her ladyship.

‘But perhaps I ought to explain, my dear Louisa, that he had my authority,’ said Rule still more apologetically.

Lady Louisa, who had been studying the advertisement with a mixture of disgust and amusement, let the Gazette drop, and twisted round in her chair to stare up at her brother in astonishment. ‘Lord, Rule, what can you possibly mean?’ she demanded. ‘You’re not going to marry Horatia Winwood!’

‘But I am,’ said his lordship calmly.

‘Rule, have you gone mad? You told me positively you had offered for Elizabeth!’

‘My shocking memory for names!’ mourned his lordship.

Lady Louisa brought her open hand down on the table. ‘Nonsense!’ she said. ‘Your memory’s as good as mine!’

‘My dear, I should not like to think that,’ said the Earl. ‘Your memory is sometimes too good.’

‘Oh!’ said the lady critically surveying him. ‘Well, you had best make a clean breast of it. Do you really mean to marry that child?’

‘Well, she certainly means to marry me,’ said his lordship.

‘What?’ gasped Lady Louisa.

‘You see,’ explained the Earl, resuming his seat, ‘though it ought to be Charlotte, she has no mind to make such a sacrifice, even for Elizabeth’s sake.’

‘Either you are out of your senses, or I am!’ declared Lady Louisa with resignation. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, and how you can mean to marry Horatia, who must be still in the schoolroom, for I’m sure I have never clapped eyes on her – in place of that divinely beautiful Elizabeth –’

‘Ah, but I am going to grow used to the eyebrows,’ interrupted Rule. ‘And she has the Nose.’

‘Rule,’ said her ladyship with dangerous quiet, ‘do not goad me too far! Where have you seen this child?’

He regarded her with a smile hovering round his mouth. ‘If I told you, Louisa, you would probably refuse to believe me.’

She cast up her eyes. ‘When did you have this notion of marrying her?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I didn’t,’ replied the Earl. ‘It was not my notion at all.’

‘Whose, then?’

‘Horatia’s, my dear. I thought I had explained.’

‘Do you tell me, Marcus, the girl asked you to marry her?’ said Lady Louisa sarcastically.

‘Instead of Elizabeth,’ nodded his lordship. ‘Elizabeth, you see, is going to marry Mr Heron.’

‘Who in the world is Mr Heron?’ cried Lady Louisa. ‘I declare, I never heard such a farrago! Confess, you are trying to take me in.’

‘Not at all, Louisa. You don’t understand the situation at all. One of them must marry me.’

‘That I can believe,’ she said dryly. ‘But this nonsense about Horatia? What is the truth of it?’

‘Only that Horatia offered herself to me in her sister’s place. And that – but I need not tell you – is quite for your ears alone.’

Lady Louisa was not in the habit of giving way to amazement, and she did not now indulge in fruitless ejaculations. ‘Marcus, is the girl a minx?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘She is not, Louisa. I am not at all sure that she is not a heroine.’

‘Don’t she wish to marry you?’

The Earl’s eyes gleamed. ‘Well, I am rather old, you know, though no one would think it to look at me. But she assures me she would quite like to marry me. If my memory serves me, she prophesied that we should deal famously together.’

Lady Louisa, watching him, said abruptly: ‘Rule, is this a love-match?’

His brows rose; he looked faintly amused. ‘My dear Louisa! At my age?’

‘Then marry the Beauty,’ she said. ‘That one would understand better.’

‘You are mistaken, my dear. Horatia understands perfectly. She engages not to interfere with me.’

‘At seventeen! It’s folly, Marcus.’ She got up, drawing her scarf around her. ‘I’ll see her for myself.’

‘Do,’ he said cordially. ‘I think – but I may be prejudiced – you will find her adorable.’

‘If you find her so,’ she said, her eyes softening, ‘I shall love her – even though she has a squint!’

‘Not a squint,’ said his lordship. ‘A stammer.’

The question Lady Louisa Quain longed to ask yet did not ask was: ‘What of Caroline Massey?’ Her brother’s relations with the fair Massey were perfectly well known to her, nor was she, in the general way, afraid of plain speaking. She told herself that nothing she could say would be likely to have any effect on his conduct, but admitted that she lacked the moral courage to broach the subject. She believed that she enjoyed a good deal of Rule’s confidence, but he had never discussed his amorous adventures with her, and would be capable of delivering an extremely unpleasant snub if she trespassed on forbidden ground.

Although she did not flatter herself that her influence had had very much to do with it, it was she who had urged him to marry. She said that if there was one thing she found herself unable to bear it was the prospect of seeing Crosby in Rule’s shoes. It was she who had indicated Miss Winwood as a suitable bride. She liked Elizabeth, and was quick to value not only her celestial good looks, but the sweetness of her disposition as well. Surely the possession of so charming a wife would wean Rule from his odious connection with the Massey. But now it did not seem as though Rule cared whom he married and that augured very ill for his bride’s future influence over him. A chit of seventeen too! It could not be more unpromising.

She waited on Lady Winwood and met Horatia. She left South Street later in quite another frame of mind. That black-browed child was no simpering miss from the schoolroom. Lord! thought her ladyship, what a dance she would lead him! It was better, far better than she had planned. Elizabeth’s docility would not have answered the purpose near so well as Horatia’s turbulence. Why, she told herself, he’ll have not a moment’s peace and no time at all for that odious Massey creature!

That Rule foresaw the unquiet future that so delighted his sister seemed improbable. He continued to visit in Hertford Street, and no hint of parting crossed his lips.

Lady Massey received him in her rose and silver boudoir two days after the announcement of his betrothal. She was dressed in a négligée of lace and satin, and reclined on a brocaded sopha. No servant announced him; he came into the room as one who had the right, and as he shut the door, remarked humorously: ‘Dear Caroline, you’ve a new porter. Did you tell him to shut the door in my face?’

She held her hand to him. ‘Did he do so, Marcus?’

‘No,’ said his lordship. ‘No. That ignominious fate has not yet been mine.’ He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her fingers clasped his, and drew him down to her. ‘I thought we were being very formal,’ he said, smiling, and kissed her.

She retained her hold on his hand, but said half quizzically, half mournfully: ‘Perhaps we should be formal – now, my lord.’

‘So you did tell the porter to shut the door in my face?’ sighed his lordship.

‘I did not. But you are to be married, are you not, Marcus?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Rule. ‘Not just at this moment, you know.’

She smiled, but fleetingly. ‘You might have told me,’ she said.

He opened his snuff-box and dipped in his finger and thumb. ‘I might, of course,’ he said, possessing himself of her hand. ‘A new blend, my dear,’ he said, and dropped the pinch on to her white wrist, and sniffed.

She pulled her hand away. ‘Could you not have told me?’ she repeated.

He shut his snuff-box and glanced down at her, still good-humoured, but with something at the back of his eyes which gave her pause. A little anger shook her; she understood quite well: he would not discuss his marriage with her. She said, trying to make her voice light: ‘You will say it is not my business, I suppose.’

‘I am never rude, Caroline,’ objected his lordship mildly.

She felt herself foiled, but smiled. ‘No indeed. I’ve heard it said you’re the smoothest-spoken man in England.’ She studied her rings, moving her hand to catch the light. ‘But I didn’t know you thought of marriage.’ She flashed a look up at him. ‘You see,’ she said, mock-solemn, ‘I thought you loved me – only me!’

‘What in the world,’ inquired his lordship, ‘has that to do with my marriage? I am entirely at your feet, my dear. Quite the prettiest feet I ever remember to have seen.’

‘And you’ve seen many, I apprehend,’ she said with a certain dryness.

‘Dozens,’ said his lordship cheerfully.

She did not mean to say it, but the words slipped out before she could guard her tongue. ‘But for all that you are at my feet, Marcus, you have offered for another woman.’

The Earl had put up his glass to inspect a Dresden harlequin upon the mantelpiece. ‘If you bought that for a Kändler, my love, I am much afraid that you have been imposed upon,’ he remarked.

‘It was given me,’ she said impatiently.

‘How shocking!’ said his lordship. ‘I will send you a very pretty pair of dancing figures in its place.’

‘You are extremely obliging, Marcus, but we were speaking of your marriage,’ she said, nettled.

‘You were speaking of it,’ he corrected. ‘I was trying to – er – turn the subject.’

She got up from the sopha and took an impatient step towards him.

‘I suppose,’ she said breathlessly, ‘you did not think the fair Massey worthy of so signal an honour?’

‘To tell you the truth, my dear, my modesty forbade me to suppose that the fair Massey would – er – contemplate marriage with me.’

‘Perhaps I would not,’ she replied. ‘But I think that was not your reason.’

‘Marriage,’ said his lordship pensively, ‘is such a very dull affair, you know.’

‘Is it, my lord? Even marriage with the noble Earl of Rule?’

‘Even with me,’ agreed Rule. He looked down at her, a curious expression that was not quite a smile in his eyes. ‘You see, my dear, to use your own words, you would have to love me – only me.’

She was startled. Under her powder a faint flush crept into her cheeks. She turned away with a little laugh and began to arrange the roses in one of her bowls. ‘That would certainly be very dull,’ she said. She glanced sideways at him. ‘Are you perhaps jealous, my lord?’

‘Not in the least,’ said the Earl placidly.

‘But you think that were I your wife you might be?’

‘You are so charming, my dear, that I feel sure I should have to be,’ said his lordship bowing.

She was too clever a woman to press her point. She thought she had gone too far already, and however angry she might be at his marriage she had no wish to alienate him. At one time she had held high hopes of becoming the Countess of Rule, though she was perfectly aware that such an alliance would be deemed a shocking one by the Polite World. She knew now that Rule had baffled her. She had caught a glimpse of steel, and realised that there was something hidden under that easy-going exterior that was as incalculable as it was unexpected. She had imagined that she could twist him round her finger; for the first time she was shaken by doubt, and knew that she must tread warily if she did not wish to lose him.

This she certainly did not want to do. The late Sir Thomas had, in his disagreeable way, tied up his capital so fast that his widow found herself for ever in most unpleasant straits. Sir Thomas had had no sympathy with females who doted on pharaoh and deep basset. Happily the Earl of Rule was not afflicted by the same scruples, and he had not the smallest objection to assisting pecuniarily a distressed lady. He never asked uncomfortable questions on the vice of gambling, and his purse was a fat one.

He had startled her to-day. She had not thought that he dreamed of a rival; now it appeared that he knew very well, probably had known from the first. She would have to be careful; trust her to know how matters lay between him and Robert Lethbridge!

No one ever spoke of it, no one could tell how the story got about, but any number of people knew that once Robert Lethbridge had aspired to the hand of Lady Louisa Drelincourt. Louisa was now the wife of Sir Humphrey Quain, with no breath of scandal attaching to her name, but there had been a day, in her mad teens, when the town hummed with gossip about her. No one knew the whole story, but everyone knew that Lethbridge had been head over ears in love with her and had proposed for her hand, and been rejected, not by the lady herself but by her brother. That had surprised everybody, because although it was true that Lethbridge had a dreadful reputation (‘the wildest rake in town, my love!’), no one could have supposed that Rule of all people would put his foot down. Yet he had certainly done so. That was common knowledge. Just what had happened next no one exactly knew, though everyone had his or her version to propound. It had all been so carefully hushed up, but a whisper of Abduction started in Polite Circles. Some said it was no abduction but a willing flight north to Gretna, across the Border. It may have been so, but the runaways never reached Gretna Green. The Earl of Rule drove such fleet horses.

Some held that the two men had fought a duel somewhere on the Great North Road; others spread a tale that Rule carried not a sword but a horse-whip, but this was generally allowed to be improbable, for Lethbridge, however infamous his behaviour, was not a lackey. It was a pity that no one had the true version of the affair, for it was all delightfully scandalous. But none of the three actors in the drama ever spoke of it and if Lady Louisa was reported to have eloped with Lethbridge one night, she was known twenty-four hours later to be visiting relatives in the neighbourhood of Grantham. It was quite true that Robert Lethbridge disappeared from society for several weeks, but he reappeared in due course without wearing any of the symptoms of the baffled lover. The town was agog to see how he and Rule would comport themselves when they met, as they were bound to meet, but once again disappointment awaited the scandal-mongers.

Neither showed any sign of enmity. They exchanged several remarks on different subjects, and if it had not been for Mr Harry Crewe, who had actually seen Rule drive his racing curricle out of town at the extremely odd hour of ten in the evening, even the most inveterate gossip-mongers would have been inclined to have believed the whole tale a mere fabrication.

Lady Massey knew better than that. She was well acquainted with Lord Lethbridge and would have wagered her very fine diamonds that the sentiments he cherished towards the Earl of Rule were tinged with something more than a habitual maliciousness.

As for Rule, he betrayed nothing, but she was not inclined to run the risk of losing him by encouraging too openly the advances of Robert Lethbridge.

She finished the arrangement of her flowers and turned, a gleam of rueful humour in her fine eyes.

‘Marcus, my dear,’ she said helplessly, ‘something much more important! Five hundred guineas at loo, and that odious Celestine dunning me! What am I to do?’

‘Don’t let it worry you, my dear Caroline,’ said his lordship. ‘A trifling loan, and the matter is settled.’

She was moved to exclaim: ‘Ah, how good you are! I wish – I wish you were not to be married, Marcus. We have dealt extremely, you and I, and I have a notion that it will all be changed now.’

If she referred to their pecuniary relations she might have been thought to have reason for this speech. Lord Rule was likely to find himself with new demands on his purse in the very near future. Viscount Winwood was on his way home to England.

The Viscount, having received in Rome the intelligence of his youngest sister’s betrothal, was moved to comply with his parent’s desire for his immediate return, and set forward upon the journey with all possible speed. Merely halting a few days in Florence, where he happened to chance upon two friends, and spending a week in Paris upon business not unconnected with the gaming-tables, he made the best of his way home, and would have arrived in London not more than three days later than his fond mother expected him had he not met Sir Jasper Middleton at Breteuil. Sir Jasper, being on his way to the Capital, was putting up at the Hôtel St Nicholas for the night, and was in the midst of a solitary dinner when the Viscount walked in. Nothing could have been more providential, for Sir Jasper was heartily bored with his own company, and had been yearning this many a day to have his revenge on Pelham for a certain game of piquet played in London some months before.

The Viscount was delighted to oblige him; they sat up all night over the cards and in the morning the Viscount, absent-minded no doubt through lack of sleep, embarked in Sir Jasper’s post-chaise and was so borne back to Paris. The game of piquet being continued in the chaise, he noticed nothing amiss until they arrived at Clermont, and since by that time there were only some seven or eight posts to go before they reached Paris, it needed no great persuasion to induce him to continue the journey.

He arrived eventually in London to find the preparations for Horatia’s nuptials in full swing; and he expressed himself extremely well satisfied with the contract, cast a knowing eye over the Marriage Settlements, congratulated Horatia on her good fortune, and went off to pay his respects to the Earl of Rule.

They were naturally not strangers to each other, but since Pelham was some ten years the Earl’s junior they moved in different circles and their acquaintanceship was slight. This circumstance did not weigh with the lively Viscount in the least; he greeted Rule with all the casual bonhomie he used towards his cronies and proceeded, by way of making him feel one of the family, to borrow money from him.

‘For I don’t mind telling you, my dear fellow,’ he said frankly, ‘that if I’m to appear the thing at this wedding of yours I must give my tailor a trifle on account. Won’t do if I come in rags, you know. Girls won’t like it.’

The Viscount was not exactly a fop, but anything less ragged than his slim person would have been hard to find. It did not require the efforts of two stout men to coax him into his coats, and he had a way of arranging his cravat askew, but his clothes were made by the first tailor in town, and of the finest stuffs, embellished with any quantity of heavy gold lacing. At the moment he sat in one of Rule’s chairs with his legs stretched out in front of him, and his hands thrust into the pockets of a pair of fawn breeches. His velvet coat hung open to display a waistcoat embroidered in a design of exotic flowers and humming birds. A fine sapphire pin was stuck in the cascade of lace at his throat and his stockings, which represented a dead loss of twenty-five guineas to his hosier, were of silk with large clocks.