The Corinthian (2 page)

'Richard, that's the best Waterfall I've ever seen!' exclaimed George, his admiring gaze fixed on the intricate arrangement of the Corinthian's cravat.

'You flatter me, George; I fear you flatter me.'

'Pshaw!' snapped Louisa.

'Precisely, my dear Louisa,' agreed Sir Richard amiably.

'Do not try to provoke me, Richard!' said Louisa, on a warning note. 'I will allow your appearance to be everything that it should be—admirable, I am sure!'

'One does one's poor best,' murmured Sir Richard.

Her bosom swelled. 'Richard, I could hit you!' she declared.

The smile grew, allowing her a glimpse of excellent white teeth. 'I don't think you could, my dear.'

George so far forgot himself as to laugh. A quelling glance was directed upon him. 'George, be quiet!' said Louisa.

'I must say,' conceded Lady Wyndham, whose maternal pride could not be quite overborne, 'there is no one, except Mr Brummell, of course, who looks as well as you do, Richard.'

He bowed, but he did not seem to be unduly elated by this encomium. Possibly he took it as his due. He was a very notable Corinthian. From his Wind-swept hair (most difficult of all styles to achieve), to the toes of his gleaming Hessians, he might have posed as an advertisement for the Man of Fashion. His fine shoulders set off a coat of superfine cloth to perfection; his cravat, which had excited George's admiration, had been arranged by the hands of a master; his waistcoat was chosen with a nice eye; his biscuit-coloured pantaloons showed not one crease; and his Hessians with their jaunty gold tassels, had not only been made for him by Hoby, but were polished, George suspected, with a blacking mixed with champagne. A quizzing-glass on a black ribbon hung round his neck; a fob at his waist; and in one hand he carried a Sevres snuff-box. His air proclaimed his unutterable boredom, but no tailoring, no amount of studied nonchalance, could conceal the muscle in his thighs, or the strength of his shoulders. Above the starched points of his shirt-collar, a weary, handsome face showed its owner's disillusionment. Heavy lids drooped over grey eyes which were intelligent enough, but only to observe the vanities of the world; the smile which just touched that resolute mouth seemed to mock the follies of Sir Richard's fellow men.

Jeffries came back into the room with a tray, and set it upon a table. Louisa waved aside the offer of refreshment, but Lady Wyndham accepted it, and George, emboldened, by his mother-in-law's weakness, took a glass of Madeira.

'I dare say,' said Louisa, 'that you are wondering what we are here for.'

'I never waste my time in idle speculation,' replied Sir Richard gently. 'I feel sure that you are going to tell me what you are here for.'

'Mama and I have come to speak to you about your marriage,' said Louisa, taking the plunge.

'And what,' enquired Sir Richard, 'has George come to speak to me about?'

'That too, of course!'

'No, I haven't!' disclaimed George hurriedly. 'You know I said I'd have nothing to do with it! I never wanted to come at all!'

'Have some more Madeira,' said Sir Richard soothingly.

'Well, thank you, yes, I will. But don't think I'm here to badger you about something which don't concern me, because I'm not!'

'Richard!' said Lady Wyndham deeply, 'I dare no longer meet Saar face to face!'

'As bad as that, is he?' said Sir Richard. 'I haven't seen him myself these past few weeks, but I'm not at all surprised. I fancy I heard something about it, from someone—I forget whom. Taken to brandy, hasn't he?'

'Sometimes,' said Lady Wyndham, 'I think you are utterly devoid of sensibility!'

'He is merely trying to provoke you, Mama. You know perfectly well what Mama means, Richard. When do you mean to offer for Melissa?'

There was a slight pause. Sir Richard set down his empty wine-glass, and flicked with one long finger the petals of a flower in a bowl on the table. 'This year, next year, sometime—or never, my dear Louisa.'

'I am very sure she considers herself as good as plighted to you,' Louisa said.

Sir Richard was looking down at the flower under his hand, but at this he raised his eyes to his sister's face, in an oddly keen, swift look. 'Is that so?'

'How should it be otherwise? You know very well that Papa and Lord Saar designed it so years ago.'

The lids veiled his eyes again. 'How medieval of you!' sighed Sir Richard.

'Now, don't, pray, take me up wrongly, Richard! If you don't like Melissa, there is no more to be said. But you do like her—or if you don't, at least
I
never heard you say so! What Mama and I feel—and George, too—is that it is time and more that you were settled in life.'

A pained glanced reproached Lord Trevor.
'Et tu, Brute?'
said Sir Richard.

'I swear I never said so!' declared George, choking over his Madeira. 'It was all Louisa. I dare say I may have agreed with her.
You
know how it is, Richard!'

'I know,' agreed Sir Richard, sighing. 'You too, Mama?'

'Oh Richard, I live only to see you happily married, with your children about you!' said Lady Wyndham, in trembling tones.

A slight, unmistakable shudder ran through the Corinthian. 'My children about me . . . Yes. Precisely, ma'am. Pray continue!'

'You owe it to the name,' pursued his mother. 'You are the last of the Wyndhams, for it's not to be supposed that your Uncle Lucius will marry at this late date. There is Melissa, dear girl, the very wife for you! So handsome, so distinguished—birth, breeding: everything of the most desirable!'

'Ah—your pardon, ma'am, but do you include Saar, and Cedric, not to mention Beverley, under that heading?'

'That's exactly what I say!' broke in George. ' "It's all very well," I said, "and if a man likes to marry an iceberg it's all one to me, but you can't call Saar a desirable father-in-law, damme if you can! While as for the girl's precious brothers," I said, "they'll ruin Richard inside a year!"'

'Nonsense!' said Louisa. 'It is understood, of course, that Richard would make handsome settlements. But as for his being responsible for Cedric's and Beverley's debts, I'm sure I know of no reason why he should!'

'You comfort me, Louisa,' said Sir Richard.

She looked up at him not unaffectionately. 'Well, I think it is time to be frank, Richard. People will be saying next that you are playing fast and loose with Melissa, for you must know the understanding between you is an open secret. If you had chosen to marry someone else, five, ten years ago, it would have been a different thing. But so far as I am aware your affections have never even been engaged, and here you are, close on thirty, as good as pledged to Melissa Brandon, and nothing settled!'

Lady Wyndham, though in the fullest agreement with her daughter, was moved at this point to defend her son, which she did by reminding Louisa that Richard was only twenty-nine after all.

'Mama, Richard will be thirty in less than six months. For I,' said Louisa with resolution, 'am turned thirty-one.'

'Louisa, I am touched!' said Sir Richard. 'Only the deepest sisterly devotion, I am persuaded, could have wrung from you such an admission.'

She could not repress a smile, but said with as much severity as she could muster: 'It is no laughing matter. You are no longer in your first youth, and you know as well as I do that it is your duty to think seriously of marriage.'

'Strange,' mused Sir Richard, 'that one's duty should be invariably so disagreeable.'

'I know,' said George, heaving a sigh. 'Very true! very true indeed!'

'Pooh! nonsense! What a coil you make of a simple matter!' Louisa said. 'Now, if I were to press you to marry some romantical miss, always wanting you to make love to her, and crying her eyes out every time you chose to seek your amusements out of her company, you might have reason to complain. But Melissa—yes, an iceberg, George, if you like, and what else, pray, is Richard?—Melissa, I say, will never plague you in
that
way.'

Sir Richard's eyes dwelled inscrutably upon her face for a moment. Then he moved to the table and poured himself out another glass of Madeira.

Louisa said defensively: 'Well, you don't
wish
her to cling about your neck, I suppose?'

'Not at all.'

'And you are not in love with any other woman, are you?'

'I am not.'

'Very well, then! To be sure, if you were in the habit of falling in and out of love, it would be a different matter. But, to be plain with you, you are the coldest, most indifferent, selfish creature alive, Richard, and you will find in Melissa an admirable partner.'

Inarticulate clucking sounds from George, indicative of protest, caused Sir Richard to wave a hand towards the Madeira. 'Help yourself, George, help yourself!'

'I must say, I think it most unkind in you to speak to your brother like that,' said Lady Wyndham. 'Not but what you
are
selfish, dear Richard. I'm sure I have said so over and over again. But so it is with the greater part of the world! Everywhere one turns one meets with nothing but ingratitude!'

'If I have done Richard an injustice, I will willingly ask his pardon,' said Louisa.

'Very handsomely said, my dear sister. You have done me no injustice. I wish you will not look so distressed, George: your pity is quite wasted on me, I assure you. Tell me, Louisa: have you reason to suppose that Melissa expects me to—er—pay my addresses to her?'

'Certainly I have. She has been expecting it any time these five years!'

Sir Richard looked a little startled. 'Poor girl!' he said. 'I must have been remarkably obtuse.'

His mother and sister exchanged glances. 'Does that mean that you will think seriously of marriage?' asked Louisa.

He looked thoughtfully down at her. 'I suppose it must come to that.'

'Well, for my part,' said George, defying his wife, 'I would look around me for some other eligible female! Lord, there are dozens of 'em littering town! Why, I've seen I don't know how many setting their caps at you! Pretty ones, too, but you never notice them, you ungrateful dog!'

'Oh yes, I do,' said Sir Richard, with a curl of the lips.

'Must
George be vulgar?' asked Lady Wyndham tragically.

'Be quiet, George! And as for you, Richard, I consider it in the highest degree nonsensical for you to take up that attitude. There is no denying that you're the biggest catch on the Marriage Mart—Yes, Mama, that is vulgar too, and I beg your pardon—but you have a lower opinion of yourself than I credit you with if you can suppose that your fortune is the only thing about you which makes you a desirable
parti.
You are generally accounted handsome—indeed, no one, I believe, could deny that your person is such as must please; and when you will take the trouble to be conciliating there is nothing in your manners to disgust the nicest taste.'

'This encomium, Louisa, almost unmans me,' said Sir Richard, much moved.

'I am perfectly serious. I was about to add that you often spoil everything by your odd humours. I do not know how you should expect to engage a female's affection when you never bestow the least distinguishing notice upon any woman! I do not say that you are uncivil, but there is a languor, a reserve in your manner, which must repel a woman of sensibility.'

'I am a hopeless case indeed,' said Sir Richard.

'If you want to know what I think, which I do not suppose you do, so you need not tell me so, it is that you are spoilt, Richard. You have too much money, you have done everything you wished to do before you are out of your twenties; you have been courted by match-making Mamas, fawned on by toadies, and indulged by all the world. The end of it is that you are bored to death. There! I have said it, and though you may not thank me for it, you will admit that I am right.'

'Quite right,' agreed Sir Richard. 'Hideously right, Louisa!'

She got up. 'Well, I advise you to get married and settle down. Come, Mama! We have said all we meant to say, and you know we are to call in Brook Street on our way home. George, do you mean to come with, us?'

'No,' said George. 'Not to call in Brook Street, I daresay I shall stroll up to White's presently.'

'Just as you please, my love,' said Louisa, drawing on her gloves again.

When the ladies had been escorted to the waiting barouche, George did not at once set out for his club, but accompanied his brother-in-law back into the house. He preserved a sympathetic silence until they were out of ear-shot of the servants, but caught Sir Richard's eye then, in a very pregnant look, and uttered the one word: 'Women!'

'Quite so,' said Sir Richard.

'Do you know what I'd do if I were you, my boy?'

'Yes,' said Sir Richard.

George was disconcerted. 'Damn it, you can't know!'

'You would do precisely what I shall do.'

'What's that?'

'Oh—offer for Melissa Brandon, of course,' said Sir Richard.

'Well, I wouldn't,' said George positively. 'I wouldn't marry Melissa Brandon for fifty sisters! I'd find a cosier armful, 'pon my soul I would!'

'The cosiest armful of my acquaintance was never so cosy as when she wanted to see my purse-strings untied,' said Sir Richard cynically.