The Corinthian (3 page)

George shook his head. 'Bad, very bad! I must say, it's enough to sour any man. But Louisa's right, you know: you ought to get married. Won't do to let the name die out.' An idea occurred to him. 'You wouldn't care to put it about that you'd lost all your money, I suppose?'

'No,' said Sir Richard, 'I wouldn't.'

'I read somewhere of a fellow who went off to some place where he wasn't known. Devil of a fellow he was: some kind of a foreign Count, I think. I don't remember precisely, but there was a girl in it, who fell in love with him for his own sake.'

'There would be,' said Sir Richard.

'You don't like it?' George rubbed his nose, a little crestfallen. 'Well, damme if I know what to suggest!'

He was still pondering the matter when the butler announced Mr Wyndham, and a large, portly, and convivial-looking gentleman rolled into the room, ejaculating cheerfully: 'Hallo, George! You here? Ricky, my boy, your mother's been at me again, confound her! Made me promise I'd come round to see you, though what the devil she thinks I can do is beyond me!'

'Spare me!' said Sir Richard wearily. 'I have already sustained a visit from my mother, not to mention Louisa.'

'Well, I'm sorry for you, my boy, and if you take my advice you'll marry that Brandon-wench, and be done with it. What's that you have there? Madeira? I'll take a glass.'

Sir Richard gave him one. He lowered his bulk into a large armchair, stretched his legs out before him, and raised the glass. 'Here's a health to the bridegroom!' he said, with a chuckle. 'Don't look so glum, nevvy! Think of the joy you'll be bringing into Saar's life!'

'Damn you,' said Sir Richard. 'If you had ever had a shred of proper feeling, Lucius, you would have got married fifty years ago, and reared a pack of brats in your image. A horrible thought, I admit, but at least I should not now be cast for the role of Family Sacrifice.'

'Fifty years ago,' retorted his uncle, quite unmoved by these insults, 'I was only just breeched. This is a very tolerable wine, Ricky. By the way, they tell me young Beverley Brandon's badly dipped. You'll be a damned public benefactor if you marry that girl. Better let your lawyer attend to the settlements, though. I'd be willing to lay you a monkey Saar tries to bleed you white. What's the matter with you, George? Got the toothache?'

'I don't like it,' said George. 'I told Louisa so at the outset, but you know what women are! Myself, I wouldn't have Melissa Brandon if she were the last woman left single.'

'What, she ain't the spotty one, surely?' demanded Lucius, concerned.

'No, that's Sophia.'

'Oh, well, nothing to worry about then! You marry the girl, Ricky: you'll never have any peace if you don't. Fill up your glass, George, and we'll have another toast!'

'What is it this time?' enquired Sir Richard, replenishing the glasses. 'Don't spare me!'

'To a pack of brats in your image, nevvy: here's to 'em!' grinned his uncle.

Chapter 2

L
ord Saar lived in Brook Street with his wife, and his family of two sons and four daughters. Sir Richard Wyndham, driving to his prospective father-in-law's house twenty-four hours after his interview with his own parent, was fortunate enough to find Saar away from home, and Lady Saar, the butler informed him, on her way to Bath with the Honourable Sophia. He fell instead into the arms of the Honourable Cedric Brandon, a rakish young gentleman of lamentable habits, and a disastrous charm of manner.

'Ricky, my only friend!' cried the Honourable Cedric, dragging Sir Richard into a small saloon at the back of the house. 'Don't tell me you've come to offer for Melissa! They say good news don't kill a man, but
I
never listen to gossip! M'father says ruin stares us in the face. Lend me the money, dear boy, and I'll buy myself a pair of colours, and be off to the Peninsula, damme if I won't! But listen to me, Ricky!
Are
you listening?' He looked anxiously at Sir Richard, appeared satisfied, and said, wagging a solemn finger: 'Don't do it! There isn't a fortune big enough to settle
our
little affairs: take my word for it! Have nothing to do with Beverley! They say Fox gamed away a fortune before he was twenty-one. Give you my word, he was nothing to Bev, nothing at all. Between ourselves, Ricky, the old man has taken to brandy. H'sh! Not a word! Mustn't tell tales about m'father! But run, Ricky! That's my advice to you:
run!'

'Would you buy yourself a pair of colours, if I gave you the money?' asked Sir Richard.

'Sober, yes; drunk, no!' replied Cedric, with his wholly disarming smile. 'I'm very sober now, but I shan't be so for long. Don't give me a groat, dear old boy! Don't give Bev a groat! He's a bad man. Now, when I'm sober I'm a good man—but I ain't sober above six hours out of the twenty-four, so you be warned! Now I'm off. I've done my best for you, for I like you, Ricky, but if you go to perdition in spite of me, I'll wash my hands of you. No, damme, I'll sponge on you for the rest of my days! Think, dear boy, think! Bev and your very obedient on your doorstep six days out of seven—duns—threats—wife's brothers done-up—pockets to let—wife in tears—nothing to do but pay! Don't do it! Fact is, we ain't worth it!'

'Wait!' Sir Richard said, barring his passage. 'If I settle your debts, will you go to the Peninsula?'

'Ricky, it's you who aren't sober. Go home!'

'Consider, Cedric, how well you would look in Hussar uniform!'

An impish smile danced in Cedric's eyes. 'Wouldn't I just! But at this present I'd look better in Hyde Park. Out of the way, dear boy! I've a very important engagement. Backed a goose to win a hundred-yard race against a turkey-cock. Can't lose! Greatest sporting event of the season!'

He was gone on the words, leaving Sir Richard, not, indeed, to run, as advised, but to await the pleasure of the Honourable Melissa Brandon,

She did not keep him waiting for long. A servant came to request him to step upstairs, and he followed the man up the wide staircase to the withdrawing-room on the first floor.

Melissa Brandon was a handsome, dark-haired young woman, a little more than twenty-five years old. Her profile was held to be faultless, but in full face her eyes were discovered to be rather too hard for beauty. She had not, in her first seasons, lacked suitors, but none of the gentlemen attracted by her undeniable good looks, had ever, in the cock-fighting phrase of her graceless elder brother, come up to scratch. As he bowed over her hand, Sir Richard remembered George's iceberg simile, and at once banished it from his obedient mind.

'Well, Richard?'

Melissa's voice was cool, rather matter-of-fact, just as her smile seemed more a mechanical civility than a spontaneous expression of pleasure.

'I hope I see you well, Melissa?' Sir Richard said formally.

'Perfectly, I thank you. Pray sit down! I apprehend that you have come to discuss the question of our marriage.'

He regarded her from under slightly raised brows. 'Dear me!' he said mildly. 'Someone would appear to have been busy.'

She was engaged upon some stitchery, and went on plying her needle with unruffled composure. 'Do not let us beat about the bush!' she said. 'I am certainly past the age of being missish, and you, I believe, may rank as a sensible man.'

'Were you ever missish?' enquired Sir Richard.

'I trust not. I have no patience with such folly. Nor am I romantic. In that respect, we must be thought to be well-suited.'

'Must we?' said Sir Richard, gently swinging his gold-handled quizzing-glass to and fro.

She seemed amused. 'Certainly! I trust you have not, at this late date, grown sentimental! It would be quite absurd!'

'Senility,' pensively observed Sir Richard, 'often brings sentiment in its train. Or so I have been informed.'

'We need not concern ourselves with that. I like you very well, Richard, but there is just a little nonsense in your disposition which makes you turn everything to jest. I myself am of a more serious nature.'

'Then in
that
respect, we cannot be thought to be well-suited,' suggested Sir Richard.

'I do not consider the objection insuperable. The life you have chosen to lead up till now has not been such as to encourage serious reflection, after all. I dare say you may grow more dependable, for you do not want for sense.
That,
however, must be left to the future. At all events, I am not so unreasonable as to feel the difference in our natures to be an impassable barrier to marriage.'

'Melissa,' said Sir Richard, 'will you tell me something?'

She looked up. 'Pray, what do you wish me to tell you?'

'Have you ever been in love?' asked Sir Richard.

She coloured slightly. 'No. From my observation, I am thankful that I have not. There is something excessively vulgar about persons under the sway of strong emotions. I do not say it is
wrong,
but I believe I have something more of fastidiousness than most, and I find such subjects extremely distasteful.'

'You do not,' Sir Richard drawled, "envisage the possibility of—er—falling in love at some future date?'

'My dear Richard! With whom, pray?'

'Shall we say with myself?'

She laughed. 'Now you are being absurd! If you were told that it would be necessary to approach me with some show of love-making, you were badly advised. Ours would be a marriage of convenience. I could contemplate nothing else. I like you very well, but you are not at all the sort of man to arouse those warmer passions in my breast. But I see no reason why
that
should worry either of us. If
you
were romantic, it would be a different matter.'

'I fear,' said Sir Richard, 'that I must be very romantic'

'I suppose you are jesting again,' she replied, with a faint shrug.

'Not at all. I am so romantic that I indulge my fancy with the thought of some woman—doubtless mythical—who might desire to marry me, not because I am a very rich man, but because—you will have to forgive the vulgarity—because she loved me!'

She looked rather contemptuous. 'I should have supposed you to be past the age of fustian, Richard. I say nothing against love, but, frankly, love-matches seem to me a trifle beneath us. One would say you had been hobnobbing with the bourgeoisie at Islington Spa, or some such low place! I do not forget that I am a Brandon. I dare say we are very proud; indeed, I hope we are!'

'That,' said Sir Richard dryly, 'is an aspect of the situation which, I confess, had not so far occurred to me.'

She was amazed. 'I had not thought it possible! I imagined everyone knew what we Brandons feel about our name, our birth, our tradition!'

'I hesitate to wound you, Melissa,' said Sir Richard, 'but the spectacle of a woman of your name, birth, and tradition, cold-bloodedly offering herself to the highest bidder is not one calculated to impress the world with a very strong notion of her pride.'

'This is indeed the language of the theatre!' she exclaimed. 'My duty to my family demands that I should marry well, but let me assure you that, even
that
could not make me stoop to ally myself with one of inferior breeding.'

'Ah, this is pride indeed!' said Sir Richard, faintly smiling.

'I do not understand you. You must know that my father's affairs are in such case as—in short—'

'I am aware,' Sir Richard said gently. 'I apprehend it is to be my privilege to—er—unravel Lord Saar's affairs.'

'But of course!' she replied, surprised out of her statuesque calm. 'No other consideration could have prevailed upon me to accept your suit!'

'This,' said Sir Richard, pensively regarding the toe of one Hessian boot, 'becomes a trifle delicate. If frankness is to be the order of the day, my dear Melissa, I must point out to you that I have not yet—er—proffered my suit.'

She was quite undisturbed by this snub, but replied coldly: 'I did not suppose that you would so far forget what is due to our positions as to approach
me
with an offer. We do not belong to
that
world. You will no doubt seek an interview with my father.'

'I wonder if I shall?' said Sir Richard.

'I imagine that you most certainly will,' responded the lady, snipping her thread. 'Your circumstances are as well known to me as mine are to you. If I may say so bluntly, you are fortunate to be in a position to offer for a Brandon.'

He looked meditatively at her, but made no remark. After a pause, she continued: 'As for the future, neither of us, I trust, would make great demands upon the other. You have your amusements: they do not concern me, and however much my reason may deprecate your addiction to pugilism, curricle-racing, and deep basset—'

'Pharaoh,' he interpolated.

'Very well, pharaoh: it is all one. However much I may deprecate such follies, I say, I do not desire to interfere with your tastes.'

'You are very obliging,' bowed Sir Richard. 'Bluntly, Melissa, I may do as I please if I will hand you my purse?"

'That is putting it bluntly indeed,' she replied composedly. She folded up her needlework, and laid it aside. 'Papa has been expecting a visit from you. He will be sorry to hear that you called while he was away from home. He will be with us again to-morrow, and you may be sure of finding him, if you care to call at—shall we say eleven o'clock?'