‘Oh!’ said Sir Richard. ‘It is, is it? The devil fly away with Major Daubenay!’
The boots grinned, but awaited more precise instructions. Sir Richard groaned again, and sat up. ‘You think I ought to get up, do you? Bring me my shaving water, then.’
‘Yessir!’
‘Oh, ah! Present my compliments to the Major, and inform him that I shall be with him shortly!’
The boots went off to execute these commands, and Sir Richard, surveying the beauty of the morning with a jaundiced eye, got out of bed.
When the boots came back with a jug of hot water, he found Sir Richard in his shirt and breeches, and reported that theMajor was pacing up and down the parlour more like a wild beast in a circus than a Christian gentleman.
‘You appal me,’ said Sir Richard unemotionally. ‘Just hand me my boots, will you? Alas! Biddle, I never realized your worth until I was bereft of you!’
‘Beg pardon, sir?’
‘Nothing,’ said Sir Richard, inserting his foot into one of the boots, and pulling hard.
Half an hour later he entered the parlour to find his matutinal guest fuming up and down the floor with a large watch in his hand. The Major, whose cheeks were unbecomingly flushed, and whose eyes started quite alarmingly, stabbed at this timepiece with one quivering finger, and said in a suppressed roar: ‘Forty minutes, sir! Forty minutes since I entered this room!’
‘Yes, I have even surprised myself,’ said Sir Richard, with maddening nonchalance. ‘Time was when I could not have achieved this result under an hour, but practice, my dear sir, practice, you know, is everything!’
‘An hour!’ gobbled the Major. ‘Practice! Bah, I say! Do you hear me, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Richard, flicking a speck of dust from his sleeve. ‘And I imagine I am not the only one privileged to hear you.’
‘You are a dandy!’ uttered the Major, with loathing. ‘A dandy, sir! That’s what you are!’
‘Well, I am glad that the haste with which I dressed has not obscured that fact,’ replied Sir Richard amiably. ‘But the correct term is Corinthian.’
‘I don’t care a fig what the correct term may be!’ roared the Major, striking the table with his fist. ‘It’s all the same to me: dandy, Corinthian, or pure popinjay!’
‘If I lose my temper with you, which, however, I should be loth to do – at all events, at this hour of the morning – you will discover that you are mistaken,’ said Sir Richard. ‘Meanwhile, I presume that you did not bring me out of my bed to exchange compliments with me. What, sir, do you want?’
‘Don’t take that high and mighty tone with me, sir!’ said theMajor. ‘That whelp of yours has made off with my daughter!’
‘Nonsense!’ said Sir Richard calmly.
‘Nonsense, is it? Then let me tell you that she has gone, sir! Gone, do you hear me? And her maid with her!’
‘Accept my condolences,’ said Sir Richard.
‘Your condolences! I don’t want your damned condolences, sir! I want to know what you mean to do!’
‘Nothing at all,’ replied Sir Richard.
The Major’s eyes positively bulged, and a vein stood out on his heated brow. ‘You stand there, and say that you mean to do nothing, when your scoundrel of a cousin has eloped with my daughter?’
‘Not at all. I mean to do nothing because my cousin has not eloped with your daughter. You must forgive me if I point out to you that I am getting a little weary of your parental difficulties.’
‘How dare you, sir? How dare you?’ gasped the Major. ‘Your cousin meets my daughter by stealth in Bath, lures her out at dead of night here, deceives her with false promises, and now –now, to crown all, makes off with her, and you say – you say that you are weary ofmydifficulties!’
‘Very weary of them. If your daughter has left your roof – and who shall blame her? – I advise you not to waste your time and my patience here, but to enquire at Crome Hall whether Mr Piers Luttrell is at home, or whether he also is missing.’
‘Young Luttrell! By God, if it were so I should be glad of it! Ay, glad of it, and glad that any man rather than that vicious, scoundrelly whelp of yours, had eloped with Lydia!’
‘Well, that is a fortunate circumstance,’ said Sir Richard.
‘It is nothing of the kind! You know very well it is not young Luttrell! She herself confessed that she had been in the habit of meeting your cousin, and the young dog said in this very room – in this very room, mark you, with you standing by –’
