‘I like this one,’ Hero said, looking down at it. ‘I like to have it because it is your very own.’
He laughed. ‘You wouldn’t keep it long! In fact, you’ll very likely lose it before the night’s out.’
‘Oh no! I shall hold my finger crooked, so that it can’t drop off. Sherry, when your cousin said “Lady Sheringham” – did he meanme?’
‘Of course he did. Though to tell you the truth, it sounded very odd to me too,’ admitted his lordship.
Hero turned wide eyes upon him. ‘Sherry, I know IamLady Sheringham, but it doesn’t seem possible! I have the horridest feeling that I shall suddenly wake up and find that it has been all a dream!’
‘I know what you mean,’ nodded his lordship, ‘though when I think of all the things I’ve had to do to-day it seems to me more like a nightmare.’ He encountered a dismayed look, and said hastily: ‘No, no, not being married! I didn’t mean that! I dare say I shall like that very tolerably once I’ve grown used to it. But that Bishop of George’s! Do you know, I had to swear an oath, or whatever they call it, that you had the consent of your guardians, Kitten?’
‘But, Sherry, I haven’t!’
‘No, I know that, but you wouldn’t have had me let a trifling circumstance like that stop me, would you? Besides, there’s noharm done: your precious Cousin Jane ain’t going to kick up a dust, you mark my words! She’ll be thankful to be so well rid of you, I dare say.’
Hero agreed to it, but a little doubtfully. The Viscount said in a bracing tone that what they both needed was a bottle of something to set them up.
They arrived presently at Fenton’s Hotel, to find that Bootle was already installed there, and had not only unpacked his master’s trunks, but had loftily instructed a chambermaid to perform the same office for my lady. As much to preserve his own dignity as Hero’s, he let drop, in the most casual way possible, the information that her ladyship’s maid had been smitten with jaundice, leaving her mistress temporarily un-attended. His grand manners, the slightly contemptuous glance he cast round the best suite of apartments in the hotel, and the nicety of taste which led him to rearrange the ornaments on the mantelpiece of the sitting-room which separated my lord’s from my lady’s bedchamber, quite over-awed the chambermaid and the boots, and inspired them with a belief in the propriety of Lord and Lady Sheringham which only the appearance upon the scene of this erratic couple would dispel.
His lordship’s first act, on his arrival, was to ring for a waiter to bring up a bottle of burgundy, and another of ratafia; his second was to produce from one pocket a small package, which he handed over to his bride, saying as he did so: ‘Almost slipped my mind! There’s a wedding gift for you, brat: frippery things, but I’ll buy you better ones, once the blunt’s my own.’
‘Oh!’ gasped Hero, gazing in incredulous delight at her first pair of diamond ear-rings. ‘Anthony, Anthony!’
‘Good God, Kitten, they’re only trifles!’ he expostulated, as she cast herself on his chest. ‘My dear girl, do have a care to my neckcloth! You’ve no notion how long it took me to get it to set just so!’
‘Oh, I am so sorry, but how could I help it? Sherry, will you pierce my ears for me at once, so that I may wear them to-night?’
This, however, the Viscount did not feel himself competent to do. Hero’s face fell so ludicrously that he suggested that the ear-rings might very well be tied on with a piece of silk for the time being. She cheered up immediately, and by the time the waiter came back with the required refreshment, had achieved a result which her husband assured her would defy any but the narrowest scrutiny. They then toasted one another, and the Viscount was moved to declare that he was dashed if he didn’t believe that he had done a very good day’s work.
Later, when she appeared before him in the sea-green gauze, he stared at her in great surprise, and said: By Jove, he had never thought she could look so well! Encouraged by this tribute, Hero showed him a cloak of green sarsnet trimmed with swansdown, which she had purchased that morning, and upon his expressing his unqualified approval of this garment, confided, a little nervously, that she feared he might, when he came to see the bill, think it a trifle dear. The Viscount waved aside such mundane considerations; and they then went downstairs in perfect amity to receive their dinner guests.
It was evident from the expressions on their countenances that Mr Ringwood and the Honourable Ferdy thought that their friend’s bride did him credit. Each of these gentlemen had brought with him a wedding gift, the results of an earnest discussion which had taken place between them over two glasses of daffy at Limmer’s Hotel. The Honourable Ferdy had selected a charming bracelet for the bride; Mr Ringwood had chosen an ormolu clock, which he thought might come in useful. Hero accepted both offerings with unaffected delight, clasping the bracelet round her arm immediately, and promising the clock an honourable position on her drawing-roommantelpiece. This put the Viscount in mind of the chief problem at present besetting him, and as they all took their seats round the table in the dining-room, he again raised the question of his future establishment.
Mr Ringwood was firm in holding to it that the family mansion in Grosvenor Square was a good address, a circumstance by which he seemed to set great store; but Ferdy, while concurring in this pronouncement, gave it as his opinion that Sherry would have to throw all the existing furniture out into the road before embarking on the task of making the house fit to live in.
‘Yes, by God, so I should!’ exclaimed Sherry. ‘Most of the stuff has been there ever since Queen Anne, and I dare say longer, if we only knew. Oh, well! Hero will like choosing some new furnishings, so it don’t really signify.’
The Honourable Ferdy, who had been pondering at intervals all day how his cousin’s wife came by such a peculiar name, now introduced a new note into the conversation by saying suddenly: ‘Can’t make it out at all! You’re sure you’ve got that right, Sherry?’
‘Got what right?’
‘Hero,’ said Ferdy, frowning. ‘Look at it which way you like, it don’t make sense. For one thing, a hero ain’t a female, and for another it ain’t aname. At least,’ he added cautiously, ‘it ain’t one I’ve ever heard of. Ten to one you’ve made one of your muffs, Sherry!’
‘Oh no, I truly am called Hero!’ the lady assured him. ‘It’s out of Shakespeare.’
‘Oh, out ofShakespeare, is it?’ said Ferdy. ‘That accounts for my not having heard it before!’
‘You’re out of Shakespeare too,’ said Hero, helping herself liberally from a dish of green peas.
‘I am?’ Ferdy exclaimed, much struck.
‘Yes, in theTempest, I think.’
‘Well, if that don’t beat all!’ Ferdy said, looking around at his friends. ‘She says I’m out of Shakespeare! Must tell my father that. Shouldn’t think he knows.’
‘Yes, and now I come to think of it, Sherry’s out of Shakespeare too,’ said Hero, smiling warmly upon her spouse.
‘No, I’m not,’ replied the Viscount, refusing to be dragged into these deep waters. ‘Named after my grandfather.’
