‘I was very much grieved when I heard – I hold such practices in abhorrence, as I am sure everyone must. Who – who was the other man?’
‘Why, Sherry, to be sure!’ replied Hero. ‘Are you indeed shocked, Isabella? I did not think you would be so stuffy!’
‘Sherry?’ gasped Miss Milborne, looking up quickly. ‘Impossible! Oh, I would not have had such a thing happen for the world!’
‘I declare you are as bad as Lady Sheringham!’ Hero cried. ‘She actually came to call on me, only to tell me that if I were not such a wretched wife I should put an end to such pranks!’
‘Hero, what happened?’ asked Miss Milborne, a crease beginning to appear between her brows. ‘I collect that George’s injury wasnotsustained in a duel?’
‘A duel? Good heavens, no!’ cried Hero, laughing. ‘It was the most absurd start! Merely, George challenged Sherry to drive his curricle through a narrow gate, and backed himself to beat him – which, indeed, he did, though he only contrived to scrape through seven times to Sherry’s five!’
A tide of colour rose to the very roots of Miss Milborne’s admirably cut and dressed copper locks. She said in a strictly controlled voice: ‘I had heard nothing of this. How – how absurd! Really, it is beyond everything! I do not wonder at Lady Sheringham’s displeasure.’ She encountered a sparkling look from her hostess, and gave a little laugh. ‘Oh! do not eat me, my dear! I am sure it is no concern of mine. Shall you be at Almack’s to-morrow evening?’
Since Sherry, when tentatively approached on this subject, had said (with a groan) that he was willing to do his duty, Hero was able to say that she would certainly be there; and the remainder of the morning visit passed in the discussion of the ladies’ respective toilettes.
Unfortunately, it transpired, when Hero burst upon her husband on the following evening in all the glory of a new dress of Italian crape, lavishly trimmed with lace and floss-silk, that he had forgotten all about the engagement, and made an assignation with a party of his intimates at Cribb’s Parlour. He looked extremely discontented, not to say sulky, supposed she would expect him to send a message round to Gil’s lodging, and wondered what she could possibly find to amuse herself at Almack’s.
‘Should you prefer not to go, Sherry?’ Hero asked, trying very hard not to let a wistful note creep into her voice.
‘Oh! I suppose you have set your heart on it, and there is nothing for it!’ he responded. ‘Only I shall be obliged to change my clothes, and I must say I think it is a great bore. However, it don’t signify.’
She could not agree to this. It would be a shocking thing if he had to forgo his pleasure on her account, and the knowledge that he had done so would most effectively destroy her own pleasure. She instantly said: ‘But I do not at all care to go, Sherry. Indeed, I have the headache a little, and if you are engaged with your friends I should be quitegladto stay at home!’
His face cleared at once. ‘Should you indeed?’ he asked eagerly. ‘You know, I am prepared to take you if you really wish to go, only I dare say you would find it pretty flat.’
‘Oh yes!’
‘And if you are dull, why, you may send a note round to invite your cousin to spend the evening with you!’ suggested Sherry, forgetting that he had censured her intimacy with Mrs Hoby. ‘Besides, I do not go until after I have dined. I dashed off a billet to ask George to go along with us all, and he will be calling here to join me.’
But when Lord Wrotham presented himself, towards the end of dinner, he was seen to be in knee-breeches, a circumstancewhich made Sherry exclaim: ‘Good God, we’re not going to a ball, old fellow! What the deuce are you about? Knee-breeches for Cribb’s Parlour!’
‘Cribb’s Parlour?’ repeated George, shaking hands with Hero. ‘But I thought we were to go to Almack’s!’
‘Oh!’ Hero cried, in a little confusion. ‘I had quite forgot that you said you would go with us! Indeed, I am very sorry, George, and I cannot think how I came to be so stupid!’
‘Well, it’s of no account,’ said Sherry, pouring a glass of wine for his friend. ‘Hero don’t care to go to the Assembly, and I have made up a snug little party to meet at Cribb’s Parlour.’
Lord Wrotham looked enquiringly at Hero. The significance of her ball-dress was not lost on him; he said: ‘Is this so indeed? Are you sure you do not care to go?’
‘No, truly I had as lief stay at home,’ she assured him. ‘I have the headache, you know, and Sherry thinks I should very likely find it quite flat.’
‘Oh!’ said Wrotham, frowning over it. He glanced from one to the other, and said that he supposed he had best return home to change into raiment more suited to Cribb’s Parlour. This, however, Sherry would not permit him to do, saying that they were late already, and must be on their way. He gave Hero a careless pat on the shoulder, recommended her to go early to bed, and swept his friend off with him to Mr Ringwood’s lodging. Here they took up Mr Ringwood into their hackney, and all drove off to the tavern owned by the ex-champion of the Ring. Lord Wrotham’s doubts were still troubling him, and when Mr Ringwood expressed surprise at Sherry’s having selected one of the Assembly nights for this meeting, he said abruptly: ‘She did not look to me as though she had the headache.’
‘Lord, how do you know?’ responded Sherry. ‘She did not wish to go to Almack’s, I tell you! She said so herself. I told her I would go if she had set her heart on it, and she replied at oncethat she would be glad not to be obliged to go.’ He added naïvely: ‘I must say I was deuced happy to hear it, for it is not in my line at all.’
The hackney stopping in Jermyn Street at this moment, to take up Sir Montagu Revesby, the subject was allowed to drop, and the rest of the journey was beguiled in discussing the rival merits of two promising young heavyweights, now in training for an early encounter. Lord Wrotham bore little part in this, but sat lost in a fit of brooding which outlasted his first glass of daffy at the Parlour. He was just about to embark on a second glass when he came to a sudden decision, and startled his friends by saying in accents of strong conviction: ‘Shedidwant to go!’
Mr Ringwood eyed him with some misgiving. ‘Go where?’ he asked.
‘Almack’s, of course!’ Wrotham said impatiently.
‘Who did?’
‘Kitten – Lady Sherry!’
‘Nonsense!’ said Sherry. ‘What a fellow you are, George! Once put a notion into your head, and, damme, there’s no getting it out again! Fill up his glass, Monty!’
‘No!’ said George. ‘I tell you she was dressed for it. I’d lay a monkey it was all your doing, Sherry! I shall return to Half Moon Street and offer to be her escort!’
