‘Oh no, Sherry!’ Hero said earnestly. ‘Indeed, you are quite wrong! Why, you cannot mean that you suspect George of having an eye to me? Oh, Sherry, how nonsensical! I assure you, he does nothing but talk of Isabella!’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Sherry, looking over her critically. ‘The fact of the matter is you seem to have grown so devilish pretty since I married you that there’s no knowing what will happen next.’
She blushed rosily. ‘Have I, Sherry? Have I really? I expect it is just the new way I have of dressing my hair, and all my grand gowns.’
‘Yes, very likely,’ he agreed. ‘I must say, I never thought you above the ordinary myself, but if you go on like this the lord only knows where it will end!’
‘But, Sherry, you do not mind my growing to be pretty, do you?’
‘Oh, I don’tmindit!’ replied his lordship. ‘The thing is, I didn’t bargain for it, that’s all, and if you are to have fellows like George for ever haunting the house, I can see it will be a dashed nuisance. And now I come to think of it, George ain’t the only one! There’s Gil! Hardest case I ever met in my life, and what must he do but take you out driving to Salt Hill, just as though he were in the habit of driving females, which he ain’t. Yes, and who was that curst rum touch I found with you last week?’
‘Mr Kilby, do you mean, Sherry?’
‘I dare say. Not that it signifies, for I fancy he won’t come here to make sheep’s eyes at you again!’
She gave a little giggle. ‘I must say, I think you were very uncivil and disobliging to him, Sherry. I don’t know what he can have thought!’
‘Oh, don’t you?’ retorted Sherry grimly. ‘Well, he knew dashed well what to think, let me tell you!’ He returned unexpectedly to the original bone of contention. ‘But that’s neither here nor there. Whoever heard of a fellow’s wanting the advice of a chit like you, I should like to know? Rather too brown, Kitten! In fact, a dashed sight too brown!’
‘But indeed he did, Sherry! The case is that he has great hopes that Isabella may relent towards him, and he wished to know my opinion of a – well, a little billet that he means to send her, with the flowers for Lady Fakenhams’ ball. But you must not mention the matter, for indeed I think he would not wish me to have spoken of it!’
As he really knew very well that he had not the least cause to regard Lord Wrotham with suspicion, Sherry consented to be satisfied with this explanation, and the matter was allowed to drop. An interview with his man of business, a few days later, provided his lordship with other, and more serious, affairs for thought. Mr Stoke felt it to be his duty to bring certain disagreeable facts to his lordship’s notice. Since this interview followed on a more than ordinarily Black Monday at Tattersall’s, the Viscount escorted his wife to the Fakenham’s ball in a mood of considerable dissatisfaction. His friend, Revesby, in whom he had confided, had done his best to raise his spirits by asserting his conviction that the luck would shortly turn, and had even introduced him to the newest gaming-hell, which was located in Pickering Place, and conducted on such discreet lines that the Viscount would not have been surprised to have been asked to give a password before being admitted by the individual who conversed with him through an iron grille in the door. He had played macao into the small hours of the morning, but withindifferent success; and although Sir Montagu was on the opinion that initial losses were to be regarded as auspicious, it was an undeniable fact that his lordship was not in his usual sunny spirits when he arrived at the Fakenham mansion in Cavendish Square.
‘Scorched, dear old boy?’ asked Mr Fakenham, who had also visited Tattersall’s on settling day.
Sherry grimaced at him.
‘You’ll come about,’ said Ferdy encouragingly. ‘Thought I was aground myself, until Brock gave me the office to back Sweeter When Clothed last Wednesday.’
‘I laid my blunt on First Time of Asking,’ said his lordship.
Ferdy shook his head. ‘Mistake,’ he said. ‘Ought to have listened to Brock. Very knowing one, Brock. Come and have a glass!’
This advice seemed good to Sherry, and he went off with his cousin to try whether champagne punch would recruit his spirits. They would have taken Lord Wrotham along with them, but his lordship, whose expressive dark eyes were glowing with mingled anticipation and excitement, declined to leave the ballroom.
But the evening was not destined to come up to Wrotham’s expectations. Miss Milborne, receiving the bouquet of violets by the hand of her Mama’s black page, was torn by conflicting emotions. She could not but be touched by Wrotham’s having taken such pains to obtain for her flowers which he believed to be her favourites. She recalled, with a twinge of her conscience, having bestowed this mendacious piece of information on him, and her more compassionate feelings prompted her to carry his offering to the ball, instead of the yellow roses left at the door earlier in the day with his Grace of Severn’s compliments. But several circumstances militated against this impulse. In the first place, Wrotham had been inspired at the eleventh hour to send the flowers with the second of his messages in place of the first.Wear these, and I shall know what to think, ran the inscription onhis lordship’s card. This was going too fast for Miss Milborne, who felt that until she herself knew what to think it would be better for his lordship to remain in his present uninformed state. She was ready to indulge herself and her numerous suitors with a little harmless flirtation, but she was a good-hearted girl, and unless she was prepared to accept Wrotham’s hand in marriage she did not feel that she should carry to the ball flowers which came to her with so pointed a message attached to them. As she thought the matter over, a slight indignation mingled with her compassion for one so stricken. Really, it was the outside of enough, she thought, that George should neglect her for nearly a fortnight, and then toss a posy of violets to her with an ultimatum attached to it! There was yet another consideration – and not the least of them – that led to George’s violets being rejected. Miss Milborne, whose striking beauty could well support the trying colour, was wearing a new gown of pale puce satin and net to the ball, and with this George’s violets could not be said to agree. Miss Milborne laid the violets aside, and pinned a spray of Severn’s roses to her corsage, determining, as she did so, to soften the blow to George by treating him with more than ordinary kindness.
Alas for such good intentions! No sooner did George, on the watch for her arrival, clap eyes on those yellow roses than he turned pale, and abruptly left the ballroom. In his disordered state he would undoubtedly have rushed from the house had he not encountered his hostess in the ante-chamber. Lady Fakenham, who had known him from his cradle, asked him severely where he was going, and without giving him time to reply bore him inexorably back into the ballroom, and presented him to a young lady who gratefully accepted his reluctant hand for the quadrille which was forming. By the time he had performed his part in this, all the impropriety of fleeing from the house had been recollected, and he retired to prop thewall by the door, his arms folded, and his stormy gaze following Miss Milborne’s progress down a country dance. Since Severn was her partner, he was unable to support this spectacle for long, and soon sought refuge in a small chamber adjoining the ballroom. This had been designed to accommodate any persons who preferred a quiet rubber of whist to the more fatiguing exercise of dancing, but George’s aspect was so forbidding that a timid-looking man, who peeped into the room, withdrew in haste to inform his companions that he rather thought they had better find another room for their projected game.
Hero, who had not failed to notice Miss Milborne’s roses, and George’s haggard appearance, took the earliest opportunity that offered of following him to his retreat. Her tender heart ached for the pain she knew him to be suffering. It was a pain she was not quite a stranger to, and her own susceptibility made it seem the more imperative to offer such comfort as she could to George.
She found him sitting moodily on a small sofa, a glass of brandy in his hand. He looked up, with a challenging expression in his eyes, but when he saw who had come in his brow cleared, and he rose, setting down his glass, and managing to conjure of the travesty of a smile.
Hero clasped his hand between both hers, saying: ‘Dear George, do not heed it! Indeed, she could not have carried violets with that gown!’
‘She is wearing Severn’s roses,’ he replied.
‘Oh, no! You cannot know that!’
‘Mrs Milborne told Lady Cowper so within my hearing.’
Hero looked dismayed, but rallied. ‘It can only be because they were more suited to that gown. Sit down, George! I am persuaded you refine too much upon it.’
He allowed himself to be pulled down on to the sofa beside her, but gave a groan. ‘I told her that if she wore my violets Ishould know what to think. I have had my answer, and may as well go and blow my brains out without more ado.’
‘Oh, do not say so! You know, George, I think you should not have sent that message. Perhaps she may not have quite liked it. Have you spoken with her?’
He shook his head. ‘I could not trust myself. Besides, if I came within reach of that curst fellow, Severn, I should very likely find a means of picking a quarrel with him.’
