Mr Ringwood nodded. ‘That’s true enough, Sherry. Old Fortescue Revesby. Expectations,’ he added darkly.
‘I know all that!’ Sherry said impatiently. ‘But what on earth should take him to seduce this wretched girl –’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Sherry!’ interposed Ferdy fair-mindedly. ‘Pass the time away – devilish dull, I dare say!’
‘Yes, that is what I think,’ Hero agreed. ‘But how wicked, Ferdy! How heartless! Howcouldhe do so? He has ruined her for mere sport, for I don’t believe he ever cared for her in the least degree!’
‘You know what?’ suddenly said Ferdy, addressing himself to Mr Ringwood. ‘Couldn’t make out why it all sounds so dashed familiar! Got it now! Saw a piece at the Lyceum Theatre just like it. Father threw the girl out into the snow. Ruth’s father throw her into the snow, Kitten?’
‘No, no – at least, I don’t know! But this is true, Ferdy!’
‘Never heed Ferdy!’ commanded the Viscount. ‘The thing is, Kitten, it ain’t our affair, and we can’t –’
Under the wide, shocked gaze from Hero’s eyes he faltered, and cast a wild look towards Mr Ringwood for support.
Mr Ringwood did his best. ‘Sherry don’t care to have Revesby’s baby in his spare bedroom, Kitten. Can’t blame him: might keep him awake.’
‘Oh no, but just for to-night –! Sherry, you would not be so unkind as to turn the poor soul away at this hour of night! You could not!’
‘No, I don’t say I’ll do that, but the thing is, Kitten – Dash it, what the devil does Monty mean by saddling me with his by-blow?’ exclaimed Sherry, in accents of strong indignation.
‘Now I come to think of it,’ abruptly remarked Mr Fakenham, ‘it wasn’t the Lyceum. It was the Non-Pareil. I’ll think of the name of the piece in a minute.’
‘I thought such things only happened in the theatre,’ Hero said sorrowfully. ‘I did not know men could be so wicked!’
‘Well, but, Kitten, you don’t quite understand!’ Sherry said desperately. ‘It sounds bad, but ten to one there’s another side to the story. These little affairs, you know? it don’t do to be talking of them, but – dash it, it’s the sort of thing that might happen to anyone!’
‘Ohno!’ Hero cried in a breaking voice, her eyes swimming in tears. ‘Not you, Sherry! Notyou!’
‘No, no – My God, I hope not!’ said his lordship, with a sudden hair-raising vision of the scene which had taken place in King Street. He discovered that his cousin and Mr Ringwood, both much moved by Hero’s cry and look of anguish, were gazing at him reproachfully, and demanded in a voice of wrath: ‘What the devil are you looking like that for, the pair of you? I never seduced anyone in my life, I’ll have you know! What’s more, I’m not the sort of fellow to leave his bastards to starve in the gutter. I mean, I wouldn’t if I had any, but I haven’t – at least, if I have I never heard of them! Oh, the devil!’
His friends, greatly discomposed, at once begged pardon, Ferdy explaining that he had been momentarily carried away.The Viscount was seriously ruffled, but Mr Ringwood had the presence of mind to refill his glass, and Hero, holding one of his hands between both of hers, said: ‘Oh no, Sherry, I know you would not! And you will let me help this poor girl, will you not?’
‘I suppose something will have to be done about her,’ said his lordship. ‘Though I’m damned if I know what! I shall have to speak to Monty, but I can tell you I don’t like to do it, for it’s as plain as a pikestaff he don’t mean to own the child.’
‘No, no, do not speak to him!’ Hero said. ‘He has done harm enough, and he shall not come near poor Ruth again! I have thought of a scheme that will answer delightfully! She shall go to Melton, and you will let her live in the little empty cottage by the west gate, Sherry, won’t you? And she will help Mrs Goring at the hunting-box, because you know how Mrs Goring told me when we were there that she could not come by a respectable girl to assist her – oh no, perhaps you do not, but it was so indeed!’
‘Hang it, Kitten, she isn’t a respectable girl!’ expostulated Sherry. ‘And if I know Mrs Goring –’
‘No, but only consider!’ begged Hero. ‘You may buy her a wedding-ring, and we will say that her husband is dead, and no one need know the truth, and she can be comfortable! He was killed at Waterloo! No one could wonder at that!’
‘Killed at Waterloo?’ interpolated Mr Ringwood.
‘Very good notion,’ approved Ferdy. A doubt shook him. ‘At least, I’m not very sure, now I come to think of it.’
It was apparent that both he and Mr Ringwood were bending their minds to mathematical calculation. Mr Ringwood was the first to reach a conclusion. ‘No,’ he said. ‘June of last year, wasn’t it? That’s eighteen months ago.’
‘I make it that, too,’ said Ferdy, pleased to find himself in agreement with his friend. ‘Have to think of something else. Very happy to assist you. Dare say I shall hit upon a good notion.’
‘Oh, we will say he died of some illness!’ Hero decided. ‘There can be no difficulty! And Ruth was used to be a chambermaid in an inn, so she will know how to go on, Sherry. And if you should not object, I think we should give her what we give to Maria. I know it is a little expensive, but we must consider the baby, you know.’
Sherry was so much relieved to find that Hero had no wish to keep her unfortunate protégée permanently in the spare bedroom that he agreed to this plan, even going so far as to hand over, upon demand, a bill to defray the cost of suitable baby-clothes for the destitute infant. Hero thanked him warmly and went away to set Ruth’s mind at rest, leaving Sherry to congratulate himself on having brushed through the business better than had at one time seemed possible, Mr Ringwood to wrap himself in apparently profound thought, and Ferdy to devise an artistic death for the hypothetical husband.
SIXTEEN
SINCE HE WASnot a young gentleman who was much given to reflection, it did not occur to the Viscount that his next meeting with his friend Revesby need necessarily be attended by constraint. He had been a good deal shaken by the disagreeable light cast on Revesby’s character, and by the time he had had a slightly difficult interview with Ruth Wimborne (which was thrust upon him by his wife on the following morning) he had no doubt that her story was true in all its essential features. But he was ready to believe that there might be another side to the story, and had Sir Montagu offered him an alternative version he might have accepted it. But he did not see Sir Montagu for several days, and when they did encounter one another again, Sir Montagu made no reference to the affair. He was at his most urbane; the fracas might never have taken place. Sherry was nettled. He was a generous young man, and he had raised no demur at being called upon to provide for another man’s mistress and child, but when he found Revesby apparently forgetful of the whole episode the notion, first put into his head by his cousin Ferdy, that it was not right of the fellow to leave the baby on his hands began to take strong possession of him.
It began to dawn upon him, too – not quite at once, but very soon – that whatever Revesby’s attitude had been, there must be considerable awkwardness in continued intimacy with a manwhom one could not, under the circumstances, permit to approach one’s wife. Hero had asked him shyly not to invite Sir Montagu to Half Moon Street when she was expected to be present at the party; he had replied that she need have no fears on that score.
