And with this piece of sound, if undutiful, advice, his lordship caught up his coat and hat and strode off to make his arrangements for an instant departure from town.
TWENTY
WHILE THESE EVENTSwere in progress, Hero was residing in Upper Camden Place, Bath, the guest of Lady Saltash. At first a little frightened of an old lady who was generally held to be both formidable and sharp-tongued, she had soon settled down, and quite lost her shyness. The pug, not being as yet gathered to its fathers, was her particular charge; in addition to brushing this stertorous animal, and taking it for walks on the end of a leash, she played cribbage with her hostess, read to her from the newspapers, and accompanied her to the Grand Pump Room, or to the Assembly Rooms, where her ladyship was a subscriber to the Card and Reading Rooms. She had removed her wedding-ring and reverted to the use of her maiden name, two proceedings which drew an approving nod from Lady Saltash. It was at first difficult to remember that she was again Miss Wantage, and when Lady Saltash took her to one of the Dress Balls at the New Assembly Rooms she drew shocked eyes upon herself by moving unconsciously towards the benches set aside for the use of peeresses. But this little slip was easily glossed over, and as soon as the Master of Ceremonies had been presented to her, and had signified his approval of Lady Saltash’s young protégée, her social comfort was assured. In the nature of things, she cared little for this, and would have been glad to have lived the life of a recluse would Lady Saltash but have permitted it. But LadySaltash had no opinion of recluses, and she gave Hero some very good advice about never being led into the error of wearing one’s heart upon one’s sleeve.
‘Depend upon it, my love, nothing is more tiresome than the person who is for ever bemoaning her fate. Recollect that no one has the smallest interest in the troubles of another! To be shutting yourself up because you fancy your heart is broken will not do at all. Do not wear a long face! As well heave sighs, than which nothing could be more vulgar!’
Hero promised to do her best to be cheerful, but said that it was sometimes hard to smile when she was so very miserable.
‘Fiddle-de-dee!’ replied Lady Saltash. ‘When you have had as much cause as I to talk of being made miserable you may do so, but believe me, my love, you know nothing of the matter as yet, and very likely never will. From what you have told me, you have not the least need to put yourself into a taking. I have known Anthony any time these twenty years, and you have gone the right way to work with him. I dare say he may be tearing out his hair by the roots by this time!’
‘But I never, never meant him to be made unhappy or anxious!’ Hero exclaimed, looking quite oppressed.
‘Very likely you did not. You are a silly little puss, my love. My grandson has more sense, it appears, for he certainly means Anthony to be excessively anxious.’
‘Oh, he must not! That would be worse than all the rest!’ Hero cried distressfully.
‘Nonsense! It is high time that boy was made to think, which I’ll be bound he has never done in his life. I do not scruple to tell you, my love, that I have been agreeably surprised by what you have told me. It appears that Anthony has behaved towards you with more consideration than I should have expected in one reared to consider nothing but his own convenience. I dare swear he has been in love with you allthis while without having the least notion of it. It will do him a great deal of good to miss you.’
Hero regarded her hopefully. ‘Do you think so indeed, dear ma’am? But perhaps you do not perfectly understand that he only married me because Isabella Milborne refused to accept his hand?’
‘Do not talk to me about this Miss Milborne! She sounds to me just the insipid sort of girl who passes for a beauty in these days! Now, when I was young – However, that’s neither here nor there! I shall be surprised if we find that Anthony cares a fig for her. Soon or late, mark my words! we shall have him posting down here to find you, and I will tell you now, my child, that if you mean to let him discover you half-way to a decline, I shall wash my hands of you! That is no way to handle a man. A little jealousy will work wonders with that boy: he has been too sure of you! I must tell you, my love, that these Verelsts are all the same! Like Pug there! Let no one seem to wish to touch his bone, and ten to one he will not look at it. Lay but a finger on it, and all at once he knows that there is nothing he wants more in the world, and he will snarl, and show his teeth, and stand guard over it with all his bristles on end! I am determined that if Anthony comes to look for you, he shall find you living in tolerable comfort without him.’
Hero looked doubtful, but the idea of Sherry’s coming to look for her was so precious to her that she raised no further demur at the programme outlined for her by her worldly-wise hostess.
Mr Ringwood, though not generally held to be a good correspondent, wrote with painstakingly regularity, reporting on Sherry’s progress. Hero shed tears in secret over these letters, and had she not made up her mind to allow Sherry time to forget her, if he should wish to do so, she would have written to set his mind at rest at least a dozen times. When she heard that he hadplunged into an orgy of gaiety, she really did feel as though her heart must break, and believed that he had ceased to grieve over her disappearance. When she could command her voice, she sought out Lady Saltash, and tried, for the third or fourth time, to broach the question of her applying for a post in a Young Ladies’ Seminary. Her ladyship cut her short. ‘Don’t put on those missish airs with me, Hero! What has happened to make you start on that nonsense again, pray?’
‘Only that I have had a letter from Gil, ma’am, which – which –’
Her ladyship held out an imperative hand, a little twisted by gout. After a moment’s hesitation, Hero gave up the letter. Lady Saltash read it with an unmoved countenance. ‘Going to the devil, is he?’ she commented. ‘Very likely. Just as I expected! Pray, what is there in this billet, beyond the lamentable spelling, to make you pull that long face?’
‘Don’t you think Sherry is forgetting all about me, ma’am?’ Hero asked wistfully.
‘What, because he is behaving like a sulky boy? No such thing! He is determined no one, least of all yourself, my love, shall guess how much he cares. Really, I begin to have hopes of that tiresome boy! Put the letter up, my dear, and think no more of it! I apprehend we might find the piece they are playing at the Theatre Royal tolerably amusing. Have the goodness to sit down at my desk, and write two little notes, inviting Sir Carlton Frome and Mr Jasper Tarleton to do me the honour of accompanying me there to-morrow evening. We will send one of the servants round to procure a box for us.’
Hero obeyed her. She paused in the middle of her task to look up, and say: ‘After all, if Sherry may amuse himself, I do not know why I should not too!’
‘Excellent!’ said her ladyship, laughing. ‘Do you mean to break Mr Tarleton’s heart? I wish you may do it!’
Hero gave a chuckle. ‘Why, he is quite old, ma’am!’
‘Quite old! If he is a day more than thirty-five I will never wear my new wig again!’
‘Well, too old to break his heart,’ amended Hero. ‘I like him extremely, for he is always so very kind and civil, and he makes me laugh.’
Lady Saltash, who was deriving considerable entertainment from watching her old friend, Jasper Tarleton, succumb to her protégée’s innocent charm, cast her a thoughtful look, but refrained from saying anything more. She had a certain fondness for Mr Tarleton, but having attempted a great many times to interest him in some eligible damsel and having seen her efforts on his behalf quite wasted, she acknowledged that it would afford her a certain degree of satisfaction to know that he had lost his heart to a lady as unattainable as she was uninterested. Mr Tarleton, thought her ladyship, was a great deal too sure of himself, and a little tumble would do him no harm at all.
Mr Jasper Tarleton was a bachelor, the owner of a comfortable little property situated a few miles outside Bath. He was known to be bookish, a circumstance which possibly accounted for his not having felt the lure of London; and it was generally supposed that he had suffered a disappointment in youth, which had given him a distaste for matrimony. However that might have been, without betraying any of the signs of the confirmed misogynist, he had certainly contrived to remain single, and was held to be a hard chase indeed. Numerous females had set their caps at him, for besides being possessed of a handsome competence, he was good-looking, his air distinguished, and his manners very pleasing. But while he was happy to oblige any lady by flirting with her in an elegant and quite unexceptionable fashion, he never left the favoured fair in any doubt of his total lack of serious intention.
He first met Hero at a whist-party at Lady Saltash’s house. Something in her which made her different from the carefully drilled young ladies of his acquaintance instantly caught his attention, but he remained largely impervious to her charm until one evening at the theatre, when he walked with her between the acts in the foyer, and she delighted him by asking in the most innocent way if this was where the bits of muslin promenaded, just as they did at Covent Garden? He was enchanted, answered her without betraying the smallest sign of surprise, and only permitted himself to laugh when she exclaimed in dismay: ‘Oh, dear, I should not have said that! I am in a scrape again!’
He assured her she might say what she chose to him, and they had a very interesting conversation, which would certainly have horrified even Lady Saltash, who was known to be broadminded to a fault. Mr Tarleton supposed that Hero must have culled her knowledge from a brother, but when he tried tactfully to discover what her antecedents were, she flushed and returned such evasive answers that good-breeding forbade him to press his enquiries. But from that day onward it was noticeable that Mr Tarleton was spending more of his time in Bath than ever before; and when he actually appeared at the Lower Assembly Rooms, and stood up with Hero for the minuet as well as for one of the country dances, his numerous friends and acquaintances could scarcely believe their eyes, and told one another that poor dear Jasper was in a fair way to being caught at last.
As might have been expected, no such idea crossed Hero’s mind. She thought her new acquaintance past the age of falling in love, and treated him very much as she had been in the habit of treating Sherry’s bachelor friends. From having associated largely with them during the past months, she found herself at home in male company; and from having, since the firstmoment of her appearance in society, enjoyed all the license of a married woman, she was not at all missish, and neither put on airs to be interesting, nor affected the maidenly shrinking in vogue amongst certain of her contemporaries.
Mr Tarleton found this delightful, and when Hero caught herself up guiltily on a cant expression culled from Sherry’s vocabulary, or committed some other small solecism of a like nature, he begged her not to correct herself, but to continue as she was, without attempting to school either her speech or her actions.
‘For you must permit me to tell you, Miss Wantage,’ he said, his gravity belied by the twinkle in his eye, ‘that you are the most refreshing young female who has yet come in my path! Tell me more about the Brixham Pet!’
