It had been a dreadful shock, but Nell had not betrayed herself, which was some small consolation; and she was thankful to have been made aware of the truth before she could render herself ridiculous by showing her heart to the world, or have become a tiresome bore to my lord by hanging on him in the doting way which one short season had taught her was considered by the modish to be not at all the thing. As for putting Lady Orsett’s nose out of joint—it had not taken her long to discover the identity of my lord’s mistress—that ambition probably belonged, like her earlier dreams, to the realm of make-believe, and certainly seemed very far from achievement today, when my lord was commanding her to account for her debts.
“Tell me the truth, Nell!”
His voice, quite kind, but unmistakably imperative, recalled her from her hurrying, jumbled thoughts. But it was impossible to tell him the truth, because even if he forgave her for having disobeyed him he was very unlikely to forgive Dysart, for whom, in his eyes, there could be no excuse at all. And if he refused to rescue Dysart from his difficulties any more, and made it impossible for her to do so either, what would become of Dy, or, for that matter, of poor Papa? Not so long ago he had said, a trifle grimly, that the best turn he could render Dysart would be to buy him a pair of colours, and pack him off to join Lord Wellington’s army in the Peninsula; and it was all too probable that this was precisely what he would do if this fresh disaster came to his ears. Nor was there much doubt that Dysart would jump at the offer, because he had always hankered after a military career. Only Papa, with his next son a schoolboy still at Harrow, had refused even to discuss the matter; and Mama, at the mere thought of exposing her beloved eldest-born to the dangers and discomforts of a military campaign, had suffered a series of distressing spasms.
No, the truth could not be told, but how did one account for three hundred pounds with never a bill to show? There was no need for Lord Pevensey’s daughter to cudgel her brains for more than a very few moments over that problem: few knew better than an Irvine how money could vanish without leaving a trace behind. “It wasn’t Dysart!” she said quickly. “I am afraid it was me!” She saw his face change, an arrested look in his eyes, a hardening of the lines about his mouth, and she felt suddenly frightened. “Pray don’t be angry!” she begged rather breathlessly. “I promise I will never do so any more!”
“Are you telling me you lost it at play?”
She hung her head again. After a pause he said: “I suppose I should have known that it would be in your blood too.”
“No, no, indeed it isn’t!” she cried, with passionate sincerity. “Only it seemed stupid and prudish not to play, when everyone else did so, and then I lost, and I thought that perhaps the luck would change, but it didn’t, and—”
“You need say no more!” he interrupted. “There was never yet a gamester who didn’t think the luck must change!” He looked frowningly at her, and added in a level tone: “I should be very reluctant, Nell, to take such steps as must put it wholly out of your power to play anything but silver-loo, or a pool at commerce, but I give you fair warning I will not permit my wife to become one of faro’s daughters.”
“Well, I am not perfectly sure what that is,” she said naively, “but indeed I won’t do it again, so pray don’t do anything horrid!”
“Very well,” he replied. He glanced down at the bills on his desk. “Ill settle these, and any others that you may have. Will you bring them to me, please?”
“Now?” she faltered, uneasily aware of a drawer stuffed with bills.
“Yes, now.” He added, with a smile: “You will be much more comfortable, you know, when you have made a clean breast of the whole.”
She agreed to this, but when she presently rendered up a collection of crumpled bills she did not feel at all comfortable. There could be no denying that she had been woefully extravagant. The allowance Cardross made her had seemed so enormous to a girl who had never had anything to spend beyond the small sum bestowed on her with the utmost reluctance by her papa for pin-money that she had bought things quite recklessly, feeling her resources to be limitless. But now, as she watched my lord glance through the appalling sheaf, she thought she must have been mad to have spent so much and so heedlessly.
For some moments he read with an unmoved countenance, but presently his brows knit, and he said: “A two-colour gold snuffbox with grisaille paintings?”
“For Dysart!” she explained apprehensively.
“Oh!” He resumed his study of the incriminating bills. With a sinking heart, she saw him pick up a document headed, in elegant scroll-work, by the name of her favourite dressmaker. He said nothing, however, and she was able to breathe again. But an instant later he read aloud: “Singing-bird, with box embellished turquoise-blue enamelled panels—What the devil—?”
“It was a music-box,” she explained, her voice jumping. “For the children—my sisters!”
“Ah, I see!” he said, laying the bill aside.
Her spirits rose, only to sink again an instant later when the Earl exclaimed: “Good God!” Peeping in great trepidation to see what had provoked this startled ejaculation, she perceived that he was holding another scrolled sheet. “Forty guineas for one hat?” he said incredulously.
“I am afraid it was a little dear,” she owned. “It—it has three very fine ostrich plumes, you see. You—you said you liked it!” she added desperately.
“Your taste is always impeccable, my love. Did I like the other eight hats you have purchased, or haven’t I seen them yet?”
Horrified, she stammered: “N-not eight, Giles, surely?”
He laughed. “Eight! Oh, don’t look so dismayed! I daresay they were all quite necessary. To be sure, forty guineas seems a trifle extortionate, but it is certainly a charming confection, and becomes you delightfully.” She smiled gratefully at him, and he took her chin in his hand, and pinched it. “Yes, very well, ma’am, but that is only the sop that goes before the scold! You’ve been drawing the bustle disgracefully, my dear. You seem not to have the smallest notion of management, and I should doubt whether you have ever kept an account in your life. Now, I am going to settle all these bills of yours and I am also going to place a further hundred pounds to your account. That should—indeed, it must!—keep you in reasonably comfortable circumstances until the quarter.”
She exclaimed: “Oh, thank you! How very kind you are! I will take the greatest care, I promise!”
“I trust you won’t find it necessary to exercise any very stringent economies,” he said, with a touch of irony. “But if you have any more bills laid by, give them to me now! I won’t scold, but I warn you, Nell, it won’t do to keep your money safely in Childe’s while you run up debts all over town! There are to be no bills outstanding at the quarter, so if you are concealing any from me now, make a clean breast of them! If I found that you had deceived me, then, indeed, I should be angry with you, and do much more than scold!”
“What—what would you do, if—if I did happen to owe any money at the quarter?” she asked, looking frightened.
“Give you only enough money for such trifling expenses as must occur from day to day, and arrange that all your bills are sent to me for payment,” he replied.
“Oh, no!” she cried, flushing.