“Oh, Giles, pray hush!” begged Nell.
The stricken maiden on the sofa bounced up, and in a husky voice of loathing promised to go into strong convulsions if Cardross did not instantly leave the room.
“By all means do so if you have a fancy to be well slapped!” retorted Cardross, looking as though it would give him considerable satisfaction to carry out his threat. “If you have not, stop enacting Cheltenham tragedies, and go to your own room!”
“Do you imagine,” gasped Letty, “that you can order me to my room, as though I were a child?”
“Yes, and carry you there, if you don’t instantly obey me!” he said, pulling the door open again. “Out!”
“For heaven’s sake, Cardross!” expostulated Nell, in the liveliest dread that Letty would relapse into hysterics. “Do, pray, go away, and leave her to me! This is my room, and really you have no right to order Letty out of it!”
“You have an odd notion of my rights,” he said grimly. “I don’t question that she is more welcome in your room than I am, but you will own that I at least have the right to be private with you when I choose!”
She whitened, but said quietly: “Most certainly, and if it is the case that you wish to speak to me, shall we go into my dressing-room?”
“You need not put yourself to so much trouble!” declared Letty, trembling with anger. “I would not for the world, love, expose you to the sort of ill-usage I am compelled to suffer, and to spare you I will go!”
This very noble speech wiped the thunderous look from Cardross’s face, and made him burst out laughing: an unlooked-for event which exacerbated Letty, but considerably relieved Nell. Letty, pausing only to inform her brother that his manners were as disgusting as his disposition was malevolent, swept out of the room, sped on her way by a recommendation to go and take a damper. Cardross then shut the door, saying: “Little termagant! I shall be sorry for Allandale, if ever she does marry him.”
“She is very much overset by this news that he must leave England so soon,” Nell replied excusingly. “One cannot but feel for her, and for my part—But I don’t wish to tease you any more.”
“Thank God for that! I have had as much as I can support in one day, I assure you. At breakfast, too!”
“I must say, I think that was a very foolish time to choose,” admitted Nell.
“Very! But she would not have found me more persuadable at any other hour.” He added, as she sighed: “Yes, I am aware of what your sentiments are, but I didn’t come to enter into argument with you over this lamentable affair. What I did come for was to discuss with you what will be the wisest course to pursue now. We may be sure of one thing: until that regrettable young man is out of the country there will be no peace for either of us. I shall no doubt be subjected to endless repetitions of today’s scene; and you, I suppose, will be obliged to sustain the exhausting role of confidante. Well, I know of no reason why you should be called upon to endure Letty’s tantrums, so tell me frankly, if you please, if you would wish me to pack her off to Bath?”
“Upon no account in the world!” she said quickly. “Surely you were only funning when you made that threat?”
“I was, but I didn’t then know that Allandale was to leave England so soon.”
“No, no, don’t think of it! It would be so dreadfully unkind to send her out of town when she has so little time left before Mr. Allandale sails! I am persuaded, too, that she would run away—perhaps to Mrs. Thorne, and you would very much dislike that. Only think how it would look!”
“If I know my Aunt Honoria, she would be given no chance to run away,” he said, with a wry smile. “Don’t imagine, however, that I wish to send her there! She’s a tiresome little wretch, and when she starts brangling and brawling I could willingly wring her neck, but so much must be laid at the door of her upbringing that I can’t feel she deserves quite such a fate as to be delivered up to that dragon of a female. But I don’t wish you to be worn to a bone by her nonsense.”
“Indeed I shan’t be, and I beg you won’t dream of sending her to Lady Honoria! One thing you may be sure of: you have no need to fear an elopement.”
“No, very true!” he agreed. “Allandale’s inability to support a wife must put that disaster beyond the range of possibility!”
“Yes, but that is not quite just, Cardross!” she said reproachfully. “He may be an ineligible match for poor Letty, but you cannot doubt that his principles are high, and his sense of propriety too great to allow of his entertaining the thought of an elopement, whatever might be his fortune!”
“His principles and his propriety may be as high as the moon, but I have no great opinion of his resolution!” Cardross replied. “Had that been on the same level he would never, as his affairs stand, have allowed his fancy for Letty to carry him to the length of applying to me for her hand! She can be an engaging little devil when she chooses, and I will own myself astonished if he is not being led about with a ring through his nose, like a performing bear. My dependence is all upon his straitened circumstances. We will keep Letty in London, then—and you won’t blame me if she drives you to distraction!”
He left the room on these words, and after a discreet interval Miss Sutton returned to it, to complete, with lofty dignity, her task of presenting her mistress suitably coiffed and gowned for an appearance in the Chapel Royal.
In the event, Nell decided that the hour was too far advanced to admit of her making anything but an undesirably spectacular arrival at the Chapel Royal; and she presently dismissed her carriage, setting out on foot for the Grosvenor Chapel, which place of worship, though frequented by persons of ton, was hardly worthy of Miss Sutton’s best efforts. She was accompanied by Letty, having coaxed that injured damsel to go with her in the hope that religious exercise would bring her to a more proper frame of mind. Unfortunately, the officiating cleric announced as the text for his sermon a verse from the Epistle to the Philippians. “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory” he pronounced sonorously, “but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Nell felt Letty stiffen.
Nor was there anything in the discourse that followed to produce in either lady any thoughts suitable to the Sabbath. So apposite to the events of the morning was the sermon that Nell, far from being edified, was hard put to it to stifle a shocking fit of giggles; while Letty, swelling with wrath, could not afterwards be persuaded that Cardross had not suborned the blameless cleric into choosing a text aimed directly at herself.
Upon their return to Grosvenor Square Nell found a note from Dysart awaiting her. No, the porter informed her: his lordship had not called in person, but had sent it by the hand of his groom. Nell bore it upstairs to her dressing-room to peruse it in private, but its contents were disappointing. The Viscount had scrawled no more than a couple of lines to say that he had received her warning, and would take care to keep out of Cardross’s way. He remained her affectionate brother, Dysart. It was only by the exercise of all the resolution at her command that she was able to refrain from dispatching another letter to him then and there, reminding him of the urgency of her need. Lady Sefton called during the course of the afternoon, and stayed for an hour, uttering cryptic remarks, and peeping at Letty through her fingers as she did so in a roguish manner that caused that young lady to apostrophize her later as a nasty creature, which was unjust, since beneath her tiresome affectations she was the kindest of creatures. From having been acquainted with Mrs. Allandale for many years she was pretty well aware of the state of affairs in Grosvenor Square, but even Nell, who liked her, could not acquit her of having come to discover, if she could, any interesting circumstances which had not reached Mrs. Allandale’s ears. Hardly had she departed than a much more unwelcome visitor arrived, in the person of Lady Cowper, who came with the ostensible object of begging dear Lady Cardross to lend her support to a charitable organization of which she herself was a leading patroness, but lost little time in trying to ferret out, in the most caressing way possible, all the details of Letty’s romance. Nell was mortified indeed to realize that her lord’s little sister had become one of the on-dits of London, and, glancing toward her, thought that she too looked to be rather struck. Lady Cowper, like all the Lambs, was possessed of a degree of charm that too often lured the unwary into reposing confidences in her which would later provide her with matter for her witty tongue; but her insinuating manners won her nothing from the two Merion ladies but a stoney stare from Letty, and from Nell a gentle civility that rebuffed all hints and enquiries, and caused her later to tell her numerous acquaintances that it was a sad pity that so beautiful a creature should be so insufferably insipid. As for her hostesses, no sooner had she taken herself off than they spent an agreeable half-hour abusing her, and in trying to decide whether her worst fault was cutting at people behind their backs, or paying visits in dresses trimmed with positively dirty lace.