“Take a damper!” said the Viscount. “None of that is true, as well you know! The unscrupulous person who cast her adrift is yourself, so let us have less of this theatrical bombast! You wish to know what I have done to redress the injury to her reputation she has suffered at my hands, and my answer is, Nothing—because her reputation has suffered no injury either at my hands, or at anyone else’s! But when I found that your father had gone out of town, the lord only knew where, and that Cherry had nowhere to go, not one acquaintance in London, and only a shilling or two in her purse, I realized that little though I might like it I must hold myself responsible for her. With your arrival, my responsibility has come to an end. But before I knew that you were not dead, but actually in this country, I drove down to Bath, to take counsel of Miss Fletching. I was a day behind you, Mr Steane. Miss Fletching most sincerely pities Cherry, and is, I think, very fond of her. She offers her a home, until she can hear of a situation which Cherry might like. She has one in her eye already, with an invalid lady whom she describes as very charming and gentle, but all depends upon her present companion, who is torn between her duty to her lately widowed parent, and her wish to remain with her kind mistress.”
“Oh, Des, it would be the very thing for Cherry!” Henrietta cried.
“What!” ejaculated Mr Steane, powerfully affected. “The very thing for my beloved child to become a paid dependant? Over my dead body!” He buried his face in his handkerchief, but emerged from it for a moment to direct a look of wounded reproach at Desford, and to say in a broken voice: “That I should have lived to hear my heart’s last treasure so insulted!” He disappeared again into the handkerchief, but re-emerged to say bitterly: “Shabby, my Lord Desford, that’s what I call it!”
Desford’s lips quivered, and his eyes met Henrietta’s, which were brimful of the same appreciative amusement that had put to flight his growing exasperation. The look held, and in each pair of eyes was a warmth behind the laughter.
Mr Steane’s voice intruded upon this interlude. “And where,” he demanded, “is my little Charity? Answer that, one of you, before you make plans to degrade her!”
“Well, I am afraid we can’t answer it just at this moment!” said Henrietta guiltily. “Desford, you will think me dreadfully careless, but while I was visiting an old friend this morning, Cherry went out for a walk, and—and hasn’t yet come back!”
“Mislaid her, have you? I learned from—Grimshaw—that she’s missing, but I don’t doubt she has done nothing more dangerous than lose her way, and will soon be back.”
“If she has not been spirited away,” said Mr Steane darkly. “My mind is full of foreboding. I wonder if I shall ever see her again?”
“Yes, and immediately!” said Henrietta, hurrying across the room to the door. “That’s her voice! Heavens, what a relief!”
She opened the door as she spoke. “Oh, Cherry, you naughty child! Where in the world—” She broke off abruptly, for a surprising sight met her eyes. Cherry was being carried towards the staircase by Mr Cary Nethercott, her bonnet hanging by its ribbon over one arm, a mutilated boot clutched in one hand, and the other gripping the collar of Mr Nethercott’s rough shooting-jacket.
“Dear, dear Miss Silverdale, don’t be vexed with me!” she begged. “I know it was stupid of me to run out, but indeed I didn’t mean to make you anxious! Only I lost my way, and couldn’t find it, and at last I was so dreadfully tired that I made up my mind to ask the first person I met to show me how to get back to Inglehurst. But it was ages before I saw a single soul, and then it was a horrid man in a gig, who—who looked at me in such a way that—that I said it was of no consequence, and walked on as fast as I could. And then he called after me, and started to get down from the gig, and I ran for my life, into the woods, and, oh, Miss Silverdale, I tore my dress on the brambles, besides catching my foot in a horrid, trailing root, or branch, or something, and falling into a bed of nettles! And when I tried to get up I couldn’t, because it hurt me so much that I thought I was going to faint.”
“Well, what a chapter of accidents!” said Henrietta. She saw that one of Cherry’s ankles was heavily bandaged, and exclaimed: “Oh, dear, dear, I collect you sprained your ankle! Poor Cherry!” She smiled at Cary Nethercott. “Was she in your woods? Was that how you found her? How kind of you to have brought her home! I am very much obliged to you!”
“Yes, that was how it was,” he answered. “I took my gun out, hoping to get a wood-pigeon or two, but instead I got a far prettier bird, as you see, Miss Hetta! Unfortunately I had no knife on me, so I thought it best to carry Cherry to my own house immediately, so that I could cut the boot off, and tell my housekeeper to apply cold poultices, to take down the swelling. I sent my man off to fetch Foston, fearing, you know, that there might be a broken bone, but he assured me that it was only a very bad sprain. You will say that I should have brought her back to you as soon as Foston had bound up her foot and ankle, but she was so much exhausted by the pain of having it inspected by Foston that I thought it best that she should rest until the pain had gone off.”
“You can’t think how much it hurt, dear Miss Silverdale! But Mr Nethercott held my hand tightly all the time, and so I was able to bear it.”
“What a perfectly horrid day you’ve had!” said Henrietta. “I’m so sorry, my dear: none of it would have happened if I hadn’t been absent!”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Cherry said, her eyes and cheeks glowing, and a seraphic smile trembling on her mouth. “It has been the happiest day of my whole life! Oh, Miss Silverdale, Mr Nethercott has asked me to marry him! Please, please say I may!”
“Good God!—I mean, you have no need to ask my permission, you goose! I have nothing to do but to wish you both very happy, which you may be sure I do, with all my heart! But there is someone here who has come especially to see you, and whom I am persuaded you will be very glad to meet again. Bring her into the library, Mr Nethercott, and put her on the sofa, so that she can keep her foot up.”
“Who,” demanded Mr Steane of the Viscount, “is this fellow who presumes to offer for my daughter without so much as a by your leave?”
“Cary Nethercott. An excellent fellow!” replied the Viscount enthusiastically.
He moved over to the sofa, and arranged the cushions on it, just as Cary Nethercott bore Cherry tenderly into the room. She exclaimed: “Lord Desford! Indeed I’m glad to meet him again, Miss Silverdale, for I owe everything to him! How do you do, sir? I have wanted so much to thank you for having brought me here, and I never did, you know!”
He smiled, but said: “Miss Silverdale didn’t mean that you would be glad to meet me again, Cherry. Look, do you recognize that gentleman?”
She turned her head, and for the first time caught sight of Mr Steane. She stared at him blankly for an instant, and then gave a tiny gasp, and said: “Papa?”
“My child!” uttered Mr Steane. “At last I may clasp you to my bosom again!” This, however, he was unable to do, since she had been set down on the sofa, and the corset he wore made it impossible for him to stoop so low. He compromised by putting an arm round her shoulders, and kissing her brow. “My little Charity!” he said fondly.
“I thought you were dead, Papa!” she said wonderingly. “I’m so happy to know you aren’t! But why did you never write to me, or to poor Miss Fletching?”
“Do not speak to me of that woman!” he commanded, side-stepping this home-question. “Never would I have left you in her charge had I known how shamefully she would betray my trust, my poor child!”
“Oh, no, Papa!” she cried distressfully. “How can you say so, when she was so kind to me, and kept me at the school for nothing?”