“How old is he?” inquired Hero.
“Haven’t a notion, my dear. Don’t think he has either. Shouldn’t think he can be more than eighteen or nineteen, though.”
“He’s so very small!”
“Oh, there’s nothing in that! Trained for a jockey at one time, till they kicked him out of the stables for thieving. You know, I’ve been thinking, Kitten, and it’s my belief I’d best take you to Grillon’s.”
“Had you, Sherry? Where is that?”
“Albemarle Street. It’s a hotel. Devilish flat and respectable, but that can’t be helped.”
“Will you stay with me there?” Hero asked, a little nervously.
“Good God, no! That would mean the devil to pay! We shall have enough to do as it is, concocting some kind of a tale to account for a chit of your age jauntering about without a chaperon, or an abigail. Yes, by George, and you haven’t any trunks either! We ought to have brought a cloak-bag, and a few bandboxes. Grillon’s will never take you in without! Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“That’s just like you, Sherry,” observed Miss Wantage patiently. “You never would pay the least heed to anything I said, and then you blamed me when things went awry! Always! You know very well I asked you to let me pack a portmanteau. Now what shall we do?”
“Well, it can’t be helped. And I never said a word of blame, not one!”
“No, but you were just about to,” replied Hero, with a mischievous look. “I know you, Sherry!”
He grinned. “Little cat! I’ll tell you what we shall do. We’ll drive straight to my lodging; send my man, Bootle, out to buy your trunks; take a hackney to Bond Street; purchase what you stand in need of for the night; take everything back to my lodging; pack ’em up; and drive off to Grillon’s with ’em. I shall say you’re my sister — no, that won’t do: ten to one, they know I haven’t got a sister! I’ll say you’re my cousin. Going back to school in Bath. Come up from Kent — that’s true enough! — spending the night in London — I promised I’d meet you — abigail broke her leg getting out of the chaise — taken to hospital — no female relative in town — what am I to do? Nothing for it, of course! Take you to a respectable hotel! Couldn’t be better!”
Miss Wantage having no fault to find with this scheme, the rest of the journey was pleasantly beguiled by elaborating the Viscount’s ingenious story, filling in a few details, and laughing heartily over the approaching discomfiture of their respective relations. When the metropolis was reached, a slight squabble arose between them through Miss Wantage’s urgent desire to look about her, and the Viscount’s determination that she should keep her hood drawn well forward to hide her face. This soon blew over, however, and nothing could have been sunnier than Miss Wantage’s mood when she presently jumped down from the curricle outside the Viscount’s lodging.
His lordship’s valet, Bootle, was of necessity a long-suffering and phlegmatic personage, but the sudden arrival of his master, with a shabby young lady on his arm, palpably shook his iron calm. By the time he had grasped that he beheld his future mistress, he had schooled his countenance into an expression of one inured to calamity, and expectant of any outrage. When he learned that he was to sally forth immediately, to procure such baggage as was suited to a lady of quality, his feelings were only betrayed by the faintness of the voice in which he uttered the words: “Very good, my lord!”
But when the Viscount had swept Miss Wantage out again, he so far forgot himself as to confide to the interested proprietor of the lodgings that if Fate had not decreed that he should have a swollen jaw upon the day fixed for the Viscount’s return to his ancestral home, and if the Viscount had been less obliging in granting him a holiday to have the offending tooth drawn, a chain of circumstances, which he foresaw could only end in disaster, would never have been set up. The proprietor, a literal-minded gentleman, said that he had never seen Mr Bootle nor anyone else, for that matter, managing to check any of his lordship’s starts. He apostrophized his lordship as a regular dash, turf or turnpike, a vulgarism which offended Bootle so much that he went off to execute the Viscount’s commission without vouchsafing another word to his crony.
The Viscount, meanwhile, conveyed Miss Wantage to a certain mantua-maker’s establishment in Bond Street, where he was not unknown. Here, after a few moments’ brief and startlingly frank colloquy with the astonished proprietress, he handed Miss Wantage over, to be fitted out as became her station. Nothing occurred to disturb the harmony of these proceedings, except a slight contretemps arising out of Miss Wantage’s burning desire for a very dashing confection of sea-green gauze, with silver ribbons, and the Viscount’s flat refusal to permit her to wear any garment so outrageously unsuited to a young lady supposedly on her way to a select seminary in Bath. This trifling quarrel was adjusted by the mantua-maker, who, foreseeing a valuable customer in the future Lady Sheringham, spared no pains to exercise all the tact at her command. She suggested that his lordship should buy a demure (and extremely expensive) gown for Miss Wantage to wear in the immediate future, at the same time laying by, for a later occasion, the sea-green gauze which had so taken Miss’s fancy. The Viscount agreed to this, and was at once obliged to call Miss Wantage to order for hugging him in public.
By the time these purchases, with a few other of a more intimate nature, had been made; a hat to match the muslin dress chosen at a milliner’s shop farther down the street; a pair of lavender kid gloves procured; such items as brushes, combs, and Joppa soap added to the list of necessities; and a faithful promise made to Miss Wantage that she should visit this entrancing thoroughfare again upon the morrow to make further purchases, dusk was falling. The betrothed couple returned to the Viscount’s lodgings, Miss Wantage in a state of inarticulate bliss, and her cavalier divided between amusement at her pleasure in her first new gown, and a strong inclination for his dinner. Bootle having proved himself worthy of his trust, nothing further remained to do but to pack the various purchases in two neat trunks, and to summon another hackney to convey them to Grillon’s Hotel.
Seated in this homely vehicle, Miss Wantage slipped a small, gloved hand into Sherry’s, and said in a quivering voice: “Thank you, Sherry! Oh, I wish I could tell you — ! You see, no one has ever given me anything before!”
“Poor little soul!” said his lordship, patting her in a friendly way. “There, don’t cry! You may have anything you like now, you know. Anything except that shocking hat with the purple feathers, that is! Mind, you’re not to buy that tomorrow, Kitten! I shall have it taken straight back, if you do!”
“No, Sherry, I promise I won’t,” said Miss Wantage submissively.
Chapter Four
UPON THE FOLLOWING MORNING, NOT VERY much after ten o’clock, two young gentlemen sat at breakfast together in the front parlour of a house in Stratton Street. The apartment, which was the lodging of Mr Gilbert Ringwood, bore all the signs of being a bachelor abode, the furniture being old-fashioned, and designed rather for comfort than for elegance. A mahogany sideboard supported an array of bottles, rummers, tankards, and punchbowls; a pair of foils was propped up in one corner of the room; several riding-whips hung on the wall, amongst a collection of sporting prints and engravings; three snuff jars, a box of cigars, and a marble clock adorned the mantelpiece; and the imposing mirror hung above it had tucked into its rather loose frame various cards of invitation, and two advertisements: one of a forthcoming event at the Royal Cockpit, and the other of a sparring contest to be held under the auspices of Mr John Jackson at the Fives-Court, Westminster. Further testimony to the sporting proclivities of the owner of this apartment was provided by a pile of Weekly Dispatches, and a copy of the Racing Calendar, which reposed on the writing-desk by the window.