“Well, I will help you to find you, provided you go to look for him yourself, and do not send this objectionable fellow to bully him into saying what he wants him to,” said the Duke. “You may then ask him if I kidnapped him, and I hope you will be satisfied that I did not.”
“Where is he?” demanded Mr. Mamble.
“Are you going to go yourself?”
“Damn your impudence, yes, I am!”
“He is in Sydney Gardens, probably lost in one of the labyrinths. And don’t storm and roar at him, for it doesn’t answer at all!”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to treat my own son!” said Mr. Mamble angrily.
“That is precisely what you do need,” replied the Duke, his serene tones in striking contrast to Mr. Mamble’s explosive method of speech. “Presently I shall have a good deal to say to you on that score, but you had best find Tom first. I don’t know where you are putting up in Bath, but you may send this fellow to await you there. I’ve no wish for his company.”
Mr. Mamble glared at him, but he was a fair-minded man, and, having endured Mr. Snape’s unadulterated society for several days, he could not but admit the reasonableness of the Duke’s request. He told Mr. Snape to go back to the White Horse, since he was of no use to anyone, being a muttonheaded fool, no more fit to be in charge of a guinea-pig than of a growing lad. He then said that if the Duke was trying to fob him off while his accomplices spirited Tom away he would rend him limb from limb, and departed, calling loudly for a hack.
The Duke resigned himself to await Lord Gaywood’s arrival. As the minutes crawled by, it began to be borne in upon him that the messenger had not found Lady Harriet at home. He hoped very much that her return to Laura Place would not be long delayed, for not only did he find the chair on which he was sitting excessively uncomfortable, but he fancied that the constable was regarding him with increasing suspicion.
After about three quarters of an hour a diversion took place. Tom, looking heated and pugnacious, bounced into the room, and launched himself upon the Duke, grasping him by the arm with painful violence, and crying: “They shan’t arrest you! They shan’t! I’ll fight them all! Oh, sir, don’t let Pa take me away, for I won’t go with him, I won’t!”
Mr. Mamble, who had followed his son into the room, said: “You young rascal, that’s a pretty way to talk! And me your Pa! Ay, and as for you, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is, if you didn’t kidnap my boy—which, mind you, I’m not by any means sure you didn’t—you’ve properly cozened him out of his senses with your smooth talk! And what’s more, he says you’re no more the Duke of Sale than what I am!”
“No, he doesn’t know I am,” said the Duke.
“Sir, you’re not!” said Tom, apparently feeling that it must be to his discredit.
“Well, yes, Tom, I’m afraid I am,” said the Duke apologetically.
“You’re Mr. Rufford! Oh, do say you are, sir! I know you are only bamming! Dukes are grand, stuffy people, and you aren’t!”
“No, of course I am not,” said the Duke soothingly. “I cannot help being a Duke, you know. You need not let it distress you! I am still your Mr. Rufford, after all!”
The sullen look, which indicated that he was very much upset, descended upon Tom’s face. He said gruffly: “Well, I don’t care! I won’t go home with Pa, at all events! I hate Pa! He has spoiled everything!”
“That is not a proper way to speak of your Papa, Tom, and it is moreover quite untrue,” replied the Duke, removing the clutch from his arm.
“What you need,” Mr. Mamble informed his son bodingly, “is to have your jacket well dusted, my lad! Ay, and it’s what you’ll get before you’re much older!”
“And that,” said the Duke, “is hardly a felicitous way of recommending yourself to your son, sir.”
What Mr. Mamble might have replied to this was never known, for at that moment the constable who had been sent to Laura Place ushered Lady Harriet into the room.
The Duke leaped to his feet, exclaiming: “Harriet!”
She put back her veil, blushing, and saying in her soft shy voice: “I thought I should come myself. Gaywood is gone out, and you know how he would roast you! I am so very sorry you have been kept in this horrid place for so long! I had gone out with Belinda, and this poor man was obliged to stay till I returned.
The Duke took her hand, and kissed it. “I would not have had you come for the world!” he said. “Indeed, I don’t know what I deserve for dragging you into such a coil! You did not come alone!”
“No, indeed, the constable brought me,” she assured him. “I beg your pardon if you do not like it, Gilly, but I did not wish to bring my maid, or James, for they would have been bound to gave gossiped about it, you know. What is it I must do to have you set at liberty?”
She looked enquiringly towards the senior constable as she spoke, who bowed very low, and said that if it was not troubling her ladyship too much he would be obliged to her for stating whether or not the gentleman was the Duke of Sale.
“Oh, yes, certainly he is!” she said. She blushed more than ever, and added: “I am engaged to be married to him, so, you see, I must know.”
Mr. Mamble drew a large handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped his face with it. “I don’t know what to say!” he announced. “To think of my Tom going about with a Duke, and me being so taken-in—Well, your Grace will have to pardon me if I might perhaps have said anything not quite becoming!”
“Yes, of course I pardon you, but do pray withdraw the charge against me, so that I may escort Lady Harriet home!” said the Duke.
Mr. Mamble hastened to do this, and would have embarked on an elaborate apology had not the Duke cut him short. “My dear sir, pray say no more! I wish you will go with Tom to the Pelican, and await me there. I hope you will give me your company at dinner, for there are several things I wish to talk to you about.”
“Your Grace,” said Mr. Mamble, bowing deeply, “I shall be highly honoured!”
“But it isn’t dinner-time yet!” objected Tom. “I don’t want to go back to the Pelican! Pa took me away from those jolly gardens before I had even seen the grotto! And I had paid my sixpence, too!”
“Well, ask your Papa for another sixpence, and go back to the gardens—that is, if he will permit you to.”
“You do just what his Grace tells you, and keep a civil tongue in your head!” Mr. Mamble admonished his son. “Here’s a crown for you: you can take a hack, and see you ain’t late for dinner!”
Tom, his spirits quite restored by this generosity, thanked him hurriedly, and dashed off. The rest of the party then dispersed, the Duke handing Harriet up into a hackney, and Mr. Mamble setting out in a chastened and bemused frame of mind to walk to the Pelican.
Having given the direction to the coachman, the Duke got into the hackney beside Harriet, and took her in his arms, and kissed her. “Harry, I don’t know how you found the courage to do it, for you must have hated it excessively, my poor love, but I am very sure I am the most fortunate, undeserving dog alive!” he declared.
She gave a gasp, and trembled. “Oh, Gilly!” she said faintly, timidly clasping the lapel of his coat. “Are you indeed sure?”
“I am indeed sure,” he said steadily.
Her eyes searched his face. “When you offered for me, I did not think—” Her voice failed. She recovered it. “I know, of course, that persons of our rank do not look for—for the tenderer passions in marriage, but—”
“Did your mother tell you so, my love?” he interrupted.
“Oh, yes, and indeed I do not mean to embarrass you with—with—”
“Infamous! It is precisely what my uncle said to me! Was that what made you so shy, that dreadful day? I know I was ready to sink! My uncle told me I must not look for love in my wife, but only complaisance!”
“Oh, Gilly, how could he say so? Mama said it would give you a disgust of me if I seemed—if I seemed to care for you very much!”