Faro's Daughter

Faro’s Daughter

Georgette Heyer

1941

Chapter 1

Upon her butler’s announcing the arrival of Mr Ravenscar, Lady Mablethorpe, who had been dozing over a novel from the Circulating Library, sat up with a jerk, and raised a hand to her dishevelled cap. ‘What’s that you say? Mr. Ravenscar? Desire him to come upstairs at once.’

While the butler went to convey this message to the morning-caller, her ladyship tidied her ruffled person, fortified herself with a sniff at her vinaigrette, and disposed herself on the sofa to receive her guest.

The gentleman who was presently ushered into the room was some twenty years her junior, and looked singularly out of place in a lady’s boudoir. He was very tall, with a good pair of legs, encased in buckskins and topboots, fine broad shoulders under a coat of superfine cloth, and a lean, harsh-featured countenance with an uncompromising mouth and extremely hard grey eyes. His hair, which was black, and slightly curling, was cut into something perilously near a Bedford crop. Lady Mablethorpe, who belonged to an older generation, and herself continued to make free use of the pounce-box, in spite of Mr Pitt’s iniquitous tax on hair-powder, could never look upon the new heads without a shudder. She shuddered now, as her affronted gaze took in not only her nephew’s abominable crop but also the careless set of his coat, his topboots, the single spur he wore, and the negligent way he had tied his cravat, and thrust its ends through a gold-edged buttonhole. She raised the vinaigrette to her nostrils again, and said in a fading voice: ‘Upon my word, Max! Whenever I clap eyes on you I fancy I can smell the stables!’

Mr Ravenscar strolled across the room, and took up a position with his back to the fire. ‘And can you?’ he inquired amiably.

Lady Mablethorpe chose to ignore this exasperating question. ‘Why, in the name of heaven, only one spur?’ she demanded.

‘That’s the high kick of fashion,’ said Ravenscar.

‘It makes you look for all the world like a postilion.’

‘It’s meant to.’

‘And you know very well that you do not care a snap for the fashion! I beg you will not teach Adrian to make such a vulgar spectacle of himself!’

Mr Ravenscar raised his brows. ‘I’m not likely to put myself to so much trouble,’ he said.

This assurance did nothing to mollify his aunt. She said severely that the fashion of waiting upon ladies in garments fit only for Newmarket was not one which she had until this day encountered.

‘I’ve this instant ridden into town,’ said Mr Ravenscar, with an indifference which robbed his explanation of all semblance of apology. ‘I thought you wanted to see me.’

‘I have been wanting to see you these five days and more. Where in the world have you been, tiresome creature? I drove round to Grosvenor Square, only to find the house shut up, and the knocker off the door.’

‘I’ve been down at Chamfreys.’

‘Oh, indeed! Well, I’m sure I hope you found your Mama in good health—not but what it’s the height of absurdity to call Mrs Ravenscar your mother, for she’s no such thing, and of all the foolish—’

‘I don’t,’ said Ravenscar briefly.

‘Well, I hope you found her in good health,’ repeated Lady Mablethorpe, a trifle disconcerted.

‘I didn’t find her at all. She is at Tunbridge Wells, with Arabella.’

At the mention of her niece, Lady Mablethorpe’s eyes brightened. ‘The dear child!’ she said. ‘And how is she, Max?’

The thought of his young half-sister appeared to afford Mr Ravenscar no gratification. ‘She’s a devilish nuisance,’ he replied.

A shade of uneasiness crossed her ladyship’s plump countenance. ‘Oh, indeed? Of course, she is very young, and I daresay Mrs Ravenscar indulges her more than she should. But—’

‘Olivia is as big a fool as Arabella,’ responded Ravenscar shortly. ‘They are both coming up to town next week. The 14th Foot are stationed near the Wells.’

This grim pronouncement apparently conveyed a world of information to Lady Mablethorpe. After a somewhat pensive pause, she said: ‘It is time dear Arabella was thinking of marriage. After all, I was married when I was scarce—’

‘She never thinks of anything else,’ said Ravenscar. ‘The latest is some nameless whelp in a scarlet coat.’

‘You ought to keep her more under your eye,’ said his aunt. ‘You are as much her guardian as Mrs Ravenscar.’

‘I’m going to,’ said Ravenscar.

‘Perhaps if we could marry her suitably—’

‘My dear ma’am,’ said Mr Ravenscar impatiently, ‘Arabella is no more fit to be married than if she were still in long coats! I have it from Olivia that she has been head over ears in love with no fewer than five aspiring gentlemen in as many months.’

‘Good God, Max! If you don’t take care, we shall have some dreadful fortune-hunter running off with her!’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all.’

Lady Mablethorpe showed slight signs of agitation. ‘You are the most provoking creature! How can you talk in that cool way about such a disastrous possibility?’

‘Well, at least I should be rid of her,’ said Mr Ravenscar callously. ‘If you’re thinking of marrying her to Adrian, I can tell you now that—’

‘Oh, Max, that is what I wanted to see you about!’ interrupted his aunt, recalled by the mention of her son’s name to the more pressing problem of the moment. ‘I am quite distracted with worry!’

‘Oh?’ said Ravenscar, with casual interest. ‘What’s the young fool been doing?’

Lady Mablethorpe bristled instinctively at this uncomplimentary description of her only child, but a moment’s reflection brought the unwelcome conviction that the slighting term had been earned. ‘He thinks he is in love,’ she said tragically.

Mr Ravenscar was unmoved. ‘He’ll think it a good many times for the next five or six years. How old is the cub?’

‘Considering you are one of his trustees, you surely know that he is not yet twenty-one!’

‘Forbid the banns, then,’ recommended Mr Ravenscar flippantly.

‘I wish you will be serious! This is no laughing matter! He will be of age in a couple of months now! And before we know where we are we shall have him married to some scheming hussy.’

‘I should think it extremely unlikely, ma’am. Let the boy alone. Damme, he must cut his milk teeth sometime!’

Lady Mablethorpe flushed angrily. ‘It is all very well for you to stand there, talking in that odious way, as though you did not care a fig, but—’

‘I’m only responsible for his fortune,’ he said.

‘I might have known you would have come here only to be disagreeable! Wash your hands of my poor boy by all means: I’m sure it’s only what I expected. But don’t blame me if he contracts the most shocking misalliance!’

‘Who is the girl?’ asked Mr Ravenscar.

‘A creature—oh, a hussy—out of a gaming-house!’

‘What?’ demanded Ravenscar incredulously.

‘I thought you would not be quite so cool when you heard the full sum of it!’ said her ladyship, with a certain morbid satisfaction. ‘I was never so appalled in my life as when I heard of it! I went immediately to your house. Something must be done, Max!’

He shrugged. ‘Oh, let him amuse himself! It don’t signify. She may cost him less than an opera-dancer.’

‘She will cost him a great deal more!’ said her ladyship tartly. ‘He means to marry the creature!’

‘Nonsense! He’s not such a fool. One does not marry women out of gaming-houses.’

‘I wish you will tell him so, for he will pay no heed to anything I say. He will have us believe that the girl is quite something out of the common way, if you please. Of course, it is as clear as daylight. The dear boy is as innocent as a lamb, and full of the most nonsensical romantic notions! That hateful, vulgar, scheming woman lured him to her house, and the niece did the rest. You may depend upon it she meant to have him from the start. Sally Repton tells me that it is positively absurd to see how Adrian worships the wench. There is no doing anything with him. She will have to be bought off: That is why I sent for you.’ She observed a distinctly saturnine look in Mr Ravenscar’s eye, and added with something of a snap: ‘You need not be afraid, Max. I hope I know better than to expect you to lay out any of your odious wealth on the business!’

‘I hope you do, aunt, for I shall certainly do no such thing.’

‘It would be a very odd thing if anyone were to ask you to,’ she said severely. ‘Not but what you would scarcely notice the expenditure, as wealthy as you are. Indeed, I cannot imagine how you contrive to spend half of your income, and I must say, Max, that nobody would suppose, from the appearance you present, that you are quite the richest man in town.’

‘Are you complimenting me upon my lack of ostentation, ma’am?’

‘No, I am not,’ said her ladyship acidly. ‘There is nothing I have ever felt the least desire to compliment you on. I wish to heaven there were someone other than yourself to whom I could turn in this fetch. You are hard, and unfeeling, Max, and excessively selfish.’

He sought in the recesses of his pocket for his snuff box, and drew it out, and opened it. ‘Try Uncle Julius,’ he suggested.

‘That old woman!’ exclaimed Lady Mablethorpe, disposing of her brother-in-law in one contemptuous phrase. ‘Pray, what could he do to the purpose?’

‘Sympathize with you,’ said Mr Ravenscar, taking snuff. He saw the vinaigrette come into play, and shut his snuff box with a snap. ‘Well, you had better tell me who this Cyprian of Adrian’s is.’

‘She is that vulgar Lady Bellingham’s niece—or so they pretend,’ answered Lady Mablethorpe, abandoning the vinaigrette. ‘You must know Eliza Bellingham! She keeps a gaming-house in St James’s Square.’

‘One of the Archer-Buckingham kidney?’

‘Precisely so. Well, I don’t say she is as bad as that precious pair, for, indeed, who could be?—but it’s all the same. She was Ned Bellingham’s wife, and I for one never thought her good ton at all, while we all know what Bellingham was!’

‘I seem to be singularly ignorant.’

‘Oh well, it was before your day! It doesn’t signify, for he’s been dead these fifteen years: drank himself into his grave, though they called it an inflammation of the lungs—fiddle! Of course he left her with a pile of debts, just as anyone might have expected. I’m sure I don’t know how she contrived to live until she started her wretched gaming-house: I daresay she might have rich relatives. But that’s neither here nor there. You may see her everywhere; she rents her box at the opera, even! but no person of ton will recognize her.’

‘How does she fill her house, then? I suppose it is the usual thing?—discreet cards of invitation, handsome supper, any quantity of inferior wine, E.O. and faro-tables set out abovestairs?’

‘I was referring to ladies of breeding,’ said his aunt coldly. ‘It is well known, alas, that gentlemen will go anywhere for the sake of gaming!’

He made her a slight, ironical bow. ‘Also, if my memory serves me, Lady Sarah Repton.’

‘I make no excuse for Sally. But duke’s daughter or not, I should never think of describing her as of good ton!’

He looked faintly amused. ‘I wish you will enlighten me: do you recognize her?’

‘Don’t be absurd, I beg of you! Naturally Sally has the entree everywhere. Eliza Bellingham is quite another matter, and you may depend upon it that although Sally may go to her house, she does not set foot in Sally’s! It was Sally who warned me of what was going forward. As you may suppose, I immediately taxed Adrian with it.’

‘That is what I supposed,’ agreed Mr Ravenscar, looking sardonic.

Lady Mablethorpe cast him a glance of scornful dislike. ‘You need not imagine that I am a fool, Max. Of course I went tactfully about the business, never supposing for an instant that I should discover the affair to be more than a—than a—Well, you know what anyone would expect, hearing that a young man had become enamoured of a wench from a gaming-house! You may conceive my dismay when Adrian at once, and without the least hesitation, informed me that he was indeed madly in love with the girl, and meant to marry her! Max, I was so taken aback that I could not utter a word!’

‘Has he taken leave of his senses?’ demanded Mr Ravenscar.

‘He is just like his father,’ said Lady Mablethorpe, in a despairing way. ‘Depend upon it, he has taken some romantic maggot into his head! You know how he was for ever reading tales of chivalry, and such nonsense, when he was a boy! This is what comes of it! I wish I had sent him to Eton.’

Mr Ravenscar raised his eyes, and thoughtfully contemplated the portrait which hung on the wall opposite to him. It depicted a young man in a blue coat, who looked out of the picture with a faint smile in his fine eyes. He was a handsome young man, hardly more than a boy. He wore his own fair hair tied in the nape of his neck, and supported his chin on one slender, beautiful hand. His expression was one of great sweetness, but there was a hint of obstinacy in the curve of his lips, at odd variance with the dreamy softness of his eyes.

Lady Mablethorpe followed the direction of her nephew’s gaze, and herself studied, with misgiving, the portrait of the 4
^th
Viscount. A despondent sigh escaped her; she transferred her attention to Mr Ravenscar. ‘What’s to be done, Max?’ she asked.