Faro's Daughter (26 page)

Miss Grantham was pleased to hear this, but she had borne much that evening, and felt disinclined to embark on a discussion of Phoebe’s affairs in a crowded supper-room. She answered rather briefly, therefore, and incurred Lord Mablethorpe’s censure for the first time in her life.

‘It’s very well, Deb, but she cannot stay here for ever, and I don’t think you are bothering your head much about her,’ his lordship said gravely.

‘I have other things to think of,’ said Deborah.

‘I am sure you must, but she has no one but you to think for her, or to take care of her, remember!’

This was said with a gentle dignity which Miss Grantham had not met before in her youthful swain. She reflected that close association with Miss Laxton was investing his lordship with a sense of responsibility, and liked him the better for it. ‘It is very hard to know what to do for the best,’ she said. ‘I quite thought that her parents would have relented. They may still do so.’

A little crease appeared between his brows. ‘Even so-!’ He paused, and went on again after a moment’s hesitation: ‘She has confided in me to some extent, Deb. I dare say she may have told you more. But I have heard enough to realize that she can never be happy at home. Those parents-! If it were not Filey it would very likely be someone as bad. Lady Laxton cares for nothing but money. I should feel we had betrayed Phoebe if we let her go back. She is not like you, she needs someone to protect her.’

This naive pronouncement made Miss Grantham feel much inclined to inform him that to have someone to protect her was every woman’s dream, but she refrained, and said instead that she did not know what was to be done. She added that she must go upstairs to the card-rooms, and left him feeling more dissatisfied with her than he would have believed, a week before, that he could be.

If the truth were told, his lordship had been finding his
inamorata
a little trying ever since the evening they had spent at Vauxhall. Her behaviour then had certainly shocked him and although he had never again seen her assume such peculiar manners, he could not help wondering sometimes if then might be a recurrence the next time she found herself it elevated circles.

Then there was her manner towards himself, which occasionally chafed him. She was often rather impatient with him, as though she found his youth and inexperience exasperating; and she had developed a habit of ordering him about more than he liked. There had even been moments when the memory of a governess he had had in early childhood most forcibly recurred in his mind. He was by no means a fool, and he had begun to perceive that Miss Grantham’s seniority gave her an advantage over him which might well preclude hi assuming the mastery over his own establishment. Lord Mablethorpe had a sweetness of temper which made him universally liked; he was very young still, and diffident; but he was no weakling, and he was growing up fast.

Miss Grantham, well aware of these facts, was riding him hard as she thought proper, allowing the decision and forcefulness of her own character to throw Miss Laxton’s gentle: and more yielding nature into strong relief. Mablethorpe, she knew, could not fail to make comparison between them; and it would be an odd thing if a young man who was bullied, in a kind way, by one woman, did not find the admiration and dependence of another a refreshing change.

He did find it refreshing. Miss Laxton’s fragility, her helplessness, her implicit trust in him, had made an instant appeal to his chivalry. From the first moment of meeting her, when she had clung to his hand, he had felt protective towards her. She had said that she knew herself to be safe with him, and later she had said that she would be guided by his judgement, and had asked for his advice. No one had ever expressed a desire to benefit by Lord Mablethorpe’s advice before; and since his mother, his uncle Julius, and his cousin Max were all persons of decided opinions, he had never received any very noticeable encouragement to put forward his own views on subjects of major importance. His life had, naturally enough, been ordered for him, and although he was fast approaching his majority it would be some time before these relatives, who were all so much older and wiser than himself, would be brought to regard him in the light of a responsible adult. Even Deborah, in her most mellow moments, treated him rather as she might be expected to treat a younger brother. She laughed at him, and teased him, and could rarely be brought to take him very seriously.

But Miss Laxton was two years younger than he, and she did not see him as a delightful boy who had not yet found his feet. To her, running away from the advances of one who seemed to her an ogre, he was a tall young knight who had stepped out from the pages of a fairy story. His knowledge of the world seemed vast to one who had none at all. He was handsome, and strong, and gentle. He instructed her ignorance, and bade her entrust her safety to him. It was not surprising that Miss Laxton should have fallen head over ears in love with him.

She was in no doubt about her feelings; it was some time before he realized the state of his own heart, and longer still before he would admit to himself that he had, incredibly, fallen out of love with one woman headlong into love with another. It seemed appalling to him that he could have done such a thing, and he was inclined to think himself the most fickle and despicable of created beings. But he knew that his love for Phoebe was quite a different emotion from his half awed adoration of Deborah. He had been swept off his feet by Deborah. She was a goddess to be worshipped, beautiful, wise, and dazzling; always immeasurably superior to himself. He did not think of Phoebe like that at all. He knew quite well that she was not as beautiful as Deborah, not wise, and appealing rather than dazzling. When Deborah had smiled at him, he had felt quite dizzy, and had had wild, romantic notions of kissing the hem of her garment, or performing impossible feats in her honour. When Phoebe smiled, no such thoughts occurred to him, but he was conscious of a strong impulse to catch her up in his arms, and hold her safe there.

He had had just such an impulse when he had said good night to her before coming down to the supper-room that evening. She had looked forlorn and defenceless, and was frightened, because she knew that Filey was in the house. He felt concerned about her, so Miss Grantham’s lack of sympathy struck him forcibly, and he came as near losing his temper with her as he had ever been in his life.

When she left the room, he joined the group round his cousin. Crewe was trying to discover what was the nature of the injury to Ravenscar’s hands, and several other persons were discussing the relative points of the two pairs of horses, and the character of the course to be covered. This had been changed from the original stretch past Epsom to a straightforward run from the village of Islington to Hatfield, on the Great North Road. Listening to the talk, Lord Mablethorpe forgot his heart’s preoccupations for a time. ‘I wish I were going with you!’ he said wistfully. ‘I mean to drive out to see the finish, but that’s not the same thing.’

Ravenscar set down his empty glass on the table. ‘Well, you may come with me if you like,’ he answered. ‘Only you must carry the yard of tin if you do!’

An eager flush rose to Mablethorpe’s cheeks. ‘Max! Do you mean it? You’ll take me in place of a groom? Oh, by Jupiter, that’s beyond anything great!’

Crewe laughed at his enthusiasm, and began to tease him.

‘Why, Max, you can’t take him in place of Welling! You will be held up at every toll-bar!’

‘He will not!’ said Mablethorpe indignantly. ‘I can handle the yard of tin as well as anyone!’

‘You will be so excited you will forget to blow up for the gates until it is too late.’

‘I won’t! Why, I have often been with Max! I know just what to do!’

‘Well,’ said Crewe, shaking his head, ‘if you really mean to set up that great, lanky creature in Welling’s place, Max, I shall have to lay off you, and that is all there is to it.’

This shaft went home. Lord Mablethorpe’s face fell ludicrously, and he turned anxious eyes towards his cousin. ‘Oh Max, had I better not go with you? Am I too heavy?’

As his lordship, though tall, was boyishly slim, this apprehensive question produced a shout of laughter, which made him blush more hotly than ever. However, as he was quite accustomed to being roasted by his cousin’s friends, he took it in very good part, merely prophesying darkly the hideous fate that would one day overtake Berkeley Crewe, and announcing his intention of going home immediately, to be sure of a good night’s sleep before the race.

Mr Ravenscar thought this a wise decision, and further suggested that his lordship should refrain from informing his parent that he was to take part in the race. Lord Mablethorpe said: ‘Oh, by God, no! I won’t say a word to her about it!’ and went off, forgetting, for the first time since he had met her, to take his leave of Miss Grantham.

Mr Ravenscar went upstairs to play faro, but if Lady Bellingham was gratified to see him at the table she managed to conceal it, looking at him with the dilating eyes of a trapped rabbit whenever he glanced in her direction, and finding it exceedingly difficult to keep her attention on the game. She had never been so glad to see a table break up and when the last of her guests had left the house she found herself without strength to climb the stairs to her bedroom, but collapsed upon a yellow satin sofa, and moaned for hartshorn.

‘Be easy, ma’am!’ said Lucius Kennet, who had stayed to exchange a word with Deborah. ‘Now, me darlin’, perhaps you’ll be telling me what game it is you’re after playing!’

Miss Grantham swung her wide skirts defiantly. ‘I told you what happened. It was not my fault.’

‘What maggot got into your brain to give Ravenscar a candle?’

‘I didn’t know what he meant to do. How should I guess?’

‘What the devil should he be wanting with a candle at all, if not to be up to some mischief? Sure, it’s not like you to be gulled, Deb!’

‘Well, I should not like to be left in the dark myself,’ she said. ‘Besides, he said there were rats.’

‘He was quite right,’ said Lady Bellingham faintly, opening her eyes. ‘The servants are for ever complaining about them but what can one do?’

‘Whisht, Deb! Is it the likes of Ravenscar that would afraid of a rat or two?’

‘Mortimer is afraid of them,’ said Lady Bellingham. ‘He gives me no peace about it! I am sure Ravenscar may well have been afraid of them. Oh, I shall go distract He will tell everyone what you did to him, my love, and end of it will be that no one will dare come to the house again!’

‘Who bound up Ravenscar’s hands?’ demanded Kennet, eyes fixed on Miss Grantham’s face. ‘And if he burned cord, how came his ruffles to escape? Tell me that!’

‘They didn’t escape,’ said Deborah crossly. ‘I lent him Kit’s ruffles. Where is Kit?’

Kennet grinned. ‘Faith, I’m thinking he didn’t care for style of things here, me darlin’, for he took himself off to supper. Don’t be trying to dodge the issue, now! It was yourself tied Ravenscar’s hands up, was it not?’

‘Well, what else could I do?’ she asked. ‘When I discovered that he was free, I was powerless to resist him. Besides, he more than half a mind to shut me up in the cellar in his place and that I could not have borne!’

‘Deb, there was Silas in the hall, and meself playing I abovestairs! And what must you do but let Ravenscar out of the house without a soul to hinder him!’

‘You are absurd, Lucius!’ protested Miss Grantham. ‘Could I have a brawl in the middle of a card-party? There nothing to be done, and in any event I never meant to kid him by a hateful trick, which was what you did!’

‘And what will you be doing now, me dear, if I may ask get the bills out of his hands?’ asked Kennet politely.

‘I don’t know, but you may be sure I shall think of so thing,’ replied Deborah.

‘It’s my belief,’ said Kennet, ‘that it’s more than half in love with the man you are, Deb!’

‘I?’ gasped Miss Grantham. ‘In love with Ravenscar? Have you taken leave of your senses, Lucius? I detest him! He is most abominable, the most hateful, the most odious—oh! can you talk such nonsense? I am in no humour for it, and bid you a very good night!’

She flounced out of the room as she spoke, almost collided with her brother in the doorway. Mr Grantham seemed out of breath, and exclaimed: ‘Deb! I could swear I saw him, just as I was crossing Piccadilly! You let him go after all!’

‘I daresay you did see him,’ she answered angrily. ‘But I did not let him go, and I never would have let him go, and he holds a very poor opinion of you, let me tell you!’

‘And what, me dear Kit, may you be knowing about the business at all?’ inquired Mr Kennet, as Deborah slammed the door behind her.

‘I know it all! And I will thank you, Lucius, not to encourage Deb in her wildness again! If this night’s work has not ruined all my hopes it will be no fault of yours!’

‘For the love of heaven, boy, what concern is it of yours?’

‘Oh, nothing!’ said Kit bitterly. ‘Merely, that I love Ravenscar’s sister!’

Mr Kennet opened his eyes at this. ‘You do, do you? And what has that to say to anything?’

‘How can you be such a fool? What hope have I of obtaining Ravenscar’s consent to our marriage when my sister can think of nothing better to do than to shut him up in the cellar?’

Lady Bellingham felt impelled to defend her niece, and said: ‘She did it for the best, Kit. She did not know that you were going to be married to Miss Ravenscar!’