Faro's Daughter (27 page)

Kennet glanced sideways at Kit. ‘Married, eh?’

‘And why not?’ Kit demanded. ‘Is it so extraordinary?’

A smile lurked about the corners of Kennet’s mouth.

‘Faith, I’m thinking it would be!’ he said.

‘Yes! And I hold you as much to blame as Deb! More, indeed!’

‘Maybe you’re right at that,’ agreed Kennet, still apparently amused by some secret thought.

Lady Bellingham raised her head from the yellow cushion. ‘I am sure it has all been most unfortunate,’ she said. ‘And I can’t but feel that since Deb had got Ravenscar in the cellar—not that I approve of such a thing, for I don’t, and I never shall—but since he was there, it does seem to me a pity to have let him go without getting those dreadful bills from him! Now he will start dunning me, or persecuting us in some odious way, and you know what will happen next! Deb will try to teach him another lesson, and all will end in disaster! Sometimes I think that I might be happier in a debtors’ prison!’

With these gloomy words, she withdrew to her own room, to spend a restless night dreaming of coachmakers’ bills; green peas, rats, candle-ends, and cellars teeming with bound men. ‘

Lord Mablethorpe had had the intention, if Miss Grantham were willing, to drive her and Phoebe into the country next morning. A hurried note to Phoebe was brought round by hand at ten o’clock, explaining the sudden change in his plans, and promising to call in St James’s Square that evening to report on the result of the curricle-race. Miss Laxton gave a startled exclamation when she read this letter, and thrust it into Deborah’s hand, saying in a faint voice: ‘Oh, he may be killed!’

‘Killed? Nonsense!’ said Miss Grantham, running her eye down the paper. ‘I declare, I am quite tired of hearing about this race! I am sure Adrian has talked of little else for the past week. Thank heaven it will be over by tomorrow, and we need hear no more about it! As though it signified!’

‘Gentlemen think so much of those things,’ sighed Miss Laxton. ‘Oh, I hope Mr Ravenscar will beat Sir James! Adrian says there is not another whip to compare with him, but if Sir James’s horses are as good as people say—’ Miss Grantham clapped her hands over her ears. ‘You, too!’ she said reproachfully. ‘Not another word! For my part, I wish they might both contrive to break their necks!’

‘Oh, Deb, not when Adrian will be in his cousin’s curricle!’ shuddered Phoebe.

‘Well, if Ravenscar is such a fine whip there can be little likelihood of any accident occurring,’ said Miss Grantham.

Phoebe looked at her with wonder. ‘You are so brave!’ she said humbly. ‘I wish I were, but, alas, I am not!’

‘Good heavens, child, what have I to be afraid of?’ asked Miss Grantham, at a loss.

‘But, Deb! Adrian!’

‘Oh!’ said Miss Grantham, rather blankly. ‘To be sure, yes my dear!’

‘I do not know how we are to be at ease until we know that the race is safely over,’ sighed Phoebe.

‘Very true,’ agreed Miss Grantham, preparing to put the matter out of her mind.

She succeeded in this very well, being a good deal taken up with her own problems; but it was evident, from her restless ness, and the anxious pucker between her brows, that Miss Laxton could think of nothing else. When dusk fell and shi thought they might reasonably expect to see Lord Mablethorpe, she stationed herself in the saloon in the front of the house, and kept a watch on the darkening square through the lace curtains that shrouded the windows. Dinner was announced before that familiar figure was seen, and she was obliged to go downstairs, and to make a pretence of eating. Miss Grantham, perceiving her unrest, reminded her that the contestants would certainly dine early at Hatfield, and could not be looked for in London again for some time yet. Miss Laxton agreed to it, but felt disinclined to eat her dinner.

Mr Grantham was present, but it was seen that he was not in spirits. He appeared to be brooding over some secret trouble, and although it did not impair his appetite, it rendered him incapable of bearing more than a monosyllabic part in any conversation. He had contrived, through the connivance of Miss Ravenscar’s handmaiden (who was beginning to cherish dreams of retiring from service in the near future on the accumulated bribes she had received from her mistress’s numerous admirers), to arrange an assignation with the volatile Arabella. He had reached the rendezvous a full half hour too soon, Miss Ravenscar had joined him half-an-hour late, and with apparently no recollection of the promises of eternal fidelity exchanged a bare week before, at Tunbridge Wells. She was perfectly ready to flirt with him, hoped to meet him at the Pantheon Ball, but said that she thought, after all, that it would be stuffy to be married. Mr Grantham suspected her strongly of having transferred her affections to another, and taxed her with this treachery. Miss Ravenscar laughed mischievously, and refused to answer. Mr Grantham then put forward a very daring plan he had formed, of taking her to the masquerade at Ranleagh on the following evening. To escape from chaperonage, under pretence of going to bed with the headache, and to spend a stolen evening at a masked ball with a forbidden suitor, was just such an adventure as might have been certain of making an instant appeal to Miss Ravenscar, but, greatly to Kit’s chagrin, she cast down her eyes demurely, and said she must not think of such a thing. From the quiver at the corners of her mouth, Kit suspected that she had already thought of it, and was indeed going to the masquerade, though not in his company. It was no wonder that he should have returned to his aunt’s house in low spirits.

There was no card-party that evening. Kit went out soon after dinner, and the three ladies prepared to spend a quiet hour or two with the blinds drawn, and a snug fire burning in the Yellow Saloon. Lady Bellingham, however, soon retired to bed, complaining that the stress of the past week had quite worn her down; arid while Miss Laxton pretended to be bus with some sewing, but in reality set very few stitches, Miss Grantham flicked over the pages of a romance, and tried to hit upon an infallible plan for gaining possession of her aunt’s bills which would not entail surrendering to the enemy, but which would, on the contrary, place him in a position of the greatest discomfiture.

At ten o’clock the knock which Miss Laxton had been waiting to hear at last fell upon the front-door, and she let her needlework drop to the floor. ‘That must be he!’

Miss Grantham looked up. ‘I won’t receive him!’ she said.

Phoebe stared at her in alarm. ‘Deb! Why, what has he done?’ she faltered, turning quite pale.

‘What has he done? Oh, you are talking of Mablethorpe.’

‘But, dearest Deb, whom else should I be talking about asked Miss Laxton, puzzled.

Miss Grantham blushed. ‘I was thinking of something different,’ she excused herself.

Light footsteps were heard running up the stairs; the next instant Lord Mablethorpe stood on the threshold, flushed, an a little dishevelled, and still dressed in a drab driving-coat, and topboots, both generously splashed with mud. ‘We won!’ I announced, his eyes sparkling.

Phoebe clapped her hands. ‘Oh, I knew you would. I am so glad! And you are safe!’

He laughed. ‘Safe? Of course I am! There never was such race! It was beyond anything great! I do not know when enjoyed anything so much! Oh, Deb, do you mind me in my dirt? I thought you would not: I knew you would want hear all about it! May I come in?’

‘Of course you may come in,’ she said, picking up Phoebe work, and folding it neatly. ‘Have you dined, or would you like some supper?’

‘Oh, no, thank you! We dined early in Hatfield, and I had supper with Max, at his house, just now. It was touch and go once or twice—only fancy our falling in behind an Accommodation coach on the narrow part of the road this side of Potter’s Bar! I thought all was over with us, for you must know that Filey led for the first part of the way, and was ahead of the coach. But there was never anyone like Max! You know when the road divides, at the Hadley Highstone, the Holyhead road going off to the left? Oh, I dare say you might not! But I can tell you it is as tricky a place as you may wish for, and a number of coaches and wagons on the road! Well, before I knew what he would be about, Max had dropped his hands, and let the greys shoot! It was our only chance, but there was a gig coming in from the Holyhead road, and I give you my word we cleared the Accommodation coach, with no more than a couple of inches to spare between it and the gig! I own, I shut my eyes, and said my prayers!’

‘You might have been killed!’ breathed Phoebe.

‘So I might, with any other man holding the reins, but Max knows what his greys will do to a nicety.’

‘I collect that Sir James’s pair was inferior?’ said Deborah, despising herself for betraying any interest in the race.

He turned his glowing face towards her. ‘Oh, as to that, I would not say so by any means! It was all in the handling. When we came to Islington we found him with as bang-up a set-out of blood and bone as you could wish for: small heads, good necks, broad chests and thighs, pure Welsh bred! Beautifully matched too! But the instant Max laid eyes on them, he said to me that they were poled up too tight, and so they were. I could see Filey’s groom thought so too, but that’s Filey all over! He must always know best, and he is so cursed obstinate there’s no telling him anything! Well, there was quite a crowd gathered at the start, as you may suppose, and a good deal of betting going on. Some of the green ‘uns were plunging pretty heavily on Filey, because there’s no denying the bays are the showiest pair you’ll see in a twelvemonth; but the knowing ones put their money on Max, and, by Jupiter, they were right! Well, we were off to a good start, and Filey went ahead, just as Max thought he would. Max held the greys in all the way to Barnet, no more than keeping Filey in sight. I wish you might have seen Filey driving his cattle up Highgate Hill, as though it had been the last lap of the race, instead of the first! We went up behind him, just larking, you know: keeping her alive, at a gentle trot. Of course Filey did not take the hill in time, driving up it at that pace, and his near horse precious nearly stumbled as they went over the crest. When Max saw it, he said the race was our own. But that was before we got held up by that Accommodation coach! But I told you of that! We had a splendid run across Finchley Common, going good, very little traffic on the road. I would have passed Filey then, but Max said no; he would pass him in Barnet.’ His lordship laughed at the memory. ‘In Barnet, of all places! But that is just like Max! I thought we should never be able to do it, for Barnet is always crowded. Filey can’t manage well in a street full of carts and chaises, and you could see he was fretting his cattle. They were sweating freely, and only half the course run! There was a chaise on one side of the road, and the Mail pulling out from the Red Lion, and a phaeton draw up outside some shop or other. Not enough room to allowed a cat to squeeze through, you’d have said! At all events, that what Filey must have thought, for he made no attempt to clear the chaise. Max saw his chance, and we went through, neatly as you please, at a spanking trot, threading our way. I wondered if we were going to take the phaeton’s off—wheel but we never so much as grazed it. Max has the lightest hand He says the only thing is, Filey may have ruined the bay mouths—oh, I did not tell you!—Max told Filey to name his price for his pair at the end, and has bought them. Filey was mad as fire, because of course Max’s offering to buy them showed that he thought it was Filey and not they who had lost the race. But he was so angry with them for losing that I would have sold them to the first man who offered for them. They were hanging on his hands when he brought them in Hatfield, but that was his fault. Berkeley says he always drived his worst against Max, because he is so devilish anxious to win and knows, though he won’t admit it, that Max is the better whip. We never lost the lead after Potter’s Bar.’

‘You seem to have lost it after Barnet,’ observed Miss Grantham dryly. ‘How was that?’

His lordship chuckled. ‘Oh, short of Hadley Green! I to Max that Filey was going to try to pass, and he said he might do so with his goodwill, for he would not spring the greys that stage. He only passed him at Barnet to fret him a trifle. There never was such a fool! Max says—’

‘My dear Adrian, Max seems to have said a great deal, but wish you will try not to introduce those two words so often into your story!’ said Miss Grantham blightingly.

His lordship flushed, and looked so hurt that Miss Grantham was sorry, and might have unsaid her words had she not recollected in time that it was no part of her policy to appear in an amiable light to him. She got up, saying in a cool voice: must go down to speak to Silas for a minute. Do you tell the rest of the tale to Phoebe! I am afraid I am very stupid, as I care nothing for driving, or curricle-racing, or horses. I shall come back presently, when you will be able to talk of something else, I hope!’

Lord Mablethorpe rose, and opened the door for her. When she had passed out of the-room, Phoebe said shyly: ‘Don’t be offended! I think she is a little worried over something. I am sure she did not mean it! She is so kind, and good!’

‘I am afraid I have been very tedious,’ he said. ‘The thing is, I found it so exciting—But it is different for you, naturally!’

‘Oh no!’ she said involuntarily. ‘I think it is the most exciting thing I ever heard! Indeed, I do! Please, please tell me the rest!’

Almost without knowing what she did, she stretched out her hand to him as she spoke. He came across the room towards her, and took her hand, and held it, looking at her with such a warm, loving expression in his eyes that her heart stood still. ‘Oh, Phoebe, you are so very sweet,’ he said. ‘I do love you so dearly!’