Faro's Daughter (32 page)

Mr Ravenscar was looking a little pale, and his mouth had hardened. ‘Go on!’ he said harshly.

‘He was much struck by the appearance of the lady in the chaise. He is not acquainted with Deb Grantham, but I could hardly mistake, from his admirable description of the lady’s charms! She had a young woman beside her—her maid, one supposes—and there was a quantity of baggage strapped on behind the chaise.’

Ravenscar smiled contemptuously. ‘Very possibly. Miss Grantham has gone into the country for a few days. I was aware that she had that intention.’

‘And were you also aware that your cousin had the intention to accompany her?’ inquired Ormskirk.

‘I was not!’

‘No, I thought not,’ said Ormskirk gently.

‘Are you serious?’ Ravenscar demanded. ‘Do you tell me that Mablethorpe was with Miss Grantham?’

‘That,’ replied his lordship, ’is what Stillingfleet told me. And he is, I fancy, fairly well acquainted with your cousin. He informed me that Mablethorpe was riding beside the chaise. Ah, I did mention that they were travelling in a northerly direction, did I not?’

‘Oh, yes!’ said Ravenscar. ‘You mentioned that at the outset, my lord. I may be dull-witted, but I collect that you wish me to infer that my cousin was eloping with Miss Grantham to Gretna Green.’

‘It seems a fair inference,’ murmured his lordship.

‘It is a damned lie!’ said Mr Ravenscar.

His lordship raised his brows in faint hauteur. ‘You should know better than I, my dear sir.’

‘I think so indeed! I have known Mablethorpe since he was in short coats, and nothing would astonish me more than to learn that he had taken part in anything so vulgar as an elopement to Gretna. It is not in his character, my lord, believe me. Furthermore, I do not think that Miss Grantham has any more intention of marrying him than she has of becoming your mistress!’

‘You would appear to be in the lady’s confidence,’ said Ormskirk. ‘Or has she succeeded in deceiving you, I wonder?’

‘She has certainly tried her best to do so, but I can assure you that she failed!’ replied Ravenscar, with a short laugh. ‘I think I know Miss Grantham now, however mistaken I may have been in her at the outset! If Stillingfleet saw my cousin beside her chaise today, I imagine that he was escorting her to her friends in the country. That would certainly be in keeping with what I know of him.’

Lord Ormskirk made a graceful gesture of acceptance. ‘I that explanation satisfies you, my dear Ravenscar, who am I to cavil at it? I do hope that you will not suffer a rude awakening. You must not think that I do not find your faith in your cousin’s sense of propriety edifying: believe me, I do myself, I fear I am a cynic. No doubt we shall discover in time which of us was right.’

Chapter 16

Ravenscar strode home in a mood of some uneasiness. Lord Ormskirk’s story had alarmed him quite a much as it had angered him, and although he did indeed believe Mablethorpe to be incapable of so far forgetting what was due to his name as to elope with Miss Grantham to the Border he could not but recall his own faint surprise at hearing, that morning, that his cousin had suddenly taken it into his head to retire into the country for a few days’ shooting. Mr Ravenscar was well aware that his youthful relative, far from showing any sign of recovery from his passion for Miss Grantham, had been haunting St James’s Square for the past week. He bore all the marks of a man deeply in love, and nothing, Ravenscar was persuaded, had been farther from his intentions, when he had last seen his cousin, than a removal from town. Miss Grantham’s decision to visit friends in the country might, of course, have altered his lordship’s plans; and it certainly would have been very like him to have escorted her to her destination before himself travelling into Berkshire. Mr Ravenscar did his best to satisfy his own unquiet mind with this explanation, but could not quite succeed. He could not leave out of his calculations the inconvenient circumstance of his having relinquished the one sure hold he had over Miss Grantham. He thought he had gauged Miss Grantham’s character correctly, but the unwelcome suspicion that he might after all have been wrong would not be banished entirely from his brain. This possibility was so exceedingly unpalatable that it set him striding on at a greater rate than ever, his hand rather tightly clenched on his walking-cane, and his face set in more than ordinarily grim lines. At no time did Mr Ravenscar care to find himself mistaken; in this instance he had his own reasons for being doubly anxious that his judgement should not be found to have been at fault.

He reached his house soon after one in the morning, and was surprised, and not best pleased, to be met by his stepmother, swathed in a wrapper, and evidently labouring under a considerable degree of agitation. Long experience had made it unnecessary for him to inquire the cause of her being out of bed at such an hour, and he said, before she could speak: ‘Well, what has she been doing this time?’

‘Oh my dear Max!’ said Mrs Ravenscar, in a weak voice. ‘I ought to have suspected when she said she had the headache that she was planning some mischief!’

‘Of course you ought!’ replied Ravenscar. ‘Out, is she?’

‘Her bed has not been slept in!’ announced Mrs Ravenscar dramatically. ‘I went in, just to see how she did, a couple of hours ago, for you must know that I myself am quite unable to sleep in all the racket of town—not that I mean to complain, I am sure, but so it is! And she was not in her room, and not a word can I get out of that wicked maid of hers, who, I am positive, is in the plot! She will do nothing but cry, and say that she knows nothing!’

‘You had better get rid of the girl,’ said Ravenscar unemotionally.

‘It is all very well for you to dismiss the matter so lightly, Max, but if you knew the number of abigails I have engaged to wait on Arabella, and each one of them less fit to be trusted than the last! Besides, how will that help us in our present predicament?’

‘It won’t,’ he replied. ‘Nor will anything help us in any future predicaments of the same nature except your forgetting all these megrims of yours, Olivia, and taking Belle to the balls and masquerades her heart craves for. Where has she gone tonight?’

‘How should I know? I do not know how you can stand there, speaking to me in that brutal fashion, when you know how the least thing oversets my poor nerves! It is unfeeling of you, and I did not look for such usage at your hands, though to be sure I might well, for your father was just such another! I will tell you what it is, Max: if you had the smallest consideration for me, or for your poor sister—who is your ward, let me remind you!—you would have married years ago, and provided the child with a chaperon who might have escorted her to parties without being prostrated by exhaustion for days after!’

‘Of all the reasons I ever heard for embarking on the married state, that one appeals the least to me!’ said Ravenscar roundly. ‘You had better go up to bed, ma’am: I have little doubt that already your nerves will suffer from the effects of this night.’

‘I have had the most dreadful palpitations this past hour and more. But where can that dreadful child be?’

‘I have no idea, and nothing is farther from my intention than to scour London in search of her. She will return presently.’

‘If anyone were to hear of these pranks of hers, it would ruin all her chances of making a good match!’ mourned Mrs Ravenscar, drifting towards the stairs.

‘Nonsense!’ said Ravenscar. ‘Nothing can ruin the chances of an heiress of making a good match!’

Mrs Ravenscar said that she hoped he would be found to know what he was talking about, but that for her part she wished the child were safely married, so that she herself might retire to the peace of Bath. She then went upstairs, leaning heavily on the banister-rail, and, after swallowing some laudanum-drops, and soaking her handkerchief in lavender water, very soon fell asleep.

Miss Ravenscar, knocking softly on the door an hour later, was disconcerted at being admitted, not by her faithful abigail, as had been arranged, but by an exasperated half-brother. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, letting fall her reticule. ‘W-what a start you gave me, Max, to be sure!’

‘Who,’ demanded Ravenscar, ’is your cavalier?’

‘He has gone,’ said Arabella hastily, seeing that he was about to step out into the porch.

‘Just as well for him!’ said Ravenscar. ‘You are a cursed nuisance, Arabella! Where have you been?’

‘Only to the masquerade at Ranelagh,’ replied Arabella, in cajoling accents. ‘I did want so much to go, and Mama would not take me, and you said it was not good ton, so what was I to do?’

‘Stay at home,’ said Ravenscar uncompromisingly. ‘If you don’t take care, Belle, I’ll send you down to Chamfreys with a devilish strict governess to watch over you!’

‘I’d run away,’ responded Arabella, unperturbed by this threat, and slipping a small, coaxing hand in his arm. ‘Don’t be cross with me, dearest Max! It was such an adventure! And I did not once take off my mask, so no one will ever know.’

‘Who took you there?’

‘Well, I think I won’t tell you that, because ten to one you do not know him, and if you do you would say something disagreeable to him,’ said Arabella. ‘But I will tell you one thing, Max!’

‘I suppose I should be grateful! What is it?’

‘Why, only that I remembered what you said to me today and you were quite right! At least, I am very nearly sure that you are, but I shall know more certainly in a day or two, I dare say.’

He looked down at her with misgiving. ‘What mischief are you brewing? Come, out with it, Belle!’

Her eyes danced. ‘No, I shan’t tell you! You would spoil it all. I think someone is trying to impose upon me, though I am not quite sure yet. It is the most enchanting sport!’

‘Oh, my God!’ said Ravenscar.

She pinched his arm. ‘Now don’t, I implore you, Max, put on that fusty face! I promise you I shall not do anything you would not like. And if you are sensible, and don’t let Mama plague me, I shall very likely tell you all about it presently.’

‘I suppose you imagine that I like your running off to public masquerade with an adventurer?’ said her brother caustically.

‘Well, you should have taken me to it yourself, so it is qui your own fault,’ said Arabella, dismissing the matter.

‘Go up to bed, you baggage,’ commanded Ravenscar, never proof against his half-sister’s wiles. ‘I wish to God I had never been saddled with the care of you! Let me tell you that when you do get married your husband will very likely beat you!’

Miss Ravenscar paused on the staircase, and looked bad the picture of mischief. ‘Oh, if that were to happen, I should fly back to my dear, kind, fusty, respectable brother!’ she promised, and fled.

She bore her mother’s gentle complaints, when she met her later in the morning, with docility but not much sign of penitence. Except for warning her that if she again played truant, unseasonable hours he should send her into the country, her brother paid no further attention to her escapade. She was relieved, for she had quite expected him to probe a good deal deeper into the matter, and felt some surprise at his forebearance. She thought, peeping at him over the coffee-pot at the breakfast-table, that he looked preoccupied, but she would have been more than surprised had she known the cause of the faint frown between his brows.

Mr Ravenscar, if the truth were told, was toying with the idea of driving down to Berkshire, to pay a flying visit to his friend Waring. Twice he was on the point of ordering his curricle to be brought round to the door, and twice he refrained. ‘Damn it all!’ he told the bell-pull, ‘I’m not going to spy on the boy!’

He compromised by calling in St James’s Square that evening. The rooms were rather thin of company, and the want of Miss Grantham’s presence was generally felt. Several dowagers were there, looking remarkably like birds of prey; and Lady Bellingham, who had started the evening by routing Sir James Filey, seemed to be in a belligerent mood. Sir James had go nothing out of her but a selection of home-truths which had made him fling out of the house in a rage; and, emboldened by this victory, she was able to face Mr Ravenscar with scarcely a tremor. He arrived only a few minutes before supper, and begged the honour of taking her down to it. This made her ladyship look a little wary, but she accepted his proffered arm, and descended the broad staircase with him in tolerable composure. He found a seat for her in the supper-room, supplied her with some lobster patties, and a glass of iced champagne-punch, and sat down opposite to her.

Lady Bellingham summoned up her courage, and said: ‘I am glad to have the opportunity of speaking to you, Mr Ravenscar. I do not know what my niece may have written to you on the subject of those horrid bills, but for my part I am very grateful to you for restoring them to me.’

‘Pray do not give the matter a thought, ma’am! How long does Miss Grantham expect to be out of town?’

‘As to that, I do not precisely know,’ replied her ladyship vaguely. ‘She has gone to stay with friends, and there is no knowing how long they may persuade her to remain with them.’

‘In what part of the country is she staying, I wonder?’

‘Oh, I don’t—that is to say, not very far away! I don’t suppose you would know the place,’ said her ladyship firmly. ‘It is in the north somewhere.’

‘Indeed? You must miss her, I feel sure.’

‘Yes, certainly I do! No one ever had a better niece. Of course, you must not think that I approved of her putting you in the cellar, and I do hope she begged your pardon for it! But in the main she is a very good girl, I assure you!’