April Lady (8 page)

"Unequal marriages rarely prosper. Letty may imagine she doesn't care for rank: she doesn't know how it would be to marry a man out of her own order."

Nell wrinkled her brow over this. "But, Giles, I think she does know!" she objected. "For it is not as if she had been accustomed all her life to move only in circles of high fashion. Mrs. Thorne is perfectly respectable, but not at all exclusive, and you yourself told me that Letty's mama was not of the first rank."

"You are a persuasive advocate, Nell! But I must hold to my opinion—and to what I conceive to be my duty. I have said that I won't withhold my consent, if both are of the same mind when Allandale returns from Brazil, and that must suffice them. I shan't conceal from
you
that I hope Letty, by that time, will have transferred her affections to some more worthy object."

"You want her to make a
good
match, don't you?"

"Is that so wonderful?"

"Oh, no! Perhaps, if she doesn't see Mr. Allandale for some years, she will do so. Only—only—it would be so very melancholy!"

"My dear child, why?"

She tried haltingly to express the thought in her mind. "She loves him so much! And I cannot think that she would be happy if she married—only to oblige her family!"

His brows had drawn together. He said harshly: "As you did?"

She stared at him almost uncomprehendingly. "As—as I did?" she faltered.

A smile, not a very pleasant smile, curled his lips. "Had I not been possessed of a large fortune, you wouldn't have married me, would you, Nell?"

She was conscious of a pain at her heart, but she heard him without resentment. She thought of her debts, and of those mysterious Settlements, and could only be thankful that she had not disclosed to him Madame Lavalle's bill. Its existence weighed so heavily upon her conscience that she found herself unable to utter a word. A deep flush stained her cheeks, and her eyes, after a hurt moment, dropped from his.

"You must forgive me!" His voice had an ironical inflexion that made her wince. "My want of delicacy sinks me quite below reproach, doesn't it? I fancy it gave Allandale a disgust of me too."

She managed to say, in a stifled tone: "I didn't think—I didn't
know
about your fortune!"

"Didn't you?" he said lightly. "How charming of you, my dear!
Your
manners make
mine
appear sadly vulgar. Don't look so distressed! I am persuaded no man ever had so beautiful, so polite, or so amiable a wife as I have!" He glanced at his watch. "I must go. I don't know what nonsense Letty may have taken into her head, but I hope I may trust you not to encourage her in it. Happily, it appears to be out of Allandale's power to marry her without a substantial portion. She's under age, of course, but I'd as lief not be saddled with that kind of a scandal!"

A smile, a brief bow, and he was gone, leaving her with her brain in a whirl. There was little thought of Letty in it. For the first time in their dealings Cardross had hinted that he had looked for more than complaisance in his wife; and his words, with their edge of bitterness, had made Nell's heart leap. It was almost sacrilege to doubt Mama, but was it, in fact, possible that Mama had been wrong?

She went slowly upstairs, to be pounced on by Letty, bursting with indignation, and the desire to unburden herself. She listened with half an ear to that impassioned damsel, saying yes, and no, at suitable moments, but assimilating little from the molten discourse beyond the warning that her sister-in-law would be forced to take desperate measures if Cardross continued on his present tyrannical course. Before it had dawned on Letty that she had no very attentive auditor to the tale of her wrongs a message was brought up to the drawing-room that the Misses Thorne had called to take up their cousin on a visit to some exhibition.

Nell soon found herself alone, and at leisure to consider her own problems. These very soon resolved themselves into one problem only: how to pay for a court dress of Chantilly lace without applying to Cardross. If Cardross had offered for her hand not as a matter of convenience but for love, this was of vital importance. Nothing could more surely confirm his suspicion than to be confronted with that bill; and any attempt to tell him that she had fallen in love with him at their first meeting must seem to him a piece of quite contemptible cajolery.

No solution to the difficulty had presented itself to her by the time the butler came to inform her that the barouche had been driven up to the door, and awaited her convenience. She was tempted to send it away again, and was only prevented from doing so by the recollection that civility obliged her to make a formal call in Upper Berkeley Street, to enquire after the progress of an ailing acquaintance.

She directed the coachman, on the way back, to drive to Bond Street, where she had a few trifling purchases to make; and there, strolling along, with his beaver set at a rakish angle on his golden head, and his shapely legs swathed in pantaloons of an aggressive yellow, she saw her brother.

The Viscount had never been known to extricate himself from his various embarrassments, much less anyone else; but to his adoring sister he appeared in the light of a strong ally. She called to the coachman to pull up, and when Dysart crossed the street in response to her signal leaned forward to clasp his hand, saying thankfully: "Oh, Dy, I am so glad to have met you! Will you be so very obliging as to come home with me? There is something I particularly wish to ask you!"

"If you're wanting me to escort you to some horrible squeeze," began the Viscount suspiciously, "I'll be dashed if I—"

"No, no, I promise you it's no such thing!" she interrupted. "I—I need your advice!"

"Well, I don't mind giving you that," said his lordship handsomely. "What's the matter? You in a scrape?"

"Good gracious, no!" said Nell, acutely aware of her footman, who had jumped down from the box, and was now holding open the door of the barouche. "Do get in, Dy! I'll tell you presently!"

"Oh, very well!" he said, stepping into the carriage, and disposing himself on the seat beside her. "I've nothing else to do, after all." He looked her over critically, and observed with brotherly candour: "What a quiz of a hat!"

"It is an Angouleme bonnet, and the
height
of fashion!" retorted Nell, with spirit. "And as for quizzes—Dy, I never saw you look so odd as you do in those yellow pantaloons!"

"Devilish, ain't they?" agreed his lordship. "Corny made me buy 'em. Said they were all the crack."

"Well, if I were you I wouldn't listen to him!"

"Oh, I don't know! Always up to the knocker, is Corny. If you ain't in a scrape, why do you want my advice?"

She gave his arm a warning pinch, and began to talk of indifferent subjects in a careless way which (as he informed her upon their arrival in Grosvenor Square) made him wish that he had not chosen to walk down Bond Street that morning. "Because you can't bamboozle
me
into believing you ain't in a scrape," he said. "I thought you were looking hagged, but I set it down to that bonnet."

Nell, who had led him upstairs to her frivolous boudoir, cast off her maligned headgear, saying wretchedly: "I am in a
dreadful
scrape, and if you won't help me, Dy, I can't think what I shall do!"

"Lord!" said the Viscount, slightly dismayed. "Now, don't get into a fuss, Nell! Of course I'll help you! At least, I will if I can, though I'm dashed if I see— However, I daresay it's all a bag of moonshine!"

"It isn't," she said, so tragically that he began to feel seriously alarmed. She twisted her fingers together, and managed to say, though with considerable difficulty: "Dysart, have—have you still got the—the three hundred pounds I gave you?"

"Do you want it back?" he demanded.

She nodded, her eyes fixed anxiously on his face.

"Now we
are
in the basket!" said his lordship.

Her heart sank. "I am so very sorry to be obliged to ask you!"

"My dear girl, I'd give it you this instant if I had it!" he assured her. "What is it? a gaming debt? You been playing deep, Nell?"

"No, no! It is a court dress of Chantilly lace, and I cannot—
cannot!—
tell Cardross!"

"What, you don't mean to say he's turned out to be a screw?" exclaimed the Viscount.

"No! He has been
crushingly
generous to me, only I was so stupid, and it seemed as if I had so much money that— Well, I never took the least heed, Dy, and the end of it was that I got quite shockingly into debt!"

"Good God, there's no need to fall into flat despair, if that's all!" said the Viscount, relieved. "You've only to tell him how it came about: I daresay he won't be astonished, for he must know you haven't been in the way of handling the blunt. You'll very likely come in for a thundering scold, but he'll settle your debts all right and regular."

She sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands. "He did settle them!"

"Eh?" ejaculated Dysart, startled.

"I had better explain it to you," said Nell.

It could not have been said that the explanation, which was both halting and elusive, very much helped Dysart to a complete understanding of the situation, but he did gather from it that the affair was far more serious than he had at first supposed. He was quite intelligent enough to guess that the whole had not been divulged to him, but since he had no desire to plunge into deep matrimonial waters he did not press his sister for further enlightenment. Clearly, her marriage was not running as smoothly as he had supposed; and if that were so he could appreciate her reluctance to disclose the existence of yet another debt to Cardross.

"What am I to do?" Nell asked. "Can
you
think of a way, Dy?"

"Nothing easier!" responded Dysart, in a heartening tone. "The trouble with you is that you ain't up to snuff yet. The thing to do is to order another dress from this Madame Thing."

"Order another?" gasped Nell.

"That's it," he nodded.

"But then I should be even deeper in debt!"

"Yes, but it'll stave her off for a while."

"And when she presses me to pay for that I buy yet another! Dy, you must be mad!"

"My dear girl, it's always done!"

"Not by me!" she declared. "I should never know a moment's peace! Only think what would happen if Cardross discovered it!"

"There is that, of course," he admitted. He took a turn about the room, frowning over the problem. "The deuce is in it that I'm not in good odour with the cents-per-cent. I'd raise the wind for you in a trice if the sharks didn't know dashed well how our affairs stand."

"Moneylenders?" she asked. "I did think of that, only I don't know how to set about borrowing. Do you know, Dy? Will you tell me?"

The Viscount was not a young man whose conscience was overburdened with scruples, but he did not hesitate to veto this suggestion. "No, I will not!" he said.

"I know one shouldn't borrow from moneylenders, but in such a case as this—and if you went with me, Dy—"

"A pretty fellow I should be!" he interrupted indignantly. "Damn it, I ain't a saint, but I ain't such a loose-screw that I'd hand my sister over to one of those bloodsuckers!"

"Is it so very bad? I didn't know," she said. "Of course I won't go to a moneylender if you say I must not."

"Well, I do say it. What's more, if you did so, and Cardross discovered it, there
would
be the devil to pay! You'd a deal better screw up your courage, and tell him the whole now."

She shook her head, flushing.

"You know, it queers me to know what you've been doing," said Dysart severely. "It sounds to. me as though you've had a quarrel with him, and set up his back. It ain't my business, but I call it a cork-brained thing to do!"

"I haven't—it isn't that!" she stammered.

"You must have done something!" he insisted. "I thought he doted on you!"

Her eyes lifted quickly to his face. "Did you, Dy? Did you
indeed
think so?"

"Of course I did! Well, good God, what would anyone think, when he no sooner clapped eyes on you than nothing would do for him but to pop the question? Lord, it was one of the on-dits of town! Old Cooling told me no one had ever seen him sent to grass before, no matter who set her cap at him. I thought myself he must be touched in his upper works," said the Viscount candidly. "I don't say you ain't a pretty girl, but what there is in you to make a fellow like Cardross marry into
our
family I'm dashed if I can see!"