Friday's Child (52 page)

“Yes, it’s me,” said Hero, with a fine disregard for grammar and the sunniest of smiles. “Poor Isabella, how muddied you are, and how odious for you to be in such a fix! Do, pray, come into the parlour! There is not the least need for you to hire the landlord’s gig, for I will escort you back to Bath in my chaise!”

“But how is this?” stammered Miss Milborne, in the greatest bewilderment. “How in the world do you come to be here, and at such an hour? Oh, Hero, what fresh scrape have you fallen into?”

“Well, I must say, Isabella, I think it is the outside of enough for
you
to be accusing
me
of being in a scrape, when you are in a much worse one yourself!” said Hero. “I cannot conceive how you come to be driving about the country with Sir Montagu Revesby, for I am sure it is not at all the thing!”

“Sir Montagu and I,” said Miss Milborne, colouring, “have been on an expedition to Wells, in company with some friends of mine!”

“Well, where are they?” asked Hero reasonably. “You must know, Isabella, that I overheard all that has just passed between you and Sir Montagu, and although I quite see that it was not your fault that there was an accident to his carriage, there is no denying that you are in an awkward situation. And you may say what you please, but I am persuaded there is
one
person whom you would not wish to hear of this! For you are not so heartless as to give him such pain: I know you are not!”

Miss Milborne, who was tired, and cold, and more shaken than she had allowed to appear, felt sudden tears sting her eyelids, and covered her face with her hands, saying in a trembling tone: “Oh, Hero, do not! Pray say no more!”

Hero ran to her at once. “Oh, I am sorry! Do not cry, dearest Isabella! I did not mean to hurt you, indeed, I did not!”

Sir Montagu spoke, in his silkiest voice. “Very affecting, Lady Sheringham! And, pray, where is your husband? Not here, I fancy! In fact, he has not been overmuch in your company of late, I apprehend! You have been a most determined enemy of mine, have you not? I wonder if you will live to regret it? Do you know, I believe that you may? Is it too much to hope that we may be permitted a glimpse of the gentleman who is no doubt concealed in that private parlour?”

“No!” said Mr Tarleton from the doorway. “It is not too much, sir!” And with these words, he landed a useful right on Sir Montagu’s jaw, and sent him crashing to the floor. “Get up, and I will serve you a little more home-brewed!” he promised, standing over Sir Montagu with his fists clenched.

Sir Montagu had had a trying day. He had failed both by fair means and foul to win an heiress’s hand in marriage; he had had a businesslike scarf-pin thrust into the fleshy part of his arm; he had been obliged to tramp three miles down miry lanes beside a lady who maintained a stony silence throughout the trudge, and the yokel whom she had bribed to guide them to the nearest posting-inn; he had been confronted then by the very person to whom he attributed the greater part of his misfortunes; and finally he had been knocked down painfully and ignominiously by a complete stranger who seemed to be only too ready to repeat the performance. Between rage and the natural fright of a man to whom physical violence was at all times horrible, he lost his head. His walking-stick had clattered to the floor, with the chair across which he had laid it, and which he had wildly clutched in his fall. He reached out his hand for it, dragged himself up, fumbling with the carved ivory handle, and, as Mr Tarleton squared up to him purposefully, tore the concealed blade from its innocent-seeming sheath and thrust it at his assailant. Mr Tarleton was just too late to avoid being touched. He saw the thrust coming, and dodged it, so that instead of entering his chest, it tore through the sleeve of his coat and gashed his upper arm. The next instant he had closed with Sir Montagu, twisted the sword-stick from his grasp and floored him again. After that, he stood panting, and instinctively trying to grip his own arm to stop the blood which was flowing copiously, staining his sleeve a horrid colour and dripping on to the floor.

The two ladies, who had been transfixed with dismay by these proceedings, started forward.

“Shame!” cried Isabella, her eyes flashing magnificently. “To draw steel upon an unarmed man! Dastard!”

“Oh,
poor
Mr Tarleton!” said Hero. “And you did it all for my sake! I am excessively obliged to you, but I do trust you are not dreadfully hurt! Pray, let me help you to take off your coat immediately! Oh, landlord, is that you? Be so good as to bring me some water in a bowl as quickly as you can, and some brandy! And, waiter, pray help this gentleman to take off his coat, and the rest of you go away, if you please!”

“Good God!” said Mr Tarleton faintly, becoming aware of the landlord, the waiter, an ostler, two postboys, and a chambermaid. “What have I done! My curst folly! But when I heard him address you in such terms I could not help myself!”

“No, no, of course you could not!” said Hero, tenderly rolling up his shirtsleeve and laying bare an ugly gash. “Oh, we must have a surgeon to this! Landlord—Oh, he has gone! One of you, if you please, run for the nearest surgeon, and tell him there is a gentleman hurt in an accident!”

“For heaven’s sake, no!” begged Mr Tarleton from the chair into which he had been lowered. “The merest scratch! If you would but hand me one of those napkins, and assist me to twist it tightly about my arm!”

Isabella, who have been hunting in her reticule, produced a pair of scissors and began, with the aid of these, to tear a napkin into strips. Sir Montagu, appalled as much by his late madness as by the frightful consequences he saw clearly might result from it, had picked himself up and staggered to the far end of the room, holding a fast-swelling jaw and trying to think in what way he could avert retribution. The landlord came back with a bowl of water, and sharply ordered his hirelings to be off about their business. The waiter put a glass of brandy to Mr Tarleton’s lips; and Mr Tarleton, who was feeling rather faint from so much loss of blood, swallowed the tot and leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed.

The landlord, thoroughly incensed by such irregular conduct in his house, dealt expeditiously with the wound, but stated his intention of summoning the village constable to take up both combatants. He was just adding a rider to the effect that the magistrates would know how to deal with so-called gentlemen who tried to cheat honest postboys out of their fees, when the clatter of hooves sounded in the yard, the grating of wheels on cobble-stones, and an impatient voice called out: “Hi, there! Ostler!
Ostler,
I say!”

“Sherry!” shrieked Hero, and flew up from beside Mr Tarleton’s chair and sped forth into the corridor which led to the yard. “Sherry, Sherry!”

His lordship had just sprung down from his curricle. He saw his wife in the shaft of lamplight cast through the open door, and strode towards her. “Oh, Kitten, thank God I have found you!” he exclaimed, holding out his arms. “You mustn’t do this, my little love! I can’t let you!”

Hero ran straight into his arms, and flung her own round his neck. “No, no, Sherry! I never meant to do it!” she sobbed. “I thought it was you, not Mr Tarleton!”

“Oh, Kitten, if that isn’t just like you!” he said unsteadily. “It ought to have been me! And if I hadn’t been such a gudgeon—Kitten, you little wretch, what a dance you have led me! Kiss me!”

The Honourable Ferdy Fakenham, observing with intense interest the passionate embrace being exchanged by two persons who appeared to be wholly oblivious of their surroundings, descended from the curricle, and with great dignity bade the equally interested Jason lead the horses into the stable, and see them well rubbed down. By the time this order had been reluctantly obeyed, Sherry was drying his wife’s wet cheeks with his handkerchief, and Hero was smiling up into his softened face. “But, Sherry, how did you know?”

“Jason saw you. I thought—I was afraid it was because I had given you such a dislike of me that you could not bear even to speak to me! I felt like blowing my brains out!”

“Oh, Sherry,
no!
How could I dislike you? I have loved you all my life!”

“Kitten, Kitten!” he said, folding her in his arms again. “I wish I could say the same! But it wasn’t until after I had married you that I grew to love you so! What a fellow I am! But I found out when you ran away from me how dearly I loved you! You won’t get the chance to run from me again, I can tell you!”

She laid her cheek against his heart. “Oh, and I have been so troublesome! And now this shocking scrape! I thought you would utterly cast me off!”

“It was my fault! All my fault!” he said vehemently.

Ferdy coughed apologetically. “Told you it was a mistake, Sherry, dear old boy! No wish to disturb you, but there are a couple of postboys peeping at you round the corner of the stable door.”

“Let ’em peep!” said his lordship, but he tucked Hero’s hand in his arm, and walked slowly into the inn with her. “Where’s this fellow, Tarleton? You little fiend, nicely you must have gammoned him! Dashed if I’m not sorry for the poor devil! But what the deuce did he mean by running off with you like that?”

“Oh, Sherry, I am much afraid it may have been because of something very foolish which I once said to him!” confessed Hero guiltily.

He gave a shout of laughter. “I might have known it! Lord, it’s like seeing your last hope come first past the post to be pulling you out of a scrape again, brat!”

“Well, I am excessively relieved to hear you say so, Sherry, because, to tell you the truth, it is a worse scrape than you know. In fact, it is quite shocking, and the landlord says he will give us up to the constable; but perhaps if you will be so obliging as to pay the reckoning for poor Mr Tarleton he may relent. He had all his money stolen from him, you see—”

“I know he had,” grinned Sherry. “Jason forked him! That’s how I managed to catch you.”

“Oh, how clever of Jason!” Hero cried. “We must give him a handsome present!”

They had by this time reached the end of the passage which led to the coffee-room. Mr Tarleton had succeeded in getting rid of the landlord, but to the Viscount the room seemed strangely full of people. His astonished gaze took in first Miss Milborne, then Sir Montagu Revesby, and lastly Pug, who, having been sleeping stertorously before the parlour fire throughout the late proceedings, had just waddled in to the coffee-room, and now greeted his lordship with a wheezy bark.

It was characteristic of the Viscount that his mind was instantly diverted from the stirring events which had occurred that day. An expression of foreboding entered his face; he stared with repulsion at Pug, and demanded: “Where did that come from?”

“Oh, I brought him!” replied Hero happily. “It’s Pug!”

“I knew it!” said Sherry. “No, dash it, Kitten! I don’t mind Gil’s canary—at least, I do, but I can bear it—but I’ll be hanged if I’ll have an overfed little brute like that in my house! If you want a dog, I’ll give you one, but I warn you, it won’t be a pug!”

“Oh, Sherry, will you?” said Hero. “Well, I do think I should like one. This isn’t mine, you know. He belongs to Lady Saltash, and he is quite odious!”

“Well, why the deuce did you bring him?” Sherry asked. “Can’t see what you can possibly have wanted with a dog when you were eloping!”

“No, and I did not in the least mean to bring him, but I was taking him for an airing when Mr Tarleton abducted me, and somehow he got into the chaise too. Oh, Sherry, this is Mr Tarleton!”

Mr Tarleton had risen rather unsteadily to his feet, and now said with as much dignity as could be expected of a man half-in and half-out of his coat: “Sheringham, if I may have only one word with you alone, I fancy I can explain everything to your satisfaction!”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that!” Sherry responded cheerfully, shaking hands with him. “I don’t blame you for running off with my wife: did the same thing myself! Come to think of it, you owed me one, for it was my Tiger forked your wallet and purse. Meant to have brought ’em along with me, but what with one thing and another I forgot ’em. Hallo, you’re hurt! How is this?”

Ferdy, who had been staring fixedly at the bowl of reddened water on the table, with the bloodstained napkin beside it, now nudged his cousin. “Know what I think, Sherry? Been a regular turn-up. Someone’s had his cork drawn. Claret flowing copiously. If it was Monty’s cork, good thing! Don’t like him. Never have.”

Sherry turned to look at Revesby, his face hardening. “I was forgetting that damned scoundrel was here!” he said. “By Jove, you’re right, Ferdy! Someone’s landed him a facer at last! Take a look at his jaw!”

“Very wisty castor,” agreed Ferdy, nodding his head approvingly. “Dashed if this fellow, Tarleton, ain’t a regular right one! Very obedient servant, sir! Happy to have met you!”

“Yes, but wait a bit!” Sherry said, his gaze taking in the unsheathed sword, and Mr Tarleton’s arm. “Something devilish queer about this! What’s that sword-stick doing there? You don’t mean to say—”

“Ask Sir Montagu!” said Miss Milborne, who had been leaning her chin in her hand, and staring into the fire, quite divorced from these proceedings. “Ask him to tell you how he drew steel upon an unarmed man!”

“He did?” said Ferdy. “Well, of all things! You hear that, Sherry? Told you he was a Bad Man.”

“Lord, I’ve known that any time these past three months! What I want to know is why he drew steel, and what he got that facer for! And another thing I may as well know, while about it—not that I care much, but it’ll save trouble. I dare say—is what the pair of you are doing here at this hour of night!”

Miss Milborne promptly favoured him with an exact account of her share in the evening’s adventures. The Viscount remained unmoved. “Well. I warned you not to go off with him, Bella,” he said. “Might have guessed he would be up to some mischief. Dashed if it doesn’t serve you right! A rare dust you have kicked up, and all to spite George, if I know anything of the matter! But that don’t tell me how he came to have a set-to with Tarleton!”

“Oh, Mr Tarleton very kindly knocked him down, because he said such horrid things to me!” explained Hero blithely.