April Lady (3 page)

Mr. Allandale was indeed at Almack's, and for the fiftieth time Nell found herself wondering why it was that Letty had fallen in love with him. He was a well-made man, he was even good-looking; but his manners were too formal for ease, and his conversation was painstaking rather than amusing. He was certainly solid: Nell found him a little dull. Mr. Felix Hethersett, not mincing matters, said: "Fellow's a dead bore. Shouldn't think the affair would last."

"No," agreed Nell, "but I must own that she has shown the greatest constancy, in spite of having been very much made up to, ever since she came out. I did venture once to suggest to Cardross that perhaps it would not be such a very bad match after all, but—but he cannot like it, and will only say that if she is still of the same mind when she is a few years older he will not then receive Mr. Allandale in an unfriendly spirit."

"Throwing herself away," said Mr. Hethersett disapprovingly. "Dash it, cousin, very taking little thing! Besides being an heiress. Not but what," he added, as a thought occurred to him, "very understandable you should wish to see her safely tied up to someone! I daresay she's the deuce of a charge."

"Oh, no, indeed she is not!" Nell said, quite distressed. "How could you think I wished to be rid of her? I am only too happy to have her companionship!"

Much abashed, he begged pardon. His earlier strictures on her family notwithstanding he was one of her more faithful admirers, and was generally recognized to be her cicisbeo-in-chief. She had other and more dazzling followers, but he was certainly her favourite: a circumstance which presented an enigma to the worldlings who never dreamed that the beautiful young Countess had no taste for dalliance, but smiled on Mr. Hethersett because he was her lord's cousin. She treated him much as she treated her brother, an arrangement which suited him very well, since he was not, in fact, much of a lady's man, but attached himself to the court of some lady of rank and beauty as a matter of
ton.
A high stickler, Mr. Hethersett, precise to a pin, blessed with propriety of taste, an impeccable lineage, and a comfortable fortune. He was neither handsome nor articulate, but his dress was always in the first style of elegance; he could handle a team to perfection; was generally thought to be up to every rig and row in town; and had such obliging manners as made him quite the best liked of the Bond Street beaux. The gentlemen thought him a very good fellow; the ladies valued him for two very excellent reasons: to be admired by him added to any female's consequence, and to possess his friendship was to enjoy not only the distinguishing notice of a man of the first stare of fashion, but the willing services of one whose good-nature was proverbial. For the more adventurous ladies, the dashing chippers who damped their muslins to make them cling revealingly to their exquisite forms, painted their toenails with gilt, and lived perpetually on the brink of social disaster, there were many more attractive blades; but young Lady Cardross was not a member of this sisterhood, and, while she naturally did not wish to be so unfashionable as to own no devoted admirer, she took care not to encourage the pretensions of any of the notorious rakes who courted her. Mr. Hethersett could be depended on to gallant one uncomplainingly to quite the dullest party of the season; and there was no need to fear that the abandonment of formality would lead him to encroach on his position. He was neither witty nor talkative, but a certain shrewdness characterized him, his bow was perfection, and his grace in a ballroom unequalled. Even Letty, who said that his notions of propriety were quite gothic, did not despise his escort when she went to Almack's. Almack's was abominably slow, of course, and its haughty patronesses by far too high in the instep; but any lady refused a voucher of admission to its sacred precincts must consider herself to be socially damned. To attend the Assemblies gallanted by Mr. Hethersett ensured for one the approval even of censorious Mrs. Drummond Burrell, and had been known to win for a perfectly insipid damsel a condescending smile from that odious Countess Lieven.

Nell was as much astonished as she was delighted to perceive, on arrival in King Street, that her graceless but beloved brother was rather inexpertly dancing the boulanger, with a quiet-looking girl for his partner. He explained to her presently that he had never been so taken-in before. "Ay, you may well stare!" he said, his angelic blue eyes kindling with indignation.

She could not help laughing, but she said: "Oh, Dy, what a wretch you are, when you wouldn't come with
me,
and said wild horses couldn't drag you here!"

"It wasn't wild horses," he replied darkly.
"They
couldn't have done it! It was old Mother Wenlock! Beckoned to me to come up to that antiquated landaulette of hers in Bond Street this morning, and said I must dine in Brook Street to meet her niece. Of course I said I was engaged with a party of friends, but I might as well have spared my breath. Of all the devilish things, Nell, these shocking old hags who are hand-in-glove with Mama are the worst! Mind, if I'd known she meant to drag me to Almack's she could have said what she chose, I wouldn't have budged! I ain't a dancing man, you can't get a thing to drink but lemonade and orgeat—and of the two, damned if I'd not as lief drink lemonade!—and this precious niece, whom she swore was a ravishing girl is nothing but a dowdy!"

"Ought to have known she would be," said Mr. Hethersett, from the depths of his worldly wisdom.

"Why?" demanded the Viscount.

In other company Mr. Hethersett would have answered him with brutal frankness, but under Nell's innocently enquiring gaze his courage failed, and he said he didn't know. After all, one couldn't tell an adoring sister that no chaperon in her senses would invite Dysart to gallant a ravishing girl to a party. If the damsel in question seemed likely to attract his roving fancy she would be much more likely to forbid him the house. He might be the heir to an Earldom, but it was common knowledge that his noble father (until he had the good fortune to catch Cardross for his daughter) was all to pieces, having, in vulgar parlance, brought an abbey to a grange; and no one who had observed his own volatile career could place the slightest dependence on his setting the family affairs to rights by more prudent conduct. So far from being regarded as an eligible bachelor, he was considered to be extremely dangerous, for he combined with decidedly libertine propensities a degree of charm which might easily prove the undoing of the most delicately nurtured female. He was also very goodlooking, and although his critics unequivocally condemned the carelessness of his attire, it could not be denied that his tall person, with its fine shoulders, and its crown of waving golden hair, inevitably drew all eyes. He had an endearing smile, too, at once rueful and mischievous. It dawned now, for he was no fool, and he knew very well what Mr. Hethersett had meant.

"Craven!" he said challengingly.

But Mr. Hethersett refused to be drawn; and since Letty came up at that moment, under the escort of Mr. Allandale, Dysart allowed the matter to drop. He greeted Letty with the easy camaraderie of one who was in some sort related to her, and at once begged permission to lead her into the set which was just then forming. However unalterably devoted to Mr. Allandale Letty might be, she was by no means impervious to the Viscount's charm, and she went blithely off with him, leaving her swain to exchange civilities with Nell.

Her cousin Felix watched these proceedings with a jaundiced eye. It would have been hard to have found a greater contrast than that which existed between Lord Dysart and Mr. Jeremy Allandale. The one was a rather thick-set young man, whose grave eyes and regular features were allied to a serious mind, and solid worth of character; the other was a tall, handsome buck, bearing himself with careless arrogance, laughter never far from his lips, and in his gleaming blue eyes a reckless light which sprang from a disposition which was as volatile as Mr. Allandale's was dependable. But in one respect they were blood-brothers: as prospective bridegrooms each in his way was wholly ineligible. Mr. Hethersett, watching the start of a promising flirtation between Letty and his lordship, was much inclined to think that he had grossly failed in his duty toward Cardross. A quicker-witted man, he gloomily reflected, would have intervened before Letty had had time to accept Dysart's invitation.

Nell, too, was watching the couple on the dance-floor, not with misgiving (for although she knew that Cardross had no great liking for Dysart she also knew that Letty had no great liking for anyone but her Jeremy), but a little wistfully. When she had seen Dysart she had known an impulse to confide her troubles to him. She had no expectation of his being able to give back to her the money she had so blithely bestowed on him, but at least she might have warned him not, in future, to depend on her.

There was no further opportunity offered her for speech with Dysart. Her own hand was claimed; her place in the set was far removed from Dysart's; and by the time she left the floor he had restored Letty to Mr. Hethersett's protection, and had returned to his own party.

He left it, on the flimsiest of excuses, ten minutes later: a circumstance of which she was soon made fully aware by his hostess, who sailed across the room for the express purpose of favouring her with her opinion of his manners and upbringing. Mr. Hethersett could do nothing to spare her this ordeal, but when one of his and Cardross's more formidable aunts conceived it to be her duty to censure Nell for her thoughtlessness in permitting Letty to dance with Mr. Allandale he came out strongly in her support, even recommending Lady Chudleigh to address her criticisms to Cardross himself.

"Let me assure you, Felix," said the lady in quelling accents, "that nothing is further from my intentions! Far be it from me to seek to make mischief!"

"Just as well," responded the intrepid Mr. Hethersett. "Very likely to give you one of his set-downs!"

Nell was quite overcome by such a display of heroism on her behalf, but Mr. Hethersett disclaimed heroism. Having watched through a quizzing-glass which hideously magnified his eye the retreat of the dowager, he assured Nell that he had spoken nothing more than the truth. "No need to fear Cardross would listen to
her
tales," he said. "What's more, he must know you couldn't stop Letty dancing with anyone. Doubt whether he could do it himself."

It seemed as though the Earl shared this doubt. He had not returned from a dinner given by the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks when the ladies were set down in Grosvenor Square sometime after midnight, but he visited his bride later in the morning. He found her with a breakfast-tray across her knees, the curtains of her bed drawn back in billowing folds of rosy silk. She was engaged, between sips of coffee and nibbles at a slice of bread-and butter, in reading her correspondence. This seemed, from the litter on the counterpane, to consist largely of gilt-edged invitations, but there was a letter, crossed and recrossed, from her mama, which she was trying to decipher when Cardross came into the room. She put it down at once, and tried to tuck back the ringlets which had strayed from under her becoming night-cap of muslin and lace. "My lord! Oh, dear, I did not think you would be coming to see me so early, and I am dreadfully untidy!"

"Don't!" he said, capturing her hand, and kissing it. "You look charmingly, I assure you. Was it amusing, your party?"

"Yes, thank you. That is—it was just one of the Assemblies, at Almack's, you know."

"Not very amusing, then," he remarked, seating himself on the edge of her bed, and picking up one of the invitation cards. "Nor will this be, but we shall be obliged to accept it, I suppose. She is Letty's godmother. Did Letty behave with propriety last night, or did she hang on that fellow Allandale the whole evening?"

"No, indeed she did not! She stood up only twice with him."

"I am astonished to learn that she had as much moderation—and I make you my compliments: it must surely be your doing!"

"Well, of course, I should
try
to dissuade her from doing what you don't like," said Nell doubtfully, "but it wasn't at all necessary. Mr. Allandale's scruples are so
very
strict that I am persuaded he would never ask her to do anything that might set up people's backs."

"Good God!" said his lordship. "What a slow-top! My dear, what
does
she see in him to hit her fancy?"

"I can't think!" said Nell candidly. "Though I am sure he has many excellent qualities, and a most superior understanding."

"Superior fiddlesticks! I never found him to be anything but a dreadful bore. I wish to God she would recover from this green-sickness! It's quite impossible, you know: he has neither fortune nor expectation, and I'll swear I never saw a couple less suited to one another. I should be a villain to countenance such an attachment. If his scruples are as strict as you tell me I collect I've no need to fear he may run off with her to Gretna Green?"

"Good gracious, no!" Nell exclaimed, startled.

"So much, then, for my aunt Chudleigh's croakings!"

"Your aunt Chudleigh! Oh Giles, she was at Almack's last night, and she gave me a terrible scold for permitting Letty to dance with Mr. Allandale!"

"What impertinence!"

"Oh, no! Though that is what Felix said. And also he told her to make her complaints to you, which was not very civil of him, but excessively brave, I thought!"

"I wonder what she imagines I can do to stop Letty? Short of incarcerating her at Merion— By the by, I must go to Merion next week. Useless, I suppose, to ask you to go with me?"                                       i

She showed him a face of sudden dismay. "Next week! But the Beadings' masquerade—!"