Charity Girl

Chapter 4

Seizing on the excuse offered by her daughter’s fear of being driven back to Hazelfield through a thunderstorm, Lady Emborough carried her party off immediately after supper. Lady Bugle was regretful, but since she was even more frightened of lightning than was Emma she fully sympathized with her alarms, and made no effort to delay the departure, prophesying, when she heard that a storm was brewing, that a great many others would also leave early: certainly all those faced with a drive of more than half-an-hour.

The Redgraves took up Edward and Gilbert in their carriage, and Desford occupied the fourth seat in the Emborough landaulet, sitting beside his uncle, and confronting Lady Emborough and Miss Montsale. For the first few minutes the ladies discussed the ball, but presently Miss Montsale said that although she had been prepared to find that Miss Bugle fell short of the enthusiastic descriptions furnished by Ned and Gil she had no sooner set eyes on her than she felt that they had underrated her beauty rather than exaggerated it. “Such great, sparkling eyes!” she said. “Such a lovely complexion, and such glorious hair! Oh, I thought she was one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen! Did not you, Lord Desford?”

He was not, like his uncle, drowsing, but he was obviously abstracted, and she had to repeat her question to recall him from whatever thoughts were occupying his mind. He said: “I beg pardon! I wasn’t attending! Miss Bugle? Oh, yes, undoubtedly! A dazzling piece of nature!”

“And not just in the common style!”

“By no means!”

“What do you think, Desford? Will she take?” asked Lady Emborough.

“Lord, yes!”

“Well, I hope she will. I don’t like her mother above half, but I do sincerely pity her, for it’s no laughing matter to have five daughters to establish creditably when one hasn’t a large enough fortune to grease the wheels,” she said bluntly. “There’s one that ought to be brought out next Season, and so she would be if old Lady Bugle hadn’t chosen to die at the most inconvenient time she could! Lucasta might have been engaged by now, which would have made it possible for the next one—I can’t remember her name! they all have the most outlandish names!—to have been allowed to try her wings at that little affair tonight, and to have been brought out during the Little Season, this autumn. Not what one would choose, of course, but what’s to be done, when the girl is turned seventeen already, and her elder sister has scarcely been seen yet, much less turned-off? And before that unfortunate woman has time to make a recover she’ll have the third girl ready for her come-out!”

“Tell me, ma’am!” interposed Desford. “What do you know about Lady Bugle’s niece? Have you met her?”

“Why, have you met her?” she asked, considerably surprised.

“Yes, I met her tonight,” he answered. “But pray don’t divulge that to her aunt! She was peeping through the bannisters to watch as much as she could see of the dancing, and I happened to catch sight of her. I thought her one of the children at first, but discovered that she is—all but a few weeks!—as old as her cousin Lucasta. A pretty child, with big, scared eyes, a tangle of brown hair, and a deplorably outmoded and ill-fitting gown.”

Lady Emborough tried hard to see his face, but it was too dark inside the carriage for her to distinguish more than its outlines. She said: “Yes, I think I have seen her once. I must own, it astonishes me to learn that she is as old as Lucasta, for—like you!—I thought her a schoolroom miss! A poor little dab of a girl, isn’t she? Well, she’s the daughter of Lady Bugle’s only sister, who ran off with that ne’er-do-well son of old Nettlecombe’s. Before your time, but I remember what a scandal it was! Lady Bugle was obliged to take this girl under her roof—oh, a little over a year ago! I forget the rights of it, but I know that I thought it very charitable of her to have done so, when she told me about it.”

“Oh, was that how it was?” he said, in an indifferent tone.

“Charitable?” said Miss Montsale. “Why, yes—if the charity was not used as a cloak to cover more mercenary aims!”

“Good God, Mary, what in the world do you mean?” demanded Lady Emborough.

“Oh, nothing, dear ma’am, against Lady Bugle! How could I, when I never met her before tonight? But I have so often seen—as I am persuaded you too must have seen!—the—the indigent female who has been received into the household of one of her more affluent relations, as an act of charity, and has been turned into a drudge!”

“And has been expected to be grateful for it!” struck in the Viscount.

“If,” said Lady Emborough awfully, “these remarks refer to my cousin Cordelia’s position at Hazelfield—”

“Oh, no, no, no!” Miss Montsale assured her laughingly. “Of course they don’t! Lord Desford, could anyone suppose Miss Pembury to be a downtrodden drudge?”

“Certainly not!” he responded promptly. “No one, that is to say, who had been privileged to hear her giving handsome setdowns to my aunt! But you are very right, Miss Montsale: I too have seen just what you have described, and I suspect that the child I met tonight may be an example of that sort of charity.”

No more was said, for by this time the carriage had drawn up before the imposing portals of Hazelfield House. The ladies were handed down from it; Lord Emborough was roused by his nephew from his gentle slumber; and his sons, springing down from the Redgrave carriage, which drew up a minute later, were indignantly calling upon their pusillanimous sister to own that the storm was still miles distant, and that it had been a great shame to have dragged them away from the ball when (according to them) it had scarcely begun.

Lord Emborough, on entering his house, presented all the appearance of a gentleman no more than half awake, but when he walked into my lady’s bedchamber, an hour later, he had emerged from his drowsy mists, and so obviously wished to engage her in private conversation that she dismissed her abigail, who was in the act of fitting a nightcap over her iron-grey locks, and said, as this excellent female curtsied herself out of the room: “Now we can be comfortable, and talk about the party—which I have for long thought to be the best thing about parties, even the finest of ‘em! Which the lord knows this wasn’t! An insipid evening, wasn’t it?”

“It was indeed,” he agreed, disposing himself in a cushioned chair, and yawning. “I have never known, my love, why my old friend—as good a man as ever stepped when we were up at Oxford together!—should have chosen to marry—I won’t say a smatterer, but a mere miss, which was what we all thought her!”

“Well,” said Lady Emborough tolerantly, “I do not say that she is a woman of the first consideration, but it must be acknowledged that she has been a good wife to Sir Thomas, and is an excellent mother. And even you, Emborough, must also acknowledge that Sir Thomas’s sense is not superior!”

“No,” he agreed, with a melancholy sigh. He then fell silent, but said, after a few moments, somewhat acidly: “I am excessively glad, my dear, that I have never been fortified by the spectacle of my wife throwing a daughter at the head of an eligible parti in what I can only describe as a positively shocking way!”

“Certainly not!” responded his lady, with unruffled calm. “I hope I have too much rumgumption to do anything so bird-witted. But it must be remembered, my lord, that I have not been cursed with an improvident husband, and five daughters! I promise you, I do most sincerely feel for Lady Bugle, little though I may like her, and perfectly sympathize with her anxiety to achieve a good match for Lucasta as soon as may be possible.”

He directed a worried look at her. “Did it seem to you that Desford was strongly attracted to that girl, my love?”

“Not in the least,” she replied unhesitatingly.

“Well, I hope you may be right,” he said. “It seemed to me that he treated her with very flattering distinction! And it wouldn’t do, you know!”

“Of course it wouldn’t do, and he knows that as well as we do! Lord, my dear sir, can you suppose that a personable man of birth and fortune who has been on the town for years, and has had I don’t know how many girls on the catch for him, don’t recognize a lure in no more than the shake of a lambstail? If the mother’s odious toadying didn’t disgust him, you may depend upon it the coming manners Lucasta assumed did!”

“One would have thought so, but he appeared to me to be quite blatantly flirting with her!”

“To be sure he was!” said her ladyship. “But in my judgment he was very much more interested in Lucasta’s little cousin!”

“Good God!” ejaculated Emborough. “Do you mean that scamp’s child?—Wilfred Steane’s daughter?”

His wife burst out laughing, for the look of dismay on his face was comical. “Yes, but there’s no need for you to be on the fidgets, I promise you! Recollect that Desford leaves us tomorrow! It is in the highest degree unlikely that he will ever see the girl again; and for my part I wouldn’t wager a groat on the chance that he won’t have forgotten all about her by the time he reaches London!”

If this was a somewhat exaggerated statement, it is probable that had not Chance intervened Miss Cherry Steane would not have lived for long in the Viscount’s memory. But Chance did intervene, and on the very next day.

Since Hazelfield was situated within a few miles of Alton, and he was bound for London, he did not take leave of his hosts until he had consumed a leisurely breakfast. The threatened storm had burst (according to Emma’s account) directly over the house in the small hours, but after a violent downpour the weather had cleared, and the Viscount set out on his journey with every expectation of covering the distance in bright sunlight, and of reaching his destination in excellent time to change his dress, and to stroll from his house in Arlington Street to White’s Club, where he meant to dine.

At Alton, he joined the post-road to Southampton, and was soon driving through Farnharn. It was when he was a few miles beyond this town that Fate took a hand in his affairs.

A female figure, wearing a round bonnet and a gray cloak, plodding ahead, with a slightly dilapidated portmanteau in her grasp, did not attract his attention, but just as his horses drew abreast of her she turned her head, looking up at him, and disclosed the child-like countenance of Miss Cherry Steane. Considerably startled, he uttered an exclamation, and reined in his horses.

“Why, what’s amiss, my lord?” demanded Stebbing, even more startled.

The Viscount, slewing round to obtain a second view of Miss Steane, found that the fleeting glance he had cast down at her as his curricle swept past had not deceived him: Miss Steane it most certainly was. He thrust the reins into Stebbing’s hands, saying briefly: “Hold ‘em! I know that lady!” He then jumped lightly down on to the road, and strode back to meet Miss Steane.

She greeted him with frank delight, and said, in a voice of passionate thanksgiving: “I thought it was you, sir! Oh, I am so glad! If you are going to London, would you—would you be so very kind as to take me up in your carriage?”

He took the portmanteau from her, and set it down. “What, to London? Why?”

“I’ve run away,” she explained, with a confiding smile.

“That, my child, is obvious!” he said. “But it won’t do, you know! How could I possibly aid and abet you to leave the protection of your aunt?”

Her face fell ludicrously; it seemed for a moment that she was going to burst into tears, but she overcame the impulse, swallowing resolutely, and saying in a prim, forlorn little voice: “C-couldn’t you, sir? I beg your pardon I I thought—I thought—But it’s of no consequence!”

“Will you tell me why you have run away?” he suggested gently.

“I couldn’t bear it! You don’t know!”she said, in a stifled tone.

“No, but I wish you will tell me. I think something must have happened since we talked together last night Did someone hear you, and tell your aunt?” She nodded, biting her lips. “And she perhaps gave you a scold?”

“Oh, yes! But that’s not it! I don’t care for mere scolds, but she said such things—and Lucasta too—and all in front of Corinna—and Corinna told the others—” Her voice failed on a sob, and she was quite unable to continue.

He waited until she had in some degree recovered her composure. He thought he had seldom seen a more pathetic picture. Not only was her countenance woebegone, but her shoes and the hem of the duffle cloak which she wore were sadly muddied; several strands of her unruly hair had escaped from the confinement of the round, schoolgirl’s bonnet, and strayed across her flushed features; and beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. She looked to be hot, tired, and despairing. For the first of these three ills the duffle cloak was certainly responsible; for the second it was no wonder that she should be tired if she had trudged all the way from her home, carrying a cumbrous portmanteau; but the despair was not to be accounted for so easily: nothing she had said to him on the previous evening had prepared him to find her flying from the security of the only home she seemed to have.

She succeeded in mastering her agitation, and even managed to summon up a gallant, if unconvincing, smile. “I beg your pardon!” she uttered. “It was only because you look so kind, sir, and—and talked to me last night—But it was wrong of me to ask you to take me up in your carriage. Pray don’t regard it! My—my affairs are not your concern, and I shall do very well by myself!”

He ignored the hand she was resolutely holding out to him, but picked up her portmanteau, and said: “We cannot stand talking in the road! I don’t promise to take you to London, but at least I’ll take you to Farnborough! As I remember, there is a tolerable inn there, where I can produce some refreshment for you, and where we can continue this conversation at our ease. Come along!”

She hung back, searching his face with her wide, scared eyes. “You won’t compel me to return to Maplewood, will you?”

“No, I won’t do that. What right have I to compel you to do anything? Though it is undoubtedly what I ought to do!”

She seemed to be satisfied with this reply, for she said no more, but went obediently beside him to where his curricle stood. The expression on Stebbing’s face when he realized that his master was going to hand into the curricle a Young Person whose unattended state and dowdy raiment clearly denoted that she was not a female of consequence spoke volumes; but he relinquished the reins to the Viscount, without a word, and climbed up into the groom’s seat between the springs.

Miss Steane, sinking back against the squabs, uttered a sigh of relief. “Oh, how comfortable this is!” she said thankfully.

“Have you trudged all the way from Maplewood?”

“No, no! I was so fortunate as to have been given a lift to Froyle, in a tax-cart, so I have only been obliged to walk for six or seven miles, and I shouldn’t regard that in the least if I weren’t burdened with this portmanteau. And I must own I wish my pelisse wasn’t quite worn out, so that I might have worn it instead of this dreadful cloak.”

“It is certainly not the thing for such a warm day,” he agreed.

“No, but I thought I should wear it, in case it comes on to rain, or I felt chilly when the sun goes down.”

“When the sun goes down—! You absurd child, you are surely not meaning to continue walking till night-fall?”

“No—at least—Well, I thought I should have been able to travel on the stage-coach, but—but when it reached Alton it was cram-full, and of course I hadn’t booked a seat, so I wasn’t on the way-bill, and the guard wouldn’t take me up. And even if there had been room I found that I hadn’t quite enough money to pay for the fare. But I daresay I shall be able to get a lift on a carrier’s wagon: they will often take people up, you know, and for no more than a shilling or two. And if I don’t I shall go on for as long as I can, and then find a lodging for the night in some respectable farmhouse.”

The Viscount’s reflections on the sort of reception she was likely to meet at a respectable farmhouse he kept to himself, merely asking her where she proposed to lodge when she did reach London.

“I am going to my grandfather,” she replied, a hint of defiance in her voice.

“Indeed! May I ask if he knows it?”

“Well—well, not yet!” she confessed.

He drew an audible breath, and said rather grimly: “Yes, well, we will postpone further discussion until we get to Farnborough, when I must hope to be able to convince you that this scheme of yours won’t do, my child!”

“You won’t convince me!” she said, betraying signs of agitation. “Oh, pray don’t try, sir! It is the only thing I can do! You don’t understand!”

“Then you shall explain it to me,” he said cheerfully.

She said no more, but groped in the folds of her cloak for the pocket which held her handkerchief. He was afraid that she was going to cry, and suffered a moment’s dismay. He was not chicken-hearted, but he found himself quite unable to face with equanimity the prospect of driving a lady in floods of tears along a busy post-road. However, she bravely suppressed all but one small sob, and did no more than blow her nose. He was moved to say, for her encouragement: “Good girl!” glancing down at her as he spoke, and smiling.

Of necessity it was a very brief glance, but as he turned his head back again to watch the road he caught a glimpse of the wavering, would-be valiant smile which answered his, and it wrung his heart.

In a few minutes Farnborough was reached, and he had drawn up in front of the Ship. Not many persons patronized this small post-house, so the landlord, who came out to welcome a recognizable member of the Quality, was saddened, but not surprised, when the Viscount, handing Miss Steane into his care, told him that they had stopped only to bait. “Anyone in the coffee-room?” he asked.

“No, sir, no one—not at the moment! But if your honour would wish to partake of refreshment in the private parlour—”

“No, the coffee-room will do very well. Some lemonade for the lady, and cold meat—cakes—fruit—whatever you have! And a tankard of beer for myself, if you please!” He looked down at Miss Steane, and said: “Go in, my dear: I’ll be with you in a moment.”

He watched her enter the inn, and turned to issue a few instructions to Stebbing, standing at the wheelers’ heads. Stebbing received these with a wooden: “Very good, my lord,” but the Viscount had taken barely two steps towards the door into the inn before his feelings overcame him, and he said, explosively: “My lord!”

“Well?” said the Viscount, over his shoulder.

“It ain’t my place to speak,” said Stebbing, with careful restraint, “but being as I’ve known your lordship ever since you was a little lad, which I taught to ride your first pony—ah, and pulled you out of scrapes! and being that—”

“You needn’t go on!” interrupted Desford, quizzing him. “I know just what you are trying to say! I must take care I don’t fall into yet another scrape, mustn’t I?”

“Yes, my lord, and I hope you will—though it don’t look to me, the way things is shaping, that you will!”

But Desford only laughed, and went into the inn. The mistress of the establishment had taken Miss Steane upstairs, and when she presently joined his lordship in the coffee-room she had washed her face, tidied her unruly hair, and was carrying her cloak over her arm. She looked much more presentable, but the round dress of faded pink cambric which she wore was rather crumpled, besides being muddied round the hem, and in no way became her. She was looking very grave, but when she saw the chicken, and the tongue, and the raspberries on the table her eyes brightened perceptibly, and she said gratefully: “Oh, thank you, sir! I am very much obliged to you! I ran away before breakfast, and you can’t think how hungry I am!”

She then sat down at the table, and proceeded to make a hearty meal. Desford, who was not at all hungry, sat watching her, his tankard in his hand, thinking that for all her nineteen years she was very little removed from childhood. While she ate he forbore to question her, but when she came to the end of her nuncheon, and said that she now felt much better, he said: “Do you feel sufficiently restored to tell me all about it? I wish you will!”

Her brightened eyes clouded, but after a slight hesitation she said: “If I tell you why I’ve run away, will you take me to London, sir?”

He laughed. “I am making no rash promises—except to carry you straight back to Maplewood if you don’t tell me!”

She said with quaint dignity, but as though she had a lump in her throat: “I cannot believe that you would do anything so—so unhandsome!”

“No, I am sure you cannot,” he said sympathetically. “But you must consider my position, you know! Recollect that all I know at this present is that although you told me last night that you were not very happy I am persuaded you had no intention then of running away. Yet today I come upon you, in a good deal of distress, having apparently reached a sudden decision to leave your aunt. Did you perhaps have a quarrel with her, fly up into the boughs, and run away without giving yourself time to consider whether she had really been unkind enough to warrant your taking such an extreme course? Or whether she too had lost her temper, and had said much more than she meant?”

She looked forlornly at him, and gave her head a shake. “We didn’t quarrel. I didn’t even quarrel with Corinna. Or with Lucasta. And it wasn’t such a sudden decision. I’ve wished desperately—oh, almost from the moment my aunt took me to Maplewood!—to escape. Only whenever I ventured to ask my aunt if she would help me to find a situation where I could earn my own bread she always scolded me for being ungrateful, and—and said I should soon wish myself back at Maplewood, because I was fit for nothing but a—a menial position.” She paused, and, after a moment or two, said rather hopelessly: “I can’t explain it to you. I daresay you wouldn’t understand if I could, because you have never been so poor that you were obliged to hang on anyone’s sleeve, and try to be grateful for a worn-out ribbon, or a scrap of torn lace which one of your cousins gave you, instead of throwing it away.”

“No,” he replied. “But you are mistaken when you say that I don’t understand. I have seen all too many of such cases as you describe, and have sincerely pitied the victims of this so-called charity, who are expected to give unremitting service to show their gratitude for—” He broke off, for she had winced, and turned away her face. “What have I said to upset you?” he asked. “Believe me, I had no intention of doing so!”

“Oh, no!” she said, in a stifled voice. “I beg your pardon! It was stupid of me to care for it, but that word brought it all back to me, like—like a stab! Lucasta said I was well-named, and my aunt s-said: ‘ Very true, my love!’ and that in future I should be called Charity, to keep me in mind of the fact that that is what I am—a charity girl!”

“What a griffin!” he exclaimed disdainfully. “But she won’t call you Charity, you know! Depend upon it, she wouldn’t wish people to think her spiteful!”

“They wouldn’t. Because it is my name!” she disclosed tragically. “I know I told you it was Cherry, but it wasn’t a fubbery, sir, to say that, because I have always been called Cherry.”

“I see. Do you know, I like Charity better than Cherry? I think it is a very pretty name.”

“You wouldn’t think so if it was your name, and true!”

“I suppose I shouldn’t,” he admitted. “But what did you do to bring down all this ill-will upon your head?”

“Corinna was on the listen last night, when we talked together on the stairs,” she said. “She is the most odious, humbugging little cat imaginable, and if you think I shouldn’t say such a thing of her I am sorry, but it is true! I was used to think her the most amiable of my cousins, and—and my friend! And even though I did know that she was a shocking fibster, and not in the least above carrying tales against Oenone to my aunt, I never dreamed she would do the same by me! Well—well, there was some excuse for her trying for revenge against Oenone, because Oenone is a very disagreeable girl, and for ever picking out grievances, and trying to set my aunt against her sisters. But—” Her eyes filled with tears, which she made haste to brush away—“she—she had no cause to do me a mischief! But—but she twisted everything I said to you, sir, m-making it seem quite different from what I did say! She even said that you wouldn’t have come upstairs if I hadn’t th-thrown out lures to you! Which I didn’t! I didn’t!”

“On the contrary! You begged me not to come upstairs!” he said, smiling.

“Yes, and so I told them, but neither my aunt nor Lucasta would believe me. They—they accused me of being a—a designing little squirrel, and my aunt read me a scold about g-girls like me ending up in the Magdalen: and when I asked her what the Magdalen is, she said that if I continued to make sheep’s eyes at every man that crossed my path I should very soon discover what it is. But I don’t, I don’t!”she said vehemently. “It wasn’t my fault that you came up to talk to me last night, and it wasn’t my fault that Sir John Thorley took me up in his chaise and so very kindly drove me back to Maplewood, the day he overtook me walking back from the village in the rain; and it wasn’t my fault that Mr Rainham came over to talk to me when I brought Dianeme and Tom down to the drawing-room one evening! I did not put myself forward! I sat down, just as my aunt bade me, in a chair against the wall, and made not the least push to keep him beside me! I promise you I didn’t, sir!” Her tears brimmed over, but she brushed them away, and said: “It was nothing but kindness on their parts, and to say that I lured either of them away from Lucasta is wickedly unjust!”

Since he had himself succumbed to the unconscious appeal of her big eyes, and had been moved to compassion by her forlorn aspect, he could readily understand the feelings that had prompted two gentlemen, whom he guessed to be admirers of Lucasta, to pay her a little attention. He thought, with a sardonic curl of his lips, that Lady Bugle was no wiser than a wet-goose; and wondered how many of Lucasta’s court would have paid any attention to her little cousin had Cherry been suitably attired, and treated by Lady Bugle with the affection that lady showed towards Lucasta. Not many, he guessed, for, although she had an innocent charm, she was no more than a candle to the sun of Lucasta’s beauty; and if she had been happy she would have roused no chivalrous emotions in any male breast. These reflections, however, he kept to himself, setting himself instead to the task of soothing her agitation, prior to doing what lay within his power to convince her that a return to her house of bondage would be preferable to her present scheme.

With the first of these objects in view, he encouraged her to unburden herself of her wrongs, thinking that to be allowed to pour out her troubles would sensibly allay whatever feelings of hurt and injustice had overset her. He suspected that these might have been exaggerated in her mind by what had obviously been a pulling of caps; but by the time she had been induced to describe what her life had been at Maplewood there was no hint of a smile in his eyes, and no scepticism in his mind.

For she did not answer his questions willingly, and she seemed always to be able to find excuses for the many unkindnesses she had received at Maplewood. Nor did she resent the demands that had been made on her: she felt it was only right that she should repay her aunt’s generosity by performing whatever services were required of her; but when she said simply: “I would do anything if only she would love me a little, and just once say thank you!” he thought he had never heard a sadder utterance.

It was obvious that Lady Bugle had seen in her not an orphaned niece to be cherished, but a household slave, to be made to fetch and carry all day long, to wait not only on her aunt but on her cousins as well, and to mind the two eldest nursery children whenever Nurse desired her to do so. He suspected that if she had been less docile and less easily dismayed she would have fared better at Maplewood: he had been standing close enough to Lady Bugle on the previous evening to observe her when she approached her husband, and said something pretty sharp to him under her breath. He had not heard what she had said, but that she had issued an order was patent, for Sir Thomas had at first expostulated, and then gone off to do her bidding, and Desford had written her down then and there as one of those overbearing females who would tyrannize over anyone too meek or too scared to withstand her. It had at first surprised him to learn that his brief meeting with Cherry had brought down on her head such a venomous scold, but the more he studied the sweet little face before him the less surprised did he feel that the ambitious mother and daughter should have been so furious to learn that he had been sufficiently attracted by Cherry to have gone upstairs to talk to her. Lucasta was a Beauty, but Cherry was by far the more taking.

While she told her story, at least half of his brain was occupied in trying to think what to do for her. It had not taken long to make him abandon his original intention of restoring her to her aunt, and he wasted no eloquence on attempting to persuade her to agree to such a course. A fleeting notion of placing her in Lady Emborough’s care no sooner occurred to him than he banished it; and when he suggested that she should return to Miss Fletching she shook her head, saying that nothing would prevail upon her to make any more demands on that lady’s kindness.

“Don’t you think you might be very useful to her?” he coaxed. “As a teacher, perhaps?”

“No,” she replied. Suddenly her eyes lost their despairing look, and danced mischievously. She giggled, and said: “I shouldn’t be in the least useful, and certainly not as a teacher! I am not at all bookish, and although I do know how to play on the pianoforte I don’t play at all well! I have no aptitude for languages, either, or for painting, and my sums are always wrong. So you see—!”

It was certainly daunting. He could not help laughing, but he said: “Well, now that you’ve told me all the things you can’t do, tell me what you can do!”

The cloud descended again on her brow. She said: “Nothing—nothing of a genteel nature. My aunt says I am only fitted to perform menial tasks, and I suppose that is true. But while I have been at Maplewood I have learnt a great deal about housekeeping, and I know I can take care of sick old ladies, because when old Lady Bugle became too ill to leave her bed there were days when she wouldn’t let anyone enter her room except me. And I think she liked me, because, though she pinched at me a good deal—she was nearly always as cross as crabs, poor old lady—she never ripped up at me as she did at my aunt, and Lucasta, and Oenone, or accuse me of wishing her dead. So I thought that I could very likely be a comfort to my grandfather. I believe he lives quite alone, except for the servants, which must be excessively melancholy for him. Don’t you think so, sir?”

“I should certainly find it so, but your grandfather is said to be a—a confirmed recluse. I have never met him, but if the stories that are told about him are true he is not a very amiable person. After all, you told me yourself that he had written a very disobliging reply to Miss Fletching’s letter, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t think she asked him to take charge of me,” she argued. “She wanted him to pay the money Papa owed her, and I shouldn’t wonder at it if she set up his back, for I know, from what Papa has said to me, that he is shockingly clutchfisted.”

“Did your aunt pay her?” he interrupted.

She shook her head, flushing a little. “No. She too said that she wasn’t responsible, but because of blood being thicker than water she—she would relieve Miss Fletching by taking me away to live with her. So—so no one has paid for me—yet! But I mean to save every penny I can earn, and I shall pay her!” Her chin lifted, and she said: “If my grandfather—if I can see him, and explain to him how it is—surely he won’t refuse to let me stay with him at least until I’ve found a suitable situation?”

The Viscount could not think this likely. No matter how indisposed and eccentric Lord Nettlecombe might be, he could scarcely turn away a destitute granddaughter who had no other shelter in London than his house. The probability was that he would take a fancy to her, and if that happened her future would be assured. And if he was such a shabster as to turn her away, he would find he had to deal with my Lord Desford, who would cast aside the deference to his elders so carefully drilled into him from his earliest days, and would counsel the old muckworm in explicit terms to think well before he behaved in so scaly a fashion as must alienate even the few friends he had, once the story became known, as he, Desford, would make it his business to see that it did.

He did not favour Cherry with these reflections, but got up abruptly, and said: “Very well! I will take you to London!”

She sprang to her feet, caught his hand, and kissed it before he could prevent her. “Oh, thank you, sir!” she cried, gratitude throbbing in her voice, and making her eyes shine through the sudden tears of relief which filled them. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Considerably embarrassed, he drew his hand away, and gave her a pat on the shoulder with it, saying: “Draw bridle, you foolish child! Wait until we see how your grandfather receives you before you fly into raptures! If he doesn’t receive you, you will have nothing to thank me for, you know!”

He then went away to pay his shot, telling her that he would bring his curricle to the door in a few minutes, and so cut short any further expressions of her gratitude.

But he had still to run the gauntlet of his devoted servitor’s disapproval. When he informed Stebbing that he was driving Miss Steane to London, that worthy found himself wholly unable to receive this news in a manner befitting his station, but said forthrightly: “My lord, I beg and implore you not to do no such thing! You’ll find yourself in the briars, as sure as check, and it’s me as will get the blame for it when his lordship comes to hear of it!”

“Don’t be such a gudgeon!” said the Viscount impatiently. “His lordship won’t come to hear of it—and if he did the only thing he would blame you for is making such a piece of work about nothing! Do you imagine I’m abducting the child?”

“More likely she’s abducting you, my lord!” muttered Stebbing.

The Viscount’s eyes hardened; he said coldly: “I allow you a good deal of licence, Stebbing, but that remark goes far beyond the line of what I will permit!”

“My lord,” said Stebbing doggedly, ‘if I spoke too free, I ask your pardon! But I’ve served you faithfully ever since you was pleased to accept of me as your personal groom, and I couldn’t look myself in the face if I didn’t make a push to stop you doing something so caper-witted as to carry off this young pers—lady!—the way you’re meaning to! You can turn me off, my lord, but I must and will tell you to your head that I never seen a young lady which would go off with a gentleman like this Miss Steane is willing to go off with you!”

“Doesn’t it suit your sense of propriety? Well, you must bear in mind that you will be sitting behind us, and I give you leave to intervene to protect Miss Steane’s virtue from any improper advances I might make to her!” Perceiving that Stebbing was deeply troubled, he relented, and said, laughingly: “There’s no need for you to be so hot in the spur, you old pudding-head! All I’ve engaged myself to do is to convey Miss Steane to her grandfather’s house. And if you weren’t a pudding-head you would know that her willingness to go with me to London springs from innocence, and not, as you seem to think, from a want of delicacy! Good God, what would you have me to do in this situation? Abandon her to become the prey of the first rake-shame she encounters on the road? A pretty fellow you must think me!”

“No, my lord, I don’t think no such thing! But what I do think is that you should take her back where she came from!”

“She won’t go, and I have no right to force her to do so.” A gleam of humour shot into his eyes; he added: “And even if I had the right I’d be damned if I’d do it! Lord, Stebbing, would you drive a girl who was crying her eyes out, in an open carriage?” He laughed, and said: “You know you wouldn’t! Put to the horses, and don’t spill any more time sermonizing!”

“Very good, my lord. But I shall take leave to say—asking your pardon for making so bold as to open my budget!—that I never seen you—no, not when you was in the heyday of blood, and kicking up all kinds of confiabberation!—so bedoozled as what you are now! And if you don’t end up in the basket—and me with you!—you can call me a Jack Adams, my lord!”

“I’m much obliged to you! I will!” retorted the Viscount.