Friday’s Child

Chapter Twenty-Five

HERO, FLUNG UP INTO THE POST-CHAISE WITH so little ceremony and jolted and bounced over the streets of Bath, had not the smallest notion whither she was bound, or why Sherry had not entered the chaise with her. She pulled a rug, which she found on the seat, over her knees; settled herself in a corner of the vehicle, holding on to one of the straps which served as arm-rests; and awaited eventualities in a state of pleasurable expectation. Had she but known it, her abductor, not so far gone in romance that he had lost quite all his common sense, had had a very fair picture of what would be the result of trying to make love in a form of vehicle nicknamed, not without good reason, a bounder. The road from Bath to Wells, particularly at this season of the year, was pitted with holes: Mr Tarleton thought that romance would have a better chance of surviving if he postponed his love-making until Wells was reached.

This cathedral town lay rather more than eighteen miles from Bath, across the Mendip Hills. Mr Tarleton had booked a room for his prospective bride at the Christopher, and another for himself at the Swan, for although his anxiety to bring adventure into Hero’s drab life might have led him to an act which he did not like to think about very closely, his naturally staid disposition made him paradoxically careful not to incur any more scandal than might be necessary. Indeed, he had prudently hired his chaise and pair from a hostelry where he was unknown, and was sometimes conscious of a craven hope that the truth about his marriage might never be made public property.

This consideration made him decide to change horses at the little village of Emborrow, lying at the foot of the Mendips, rather than at Old Down Inn, which, lying twelve miles beyond Bath, was the usual stage. By the time they had reached this place, the moon was coming up brightly, and the going was consequently easier.

The chaise pulled up in the small yard belonging to the one hostelry of any size, and an ostler shouted for the first turnout. At the same moment, one of the windows of the chaise was let down, and Hero looked out, her eyes dancing in the mingled lantern and moonlight, her lips parted in a roguish smile. “Of all the absurd, delightful starts!” she began, her voice quivering with amusement. Then she broke offshort as her gaze encountered, not Sherry’s beloved features, but Mr Tarleton’s wholly unexciting countenance. A look of startled dismay entered her face; the colour receded from her cheeks; she uttered, in repulsive accents, one word only: “You!”

Mr Tarleton had been prepared for maidenly indignation, but not for this, and he was slightly staggered. He stepped up to the chaise and said, looking up at the blanched face at the window: “But, my sweet love, whom else should it be?”

“Oh!” wailed Hero, her face puckering like a baby’s. “Oh! I thought you w-were S-Sherry!”

Mr Tarleton’s brain reeled. “Thought I was whom?” he said numbly.

“M-my husband!” wept Hero, tears rolling one after the other down her cheeks. “Oh, how could you play such a c-cruel trick on me?”

If the floor had heaved under Sherry’s feet, the universe fairly rocked about the unfortunate Mr Tarleton. For a moment he could only gaze up at Hero in uncomprehending amazement. He repeated in bemused accents: “Your husband?”

Only heartbroken sobs answered him. He became aware of a postboy at his elbow, and pulled himself together with an effort. “I beg of you, ma’am — ! Pray, do not — ! Here, you, what’s the figure?”

The postboy who had driven the chaise from Bath told him eighteen shillings, reckoning the hire of the chaise-and-pair at the rate of one and sixpence a mile, and Mr Tarleton, anxious to be rid of him, dived a hand into his pocket. It was then that he discovered that not only his purse, but his wallet also, was missing, and that all the loose cash he carried in the pockets of his breeches amounted only to six shillings and ninepence. Never was an eloping gentleman in a worse predicament! Never had he expected to regret with such bitterness having hired his coach from an inn where his name was unknown! One glance at the postboy’s face was sufficient to inform him that he would not be permitted, without a most unseemly brawl, to travel upon tick. He was not even known at the inn. There was nothing for it but to turn to his weeping victim, and as he did it his sense of the ridiculous threatened to overcome more poignant emotions.

“My dear, pray do not cry so! I promise you I will set all to rights! The only thing is — Miss Wantage. it is the most absurd of predicaments to find oneself in, but I have been robbed of my purse, and here is this fellow expecting to be paid for his services. Are you able to lend me a guinea?”

Hero raised her head from the window-sill to reply: “Of c-course I am not! I have not my p-purse with me!”

“Oh, my God!” muttered Mr Tarleton. “Now we are in the basket!”

“I wish I were dead!” responded Hero.

“No, no, don’t do that! Heavens, what a coil! But how could I have guessed — My dear child, you cannot stay there! Do, pray, come down, and into the inn! Really, I don’t know whether I am on my head or my heels!” He mounted the steps, which the ostler had helpfully let down, and opened the door of the chaise, only to have his entrance to the vehicle hotly disputed by Pug. He recoiled, exclaiming: “Good God, what possessed you to bring that creature?”

“It was your fault!” Hero said, from the folds of her handkerchief. She blew her nose defiantly. “I did not want to bring him, and oh, I thought it was j-just like Sherry to throw him in on t-top of me!”

“Don’t, pray don’t begin to cry again!” implored the harassed Mr Tarleton. “We shall have the whole stable-yard about us in a trice! Only come inside the house, and I will set all to rights!”

“No one can set all to rights, for I am utterly ruined!” declared Hero. “My husband was c-coming to dine with me and I shall not be there, and he will never, never speak to m-me again! And if he finds out this dreadful scrape you have put me into it will be worse than all the rest!”

Mr Tarleton took her hand and helped her to alight from the chaise. “He shall not discover it. We will make up some tale that will satisfy him. But who — why — No, come into the inn, where we can be private! As for you, fellow, you must wait! Go into the tap-room and order yourself a glass of flesh-and-blood at my expense! And here’s a crown for you to keep your mouth shut!”

The postboy pocketed this douceur, but warned his client not to try to lope off without paying him for the hire of his horses. Mr Tarleton somewhat testily demanded to be told how he could do any such thing in his present pecuniary circumstances, and led Hero into the inn. Here he peremptorily ordered the landlord to show the lady into a private parlour. When this had been done, and landlord had rejoined him in the deserted coffee-room, he explained, with what assurance he could muster, that he had been robbed of his wallet and purse. The landlord was civil, but palpably incredulous, so Mr Tarleton haughtily said: “Here is my card, fellow!” Almost immediately after this he was obliged to correct himself. “No, curse it, that’s gone with the rest! But my name is Tarleton — of Frensham Hall, near Swainswick! You will have heard of it! I am escorting a — a friend to Wells — at least, I was doing so, but it so chances that she has discovered that she has left behind her in Bath a most important — er — package, and we are obliged to return there with what speed we can muster. Do me the favour of paying oft that postboy — or no! Better still, let one of your own boys or their cards lead the horses back here, and let my postboy drive us back to Bath with a fresh pair! You and he may thus be assured of receiving your money. Meanwhile — ”

The landlord, who had been thinking, interrupted at this point. “Begging your honour’s pardon, if you live at Frensham Hall, how do you come to be travelling to Wells in a hired chaise?”

“What has that to do with you, fellow?” said Mr Tarleton, colouring in spite of himself.

“I don’t know as how it has aught to do with me, sir, but what I was thinking was that it seems a queer set-out to me that a gentleman wishing to travel only to Wells wouldn’t drive in his own carriage — ah, and at a more seasonable time o’ day, what’s more! Not being wishful to give offence, sir, you understand.”

“I am well known in Bath,” Mr Tarleton said stiffly. “Yes, and they know me at the Old Down Inn, so you may satisfy yourself only by sending to inquire there if a Mr Tarleton has ever changed horses with them.”

“Yes, and when I’ve sent one of my boys a mile and a half up the road to make them inquiries, who’s to say you are this Mr Tarleton?” retorted the landlord. “And if you’re so well known in Bath, how comes it that postboy don’t seem to reckernize your honour? That’s what I’d like to know!”

Mr Tarleton had the greatest difficulty in maintaining his control over his temper. After a moment’s struggle, he succeeded in choking back the angry words which rose to his lips, and managed, after a most wearing argument, to persuade the landlord to have a fresh pair harnessed to the chaise, and to prevail upon the postboy who had brought him from Bath to take him back there as soon as he should have had time to refresh himself, which the landlord assured him he would certainly insist upon. Mr Tarleton then gave up his gold timepiece and his signet-ring as pledges, ordered coffee to be sent immediately to the parlour, and made haste to rejoin Hero.

He found her seated by the fire, clasping Pug in her arms, and looking the picture of tragedy. Such a look of reproach did she cast upon him as he entered the room that he exclaimed: “How could I tell? I thought you would like it! And when you kissed me — Good God, was there ever such a hideous coil?”

“Never, never!” Hero said, with whole-hearted fervour. “I cannot imagine why you should suppose that I should want you to run off with me! And to bring this horrid little dog, too!”

“But, my dear, surely you were aware that I have been head over ears in love with you these weeks past!”

Her face showed him plainly that she had been aware of no such circumstance. “In love with me? But you might be my — I mean — I mean — ”

“No, I might not!” he said, nettled. “Not your father, if that is what you were about to say! But how came you to be living with Lady Saltash, under the name of Miss Wantage? Who is your husband? Do I know him? Is he in Bath now?”

“Yes, oh yes! He came there in search of me, because we had had a dreadful quarrel, and I ran away from him, only I never knew it, and I thought he came on Miss Milborne’s account, and that is why — Oh, he must not find out what has happened tonight! It is much, much worse than all the other scrapes I was in!”

“Good God!” said Mr Tarleton blankly. “But who is he?” An appalling thought dawned on him; he looked across at Hero with the grimmest foreboding, and asked: “Not — I do devoutly trust! — not the ferocious young gentleman of the Pump Room?”

“He is not ferocious!” replied Hero, flushing indignantly. “He is the dearest and best person in the world! It was just that he was in a very bad temper, because I went off with you! And when I think that he called Lord Wrotham out, only for kissing me once, I am afraid he will be in a much worse one if this should come to his ears! Oh, I do hope there may be some way of preventing his discovering it!”

“Indeed, so do I!” said Mr Tarleton frankly. “In fact, to be honest with you, my dear, my knees are already knocking together so that I wonder you do not hear them!”

She was obliged to smile at this, but relapsed almost immediately into gloom. “It doesn’t signify. What must he think when he finds no one in Camden Place at seven o’clock! Oh, do you not see that he will suppose I did not wish to meet him, and he will be so hurt, and so angry, and how can I ever explain that it was not my fault? I am utterly undone!”

“Let me think!” begged Mr Tarleton, sitting down by the table and clasping his head between his hands. “You have set my brain in such a whirl — ! You could not tell him that you had gone to dine with some friends, I suppose?”

“No, I couldn’t!” said Hero, quite crossly. “He was coming particularly to see me, and oh, we were to have had buttered crab, and a n-neat’s tongue with c-cauliflowers!”

Mr Tarleton looked somewhat taken aback by this, and suggested feebly that such mundane considerations were of small consequence.

“It is Sherry’s favourite dinner!” Hero explained tragically.

“Well, never mind!” said Mr Tarleton. “You will be able to give him many such dinners, I dare say, and really, my child, at a moment like this to be vexing yourself over — ”

“No, I shan’t, because he will be so angry that he will utterly cast me off, and I shall be left upon the world with only this odious little dog and a canary to love!”

“My dear Miss — I mean, my dear Lady Sheringham, I feel certain that your husband would not use you with such undeserved harshness! Do, I entreat you — ”

“Yes, he would!” averred Hero, wiping her eyes with a very damp handkerchief. “Any husband would, after such a scrape as this!”

“Upon my word of honour, I assure you the man who could do so would be the veriest monster!”

Hero instantly took exception to such a term’s being applied to her beloved Sherry, and Mr Tarleton was only rescued from a morass of retractions and attempted explanations by the entrance of the waiter bearing the coffee he had ordered. While the waiter slowly and carefully arranged the cups on the table, he left the door into the adjoining coffee-room ajar. Sounds betokening some fresh arrivals to the inn reached the ears of the couple in the parlour. A voice which made Hero stiffen in her chair said with something less than its usual suavity: “Be so good as to show us to a private parlour, and to send up some refreshment for this lady! There has been an accident to my carriage, and we have been obliged to walk to this place.”

The landlord began to say that his only private room had been bespoken already, but he was interrupted by a fresh voice, glacial with arctic rage, but even better known to Hero. “I shall be glad of a cup of hot coffee — hot, if you please! — but I prefer to drink it here, in your public room; and while I am doing so I shall be obliged to you if you will have horses harnessed to a chaise to convey me instantly to Bath.”

Hero gave a gasp and sat bolt upright in her chair, round-eyed with astonishment. The landlord was heard to explain apologetically that he kept only one chaise, which was out on hire at the moment.

“I do not care what kind of a vehicle I ride in, but a vehicle I must and will have!” announced Miss Milborne. “Whose is the chaise standing in your yard, pray?”

“It is hired by the party in the parlour, ma’am. Indeed, I have nothing to offer but my own gig, and it would not be suitable!”

“I thank you, it will do excellently, if you will be so good as to hire it to this — this gentleman!” said Miss Milborne in bitter accents.

The waiter, having arranged the table to his satisfaction, withdrew at this point and closed the door behind him. To Mr Tarleton’s surprise, Hero rose up from her chair, pushing Pug from her lap as she did so, and tiptoed to the door and tried to peep through the keyhole. She could see very little, so she set her ear to the crack instead and listened with an intent face to what was going on in the coffee-room. When Mr Tarleton would have asked what in the world she was about, she lifted an imperative finger and hissed: “’Sh!”

Apparently the landlord had withdrawn to carry out Miss Milborne’s orders, for Sir Montagu’s voice was clearly heard to say: “Now, my dearest Miss Milborne, let me assure you that you are entirely mistaken! Come, do not let us quarrel! The most unavoidable and unfortunate accident — ”

“If you attempt to lay a finger on me, sir, I shall scream at the top of my lungs!” interrupted Miss Milborne.

“But, my dear ma’am, only listen to me! I should not dream of touching you! But — ”

“No! And no doubt you did not dream of trying to force your most unwelcome caresses upon me, and mauling me in your arms as though I had been the sort of vulgar wretch you are plainly accustomed to dealing with!” retorted Miss Milborne. “No doubt, too, you would have been so obliging as to have unhanded me without the inducement of a pin’s being stuck into you!”

At this Hero’s eyes began to dance, and she gave a smothered choke of laughter.

“If,” Sir Montagu was saying, “if, in the intoxication of finding myself alone in the presence of one for whom I cherish the most passionate devotion, the most — ”

“I beg you will spare me any more of these transports!” said Miss Milborne. “If passionate devotion led you to suggest to me that since we were stranded in so remote a hamlet there was no help for it but for me to become betrothed to you, I can only trust that I may never encounter such devotion again! I do not know by what means you may have contrived the accident to your carriage, but I am no longer in any doubt as to why you were so desirous of driving me back to Bath by another route than the post-road! You sought, sir, to entrap me into marriage with you, since you were aware that you had no hope of winning my hand by more gentlemanly methods. But you were much mistaken in my character if you supposed that I was so weak and foolish a female as to submit to your infamous proposals!”

Hero, who had listened to this speech with a rapt look of concentrated thought on her face, now left the door and ran to Mr Tarleton’s side. “I am saved!” she whispered joyfully. “It is Isabella Milborne, and the most odious man imaginable! I have known Isabella all my life, and I know she will help me out of this tangle! And I dare say she may be very glad to see me, too, because she may drive back with me in the chaise, and she cannot wish to sit perched up in the landlord’s gig, you know. It is not at all the style of thing which would suit her. Do you remain in this room, Mr Tarleton, while I arrange it all!”

“But Lady Sheringham, consider a moment!” he said urgently. “Are you sure — ”

“Yes, yes, and in any event, how could I leave poor Isabella to Sir Montagu’s mercy?”

“From what I have been privileged to hear, I should judge poor Isabella to be very well able to protect her virtue!” said Mr Tarleton dryly.

“Yes, was it not famous to hear her giving him such a set-down? She is a most spirited girl! But it cannot be very comfortable for her, I dare say! Pray hold Pug’s leash, dear sir!”

Mr Tarleton, on whom the events of the evening were beginning to leave their mark, accepted the leash meekly, and, with some misgiving, watched his companion open the door and walk into the coffee-room.

Miss Milborne, who was standing by the fireplace, holding one foot, in a mired half boot of orange-jean, to the glow, turned her head and uttered an exclamation of astonishment. “Hero!”

“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.

“Oh, that was it, was it?” said his lordship, a martial light in his eye. “I’m much in your debt, Tarleton! And what, my buck, did you say to Lady Sheringham, before I choke it out of your lying throat?”

Sir Montagu, retreating, said hoarsely: “You will regret it if you touch me, Sheringham! If the events of this night were to become known — ”

“No, Sherry!” exclaimed Ferdy, seizing his cousin’s arm, and clinging to it desperately. “Promised you wouldn’t get into a miff! Won’t do a bit of good! Got to stop the fellow’s mouth!”

“I’ll stop his mouth so that he’ll never open it again!” said Sherry savagely. “Damn you, Ferdy, let go! I’m going to tear that ugly customer limb from limb, and if there’s anything left of him by the time I’ve done with him — ”

“Not in front of ladies, dear boy! Shocking bad ton! Besides, it ain’t necessary: George wants his blood, and dash it, why shouldn’t he have it? Do him good, poor fellow! Put a bit of heart into him!”

“If there is to be any more fighting, I shall have the vapours, and so I warn you!” declared Miss Milborne. “I am sure I have had more to bear at Sir Montagu’s hands than Hero, and if I am satisfied I do not know why you should not be, Sherry! And if, sir, you should be so unwise as to open your lips on the subject of this night’s adventures, I shall have something to tell the world also! I imagine you would not care to have it generally known that you drew your sword upon an unarmed man!”

Sherry shook his cousin off. “Revesby,” he said, eyeing Sir Montagu with a measuring glance. “I’d like to have the chance to pay off a certain score with you, but I fancy Ferdy’s right, and it ain’t necessary. Wrotham is searching for you, and he’s likely to fetch up here at any minute. You’re a dead man, Revesby!”

“George is searching for me?” said Miss Milborne faintly. “Oh, good heavens!”

“Went off in one of his pets as soon as he heard you wasn’t home,” said Ferdy. “Said he’d call on Revesby to answer for his villainy. Good God, I’m dashed if that Greek thing hasn’t got after Monty too, Sherry! Very remarkable circumstance, ’pon my soul it is!”

“What the devil is all this about a dashed Greek?” demanded Sherry. “George was trying to tell me about him, but I’m hanged if I could make head or tail of it! All I know is, I’m not acquainted with any Greeks, and what’s more I don’t want to be!”

“It ain’t a thing you’re acquainted with, dear old boy. Duke knows what it is. Comes up behind a fellow when he ain’t expecting it. Thought it was after me, but it turns out to be Monty. Good thing.”

“Yes, but what is it?”

Mr Tarleton said, with a quiver of amusement in his voice: “I fancy he means Nemesis.”

“That’s it!” Ferdy said, looking at him with respect. “Nemesis! You know him too?”

“Well, it’s more than I do!” declared Sherry. “What’s more, whoever he is, he had nothing to do with my coming to Bath!”

“Not, ‘he’,” murmured Mr Tarleton, who was beginning to feel his years. “Goddess of retribution. The daughter, according to Hesiod, of Night.”

“Was she, though?” said Ferdy. “Well, by Jove! Daughter of who?”

“Night,” repeated Mr Tarleton.

Ferdy looked a little dubious. “Seems a queer start, but I dare say you’re right. Come to think of it, devilish rum ’uns, all those old Greeks.”

His cousin regarded him with a surprise not wholly free from disapproval. “Well, I never knew you was bookish before, Ferdy!” he said.

“Learned it at Eton,” Ferdy said, with a deprecating cough. “Point is, thought the thing was after me. Turns out it was after Monty. Gave him that wisty castor, and set George on to his track. All the same, Sherry, not sure it is such a good thing, now I come to think of it. Don’t want George to be obliged to fly the country. Tell you what: let Monty go before George arrives! Pity, in some ways, but there it is!”

Sherry had raised his head, and was listening to an unmistakable sound. “Too late!” he said, with a little laugh. “Lay you any money this is George!”

So indeed it proved to be. A bare couple of minutes later, George came striding into the coffee-room, with Mr Ringwood at his heels. He checked on the threshold. “Sherry!” he ejaculated. “Good God, you here? What the — Kitten!”

Mr Ringwood put up his glass. “Well, upon my word!” he said, mildly astonished. “Devilish queer place to run into you people! Your very obedient — Kitten! You and Sherry come here on your honeymoon?”

Hero clapped both his hands tightly. “Dear Gil! I am so glad to see you again! I have been in such a scrape! I was carried off by poor Mr Tarleton there, quite by mistake; and Isabella got into a scrape too, through Sir Montagu Revesby; but then Sherry came, and everything is all right and tight — I mean, everything has ended happily!”

Lord Wrotham, fastening on to the one point in this ingenuous explanation which concerned him, looked round for his quarry, perceived him, and said: “Ah!”

Sir Montagu, a perfectly ghastly smile writhing on his lips, said: “Lady Sheringham mistakes — I can explain — the most lamentable accident — !”

“Yes?” said George, stripping off his driving-gloves, taking them in his right hand, and advancing upon Sir Montagu. “You got Miss Milborne into a scrape, and you fancy you can explain it, do you? Not to my satisfaction, Revesby!”

“No, you don’t, George!” suddenly said Mr Ringwood, grasping his lordship’s right wrist. “By the looks of it, someone’s been before you! Let be, man, let be!”

“By God, Gil, if you don’t let me go — ! I’ve been wanting an excuse to call that fellow out these two months, and if you think you or anyone can stop me now I’ve got it — ”

“George!” said Miss Milborne compellingly.

Lord Wrotham’s eyes turned swiftly towards her.

“George!” said Miss Milborne again, rather pale, but meeting his gaze squarely. “If you call him out, I will not marry you!”

“Isabella!” uttered his lordship, trembling. “Do you mean — can you mean — ?”

Mr Ringwood let him go, but not before he had thoughtfully removed the gloves from his suddenly slackened grasp.

“Oh, George, for heaven’s sake, take me home!” begged Miss Milborne, her admirably modulated voice breaking. “I’m so tired, and hungry, and I never cared a rap for that odious man, no, nor for Severn either, or Sherry, or anyone save yourself, and I’m sure I don’t know why I care for you, for you are just as odious as any of them, only I do, and I will marry you tomorrow, if you like!”

“If I like!” said his lordship thickly, and enveloped her in a crushing embrace.

Mr Ringwood, observing his attention to be distracted from Sir Montagu, touched that pallid gentleman on the shoulder, and nodded significantly towards the door. Ferdy, ever helpful, picked up his hat and greatcoat, and silently handed them to him. Sir Montagu clutched them thankfully, and made good his escape.

“And the best of it is,” remarked Sherry, closing the door, and setting his shoulders to it, “he won’t dare show his face in town for months, in case he should run into George, and George’s feelings should get the better of him.”

“Have you let that fellow go?” George demanded, turning his head.

“Yes, but really it is much better that he should go,” said Hero soothingly. “For if you were to shoot him, you would have to leave the country, and then you could not marry Isabella. And he will not dare say a word about what happened tonight, because of what we might say about his wounding poor Mr Tarleton. And besides that, if he spread a horrid scandal, I dare say Sherry would not mind my telling people about his baby, for he has one, you know, and he would not give its mother a penny to provide for it, and it is Sherry who has to do so, which is a great deal too bad, for it is not Sherry’s baby! Indeed, I wish it was — at least, I mean I wish it was mine, because it is the dearest little thing!” A thought occurred to her; her eyes lit up; and she turned impulsively towards Sherry. “Oh, Sherry, do you think — ”

“Yes!” said his lordship hastily. “Yes, I do, Kitten, but not now, for the lord’s sake!”

“Bad ton!” explained Ferdy kindly. “Not quite the thing! That fellow Tarleton present: very tolerable sort of a fellow, but almost a stranger! Talk it over later!”

“No, by God, you won’t!” said his lordship forcibly.

“Eh?” said Ferdy. “Good heavens! No, by God, so I won’t!”