Friday’s Child

Chapter Eight

HERO WOULD HAVE BEEN ASTONISHED, AND, INDEED, indignant, had she been aware that she was the object of Lady Jersey’s sympathy. For she had never been so happy in her life. Sherry had been quite right in thinking that his hunting-box at Melton Mowbray would be just the thing for her. She was delighted with it; and the happy-go-lucky way of life pursued by Sherry when sojourning there could not but appeal to a young lady who had been irked all her own short life by shibboleths and restrictions.

The hunting-box, which was not large, was kept by a married couple who, from having had things very much their own way under their casual master, at first looked upon Hero with suspicious hostility. But as she showed no disposition to interfere in the management of the house, and never dreamed of levelling criticisms where they would certainly be resented, it was not long before Goring and his wife accepted her in much the same spirit as they accepted Mr Ringwood, or any other of the Viscount’s cronies.

It might have been supposed that a very few days spent at Melton Mowbray at the fag-end of the summer would have sufficed to have sent his lordship hotfoot back to town, but thanks to the amusement afforded him by teaching his wife to ride her mare creditably; taking her to Six Hills, and showing her the pick of the best coverts; initiating her into the mysteries of hazard, faro, deep basset, and several other games of chance; playing picquet with Mr Ringwood; trying out his young stock; and attending a cockfight held in the district, he contrived to while away the time very tolerably. Before these simple pursuits had palled upon him, a diversion was created by the arrival in the district of Lord Wrotham, who had come down on a visit to his encumbered estates. Since these were situated only a few miles from Melton, he naturally spent a good deal of his time with his friends, and was delighted to discover in Hero a sympathetic listener. It was not long before he had confided to her his hopeless passion for the Incomparable Isabella, and although an unthinking reference to the complaint which had necessitated the Beauty’s withdrawal from the Polite World seriously endangered, for a few moments, this promising new friendship, the rift was speedily healed by Hero’s assurance that the rash had by no means disfigured Isabella. George rode with Hero to Wartnaby Stone-pits, and, being a very keen rider to hounds, was able to forget his troubles in describing some classic runs to Hero, passing strictures on Assheton Smith, who hunted his own hounds, and often drew his coverts so quickly that he drew over his fox, besides failing sometimes to lift his hounds, which, if you wanted runs in Leicestershire, said George, you must do. Hero, fired with the spirit of emulation after listening to George’s heroic tales, attempted to jump what George called a regular stitcher, and came to grief. Fortunately she was only bruised by her tumble, but the mare strained a tendon, and Sherry, who had been a helpless spectator of the enterprise, no sooner ascertained that his bride was unhurt than he soundly boxed her ears, and swore he would never bring her out with him again. His two friends, though deprecating this violence, endorsed his strictures, having by this time fallen very much into the way of treating Hero as though she had been one of their own young sisters.

When Mr Fakenham joined the party, his presence was felt to be an advantage, as he was able to make a fourth at whist. Some convivial evenings were spent at the hunting-box, under the auspices of a hostess who, however little she might know of the uses of Polite Society, was learning to admiration how to become excessively popular with a party of young bloods. Formality very soon went by the board; she became Kitten to them all; and so accustomed did they grow to her presence at their sessions that they often forgot that she was in the room at all. But they usually remembered her before the party became too convivial for propriety, and then the Viscount would send her up to bed, informing her frankly that they were getting a trifle boosey. Upon one occasion, when he omitted to perform this ritual, she horrified Mr Ringwood by casting a knowledgeable eye over Mr Fakenham, and saying innocently: “Must I go now? I think Ferdy is quite disguised, don’t you?”

The Viscount shouted with laughter, but Mr Ringwood not only begged his hostess never to use such vulgar language, but later made representations to Sherry that they really must all of them be careful what they said in front of her.

A letter from Isabella, written from London, and conveying her felicitations to her dearest Hero, had the effect of breaking up the party. George was no sooner apprised of the Beauty’s return to the haunts of men than he left the greater part of the business which had brought him into the country undone, and posted back to town with the fiercely expressed intention of thrusting a spoke in his Grace of Severn’s wheel. Ferdy and Mr Ringwood took their departure a few days later, and the hunting-box felt sadly empty. The young couple received a morning call from kind Lord and Lady Sefton, during the course of which her ladyship promised Hero the entré to Almack’s when she should take up her residence in London. Sherry informed his wife that this connaissance was the greatest piece of good luck that could have befallen her, since (although he himself might find such company a trifle flat) there was no doubt that the approval of Lady Sefton would be of the greatest value to a lady making her debut in fashionable circles.

“Ten to one,” said Sherry carelessly, “she will have them all leaving their cards in Half Moon Street — Lady Jersey, Lady Cowper, Countess Lieven, Princess Esterhazy, and all their set, you know — and then you will be fixed all right and tight.”

By the time Mr Stoke wrote to apprise him that his new house stood ready to receive him, Sherry had had enough of the country, and not even the annoying intelligence, conveyed to him in a brief scrawl from his uncle Prosper, that his mother was still to be found in Grosvenor Square, availed to keep him longer away from the metropolis. He was under the obligation, too, of returning his watch to the Honourable Ferdy, this young gentleman having written to him from London that since this handsome timepiece was missing from his effects he would be glad if his cousin would recover it from his damned Tiger. Why Ferdy’s watch should exercise such a fascination over Jason no one knew. The Viscount was extremely incensed over his backsliding, and was not in the least mollified by Jason’s tearful explanation that to have the watch within his reach for days together was more than flesh and blood could stand. Matters would have gone ill indeed for Jason had not Hero intervened on his behalf. She had the happy thought of promising to bestow a timepiece upon him as a Christmas gift if he would but refrain, in the interim, from stealing Ferdy’s.

“Or anything else!” said Sherry sternly.

Jason sniffed, wiped his nose on his coat sleeve, and promised to behave impeccably. He further pronounced his guv’nor’s lady to be bang-up, which piece of elegant language Sherry assured her, masked a compliment of no mean order.

When the Sheringhams were set down at dusk one evening in Half Moon Street, they found that Mr Stoke had done his work well. Nothing could have been more charming or more tasteful than the disposition of the furniture in the little house. Hero was enchanted and ran from room to room, exclaiming how well the writing table looked, how pretty was the wallpaper in the drawing-room, how glad she was she had chosen the blue brocade instead of the green, and did not Sherry think that Ferdy had selected precisely the right furniture for his library? Both Ferdy and Mr Ringwood had called in Half Moon Street earlier in the day, Ferdy to leave a bouquet of flowers with the butler, and Mr Ringwood a canary in a gilded cage. Hero was so touched by this piece of thoughtfulness that she sat down at the tambour-top writing table before she had even removed her hat, and dashed off her first note, on the very elegant, gilt-edged paper provided by the competent Mr Stoke, and had it carried round immediately to Stratton Street by the pageboy.

No such agreeable surprise awaited the master of the house. The imposing kneehole desk in the room which his wife insisted on calling his library bore a collection of staggering bills. The Viscount was a trifle startled, not so much by his own expenditure as by Hero’s. He could not for the life of him see how she could have contrived to squander such sums merely upon furniture, but he handsomely made up his mind to level no reproach at her. Sundry accounts presented by milliners and mantua-makers made him whistle thoughtfully, but his previous experiences of such establishments precluded his feeling any extraordinary astonishment at the cost of a simple gown, or of a wisp of net and feathers fashioned into the semblance of a hat. He stuffed all the bills into a drawer, resolving to hand them over presently to his man of business for settlement. Anyone having an intimate knowledge of the Viscount’s career would have recognized at once that the sobering influence of marriage was already making itself felt, since a month ago he would have consigned them to the fire.

The young couple dined tête-a-tête at the fashionable late hour of eight o’clock on their first evening in their new home, sitting opposite one another in their smart dining-room, and waited on by a butler whose spare frame and pallid countenance seemed to indicate that he was of a suitably abstemious character. The dinner, which consisted of a broiled fowl with mushrooms, preceded by a dressed lobster and a delicacy of cockscombs served in a wine sauce, and followed by a pupton of pears, in the old style, and a trifle, was excellently cooked, and earned the Viscount’s praise. Hero, who had already been obliged to receive a stately visit from the superior being who presided over the kitchen, said in a very housewifely way that she was glad they had decided to take away the old fireplace from the kitchen, and to install a closed stove in its place.

The Viscount rather spoiled the effect of this utterance by grinning across the table at her, and demanding what the devil she knew about kitchen stoves. Hero twinkled merrily back at him, and replied: “Well, not very much, but Mrs Groombridge says that they are excellent contrivances, and there is a great saving of coal.”

“Well, that’s something, at all events,” said Sherry, putting up his glass to inspect the bottle the butler was exhibiting at his elbow. “No, not that. Bring up a bottle of sparkling champagne. You’ll like that, Kitten.” As the Viscount liked his wine to be very dry, Hero had to school her features to an expression of appreciation she was some way from feeling. That made his lordship laugh, but he told her that he could not permit her to be everlastingly maudling her inside with such stuff as ratafia, and bade her drink it up like a good girl. “A glass of wine with you, my lady!” he said, raising his glass. “Damme, we must drink to our first home, so we must!”

Under his instruction, Hero very correctly left him at the end of dinner, and withdrew to the drawing-room abovestairs, while he drank his port in solitary state. Since this was dull work, he soon joined her, dropping into one of the straw-coloured chairs, and stretching out his long legs towards the grate, where a small fire had been kindled, and saying, with a yawn, that there was a deal to be said for a fellow’s getting married after all.

“At least,” he added, “there would be, if you hadn’t bought such an uncomfortable set of chairs! What the deuce was Ferdy about to countenance it?”

“Oh, don’t you remember, Sherry? We bought these together, on that first day, when you went with me to choose our furniture.”

“Good God, I must have been foxed!”

“Well, perhaps you are sitting in the wrong one,” said Hero. “I wish you will try this one instead: indeed, it is very comfortable!”

The Viscount made no objection to changing places with her, and as he pronounced this second chair to be tolerably easy, she was perfectly satisfied.

Before the Viscount had had time to find an evening spent at his own fireside very flat, a knock sounded on the street door, and in a few minutes Sir Montagu Revesby’s card was brought up to Sherry. He commanded Groombridge to beg this late caller to step upstairs, and himself went out on to the landing to welcome him.

Sir Montagu came in, full of graceful apologies for intruding upon her ladyship so soon after her arrival in town. He had been imperfectly informed: would have left his card at the house that morning: trusted she would forgive such informality: he had come only to discover if Sherry liked to accompany him to a little meeting of a few friends in a house nearby.

“Brockenhurst begged I would prevail upon you to join us, if you should have returned to London, my dear Sherry, but I fear” — with a bow, and one of his ironic smiles in Hero’s direction — “I have come on a fruitless errand.”

“Oh, lord, no, nothing of the sort!” Sherry said. “You won’t mind my leaving you, will you, Kitten?”

Mindful of his warning that once they were settled in London they would not interfere with each other’s pursuits, Hero swallowed her disappointment, and assured him that she was on the point of retiring to bed.

“That’s right,” said his lordship. “I knew you would be tired after the journey.” He picked up one of her hands, dropped a kiss on her wrist, and took himself off with Sir Montagu.

Hero lifted her wrist to her cheek, and held it there for some moments after he had gone. She felt a strong inclination to cry, and concluded that she must indeed be tired, since she knew very well that she had nothing whatsoever to cry about, but, on the contrary, everything in the world to make her happy. On this elevating thought she retired to her bedchamber, and talked in a very cheerful way to her abigail while she was undressed and put to bed.

Sherry, who did not return to the house until the small hours, put in no appearance at the breakfast table. When he did emerge from his bedchamber, it was past eleven o’clock, and not only was he clad in a dressing-gown, but he still looked remarkably heavy-eyed. He said simply that they had had a pretty batch of it at Brockenhurst’s, and also that he was dipped a little at hazard. Altogether, Hero did not think that it would be wise to remind him that they had planned to wait upon his mother at noon. He retired again to his room, irritably demanding why the devil Bootle had not brought up the water for his shave; and Hero was just deciding that it would be pleasant to go for an airing in Hyde Park in her barouche, when the first of her morning callers knocked on the door.

It was Mrs Bagshot, bringing her two elder daughters in her train. She came sailing into the drawing-room, almost before Groombridge had had time to announce her, paused in the middle of the floor, and, after throwing an appraising glance round, uttered the one word: “Well!”

Hero rose from her chair in some confusion, and came forward, blushing faintly, and stammering: “C-cousin J-Jane! C-Cassy! Eudora! How do you do?”

“I wonder you can look me in the face!” said Mrs Bagshot. Her eyes ran over Hero’s high-necked gown of worked French muslin, with its double flounce and rows of tucks. “Upon my word!” she said. “I dare say you have never worn such a dress in your life!”

This was an unfortunate observation, since it gave Hero the opportunity to retort: “You must know that I have not, cousin!”

“Whatever have you done to your hair?” demanded Cassandra. “You look so strange! I should — scarcely have known you.”

“It is the very latest fashion,” replied Hero. “My maid did it.”

Mrs Bagshot gave a short laugh. “Fine feathers make fine birds! I see that you have set yourself up in the very latest mode. I suppose we shall have you setting up your carriage, and renting your box at the opera, in imitation of your betters. When I consider — However, I did not come to quarrel with you, and heaven knows I am thankful to see you creditably established, even though you may have had to accept an offer made to you in a fit of pique to do it. I am sure it would not surprise me to find that you are now too grand to recognize the humble cousins who gave you a home when you were left destitute upon the world.”

“No,” said Hero seriously. “Indeed, I am not so ungrateful! And I would be glad to try to find husbands for my cousins, if I could, only Sherry says — ” She broke off short, colouring to the roots of her hair, the most comical expression of dismay on her face.

“And pray what may your husband say?” demanded Mrs Bagshot in menacing accents.

“I’ve forgotten!” said Hero desperately.

“I abhor prevarication,” remarked Eudora. “I am sure you need not fear to repeat what he said, for it does not matter a fig to us what such a rackety young man may say!”

Stung by this criticism of her idol, Hero retorted without hesitation: “Well, he said he wouldn’t have you in the house, because he doesn’t like you!”

Mrs Bagshot turned quite purple, and struggled in vain for words. Before she could find any at all adequate to the situation, Hero had said penitently: “Oh, I beg your pardon! But Eudora should not have said that about Sherry! Do, pray, sit down, Cousin Jane, and — and let me ring for Groombridge to bring some fruit, and a glass of wine!”

Mrs Bagshot coldly refused this offer of refreshment, but she condescended to seat herself on the sofa, remarking as she did so that she was sorry to see that her exalted position had not led Hero to mend her manners. Her daughters wandered about the room, inspecting the furniture, criticizing the colour of the hangings, and wondering how Hero could bear to have a canary deafening her with its odious noise. Hero replied to their strictures and exclamations with what patience she could muster, and tried to counter Mrs Bagshot’s extremely searching questions with dignity and civility.

She was succeeding very well when the door opened to admit Sherry, who came in all unawares, saying: “Here’s a damned thing, Kitten! That fool of a man of mine has lost my — ”

What Bootle had lost they were not destined to learn, for Sherry, perceiving the morning callers, broke off in midsentence, ejaculated: “My God!” in accents of horror, and retired precipitately.

Hero made a desperate attempt to keep her countenance, failed, and went into a peal of laughter. Her affronted relative rose majestically, and, addressing her daughters, said in a terrible voice: “Come, my loves! It is plain that we are not welcome in your cousin’s house.”

“Oh, pray do not take a pet, Cousin Jane!” begged Hero. “It — it is just that poor Sherry is not feeling quite the thing today! He will be sorry presently, I dare say.”

Mrs Bagshot, however, was adamant, and was in the act of delivering herself of a severe valedictory speech when a welcome diversion was caused by Groombridge’s announcing Lord Wrotham.

George came in with his usual impetuosity, and with the inevitable lock of raven hair straying across his romantic brow. He grasped his hostesses’s hand warmly, saying: “I heard you was come up from the country! How do you do? You look to be in famous shape! What a capital little place you have here! It is just the thing, Kitten!”

“Oh, George, I am so glad to see you!” Hero said. “Oh, do you — are you acquainted with Lord Wrotham, Cousin Jane?”

Mrs Bagshot bowed, but lost no time in shepherding her daughters out of the room. She was naturally unable to suppose that any man could look upon these damsels without experiencing a start of admiration, and although his lordship had the undoubted advantage of being a peer of the realm it was well known that his pockets were (in vulgar parlance) pretty well to let. She scolded Hero, who escorted her downstairs to the front door, on the impropriety of encouraging familiarity from so unstable a young man, and expressed the pious hope that the oddity of her manners would not be her ruin.

Having seen her relative off the premises, Hero sped upstairs again, and danced into the drawing-room, exclaiming: “Oh, George, I was never so glad to see anyone! She was scolding me dreadfully when you walked in upon us, and I thought she would never go! I don’t know where Sherry has hidden himself: only fancy! — he came in here, not having the least notion my cousins were with me, and he cried out My God! and ran out of the room! It was the drollest thing! Did you come to find him?”

“No, no — though I shall be happy to see him, of course! I came to pay my respects, and to leave my card, and to discover if you would care to watch a balloon ascension at three o’clock?”

Hero was naturally delighted with this proposal, and said that there was nothing she would like better. “How kind it is in you to be thinking of me, George! Indeed, I thank you very much!”

“No such thing! I assure you — Well, I thought perhaps you might not have witnessed the spectacle. It is an odd circumstance that Miss Milborne has not either. She has a great fancy to see it, only, as it chances, Mrs Milborne is engaged with some friends, and so the whole project must come to nothing, unless — ” a disarmingly ingenuous smile swept across his face — “Oh, hang it, Kitten, the long and the short of it is that if you would but offer to take her up in your carriage, I think Miss Milborne would like it excessively! If you could but persuade Sherry to make one of the party, nothing could be more snug!”

“George, you are the most complete hand!” Hero told him, borrowing from Sherry’s vocabulary. “I have a good mind to bring my cousin Cassy instead of Miss Milborne. How confounded you would look!”

“I swear you are the best of good fellows!” George exclaimed. “Well, no! I don’t mean that! What am I saying? I declare I am so up in the world today — or I shall be, if only you will send a note round to Green Street, to beg Miss Milborne to bear you company!”

“Well, I will,” promised Hero, sitting down on the sofa, and patting the place beside her invitingly. “But what has occurred to put you in such spirits? Isabella has not — oh, George, she has not accepted you?”

“No,” he said, the sparkle dying out of his expressive eyes. “No, not that, but — Look, Kitten!”

He thrust a hand into his pocket as he spoke, and drew out a small package. This he reverently unwrapped, disclosing a dejected pink rose, which was fast reaching the stage of decomposition.

Hero opened her eyes very wide as she stared at this relic, and then, glancing inquiringly up at George, said in an awed tone: “Did she give it to you, George?”

He nodded, his emotions for the moment making it impossible for him to speak. When he had cleared his throat, he said: “She was wearing a posy of them, pinned to her dress, last night. This one fell into her lap, and Severn — ” he ground his teeth at the recollection — “Severn had the temerity to demand it of her! As though he had but to ask, and she must submit to his wishes! I was within an ace of calling him to account, I can tell you! I must have done so, had not Miss Milborne given him such a set-down as — Kitten, she held it out to me, and said with the kindest smile, the most speaking expression in those glorious eyes, that I should have her rose, if I cared to take it! If I cared to! I slept with it beneath my pillow, and I shall carry it next my heart until I die!” He looked imploringly at Hero, and said with an effort: “She could not have done so had she not felt a preference — could she?”

“Oh no, indeed she could not!” Hero cried. “It must be certain! It is the most touching thing I ever heard! Oh, Sherry, is that you? Do, pray, come in, and see what Isabella has bestowed upon dear George!”

“Hallo, George!” said the Viscount, strolling across the room. “My God, Kitten, what a scrape you put me into just now!”

She gave an involuntary giggle. “I know. And if you could but have seen your own face! But never mind that now! Only look!”

The Viscount eyed the rose disparagingly. “Where’s the sense in keeping that?” he asked. “It’s dead. I see nothing at all wonderful in it.”

“But, Sherry, you do not understand! Isabella gave it to George last night!”

“Did she, by God?” said Sherry incorrigibly. “Lord, what a flirt the girl is!”

Lord Wrotham sprang to his feet, quick rage kindling in his breast. Hero, well accustomed by this time to his starts, shrieked: “George, if you call Sherry out, I won’t invite Isabella to go with us!”

His lordship paused, clenching his fists. “Sherry!” he said menacingly, “unsay those words!”

“Damned if I will!” responded Sherry. “You can’t call me out in my own house. Devilish bad ton! Besides, of course the Incomparable is a flirt! Nothing in that! I’d lay a monkey she did it to make Severn jealous. Don’t tell me he wasn’t there! You can’t humbug me, my boy!”

“If I thought that — !” said George, thrusting back the lock of hair from his brow.

“She would not be so cruel!” said Hero indignantly. “Don’t heed him, George!”

“If I thought it,” George said, “if I believed that she was trifling with me so heartlessly, I would — I would grind the rose under my heel!”

“No need to make a damned mess on our new carpet,” said Sherry. “Throw it out of the window!”

“Sherry, I don’t know how you can be so unfeeling!” Hero said reproachfully.

“Well, dash it, what is he to do with it?” asked Sherry. “A fellow can’t carry a lot of withered rose leaves about in his pocket! Just look at the thing already!”

George appeared to be a little daunted by this point of view. “I suppose it will fall to pieces,” he said disconsolately.

“No, no, there is not the least need!” Hero assured him. “You must press it between the leaves of a book, and then it will keep its shape. Sherry, George desires us to go with him to witness a balloon ascension! We are to take Isabella along with us, if she cares to come. You will like to go, will you not?”

“What, to watch a curst balloon go up?” exclaimed Sherry. “No, I wouldn’t!”

“But, Sherry, if you will not accompany us I do not know how we are to contrive!”

“Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll make such a cake of myself! If George wants to look like a Johnny Raw he may do so, but he ain’t going to drag me into it!”

Hero was about to argue the point when she suddenly recollected that Sherry too had been one of the Incomparable’s suitors. She thought that perhaps he was trying to mask a natural disinclination to spend a whole afternoon in the company of the unattainable, and tactfully forbore to press him any further. She suggested to George that they should invite Mr Fakenham to make a fourth in their party. George agreed to this, but when he had had a moment in which to think it over he remembered that Ferdy also formed one of Miss Milborne’s court, and he said that he fancied balloons were not much in Ferdy’s line, and would instead bring his friend, Algernon Gumley, to share in the treat. The Viscount let out a most unseemly crack of laughter at this, but refused to explain why. George informed Hero, a trifle stiffly, that she would find Mr Gumley a very good humoured fellow, and took himself off, carefully carrying his rose with him.

Hero sat down at the writing-table to compose a suitable note to Isabella. Sherry said: “What a fellow George is! Dead roses and balloon ascensions! You wouldn’t think it, but he used to be as game a man as you would meet in a twelve-month before he clapped eyes on Isabella. I’ll swear she means to have Severn, too — if she can get him! They’re laying bets against it at the clubs, you know.”

“Oh, Sherry!” Hero said, turning round to look at him. “She could not be so heartless as to bestow a flower upon him if her affections were not seriously engaged!”

“Much you know about it!” he responded. “Why, she’s the most heartless girl I ever met in my life! Look at the way she treated me!”

“Yes,” Hero said, hanging down her head a little. “She was very unkind to you, of course. I am sorry I teased you to go with us this afternoon. I forgot that it must give you pain.”

“Give me pain?” repeated Sherry. “Oh — ah! Exactly! Slipped my mind for the moment. Do you mean to be writing letters for ever, or are we to drive round to Grosvenor Square?”

Hero assured him that she would be ready to set forth with him in a quarter of an hour, so he went off to send a message to the stables, while she finished her note, and despatched it by the hand of her page.

The visit to the dowager was not a success. She was discovered reclining on a sofa, with the blinds half lowered and Hervey’s Meditations Among the Tombs significantly open on her knee. She greeted her daughter-in-law with a visible shudder, and embraced her son with all the tenderness of one conveying speechless sympathy for a victim of fate. A suggestion put forward by Sherry that she might present Hero at Court brought on all her most alarming symptoms. She held out no hope of her health’s permitting her to visit the house in Half Moon Street; and a blunt request from Sherry for the family emeralds apparently brought up a series of the most affecting memories, which obliged her to have recourse to her vinaigrette, and to dab at the corners of her perfectly dry eyes.

“But you never wear ’em, ma’am!” Sherry protested. “Dash it, you were always used to say green was not your colour, and you teased my father into giving you the diamond set in their stead! Besides, you know very well they belong to me — have done, ever since my father died!”

“Alas, that you should have so little sensibility!” quavered his parent. “The jewels which your dear pap clasped about my throat when we were first married — ”

“No, he didn’t,” interrupted Sherry. “My grandfather was alive then, and, what’s more, my father had the devil of a work to induce my grandmother to give ’em up when the old man died! Yes, and you went into one of your miffs, ma’am, and said she had no right to ’em! Remember it as it was yesterday.”

Perceiving that the widow showed every sign of sinking into a swoon, Hero hastily said that indeed she did not wish to have the emeralds until her mama-in-law was dead. But this turned out to have been an unfortunate remark, as it gave the widow an opportunity of saying that she had no doubt her son and his wife were eagerly awaiting that day. She added that it could not be far distant, and this so much annoyed Sherry that he became quite obstinate about the emeralds, and said that if they were not delivered at his house within a week he should instruct old Ditchling to collect them.

“Perhaps,” said the dowager, her colour much heightened, “you would also wish me to send your wife the pearl set and the diamond studs?”

“Yes, by Jupiter, I would!” declared Sherry. “I’m glad you put me in mind of them: they’re just the things for Hero!”

“Oh, Sherry, don’t, please!” whispered Hero.

“Nonsense! The pearls are always handed over to the brides in my family: nothing new in that!” said Sherry briskly. “Come along! If you are to go on this expedition with George, it is time we took our leave!”

The dowager was so overcome by the reflection that she had tumbled into a pit of her own digging that she could barely master her voice sufficiently to bid her visitors farewell. Hero curtsied, as though she had still been a little girl in the schoolroom; the Viscount dropped a chaste salute upon the trembling hand held out to him; and they both withdrew with feelings of great relief at having, as Sherry put it, “brushed through the ordeal tolerably well.”

A civil note from Isabella, accepting Hero’s obliging invitation, was reposing upon the spindle-legged table in the passage which served the house in Half Moon Street as a front hall, and at three o’clock George arrived, with his friend, Mr Gumley. One glance at this gentleman sufficed to enlighten Hero as to the cause of Sherry’s rude laughter: he had plainly been chosen for his lack of address, and palpable terror of the female sex. He was a plain young man, and although George assured Hero, in an under-voice, that when he overcame his shyness he could be perfectly conversable, he stammered so much that whenever he made a remark, which was not often, it was even more painful for his listeners than for himself. However, he appeared to derive deep, if silent, satisfaction from the spectacle he had been brought to witness, and managed to tell Hero, when they finally parted company, that he had enjoyed himself excessively.

Hero, although she was naturally interested in the first balloon she had ever seen, did not spend an afternoon of unmixed enjoyment. For this the behaviour of Miss Milborne was to blame. Nothing could have been more affectionate than Miss Milborne’s manner towards her hostess, and nothing more wayward than her behaviour towards her maddened lover. Hero was unable to acquit her of coquetry, and was indeed quite shocked to see how she would blow first hot and then cold upon the unfortunate Lord Wrotham. Whether she regretted having given him as much encouragement as lay in a rose dropped from her corsage, or whether she resented the introduction into the party of so unprepossessing a gentleman as Mr Gumley, no one could tell, but although she relented towards him from time to time, even allowing her hand to rest in his for a moment longer than was necessary when he handed her down from the barouche, she was for the most part a little pettish in her manner, and made it plain that he could do nothing to please her. Hero, who had a warm affection for George, could not refrain once from looking at her in a very speaking way, but the Beauty seemed not to notice the reproach in her old friend’s eyes. She launched into a sprightly description of a masquerade she had attended a week earlier, and although Hero might be extremely young and unversed in the ways of spoiled beauties, she could not but recognize that Miss Milborne’s reason for introducing this topic lay in the circumstance of her having been gallanted to this party by his Grace of Severn.

It was no wonder, Hero thought, that George should look worn and stormy at the end of the expedition. She was impelled to clasp his hand between both of hers when he left her at her door, and to say shyly: “Don’t mind her, dear George! I dare say she may have had the headache.”

He flushed, muttered something inarticulate, and strode off down the street. Hero was left to reflect that perhaps her adored Sherry was not so much to be pitied as she had supposed.