Pistols For Two and Other Stories

1

Young Lord Allerton, a little pale under his tan, glanced from his mother to his man of business. ‘But—good God, why was I never told in what case I stood?’

Mr Thimbleby did not attempt to answer this home question. He perceived that young Lord Allerton’s facial resemblance to his deceased father was misleading. There was nothing the late Viscount had desired less than to be told in what case he stood. Three years of campaigning in the Peninsula had apparently engendered in the Fifth Viscount a sense of responsibility which, however welcome it might be in the future to his man of business, seemed at the moment likely to lead to unpleasantness. Mr Thimbleby directed an appealing look towards the widow.

She did not fail him. Regarding her handsome eldest born with an eye of fond pride, she said: ‘But when poor Papa died, you had been wounded, dearest! I would not for the world have distressed you!’

The Viscount said impatiently: ‘A scratch! I was back in the saddle within a week! Mama, how could you keep me in ignorance of our circumstances? Had I had the least notion of the truth I must have returned to England immediately!’

‘Exactly so!’ nodded his parent. ‘And that, dearest Alan, I was determined you should not be obliged to do! Everyone said the war would so soon be over, and I knew how mortified you would be to be forced to sell out before the glorious end! To be sure, I did hope that directly after Toulouse you might have been released, but it was not to be, and it is of no consequence, except that here we are, with all the foreign notables upon us, and I have the greatest dread that your tailor may not have your evening dress ready for you to wear at my ball next week!’

‘That, Mama, believe me, is the least of our problems!’

‘Very true, my love,’ agreed her ladyship. ‘Trix has been in despair, but “Depend upon it”, I have said from the outset, “even though your brother may patronize Scott, instead of Weston, who always did so well by poor Papa, you may be confident that no tailor would fail at such a juncture!”‘ Her gaze dwelled appreciatively upon his lordship’s new coat of olive-green, upon the pantaloons of delicate yellow which clung to his shapely legs, upon the Hessian boots which shone so bravely, and upon the neckcloth which was tied with such nicety, and she heaved a satisfied sigh.

The Viscount turned in desperation to his man of business. ‘Thimbleby!’ he uttered. ‘Be so good as to explain to me why you did not think it proper to inform me that my father had left me encumbered with debt.’

Mr Thimbleby cast another imploring glance at the widow. ‘Her ladyship having done me the honour to admit me into her confidence, my lord, it seemed to me—that is, I was encouraged to hope . . .’

‘To hope what?’

‘My dear son, you must not blame our good Thimbleby!’ intervened Lady Allerton. ‘Indeed, no one is to be blamed, for if you will but consider you will perceive that our case is not desperate!’

‘Desperate! I trust not! But that there is the most urgent need of the strictest economy—even, I fear, of measures as repugnant to me as they must be to you, ma’am, I cannot doubt! I dare not think what my own charges upon the estate have been during these months, when I should have been doing what lies within my power to repair what I do not scruple to call a shockingly wasted fortune!’

‘No, no, it is not as bad as that! she assured him. ‘My dear Alan, there is one circumstance you are forgetting!’

He stared at her with knitted brows. ‘Pray, what am I forgetting, ma’am?’

‘Hetty!’ she said, opening her eyes at him.

‘I certainly do not forget my cousin, Mama, but in what way my embarrassments can be thought to concern her I have not the remotest conjecture!’ said his lordship. A dreadful thought flashed into his mind; he said quickly: ‘You are not trying to tell me, ma’am, that my cousin’s fortune has been used to—No, no, impossible! She is still under age, and cannot have been allowed—There was another trustee besides my father, after all! Old Ossett could never have countenanced such a thing!’

‘Nothing of the sort!’ said her ladyship. ‘And I must say, Alan, that I wonder at your supposing that I would entertain such a notion, except, of course, under such circumstances as must render it entirely proper! My own niece! I might almost say my daughter,for I am sure she is as dear to me as Trix!’

Mr Thimbleby, who had been unobtrusively engaged in putting up his papers, now judged it to be time to withdraw from a discussion which was not progressing according to hopeful expectation. The Viscount, beyond reminding him rather sharply that he should require his attendance upon the morrow, made no objection to his bowing himself out of the room, but began to pace about the floor, his brow furrowed, and his lips compressed as though to force back unwise speech.

His parent said sympathetically: ‘I was afraid you would be a trifle shocked, dearest. It was hazard, of course. I knew no good would come of it when poor Papa forsook faro, at which he had always been so fortunate!’

The Viscount halted, and said with careful self-control: ‘Mama, have you realized that to win free from this mountain of debt I must sell some—perhaps all!—of the unentailed property? When I learned that my father had left everything to me, making not the least provision for Timothy or for Trix, I own I was astonished! I see now why he did so, but how I am to provide for them I know not! Ma’am, you have been talking ever since my arrival of the ball you are giving in honour of this Grandduchess of yours, of the drawing-room at which you mean to present my sister, but have you realized that there is no money to pay for these things?’

‘Good gracious, Alan, you should realize that if I do not?’ exclaimed her ladyship. ‘I declare I can scarcely recall when I was last able to pay a bill, and the tiresome thing is that there are now so many of them in that drawer in my desk that I can’t open it!’

‘For God’s sake, Mama, how have you contrived to continue living in this style?’ demanded the Viscount.

‘Oh, well, my love, upon credit! Everyone has been most obliging!’

‘Merciful heavens!’ muttered the Viscount ‘What credit, ma’am?’

‘But, Alan, they all guess that you are going to marry dear Hetty, and they know her fortune to be immense!’

‘O my God!’ said the Viscount, and strode over to the window. ‘So that’s it, is it?’

Lady Allerton regarded his straight back in some dismay. ‘It has always been an understood thing!’ she faltered.

‘Nonsense!’

‘But it was my dear brother’s wish!’

‘It can scarcely have been his wish that his daughter should be married to an impoverished—fortune-hunter!’ said the Viscount bitterly. ‘And it must be very far from Sir John Ossett’s wish!’

‘Now there you are out!’ said her ladyship triumphantly. ‘Sir John will raise not the smallest objection to the match, for he has told me so! He knows it is what my brother intended, and, what is more, he has a great regard for you, my love!’

‘I am obliged to him!’

‘Alan!’ ejaculated her ladyship. ‘You—you have not formed an attachment for another?’

‘No!’

‘No, I was persuaded—Dearest, I thought—Of course, she was very young when you went away, but it did seem to me—’

‘Mama,’ he interrupted, “whatever my sentiments, you cannot have supposed it possible that I would offer for my cousin in my present circumstances!’

‘But it seems just the moment!’ protested his mother. ‘Besides, she expects it!’

He wheeled about. ‘Expects it?’

‘Yes, I assure you she does! Dearest Hetty! If she could have done it, she would have bestowed her entire fortune on me! I never knew a better-hearted girl, never!’

‘Oh, good God, then that is why she is now so shy of me!’ said the Viscount ‘My poor little cousin! How could you let her think it was her duty to marry me, Mama? It is infamous! Have you kept her shut away from the world in case she should meet a more eligible suitor than ever I can be?’

‘No, I have not!’ replied Lady Allerton, affronted. ‘I brought her out two years ago, and she has had a great many suitors, and has refused them all! She is a very well-behaved girl, and would never dream of marrying to disoblige me!’

‘She has been shamefully used!’ he said.

2

The object of the Viscount’s pity, Miss Henrietta Clitheroe, was at the moment seated in a small saloon at the back of the house, studying, with her young cousin, the latest issue of La Belle Assemblée, and endeavouring to convince Miss Allerton that a dress of gauze worn over a damped and transparent petticoat was a toilette scarcely designed to advance her in the good graces of those august members of the ton who were pledged to appear at her mama’s party given in honour of the Grandduchess Catherine of Oldenburg. This was not a circumstance which weighed with Miss Allerton, who, at seventeen, was thought by the censorious to have been born for the express purpose of driving her mother into her grave by the outrageous nature of her pranks; but she knew that she would never be permitted to wear such a dress, and so allowed herself to be distracted by the picture of a damsel arrayed in white satin embellished with rose-buds and love-knots.

She was just saying, though disconsolately, that she supposed it was quite a pretty dress, when the Viscount came into the room, and, still holding the door, said: ‘The latest fashions? Am I very much in the way, or may I have a word with you, cousin?’

The colour flooded Henrietta’s cheeks; she stammered: ‘Oh no! I mean, to be sure you may, Alan!’

Miss Allerton, unwontedly meek, obeyed the command contained in the jerk of his lordship’s head, and tripped out of the room. The Viscount shut the door, and turned to look across the saloon at his cousin. Her colour rose higher still, and she pretended to search for something in the litter of objects on the table.

‘Henry. . .’ the Viscount said.

She looked up at that, a little shy smile on her lips. ‘Oh, Alan, no one has called me that since you went away! How nice it sounds!’

He returned the smile, although with an effort. ‘Does it? You will always be Henry to me, you know.’ He paused; and then said with a good deal of constraint: ‘I have been with my mother and with Thimbleby for the past hour. What I have learnt from them has made me feel that I must speak to you immediately.’

‘Oh—oh, yes?’ said Henrietta.

‘Yes. I think I was never more shocked in my life than when I realized—’ He broke off, conscious of the awkwardness of his situation. His own colour rose; he said with a rueful laugh: ‘The devil! I’m as tongue-tied as a schoolboy! Henry, I only wanted to say—I’m not going to offer for you!’

The flush in Henrietta’s cheeks began to ebb. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘N-not going to offer for me?’

He came towards her, and took her hands, giving them a reassuring squeeze. ‘Of course I am not! How could you think I would do so, you foolish Henry? You have been made to believe that you were in some way promised to me, haven’t you? Some absurd talk of what your father desired—of what you owed to my family. Well, you owe us nothing, my dearest cousin! It is rather we who owe you a great debt. You have been our—most beloved sister—ever since you came to live with us. I am ashamed that it should ever have been suggested to you that it is your duty to marry me: it is no such thing! You are free to marry whom you please.’

This did not, at the moment, appear likely to the heiress. She disengaged her hands. ‘Am—am I?’

‘Indeed you are!’ With an attempt at lightness, he added: ‘Unless you choose someone quite ineligible! I warn you, I should do what I could to prevent that, Henry!’

She managed to smile. ‘I should be obliged to elope, then, should I not? I—I am glad you have been so frank with me. Now we can be comfortable again!’

‘My poor girl!’ he said quickly. ‘If only you had told me what was in the wind—! There was never a hint in any of your letters. I would have set your mind at rest months ago! No: you could not, of course!’

She turned away, and began to tidy the litter on the table. She said, in a voice that did not sound to her ears quite like her own: ‘I own, I had as lief not be married for my fortune!’ He returned no answer; after a pause, she added: ‘Are your affairs in very bad case, Alan?’

‘Not so bad that I shall not be able, with time and good management, to set them to rights, I hope,’ he replied. ‘I could wish that my mother had not chosen, at this moment, to entertain upon so lavish a scale. I suppose nothing can be done about this party for the Russian woman, but for the rest—the White’s Ball, Trix’s presentation—’

‘Good God, do not tell my aunt she must postpone that! exclaimed Henrietta. ‘If she is obliged to wait another year, Trix will very likely run off with a handsome Ensign!’ She saw the startled look on his face, and added: ‘You don’t yet know her, Alan!’

‘My dear Henry, at seventeen she can hardly be thinking of marriage, surely!’

‘The last man she fell in love with was young Stillington,’ said Henrietta thoughtfully. ‘To be sure, he was better than that actor she saw in Cheltenham, but still quite ineligible of course. Fortunately, her mind was diverted by the plans for her first season.’

‘It is time Trix was broke to bridle!’ said his lordship roundly. He then favoured his cousin with a few animadversions upon the conduct of his lively young sister, and left her to her reflections.

These were not for many moments concerned with the almost inevitable clash between brother and sister. They led Henrietta to the mirror, and caused her to stare long at her own image.

It should have comforted her. Dark ringlets framed a charming countenance in which two speaking eyes of blue became gradually filled with tears that obscured her vision of a short, straight nose, a provocative upper lip, and an elusive dimple. These attributes had apparently failed to captivate the Viscount. The heiress uttered a strangled sob, and dabbed resolutely at her eyes, realizing that she would shortly be obliged to confront Miss Allerton, agog to know whether the date of her wedding had been fixed.

Nor was she mistaken. In a very few minutes, Trix peeped into the room, and, finding her cousin alone, at once demanded to be told what Alan had said to her.

Henrietta replied in the most cheerful of accents: ‘I am so much relieved! He does not wish to marry me at all!’

Trix, shocked by these tidings, could only stare at her.

‘You may imagine how happy he has made me!’ continued Henrietta glibly. ‘Had he desired it, I must have thought it my duty to marry him, but he has set my mind at rest on this head, and now I can be easy again!’

‘But you have loved him for years!’ Trix blurted out.

‘Indeed I have!’ said Henrietta cordially. ‘I am sure I always shall!’

‘Hetty! When you have been writing to him for ever!’

‘Pray, what has that to say to anything? To me, he is the elder brother I never had.’

‘Hetty, what a hum! He is my brother, and I never wrote to him above twice in my life!’

Before Henrietta could reply suitably to this, they were joined by a willowy young gentleman in whom only the very stupid could have failed to recognize a Pink of the Ton. From the tip of his pomaded head to the soles of his dazzling Hessians, the Honourable Timothy Allerton was beautiful to behold. He was generally supposed to care for nothing but the fashion of his neckcloth, but he showed unmistakable signs of caring for the news which his sister broke to him. ‘Not going to offer for Hetty?’ he repeated, aghast. ‘Well, upon my soul! Well, what I mean is, might think what’s due to the rest of us! Mind, I don’t say I’m surprised he don’t like it above half, but the thing is he’s the head of the family, and he dashed well ought to do it! What’s more,’ he said, his amiable countenance darkening, ‘if he thinks he can make me offer for her he’ll find he’s devilish mistaken! It ain’t that I don’t like you, Hetty,’ he added kindly, ‘because I do, but that’s coming it a trifle too strong!’

3

If the Viscount had harboured doubts of his mother’s veracity, these were speedily dispelled. His cousin, far from having been kept in seclusion, seemed to him to be acquainted with all the eligible bachelors upon the town, and with far too many of those whom he did not hesitate to stigmatize as gazetted fortune-hunters. She dispensed her favours impartially amongst these gentlemen, whirled about town under the chaperonage of various not wholly disinterested matrons, and in general conducted herself with such frivolity that her perturbed aunt said that she had never known her to be in such, a flow of spirits. She raised hopes in a dozen breasts, but the only suitor for whom she betrayed the smallest partiality was Sir Matthew Kirkham; and it was absurd to suppose (as Lady Allerton assured Alan) that a girl with as much good sense as Hetty would for an instant entertain the pretensions of a penniless roué, past his first youth, and with at least two unsavoury scandals attached to his name.

Alan could place no such dependence on his cousin’s good sense. It was rarely that he took a dislike to anyone, but he took a quite violent dislike to Sir Matthew, and warned Henrietta to give the fellow no encouragement: an exercise of cousinly privilege which had no other effect than to cause her to wear Sir Matthew’s flowers at the Opera House that very evening.

He was brought to realize that however obnoxious Kirkham might appear in the eyes of his fellow-men he possessed considerable charm for the ladies: Trix told him so. Trix listened with interest to his trenchantly expressed opinion of Sir Matthew, and then disgusted him by talking of the fellow’s polished manners, and of the distinguishing attentions he had for so long bestowed upon Hetty.

Sir Matthew was not one of the two hundred guests invited to have the honour of being presented to the Tsar’s sister. This lady had arrived in England some time before the various Kings, Princes, Generals, and Diplomats who were coming to take part in the grand Peace celebrations, and was putting up at the Pulteney Hotel. She was neither beautiful nor particularly amiable, but she was being much courted, and had already created a mild sensation by being rude to the Prince Regent, and by parading the town in enormous coal-scuttle bonnets, which instantly became the rage. Trix, giggling over the story of her having abruptly left the party at Carlton House just as soon as the expensive orchestra provided for her entertainment had struck up, because (she said) music made her want to vomit, prophesied that her departure from Lady Allerton’s ball would be equally speedy; but Lady Allerton, well-acquainted with the Grandduchess, said, No: she only behaved like that when she wished to be disagreeable.

Trix was not to appear at the ball either. The Viscount had told her that with all the will in the world to do so he was unable at present to find the funds which would enable his mama to launch her into society; and Lady Allerton’s sense of propriety was too nice to allow of her consenting to let her daughter attend a ball of such importance before she was out.

Trix bore her disappointment surprisingly well, neither arguing with Alan nor reproaching him. Touched by her restraint, he promised her a magnificent début the following spring, if he had to sell every available acre to achieve it. She thanked him, and said that she had made up her mind to help him in his difficulties.

Such unprecedented docility ought to have alarmed Henrietta, but Henrietta was too much occupied with her own affairs to notice it. It was not until the very evening of the ball, when Trix helped her, in the most selfless way, to array herself in all the elegance of primrose satin and pale green gauze, that it occurred to her that this saintly conduct was as suspicious as it was unusual. But Trix, looking the picture of hurt innocence, assured her that she had no intention of perpetrating some shocking practical joke, and she was obliged to be satisfied. Trix embraced her with great fondness, and she went away to join Lady Allerton feeling that she had misjudged her wayward cousin.

In this belief she continued until midnight, when she suffered a rude disillusionment.

4

Mr Allerton, seizing a respite from his conscientious labours on the floor, stood in the doorway of the ballroom, and delicately wiped his brow. The May night was very warm, and although the long windows stood open scarcely a breath of wind stirred the curtains which masked them, and the heat from the hundreds of wax candles burning in the wall-sconces and in the huge crystal chandelier which hung from the ceiling was making not only the flowers wilt, but every gentleman’s starched shirt-points as well. But this was a small matter. Mr Allerton, a captious critic, was well-satisfied with the success of the ball. Every domestic detail had been perfectly arranged; his mother did him the greatest credit in a robe of sapphire satin lavishly trimmed with broad lace; his cousin was in quite her best looks; and even his brother, although dressed by a military tailor, did not disgrace him. The Grandduchess was in high good humour; besides the flower of the ton, two of the Royal Dukes were lending lustre to the evening; and, to set the final cachet upon a brilliant function, the great Mr Brummell himself was present.

These agreeable reflections were interrupted. A hand grasped Mr Allerton’s wrist, and his cousin’s voice said urgently in his ear: ‘Timothy, come quickly to my aunt’s dressing-room! I must speak to you alone!’

A horrible premonition that the champagne had run out and the ice melted away seized Mr Allerton. But the news which Henrietta had to impart to him had nothing to do with domestic arrangements. She was clutching in one hand a sheet of writing-paper, with part of the wafer that had sealed it still sticking to its edge, and this she dumbly proffered. Mr Allerton took it, and mechanically lifted his quizzing-glass to his eye. ‘What the deuce—?’ he demanded. ‘Lord, I can’t read this scrawl! What is it?’

‘Trix!’ she uttered, in a strangled voice.

‘Well, that settles it,’ he said, giving the letter back to her. ‘Never been able to make head or tail of her writing! You’d better tell me what it is.’

‘Timothy, it is the most terrible thing! She has eloped with Jack Boynton!’

‘What?’ gasped Timothy. ‘No, hang it, Hetty! Must be bamming you!’

‘No, no, it is the truth! She is not in the house, and she left this note for me. Dawson has this instant given it to me!’

‘Well, I’m dashed!’ said Timothy. ‘Jack Boynton? Y’know, Hetty, I wouldn’t have thought it of him!’

Too well accustomed to Mr Allerton’s mental processes to be exasperated, Henrietta replied: ‘No, indeed! She must have persuaded him to do it: he is so very young! I never dreamed—Good God, I thought that affair had ended months ago! How could she have been so sly? But I might have guessed how it would be? If I had not been so selfishly taken up with my own troub—I mean, pleasures!—it could never have happened! Timothy, I must act immediately, and you must help me!’

He blinked at her. ‘Dash it, can’t do anything in the middle of m’mother’s party!’

‘We can, and we must! They have fled to Gretna Green, and they must be overtaken!’

‘Gretna Green?’ echoed Mr Allerton, revolted. ‘No, really, Hetty! Can’t have!’

‘She makes no secret of it. Besides, where else could they be married, two children under age? She supposed, of course, that I should not receive her letter until too late, but Dawson, good, faithful soul, thought it right to give it to me as soon as she might, and it is not too late! You and I may slip away, and it can’t signify to anyone if our absence is noticed. I have thought it all out, and I have the greatest hope of overtaking them before morning! I am persuaded that boy cannot have scraped together enough money to pay for the hire of more than a pair of horses. You and I may hire four, and change them at every stage. The moon is at the full; we shall come up with them before they have gone thirty miles beyond London! Then we may bring Trix home, and no one need know what happened, not even my poor aunt, for I can trust Dawson to keep the secret, and ten to one my aunt won’t leave her room until noon tomorrow!’

‘Seems to me we’d do better to tell Alan,’ objected Timothy.

‘Upon no consideration! The Grandduchess is still here, and Sussex too! He at least cannot leave the house! Besides, Trix trusts me not to betray her to him, and however dreadfully she may have behaved I could not do so! He would be so angry! Oh, dear, it is all his fault for having postponed her coming-out! I warned him how it would be! Timothy, you must know where we can hire a post-chaise and four good horses!’

He admitted it, but entered a caveat. ‘Thing is, dare say you’re right about Boynton, but I ain’t got the ready to pay for a chaise and four either!’

‘No, but I have! I drew quite a large sum only yesterday, and I will give it to you,’ said Henrietta. ‘I will fetch my cloak, and instruct Dawson in what she must say if she should be questioned, and then we may be off. Do not tell Helmsley to call up a hackney! We will creep out by the door into the yard, and find one for ourselves directly!’

‘But, Hetty!’ protested Mr Allerton. ‘Can’t go driving about the countryside in evening-dress! Must change!’

But long acquaintance with her cousin had made Henrietta too familiar with the exigencies of his toilet to allow him this indulgence. Assuring him that his swallow-tailed coat and satin knee-breeches would be hidden by a driving-cloak, she so admonished and hustled him that within a very few minutes he found himself being smuggled out of the house by way of the back stairs and a door leading from the nether regions into the stable-yard.

5

‘No,’ said Mr Allerton, some five hours later. ‘I won’t tell ‘em to drive on to the Norman Cross inn! And it ain’t a bit of use arguing with me, Hetty, because I’m not going to go another mile on a dashed wild-goose chase, and so I tell you! If you want to go on jolting over a devilish bad road, asking questions at every pike of a set of gapeseeds who wouldn’t be able to tell you whether Cinderella had driven by in a dashed great pumpkin, let alone Trix in a chaise, you do it! We’ve come a cool seventy miles, and never had so much as a whiff of Trix, and I want my breakfast! What’s more, when I’ve had it I’m going back to town! She’s hoaxing you; told you so at the outset!’

Miss Clitheroe, who had been ushered by an astonished waiter into one of the private parlours of the Talbot Inn, in Stilton, untied the strings of her cloak and pushed back its hood from her dishevelled curls. Pressing her hands to her tired eyes, she said wretchedly: ‘She would not do such a thing! I know she plays shocking pranks, but she would never do this, only for mischief!’

‘If I know Trix,’ said Timothy, ‘very likely told you she was off to Gretna Green to set you on a false scent!’

Henrietta stared at him in dismay. ‘You mean she may have fled in quite another direction? Timothy, that would be worse than anything! It may be days before we can discover her whereabouts, and where, in heaven’s name, will they find a clergyman to marry them?’

‘Exactly so!’ said Timothy. He added ghoulishly: ‘Won’t be a case of taking her home. Have to get ‘em married in a hurry to save scandal.’

‘No, no, I will not believe it!’ cried Henrietta. ‘They are ahead of us still! We must go on!’

Mr Allerton’s reply was brief and unequivocal, but when he perceived the real distress in his cousin’s face he relented sufficiently to promise that when he had eaten breakfast he would make enquiries at each of the other three posting-houses in the town. With this Henrietta was obliged to be content. The waiter set breakfast before them, listened with polite incredulity to the story, hastily manufactured by Timothy, to account for their appearance in Stilton at eight o’clock in the morning in full dress, of the moribund relative to whose bedside they had been summoned, and withdrew, shaking his head over the reprehensible habits of the Quality.

Mr Allerton then applied himself to a substantial repast. Henrietta, unable to do more than drink a cup of coffee, and nibble a slice of bread and butter, eyed him in growing impatience, but knew better than to expostulate. He finished at last, and, with a kindly recommendation to her not to expect any good outcome, went off to call at the Bell, the Angel, and the Woolpack.

She was left to await his return with what patience she could muster. The time lagged unbearably; when half an hour had passed she could no longer sit still, but got up, and began to pace about the room, trying to think what were best to be done if he failed to obtain news of the fugitives in Stilton.

The sound of a vehicle approaching at a smart pace, and pulling up outside the inn, made her run to the window. The sight that met her eyes was so unexpected and so unwelcome that she caught her breath on a gasp of dismay. Leaning from his own sporting curricle to interrogate one of the ostlers was her cousin Alan, and one glance at his face was enough to inform her that he was quite as angry as she had known he must be, if ever his sister’s escapade came to his ears. As she stared out at him, he sprang down from the curricle, and came striding to the door into the inn.

She retreated from the window, wondering how much Dawson had disclosed to him, and what she should say to mollify him. She could almost wish now that the eloping couple had fled beyond recall, for it seemed to her that young Mr Boynton would be fortunate to escape with his bare life if the Viscount caught him.

The Viscount came in, and cast a swift, searching look round the room. Unlike his brother, he had found time to change his ball-dress for a riding-habit, over which he wore a caped greatcoat with large buttons of mother-of-pearl. He was looking extremely handsome, and singularly unyielding. After that one glance round the parlour, his attention became fixed on his cousin, his pleasant grey eyes so full of wrath that she took an involuntary step backward. Stripping off his gloves, he said furiously: ‘How dared you do this, Henry? How could you?’

It had not occurred to her that any part of his anger would be directed against her. She said pleadingly. ‘I suppose it was improper, but it seemed to be the only thing I could do!’

‘Improper?’ he exclaimed. ‘So that’s what you call it, is it? The most damnable escapade!’

‘Alan! No, no! Imprudent I may have been, but what other course was open to me? I would not for the world tell my aunt, and I dared not say a word of it to you, because—’

‘That at least I believe!’ he interrupted. ‘You knew well I would never permit it! You were right, my girl, very right! Where is the fellow?’

‘I don’t know. Oh, Alan, pray don’t be so out of reason cross with me! Indeed I meant it for the best! Alan!’

The Viscount, who had most ungently grasped her shoulders, shook her. ‘Don’t lie to me! Where is he?’

‘I tell you I don’t know! And if I did I would not tell you while you are in such a rage!’ said Henrietta, with spirit.

‘We’ll see that!’ said the Viscount grimly. ‘I’ll settle with him when I’ve settled with you! Had you chosen an honest man I would have stood aside, whatever it cost me, but this fellow—! No, by God! If you are determined to marry a fortune-hunter, Henry, let him be me! At least I love you!’

Shock bereft her of the power of speech; she could only gaze up into his face. He dragged her into his arms, and kissed her with such savagery that she uttered an inarticulate protest. To this he paid no heed at all, but demanded sternly: ‘Do you understand me, Henry? Give you up to Kirkham I will not!’

‘Oh, Alan, don’t give me up to anyone!’ begged Henrietta, laughing and crying together. ‘Oh, dear, how odious you are! Of all the infamous notions to—Alan, let me go! Someone is coming!’

The door opened. ‘Told you no good would come of it,’ said Mr Allerton, with gloomy satisfaction. ‘Not a trace of ‘em to be—’ He broke off, staring at his brother. ‘Well, upon my word!’ he said, mildly surprised.

‘What the devil are you doing here?’ exclaimed the Viscount.

‘Came with Hetty,’ explained Timothy. ‘Said it was a stupid thing to do, but she would have it we should overtake ‘em.’

‘Came with Hetty? Overtake—?’ repeated the Viscount. ‘In heaven’s name, what are you talking about?’

Mr Allerton raised his quizzing-glass. ‘You been in the sun, old fellow?’ he asked solicitously.

‘Timothy, he doesn’t know!’ Henrietta said. ‘That is not what brought him here! Alan, a dreadful thing has happened. Trix has eloped! I can’t think what made you suppose that I had! Timothy and I came in pursuit, and oh, I was so hopeful of catching them, but we can discover no trace of them!’

‘Quite true,’ corroborated Timothy, observing that the tidings had apparently stunned his brother. ‘Eloped with Jack Boynton. At least, that’s what she said.’

‘Are you mad?’ demanded the Viscount. ‘Trix is at home!’

‘Alas, Alan, she is not!’ said Henrietta. ‘She slipped out in the middle of the party, leaving a letter, which her maid gave me at midnight. She wrote that she had gone with Boynton to Gretna Green, but I very much fear that she was deceiving me, and that is not her destination.’

The Viscount, who had listened to this with an arrested expression on his face, drew an audible breath. ‘Most certainly she was deceiving you!’ he said, in an odd tone. ‘I see! The—little—cunning—devil!’

‘He is out, Hetty!’ said Timothy.

A rueful smile was quivering at the corners of the Viscount’s mouth. He paid no heed to this brotherly remark, but said: ‘Let me tell you, my love, that an hour after you had left Grosvenor Square, I also received a billet from Trix!’

‘You?’ said Henrietta incredulously.

‘Yes, I! It summoned me with the utmost urgency to join her in Mama’s dressing-room. There she disclosed to me that you had slipped out of the house, to elope to the Border with Kirkham. She said that you had bound her to secrecy, but that her conscience misgave her, and she felt it to be her duty to betray you to me.’

^‘Oh!’gasped Henrietta. ‘The little wretch! She—she deserves to be flogged!’

‘Well, yes, I suppose she does,’ admitted the Viscount. ‘You cannot, however, expect me to flog her, for she has put me deep in her debt! Besides, you must own her strategy has been masterly!’

‘Abominable!’ scolded Henrietta, trying not to laugh.

‘Told you she was hoaxing you,’ said Timothy. ‘Good notion, as it chances. What I mean, is, if you are going to marry Hetty, Alan, we shall be all right and tight. The thing that’s worrying me is that you must have left home before the ball was over. Dashed improper, y’know! That dish-faced Grandduchess! Half the ton invited to have the honour of meeting her, and you walk off in the middle of the party!’

‘Well,’ said the Viscount impenitently, ‘they had the honour of meeting her, and I have the honour of asking Henry to be my wife, and so we may all be satisfied!’ He held out his hands as he spoke, and Henrietta put hers into them.

‘Yes, I dare say,’ said Mr Allerton, ‘but it ain’t the thing. What’s more,’ he added severely, ‘it ain’t the thing to kiss Hetty in a dashed inn parlour, and with me watching you, either!’