Lady Mablethorpe, who relied upon his help, and had for years trusted his advice, condemned his rudeness, deplored his coldness of heart, stood just a little in awe of his occasionally blistering tongue, and hoped that somebody one day would teach him a much-needed lesson. It would serve him right if he were to lose a great deal of money in St James’s Square, for instance: ten thousand pounds, perhaps, which any man less odiously selfish would have offered to put up on behalf of his unfortunate young cousin.
Chapter 2
Mr Ravenscar was spared the necessity of trading upon his name and fortune, by encountering upon the doorstep of Lady Bellingham’s house in St James’s Square an acquaintance who was perfectly willing to introduce him to her ladyship. Mr Berkeley Crewe prophesied that the old girl would be delighted to welcome him, assured him that the play was fair, the wine very tolerable, and the suppers the best in town; and said that Lady Bel had quite cast Mrs Sturt and Mrs Hobart into the shade. The door being opened to them by a stalwart individual with a rugged countenance and a cauliflower ear, they passed into the lofty hall, Mr Crewe nodding in a familiar manner to the porter, and saying briefly: “Friend of mine, Wantage.”
Mr Wantage favoured the stranger with an appraising and a ruminative stare before offering to help him off with his greatcoat. Mr Ravenscar returned this with interest. “When were you in the Ring?” he asked.
Mr Wantage seemed pleased. “Ah, it’s a long time ago now!” he said. “Afore I joined the Army, that was. Fancy you aspotting that!”
“It wasn’t difficult,” replied Ravenscar, shaking out his ruffles.
“I was thinking you’d peel to advantage yourself, sir,” observed Mr Wantage.
Mr Ravenscar smiled slightly, but returned no answer. Mr Crewe, having adjusted his satin coat to his satisfaction, given a twitch to his lace, and anxiously scrutinized his appearance in the mirror on the wall, led the way to the staircase. Ravenscar, after glancing about him, and noting that the house was furnished in the first style of elegance, followed him up to a suite of saloons on the first floor.
Entering the gaming-rooms by the first door they came to, they found themselves in an apartment given over to deep basset. About a dozen persons were seated round a table, most of them so intent upon the cards that the entrance of the newcomers passed unnoticed. A deathly hush brooded over the room, in marked contrast to the cheerful hubbub in the adjoining saloon, towards which Mr Crewe led his friend. This was a noble apartment in the front of the house, hung with straw-coloured satin, and furnished with a number of chairs, tables, and stands for the punter’s rouleaus, and their glasses. At one end of the room a faro-bank was in full swing, presided over by a somewhat raddled lady in purple satin and a turban lavishly adorned with ostrich plumes; at the other end, nearer to the fire, a vociferous knot of persons was gathered round an E.O. table, which was being set in motion by a tall young woman with chestnut hair, glowing in the candlelight, and a pair of laughing, dark eyes set under slim, arched brows. Her luxuriant hair was quite simply dressed, without powder, being piled up on the top of her head, and allowed to fall in thick, smooth curls. One of these had slipped forward, as she bent over the table, and lay against her white breast. She looked up as Mr Crewe approached her, and Mr Ravenscar, dispassionately surveying her, had no difficulty at all in understanding why his young relative had so lamentably lost his head. The lady’s eyes were the most expressive and brilliant he had ever seen. Their effect upon an impressionable youth would, he thought, be most destructive. As a connoisseur of female charms, he could not but approve of the picture Miss Grantham presented. She was built on queenly lines, carried her head well, and possessed a pretty wrist, and a neatly turned ankle. She looked to have a good deal of humour, and her voice, when she spoke, was low-pitched and pleasing. On one side of her, lounging over a chairback, an exquisite in a striped coat and a powdered wig watched the spin of the table in a negligent, detached fashion; on the other, Mr Ravenscar’s cousin had no eyes for anything but Miss Grantham’s face.
Miss Grantham, seeing a stranger crossing the room in Mr Crewe’s wake, looked critically at him. Trained by necessity to sum up a man quickly, she was yet hard put to it to place Mr Ravenscar. His plain coat, the absence of any jewels or furbelows, did not argue a fat bank-roll, but his air was one of unconscious assurance, as though he was accustomed to going where he chose, and doing what he pleased in any company. If at first glance she had written him down as a country bumpkin, this impression was swiftly corrected. He might be carelessly dressed, but no country tailor had fashioned that plain coat, she decided.
She turned her head towards the middle-aged exquisite leaning on the chairback. “Who is our new friend, my lord? A Puritan come amongst us?”
The exquisite languidly raised a quizzing-glass, and levelled it. Under its elaborate
This pronouncement brought young Lord Mablethorpe’s head round with a jerk. He stared incredulously at his cousin, and ejaculated: “Max!”
There was astonishment in his tone, not unmixed with suspicion. His fair countenance flushed boyishly, making him look younger than ever, and not a little guilty. He stepped forward, saying rather defensively: “I did not expect to see you here!”
“Why not?” asked Ravenscar calmly.
“I don’t know. That is, I did not think—Do you know Lady Bellingham?”
“I am relying upon Crewe to present me to her.”
“Oh! It was Crewe who brought you!” said his lordship, a little relieved. “I thought—at least, I wondered—But it doesn’t signify!”
Mr Ravenscar eyed him with a kind of bland surprise. “You seem to be most unaccountably put-out by my arrival, Adrian. What have I done to incur your disapproval?”
Lord Mablethorpe blushed more hotly than ever, and grasped his arm in a quick, friendly gesture. “Oh, Max, you fool! Of course you haven’t done anything! Indeed, I’m very glad to see you! I want to make you known to Miss Grantham. Deb! This is my cousin, Mr Ravenscar. I daresay you will have heard of him. He is a notable gamester, I can tell you!”
Miss Deborah Grantham, encountering Mr Ravenscar’s hard grey eyes, was not sure that she liked him. She acknowledged his bow with the smallest of curtseys, and said lightly: “You are very welcome, sir, and have certainly come to the right house. You know Lord Ormskirk, I believe?”
The middle-aged exquisite and Ravenscar exchanged nods. A large, loose-Embed man, standing on the other side of the table, said, with a twinkle: “Don’t be shy, Mr Ravenscar: we’re all mighty anxious to win your money! But, I warn you, Miss Grantham’s luck is in—isn’t it, me darlin’?—and the bank’s been winning this hour and more.”
“It’s commonly the way of E.O. banks—to win,” remarked a metallic, faintly sneering voice at Ravenscar’s elbow. “Servant, Ravenscar!”
Mr Ravenscar, responding to this salutation, made a mental vow to rescue his cousin from the society into which he had been lured if he had to knock him out and kidnap him to do it. The Earl of Ormskirk, Sir James Filey, and—as a comprehensive glance round the room had informed him—all the more hardened gamesters who frequented Pall Mall and its environs were no fit companions for a youth scarcely out of swaddling-bands. It would, at that moment, have given Mr Ravenscar great pleasure to have seen Miss Grantham standing in the pillory, together with her aunt, and every other
Nothing of this appeared in his face as he accepted Miss Grantham’s invitation to make his bet. E.O. tables held not the slightest lure for him, but since he had come to St James’s Square for the purpose of getting upon easy terms with Miss Grantham, and judged that the quickest way of doing this was to spend as much money as possible in her house, he spent the next half-hour punting recklessly on the spin of the table.
Meanwhile, the dowager at the faro-table, who was Lady Bellingham, had discovered his identity, and was pleasantly fluttered. One of her neighbours informed her that Ravenscar had twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year, but tempered these glad tidings by adding that he was said to have the devil’s own luck at all games of chance. If this were so, it was out tonight. Mr Ravenscar went down to the tune of five hundred guineas in the short time he spent at the E.O. table. While affecting an interest he was far from feeling in the gyrations of the little ball,
