April Lady

Chapter Nine

Cardross feared that his unguarded words would lead Nell to enquire more particularly into her brother’s mode of life, but in point of fact she was less disturbed by them than by the possible consequences of the story she had fabricated to account for his holding up her carriage. She had certainly been startled by what he had said, but a few minutes’ reflection led her to think that the jealousy she had so clearly perceived in him had led him to exaggerate. That he had so abruptly turned the subject seemed to her to lend colour to this belief; and since her own troubles were looming large she thought very little more about the matter. Her encounter with him had quite overset her; it was a struggle to support her spirits, for never before had he treated her with such cool reserve of manner, or looked at her with such hard, searching eyes. The fault was her own: that frightening expression had not been in his face when first he had entered the room. She had been terrified that he might demand an explanation of the dismay she had betrayed, but when he had refrained, as though in disdain or indifference, she had found his cold forbearance more alarming than any display of wrath. She felt herself to have been set at a distance, and although his voice had been kinder when he had asked her what was the matter she had not been conscious of any impulse to confide in him. In her view no moment could have been more unpropitious for confession. Rendered suspicious by her reception of him, vexed with her for not having taken better care of his sister, and his tempter dangerously exasperated by Dysart’s conduct, the disclosure that his wife was again badly in debt, and had been putting forth her best endeavours to deceive him, could only be expected to act on him like a match to gunpowder. Nor did it seem at all probable that the knowledge of Dysart’s motive in holding her up would lead him to regard him with more lenient eyes. In fact, far otherwise, she thought: for if she had been shocked by the scheme it seemed safe to suppose that Cardross would utterly condemn it. Once the truth was out Dysart would be more than likely to tell him that he had had three hundred pounds from her, and then, surely, the miserable tangle would be past unravelling.

This melancholy conviction at once put her in mind of the immediate necessity of conveying a warning to Dysart. Cardross plainly meant to call him to book, and it would never do for him to tell a different story from hers. She sat down to dash off a note to him then and there, but she was obliged to pause several times to wipe the blinding tears from her eyes. Try as she would to compose herself, they would keep welling up, because it was so very dreadful to be plotting with Dysart against Cardross.

She had just given the sealed billet to her footman when Letty came in, and at once it occurred to her that she too must be warned to say, if Cardross should question her, that Dysart had held them up for a wager. She could feel herself blushing as she told Letty what she had said to Cardross, but Letty was not at all shocked. “Oh, certainly!” she said, taking it as a matter of course. Nell hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry.

“So Giles is come home!” Letty remarked, slowly pulling off her gloves. “Well! I am positively glad of it!”

“Oh, yes!” Nell murmured. “Of course! I mean—”

“Because,” pursued Letty, a martial light in her eye, “my affairs have now reached a Crisis!”

“Good God!” exclaimed Nell, quite alarmed. “What in the world, love—?”

“In six weeks—in less than six weeks!—Jeremy sails for South America!” announced Letty, in a voice of doom.

“Oh, dear!” said Nell. “As soon as that! I am so very sorry!”

“Well, you need not be,” said Letty. “Though I own I had rather not be married in such a scrambling way. However, I don’t mean to repine, for that is a small thing, after all.”

Nell regarded her uneasily. “But, dearest, there is no question—You cannot suppose that Cardross will permit it!”

“And neither he nor you,” flashed Letty, “can suppose that I will permit my adored Jeremy to leave England without me! Unless he has a heart of stone, Giles cannot now refuse his consent.”

Nell was unable to perceive why the imminent departure of Mr. Allandale should be supposed to melt Cardross’s heart, and ventured to say as much. It was ill-received. Letty broke into an impassioned diatribe. This was not very coherent, but one plain fact emerged from it: Cardross was to be given a last chance to rehabilitate his character.

As far as Nell was concerned, this supplied all that was needed to set the crown on a singularly disastrous day. She begged Letty with great earnestness not to attempt to argue her case that evening; and when Letty with a toss of her head, declared that she was not afraid of Cardross, warned her that his back had already been set up by Lady Chudleigh’s letter.

A thoughtful silence descended upon Letty. After a few moments she said, with a nonchalance that would have deceived no one: “It is not of the least consequence. I shan’t regard it if he does give me one of his scolds. Is he very angry, Nell?”

“No, but—oh, a good deal displeased, I fear! I believe he won’t speak of it to you, if only you won’t vex him!”

“Well, I won’t say anything to him tonight,” Letty decided. “What a fortunate thing it is that we are going to the play! I had meant to ask you if we need, because I haven’t any inclination for it. Still, it won’t do to fall into a lethargy, even though Cardross is determined to break my heart. He will be very well served if I go into a decline, for although I daresay he doesn’t care a button what becomes of me I shall leave a letter to be opened after my death, saying that it was all his doing, and he won’t like that!”

Slightly heartened by this reflection, she then went off to change her dress. With rare tact she selected from her wardrobe a very demure half-dress of French muslin, and further heightened its modesty by arranging round her shoulders a lace fichu. This led her adoring Abigail to look upon her with anxious concern, but upon the matter’s being explained to her Martha entered at once into the spirit of the thing, and contributed her mite by substituting a pair of silk mittens for the elegant kid gloves she had previously laid out. Letty eyed them with disfavour, but consented to wear them; and presently burst upon her half-brother’s sight as the embodiment of virtuous maidenhood. The effect of this modest ensemble, though not what she had expected, was good. When she entered the drawing-room Cardross was looking stern, but after one glance at his pious little sister his countenance relaxed. He put up his glass, the better to study her appearance, and said dryly, but with a quivering lip: “Doing it rather too brown, Letty!”

Her saintly expression melted into one of engaging mischief. She twinkled roguishly, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Dear Giles! What an agreeable surprise, to be sure!”

“Turning me up sweet, my pet?”

She giggled. “No, no, it is the luckiest chance that you have come home, because the case is that we mean to go to the play tonight, and have no one to escort us!”

“What an abominable girl you are!” he remarked.

“Yes, but don’t be cross!” she begged.

“It would be a waste of time. I entertain serious thoughts, however, of sending you to stay with Aunt Honoria. She may take you to the Assemblies at the Upper Rooms now and then—by the by, they end punctually at eleven!—but only if you are excessively well-behaved.”

“Oh, what a horrid notion!” cried Letty, shuddering. “Aunt Honoria! Bath, too, of all places! But of course I should run away—to become an actress, I daresay, just to serve you out!”

“Nonsense! She will have you in subjection within a week! She frightens me to death!” he retorted.

“Very likely! There is more steel to my nerves, I promise you!”

He laughed, and upon dinner’s being just then announced bowed both ladies out of the door, and followed them downstairs to the dining-room. Bent on charming him into an acquiescent mood, Letty kept him amused by a good deal of nonsensical raillery, in which Nell took little part, merely smiling mechanically at Letty’s more outrageous absurdities. Her spirits were oppressed; and she was on tenterhooks lest Letty, encouraged by her brother’s indulgent mood, should think the time opportune to broach the subject of her marriage. Dinner seemed interminable, though it was, in fact, shorter than usual, his lordship not having been expected. The artist belowstairs had had time only to fling together the merest travesty of a second course, supplementing the soup, the pigeons, the poulard a là Duchesse, and the morels of the first course with a grilled breast of lamb with cucumber, prawns in a wax basket, and some cheese-cakes. This very commonplace repast had not escaped