April Lady

fortunate enough to find him at home. So she told the coachman to drive her to Number 5. It did not seem probable that Mr. Hethersett would be at home, for it was now past eight o’clock, but fortune favoured her. Just as she was searching in her reticule for her purse the door of No. 5 was opened, and Mr. Hethersett himself came out of the house, very natty in knee-breeches and silk stockings, a waistcoat of watered silk, a swallow-tailed coat, and a snowy cravat arranged by his expert hands in the intricate style known as the Mathematical Tie. Set at a slight angle on his oiled locks was an elegant chapeau bras, and hanging from his shoulders was a silk-lined cloak. He carried a pair of gloves in one hand, and an ebony cane in the other, but perceiving the unusual spectacle of a lady engaged in paying off a hackney-coachman at his very door, he transferred the gloves to his right hand so that he could raise one eye the quizzing-glass that was slung about his neck. At just this moment, Nell turned to mount the few steps to his door, and uttered a joyful exclamation. “Felix! Oh, how glad I am to have caught you!”

The jarvey, observing that the expression on Mr. Hethersett’s face was of profound dismay, clicked his tongue disapprovingly. In his view, Nell—as dimber a mort as he had clapped eyes on in a twelvemonth—was worthy of a warmer greeting than the startled: “Good God!” which broke from Mr. Hethersett.

“What the deuce brings you here?” demanded Mr. Hethersett, alarmed out of his usual address. “Cardross hasn’t met with an accident, has he? Or—”

“Oh, no, no! nothing like that!” she assured him. “I shan’t keep you above a moment—are you on your way to a party?—but I have most stupidly forgotten the number of the house Mr. Allandale lodges in!”

Disappointed in this conversation, the jarvey adjured his lethargic steed to get up, and drove slowly off.

“Thank the lord he’s gone!” said Mr. Hethersett. “You know, cousin, you shouldn’t be driving about in a hack, and coming here to ask me for Allandale’s direction! I mean—not my business, but it ain’t at all the thing! Cardross wouldn’t like it. Besides, what do you want with Allandale?”

“Well, that isn’t your business either!” Nell pointed out. “And if Cardross knew I was here he would have not the least objection, I assure you, for I am here for a very sufficient purpose. So will you, if you please, tell me the number of Mr. Allandale’s lodging, and then you may go to your party, and not trouble your head over me any more?”

“No,” said Mr. Hethersett, with unexpected firmness. “I won’t! Well, I should be bound to trouble my head over you: stands to reason! Because it seems to me you’re up to something dashed smoky, cousin. And as for saying Cardross wouldn’t object to your paying calls in a hack at this time of day—well, if that’s what you think, you can’t know him! What I’m going to do is take you home.”

“No, you are not!” said Nell indignantly. “Now, Felix, just because you met me in Clarges Street that day does not give you the right to try to bully and hector me over this!”

“Never mind that!—By the by, I hope all’s right about that business?”

“Yes, yes, Dysart settled it for me.”

“He did, did he?”

“Yes, for he has won a great deal of money on a horse called Cockroach. It was not very handsome of you to have betrayed me to him, however!”

“No, I know it wasn’t. Best thing I could think of, though. What we want now is another hack.”

“No—though I hope it is what I may want in a very little time. I suppose I shall be obliged to tell you what has happened,” she sighed.

“Good God, cousin, do you take me for a flat?” demanded Mr. Hethersett. “If you’re searching all over for Allandale, it means that Letty is up to her tricks. What’s she done? Eloped with the fellow?”

“I very much fear it.”

“Eh?” he said incredulously. “No, no, not the sort of fellow to do a scaly thing like that! I was only funning!”

But when he had heard all that Nell saw fit to tell him of the day’s events he looked a good deal taken aback, and acknowledged that the affair bore all the appearance of an uncommonly rum set-out. “What’s more, if Allandale’s made off with her—yes, but dash it, cousin, that won’t fadge! I mean, it wouldn’t be up to the rig, and though I can’t say I like him above half there’s nothing of the queer nab about him!”

“No, indeed! and that is what makes me very hopeful of finding them still here,” she explained. “So pray will you direct me to the house?”

“Yes, but where’s Cardross?” he demanded. “He can’t have gone out of town again, because I saw him at White’s this afternoon! It’s his business to find Letty, not yours.”

“He—he is dining out tonight, and then, too, he had Sir John Somerby with him, you see.”

“What you mean,” said Mr. Hethersett severely, “is that you haven’t told him.”

“No,” she confessed. “I—I haven’t.”

“Well, you ought to have done so. Very unwilling to offend you, cousin, but you’ve got no right to play the concave suit with Cardross over that chit. Dash it, she’s his ward! Daresay you’re fond of her, but it won’t do to be hoaxing Giles about today’s business.”

“No,” she agreed. “Indeed, I don’t mean to, Felix! Only the thing is that—he—he is very much vexed today. Something occurred that put him sadly out of temper, and I particularly don’t wish to be obliged to break this news to him when—when perhaps he would be quite dreadfully angry with Letty!”

“Good thing if he was!” said Mr. Hethersett unfeelingly. “If you want to know what I think, it’s my belief that the sooner you’re rid of that resty girl the better it will be. Unsteady, that’s what she is. Maggotty, too: never know where to take her, or what she’ll be up to next!” He glanced fleetingly at Nell, but it had grown rather too dark for him to be able to see her face very clearly. However, he had drawn certain conclusions which he was pretty sure were accurate, so he added, in a careless way: “Shouldn’t be surprised if it was her starts that had put him out of temper.”

Nell said nothing in reply to this. The lamplighter was coming down the street, with his ladder carried between him and the boy who followed at his heels. Nell, who was tired of standing outside Mr. Hethersett’s house, pointed this circumstance out to him, saying: “Won’t he think it excessively odd that we should be standing here?”

“Yes, but we ain’t going to stand here,” replied Mr. Hethersett. “It don’t look to me as though Allandale’s at home, but we may as well enquire for him.”

“Do you mean to say that he lives next door to you?” demanded Nell.

“Yes. Well, no reason why he shouldn’t!” said Mr. Hethersett, surprised at the indignant note in her voice. “What I mean is, he don’t trouble me: hardly ever see him!”

“And you have kept me standing outside all this time! It is a great deal too bad of you!” said Nell, treading up the steps to the door, and grasping the heavy brass knocker.

“I was trying to think what I should do with you while I did the trick here. Trouble is there ain’t anywhere for you to go, but you oughtn’t to be asking for Allandale, you know! Leave it to me, cousin!”

She was quite ready to do this, but when the door was opened, and Mr. Hethersett asked the proprietor of the establishment if Mr. Allandale was at home, and was told that he was not, he seemed so much inclined to withdraw without pursuing his enquiries any farther that she felt obliged to intervene. Disregarding a horrified murmur of protest from Mr. Hethersett she boldly asked if Mr. Allandale had gone out alone, or accompanied by a lady.

“Would it be Mr. Allandale’s sister you was referring to, ma’am?” asked the man cautiously.

“Yes,” said Nell, with great promptness.

“Ah!” said the proprietor, stroking his chin in a ruminative way. “That’s what he said, I don’t deny, but it wasn’t what she said, which puts me in a fix, in a manner of speaking, because if it was his sister you was wishful to see I couldn’t say it was her as was here today, not to take my oath on it, I couldn’t. The young party as came here asking for Mr. Allandale told Mrs. Shotwick, which is my good lady, as how she was engaged to be married to him. Which is different.”

“Well, that is the lady I wish to find,” said Nell.

“Ah!” said Mr. Shotwick, still caressing his chin. “I’ve no objection, but the question is, can you, ma’am? Because she ain’t here. Nor hasn’t been, this three hours and more. Which I’m just as glad she hasn’t, on account of all the bobbery there was.”

“Oh, dear!” Nell said, her heart sinking. “What—what sort of bobbery?”

“No, dash it, cousin—!” expostulated Mr. Hethersett, by this time in a state of acute discomfort.