champagne and claret, and the faro-bank’s being broke twice in one week, I’m sure it is a wonder we can still open our doors! And now what must you do, my love, but play piquet with Ravenscar; not that I blame you, for I am sure you did the right thing, and if only he may be induced to try his hand at faro it will have been worth the outlay. Did he seem pleased, my dear?”
“I don’t know,” answered Deborah candidly. “He is a strange creature. I had the oddest feeling that he did not like me, but he chose to play with me all the evening.”
Lady Bellingham laid down the haresfoot, and turned a brightening countenance upon her niece. “Do you suppose perhaps he may offer for you, Deb? Oh, if that were to happen-! I declare I should die of very joy! He is the richest man in London. Now, don’t, don’t, I implore you, take one of your dislikes to him! Only think how our troubles would vanish!”
Deborah could not help laughing, but she shook her head as well, and said: “My dear aunt, I am persuaded no such thought has entered Mr Ravenscar’s head! I wish you will not think so much about my marriage. I doubt I was born to wear the willow.”
“Never say so, Deb! Why, you are so handsome you have even turned Ormskirk’s head—not that I should like you to become his mistress, because I am sure it is not the sort of thing your poor father would have wished for you at all, besides putting you in an awkward situation, and quite ruining all your chances of making a good match. Only if it is not to be Ormskirk, it must be marriage.”
“Nonsense! Put all these bills away, ma’am, and forget them. We have had a run of bad luck, it’s true, and have been monstrously extravagant besides, but we shall come about, trust me!”
“Not with Indian muslin at ten shillings the yard, and wheatstraw for bedding a crown the truss, or the bushel, or whatever it is,” said Lady Bellingham gloomily.
“Wheatstraw?” asked Miss Grantham, wrinkling her brow.
“Horses,” explained her aunt, with a heavy sigh.
Miss Grantham seemed to feel the force of this, and once more bent her head over the bills in her hand. After a prolonged study of these, she said in a daunted voice: “Dear ma’am, do we never eat anything but salmon and spring chickens in this house?”
““We had a boiled knuckle of veal and pig’s face last week,” replied Lady Bellingham reflectively. “That was for our dinner, but we could not serve it at the suppers, my love.”
“No,” agreed Miss Grantham reluctantly. “Perhaps we ought not to give two suppers every night.”
“Anything of a shabby nature is repugnant to me!” said her aunt firmly. “Sir Edward would not have approved of it.”
“But, ma’am, I daresay he would not have approved of your keeping a gaming-house at all!” Deborah pointed out.
“Very likely not, my love. I’m sure it is not at all the sort of thing I should choose to do, but if Ned didn’t wish me to do so he should not have died in that inconsiderate way,” said Lady Bellingham.
Miss Grantham abandoned this line of argument, and returned to her study of the bills. Such items as Naples Soap, Patent Silk Stockings, Indian Tooth-brushes, and Chintz Patches, mounted up to a quite alarming total; while a bill from Warren’s, Perfumiers, and another from a mantua maker, enumerating such interesting items as One Morning
Miss Grantham folded these depressing papers, and put them at the bottom of the sheaf.
“I am sure I am ready enough to live a great deal more frugally,” said Lady Bellingham, “but you may see for yourself, Deb, how impossible it is! It is not as though one was spending money on things which are not necessary.”
“I suppose,” said Deborah, looking unhappily at a bill from the upholsterers, “I suppose we need not have covered all the chairs in the front saloon with straw-coloured satin.”
“No,” conceded Lady Bellingham. “I believe that was a mistake. It does not wear at all well, and I have been thinking whether we should not have them done again, in mulberry damask. What do you think, my love?”
“I think we had better not spend any more money on them until the luck changes,” said Deborah.
“Well, my dear, that will be an economy at all events,” said her ladyship hopefully. “But have you thought that if the luck don’t change-?”
“It must, and shall!” said Deborah resolutely.
“I am sure I hope it may, but I do not see how we can recover, with peas at such a price, and you playing piquet with Ravenscar for ten shillings a point.”
Miss Grantham hung her head. “Indeed, I am very sorry,” she apologized. “He did say he would come again, to let me have my revenge, but perhaps I had better make an excuse?”
“No, no, that would never do! We must hope that he will presently turn to faro, and make the best of it. Mablethorpe has sent you a basketful of roses this morning, my love.”
“I know,” replied Deborah. “Ormskirk sent a bouquet of carnations in a jewelled holder. I have quite a drawerful of his gifts to me. I would like to throw them in his painted face!”
“And so you could, if only you would take poor young Mablethorpe,” her aunt pointed out. “I am sure he has the sweetest of tempers, and would make anyone a most amiable husband. As for his not being of age yet, that will soon be a thing of the past, and if you are thinking about his mother—not that there is the least need, for though she can be very disagreeable, she is not a bad-hearted creature, Selina Mablethorpe—”
“No, I was not thinking of her,” said Deborah. “And I will not think of Adrian either, if you please, aunt! I may be one of faro’s daughters, but I’ll not entrap any unfortunate young man into marrying me, even if my refusal means a debtors’ prison!”
“You don’t feel that Ormskirk would be better than a debtors’ prison?” suggested Lady Bellingham, in a desponding voice.
Deborah broke into laughter. “Aunt Lizzie, you are a most shocking creature! How can you talk so?”
“Well, but, my dear, you will be just as surely ruined for ever in prison as under Ormskirk’s protection, and far less agreeably,” said her ladyship, with strong common sense. “Not that I wish for such a connexion, for I don’t, but what else is to be done?”
“Oh, I have the oddest notion that something will happen to set all to rights, ma’am! Indeed I have!”
“Yes, love,” said Lady Bellingham, without much hope. “We both of us had that notion when we laid five hundred guineas on Jack-Come-Tickle-Me at the Newmarket races, but it turned out otherwise.”
“Well,” said Miss Grantham, thrusting all the bills into one of the drawers of a small writing-table by the window, “I have a very good mind to back Mr Ravenscar to win his curricle race against Sir James Filey. He was offering odds at five to one on himself.”
“What is all this?” demanded Lady Bellingham. “Lucius did say something about an absurd bet, but I was not attending.”
“Oh, Sir James was being as odious as ever, and it seems he was beaten in a race against Ravenscar six months ago, and is as wild as fire to come about again. The long and the short of it is that Ravenscar offered to run against him when and where he chose for a stake of five thousand pounds. And as though that were not enough, he laid odds at five to one against Sir James! He must be very sure of himself.”
“But that is twenty-five thousand pounds!” exclaimed Lad Bellingham, who had been doing some rapid multiplication
“If he loses!”
“I never heard of anything so provoking!” declared he ladyship. “If he has twenty-five thousand pounds to lose, pray why could he not do so at my faro-bank? But so it is always Men have never the least spark of consideration for anything but their own pleasure. Well, I recall that his father was a very disagreeable, selfish kind of a man, and I dare say the son is no better.”
Miss Grantham returned no answer to this. Her aunt, was satisfied with her appearance, picked up a pot of
