Arabella

“I am very much obliged to you, sir, but no one can help me out of it!” said Arabella tragically. “If only you will be so kind as not to betray me!”

“Of course he won’t betray you!” declared Bertram. “What in thunder have you been about, Bella?”

“Bertram, everyone believes me to be a great heiress!” disclosed Arabella, in a stricken tone.

He stared at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “You goosecap! I’ll wager they don’t! Why, Lady Bridlington knows you are not! You don’t meant that she put such a tale about?”

She shook her head. “I said it!” she confessed.

“You said it? What the devil made you do such a thing? However, I don’t suppose anyone believed you!”

“They do believe it. Lord Bridlington says that every gazetted fortune-hunter in town is dangling after me— and, oh, Bertram, it is true! I have refused five offers already!”

The idea that there could be found five gentlemen ready to marry his sister struck Bertram as being exquisitely humorous, and he went off into another burst of laughter. Arabella was obliged to confess the whole, since he seemed so incredulous. Her narrative was rather disjointed, since he interpolated so many questions; and at one point a considerable digression was caused by Mr. Scunthorpe, who, having regarded her fixedly for some moments, suddenly became loquacious, and said: “Beg pardon, ma’am, but did you say Mr. Beaumaris?”

“Yes. He and Lord Fleetwood.”

“The Nonpareil?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Scunthorpe drew a breath, and turned to address his friend. “You hear that, Bertram?”

“Well, of course I heard it!”

“Didn’t think you could have. You see this coat of mine?”

Both Tallants stared at his coat in some bewilderment.

“Got my man to copy the lapels of one Weston made for the Nonpareil,” said Mr. Scunthorpe, with simple pride.

“Good God, what has that to say to anything?” demanded Bertram.

“Thought you might be interested,” explained Mr. Scunthorpe apologetically.

“Never mind him!” Bertram told his sister. “If it wasn’t just like you, Bella, to fly into a miff, and go off into one of your crazy starts! Mind, I don’t say I blame you! Did he spread the story over London?”

“I think it was Lord Fleetwood who did that. Mr. Beaumaris told me once that he had not discussed the matter with anyone but Lord Fleetwood. Sometimes I have wondered whether—whether he had guessed the truth, but I cannot believe that he has, for he would despise me dreadfully, I am sure, if he knew how odiously I behaved, and certainly not stand up with me at all the balls—for he very seldom dances!—or take me out driving in his curricle.”

Mr. Scunthorpe looked very much impressed. “He does that?”

“Oh, yes!”

Mr. Scunthorpe nodded portentously at Bertram. “You know what, dear boy? All the crack, your sister! Not a doubt of it. Knows all the best people. Drives out with the Nonpareil. Good thing she said she was an heiress.”

“Oh, no, no, I wish I had never done so, for it has made everything so uncomfortable!”

“Now, Bella, that’s gammon! I know you! Don’t you try to tell me you don’t like being all the go, because I wouldn’t believe you if you did!” said Bertram, with brotherly candour.

Arabella thought it over. Then she gave a reluctant smile. “Well, yes, perhaps I do like it, but when I remember the cause of it I do indeed wish I had never said such a thing! Only consider what a fix I am in! If the truth were known now I should be utterly discredited. No one would even bow to me, I daresay, and I have the greatest dread that Lady Bridlington would send me home in disgrace! And then Papa would know, and—Bertram, I had almost rather throw myself into the river than have him know such a thing of me!”

“Lord, yes!” he agreed, with a shudder. “But it won’t come to that! If anyone asks me any prying questions, I shall say you are well known to me, and so will Felix!”

“Yes, but that is not all!” Arabella pointed out. “I can never, never accept any offer made to me, and what Mama will think of such selfishness I dare not consider! For she so much hoped that I should form an eligible connection, and Lady Bridlington is bound to tell her that—that quite a number of very eligible gentlemen have paid me the most marked attentions!”

Bertram knit his brows over this. “Unless—No, you’re right, Bella; devilish awkward fix! You would have to tell the truth, if you accepted an offer, and ten to one he’d cry off. What a tiresome girl you are, to be sure! Dashed if I see what’s to be done! Do you, Felix?”

“Very difficult situation,” responded Mr. Scunthorpe, shaking his head. “Only one thing to be done.”

“What’s that?”

Mr. Scunthorpe gave a diffident cough. “Just a little thing that occurred to me. Daresay you won’t care about it: can’t say I care about it myself, but can’t hang back when a lady’s in a fix.”

“But what is it?”

“Mind, only a notion I had!” Mr. Scunthorpe warned him. “You don’t like it: you say so! I don’t like it, but ought to offer.” He perceived that the Tallants were quite mystified, blushed darkly, and uttered in a strangled voice; “Marriage!”

Arabella stared at him for a moment, and then went into a peal of mirth. Bertram said scornfully: “Of all the cork-brained notions—! You don’t want to marry Bella!”

“No,” conceded Mr. Scunthorpe. “Promised I would help her out of the scrape, though!”

“What’s more,” Bertram said severely, “those trustees of yours would never let you! You’re not of age.”

“Talk them over,” said Mr. Scunthorpe hopefully.

However. Arabella, thanking him for his kind offer, said that she did not think they would suit. He seemed grateful, and relapsed into the silence which appeared to be natural to him.

“I daresay I shall hit upon something,” said Bertram. “I’ll think about it, at all events. Should I stay to do the pretty to this godmother of yours, do you think?”

Arabella urged him strongly to do so. She was inclined to grieve over his necessary incognito, but he told her frankly that it would not at all suit him to be for ever gallanting her to the ton parties. “Very dull work!” he said. “I know you are gone civility-mad since you came to town, but it’s not in my line.” He then enumerated the sights he meant to see in London, and since these seemed to consist mostly of such inocuous entertainments as Astley’s Amphitheatre, the Royal Menagerie at the Tower, Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, a look-in at Tattersall’s, the departure of the Brighton coaches from the White Horse Cellar, and the forthcoming Military Review in Hyde Park, his anxious sister’s worst qualms were allayed. At first sight he had seemed to her to have grown a great deal older, for he was wearing a sophisticated waistcoat, and had brushed his hair in a new style; but when he told her about the peep-show which had diverted him so much in Coventry Street, and expressed a purely youthful desire to witness that grand spectacle, The Burning of Moscow (supported by Tight-rope Walking, and an Esquestrian Display) she could feel that he was still boy enough not to hanker after the more sophisticated and by far more dangerous amusements to be found in London. But, then, as he confidentially informed Mr. Scunthorpe, when they presently left Park Street together, females took such foolish notions into their heads that it would have been ridiculous to have disclosed to her that he had an equally ardent desire to see a bout of fisticuffs at the Fives-court, to blow a cloud with all the Corinthians at the Daffy Club, to penetrate the mysteries of the Royal Saloon, and the Peerless Pool, and certainly to put in an appearance at the Opera—not, he hastened to assure his friend, because he wanted to listen to music, but because he was credibly informed that to stroll in the Fops’ Alley was famous sport, and all the go. Since he had decided, very prudently, to put up at one of the City inns, where, if he chose, he could be sure of a tolerable dinner at the Ordinary, which was very moderately priced, he entertained reasonable hopes of being able to afford all these diversions. But first, he perceived, it was necessary to buy a much higher-crowned and more curly-brimmed beaver to set on his head; a pair of Hessians with tassels; a fob, and perhaps a seal; and certainly a pair of natty yellow gloves. Without these adjuncts to a gentleman’s costume he would look like a Johnny Raw. Mr. Scunthorpe agreed, and ventured to point out that a driving-coat with only two shoulder-capes was thought, in well-dressed circles, to be a paltry affair. He said he would take Bertram along to his own man, a devilish clever tailor, even though he had not acquired the fame of a Weston or a Stultz. However, as the great advantage of patronizing this rising man lay in the assurance