Arabella

Assemblies at Harrowgate?—or have heard her family spoken of.”

“Well, I didn’t!” replied her grace bitterly. “What’s more I don’t want to hear anything more about Harrowgate! A nasty, cold, shabby-genteel place, with the filthiest waters I ever tasted in my life! They did me no good at all, as anyone but a fool like that snivelling leech of mine would have known from the outset! Assemblies, indeed! It’s no pleasure to me to watch a parcel of country-dowds dancing this shameless waltz of yours! Dancing! I could give you another name for it!”

“I have no doubt that you could, ma’am, but I must beg you to spare my blushes! Moreover, for one who is for ever railing against the squeamishness of the modern miss, your attitude towards the waltz seems a trifle inconsistent”

“I don’t know anything about consistency,” retorted her grace, with perfect truth, “but I do know indecency when I see it!”

“We are wandering from the point,” said Mr. Beaumaris firmly.

“Well, I never met any Tallants in Harrowgate, or anywhere else. When I wasn’t trying to swallow something that no one is ever going to make me believe wasn’t drained off from the kennels, I was sitting watching your aunt knot a fringe in the most uncomfortable hole of a lodging I’ve been in yet! Why, I had to take all my own bed-linen with me!”

“You always do, ma’am,” said Mr. Beaumaris, who had several times been privileged to see the start of one of the Duchess’s impressive journeys. “Also your own plate, your favourite chair, your steward, your—”

“I don’t want any of your impudence, Robert!” interrupted her grace. “I don’t always have to take ’em!” She gave her shawl a twitch. “It’s nothing to me whom you marry,” she said. “But why you must needs dangle after a wealthy woman beats me!”

“Oh, I don’t think she has any fortune at all!” replied Mr. Beaumaris coolly. “She only said she had to put me in my place.”

He came under her eagle-stare again. “Put you in your place? Are you going to tell me, sir, that she ain’t tumbling over herself to catch you?”

“Far from it. She holds me at arm’s length. I cannot even be sure that she has even the smallest tendre for me.”

“Been seen in your company often enough, hasn’t she?” said her grace sharply.

“Yes, she says it does her a great deal of good socially to be seen with me,” said Mr. Beaumaris pensively.

“Either she’s a devilish deep ’un,” said her grace, a gleam in her eye, “or she’s a good gal! Lord, I didn’t think there was one of these nimmy-piminy modern gals alive that had enough spirit not to toadeat you! Should I like her?”

“Yes, I think you would, but to tell you the truth, ma’am, I don’t care a button whether you like her or not.”

Surprisingly, she took no exception to this, but nodded, and said: “You’d better marry her. Not if she ain’t of gentle blood, though. You ain’t a Caldicot of Wigan, but you come of good stock. I wouldn’t have let your mother marry into your family if it hadn’t been one of the best—not for five times the settlements your father made on her!” She added reminiscently: “A fine gal, Maria: I liked her better than any other of my brats.”

“So did I,” agreed Mr. Beaumaris, rising from his chair. “Shall I propose to Arabella, risking a rebuff, or shall I address myself to the task of convincing her that I am not the incorrigible flirt she has plainly been taught to think me?”

“It’s no use asking me,” said her grace unhelpfully. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to get a good set-down, but I don’t mind your bringing the gal to see me one day.” She held out her hand to him, but when he had punctiliously kissed it, and would have released it, her talon-like fingers closed on his, and she said: “Out with it, sir! What’s vexing you, eh?”

He smiled at her. “Not precisely that, ma’am—but I have the stupidest wish that she would tell me the truth!”

“Pooh, why should she?”

“I can think of only one reason, ma’am. That is what vexes me!” said Mr. Beaumaris.

XII

On his way home from Wimbledon, Mr. Beaumaris drove up Bond Street, and was so fortunate as to see Arabella, accompanied by a prim-looking maidservant, come out of Hookham’s Library. He pulled up immediately, and she smiled, and walked up to the curricle, exclaiming: “Oh, how much better he looks! I told you he would! Well, you dear little dog, do you remember me, I wonder?”

Ulysses wagged his tail in a perfunctory manner, suffered her to stretch up a hand to caress him, but yawned.

“For heaven’s sake, Ulysses, try to acquire a little polish!” Mr. Beaumaris admonished him.

Arabella laughed. “Is that what you call him? Why?”

“Well, he seemed, on the evidence, to have led a roving life, and judging by the example we saw it must have been adventurous,” explained Mr. Beaumaris.

“Very true!” She watched Ulysses look up adoringly into his face, and said: “I knew he would grow to be attached to you: only see how he looks at you!”

“His affection, Miss Tallant, threatens to become a serious embarrassment.”

“Nonsense! I am sure you must be fond of him, or you would not take him out with you!”

“If that is what you think, ma’am, you can have no idea of the depths to which he can sink to achieve his own ends. Blackmail is an open book to him. He is well aware that I dare not deny him, lest I should lose what little reputation I may have in your eyes.”

“How absurd you are! I knew, as soon as I saw how well you handled him, that you know just how to use a dog. I am so glad you have kept him with you.”

She gave Ulysses a last pat, and stepped back on to the flag-way. Mr. Beaumaris said: “Will you not give me the pleasure of driving you to your door?”

“No, indeed, It is only a step!”

“No matter, send your maid home! Ulysses adds his entreaties to mine.”

As Ulysses chose this moment to scratch one ear, this made her laugh.

“Mere bashfulness,” explained Mr. Beaumaris, stretching down his hand. “Come!”

“Very well—since Ulysses wishes it so much!” she said, taking his hand, and climbing into the curricle. “Mr. Beaumaris will see me home, Maria.”

He spread a light rug across her knees, and said over his shoulder: “I have recalled, Clayton, that I need something from the chemist’s. Go and buy me a—a gum-plaster! You may walk home.”

“Very good, sir,” said the groom, at his most wooden, and sprang down into the road.

“A gum-plaster?” echoed Arabella, turning wide eyes of astonishment upon Mr. Beaumaris. “What in the world can you want with such a thing, sir?”

“Rheumatism,” said Mr. Beaumaris defiantly, setting his horses in motion—

“You? Oh, no, you must be quizzing me!”

“Not at all. I was merely seeking an excuse to be rid of Clayton. I hope Ulysses will prove himself an adequate chaperon. I have something to say to you, Miss Tallant, for which I do not desire an audience.”

She had been stroking the dog, but her hands were stilled at this, and the colour receded from her cheeks. Rather breathlessly, she asked: “What is it?”

“Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

She was stunned, and for a moment could not utter a word. When she was able to control her voice a little, she said: “I think you must be quizzing me.”

“You must know that I am not.”

She trembled. “Yes, yes, let us say that that was all it was, if you please! I am very much obliged to you, but I cannot marry you!”