Four #4
Mr Beaumaris, whose almost imperceptibly lifted finger had brought the watchful Brough to his side, was murmuring some command into that attentive but astonished ear, and paid no heed.
His command was passed on to the footman hovering by the side-table, who, being quite a young man, and as yet imperfectly in control of his emotions, betrayed in his startled look some measure of the incredulity which shook his trained soul.
The coldly quelling eye of his superior recalled him speedily to a sense of his position, however, and he left the room to carry the stupefying command still farther.
Miss Tallant, meanwhile, had perceived an opportunity to gratify her most pressing desire, which was to snub her host beyond possibility of his recovery.
‘Arbiter of Fashion?’ she said, in a blank voice.
‘You cannot, surely, mean one of the dandy-set ? I had thought – Oh, I beg your pardon! I expect that in London that is quite as important as being a great soldier, or a statesman, or – or some such thing!’
Even Lord Fleetwood could scarcely mistake the tenor of this artless speech.
He gave an audible gasp. Miss Blackburn, whose enjoyment of dinner had already been seriously impaired, refused the partridge, and tried unavailingly to catch her charge’s eye.
Only Mr Beaumaris, hugely enjoying himself, appeared unmoved.
He replied coolly: ‘Oh, decidedly! One’s influence is so far-reaching! ’
‘Oh?’ said Arabella politely.
‘Why, certainly, ma’am! One may blight a whole career by the mere raising of an eyebrow, or elevate a social aspirant to the ranks of the highest ton only by leaning on his arm for the length of a street.’
Miss Tallant suspected that she was being quizzed, but the strange exhilaration had her in its grip, and she did not hesitate to cross swords with this expert fencer. ‘No doubt, sir, if I had ambitions to cut a figure in society your approval would be a necessity?’
Mr Beaumaris, famed for his sword-play, slipped under her guard with an unexpected thrust. ‘My dear Miss Tallant, you need no passport to admit you to the ranks of the most sought-after! Even I could not depress the claims of one endowed with – may I say it? – your face, your figure, and your fortune!’
The colour flamed up into Arabella’s cheeks; she choked over the last of her wine, tried to look arch, and only succeeded in looking adorably confused.
Lord Fleetwood, realising that his friend had embarked on yet another of his practised flirtations, directed an indignant glance at him, and did his best to engage the heiress’s attention himself.
He was succeeding quite well when he was thrown off his balance by the unprecedented behaviour of Brough, who, as the second course made its appearance, removed his champagne-glass, replacing it with a goblet, which he proceeded to fill with something out of a tall flagon which his lordship strongly suspected was iced lemonade.
One sip was enough alike to confirm this hideous fear and to deprive his lordship momentarily of the power of speech.
Mr Beaumaris, blandly swallowing some of the innocuous mixture, seized the opportunity to re-engage Miss Tallant in conversation.
Arabella had been rather relieved to see her wine-glass removed, for although she would have died rather than have owned to it, she thought the champagne decidedly nasty, besides making her want to sneeze.
She took a revivifying draught of lemonade, glad to discover that in really fashionable circles this mild beverage was apparently served with the second course.
Miss Blackburn, better versed in the ways of the haut ton , now found herself unable to form a correct judgement of her host. To be plunged from a conviction that he was truly gentlemanlike to a shocked realisation that he was nothing but a coxcomb, and then back again, quite overset the poor little lady.
She knew not what to think, but could not forbear casting him a glance eloquent of the warmest gratitude.
His eyes encountered hers, but for such a fleeting instant that she could never afterwards be sure whether she had caught the glimmer of an amused smile in them, or whether she had imagined it.
Brough, receiving a message at the door, announced that Madam’s groom had brought a hired coach to the house, and desired to know when she would wish to resume her journey to Grantham.
‘It can wait,’ said Mr Beaumaris, replenishing Arabella’s glass. ‘A little of the Rhenish cream, Miss Tallant?’
‘How long,’ demanded Arabella, recalling Mr Beaumaris’s odious words to his friend, ‘will it take them to mend my own carriage?’
‘I understand, miss, that a new pole will be needed. I could not say how long it will be.’
A faint clucking from Miss Blackburn indicated dismay at this intelligence. Mr Beaumaris said: ‘A tiresome accident, but I beg you will not distress yourselves! I will send my chaise to pick you up in Grantham at whatever hour tomorrow should be agreeable to you.’
Arabella thanked him, but was resolute in refusing his offer, for which, she assured him, there was not the slightest occasion.
If the wheelwright proved too dilatory for her patience she would finish her journey post. ‘It will be quite an experience!’ she declared truthfully.
‘My friends assure me that I am a great deal too old-fashioned in my notions – that quite a respectable degree of comfort is to be found in hired chaises!’
‘I perceive,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘that we have much in common, ma’am.
But I shall not allow a distaste for hired vehicles to be old-fashioned.
Let us rather say that we have a little more nicety than the general run of our fellow-creatures!
’ He turned his head towards the butler.
‘Let a message be conveyed to the wheelwright, Brough, that he will oblige me by repairing Miss Tallant’s carriage with all possible expedition. ’
Miss Tallant had nothing to do but thank him for his kind offices, and finish her Rhenish cream. That done, she rose from the table, saying that she had trespassed too long on her host’s hospitality, and must now take her leave of him, with renewed thanks for his kindness.
‘The obligation, Miss Tallant, is all on my side,’ he replied. ‘I am grateful for the chance which has made us acquainted, and shall hope to have the pleasure of calling upon you in town before many days.’
This promise threw Miss Blackburn into agitation. As she accompanied Arabella upstairs, she whispered: ‘My dear Miss Tallant, how could you? And now he means to call on you, and you have told him – oh dear, oh dear, what would your mama say?’
‘Pooh!’ returned Arabella, brazening it out. ‘If he is indeed a rich man, he will not care a fig, or think of it again!’
‘ If he is – Good gracious, Miss Tallant, he must be one of the wealthiest men in the country! When I collected that he was in very truth Mr Beaumaris I nearly swooned where I stood!’
‘Well,’ said the pot-valiant Arabella, ‘if he is so very grand and important you may depend upon it he has not the least intention of calling on me in town. And I am sure I hope he will not, for he is an odious person!’
She refused to be moved from this standpoint, or even to acknowledge that in Mr Beaumaris’s person at least no fault could be found.
She said that she did not think him handsome, and that she held dandies in abhorrence.
Miss Blackburn, terrified that she might, in this alarming mood, betray her dislike of Mr Beaumaris at parting, begged her not to forget what the barest civility rendered obligatory.
She added that one slighting word uttered by him would be sufficient to wither any young lady’s career at the outset, and then wished that she had held her tongue, since this warning had the effect of bringing the militant sparkle back into Arabella’s eyes.
But when Mr Beaumaris handed her into the coach, and, with quite his most attractive smile, lightly kissed the tips of her fingers before letting her hand go, she bade him farewell in a shy little voice that gave no hint of her loathing of him.
The coach set off down the drive; Mr Beaumaris turned, and in a leisurely way walked back into his house. He was pounced on in the hall by his injured friend, who demanded to know what the devil he meant by inflicting lemonade upon his guests.
‘I don’t think Miss Tallant cared for my champagne,’ he replied imperturbably.
‘Well, if she didn’t, she could have refused it, couldn’t she?’ protested Lord Fleetwood. ‘Besides, it was no such thing! She drank two glasses of it!’
‘Never mind, Charles, there is still the port,’ said Mr Beaumaris.
‘Yes, by God!’ said his lordship, brightening. ‘And, mind, now! I expect the very best in your cellar! A couple of bottles of that ’75 of yours, or –’
‘Bring it to the library, Brough – something off the wood!’ said Mr Beaumaris.
Lord Fleetwood, always the easiest of preys, rose to the bait without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Here, no, I say!’ he cried, turning quite pale with horror. ‘Robert! No, really, Robert!’
Mr Beaumaris lifted his brows in the blandest astonishment, but Brough, taking pity on his lordship, said in a soothing tone: ‘We have nothing like that in our cellars, I assure your lordship!’
Lord Fleetwood, perceiving that he had once more been gulled, said with strong feeling: ‘You deserve I should plant you a facer for that, Robert!’
‘Well, if you think you can – !’ said Mr Beaumaris.
‘I don’t,’ replied his lordship frankly, accompanying him into the library. ‘But that lemonade was a dog’s trick to serve me, you know!’ His brow puckered in an effort of thought. ‘Tallant!… Did you ever hear the name before, for I’ll swear I never did?’
Mr Beaumaris looked at him for a moment. Then his eyes fell to the snuff-box he had drawn from his pocket. He flicked open the box, and took a delicate pinch between finger and thumb. ‘You have never heard of the Tallant fortune?’ he said. ‘My dear Charles – !’