Chapter Twenty-one #3
They entered Bath towards evening on the second day, the dowager’s coach bowling along considerably ahead of the curricle, which had stopped for an unseasonable length of time at a certain hostelry a few miles outside the town.
Lady Sheringham had hired a palatial suite of apartments on the Royal Crescent, so Sherry, sweeping into Belmont from Guinea Lane, bore sharp right into Bennet Street, which led into the Circus, past the New Assembly Rooms. It was in the middle of this crowded thoroughfare, just as the nicest precision of eye was required to negotiate the passage between a hackney carriage, drawn up on the left of the road, and a perch phaeton being driven towards him by a down-the-road-looking man in a many-caped greatcoat, that Sherry caught sight of his wife, walking along with her hand on Lord Wrotham’s arm.
A violent expletive broke from him, and an equally violent start. He jerked his head round, heedless of the phaeton, and the next instant the wheels of both vehicles were locked, and much more violent expletives were issuing from the lips of the down-the-road man.
Since all the horses were plunging in sudden fright, and there was an ominous sound of splintering wood, Sherry was obliged to give his attention where it was most urgently required.
By the time the carriages had been disengaged, thanks largely to the efforts of Jason, who had lost not a moment in leaping down from his perch, and running to the heads of his master’s pair, Hero and George had disappeared into Russel Street.
Sherry, paying no heed at all to the justifiably incensed remarks being addressed to him by the phaeton’s owner, thrust the reins into his cousin’s hands, and, with a brief admonition to him to ‘settle with this fellow’, sprang down from the curricle, narrowly avoided being knocked down by a tilbury, fell foul of a couple of chairmen, whose load was impeding his passage, reached the other side of the street, and set off with great strides towards Russel Street.
He was too late. When he reached the turning there was no sign of his quarry, and after taking a few paces up the street he paused, realising the futility of hunting through all the roads in the vicinity.
He turned and went back, becoming aware on the way that his singular behaviour had attracted no little attention to himself.
He found, too, that he was still carrying his driving-whip, and had the sight of Lord Wrotham, bending solicitously over Hero, not filled him with murderous rage he must have grinned to think of the comic spectacle he presented.
He found Ferdy making his apologies with winning grace, and offering, on his behalf, to pay for the necessary repairs to the phaeton.
The phaeton’s owner was already a little mollified, and everything might have been settled comfortably over a third of daffy, as Ferdy was on the point of suggesting, had not the Viscount nipped such friendly overtures in the bud by scowling upon his victim, offering him the curtest of apologies, handing him his card, climbing into his curricle, and driving off without another word.
‘Really, Sherry, dear old boy!’ expostulated Ferdy. ‘No need to go off like this! Very pleasant fellow!’
‘Did you see who that was?’ Sherry demanded.
The late accident had temporarily put everything else out of Ferdy’s head, but these words recalled him to a sense of his own surprise. ‘Yes, by Jove!’ he exclaimed. ‘Dashed if I could believe my eyes! George! You see him too, Sherry?’
Sherry audibly ground his teeth. ‘Do you think I’m blind? I saw him, and what’s more I saw who was walking on his arm! My wife!’
‘Lady Sheringham?’ said Ferdy cautiously.
‘Yes, you fool.’
‘Now you come to mention it, Sherry, dear boy, I saw her too,’ said Ferdy. ‘Didn’t care to draw your attention to it.’
They had by this time traversed the Circus and were half-way down Brock Street. ‘So that was why –!’ Sherry muttered. ‘It is George I have to thank for –! By God, let me but get my hands on George!’
Ferdy, perceiving that it could only be a matter of minutes before a most unwelcome question would be hurled at him, said in a desperate attempt to avert suspicion: ‘No wish to pry into your affairs, Sherry! Take it you wasn’t expecting to see Lady Sherry? Very extraordinary business!’
Fortunately for him, the Viscount’s mind was so taken up with the thought of George’s duplicity that he paid no heed to this.
The curricle swept into the Royal Crescent and drew up outside one of the houses, behind the chaises, which were being unloaded by a bevy of hirelings.
Jason jumped down and went to the horses’ heads.
As his master descended into the road, he said in a stupefied tone: ‘So help me bob, guv’nor! That were the Missus!’
‘Jason, hold your tongue!’ the Viscount said angrily.
‘Chaffer and daylights close as a oyster, me lord!’ promptly replied the Tiger, his sharp countenance alive with curiosity.
The Viscount strode into the house, leaving his cousin to follow at his leisure.
The entrance hall was a litter of trunks and bandboxes; his lordship picked his way none too carefully through them and ran up the stairs to the parlour on the first floor.
Here he found Miss Milborne directing a couple of abigails where to take various packages that strewed the room.
She smiled at Sherry, and said: ‘Your Mama has the headache, and has gone to lie down on her bed before it is time to dress for dinner. I am sorry we are still in such a pickle, but I will have all in order in – Why, what is the matter, Sherry?’
The Viscount waited until the two abigails had loaded themselves with impedimenta, and then firmly shut them out of the room. With his hand still on the door-knob, he said grimly: ‘Do you know whom I saw in Bennet Street?’
She looked a startled enquiry.
‘George!’ said the Viscount, flinging the name at her.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, blushing a little. ‘Oh, indeed!’
‘Yes!’ returned his lordship. ‘But you need not look so smug, Bella, for he has not come to Bath on your account! He was strolling along, as bold as brass, with my wife hanging on his arm!’
‘Oh!’ gasped Miss Milborne, in quite another voice. ‘Oh, Sherry, no!’
‘He was, I tell you!’ said the Viscount, taking a few hasty paces about the room and kicking an offending bandbox out of his path.
Miss Milborne clasped her hands together and said in a strictly controlled tone: ‘I told you – I told you, Sherry, that he had a marked partiality for Hero! It was the first thing that sprang to my mind when I learned of her having left you. But that he could have – all this time – Oh, it is too base!’
‘Only wait until I come upon him face to face!’ Sherry said through his locked teeth.
She covered her eyes with one hand. ‘I was never more shocked in my life! I do not know what to say! You do not think – might it not be possible that he met Hero in Bath by chance?’
‘No doubt that is what he will try to make us believe!’ Sherry said, with a savage little laugh.
‘But it is doing it a trifle too brown! Now I know why he was so urgent with me not to come to Bath! Now I see it all! Why, he must have posted here ahead of me the instant he was apprised of my having taken the resolve of coming with my mother!’
‘And she!’ Miss Milborne said throbbingly. ‘Oh, I had not thought it of her!’
‘Yes, you had!’ retorted the Viscount, rounding on her. ‘It is precisely what you did think, Bella! And there’s not a word of truth in it, and if you dare to say it again I’ll choke you!’
‘Pray do not be thinking you can talk to me like that!’ said Miss Milborne, bristling. ‘I am not your unfortunate wife, thank heaven!’
‘If you are thanking heaven for that, then at last we are of one mind!’ the Viscount threw at her.
‘This is your fault! If you had not played fast and loose with Wrotham, this would never have happened! By God, whenever I think of the way he did his possible to dissuade me from coming here, and –’ He stopped short.
‘Yes, by Jupiter!’ he said. ‘And Ferdy too! Ferdy! He knew! Well, that’s one of them at least I can get my hands on!
Cousin Ferdy has a trifle of explaining to do! ’
He left the room precipitately as he spoke, and went down the stairs in several perilous bounds.
But although his cousin Ferdy was not generally held to be quick-witted, he had a lively sense of self-preservation, and he had not waited for this inevitable moment.
There was no sign of him in the house, or even outside it, and a furious enquiry of Bootle elicited the information that Mr Fakenham had bethought himself of some urgent shopping that must be done without the least loss of time, and had gone off some ten minutes earlier.
Sherry knew that he had formed the intention of putting up at the York Hotel, and instantly took himself to this hostelry.
He drew blank. Mr Fakenham’s man and Mr Fakenham’s baggage had certainly arrived there, but Mr Fakenham had as yet put in no appearance.
The Viscount, growing steadily more wrathful, waited for some time in the coffee-room, but when it became apparent that his cousin had no immediate intention of emerging from whatever place of hiding he had found, he went back to the Royal Crescent, leaving a message with Ferdy’s valet, which was calculated to terrify Ferdy into an instant flight for London.
The first thing which met the Viscount’s eyes upon his return to his parent’s lodging was a neat oblong of pasteboard lying on the table in the hall.
He glanced cursorily at this, and his temper was by no means improved by the discovery that it bore Sir Montagu Revesby’s name, in flowing copperplate characters.
He passed on upstairs to change his travelling dress for raiment more suited to his mother’s dinner-table.
His sense of filial duty fell short, however, of the stockings and knee-breeches which she was old-fashioned enough to consider de rigueur; he compromised with a pair of exquisitely fitting pantaloons, strapped tightly under his feet; and one of Stultz’s best coats of superfine cloth.
His parent, who seemed to be in excellent spirits, welcomed him into the dining-room with a fond smile, and, when he offered a curt apology for his tardiness, said that it did not signify.
He took his place at the end of the table, saying disagreeably, as he did so: ‘I saw that that fellow has wasted no time in calling upon you, Bella!’
‘If you mean Sir Montagu,’ returned Miss Milborne composedly, ‘he was so obliging as to wait on us to discover if there were any service he could render us. We are already indebted to him for the flowers we found awaiting us.’
‘Yes, indeed!’ agreed Lady Sheringham. ‘Such a delightful man! His air so distinguished: everything about him proclaiming the gentleman! I am sure he said everything that was kind and civil, and only fancy, Anthony, he was able to give me some excellent advice about the treatment I should seek! It seems that there is a Dr Wilkinson, who has lately acquired the Abbey Baths, who Sir Montagu thinks would do me a great deal of good. The Baths are private, you know, and it seems that this Dr Wilkinson has a most interesting scheme in mind for the erection of a Pump Room in Abbey Street, where one may be able to drink four different waters! Conceive of it! Then, too, the doctor is a great advocate for the Russian method of Vapour Baths, which I had not before heard of, but which I am sure would benefit me excessively. I do not know when I have been so pleased with anyone! Sir Montagu spoke, too, of you, with the most flattering degree of affection, dear Anthony.’
‘I’ll thank him to keep his affection for those who may value it!
’ replied his lordship unequivocally. It was apparent to him that Sir Montagu had not been slow to sum Lady Sheringham up, and had spared no pains to ingratiate himself with her.
The idea of Revesby’s having the effrontery to come to a house where he was known to be lodging gave him a passing twinge of annoyance, but as he had a far greater cause for annoyance weighing upon him, he did not waste more than a moment or two’s thought upon it.
He noticed that Miss Milborne had quite recovered her composure, and was able to eat her dinner with a tolerably good appetite.
He himself tasted and rejected various dishes, and bore little part in the discussion between the two ladies of plans for the immediate future.
He did indeed wonder that Miss Milborne could so calmly talk of the several acquaintances she had at present sojourning in Bath, of taking out subscriptions to the Balls at the Assembly Rooms, of visiting the best circulating libraries, and of a dozen other such irrelevant trifles.
As soon as dinner was over, he excused himself from joining the ladies in the parlour, and demanded of the butler if his Tiger had returned from the errand on which he had despatched him.
Jason was waiting downstairs, and was at once sent for.
He grinned cheerfully at his master and announced that Lord Wrotham, whom he described as a peevy cull, was putting up at the White Hart, in Stall Street.
The Viscount then changed his footwear for a pair of gleaming Hessians, called for his hat, and his drab Benjamin, and left the house.