Tales from Many Sources Part 38

Notwithstanding, the little lady never lost sight of propriety--Garden was always near enough for her to be able to say, "I've my maid with me;" and added to this, "Bella Chetwode was in town, very much occupied it's true, but still that same staunch friend, always good at a pinch, who, if told that you had been met going to see her, invariably answered that she expected you. Life is full of surprises, and if one is armed at all points matters go on so much more smoothly."

Now it happened that on the previous evening Teddy had shown visible signs of becoming unruly. He didn't see why he should be sent away. Why could he not stop--stop and have dinner with her?

"Why? Because, in the first place, it wouldn't do; and in the second--I forgot though," she said; "being a man, I ought to have reversed the order--there's nothing to give you."

"That don't matter," said Teddy heroically--"I don't care what I eat."

"Oh, don't you; but I do--you might be wanting to eat me."

Teddy threw a look intended to convey that he could conceive no more delicious morsel.

"There there, say good-bye and go away, do!" she cried. "I declare you're beginning to get cannibalish already."

And in spite of all further entreaties and a goodly show of ill-humour, which experience had taught him to keep handy for display, Teddy was forced to obey her command that he should take his departure.

"I must take care not to let that boy go too far," Nina reflected when he had gone. "He wants his paces pulled up now and then, or else he'll get trying to kick over. However, it's only for a day or two, and then I shall be off; and by next season--Oh, he'll have forgotten me, I daresay."

She did not "daresay" anything of the sort--there was a deal too much vanity in her composition to willingly give up any homage that had once been offered to her; but the supposition served as a salve for her conscience, which in the matter was not altogether easy, for in her letters to Rowley, and she wrote to him every day, she had never said a single syllable of having seen Teddy. It was not that she had any wish to be sly with him; but, reasoning in her own way--what good was there in telling any one things which would make them uneasy, and Rowley was such a good fellow, so wrapt up in and devoted to her,--he'd be wretched if she told him that Teddy was in town and came to see her every day.

No; where ignorance was bliss it was folly to let it interfere with fis.h.i.+ng; much better let Rowley continue in peace and tranquillity; and on Sat.u.r.day he and she were to join each other at the Twyford Junction, on their way to Scotland to pay a heap of visits together, some new gowns for which had brought her to London; and her face softened with a smile that flitted across it as she a.s.sured herself that ten minutes with Rowley would make her forget the existence of Teddy. Poor infatuated boy!

Possibly Mrs. Dacres' velvety brown eyes would have opened a trifle wider could she have followed the footsteps of her devoted admirer.

Teddy, wise in his generation, made the provision of a consolation a matter of principle; therefore when the door closed behind him at one house, he quickly hailed a hansom which should take him to another, where he would not only be welcomed, but instead of having to beg for a dinner he would be begged to eat one. Matters turned out as he premised, and he only picked up his grievance against Nina the next day when he was urging her that they should go to his rooms and have tea.

When this proposition was started Teddy wasn't particularly keen as to whether she came or whether she did not; but, ill luck would have it, Nina chose that very opportunity for a.s.serting her dignity--and after that the question of the tea became a question of who should be conqueror.

"If I give in again, I'll be hanged," said Teddy to himself, and he brought to bear the various resources he was master of with such effect that Nina, driven into a corner, was fairly beaten and confessed to herself that it served her right--"he's been allowed to go too far, and this is the upshot of it."

She made these reflections however with a face that told no tales, stepped into a hansom with a pretty air of being overruled by a will stronger than her own, and only insisted on keeping up her ungainly sized parasol because "the sun in one's eyes is so disagreeable."

Now, as chance would have it, instead of fis.h.i.+ng in the country, Captain Rowley Dacres was spending that day in London. Circ.u.mstances had brought him to town early in the morning; but, to his discredit do I tell it, he hated shopping, and hadn't Nina told him in every letter she sent that she was with the dressmaker every hour of the day? If he went home he should have to go with her there, or to some other confounded place, for so long as a shop was near, Nina would be safe to have something to buy in it. During those few months they were engaged, what a purgatory he had gone trough. He was a lover then--he was a husband now, and he whistled the air of a popular tune known by the name of "Not for Joe."

The first few bars had but just escaped him, when who should he stumble across but an old chum, Nick Walcot, who, hearing that up to seven o'clock--when he was going to pop in upon Nina--Rowley had nothing to do, gave a mysterious wink of his eye saying, "All right, old fellow; I'm going somewhere, and I'll take you."

The somewhere proved to be a small bijou residence in the neighbourhood of Thurloe Square; and, arrived at the door, it suddenly struck Rowley who lived there.

"Oh come, I say," he began, drawing back a step or two. "I don't half think this'll do. I'm married now, you see, and I've given up this sort of society.".

Nick looked at him with an air of injured surprise.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "There's nothing against Miss Fisher that I know of; it's simply that I've been asked to lunch with her, and as I know she'll have a friend, I take ditto because I'd rather sit down four than three." Rowley hastened to disabuse any prejudice against Miss Fisher, whom he felt sure was the very soul of propriety, "Only, don't you know, women get an idea, and though my little wife's the best sort in the world, if she got scent that I'd been lunching with an actress instead of going straight to her, there'd be the very deuce to pay."

"Fiddle de dee! besides, how is she to know? who's to tell her?" and before there was time to answer, a vigorous pull was given to the bell.

"Confound this fellow; I wish I'd gone straight off to Nina. What a fool I am!" These were the reflections of Captain Dacres as he followed his friend into the presence of Miss Fisher, who received him with easy cordiality.

"Good gracious on me! Captain Dacres," she said, "what a time it is since I've seen you, to be sure; I took it for granted you were dead."

"Dead!" repeated Nick Walcot. "Why he's married; didn't you know?"

"Oh, it's about the same to me," laughed the lady, and then tilting herself back in her chair so that her voice might reach the further room more easily, she called, "Doady I say, come in here--there's a surprise for you."

And in answer to the summons a young lady appeared, who threw herself into a dramatic att.i.tude exclaiming, "What! Captain Dacres? Well I never! Why--who'd a thought of seeing you?"

Certainly it was not Captain Dacres who had antic.i.p.ated that pleasure, for while responding with the best grace he could command to the chaff and banter which began to be darted at him, he was consigning Miss Fisher, and more especially the effusive Doady, to every depth between this world and the one below.

The announcement of luncheon opened a more cheerful vista. "Here I am, and I must make the best of it," thought Rowley following, in company with Doady, Nick Walcot and Miss Fisher. "But if ever anything of the sort happens again may I be tarred and feathered. To think I ever thought this woman pretty, and to fancy that to this day Nina is jealous of her."

The luncheon, commenced at an unusually late hour, took a long time getting through; the two ladies were excellent company, and notwithstanding the invectives he had indulged in, five o'clock struck very quickly. Then it was discovered that everybody was going the same way, and it ended with two hansoms being called. Miss Fisher and Nick Walcot got into one, Captain Rowley and Doady Donne occupied the other.

"How tiresome the sun is, let me put up your parasol?" said our friend Rowley, with evident anxiety to screen her; but Doady begged he wouldn't trouble.

"I don't mind the sun a bit," she said. "And I'm not in the least afraid of any one seeing me, since you've married you've grown so very respectable."

"Confound her," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rowley mentally, and he congratulated himself on the emptiness of London, resolving to keep his head well back and sit a little on one side as they went through Piccadilly. Doady asked a question about some friend in whom she had formerly felt an interest; this led to past reminiscences and the telling of some good story, over which Rowley was still laughing when there came a crash, followed by a b.u.mp and a swaying forward and back. "Hang the fellow, he's run into another hansom!"

In an instant Rowley had dexterously jumped out on to the pavement; the occupant of the other hansom, whose wheel was locked into theirs, obeying the same instinct, had done the same.

"Why, if ain't Teddy Vere. Oh my!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed one feminine voice shrilly, while from under a red parasol, still open, another groaned, "Rowley! it can't be! Oh, what will become of me?"

Self-preservation is the first law of nature; the woman who hesitates is lost. Before another minute had pa.s.sed Nina was out of one cab and into another close by.

"Drive off as fast as you can--never mind where! I'll tell you when we get further on," and five minutes later she gave the cabman the address of Mrs. Chetwode's house.

Bursting into the room she cried, "Oh, Bella, such a horrible thing has occurred! Do help me." And she told her the whole story, ending by saying, "I left word at home, when I went out, that I was going to see you."

Mrs. Chetwode said something by way of calming her, and then she rang the bell.

"Tell Martin to go to Mrs. Dacres', and say she will not return to dinner, I've prevailed on her to stop with me. Now, my dear, try and keep calm and put on the best face you can, and we must trust to Providence to help us through."

"But suppose he saw me"

"Oh, no, we'll suppose he didn't see you; and I think you may trust to Teddy--he's got his head screwed on the right way."

Nina wiped away the tears which had flowed over. "Nothing can excuse me for being so imprudent," she said with a half sob; "all the time I knew how wrong it was of me; and the worst is, Bella, I didn't care."

"Didn't care! How?"

"I mean I didn't care for Teddy. What could a boy like that possibly be to me? Why, of course I love Rowley dearly--more than I could tell you; and to think I should risk it all in this stupid way. Oh! it's my abominable vanity; that's what it is. Aunt Jane always said it would be my ruin, and so it will be--after this, you see, Rowley will believe anything of me? Oh, Bella, what shall I do? I shall die."

"Well, my dear, it's the best thing that could happen to you if you are going to behave in this absurd manner." Mrs. Chetwode saw that strong measures must be resorted to; she quite intended reading Nina a lecture; but the time to do so was not now. "There's no doubt but that you _have_ been imprudent, _very_; but if I am to help you it's not by letting you sit there and cry."

"Wh--at do you wish me to do?"

"To dry your eyes and come down with me to dinner and chat away as we always do. If your husband was going home Martin will bring back word that he is there, or else he will come here and fetch you."

"You took the message?" Mrs. Chetwode asked as the two ladies descended to dinner.

"Yes, ma'am."