Charity Girl Part 9

"From what I have been able to discover I fear that that may be true,"

said Desford.

"Ha! Dead, is he? And a good thing if he is!" said Nettlecombe viciously. "He's been dead to me for years, and if you think I'll have anything to do with any child of his you're mistaken!"

"I do think it, and I am persuaded that I'm not mistaken, sir. When you have heard in what a desperate situation she has been left I cannot believe that you will refuse to help her. Her mother died when she was a child, and her father placed her in a school in Bath. Until a few years ago, he paid the necessary fees, though not always, I fancy, very punctually, and from time to time he visited her. But the payments and the visits ceased-"

"I know all this!" interrupted Nettlecombe. "The woman wrote to me!

Demanded that I should pay for the girl! A d.a.m.ned insolent letter I thought it, too! I told her to apply to the girl's maternal relations, for she wouldn't get a groat out of me!"

"She obeyed you, sir, she applied to Lady Bugle, but I don't think she got a groat out of her either," said Desford dryly. "Lady Bugle, perceiving an opportunity to provide herself with an unpaid servant, took Miss Steane to her home in Hamps.h.i.+re, under an odious pretence of charity, for which she demanded a slavish grat.i.tude, and unending service, not only for herself, but for every other member of her large family. Miss Steane's disposition is compliant and affectionate: she had every wish in the world to repay her aunt for having given her a home, and uncomplainingly performed every task set before her, from hemming sheets, or running errands for her cousins, to taking charge of the nursery-children. And I daresay she would still be doing so, perfectly happily, had her aunt treated her with kindness. But she did not, and the poor child became so unhappy that she ran away, with the intention of appealing to you, sir, for protection."

Nettlecombe, who had listened to this speech with a scowl on his brow, punctuating it with muttered comments, and fidgeting restlessly in his chair, burst out angrily: "It's no concern of mine! I warned that scoundrelly son of mine how it would be if he didn't mend his ways. He made his bed, and he must lie on it!"

"But it is not he who is lying on it," said the Viscount. 'It is his daughter who is the innocent victim of her father's misdeeds."

"You should read your Bible, young man!" retorted Nettlecombe on a note of triumph. "The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children!

What about that, eh?"

A pungent reply sprang to the Viscount's lips, but it remained unuttered, for at that moment the door opened, and a middle-aged and buxom woman sailed into the room, saying in far from refined accents: "Well, this is a surprise, to be sure! When that old Tabby downstairs, which has the impudence to call herself Mrs Nunny, just as though a rabbit-pole like she is ever had a husband, told me my lord had a gentleman visiting him you could have knocked me down with a feather, for in general he don't receive, not being in very high force. Though we shall soon have him quite rumt.i.tum again, shan't we, my lord?"

My lord responded to this sprightly prophecy with a growl. As for Desford, the newcomer's surprise was as nothing to his, for she spoke as though she were well-acquainted with him, and he knew that he had never before seen her. He wondered who the devil she could be. Her manner towards Nettlecombe suggested that she might be a nurse, hired to attend him during recuperation from some illness but a stunned look at the lavishly plumed and high-crowned bonnet set upon her bra.s.sy curls rapidly put that idea to flight. No nurse wearing such an exaggeratedly fas.h.i.+onable bonnet would ever have been allowed to cross the threshold of a sick-room; nor would she have dreamt of arraying herself (even is she could have afforded to do so) in a purple gown with a demi-train, and trimmed with knots of ribbon.

His blank astonishment must have shown itself in his face, for she simpered, and said archly: "I have the advantage of you, haven't I? You don't know who I am, but I know who you are, because I've seen your card. So my lord don't have to tell me."

Thus put pointedly in mind of his social obligations Lord Nettlecombe said sourly: "Lord Desford-Lady Nettlecombe. And you've no need to look like that!" he added, as Desford blinked incredulously at him. "My marriage doesn't have to meet with your approval!"

"Certainly not!" said Desford, recovering himself. "Pray accept my felicitations, sir! Lady Nettlecombe, your servant!"

He bowed, and finding that she was extending her hand to him took it in his, and (since she clearly expected it) raised it briefly to his lips.

"However did you find us out, my lord?" she asked. "Such pains did we take to keep it secret that we'd gone off on our honeymoon! Not that I'm not very happy to make your acquaintance, for I'm sure we couldn't have wished for a more amiable bride-guest, neither of us!"

"Don't talk such fiddle-faddle, Maria!" said Nettlecombe irascibly.

"He's not a bride-guest! He didn't know we were married when he forced his way in here! All he wants to do is to foist Wilfred's brat on to me, and I won't have her!"

"You are mistaken, sir!" said the Viscount icily. "I have not the smallest wish to see Miss Steane in a house where she is not welcome!

My purpose in coming to visit you is to inform you that she-your granddaughter, let me remind you!-is entirely dest.i.tute! Had I not been with her when she found your house shut up she must have been in a desperate case, for she has no acquaintance in London, no one in the world to turn to but yourself! What might have become of her I leave to your imagination!"

"She had no business to run away from her aunt's house!"

Nettlecombe said angrily. "Most unbecoming! Hoydenish behaviour! Not that I should have expected anything better from a daughter of that rake-shame I refuse to call my son!" He turned towards his bride. "It's Wilfred's brat he's talking about, Maria: you remember how vexed I was when some bra.s.s-faced school-keeper wrote to demand that I- I! - should pay for the girl's schooling? Well, now, if you please-" He broke off, his gaze suddenly riveted to the shawl she was wearing draped across her elbows. "That's new!" he said, stabbing an accusing finger at it. "Where did it come from?"

"I've just purchased it," she answered boldly. She still smiled, but her smile was at variance with the determined jut of her chin, and the martial gleam in her eyes. "And don't try to bamboozle me into thinking you didn't give me leave to buy myself a new shawl, because you did, and this very morning, what's more!"

"But it's silk!" he moaned.

"Norwich silk," she said, smoothing it complacently. "Now, don't fly into a miff, my lord! You wouldn't wish for me to be seen about in a cheap shawl, such as anyone could wear, not when I'm your wife!"

There was nothing in his expression to encourage her in this belief; and as he complained mournfully that if she meant to squander his money on finery he would soon be ruined, and added a reproachful rider to the effect that he had expected his marriage to be an economy, Desford very soon found himself the sole, and wholly disregarded, witness to a matrimonial squabble. From the various things that were said, he gathered, without much surprise, that Lord Nettlecombe had married his housekeeper. Why he had done so did not emerge; the reason was to be revealed to him later. But it was plain that in the role of housekeeper my lord's bride had proved herself to be as big a save-all as he was himself; and that once she had him firmly hooked she had lapsed a little from her former economical habits. And, watching her, as she contended with her lord, always with that firm smile on her lips and that dangerous gleam in her eyes, he thought that it would not be long before my lord would be living under the cat's foot, as the saying was. For a moment he wondered whether it might be possible to enlist her support, but only for a moment: my Lady Nettlecombe was concerned only with her own support. There was not a trace of womanly compa.s.sion in her eyes, and no softness beneath her determined smile.

The quarrel ended as abruptly as it had begun, my lady suddenly recollecting Desford's presence, and exclaiming: "Oh, whatever must Lord Desford be thinking of us, coming to cuffs like a couple of children over no more than a barley-straw? You must excuse us, my lord! Well, they do say that the first year of marriage is difficult, don't they, and I'm sure my First and I had many a tiff, but no more than lovers' quarrels, like this little breeze me and my Second has just had!" She leaned forward to fondle her Second's unresponsive hand as she spoke, and adjured him, in sugared accents, not to put himself into a fuss over a mere shawl.

"I don't give a rush for what Desford thinks of me!" declared Nettlecombe, two hectic spots of colour burning in his cheeks. "c.o.c.ky young busy-head! Meddling in my affairs!"

"Oh, no!" Desford interposed. "Merely bringing your affairs to your notice, sir!"

Nettlecombe glared at him. "Wilfred's daughter is no affair of mine! It seems to me she's your affair, young man! Ay, and it seems to me there's something very havey-cavey about this! How did you come to be with her when she called at my house? Tell me that! It's my belief you ran off with her from her aunt's house, and now you're trying to be rid of her! Well, you're blowing at a cold coal! No man has ever contrived to put the change on me!"

Desford turned white with anger, and for an instant such an ugly look blazed in his eyes that Nettlecombe shrank back in his chair, and his spouse rushed forward, and dramatically commanded the Viscount to remember her lord's age and infirmities. It was unnecessary. The Viscount had already regained control over his temper, and although he was still pale with wrath, he was able to say in a level voice: "I do not forget it, ma'am. His lords.h.i.+p's infirmities seem to have affected his brain, and G.o.d forbid I should call a lunatic to account! If I allowed myself to follow my own inclinations I should leave this house immediately, but I am not here for any purpose of .my own, but solely on behalf of an unfortunate child, who has no one but him to turn to, and so must suffer him to insult me with what patience I can muster!"

Nettlecombe, who had been scared out of his ungovernable fury, muttered something that might have been an apology, and added, in a querulous tone: "Well, it does sound havey-cavey to me-and so it would to anyone!"

"It is not, however. I did not run off with Miss Steane from her aunt's house. Even if I were such a loose screw as to run off with any girl, you can hardly suppose that I could possibly do so after barely half-an-hour's conversation with her! I encountered her, the day after my one meeting with her, trudging along the post-road to London, quite unattended, and carrying a heavy portmanteau. I pulled up my horses, of course, and tried to discover what had led her to take such an imprudent-indeed, such an improper step! I shall not weary you with what she was induced to tell me: I will merely say that she was in great distress, and by far too young and inexperienced to have the least idea of what might be the disastrous consequences of her rashness. Her one thought was to reach you, sir-believing in her innocence that you would help her! Since you haven't hesitated to throw the grossest of insults at my head, I need not scruple to tell you that I didn't share her belief! I did what I could to persuade her to let me drive her back to her aunt's house, but I failed. She begged me instead to take her to London. We reached your house in the late afternoon, by which time I had seen enough of her to make me feel that no one, least of all a grandparent, could be hardhearted enough to turn her from his door. And in spite of the intemperate things you have said I still think that had you been at home, and had seen her, you must have taken pity on her. But you were not at home-which was almost as big a facer for me as it was for her! In the circ.u.mstances, I thought the best thing I could do was to take her to a very old friend of mine, and leave her in her charge until I could discover your whereabouts, and put her case before you. I trust I have now done so to your satisfaction."

"There's only one thing she can do. She must return to her aunt," said Nettlecombe. "She took the girl away from school, so it's her responsibility to look after her, not mine!"

"That's just what I was thinking!" nodded the lady.

"It is a waste of time to think it, ma'am: she won't go. I daresay she would liefer hire herself out as a cook-maid!"

"Well, and why shouldn't she?" demanded her ladys.h.i.+p, bristling. "I'm sure it's a very respectable calling, and there's plenty of chances for her to rise higher, if she has her wits about her, and gives satisfaction!"

"What have you to say to that, sir?" asked the Viscount. "Could you stomach the knowledge that your granddaughter was earning her bread as a servant?"

Nettlecombe uttered a brutal laugh. "Why not? I married one!"

This declaration not unnaturally took Desford's breath away. He found himself bereft of words; but on my lady it had quite another effect. She rounded on Nettlecombe, and said in a trembling voice: "I was never a servant of yours, and well you know it! I was your lady-housekeeper, and I'll thank you to remember it! The idea of you casting nasty aspersions at me! Don't you dare do so never no more, or you'll hear some home-speaking from me, my lord, and so I warn you!"

He looked a little ashamed, and more than a little apprehensive, and said hastily: "There, don't take a pet, Maria! I didn't mean it! The thing is that Desford has nettled me into such a flame that I hardly know what I'm saying. Not but what-However, let it rest! I'll give you a new bonnet!"

This offer led to an instant reconciliation, my lady even going so far as to embrace him, exclaiming: "That's more like my dear old Nettle!"

"Yes, but I'll go with you to choose it, mind!" said his lords.h.i.+p warily.

"And as for Wilfred's brat, if you think you can palaver me into taking her into my house, Desford, I'll tell you once and for all I won't do it!"

"I don't think it. What I beg leave to suggest to you, sir, is that you should make her an allowance: enough to enable her to maintain herself respectably. Not a fortune, but an independence."

But this proposal made Nettlecombe's eyes start alarmingly in their sockets, with as much incredulity as dismay. He said in a choked voice: "Squander my money on that little gypsy? Do you take me for a cabbage-head?"

He received prompt support from his bride, who advised him strongly not to let himself be choused out of his blunt. She added, with great frankness, that for her part she had no notion of raking and sc.r.a.ping to save his blunt for him only to see it thrown away on a hurly-burly girl who had no claim on him. "It's bad enough for you to be obliged to grease Jonas's wheels," she said, "and when I think of the way he's behaved to me, trying to get you to turn me off, let alone coming the n.o.b over me, it turns me downright queasy to think of him, and that niffy-naffy wife of his, living as high as coach-horses at our expense!"

The Viscount picked up his hat and gloves, and said contemptuously: "Very well, sir. If money means more to you than reputation there is nothing further to be said, and I'll take my leave of you."

"It does!" snapped Nettlecombe. "I care nothing for what anyone says of me-never have cared! And the sooner you take yourself off the better pleased I shall be!"

But the Viscount's words had made the bride look sharply at him, a shade of uneasiness in her face. She said, in a bl.u.s.tering manner: "I'm sure there's no reason why anyone should blame my lord! No one ever blamed him for disowning the girl's father, and he was his son!"

The Viscount, who had not missed that swift, faint look of uneasiness, replied, slightly raising his brows: "Well, that is not quite true, ma'am. It was acknowledged that he had been given great provocation, but a number of people considered that he had acted in a- let us say, in a way that was unbecoming in one who was not only a father, but a man of rank."

"Balderdas.h.!.+" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nettlecombe, flus.h.i.+ng. "How do you know what anyone thought? You were in the schoolroom!"

"You must have forgotten, sir, that my father was one of those who did blame you," said the Viscount gently. "And-er-made no secret of his disapproval!"

As Lord Wroxton's disapproval had found expression in giving Nettlecombe the cut direct in full view of some dozen members of the ton, it was not surprising that the angry flush on Nettlecombe's face deepened to a purple hue. He snarled: "Much I cared for Wroxton's opinion!" but his fingers curled themselves into claws, and he glared at Desford as though he would have liked to fix those claws round his throat.

"Furthermore," pursued Desford relentlessly, "whatever excuses might be found for your treatment of your son, none can be found for your behaviour towards his orphaned daughter, who is innocent of any fault, but is to become not only the victim of her father's improvidence but also of her grandfather's rancour!"

"Let 'em say what they choose! I don't care a b.u.t.ton what they say!"

"They won't know anything about it!" said my lady.

"My lord don't go about much nowadays, so- " She stopped, staring at Desford, who was smiling in a very disquieting way.

"Oh, yes, they will know, ma'am!" he said. "I pledge you my word the story will be all over town within a sennight!"

"Jackanapes! Rush-buckler!" Nettlecombe spat at him.

But at this point my lady quickly intervened, begging him not to fret himself into a fever. "It won't do to act hasty!" she urged. "You may not care for what people say of you, but it's my belief it's me as will be blamed! Even your friends have behaved very stiff to me, and I don't doubt but what they'd say it was my doing you wouldn't have anything to do with this girl, and that won't suit me, my lord, and no amount of argufying will make me say different!"

"And it won't suit me to waste my money on the girl! Next you'll be telling me it's my duty to buy her an annuity!"

"No, I shan't. It isn't to be expected that you should, nor that you should pay her an allowance, for who's to say when you might find it inconvenient to be obliged to sh.e.l.l out the ready-pay the allowance, I mean? I don't hold with allowances: it makes anyone fidgety to have a thing like that coming due every quarter. No, I've got a better notion in my noddle-better for the girl too! What she wants, poor little thing, is a home, and that's what you can give her, and without being purse-pinched. So why don't you write to her, and offer to take her into the family? I'll see to it she don't worrit you, and she won't worrit me either.

In fact, the more I think of it the more I feel I should like to have her.

She'll be company for me."

"Take Wilfred's brat into the family?" he repeated, almost stunned.

She patted his hand. "Well, my lord here is in the right of it when he says it ain't her fault she's Wilfred's brat. I declare I feel downright sorry for her! And if it's expense you're thinking of, Nettle, I shouldn't wonder at it if she turned out to be an economy, because it wouldn't be an extra mouth to feed, for you know I paid off Betty before we left London, thinking it was a sinful waste of money to keep a girl just to mend the linen, and wash the chandeliers, and the best china, and lend old Lattiford a hand with the silver, and that. Mind you, it's a bigger waste of money keeping a butler that's as old and infirm as what he is, but you'd have to pension him off if you sent him packing, so while he can work it's best for us to keep him."

Nettlecombe, who had listened to her in gathering exasperation, said explosively: "No, I tell you! I won't have her in my house!"

"Allow me to set your mind at rest!" said Desford. "You will most certainly not have her in your house, sir! I didn't help her to escape from one slavery only to pitchfork her into another!"

He strode towards the door, ignoring a plea from my lady to wait. She followed him into the corridor, begging him not to take her lord's tetchiness amiss, and a.s.suring him that he might rely on her to bring him round. "The thing is," she said earnestly, "that he's out of sorts, poor dear gentleman, and no wonder, with all the kick-up there's been, thinking he was going to lose me, because that shabster, Jonas, had the impudence to set it about that I was setting my cap at him, which I never did, nor thought of! All I thought of was to make him comfortable, which I promise you I did! What's more, I was the most saving housekeeper he'd ever had! But when that Jonas took to saying I was a man-trap, and warning his pa against me- well! I was obliged to tell his lords.h.i.+p I must leave at the term, because I've got my good name to think about, haven't I? So his lords.h.i.+p made me an Offer, which is all the good Master Jonas got out of trying to be rid of me!" She ended on a triumphant note, but as the Viscount was wholly unresponsive, tightened her hold on his sleeve, and said ingratiatingly: "And as for making his granddaughter a slave, you quite mistook my meaning, my lord! I'm sure I wouldn't ask her to do anything I wouldn't do myself-yes, and have done, times out of mind! Not that I was born to it, mind you! Oh, dear me, no! I often think my poor father would have turned in his grave if he'd lived to see the straits I was reduced to, him having been cheated out of his inheritance, like he was, and my First losing his fortune, and leaving me without a souse, which is why I was forced to earn my own bread as best I could. No one knows better than me what it means to step down from one's rightful station, so if you was thinking Miss Steane would be a servant in her grandpa's house you're quite beside the bridge, my lord!

She'll have a good home, and not be asked to do anything any genteel girl wouldn't be expected to do to help her ma!"

"You are wasting your breath, ma'am," he replied, inexorably removing her hand from his sleeve, and continuing his progress towards the stairs.

Baffled, she delivered a Parthian shot. "At any hand," she said shrilly, "you can't say it was me that wouldn't offer the girl a home!"

CHAPTER 10.

For several minutes after he left Lord Nettlecombe's lodging the Viscount seethed with anger, but by the time he was half-way to the High town this had diminished, and the comical side of the late interview struck him, so forcibly that the sparkling look of wrath in his eyes vanished, and the hardened lines about his mouth relaxed. As he recalled some of the things which had been said he began to chuckle; and when he pictured the scenes which must have goaded Nettlecombe to marry the most economical housekeeper he had ever employed he found that he was within ames-ace of positively liking the vulgar creature.

He wished very much that there was someone with him to share the joke: Hetta, for instance, whose sense of the ridiculous was as lively as his own. He would tell her all about it, of course, but recounting an absurd experience was not the same as sharing it. It was to be hoped she didn't make the mistake of marrying that prosy fellow whom he had found dangling after her at Inglehurst, for he wouldn't suit her at all: he was just the kind of slow-top to ask her in a puzzled voice what she meant when she made a joke. Come to think of it, none of Hetta's suitors-and, lord, how many of them there had been!-had ever seemed to him worthy of her: queer that such an intelligent girl should be unable to recognize at a glance men who were quite beneath her touch!

Recalling her numerous suitors he could not bring to mind one whom he had liked. There had been several dead bores amongst them; at least two bladders, who never stopped gabbing; and any number of men who were, in his opinion, very poor sticks indeed.

These reflections had led his mind away from the immediate problem confronting him, but the recollection of it soon recurred, and put an end to any desire in him to laugh at the failure of his mission, or to speculate on the strange vagaries of females. A less determined man might have felt that he had been tipped a settler, and have thrown his towel into the ring, but the Viscount had a streak of strong determination running through his easy-going nature, and he had no intention of being beaten on this, or any other, suit. He had certainly suffered a set-back, so what he must now do was to think of some other way of providing for Cherry's future well-being. None immediately occurred to him. He wondered what she was doing, whether she was happy at Inglehurst, or whether she was too anxious to be happy; and realized with a slight sense of shock that it was now nine days since he had left her there.

Had he but known it, Cherry was blissfully happy, and only now and then thought about her future. She had fitted into her surroundings as though she had lived at Inglehurst all her life; and she seemed to take as much pleasure in making herself useful to her hostesses as in the small parties Lady Silverdale gave to her neighbours. Indeed, Henrietta thought that she took more, for her disposition was retiring, and her shyness tied her tongue, so that when she was seated at the dinner-table beside a stranger her conversation was inclined to be monosyllabic. Henrietta ascribed this to Lady Bugle's treatment. She had relegated the poor child to the background, and had so systematically impressed upon her that she was far less important than her cousins, and must never put herself forward as though she thought herself their equal, that it had become second nature to her. Henrietta hoped that she would overcome her almost morbid shrinking from strangers for such excessive shyness was, in her view, a handicap to any penniless female obliged to make her own way in the world. It was unfortunate, too, that she was noticeably more ill-at-ease with the various young gentlemen who visited the house than with their fathers. However, once she became acquainted with them she grew less self-conscious, and chatted to them quite naturally. With Sir Charles, and young Mr Beckenham, she was soon on friendly terms; but she treated Tom Ellerdine, who showed a disposition to make her the object of his youthful gallantry, with marked reserve. Henrietta could not help feeling that it was a pity.

Lady Silverdale did not agree.. "For my part," she said, "I think her a very pretty-behaved girl. I own, my love, it quite astonishes me that she is not in the least pert, or coming, as so many girls are nowadays, for one never expected a Steane to be so well-conducted, and her mama was not at all the thing. Not that I ever knew her, because she eloped with Wilfred Steane out of the schoolroom, you know, which shows the most shocking want of delicacy, and just what one would expect in any sister of that Bugle woman!"

"Dear Mama, I am perfectly ready to join you in abusing Lady Bugle, but that is going too far!" expostulated Henrietta laughingly. "She is a horrid creature, but I'm persuaded that she is quite boringly respectable!"

"Good gracious, Hetta, how you do take one up!" Lady Silverdale complained. "You know very well what I mean! She's an excessively underbred woman, and that, you will allow, dear little Cherry is not! I think it remarkable that she shouldn't be, for we all know what the Steanes are like, and although I never heard anything said against the Wissets they did not move in the first circles. I believe old Mr Wisset was an attorney, or something of the sort. And when you consider that Cherry has had no other home than her aunt's house it has me in a puzzle to know how she came by her pretty, modest manners. She certainly cannot have learnt them from Amelia Bugle!"

"No, I fancy she must have learnt them from Miss Fletching," said Henrietta. "From what Cherry has told me, she must be an excellent woman-and it is to Mr Wilfred Steane's credit that he placed Cherry in her school, even if he did forget to pay the bills!"

"Well, it may be so," acknowledged Lady Silverdale, reluctant to perceive any saving grace in Mr Wilfred Steane's character, "but for my part I should rather suppose that he chose the first school that hit his eye. And I am much inclined to think that Cherry's manners spring from her disposition-so very amiable and obliging, and with such delicacy of principle!-than from any lesson Miss Fletching could have taught her.

You know, dearest, how very rarely I take a fancy to anyone, but I own I have taken a strong fancy to Cherry, and shall miss her sadly when she leaves us. Indeed, if Nettlecombe refuses to adopt her, which wouldn't surprise me in the least, because he was always known to be as close as wax, and has "become positively freakish of late years-I have a very good mind to keep her here!"

Henrietta, who knew well, not how rarely her mama took fancies to people, but how frequently she did, and how inevitably she discovered that she had been mistaken in the character of her latest protegee, was startled into exclaiming: "Handsomely over the bricks, Mama, I do beg of you! You have only known Cherry for a sennight!"

"I have known her for nine days," replied her ladys.h.i.+p, with dignity.

"And I must request you, Hetta, not to employ vulgar slang when you are talking to me! Or to anyone, for it is not at all becoming in you! I have not the remotest conjecture what handsomely over the bricks may signify, but I collect that you have heard Charlie say it, and I must tell you that you are very ill-advised to copy the things young men say."

"Oh, don't blame Charlie, ma'am!" Henrietta said, her eyes alight with laughter. "It is what Desford says, when he thinks I am about to do something ras.h.!.+ But I should not have said it to you, and I beg your pardon! In-in unexceptionable language, I hope that you will consider carefully before you come to any decision about Cherry."

"Naturally I shall do so," said Lady Silverdale. "You may be sure of that!"

Henrietta was anything but sure of it, but she said no more, knowing that few things were more likely to goad Lady Silverdale into precipitate action than opposition from herself. Upon reflection she realized that she ought to have been prepared for the announcement which had startled her into uttering the slang phrase which had offended her mama's chaste ears for she had watched Cherry winning more and more approval, and had several times heard Lady Silverdale say that she couldn't conceive how she ever contrived to exist without "our sweet little sunbeam." Well, there was nothing surprising in that: still less was it surprising that Lady Silverdale should be enjoying Cherry's visit, for Cherry was always ready to do whatever her kind hostess wished, and happily ran errands, unravelled tangled embroidery silks, went for tediously slow walks with her round the gardens, accompanied her on sedate drives in her landaulette, read aloud to her, and listened with unfeigned interest to her store of very dull anecdotes. These duties had hitherto fallen to Henrietta's lot, and although she had performed them cheerfully they had bored her very much, and none of them more than listening to reminiscences which had been told her many times before, and reading aloud absurdly romantic and adventurous novels, for which form of literature Lady Silverdale had an incurable pa.s.sion. But three days after Cherry's arrival at Inglehurst Henrietta contracted a slight cold, which made her throat too sore for reading aloud, and she had suggested that Cherry might take her place until she had recovered from her trifling indisposition. She had apologized to Cherry for saddling her with a task which she feared she would think abominably dull, but Cherry had said that indeed she wouldn't think it dull, and the wonder was that she didn't. At least, it seemed wonderful at the outset, but it was soon brought home to Henrietta, that Cherry's literary taste exactly matched Lady Silverdale's. Never having been permitted by Miss Fletching to read novels, she was instantly entranced by the specimen Henrietta gave her, entering into all the hapless heroine's alarms, adoring the hero, hating the villain, uncritically accepting every extravagance of the plot, and eagerly discussing with Lady Silverdale how the story would end. Almost as absorbing did she find the Mirror of Fas.h.i.+on, a monthly periodical to which Lady Silverdale subscribed, and was ready to pore over it for as long as Lady Silverdale pleased. It had to be admitted that with all the advantages of a pretty face, engaging manners, and sweetness of disposition, one attribute had been denied her: she was regrettably lacking in intellect, Henrietta thought that when the ingenuousness of youth left her she would be as foolish as Lady Silverdale (though probably not as indolent), and a sad bore to any man of superior sense, for she was interested only in trivialities and domestic matters, and had very little understanding of wider issues. To Henrietta, who possessed considerable force of mind, this made her no more companionable than a small child would have been, but it suited Lady Silverdale admirably, and would possibly suit some other elderly and rather silly lady just as well. But what a bleak prospect for an affectionate girl, crying out to be loved and cherished! Henrietta sighed over it, but could see no other solution to the problem of her future, if Nettlecombe refused to acknowledge her. The realization that her mother had taken it into her head to keep Cherry with her seriously dismayed her. No dependence could be placed on Lady Silverdale's continuing to dote on the girl: at any moment she might take her in dislike; and even if she did not do that she would almost certainly find her an irksome burden when the family removed to London, which they always did in the spring, and she became engaged in too many social activities to have the smallest need of any other attendant than her dresser. In London, Cherry would inevitably be regarded as that tiresome Extra Female, the bane of all hostesses, and could count herself fortunate if the sudden indisposition of one of the invited ladies led to her inclusion in some of her ladys.h.i.+p's dinner-parties. To suppose that Lady Silverdale's matchmaking instincts would prompt her to find a suitable husband for Cherry was to indulge fancy far beyond the bounds of probability: they were concentrated on her daughter, whose obstinate spinsterhood const.i.tuted almost the only flaw in her otherwise carefree existence. In a year or two she would no doubt be seeking a bride for her adored son, but at no time would she think it inc.u.mbent upon her to find a mate for Cherry. The thought of her brother caused Henrietta to feel a twinge of uneasiness. It had not occurred to Lady Silverdale that he might seek distraction in his enforced stay at Inglehurst by pursuing an a suivie flirtation with Cherry, but Henrietta laboured under no delusions about him, and she knew that he had begun to look far more favourably upon Cherry than when he had first seen her. He no longer spoke contemptuously of her as a snippety-thing, but had described her to at least two of Lady Silverdale's morning visitors as a taking little puss. Henrietta did not for a moment suppose that he had any serious intention in mind; and she had a shrewd suspicion that Cherry's friendly manner towards him rose from a very proper wish to avoid offending the susceptibilities of his mother and sister, and not at all from a desire to encourage his advances. She had at first been very shy of him, but that, naturally, had worn off, as she became better acquainted with him, and it was not many days before she was able to take him very much for granted, behaving towards him with little more ceremony than she would have used towards an elder brother. She fetched and carried for him, and sought to divert him by playing cribbage and backgammon and draughts with him, or even such infantile games as span-counters, in which his superior skill was counterbalanced by his inability to use his right hand. She did these things because she was sorry for him, and anxious to help his mother and sister to keep him amused; but although she enjoyed playing such games and was young enough to be intent on proving herself a match for him, Henrietta did not think that she liked him very much. That made Henrietta sigh again. Not that she wanted Cherry to fall a victim to Charlie's lures, but she did wish that Cherry were not so indifferent to every young man she met, for her indifference, coupled as it was with a tongue-tied shyness, did not make her appear to advantage. The only men with whom she was natural and at ease were nearly all of them old enough to have fathered her; or, if not quite so middle-aged, too old to be considered as possible suitors, at all events.

She certainly liked Desford, but although in years he was only ten years her senior, in experience he was at least twenty years older; and Henrietta believed (and hoped) that she regarded him in the light of a protector, not as a possible suitor. Cary Nethercott, and Sir James Radcliffe had also won her liking, but both these kindly gentlemen were in their thirties, which was probably why she didn't retire into her sh.e.l.l when they came to Inglehurst, but chatted away to, them in the most natural style imaginable. She even told Mr Nethercott all about the lurid romance she was reading to Lady Silverdale, when she was seated beside him at dinner one evening. Henrietta heard her doing it and was moved to silent admiration of the good-nature which made him listen with apparent interest to the tangled story that was being described to him.

As for Charlie, she had little doubt that if some das.h.i.+ng beauty were to come within his ken he would have no thoughts to spare for Cherry.