Arabella
: Chapter 4

It was at about this moment that that erratic young sprig of fashion, Lord Fleetwood, fixed his friend, and host, Mr Beaumaris, with a laughing eye, and demanded in a rallying tone: ‘Well! You promise me a rare day with the hounds tomorrow – by the by, where do we meet? – but what – what, Robert, do you offer me for my entertainment this evening?’

‘My cook,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘is generally thought to be an artist in his own line. A Frenchman: I think you will like his way of dressing a Davenport chicken, while some trick he has of flavouring a Benton sauce –’

‘What, did you send Alphonse down, then, from London?’ interrupted Lord Fleetwood, momentarily diverted.

‘Alphonse?’ repeated Mr Beaumaris, his finely chiselled brows lifting a little. ‘Oh, no! this is another. I don’t think I know his name. But I like his way with fish.’

Lord Fleetwood burst out laughing. ‘I expect if you discovered a cook with a way of serving game which you liked, you would send him off to that shooting-box of yours, and pay him a king’s ransom, only to kick his heels for three parts of the year!’

‘I expect I should,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris imperturbably.

‘But,’ said his lordship severely, ‘I am not to be put off with a cook! I came here in the expectation of replaceing fair Paphians, let me tell you, and all manner of shocking orgies – wine out of skulls, y’know, and –’

‘The lamentable influence of Lord Byron upon society!’ interpolated Mr Beaumaris, with a faint, contemptuous smile.

‘What? Oh, that poet-fellow that set up such a dust! Myself, I thought him devilish underbred, but of course it don’t do to say so. But that’s it! Where, Robert, are the fair Paphians?’

‘If I had any Paphians in keeping here, you don’t imagine, do you, Charles, that I would run the risk of being cut-out by a man of your address?’ retorted Mr Beaumaris.

Lord Fleetwood grinned at him, but replied: ‘None of your gammon to me! It would take ten times my address to cut-out a – a – dash it, a Midas like you!’

‘If my memory does not err, all that Midas touched turned to gold,’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘I think you mean Croesus.’

‘No, I don’t! Never heard of the fellow!’

‘Well, most of the things I touch have a disheartening way of turning to dross,’ said Mr Beaumaris, lightly, but with a note of bitter self-mockery in his languid voice.

This was going a little too deep for his friend. ‘Humdudgeon, Robert! You can’t bamboozle me! If there are to be no Paphians –’

‘I can’t conceive why you should have supposed there would be,’ interrupted his host.

‘Well, I didn’t, but I can tell you this, my boy! – that’s the latest on-dit!’

‘Good God! Why?’

‘Lord, how should I know? Daresay it’s because you won’t throw your glove at any of the beauties who have been setting their caps at you any time these five years. What’s more, your chères-amies are always such devilish high-flyers, dear boy, it puts notions into the heads of all the old tabbies! Think of the Faraglini!’

‘I had rather not. The most rapacious female of my acquaintance.’

‘But what a face! What a figure!’

‘And what a temper!’

‘What became of her?’ asked his lordship. ‘I haven’t laid eyes on her since she left your protection.’

‘I think she went to Paris. Why? Had you a fancy to succeed me?’

‘No, by Jove, I couldn’t have stood the nonsense!’ said his lordship frankly. ‘She’d have had me rolled-up within a month! What did you have to give for those match-grays she used to drive all over town?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘To tell you the truth,’ confided Lord Fleetwood, ‘I shouldn’t have thought it worth it myself – though I’m not denying she was a curst fine woman!’

‘It wasn’t.’

Lord Fleetwood regarded him, half-curious, half-amused. ‘Is anything worth while to you, Robert?’ he asked quizzically.

‘Yes, my horses!’ retorted Mr Beaumaris. ‘And, talking of horses, Charles, what the devil possessed you to buy one of Lichfield’s breakdowns?’

‘That bay? Now, there’s a horse that fairly took my fancy!’ said his lordship, his simple countenance lighting up with enthusiasm. ‘What a piece of blood and bone! No, really, Robert – !’

‘If ever I replace myself with a thoroughly unsound animal in my stables,’ said Mr Beaumaris ruthlessly, ‘I shall offer him to you in the happy certainty that he will take your fancy!’

Lord Fleetwood was still protesting with indignation and vehemence when the butler entered the room to inform his master, rather apologetically, that a carriage had broken down outside his gates, and the two ladies it bore were desirous of sheltering for a short time under his roof.

Mr Beaumaris’s cool gray eyes betrayed no emotion, but his mouth seemed for an instant to harden. He said calmly: ‘Certainly. There should be a fire in the saloon. Tell Mrs Mersey to wait upon the ladies there.’ The butler bowed, and would have withdrawn, but Lord Fleetwood checked him, exclaiming: ‘No, no, too shabby by half, Robert! I won’t be fobbed off so! What do they look like, Brough? Old? Young? Pretty?’

The butler, inured to his lordship’s free and easy ways, replied with unimpaired solemnity that one of the ladies was both young, and – he ventured to think – very pretty.

‘I insist on your receiving these females with a proper degree of civility, Robert!’ said his lordship firmly. ‘Saloon, indeed! Show ’em in, Brough!’

The butler glanced for guidance towards his master, as though he doubted whether the command would be endorsed, but Mr Beaumaris merely said with his usual indifference: ‘As you please, Charles.’

‘What an ungrateful dog you are!’ said Lord Fleetwood, when Brough had left the room. ‘You don’t deserve your fortune! This is the hand of Providence!’

‘I should doubt of their being Paphians,’ was all Mr Beaumaris found to say. ‘I thought that was what you wanted?’

‘Any diversion is better than none!’ replied Lord Fleetwood.

‘What a singularly infelicitous remark! I wonder why I invited you.’

Lord Fleetwood grinned at him. ‘Now, Robert, did you think – did you think – to come Tip Street over me? There may be plenty of toadies ready to jump out of their skins at the very thought of being invited to the Nonpareil’s house – and no better entertainment offered than a rubber of piquet, I dare swear –’

‘You are forgetting the cook.’

‘But,’ continued his lordship inexorably, ‘I ain’t amongst ’em!’

Mr Beaumaris’s habitual aspect was one of coldness, and reserve, but sometimes he could smile in a way that not only softened the austerity of his countenance but lit his eyes with a gleam of the purest amusement. It was not the smile he kept for social occasions – a faintly sardonic curl of the lips, that one – but those who were honoured by a glimpse of it generally revised their first impressions of him. Those who had never seen it were inclined to think him a proud, disagreeable sort of a man, though only the most daring would ever have uttered aloud such a criticism of one who, besides possessing all the advantages of birth and fortune, was an acknowledged leader of society. Lord Fleetwood, no stranger to that smile, saw it dawn now, and grinned more broadly than ever.

‘How can you, Charles? When you must know that almost your only claim to fashion is being noticed by me!’

Arabella entered the room to replace both its occupants laughing, and thus had the felicity of seeing Mr Beaumaris at his best. That she herself was looking remarkably pretty, with her dusky curls and charming complexion admirably set off by a high-crowned bonnet, with curled ostrich-feather tips, and crimson ribbons tied into a bow under one ear, never entered her head, since Mr Tallant’s daughters had always been discouraged from thinking much about their appearance. She paused on the threshold, while the butler murmured her name and Miss Blackburn’s, quite unselfconscious, but looking about her with a kind of wide-eyed, innocent interest. She was very much impressed by what she saw. The house was not a large one, but she perceived that it was furnished with a good taste which was as quiet as it was expensive. Her quick scrutiny took in Lord Fleetwood, who had put up an instinctive hand to straighten the Belcher necktie he affected, and passed on to Mr Beaumaris.

Arabella had one brother who aspired to dandyism, and she had thought that she had seen in Harrowgate gentlemen of decided fashion. She now perceived that she had much mistaken the matter. No one she had ever seen approached the elegance of Mr Beaumaris.

Lord Fleetwood, or any of his cronies, could have recognised the tailoring of that coat of olive-green superfine at a glance; Arabella, to whom the magic name of Weston was unknown, was merely aware of a garment so exquisitely cut that it presented all the appearance of having been moulded to its wearer’s form. A very good form, too, she noted, with approval. No need of buckram wadding, such as that Knaresborough tailor had inserted into Bertram’s new coat, to fill out those shoulders! And how envious Bertram would have been of Mr Beaumaris’s fine legs, sheathed in tight pantaloons, with gleaming Hessian boots pulled over them! Mr Beaumaris’s shirt-points were not as high as Bertram’s, but his necktie commanded the respect of one who had more than once watched her brother’s struggles with a far less complicated arrangement. Arabella was not perfectly sure that she admired his style of hairdressing – he affected a Stanhope crop – but she did think him a remarkably handsome man, as he stood there, laughter dying on his lips, and out of his gray eyes.

It was only a moment that he stood thus. She had the impression that he was scanning her critically; then he moved forward, and bowed slightly, and begged, in a rather colourless tone, to know in what way he could be of service to her.

‘How do you do?’ said Arabella politely. ‘I beg your pardon, but the thing is that there has been an accident to my carriage, and – and it is raining, and horridly cold! The groom has rid in to Grantham, and I daresay will bring another carriage out directly, but – but Miss Blackburn has taken a chill, and we should be very much obliged if we might wait here in the warm!’

She was stammering and blushing by the time she came to the end of this speech. Outside, it had seemed the simplest thing in the world to solicit shelter; under Mr Beaumaris’s eye, it all at once seemed as though the request were outrageous. To be sure, he was smiling, but it was a very different smile from the one his face had worn when she had entered the room. It was such a very slight curl of the lips, yet there was some quality in it which made her feel ruffled and uncomfortable.

But he said with perfect civility: ‘An unfortunate mishap. You must permit me to send you to Grantham in one of my carriages, ma’am.’

Lord Fleetwood, who had been standing staring in the frankest admiration at Arabella, was jerked into action by this speech. Pulling a chair invitingly close to the fire, he exclaimed: ‘No, no, come and sit down, ma’am! I can see you are chilled to the bone! Shocking weather for travelling! You will have got your feet wet, I daresay, and that will never do, you know! Robert, where have your wits gone a-begging? Why don’t you desire Brough to fetch some refreshment for Miss – er – Miss – for the ladies?’

With a look which Arabella was strongly inclined to construe as one of resignation, Mr Beaumaris replied: ‘I trust he may be doing so. I beg you will be seated, ma’am!’

But it was Lord Fleetwood who handed Arabella to the chair he had placed, saying solicitously: ‘I am sure you are hungry, and will be glad of something to eat!’

‘Well, yes, sir,’ confessed Arabella, who was very hungry indeed. ‘I own, I have been thinking of my dinner for several miles! And no wonder, for I see it is already past five o’clock!’

This naïve speech made his lordship, who never sat down to his dinner before half-past seven at the very earliest, swallow convulsively, but he recovered himself in an instant, and replied without a blink: ‘So it is, by Jupiter! You are famished, then! But never mind! Mr Beaumaris here was just saying that dinner would be served in a trice. Weren’t you, Robert?’

‘Was I?’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘I have the wretchedest of memories, but I am sure you are right. I beg you will do me the honour of dining with me, ma’am.’

Arabella hesitated. She could see from her anguished expression that Miss Blackburn thought she should rather accept Mr Beaumaris’s first offer; and not the most inveterate of optimists could have read into that languid gentleman’s voice anything more than a reluctant civility. But this warm, comfortably furnished room was a most welcome change from the travelling carriage, and the aromas of cooking which had assailed her nostrils as she had crossed the hall had considerably whetted her appetite. She looked a little doubtfully at her host. Again it was Lord Fleetwood who, with his friendly smile and easy manners, clinched the matter. ‘Of course they will dine with us! Now, won’t you, ma’am?’

‘It would be giving too much trouble, sir!’ said Miss Blackburn, in a sort of gasp.

‘No trouble in the world, ma’am, I assure you! In fact, we are very much obliged to you, for we had been wishing that we were to have company, eh, Robert?’

‘Certainly,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris. ‘Was I not just saying so?’

Miss Blackburn, having undergone a lifetime of slights and snubs, was quick to catch the satirical inflection. She cast him a scared, deprecating look, and coloured. His eyes met hers; he stood looking down at her for a moment, and then said in a much kinder tone: ‘I am afraid you are not quite comfortable there, ma’am. Will you not draw nearer to the fire?’

She was thrown into a flutter, and assured him rather disjointedly that she was perfectly comfortable, and himself too good, too obliging! Brough had come into the room with a tray of glasses and decanters, which he set down on a table, and Mr Beaumaris moved towards it, saying: ‘You will like to go upstairs with my housekeeper, I daresay, to take off your wet coat, but first you must let me give you a glass of wine.’ He began to pour out some Madeira. ‘Two extra covers for dinner, Brough – which you will serve immediately.’

Brough thought of the Davenport fowls roasting on the spits in the kitchen, and of the artist in charge of them, and was visibly shaken. ‘Immediately, sir?’ he said, in a failing voice.

‘Let us say, within half-an-hour,’ amended Mr Beaumaris, carrying a glass of wine over to Miss Blackburn.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Brough, and tottered from the room, a broken man.

Miss Blackburn accepted the wine gratefully, but when it was offered to Arabella she declined it. Papa did not like his daughters to taste anything stronger than porter, or the very mild claret-cup served at the Harrowgate Assembly Rooms, and she was a little doubtful of its possible effect on her. Mr Beaumaris did not press her in any way, but set the glass down again, poured out some sherry for himself and his friend, and returned to sit beside Miss Blackburn on the sofa.

Lord Fleetwood, meanwhile, had ensconced himself beside Arabella, and was chatting to her in his inconsequent, cheerful way, which set her quite at her ease. He was delighted to hear that she was on her way to London, hoped to have the pleasure of meeting her there – in the Park, possibly, or at Almack’s. He had plenty of anecdotes of ton with which to entertain her, and rattled on in an agreeable fashion until the housekeeper came to escort the ladies upstairs.

They were taken to a guest-chamber on the first floor, and handed over there to a housemaid, who brought up hot water for them, and bore their damp coats away to be dried in the kitchen.

‘Everything in the first style of elegance!’ breathed Miss Blackburn. ‘But we should not be dining here! I feel sure we ought not, my dear Miss Tallant!’

Arabella was a little doubtful on this score herself, but as it was now too late to draw back she stifled her misgivings, and said stoutly that she was persuaded there could be no objection. Finding a brush and comb laid out on the dressing-table, she began to tidy her rather tumbled locks.

‘They are most gentlemanlike,’ said Miss Blackburn, deriving comfort from this circumstance. ‘Of the first rank of fashion, I daresay. They will be here for the hunting, depend upon it: I collect this is a hunting-box.’

‘A hunting-box!’ exclaimed Arabella, awed. ‘Is it not very large and grand, ma’am, to be that?’

‘Oh, no, my dear! Quite a small house! The Tewkesburys, whose sweet children I was engaged to instruct before I removed to Mrs Caterham’s establishment, had one much larger, I assure you. This is the Melton country, you must know.’

‘Good heavens, are they Melton men, then? Oh, how much I wish Bertram could be here! What I shall have to tell him! I think it is Mr Beaumaris who owns the house: I wonder who the other is? I thought when I first saw him he could not be quite the thing, for that striped waistcoat, you know, and that spotted handkerchief he wears instead of a cravat makes him look like a groom, or some such thing. But when he spoke, of course I knew he was not a vulgar person at all.’

Miss Blackburn, feeling for once in her life pleasantly superior, gave a titter of laughter, and said pityingly: ‘Oh, dear me no, Miss Tallant! You will replace a great many young gentlemen of fashion wearing much odder clothes than that! It is what Mr Geoffrey Tewkesbury – a very modish young man! – used to call all the crack!’ She added pensively: ‘But I must confess that I do not care for it myself, and nor did dear Mrs Tewkesbury. My notion of a true gentleman is someone like Mr Beaumaris!’

Arabella dragged the comb ruthlessly through a tangle. ‘I thought him a very proud, reserved man!’ she declared. ‘And not at all hospitable!’ she added.

‘Oh, no, how can you say so? How very kind and obliging it was of him to place me in the best place, so near the fire! Delightful manners! Nothing high in them at all! I was quite overcome by his condescension!’

It was evident to Arabella that she and Miss Blackburn regarded their host through two very different pairs of spectacles. She preserved an unconvinced silence, and as soon as Miss Blackburn had finished prinking her crimped gray locks at the mirror, suggested that they should go downstairs again. Accordingly they left the room, and crossed the upper hall to the head of the stairway. Mr Beaumaris’s fancy had led him to carpet his stairs, a luxury which Miss Blackburn indicated to her charge with one pointing finger and a most expressive glance.

Across the lower hall, the door into the library stood ajar. Lord Fleetwood’s voice, speaking in rallying tones, assailed the ladies’ ears. ‘I swear you are incorrigible!’ said his lordship. ‘The loveliest of creatures drops into your lap, like a veritable honey-fall, and you behave as though a gull-groper had forced his way into your house!’

Mr Beaumaris replied with disastrous clarity: ‘My dear Charles, when you have been hunted by every trick known to the ingenuity of the female mind, you may more readily partake of my sentiments upon this occasion! I have had beauties hopeful of wedding my fortune swoon in my arms, break their bootlaces outside my London house, sprain their ankles when my arm is there to support them, and now it appears that I am to be pursued even into Leicestershire! An accident to her coach! Famous! What a greenhorn she must believe me to be!’

A small hand closed like a vice about Miss Blackburn’s wrist. Herself bridling indignantly, she saw Arabella’s eyes sparkling, and her cheeks most becomingly flushed. Had she been better acquainted with Miss Tallant she might have taken fright at these signs. Arabella breathed into her ear: ‘Miss Blackburn, can I trust you?’

Miss Blackburn would have vigorously assured her that she could, but the hand released her wrist, and flew up to cover her mouth. Slightly startled, she nodded. To her amazement, Arabella then picked up her skirts, and fled lightly back to the top of the stairs. Turning there, she began to come slowly down again, saying in a clear, carrying voice: ‘Yes, indeed! I am sure I have said the same, dear ma’am, times out of mind! But do, pray, go before me!’

Miss Blackburn, turning to stare at her, with her mouth at half-cock, found a firm young hand in the small of her back, and was thrust irresistibly onward.

‘But in spite of all,’ said Arabella, ‘I prefer to travel with my own horses!’

The awful scowl that accompanied these light words quite bewildered the poor little governess, but she understood that she was expected to reply in kind, and said in a quavering voice: ‘Very true, my dear!’

The scowl gave place to an encouraging smile. Any one of Arabella’s brothers or sisters would have begged her at this point to consider all the consequences of impetuosity; Miss Blackburn, unaware of the eldest Miss Tallant’s besetting fault, was merely glad that she had not disappointed her. Arabella tripped across the hall to that half-open door, and entered the library again.

It was Lord Fleetwood who came forward to receive her. He eyed her with undisguised appreciation, and said: ‘Now you will be more comfortable! Devilish dangerous to sit about in a wet coat, y’know! But we are yet unacquainted, ma’am! The stupidest thing! – never can catch a name when it is spoken! That man of Beaumaris’s mumbles so that no one can hear him! You must let me make myself known to you, too – Lord Fleetwood, very much at your service!’

‘I,’ said Arabella, a most dangerous glitter in her eye, ‘am Miss Tallant!’

His lordship, murmuring polite gratification at being made the recipient of this information, was surprised to replace his inanities quite misunderstood. Arabella fetched a world-weary sigh, and enunciated with a scornful curl of her lip: ‘Oh yes! The Miss Tallant!’

‘Th – the Miss Tallant?’ stammered his lordship, all at sea.

‘The rich Miss Tallant!’ said Arabella.

His lordship rolled an anguished and an enquiring eye at his host, but Mr Beaumaris was not looking at him. Mr Beaumaris, his attention arrested, was regarding the rich Miss Tallant with a distinct gleam of curiosity, not unmixed with amusement, in his face.

‘I had hoped that here at least I might be unknown!’ said Arabella, seating herself in a chair a little withdrawn from the fire. ‘Ah, you must let me make you known to Miss Blackburn, my – my dame de compagnie!’

Lord Fleetwood sketched a bow; Miss Blackburn, her countenance wooden, dropped him a slight curtsy, and sat down on the nearest chair.

‘Miss Tallant!’ repeated Lord Fleetwood, searching his memory in vain for enlightenment. ‘Ah, yes! Of course! Er – I don’t think I have ever had the honour of meeting you in town, have I, ma’am?’

Arabella directed an innocent look from him to Mr Beaumaris, and back again, and clapped her hands together with an assumption of mingled delight and dismay. ‘Oh, you did not know!’ she exclaimed. ‘I need never have told you! But when you looked so, I made sure you were as bad as all the rest! Was anything ever so vexatious? I most particularly desire to be quite unknown in London!’

‘My dear ma’am, you may rely on me!’ promptly replied his lordship, who, like most rattles, thought himself the model of discretion. ‘And Mr Beaumaris, you know, is in the same case as yourself, and able to sympathise with you!’

Arabella glanced at her host, and found that he had raised his quizzing-glass, which hung round his neck on a long black riband, and was surveying her through it. She put up her chin a little, for she was by no means sure that she cared for this scrutiny. ‘Indeed?’ she said.

It was not the practice of young ladies to put up their chins in just that style if Mr Beaumaris levelled his glass at them: they were more in the habit of simpering, or of trying to appear unconscious of his regard. But Mr Beaumaris saw that there was a decidedly militant sparkle in this lady’s eye, and his interest, at first tickled, was now fairly caught. He let his glass fall, and said gravely: ‘Indeed! And you?’

‘Alas!’ said Arabella, ‘I am fabulously wealthy! It is the greatest mortification to me! You can have no notion!’

His lips twitched. ‘I have always found, however, that a large fortune carries with it certain advantages.’

‘Oh, you are a man! I shall not allow you to know anything of the matter!’ she cried. ‘You cannot know what it means to be the object of every fortune-hunter, courted and odiously flattered only for your wealth, until you are ready to wish that you had not a penny in the world!’

Miss Blackburn, who had hitherto supposed her charge to be a modest, well-behaved girl, barely repressed a shudder. Mr Beaumaris, however, said: ‘I feel sure that you underrate yourself, ma’am.’

‘Oh, dear me, no!’ said Arabella. ‘I have too often heard myself pointed out as the rich Miss Tallant to be under any illusion, sir! And it is for this reason that I wish to be quite unknown in London.’

Mr Beaumaris smiled, but as the butler came in just then to announce dinner, he said nothing, but merely offered his arm to Arabella.

The dinner, which consisted of two courses, seemed to Arabella sumptuous beyond her wildest imaginings. No suspicion crossed her mind that her host, after one swift glance at his board, had resigned himself to the knowledge that the reputations of himself and his cook had been placed in jeopardy; or that that artist in the kitchen, having, with strange Gallic imprecations which made his various assistants quake, rent limb from limb two half-roasted Davenport fowls, and flung them into a pan with a béchamel sauce and some tarragons, was even now, as he arranged a basket of pastry on a dish, undecided whether to leave this dishonoured house on the instant, or to cut his throat with the larger carving-knife. Soup à la Reine was removed with fillets of turbot with an Italian sauce; and the chickens à la Tarragon were flanked by a dish of spinach and croûtons, a glazed ham, two cold partridges, some broiled mushrooms, and a raised mutton pie. The second course presented Arabella with an even more bewildering choice, for there was, besides the baskets of pastry, a Rhenish cream, a jelly, a Savoy cake, a dish of salsify fried in butter, an omelette, and some anchovy toast. Mrs Tallant had always prided herself on her housekeeping, but such a repast as this, embellished as it was by elegant garnitures, and subtle sauces, was quite beyond the range of the Vicarage cook. Arabella could not help opening her eyes a little at the array of viands spread before her, but she managed to conceal her awe, and to partake of what was offered to her with a very creditable assumption of unconsciousness. Mr Beaumaris, perhaps loth to degrade his burgundy, or perhaps with a faint, despairing hope of adding piquancy to this commonplace meal, had instructed Brough to serve champagne. Arabella, having already cast discretion to the winds, allowed her glass to be filled, and sipped her way distastefully through it. It had a pleasantly exhilarating effect upon her. She informed Mr Beaumaris that she was bound for the town residence of Lady Bridlington; created several uncles for the simple purpose of endowing herself with their fortunes; and at one blow disposed of four brothers and three sisters who might have been supposed to have laid a claim to a share of all this wealth. She contrived, without precisely making so vulgar a boast, to convey the impression that she was escaping from courtships so persistent as to amount to persecution; and Mr Beaumaris, listening with intense pleasure, said that London was the very place for anyone desirous of escaping attention.

Arabella, embarking recklessly on her second glass of champagne, said that in a crowd one could more easily pass unnoticed than in the restricted society of the country.

‘Very true,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris.

‘You never did so!’ remarked Lord Fleetwood, helping himself from the dish of mushrooms which Brough presented at his elbow. ‘You must know, ma’am, that you are in the presence of the Nonpareil – none other! Quite the most noted figure in society since poor Brummell was done-up!’

‘Indeed!’ Arabella looked from him to Mr Beaumaris with a pretty air of innocent enquiry. ‘I did not know – I might not have heard the name quite correctly, perhaps?’

‘My dear Miss Tallant!’ exclaimed his lordship, in mock horror. ‘Not know the great Beaumaris! The Arbiter of Fashion! Robert, you are quite set down!’

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 – !’