‘My dear ma’am, you cannot suppose that Mr Allandale was a party to such a thing!’ Nell said.
‘No, he wasn’t,’ corroborated Selina. ‘Letty said she would tell him she had it from her godfather, in case he should think she ought not to have taken the necklace.’
The two girls had met that afternoon by prearrangement, and as soon as Martha had been got rid of, which was done because Letty wished, with rare consideration, to protect her from blame, they had purchased such necessities as Letty had been unable to pack in her bundle, and brought them to Bryanston Square, to be bestowed in an old cloak-bag belonging to Papa. Finally, Letty had departed in a hackney for Mr Allandale’s lodging in Ryder Street. ‘But you won’t catch them,’ Selina said, with a last flicker of defiance, ‘because that was hours ago, and you may depend upon it they are many miles away by now!’
This seemed all too probable to Mrs Thorne, sinking back in her chair with a groan of dismay, but Nell was more hopeful. When Selina had been dismissed to bed, with the promise of bread and water for her supper, an interview with Papa on the morrow, and incarceration for an unspecified length of time in a Bath seminary for young ladies, she rose to her feet, saying that she would go at once to Ryder Street.
‘But what is the use, my dear?’ wailed Mrs Thorne. ‘You heard what that wicked child of mine said! They’re off to Gretna Green, depend upon it!’
‘I cannot credit it! No doubt that was Letty’s plan, but I shall own myself astonished if it was Mr Allandale’s. Oh, he would not do such a thing! I am quite confident he would not!’
‘Good gracious, Lady Cardross, where else could they go? They couldn’t be married in England, what with Letty’s being under age, and special licences, and I don’t know what beside! Surely to goodness he wouldn’t have let her run away to him if he didn’t mean to marry her immediately?’
‘I don’t believe he knew anything about it,’ declared Nell. ‘Only consider, ma’am! He is a respectable man of superior sense, and with extremely nice notions of propriety. I am persuaded he would not entertain for an instant the thought of eloping with a child of Letty’s age. Her expectations, too! Oh, no, he couldn’t do it! If his own good feeling did not prevent him, the knowledge that he would be thought to have behaved like a most unprincipled fortune-hunter surely would!’
‘Ay, there is that,’ agreed Mrs Thorne, a little doubtfully. ‘He would lose his employment, too, I daresay. But, you know, my dear, when a man falls head over ears in love there’s no saying what he may do. And you aren’t going to tell me Letty ran off to elope with him without him knowing she meant to do it!’
‘Yes, I am,’ Nell said, on a tiny choke of laughter. ‘It would be exactly like her to do so!’
‘Well!’ gasped Mrs Thorne. ‘Of all the brazen little hussies! A nice surprise it will be for Allandale when he goes home from the Foreign Office, thinking of nothing but his dinner, as I don’t doubt he will be, and finds that naughty girl in his lodging, as bold as brass, and expecting him to set out with her for Scotland! Well, I hope it will be a lesson to him, that’s all! Only, if th
at’s the way it was, why didn’t he bring her back to you long since?’
‘I’ve thought of that,’ Nell said. ‘It does seem strange, but if he were kept late at his work – ? Then, too, it would take him a little time, you know, to persuade Letty to give up the scheme. In fact, the likeliest chance is that she fell into one of her hysterical fits of crying, and the poor man could not have the least notion how to stop her! Oh, I must go to Ryder Street at once!’
The conviction that she would arrive at Mr Allandale’s lodging to find him endeavouring to soothe his would-be bride grew steadily upon Nell as she was bounced and jolted there in yet another hack, and she began to be quite buoyant again, feeling that if she could only restore his sister to Cardross with her reputation unblemished she would have done much to atone for the follies and extravagances of the past weeks. But when the hackney turned out of St James’s Street into Ryder Street, she suffered a check. The coachman pulled up his aged horse, and clambered down from the box to discover what was the number of the house she wished to visit; and it suddenly occurred to Nell that she did not know it. Nor did the coachman. Asked if he was perhaps familiar with Mr Allandale, he said he wasn’t one to bother his head over the names of the gentlemen who patronized him, and surveyed his fair passenger with unwelcome interest. She was put a little out of countenance by this, and had, indeed, been feeling a trifle uneasy from the moment the hack turned into St James’s Street, and she had seen all the clubs’ windows lighted up, and several gentlemen of her acquaintance strolling along the flagway. This quarter of fashionable London, which lay between Pall Mall and Piccadilly, belonged almost exclusively to the Gentlemen, and it was not considered good ton for a lady to be seen within its bounds. Nearly all the clubs were to be found in St James’s Street; and the streets which led from it abounded in bachelor lodgings and gaming-halls. The coachman was plainly wondering whether he had been mistaken in the social status of his fare, and Nell was beginning to feel rather helpless and extremely uncomfortable when she providentially remembered that Mr Hethersett also lived in Ryder Street, and would no doubt be able to direct her to Mr Allandale’s abode, if she were fortunate enough to find him at home. So she told the coachman to drive her to Number 5. It did not seem probable that Mr Hethersett would be at home, for it was now past eight o’clock, but fortune favoured her. Just as she was searching in her reticule for her purse the door of No 5 was opened, and Mr Hethersett himself came out of the house, very natty in knee-breeches and silk stockings, a waistcoat of watered silk, a swallow-tailed coat, and a snowy cravat arranged by his expert hands in the intricate style known as the Mathematical Tie. Set at a slight angle on his oiled locks was an elegant chapeau bras, and hanging from his shoulders was a silk-lined cloak. He carried a pair of gloves in one hand, and an ebony cane in the other, but perceiving the unusual spectacle of a lady engaged in paying off a hackney-coachman at his very door, he transferred the gloves to his right hand so that he could raise to one eye the quizzing-glass that was slung about his neck. At just this moment, Nell turned to mount the few steps to his door, and uttered a joyful exclamation. ‘Felix! Oh, how glad I am to have caught you!’
The jarvey, observing that the expression on Mr Hethersett’s face was of profound dismay, clicked his tongue disapprovingly. In his view, Nell – as dimber a mort as he had clapped eyes on in a twelvemonth – was worthy of a warmer greeting than the startled: ‘Good God!’ which broke from Mr Hethersett.
‘What the deuce brings you here?’ demanded Mr Hethersett, alarmed out of his usual address. ‘Cardross hasn’t met with an accident, has he? Or –’
‘Oh, no, no! nothing like that!’ she assured him. ‘I shan’t keep you above a moment – are you on your way to a party? – but I have most stupidly forgotten the number of the house Mr Allandale lodges in!’
Disappointed in this conversation, the jarvey adjured his lethargic steed to get up, and drove slowly off.
‘Thank the lord he’s gone!’ said Mr Hethersett. ‘You know, cousin, you shouldn’t be driving about in a hack, and coming here to ask for Allandale’s direction! I mean – not my business, but it ain’t at all the thing! Cardross wouldn’t like it. Besides, what do you want with Allandale?’
‘Well, that isn’t your business either!’ Nell pointed out. ‘And if Cardross knew I was here he would have not the least objection, I assure you, for I am here for a very sufficient purpose. So will you, if you please, tell me the number of Mr Allandale’s lodging, and then you may go to your party, and not trouble your head over me any more?’
‘No,’ said Mr Hethersett, with unexpected firmness. ‘I won’t! Well, I should be bound to trouble my head over you: stands to reason! Because it seems to me you’re up to something dashed smoky, cousin. And as for saying Cardross wouldn’t object to your paying calls in a hack at this time of day – well, if that’s what you think, you can’t know him! What I’m going to do is take you home.’
‘No, you are not!’ said Nell indignantly. ‘Now, Felix, just because you met me in Clarges Street that day does not give you the right to try to bully and hector me over this!’
‘Never mind that! – By the by, I hope all’s right about that business?’
‘Yes, yes, Dysart settled it for me.’
‘He did, did he?’
‘Yes, for he has won a great deal of money on a horse called Cockroach. It was not very handsome of you to have betrayed me to him, however!’
‘No, I know it wasn’t. Best thing I could think of, though. What we want now is another hack.’
‘No – though I hope it is what I may want in a very little time. I suppose I shall be obliged to tell you what has happened,’ she sighed.
‘Good God, cousin, do you take me for a flat?’ demanded Mr Hethersett. ‘If you’re searching all over for Allandale, it means that Letty is up to her tricks. What’s she done? Eloped with the fellow?’
‘I very much fear it.’