April Lady

Before the Viscount could reply Mr Fancot rather unexpectedly entered into the discussion. ‘Shouldn’t wonder at it if she was right,’ he said. ‘Masquerades, you know! Ramshackle! Ought to go with her la’ship!’

‘What the deuce do you know about masquerades, Corny?’ demanded Dysart. ‘You never went to one in your life!’

‘Yes, I did,’ asserted Mr Fancot. ‘I went with you, Dy! Well, I wouldn’t let my sister go to one alone. What I mean is, I wouldn’t if I had one. Had a sister, I mean,’ he added, becoming a little flustered, as Letty giggled.

‘Covent Garden!’ exclaimed Dysart scornfully. ‘I should think not indeed! But this affair will be quite another thing. Pretty insipid, I should think. Why do you go to it?’

‘You see, it is the first masquerade Letty has attended, and so she wishes particularly to go,’ Nell explained.

‘Yes, and, what is more, I am quite determined to go,’ corroborated Letty. ‘I collect you don’t mean to be so obliging as to escort us, which doesn’t surprise me above a very little, because of all imaginable persons I think brothers to be by far the most disagreeable!’

‘Letty, that is not just!’ exclaimed Nell. ‘You have no cause to say so, and I assure you I have none either!’ She smiled lovingly up at the Viscount. ‘Don’t come, if you had rather not! At my cousin’s party I can’t need an escort, after all.’

However, the Viscount, either from perversity, or from a sense of obligation, said, with a darkling look at Letty, that if his sister was set on attending the masquerade he would certainly accompany her. He added, with an austerity which accorded ill with his rakish appearance, that if it suited Cardross’s notions of propriety to allow Nell to go alone to such parties that was where he must join issue with his lordship. He then, most unhandsomely, rode off before either lady could counter this charge. Nell was merely distressed that he should think her husband neglectful, but Letty, who reserved to herself the right to criticize Cardross, was extremely incensed, and charged Mr Fancot, lingering to make his adieux in form, with a rude message to him.

‘Though, to be sure, I don’t know why I should put myself to the trouble of fighting Giles’s battles,’ she observed, as Mr Fancot left them, and Nell told her coachman to drive on. ‘I am persuaded he would never fight mine!’

She encountered a very direct look from Nell’s soft blue eyes. Nell said quietly: ‘You must not say so. It is quite untrue, and you know it!’

Letty sighed. ‘Well, I didn’t mean precisely that, but you m

ust own that no one was ever more unsympathetic than Giles. It is so unkind of him to take poor Jeremy in aversion! I had not believed he could be so proud, or care so much for consequence, or so little for my happiness!’

‘It isn’t that! Indeed, it is not, Letty! He doesn’t dislike Mr Allandale, and as for caring about his consequence you know he has said that if you are still of the same mind in a – in a year or two, he will not then refuse his consent. It is your happiness which he thinks of. I don’t say that he likes the match, for although Mr Allandale’s situation in life is respectable, he is not your equal in station, and there is a disparity between your fortunes which makes the marriage even more ineligible.’

‘That is just what I have no patience with!’ Letty said quickly. ‘If I were poor too it would be another matter! I don’t mean to say that I shouldn’t wish to marry Jeremy, for I should; but there would then be justice in Cardross’s objection! It is a melancholy reflection, Nell, but I fear I shouldn’t be a very good wife for a man in straitened circumstances. Of course I should endeavour to learn how to manage, but it is useless to deceive oneself: I don’t think I have any turn for economy!’

‘No, alas, nor I!’ agreed Nell, with a wry grimace.

‘The thing is, we were not bred to it,’ said Letty profoundly. ‘But what does it signify, after all, when I shall be the mistress of a substantial fortune as soon as I come of full age?’

‘I think the thing is that Cardross feels you are too young to be making up your mind just yet,’ Nell said diffidently.

‘Depend upon it, he would not say so if I wanted to marry a man of rank and fortune!’ Letty said, her eyes kindling. ‘He did not think you too young when he offered for you, and I dare swear your papa did not either!’

‘No,’ admitted Nell.

‘No! But if he had not been Cardross, your papa would have said so, even though he came of a very good family, and was in all respects a most superior man! It is all pride and pretension, and for my part I think it is detestable!’

‘No, no, not that – not quite that!’ Nell said. ‘I suppose he would wish you to make what is called a good match, but he has told me himself that if you are still of the same mind in a year or two –’

‘He knows very well that in a year or two – and probably much sooner! – Jeremy will have been sent abroad. Indeed, Jeremy has the greatest hope, if all goes as he has reason to expect – But I mustn’t tell you! Pray don’t repeat it, Nell! He particularly desired me not to speak of it while nothing is yet settled.’ She hesitated, and then slid an impulsive hand into Nell’s, and whispered: ‘One thing I must tell you! I believe – I hope – that he will shortly be calling in Grosvenor Square, to see Cardross. You may guess for what purpose! I should not be mentioning it to you, but oh, Nell, you will stand our friend, won’t you?’

‘Well, I might,’ said Nell, in whom a year’s intimacy with her sister-in-law had engendered a good deal of caution. ‘But not if you mean to do something outrageous!’

‘Nothing of the sort!’ declared Letty indignantly. ‘Unless, of course, Cardross drives me to it, and that I depend on you to prevent!’

‘Oh, pray don’t!’ begged Nell, alarmed. ‘If he won’t consent to your marriage, it is because he feels it would be wrong in him to do so, and how could I overcome such scruples, or – or even wish to overcome them? If only you will be a little patient! Once Cardross is satisfied that your affections are truly fixed –’

‘When that day dawns, if ever it does, Jeremy may be thousands of miles distant!’ Letty interrupted. ‘I shall have nothing to do then but to continue in patience until he returns to England – if he does return!’

‘But naturally he will return!’

‘Yes, but would you wager a groat on his doing so alone?’ Letty retorted. ‘I would not! I don’t mean to say that he does not love me as much as I love him, but if he does not set eyes on me for years, besides being made up to by I daresay a dozen girls, or more, it would be wonderful indeed if he escaped being snatched up into matrimony with another!’

Nell could find nothing to say. Her imagination boggled at the picture of Mr Allandale being courted by a dozen (or even half-a-dozen) girls, but she prudently kept this reflection to herself, only venturing to ask, after a slight pause: ‘What made you fall in love with him, Letty? I don’t mean to say that he is not very amiable and civil, but – but –’

‘I know precisely what you mean,’ said Letty, with unexpected cordiality. ‘And I haven’t the smallest conjecture! If he had been like – oh, like your brother! – no one would have wondered at in the least: I shouldn’t myself! I assure you, I am quite as much surprised as anyone, for it is not as if I had never met any other gentlemen! When I lived with my aunt I met everyone who came to the house, for she was not at all stuffy, you know, and didn’t even try to keep Selina and me in the schoolroom. We knew all Maria’s and Fanny’s beaux, and some of them were pretty dashing, I can tell you! Only I never had the smallest tendre for any of them, until I met Jeremy. I don’t know how it was: it has me quite in a puzzle!’ She bestowed a dazzling smile upon a natty young gentleman in a sporting curricle who was trying to attract her attention. ‘Now, if I had formed an attachment to him Cardross would have had cause to be cross!’ she observed. ‘In fact, when you consider, Nell, the lures that are for ever being thrown out to me by all the most shocking court-cards on the town, on account of my being an heiress, I think it astonishing that Cardross should not be thankful my interest has been fixed by a man of principle and character! And if he supposes that Jeremy loves me for my fortune he much mistakes the matter!’