‘Oh, Alan, don’t give me up to anyone!’ begged Henrietta, laughing and crying together. ‘Oh, dear, how odious you are! Of all the infamous notions to – Alan, let me go! Someone is coming!’
The door opened. ‘Told you no good would come of it,’ said Mr Allerton, with gloomy satisfaction. ‘Not a trace of ’em to be –’ He broke off, staring at his brother. ‘Well, upon my word!’ he said, mildly surprised.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ exclaimed the Viscount.
‘Came with Hetty,’ explained Timothy. ‘Said it was a stupid thing to do, but she would have it we should overtake ’em.’
‘Came with Hetty? Overtake – ?’ repeated the Viscount. ‘In heaven’s name, what are you talking about?’
Mr Allerton raised his quizzing-glass. ‘You been in the sun, old fellow?’ he asked solicitously.
‘Timothy, he doesn’t know!’ Henrietta said. ‘That is not what brought him here! Alan, a dreadful thing has happened. Trix has eloped! I can’t think what made you suppose that I had! Timothy and I came in pursuit, and oh, I was so hopeful of catching them, but we can discover no trace of them!’
‘Quite true,’ corroborated Timothy, observing that the tidings had apparently stunned his brother. ‘Eloped with Jack Boynton. At least, that’s what she said.’
‘Are you mad?’ demanded the Viscount. ‘Trix is at home!’
‘Alas, Alan, she is not!’ said Henrietta. ‘She slipped out in the middle of the party, leaving a letter, which her maid gave me at midnight. S
he wrote that she had gone with Boynton to Gretna Green, but I very much fear that she was deceiving me, and that is not her destination.’
The Viscount, who had listened to this with an arrested expression on his face, drew an audible breath. ‘Most certainly she was deceiving you!’ he said, in an odd tone. ‘I see! The – little – cunning – devil!’
‘He is cut, Hetty!’ said Timothy.
A rueful smile was quivering at the corners of the Viscount’s mouth. He paid no heed to this brotherly remark, but said: ‘Let me tell you, my love, that an hour after you had left Grosvenor Square, I also received a billet from Trix!’
‘You?’ said Henrietta incredulously.
‘Yes, I! It summoned me with the utmost urgency to join her in Mama’s dressing-room. There she disclosed to me that you had slipped out of the house, to elope to the Border with Kirkham. She said that you had bound her to secrecy, but that her conscience misgave her, and she felt it to be her duty to betray you to me.’
‘Oh!’ gasped Henrietta. ‘The little wretch! She – she deserves to be flogged!’
‘Well, yes, I suppose she does,’ admitted the Viscount. ‘You cannot, however, expect me to flog her, for she has put me deep in her debt! Besides, you must own her strategy has been masterly!’
‘Abominable!’ scolded Henrietta, trying not to laugh.
‘Told you she was hoaxing you,’ said Timothy. ‘Good notion, as it chances. What I mean is, if you are going to marry Hetty, Alan, we shall be all right and tight. The thing that’s worrying me is that you must have left home before the ball was over. Dashed improper, y’know! That dishfaced Grandduchess! Half the ton invited to have the honour of meeting her, and you walk off in the middle of the party!’
‘Well,’ said the Viscount impenitently, ‘they had the honour of meeting her, and I have the honour of asking Henry to be my wife, and so we may all be satisfied!’ He held out his hands as he spoke, and Henrietta put hers into them.
‘Yes, I dare say,’ said Mr Allerton, ‘but it ain’t the thing. What’s more,’ he added severely, ‘it ain’t the thing to kiss Hetty in a dashed inn parlour, and with me watching you, either!’
Night at the Inn
1
There were only three persons partaking of dinner at the inn, for it was neither a posting-house, nor a hostelry much patronized by stage-coaches. The man in the moleskin waistcoat, who sat on one of the settles flanking the fireplace in the coffee-room, gave no information about himself; the young lady and gentleman on the other side were more forthcoming.
The lady had been set down at the Pelican after dusk by a cross-country coach. Her baggage was as modest as her appearance, the one consisting of a bandbox and a corded trunk; the other of brown curls smoothed neatly under a bonnet, a round cashmere gown made high to the neck and boasting neither frills nor lace, serviceable half-boots, and tan gloves, and a drab pelisse. Only two things belied the air of primness she seemed so carefully to cultivate: the jaunty bow which tied her bonnet under one ear, and the twinkle in her eye, which was as sudden as it was refreshing.
The gentleman was her senior by several years: an open-faced, pleasant young man whose habit proclaimed the man of business. He wore a decent suit of clothes, with a waistcoat that betrayed slight sartorial ambition; his linen was well-laundered, and the points of his shirt-collar starched; but he had tied his neckcloth with more regard for propriety than fashion, and he displayed none of the trinkets that proclaimed the dandy. However, the watch he consulted was a handsome gold repeater, and he wore upon one finger a signet-ring, with his monogram engraved, so that it was reasonable to suppose him to be a man of some substance.
He was fresh from Lisbon, he told the landlord, as he set down his two valises in the tap-room, and had landed at Portsmouth that very day. Tomorrow he was going to board a coach which would carry him within walking-distance of his paternal home: a rare surprise for his parents that would be, for they had not the least expectation of seeing him! He had been out of England for three years: it seemed like a dream to be back again.
The landlord, a burly, rubicund man with a smiling countenance, entered into the exile’s excitement with indulgent good humour. Young master was no doubt come home on leave from the Peninsula? Not wounded, he did hope? No, oh, no! Young master had not the good fortune to be a soldier. He was employed in a counting-house, and had no expectation of getting his transfer from Lisbon for years. But – with offhand pride – he had suddenly been informed that there was a place for him at headquarters in the City, and had jumped aboard the first packet. No time to warn his parents: he would take them by surprise, and wouldn’t they gape and bless themselves at the sight of him, by Jupiter! He had meant to have put up at the Swan, in the centre of the town, but such a press of custom had they that they had been obliged to turn him away. The same at the George: he hoped he was going to be more fortunate at the Pelican?
The landlord, gently edging him into the coffee-room, reassured him: he should have a good bedchamber, and the sheets well aired, a hot brick placed in the bed, and a fire lit in the grate. The gentleman from Lisbon said: ‘Thank the Lord for that! I have had my fill of tramping from inn to inn, I can tell you! What’s more, I’m devilish sharp-set! What’s for dinner?’