Arabella (21 page)

“How odious men are!” exclaimed Lady Bridlington indignantly.

Odious they might be, but if they were laying bets of that nature at the clubs there was nothing for a conscientious chaperon to do but warn her charge once more against lending too credulous an ear to an accomplished flirt Arabella assured her that she had no intention of doing so.

“No, my dear, very likely not,” replied her ladyship. “But there is no denying that he is a very attractive man: I am conscious of it myself! Such an air! such easy address! But it is of no use to think of that! I am sadly afraid that it is a kind of sport with him to make females fall in love with him.”

“
I
shall not do so!” declared Arabella, “I like him very well, but, as I told you before, I am not such a goose as to be taken-in by him!”

Lady Bridlington looked at her rather doubtfully. “No, my love, I hope not indeed. To be sure, you have so many admirers that we need not consider Mr. Beaumaris. I suppose—you will not be offended at my asking, I know!—I suppose no eligible gentleman has proposed to you?”

Quite a number of gentlemen, eligible and ineligible, had proposed to Arabella, but she shook her head. She might acquit some of her suitors of having designs on her supposed wealth, but two among them at least would never have offered for her hand, she was very sure, had they known her to be penniless; and the courtships of several notorious fortune-hunters made it impossible for her to believe that Lord Bridlington’s well-meaning efforts had in any way scotched that dreadful rumour. She felt her situation to be unhappy indeed. Easter was almost upon them, and there bad been plenty of time for her, with the opportunities which had been granted to her, to have fulfilled her Mama’s ambitions. She felt guilty, for it had cost Mama so much money, which she could ill-afford, to send her to London, so that the least a grateful daughter could have done would have been to have repaid her by accepting some respectable offer of marriage. She could not do it. She cared for none of those who had proposed to her, and although that, she supposed, ought not to weigh too heavily in the scales when balanced against the benefits that would accrue to the dear brothers and sisters, she was resolved to accept no offer from anyone ignorant of her true circumstances. Perhaps there was still to come into her life some suitor to whom it would be possible to confess the whole, but he had not yet appeared, and, pending his arrival, it was with relief that Arabella turned to Mr. Beaumaris, who, whatever his intentions might be, certainly coveted no fortune.

Mr. Beaumaris offered her every facility to turn to him, but he could scarcely congratulate himself on the outcome. The smallest attempt at gallantry had the effect of transforming her from the confiding child he found so engaging into the society damsel who was ready enough to fence lightly with him, but who showed him quite clearly that she wanted none of his practised love-making. And when Lady Bridlington had repeated much of her son’s warning, not omitting to mention the fact that Mr. Beaumaris’s friends knew him to be merely trifling, Mr. Beaumaris found Miss Tallant even more elusive. He was reduced to employing an ignoble stratagem, and, having been obliged to visit his estates on a matter of business, sought Arabella out upon his return, and told her that he wished to consult her again about Jemmy’s future. In this manner, he lured her to drive out with him in his curricle. He drove her to Richmond Park, and she raised no objection to this, though he had not previously taken her farther afield than Chelsea. It was a fine, warm afternoon, with the sun so brightly shining that Arabella ventured to wear a very becoming straw hat, and to carry a small sunshade with a very long handle, which she had seen in the Pantheon Bazaar, and had not been able to resist purchasing. She said, as Mr. Beaumaris handed her up into the curricle, that it was very kind of him to drive her into the country, since she liked it of all things, and was able to think herself, while in that great park, many miles from town.

“Do you know Richmond Park, then?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” replied Arabella cheerfully. “Lord Fleetwood drove me there last week; and then, you know, the Charnwoods got up a party, and we all went in three barouches. And tomorrow, if it is fine, Sir Geoffrey Morecambe is to take me to see the Florida Gardens.”

“I must count myself fortunate, then, to have found you on a day when you had no other engagement,” remarked Mr. Beaumaris.

“Yes, I am out a great deal,” agreed Arabella. She unfurled the sunshade, and said: “What was it that you wished to tell me about Jemmy, sir?”

“Ah, yes, Jemmy!” he said. “Subject to your consent, Miss Tallant, I am making—in fact, I have made—a trifling change In his upbringing. I fear he will never come to any good under Mrs. Buxton’s roof, and still more do I fear that if he remained there he would shortly be the death of her. At least, so she informed me when I went down to Hampshire the day before yesterday.”

She gave him one of her warm looks. “How very kind that was of you! Did you go all that way on that naughty boy’s account?”

Mr. Beaumaris was sorely tempted. He glanced down at his companion, met her innocently enquiring gaze, hesitated, and then said: “Well, no, Miss Tallant! I had business there.”

She laughed. “I thought it had been that.”

“In that case,” said Mr. Beaumaris, “I am glad I did not lie to you.”

“How can you be so absurd? As though I should wish you to put yourself to so much trouble! What has Jemmy been doing?”

“It would sadden you to know: Mrs. Buxton is persuaded that he is possessed of a fiend. The language he employs, too, is not such as she is accustomed to. I regret to say that he has also alienated my keepers, who have quite failed to impress upon him the impropriety of disturbing my birds, or, I may add, of stealing pheasants’ eggs. I cannot imagine what he can want with them.”

“Of course he should be punished for doing so! I daresay he has not enough employment. One must remember that he has been used to work and should be made to do so now. It is not at all good for anyone to be perfectly idle.”

“Very true, ma’am,” agreed Mr. Beaumaris meekly.

Miss Tallant was not deceived. She looked sharply up at him, and bit her lip, saying after a moment: “We are speaking of
Jemmy!
”

“I hoped we were,” confessed Mr. Beaumaris.

“You are being nonsensical,” said Arabella, with some severity. “What is to be done with him?”

“I found, upon enquiry, that the only person who is inclined to regard him favourably is my head groom, who says that his way with the horses is quite remarkable. It appears that he has been for ever slipping off to the stables, where, for a wonder, he comports himself unexceptionably. Wrexham was so much impressed by finding him—er—hobnobbing with a bay stallion generally thought to be extremely dangerous, that he came up to represent to me the propriety of handing the boy over to him to train. He is a childless man, and since he expressed his willingness to house Jemmy, I thought it better to fall in with his schemes. I hardly think Jemmy’s language will shock him, and I am encouraged to hope, from what I know of Wrexham, that he will know how to keep the boy in order.”

Arabella approved so heartily of this arrangement, that he took the risk of saying in a melancholy tone: “Yes, but if it succeeds, I shall be at a loss to think of a pretext for getting you to drive out with me.”

“Dear me, have I shown myself so reluctant?” said Arabella, raising her eyebrows. “I wonder why you will talk so absurdly, Mr. Beaumaris? You may depend upon it that I shall take care to be seen every now and then in your company, for I cannot be so sure of my credits to run the risk of having it said that the Nonpareil has begun to find me a dead bore!”

“You stand in no such danger, Miss Tallant, believe me.” He drew in his horses for a sharp bend in the road, and did not speak again until the corner was negotiated. Then he said: “I am afraid that you deem me a very worthless creature, ma’am. What am I to do to convince you that I can be perfectly sensible?”

“There is not the least need: I am sure that you can,” she replied amicably.

After that she became interested in the countryside, and from that passed to her forthcoming presentation. This event was to take place in the following week, and already her dress had been sent home from the skilful costumier who had altered an old gown of Lady Bridlington’s to the present mode. Miss Tallant did not tell Mr. Beaumaris that, naturally, but she did describe its magnificence to him, and found him both sympathetic and knowledgeable. He asked her what jewels she would wear with it, and she replied, in a very grand way: “Oh, nothing but diamonds!” and was promptly ashamed of herself for having said it, although it was perfectly true.

“Your taste is always excellent, Miss Tallant. Nothing could be more displeasing to a fastidious eye than a profusion of jewelry. I must congratulate you on having exerted so beneficial an influence over your contemporaries.”

“I?” she gasped, quite startled, and half-suspecting him of quizzing her.

“Certainly. The total lack of ostentation which characterizes your appearance is much admired, I assure you, and is beginning to be copied.”

“You cannot be serious!”

“But of course I am serious! Had you not noticed that Miss Accrington has left off that shocking collar of sapphires, and that Miss Kirkmichael no longer draws attention to the limitations of her figure by a profusion of chains, brooches, and necklaces which I should have supposed her to have chosen at random from an over-stocked jewel-box?”

There was something so irresistibly humourous to Arabella in the thought that her straitened circumstances had been at the root of a new mode that she began to giggle. But she would not tell Mr. Beaumaris why she sat chuckling beside him. He did not press her for an explanation, but as they had by this time reached the Park, suggested that she might like to walk on the grass for a little way, while the groom took charge of the curricle. She assented readily, and while they strolled about, Mr. Beaumaris told her something of that home of his in Hampshire. The bait failed. Miss Tallant confided her remarks on her own home to descriptions of the Yorkshire scene, and would not be lured into exchanging family reminiscences.

“I collect that your father is still alive, ma’am? You mentioned him, as I remember, on the day that you adopted Jemmy.”

“Did I? Yes, indeed he is alive, and I wished for him very much that day, for he is the best man in the world, and he would have known just what was right to be done!”

“I shall hope to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance one day. Does he come to London at all?”

“No, never,” replied Arabella firmly. She could not imagine that Mr. Beaumaris and Papa would have the least pleasure in one another’s acquaintance, thought that the conversation was getting on to dangerous ground, and reverted to her society manner.

This was maintained during most of the drive back to London, but when the open country was left behind, and the curricle was passing once more between rows of houses, it deserted her abruptly. In the middle of a narrow street, the grays took high-bred exception to a wagon with a tattered and flapping canvas roof, which was drawn up to one side of the road. There was barely room for the curricle to slip past this obstruction, and Mr. Beaumaris, his attention all on his horses, failed to take notice of a group of youths bending over some object on the flat-way, or to heed the anguished yelp which made Arabella, casting aside the light rug which covered her legs, cry out: “Oh, stop!” and shut her sunshade with a snap.

The grays were mincing past the wagon; Mr. Beaumaris did indeed pull them up, but Arabella did not wait for the curricle to come to a standstill, but sprang hazardously down from it. Mr. Beaumaris holding his sidling, snorting pair in an iron hand, took one quick glance over his shoulder, saw that Arabella was dispersing the group on the flag-way by the vigorous use of her sunshade, and snapped: “Go to their heads, fool!”

His groom, still perched up behind, and apparently dumbfounded by Miss Tallant’s strange conduct, came to himself with a start, jumped down, and ran round to hold the grays. Mr. Beaumaris sprang down, and descended swiftly upon the battleground. Having scientifically knocked two louts’ heads together, picked up the third lout by his collar and the seat of his frieze breeches, and thrown him into the road, he was able to see what had aroused Miss Tallant’s wrath. Crouched, shivering and whimpering, on the flag-way, was a small, sandy-coated mongrel, with a curly tail, and one ear disreputably flying.

“Those wicked, brutal,
fiends!
”
panted Miss Tallant, cheeks and eyes in a glow. “They were
torturing
the poor little thing!”

“Take care! He may snap at you!” Mr. Beaumaris said quickly, seeing her about to kneel down beside the dog. “Shall I thrash them all soundly?”

At these words, the two smaller boys departed precipitately, the two whose heads were still ringing drew circumspectly out of range of Mr. Beaumaris’s long-lashed whip, and the bruised youth in the road whined that they weren’t doing any harm, and that all his ribs were busted.

“How badly have they hurt him?” Miss Tallant asked anxiously. “He cries when I touch him!”

Mr. Beaumaris pulled off his gloves, and handed them to her, together with his whip, saying: “Hold those for me, and I’ll see.”

She obediently took them, and watched anxiously while he went over the mongrel. She saw with approval that he handled the little creature firmly and gently, in a way that showed he knew what he was about. The dog whined, and uttered little cries, and cowered, but he did not offer to snap. Indeed, he feebly wagged his disgraceful tail, and once licked Mr. Beaumaris’s hand.