April Lady - Georgette Heyer

"It isn't," she said, so tragically that he began to feel seriously alarmed. She twisted her fingers together, and managed to say, though with considerable difficulty: "Dysart, have—have you still got the—the three hundred pounds I gave you?"

"Do you want it back?" he demanded.

She nodded, her eyes fixed anxiously on his face.

"Now we are in the basket!" said his lordship.

Her heart sank. "I am so very sorry to be obliged to ask you!"

"My dear girl, I'd give it you this instant if I had it!" he assured her. "What is it? a gaming debt? You been playing deep, Nell?"

"No, no! It is a court dress of Chantilly lace, and I cannot— cannot!— tell Cardross!"

"What, you don't mean to say he's turned out to be a screw?" exclaimed the Viscount.

"No! He has been crushingly generous to me, only I was so stupid, and it seemed as if I had so much money that— Well, I never took the least heed, Dy, and the end of it was that I got quite shockingly into debt!"

"Good God, there's no need to fall into flat despair, if that's all!" said the Viscount, relieved. "You've only to tell him how it came about: I daresay he won't be astonished, for he must know you haven't been in the way of handling the blunt. You'll very likely come in for a thundering scold, but he'll settle your debts all right and regular."

She sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands. "He did settle them!"

"Eh?" ejaculated Dysart, startled.

"I had better explain it to you," said Nell.

It could not have been said that the explanation, which was both halting and elusive, very much helped Dysart to a complete understanding of the situation, but he did gather from it that the affair was far more serious than he had at first supposed. He was quite intelligent enough to guess that the whole had not been divulged to him, but since he had no desire to plunge into deep matrimonial waters he did not press his sister for further enlightenment. Clearly, her marriage was not running as smoothly as he had supposed; and if that were so he could appreciate her reluctance to disclose the existence of yet another debt to Cardross.

"What am I to do?" Nell asked. "Can you think of a way, Dy?"

"Nothing easier!" responded Dysart, in a heartening tone. "The trouble with you is that you ain't up to snuff yet. The thing to do is to order another dress from this Madame Thing."

"Order another?" gasped Nell.

"That's it," he nodded.

"But then I should be even deeper in debt!"

"Yes, but it'll stave her off for a while."

"And when she presses me to pay for that I buy yet another! Dy, you must be mad!"

"My dear girl, it's always done!"

"Not by me!" she declared. "I should never know a moment's peace! Only think what would happen if Cardross discovered it!"

"There is that, of course," he admitted. He took a turn about the room, frowning over the problem. "The deuce is in it that I'm not in good odour with the cents-per-cent. I'd raise the wind for you in a trice if the sharks didn't know dashed well how our affairs stand."

"Moneylenders?" she asked. "I did think of that, only I don't know how to set about borrowing. Do you know, Dy? Will you tell me?"

The Viscount was not a young man whose conscience was overburdened with scruples, but he did not hesitate to veto this suggestion. "No, I will not!" he said.

"I know one shouldn't borrow from moneylenders, but in such a case as this—and if you went with me, Dy—"

"A pretty fellow I should be!" he interrupted indignantly. "Damn it, I ain't a saint, but I ain't such a loose-screw that I'd hand my sister over to one of those bloodsuckers!"

"Is it so very bad? I didn't know," she said. "Of course I won't go to a moneylender if you say I must not."

"Well, I do say it. What's more, if you did so, and Cardross discovered it, there would be the devil to pay! You'd a deal better screw up your courage, and tell him the whole now."

She shook her head, flushing.

"You know, it queers me to know what you've been doing," said Dysart severely. "It sounds to. me as though you've had a quarrel with him, and set up his back. It ain't my business, but I call it a cork-brained thing to do!"

"I haven't—it isn't that!" she stammered.

"You must have done something!" he insisted. "I thought he doted on you!"

Her eyes lifted quickly to his face. "Did you, Dy? Did you indeed think so?"

"Of course I did! Well, good God, what would anyone think, when he no sooner clapped eyes on you than nothing would do for him but to pop the question? Lord, it was one of the on-dits of town! Old Cooling told me no one had ever seen him sent to grass before, no matter who set her cap at him. I thought myself he must be touched in his upper works," said the Viscount candidly. "I don't say you ain't a pretty girl, but what there is in you to make a fellow like Cardross marry into our family I'm dashed if I can see!"

"Oh, Dysart!" breathed Nell, trembling. "You're not—you're not roasting me?"

He stared at her. "Have you got windmills in the head too?" he demanded. "Why the devil should he have offered for you, if he hadn't been head over ears in love with you? You aren't going to tell me you didn't know you'd given him a leveller!"

"Oh—! Don't say such things! I did think, at first—but Mama told me—explained to me—how it was!"

"Well, how was it?" said the Viscount impatiently.

"A—a marriage of convenience," faltered Nell. "He was obliged to marry someone, and—and he liked me better than the other ladies he was acquainted with, and thought I should suit!"

"If that isn't Mama all over!" exclaimed Dysart. "It was a dashed convenient marriage for us, but if he thought it was convenient to be obliged to pay through the nose for you (which I don't mind telling you my father made him do!), let alone saddling himself with a set of dirty dishes who have been under the hatches for years, he must be a regular cod's head!"

"Dysart!" she cried, quite horrified.

"Dirty dishes!" he repeated firmly. "I can't remember when my father last had a feather to fly with, and the lord knows I've never had one myself! In fact, it's my belief we should have been turned-up by now if you hadn't happened to hit Cardross's fancy. It's the only stroke of good fortune that ever came in our way!"

"I knew—I knew he had made a handsome settlement!"

Dysart gave a crack of laughter. "Ay, and towed my father out of the River Tick into the bargain!"

She sprang up, pressing her hands to her hot cheeks. "Oh, and I have been so wickedly extravagant!"

"No need to fret and fume over that," replied Dysart cheerfully. "They say his fortune knocks Golden Ball's into flinders, and I shouldn't be surprised if it was true."

"As though that should excuse my running into debt! Oh, Dy, this quite overpowers me! No wonder he said that!"

He looked uneasily at her. "Said what? If you mean to have a fit of the vapours, Nell, I'm off, and so I warn you!"

"Oh, no! Indeed, I don't! Only it is such an agitating reflection—I didn't tell you, Dy, but he said something to me which made me think he believes I married him for the sake of his fortune!"

"Well, you did, didn't you?"

"No!" she cried hotly. "Never, never!"

"What, you don't mean to tell me you fell in love with him?" said the Viscount incredulously.

"Of course I did! How could I help but do so?"

"Of all the silly starts!" said his lordship disgustedly. "What the devil should cast you into this distempered freak if that's the way of it? What have you been doing to make Cardross think you don't love him, if you do?"

She turned away her face. "I—I was trying to be a conformable wife, Dy! You see, Mama warned me about not making demands, or—or hanging upon him, or appearing to notice it, if he should have Another Interest, and—"