Джорджетт Хейер - April Lady

“No, indeed it would not, if I really did lose them, but every feeling revolts from the thought of selling them for such a reason!”

She spoke with so much resolution that it seemed useless to persist in argument. The Viscount, never one to waste his time over lost causes, abandoned his promising scheme, merely remarking that of all the troublesome goosecaps he had encountered his sister bore away the palm. She apologized for being so provoking, adding, with an attempt at a smile, that he must not tease himself any more over the business.

But every now and then the Viscount’s conscience, in a manner as disconcerting to himself as to his critics, cast a barrier in the way of his careless hedonism. It intervened now, inst as he was congratulating himself on being well out of a tiresome imbroglio.

“Very pretty talking, when you know dashed well I can’t help but tease myself over it!” he said bitterly. “If there’s one thing more certain than another, it’s that if I hadn’t borrowed that three hundred from you, you wouldn’t be in this fix now! Well, there’s nothing for it: I shall have to get you out of it. I daresay I shall hit on a way when I’ve had time to think it over, but I shan’t do it with you sitting there staring at me as though I was your whole dependence! Puts me out. There’s no saying, of course, but what I may have a run of luck, in which case the matter’s as good as settled. I’ve got a notion I ought to give up hazard, and try how it will answer if I stick to faro.”

He took his leave, bestowing an encouraging pat on his sister, and recommending her to put the whole business out of her mind. There were those who would have taken the cynical view that he would speedily put it out of his, but Nell was not of their number: it did not so much as cross her mind that her dear Dy, either from indolence or forgetfulness, might leave her to her fate. And she was quite right. There was an odd streak of obstinacy in Dysart, which led him, at unexpected moments, to pursue with dogged tenacity the end he had in view; and although his intimates considered that this streak was roused only by the most cork-brained notions, they were agreed that once such a notion had taken firm possession of his mind he could be depended on to stick to it buckle and thong.

Emerging from the house after a genial discussion with his brother-in-law’s porter on the chances of several horses in a forthcoming race, he paused at the foot of the steps, considering whether he should summon a hackney, and take a look-in at Tattersall’s, or stroll to Conduit Street, where, at Limmer’s, he would be sure to encounter a few choice spirits. While he hesitated, a tilbury, drawn by a high-stepping bay, swept round the angle of the square, and he saw that the down-the-road-looking man in the tall hat, and the box-coat of white drab, who was handling the ribbons with such admirable skill, was Cardross. He had no particular desire to meet the Earl, with whom he knew himself to be no favourite, but he waited civilly for the tilbury to draw up beside him.

“Hallo, Dysart!” said the Earl, handing the reins over to his groom, and lumping down from the carriage. “Are you just going in, or just coming out?”

“Just coming out.” replied Dysart, watching the tilbury being driven away, “that’s a nice tit you have there: looks to be a sweet goer. Welsh?”

“Yes, I’m pretty well pleased with him,” agreed Cardross. “Very free and fast, and has a good knee action. Oh, yes! pure bred Welsh: I bought him from Chesterford last week. Do you care to come in again?”

“No, I’m bound for Limmer’s,” said the Viscount. He eyed his brother-in-law speculatively. The Earl appeared to be in an amiable frame of mind; it was common knowledge that he was rich enough to be able to buy an abbey; and if there was the least chance of getting three hundred pounds out of him merely for the asking, the Viscount was not the man to let this slip. “You wouldn’t care to lend me three hundred, would you?” he suggested hopefully.

“Three hundred?”

“Call it five!” offered the Viscount, recollecting certain of his own more pressing obligations.

Cardross laughed. “I’ll call it anything you choose, but I shouldn’t at all care to lend you money. And I’ll thank you, Dysart, not to apply to Nell!”

“Nothing of the sort!” said the Viscount, repressing a strong inclination to tell him that the boot was on quite the other leg.

“Dipped again?” enquired Cardross. “You ought to be tied, you know!”

“I see no sense in that,” returned Dysart. “Wouldn’t do me a bit of good! The only way to come about is to make a big coup. I don’t doubt I’ll do it, for it stands to reason the luck must change one day! However, I’ve been thinking seriously of devoting myself to faro, and I believe I’ll do it. The devil’s in the bones, and has been, this year past.”

The news that he was about to reform his way of life met with a disappointing lack of enthusiasm. “What other entertainments have you in store for us?” asked Cardross. “I didn’t see you driving a wheelbarrow blindfold down Piccadilly last week, but I’m told you contrived to dislocate all the traffic for a considerable space of time. I must congratulate you. Also on your latest feat, of cutting your initials on all the trees in St. James’s Park.”

“An hour and fifteen minutes!” said Dysart, with simple pride.

“Very creditable.”

“Oh, lord!” Dysart said petulantly, “what else is there to do but kick up a lark now and then?”

“You might see what can be done to put your estates in order.”

“They ain’t my estates,” retorted Dysart. “I fancy I see my father letting me meddle! What’s more, if there’s anything to be done old Moulton will do it far better than I could. He’s been our agent for years, and he don’t mean to let me meddle either. Not that I want to, for I don’t.”

“I’ll make you an offer,” said Cardross, scanning him not unkindly. “I won’t lend you three hundred pence to fling away at faro, but I’m prepared to settle your debts, and to buy you a commission in any serving regiment you choose to name.”

“By Jove, I wish you would!” Dysart said impulsively.

“I will.”

The Viscount’s blue eyes had kindled, but that eager glow faded, and he laughed, giving his head a rueful shake. “No use! The old gentleman wouldn’t hear of it. God knows why he’s so set on keeping me in England, for putting aside the fact that I’m not his only son it don’t seem to be any pleasure to him to have me at home. Fidgets him to death! I did go down to Devonshire after he had that stroke, you know. Went to oblige my mother, but the end of it was she was obliged to own it didn’t answer. But he wouldn’t let me join for all that.”

“If you wanted it, I might be able to persuade him.”

“Grease him in the fist, eh? Take my advice, and fund your money! Or wait till I do something so outrageous he’ll be glad to see me off to Spain on any terms!” said Dysart, pulling on his gloves.

“Don’t be a fool! Come into the house: we can’t discuss it in the road!”

“If you’re so anxious to waste the ready, lend me a monkey!” mocked Dysart. “As for the rest—oh, lord, I don’t know what I want, and it wouldn’t be a particle of use if I did!”

He waited for a moment, and then, as Cardross made no reply, laughed rather jeeringly, and strode off down the flagway.

It was almost with relief that Nell, a few days later, bade her husband a polite farewell. When he had asked her to accompany him to Merion, she had wanted very much to do so (though not with an indignant Letty in her train); but from the moment that Madame Lavalle’s bill had arrived to blacken her life she had dreaded that he might renew his persuasions. There was now nothing she wanted less than to be in his company, for the sense of guilt, which already weighed heavily on her spirits, almost crushed her when he was with her. If he smiled at her she felt herself to be a deceiving wretch; if there was a coolness in his manner she fancied he had found her out, and was ready to sink. It did not occur to her, in this disordered state of mind, that the scruples which forbade her to let him see her heart were prompting her to pursue a course that might have been expressly designed to confirm him in his suspicion that she cared for nothing but wealth, fashion, and frivolity. There was no lack of parties, at the height of the season, to fill her days; and no lack of eager escorts for the beautiful young Countess, if the Earl had engagements of his own. It seemed to him that he never saw her except on her way to a review, or a ball; and he could scarcely doubt that she preferred the company of even the most callow of her admirers to his. “You know, my love,” he said to her once, mocking himself, “I think fate must have thrown me in your way to depress my pretensions! Would you believe it?—I was used to think myself the devil of a fellow! I now perceive that I’m no such thing—almost a dead bore, in fact!”