Джорджетт Хейер - April Lady

“No—though I hope it is what I may want in a very little time. I suppose I shall be obliged to tell you what has happened,” she sighed.

“Good God, cousin, do you take me for a flat?” demanded Mr. Hethersett. “If you’re searching all over for Allandale, it means that Letty is up to her tricks. What’s she done? Eloped with the fellow?”

“I very much fear it.”

“Eh?” he said incredulously. “No, no, not the sort of fellow to do a scaly thing like that! I was only funning!”

But when he had heard all that Nell saw fit to tell him of the day’s events he looked a good deal taken aback, and acknowledged that the affair bore all the appearance of an uncommonly rum set-out. “What’s more, if Allandale’s made off with her—yes, but dash it, cousin, that won’t fadge! I mean, it wouldn’t be up to the rig, and though I can’t say I like him above half there’s nothing of the queer nab about him!”

“No, indeed! and that is what makes me very hopeful of finding them still here,” she explained. “So pray will you direct me to the house?”

“Yes, but where’s Cardross?” he demanded. “He can’t have gone out of town again, because I saw him at White’s this afternoon! It’s his business to find Letty, not yours.”

“He—he is dining out tonight, and then, too, he had Sir John Somerby with him, you see.”

“What you mean,” said Mr. Hethersett severely, “is that you haven’t told him.”

“No,” she confessed. “I—I haven’t.”

“Well, you ought to have done so. Very unwilling to offend you, cousin, but you’ve got no right to play the concave suit with Cardross over that chit. Dash it, she’s his ward! Daresay you’re fond of her, but it won’t do to be hoaxing Giles about today’s business.”

“No,” she agreed. “Indeed, I don’t mean to, Felix! Only the thing is that—he—he is very much vexed today. Something occurred that put him sadly out of temper, and I particularly don’t wish to be obliged to break this news to him when—when perhaps he would be quite dreadfully angry with Letty!”

“Good thing if he was!” said Mr. Hethersett unfeelingly. “If you want to know what I think, it’s my belief that the sooner you’re rid of that resty girl the better it will be. Unsteady, that’s what she is. Maggotty, too: never know where to take her, or what she’ll be up to next!” He glanced fleetingly at Nell, but it had grown rather too dark for him to be able to see her face very clearly. However, he had drawn certain conclusions which he was pretty sure were accurate, so he added, in a careless way: “Shouldn’t be surprised if it was her starts that had put him out of temper.”

Nell said nothing in reply to this. The lamplighter was coming down the street, with his ladder carried between him and the boy who followed at his heels. Nell, who was tired of standing outside Mr. Hethersett’s house, pointed this circumstance out to him, saying: “Won’t he think it excessively odd that we should be standing here?”

“Yes, but we ain’t going to stand here,” replied Mr. Hethersett. “It don’t look to me as though Allandale’s at home, but we may as well enquire for him.”

“Do you mean to say that he lives next door to you?” demanded Nell.

“Yes. Well, no reason why he shouldn’t!” said Mr. Hethersett, surprised at the indignant note in her voice. “What I mean is, he don’t trouble me: hardly ever see him!”

“And you have kept me standing outside all this time! It is a great deal too bad of you!” said Nell, treading up the steps to the door, and grasping the heavy brass knocker.

“I was trying to think what I should do with you while I did the trick here. Trouble is there ain’t anywhere for you to go, but you oughtn’t to be asking for Allandale, you know! Leave it to me, cousin!”

She was quite ready to do this, but when the door was opened, and Mr. Hethersett asked the proprietor of the establishment if Mr. Allandale was at home, and was told that he was not, he seemed so much inclined to withdraw without pursuing his enquiries any farther that she felt obliged to intervene. Disregarding a horrified murmur of protest from Mr. Hethersett she boldly asked if Mr. Allandale had gone out alone, or accompanied by a lady.

“Would it be Mr. Allandale’s sister you was referring to, ma’am?” asked the man cautiously.

“Yes,” said Nell, with great promptness.

“Ah!” said the proprietor, stroking his chin in a ruminative way. “That’s what he said, I don’t deny, but it wasn’t what she said, which puts me in a fix, in a manner of speaking, because if it was his sister you was wishful to see I couldn’t say it was her as was here today, not to take my oath on it, I couldn’t. The young party as came here asking for Mr. Allandale told Mrs. Shotwick, which is my good lady, as how she was engaged to be married to him. Which is different.”

“Well, that is the lady I wish to find,” said Nell.

“Ah!” said Mr. Shotwick, still caressing his chin. “ I’ve no objection, but the question is, can you, ma’am? Because she ain’t here. Nor hasn’t been, this three hours and more. Which I’m just as glad she hasn’t, on account of all the bobbery there was.”

“Oh, dear!” Nell said, her heart sinking. “What—what sort of bobbery?”

“No, dash it, cousin—!” expostulated Mr. Hethersett, by this time in a state of acute discomfort.

At this point Mr. Shotwick was struck by the happy idea of inviting them to step inside so that they might discuss the delicate matter with the mistress of the establishment. Nell readily agreed to this, Mr. Hethersett not so readily, and they were ushered into Mr. Allandale’s parlour, on the right of the front door, and left there while Mr. Shotwick went off to summon his wife on to the scene.

“Oh, Felix, what can have happened?” Nell said. “Gone for more than three hours! When the man said they were not here I thought at first that perhaps Mr. Allandale had taken Letty home, and I should find her there when I return. But three hours! Where can she be, if they have not eloped together?”

“I don’t know where she can be,” said Mr. Hethersett. “I know where we are, however, and it ain’t where I want to be. I’m dashed sure this fellow knows who I am, and the next thing we shall find is that he’s twigged who you are. It’ll be all over town before the cat’s had time to lick her ear.”

“Well, if you don’t like to be seen in my company, you may go away!” said Nell, with spirit.

“I don’t, ” said Mr. Hethersett frankly. “Particularly in this rig, when you ain’t dressed for the evening. Not at all the thing: looks dashed peculiar! We shall have all the quizzes wondering what the deuce we were doing. Can’t tell ‘em we were looking all over for Letty!”

Anxious as she was, she could not help laughing at this. She said mischievously: “It is very bad, but your credit is so good that I am persuaded no one would believe for an instant that you had done anything that was not good ton!”

“Yes, but this is no time for funning, my dear Lady Cardross! Besides, there’s no saying what people will believe. The thing is, we’re going the quickest way to work to get it set about that that wretched girl has gone clean beyond the line. What’s more, Cardross will be as mad as fire with the pair of us for making cakes of ourselves, instead of telling him what had happened.”

She felt that this indeed might be true, but before she could reply Mr. Shotwick had come back, with a stout dame in a mob-cap, whom he introduced as his good lady.

From the somewhat involved story that issued from Mrs. Shotwick’s lips it became apparent that the eruption of Letty into her hitherto ordered existence had disarranged her mind quite as much as it had shaken her faith in her favourite lodger. “For, not to deceive you, ma’am, what to think I did not know, nor don’t!”