Джорджетт Хейер: Friday’s Child

“It’s my belief that it’s all a hum,” declared Sherry. “You don’t look like any governess I’ve ever seen, and I’ll lay you odds no school would hire you. Do you know anything, Hero?”

“Well, I didn’t think I did,” replied Hero. “Only Miss Mundesley says I shall do very well, and it is her sister who has the school, so I dare say it has all been arranged between them. She is our governess, you know. At least, she used to be.”

“I know,” nodded Sherry. “Sour-faced old maid she was, too! I’ll tell you what, brat: if you go to this precious school they’ll make you a damned drudge, and so I warn you! Come to think of it, what the devil are they about, turning a chit like you upon the world?”

“Miss Mundesley says I shall be very strictly taken care of,” said Hero. “They are not turning me upon the world, exactly.”

“That’s not the point. Damme, the more I come to think of it the worse it is! You’re not a pauper brat!”

Miss Wantage raised her innocent eyes to his face. “But that is what I am, Sherry. I haven’t any money at all.”

“That don’t signify,” said the Viscount impatiently. “What I mean is, females of your breeding aren’t governesses! Never knew your father myself, but I know all about him. Very good family — a curst sight better than the Bagshots! What’s more, you’ve got a lot of damned starchy relations. Norfolk, or some such place. Heard my mother speak of them. Sounded to me like a very dull set of gudgeons, but that’s neither here nor there. You’d better write to them.”

“It wouldn’t be of any use,” sighed Hero. “I think my father quarrelled with them, because they wouldn’t do anything for me when he died. So I dare say they wouldn’t object to my becoming a governess at all.”

“Well, I do,” said the Viscount. “In fact, I won’t have it. You’ll have to think of something else.”

Miss Wantage saw nothing either arbitrary or unreasonable in this speech. She agreed to it, but a little doubtfully. “Marry the curate, do you mean, Sherry?” she asked, slightly wrinkling her short nose.

The Viscount stared at her in the liveliest astonishment. “Why the devil should I mean anything of the sort? Of course I don’t! Of all the nonsensical girls, you’re the worst, Hero!”

Miss Wantage accepted this rebuke meekly enough, but said: “Well, I think it’s a nonsensical notion too, but Cousin Jane says it must be the curate, or that horrid school.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that the curate wants to marry you?” demanded Sherry.

Miss Wantage nodded. “He has offered for me,” she said, not without pride.

“It seems to me,” said his lordship severely, “that you have been getting devilish flighty since I saw you last! Marry the curate, indeed! I dare say he kissed you behind the door too?”

“Oh no ,Sherry!” Miss Wantage assured him. “He has behaved with the greatest propriety, Cousin Jane says!”

“So I should hope!” said his lordship, rather spoiling the austerity of this remark, however, by adding reflectively, a moment later: “Sounds to me like another dull dog.”

“Yes, he is,” agreed Hero. “I quite think he may be very kind, but oh, Sherry, if you won’t be offended with me, indeed I would rather be a governess, for I don’t at all want to marry him!”

“What beats me,” said his lordship, “is why he should want to marry you! He must be a curst rum touch, Hero. You’d never do for a parson’s wife! You can’t have told him how you glued the Bassenthwaites’ pew that time everyone was in such a pucker.”

“Well, no, I didn’t,” admitted Hero. “But it was you who did the glueing really, Sherry.”

“If that isn’t a female all over!” exclaimed Sherry. “Next you’ll say you had nothing to do with it!”

Miss Wantage tucked a small, confiding hand into his arm. “I did help, didn’t I, Anthony?”

“Yes, and spilled the glue over my new smalls because you thought you heard someone coming, silly chit!” said the Viscount, recalling this incident with a darkling look in his eye.

Miss Wantage gave a little chuckle. “Oh, how you did slap my cheek! It was red for hours and hours, and I had to make up such a tale to account for it!”

“No, did I really?” said the Viscount, rather conscience-stricken, and giving the cheek a friendly rub. “What a deuced young brute I was! Not but what you’d have tried the patience of a saint, brat, often and often!”

“Yes, that is what my cousins say, and I can’t but feel that I should try the curate’s patience even more, Sherry, because I do seem always to be getting into a scrape, though indeed I don’t mean to. At least, not every time.”

“Don’t keep on harping on the curate!” ordered the Viscount. “The whole idea of your marrying him is the greatest piece of nonsense I ever heard! In fact, it’s a very good thing I chanced to come down here, for the lord knows what silly trick you’d have tried to play off if I hadn’t caught you in time!”

“No, and I am so glad to see you again, Anthony,” she replied. “I thought perhaps you would come.”

“Good God, did you? Why?”

“To wait on Isabella,” she replied innocently.

“Ha!” uttered his lordship, with a harsh and bitter laugh.

Miss Wantage looked wonderingly up at him. “You don’t sound very pleased, Sherry. Would she not see you?”

“Pleased!” ejaculated his lordship. “Much I have to be pleased about!”

“I know she wouldn’t receive any of the other gentlemen, though they came all the way from London for the purpose, but I did think she would see you.”

“Well, she did,” said the Viscount shortly. “And for all the good I got by it, I might as well have stayed — Here, who told you I wanted to marry Bella?”

“You did,” answered Miss Wantage simply. “It was when you came down last year. Don’t you remember?”

“No, I can’t say that I do, but it don’t signify. She won’t have me.”

“Sherry!” cried Miss Wantage, quite shocked. “You don’t mean that you have offered, and she has refused you?”

“Yes, I do. And that’s not all!” said the Viscount, his wrongs rising forcibly to his mind. “She said my character was unsteady, and I’d no delicacy of principle! That, from a girl I’ve known all my life!”

“It isn’t true!” Hero said, warmly clasping his hand.

“I’m a gamester, and a libertine, and she don’t like the company I keep. I’m — ”

“Sherry,” interrupted Hero anxiously, “can she have heard about your opera dancer, do you think?”

“Well, upon my word!” gasped the Viscount. “What the devil do you know about my opera dancer? And don’t say I told you, because that I never did!”

“No, no, Edwin told me! That is, he told Cassy, because they had a quarrel, and it was really she who told me.”

“You’ve no business to be talking of such things!” said his lordship sternly. He thought it over, his brow creasing. “Besides, it don’t make sense! Edwin told Cassy, because they had a quarrel? Where’s the sense in that?”

“Why, Sherry, because he said that before she set her cap at you, she might as well know — ” Miss Wantage broke off,flushing deeply. “Oh, I wish I didn’t say things I ought not to!” she said, much mortified. “Truly, I didn’t mean to be such a cat!”

“Oh!” said his lordship. “So that’s what’s in the wind, is it? As a matter of fact, I knew it,” he added, momentarily abandoning the grand manner. “And you may tell your cousin Cassy, with my compliments, that she may as well spare herself the trouble, for I haven’t come to that yet! Now, don’t go blurting that out at her the first time you see her again! And stop chattering about my opera dancer! I’ve a very good mind to go up to the house and have a word with Edwin! Prating about my affairs all round the countryside! Now I know where my damned meddling uncle had it from! Pack of lies!”