And his confidence was justified. Twenty minutes after Henrietta had joined Mr Steane in the library a postchaise-and-four swept round the bend in the avenue, and brought young Mr Carrington to his feet. So sure was he that its passenger was Desford that he did not wait to watch the steps being let down, but went hastily out into the hall, and intercepted Grimshaw, who was treading majestically across it towards the door. “No need for you to trouble yourself!” he said. “It’s only my brother! I’ll let him in!”
Grimshaw looked at once surprised and disapproving, but he bowed, and went back to his own quarters, reflecting that Mr Simon always was a regrettably harum-scarum young man, much too prone to brush aside the ordinary conventions of Polite Society.
Simon went bounding down the steps just as Desford alighted from the chaise, and called out: “Lord, am I glad to see you, Des! You old slip-gibbet!”
“I’ll be bound you are,” said the Viscount, receiving this unflattering appellation, and the playful punch to his ribs which accompanied it, as marks of affection, which, indeed, they were. “I’m much obliged to you, bantling: no reason why you should be called upon to enter into this imbroglio!”
“Oh, gammon!” said Simon. “A pretty fellow I should be to have given you the bag! And a rare hank you’d be in if I had, let me tell you!” He lowered his voice, and said seriously: “It’s worse than you know, Des.”
“Good God, is it?” He nodded to his head postilion, saying briefly: “I don’t know how long I shall be: probably an hour or two. We shall spend the night at Wolversham.” He turned back to Simon, as the chaise moved on towards the stables, and asked: “Has Steane arrived yet?”
“Yes, about half-an-hour ago. He’s with Hetta, in the library.”
“Then I had best lose no time in joining them.”
“Oh, yes, you had, dear boy!” said Simon, acquiring a firm grip on his arm. “What you had best do is to listen to what I have to tell you, if you don’t wish to make mice feet of the business! We’ll take a little stroll along the terrace, as far as that damned uncomfortable stone seat, where we shan’t be overheard.”
“If you’re going to tell me that Steane is a fat rascal, I know it already. I visited Miss Fletching the day after Steane had been there, bullocking her until the poor lady succumbed to an attack of the vapours. I don’t know what upset her most: the thundering scolds she got from him, or the discovery that he had grown very fat. From what she said to me, I’d no difficulty in gathering that he hasn’t altered since the days when he was obliged to fly the country. What’s his lay? Card-sharping?”
“Undoubtedly, I should think, though I daresay he ain’t particular. Any form of flat-catching, from the looks of him! His present lay, my boy, is to compel you to marry his precious daughter!”
The Viscount burst out laughing. “Well, he’ll be queered on that suit!”
“If I were you, Des, I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Simon.
“My dear lad, I am quite certain of it! I met her for the first time at a ball the Bugles gave, and had a conversation with her; on the following day I encountered her on my way to London, took her up into my curricle, and conveyed her first to London, and then brought her here, since when I haven’t laid eyes on her. So if Steane has any notion of accusing me of having seduced her the sooner he rids himself of it the better it will be for him.” He saw that Simon was looking unusually grave, and said, in a little amusement: “I’m not shamming it, you know!”
“Well, of course I know it! But this fellow could make nasty mischief. What if he set it about that you stole Cherry away from her aunt’s house, under a promise to marry her?”
“Good God, is he as bad as that?”
Simon nodded. “I daresay you could disprove a charge of having made off with her, and kept her until you was tired of her—”
“What, in one day? Doing it too brown, Simon!”
“The point is can you prove it was only one day? I shouldn’t think that Bugle woman would support you: she’s already told Steane you ravished Cherry out of the house. Seems one of her daughters overheard what you and Cherry were saying, on the night of that ball.”
“Well, she didn’t overhear me trying to persuade Cherry to run off with me. And considering upwards of half-a-dozen people saw me leave Hazelfield some time after breakfast on the following morning, and the Silverdales took charge of Cherry that same evening, I don’t think that cock will fight!”
“No, very likely not, but you wouldn’t want such an on-dit to be running round the town, would you? You know what all the tattlemongers would say: No smoke without fire! and the lord knows there are enough of them on the town!” He grinned, watching the kindling of the Viscount’s eyes, and the hardening of the lines about his mouth. “Never mind looking like bull-beef, Des! Would you want that?”
The Viscount did not answer for a moment, but sat frowning down at his own finger-nails. He had turned his closed hand over, and seemed to find the row of well-kept nails interesting. But presently he straightened his fingers, and looked up, meeting Simon’s eyes. “No, I wouldn’t,” he replied. He smiled faintly. “But I hardly think he will attempt anything of that sort. For one thing, it would be to lay himself open to reprisal; and for another, he must surely know that he is in extremely ill-odour here. No one for whose opinion I care a button would believe a word he said.”
“What about your enemies?”
“I haven’t any!”
“Why, you old windy-wallets!” exclaimed Simon indignantly. “Talk of ringing one’s own bell—!”
The Viscount laughed. “No, no, how can you say so?”
“Let me tell you, Des, that this is no laughing matter!” said Simon severely. “I don’t say you couldn’t beat him all to sticks if he accuses you of having seduced Cherry, for very likely you could—though I don’t think you’d enjoy it. But you wouldn’t find it as easy to fight an action for breach of promise!”
“Why not? For that to succeed Cherry’s testimony would be needed, and he won’t get that.”
“Anyone would take you for a mooncalf!” said Simon, quite exasperated. “Next you’ll say he’s welcome to try it! Well, if you’ve no objection to setting yourself up as a subject for steward’s room gossip, what do you imagine the parents would feel about it?”
“But, Simon, how could he possibly bring such an action without support from Cherry?”
“He could start one, couldn’t he? What do they call it? File a suit? Because he knows you’d pay through the nose to stop him!”
“I’m damned if I would!”
“And what about my father? Ay, that’s another pair of sleeves, ain’t it? He would! I sent that old hedgebird here because he threatened to go to Wolversham, and hoax my father with his lying story! And the next thing was that he had the infernal brass to ask me how it came about that Lady Silverdale had been persuaded to receive Cherry at the hands of such a libertine as you are, brother! So I said that you were betrothed to Hetta!”
“You said what?”Desford demanded, taken aback.
“Well, I thought there was nothing for it but to go the whole pile,” explained Simon. “It seemed to me to be the best thing I could say, because if he believed it he was bound to see that it turned his scheme to accuse you of having promised to marry Cherry into a case of crabs. Which he did see! Never saw a man look so blue in my life! But if you don’t like it I’m sorry, but considering you and Hetta have been as thick as inkle-weavers for the lord knows how many years, I didn’t think you’d care a straw for it!”
“I don’t,” said Desford, a queer little smile hovering round his mouth. “But my father already knows the true story! I told it him myself, on my way back from Harrowgate.”
“Told him—Des, you didn’t!” uttered Simon, turning pale with dismay. “How could you have done anything so blubber-headed?”