“Oh, that sort, eh? Well, what of it? You ain’t turning pious, are you, Léonie?”
“Rupert, it is most serious. He meant to elope with the bourgeoise, and oh, Rupert, he has taken the wrong sister!”
Rupert stared at her blankly. “Taken the wrong sister? Well, I’ll be damned!” He shook his head. “Y’know, Léonie, that boy drinks too much. If this don’t beat all!”
“He wasn’t drunk, imbécile! At least,” added Léonie conscientiously, “I do not think he was.”
“Must have been,” said his lordship.
“I shall have to explain it all to you.” Léonie sighed.
At the end of her explanation his lordship gave it as his opinion that his nephew had gone stark, staring mad. “Does Avon know?” he asked.
“No, no, not a word! He must not, you understand, and that is why we are going to France at once.”
His lordship regarded her with profound suspicion. “Who’s going to France?”
“But you and I, of course!” Léonie replied.
“No, I’m not,” stated Rupert flatly. “Not to meddle in Vidal’s affairs. I’ll see him damned first, saving your presence.”
“You must,” Léonie said, shocked. “Monseigneur would not at all like me to go alone.”
“I won’t,” said Rupert. “Now, don’t start to argue, Léonie, for God’s sake! The last time I went to France with you I got a bullet in my shoulder.”
“I find you ridiculous,” Léonie said severely. “Who is to shoot bullets at you now?”
“If it comes to that, I wouldn’t put it above Vidal, if I go meddling in his concerns. I tell you I won’t have a hand in it.”
“Very well,” Léonie said, and walked to the door.
Rupert watched her uneasily. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I am going to France,” said Léonie.
His lordship requested her to have sense; she looked wood-enly at him. He pointed out to her the extreme folly of her behaviour; she yawned, and opened the door. His lordship swore roundly and capitulated. He was rewarded by a beaming smile.
“You are very kind to me, Rupert,” her grace said enthusiastically. “We will go at once, do you not think? For I am late already, five days.”
“If you’re five days behind that young devil you’re too late altogether, m’dear,” said his lordship sensibly. “Lord, Avon will murder me for this!”
“Of course he will not murder you!” said Léonie. “He will not know anything about it. When shall we start?”
“When I’ve seen my bankers. Ill do that in the morning, and I only hope the fellows don’t take it into their heads I’m flying the country. We can catch the night packet from Dover, but don’t bring a mountain of baggage, Léonie, if you want to travel fast.”
The Duchess took him at his word, and when his coach arrived in Curzon Street next morning she had only one band-box to be put into it. “You can’t travel like that!” he protested. “And ain’t you taking your abigail along too?”
She rejected the suggestion with scorn, and pointed an accusing finger at the baggage already piled on the roof of the coach. After a lively dispute, in which Lady Fanny and her son joined, two of Lord Rupert’s trunks were left behind in his sister’s charge. An errand-boy, two loiterers, and a cook-girl were interested spectators of the start, and Mr. Marling delivered a lecture, which no one paid any attention to, on the amount of baggage he himself considered necessary for a gentleman to take to Paris.
When the coach at last moved forward Lady Fanny announced that she had the migraine, and went off upstairs, leaving Mr. Marling to order the disposal of the two trunks left on the pavement.
She expected to see his grace of Avon within three days. She saw him within two, greatly to her dismay. When his name was announced she was reclining on a couch in her withdrawing-room, her hands encased in chicken-skin gloves (for an east wind had slightly chapped their soft whiteness), yawning over the pages of The Inflexible Captive. She gave a perceptible start, but recovered herself in an instant, and greeted his grace with apparent delight.
“La, Justin, is it you indeed? I’m vastly glad to see you. Only look at this book that John has given me! It is writ by by that Bluestocking, Mrs. More. I find it amazingly dull, do not you?”
His grace came over to the fire, and stood looking enigmatically down at her. “Amazingly, my dear Fanny. Do I see you in your customary good health?”
Lady Fanny promptly launched into a recital of the many ailments that afflicted her. It was a fruitful topic, and his grace evinced enough polite interest to encourage her to enlarge on it. She enlarged for twenty minutes and discoursed on Dr. Cocchi’s book, The Pythagorean Diet, or Vegetables only conducive to the Preservation of Health and the Cure of Diseases. His grace was urbanity itself. Lady Fanny quaked inwardly, and began to falter in her account of her indisposition. A short pause ensued. His grace took snuff, and as he shut his elegant gold box said languidly: “I understand, my dear Fanny, that there is to be a marriage in our family.”
Lady Fanny started upright on the couch. “A—a marriage?” she stammered. “Why—why—what do you mean, Justin?”
His grace’s brows rose a little; she thought there was a gleam of malice in his eyes. “Doubtless I have been misinformed. I was under the impression that my niece is about to espouse a gentleman of the name of Comyn.”
“Oh!” gasped her ladyship, quite faint with relief. She sank back upon her cushions. “Of course she’ll do no such thing, Justin. Why, have you forgot that I’ve sent her to Paris to be out of the unfortunate young man’s way?”
“On the contrary, I understood that you sent her there to prevent a mésalliance.”
“Well, but—but so it is!” said Fanny, taken aback.
His grace flicked a speck of snuff from his sleeve. “I should inform you, my dear sister, that the marriage has my support.”
Lady Fanny felt for her vinaigrette. “But I won’t have it! He’s a nobody, Justin! I intend her to make a far better match. I made sure you would dislike it excessively. Pray, what in the world has come over you? You’ve never set eyes on young Comyn.”
“I hesitate to contradict you, Fanny,” said his grace politely, “but you will perhaps allow me to be not yet in my dotage. I have met and approved Mr. Comyn. He seemed to be a young gentleman of considerable presence of mind. I am only surprised that he should wish to ally himself with my niece.”
Lady Fanny took a sniff at her salts, and regained strength enough to say: “I suppose you have gone mad, Justin. Let me tell you that I have every hope that Juliana will wed Bertrand de Saint-Vire.”
His grace smiled. “I fear, my dear Fanny, that you are doomed to disappointment.”
“I don’t know what you mean, and I’m sure I don’t desire to!” said her ladyship pettishly. “I might have guessed you would be monstrous disagreeable! And if you are come home early from Newmarket only to encourage Juliana in her waywardness I think it quite abominable of you,”
“Pray calm yourself, Fanny; I am about to relieve you of my presence. You will no doubt be glad to learn that I am leaving London to-night.”
Lady Fanny eyed him in considerable trepidation. “Oh indeed, Justin? May I ask where you propose going?”
“Certainly,” replied his grace blandly. “But surely you have guessed?”
Lady Fanny stammered: “No—yes—pray, how should I guess? Where are you going?”
His grace moved towards the door. His eyes mocked her. “But to Cousin Harriet, my dear. Where else should I go?” He bowed, while she stared at him in mingled horror and suspicion, and before she had time to collect her wits, the door had closed behind him.