Ravenscar smiled contemptuously. “Very possibly. Miss Grantham has gone into the country for a few days. I was aware that she had that intention.”
“And were you also aware that your cousin had the intention to accompany her?” inquired Ormskirk.
“I was not!”
“No, I thought not,” said Ormskirk gently.
“Are you serious?” Ravenscar demanded. “Do you tell me that Mablethorpe was with Miss Grantham?”
“That,” replied his lordship, “is what Stillingfleet told me. And he is, I fancy, fairly well acquainted with your cousin. He informed me that Mablethorpe was riding beside the chaise. Ah, I did mention that they were travelling in a northerly direction, did I not?”
“Oh, yes!” said Ravenscar. “You mentioned that at the outset, my lord. I may be dull-witted, but I collect that you wish me to infer that my cousin was eloping with Miss Grantham to Gretna Green.”
“It seems a fair inference,” murmured his lordship.
“It is a damned lie!” said Mr Ravenscar.
His lordship raised his brows in faint hauteur. “You should know better than I, my dear sir.”
“I think so indeed! I have known Mablethorpe since he was in short coats, and nothing would astonish me more than to learn that he had taken part in anything so vulgar as an elopement to Gretna. It is not in his character, my lord, believe me. Furthermore, I do not think that Miss Grantham has any more intention of marrying him than she has of becoming your mistress!”
“You would appear to be in the lady’s confidence,” said Ormskirk. “Or has she succeeded in deceiving you, I wonder?”
“She has certainly tried her best to do so, but I can assure you that she failed!” replied Ravenscar, with a short laugh. “I think I know Miss Grantham now, however mistaken I may have been in her at the outset! If Stillingfleet saw my cousin beside her chaise today, I imagine that he was escorting her to her friends in the country. That would certainly be in keeping with what I know of him.”
Lord Ormskirk made a graceful gesture of acceptance. “I that explanation satisfies you, my dear Ravenscar, who am I to cavil at it? I do hope that you will not suffer a rude awakening. You must not think that I do not find your faith in your cousin’s sense of propriety edifying: believe me, I do myself, I fear I am a cynic. No doubt we shall discover in time which of us was right.”
Chapter 16
Ravenscar strode home in a mood of some uneasiness. Lord Ormskirk’s story had alarmed him quite a much as it had angered him, and although he did indeed believe Mablethorpe to be incapable of so far forgetting what was due to his name as to elope with Miss Grantham to the Border he could not but recall his own faint surprise at hearing, that morning, that his cousin had suddenly taken it into his head to retire into the country for a few days’ shooting. Mr Ravenscar was well aware that his youthful relative, far from showing any sign of recovery from his passion for Miss Grantham, had been haunting St James’s Square for the past week. He bore all the marks of a man deeply in love, and nothing, Ravenscar was persuaded, had been farther from his intentions, when he had last seen his cousin, than a removal from town. Miss Grantham’s decision to visit friends in the country might, of course, have altered his lordship’s plans; and it certainly would have been very like him to have escorted her to her destination before himself travelling into Berkshire. Mr Ravenscar did his best to satisfy his own unquiet mind with this explanation, but could not quite succeed. He could not leave out of his calculations the inconvenient circumstance of his having relinquished the one sure hold he had over Miss Grantham. He thought he had gauged Miss Grantham’s character correctly, but the unwelcome suspicion that he might after all have been wrong would not be banished entirely from his brain. This possibility was so exceedingly unpalatable that it set him striding on at a greater rate than ever, his hand rather tightly clenched on his walking-cane, and his face set in more than ordinarily grim lines. At no time did Mr Ravenscar care to find himself mistaken; in this instance he had his own reasons for being doubly anxious that his judgement should not be found to have been at fault.
He reached his house soon after one in the morning, and was surprised, and not best pleased, to be met by his stepmother, swathed in a wrapper, and evidently labouring under a considerable degree of agitation. Long experience had made it unnecessary for him to inquire the cause of her being out of bed at such an hour, and he said, before she could speak: “Well, what has she been doing this time?”
“Oh my dear Max!” said Mrs Ravenscar, in a weak voice. “I ought to have suspected when she said she had the headache that she was planning some mischief!”
“Of course you ought!” replied Ravenscar. “Out, is she?”
“Her bed has not been slept in!” announced Mrs Ravenscar dramatically. “I went in, just to see how she did, a couple of hours ago, for you must know that I myself am quite unable to sleep in all the racket of town—not that I mean to complain, I am sure, but so it is! And she was not in her room, and not a word can I get out of that wicked maid of hers, who, I am positive, is in the plot! She will do nothing but cry, and say that she knows nothing!”
“You had better get rid of the girl,” said Ravenscar unemotionally.
“It is all very well for you to dismiss the matter so lightly, Max, but if you knew the number of abigails I have engaged to wait on Arabella, and each one of them less fit to be trusted than the last! Besides, how will that help us in our present predicament?”
“It won’t,” he replied. “Nor will anything help us in any future predicaments of the same nature except your forgetting all these megrims of yours, Olivia, and taking Belle to the balls and masquerades her heart craves for. Where has she gone tonight?”
“How should I know? I do not know how you can stand there, speaking to me in that brutal fashion, when you know how the least thing oversets my poor nerves! It is unfeeling of you, and I did not look for such usage at your hands, though to be sure I might well, for your father was just such another! I will tell you what it is, Max: if you had the smallest consideration for me, or for your poor sister—who is your ward, let me remind you!—you would have married years ago, and provided the child with a chaperon who might have escorted her to parties without being prostrated by exhaustion for days after!”
“Of all the reasons I ever heard for embarking on the married state, that one appeals the least to me!” said Ravenscar roundly. “You had better go up to bed, ma’am: I have little doubt that already your nerves will suffer from the effects of this night.”
“I have had the most dreadful palpitations this past hour and more. But where can that dreadful child be?”
“I have no idea, and nothing is farther from my intention than to scour London in search of her. She will return presently.”
“If anyone were to hear of these pranks of hers, it would ruin all her chances of making a good match!” mourned Mrs Ravenscar, drifting towards the stairs.
“Nonsense!” said Ravenscar. “Nothing can ruin the chances of an heiress of making a good match!”
Mrs Ravenscar said that she hoped he would be found to know what he was talking about, but that for her part she wished the child were safely married, so that she herself might retire to the peace of Bath. She then went upstairs, leaning heavily on the banister-rail, and, after swallowing some laudanum-drops, and soaking her handkerchief in lavender water, very soon fell asleep.
Miss Ravenscar, knocking softly on the door an hour later, was disconcerted at being admitted, not by her faithful abigail, as had been arranged, but by an exasperated half-brother. “Oh!” she exclaimed, letting fall her reticule. “W-what a start you gave me, Max, to be sure!”