“Immensely,” said Mr Ravenscar.
His lordship smiled, and passed out of the house, drawing on a pair of elegant, lavender gloves. A link-boy ran up with his flaring torch, with offers of a chair or a hackney.
“We’ll walk,” said Ravenscar.
It was past four o’clock and a ghostly grey light was already creeping over the sky. It lit the silent square sufficiently for the two men to see their way. They turned northwards, and began to traverse the square in the direction of York Street. A couple of sleepy chairmen roused themselves to proffer their services; a melancholy voice in the distance, proclaiming the hour, showed that the Watch was abroad; but there seemed to be no other signs of life in the streets.
“I recall a time,” remarked Ormskirk idly, “when it was positively dangerous to walk the town at night. One took one’s life in one’s hands.”
“Mohocks?” asked Mr Ravenscar.
“Such desperate, wild fellows!” sighed his lordship. “There is nothing like it nowadays, though they tell me the footpads are becoming a little tiresome. Have you ever been set upon, Ravenscar?”
“Once.”
“I am sure you gave a good account of yourself,” smiled Ormskirk. “You are such a formidable fellow with your fists. Now, that is a sport in which I have never been able to interest myself. I remember that I was once compelled to be present at a turn-up on some heath, or Down—really, I forget: it was abominably remote, and the mud only remains clearly imprinted on my memory! There was a greasy fellow with a nose, whom everyone seemed to be united in extolling. Yes, none other than the great Mendoza: you cannot conceive the depths of my indifference! He was matched with a fellow called Humphries, who bore, quite inexplicably, the title of Gentleman. I do not recollect the outcome; possibly I may have slept. It was very bloody, and crude, and the scent of the hoi polloi, in spite of all that a most disagreeable east wind could do, was all-pervading. But I am speaking, I believe, to one of Mendoza’s admirers!”
“I’ve taken lessons from him,” replied Mr Ravenscar. “I suppose you did not choose to walk home with me to discuss the Fancy. Let’s have it, my lord: what do you want of me?”
Ormskirk made a deprecating gesture. “But so abrupt, my dear Ravenscar! I am walking with you as a gesture of the purest friendliness!”
Mr Ravenscar laughed. “Your obliged servant, my lord!”
“Not at all,” murmured his lordship. “I was about to suggest to you—in proof of my friendly intentions, be it understood—that the removal of your—ah—impetuous young cousin would be timely. I am sure you understand me.”
“I do,” replied Ravenscar rather grimly.
“Now, don’t, I beg of you, take me amiss!” implored his lordship. “I am reasonably certain that your visit to Lady Bellingham’s hospitable house was made with just that intention. You have all my sympathy; indeed, it would be quite shocking to see a promising young gentleman so lamentably thrown away! For myself, I shall make no attempt to conceal from you, my dear fellow, that I find your cousin a trifle de trop.”
Mr Ravenscar nodded. “What’s the woman to you, Ormskirk?” he asked abruptly.
“Shall we say that I cherish not altogether unfounded hopes?” suggested his lordship blandly.
“Accept my best wishes for your success.”
“Thank you, Ravenscar, thank you! I felt sure that we should see eye to eye on this, if upon no other subject. I should be extremely reluctant, I give you my word, to be obliged to remove from my path so callow an obstacle.”
“I can understand that,” said Mr Ravenscar, a somewhat unpleasant note entering his level voice. “Let me make myself plain, Ormskirk! You might have my cousin whipped with my good will, if that would serve either of our ends, but when you call him out you will have run your course! There are no lengths to which I will not go to bring you to utter ruin. Believe me, for I was never more serious in my life!”
There was a short silence. Both men had come to a standstill, and were facing each other. There was not light enough for Mr Ravenscar to be able to read his lordship’s face, but he thought that that slim figure stiffened under its shrouding cloak. Then Ormskirk broke the silence with a soft laugh. “But, my dear Ravenscar!” he protested. “One would say that you were trying to force a quarrel on to me!”
“If you choose to read it so, my lord-?”
“No, no!” said his lordship gently. “That would not serve either of our ends, my dear fellow. I fear you are a fire-eater. Now, I am quite the mildest of creatures, I do assure you! Let us have done with this—I fear we shall have to call it bickering! We are agreed that we both desire the same end. Are you, I wonder, aware that your impulsive cousin has offered the lady in question matrimony?”
“I am. That is why I came to see the charmer for myself.”
Lord Ormskirk sighed. “You have the mot juste, my dear Ravenscar, as always. Enchanting, is she not? There is—you will have noticed—a freshness, excessively grateful to a jaded palate.”
“She will do very well for the role you design for her,” said Mr Ravenscar, with a curl of his lip.
“Precisely. But these young men have such romantic notions! And marriage, you will allow, is a bait, Ravenscar. One cannot deny that it is a bait!”
“Especially when it carries with it a title and a fortune,” agreed Ravenscar dryly.
“I felt sure we should understand one another tolerably well,” said his lordship. “I am persuaded that the affair can be adjusted to our mutual satisfaction. Had the pretty creature’s affections been engaged it would have been another matter. There would, I suppose, have been nothing left for me to do than to retire from the lists—ah—discomfited! One has one’s pride: it is inconvenient, but one has one’s pride. But this, I fancy, is by no means the case.”
“Good God, there’s no love there!” Ravenscar said scornfully. “There is a deal of ambition, I will grant.”
“And who shall blame her?” said his lordship affably. “I feel for her in this dilemma. What a pity it is that I am not young, and single, and a fool! I was once both young and single, but never, to the best of my recollection, a fool.”
“Adrian is all three,” said Mr Ravenscar, not mincing matters. “I, on the other hand, am single, but neither young nor a fool. For which reason, Ormskirk, I do not propose either to discuss the matter with my cousin, or to attempt to remove him from the lady’s vicinity. The rantings of a youth in the throes of his first love-affair are wholly without the power of interesting me, and although I do not pique myself upon my imagination, it is sufficiently acute to enable me to picture the result of any well-meant interference on my part.
The coup de grace must be delivered by Miss Grantham herself.”
“Admirable!” murmured his lordship. “I am struck by the similitude of our ideas, Ravenscar. You must not suppose that this had not already occurred to me. Now, to be plain with you, I regard your entrance upon our little stage as providential—positively providential! It will, I trust, relieve me of the necessity of resorting to the use of a distasteful weapon. Instinct prompts me to believe that you have formed the intention of offering the divine Deborah money to relinquish her pretensions to the hand of your cousin.”
“Judging from the style of the establishment, her notions of an adequate recompense are not likely to jump with mine,” said Mr Ravenscar.
“But appearances are so often deceptive,” said his lordship sweetly. “The aunt—an admirable woman, of course!—is not, alas, blessed with those qualities which distinguish other ladies in the same profession. Her ideas, which are charmingly lavish, preclude the possibility of the house’s being run at a profit, in the vulgar phrase. In a word, my dear Ravenscar, her ladyship is badly dipped.”
“No doubt you are in a position to know?” said Mr Ravenscar.
“None better,” replied Ormskirk. “I hold a mortgage or the house, you see. And in one of those moments of generosity, with which you are doubtless familiar, I—ah—acquired some of the more pressing of her ladyship’s debts.”