“Confound you both, I’m in earnest!” Sherry said, setting his tankard down with a crash which made Ferdy jump like a startled deer. “I’m going to marry a girl I’ve known all my life! Damme, I must marry someone! I shan’t have a feather to fly with if I don’t.”
“Who is she?” asked Mr Ringwood. “You’ve never offered for the Stowe girl, Sherry, dear old boy? Not the rabbity-faced one?”
“No, of course I haven’t. You don’t know her: never been to London in her life! I ran off with her yesterday.”
“But, Sherry!” expostulated Mr Ringwood, a good deal shaken. “No, really, dear boy! You can’t do that sort of thing!” —
“Well, I’ve done it,” replied the Viscount, a shade sulkily.
Mr Fakenham made a helpful suggestion. “You want Gretna Green, Sherry. Post-chaise-and-four.”
“Good God, no! It’s bad enough without that!”
“You can get married in the Fleet,” offered Mr Fakenham.
The Viscount arose in his wrath. “I tell you it isn’t that kind of an affair at all! I’m going to be married in a church, all right and tight, and I want a special licence!”
Mr Fakenham begged pardon. Mr Ringwood gave a slight cough. “Sherry, old boy — don’t want to pry into your affairs — wouldn’t offend you for the world! — You ain’t thinking of marrying the lodge-keeper’s daughter, or anything of that kind?”
“No, no! She’s a Wantage — some sort of a cousin, but they don’t own her. Father went through all his blunt, and kicked up a dust of some kind. Before my time. The point is, she’s as well born as you are. Mrs Bagshot brought her up: she’s another of her cousins. You must know the Bagshots!”
Mr Fakenham was suddenly roused to animation. “If she’s a Bagshot, Sherry, I wouldn’t marry her! Now there’s a horrible thing! Do you know that woman has brought out a third one? For anything we know she’s got a string of ’em — and each one worse than the last! Cassandra was bad enough, but have you seen the new one? Tallow-faced girl called Sophy?”
“Lord, yes, I’ve known the Bagshots all my life! Hero’s not like them, I give you my word!”
“Who?” asked Ferdy, his attention arrested.
“Hero. Girl I’m going to marry.”
Ferdy was puzzled. “What do you call her Hero for?”
“It’s her name,” replied Sherry impatiently. “I know it’s a silly name, but damme, it ain’t as silly as Eudora! Besides, I call her Kitten, so what’s the odds?”
“Sherry, where is this girl?” asked Mr Ringwood.
“She’s at Grillon’s. Couldn’t think of anywhere else to take her. Told ’em she was on her way to school, and her abigail broke her leg getting down from the chaise. Best I could think of.”
“Did she, though?” said Ferdy, interested. “Dare say she didn’t wait for the steps to be let down. I had an aunt — well, you remember her, Sherry! Old Aunt Charlotte, the one who — ”
“For God’s sake, Ferdy, will you go and put your head under the pump?” cried the exasperated Viscount. “There wasn’t any abigail!”
“But you said — ”
“He made it up out of his head,” explained Mr Ringwood kindly. “Ought to have been an abigail.”
“Yes, by Jove, and that’s another thing I shall have to arrange!” exclaimed Sherry. “’Pon my soul, there’s no end to it! Where the deuce does one find abigails, Gil?”
“She’ll find one,” Mr Ringwood said. “Bridegroom don’t have to engage the abigails. Butler and footmen, yes. Not abigails.”
His lordship shook his head. “Won’t do at all. She wouldn’t know how to go about it. I tell you, she’s the veriest chit out of the schoolroom. Not up to snuff at all.”
Mr Ringwood eyed him uneasily. “Dear old boy, you haven’t run off with a schoolgirl, have you?”
A rueful grin stole into the Viscount’s eyes. “Well, she ain’t quite seventeen yet,” he admitted.
“Sherry, there’ll be the devil of a dust kicked up!”
“No, there won’t. That old cat of a Bagshot woman don’t care a rap for the poor little soul. If it hadn’t been for me, she’d have packed her off to be a governess at some rubbishing school in Bath. Hero! Chit who used to go bird’s-nesting with me! I couldn’t have that, damme if I could! Besides, if I must marry someone, I’d as lief marry Hero as anyone.”
This heresy was too much for his cousin, who uttered in shocked accents: “Isabella!”
“Oh, well, yes, of course!” said Sherry hastily. “But I can’t marry her, so it might as well be Hero. But that’s neither here nor there. Where do I get a special licence, Gil?”
Mr Ringwood shook his head. “Damned if I know, Sherry!” he confessed.
The Viscount appeared much dashed by this reply. Fortunately, the door opened at that moment, and Mr Ringwood’s man came in with the Honourable Ferdinand’s coat, which he laid reverently across a chair back.
“Chilham will know!” said Mr Ringwood triumphantly. “Extraordinary fellow, Chilham! Knows everything! Chilham, where may his lordship get a special licence?”
The valet betrayed not the smallest sign of surprise at this question, but bowed, and replied in refined accents: “I believe, sir, that the correct procedure will be for his lordship to apply to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“But I don’t know the fellow!” protested his lordship, looking very much alarmed.
The valet executed another of his prim bows. “I apprehend, my lord, that acquaintanceship with his grace need not be a requisite preliminary to the procuring of a licence from him.”
“I’ll tell you what, Sherry,” said his cousin, with a good deal of decision, “I wouldn’t go near him, if I were you.”
“Should his lordship prefer it, I fancy, sir, that any bishop will answer his purpose as well,” said Chilham. “Will there be anything further, sir?”
Mr Ringwood waved him away, just as a violent knocking sounded on the street-door. “No, nothing! If that’s anyone wanting to see me, I’m not at home!”
“Very good, sir. I will endeavour to intercept the gentleman,” said Chilham, and withdrew.
His efforts at interception were not crowned with success. Sounds of an altercation penetrated to the parlour, to be followed an instant later by the eruption into the room of a startlingly handsome young man, dressed in riding-breeches and top-boots, and a long-tailed blue coat, with a Belcher handkerchief carelessly knotted round his throat, and his luxuriant black locks in a state of disorder which allowed one ringlet to tumble across his brow. His fiery dark eyes swept the room, and singled out the Viscount. “I knew it!” he said, in a throbbing voice. “I saw your phaeton!”
“Did you?” said Sherry indifferently. “If Jason’s forked your purse again, there’s no need to get in such a taking. I’ll tell him to hand it over.”
“Don’t try to trifle with me, Sherry!” the newcomer said warningly. “Don’t try it, I say! I know where you have been! You have taken a damned advantage of me, by God!”
“No, he hasn’t,” said Mr Ringwood. “Now, sit down, George, for God’s sake, and don’t put yourself in a pucker over nothing! I never saw such a fellow!”
“Nothing to be in a pucker about,” said Mr Fakenham, adding his helpful mite. “Sherry’s going to be married.”
“What?” gasped Lord Wrotham, turning a ghastly colour, and rolling his eyes towards the Viscount.
“No, no, not to Isabella!” Mr Ringwood assured him, touched by the sight of such agony. “Really, Ferdy, how can you? Sherry’s going to marry another female.”
Lord Wrotham staggered to a chair, and sank into it. Anxious to make amends, Mr Fakenham poured out some ale, and pushed the tankard towards him. He took a pull, and sighed deeply. “My God, I thought — Sherry, I have wronged you!”
“Well, I don’t mind,” said the Viscount handsomely. “Got too much else to think about. Besides, you’re always doing it.”
“Sherry,” said Wrotham, fixing him with a hungry gaze, “I insulted you! If you want satisfaction, I will give it to you.”