But the race, so innocent and pleasurable in itself, was to lead to disastrous results. It was naturally talked of, and the news that a new and dangerous female whip had arrived in town reached the ears of Lady Royston, the wife of a sporting baronet, and herself no mean handler of the ribbons. She had not until then paid much heed to Sherry’s bride, for she was some years her senior, and had, in any event, little time to waste on her own sex. But, meeting Hero at die house of a mutual acquaintance, she did her the honour of singling her out, making much of her, teasing her a little, and wondering what would be the outcome if Hero were to race against her. The notion took extremely amongst the gallants gathered about the two ladies. Lady Royston’s admirers swore that no one could beat her ladyship, but a gentleman who had been present at Fakenham Manor at Christmas loyally stated his willingness to sport his blunt on Lady Sherry. In a very short space of time what had begun as the merest pleasantry became sober earnest. Lady Royston challenged Hero to race her over a given course, Hero accepted the challenge, judges and timekeepers were elected, rules agreed upon, a date fixed, and bets recorded.
Epsom was to be the rendezvous; and the projected encounter soon became the most talked-of event in society. Hero, dreaming of a victory that would bring that warm look of pride into Sherry’s eyes, and place her amongst the most dashing of the Upper Ten Thousand, was blind to the signs that should have warned her that this exploit was a great deal too dashing to recommend her to the more austere leaders of society. Lady Sefton was out of town; Sherry was hunting in Leicestershire with Mr Ringwood and Lord Wrotham; even Miss Milborne was still at Severn Towers. The only person of experience to draw on the curb-rein was Mrs Bagshot, and since Sherry had freely stigmatized this lady and all her daughters as a parcel of dowds it was not surprising that Hero should not have attended to the severe lecture Cousin Jane read her. Mr Ringwood, returning to London a day later, with a heavy cold in his head, took to his bed, and therefore heard nothing of the Ladies’ Race; but Lord Wrotham, who had accompanied him to town, did hear of it, and although he was not one to set much store by convention, he felt uneasily that it was perhaps not quite the thing for Sherry’s wife to compete publicly in a chariot race. He consulted the Honourable Ferdy on the propriety of it, and Ferdy, who had backed Hero to win without the least misgiving, was immediately struck by the obvious impropriety of the whole affair, and said By Jove, he wondered he should not have thought of it before, and what the deuce was to be done, now that bets had been laid, a date fixed, and every arrangement made? Lord Wrotham agreed that it was very hard to know what ought to be done, but after he had slept on the problem he conceived the notion of consulting Mr Ringwood, in whose solid judgment he had great faith. Mr Ringwood, discovered with his feet in hot mustard and water and a bowl of steaming rum punch at his elbow, had no doubt at all of what ought to be done. Lady Sherry must, he said, be instantly warned that such a start would never do.
“Yes, but who’s to tell her?” demanded George suspiciously.
“You,” replied Mr Ringwood with great firmness.
“No, damme, I won’t! Dash it, Gil, I can’t tell Sherry’s wife how she should conduct herself!”
“Must tell her,” said Mr Ringwood. “I’d tell her myself if I hadn’t this damned cold. Mustn’t let this come to Sherry’s ears. Wouldn’t like it at all.”
Lord Wrotham, eyeing him grimly, favoured him with a pithy and unsolicited opinion of his cold, his morals, and his entire lack of bottom. Mr Ringwood recruited his strength with a liberal allowance of punch, and said briefly: “Tell you what, George: Ferdy must do it.”
“Yes, by God!” exclaimed George. “He’s Sherry’s cousin, and he shall do it!”
But Ferdy, hectored into calling on Hero the very next day, did not prove to be a successful envoy. He employed so much tact that he quite failed to impress Hero with a sense of her wrong-headedness. She laughed at him, assured him that he was as stuffy as Cousin Jane, and went off to change her library book at Richardson’s before he had said a quarter of the things he had rehearsed on his way to Half Moon Street.
Mr Ringwood, learning what had befallen, animadverted bitterly on the folly of one friend and the moral cowardice of the other, and announced his intention of calling on Lady Sherry himself upon the following morning.
It was too late. Mrs Bagshot, coming away from her interview with Hero in high dudgeon, had lost no time in sending off an express to Sherry at Melton, informing him in good round terms of his wife’s latest escapade, drawing a horrid picture of its inevitable result, graphically describing the evils of a lady’s name being bandied about the clubs in connection with Horseracing and Betting, and comprehensively washing her hands of the whole business.
This missive reached Sherry in the eve of what promised to be one of the best runs of the season, and it drew from him such an explosion of wrath that Mrs Goring, who happened to be passing through the hall with a pile of clean linen, dropped six shirts and eight handkerchiefs on to a floor made muddy by his lordship’s boots, and promptly succumbed to a fit of hysterics.
Sherry arrived in London at dusk on the day of Ferdy’s ill starred visit to Half Moon Street, having driven himself in his curricle all the way. He was tired, chilled, and he had missed a capital day’s sport. Informed by his startled butler that my lady was dressing for a party, he mounted the stairs two at a time, entered his wife’s room without ceremony, and, ignoring the presence of her abigail, demanded furiously: “What the devil is this I’m hearing about you?”
The abigail shrank back in alarm; Hero, seated before her mirror, gazed at him in blank dismay, and faltered: “Sherry! Sherry! I didn’t expect — I don’t — ”
“No, by God, I’ll wager you didn’t expect me!” he said. He pulled Mrs Bagshot’s letter from his pocket and thrust it into Hero’s hand. “Read that!” He became aware of the abigail, and rounded on her promptly. “What the deuce are you doing here? Outside!”
The abigail then momentarily surprised her young mistress by asserting in a very noble way her fixed resolve to support and protect her ladyship, even though she should be assailed by wild horses. Hero was much affected by this wholly unexpected championship, but begged her to leave the room. Maria cast the Viscount a look of loathing which embraced the entire race of men, and retired to regale Mrs Bradgate and the kitchenmaid with a recital of all the circumstances in her own career which had led her to look upon the male sex as being in all essentials lower than Beasts in the Field.
Hero, meanwhile, was perusing in a dazed manner her cousin Jane’s letter. She gave a little exclamation and looked up, stammering: “But, Sherry, why? Why? I made sure you would not have the least objection!”
“No objection?” he thundered. “No objection to your making such a show of yourself? Bets laid on you in all the clubs! Every goggling fool in town sniggering at you, and believing you to be as bad as Letty Lade!”
“But Lady Royston — ”
“Sally Royston!” he interrupted. “Sally Royston! It needed only that, by God! The vulgarest hoyden — the most shameless baggage — ”
“Sherry, no! Oh no, no, how can this be so? I have met her at the most exclusive houses, indeed, I have!”
“So you have met Lady Maria Berwick at the most exclusive houses, and a score of others! Do you desire to model your conduct upon theirs? Good God, will nothing teach you?”
She was trembling. “Sherry, if I have done wrong I am very sorry, but how could I guess? Lady Fakenham saw no harm — ”