He stretched out his hand, and possessed himself of one of hers. “Kitten, there was no use in my trying to keep it from you! God knows I — But I do not believe he cares a button for the Incomparable! He has not shown a sign of it in all these weeks! I own, when I heard that he had consented to come here I was instantly suspicious, and I taxed him with meaning to have a touch at her again. He denied it immediately: bade me remember he was a married man; assured me he had no notion of making love to her. For as soon as I knew Miss Milborne was to bear Lady Sheringham company I offered to take Sherry’s place as their escort. He would not consent to it, but — ”
“Was he so very set on going with them?” Hero asked wistfully.
He hesitated. “I hardly know — Dash it, yes! There was no moving him. But it may well have been as he said: his mother would not have consented to the alteration.”
“I don’t think Sherry would have listened to Lady Sheringham if he had not himself wished to go in her party,” Hero said. “You see, George, I know Sherry very well. And I know, of course, that if only he could divorce me Lady Sheringham would do all that lay in her power to marry him to Isabella.”
“It is very true, but I do not believe it of Sherry. Dash it, Kitten, had he had such a notion he would not have stopped me on Piccadilly, which he did, only to tell me that Miss Milborne was coming to Bath. Yes, by Jove, and he as good as told me also that it was I who had engaged her affections — for you must know that Mrs Milborne’s story was true: Severn did offer, and was rejected!”
“Oh, George, I am so happy to hear that!” Hero said impulsively. “If only the rest may be true! But why should Sherry come here, if you are right? You see, it is as I told you, the night I ran away: it was Isabella he really wished to make his wife, and he took me only because she would not accept him, and his mother had put him in a passion. I do not think he loves Isabella very much, but perhaps he is tired of — of everything, and willing to oblige Lady Sheringham.”
“I do not know: I am not in his confidence. When you first left him, there was no coming near him. He was never at home: spent his time looking for you all over the country. But lately he has been kicking up every kind of lark, as though — Not that that signifies! Plenty of people would tell you I have been doing the same thing myself, and the lord knows I had no pleasure in it! But what am I to do, Kitten? Do you wish him to know that you are here? I own I should be glad to be able to make a clean breast of the business to him, for I have not liked my part in it above half!”
“Oh, no, George, I beg you will not! If he is beginning to forget me — if he should not be pleased to know that I was here — I could not bear it! For he would feel himself bound to take me back, and I am not going to go back, unless — But why do we talk like this? He does not come to Bath for my sake, but for Isabella’s, and you know it as well as I do, George!”
“If I thought that — !” he said broodingly, his hand clenching on his knee.
“It does not appear to me,” interposed Lady Saltash dryly, “that either of you knows anything! Let me beg of you, my love, not to put yourself in a taking before ever that husband of yours has reached Bath! As for you, Wrotham — for I do not mean to stand upon ceremony with you! — you may escort us to the Pump Room, if you will be so obliging. I fancy the barouche is at the door already.”
George expressed his willingness to be of service, took the front seat in the carriage, facing the ladies, and behaved in a very docile way until the arrival on the scene of Mr Tarleton, who came up to them in the Pump Room, and greeted Hero with so much the air of a friend of long standing that George’s hackles rose instinctively. Hero made both gentlemen known to each other, and took the opportunity to whisper to Mr Tarleton, when George went to procure her second glass of the famous water for Lady Saltash, that this was none other than the fire-eater she had told him about. Mr Tarleton, who had a lively sense of humour, was immensely entertained, and he thanked Hero for her warning, and said that he would take good care not to incense so dangerous a young man. George, who had been keeping such a vicariously jealous eye upon Hero that he made himself very unpopular by forgetting to tip the pumper, soon rejoined them.
Closer scrutiny of Mr Tarleton informed him that this pleasant person was no longer in his first youth, and he unbent a little towards him. For his part, Mr Tarleton, quite as suspicious as George, but better able to hide it, could not detect in his manner towards Hero any trace of the lover. Lady Saltash, seated at a little distance, observed the trio with cynical enjoyment. Just such a situation as her mischievous nature delighted in appeared to be brewing.
When she and Hero were once more seated in the barouche, taking a turn about the town before going back to Camden Place, she said with the forthrightness which made her rather disconcerting: “Now, my love, I should be glad if you will inform me what you mean to do next?”
Hero shook her head helplessly.
“You don’t know. Nothing could be more disastrous! But perhaps you know whether or not you are willing tamely to relinquish your husband to this Beauty I hear so much about?”
Hero turned her face away, and stared blindly out of the window. “Oh, ma’am, pray do not ask me! I have — I have such wicked thoughts of poor Isabella!”
“Excellent! I am happy to perceive that there is some spirit in you! Well, let me tell you, my child, that if you mean to make a push to keep Anthony you should show yourself very well able to do without him. Do not be making sheep’s eyes at him, and begging his pardon for having taken exception to his overbearing ways! You are the injured one, remember! and — ”
“No, ma’am, indeed I am not!” Hero said earnestly. “It was all my fault for being so — ”
“Do not interrupt me! I repeat, it is you who are injured, and if you ever hope to have the mastery over Anthony — ”
“But, ma’am, you are quite mistaken!” Hero assured her. “I never thought of such a thing! I only want to make him happy, and not to be such a tiresome wife!”
“You are besotted!” said her ladyship. “I have a very good mind to wash my hands of you! Only want to make him happy indeed! Yes! And if it would make him happy to divorce you and marry this Milborne chit, you will help him to do it, I dare say!”
Hero thought this over. “No, I won’t!” she said suddenly. “If Isabella loved Sherry, I would try my best not to be selfish, but she doesn’t love him, and if she is encouraging him now to follow her about in this odious way, it is just because Severn did not come up to scratch, whatever she may have told Sherry! And I know all the gentlemen who would like to marry Isabella, and Sherry is by far the most eligible, now that Severn is out of the running — or he would be, if I did not exist — and he shall not be sacrificed to Isabella’s horrid ambition!”
Lady Saltash’s eyes narrowed in amusement. “Now you are beginning to talk like a sensible woman!” she said. “And pray how do you mean to rescue him from this designing beauty’s toils?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Hero confessed. “Of course, if I were to return to Sherry, she couldn’t marry him, could she? But I do not at all know that he wants me: in fact, I have a great fear that he does not; and so that would not make him happy in the least. And, oh, dear, ma’am, when I recall how lovely Isabella is, besides being an heiress, and so well-bred, and never doing the wrong thing, and in every respect all that a wife should be, I can’t conceive how Sherry’s affections could fail to reanimate towards her!”
“It is my belief,” responded her ladyship calmly, “that Sherry never had the smallest real affection for her. Very pretty all this talk of his having married you in a fit of pique! I am reading of such things for ever in trashy novels, but in all the course of my life I have not yet observed it to happen! A man whose affections had been seriously engaged would not have relinquished his suit as easily as Sherry seems to have done, my dear, depend upon it! The truth is that he was not in love with either of you. What his sentiments may now be I do not pretend to say, but it is in the nature of nine men out of ten that what may be theirs for the picking up they are much inclined to despise, and what seems to be out of reach they instantly and fervently desire. Now, you do not know whether Anthony loves you or not, and very likely he does not know either. Drop into his hands like a ripe plum, and I dare say you may never know, for I do him the justice to assume that he would receive you again with a good grace. He was never a bad-natured boy: indeed, I used to think he had a great deal of sweetness in his disposition, would someone but encourage him to show it! If you wish to know how you stand with him, let him think that you have no particular desire to return to him! If he wants you, he will move heaven and earth to win you; if he does not — well, then you may make him happy in whatever foolish fashion you choose!”