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‘No, I have not!’ replied Lady Allerton, affronted. ‘I brought her out two years ago, and she has had a great many suitors, and has refused them all! She is a very well-behaved girl, and would never dream of marrying to disoblige me!’
‘She has been shamefully used!’ he said.
2
The object of the Viscount’s pity, Miss Henrietta Clitheroe, was at the moment seated in a small saloon at the back of the house, studying, with her young cousin, the latest issue of La Belle Assemblée, and endeavouring to convince Miss Allerton that a dress of gauze worn over a damped and transparent petticoat was a toilette scarcely designed to advance her in the good graces of those august members of the ton who were pledged to appear at her mama’s party given in honour of the Grandduchess Catherine of Oldenburg. This was not a circumstance which weighed with Miss Allerton, who, at seventeen, was thought by the censorious to have been born for the express purpose of driving her mother into her grave by the outrageous nature of her pranks; but she knew that she would never be permitted to wear such a dress, and so allowed herself to be distracted by the picture of a damsel arrayed in white satin embellished with rosebuds and love-knots.
She was just saying, though disconsolately, that she supposed it was quite a pretty dress, when the Viscount came into the room, and, still holding the door, said: ‘The latest fashions? Am I very much in the way, or may I have a word with you, cousin?’
The colour flooded Henrietta’s cheeks; she stammered: ‘Oh no! I mean, to be sure you may, Alan!’
Miss Allerton, unwontedly meek, obeyed the command contained in the jerk of his lordship’s head, and tripped out of the room. The Viscount shut the door, and turned to look across the saloon at his cousin. Her colour rose higher still, and she pretended to search for something in the litter of objects on the table.
‘Henry…’ the Viscount said.
She looked up at that, a little shy smile on her lips. ‘Oh, Alan, no one has called me that since you went away! How nice it sounds!’
He returned the smile, although with an effort. ‘Does it? You will always be Henry to me, you know.’ He paused; and then said with a good deal of constraint: ‘I have been with my mother and with Thimbleby for the past hour. What I have learnt from them has made me feel that I must speak to you immediately.’
‘Oh – oh, yes?’ said Henrietta.
‘Yes. I think I was never more shocked in my life than when I realized –’ He broke off, conscious of the awkwardness of his situation. His own colour rose; he said with a rueful laugh: ‘The devil! I’m as tongue-tied as a schoolboy! Henry, I only wanted to say – I’m not going to offer for you!’
The flush in Henrietta’s cheeks began to ebb. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘N-not going to offer for me?’
He came towards her, and took her hands, giving them a reassuring squeeze. ‘Of course I am not! How could you think I would do so, you foolish Henry? You have been made to believe that you were in some way promised to me, haven’t you? Some absurd talk of what your father desired – of what you owed to my family. Well, you owe us nothing, my dearest cousin! It is rather we who owe you a great debt. You have been our – most beloved sister – ever since you came to live with us. I am ashamed that it should ever have been suggested to you that it is your duty to marry me: it is no such thing! You are free to marry whom you please.’
This did not, at the moment, appear likely to the heiress. She disengaged her hands. ‘Am – am I?’
‘Indeed you are!’ With an attempt at lightness, he added: ‘Unless you choose someone quite ineligible! I warn you, I should do what I could to prevent that, Henry!’
She managed to smile. ‘I should be obliged to elope, then, should I not? I – I am glad you have been so frank with me. Now we can be comfortable again!’
‘My poor girl!’ he said quickly. ‘If only you had told me what was in the wind – ! There was never a hint in any of your letters. I would have set your mind at rest months ago! No: you could not, of course!’
She turned away, and began to tidy the litter on the table. She said, in a voice that did not sound to her ears quite like her own: ‘I own, I had as lief not be married for my fortune!’ He returned no answer; after a pause, she added: ‘Are your affairs in very bad case, Alan?’
‘Not so bad that I shall not be able, with time and good management, to set them to rights, I hope,’ he replied. ‘I could wish that my mother had not chosen, at this moment, to entertain upon so lavish a scale. I suppose nothing can be done about this party for the Russian woman, but for the rest – the White’s Ball, Trix’s presentation –’
‘Good God, do not tell my aunt she must postpone that!’ exclaimed Henrietta. ‘If she is obliged to wait another year, Trix will very likely run off with a handsome Ensign!’ She saw the startled look on his face, and added: ‘You don’t yet know her, Alan!’
‘My dear Henry, at seventeen she can hardly be thinking of marriage, surely!’
‘The last man she fell in love with was young Stillington,’ said Henrietta thoughtfully. ‘To be sure, he was better than that actor she saw in Cheltenham, but still quite ineligible of course. Fortunately, her mind was diverted by the plans for her first season.’
‘It is time Trix was broke to bridle!’ said his lordship roundly. He then favoured his cousin with a few animadversions upon the conduct of his lively young sister, and left her to her reflections.
These were not for many moments concerned with the almost inevitable clash between brother and sister. They led Henrietta to the mirror, and caused her to stare long at her own image.
It should have comforted her. Dark ringlets framed a charming countenance in which two speaking eyes of blue became gradually filled with tears that obscured her vision of a short, straight nose, a provocative upper lip, and an elusive dimple. These attributes had apparently failed to captivate the Viscount. The heiress uttered a strangled sob, and dabbed resolutely at her eyes, realizing that she would shortly be obliged to confront Miss Allerton, agog to know whether the date of her wedding had been fixed.
Nor was she mistaken. In a very few minutes, Trix peeped into the room, and, finding her cousin alone, at once demanded to be told what Alan had said to her.
Henrietta replied in the most cheerful of accents: ‘I am so much relieved! He does not wish to marry me at all!’
Trix, shocked by these tidings, could only stare at her.
‘You may imagine how happy he has made me!’ continued Henrietta glibly. ‘Had he desired it, I must have thought it my duty to marry him, but he has set my mind at rest on this head, and now I can be easy again!’
