Arabella

These simple words struck the ears of his audience with stunning effect. Lord Fleetwood’s jaw dropped; Lady Bridlington’s and her son’s rather protuberant eyes started at Mr Beaumaris; and Arabella stared at him in amazement. It was she who broke the silence. ‘You?’ she said, the incredulity in her tone leaving him in no doubt of her opinion of his character.

A rather rueful smiled twisted his lips. ‘Why not?’ he said.

Her eyes searched his face. ‘What would you do with him?’ she demanded.

‘I haven’t the smallest notion,’ he confessed. ‘I hope you may be going to tell me what I am to do with him, Miss Tallant.’

‘If I let you take him, you would throw him on the Parish, like Lord Fleetwood!’ she said bitterly.

His lordship uttered an inarticulate protest.

‘I have a great many faults,’ replied Mr Beaumaris, ‘but, believe me, you may trust my pledged word! I will neither throw him on the parish, nor restore him to his master.’

‘You must be mad!’ exclaimed Frederick.

‘You would naturally think so,’ said Mr Beaumaris, flicking him with one of his disdainful glances.

‘Have you considered what people would be bound to say?’ Frederick said.

‘No, nor do I propose to burden my head with anything that interests me so little!’ retorted Mr Beaumaris.

Arabella said in a softened voice: ‘If you mean it indeed, sir, you will be doing the very kindest thing – perhaps the best thing you have ever done, and, oh, I thank you!’

‘Certainly the best thing I have ever done, Miss Tallant,’ he said, with that wry smile.

‘What will you do with him?’ she asked again. ‘You must not be thinking that I mean you to adopt him as your own, or anything of that nature! He must be brought up to a respectable trade, only I do not know what would be the best for him!’

‘Perhaps,’ suggested Mr Beaumaris, ‘he has views of his own on the subject. What, Jemmy, would you choose to do?’

‘Yes, what would you like to do when you are a man?’ said Arabella, turning to kneel beside Jemmy’s chair, and speaking in a coaxing tone. ‘Tell me!’

Jemmy, who had been following all this with an intent look in his face, had no very clear idea of what it was about, but his quick, cockney mind had grasped that none of these swells, not even the stout, cross one, intended any harm to him. The scared expression in his eyes had given place to one of considerable acuteness. He answered his protectress without hesitation. ‘Give ole Grimsby a leveller!’ he said.

‘Yes, my dear, and so you shall, and I hope you will do the same by everyone like him!’ said Arabella warmly. ‘But how would you choose to earn your living?’

Mr Beaumaris’s lips twitched appreciatively. So the little Tallant had brothers, had she?

Lady Bridlington was looking bewildered, and her son disgusted. Lord Fleetwood, accepting Arabella’s unconsciously betrayed knowledge of boxing-cant without question, looked Jemmy over critically, and gave it as his opinion that the boy was not the right build for a bruiser.

‘Of course not!’ said Arabella. ‘Think, Jemmy! What could you do, do you suppose?’

The urchin reflected, while the company awaited his pleasure. ‘Sweep a crossing,’ he pronounced at last. ‘I could ’old the gen’lemen’s ’orses, then.’

‘Hold the gentlemen’s horses?’ repeated Arabella. Her eye brightened. ‘Are you fond of horses, Jemmy?’

Jemmy nodded vigorously. Arabella looked round in triumph. ‘Then I know the very thing!’ she said. ‘Particularly since it is you who are to take charge of him, Mr Beaumaris!’

Mr Beaumaris waited in deep foreboding for the blow to fall.

‘He must learn to look after horses, and then, as soon as he is a little older, you may employ him as your Tiger!’ said Arabella radiantly.

Mr Beaumaris, whose views on the folly of entrusting blood-cattle to the guardianship of small boys were as unequivocal as they were well-known, replied without a tremor: ‘To be sure I may. The future now being provided for –’

‘But you never drive with a Tiger up behind you!’ exclaimed Lord Bridlington. ‘You have said I know not how many times –’

‘I do wish, Bridlington, that you would refrain from interrupting with these senseless comments,’ said Mr Beaumaris.

‘But that child is far too young to be a Tiger!’ pointed out Lady Bridlington.

Arabella’s face fell. ‘Yes, he is,’ she said regretfully. ‘Yet it would be the very thing for him, if only we knew what to do with him in the meantime!’

‘I think,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘that in the meantime I had better convey him to my own house, and place him in the charge of my housekeeper, pending further discussion between us, Miss Tallant.’

He was rewarded with a glowing look. ‘I did not know you would be so kind!’ said Arabella. ‘It is a splendid notion, for the poor little fellow needs plenty of good food, and I am sure he must get it in your house! Listen, Jemmy, you are to go with this gentleman, who is to be your new master, and be a good boy, and do as he bids you!’

Jemmy, clutching a fold of her dress, was understood to say that he preferred to remain with her. She bent over him, patting his shoulder. ‘No, you cannot stay with me, my dear, and I am sure you would not like it half so well if you could, for you must know that he has a great many horses, and will very likely let you see them. Did you come here in your curricle, sir?’ Mr Beaumaris bowed. ‘Well, there, do you hear that, Jemmy?’ said Arabella, in a heartening tone. ‘You are to drive away in a carriage, behind a pair of beautiful gray horses!’

‘I am driving my chestnuts today,’ said Mr Beaumaris apologetically. ‘I am so sorry, but I feel I should perhaps mention it!’

‘You did very right,’ said Arabella approvingly. ‘One should never tell untruths to children! Chestnuts, Jemmy, glossy brown horses! How grand you will feel sitting up behind them!’

Apparently the urchin felt that there was much in what she said. He released her gown, and directed his sharp gaze upon his new owner. ‘Proper good ’uns?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Proper good ’uns,’ corroborated Mr Beaumaris gravely.

Jemmy slid from the chair. ‘You ain’t slumming me? You won’t go a-givin’ of me back to ole Grimsby?’

‘No, I won’t do that. Come and take a look at my horses!’

Jemmy hesitated, glancing up at Arabella, who at once took his hand, and said: ‘Yes, let us go and see them!’

When Jemmy beheld the equipage being led up and down the street, his eyes widened, and he drew a shuddering breath of ecstasy. ‘That’s a bang-up set-out, that is!’ he said. ‘Will I drive them ’orses, guv’nor?’

‘You will not,’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘You may sit up beside me, however.’

‘Yessir!’ said Jemmy, recognising the voice of authority.

‘Up with you, then!’ Mr Beaumaris said, lifting him into the curricle. He turned, and found that Arabella was holding her hand out to him. He took it in his, and held it for a moment.

‘I wish I might find the words to thank you!’ she said. ‘You will let me know how he goes on.’

‘You may rest easy on that head, Miss Tallant,’ he said, bowing. He took the reins in his hand, and mounted into the carriage, and looked down maliciously at Lord Fleetwood, who had accompanied them out of the house, and was just taking his leave of Arabella. ‘Come, Charles!’

Lord Fleetwood started, and said hurriedly: ‘No, no, I’ll walk! No need to worry about me, my dear fellow!’

‘Come, Charles!’ repeated Mr Beaumaris gently.

Lord Fleetwood, aware of Arabella’s eyes upon him, sighed, and said: ‘Oh, very well!’ and climbed into the curricle, wedging Jemmy between himself and Mr Beaumaris.

Mr Beaumaris nodded to his gaping groom, and steadied the chestnuts as they sprang forward. ‘Coward,’ he remarked.

‘It ain’t that I’m a coward!’ protested his lordship. ‘But we shall have all the fools in London staring after us! I can’t think what’s come over you, Robert! You’re never going to keep this brat in Mount Street! If it leaks out, and it’s bound to, I suppose you know everyone will think it’s a by-blow of yours?’

‘The possibility had crossed my mind,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris. ‘I am sure I ought not to let it weigh with me: Miss Tallant certainly would not.’

‘Well, damn it, I think that prosy fool, Bridlington, was right for once in his life! You’ve gone stark, staring mad!’

‘Very true: I have known it this half-hour and more.’

Lord Fleetwood looked at him in some concern. ‘You know, Robert, if you’re not careful you’ll find yourself walking to the altar before you’re much older!’ he said.

‘No, she has the poorest opinion of me,’ replied Mr Beaumaris. ‘I perceive that my next step must be to pursue the individual known to us as “ole Grimsby”.’

‘What?’ gasped Fleetwood. ‘She never asked that of you!’

‘No, but I feel she expects it of me.’ He saw that the mention of the sweep’s name had made Jemmy look up at him in quick alarm, and said reassuringly: ‘No, I am not going to give you to him.’

‘Robert, never in all the years I’ve known you have I seen you make such a cake of yourself!’ said his friend, with brutal frankness. ‘First you let the little Tallant bamboozle you into saddling yourself with this horrid brat, and now you talk of meddling with a chimney-sweep! You! Why, it’s unheard of!’

‘Yes, and, what is more, I have a shrewd suspicion that a benevolent career is going to prove extremely wearing,’ said Mr Beaumaris thoughtfully.

‘I see what it is,’ said Fleetwood, after regarding his profile for a few moments. ‘You’re so piqued she don’t favour you you’ll go to any lengths to fix your interest with the girl!’

‘I will,’ said Mr Beaumaris cordially.

‘Well, you’d better take care what you are about!’ said his worldly-wise friend.

‘I will,’ said Mr Beaumaris again.

Lord Fleetwood occupied himself during the rest of the short drive in delivering a severe lecture on the perfidy of those who, without having any serious intentions, attempted to cut out their friends with the season’s most notable catch, adding, for good measure, a lofty condemnation of hardened rakes who tried to deceive innocent country maidens.

Mr Beaumaris listened to him with the utmost amiability, only interrupting to applaud this last flight of eloquence. ‘That’s very good, Charles,’ he said approvingly. ‘Where did you pick it up?’

‘Devil!’ said his lordship, with feeling. ‘Well, I wash my hands of you – and I hope she will lead you a pretty dance!’

‘I have a strong premonition,’ replied Mr Beaumaris, ‘that your hope is likely to be realised.’

Lord Fleetwood gave it up, and as Mr Beaumaris saw no reason to take him into his confidence, what little time was left before Mount Street was reached was occupied in discussing the chances of the newest bruiser in his forthcoming fight with an acknowledged champion.

Mr Beaumaris, at this stage, would have been chary of confiding in anyone the precise nature of his intentions. He was by no means sure that he knew what they were himself, but that he had called in Park Street for precisely the reasons described by his friend, and, when confronted by the vision of Arabella fighting for the future of her unattractive protégé, had undergone an enlightenment so blinding as almost to deprive him of his senses, was certain. No consideration of the conduct to be expected of a delicately nurtured female had stopped her. She knew no discomfiture when two gentlemen of fashion had arrived to find her embroiled in the concerns of an urchin far beneath the notice of any aspirant to social heights. No, by God! thought Mr Beaumaris exultantly, she showed us what she thought of such frippery fellows as we are! We might have gone to the devil for all she cared. I might have made her a laughing-stock only by recounting the story – as I could! Lord, yes, as I could! Did she know it? Would she have cared? Not a farthing, the little Tallant! But I must stop Charles spreading this all over town.

Mr Beaumaris, hunting now in earnest, was by far too experienced a sportsman to pursue his quarry too closely. He let several days pass before making any attempt to approach Arabella. When next he encountered her it was at a ball given by the Charnwoods. He asked her to stand up with him for one of the country-dances, but when the moment for taking their places in the set came, led her to a sofa, saying: ‘Shall you object to sitting down with me instead? One can never converse in comfort while dancing, and I must consult you about our urchin.’

‘No, indeed!’ she said warmly. ‘I have been so anxious to know how he goes on!’ She seated herself, holding her fan in her clasped hands, and raised her eyes to his face in an enquiring look. ‘Is he well? Is he happy?’

‘As far as I have been able to ascertain,’ replied Mr Beaumaris carefully, ‘he is not only fast recovering the enjoyment of excellent health, but is achieving no common degree of felicity by conduct likely to deprive me of the services of most of my existent staff.’

Arabella considered this. Mr Beaumaris watched appreciatively the wrinkling of her thoughtful brow. ‘Is he very naughty?’ she asked presently.

‘According to the report of my housekeeper, Miss Tallant – but I daresay she is not to be at all believed! – he is the embodiment of too many vices for me to enumerate.’

She seemed to accept this with unimpaired calm, for she nodded understandingly.

‘Pray do not think that I should dream of burdening you with anything so unimportant as the complaints of a mere housekeeper!’ begged Mr Beaumaris. ‘Nothing but the most urgent of exigencies could have prevailed upon me to open my lips to you upon this subject!’ She looked startled, and enquiring: ‘You see,’ he said apologetically, ‘it is Alphonse!’

‘Alphonse?’

‘My chef,’ explained Mr Beaumaris. ‘Of course, if you say so, ma’am, he shall go! But I must own that his departure would cause me grave concern. I do not mean to say that my life would be shattered, precisely, for no doubt there are other chefs who have his way with a soufflé, and who do not take such violent exception to the raids of small boys upon the larder!’

‘But this is quite absurd, Mr Beaumaris!’ said Arabella severely. ‘You must have been indulging Jemmy beyond what is right! I daresay he is excessively ill-behaved: it is always so, unless their spirits are utterly broken, and we must be thankful that his are not!’

‘Very true!’ agreed Mr Beaumaris, entranced by this wisdom. ‘I will at once present this view of the matter to Alphonse.’

Arabella shook her head. ‘Oh, no! it would not be of the least avail, I daresay! Foreigners,’ she said largely, ‘have no notion how to manage children! What is to be done?’

‘I cannot help feeling,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘that Jemmy would benefit by country air.’

This suggestion found favour. ‘Nothing could be better for him!’ agreed Arabella. ‘Besides, there is no reason why he should tease you, I am sure! Only how may it be contrived?’

Much relieved at having so easily cleared this fence, Mr Beaumaris said: ‘The notion did just cross my mind, ma’am, that if I were to take him into Hampshire, where I have estates, no doubt some respectable household might be found for him.’

‘One of your tenants! The very thing!’ exclaimed Arabella. ‘Quite a simple cottage, mind, and a sensible woman to take care of him! Only I am afraid she would have to be paid a small sum to do it.’

Mr Beaumaris, who felt that no sum could be too large for the ridding of his house of one small imp who threatened to disrupt it, bore up nobly under the warning, and said that he had envisaged this possibility, and was prepared to meet it. It then occurred to Arabella that he might reasonably expect so great an heiress as herself to bear the charge of her protégé; and she embarked on a tangled explanation of why she could not at present do so. Mr Beaumaris interrupted her speech when it showed signs of becoming ravelled beyond hope. ‘No, no, Miss Tallant!’ he said. ‘Do not deny me this opportunity to perform a charitable action, I beg of you!’

So Arabella very kindly refrained from doing so, and bestowed so grateful a smile upon him that he felt himself to have been amply rewarded.

‘Are you quite in disgrace with Lady Bridlington?’ he asked quizzically.

She laughed, but looked a little guilty. ‘I was,’ she owned. ‘But since she has seen that the story has not got about, she has forgiven me. She was persuaded that everyone would be laughing at me. As though I would care for such a thing as that, when I had but done my duty!’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Do you know, I had begun to believe that everyone in town – all the grand people, I mean – were quite heartless, and selfish?’ she confided. ‘I am afraid I was not quite civil to you – indeed, Lady Bridlington assures me that I was shockingly rude! – but then, you see, I had no notion that you were not like all the rest. I beg your pardon!’

Mr Beaumaris had the grace to acknowledge a twinge of conscience. It led him to say: ‘Miss Tallant, I did it in the hope of pleasing you.’

Then he wished that he had curbed his tongue, for her confiding air left her, and although she talked easily for a few more minutes he was fully aware that she had withdrawn from him again.

He was able to retrieve his position a few days later, and took care not to jeopardise it again. When he returned from a visit to his estates he called in Park Street to give Arabella comfortable tidings of Jemmy, whom he had foisted on to a retired servant of his own. She was a little concerned lest the town-bred waif should feel lost and unhappy in the country, but when he informed her that the last news he had of Jemmy, before leaving Hampshire, was that he had let a herd of bullocks out of the field where they were confined, pulled the feathers from the cock’s tail, tried to ride an indignant pig round the yard, and eaten a whole batch of cakes newly baked by his kind hostess, she perceived that Jemmy was made of resilient stuff, and laughed, and said that he would soon settle down, and learn to be a good boy.

Mr Beaumaris agreed to it, and then played his trump card. He thought Miss Tallant would like to know that he had taken steps to ensure the well-being of Mr Grimsby’s future apprentices.

Arabella was delighted. ‘You have brought him to justice!’

‘Well, not quite that,’ confessed Mr Beaumaris. He saw the disappointed look in her eye, and added hastily: ‘You know, I could not feel that to be appearing in a court of law was just what you would like. Then, too, when it is a question of apprentices one is apt to find oneself confronted with all manner of difficulties in the way of removing boys from their masters. It seemed best, therefore, to drop a word in Sir Nathaniel Conant’s ear. He is the Chief Magistrate, and as I have some acquaintance with him the thing was easy. Mr Grimsby will take care how he disregards a warning from Bow Street, I assure you.’

Arabella was a little sorry to think that Mr Grimsby was not to be cast into gaol, but being a sensible girl she readily appreciated the force of Mr Beaumaris’s arguments, and told him that she was very much obliged to him. She sat pondering deeply for some moments, while he watched her, wondering what now was in her head. ‘It should be the business of people with interest and fortune to enquire into such things!’ she said suddenly. ‘No one seems to care a button in a great city like this! I have seen such dreadful sights since I came to London – such beggary, and misery, and such countless ragged children who seem to have no parents and no homes! Lady Bridlington does not care to have anything of that nature spoken about, but, oh, I would like so much to be able to help such children as poor Jemmy!’

‘Why don’t you?’ he asked coolly.

Her eyes flew to his; he knew that he had been too blunt: she would not tell him the truth about herself. Nor did she. After a tiny pause, she said: ‘Perhaps, one day, I shall.’

He wondered whether her godmother had warned her against him, and when she excused herself from dancing with him at the next Assembly was sure of it.

But the warning came from Lord Bridlington. Mr Beaumaris’s marked attentions to Arabella, including, as they had, so extraordinary a gesture as the adoption of Jemmy, had aroused the wildest hopes in Lady Bridlington’s shallow brain. If any of his previous amatory adventures had led him to perform a comparable deed, she at least had never heard of it. She began to indulge the fancy that his intentions were serious, and had almost written to give Mrs Tallant a hint of it when Lord Bridlington dashed her hopes.

‘You would do well, ma’am, to put your young friend a little on her guard with Beaumaris,’ he said weightily.

‘My dear Frederick, and so I did, at the outset! But he has become so particular in his attentions, showing such a decided preference for her, and trying to fix his interest with her by every means in his power, that I really begin to think he has formed a lasting attachment! Only fancy if she were to form such a connection, Frederick! I declare, I should feel it as much as if she were my own child! For it will be all due to me, you know!’

‘You would be very unwise to put such a notion into the girl’s head, Mama,’ he said, cutting short these rhapsodies. ‘I can tell you this: Beaumaris’s intimates don’t by any means regard his pursuit of Miss Tallant in that light!’

‘No?’ she said, in a faltering tone.

‘Far otherwise, ma’am! They are saying that it is all pique, because she does not appear to favour him above any other. I must say, I should not have expected her to have shown such good sense! You must know that men of his type, accustomed as he is to being courted and flattered, are put very much on their mettle by a rebuff from any female who has not been so foolish as to pick up the handkerchief they have carelessly tossed towards her. It puts me out of all patience to see anyone so spoiled and caressed! But be that as it may, you should know, Mama, that bets are being laid and taken at White’s against Miss Tallant’s holding out against this siege!’

‘How odious men are!’ exclaimed Lady Bridlington indignantly.

Odious they might be, but if they were laying bets of that nature at the clubs there was nothing for a conscientious chaperon to do but warn her charge once more against lending too credulous an ear to an accomplished flirt. Arabella assured her that she had no intention of doing so.

‘No, my dear, very likely not,’ replied her ladyship. ‘But there is no denying that he is a very attractive man: I am conscious of it myself! Such an air! such easy address! But it is of no use to think of that! I am sadly afraid that it is a kind of sport with him to make females fall in love with him.’

‘I shall not do so!’ declared Arabella. ‘I like him very well, but, as I told you before, I am not such a goose as to be taken-in by him!’

Lady Bridlington looked at her rather doubtfully. ‘No, my love, I hope not indeed. To be sure, you have so many admirers that we need not consider Mr Beaumaris. I suppose – you will not be offended at my asking, I know! – I suppose no eligible gentleman has proposed to you?’

Quite a number of gentlemen, eligible and ineligible, had proposed to Arabella, but she shook her head. She might acquit some of her suitors of having designs on her supposed wealth, but two among them at least would never have offered for her hand, she was very sure, had they known her to be penniless; and the courtships of several notorious fortune-hunters made it impossible for her to believe that Lord Bridlington’s well-meaning efforts had in any way scotched that dreadful rumour. She felt her situation to be unhappy indeed. Easter was almost upon them, and there had been plenty of time for her, with the opportunities which had been granted to her, to have fulfilled her Mama’s ambitions. She felt guilty, for it had cost Mama so much money, which she could ill-afford, to send her to London, so that the least a grateful daughter could have done would have been to have repaid her by accepting some respectable offer of marriage. She could not do it. She cared for none of those who had proposed to her, and although that, she supposed, ought not to weigh too heavily in the scales when balanced against the benefits that would accrue to the dear brothers and sisters, she was resolved to accept no offer from anyone ignorant of her true circumstances. Perhaps there was still to come into her life some suitor to whom it would be possible to confess the whole, but he had not yet appeared, and, pending his arrival, it was with relief that Arabella turned to Mr Beaumaris, who, whatever his intentions might be, certainly coveted no fortune.

Mr Beaumaris offered her every facility to turn to him, but he could scarcely congratulate himself on the outcome. The smallest attempt at gallantry had the effect of transforming her from the confiding child he found so engaging into the society damsel who was ready enough to fence lightly with him, but who showed him quite clearly that she wanted none of his practised love-making. And when Lady Bridlington had repeated much of her son’s warning, not omitting to mention the fact that Mr Beaumaris’s friends knew him to be merely trifling, Mr Beaumaris found Miss Tallant even more elusive. He was reduced to employing an ignoble stratagem, and, having been obliged to visit his estates on a matter of business, sought Arabella out upon his return, and told her that he wished to consult her again about Jemmy’s future. In this manner, he lured her to drive out with him in his curricle. He drove her to Richmond Park, and she raised no objection to this, though he had not previously taken her farther afield than Chelsea. It was a fine, warm afternoon, with the sun so brightly shining that Arabella ventured to wear a very becoming straw hat, and to carry a small sunshade with a very long handle, which she had seen in the Pantheon Bazaar, and had not been able to resist purchasing. She said, as Mr Beaumaris handed her up into the curricle, that it was very kind of him to drive her into the country, since she liked it of all things, and was able to think herself, while in that great park, many miles from town.

‘Do you know Richmond Park, then?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes!’ replied Arabella cheerfully. ‘Lord Fleetwood drove me there last week; and then, you know, the Charnwoods got up a party, and we all went in three barouches. And tomorrow, if it is fine, Sir Geoffrey Morecambe is to take me to see the Florida Gardens.’

‘I must count myself fortunate, then, to have found you on a day when you had no other engagement,’ remarked Mr Beaumaris.

‘Yes, I am out a great deal,’ agreed Arabella. She unfurled the sunshade, and said: ‘What was it that you wished to tell me about Jemmy, sir?’

‘Ah, yes, Jemmy!’ he said. ‘Subject to your consent, Miss Tallant, I am making – in fact, I have made – a trifling change in his upbringing. I fear he will never come to any good under Mrs Buxton’s roof, and still more do I fear that if he remained there he would shortly be the death of her. At least, so she informed me when I went down to Hampshire the day before yesterday.’

She gave him one of her warm looks. ‘How very kind that was of you! Did you go all that way on that naughty boy’s account?’

Mr Beaumaris was sorely tempted. He glanced down at his companion, met her innocently enquiring gaze, hesitated, and then said: ‘Well, no, Miss Tallant! I had business there.’

She laughed. ‘I thought it had been that.’

‘In that case,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘I am glad I did not lie to you.’

‘How can you be so absurd? As though I should wish you to put yourself to so much trouble! What has Jemmy been doing?’

‘It would sadden you to know: Mrs Buxton is persuaded that he is possessed of a fiend. The language he employs, too, is not such as she is accustomed to. I regret to say that he has also alienated my keepers, who have quite failed to impress upon him the impropriety of disturbing my birds, or, I may add, of stealing pheasants’ eggs. I cannot imagine what he can want with them.’

‘Of course he should be punished for doing so! I daresay he has not enough employment. One must remember that he has been used to work and should be made to do so now. It is not at all good for anyone to be perfectly idle.’

‘Very true, ma’am,’ agreed Mr Beaumaris meekly.

Miss Tallant was not deceived. She looked sharply up at him, and bit her lip, saying after a moment: ‘We are speaking of Jemmy!’

‘I hoped we were,’ confessed Mr Beaumaris.

‘You are being nonsensical,’ said Arabella, with some severity. ‘What is to be done with him?’

‘I found, upon enquiry, that the only person who is inclined to regard him favourably is my head groom, who says that his way with the horses is quite remarkable. It appears that he has been for ever slipping off to the stables, where, for a wonder, he comports himself unexceptionably. Wrexham was so much impressed by finding him – er – hobnobbing with a bay stallion generally thought to be extremely dangerous, that he came up to represent to me the propriety of handing the boy over to him to train. He is a childless man, and since he expressed his willingness to house Jemmy, I thought it better to fall in with his schemes. I hardly think Jemmy’s language will shock him, and I am encouraged to hope, from what I know of Wrexham, that he will know how to keep the boy in order.’

Arabella approved so heartily of this arrangement, that he took the risk of saying in a melancholy tone: ‘Yes, but if it succeeds, I shall be at a loss to think of a pretext for getting you to drive out with me.’

‘Dear me, have I shown myself so reluctant?’ said Arabella, raising her eyebrows. ‘I wonder why you will talk so absurdly, Mr Beaumaris? You may depend upon it that I shall take care to be seen every now and then in your company, for I cannot be so sure of my credit as to run the risk of having it said that the Nonpareil has begun to find me a dead bore!’

‘You stand in no such danger, Miss Tallant, believe me.’ He drew in his horses for a sharp bend in the road, and did not speak again until the corner was negotiated. Then he said: ‘I am afraid that you deem me a very worthless creature, ma’am. What am I to do to convince you that I can be perfectly sensible?’

‘There is not the least need: I am sure that you can,’ she replied amicably.

After that she became interested in the countryside, and from that passed to her forthcoming presentation. This event was to take place in the following week, and already her dress had been sent home from the skilful costumier who had altered an old gown of Lady Bridlington’s to the present mode. Miss Tallant did not tell Mr Beaumaris that, naturally, but she did describe its magnificence to him, and found him both sympathetic and knowledgeable. He asked her what jewels she would wear with it, and she replied, in a very grand way: ‘Oh, nothing but diamonds!’ and was promptly ashamed of herself for having said it, although it was perfectly true.

‘Your taste is always excellent, Miss Tallant. Nothing could be more displeasing to a fastidious eye than a profusion of jewelry. I must congratulate you on having exerted so beneficial an influence over your contemporaries.’

‘I?’ she gasped, quite startled, and half-suspecting him of quizzing her.

‘Certainly. The total lack of ostentation which characterises your appearance is much admired, I assure you, and is beginning to be copied.’

‘You cannot be serious!’

‘But of course I am serious! Had you not noticed that Miss Accrington has left off that shocking collar of sapphires, and that Miss Kirkmichael no longer draws attention to the limitations of her figure by a profusion of chains, brooches, and necklaces which I should have supposed her to have chosen at random from an over-stocked jewel-box?’

There was something so irresistibly humorous to Arabella in the thought that her straitened circumstances had been at the root of a new mode that she began to giggle. But she would not tell Mr Beaumaris why she sat chuckling beside him. He did not press her for an explanation, but as they had by this time reached the Park, suggested that she might like to walk on the grass for a little way, while the groom took charge of the curricle. She assented readily, and while they strolled about, Mr Beaumaris told her something of that home of his in Hampshire. The bait failed. Miss Tallant confined her remarks on her own home to descriptions of the Yorkshire scene, and would not be lured into exchanging family reminiscences.

‘I collect that your father is still alive, ma’am? You mentioned him, as I remember, on the day that you adopted Jemmy.’

‘Did I? Yes, indeed he is alive and I wished for him very much that day, for he is the best man in the world, and he would have known just what was right to be done!’

‘I shall hope to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance one day. Does he come to London at all?’

‘No, never,’ replied Arabella firmly. She could not imagine that Mr Beaumaris and Papa would have the least pleasure in one another’s acquaintance, thought that the conversation was getting on to dangerous ground, and reverted to her society manner.

This was maintained during most of the drive back to London, but when the open country was left behind, and the curricle was passing once more between rows of houses, it deserted her abruptly. In the middle of a narrow street, the grays took high-bred exception to a wagon with a tattered and flapping canvas roof, which was drawn up to one side of the road. There was barely room for the curricle to slip past this obstruction, and Mr Beaumaris, his attention all on his horses, failed to take notice of a group of youths bending over some object on the flag-way, or to heed the anguished yelp which made Arabella, casting aside the light rug which covered her legs, cry out: ‘Oh, stop!’ and shut her sunshade with a snap.

The grays were mincing past the wagon; Mr Beaumaris did indeed pull them up, but Arabella did not wait for the curricle to come to a standstill, but sprang hazardously down from it. Mr Beaumaris, holding his sidling, snorting pair in an iron hand, took one quick glance over his shoulder, saw that Arabella was dispersing the group on the flag-way by the vigorous use of her sunshade, and snapped: ‘Go to their heads, fool!’

His groom, still perched up behind, and apparently dumb-founded by Miss Tallant’s strange conduct, came to himself with a start, jumped down, and ran round to hold the grays. Mr Beaumaris sprang down, and descended swiftly upon the battleground. Having scientifically knocked two louts’ heads together, picked up the third lout by his collar and the seat of his frieze breeches, and thrown him into the road, he was able to see what had aroused Miss Tallant’s wrath. Crouched, shivering and whimpering, on the flag-way, was a small, sandy-coated mongrel, with a curly tail, and one ear disreputably flying.

‘Those wicked, brutal, fiends!’ panted Miss Tallant, cheeks and eyes in a glow. ‘They were torturing the poor little thing!’

‘Take care! He may snap at you!’ Mr Beaumaris said quickly, seeing her about to kneel down beside the dog. ‘Shall I thrash them all soundly?’

At these words, the two smaller boys departed precipitately, the two whose heads were still ringing drew circumspectly out of range of Mr Beaumaris’s long-lashed whip, and the bruised youth in the road whined that they weren’t doing any harm, and that all his ribs were busted.

‘How badly have they hurt him?’ Miss Tallant asked anxiously. ‘He cries when I touch him!’

Mr Beaumaris pulled off his gloves, and handed them to her, together with his whip, saying: ‘Hold those for me, and I’ll see.’

She obediently took them, and watched anxiously while he went over the mongrel. She saw with approval that he handled the little creature firmly and gently, in a way that showed he knew what he was about. The dog whined, and uttered little cries, and cowered, but he did not offer to snap. Indeed, he feebly wagged his disgraceful tail, and once licked Mr Beaumaris’s hand.

‘He is badly bruised, and has one or two nasty sores, but there are no bones broken,’ Mr Beaumaris said, straightening himself. He turned to where the two remaining youths were standing, poised on the edge of flight, and said sternly: ‘Whose dog is this?’

‘It don’t belong to no one,’ he was sullenly informed. ‘It goes all over, stealing things off of the rubbish-heaps: yes, and out of the butcher’s shop!’

‘I seen ’im in Chelsea onct with ’alf a loaf of bread,’ corroborated the other youth.

The accused crawled to Mr Beaumaris’s elegantly shod feet, and pawed one gleaming hessian appealingly.

‘Oh, see how intelligent he is!’ cried Arabella, stooping to fondle the animal. ‘He knows he has you to thank for his rescue!’

‘If he knows that, I think little of his intelligence, Miss Tallant,’ said Mr Beaumaris, glancing down at the dog. ‘He certainly owes his life to you!’

‘Oh, no! I could never have managed without your help! Will you be so obliging as to hand him up to me, if you please?’ said Arabella, prepared to climb into the curricle again.

Mr Beaumaris looked from her to the unkempt and filthy mongrel at his feet, and said: ‘Are you quite sure that you want to take him with you, ma’am?’

‘Why, of course! You do not suppose that I would leave him here, for those wretches to torment as soon as we were out of sight! Besides, you heard what they said! He has no master – no one to feed him, or to take care of him! Please give him to me!’

Mr Beaumaris’s lips twitched, but he said with perfect gravity: ‘Just as you wish, Miss Tallant!’ and picked up the dog by the scruff of its neck. He saw Miss Tallant’s arms held out to receive her new protégé, and hesitated. ‘He is very dirty, you know!’

‘Oh, what does that signify? I have soiled my dress already, with kneeling on the flag-way!’ said Arabella impatiently.

So Mr Beaumaris deposited the dog on her lap, received his whip and gloves from her again, and stood watching with a faint smile while she made the dog comfortable, and stroked its ears, and murmured soothingly to it. She looked up. ‘What do we wait for, sir?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Nothing at all, Miss Tallant!’ he said, and got into the curricle.

Miss Tallant, continuing to fondle the dog, spoke her mind with some force on the subject of persons who were cruel to animals, and thanked Mr Beaumaris earnestly for his kindness in knocking the horrid boys’ heads together, a violent proceeding which seemed to have met with her unqualified approval. She then occupied herself with talking to the dog, and informing him of the splendid dinner he should presently be given, and the warm bath which he would (she said) so much enjoy. But after a time she became a little pensive, and relapsed into meditative silence.

‘What is it, Miss Tallant?’ asked Mr Beaumaris, when she showed no sign of breaking the silence.

‘Do you know,’ she said slowly, ‘I have just thought – Mr Beaumaris, something tells me that Lady Bridlington may not like this dear little dog!’

Mr Beaumaris waited in patient resignation for his certain fate to descend upon him.

Arabella turned impulsively towards him. ‘Mr Beaumaris, do you think – would you – ?’

He looked down into her anxious, pleading eyes, a most rueful twinkle in his own. ‘Yes, Miss Tallant,’ he said. ‘I would.’

Her face broke into smiles. ‘Thank you!’ she said. ‘I knew I might depend upon you!’ She turned the mongrel’s head gently towards Mr Beaumaris. ‘There, sir! That is your new master, who will be very kind to you! Only see how intelligently he looks, Mr Beaumaris! I am sure he understands. I daresay he will grow to be quite devoted to you!’

Mr Beaumaris looked at the animal, and repressed a shudder. ‘Do you think so indeed?’ he said.

‘Oh, yes! He is not, perhaps, a very beautiful little dog, but mongrels are often the cleverest of all dogs.’ She smoothed the creature’s rough head, and added innocently: ‘He will be company for you, you know. I wonder you do not have a dog already.’

‘I do – in the country,’ he replied.

‘Oh, sporting dogs! They are not at all the same.’

Mr Beaumaris, after another look at his prospective companion, found himself able to agree with this remark with heartfelt sincerity.

‘When he has been groomed, and has put some flesh on his bones,’ pursued Arabella, serene in the conviction that her sentiments were being shared, ‘he will look very different. I am quite anxious to see him in a week or two!’

Mr Beaumaris drew up his horses outside Lady Bridlington’s house. Arabella gave the dog a last pat, and set him on the seat beside his new owner, bidding him stay there. He seemed a little undecided at first, but being too bruised and battered to leap down into the road, he did stay, whining loudly. However, when Mr Beaumaris, having handed Arabella up to the door, and seen her admitted into the house, returned to his curricle, the dog stopped whining, and welcomed him with every sign of relief and affection.

‘Your instinct is at fault,’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘Left to myself, I should abandon you to your fate. That, or tie a brick round your neck, and drown you.’

His canine admirer wagged a doubtful tail, and cocked an ear. ‘You are a disgraceful object!’ Mr Beaumaris told him. ‘And what does she expect me to do with you?’ A tentative paw was laid on his knee. ‘Possibly, but let me tell you that I know your sort! You are a toadeater, and I abominate toadeaters. I suppose, if I sent you into the country, my own dogs would kill you on sight.’

The severity in his tone made the dog cower a little, still looking up at him with the expression of a dog anxious to understand.

‘Have no fear!’ Mr Beaumaris assured him, laying a fleeting hand on his head. ‘She clearly wishes me to keep you in town. Did it occur to her, I wonder, that your manners, I have no doubt at all, leave much to be desired? Do your wanderings include the slightest experience of the conduct expected of those admitted into a gentleman’s house? Of course they do not!’ A choking sound from his groom made him say over his shoulder: ‘I hope you like dogs, Clayton, for you are going to wash this specimen.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said his grinning attendant.

‘Be very kind to him!’ commanded Mr Beaumaris. ‘Who knows? He may take a liking to you.’

But at ten o’clock that evening, Mr Beaumaris’s butler, bearing a tray of suitable refreshments to the library, admitted into the room a washed, brushed, and fed mongrel, who came in with something as near a prance as could be expected of one in his emaciated condition. At sight of Mr Beaumaris, seeking solace from his favourite poet in a deep winged chair by the fire, he uttered a shrill bark of delight, and reared himself up on his hind legs, his paws on Mr Beaumaris’s knees, his tail furiously wagging, and a look of beaming adoration in his eyes.

Mr Beaumaris lowered his Horace. ‘Now, what the devil – ?’ he demanded.

‘Clayton brought the little dog up, sir,’ said Brough. ‘He said as you would wish to see how he looked. It seems, sir, that the dog didn’t take to Clayton, as you might say. Very restless, Clayton informs me, and whining all the evening.’ He watched the dog thrust his muzzle under Mr Beaumaris’s hand, and said: ‘It’s strange the way animals always go to you, sir. Quite happy now, isn’t he?’

‘Deplorable,’ said Mr Beaumaris. ‘Down, Ulysses! Learn that my pantaloons were not made to be pawed by such as you!’

‘He’ll learn quick enough, sir,’ remarked Brough, setting a glass and a decanter down on the table at his master’s elbow. ‘You can see he’s as sharp as he can stare. Would there be anything more, sir?’

‘No, only give this animal back to Clayton, and tell him I am perfectly satisfied with his appearance.’

‘Clayton’s gone off, sir. I don’t think he can have understood that you wished him to take charge of the little dog,’ said Brough.

‘I don’t think he can have wanted to understand it,’ said Mr Beaumaris grimly.

‘As to that, sir, I’m sure I couldn’t say. I doubt whether the dog will settle down with Clayton, him not having a way with dogs like he has with horses. I’m afraid he’ll fret, sir.’

‘Oh, my God!’ groaned Mr Beaumaris. ‘Then take him down to the kitchen!’

‘Well, sir, of course – if you say so!’ replied Brough doubtfully. ‘Only there’s Alphonse.’ He met his master’s eye, apparently had no difficulty in reading the question in it, and said: ‘Yes, sir. Very French he has been on the subject. Quite shocking, I’m sure, but one has to remember that foreigners are queer, and don’t like animals.’

‘Very well,’ said Mr Beaumaris, with a resigned sigh. ‘Leave him, then!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Brough, and departed.

Ulysses, who had been thoroughly, if a little timidly, inspecting the room during this exchange, now advanced to the hearth-rug again, and paused there, suspiciously regarding the fire. He seemed to come to the conclusion that it was not actively hostile, for after a moment he curled himself up before it, heaved a sigh, laid his chin on Mr Beaumaris’s crossed ankles, and disposed himself for sleep.

‘I suppose you imagine you are being a companion to me,’ said Mr Beaumaris.

Ulysses flattened his ears, and gently stirred his tail.

‘You know,’ said Mr Beaumaris, ‘a prudent man would draw back at this stage.’

Ulysses raised his head to yawn, and then snuggled it back on Mr Beaumaris’s ankles, and closed his eyes.

‘You may be right,’ admitted Mr Beaumaris. ‘But I wonder what next she will saddle me with?’