“But of course, Papa! Where else should one put up on the Bath road?”

“I might have guessed you would choose the most expensive house in the country to honour with your patronage!” said the Earl. “When I was your age, Desford, I couldn’t have stood the nonsense, let me tell you! But I had no bird-witted great-aunt to leave her fortune to me! Oh, well, it’s no concern of mine how you waste the ready, but don’t come to me when you find yourself in Dun Territory!”

“No, no, you’d disown me, wouldn’t you, sir? I shouldn’t dare!” said the Viscount, audaciously quizzing him.

“Be off with you, wastrel!” commanded his austere parent.

But when the Viscount’s chaise had disappeared from sight he turned to nod at his wife, and to say: “This business has done him a deal of good, my lady! I own that I was a trifle put out when I first got wind of it, but there was never the least need for you to think he’d been caught by some designing hussy!”

“No, my dear,” meekly agreed his life’s companion.

“Of course it was no such thing! Not but what it was a lunk-headed thing to have done—However, I shall say no more on that head! The thing is that for the first time in his life he has a wolf by the ears, and he ain’t running shy! He’s ready to stand buff, and, damme, I’m proud of him! Sound as a roast, my lady! Now, if only he would settle down—form an attachment to some eligible female—I’d hand Hartleigh over to him!”

“An excellent scheme!” said Lady Wroxton. “How delightful it will be, my love, to see Ashley where you and I lived until your father deceased!”

“Ay, but when?” responded his lordship gloomily. “That is the question, Maria!”

“Not so very long, I fancy!” said Lady Wroxton, with a smothered laugh.

Chapter 12

While the Viscount was impatiently awaiting the fashioning of a tyre to fit the wheel of his chaise, his youngest brother had been half-way back to London from Newmarket, with one of his chief cronies seated beside him in his curricle. Both gentlemen were in excellent spirits, having enjoyed a most profitable sojourn at Newmarket. Mr Carrington, in fact, was appreciably plumper in the pocket than his friend, for when, having boldly wagered his all on the Viscount’s tip, and watched Mopsqueezer gallop home a length ahead of his closest rival, he had seen that a horse named Brother Benefactor was running in the last race he had instantly, ignoring the earnest pleas of his well-wishers not to be such a gudgeon, backed this animal to the tune of a hundred pounds. As it won by a head at the handsome price of ten-to-one, he left the course in high fettle, and with his pockets bulging with rolls of soft, one of which was considerably diminished at the end of the evening which he spent in entertaining several of his intimates to a sumptuous dinner at the White Hart.

Having a hard head and a resilient constitution, he arose on the following day feeling (as he himself expressed it) only a trifle off the hinges, and in unimpaired good spirits. The same could not have been said of his companion, whose appearance caused Simon to exclaim: “Lord, Philip, you look as blue as a razor!”

“I’ve got a devilish headache!” replied the sufferer, eyeing him with loathing.

“That’s all right, old fellow!” said Simon encouragingly. “You’ll be in a capital way as soon as you get out into the fresh air! Nothing like a drive on a fine, windy day to pluck a man up!”

Mr Harbledon vouchsafed no other response to this than a sound between a groan and a snarl. He climbed into the curricle, winced when it moved forward with a jerk, and for the next hour gave no other signs of life than moans when the curricle bounced over a bad stretch of ground, and one impassioned request to Simon to refrain from singing. Happily, his headache began to go off during the second hour, and by the time Simon pulled in his pair at the Green Man, in Harlow, he was so far restored as to be able to take more than an academic interest in the bill of fare, and even to discuss with the waiter the rival merits of a neck of venison and a dish of ox rumps, served with cabbage and a Spanish sauce.

Simon reached his lodging in Bury Street midway through the afternoon on the following day. Since neither he nor Mr Harbledon was pressed for time they had tacitly agreed to recruit nature by remaining in bed until an advanced hour. They had then eaten a leisurely and substantial breakfast, so that by the time they left the Green Man it was past noon. Still full of fraternal gratitude, Simon strolled round to Arlington Street, on the chance that he might find Desford at home. He was not much surprised when Aldham, who opened the door to him, said that his lordship was not in at the moment; but when he learned, in answer to a further enquiry, that his lordship had not yet returned from Harrowgate, he opened his eyes in astonishment, and ejaculated: “Harrowgate?”

“Yes, sir. So I believe,” said Aldham.

Simon was not wanting in intelligence, and it did not take him more than a very few moments to realize what must have made his brother go off on such a long and tedious journey. He uttered an involuntary choke of laughter, but after eyeing Aldham speculatively decided that it would be useless to try to coax any further information out of him. Besides, for anything he knew, Aldham might not have been taken into Desford’s confidence. So he contented himself with leaving a message for his brother, saying: “Oh, well, when he comes home tell him I shall be in London until the end of the week!”

“Certainly I will, Mr Simon!” said Aldham, much relieved to be rescued from the horns of a dilemma. He regarded Simon with indulgent fondness, having known him from the cradle, but he knew that Simon was inclined to be a rattlecap; and since he had learnt from Pedmore that one of the first duties incumbent upon a butler was to be unfailingly discreet, and never, on any account, to blab about his master’s activities, he would have been hard put to it to answer any more searching questions without either betraying the Viscount, or offending Mr Simon.

Simon was engaged to join a party of friends at Brighton, and might well have gone there in advance of the rest of the party if he had not recollected that rooms at the Ship had been booked from the Saturday of that week. Only a greenhead would suppose that there was the smallest chance of obtaining any but the shabbiest of lodgings in Brighton, at the height of the season, if he had not booked accommodation there; so he was obliged to resign himself to several days spent in kicking his heels in London, which, in July, more nearly resembled a desert, to any member of the ton, than a fashionable metropolis. Not that London had nothing to offer for the entertainment of out of season visitors: it had several things, and Simon was considering, two days after his call in Arlington Street, whether the evening would be more amusingly spent at the Surrey Theatre, or at the Cockpit Royal, when the retired gentleman’s gentleman who owned the house in Bury Street, and ministered to the three gentlemen at present lodging there, entered the room and presented him with a visiting-card, saying succinctly: “Gentleman to see you, sir.”

The card bore, in florid script, an imposing legend: Baron Monte Toscano. Simon took one look at it, and handed it back. “Never heard of the fellow!” he said. “Tell him I’m not at home!”

A mellifluous voice spoke from the doorway. “I must beg a thousand pardons!” it said. “Too late did I realize that I had inadvertently presented this good man with the wrong card! Have I the honour of addressing Mr Simon Carrington? But I need not ask! You bear a marked resemblance to your father—who, I do trust, still enjoys good health?”

Considerably taken aback, Simon said: “Yes, I’m Simon Carrington, sir, but—but I fear you have the advantage of me!”

“Naturally!” said his visitor, smiling benignly at him. “I daresay you never saw me before in your life—in fact, I am quite sure of it, for until this moment you have been but a name to me.” He paused to wave a dismissive hand at the retired gentleman’s gentleman, saying graciously: “Thank you, my good man! That will be all!”

“The name, sir, is Diddlebury—if you have no objection!” said his good man, in a voice which clearly showed his contempt for Mr Carrington’s visitor.

“None at all, my man! A very good name, in its way!” said the visitor graciously.

Diddlebury, having looked in vain for a sign from Mr Carrington, reluctantly withdrew from the room.

“And now,” said the visitor, “it behoves me to repair the foolish mistake I made, when I gave the wrong card to that fellow!” He drew out a fat card-case as he spoke, and searched in it, while Simon stared at him in amazement.

He was a middle-aged man, dressed in clothes as florid as his countenance. When the highest kick of fashion was a severity of style which banished from every Tulip’s wardrobe all the frilled evening shirts which had been the rage only six months before, not to mention such enormities as flowered waistcoats, brightly coloured coats, or any other jewelry than a ring and a tie-pin, he was wearing a tightly fitting coat of rich purple; a shirt whose starched frill made him look like a pouter pigeon; and a richly embroidered waistcoat. A somewhat ornate quizzing-glass hung round his neck; a number of seals and fobs dangled from his waist; a flashing tie-pin was stuck into the folds of his cravat; and several rings embellished his fingers. He had probably been a handsome man in his youth, for his features were good, but the unmistakable signs of dissipation had impaired his complexion, set pouches beneath his eyes, and rendered the eyes themselves a trifle bloodshot.