Lady Jersey, who was drinking morning chocolate with her friend, selected an angel cake from the dish before her, and bit into it. “Yes, I believe he did elope with her,” she admitted. Her mischievous smile dawned. “But Prosper Verelst assures me that Sherry otherwise behaved towards the girl with the greatest propriety! Only figure to yourself! — Sherry considering the proprieties!”

“I shall not allow Mr Verelst to be a judge. Valeria has told me the whole. The girl is the veriest Nobody — actually a governess, or some such thing!”

“No such thing! She is one of the Wantages, and I am sure nothing could be more respectable. It is by no means a brilliant match, but only such a goose as Valeria Sheringham would make so great a piece of work over it.”

Her hostess turned a calm, cold gaze upon her. “Pray, my love, have you met the young person?”

“No, but I have been with Maria Sefton, and she has met her, and what is more, she says she is quite unexceptionable — very young, of course; hardly out of the schoolroom, but unquestionably a lady! You must know that she has been under the guardianship of Mrs Bagshot — the same who is for ever thrusting her shockingly plain daughters into the arms of all our eligible bachelors!”

“I do not find it a recommendation. Where, pray, did Lady Sefton encounter her?”

“Oh, down at Melton Mowbray! You must know that the Seftons have been staying with Assheton Smith, at Quorndon House. Maria tells me that they were driving out there when they came upon Sherry and his bride. She tells me it was quite pretty to see Sherry — he was teaching her to ride, it seems — taking such pains over the child.”

“I imagine he might, since he married her.”

“Certainly, but I confess I am agog with curiosity to discover why he married her, since we know him to have been a pretender to Miss Milborne’s hand not a fortnight ago!”

“It is very true. Lady Sheringham told me that he had actually offered for the Milborne girl, and had been rejected. He married the Nobody from pique. There can be no other explanation.”

“Did she tell you that? Upon my word, she is a great fool, then, to be spreading such a story about! I declare it gives me a feeling of strong compassion for the poor little bride, and I shall certainly give her .vouchers for Almack’s, if Maria Sefton has not already done so!”

“Of course, if you are to take the girl up, there is no more to be said,” shrugged Mrs Burrell.

Lady Jersey gave a trill of laughter. “What, in granting her vouchers for the club? How absurd!”

“I wish you may not be taken in.”

“If I am, I shall be in Maria Sefton’s company, and I am sure I do not desire to be in better.”

“Both Lord and Lady Sefton’s good nature is too well-known to occasion remark. I believe it leads them to bestow their favours indiscriminately rather frequently. Valeria Sheringham assures me the girl is quite farouche, no ton, no accomplishments, her looks no more than passable, her fortune non-existent.”

“It will be time enough to deny her the right to come to Almack’s if we find that for once in her life Valeria Sheringham has been speaking the truth.”

“Valeria does not advise us to relax our rules in her favour.”

Lady Jersey’s eyes sparkled. “What, did she say so? Of all the spiteful creatures! No, that is the outside of enough, my dear, and makes me perfectly determined to give the girl a chance to prove herself!”

Mrs Burrell was silent for a moment. She said presently: “You are very right. We shall see how she conducts herself. It is plain, however, that Sheringham is ashamed to show her in town.”

“Nonsense!” replied Lady Jersey. “Prosper Verelst says they have gone upon their honeymoon.”

“Into Leicestershire?” said Mrs Burrell, raising her brows.

“So it seems. The truth is, of course, that Sherry has gone off because he doesn’t care to run the gauntlet of Valeria’s vapours. He would have done better to have stayed, but it is all of a piece! He is a charming young man, I grant, but the most selfish and careless imaginable. I am sorry for his poor little wife.”

Chapter Eight

HERO WOULD HAVE BEEN ASTONISHED, AND, INDEED, indignant, had she been aware that she was the object of Lady Jersey’s sympathy. For she had never been so happy in her life. Sherry had been quite right in thinking that his hunting-box at Melton Mowbray would be just the thing for her. She was delighted with it; and the happy-go-lucky way of life pursued by Sherry when sojourning there could not but appeal to a young lady who had been irked all her own short life by shibboleths and restrictions.

The hunting-box, which was not large, was kept by a married couple who, from having had things very much their own way under their casual master, at first looked upon Hero with suspicious hostility. But as she showed no disposition to interfere in the management of the house, and never dreamed of levelling criticisms where they would certainly be resented, it was not long before Goring and his wife accepted her in much the same spirit as they accepted Mr Ringwood, or any other of the Viscount’s cronies.

It might have been supposed that a very few days spent at Melton Mowbray at the fag-end of the summer would have sufficed to have sent his lordship hotfoot back to town, but thanks to the amusement afforded him by teaching his wife to ride her mare creditably; taking her to Six Hills, and showing her the pick of the best coverts; initiating her into the mysteries of hazard, faro, deep basset, and several other games of chance; playing picquet with Mr Ringwood; trying out his young stock; and attending a cockfight held in the district, he contrived to while away the time very tolerably. Before these simple pursuits had palled upon him, a diversion was created by the arrival in the district of Lord Wrotham, who had come down on a visit to his encumbered estates. Since these were situated only a few miles from Melton, he naturally spent a good deal of his time with his friends, and was delighted to discover in Hero a sympathetic listener. It was not long before he had confided to her his hopeless passion for the Incomparable Isabella, and although an unthinking reference to the complaint which had necessitated the Beauty’s withdrawal from the Polite World seriously endangered, for a few moments, this promising new friendship, the rift was speedily healed by Hero’s assurance that the rash had by no means disfigured Isabella. George rode with Hero to Wartnaby Stone-pits, and, being a very keen rider to hounds, was able to forget his troubles in describing some classic runs to Hero, passing strictures on Assheton Smith, who hunted his own hounds, and often drew his coverts so quickly that he drew over his fox, besides failing sometimes to lift his hounds, which, if you wanted runs in Leicestershire, said George, you must do. Hero, fired with the spirit of emulation after listening to George’s heroic tales, attempted to jump what George called a regular stitcher, and came to grief. Fortunately she was only bruised by her tumble, but the mare strained a tendon, and Sherry, who had been a helpless spectator of the enterprise, no sooner ascertained that his bride was unhurt than he soundly boxed her ears, and swore he would never bring her out with him again. His two friends, though deprecating this violence, endorsed his strictures, having by this time fallen very much into the way of treating Hero as though she had been one of their own young sisters.

When Mr Fakenham joined the party, his presence was felt to be an advantage, as he was able to make a fourth at whist. Some convivial evenings were spent at the hunting-box, under the auspices of a hostess who, however little she might know of the uses of Polite Society, was learning to admiration how to become excessively popular with a party of young bloods. Formality very soon went by the board; she became Kitten to them all; and so accustomed did they grow to her presence at their sessions that they often forgot that she was in the room at all. But they usually remembered her before the party became too convivial for propriety, and then the Viscount would send her up to bed, informing her frankly that they were getting a trifle boosey. Upon one occasion, when he omitted to perform this ritual, she horrified Mr Ringwood by casting a knowledgeable eye over Mr Fakenham, and saying innocently: “Must I go now? I think Ferdy is quite disguised, don’t you?”

The Viscount shouted with laughter, but Mr Ringwood not only begged his hostess never to use such vulgar language, but later made representations to Sherry that they really must all of them be careful what they said in front of her.

A letter from Isabella, written from London, and conveying her felicitations to her dearest Hero, had the effect of breaking up the party. George was no sooner apprised of the Beauty’s return to the haunts of men than he left the greater part of the business which had brought him into the country undone, and posted back to town with the fiercely expressed intention of thrusting a spoke in his Grace of Severn’s wheel. Ferdy and Mr Ringwood took their departure a few days later, and the hunting-box felt sadly empty. The young couple received a morning call from kind Lord and Lady Sefton, during the course of which her ladyship promised Hero the entré to Almack’s when she should take up her residence in London. Sherry informed his wife that this connaissance was the greatest piece of good luck that could have befallen her, since (although he himself might find such company a trifle flat) there was no doubt that the approval of Lady Sefton would be of the greatest value to a lady making her debut in fashionable circles.