He found it disagreeably reminiscent of his earlier quest for the Bird in Hand. None of the more obvious places of enquiry seemed ever to have heard of Mr. Mudgley, and visits to two gentlemen who bore names slightly resembling Mudgley proved abortive. The Duke drove back to the Pelican in the gig he had hired for these visits in a mood of considerable misgiving. He found that his cousin had returned from Cheyney, and that Nettlebed had had the forethought to bespeak suitable accommodation for them both at the Christopher. He nodded absently, and said: “Yes, very well, when my baggage has arrived. I must go round to Laura Place.”

“What’s amiss, Adolphus?” enquired his cousin.

“The devil’s in it that no one has heard of Mudgley. If I can’t discover him, I shall be in a worse scrape than any! That unfortunate child has nowhere to go, and no relatives who will own her, and what in thunder am I to do with her?”

Gideon raised his brows. “From what you have told me I should suppose that she will pretty speedily find a nest to settle in,” he said caustically.

“That is the very thing I am seeking to prevent!” said the Duke, irritated.

“Is it worth the pains?”

“Good God, can you not understand that I made myself responsible for her? She is only a child! A pretty fellow I should be if I were to abandon her at this stage! I must try if I cannot induce her to recall more particularly where Mudgley lives. Did you leave all well at Cheyney?”

“I left your servants a trifle stunned by your guests, but it seems probable that Liversedge will assume control of the household. He informed me that I might have the most complete confidence in him. By and by, that bailiff of yours—Moffat, is it?—is overjoyed to learn that you are in Bath, and trusts that you will go to Cheyney. He has all manner of matters to lay before you.”

“If Moffat wants to see me, he must come to Bath. I have no time to go out to Cheyney now.”

“I told him so, and he said that he would come to you,” said Gideon. “There is no escape for you!”

“You might have fobbed him off!” complained the Duke. “Your retainers are not so easily fobbed off. If you are going to Laura Place, I shall come with you. I can no longer exist without a sight of the fair Belinda. Besides, I dote on the Dowager! I wonder if she has bought a new wig? When last I saw her she had a red one—devilish dashing!”

But when they arrived in Laura Place, and were taken up to the drawing-room on the first floor, they found that wiser counsels had prevailed with the Dowager Lady Ampleforth, and she had exchanged the red wig for one of iron grey. But as she chose to set a turban of rich violet silk, shot with orange, on top of these new ringlets the effect was still extremely colourful. She was a handsome old lady, with a beak of a nose, and a wicked eye. In her day she had been, as she had not the slightest hesitation in informing her acquaintance, a great rake, but gout, and increasing years, now largely chained her to her chair. She tolerated her son, despised her three daughters, and cherished towards her daughter-in-law a violent animosity. Since she belonged to a more robust and by far less prim a generation than theirs she had no difficulty at all in shocking her descendants, a pastime to which she was greatly addicted. She received the Duke indulgently, and his cousin with acclaim. Gideon corresponded exactly with her notions of what a young man should be like, and she received his outrageous advances in high delight, encouraging him in every extravagant flattery, and adjuring him to murmur into her ear all the more scandalous stories current in military circles. She was able to regale him with quite a number of warm anecdotes herself, and it was not long before she had signed to him with one twisted hand to draw his chair closer to hers. This left the Duke free to confide his errand to Harriet. She was concerned to learn that he had been unable to discover Mr. Mudgley. “It is not that I do not wish to keep her with me, Gilly,” she explained, “but I know Mama will never permit me to, and there is another circumstance which makes me feel a little uneasy. I am afraid Charlie admires her excessively!”

“Good God!” said the Duke. “I had not thought of that! What is to be done?”

“Well, Gilly, I do think we should find a suitable establishment for her, but pray do not be worried! Charlie is not staying here, you know: he has a lodging in Green Street, and I have explained to him that he must be good. But nothing would do but he must squire us to the theatre last night, and I fear he did flirt rather dreadfully with Belinda! I was a goose to go with him, but Belinda wanted so very much to see the play that I did not know how to refuse. But I won’t let him be alone with her, I promise. I must go with Grandmama to Lady Ombersley’s party tonight, but Charlie told us himself that he has promised to some friends of his own, which is why he cannot go with us. I hope you will not think I did wrong to go to the play!”

“No, no, how could you do wrong? I am only distressed that you should be put to so much anxiety, my poor Harry! Is Belinda in? Would it be of the least use for me to ask her if she cannot cudgel her brains a little?”

“Oh, yes, she is trimming a hat for herself! I will fetch her down directly. But, Gilly, I don’t know how it will answer! She is the strangest creature! It does seem as though this Mr. Mudgley and his mother are the only people who have ever been kind to her, and I own that she speaks of the young man with a wistful look that quite touches one’s heart, but she has not the least notion of constancy! It is quite dreadful! And, oh, Gilly, by the unluckiest chance we saw a purple gown in one of the shops on Milsom Street, and I do believe it has put everything else out of her head!”

He laughed. “Harriet, do pray buy it for her, and set it to my account! Perhaps if she had her purple gown—”

“Gilly, I could not!” said Harriet earnestly. “You have no idea how unsuitable it would be! It is of the brightest purple satin, with Spanish sleeves slashed with rows of gold beads, and a demi-train, and the bosom cut by far too low! Dear Gilly, I would do anything for you, but only conceive of a young girl’s wearing such a gown! Even Grandmama would be shocked!”

He was awed by this description of the gown’s magnificence, and could not but acknowledge the justice of Harriet’s objection to it. To insist on her lending her countenance to a young female clad in such startling raiment would, he realized, be unreasonable. He acquiesced therefore in her decision, and held the door open for her to pass from the room.

The Dowager watched him critically, and said, as he came back into the room: “Well, Sale, I’m sure I don’t know what you uncle will have to say to your raking, but it has done you a great deal of good, and my granddaughter too! I’ve no doubt you’ve been deceiving her monstrously, but the dullest dog alive is ever your virtuous young man! Which I thought you were, I own. However, I see there’s more of your grandfather in you than I knew. Lord, what a dashing blade he was, to be sure! He can’t have been a day older than you when he ran off with Lyndhurst’s wife. They hushed it up, of course, but I remember what a scandal it was at the time! They say it cost his father—your great-grandfather, you know—a pretty penny to get him out of such an entanglement, and I daresay it did.  Then he married one of the Ingatestone gals: a sickly creature, she was, always in the megrims! Lord Guiseley was her bel ami for years. They used to say that the second daughter—your aunt Sarah, I mean—was none of Sale’s, but I never set any store by it myself: she hadn’t the spirit of a hen! But your grandfather used to be the biggest rake in town. All the Mamas used to forbid us to dance with him at the assemblies, for he never kept the line, and there was no sense in encouraging his advances once he was tied up in marriage, you know.”

The Duke received these engaging reminiscences of his progenitors without protest, merely smiling at the old lady, and murmuring that he hoped no careful parent would feel compelled to warn her daughter against him; but Gideon instantly demanded to be told more about Aunt Sarah, whom he cordially disliked. The Dowager was nothing loth, and was in the middle of a highly libellous story when Harriet came back into the room with Belinda.

Belinda, becomingly attired in one of Harriet’s cambric gowns, bestowed a ravishing smile upon Gideon, favouring him with one of her wide, speculative stares. She seemed genuinely pleased to see the Duke, but she was looking a little wistful, and her lovely mouth drooped at the corners.

Whether she was pining for Mr. Mudgley, or for the purple gown, he was unable to discover, since her thoughts seemed to he equally divided between them. She was plainly in awe of Lady Ampleforth, and was minding her manners so painstakingly that she spoke only in a subdued voice, and sat on the extreme edge of a chair, with her feet together, and her hands folded in her lap. He guessed that, in spite of Harriet’s kindness, her surroundings were oppressive to her. She was terrified of doing something wrong. He felt more sorry for her than ever, and redoubled his determination to find her swain for her.

But she was of very little assistance to him. She had only once visited Mr. Mudgley’s farm, on a day when Mrs. Pilling had gone to Wells to see her sister; and although she was able to describe in great detail the big kitchen there, the dear little chicks in the yard, and a calf which had licked her fingers, she had no idea how far the farm lay from Bath, or in which direction. But there had been a stream, with primroses growing beside it, and Mr. Mudgley had very obligingly stopped to let her get down from the gig to pick a great bunch of them.