“As a m-matter of fact,” admitted Horatia, “he would have come, only I w-wanted to have you all to m-myself, so he gave up the notion.”

“I see,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t you think, love, that you should have come together, perhaps?”

“Oh, no,” Horatia assured her. “He quite understood, you know. I find too that fashionable p-people hardly ever do things together.”

“Horry dear,” said Miss Winwood with difficulty, “I do not want to sound like Charlotte, but I have heard that when—when their wives are so very fashionable—gentlemen do sometimes look elsewhere for entertainment.”

“I know,” said Horatia sapiently. “But you see, I p-promised I wouldn’t interfere with Rule.”

It was all very disturbing, Elizabeth felt, but she said no more. Horatia returned to town next day, and the Winwoods heard of her thereafter through the medium of the post and the Gazette. Her letters were not very illuminating, but it was apparent that she was enjoying a life full of social engagements.

Elizabeth heard more direct tidings of her from Mr Heron upon the occasion of his next visit into the country.

“Horry?” said Mr Heron. “Well, yes, I have seen her, but not quite lately, my love. She sent me a card for her drum Tuesday se’nnight. It was a very brilliant affair, but you know I am not in the way of going out a great deal. Still I did go there,” he added. “Horry was in spirits, I thought.”

“Happy?” Elizabeth said anxiously.

“Oh, certainly! My lord too was all amiability.”

“Did he seem—could you tell whether he seemed fond of her?” Elizabeth asked.

“Well,” said Mr Heron reasonably, “you would not expect him to display his affection in public, dearest. He was just as he always is. A little amused, I thought. You see, Horry seems to have become quite the rage.”

“Oh, dear!” said Miss Winwood, with deep foreboding. “If only she does not do anything shocking!” A glance at Mr Heron’s face made her cry out: “Edward, you have heard something! I beg you will tell me at once!”

Mr Heron made haste to reassure her. “No, no, nothing in the world, my love. Merely that Horry seems to have inherited the Fatal Tendency to gamble. But nearly everyone plays nowadays, you know,” he added soothingly.

Miss Winwood was not soothed, nor did an unexpected visit a week later from Mrs Maulfrey do anything to alleviate her alarms.

Mrs Maulfrey was staying at Basingstoke with her Mama-in-law, and drove over to Winwood to pay a morning call on her cousins. She was far more explicit than had been Mr Heron. She sat in a bergere chair in the saloon, facing Lady Winwood’s couch, and, as Charlotte afterwards remarked, that that afflicted lady did not suffer an immediate relapse was due to her own fortitude rather than to any consideration shown her by her guest.

It was quite obvious that Mrs Maulfrey had not come on any charitable errand. Charlotte, always just, said: “Depend upon it, Theresa tried to patronize Horry. You know her encroaching way. And really, I cannot altogether blame Horry for snubbing her, though I hope I am far from excusing Horry’s excesses.”

Horry, it seemed, was becoming the talk of the Town. Lady Winwood, receiving this piece of news, was moved to recall with complacency a day when she herself had been a reigning toast.

“A Toast!” said Mrs Maulfrey. “Yes, aunt, and I am sure no one need wonder at it, but Horry is not a Beauty, and if she is a Toast, which I never yet heard, it is certainly not on that account.”

“We ourselves think dear Horry very pretty, Theresa,” said Miss Winwood gently.

“Yes, my dear, but you are partial, as indeed I am too. No one is fonder of Horry than I am, and I put her behaviour down to her childishness, I assure you.”

“We are aware,” said Charlotte, sitting very straight and stiff in her chair, “that Horry is little more than a child, but we should find it hard to believe that the behaviour of a Winwood could be such as to call for that or any other excuse.”

Slightly quelled by that stern gaze, Mrs Maulfrey fidgeted with the strings of her reticule, and said with a light laugh: “Oh, certainly, my dear! But I saw with my own eyes Horry strip one of the bracelets off her wrist at Lady Dollabey’s card-party—pearls and diamond chips, my love! the most ravishing thing!—and throw it on to the table as her stake because she had lost all her money. You may imagine the scene: gentlemen are so thoughtless, and of course several must needs encourage her, staking rings and hair-buckles against her bracelet, and such nonsense.”

“Perhaps it was not very wise of Horry,” said Elizabeth. “But not, I think, such a very great matter.”

“I am bound to say,” remarked Charlotte, “that I hold gaming in any form in the utmost abhorrence.”

Lady Winwood unexpectedly entered the lists. “Gaming has always been a passion with the Winwoods,” she observed. “Your Papa was greatly addicted to every form of it. I myself, when my health permits it, am excessively fond of cards. I remember some very pleasant evenings at Gunnersbury, playing at silver pharaoh with the dear Princess. Mr Walpole too! I wonder that you can talk so, Charlotte: it is quite disloyal to Papa’s memory, let me tell you. Gaming is quite in the mode; I do not disapprove of it. But I must say I cannot approve of the Winwood luck. Do not tell me my little Horatia has inherited that, Theresa! Did she lose the bracelet?”

“Well, as to that,” said Mrs Maulfrey reluctantly, “it was not staked in the end. Rule came into the card-room.”

Elizabeth looked quickly across at her. “Yes?” she said. “He stopped it?”

“N-no,” said Mrs Maulfrey, with dissatisfaction. “Hardly that. He said in his quiet way that it might be difficult to assess the worth of a trinket, and picked up the bracelet, and put it back on Horry’s wrist, and set a rouleau of guineas down in its place. I did not wait to see any more.”

“ Oh, that was well done of him!” Elizabeth cried, her cheeks glowing.

“Certainly one may say that he behaved with dignity and propriety,” conceded Charlotte. “And if that is all you have to tell us of Horry’s behaviour, my dear Theresa, I must confess I feel you have wasted your time.”

“Pray do not be thinking that I am a mere mischief-maker, Charlotte!” besought her cousin. “And it is not by any means all. I have it on the best of authority that she had the—yes, positively I must call it the audacity—to drive young Dashwood’s gig up St James’s for a bet! Right under the windows of White’s, my dear! Now don’t mistake me: I am sure no one thinks anything but that she’s a madcap child—indeed, I understand she takes extremely, and people think her exploits vastly diverting, but I put it to you, is this conduct befitting the Countess of Rule?”

“If it befits a Winwood—which, however, I do not maintain,” said Charlotte with hauteur, “it may certainly befit a Drelincourt!”

This crushing rejoinder put Mrs Maulfrey so much out of countenance that she found herself with very little more to say, and presently took her leave of the Winwood ladies. She left behind her a feeling of uneasiness which culminated in a suggestion, put tentatively forward by Elizabeth, that Lady Winwood should think of returning to South Street. Lady Winwood said in a failing voice that no one had the least regard for the frailty of her poor nerves, and if ever good had come of interfering between man and wife she had yet to hear of it.

However, the business was settled in the end by a letter from Mr Heron. Mr Heron had got his Captaincy, and was to go into the West Country in the further execution of his duties. He desired to make Elizabeth his wife without any more delay, and proposed an immediate wedding.

Elizabeth would have liked to be married quietly at Winwood, but her Mama, having no notion of allowing her triumph in getting two daughters respectably married within three months to pass unnoticed, arose tottering from her couch and announced that never should it be said that she had Failed in her Duty towards her loved ones.

The wedding was naturally not so brilliant an affair as Horatia’s, but it passed off very well, and if the bride appeared pale she was allowed to be in great beauty for all that. The bridegroom looked extremely handsome in his Regimentals, and the ceremony was graced by the presence of the Earl and Countess of Rule, the Countess wearing for the occasion a gown that made every other lady blink with envy.

Elizabeth, in all the bustle of hurried preparation, had had few opportunities of being private with Horatia, and on the only occasion when she found herself alone with her sister she had realized with a sinking heart that Horatia was on her guard against too intimate a conversation. She could only hope to have more opportunity later in the year, when Horatia promised to come to Bath, which watering-place Captain Heron was to make his headquarters.

Chapter Six

“Well, if you wish to know what I think,” said Lady Louisa stringently—“though I make not the smallest doubt that you don’t—you’re a fool, Rule!”

The Earl, who was still glancing over some papers brought to him by Mr Gisborne a few moments before his sister’s arrival, said absently: “I know. But you must not let it distress you, my dear.”

“What,” demanded her ladyship, disregarding this flippancy, “are those papers? You need not put yourself to the trouble of telling me. I know the look of a bill, trust me!”

The Earl put them into his pocket. “If only more people understood me so well!” he sighed. “And respected my—er—constitutional dislike of answering questions.”

“The chit will ruin you,” said his sister. “And you do nothing—nothing to avert calamity!”

“Believe me,” said Rule, “I hope to have enough energy to avert that particular calamity, Louisa.”

“I wish I may see it!” she replied. “I like Horry. Yes, I do like her, and I did from the start, but if you’d one grain of sense, Marcus, you would take a stick and beat her!”

“But think how fatiguing!” objected the Earl.

She looked scornfully across at him. “I wanted her to lead you a dance,” she said candidly. “I thought it would be very good for you. But I never dreamed she would make herself the talk of the town while you stood by and watched.”

“You see, I hardly ever dance,” Rule excused himself.

Lady Louisa might have replied with some asperity had not a light footstep sounded at that moment in the hall, and the door opened to admit Horatia herself.

She was dressed for the street, but carried her hat in her hand, as though she had just taken it off. She threw it on to a chair, and dutifully embraced her sister-in-law. “I am sorry I was out, L-Louisa. I have been to see M-mama. She is feeling very low, because of having l-lost Lizzie. And Sir P-Peter Mason, whom she quite thought was g-going to offer for Charlotte because he doesn’t like L-levity in a Female, is promised to Miss Lupton after all. M-Marcus, do you think Arnold might like to m-marry Charlotte?”

“For heaven’s sake, Horry,” cried Lady Louisa with foreboding, “don’t ask him!”

Horatia’s straight brows drew together. “N-no, of course not. But I m-might throw them together, I think.”

“Not, I beg of you,” said his lordship, “in this house.”

The grey eyes surveyed him questioningly. “N-not if you would rather I didn’t,” said Horatia obligingly. “I am not set on it, you understand.”

“I am so glad,” said his lordship. “Consider the blow to my self-esteem if Charlotte were to accept Arnold’s hand in marriage.”

Horatia twinkled. “Well, you n-need not put yourself about, sir, for Charlotte says she is going to D-dedicate her Life to M-mama. Oh, are you going already, Louisa?”

Lady Louisa had risen, drawing her scarf round her shoulders. “My dear, I have been here this age. I came only for a word with Marcus.”

Horatia stiffened slightly. “I see,” she said. “It was a p-pity I came in, perhaps.”

“Horry, you’re a silly child,” said Lady Louisa, tapping her cheek. “I have been telling Rule he should beat you. I doubt he is too lazy.”

Horatia swept a polite curtsy, and closed her lips firmly together.

The Earl escorted his sister out of the room, and across the hall. “You are not always very wise, are you, Louisa?” he said.

“I never was,” she answered ruefully.

Having seen his sister into her carriage the Earl returned rather thoughtfully to the library. Horatia, swinging her hat defiantly, was already crossing the hall towards the stairs, but she paused as Rule spoke to her. “Do you think you could spare me a moment of your time, Horry?”