Mr Wrexham, withdrawing, left his sister mutinous, and his mother in a flutter of apprehension. To Letty’s diatribe she could find nothing better to say than: ‘Yes, indeed, my love, but you know how it is with Giles! I told you how it would be! He will never suffer you to marry a Nobody!’
‘I will not be browbeaten by Giles!’ said Letty. ‘I know very well he means me to marry to oblige him – Rothbury, I daresay! – but I won’t do it! I know that I shall never love anyone but Edwin!’
Lady Albinia uttered distressful sounds. ‘My love, do not say so! He will never let you throw yourself away like that! And I must say I think it was most imprudent of you, Letty, to set up his back with that nonsensical story!’
‘Mama, I vow to you that he was so much struck by the girl that I scarce knew him for my own brother! And he did say that she had the sweetest face he ever beheld!’
‘Very likely, my love, but you must know that such fancies are common amongst gentlemen, and they do not lead to marriage! If you imagine that was in his head, you are a great goose! He has more pride even than his sainted papa, and he, you know – Well, never mind that! But the Wrexhams always make good marriages. It has grown to be quite a habit with them!’
Letty said no more, but went away, carrying the domino over her arm.
Mr Wrexham, meanwhile, had left the house. He did not return to it until shortly before seven o’clock, when he was greeted by the staggering tidings that Miss Letty, so far from being in her dressing-room, had driven away in a hackney a few minutes earlier.
‘To what address?’ asked Mr Wrexham, in a voice of dangerous calm.
Never had the butler been more thankful to be able to disclaim all responsibility for his young mistress’s actions. None of the servants had been employed to summon the hackney; and but for the accident of one of the abigails looking out of a window just as Miss Letty was stepping up into the vehicle, no one would have known that she had gone out.
Mr Wrexham went up to Lady Albinia’s dressing-room two steps at a time. He found her resting upon a sofa, and, with a total disregard for her nerves, demanded to be told whether she was aware that her daughter had left the house in a manner which he did not scruple to call clandestine.
Her face of shocked dismay was answer enough. Curbing a strong inclination to animadvert severely upon the negligence that had made it possible for Letty to steal from the house, Mr Wrexham curtly requested his parent to furnish him with Mrs Crewe’s direction.
‘Giles!’ protested her ladyship. ‘You cannot wrest your sister away from a dinner-party!’
‘Oh, yes, I can!’ retorted Mr Wrexham.
Lady Albinia, perceiving that he was in a towering rage, sank back against her cushions, and said in a dying voice: ‘I can feel a spasm coming on!’
‘Furnish me with Mrs Crewe’s direction, ma’am, and I will leave you to enjoy it in private!’
‘But I don’t know it!’ wailed her ladyship, almost beyond human aid. ‘I never kept her letter, for why should I? And I don’t recall the direction, though I am sure it was perfectly respectable, for if it had not been I must have noticed it!’
Controlling himself with a visible effort, Mr Wrexham strode from the room.
He dined alone, the butler informing him that her ladyship had bespoken a bowl of broth in her dressing-room. Since this was his mother’s invariable custom, whenever she was confronted by a disagreeable situation, Mr Wrexham was neither surprised nor alarmed. He ate his dinner in frowning silence, and then went upstairs to his room, and rang for his valet. Less than an hour later, clad in the satin knee-breeches and black coat that betokened a gentleman of fashion on his way to an evening party, he left the house, a half-mask in his pocket, and an old black domino, unearthed from the recesses of his wardrobe, over his arm.
4
The Pantheon, which was on the south side of Oxford Street, was a magnificent structure, decorated in a style which rendered it obnoxious to the eye of the fastidious. It comprised a large suite of saloons, and a ballroom, which was a huge rectangular hall, with a painted ceiling, a raised platform for the musicians, and numerous boxes and alcoves. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and from every Gothic arch which lined the room; all was gilding and glitter. Originally, it had been patronized by members of the haut ton, but when the first building was burnt to the ground, and a new structure erected, the company became so far from select that Mr Wrexham had every excuse for forbidding his sister to be seen there.
Although the hour was early when he arrived there, the ballroom was already full of a motley crowd of persons, some in dominoes, some in historical costume, all masked, and many behaving with the license encouraged by the wearing of disguises. After watching a quadrille for a few minutes, Mr Wrexham decided that his sister had not yet arrived,
for although he could see two ladies in pink dominoes one was by far too tall, and the other had pushed back the hood of her domino to show a head of yellow curls. He began to stroll through the saloons, successfully resisting the efforts of two ladies of Covent Garden notoriety to beguile him into dalliance.
It was nearly an hour later, when the revelry was becoming a trifle indecorous, that he suddenly saw Letty. She had her hood drawn over her head, but he caught a glimpse of dusky curls, and recognized her little trim figure. She was waltzing with a large man in a purple domino, and the only circumstance which afforded her brother some slight degree of satisfaction was her obvious lack of pleasure in the exercise. Leaning his broad shoulders against one of the decorated pillars, and folding his arms across his chest, he watched her circle round the room, and very soon realized that her partner (whom he suspected of being slightly foxed) was subjecting her to a form of gallantry which was extremely unwelcome. He thought it would be a salutory lesson to her, and had almost made up his mind not to intervene for a little while, when she suddenly broke away from her partner, and hurried off the floor, hotly pursued. Mr Wrexham, shouldering his way through the loungers at the side of the hall, reached her just as Purple Domino caught her round the waist, saying with a laugh: ‘You shan’t escape me thus, pretty prude!’
Mr Wrexham, setting a hand on his shoulder, swung him aside. A glance at his sister showed him that she was shaking like a leaf; he was afraid that she might be going to faint, and pushed her into the alcove behind her, saying briefly: ‘Sit down!’
At the sound of his voice she jumped under his hand, and gave a gasp.
‘Yes, my girl, it is I!’ said Mr Wrexham very dryly indeed, and turned to confront Purple Domino.
In a voice which bore out Mr Wrexham’s previous estimate of his condition, Purple Domino demanded to know what the devil he meant by it.
‘I mean,’ said Mr Wrexham, ‘that unless you remove yourself within one minute, my fine buck, I shall have the greatest pleasure in supplying you with a little of the home-brewed!’
Purple Domino recoiled instinctively, but recovered, and said in a blustering tone: ‘Damme, what right have you to spoil sport?’
‘Let me inform you,’ said Mr Wrexham, ‘that I am this lady’s brother!’