‘Eh?’ said the young gentleman, starting.
‘My cravat,’ explained Lord Stavely, smiling.
The young gentleman coloured and stammered that he begged pardon.
‘Not at all,’ said his lordship. ‘I’ll show you how to tie it, if you like.’
‘Will you?’ exclaimed the young gentleman eagerly. ‘I tie mine in an Osbaldeston, but I don’t like it above half.’
Lord Stavely waved one hand invitingly towards a chair at the table. ‘Won’t you join me?’
‘Well – thank you!’ The young gentleman got up and crossed the floor circumspectly. He brought his glass and the bottle with him, and set both down on the table. ‘My name,’ he announced carefully, ‘is Hatherleigh.’
‘Mine is Stavely,’ returned his lordship.
They exchanged bows. Only a purist would have said that Mr Hatherleigh was drunk. He could, by taking only reasonable pains, walk and speak with dignity, and if his potations had had the effect of divorcing his brain a little from the normal, at least it was perfectly clear on all important matters. When Lord Stavely, for instance, touching lightly on the country through which he had driven, said that he should suppose it to be good hunting country, young Hatherleigh was able to expatiate on the subject with enthusiasm and really remarkable coherence. The cloud lifted from his brow, his eyes brightened, and he became quite animated. Then the cloud descended again abruptly, and he fetched a sigh, and said gloomily: ‘But that is all at an end! I dar
e say I may think myself lucky if ever I get a leg across a good hunter again.’
‘As bad as that?’ said his lordship sympathetically.
Mr Hatherleigh nodded, and poured himself out some more brandy. ‘I’m eloping with an heiress,’ he announced dejectedly.
If Lord Stavely was startled by this intelligence, he managed to conceal his emotions most creditably. His lip did quiver a little, but he said in the politest way: ‘Indeed?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Hatherleigh, fortifying himself with a deep drink. ‘Gretna Green,’ he added.
‘Forgive me,’ said his lordship, ‘but do you feel this to be a wise step to take?’
‘No, of course I don’t!’ said Mr Hatherleigh. ‘But what is a fellow to do? I can’t draw back now! You must see that!’
‘I expect it would be very difficult,’ agreed Lord Stavely. ‘When one has persuaded an heiress to elope with one –’
‘No such thing!’ interrupted Mr Hatherleigh. ‘I dare say I may have said it would be rare sport to do it, if only to kick up a dust, but I never thought Annabella would think I really meant it! But that is Annabella all over. In fact, I think she’s devilish like her father! Let her but once take a notion into her head, and there’s no persuading her to listen to reason! Mind, though,’ he added, bending a sudden, minatory scowl upon his auditor, ‘you are not to be thinking that I wish to back out! I have loved Annabella for years. In fact, I swore a blood-oath to marry her when we were children. But that isn’t to say that I want to drive off to the Border with her – and just now, too!’
‘The moment is not quite convenient?’
Mr Hatherleigh shook his head. ‘My uncle has invited me to Yorkshire for the grouse shooting!’ he said bitterly. ‘Only think what a splendid time I could have had! I have never tried my hand at grouse, you know, but I am accounted a pretty fair shot.’
‘You could not, I suppose, postpone the elopement until after the shooting season?’ suggested his lordship.
‘No, because if we waited there would be no sense in eloping at all, because very likely Annabella will be tied up to the old fogy her father means her to marry. Besides, the moon’s at the full now.’
‘I see. And who is this old fogy? Is he very old?’
‘I don’t know, but I should think he must be, wouldn’t you, if he’s a friend of Sir Walter?’
His lordship paused in the act of raising his glass to his lips. ‘Sir Walter?’
‘Sir Walter Abingdon. He is Annabella’s father.’
‘Oh!’ said his lordship, sipping his brandy. ‘I collect that he does not look with favour on your suit?’
‘No, and my father does not either. He says we are too young, and should not suit. So very likely I shall be cut off with a shilling, and be obliged to enter a counting-house, or some such thing, for Sir Walter will certainly cut Annabella off. But of course females never consider anything of that nature! They have not the least common sense, beside thinking that it is perfectly easy to hire a chaise for midnight without making anyone suspicious! And it is not!’ said Mr Hatherleigh, a strong sense of grievance overcoming him. ‘Let alone the expense of it – and that, let me tell you, has pretty well made my pockets to let! I have had to go twenty miles to do it, because a rare flutter I should have set up if I’d bespoke a chaise to go to Scotland at the George, or the Sun! Why, my father would have had wind of it within the hour!
‘And then I had to rack my brains to think how best to meet it, because it would never do to have it driving up to my home to pick me up, you know. Luckily old Thetford here is very much attached to our interests, so I told the post-boys in the end to come to this inn at half-past ten tonight. Annabella thinks everyone will be asleep by half-past eleven, or twelve at latest, and she is to meet me in the shrubbery. Shrubbery at midnight!’ he repeated scornfully. ‘I can tell you, it makes me feel like a great cake! Such flummery!’
He picked up the bottle again as he spoke, and poured some more brandy into his glass. Some of the liquor spilled on to the table. Mr Hatherleigh glared at it, and set the bottle down with precision.